2012 Prophecy: The Hopi

Hopi "Prophecy rock"

"The Emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made by the humble people of little nations, tribes, and racial minorities. 'You can read this in the earth itself. Plant forms from previous worlds are beginning to spring up as seeds. This could start a new study of botany if people were wise enough to read them. The same kinds of seeds are being planted in the sky as stars. The same kinds of seeds are being planted in our hearts. All these are the same, depending how you look at them."

 from The Book of the Hopi, by Frank Waters (1963)

Since we approach the Solstice, I felt like writing about the Hopi prophecy, as they believe the "4th World" is ending, and the 5th World is to begin.  In Hopi cosmology, there were three previous Worlds, all of which were destroyed as the New Age began. We are entering the Fifth Age.  Grandmother Spider Woman is, in most of the stories, the one who leads the people into the next age, in most stories (although not all)  through the Sipapu, the  Kiva, which can be seen as a symbolic womb and birth canal.

Hopi cosmology, as are all Pueblo culture cosmologies, is complex and has many variations.  There is no doubt that there was trade and exchange between the Pueblo peoples and the Maya, and indeed Hopi language shares much with the Aztec language, so it is not surprising that the Hopi and Mayan calendars coincide in some ways, and also that mythological figures are shared in common.  But I am far from an expert, and I can only speak of what I know in the most general sense. 

 

The Hopi have been an oral culture, which means that the prophecies, myths, and ceremonies have been passed on from generation to generation, changing and being influenced by external events.    It's also important, in reading the many accounts of the Hopi prophecies on the Web, to realize  that 1) the Hopi are traditionally very secretive about their sacred traditions and do not share them with outsiders; conversely, they may intentionally mislead informants, as a means of protecting their traditional wisdom from exploitation.  Two, none of the Prophecies that have been circulating, including the well known work of Frank Waters who wrote "The Book of the Hopi" in the 1950's, as far as I can determine,  were written by Hopi people.  And 3),  there is so much hype, co-option, disrespect, and fantasizing of the Hopi prophesies, and Native Americans in general, on the part of popular culture, that it's hard to wade through and find what the truth is.

Having said all that, I'd like to share here a great article by  Daniel Pinchbeck about the Hopi Apocalypse (see below after this post).  

The  "Nine Signs" of the Hopi, written by Frank Waters in his book, is very famous and circulating widely.  He lived on the reservation for three years and interviewed over 30 elders.  Still, there is much that is questionable about his famous book.  The "Nine Signs", he wrote, were given to a white minister, who happened to give a ride to a Hopi elder.  The Minister conveniently died in the 70's, and the Elder, who told him his name was "White Feather of the Bear Clan", has never been traced.  As many have pointed out, the Hopi usually have an Anglo first name, and then their last name is in their own native language.  It may also be pointed out that everything in the "prophecies" could have been observed in the 50's, from the widespread terror of nuclear war to "the sea turning black and living things dying" (oil spills).  The West has had, under Christianity, a very long fascination with the Apocalypse, and many groups for a thousand years  have awaited the "Rapture",  when Christ would return and the sinful world would be destroyed.   While I believe the Hopi have prophecy (and great wisdom) I  do not believe these "prophecies" supposedly given by a mysterious dying  "White Feather" are authentic.

One of the most interesting aspects of Hopi prophecy Waters wrote  of  is the "Blue Star Katchina":

^"The end of all Hopi ceremonialism will come when  the Blue Star Kachina  removes his mask during a dance in the plaza before uninitiated children [ which has been interpreted to mean the naive or  general public]. For a while there will be no more ceremonies, no more faith. Then Oraibi will be rejuvenated with its faith and ceremonies, marking the start of a new cycle of Hopi life."......"You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star."

This has been interpreted to mean the comet Hale Bopp, the destruction of the space station Challenger, even UFO's.  I have to note that there were manned satellites  in the late '50's that could have influenced this.  However,  the Blue Star Kachina removing his mask is very interesting, and I would like to learn more about that at a later time.......what the meaning of the masks are is complex. 

There is a later commentary (1998) about the Blue Star Kachina given by Robert Ghost Wolf  (aka  Robert Franzone, aka Robert Parry) that is very eloquent.  The author claims to have received them from Hopi elders, yet it turns out that Ghost Wolf  has been discredited by many  sources as a fraud, and in researching him, it seems, indeed, very difficult to believe anything he may say. 

