What Is Our Next Story?
Molting to a Better Way
This is a moment in history where we have GREAT potential to see and experience the creator within us all. Today in the Field let’s bask in the potential and possibility of this NEW emerging story for ourselves individually AND collectively.
This new and ancient story is one that is already known and has begun to spread around the world. It feels expectant, hopeful, and wonderful to know deep down that we all play a role in what comes next.
That we can do something about the state of the world with a change in our hearts, minds and spirits. It feels so encouraging to know we can do something to retify the state of the world by changing within ourselves first, so we will reflect those changes without.
It’s like we’re the yeast in the lump of dough that enables the bread to rise.
This story is not mine alone to tell, it’s the one being born through all of us.
All of us have seen the articles and the books and we keep hearing interviews about how we are living in a transitionary time.
That something new is being born.
Do you feel it?
I do.
Being healthy and sane in the world today can seem like a revolutionary act, but this revolution seems to me to be powered less by an act of war, but it’s being born through us…out of an evolutionary process of slowly and quietly changing our own minds and then like the yeast, helping the whole rise up.
Every deep intentional breath, meditation, prayer, and every time we intentionally calm our own minds and choose not to react, but instead flood our nervous systems with gratitude for the lessons we’re being shown, the contractions and fluctuaitons of our daily lives will soon pass and we we will experience and enjoy the effects of our brand new creations and the peace of our being.
It may not yet be clearly evident when you watch the news, but the structures we have built ARE evolving and many things are changing for the better because of this ancient truth:
What is deep within you is reflected without.
Sometimes it’s difficult for us to connect the dots to see the deeper cause of what we see and experience in the world. Like the keel of an iceberg or the submerged part that is the very cause of the visible hummock up above. The tip of the iceburg is about 10% of the whole just as neuroscientists claim that we are conscious of only about 5-10% of our surface cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behavior depends on the 90-95% of activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness.
In the same way, it’s difficult to make any significant changes to the tip of the iceberg by chipping away at the top of it with an icepick as it is for us to transform our lives with matter, taking prescription drugs, going on a diet or talking about our neurosis and about what is wrong with us. We can’t change the effects by focusing only on the level of effect or what we see in our lives.
Einstein taught us that change is made on an entirely other level of consciousness than the one that created it. Most of what can move us at the conscious is like the bummock beneath the mountain of ice that is causing the tip to do what it does. To change or move what is seen above water there needs to be a melting, moving, or a great shift beneath the surface.
Cause and effect in that sense are ONE.
I love to use the iceberg to better understand ourselves. It’s a favorite metaphor of mine because the largest icebergs recorded have been broken off or “calved”, from the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica just as we appear to have separated ourselves from our source. Every iceberg is unique and has a story to tell.
In a similar way, underneath the surface of our cultural and personal stories lies a deeper kind of story that we might call a myth that permeates every part of life.
“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”
George Orwell
I suppose we all realize on some level that myths are not reality themselves. But even the Greeks considered “Mythos” to be more important than “Logos” or reasoning. They believed that the real truth is hidden from plain sight and can only be revealed to us through myths since it can’t be expressed in any rational or objective form.
Myths are simply the implicit assumptions and constructs or thinking we make up about who we are and we end up making decisions and building our entire lives on those ideas.
Our mythologies can answer our basic questions like: Why am I here? What is important? How do we change? What do I value? Where did we come from and where are we going? What is right or wrong? What is the purpose of life?
Myths are the stories we tell that answer these questions from our experience of life.
Neither J.R. R. Tolkien nor C.S. Lewis believed myth to mean stories that are not true, nor were they primitive efforts to explain what is not known. Both were struck, not by the fictional aspect of myths, but by their profound insight into the nature of human existence and the world in which we live.
Many of us feel alienated from the old myths and things we’ve been told or taught that no longer align with what we now know to be true.
The problem is that the reigning stories may still be supported by powerful social, political, religious, and economic or news media forces that “control the narrative”, even if no one truly believes it anymore.
Our psychological foundations have been built on those old stories and so as we transition from an old to a new story there is a metamorphosis of these basic myths and a shift happening inside all of our minds to align to something new.
Our perceptions shift and our consciousness rises, our old myths no longer ring true.
