We must confess that we are the possible. We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world. – Maya Angelou

We are facing challenges never before seen in our lifetime. We have been isolated, we have had our ability to move through our daily lives impeded. Many of us are wearing face masks. Many are feeling pressure to upskill, to do more, to fight back, to rebel. Many are scared. Sometimes I’m scared too.

We have all had different experiences and reactions to the current global pandemic, yet all of us can agree that life may never go back to the way it was. We have turned a page in history. And now we must decide what we want the next chapter to look like.

Many may see the times ahead as dark, yet, as the character Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter series, wisely said during a time of great change in the story, “Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

And so let’s turn on the light. Let’s turn on the light and recognise that amidst all the panic, the vibration of love is growing stronger than ever throughout the world. Old friends are reconnecting, neighbours are meeting – many for the first time. Strangers are smiling more at each other. Communities are growing larger and stronger. The global community itself is coming together like never before.

Walls are being broken down everywhere and people of all walks of life, of all backgrounds, are realising we are in this together, as One. A higher consciousness of humanity is emerging. The phoenix from the ashes.

Communities are growing larger and stronger. Image: Simon Ray

Sparks of Light

Sometimes I need reminders. I need to hear of the good, to see it, to experience it. If I choose to open my eyes, there is beauty all around. As I open my eyes, I remember these recent sparks of humanity that are still spreading light like wildfire all around the world:

• Those who have found themselves with extra time on their hands have come together to cook homemade meals for the overworked essential workers, and are now doing the same for food banks and homeless shelters.
• Schooling systems have changed, and to help with the increase in home-schooling, experts (such as Sir David Attenborough) have delivered free online lessons for young people. Ordinarily, most kids would not have access to such an education!
• I have heard of several weddings in which the couple donated the meals meant for their guests to those more in need.
• In one US city, as the shops were forced to close, a mystery person purchased all of the flowers from a struggling florist and gifted them to strangers around the neighborhood.
• People are realising the power they hold in uplifting the globe, in bringing compassion to their interactions, in bringing about a more peaceful world.

So when all else seems frightening, when we don’t know what will happen next, let’s trust the intelligence of the heart, our true nature, to lead us. As we go deeper within ourselves, we will realise the power we hold. Peace doesn’t magically happen on the outside, it comes from within.

We are the vehicles of peace, love and light. As we move through this new world, I want to have the courage to call forth my higher consciousness. To live with love and when I falter, I want to forgive and choose again. I want the effortless courage to shine my light.

When I take the courage to trust in the divine guiding principles of love, I expand into a relaxation. It is perhaps, to me, the most magical feeling in the world. It is a warm embrace on a cold night, a fire burning in the dark, the gentle gaze of a pet. The feeling starts deep inside, somewhere that ordinarily would be cordoned off, shielded from the outside, yet it spreads to every part of my body. It cuts the cords tying me down, restoring life to my limbs, a deep gasp of air fills my lungs, my right palm rests gently on my chest.

I open my eyes to a new day, a new light, a new perspective.

I want to have the courage to call forth my higher consciousness. Image: Jared Rice

‘A Brave and Startling Truth’ by Maya Angelou, written many years ago, about a time that mirrors today’s world, expresses what might be if we continue to choose the light. No matter how divisive the world or our problems appear.

‘A Brave and Startling Truth’

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce. Image: Pixabay

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~

What revelations have you experienced during this time? How have you seen humanity’s consciousness rise? What blessed small acts of generosity and kindness have helped shape your optimism and trust? Let us know in the comments below.

In love and peace,

Ash and Team UPLIFT