Apocalypse Soon

We are coming into a time of apocalypse. Gaia is about to shake us to the core, and demand that we get about the work for which she grew us. A scarcity of water and other natural resources is going to plunge our world into war after war. Famine will expand, and plagues will ravage us. This isn’t punishment, but karma. We are about to reap what we have sown. It will be a horrible time, but also a promising one. We are going to be brought face to face with the evil we have created that we might own it and end it. Or, if we don’t, to have it end us.

The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apocalypsis, meaning to unveil. The coming apocalypse will be a great unveiling of our greed, ignorance and fear, and the havoc these wreck on the earth. The apocalypse is a wake-up call, a last chance to realize our true gifts and genius. It is coming to confront us with horror of our own madness that we might, as the Bible says, “turn from evil and do good.”

I believe the universe is intelligent. I believe that evolution is in the service of consciousness. I believe the universe wants to become aware of itself, to love itself, in all its complexity and diversity. And I believe that on this planet we are, among other things, the way our world feels (and causes) injustice and suffering; and because we feel it, we are also the way our world seeks to correct it. The apocalypse may be our last chance to achieve our true potential for it will bring us to the brink of destruction that we might step back and do differently.

The apocalypse grows in proportion to our denial of it. It will widen and deepen until we can no longer escape the world’s pain and our responsibility for it and to it. And if at last we feel the world’s pain as our pain, and if there is time, we will do something to alleviate it. And if there isn’t time? We will do what we can to comfort one another as the planet mourns our destruction and seeks another way to the heart.

Will we face the truth in time? I doubt it. If current events are any guide, rather than cultivate cries of compassion, we will shout ourselves hoarse with cries of war. Rather than open our hands to lift one another out of poverty and injustice, we will tighten them into fists to pound those who are already down, a little further down. Rather than drop the insanity of competing tribes, nations, and religions we will circle the wagons of tribe, nationality, and faith, arm ourselves to the teeth, and make war in the name of our gods and our greed, our ignorance and our fear.

We need to weep, to grieve over our lost potential, and then to see together what we might yet become. But that cannot happen before the apocalypse does, because it will take the apocalypse to wake us up. We cannot avoid our karma, we can only embrace it with fearless love.