When something new is born, there is often a clearing and a stretching. Birthing the new story can feel like discomfort, irritation, or downright pain with each contraction that helps us move things along as we dig deeper into our ancient roots for our new and ancient story to be born through our collective experience.
This story is a being in its own right and a genetic part of all that has ever been that has led us to this moment in time.
We may all be the instruments of its creation, but it can’t be dictated by anyone in particular, it comes from all of us and none of us.
We can keep trying to fit into the old story, but it begins to feel tight and uncomfortable. But the truth is (and any of us that have had children can attest to this) that once the intended birthing process begins, there is no turning back.
This new story is coming for us all, ready or not.
When we surrender to it we are aligned and we will be guided more easily to know what to do next. It’s a natural process, we simply need to allow. To surrender to it and stop fighting against it.
In a sense we’re deluded when we cling to the old or resist change. It can seem like the known is a protective outer layer like a cocoon that we think will keep us safe or an old relationship that is no longer working.
It had its use, it was a valued part of our journey to get us where we are today, but now it’s restrictive, keeping us small and can even make us sick.
This reminds me of how animals molt to shed hair, feathers, shell, horns, or an outer layer periodically that no longer serves them.
One example I’ve seen in the wild are when deers shed their antlers or snakes shed their skin.
Have you ever come across a skin on a trail? It’s astounding. It’s quite literally the flaky entire outer shell of the old version of the snake.
In nature, the snake that doesn’t shed its skin will perish.
Molting allows for further growth and helps to remove parasites that may have attached to their old skin. Did you know that as a snake grows, its skin becomes stretched to the point where further growth is not possible? When that occurs, the old skin peels away, leaving behind a delicate fully intact snake-shaped shell like the ones below…
There is a time before the snake sheds its skin that it begins to feel uncomfortable in its old skin.
Many of us have been feeling uncomfortable in our skins.
We feel sick and tired of the old versions of us not reflecting our growth and evolution as a species. We feel called to this new story and to let go of the past.
Maybe it’s the way we parent our children, or our friendships and relationships, our technology, political systems, money, medicine, work, education, and even our beloved traditional religions are beginning to feel too small to define our expanding concepts of ourselves.
We may not always agree on what the story is or have a healthy resistance to their uniformity or detail, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter because ultimately it’s the stories that create us, not the other way around.
As we saw in last week’s piece, they become our second nature.
Here are some of the ways our collective story is changing that we can allow into our own hearts when we are ready to shed the old skin and create something new…
OLD STORY: I am a separate self. I exist independently from others.
NEW STORY: I am an interbeing. I exist relationally.
∞
OLD STORY: I am a biochemical machine, a bubble of psychology.
NEW STORY: I am a holograph of all that is. In an infinite relationship with all that is or has ever been.
∞
OLD STORY: What I do to others doesn’t affect me. What happens to others in other parts of the world doesn’t affect me.
NEW STORY: What I do and what happens to others will always affect me.
∞
OLD STORY: The driving force of my human behavior is to maximize rational self-interest. More for me is less for you.
NEW STORY: I yearn to express my gifts and work towards making a meaningful contribution to the well-being of the whole. I have a sense and knowing that fully expressing my unique creative contributions is what supports the abundance and delicate ecosystem of ALL of life.
∞
OLD STORY: I feel a deep sense of lack. I’m not enough as I am so I need to get things outside of myself to feel worthy. I don’t have the time or money to do everything I really want to do. I feel stuck and overwhelmed. The world is the survival of the fittest and if I don’t take care of my own interests and get my share, I lose. I need to save my money and keep my job because I don’t trust that there will be more coming.
NEW STORY: I am. I create. What I focus on expands. I feel abundant and understand how matter and possibility is formed into matter and how my life is experienced through my own mind first as imagination. I see that the quantum possibilities are endless. What I give, I receive because giving and receiving are one. Cause and effect are ONE. When I’m aligned, things flow to me effortlessly with my intentions and things always happen in perfect timing for my highest good. I am in a reverent relationship with all of life and I understand that being in service by being generous and loving is my purpose. Through this faith in a greater power, I trust that all my needs will be met as they always have been and I take inspired action.
