There’s a lot of talk about community going on among us, and about the ways we move, as a group, to manifest the world we wish to create. This conversation isn’t only going on here at the Golden Age of Gaia blog and discussion group, but at many other places as well.
In this synchronistic crush of people and places in need of community support, and with this talk of ideas whose time has come, it’s also been a time when many of us are noticing a form of what I’d like to call ‘compassion fatigue’.
What I mean by this is there’s so very many places, people and topics that are pulling on me emotionally every single day that it feels rather overwhelming. It’s similar to the feeling which happens when trying to swim upstream against a current.
Rather than exhaust myself with this phenomena, I’ve been allowing myself to ‘float above’, instead of diving into, this compassion I feel. I’ve had to do this in order to preserve my sanity and in order to keep my balance. This has been going on for a long time now for me, and yet the intensity of this process has ramped up tremendously.
The process of dealing with the ‘compassion fatigue’ has entailed quite a bit of releasing the ‘shoulds’ and ‘ought to’s’ concerned, particularly in view of the severity of some of the global problems presenting themselves and by what I’m experiencing as their extreme ugliness and utter dysfunction.
I don’t think it’s being extreme to say it’s depressing. If I allowed myself to wallow too deeply in the emotions they stir in me, I’d be inclined to feel hopeless and helpless. Who am I, just little ol’ me, to rise up in the face of these mighty and wide-spread challenges? Where is my cape and mask, or my magic wand with the power to sweep away the troubles and sorrows of the world?
This is when my guidance team comes in to remind me that I need not be concerned in quite this way. They are telling me to focus and hold my sights on my immediate surroundings and what I can do in each moment.
Follow my passion and desire, they advise, and all will be well. What is required here is consistency and devotion, to stand steady and hold the space, one moment at a time, for the big changes which are in the process of occurring. They tell me that this is my role. Sigh…
So, here is a huge difference from my life-long beliefs about what is enough. I’ve always felt like I’m not enough, so what can I do? I really do care and if I could… It’s always looked like I can’t do anything enough to make a difference.
A different view of this is beginning to emerge. This view is one that holds that it’s the little moment-to-moment choices that hold the greatest potential for change that sticks, change that moves out and permeates all consciousness, and not only my own. When one considers that each and every moment is another opportunity to make a choice, the mathematically-exponential potential of this is staggering.
We’ve been holding the stories of heroes to be what is required to make changes in what doesn’t work in this world. Powerful people with the power to make big footprints will need to step up. Saviors who will swoop down and save us from our predicaments will come, and so we wait….
But there’s a new view that’s showing me how the little things add up quicker and the effects of them last longer. Imagine how much more powerful are thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of small acts of kindness, caring and devotion; much more powerful, more widespread and balanced than one big footprint; more stable in fact.
Furthermore, the beauty of this is that it allows everyone to take part in this movement, every single one adding to it, choice by choice, moment to moment, one small addition at a time to a world that cares and works for everyone. This is the vision that’s being given to me right now.
So, what if this is the way of it? What if we will make our way into a new way of being for the greater good of ALL on this planet one nano-second at a time, one small choice in each moment at a time? How many of us have this kind of devotion?
While a part of me balks at this thought and my eyes want to roll back in my head, there’s another part of me that is beginning to see the genius of this vision. Many tiny acts of kindness, many small seeds of hope and caring distributed among us and this energy being generated consistently. The burden of this mighty load is nullified as soon as the load is spread out to this wider base. This is a powerful vision.
A smaller stone will skip and skim the surface of the water and multiply the amount of ripples in the surface, where a big stone will only cause one big plop and then fade away. Imagine, if you will, the ripples that happen when billions of tiny skipping stones are causing ripples in all directions at once. Imagine these ripples that occur when this action is done with consistency and devotion?
How far do those rings and ripples go? How far do they travel and for how long? Do any of us really know how far they travel and how long is the duration of their effect? Does this not show the essence of vibration and how it works?
So, before we underestimate the power we hold, individually and in our devotion, let’s take a moment to allow for a broader vision.
It is with great gratitude that I’m here among you doing this worldly and sacred task, one heartbeat at a time.