Perhaps the closest we can get to truth is reading Dan Evehema, a Hopi  traditional leader (he died in 1999) , who was one of four Hopis (including Thomas Banyacya, David Monongye, and Dan Katchongva) who decided or were appointed to reveal Hopi traditional wisdom and teachings, including the Hopi prophecies for the future, to the general public in 1946, after the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. Evehema was co-author, with Thomas Mails, of "The Hopi Survival Kit"^.   The "Hopi Survival Kit" includes a signed affidavit from Dan Evehema approving the book, and is the only written account of the complete Hopi prophecies. Evehema was a member of the Greasewood/Roadrunner Clan.

Hopi prophecy also contains the return of Pahena, the white brother.  The legend of the Pahana seems connected with the Aztec story of Quetzalcoatl, and other legends of Central America.  In the early 16th century, both the Hopis and the Aztecs believed that the coming of the Spanish conquistadors was the return of this lost white prophet.  Daniel Pinchbeck has written in “The Fifth World and the Hopi Apocalypse” (which I take the liberty of excerpting below) that “The Hopi prophecies also tell of the return of Pahana, the elder white brother, in a real exchange of knowledge and a true communion, as the Fourth World comes to an end.”   

Which is hopeful.............

 

"The Fifth World and the Hopi Apocalypse" by Daniel Pinchbeck
Originally published in Arthur No. 14 (Jan. 2005)

Last summer, I visited the Hopi on their tribal lands in Arizona. The Hopi are thought to be the original inhabitants of the North American continent–this is what their own legends tell us, and archaeologists agree. My initial interest in the Hopi came from reading about their oral prophecies and their “Emergence Myth.” According to the Hopi, we are currently living in the Fourth World, on the verge of transitioning, or emerging, into the Fifth World. In each of the three previous worlds, humanity eventually went berserk, tearing apart the fabric of the world through destructive practices, wars, and ruinous technologies. As the end of one world approaches a small tunnel or inter-dimensional passage —the sipapu—appears, leading the Hopi and other decent people into the next phase, or incarnation, of the Earth.

Of course, most modern people would consider this story to be an interesting folktale or fantasy with no particular relevance to our current lives. Even five years ago, I probably would have agreed with them. However, my personal experiences with indigenous cultures and shamanism convinced me, in the interim, that there is more to traditional wisdom than our modern mindset can easily accept. The Hopi themselves say that almost all of the signs have been fulfilled that precede our transition to the Fifth World. These include a “gourd of ashes falling from the sky,” destroying a city, enacted in the atomic blasts obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a spider web across the Earth, which they associate with our power grid and telephone lines. According to Frank Waters, who compiled accounts from 30 Hopi elders in his Book of the Hopi (1963), the current Fourth World will end in a war that will be “a spiritual conflict” fought with material means, leading to the destruction of the United States through radiation. Those who survive this conflict will institute a new united world without racial or ideological divisions “under one power, that of the Creator.”

The 12,000 Hopi live in a dry and dramatic landscape strewn with enormous boulders, resembling the surface of an alien planet. Their towns are clustered on three mesas—high, flat cliffs overlooking vast swathes of desert. Traditionally, the Hopi are subsistence farmers; they work with ancient strains of corn and beans that are, almost miraculously, able to grow in that arid environment. For obvious reasons, water is sacred to their culture—many of their rituals are aimed at bringing rain. Each spring, each well, is precious to the Hopi. While I was visiting Hopiland I attended a rain dance in the town of Walpi, on First Mesa. Perhaps 50 men of the town—wearing masks and costumes and feathered headdresses —participated in the dance, which was held in the town’s center. The dancers are dressed as katsinas, the spiritual beings that are thought to control elemental forces. The ceremony is a form of possession trance—the goal is to summon the katsinas to temporarily inhabit the bodies of the dancers. The Hopi believe that their culture can only prosper if they maintain direct contact with the supernatural powers that manifest directly through the natural world.