∞
OLD STORY: School is what matters most. Receiving a higher education is the only way to get ahead and be financially independent. The accumulation of wealth and material goods is a symbol of my security and freedom. Being successful means I have power. My partner is ideally of the opposite sex and we are married before we have children and if not, I may choose to keep that hidden from my family, friends, and co-workers fearing rejection because there is something morally wrong with it. Sexuality and online dating can feel transactional and fake or forced but it feels like the only way to meet someone special.
NEW STORY: I can unschool, home school, or not even choose not to go to school at all. Non-traditional education is growing and the new story is one of sexual fluidity and identity. Everyone is welcome to come as they are. Expanded pronouns within the gender binary and gender-neutral pronouns are used and non-binary people don’t associate themselves with the genders of man or woman, but even the divisions themselves are beginning to falling away and everyone is loved and accepted. The decision of whether or not to marry or have children is also fluid and there is no pressure to conform and there are no expectations or morality imposed on us, we care for others and we want to live in integrity because we are alinged with the source of our being. As a result there is less conflict, more commitment, less divorce, more love. Racism, Sexism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, and ableism are no longer tolerated. They are all quickly falling away from our human experience along with crime as our level of consciousness rises. I meet new amazing people every day wherever I go.
∞
OLD STORY: Nature is separate from me and contains resources for me to use. The forces of nature are hostile to humanity’s well-being and progress comes from the domination of nature. The selfish gene, random mutation, and natural selection are the process of evolution.
NEW STORY: Nature is part of me and I am a part of nature. The Universe is generous and thrives in cooperation. Symbiosis and the merger of organisms into larger wholes drive evolution. The needs of all organisms, communities, and ecosystems affect the direction of genetic and epigenetic change.
∞
OLD STORY: The people and events we encounter in life are random. We judge others out of discernment when they are out of line with our belief system or values because need to set healthy boundaries to cut anyone negative who drains us to protect ourselves. When I judge, critique or condemn someone or something I am being intelligent. My grievance or criticism doesn’t affect me, only them because sometimes others need to be told when they make a mistake for their own good. (if someone cuts me off in line I will give them a piece of my mind!)
NEW STORY: Every person and experience mirrors or reveals something in ourselves. Synchronicity reveals and implicates order in the world. How we see and experience others is how we see and experience ourselves. If we judge others, we suffer and in turn judge ourselves. Forgiveness is the only way forward, we finally GET IT and see the deeper wisdom of the ancient spiritual teachings that if we had the same life experience as the other we would do the same so we understand and don’t react.
∞
OLD STORY: Change and transformation happens through intention, effort, planning, and force. More force means more power. Manipulation with greater precision assures a victory. There is an art to war.
NEW STORY: Force is only one lower-density or vibratory way through which our intelligence is made manifest. True power comes from the higher vibratory fields of love, peace, and morphic resonance. It’s badass NOT to hit back. ANY change that happens anywhere contributes to a field in which that change happens everywhere, instantly after a certain tipping point. The behavior of an entire group of individuals can change when the critical mass is reached. Peace on earth will finally come from this new and ancient realization or “Christ Consciousness”.
∞
OLD STORY: The world has no innate intelligence or order, life is a chemical accident. Our purpose is to command and rule. To bring order and intelligence and civility to a world that has none.
NEW STORY: Intelligence, order, and life are basic properties of the Universal expression caused by a power greater than us that we are reverent to, but that we can’t describe or explain. Our purpose is to participate in its unfolding and expansion.
∞
OLD STORY: Only what can be experienced by our senses, weighed, counted, and measured is real. Reality is a machine and is best analyzed in parts. Newtonian physics is all there is, if we can’t perceive it with our senses or measure it, it doesn’t exist.
NEW STORY: Beauty, goodness, truth, and imagination are what drive us now. Reality will always elude quantification. It’s alive and spacious. It can’t be reduced to be explained. Emergent qualities of the WHOLE or bigger picture can explain the behavior of the parts and nothing can be separated from the whole.
“Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance – second only to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole.”
Iain McGilchrist
∞
OLD STORY: Scarcity. There are animate and inanimate objects. Everything is built with standard elemental properties and progresses toward greater entropy.
NEW STORY: Abundance and Quantum acausality: Every being and electron is unique and behaves differently - it’s the totality of the unique relationships. New energy and matter are being forever born and infinite energy is available.
