2007 Warm Up

I must have had some of this stuff bottled up, so let's keep going.

If you've been reading along, you'll know that I've been on a belief bender. I'm starting to see just how powerful our beliefs--even those that we are not conscious of--are. Maybe even especially those that we are not conscious of.

Which is all fine and good when you're hanging with the new age crowd. But what about the scientists? What about the traders, bankers and brokers? What about the folks who call that touchy-feely? (A decent band by the way--The Feelies).

I'm reading a book right now that speaks exactly to that question. It's written by a scientist who sciences science. Like I'd like to think I doubted doubt.

He throws out any unprovable assumption--and science has plenty--and feels comfortable delving into the heart of the matter. The book is called Punk Science.

The second law of thermodynamics--that entropy rules--turns out it's only true for non-living things. Living things are basically miracles of order and spontaneous creation. Of mysterious genesis. And require incredible amounts of organization and energy to both come into being and maintain themselves.

And the whole life arose by accident in a pool hit by lightening somewhere? A lot of scientist think that that's bunk too. And many have spent a lot of time and energy trying to recreate it (something that supposedly happened randomly, naturally) with no results.

He talks about mutation as well, which I found facinating. We were all tought that mutations are random and if you're lucky you'll get one that allows you to survive better to a new environment etc.. Well it turns out the may not be random at all. First off there are certain "hot spots" along your DNA where they are most likely to occur, and second they may not be as disconnected from the environment, as random, as once thought.

He tells of an experiment that put bacteria in an environment that contained only lactose for food. This bacteria ordinarily cannot digest lactose, a sugar. The traditional thinking was that a mutation to allow this bacteria (a form of E. coli) to digest lactose should be as common in a control group as in the group immersed in the lactose rich environment. It wasn't. The mutation was more common in the lactose-rich group.

The last thing I found interesting was that science has long thought that DNA was like the master-controller for a cell--that the info for each cell and its "instructions" were inside of it. But recent experiments are starting to show that cells respond very actively to their environments and that messenger agents in the blood can determine what goes on inside the cell.

Which begs the question--so who, or what controlls what's going on in the cell? If our genes, our DNA isn't determining if we'll get cancer, have blood disease, etc., then what is?

We are.

What the cells are responding to are messages from the brain. Levels of adrenaline, hormones, and many other juices and substances that determine how we feel, how safe we are, how relaxed we are, how suitable the conditions are for us to grow and be nurtured.

I'm not saying that we are completely self-determined (yet, although if I knew you better and sat down to discuss the matter I would probably say that even our physical pre-determined attributes were self-chosen at some point, in some manner). But I would suggest that we have yet to scratch the surface with how powerful our minds are, our consciousness is.

And if this is true for our physical body, why would it be any different for our physical surroundings? If, in this universe, a cell surounded by a liquid, separated by a semi-permeable membrane, is responding to everything around it--and in some cases (that of brain cells), literally determining the liveability, the comfort level of the environment, the happiness of the related cells--then why would we humans, surrounded by whatever we choose to surround ourselves with (and whatever comes by), separated by a semi-permeable membrane (our skin), not be subject to the same process? Why would we not be creating and recreating according to our beliefs?

My point is that our beliefs--those thoughts that we have thought so many times that we now take them for granted--and use them to describe the world that originally inspired them--can determine our health, our prosperity, our love success, our happiness and contentedness. Dictate the environment in which we ask ourselves to live and grow.

Yes, we're all born into an environment that SEEMS to be out of our control, or not of our exact choosing (though I would probably argue that it is on a very real level), but it is our choice to either re-create that or make an entirely new one. And our beliefs radically inform how both our micro and macro environments feel--and if they are suitable for growth and living. Or barely suited for survival.

And I don't mean this like "Think and Grow Rich". I don't mean to brainwash yourself for success on a financial level--although I am certain that when you are operating with complete faith about your happiness on a spiritual level that you will be radically valuable to this world in many ways.

I mean it to have you, and me, wake up Monday morning excited about what we get to do that day, and week. I mean it to position you in a love that should be overwhelming, so thorough it is, but instead feels just like the normal order of things.

I mean that we should be sure that the universe wants us to be happy spiritually--today--and that financial stability normally follows from that.

[And I should note that I've spent years with the belief that if I just had a little more money, I 'd then have time to be and do who I truly was. This path never worked for me, and I found that the more I looked at money as a necessary evil, or work as something I hated that would buy my later freedom, I became more and more depressed. I now believe, fervently, that joy, freedom, justice, god any ourselves are all firmly rooted in the present.]

[I should also note that it took me 10 years of brutal financial conditions to arrive at this belief. Just because we think it once doesn't mean it's a belief and will sustain us or pay dues. We must take constant action using this faith as the basis for our decisions. Then, like a right handed basketball player practicing lay-ups lefty, it will gradually start to bear fruit. You will be taken care of during the process, and I personally come out of this period with some significant debt, but also a much greater standard of living, a better car, better clothes, more cashmere, and better health. But it will also ask that you be willing to pay, and in some cases to actually pay everything you have--spiritually, financially, emotionally, mentally and physically.]

But back to the good news. And with more people going through this process it may be getting easier. It may only take a short while--I'm not in charge of it--the important thing in my opinion is to go long and deep enough through whatever travails that trevails no longer phase me. Experience enough panic that it ceases to hold any interest as a response.

--Experience enough of fear's harvest that we give up on it all together. Which is hard to do without plowing through a whole darn bunch of it. At least if you grew up with as much of it as I did.

Back to the good news, though. That health, happiness and order is the normal order of life. And that we can live in a place where love and good feeling--where warmth--is the baseline. And prosperity is a byproduct of doing what you love. And true love a byproduct of being completely yourself. And just get better from there.

This is what this science is telling us. It's telling us that if we allow ourselves to live in concert with the larger consciousness of the universe--if we allow ourselves to be cells influenced by the big brain and body, and send on similarly ordered and positive/true messages--both energetic and spoken--to our cells and to our environment then we can recreate a living condition of god within us and right here.

A simple example. Say we're hungry and don't have any food in the house. We don't have much money in our bank either and so don't feel like going out to eat either. So we have to go to the store and then cook, which means that dinner is at least an hour away.

Do we tell ourselves the truth in this moment? Do we tell ourselves that this has happened millions of times before--hundreds of times to us alone--and it has come out okay almost every single one? Do we tell ourselves that even in the cases that it didn't come out okay, there could have been extenuating circumstances? Do we tell ourselves that our family has been fed three times a day, every day for however long that has been true?

Do we mention that the last time we went out to eat in this same condition that rebate check for $20 showed up the next week anyway? Or the friend we called ended up treating?

Or do we go straight to hell? Does the world become an unliveable place within five minutes? AND you should have never become an artist, moved to Tucson with your girlfriend, married your ex--whatever.

And what a miracle that we can even thing all those things--go all the way there--and end up back in relaxation and contenedness after dinner even though our default beliefs, our responses in important times, are programmed to contradict the natural, ordered, sustaining, healthy universe.

Just imagine what it wil be like when our deepest belief is in love as the source. When we relax straight back to it at the first sign of dis-ease. When we let go as a way of attracting more and labor to share our gifts appropriately.

Happy New Year. I'm going to be early because I know next year is going to be chock-full of goodness.

My resolutions--god willing--make more and more steady money, buy my own place, make more and more universally enjoyable music, meet the woman of the rest of my life.

Amen.