In his book Rethinking Hopi Anthropology, the Cambridge anthropologist Peter Whitely recalls, with an almost embarrassed reluctance, that during his time with the Hopi in the 1980s, he witnessed repeated demonstrations of their precognitive abilities and their ability to influence natural forces through ritual.*** He was transfixed by his first visit to a Snake Dance in 1980: “This was no commodified spectacle of the exotic … its profound religiosity was tangible, sensible. Within half an hour of the dance (which lasts about 45 minutes), a soft rain began to fall from a sky that had been burningly cloudless throughout the day.” When he went to see one of his informants, Harry Kewanimptewa, a septuagenarian member of the Spider clan, he would often find that the elder would answer the questions he had intended to ask before he could vocalize them: “I have no desire to fetishize or exoticize here, but this was something about him and some other, particularly older, Hopis that I have experienced repeatedly and am unable to explain rationally.”

I can sympathize with Whiteley’s plight. Since I started exploring shamanism almost a decade ago, I have found myself living in two worlds simultaneously—the world of Western rationalist discourse with its empirical and materialist emphasis, and the shamanic realm of magical correspondences, supernatural forces, dream messages, and synchronicities. The shamanic realm is one in which human consciousness is not an epiphenomenon or dualistic byproduct of a purely physical evolution, but an inseparable aspect of the world, intertwined with reality at every level. It seems that quantum physics has attained a perspective that is similar to the shamanic view, acknowledging a direct relation between the observer and observed.

I went to the Hopi as part of my research for the book I am writing on prophecies, studying the Mayan and Toltec obsession with the year 2012, the Apocalypse described in the Biblical Book of Revelation, the Hopi foretellings, and various modern Western philosophers and visionaries whose ideas offer a context or system for understanding these predictions. Before I visited the Hopi or even read much about them, I had a few powerful dream experiences that seemed to indicate, to me, the importance of my imminent encounter with this ancient tribe. After seeing the film Naqoyqatsi (“Life as War”)—the last in the trilogy of films beginning with Koyaanisqatsi (“Life out of Balance”), by Godfrey Reggio (appropriating Hopi concepts with no input from the tribe) — I had a dream of fiery demons at computer workstations, and awoke with the sense of a visceral supernatural presence flying through my house. The night before I left for the Southwest, I had an even more specific and frightening nightmare. In this dream, I was killed and dismembered by a disgusting-looking demon—who was simultaneously, in typical dream dislogic, the famous conceptual artist Bruce Naumann. In the dream, I returned to Naumann’s studio or the demon’s home and said, “Great—now that you have killed me, I control you.” I went to a bookcase and picked up a huge leather-bound volume titled “Grimoire” (a Medieval catalogue of imaginary beasts and supernatural creatures) and melted it down over a fire. As I did this, I heard incredibly loud Native American chanting and maniacal laughter. I awoke, once again, with the sense of a powerful presence, a kind of unhinged or wild diabolical force, looming overhead and then soaring away.

While traveling to Hopiland I scanned several books of Hopi anthropology and folktales and found that the being who had haunted my dreams closely matched descriptions of Maasaw, the complex creator-deity of the Hopi. According to Hopi legend, when the Hopi first emerged from the Third World to the Fourth, they met Maasaw, who gave them the rules of conduct for life on this new land and introduced them to the rudiments of their agricultural system. Maasaw brought the sun into the Fourth World; but once he had accomplished this, he left the daylight world forever to haunt the realm of night and darkness. The name Maasaw literally means “corpse demon” or “death spirit” in the Hopi language, and he is considered to be the ruler of the land of the dead. Maasaw resembles the ambiguous deities found in Hinduism and Tibetan Tantra, who have wrathful and benevolent manifestations. Since his disappearance from the earth, Maasaw often appears to the Hopi in dreams as a terrifying presence, wearing a ghoulish mask. According to some accounts, Maasaw’s deviation began long ago in the Third World, where he became arrogant and defiant. His assignment to rule over the underworld was a kind of demotion. I wondered why—as seemed to be the case—this spirit had introduced himself to me, in my dreams, even before I arrived in Hopiland.

I thought that I needed to learn more about the Hopi prophecies—and indeed, I did manage to visit an elder in that extraordinary desert landscape. Martin Gasheseoma took time off from working on his field of corn and beans, to tell me that the “purification,” as foretold, would soon come to pass, that there was no way to prevent it. “It goes like a movie now,” he said. However, even before I had found my way to this meeting, my perspective had shifted. I had realized that the essence of the prophecy—the solution to the riddle—was not in some transcendent or otherworldly event, but in the very immanent and real world around us.

