Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

Inauguration of a Future

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“It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”

Watching the inauguration last week, I felt I was witnessing a mythic event, something so deeply symbolic that my rational mind couldn’t begin to fathom it all.

A ceremony taking place in front of a Capitol building so recently stormed by insurrectionists under the spell of conspiracy theories, clinging to the obsolete ideology of white supremacy, and seeking to overturn a democratic election.

Lady Gaga, larger than life, donning an enormous dove pin, proclaiming with the full power of her voice as the sun broke through the clouds that the stars and stripes had endured the perilous night.

The prophetic words of a young Black poetess downloading into us a vision of what we as a nation can be, and will be if we have the courage to be it.

A woman—a multi-racial daughter of immigrants at that—sworn into national office for the first time.

A compassionate man, unafraid to show his vulnerabilities and shed his tears, taking his place at the helm of a battered, traumatized and grieving nation.

And for me, an odd sense of gratitude for Donald Trump who had somehow managed to reinvigorate our democracy by trying to destroy it.

What was being evoked in me last Wednesday was more than patriotism, which seems much too provincial for this moment of global crisis. What was being evoked was a future that is asking to become a lived reality in our midst. And the essence of that future seemed to be the many that are one.

E pluribus unum.

On the evening of Inauguration Day, a term came to me quite spontaneously to depict what the past four years have been for us as a nation: The Great Wreckoning.

We have witnessed so much wreckage of our democratic norms and of our social fabric that we have been catapulted into a great reckoning. We have been forced to see all the ways in which racism and injustices of all kinds have gone unheeded and unaddressed, how the injuries of the past have been allowed to continue.

And now we know that our future as a nation—and as a human family—depends upon each of us doing the work that is ours to do. Grieving work. Restorative work. Healing work. Visionary work.

Our elected leaders will not and cannot create this future for us because it will be spawned within each of us, and from the depths of our own beingness will take on form in our behaviors, relationships, structures and institutions. There is no trickle down here. The new world that wants to arise is an inside job.

We know that not everyone is ready to welcome this future, that many, in fact, are afraid of it. Be that as it may, it is coming, and we can hasten it by revisiting time and time again the vision that Amanda Gorman set before us. To revisit it until it has seeped into our very cells—until it has become us, and we have become it.

The Hill We Climb

When day comes we ask ourselves

Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry,

A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast;

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.

And the norms and notions of what just is

Isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it;

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed

A nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time

Where a skinny black girl descended from slaves

And raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president,

Only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes we are far from polished, far from pristine,

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge a union with purpose,

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us,

But what stands before us.

We close the divide, because we know to put our future first,

We must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms

So we can reach out our arms to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew,

That even as we hurt, we hoped,

That even as we tired, we tried,

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious—

Not because we will never again know defeat

But because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision

That everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree,

And no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to our own time,

then victory won’t lie in the blade but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promised glade,

The hill we climb if only we dare it.

Because being American is more than a pride we inherit,

It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded,

But while democracy can be periodically delayed

It can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith we trust,

For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

We feared at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,

But within it we found the power

To author a new chapter,

To offer hope and laughter,

To ourselves sow. While once we asked:

How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?

Now we assert: How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was,

But move to what shall be,

A country that is bruised but whole,

Benevolent but bold,

Fierce and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation

Because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens

But one thing is certain:

If we merge mercy with might and might with right,

Then love becomes our legacy

And change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

With every breath of my bronze pounded chest,

We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the West.

We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lakeland cities of the Midwestern states.

We will rise from the sunbaked South.

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

In every known nook of our nation,

In every corner called our country,

Our people, diverse and beautiful,

Will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

Aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it,

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

~Amanda Gorman

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White Supremacy and the Identified Patient

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I would like some wisdom on what we are seeing in our country right now, especially with the violent displays of white supremacy we have witnessed in the storming of the Capitol. I ask the Heart and greater Wisdom to guide my reflections and grant me insight.

What you are seeing now in the eruption of white supremacist groups has been long in the making, and while you might be alarmed to see the momentum, virulence, and violence of this movement, please understand that it is simply bringing to the surface what has long needed to be acknowledged, faced and healed.

We have spoken before of covid meaning “to see together,” and this is something that you are seeing together. Something that has sorely needed to be seen.

