Boston bombings, bone rattling earthquakes and balance.

“From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.” – Jacques Yves Cousteau

Bombs in Boston and earthquakes in the Near and Middle East.  We have had two deaths in the family and it seems everywhere I go I see ambulances rushing to the scenes of serious road traffic accidents.  

Its likely Pluto the planet of transformation through destruction is active along with good old Mars putting an explosive oar into our stream of consciousness. 

I am tapping into something beneath the surface that heralds a time of ramping up energies; of change and shift.  It asks the collective to take a leap of faith and let go of all our fears, of all our tendencies to deal with difficulty by putting up more walls, by attempting to find safety in the skirts of "wars" against what we don't like or don't want.

No one in the corridors of power is asking if our current methodolgy of dealing with bombs and other such atrocities involving, invoking more fear and breeding less trust is really working.  Well its clear and apparent despite all the measures put out to increase our security, is in fact not taming this terrorist beast in the slightest.  We aren't safer and we feel more threatened.  

The obstinacy of the pro-gun supporters in the States has not manifested more safety, the wars and drones are killing more, causing more pain and buliding more fear. 

It makes sense that what we focus on we get more of.  Have you ever noticed that when you have pain in your body if you keep thinking about it it gets worse?  The role of pain killers essentially block pathways to the brain that keep your attention on the suffering.  Have you ever seen the merit of a friend who comes around when you have had a bad day, brings a funny movie, a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates?  The shift of focus is what brings relief.  Yet we are largely unconscious of the power of this apparent facile distraction. 

It may sound cruel or inhuman to suggest that in the light of tragedy that we look the other way.  I mean people have been killed, maimed and seriously affected by the Boston bombings and yes there are hundreds who suffer the consequences of drone attacks and so called controlled bombings in the Middle East in the name of bringing peace. However Universal Law would poo poo this approach.  She would instead ask us to look for love to foster ease and peace. She would likely ask us to look out of the window at the blossom on the tree or wish we made cupcakes instead of watching the News.

Compassion is a great healer of all wounds and I sometimes seriously consider the idea that all this horror that we increasingly experience is literally waking us up.  It is in the wake of disaster that you see true humanity at work.  Tragedy brings heart out of the closet and everyone concerned begins to rally round for the good of a unified collective.  

As we hear of the sadness and grief of others we automatically, because we are human, begin to feel compassion for those affected.  We begin to feel vulnerablity; our own and that of others.

As our vulnerablity is highlighted we tend to begin to see our neighbours, our families, friends and even strangers from this perspective.  They are just people like you or I trying to make sense of the world and their experiences. 

When our own lives are touched in some way, either really deeply and personally, or through viewing scenes of horror through media coverage ironically our love for ourselves and our own small lives is set alight.  Once that takes hold our hearts begin to open.  Once our hearts begin to open we start to literally 'feel" the pain of the other.  

I know when I open my heart to myself and feel compassion (not pity) for myself I start to see everyone else's vulnerablity and the beauty of their humanity.  Our hearts literally go 'out' to others, whether its to feel compassion for a mother struggling with a basket load of shopping and a fractious toddler  in the supermarket, the bent old man sitting alone in a cafe reading his paper or the Afghan wedding party decimated by a 'legal' bomb. 

There is always method in some madness especially when we learn to drop our duality glasses and view life from a place of non judgment, from a place where we see that the ideology of right and wrong as being obselete.

Once you adopt this neutral, observant stance beauty, love and compassion literally rises from the dead.

The atrocities that seem to have gone viral of late, those which none of us can hide from any longer, are gifts.  They support this invisible evolutionary shift to a heart centred, more caring, co- creative paradigm.

From vulnerablity and the acceptance of its strength, it's beauty, grows compassion and the realisation that one persons pain is actually part of our own and then from that compassion comes balance.