If you read the last post, you learned or were reminded about holons and the nexus which is the organizing center of the holon. The nexus is: hub, organizer, driving force, or in the case of Michael Jackson, an attractor- and a strange one at that. (That’s a play on words.)
The nexus of a system can serve as the central attractor holon with other holons organized around it / him. An attractor field is a concept from the world of physics and systems tend to form around these attractors. We have touched on the subject of attractor fields before at Inner Michael.
If you know Michael’s work, you know the power of symbols, semiotics, and subliminals. This post has a great deal that was inspired by that guru level artist and his artistry. Pay close attention. Study. Think and respond with comments.
What is on your mind right now at this moment in history is creating our collective future. Tell me what you are interested in creating. In other words, what does your ideal new world– the one you can relax and love in, look like? Feel like? The future is an attractor field too. The power source is semiotics, symbols and images. You have to know what the future looks like to get there. Case in point: “Thriller.”
If you look at the illustrations accompanying “holons” you will see that it is a progression or a growth curve– in other words an “evolution.” That is precisely where we are– in the midst of a “re-volution” (revolution) and evolution. It is an re/evolution of consciousness and an evolutionary leap for humankind. Michael was very familiar with this evolution (listen to HIStory) and he knew his place in the scheme of things and he glimpsed his destiny and no matter what the world served up– he withstood and stood. (What a guy!) We will never know but can only imagine what he felt when, knowing his place and destiny, he suffered the darkest blow and withering initiation a soul ever undergoes– “that which I greatly fear has come upon me.” In other words, my deepest soul desire (to heal the children) has been flipped into its shadow.
How did he bear it? Michael Jackson’s soul has to be as huge as his heart for the soul is in charge… always. What he demonstrated to our culture is miraculous. Still is. So how do the fans reconcile themselves? They share the pain and they share the love. When this journey of grief is over, will the fans emerge as the force of love they have the potential to be?
They must have asked (as I have here, now) how was it OK for Bono to use his platform and bully pulpit to “save the world” but it wasn’t OK for Michael Jackson? There are answers to that: Bono is white. This is the 2000 decade, not the 1990s. We haven’t yet recognized our shadow nor integrated it. The cult of celebrity is out of control. Our youth is now sexualized and cultivated for “entertainment” whose shadow has demonstrated as bullying.
This cover appeared in 2002 asking: “Can Bono save the world?” with the drop line “Don’t laugh– the globe’s biggest rock star is on a mission to make a difference.” Do you suppose Michael saw this cover; knew about it? How do you suppose he felt? He dedicated all his work to changing the world and making it a better place. His lyrics support that mission.
The irony is inescapable. The “world on its head is unmistakable. And the other story in March of that year was the brutal beheading of Daniel Pearle. How is beheading different from lynching? How is the hatred of another race or culture different? When we marginalize people, violence is often the result. When we commercialize people and make profit off their life and work against their will, how is that different than slavery?
The media and its entertainment culture in particular when it uses people who are bought and sold for their talent, their missteps, their very humanity, the media demonstrates no ethics, shows no restraint. Huge (unethically functioning) corporations own the news– and (brace yourself here) as such they own the truth. (Think about that- “Is It Scary?”) The bottom line in broadcasting and media is revenue. And hype sells the consumer into slavery also. “Are you scared yet?”
The cynical undertone in this kind of slavery of the masses is: get what you can get. Gouge if it means profits. Show no mercy for humans or their humanity. Jettison common decency and human compassion. Be A CONSUMER! Drive the machine. Be a commercial junkie. A “Tabloid Junkie.” Since drug abuse is taboo, you can now media as your drug to distract from the reality of your cooking in the “misery soup” of commercialism and consumerism. Rupert Murdoch is the new drug dealer. He has successfully created a culture where this industry has been degraded from Walter Cronkite to Martin Bashir. And as we speak Avaaz, the global organization for the democratic treatment of human beings is under a coordinated global cyber attach by hackers, from “a country or a large corporation.” Avaaz became privy to an email from within Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp stating that “their greatest current threat is Avaaz. The size and multiple launch sites of this attack is that staggering.
A lot of money is being spent to keep you drugged and entertained. You are being asked to join the crowd moving toward the cliff of the abyss. And whatever you do– don’t look back and especially don’t look down. How did we get here? And what has it done to us? (“What have we done to the world? and what about us?”) What happens to us?
We are seeing the results now– of people being marginalized, dismissed as insignificant, conscripted into the machine that objectifies them as commodities and not humans– in the submerged anger that surfaces in the pastime of bullying– in schools, at work, on the internet. And toward the convenient target of celebrities who represent someone we think we can’t become. (A “star,” someone to “celebrate” or carry our dreams for us.) Maybe it’s time we shoulder our own? Maybe it’s time to stop projecting our own darkness onto others, and take a look at our insides and ask who “we are being in this world?” And asking “do you like what you see?” We had a good teacher who taught well. Those seeds are already planeted. (not a misspelling) They grow as we speak. If you don’t like what you see, and you know what you want are you willing to be that? “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~Gandhi
We know that it was Michael Jackson who paved the way for so many– for blacks in music and entertainment, for musicians, songwriters and visionaries to step up and out to change the world. And for us. For US. Michael told you from the first day he could that “it is up to us.” He told you who had/has the power. He told you that you make your own legacy. And as an admirer, his by association.
