idealism

A Way Forward – Day 1100

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 2 Comments
29 – Nautilus – The Ocean Oracle by Susan Marte

A Way Forward

In last night’s post, after expressing worry over both the state of our country and our overall morale, I wrote: “There is precious little overlap between realities anymore. And without common ground? How do we salvage what’s left of our country’s future?”  Holding the energy of those questions in my heart, I consulted The Ocean Oracle to “seek a way forward. What do we need to know? How can we help ourselves?”

The answer I received? Nautilus on a foundation of Sea Urchin.

Nope, this isn’t an order of sushi. Rather, it stands for New Beginnings – on a foundation of Truth.

29 Nautilus – New Beginnings

The story behind this card is lovely and bears repeating:

“He wore the shell around his neck, on a cord long enough so that the nautilus rested just over his heart. A reminder to him of his past which had led him to the present, hopeful about the future. He had been going through some personal issues, issues which weighed him down. He felt stuck – stuck in the middle of something he could not see clear of. He took himself away to the beach, to clear his head and hopefully gain insight into how to move forward. It was on a long walk during this that he found the nautilus. There had been a huge storm the night before and this treasure had been left behind in its wake. He had seen shells like this before but had never realized their intricate and intrinsic beauty; how they were formed into a perfect spiral – that nature had the instinct and intelligence to allow a grain of sand to grow into this perfection. He opened himself to the sacredness of the design realizing it offered a new beginning – a new way of being in the world. That everything was an opportunity for growth and change and beginning anew. This awareness released him from his past, allowing him to be fully aware in the present moment.

The Messages

What needs to end? What needs to finish so something new can enter? Open your heart to divine perfect timing. Let go that which keeps you stuck. If you free the energy around holding onto something which no longer works for you, you will have more energy to put into a new beginning. Enjoy the newness of your latest endeavor. Be awed by the perfection of nature and the new beginnings she offers.”

22 Sea Urchin – The Ocean Oracle by Susan Marte

The Foundation

The foundation, or card on the bottom of the deck, when I pulled the main card (above), was 22 Sea Urchin – Truth. The ‘story’ accompanying this card is as follows:

 “These creatures had not been seen in these waters for years. They had left long ago, driven out by the pollutants that people had left behind. They needed clean water to thrive and the waters here became too murky and infested for them to live in a healthy way. So they chose to leave, find a place where they were part of a balanced ecosystem. They flourished for years but grew too may for their home to sustain them. Some migrated into new waters and some eventually ended up back in the place they had left long ago. But it was not the same place. Something had shifted. The things that had polluted the water were no longer there. There was more awareness of the way the oceans and ponds and tides worked. There was a place now for the urchins to thrive. They were able to expand and contribute to the ecosystem in a life enhancing way.

The Messages

Your truth is your truth. Are you in a situation toxic to your truth? Do you need to reassess your truth? Has a situation changed in which your truth can come forward again? Is your environment supporting you in your truth? To live in our truth and integrity, it may be that we have to move, and something that means physically. Stand strong in your truth and respect your limits. Set your boundaries but know rigidity may not be the answer. An urchin’s spines protect it but if pushed too hard, or in the wrong way, the spines break.”

My Take

The way forward for our country very well may be via a new beginning. I don’t mean ripping asunder everything we’ve built over the past 245 years. But I do mean that we are stuck – road-blocked in so many ways from accomplishing anything productive. Thwarted from listening to the needs, hopes, and dreams of a majority of people who comprise this nation.

The story of the young man is almost transparently applicable to us as a nation. We’ve surely been ‘going through some personal issues’ – and, indeed, we’ve recently endured a huge storm. Sadly, I sense the storm has yet to abate. Precious little has been accomplished as a result of that maelstrom – neither change nor accountability. But the fact that it occurred at all is, perhaps, the sand that will result in an even more ‘perfect’ creation than was created two centuries ago.

We tend to think our system of government is the be-all and end-all. And as an idealistic person who believes in democracy, I’m pretty fond of it. However, I do believe it can be better. I believe money has corrupted the fundamental tenets of our system – and if we stand any chance of keeping our great experiment, we must get the money out of it.

Idealism

Yes, I’m idealistic. But I also believe that our country was founded on idealism. It makes sense to me that the foundational card underneath Nautilus’s vision of a New Beginning for us as a nation was Sea Urchin – Truth. But I can’t say that I entirely agree with ‘The Messages.’

Yes, when it comes right down to it, we all have our own unique perspective on the world, on life, and on the way things ‘should’ be. We have our opinions about the way things should be. Need to be. Must be, if a system is going to work. And our firmly held beliefs can be called our ‘truth.’

But for our country to move forward as a democracy, we have to at least be able to agree on what is ‘truth.’ We have to be able to start from a foundation of shared understanding of what is true and what is fear or paranoia or deliberate disinformation meant to rip us apart.

Back to Letting Go

In order to get back to at least some modicum of a shared reality, I think we’re going to have to let go of some of our beliefs about how our country is currently set up. That includes changing at least a handful of (and possibly a lot more) ‘ways we’ve always done things.’

This post is becoming long and unwieldy. I wanted to quote the full text from the two cards, though, even though the simplicity of a New Beginning built on Truth is a hopeful outcome.

And I do believe it’s possible. But I don’t think we’re going to achieve it in the next few months.

No, we’re going to have to work for it over the next few years. We’re going to have to figure out a way to discern truth and be willing to let go of ‘the way things have always been done’ in order to create an even more perfect union of people and cultures and belief systems from all over the world.

You know: e pluribus unum.

