The Light and the Dark • Linda Hartley

May there be Peace

It’s February 24th 2022, and I have been listening to the news, shocked and appalled as everyone is that war could have broken out in the heart of Europe. It’s the 21st century and we thought we had left such horrors behind us. There is grief and anger and fear. I am heartbroken for the people of Ukraine. And concerned for my friends and colleagues in Russia. I know this is not their war.

After the news (BBC radio 4), the programme ‘In our Time’begins, some historical Russian figure being discussed. It feels jarring after what has gone before. I wonder if it is a pre-recorded programme there wasn’t time to change, or is it relevant to today’s news to look back into this part of Russian history? Probably. I feel unable to absorb any more information that is not rooted in our many present-day crises though, and go to switch off the radio, but something in the guest’s voice holds me back. I find I am listening to the story of early twentieth century Russian prince-turned-anarchist Peter Kropotkin, and it’s his views about Mutual Aid that call to me. After noticing how animals are not bound by Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ theory, but come to each other’s aid in many different circumstances, he proposed that it is the same with humans. And, of course, this idea is now widely held and valued. We fare much better when we come together and help each other than when we fight and try to go it alone. The Buddhist notion of Interdependence, beautifully translated by Thich Nhat Hanh as Interbeing, is becoming better understood and embraced in our world that is so threatened by our own actions today.

So maybe the BBC intentionally presented this programme to illustrate that Russia offers a remedy to present ills, as well as creating more? Now, more than ever, we need to follow Kropotkin’s vision and stand together with our friends in Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe to support them at this perilous time.

In 1990 I began writing my second book, Servants of the Sacred Dream. I named what I saw as the struggle “between the tendency to cling to the old order, and the need to embrace the new awareness and values that are attempting to emerge into our collective consciousness” (Hartley 2001: xv). When natural or necessary change is resisted, abuses of power, brutality, repression, and sometimes war ensue, leading to so much suffering. The resistance to change and creative evolution usually comes through those with power, privilege, and a deep insecurity at what it might mean for them. The current process of change has been happening for some decades now – perhaps it will take a century or more for the full ripening of such a shift in consciousness to fully emerge – but today it feels as if we literally stand on the brink, at a crucial pivot point. The perennial balance between Light and Dark, conscious and unconscious forces, is being weighed once more.

In recent years I have often thought about my grandmother’s life (and all the other grandmothers and grandfathers just like her), how by the time she reached mid-life she had lived through two world wars, a pandemic, and the great depression of the 1930s. My generation, at least most of us who live in modern westernised countries, have been blessed to live free of such extreme horrors. I have often felt my deep gratitude for this. But then we woke up to the threats of climate change and mass extinction, extreme social and racial injustice, then a global pandemic arrived. And are we now to enter a war that could escalate and impact us all in some terrible and destructive way? Let’s pray not!

Back in the spring of 2020, when we were still learning how to live through a pandemic, I wrote about this time as a period of collective initiation (Hartley 2020), and likened this to the passage of birth which Stanislav Grof has mapped out as the Basic Perinatal Matrix (BPM) (Grof 1985). In the last month or two there has been a definite feeling in the air, at least for many of us in Europe and some other countries, that we may be nearing the end of the pandemic, or at least the worst of it, beginning to emerge from harsh restrictions into the world again. Have we entered the birth canal and begun the final stage of labour where we can push and yield and exert our way out? Here we can engage our strength and act with agency, whether we find ourselves fighting the forces that surround us or dancing joyfully with them. We have been hoping it is so, but birth comes with risk as well as promise.

In the wider pattern of things, I wonder if the role of the Russian leader who invades Ukraine is to embody the danger, the menace, the potential for the birth to go wrong and injury or death to be the result? For the transition into an age of new awareness to be challenged and put at risk? Again, we pray not – there is always the potential for such destructiveness to call forth the best in us, to draw us together to act with compassion and care in the spirit of ‘mutual aid’. We are called to rise to this challenge once more, to hold together and support those most in need. And we witness the courageous young Ukrainian president taking up the mantle of inspiring and compassionate (‘suffering with’) leadership, showing the way, in stark contrast to the model of aggressive and bullying leadership we see playing out in his Russian counterpart.

Astrology describes the transition we are in as entering the age of Aquarius. A transition from top-down leadership and hierarchical structures, to collective consciousness and sharing of authority and leadership horizontally, within and between groups, among the many rather than the few. This is the zeitgeist, the spirit of our times. We don’t need to look far to see these transitions happening everywhere around us. But then one leader with imperial aspirations, or perhaps excessive insecurity and paranoia, comes along to threaten the delicate new life that is fighting to exist. Is it part of the death-throes of the old order? I like to think so, not that this will be consolation to those on the frontline of the conflict in Ukraine right now, so bravely fighting to hold the vision of a better world.

For those of us not directly involved in the war, our role is surely to stand firm in the vision of a ‘new world order’ where the sharing of resources, mutual support and respect, acceptance and tolerance, compassion and kindness can find their rightful place. To reach out across great distances and connect with one another, to hold those in danger within our circle and hold the vision they are fighting for – this is the least we can do.

Nina and Masha, the directors of our Moscow IBMT programme, are helping to organise an online gathering of the IBMT community on Thursday 3rd March at 5pm UK time. If you can, please take a moment during this hour to connect with us, wherever you are, as we reach out to those in our community who are most affected. Or at any other moment which calls you, please join the circle of love and support. You might pause for a few minutes to reflect, meditate, pray; maybe to dance or sing or walk in nature. Be with your heart and your intention to offer support to those who are suffering and under attack. Do this in whatever way feels right for you, but with awareness that you are part of a wider circle of love and support.

I will be holding especially close to my heart the people of Ukraine and in particular Inna, a special Ukranian woman, who has travelled back and forth between the two countries for many years to study with and assist us; the many beautiful friends and colleagues I have met in Russia, each part of our IBMT community; our dear friends in nearby Lithuania. We the ‘extra-ordinary’ people (not ‘ordinary’ at all!) stand together as a community that transcends borders and political fighting. And in this, we join with the multitude of similar circles around the globe who stand with us in holding the vision of kinder, fairer, loving future.

I hope to feel you there.
In love and hope,
Linda

References

Grof, Stanislav, Beyond the Brain (SUNY Press, New York, 1985)
Hartley, Linda, Servants of the Sacred Dream (Elmdon Books, 2001)
Hartley, Linda, Humanity in a time of Collective Initiation (2020)

Kropotkin, Peter (illustrated by N.O. Bonzo), Mutual Aid: An Illuminated Factor of Evolution (PM Press, 2021)

@ Linda Hartley, 2022