Our country and the life we once lived has descended into twisting and turning darkness and chaos. No matter your values, beliefs, or political leanings; this is something universally agreed upon. Worldwide pandemic restrictions and consequences, corruption in all institutions we once relied upon to govern our world, runaway inflation, supply chain nightmares including baby formula shortages, federal agencies weaponizing surveillance powers, explosion of social media an cancel culture nightmares, the breakthrough discoveries of quantum physics, and technologies advancing at warp speed are just a few of the forces that impinge upon our psyches daily.
Our collective planetary nervous system has awakened — begun communicating and expressing itself. Yet some things remain largely intact. The birth of this nation and with it the unique concept people could live and flourish in individual freedom and self-governance lives on. To date, we are struggling but have not fallen.
Interestingly, massive changes in science, technology, and belief systems have placed in the hands of the common person one of the most powerful inventions to date: hand-held devices and the networks over which they transmit. Worldwide communities have sprung up connecting people by interests they share.
Our planet is immersed in a collective dark night of the soul. The outcome remains undetermined but there are a few variables we can count on.
First, we each have free will. The choices we make will create our personal future and greatly influence our collective fate. Second, with choice comes responsibility. As individuals, we must arm ourselves with awareness, knowledge, and formulate a belief system by which to guide our choices. We are born into this world alone, we are responsible for the read we crate through this world, and we will leave this world as we entered it: alone.
For myself, I choose to look to those who have come before for hope and guidance.
Chief Seattle 1854
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.”
John 3:2
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.”
[This was written by Marcia Blacklidge as a part of submission of her art creation for the Artists Alley in Kokomo, Indiana]