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When the World Changes, We Are Changed
• Earth changes its relationship to the Sun on a cyclic basis
• The Earth/Sun relationship changes the climate of our world
• Global climate change creates local weather extremes
• Extremes in weather impact the reliability of food crops
• We are changed as we must choose
the way we treat one another during the times of the extremes: We must choose cooperation or competition
While our ancestors generally understood the relationships illustrated in Figure 4.6, I’m not suggesting that every single mem- ber in every age-group of every indigenous tribe possessed this knowledge. What I am suggesting is that the general theme of cyclical change being driven by Earth’s location in space, and how this would impact our planet and our lives, seems to have been an accepted principle in our ancestors’ worldview. And it’s easy to see why. Once the wisdom-keepers, ranging from the Maya of the Yucatán and the scribes of ancient Egypt to the students of the Hindu yuga cycles, established the motion of Earth in the heav- ens, the rest simply made sense.
Until being confirmed by the modern science of the mid-20th century, however, this ancestral knowledge continued to be held only by people of indigenous cultures.
Now We Know!
We humans have a history of embracing change and an amaz- ing track record for successfully turning the extremes of crisis into transformation. Geology tells us that 20,000 to 30,000 years ago the climate of our world changed suddenly—and in a big way. From the preserved bodies of woolly mammoths discovered with remnants of their last bite of food still in their mouths, to the fos- sils of tropical plants discovered in Antarctica, the geologic record of the earth confirms that the climate changed dramatically in the past in ways that gave our ancestors little time to adapt. There was nothing in their memory that could have prepared them for what was happening or told them what to do. We know that they did adapt to the unexpected change and that their ability to do so paid off. Not only did they survive, but their numbers increased and their descendants—our ancestors—migrated throughout the world to populate the land at even greater levels than before the freeze.
More recently, we’ve demonstrated our ability to pull togeth- er as a global family to overcome some of the greatest changes
of the modern world. Our ability to rebuild the world economy after the stock market crash of 1929 is a perfect example of this kind of unity. The unprecedented renaissance that took place in Europe and Japan after the destruction of World War II is another example of what I mean here. The point is that when we’ve faced big problems in the past, we’ve characteristically risen to the call and created the level of cooperation that was needed to meet the challenge. In times past, however, there was a key difference.
Throughout the greatest shifts in our world, we have typically dealt with a single crisis, like a collapsed economy, the devastation of a war, or a pandemic disease. So we know we’re good at meeting the challenge of one crisis at a time. What makes our present-day challenge so very different is that we’re dealing with multiple cri- ses converging into the same window of time. It’s this fact that makes our era of extremes so different from times past.
Unless we think very differently than we have previously, we know with reasonable certainty where the trajectory of the world’s extremes is leading. To successfully meet the challenge before us, we must answer three key questions. As individuals, as communi- ties, as nations, and as a global family, we must look squarely into the mirror of our lives and ask ourselves:
• How can we solve the issues we face if we’re not honest about them?
• Are we willing to accept new discoveries that reveal the deepest truths about our relationship to ourselves and the world?
• How do we adapt to a changing world through applying the principles of modern science and spirituality to everyday life?
In December 2012, I had the opportunity to pose these very questions to an indigenous healer living in the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Once we got past the barriers of language and translation, the answers came quickly. He began by unrolling a tapestry that he borrowed from a local vendor.
A man after my own heart! I thought. I viewed his woven tapes-
try as the jungle equivalent of the PowerPoint slides that I use to illustrate ideas for my audiences throughout the world. The image on the brightly colored weaving clearly showed the Mayan Tree of Life. Pointing with his finger, he highlighted the 13 levels of heaven (the upper world) above the ground, the 9 levels of the underworld below ground, and the branches and roots of the ceiba (silk cotton) tree, the sacred tree that connects the worlds.
While the idea of an upper world and an underworld (or many of them) may at first seem to reflect the Christian idea of heaven and hell, there’s one important distinction. In the Mayan tradi- tion, the levels of the underworld are not viewed as bad places reserved for people who’ve done something wrong. Nor are the heavens only for good people who do righteous deeds. Rather, the healer described both the heavens and the underworlds as parts of a continuous experience.
He said that we all experience both the heavens and the un- derworlds as part of our great life journey, which is based upon cycles. Driving the cycles of experience in all the worlds and ev- erything in our lives is a force that cannot be represented in a picture. It cannot be represented at all. Because it encompasses everything that exists, it’s beyond description. The name of the force in Yucatec Mayan is Hunab Ku.
This knowledge formed the foundation of the healer’s answer to my question. He explained that the key to the wisdom of his ancestors and their knowledge of change is that they did not sep- arate themselves from the world, as we have done today. They did not separate one experience from another. They did not separate art from science or spirituality from everyday life. From the move- ments of the stars to the cycles of weather, all aspects of life were viewed as part of the mix, as facets of that one continuous experi- ence. Because of this worldview, Mayan wisdom-keepers were able to gain powerful insights into nature’s cycles of time and change.
I listened carefully to what my new friend was saying. It’s been said that the events of history repeat themselves. It may be that the knowledge of the past repeats itself as well, showing up time
and again, and appearing in our lives precisely when it’s needed. It’s this kind of holistic view, describing the interlocking continu- ity of all life, that’s now reappearing as the conclusions of the best science of today. Both science and indigenous wisdom remind us that we’re part of all that we see. This means that we’re a part of the solutions as well. The key is that we must fi rst shift our per- spective so we can recognize our connection.
It’s this evolutionary thinking that empowers us to shift away from simply reacting to our time of extremes, into living the resil- ience that becomes our transformation.
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