Inner Michael

As I begin this series about the parable of discovering the Self through Finding Nemo at Neverland, I share with you a little introduction of how this unfolded in my world. The Universe has a way sometimes of clearing the deck so that there is nothing to interfere with where your destiny is taking you. Sometimes the Universe whispers, sometimes it yells, sometimes it marches in and brings the whole band with it and if you haven’t heard or aren’t paying attention, it hits you upside the head with a slap. Or, sometimes it’s a baseball bat.

That is how this journey began– the deck was cleared, the message was acknowledged, and destiny called. I went to Los Angeles because all of the reasons I couldn’t or shouldn’t go melted away. A path was cleared quickly and decisively. I received a kind invitation and a chiding that now, there really was no reason to not go. Fair enough. Or maybe not. Time will be the judge.

I felt pulled to go. I felt a calling. I felt it was important. But I also felt it needed to be quiet and respectful and observant. I did not go as me or as Inner Michael. I went as someone who had questions about the phenomenon of Michael, of the fans, of the loyalty that bonds him to them yet and to “the entire human race” as he sings in Heal the World. I asked for anonymity and confidentiality so that I could go as a witness, a journalist, an observer and recorder. But mostly I went as an explorer who had drawn to me an adventure. I was a woman on a mission.

I learned of a spritual family that had formed some time ago. I was not a member of that family. But they adopted me in the blink of an eye. A writer must be careful of the influences around her. She must not get entanged or enmeshed or grounded in any particular philosophy or position so I mostly mingle in and out of circles swearing allegience to none. I observe and use my voice and a gift to put into words the adventure that we all share and call life. There are many adventures awating us if we are willing to journey; Michael is but one of those vision quests– a parentheses of time where the heart is open, the mind is willing and the experience awaits that leads to the authentic Self. The passing of this singular figure known worldwide has sent shockwaves and ripples and  more than a few people, healdlong into a vision quest, some of them into the realm of spirituality for the very first time.

As I write this, there is something extraordinary happening. The world is changing. Old structures are crumbling that no longer serve humanity and the old ways are fading because they just don’t work anymore. There is revolution everywhere– in the Mediterrenean, North Africa, here in Wisconsin, in the financial world, in the world of communication through media, and a thousand other places we have not yet noticed. We are busy making a new world. We are busy making a new human.

When I returned from Los Angeles, I received something amazing in the mail. A writer and colleague thought that I should have a talisman to navigate my way over the speed bumps on the road less traveled so she mailed me a gift. As I parted the tissue in the box, a beautiful, strangely opaque yet solid object emerged. I plucked it from it’s nest of tissue and stared incredulously at a perfectly formed crystal egg. The egg symbolizes new life and birth and a being in becoming in the silence and darkness of a kind of womb that holds a delicate creature. This creature transformed by a metamorphosis, must crack its shell and emerge from this place where it was birthed and emerged whole and fresh from a tabla rasa tunnel of not-yet-being into the inbetween place and the place of becoming and emerging. I gaped in awe at my very own talisman– the cosmic egg.

So today as I write this introduction for the stories of women and woman on a journey sparked by a singular figure, pushed forward into a kind of gestation and transition of self by a single yet worldwide event, their benefactor a numinous artist seemingly obscure at birth but whose presence affected and afflicted the entire world and heralded a kind of birth for them, I cannot fail to tell you something truly amazing…

In the chaos that is the world today with its thrust for democracy, its push against oppression, its political upheaval, its financial crisis, its unusual weather patterns and climate changes, its ecological crises, its shattering tragic events, its natural disasters, its earth-rocking scandals and revelations, its drought and floods and famine, its evil challenged openly by a heartbreaking and staggering feeling that either masks or reveals a deep cultural and human longing for good, there is a secret new birth taking place. 

The discovery itself was remarkable enough. We’ve been waiting a long time for this revelation. But what is even more remarkable is that it is trending in the top three today on the internet. CERN, which is the governing and oversight body for the scientific exploration at Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland has announced that it may have found the god-particle. Called the Higgs Boson after the physicist who postulated its existence and theorized its purpose, the god particle is a clue to the glue that holds the Universe together. So make note that the god particle has emerged and exists among the chaos.

It’s going to be an interesting ride, this birth– with all the weeping and pushing and pain that you expect from contractions that you are never quite prepared for.

Hang onto your egg. 

* About the God Particle: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/186665/20110726/higgs-boson-god-particle-big-bang.htm