We Need a Light-Saber, or a Little Green Guru

 

When Luke Skywalker flew his X-wing Starfighter down the groove in the Death Star and hit the target right on, he solved three problems plaguing humans from the beginning. 

First, he destroyed a menace that threatened the existence of humankind. 

Second, he proved his mettle. We all worry if we are up to the task—whatever that task might be. That day Luke proved he could do it. He was a Jeti. 

Third, he faced straight on the problem of good vs. evil.

We are facing similar circumstances right now, a dire threat, good vs. evil, and the question: are we up to the task to fix it?

We’re scared, we’re worried, we’ve never faced a menace like this: a world in lock-down, a pandemic of unprecedented proportions, and now race issues.

We have had so much pressure exerted on us something was bound to break. We didn’t know it would be about race. We didn’t know we would watch a man be killed when he was already incapacitated and on the ground.

Most everyone had watched the movie Star Wars, either when it first erupted on the scene, or if you are younger than that, a replay in the movie house or on TV. Remember how we loved a seven-foot-tall hairy creature named Chewbacca. We went into a bar where all sorts of characters mingled. There were ones with a proboscis, multiple eyes, faces that looked like they had been in a blender—we accepted all those, and NOW race is an issue? 

In 1977 Good ole George Lucas coined that phrase. “May the FORCE be with you.”

Now, in 2020 we need to KNOW THE FORCE IS STRONG, ALIVE, AND LIVES IN US.

Remember Luke in the swamp trying to lift a star-fighter from the bog? When he failed, Yoda told him, “Don’t try, Do!”

We need the gumption to KNOW we can overcome this current menace.

Why did YouTube censor dissonant voices? Why are they telling us that a knight in shining armor will come riding up on his white horse carrying, instead of a lance, a hypodermic needle? Worth thinking about.

And, we’re savvy enough to know the media likes trouble. They know that their mantra, “If it bleeds it leads,” works. And we know people suck up bad news over good. 

We can’t help it.  

Have you ever sat on a hillside looking across a small valley to the green grass and lovely bushes beyond? You are peaceful, almost in a meditative state. Your eyelids are drooping. Suddenly there is a movement in the grass. Your eyes dart to it. Oh, you say, "a bunny". Maybe it was a mouse or even a tiny little cricket bug, but you saw the movement. 

We are on constant alert for danger. Your dog too. He can spot a blade of grass moving out of sync while the others are stand stark-still. Danger, danger.

We notice movement, don’t trust strangers, we fear anyone who looks different from us.

Why do you think Zebras and deer and antelope all look alike? Nobody wants to stand out from the crowd, for then the predator will spot them, and they will be lunch. A sick animal will even hide its pain. He doesn’t want to be seen as weak and, therefore, vulnerable. They, like us, want to survive.

But we are Jedis in training. There used to be a spectacle at Disneyland where children, little ones, could don a cloak and with a Light-saber battle Darth Vader. This Darth Vader looked like the one in the movie, huge, strode with a gate that told the world he was top-dog. And that voice of his could quake the faint-of-heart. Yet, those little kids, some, as young as four-years-old–those little Jedi’s in training would single-handed march up to this big evil menace and with their Light-saber, do battle with the dark side.

Know this: As the light (us, the ones who search of a brighter day, the ones who champion justice and equality) gets brighter, the darkness, fearing its demise, will up the ante.

As the characters in Star Wars had to continually fight the dark side, either internally or externally, we must also put our faces to the light, and KNOW that the Force that lives in us wants goodness for us.

Don’t let the dark side seduce you with promises that you don’t have to do anything except follow directions. You do have to do something. 

First, we need the confidence to know we can.

“When we know better, we do better.”—Maya Angelou

Possibilities

When my husband's father was watching a boxing match on television, you had to stay an arm's reach away, lest you get clobbered. Not that he intended to hit you, he was acting out the moves he saw on screen, punching, and swinging.

I have learned since that we have mirror neurons that don't know the difference between watching and experiencing. Notice how you jump when something springs out of the darkness. Your pulse quickens, you sweat, your heart races. My father-in-law was really into it. Even a make-believe movie can do that to us. That makes me wonder about watching violent movies. Yes, yes, I know, without conflict, you have no story, but there is internal conflict in most everyone's lives, we want to see how you overcame it. 

I just listened to https://londonreal.tv/gregg-braden-raising-human-consciousness/, an interview with Gregg Braden on LondonReal with Brian Rose. They were talking about "Raising Consciousness." 

I'm a traitor to my biology major, where evolution was the primary focus. Of course, evolution has occurred—plants and animals change over time, new species are being born, but I was delighted to hear Braden say that Darwin had it wrong in this regard: "Nature is about cooperation, not competition."

I always hated "Red in tooth and claw." Yes, animals eat other animals, I'm sorry it's set up that way. But have you noticed a stratum of African animals living peacefully with each other, lions lying among the zebras—until somebody gets hungry?

Think of the brain's function. First and foremost, its purpose is to help us SURVIVE.

In this economy, it means having a dependable income.

