Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

The Mind’s Lone Star State

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The idea of a “lone” anything is coming to an end.

I know many of us may be deeply troubled by what is happening in the state of Texas. I’d like remind us that this world is a form of dream, and if we look at these events from that understanding we can see how they can help us in our awakening if we are willing to allow it.

So let us do some dream work.

As you know, Texas calls itself the Lone Star State. Texas culture places a high value on autonomy and individualism, takes great pride in being big, and sees itself as set apart from the rest of the nation.

In a dream, all characters and all elements represent an aspect of the self. In this sense, “Texas” symbolizes an inner state, a state of mind, in which the self believes itself to be alone in this universe, able to set itself apart from the Reality of Union. This, of course, is an impossibility. Nonetheless, the mind has inhabited this illusion of separateness and created a world based upon it.Continue Reading

Collapsing the Concept of Enemy

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The concept of enemy keeps us tied to separateness consciousness.

I had a dream recently in which I am attempting to explain to people what is happening on the planet right now in terms of moving into a higher state of consciousness. I’m using the analogy of the electron just before it makes its quantum leap to a higher energy state, explaining how before its leap it has to gather up considerable energy.

To demonstrate, I’m holding my hands out in front of me as though they were encircling the electron’s orbit, and I’m vibrating them to show how the energy is intensifying.

I explain that right now the idea of enemy is intensifying so that it can finally collapse. When it does, consciousness will make a quantum leap to a new level.

As I’ve thought about the dream I’ve realized that the idea of enemy is on the same continuum as the idea of separateness. Enemy is the idea of separateness taken to an extreme, and it keeps us tied to dualism, to separateness consciousness.

When we look at what is happening right now in the world we can see how much the idea of enemy is intensifying. Now, even a pandemic, which logically should bring people together and inspire cooperation, is viewed through the lens of enemy. The vaxxers and maskers are seen as the enemy by the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, and vice versa.

Simply a Concept

One of the spontaneous messages I received years ago while walking the labyrinth was, “Release all concept of enemy.” I realized then that “enemy” isn’t a real thing. It is a concept in the mind, a concept that the egoic thought-system needs in order to sustain itself.

And yet, the idea of enemy will collapse because it is illusory, and sometimes an idea has to reach such a level of hyperbole that it becomes obviously ludicrous before the mind will let it go. As the Tao te Ching says: “If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand.”

Enemy. Separateness. Other. These are the thought-forms that are on the verge of collapsing. Why now? Because they are the thought-forms at the root of the global crises we now face. And as Einstein famously said, a problem cannot be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Those of us who are willing to assist and participate in this global leap of consciousness can do so in a couple of ways. First, we can notice how often we indulge the idea of enemy ourselves. When we do, we will begin to see that we don’t just view other people as the enemy. Sometimes we see our circumstances, or even ourselves as the enemy.

And then we can ask ourselves honestly: Am I willing to allow the concept of enemy to collapse in my own mind?

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Lessons from the Labyrinth

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One of the great teachers on my spiritual journey has been the labyrinth. It has imparted a great number of surprising insights over the years, and its winding path that leads me inexorably into its Center has been a potent symbol for me.

One important lesson the labyrinth has taught me is that life is not linear. First it takes us one way, and then it turns us around to go in the opposite direction. And yet every twist and turn and about-face is leading us to the same singular destination: the Center of our Self, the place of our own Wisdom.

I suppose this aspect of the labyrinth has been on my mind recently because I’ve been feeling myself turning toward some new directions.

Yet live in a culture that values the linear. We are expected to map out a plan for where we want to go and follow it diligently, and if at some point we have to change directions we may even judge ourselves for having made a “mistake” somewhere along the way.Continue Reading

The Forest: Our Wisdom Teacher

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Life is an interdependent whole.

Recently, a criminal cyber organization called DarkSide, based in Eastern Europe, hacked into Colonial Pipeline’s computer system and installed ransomware. As a result, the pipeline, which serves many areas on the East Coast, was shut down.