You understand that in family systems theory there is something called the identified patient. The identified patient in a family is that person who is outwardly manifesting a dysfunction that exists in the entire family system. Please do not be tempted to see white supremacists as the problem, but to see white supremacy as the dysfunction in the entire system that they are acting out, the dysfunction that needs to be corrected. As the system is healed, the identified patient is restored to health.

The awareness is growing in your country that racism has been a long and destructive influence in the establishment of your systems and that it needs to be eradicated for the new world and new society to arise.

Just as Donald Trump has allowed you to see in vivid display what ego-mind looks like, the insurrectionists are bringing to your full awareness this endemic pattern of racism that is at the core of so much suffering and injustice in your culture.

What is needed now is a massive truth and reconciliation movement in your country to heal this disease. You know that in a medical crisis the symptoms of a disease must be addressed, but that for true health to manifest, the entire body needs to come into its wholeness. Without this, the illness will continue to express itself.

This is an illness that has been growing unchecked and unacknowledged for a very long time, since the inception of this county. And now you are seeing the urgency with which it needs to be faced and healed with grace.

This is not to say that those who have carried out this act of violence are not to be held accountable for their actions. Indeed it is important that they be, but not out of anger or vilification, but out of Love and a commitment to heal the whole. What they are portraying, the belief system and ideology they are enacting, is a fallacy, and the body as a whole must acknowledge that.

It is then the task of all people, especially white people in this country, to address the roots of this assumed supremacy, roots which exist in the mind.

Do you recall how, when you have done meditations envisioning an awakened Philadelphia, how easily you have been able to envision many ethnic groups giving expression to their unique cultural heritage in a beautiful tapestry of multi-culturalism, but when it came to the white people of the city you could not see it clearly?

This is because white culture does not exist as any true expression of identity. Instead, white culture has rested on the idea of dominating those of other ethnicities and cultures. White culture in itself, apart from this role of domination, seems to be a void. A non-thing.

This in part is what is occurring in the uprising of white supremacy. As the nation becomes increasingly multi-cultural, there is no sense of identity, no sense of selfhood for white people apart from that of the dominator. It it this restoration of a true and life-affirming identity that is needed now.

Who are you as a “white” person? You are immigrants of many cultures, lands in which the skin color of the people happened to be fair. Can you see the absolute absence of meaning in this? How fragile an identity it is that relies upon skin color?

Revisit your ancestral roots. Who were you before you became “white”? Before you became “white” you were many things. You were the speakers of Gaelic and had a sacred relationship with the land, which you understood to be inhabited by entities not visible to the human eye. You were dancers around the bonfire at the winter solstice. You were creators of sublime music that touched the soul. You were tellers of stories that spoke of the transcendence of the human spirit.

Shed this empty identity of being “white” and go deeper into your being. Celebrate who you are in your core, not in the color of your skin.

You received a phrase recently in a dream: systemic gracism. This is where your society is headed if you will it to be so, toward the establishment of systems that reflect goodwill toward one another and which support all in their mutual thriving. A society that exemplifies and manifests grace.

What you are witnessing at this turbulent moment in your country is that which must be seen and acknowledged in order for it to be healed, released and transcended. It is opening the way for gracism to take root.

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Love’s Insurrection

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We are here to participate in Love’s long-awaited insurrection.

Dear One,

I know you are feeling anxious and disturbed about all that you see happening in the country right now, how it seems that ominous forces have burst out of the shadows and are threatening the fabric of the social order. Your fear is amplified by your awareness of how other countries have descended into chaos in conditions such as these, when people have been led astray by falsehoods and mobilized to violently impose their way upon the world.

Your fear is understandable. The old ways are dying, causing tremendous anxiety and tumult, and you sense that this could be a moment that breaks the spell of division, or a moment when falsehood, hatred, and violence gain momentum.

Let me begin by reminding you that violence is a stance of weakness. It is what people resort to when they sense that their cause is lost. And indeed there is a lost cause in all of this, a cause that has been lost from the beginning of time because it could never truly exist. This attempt to secede from Reality, secede from the truth of Union, of Love, has been a lost cause from the moment it dawned in the human mind.

I know this may not be the time to try to offer you reassurances that the turmoil you are seeing isn’t ultimately real, that it is a projection of the mind. I know that in this moment, as you look at the news, it seems frighteningly real.

It has always seemed real to the aspect of mind that generates and participates in this human drama of good versus evil, of enemies and battles that has played itself out in so many ways over so many centuries. Surely these last months have shown you how capable the mind is of fully believing something that isn’t true.