The second function of the brain is trying to make us SAFE. We want a home, shelter, a safe place to be. 

Once safe, we want a TRIBE.

A tribe will stick with us if there are any social threats. Evolutionally speaking, the tribe was there for us. We depended on our tribe for survival: they nurtured us, helped us gather food, and provided protection against predators and enemy tribes. Social relationships kept us alive. 

"Perhaps nature," wrote psychologist Naomi Eisenberger, "taking a clever shortcut, simply 'borrowed' the existing mechanism for physical pain. Instead of creating a new one from scratch, which is how broken bones and broken hearts ended up so intimately interconnected in our brains."

I'm writing about the brain because I want us to come through this current emotional trauma with an understanding that we can be hurt by constant turmoil. Once we know that we are a product of our biology, we can make a conscious choice to choose patience, love, and understanding.

I know that human beings have, since the beginning, used Conflict as a means to resolve differences. Why is that, when we yearn for peace? 

A baby doesn't see the difference between people of different skin color, they don't see Asian, or African, or Irish. They have to be carefully taught. 

Down through the ages, we have been taught to be afraid. It has left us shell-shocked. Sayers taught us that humans are evil by nature, that original sin is inherited, and that our way back to the heavenly fold was to follow their teachings. Deviate from these laws, and hell was waiting for us. That's the mind of an angry, vindictive person. No wonder humans are so afraid of death. We just can't be good enough.

We were afraid of reprisals if we deviated from the norm. Kings determined the canon of the Bible (what went into it, what was left out). Inquisitors destroyed dissidents who declared a different way of thinking. Invaders desirous of land, destroyed its inhabitants, Dictators whose addiction was Power, wielded it over the masses which were just trying to live their lives. People were dragged out of their homes and put in concentration camps. People with the Power to do so collected slaves to work for them.

When we have problems that threaten our survival, safety, and tribe that would undoubtedly knock us off-kilter.

It is time for a new way.

I once mentioned in an earlier blog a Hawaiian teaching called ho'oponopono, which is simply to say, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you." It doesn't have to be directed at a specific individual, country, or race, just saying it makes a difference. It is getting back to sweetness we were meant to live. 

I don't mean to insinuate that a simple sentence can solve the world's problems. I'm saying it can turn us in a direction, against fear, against anger, against brother against brother.

The Hawaiian word ho'oponopono comes from ho'o ("to make") and pono ("right"). The repetition of the word pono means "doubly right" or being right with both self and others. In a nutshell, ho'oponopono is a process by which we can forgive others to whom we are connected.

When you become right with others, you become right with yourself. 

Braden emphasized that human beings did not appear on the scene due to a long, slow, natural selective process.

Waiting for a beautiful hairless redhead mutation to appear on the scene would take a long, long time.

Humans appeared Suddenly.

And we did not descend from Neanderthals. We have some Neanderthal DNA in us because we lived alongside them and had boyfriends and girlfriends.

Our DNA changed so radically from primates that it appears to be intentional.

If our brain isn't a product of evolution, then does that imply a purpose?

If we follow the evidence back (reverse engineer), perhaps we will come up with a model. When evidence doesn't support a story, we need a new story. 

We are still wired the same way as that new primate who happened upon the scene some 200,000 years ago--Survival, safety, tribe. 

Braden said he wondered why chimpanzees couldn't sing since we share 99% of our chromosomes. (But then we share about 50% with a banana that doesn't sing either.)

Human Chromosome #2 is responsible for the brain.

Chromosome #7 is responsible for our speech.

We, as generations before us, are still searching for a Promised Land.

The enslaved Israelis rallied behind a leader who declared to the governing body, "Let My People go.

Polynesian Wayfarers took off in big Catamaran canoes across the vast ocean in search of new land. 

American pioneers packed up their belongings into a covered wagon and set off in search of a dream.

Imagine: 

You're trudging across the prairie on a wagon train after hearing the call to a new life. 

You're attending to business. You are keeping the wagon on the trail, tending the oxen and horses, milking the cow that, bless her heart, is also trudging along tied to the back of your wagon. You're keeping the children fed, bacon (salt-pork) in the morning, beef jerky for lunch, beans, and biscuits for dinner. When the hunters bring home venison, the entire train has a barbecue for dinner. You are keeping the children from sunburn by making sure they wear their hats, and when you stop to rest, you pull thorns from their little hands. At night you kiss their blistered feet and tell them stories of the farm awaiting at the end of the trail where they can have a dog and a horse of their own.

Before the Wagon Train pulled out, I signed up for a job as a scout. I'm riding ahead, looking for the narrowest spot to cross the stream. I bring back news of where the road has been washed out—the trail made by wagons that went before us. We are stealth, my little horse and I, disturbing little, at one with our surroundings, slipping into places where a big wagon and oxen cannot go. I can see if there is any game in the vicinity, for they rarely run from a single horse and rider. I can scout out any inhabitants we can befriend or avoid. My horse can take me to the hilltops where I can see the vast terrain ahead, and be thrilled at the possibilities.