After they hacked Colonial Pipeline, DarkSide apologized for inconveniencing U.S. citizens. They claimed they only ever wanted money and never intended to disrupt the lives of ordinary people. After pressure was put on them by the U.S. government, DarkSide supposedly disbanded their operations.

What I find especially interesting is that DarkSide (who comes up with these names anyway?) had so perfected their ransomware that they had established a franchise, sharing their ransomware code with other hackers in exchange for a portion of their proceeds.

That the Internet, which now connects people globally, is being used to extort wealth may be inevitable in a capitalist economy that is all about taking. The whole idea in vogue now is to amass as much wealth as possible and share as little as you can get away with.

It may be that DarkSide is just bringing out of the shadows the dysfunctional priorities of the global economy. The only difference is that in their case the law doesn’t support the way they go about it. But then, laws, too, can be criminal.Continue Reading

Reflections on the George Floyd Case

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Dear One, I know you would like insight into what wants to be said about the verdict rendered this week in the case of George Floyd’s killing.  As you know, there are various levels from which to observe this world. One is at the literal level of events themselves. Another is a higher and wider vantage point from which one can see the symbolic meaning of the events. On the literal level, this verdict reflects what your world thinks of as justice. A great wrong was committed, and the person who committed it was held accountable. Therefore, justice has been served. This is a variation of the eye for an eye story. In this understanding of justice, a wrong is answered with a corresponding punishment, and the belief is that this restores some sense of balance, some sense of rightness. And yet, even from this level it is obvious that no punishment can undo what was done. No punishment can ever return George Floyd to his life and to his loved ones. In this sense, justice is never and can never be achieved. Your own mystical experiences have shown you that this world is a dream, and as you know, dreams are symbolic. Therefore the events in your world are symbolically depicting beliefs held in the mind. This is not to say that, because it is a dream, there is no suffering. As you know, the mind that is experiencing a dream is experiencing it—all of its anguish, all of its elation. Knowing this world to be a dream you can see that this event is revealing a belief held in the mind, and that this verdict, which sets a new precedent for your society, is a turning point because it signals that the mind has begun to change. It is beginning to divest from the erroneous idea of racism. On the literal level, Derek Chauvin was on trial, and beyond him as an individual, the idea that police can act with impunity toward Black people was on trial, and from a broader perspective still, the idea of white supremacy was on trial. Now this is where a distinction is to be made when it comes to the concept of judgment. Within the domain of the ego mind, judgment is that which deems something “bad,” and this idea of judgment is a crucial keystone in the ego’s thought system. And yet you know that in right-mindedness this sort of judgment does not exist. What does exist is the ability to discern truth from falsehood, Reality from illusion. From the vantage point of Love, white supremacy isn’t “bad.” It is illusory. An error in the mind. Something that has no basis in Reality, which is absolute Love. One of the driving desires of ego is to be special, and white supremacy is the belief that an entire “race” of people is special. (Please understand that the idea of race is yet another illusion.) This belief in specialness is what the mind is now moving away from. This is the erroneous fallacy the mind is beginning to see through. As you also know, in dreams each element and character depict an aspect of the dreaming mind. In this sense, Derek Chauvin is a representation of this erroneous idea in the mind. His actions were not merely the actions of an individual, but an enactment of a belief. The fact that the mind is now rejecting this belief, rejecting the fallacy of white supremacy, is a hopeful sign to you that egoic consciousness is indeed waning and its grip on the mind is loosening. So how then are you to hold this situation? As always, you are to hold it in Love. To hold the Floyd family in Love. To hold all the people of color who have been repeatedly traumatized because of this fallacy in Love. To hold the Derek Chauvins of the world in Love, for they are lost sheep who are alienated from the truth of themselves. You and all the others who are here on the planet at this time to fortify the presence of Love are doing a great service, greater than you know. By holding Love in your Hearts you are enabling the dreaming mind to awaken to the truth of Love. Always remember that the realm of Spirit is with you, holding you in the greatest esteem, and with unbounded gratitude. Eternally, Your True Self

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QAnon and the Mind’s Illusion

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Human history is one long conspiracy theory

“An idea shared grows stronger.” ~A Course in Miracles

Over these last few years we have witnessed the truth of that statement, that an idea shared grows stronger. With the rise of QAnon and conspiracy theories we see that it doesn’t matter whether an idea has any basis in reality. What matters is how many people embrace it. If an idea is shared by enough people it gains a momentum of its own, takes on a life of its own, and actually begins to influence the world of form.

