By David Spangler
Editor's Note: This blog post is an excerpt from Year 10 Issue I of David's quarterly journal Views from the Borderland.
At the moment, the future's a scary place. This is especially true now because so many things are changing, and it's not clear where these changes will lead us. The Unknown is often a scary place, though it can be a place of invitation and exploration as well. I frequently am asked if I know what is going to happen. More often than this, I am asked how to handle the rising tension and anxiety and tumult that people are feeling. What guidance do I have for facing the future?
I can get dire messages from the subtle realms about "what's coming," leaving me wondering how much of them to share or whether to share them at all. I have no desire to promote fear. And my subtle colleagues counsel inner strength and calm, and "holding the Light."
First, a word about the "dire warnings" and the "what's coming." One doesn't have to be psychic or privy to subtle world prognostications to see that the world is changing and that human civilization will need to change with it and adapt accordingly. This is going to entail loss and death; it already is. We need to be prepared and resilient, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We don't need a spiritual being to tell us this.
Having said this, it would be a mistake to assume that the only future visible from the vantage point of the subtle worlds is a nasty one, or, for that matter, a rosy and beautiful one. All manner of futures are possible.
My subtle colleagues seem to see and work with a constantly shifting pattern of "future-threads" from the "impossible" to the "improbable" to the "possible" to the "highly likely." These threads are constantly shifting, especially in the short term, as people make decisions about their actions. This can turn a "highly likely" into a "less probable" and vice versa. Yes, there are events that are planned and orchestrated, in some cases hundreds of years in advance in our time, by beings who operate outside of time and with a very long-range view of human and planetary evolution. Some processes and changes are "baked into" the life of Gaia in much the way that puberty is "baked into" the life of an individual. But much is subject to creative will and imagination and dependent on "in-the-moment" decisions and actions on the part of people with free will. These are the threads that can shift unexpectedly, making discerning the future difficult.
On the other hand, beyond this shifting weave of possibilities and probabilities, there is a basic underlying structure--the "loom" itself on which the threads are suspended--and this structure is one of hope and joy, empowerment and Light. Holding ourselves in alignment with the steadiness of this "loom" seems incredibly important right now to give us the power to shift the threads of possibility and potential in helpful and hopeful ways. This does involve strengthening our inner self. It means realizing that we are actually one with the loom, not the threads. It's the loom that can define us, not the threads or the patterns they weave.
It's not enough merely to be calm or centered, important as these things are. We need to realize that the future is not presenting itself to us, certainly not as a fait accompli. It is inviting us, calling to us, to help shape it. We are asked to partner with the present to create the future.
We can do this because within each of us is the power of a creative imagination and what I call the spirit of holopoiesis. Holopoiesis is a word I coined to describe an innate impulse to create wholeness. This is innate in us because it is innate in the universe. Based in love, holopoiesis or the commitment to wholeness and to creating wholeness, is what holds creation together. This is a creative force within us.
The dark and foreboding future that seems to await us in "what's coming" is almost always imagined and depicted as a future of fragmentation, conflict, separation, violence, and division, in short, the opposite of a future based on and giving expression to wholeness. If that future scares us—and it should!—then we cannot retreat simply into calmness. We need to recognize our innate power, through love, through connectedness, through imagination and creativity, to create wholeness. We need to act out of that power in whatever ways are appropriate and available to us in our life situation. We need to act on behalf of the world and the future we want.
To act holopoietically is to act with deliberation and intent, not in reaction. For this reason, it is action proceeding out of the calm and strength of our centeredness. It is an action to shape, not simply to respond.