There is little point in trying to talk this aspect of mind out of its fear, because for it, the story is true, just as a nightmare is real to the mind that is dreaming it. Simply hold it, along with its fear, in absolute compassion. Cradle it in kindness.

Neither try to try to persuade those who remain loyal to the ways of ego that Love is the only Truth. Attempting to convince them will only be a distraction to you now. Simply hold them in compassion, and do not tether yourself to their disbelief.

What is needed now is for you, and all who are willing, to turn your awareness to the Self within that knows that, despite what you see playing out on the world stage, there is only one Reality, and it is Love. In Reality, you are safe and always have been. In Reality, there are no enemies, and never could be. This is the greatest service you can offer in this time of transformation into the New.

Even though you may feel unprepared for this moment, you are not. You have been preparing for eons. Join now with the Truth that is within you. Allow it to inhabit every fiber of your being. Allow the Joy and Gladness of Reality to resonate in your own being and radiate from your own Heart. Do not be timid about experiencing this Joy, for It is what you are.

I know that many will believe that it is naïve in such a moment as this to abide in Love. But what is truly naïve, and indeed absurd, is the the idea that anything but Love could exist, or that division could ever be real except for in the very fertile human imagination.

Place that imagination in the service of Love now. Imagine the world that you know wants to come forth. Imagine what it looks like when humans have been restored to their right minds, knowing themselves to be Love incarnate, a world in which each knows that they are a precious and unique expression of the Infinite Life here to give expression to the Love that is the Source of All That Is.

Imagine such a world in which these countless incarnations of Love are celebrating one another, thriving together, bringing forth the essence of their beautiful Beingness, rejoicing in the web of Life that is this magnificent planet.

Then allow yourself to feel that world in your body. Allow it to come alive in your cells. Be that world, because the new world that is arising does not come forth by battling with the old, but by joining with the New.

This is the only true insurrection—a word which means “to rise up.” As you transcend (trance end) the ways of ego, forgoing all judgment and all concept of enemy, and as you align yourself only with Love you help this new world to arise. You become a participant in Love’s long-awaited insurrection.

Eternally,
Your True Self

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The Ego’s Last Stand

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Are we willing to walk off the battlefield of the mind?

As I look out over our political landscape this week, I see what is happening from two levels. One is the literal level of a democracy under siege, in which a minority faction is attempting to overturn the will of the majority and commandeer the mechanisms of power.

The other level is the symbolic, the mythic, the story of our journey toward awakening. On that level I see an epic drama playing out in which the mind is coming face to face with the ego of its own making and wrestling with the choice before it: to continue to live in allegiance to the ego and adhere to its ways or to claim its freedom and step into the Reality of Love, into the unitive consciousness that is its true nature.

In this unfolding drama the mind is beginning to recognize the ego for what it is—a “separate self” that is itself an illusion—and is seeing how ego operates behind the scenes, relentlessly asserting its own “reality” and sustaining that “reality” through blame, attack, coercion, division, intimidation, threats.

Shocking though it may be, this is an important step in the mind’s awakening, because it must first see the illusion it has believed in in order to leave it behind.Continue Reading

Yielding: The Way of the Christ-Bearer

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By yielding to the Reality of Love, Mary births Its expression in form.

Ever since Donald Trump appeared on the political scene I have seen him as symbolizing the ego patterns that we must now leave behind if we are to survive as a species on this planet. By depicting in such an overt manner how the ego mind operates, what it believes, and how it plays out in the world, Trump has precipitated a jump into warp speed of our awakening process.

Recently, there have been reports that his mental health is deteriorating due to the loss of the election and his waning ability to bend circumstances to conform to his will—something that in the past he has always seemed to manage.

Symbolically, this is showing us the ultimate impotence of ego. Other than within the confines of its own fabricated alternative world, it has never been able to alter Reality, which is Love. The attempt to do so—to fracture Reality, to overturn Love—has been the great egoic escapade humanity undertook, and we have failed. Not for lack of effort, but simply because it can’t be done. Continue Reading

The Great Conjunction

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It is the conjunction within that opens the way for a new world.

When I was a child, one summer evening I was out in our front yard with my mother watching a sky ablaze with spectacular pinks and oranges. It was one of those sunsets where you feel like you are witnessing the otherworldly.

My mother was a woman of deep faith, although she rarely spoke about it. But that evening, gazing at the sunset, she confided in me, “This is how I imagine the Second Coming will be. Jesus will descend on clouds like these.”