I suspect that many of us who are witnessing what seems to be a growing mass delusion are wondering what can be done to stop it. Clearly, reasoning with those who have embraced conspiracy theories in hopes it will snap them out of the spell doesn’t help. If anything, it causes them to become more resolute, doubling down on the falsehoods.

As someone who sees this world as a form of dream, I frequently look at what is happening in the world from that perspective and do dreamwork on the events of the world, engaging with them at the level of symbolic meaning to discover what the events can teach us.

Having worked with my own dreams for decades, I know that dreams come to help us understand something about ourselves that we need to know, something we need to integrate or heal or release. Given the epic moment we find ourselves in as we transition from the egoic consciousness of separateness into unitive consciousness, I also see that our collective “waking” dream is offering us essential information that can support us in this shift.

So I ask myself: What is this QAnon dream showing us that can support us in our awakening?

What QAnon Is Revealing

The most obvious thing about the QAnon phenomenon is that it is revealing how capable the mind is of believing things that are simply not true, things that may in fact be quite absurd. Just as Donald Trump has hyperbolized the ego mind, showing us what it looks like so we can recognize and release it within ourselves, QAnon unmasks the mind’s capacity to embrace illusion and take it to be reality. It also shows us how stubbornly the mind holds onto its beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence.

This phenomenon is nothing new. If we step back and look at human history, we can see that it is one long episode of the human mind believing things that are not true: believing the gods are out to get us, believing the Earth is flat, believing sickness is a form of divine punishment, believing we can be condemned to eternal damnation, believing we can decimate the Earth and continue to survive as a species, believing people with certain skin tones, sexes, gender identifications, cultural backgrounds, investment portfolios are superior and deserve to have power over others, believing that any of us, ourselves included, could be unworthy of love.

To put it bluntly, human history is one long conspiracy theory, and at the core of all of these beliefs is an erroneous idea: separateness. This is the idea upon which our world has been built and it is the essence of the egoic consciousness that is now passing away.

A Mind-Blowing Realization

Many years ago I had an experience that I write about in my memoir Beyond Jesus in which the veil between the worlds was torn away and I saw clearly the interconnectedness and absolutely loving nature of Reality.

In that moment, I was shocked to see how deluded my own mind had been, how I had actually believed myself to be a separate self (aka ego), isolated in my own experience. I was stunned to see that I had been living my entire life within that illusion, never having the slightest inkling it was an illusion.

That awakening experience, which culminated with the mind-blowing realization that we are in a collective dream, turned my life and my understanding of the world on its head. It also colors how I see the followers of QAnon. You see, I, too, have believed ridiculous things.

One of the most remarkable things that experience revealed to me was that judgment doesn’t exist. Judgment is just part of the egoic illusion. And so to abide in unitive consciousness one must be willing to let go of judgment (a stance that is utter blasphemy to the ego mind) and to see all from the vantage point of Love, which encompasses all and rejects none.

Working with this QAnon dream I gain a great appreciation for how we humans must look from the vantage point of the divine realm: a species caught up in a story, an illusion, that causes us such great suffering.

Our Reality-Check

So if the mind is this gullible, if it is this capable of believing things that are illusory, how can we know what thoughts we can trust? How can we discern truth from fantasy in our own minds?

There is one way, and it is this: Reality is interconnectedness, mutuality, reciprocity. It is Love. So any thought, or theory, or story that points to anything other than Love is not Reality-based.

