BREAKING YOUR SHELL
It is the time of year where birth becomes a daily occurrence.
Following the resurrection times of Easter, we enter into longer days of light, the springing forth of green shoots and leaves and the beginning of warmer winds that herald the stripping off of winter layers.
In the North of England I am surrounded by the birth of lambs in the fields, the rising of early flowers on the hills and the co-creation of new ways of living as the pandemic restrictions we have been under for over a year are starting to lift.
Yet birth is often a struggle.
Chicks breaking through their shell have to push, butt, persist and finally emerge, ragged and panting with their effort into the light of a new life.
We are much the same.
We each have to really desire to be born in order to persevere through the ordeal of the birthing process itself. We can’t just sit back and hope that the shell will break of its own accord.
For me this is a very real metaphor for the social change that is manifesting all around us during these times of transformation.
In order to co-create and write new stories that embrace all life as equal, value and honour freedom of choice, freedom of speech and freedom of movement, we need to stand up and push through the seeming barriers that are there to prevent us from breaking through the shells of our old worlds.
The late, wonderful mystic and teacher Barbara Marx-Hubbard described these times on Earth as the birthing of a new Universal Civilisation, embodied in global consciousness and cosmic awareness. Yet like any birth, as we reach the 9 month period in utero things are looking very grim to anyone that does not understand the birthing process itself. We must hit max capacity and face the fact that our current way of life, hidden in too small a womb is no longer tenable.
It is only when we come to the edge of what is possible that labour begins.
So have we hit that point as a global civilisation?
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
It certainly feels as though we are going through collective labour pain as we move through the pandemic and into new challenges with the economic and social consequences of global lockdowns.
As a sustainability professional, myself and many of my peers would say that we have hit the point of max capacity for our environment years if not decades ago. Perhaps the increase of environmental and species collapse that we are now living through is also a part of the Earth and her ecosystems breaking through the shell of old unsustainable ways of living and utilising resources.
Yet what lays beyond the shell?
This is something none of us know.
But we must push through if we are to transform into something new.
Our new fledgling identities as individuals, communities and cultures must come through the birthing process or die; our old ways of life becoming extinct in the light of new global circumstances.
So will you push through the shell of your old ways of life to emerge into a new interconnected world?
For me this is a ‘choiceless choice’.
As inevitable as evolution.
As magical as birth.
And the time is now.
Labour has started.
New life beckons.
New stories are ready to be born.
