When Glaciers Weep: Our Interconnectedness
There is something about the scale of natural disasters — such as the tragic flooding and loss of life that recently occurred in Napal — that stimulates an expansive awareness of our shared home we call Earth and the relative infinitesimal place that we occupy in the scheme of our Milky Way Galaxy and the universe. When unimaginable seismic shifts occur, for a brief few days it changes people’s world view and I feel an interconnectedness. No longer do I distinguish my home as located in the United States but feel the illusion of boundaries break down and become a part of a larger whole — compassion crosses national borders and humanity returns. Scale and relativity are evoked from such outside events and we are touched inside, often inducing presence.
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. — Walt Whitman
A similar connected feeling arises during a total solar or lunar eclipse, a passing bright comet, seeing images of outer galaxies sent back by space telescopes, or the fish on the murky black ocean floor producing their own light through bioluminescence. Through these phenomena we are reminded that we live on a planet together rotating at 1,040 mph at the equator. Until now, I never really thought about the quirky fact that at the poles, this speed drops to zero. We orbit the sun at average speeds of about 66,600 mph. Astounding!
A hundred years of education is nothing compared to a moment spent with God. — Shams of Tabriz
Why not actively choose and apply the tools of scale and relativity to evoke heightened awareness and interconnectedness from the inside out? We do not have to wait for an external event such as a solar eclipse or a natural disaster. Scale is a characteristic of the Intellectual Part of the Intellectual Center (the King of Diamonds – see the glossary in the files section above). The King of Diamonds is the highest intellectual function of the lower centers. It is important to realize that the “lower centers” are not the same as the “lower self.” If I reorient myself to bring scale into my thinking when I am particularly identified, I may see that today’s flavor of negativity can be neutralized by drawing my attention to a different scale.
A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. — Walt Whitman
Relativity is the ability to see multiple seemingly disparaging things to be true at the same time depending on a person’s body type, center of gravity, features, and alchemy. It is a way to accept what is and see the world from another person’s point of view without judgment.
It is necessary to understand the relativity of each thing and of each manifestation according to the place it occupies in the cosmic order. Things may be one thing or another thing according to the kind of man from whose point of view, or in relation to whom, they are taken. — P.D. Ouspensky
At an outdoor gathering during COVID, I witnessed a friend who had a fear feature, immediately quickly move a distance away from another emotionally centered friend who had been exposed to COVID. It was an awkward moment because the emotionally centered person had been devastated by her experience and needed emotional support, but instead received a fearful response. My friend with a fear feature saw validity in her encounter and likely did not even sense the rejection that my other friend felt. Both were experiencing their truth relative to their own circumstances. Each of them, relative to their own mechanics, were responding truthfully and behaved accordingly. In conflicting moments like this, the unifying element is to raise one’s state to a higher level of consciousness and be present.
Knowledge of all is possible with the use of two principles: the principle of relativity and the principle of scale. Real knowledge, objective knowledge is knowledge which comes from higher mind. Such knowledge shows us how to study man, how to study the universe, and also how to study the one in relation to the other. — P.D. Ouspensky
To use relativity is to choose not to be disturbed by the response of others but to see exchanges as a reflection of the diversity and combinations of mechanical behaviors. Relativity is a characteristic of the Intellectual Part of the Emotional Center (the King of Hearts – see the glossary in the files section above). To make relativity into a tool to neutralize interactions with people, I prepare in advance by intentionally developing new emotional attitudes about circumstances that in the past may have caused negativity. Rather than get negative at drivers weaving in and out of traffic and thinking of them as bad drivers, my husband has replaced that attitude with, to drive that skillfully, they must be very good drivers. This is an antidote to becoming identified and expressing negativity about people’s driving habits. These intentional attitudes generate a heightened awareness – a step closer to presence.
A billion stars go spinning through the night, glittering above your head, But in you is the presence that will be when all the stars are dead. — Rainer Maria Rilke
The Icebergs, Frederic Edwin Church, 1861
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