The phrase, “May you live in interesting times,” is often referred to as a Chinese curse, something you inflict on an adversary to suffer an unpleasant fate. I prefer to see it as an acknowledgement of the twists and turns of human history. Looking over China’s tumultuous 5,000-year-old civilization, they know a thing or two about interesting times. Every few decades or so, China suffers a natural or human catastrophe that kills tens of millions of its citizens and yet it endures. A lesson for us spoiled, whiny Americans who condemn wearing a mask against a fatal pandemic as “tyranny.”
We are indeed living in interesting times. If they get even more interesting, I think we will all suffer a collective nervous breakdown.
Added to this is something I learned years ago from the late Elwood Babbitt, a local trance medium known for his work with the former Brotherhood of the Spirit commune. Babbitt allowed what he referred to as “Voices of Spirit” to speak through his body in the manner of noted psychic Edgar Cayce. Babbitt, however, was no New Age guru sitting on a dais in a white robe and a smarmy smile. As a young Marine, he was present at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 where he spent the day hauling bodies out of the harbor and went on to fight at Guadalcanal and other bloody battles in the Pacific Theater. To his credit, he never turned his psychic abilities into a cash cow and died in poverty in 2001.
He did observe to me and others who were aware of the reality of reincarnation that this present lifetime was a “Great time to grow spiritually.” That sounds mighty cool until you dive into the implications. Then, you want to hide in your bedroom and spent the rest of your life watching John Wayne movies. Still, the man had a point. I was born in 1950 and anyone from that year arriving via time machine to the present would risk having their head explode from the incomprehensible changes we now take for granted.
From my experience, spiritual growth comes about after undergoing an extremely challenging experience that demands your absolute faith and fortitude. Not to mention getting smacked on the head by a revelation that drastically reorients your life whether you like it or not. Such a process transcends all traditional religions. For those of us on a spiritual path while equally sucked into the political mayhem of the current era, life these days is a matter of being whiplashed by equal amounts of hope and despair. It’s a challenge to make sense of and to mesh two diametrically-opposed realities. The spiritual perspective is that, believe it or not, the human race is evolving, or “ascending,” as many put it, and that all the awful stuff happening is merely the darkness being exposed to the light and therefore, extinguished.
I happen to agree although, needless to say, this perspective poses some issues. It’s easy to be all warm and fuzzy about an optimistic spiritual future when you’re chanting in your Sedona estate or meditating on a sunset-lit cliff above the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. It’s a lot harder if you have to walk five miles to fetch your daily ration of drinking water or live in fear of murderous security forces. Like all utopian movements, the New Age crowd has its share of flakes and frauds although the kernel of truth reveals itself within the nonsense.
If you follow the media whether Fox or MSNBC for political, cultural and societal cues, things appear to be one hot mess. Our systems of government, finance, environment and medicine are failing, which has led to mass disillusionment. But again, some would say that all this uncertainty is part and parcel of the Aquarian Age we are entering into. Contrary to the song, the Age of Aquarius is less about love, peace and yoga pants and more about the destruction of the old systems that no longer work.
Whether these systems will be replaced by those based on harmonious and egalitarian principles or bulldozed by totalitarian dictatorships of the kind espoused by Vladimir Putin and Steve Bannon is anyone’s guess. The blessing and curse of humanity, both individually and collectively, is that we have free will. And we are the ones setting the course. There will be no Messiah, Second Coming or flying saucers coming to save us. The human race will have to do that for itself.
Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County for 44 years and is a frequent contributor to the Recorder. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Lisa and dog, Cody.