The Hopi way of life is threatened with imminent extinction. In the 1960s, the Peabody Coal Company was given a concession to mine coal on their land. They were also awarded the right to use water from the aquifer under Black Mesa to slurry the coal down a pipeline, built by the Enron Corporation. This operation wastes 1.3 billion gallons of pure drinking water annually. Of course, there are other ways to transport coal, but this is the cheapest for Peabody, and the company has continually fought against and effectively delayed all efforts to change their destructive practices.

In the 1980s, it was discovered that the lawyer who negotiated the original deal for the Hopi was, at the same time, on the payroll of the Peabody Corporation—and the Hopi have received a tiny fraction of the revenue they deserve, while forfeiting control of their own destiny. According to US Government Geological Surveys, by the year 2011, the aquifer will be finished—already the Hopi are finding that the local springs on which they rely are drying up.

In the middle-class New Age culture and “New Edge” festivals such as Burning Man, much lip service is paid to Native American traditions. Perhaps millions of white people hang dream catchers over their beds and put kachina dolls on their shelves. Despite this sentimental interest in indigenous culture and spirituality, precious little, or nothing, is done by us—those of us with the leisure for yoga and raw food and sweat lodges, who often sanctimoniously consider ourselves to be especially “conscious” or “spiritual” beings—to help the Native Americans on this continent. The indigenous people are resettled next to toxic waste dumps, abandoned to the least arable lands, ignored when the fish in their rivers are poisoned, when their resources are robbed from them. In every way, they continue to be treated with condescension and contempt.

This is also what I intuited from Maasaw’s mocking laughter and deviant presence in my dreams: Some deep schism of the soul remains to be recognized; the wound can only be healed if we work to forge a real relationship with the indigenous world, to expiate our dominator culture’s guilt and denial through pragmatic action in this reality, as it is now. If this is the case, then the Hopi situation represents the perfect place to begin the reversal: They are probably the oldest and perhaps most well-known indigenous group in the US, zealously studied by ethnographers for over a century, while repeatedly and blatantly betrayed by the US government and private corporations.

As climate change accelerates along with the global depletion of resources, we are being forced to recognize that our current system is unsustainable, even in the short term. The Hopi situation provides a microcosm of the global crisis—a cruelly ironic situation considering the essential meaning of their culture. As Whiteley notes, “The phrase ‘Hopi environmentalism’ is practically a redundancy. So much of Hopi culture and thought, both religious and secular, revolves around an attention to balance and harmony in the forces of nature that environmental ethics are in many ways critical to the very meaning of the word ‘Hopi.’” Visiting the Hopi, it occurred to me that indigenous prophecy, in itself, arises out of a deep level of attunement to the natural world, rather than anything “spiritual” or immaterial.

According to Vernon Masayesva, of the Black Mesa Trust (www.blackmesatrust.org): “It is our water ethic that has allowed us to survive and thrive in one of the most arid areas on planet Earth. It is the knowledge and teachings of our elders that have sustained us. This water ethic that has been handed down to us by our ancestors we are eager to share with everyone who will be facing water shortages—and according to some studies, water wars—in the next few decades. When the water is gone from Black Mesa, so will be the traditional cultures that could have taught the world so much about living successfully with less.” The Hopi prophecies also tell of the return of Pahana, the elder white brother, in a real exchange of knowledge and a true communion, as the Fourth World comes to an end.

Like so many manifestations of our neurotic and alienated culture, the Koyaanasqatsi films create a mood of inescapable doom and approaching cataclysm. Personally, I reject this attitude. We still have time to save the Hopi and other indigenous groups — perhaps, by extension, ourselves—if we are willing to learn from them and fight for them, rather then appropriating their spirituality while ignoring the destruction we keep inflicting upon their world.

http://arthurmag.com/2011/03/04/the-fifth-world-and-the-hopi-apocalypse-by-daniel-pinchbeck-arthur-no-14jan-2005/

*** This is of great interest to me, as a person who has attempted, with the communities I've worked with, to study about,  and create,  a Sacred Mask collection  (The Masks of the Goddess, 1998-2008).  The intention of the performers was to invoke, and bring the energies, of the Goddesses to the performers and the participants/audience.   And so it often was.


