2022 January Audio Meditation

There’s a concept drawn from quantum research that resonates deeply with many spiritual traditions and also touches into ideas that are found in psychology. It is called “entanglement”, and it proposes that we are intimately connected to and affect the world around us in everything we do. It also proposes that we, as individuals, are part of a collective within which there is no real separation, even though our physical bodies lead us to imagine that we stand alone. In the Rig Veda, there is a saying that says something like: “We are all woven into Indra’s net, out of which we cannot fall.” According to quantum research, it appears that we are, indeed, all part of a living system out of which we cannot fall. In addition to that, as part of this system, everything we do has an effect on the larger collective system.

As I thought about writing a practice today, I found myself orienting to a deepening sense and understanding of entanglement. I think that part of me is also chewing on subtle activism practices for these times. And so, with entanglement in mind, here are a few subtle activism possibilities for you to explore.

During my morning stroll through Facebook, I came upon the following story, posted by Upworthy. As I read it, I began to think about how important and uplifting it is when we can adapt to adversity, change, or unexpected developments with new, creative, and compassionate responses. Here’s what I read on FB:

“My dad has a massive vegetable garden and it is his life. Whenever I ask how things are going, he tells me about the garden. Periodically he will text me a picture of the things he’s harvested and ask when I’m coming to pick them up. And for a while, the biggest bit of garden gossip has been his nemesis, the gopher. This gopher was consistently ruining his day by pilfering the best of everything just before my dad could harvest it. Anytime I talked to him, all he had to tell me about was ‘that damned gopher.’ He dreamt about killing the gopher, his truest enemy. He tried to train the dog to hunt the gopher, but the dog is a pacifist. He led some of the barn cats to the holes, but the barn cats have unionized and refused his offered rate. He then laid no-kill traps (can’t risk having poison near the crops) with eventual gophercide in mind, but then suddenly he was faced with a cute and terrified animal and didn’t have the heart. He released it. ‘He was SO scared, he’ll never come back.’ The gopher was back the next day, with a vengeance. That was some weeks ago. Today, my dad sent me pictures of his garden, and I saw a squash gently laid by the gopher’s hole, like a package left on the doorstep. I said ‘Dad, what’s that squash doing there by the gopher hole?’ He said ‘Oh, he likes squash best.’ In an effort to appease the gopher, my father now gives him a little squash everyday, like leaving an offering for a garden spirit. This apparently works well as a compromise; the gopher has stopped stealing, content to have his meals delivered to his door.” Originally posted on FB by filmnoirsbian.

Notice your response to reading this story and, in particular, notice the response of your heart-based awareness. Next, imagine how your life would be, or how our collective life would be, if we all could arrive at this kind of resolution. In the story above, a response that embraced collaboration rather than combat arose, with some compassion thrown in.

This story reminds me of the inescapable fact that we live on a planet that thrives on cooperation and active collaboration. For sure, there’s also competition but as Elisabet Sahtouris, the evolutionary biologist found, while young species may emphasize competition, more mature species move toward expressions of cooperation and collaboration. 

Over recent months, I have found myself painfully aware of everything I throw in the trash in the course of my everyday life.  Being a long-time recycler, I’ve always been mindful of my use of paper, bottles, cans, and other recyclables.  Lately, I’ve been aware of all the plastic that lands in my trashcan, with new additions just about every day.  About a year ago, I started shopping with canvas bags and stopped using small plastic bags for produce at the grocery store.  While these steps won’t save the planet, they do cut down on the amount of plastic that moves through and from my home.

This deepened awareness of plastic, and all the photos we now see of what plastics are doing to the inhabitants of our oceans and other waterways, got me to thinking about the natural capacity we humans have to generate options when confronted by circumstances that demand change.  

Confronted as we are by mounting evidence that our current lifestyle cannot continue unchanged, I got to thinking about the importance of our innate curiosity, flexibility, and ability to generate options when circumstances require change.  Drawing on these skills as part of everyday living is like engaging in exercise each day. It builds a kind of “psychological muscle” that allows curiosity, flexibility, and an ability to generate options to become more readily and spontaneously available as part of how we engage the world around us.