It is Michael Jackson who made it possible for Bono to do what he is doing now. There are always the way showers, always the first wave and the visionaries, the geniuses who go unrecognized and are often vilified by their culture and peers. How did that Time Cover (and its accompanying “don’t laugh” drop line not happen to Michael Jackson?) Racism. (He was a black man turning white) Lookism. (We don’t recognize and god forbid acknowledge our discomfort in faces that don’t meet our “normal standards” of acceptable body imagery. We are uncomfortable with those who look different, have visible body scaring, have disfigurements or “abnormal features.”
That is changing however; look at how lovingly J.R. Martinez is being embraced- that was not possible in the past.) Sexism and misogyny. (We want men to be men and no girly men allowed.) Michael deliberately challenged that and that was a threat to the red-blooded American macho male.) The archetypal reasons are deep within the cultural psyche. We will get to that- in another forum.
But you can’t explain away the worldwide universal appeal Michael Jackson had around the world for decades and you can’t dismiss that kind of nexus as insignificant. And you can’t deny the kind of loyalty his fans exhibit years after his death. There is more going on than “crazy” in all of this and I hope to examine this more in depth in the future. You don’t have hundreds of people fainting from energetic overload if something else isn’t going on. You don’t have that kind of universal impact on people and culture without something extraordinary happening– it’s not just charisma or personal appeal or even sex appeal. It’s something beyond physics– metaphysics.
Michael represented something “other.” He has been described, even by those who knew him well or worked with him, as mythical or ethereal or otherworldly. Yes, there was something about him. You don’t become the most powerful man in the world without some kind of specialness. (Jonathan Moffitt has said that Michael “was the most powerful man on earth, that his power was love and that nothing trumps love.”) I tend to believe Jonathan. He watched from his perch above Michael night after night and his loyalty spanned more than 30 years.
Gifted. Special child. Protege`. Savant. Those are all words that have been used to describe someone who arrives on the planet with a gift and a mission. Michael was one of those larger than life persons even in childhood. By all indicators, Michael was obviously a universal empath– there are those who feel the world and dedicate their lives to working in service to it. Michael was one of those. He felt both the beauty of the world and the pain of the world at a very young age. That life path is not an easy one. It involves suffering and suffering in empathy for others. It necessarily sees the earth as beautiful and sacred. The advanced stage of that place of awe and reverence, is to see the earth as a being. James Lovelock, Brian Swimme and Brian Greene are scientists who share that view. They have embraced the “Gaia hypothesis” and are in a search for Einstein’s”Unified Field.” “Gaia” is the name used for earth when she’s seen as a living 
entity that also “lives and breathes and has its (her) being” in divine order.
Michael’s early work seems to bear out his knowledge of systems and interdependence and communion between natural systems and humans. He viewed humanity as one body a global village and as stewards of its resources and offspring– especially human children. An event that is experienced as shattering can open the psyche to the beauty of the world or the pain of the world or both. Heartbreak in particular, opens up the human and aims right for the heart.
Those who have experienced a grand vision and heartache FEEL (yes capital letters!) their own and others’ humanity if they have done their work within the grief. They feel life, others and the world differently. They live with open hearts and the pain of separation (being “forsaken”) drives them to be uniters. If you have felt someone’s acute suffering in your own body, he is forever after a brother. If you have felt the terror of an animal paralyzed with fear, animals become forever after, another kind of brother. If you feel the world, you are brought to your knees.
Just because you can’t see the unseen world does not mean the nexus has disappeared completely, but only changed form. The human heart “can go the lengths of god” and one that is cracked open pours forth a love that is rare in quality. That kind of cracking can fundamentally change one and alter the path of their life. The pain of that kind of heartbreak takes the breath and consumes the body. Those who feel Michael Jackson on a deep level and understand him as a messenger feel that stinging heartache of his loss. He was a light for the world and there were those who succumbed to their own dark desires (shadow) who tried to put out his light. There are some who are still trying. The attempt is testimonial to their own desperation.
One sycophant in particular (yes energy vampire) is off to cover another titillating case currently in the news. Another case with salacious and juicy shadow details. The work still has that sickening glee in pointing out the travails of the unfortunate celebrity or famous person who took human missteps. There are those who seem to feed on that kind of salacious material– there is a name for that but IM is too ethical to use it. Those in the know, know of what and whom I speak. So you see, the beat goes on; the psyche is still hungry for that sludge, that shadow. There are eaters of shadow and EATERS of shadow. The rule of that world is “eat or be eaten.” Aren’t you glad you don’t live there? Pity the fool. And rejoice that you are not standing in the line of fire when that karma slingshots back. I know you get what I am saying. And God (by whatever name you call it) does this karma stuff better than me. I can only assist. But I can tell you that there is power in a collective movement. When the people “raise their voice as one” the world changes via the power of demand. Without it, the “powers that be” do not change. Never have.