(T-11)

Because Right Matters – Day 438

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment
Another Hawk – today – Photo: L. Weikel

Because Right Matters

Watching Rep. Adam Schiff and the other House Managers present their case before the Senate over the past few days has been, at least for this legal and political nerd, riveting.

Their preparation’s been impeccable; their presentation masterful. I could only wish to be even half as persuasive and compelling an orator as Mr. Schiff.

I’m feeling that sense of yearning to be more than I am particularly this evening. As a citizen of the United States, listening to Schiff’s final entreaty to the Senate earlier tonight, I felt a tidal wave of patriotism welling up in my heart. YES. These are the ideals on which our country was founded. These are the fundamental values that I was raised on – and that I believed I would be upholding when I began my legal studies 40 years ago.

I doubt there are many people who listened to that closing argument this evening who could deny feeling a stirring within their hearts for a time when we felt it was our right to demand a higher standard of behavior from ourselves and our leaders.

How many of us yearn, right this very moment, for behavior from our leaders that renews our faith in the fundamental truth that what we do – how we behave when no one is watching – matters? That there are people who aspire to represent us in our government who actually do have a sense of serving a greater good than their own selfish, personal motives?

I’m Idealistic

Yes, I know. I’m idealistic. It’s true: in spite of everything I see unfolding before our eyes, I do not want to lose faith in our form of government. I do not want to lose faith in our elected representatives to do whatever they must to prevent our country from becoming a shell of its former self.

I want to believe that Mr. Schiff’s appeal to the idealist in all of us will compel those who’ve chosen a life of public service to put the fundamental values our country represents to our selves and to the world ahead of all other concerns.

Because right matters. If it doesn’t, we are lost.

If only we lived in Mr. Smith’s Washington*.

Maybe – just maybe – we do. Call your Senators.

*affiliate link

(T-673)

I’d Love to Chat – Day 260

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment

 

I’d Love to Chat

…but I’m heading out the door to check out those meteor showers again tonight.

I’m such a sucker for celestial events. Which also reminds me: recently we celebrated the 50thanniversary of the moon landing. I’ve been meaning to watch the footage of that again, maybe even watch it with our kids (who are not ‘kids,’ I hasten to add). In fact, there are quite a variety of programs being offered this month to celebrate the technological innovation and tremendous bravery we witnessed all those years ago.

NASA and the Apollo Program were such huge parts of my childhood. It’s shocking, really, to consider how much promise there was when we landed on the moon in 1969 and how few dramatic accomplishments we’ve actually made since then.

I guess we got distracted.

A Lack of Will

I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a deep sense of disappointment at the lack of will our country has shown to continuing our efforts in space exploration. When I think about what we accomplished in 42 years, I am stunned at the apparent lack of comparative progress.

What 42 years, you might ask?  The 42 years between when Charles Lindbergh made the first transatlantic flight and when we landed men on the moon. The reason why I speak of this span in terms of 42 years is because my mother was very fond of recalling how she was ten years old when ‘Lindy’ made that incredible, groundbreaking flight. As you can probably guess, since I was ten years old when Neil Armstrong took his famous first step onto the surface of the moon, she was 42 when she had me.

Quite honestly, I always expected at least one of my children to be witness, when they were ten years old, to some scientific achievement that rivaled that enormous leap in technological capability and vision. But it didn’t happen. Again, it seems we got distracted.

We Got Distracted

Probably the greatest disappointment to humanity resulting from this failure to keep the technological research and momentum going is the grievous situation we find ourselves in right now: the climate crisis. So many incredible breakthroughs and inventions were discovered in the process of meeting the challenge posed by President Kennedy all those years ago. We can only wonder what could have been discovered had we continued the quest.

All of which makes me yearn for an about face to the head-in-the-sand, intelligence and education-bashing, and steadfast aggrandizing of ignorance over scientific inquiry that we’re witnessing in our country. The ‘dumbing down’ of America has been tremendously successful – to our great peril.

We Need a Grand Challenge

We need brilliance, innovation, and creativity to be valued and funded. This starts with us collectively making education a priority for all our children, from pre-school on up. And for sure it demands respect for science and the cessation of the bald-faced censorship of scientific inquiry and the result of it.

We need to be challenged; we need our scientists to be believed; we need to want to save our Earth for the good of all – not just for those who hold all the power (and all the money).

We need a Grand Challenge, an audacious goal that flies in the face of what the naysayers would have us believe. We need to turn the Climate Catastrophe into a rallying cry for discovering the best, brightest, more brilliant among us who can turn everything around exponentially faster than ‘they’ say is possible.

Worth Saving: Tohickon Creek in July – Photo: L. Weikel

A Strong Dose of Idealism

Everywhere we look right now, there’s misery and unbelievable cruelty, there’s slavery and corruption, there’s deliberate exploitation of the Earth’s resources to make a few already obscenely rich people even richer – and damn the impact upon the rest of us, not to mention the Earth herself.

It’s no wonder so many are so miserable.

Yet we can turn this around immediately. We need to believe in ourselves; we need to believe we can do it. We need a person at the helm who has vision, who gives us hope in the future and in ourselves. We need some leaders to step up who are not solely out for themselves, but who truly know that as the least among us are made better, we’re all lifted.

I know, I sound naïve. But I tell you this: we cannot lose our hope. We cannot give up on ourselves, on humanity’s ability to bring brilliance to the fore. We cannot give in to the distraction any longer.

We have to take a stand, and we have to do it now.

Excuse me while I go outside to stare at the cosmos and dream.

Galaxy – Photo: Pixabay

(T-851)