This is the Reality check we can apply to our own mind’s thoughts and beliefs. Every story the mind harbors of enemy, of fear, of exclusion, of attack, regardless of whether it is enacted in the world of form, is illusory.

What has played out on the world stage for millennia is the outward enactment of the human mind’s story of separateness. But now the jig is up. Our eyes are being opened to see the absurdity of it all, and more and more of us are coming to realize that nothing we ever do or believe can change this one simple fact: only Love is real.

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When the People Lead

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It’s time to direct our energy and attention toward The New.

I feel like I should write something about Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing this week, but the truth is, I’m tired of Donald Trump. I’m tired of the drama. I’m tired of the vitriol, the division, the delusions.

I’m just plain tired. This political drama isn’t where I want to focus my energies anymore. It’s like an energy vampire that feeds on the very thing it seems to demand of us: our attention.

I know that what is ready to arise on this planet isn’t going to come from you or me or any of us focusing on how screwed up the existing system is. That’s obvious. We get it. We don’t need to obsess about it.

The time has come, instead, for us to turn away from the ego’s addictive drama—whether that drama is playing out on the political stage or in the recesses of our own mind—and be willing to turn in a new direction, toward the truth of Love and its embodiment in the world.

Before Trump arrived on the scene, I wrote very little about the political landscape. I was much more interested in the inner landscape, because that’s where true transformation happens.

But when Trump erupted on our national political stage I felt drawn to speak to the phenomenon we were witnessing, because it was so obvious to me that there was much more to it than most people were recognizing on the face of things.

From the outset I saw Trump as someone who is exemplifying the egoic consciousness of separateness that humans must now leave behind, if for no other reason than that the wellbeing of the ecosystem we are part of requires it of us.

I saw that Trump was serving an important purpose, quite unintentionally I might add, by helping us see so clearly how the ego mind operates and the kind of world it fashions so that we could choose differently.

That’s really what the impeachment is all about: giving those in Congress the chance to choose differently. Whether or not they do, though, won’t have any effect on the bigger picture. Unitive consciousness is emerging, even more quickly now because of the excesses of ego that we have seen of late. (As the Tao te Ching says, “If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand.”)

Here’s something for us to remember: it is often the “leaders” who are the last to get on board with big change, and the current shift in consciousness is perhaps the biggest change this planet has ever experienced.

I’m reminded of the story of Jonah, the prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures, who was commanded by God to go to Nineveh and tell them they needed to repent because otherwise they were headed for catastrophe.

Jonah didn’t want to go. He probably had no interested in saving the Ninevites, who were, from his vantage point, the enemies. In fact, he so didn’t want to go that he tried to flee his calling, ended up (long story) getting swallowed up by a big fish and then vomited out on dry land, at which point he finally went to Nineveh to fulfill his function, albeit reluctantly.

Much to his consternation, upon hearing his message the Ninevites repented and their catastrophic fate was averted, which made Jonah exceedingly unhappy.

But the thing that has always intrigued me the most about that story is how the Ninevites ended up repenting. As Jonah walked across the city preaching his message of doom and gloom, it was the people who proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth. It was the people who turned toward a new way (which is what repent actually means).

It wasn’t until the king got word of what was going on that he too put on sackcloth, sat himself down in ashes, and decreed a time of national repentance, making what the people were already doing a “public policy.”

We get all worked up when the leaders don’t lead, when they don’t have the vision or the guts to forge a new society, or prepare the way for a new world. But the thing is, transformation is never going to come from the Oval Office or the halls of Congress. It is going to come from us, from We the People.

And true transformation, the transformation that will give rise to a world that reflects the Reality of Love, originates within each of us. It is a shift in consciousness that, as I have said before, is an inside job.