I also think, when I read this, about the work that has been done at Findhorn, Perelandra, and the Sirius Community with the Devas, the elemental beings that help the plant world to manifest.  Katchinas.  Numina.   How sad to think that we have mostly lost this understanding.

2012!......Spider Woman's Time

“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw with a webbed vision? The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk, yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”

Catherine Keller, Theologian, "From a Broken Web" (1987)

"We do not need to invent a ground of connectedness, but only to realize it.  Inter relatedness has been experientially grasped in myriad cultural contexts - yet the force of modernity continually denies and degrades it."


Charlene Spretnak, from The Politics of Women's Spirituality

Where will the "5th World" begin?  Will Spider Woman, called also Tse che Nako, "Thought Woman" in some Pueblo traditions - will She come again, to help humanity find our way once more into the Next World?

I believe so, truly I do.  It seems important to honor Spider Woman today, so I felt like sharing some little of what I know of Her again, on the advent of 2012, this great moment, this "Fifth World", this  New Age.  I feel her threads, brushing against my cheek, my hand, these days. 

As I sit in this internet cafe, the buzz of electronically connected and connecting people all around me with their laptops and devices....I can't help but feel that, ever inventive and working with the times, the World Wide Web....is Spider Woman's latest appearance.  She's weaving all around us, waking us up.

Pueblo mythology tells that when each of the 3 Hopi worlds ended, it was Spider Grandmother who led the people through the sipapu, through the kiva (or birth canal) into the next world, the "4th  world".  Now, according to the Hopi and Mayan calendars (and this is no coincidence, since they are related cultures)....the 4th World has ended.  The Fifth World is beginning.   With so many people tuned to the "2012" myth, which has reached almost archetypal proportions thanks to Hollywood, it seems strange that so few know of Spider Woman, the universal midwife.

But, that's kind of Her way.  She stays hidden, until people are ripe to listen.  She doesn't waste her time.  She comes when the time is right, the labor pangs have begun.

"It is through the poetry of myth, mask and metaphor Spider Woman comes alive. The rock surface of an ancient petroglyph site is merely a veil between the observer and the other transcendental realms; it becomes a portal through which to enter the world of Spider Woman. As others have written before me: "She is with me now as I tell you these stories."

 Carol Patterson-Rudolph, "On The Trail of Spider Woman" (1997)

As anthropologist Carol Patterson-Rudolph has written,  to the Navajo Spider Woman ((NA ASHJE’II ’ASDZÁÁ) represents an initiation into a mature, integrated way of being.  It could be said into a  more interconnected way of seeing, a "webbed vision". She is able to bridge the sacred and prosaic dimensions of life - but for those who are not ready, Grandmother Spider will remain invisible, just as invisible as her powerful but transparent threads, as insignificant as a tiny insect,  so small she can sit on a shoulder, or patiently wait in her web,  and never be seen.

And yet, for those with eyes to see, her Web is everywhere, and she will offer wisdom with a still, small voice, carried in   the breath of the wind.

Hopi legend tells that  each previous world was destroyed when humanity fell out of harmony with the divine plan.  Not unlike the Biblical Great Flood, in some versions of the legend, the world became, once again, full of chaos and war.  At last a terrible deluge destroyed everything, and only a few survived,  led  by Spider Woman to the next higher world, changing in many ways as they  as they emerged.  In the most prevalent  version of this story,  Spider Grandmother caused a hollow reed to  emerge into the Fourth World at the sipapu, the hole in the earth (I think of the Omphallos, the world navel of ancient Greece)  from which the people emerged as they climbed up the reed into this 4th world. 

The earliest "Spider Woman" image is found among the Mayans, and she is clearly also identified as Mother Earth.  Among the Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest,  Grandmother Spiderwoman is also called "Thought Woman" ("Tse Che Nako"). She is a Creatrix deity as well, and can be  found among the Navajo, the Lakota, the Zuni, Hopi, Cherokee............she is ubiquitous.  Images of the  "Spider and Cross" are found everywhere among prehistoric peoples throughout the South and Midwest, the Mississippian mound builders.   

