In the Aftermath of December 21st

Happy 2013 and best wishes to followers of this blog! I'd like to share a few thoughts I had in the wake of December 21 and the vacuum that it seems to have left in the minds of some whose expectations have revolved around some sort of visible and widespread manifestation.

Projection is a well-known phenomenon is psychology where we take the darker aspects of self and project them onto to others as if they were the threat and not something inside our own psyche. Projection can also happen on a mass cultural level as well. I suspect that is what might be in play with the widespread notion of  a 2012 apocalypse event that some believed would occur on December 21st.  There is a good case to be made that this idea was based on a Western line of thinking that was culturally projected onto the Mayan calendar information resulting in a huge distortion.

But the phenomenon of projection may go even further. It may be that we are collectively projecting images of catastrophe and eco-catastrophe (which is in fact a real threat but a “slow-motion” one, unlike Armageddon) while at the same time not facing up to the fact that we ourselves are responsible for much of it. The threat then becomes transformed in the mind as a single event on a particular day, something much easier to comprehend than a slow motion catastrophe playing out over decades. This speaks to the limited capacity of Western human perception to look beyond more immediate time frames and take the “long view” that the ancient wisdom traditions and many indigenous peoples were well versed in.

Therapeutically speaking, at the individual level, projecting often involves an inability to accept responsibility for an outcome or a situation. In this case, the mass projection I’m suggesting here involves the notion of some external force whether God or some other agency as the cause. Putting mass spiritual enlightenment aside for the moment (something that Ken Wilber says is not likely to happen), the mass awakening that the Emergence Project has talked about for many years may at its essence be a simple recognition by large masses of people that a) there is a major threat to our planetary ecosystem b) humankind is responsible for much of it (leaving aside the complex issue of anthropogenic climate change) and c) we can take steps to deal with it if we individually and collectively acknowledge responsibility for it as opposed to the magical thinking that it’s someone else’s problem to take care of. This in and of itself would be an incredible shift in collective consciousness and it's gratifying to see that it already seems to be taking place. In my opinion, the question of outcome and the fate of the earth hinges upon whether it will take place quickly enough. What transpires over the next few years will be crucial.