As far fetched as it may sound, her understanding of the Second Coming was quite conventional. In the Second Coming, Jesus—who was understood to be the one and only embodiment of Christ—would descend to earth again and establish a long-awaited reign of peace.

The Second Coming has been anticipated for centuries, since the time of the first followers of Jesus who expected his return to occur at any moment, and certainly during their lifetimes. That no such dramatic re-appearance happened caused some consternation among the emerging community. There was no intervention from the heavens. No overthrow of the worldly powers-that-be—and all these centuries later we are still waiting.Continue Reading

Ode to Darkness

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As a culture we are starved for Mystery.

I love this time of year. I love the long quiet nights, the candles, the turning inward. For me, the winter solstice, when the days begin to grow longer, always comes too soon. I want more time to immerse myself in the darkness.

I know this is a difficult season for many people, when the lengthening nights seem to evoke feelings of despair and dread. Yet I find the darkness beautiful. I experience it as the Mystery, the Unknown, the Numinous that is so much vaster than my conscious awareness can fathom.

This morning I got up early, before the first daylight. The crescent moon cradled itself toward the eastern horizon and the morning star gleamed in the pre-dawn sky—and it was the darkness that bestowed upon them their beauty.

I am awed by the fact that the universe is comprised mostly of dark matter. It is overwhelmingly made up of something that is hidden to us, undetectable to us, and yet unmistakably present.

That’s the way I experience the darkness. There is a Presence in it that transcends the reach of my ordinary senses. In the darkness I perceive the limitations of my knowing. I bow before the Mystery.

I suppose it is our fear of the unknown that makes us fear the darkness and want to drive it away, dispel it with whatever feeble torches we can fashion. We are so afraid of not knowing.

And yet turning toward the Mystery is so essential. To apprehend that there is so much we do not know is the beginning of wisdom, the portal to awe.

I had a dream once, years ago, in which I am out in the wilderness, in the mountains, staying at a lodge. It is night, and I step out onto a balcony and look up. When I see the canopy of the Milky Way overhead, a deep relief washes over me, and I realize that, having lived for so long in the city, I have been suffering from star-vation.

As a culture we are starved for Mystery, starved for the awe that comes when we accept our inability to comprehend the vastness of our existence, starved for the parts of ourselves that linger beyond the light of our awareness.

In the winter months, we sometimes don’t get enough sunlight to meet our body’s need for vitamin D. But in our contemporary society, in which we go to such great lengths to banish the night, there is another sort of deficiency that inflicts our spirits: darkness deprivation.

This alienation from the Unknown, this estrangement from Mystery, is making this planetary time so much more difficult than it needs to be.

We find ourselves collectively in a time of darkness, of unknowing. Having watched in shock the sunset of our certainties, we no longer know what to expect, and we cannot see what is before us.

And yet Love encompasses All. It is as present in the darkness as it is in the light.

In this season, many of us celebrate the incarnation of Christ-consciousness. And while traditionally that consciousness has been ascribed to a single individual, it is a consciousness that lies within us all. Dormant perhaps, as the seed lies dormant in the dark soil, but present nonetheless.

Christ-consciousness has been described as the awareness of existing in relationship with All That Is, which means being aware of existing in relationship with the darkness as well as the light, the unknown as well as the known. This is the awareness that flowers into trust, into faith.

May this season of the long nights bestow upon you the blessing of the darkness. May you experience awe in the face of the unknown, and bow before the Mystery of your existence with All That Is.

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Dismantling: An Act of Creation

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The new world simply can’t be built upon our past beliefs.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend my husband, Kip, and I pulled out our Bananagrams game and started playing. If you aren’t familiar with Bananagrams, it’s sort of like Scrabble in that it has little tiles with letters on them, but it has no board. You use the tiles to build your own grid of interlocking words based on the letters you’ve drawn, like a crossword puzzle.

But the other thing about Bananagrams that’s different is that you can rearrange your words at any time. If you draw a letter that you can’t fit into your existing grid, you can tear apart any or all parts of your puzzle and start over.

Kip and I played collaboratively rather than competitively, because it’s just more fun that way. We would draw the next letter and then we would both look at how it could be incorporated into the grid we had built together.

What I learned in the process is that Kip is totally fine with tearing things apart. He has no compunction about dismantling entire regions of the grid if there’s a word he sees could be built with the latest letter, and he always trusts that it will all turn out okay, that there’s a way all the letters can be reconfigured into something new.Continue Reading