In Navajo rugs, “Spider Woman’s Cross” is a symbol of balance or completion.  To this day, a bit of spider web is rubbed into the palms of infant girls, so they will become a good weavers.  Spider Woman's threads weave from the center of life.  We are all Relations......."look" she seems to instruct, "see the pattern, see the threads, the symmetry.  Weave your lives from there."

In his book on Hopi religion,  John Loftin writes that:

 “Spider Woman was the first to weave. Her techniques and patterns have stood the test of time, or more properly, the test of timelessness – because they have always been present. It makes sense that one would follow the instructions of a deity who helped to form the underlying structure of the world in which one lives…..…..Weaving is not an act in which one creates something oneself – it is an act in which one uncovers a pattern that was already there.” 

Thought Woman as creatrix spins the world into being with what she imagines, with the stories she tells about the world, spun from her very substance, her silken threads that are invisible, yet stronger than steel.  Threads organize into patterns, ever expanding in complexity and scale. Tse Che Nako weaves,  sharing the creative power with all of her descendants. We are all "Spider Woman's hands",  weaving, bringing the imaginal, transparent web into being.  There is a contemporary Hopi prophecy circulating on the web these days that says "the time of the lone wolf is over."  I agree.  The esoteric knowledge of our inter-dependancy, and of our quontum creative power, is no longer hidden, it's right here, before our very eyes.  

Tse Che Nako, Thought-Woman,  The Spider
  is sitting in Her room now  thinking up a good story.
  I'm telling you the story  She is thinking."

Keresan Pueblo Proverb

A spiritual paradigm is founded upon mythic roots - the "warp and woof” from which ideas grow. Following the metaphor  Katherine Keller has provided in her book "From a Broken Web" - can we can find contemporary mythic models that allow us to envision our world as it really is – a shimmering web of interconnected relationships, an ecology of being. Can we find ways to "see the world with a webbed vision”?  Can we take Spider Woman's gift, and emerge collectively into the 5th World?

As we each  rub a bit of spider web into the palms of our hands at the New Year,  wishing all my friends strength, vision, and loving Relations. 

 "The question is not so much "What do I learn from stories" as "What stories do I want to live?"   Insofar as I'm non-dual with my narratives, that question is just as much, "What stories want to come to life through me?"  

David R. Loy, "The World is Made of Stories"

References:


Loftin, John D. , Religion and Hopi Life, Second Edition, Indiana University Press, 2003
Keller, Catherine, From a Broken Web (1989), Thames & Hudson
Patterson-Rudolph, Carol, On the Trail of Spiderwoman, 1997, Ancient City Press

Reflections on Unsustainibility and "SOWF"

Ever since I came back from England I've been in a vast flurry of renovation, caretaking, and other duties that has reduced me from inspired to dogged.  Well, that's composting.  But one word has kept popping into my mind even as I carry out endless boxes of construction debris and possible psychic debris as well.

I doubt it would have much meaning to most, unless, like me, you are a long time fan of the visionary writer Doris Lessing, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2007.  That word is SOWF, derived from her novel SHIKASTA, published in  1979. SOWF  was the sustaining force that the protagonists in her book, the "Emissaries of Canopus", attempted to re-establish for the suffering inhabitants of the planet Shikasta, a planet that had fallen out of alignment with the stars (galactic center), and had become, as a result, invaded by parasitical, predatory forces that fed on the planets, and it's inhabitants, creativity and life force. One such emissary is Johor, from the planet Canopus, who has come to help the inhabitants during the "last days" before the cataclysmic shift, or war, which takes place on more than physical levels.

SOWF meant "Substance of We Feeling".


As the novel nears its conclusion, the planet Shikasta, clearly an allegory for our world,  is in chaos, as systems collapse, resources become scarce, war approaches, youth riot, and the "energy pirates" that have parasitized the planet for millenia struggle to keep their stranglehold on the minds of the people of Shikasta. Among other things, there are camps of orphaned children everywhere - some of the characters in the novel are living in Africa, trying to work with the camps.

I was thinking of that recently, the strange prophetic quality of some of the passages of her novel.  In the mid 70's, no one knew about AIDS, and certainly no one could have predicted that a time would come when Africa would be full of orphaned children.  I doubt she would have been aware of the "2012" prophecies, popularized by Jose Arguelles in the 80's, either. 