∞
OLD STORY: Consciousness is the byproduct of brain electrochemistry and ceases upon death. We are worm food. Our entire existence ends when we take our last breath.
NEW STORY: Consciousness outlasts the body and the brain which are merely (beautiful and wonderful) temporary receivers of our eternal selves. All that meet shall one day meet again.
∞
OLD STORY: The Soul (if it even exists) is something separate from the body and only the body is real. My body and brain are who I am. Spirit is outside of matter. God if he even exists is in the sky and separate from me and creation deep down my religion is the only right one. If I could help others to see the world the way I do so they can be saved.
NEW STORY: The Soul is the very aspect of our being. Our body is a learning device and a vehicle for our consciousness. The body is a gift and is the only way we can experience our consciousness with duality or contrast. Spirit and matter are not separate, they are perfection. There is nothing that is not God. God and creation are one. The alpha and the omega, gravity and grace, spirit, and matter. ALL are interconnected. Every major world religion, prophet and sage is pointing to this deeper non-dual essential truth in unique ways and we are collectively embodying this truth and experiencing an awakening of epic proportions.
∞
OLD STORY: Nothing is sacred but God. Science and God are conflicting ideas. Human life before science, technology, and civilization was a brutal struggle for survival. Science has brought us from ignorance and superstition to truth. Technology has given us mastery over the material world. Our high-tech, scientific DEVELOPED society is more advanced than the undeveloped parts of the world. Their progress means becoming more like us. Artificial Intelligence will drastically improve our lives and save us time and work.
NEW STORY: Everything is sacred. Our ancestors and native elders experienced the abundance of life in all aspects. Knowledge outside of science is essential to human development. Indigenous and traditional cultures are in certain ways MORE advanced, and more developed than modern society - we have much to learn from them. Artificial intelligence is a recycling of existing ideas, it is not intelligent but is used intelligently by us as we recognize that real beauty can’t be copied, it comes from the infinite. Art, Music, Poetry, Dance, and Theatre must draw from something outside of what already is. Our intuition and inner spiritual knowing are the highest intelligence available to us and can’t be synthetically replicated.
∞
OLD STORY: Health comes through control of our body, genes, environment, and human interactions.
NEW STORY: Health comes through aligning our intervention and minds with the innate intelligence in our body and energy systems.
∞
On earth as it is in heaven.
We perceive a new value to all of alife. We embody a new kind of inner stillness and silence. We care for our neighbors, move more, eat less, we’re involved in our local communities, appreciate personal connection, consume less, live simply, shop sustainably, and have a deep reverence for all of life in its diversity.
“Myths do not happen all at once.
They do not spring forth whole into the world. They form slowly, rolling between the hands of time until their edges smooth until the saying of the story gives enough weight to the words—to the memories—to keep them rolling on their own.
~ V.E. Schwab ~
Our new story starts today with healing the damage done in what is being called “the Age of Separation”.
These old and new stories are not disconnected lists.
They are all experienced in coherence. It can be difficult to put into words. But maybe trying to put it into words will help us surrender what is no longer serving us.
Can we all imagine what the world will look like when the new story of what Thich Nat Hahn called “Interbeing” assumes the status of obvious truth?
ALL of life seeks to be a full expression of its potential and beauty to bear fruit to share with the ecosystem and fulfill its purpose, role, and function in service to the whole.
“The world will be saved by beauty.”
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky ~
Do you feel the beauty of this new myth taking shape?
I do.
Let’s do our own work now to be willing to shed our old skins and stories and feel our way forward so we are ready for whatever growth may come for us next.
Shedding the previous life stage will help free us up to expand and claim some of lost sense of wholeness that just doesn’t ever feel fulfilled by anything we’re experiencing on the surface of our lives.
Sending you love, blessings, freedom, and peace this Sunday morning and an extra dose of curiosity to ask yourself what it is you want to create next in your own life? For Humanity?
Some days I feel like I still have a foot in both worlds, but the new emergent story feels like what I want most for all of us and our children and grandchildren.
Which story or myth of Humanity resonates most with you?
With love,
Nona
Credit for “OLD and NEW” story concept and inspiration: Charles Eisenstein.