A Small Room in Paradise

September 20, 2023

Eliza Doolittle is a microcosm of humanity. Wanting a cozy room of one’s own, out of the weather and safe from predators, is the humblest of aspirations. Surely it’s at the top of every homeless person’s wish list, so I was delighted to find Jesse the troubadour in front of Trader Joe’s last week, and when he told me, “I got me a little place to stay,” it felt like the sun had come out.

This self-effacing, gentle man with the Blue Ridge Mountain voice and beautifully polished guitar now has couch-space in an apartment with several other men—a step up from sleeping in his vehicle. His gratitude for a roof over his head is palpable, still making me smile days later.

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It seems Western-world humans have been dually conditioned, on the one hand to aspire to largely unattainable standards, and on the other, to acquiesce to the “less than” reality many of us experience. 

Media signaling bombards us with fantastically perfect homes and sleek, buffed bodies, both subtly and overtly instructing us: live like this. Be like this. I remember yearning to look like the airbrushed magazine models, even after I saw beneath the slick surface to the underlying manipulation. 

The other half of the conditioning, the part that says we’d better accept our allotment in life, can be equally entrenched, so I was pleased when Jesse added, “But the homeless advocate is looking for an apartment just for me.”

Jesse has enough self-esteem to aspire to something better. It may not be Oprah’s mansion, but surely in all of Santa Barbara County, there is one decent, subsidized apartment with his name on it.

*****

I sometimes wonder if the reason we haven’t yet experienced the solar flare, the Event, a spontaneous upliftment into 5D—however we interpret Ascension—has more to do with our “this is all I deserve” conditioning than higher-dimensional maneuvering or the White Hats’ much-vaunted “waiting for enough people to wake up.”

We’re often told it’s essential to keep our vibration high. I suspect that the subliminal conviction that we only deserve this much and no more is a hidden influence for many of us, and one that prevents us from maintaining a high vibrational state. Attempting to find and root out this core misconception seems one way to help ourselves lighten up. But it’s not an easy journey; that soul-exploration can be like cutting open an unblemished orange and finding that the center is black, spoiling the sweet flesh around it with the taint of decay. 

*****

There are ripe oranges on our tree as we approach Fall, because after all, Santa Barbara is paradise. And a bewildering new crop of avocados coming on the ancient remnant of the rural avocado orchard in our suburban yard. 

I don’t believe nature makes mistakes, so perhaps two fruiting crops in one year is as it’s meant to be. Perhaps this is the green world’s way of celebrating the fantastical abundance of rain last year. The trees were amply saturated, and from the bounty they received, bounty they give back.

It wouldn’t surprise me if something similar will unfold with humanity, after the switch occurs (Reval, med beds). We receive more, we become miraculously healthy, and we experience ease and relief from lifelong stressors. 

I have faith that when abundance appears, in a flood or a trickle, we’ll want to spread goodness and share joy. After all, if we neglect to share, we would be emulating the behavior of those who have slyly controlled us for millennia, chortling over magnificent treasures like an armor-scaled dragon pawing through its hoard. 

Goodhearted, well-meaning humans can do much better than that. We can do better than offering meager shelter and barely-life-sustaining resources to everyone on the planet. There is more than enough for all of us. Any remnants of scarcity conditioning are sure to dissipate quickly once all feel secure, cared for, and most of all, loved. By ourselves, by each other, by the Divine.