And SOWF?  Not only the world's religions speak now of the interconnectedness of everything (Spider Woman's Web is a metaphor I use)......quantum physics,  ecology, and consciousness studies are demonstrating that this is, indeed, the foundation and real truth of everything.

Shikasta is not a fun story that I frequently go back to and read for pleasure.  And the novels were not, overall, well accepted by the literary community when Lessing, a well-established writer by the 70's, shifted gears to enter into the realms of the Canopean and Sirian Empires.   But for me, Shikasta, and SOWF, have never left my imagination.

So Much Light

 "Have you noticed that today lies and deceit come to the surface faster than before?…Well, to access God’s understanding and life’s functioning is also faster than ever before."

"We are living the best time that humanity has ever lived, we will be witnesses and actors of the biggest transformation of consciousness that you have ever imagined. Inform yourself; wake up your unrest for these subjects. Science knows that something is happening; you know that something is happening; we all know that many changes are happening in many levels. Be a conscious actor of these changes.”

I had a conversation recently with a friend about the Year 2012, and the darkness of our time.  She mentioned an interview she had read by  Sai Baba. She told me that Sai Baba said "There is so much light now" - meaning, so much opportunity for understanding, connection, enlightenment and disclosure than has ever been possible before......and for that reason, my friend said that in spite of the horrors of the news, she was very optimistic about our time.  I've thought about her comment a great deal and finally found the article she mentioned. 

What Sathya Sai Baba**, one of India's most important spiritual leaders, has to say in the following extract from a 2010 conversation with a reporter resonates for me on two particular points.  The first has to do with his words about "light revealing shadow", collectively and individually. They say that the greater the light, the more the darkness is illuminated. For the past few years, all the work I've been doing inwardly, and most of my dreams, have to do with the Jungian concept of "Shadow work", whether I want to do it or not. It's as if I cannot avoid any longer the so-called "dark" areas of my story and behavior - they all come up for review, one way or another. Which means, my power and grace also keeps coming up for review, my "integral" being.

I found this article is affirming of this personal process, and a collective process universally occurring. When I find myself despairing, I must also remind myself that this "light", the "visibility" of our time has wrought huge changes at an ever accelerating rate. You can look the other way, but abuse, injustice, and social evils that were not able to be examined in the past are now profoundly changing, because now they are visible.

The second aspect of this interview I find important is his commentary about the magnetic and viberatory rates of the planet. As a "Gaianist" who views myself as a part of the planetary organism and hence, planetary as well as human evolution, then his statement that "If there is a change on the earth’s magnetism, there is a change on the consciousness and also an adaptation at the physical level for this new vibration." makes a great deal of sense to me. We are "in relationship" with all life, with the planet, with Gaia - there is reciprocity, there is empathy.

The Events of Our Time - Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba 

Question: “Have you heard of the year 2012 like a year where something will happen?”

Baba:  The truth is that the planet has been changing its vibratory state, and this change has intensified since the year 1989 where the magnetic poles have moved the last 20 years more than the past 2000. Well, in one way there are several prophecies that signal this date like a term or important conclusion in the history of humanity, but the most significant is the end of the Mayan calendar, which prophecy has been interpreted in different ways. The most negative ones think that during this year the world will end, but it will not be like that, it is known that during that year a new era will start, the Age of Aquarius.

This has to do with the rotation of the whole solar system (solar cycle) that goes passing through the different eras each one of them lasts 5125 years. The era in which we now are, called the Age of Pisces, started on the year 3113 B.C. and ends on 2012. If there is a change on the earth’s magnetism, there is a change on the consciousness and also an adaptation at the physical level for this new vibration. The changes are not only on our planet, but also affect the whole universe, and today’s science can verify that.

Inform yourself about the changes on the solar storms (that are magnetic storms) and you will see that scientists are up to date with these things, or ask about the movement of the magnetic poles during the last years, and airports having to modify their instruments.

This change on the magnetism translates or it’s perceived as an increment of light, or an increase on the planet’s vibration.  For you to understand it easily you must know that this vibration is affected and intensified due to the consciousness of all human beings . Each thought, each emotion, each new awakening of a human being towards the consciousness of God elevates the vibration of the planet. 