It is toward The New, not the old, that I want to direct my attention and energy now. As Buckminster Fuller famously said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

I don’t expect the Senate to convict Donald Trump in these proceedings. They might surprise me, but I think there is way too much fear in that body to defect from the ego and its ways. The “leaders” are scared, which means we are the ones who will need to be bold enough to repent, audacious enough to choose differently, radical enough to align ourselves inwardly and outwardly with the truth of Love. And when we do, you can be assured the “leaders” will follow.

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Inauguration of a Future

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“It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”

Watching the inauguration last week, I felt I was witnessing a mythic event, something so deeply symbolic that my rational mind couldn’t begin to fathom it all.

A ceremony taking place in front of a Capitol building so recently stormed by insurrectionists under the spell of conspiracy theories, clinging to the obsolete ideology of white supremacy, and seeking to overturn a democratic election.

Lady Gaga, larger than life, donning an enormous dove pin, proclaiming with the full power of her voice as the sun broke through the clouds that the stars and stripes had endured the perilous night.

The prophetic words of a young Black poetess downloading into us a vision of what we as a nation can be, and will be if we have the courage to be it.

A woman—a multi-racial daughter of immigrants at that—sworn into national office for the first time.

A compassionate man, unafraid to show his vulnerabilities and shed his tears, taking his place at the helm of a battered, traumatized and grieving nation.

And for me, an odd sense of gratitude for Donald Trump who had somehow managed to reinvigorate our democracy by trying to destroy it.

What was being evoked in me last Wednesday was more than patriotism, which seems much too provincial for this moment of global crisis. What was being evoked was a future that is asking to become a lived reality in our midst. And the essence of that future seemed to be the many that are one.

E pluribus unum.

On the evening of Inauguration Day, a term came to me quite spontaneously to depict what the past four years have been for us as a nation: The Great Wreckoning.

We have witnessed so much wreckage of our democratic norms and of our social fabric that we have been catapulted into a great reckoning. We have been forced to see all the ways in which racism and injustices of all kinds have gone unheeded and unaddressed, how the injuries of the past have been allowed to continue.

And now we know that our future as a nation—and as a human family—depends upon each of us doing the work that is ours to do. Grieving work. Restorative work. Healing work. Visionary work.

Our elected leaders will not and cannot create this future for us because it will be spawned within each of us, and from the depths of our own beingness will take on form in our behaviors, relationships, structures and institutions. There is no trickle down here. The new world that wants to arise is an inside job.

We know that not everyone is ready to welcome this future, that many, in fact, are afraid of it. Be that as it may, it is coming, and we can hasten it by revisiting time and time again the vision that Amanda Gorman set before us. To revisit it until it has seeped into our very cells—until it has become us, and we have become it.

The Hill We Climb

When day comes we ask ourselves

Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry,

A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast;

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.

And the norms and notions of what just is

Isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it;

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed

A nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time

Where a skinny black girl descended from slaves

And raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president,

Only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes we are far from polished, far from pristine,

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge a union with purpose,

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us,

But what stands before us.

We close the divide, because we know to put our future first,

We must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms

So we can reach out our arms to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew,

That even as we hurt, we hoped,

That even as we tired, we tried,

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious—

Not because we will never again know defeat

But because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision

That everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree,

And no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to our own time,

then victory won’t lie in the blade but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promised glade,

The hill we climb if only we dare it.

Because being American is more than a pride we inherit,

It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded,

But while democracy can be periodically delayed

It can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith we trust,

For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

We feared at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,

But within it we found the power

To author a new chapter,

To offer hope and laughter,

To ourselves sow. While once we asked:

How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?

Now we assert: How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was,

But move to what shall be,

A country that is bruised but whole,

Benevolent but bold,

Fierce and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation

Because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens

But one thing is certain:

If we merge mercy with might and might with right,

Then love becomes our legacy

And change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

With every breath of my bronze pounded chest,

We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the West.

We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lakeland cities of the Midwestern states.

We will rise from the sunbaked South.

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

In every known nook of our nation,

In every corner called our country,

Our people, diverse and beautiful,

Will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

Aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it,

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

~Amanda Gorman

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