Make no mistake– all the upheaval, the financial collapse, the revolutions in North Africa and the Mediterranean, the Occupy Movement, and all the thrust and drive toward reform are creating a new world. People are tired of a world that is profit centered and preys on people and they are longing for a heart-centered world where we demonstrate real caring for one another.
Those who use deceit and treachery and who live in the lower vibrational fields (stay tuned for more) will not survive; many will self-extinguish and many will awaken. Case in point: the extraordinary change in Perez Hilton. Hollywood’s biggest bully has seen the light (that’s more than a metaphor) and took a long look at his own shadow expressed in his mean spirited treatment of celebrities.
The world clamors for the voice of reason, for hope in a darkness that some don’t even see but definitely feel. “Can you FEEL it?” “Power to the people” works. Non-violent direct action has changed the world. Martin Luther King knew that. Rosa Parks knew that. Bobby Kennedy knew that. Nelson Mandela knew that. Gandhi knew that. And yes, Michael knew that. In fact, he EMBODIED it. While he was the man in the mirror, he was also the mirror.
So keep your lofty position and your position lofty. Complain. But don’t allow yourself to be complained about. That is the real challenge, the real test of a fan– to not give them any more ammunition to call you crazy or besotted or worse yet– bullies. Try to keep your work impeccable. I know how hard it is sometimes. But Michael was impeccable in his work. So work on reclaiming the legacy. “Keep your head up” and stay in the place where you “wish love would come today.” It’s on the way.
Your other option is to become that love, embrace that compassion for self and for those who are still lost and wandering around asleep in the illusion. Dylan sang about “The Times They Are A-Changing” and it was true then and it’s even more true now in the second wave. If we could do it, it would be so much more effective to meet the ignorant with more love. I know how hard that is. Let me give you an example… someone who graduated from the same seminary as I, has developed her god-self to the degree that it is the command center of her life. She sent word that someone killed the Lakota white buffalo. It was not accidental; the animal was dressed as hunters dress a deer. The next day the mother buffalo was also killed. What can that be but a racist attack against my ancestors? Killing the iconic spiritual being of the first nation people– the Native Americans, is like killing H.H. Dalai Lama of the Tibetan spiritual tradition, or Jesus of the Christian religion, or Mohammed of the Islamic faith, or Moses and Abraham for the Jewish faith. The white buffalo was the Lakota and all tribes’ John the Baptist– the symbol of the beginning of the return of the ancients. It’s equivalent to a sign of the second coming in Christianity.
I was angry. No, I was enraged. Why would someone do that? Who was a grazing buffalo hurting? Who was he threatening? And what depraved mind would do such a thing? There are those who will always cling to the shadow to fill their empty selves with salacity and the juicy details of the lives of others for their own are so vacant. There will always be those who envy and because of it, seek to destroy those gifted with greatness. There will always be those who aim to shock and make big waves in order to experience the “rush” that satiates the impotency they feel and have. It’s sexually driven yet they are the ones espousing a puritanical and religious life.
There will always be those until there aren’t. It was my fellow seminarian who reminded me to remember the humanity in the crime against humanity. She wrote this prayer:
My Prayer is… “Great Spirits .. please forgive us Humans, we are still very young in our Awakening and have much to learn.. thank you for your gift of your life and all that you brought our world, may you feel our deep Gratitude and now fly free and at Peace in the Arms of the Great Sacred Mystery…”
Her initial response was so much better than mine and I longed for mine to be so automatic, so magnanimous and forgiving… until I remembered I am in the midst of a Vision Quest that is teaching to embrace the Holy Paradox and applied to this situation, it means allowing the anger AND the forgiveness. It is the holding of the tension of opposites. We do live in a world of duality and sometimes it takes the form of paradox. The mirror demands that we look at both self/others, at mind/heart, at Yin/Yang, shadow/light, human/divine and now in particular individual/culture.
Do you know any mirrors like that? There are mirrors in operation everywhere you look. And there are plentiful opportunities to embrace and hold the tension of opposites (the mirror.) There are many, many people holding up the mirror for the world. There are those non-violent intentional action people who bring injustice and inequality to our attention. Wittingly or unwittingly they are begging us to “Come Together” and get back to the business of living from our hearts and not our minds and pocketbooks. Do they look familiar? Does the symbol of the mirror in the form of the non-violent intentional drive toward change remind you of anything? Anyone?
Just because you can’t see the hand of the unseen, doesn’t mean it’s not there. So here’s a “radical innocence” idea for you…
Become that message. Live that life of honor now. You could fly like family. As the flock you could embody the love. You could become the greatest person in the world. Try this on in your imagination and hold it with me: The cover of Time Magazine- person of the year: “The Michael Jackson Fan.”
Envision it with me for a future time. “Can you FEEL it?” That’s key.