Depression compelled me to seek help in the form of a retreat. My art career pursuits were leaving me unfulfilled and unmotivated for life, so I brought my sketchbook deep into a Georgian forest in search of clarity and confidence.

In-between encounters with beautiful people, I heard that the hostel manager was offering palm readings and that she was very good. Having had an experience with a psychic before who was very bad, I decided to give her a shot with an open mind.

Putting my sketchbook in my bag, I went into the reading, her eyes penetrated into mine while she held my hands, measuring lengths of my fingers, feelings the strength and limberness of various features, all while speaking. It was shocking how she knew me, while I had never met her before. I felt so exposed. Some of her statements were so on point, so personal, and I was so in need of hearing them, that at multiple points I almost burst into tears.

While I did not ask her any specific questions, in the middle of the reading, she said I was a creative and artistic person captivated by beauty… but that pursuing an art career would only be a struggle for me. She went on to say that while that was the case, that I had an unconventional mind and actually had a gift for math and physics.

When the reading ended, I wrote what she had said into my sketchbook, and that part stuck in my head like something that didn’t sit well.

“Ugh. Math and physics… Why?”

People are born stars, naturally giving off light and warmth.
Through negative circumstances, some collapse in on themselves and become black holes.

With the recent first ever photograph of a black hole, this is an exciting time to be alive. We are making progress unraveling the mysteries of the creative and destructive forces that make up our universe, and also, our minds.

The story of good versus evil is as old as mankind itself, but instead of “good” versus “bad,” I find it useful to view these as creative and destructive forces. Creation is what we consider good: love, light, the spark that produces things of value, birthing new life and art. Destructive forces we see as the evil antagonist to this: that which ends life, monsters that lurk in the shadows waiting to devour us, our fear of the unknown, psychopaths, and those that harm themselves or others.

For the last year, I’ve had my personal struggles with these destructive forces. I have not been able to create much, but not for lack of trying. I have been riddled with mental traps put in place from years of schooled conditioning… but now I am finally free.

I share my journey with hopes that others may escape the black holes of their darker natures so that they can feed their light of creation.

In part one I discuss the personal benefits of faith in overcoming challenges life throws at you.

Now in this second and final part, let’s extend that perspective to encompass the world.

Faith is Risky Business

Persons with high levels of personal mastery… cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head or heart, any more than they would choose to work on one leg or see with one eye.

Leaders and inventors don’t only focus on what is commonly accepted. Allergic to conformity, visionaries are strange with their habit of constantly challenging our assumptions. Their resulting insights, though beneficial to society, can be detrimental to those whose empires depend on upholding the status quo.

The very act of innovating means to make what existed before obsolete.

Innovation is only good for business if you’re the one innovating.

History has not been kind to most visionaries. The more resistant to change we are as a culture, the more they suffer at our hand. They lie in silent anguish, their works a well-kept secret. They are burned at the stake, exiled, or condemned to drink poision―a justly punishment for “poisioning the minds of youth.”

People with faith change things, and change is uncomfortable.

Those with faith are regarded as foolish or are met with concern, and why wouldn’t we be? We are standing on ground that doesn’t exist―yet.

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

I’m on a massage table in an healing room surrounded by candles, crystals, raddles and feathers, not sure what to expect. A strange tall hermaphadite statue with a penis and breasts looks down at me, as if questioning me: What are you doing here? Before I can answer, the Shaman enters, asks me to relax, places a crystal on my abdomen, and gets to work.

As he waves his hands over me, I’m shocked at the feeling of energy shifting in my body, waves of tingling sensations rise and subside… When he’s done I feel relieved, noticable lighter, as if emotional pain had truly left me…

How did I get here―to the point where I am taking a Shaman healing class, exercising enough of an open mind to blow emotional traumas into crystals and have conversations about chakras and energy fields…?

The simple answer to that question is faith.

Faith

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Faith used to be a dirty word to me, a word that meant foolishly believing in the unreal.

I considered myself a rational person. I told myself that I must see first, and only then will I believe.

We are at odds with our home. We live in disharmony with Planet Earth. Rather than rehashing doomsday statistics, the pollution, ozone, and animal extinction rates, let’s see how simple mindset shifts can empower us to take positive action.

This post is about hope.

The first step is always the hardest. It is believing in new possibilities where before there were none. It is letting go of the overwhelm and powerlessness you may feel as a single human being on a vast planet in need of help.

The first part is accepting that no, you can’t do it all, but that also, your actions matter. Your way of living, of being, of thinking, touches everyone that you come into contact with and spreads. Sustainable change is gradual change, and as you know, this is a post about sustainability.

I invite you to make a difference with me. These changes will not be sudden or overwhelming, but to the contrary, are gradual, and might even be fun.