This might seem a paradox, due to the fact that the majority sees around themselves more hatred and misery, but this is not so.  I have been saying this on previous messages, each one chooses where to focus the view, and those who only see the darkness are focused on the drama, the pain and the injustice. If you don’t see the spiritual advancement that humanity has made it is because you haven’t focused on it, but if you do the right work and liberate your mind of the negative you will open a space where you will be able to manifest your divine essence that will put on the focus of what is really happening with humanity and the planet. Humanity is elevating its consciousness as never before.

Question: “But how!…Can’t you see the darkness?” 

Baba:  Yes, I see it, but I don’t identify Myself with it, I’m not afraid of it…How can I fear darkness if I see such clear light?…Of course I understand those who fear, because I have also been standing where I could only see the evil. This is why now I feel love for all of that. Darkness is not a force contrary to the light, it is absence of light. You cannot invade the light with darkness, that is not how the principle of light works. Fear, drama, injustice, hate and sadness only exist in states of darkness, because you can’t see the global context in which your life develops. Once you have increased your vibration and frequency (state of consciousness) you will be able to see towards darkness and understand what you have lived.

Question: “But…How can you say this if there is more evil in the world everyday?”

Baba:  'There is not more evil…there is “more light,” and that is what I’m talking about on this message. Imagine that you have a room or warehouse where for years you have been storing your things and is lit by a 40 w. bulb. Change the bulb to a 100 w. and you will see what happens. You will see the mess and the dust you didn’t think existed. The dirt will be clearer. This is what is happening, and this makes possible that a lot of people are reading this without thinking of it as foolish, like it could have been some years ago.

Have you noticed that today lies and deceit come to the surface faster than before?…Well, to access God’s understanding and life’s functioning is also faster than before.

This new vibration of the planet is what is making everyone nervous, depressed or sick, because to be able to receive more light and to rise to that vibrational level, people have to change physically as well as mentally, they have to change the way they think and feel, and delete or eradicate from their lives such beliefs or parameters that generally differ from reality or that take them towards the negative side of things.

You must put your warehouses in order, because each day you are receiving more light on your consciousness and even if you want to avoid it, you should start putting your hands on the project and begin the cleaning,  or decide to live in the middle of the dirt. This change creates physical discomforts, pains on the body, on the skeleton system -  medical tests often can’t find a reason for the illness that provokes it. 

Generally they relate it to stress or nervous states.  Nothing farther from the truth, because these discomforts are provoked due to negative emotions accumulated during our lives, fears and anxieties that you have carried with you always and that now have the opportunity to transcend and transmute. It’s about that dust accumulated for years that you are now seeing, the opportunity for it to be cleaned because it's now visible.

There will be nights when you will wake up and stay up for a few hours…don’t alter yourself, read a book, watch TV, meditate, don’t fight thinking there is something wrong with you.  It’s the new vibration of the planet that you’re assimilating, you will go back to sleep and the next day you will not feel a need to sleep more. If you don’t flow with this process properly, the pains will be more intense and you will be diagnosed fibromyalgia, which is a name that medicine has given to these pains that have no visible cause and for which they offer no treatment with concrete results, they only give you a prescription for antidepressants and this makes you escape the opportunity to change your life.

One more time you chose which reality you want to live, only this time the drama will be more intense and of course will be the love. If the Light is increased, also is the lack of need for it, this explains why there is so much irrational violence during the last years.

We are living the best time that humanity has ever lived, we will be witnesses and actors of the biggest transformation of consciousness that you have ever imagined.  Inform yourself; wake up your unrest for these subjects. Science knows that something is happening; you know that something is happening; we all know that many changes are happening in many levels. Be a conscious actor of these changes and don’t let them take you by surprise because you don’t know what is happening.”

**I am aware of a controversy that concerns Sai Baba and allegations of sexual abuse.  This does not, for me, disqualify his words.  It is  an irony that lends a layer of credibility to his comments.  Sai Baba is considered a saint in India, and if even saints can have shadows that become  exposed,  then there is something encouraging in knowing that even the Gurus are not "perfect", are accountable, and  that we are all evolving toward becoming  integral beings.

***This article is excerpted with gratitude from http://horizonsmagazine.com/blog/?p=14208