"You
must go through the way in which you are not.
And
what you do not know is the only thing you know
And
what you own is what you do not own
And
where you are is where you are not."
~ T.S. Eliot, excerpt from Four Quartets
When I began deleting my
personal history, as Paulo Coehlo describes in The
Zahir, it was the most joyous
and bizarre experience of my life: I was simultaneously aware of who I was and
who I was not, and 3D appeared both silly and sublime. It was expansive, akin
to the seatbelt sign blinking off in flight as the Captain announces,
"You're now free to move about the cabin."
Similarly: In college I
listened to Woody Allen's amusing audiobook Without Feathers. The title refers to the Emily Dickinson poem,
"'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers".
The idea of "giving
up hope" is as intriguing as stepping outside our conditioned responses.
The day before the U.S. World Trade Center attacks in 2001, I'd finished
reading Beyond
Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone's Guide to the Coming Changes by Moira Timms, and felt suffused with a calm
knowing, a sense that something was about to happen. As 9-1-1 unfolded I sent
out a global message contrary to popular reaction, and was castigated as well
as thanked. (Email me if you'd
like a copy of This IS A Test.)
In this first year beyond
prophecy, how do we live beyond hope, beyond history, beyond how we might once
have responded, and simply observe our unfolding? Will Linville conveys the
evolving human condition with startling beauty, demonstrating what it looks
like to live as "a constant stream of consciousness".
We begin by enlarging the lens
from microscope to kaleidoscope, as Caroline Casey illustrates: "We are remembering
our true selves, our destiny, our role in the Dynamic Mystery Play. You know
how sometimes people ask that harumphitudinous question, 'Who do you think you
are?' We reframe: 'Hoo-Doo! You think! You Are!'"
This is how we morph into "forever
beings" says thought leader Soleira Green. "Forever beings are
not trapped by history, by past mistakes, learning, cultural influences,
etc. Freedom isn't a concept since there is nothing but complete and utter freedom on every level,
available all the time.… A forever being lives
within limitless possibility, seeking change and creation constantly and
always. This re-orients us to the ever streaming NEW and not to the static
past."
Without "hope,"
without history, we're closer to our true nature than ever before. Or as
Linville offers, "If you lose control, you're free. And you have everything."