In the Christian calendar, yesterday was Ascension Day, the day when Christ "...ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father..." according to the Nicene Creed in my old Book of Common Prayer. Despite everything, the church year remains imprinted in me, both because it is in my spiritual DNA and because of the continuing metaphorical resonance.
Many years ago, I read something that implied that earth Herself would eventually go through an ascension process, as would many humans, and I cannot help but think that, whether or not that exact term was used, this is what is beginning to happen. Of course, the way I see it, it doesn't necessarily involve literal ascension -- leaving the earth plane in order to start a new life far from our physical reality. Earth will undoubtedly stay in Her body, as will many of us -- it's just that we will be stretched and changed. The reason I've been thinking about this recently is that I had been wondering if the last few years had actually been a process of ascension; I'm beginning to realize that it feels less like moving into "new"/higher territory and more like moving into a reality that was there all along, a reality I wasn't fully ready to embrace. Now that I see that my instinct tended to be to do things the "opposite" of how society does them, perhaps some wiser part of me was in place from the start, trying to get my attention. If anything, "ascending" spiritually while staying in place physically is extremely challenging. You feel it in your body, your soul, your emotions, and your relationship with the world around you. At times it is virtually unbearable, but if you can get through it, it may help the whole world in its ascension process.
So many painful things are happening, across the globe, across our cities, and in our own lives and the lives of our friends. Beliefs, foundations and assumptions that no longer work are being ripped from us, leaving gaping holes and raw emotions, confusion and emptiness. It's not funny, but sort of telling, that so many Americans' homes are literally being ripped (by tornados) from the earth and, for a period of minutes, into the sky. As ever, I cringe at all the promises to rebuild. In the long term, we are not going through this intensive spiritual class time in order to lay down the same old roots again.
So it's about going "higher" spiritually without literally going higher. Living in paradox. Blessings, everyone, as we walk through this uncomfortable process.
