Inner Michael

This Inner Michael journey began with remembering “We Are the World” when I heard the news of Michael Jackson’s passing. The record was a 33 1/3 LP or “long play” record album then played on a phonograph, the system introduced by Columbia Records. “We are the world” echoed through our home as it was a message I had wanted my children to assimilate and keep that message through childhood and into adulthood.

IM took on a larger life when after a magazine asked me to review “This Is It” and after it was published, the fans began to come. I got about 60 letters a day back then and I tried to answer every one. The word spread and I became their unofficial, and by proxy– minister. They wrote letters sharing their hearts, sharing their anguish, asking questions, begging for answers, wanting more information, looking for meaning in something senseless, unthinkable. There were so many letters that I couldn’t keep up with them. Many of the stories were similar, the experiences common and the questions the same. So I started a blog to support those grieving, give them a place to go for comfort and to answer the questions: what did I mean by synethesia? I said Michael was an empath, what exactly did that mean? What did I mean by “misogyny” and “androgynous?” what was I talking about when I said he was a mirror? What did I see during the movie that startled me? Michael was a metaphysician; how did I know that? Is there a significance to the archetypes I discovered in his work? Why was the grief so gritty and deep and personal; what did it mean? Why were so many people weeping? Weeping in the streets?

So IM grew and grew organically. Without promotion. Without tweets. Just a door left open to hearts that were cracked open by a distant event become personal with no understanding or explanation of why.

A door left open to hearts in the spirit of Michael. “All for LOVE.”

When “We Are the World” was first released, I was working toward world peace with some other “crazy” folks (“peace freaks,” “hippies,” “red commie peaceniks,” “tree huggers”…) who were members of the anti-nukes (weapons of mass destruction- nuclear war) and anti-war movements. We held peace rallys (still do) where we spoke about saving the world from nuclear winter and saving the planet. I eventually ended up an officer in Sister Cities and in Russia working with Russians to decommission chemical weapons.

Holy cow, you really can change the world! Yes, you can. It’s called “solidarity.” You find other like-minded folks and you bond and organize and create a movement. You set something in motion. You change yourself to change the world but you don’t stop there. Even if you don’t have it all mastered, you don’t stop there.

At one rally and in one particularly inspired moment at the microphone, I issued a challenge to the crowd:

“The world doesn’t belong to the military. It doesn’t belong to a country. It doesn’t belong to the media or the financial gurus or corporations. The world belongs to you. To us– to me and to you. So what do you want for your world, what kind of world do you want and what are you willing to do to get it?

“The world no longer is creating humans; humans are creating the world. Since it belongs to us, we are the stewards. So just for a moment I want you to imagine the kind of world you want. Conjure a picture in your mind’s eye. And hold on to that picture. Everything… every thing… was once an idea in someone’s mind. This microphone and the technology behind it all the way back to the discovery of the electricity that turns it on… the car you drove here or the bike you pedalled… The lounge chair, the TV… the remote… the tennis racket or baseball bat, the game of football, the Green Bay Packers (the crowd cheers)… the concept of group play and group learning and the impulse toward education that built our schools and universities… the refrigerator, stove, microwave… even the design of your toilet (the crowd laughs)… was once an idea in someone’s mind. Before it became a reality, it was a dream, an idea, a blueprint arising from the human mind. Look around you: the buildings, the poles and wires that carry power, the stores, the cars, the clothes we’re wearing, the music we’ve played today… everything that lives in your field of vision, hearing, taste, feel… is part of this common and human field of dreams. It was once a whisper, a longing, a blueprint that arose from a sea of human minds. It all has human birth. Whether a peace rally like this or an armed missile silo, it first lived in a mind. Ideas are the seeds of creation. What reality do you want to plant here?

“It’s your planet. Ours. What kind of planet do you want? What do you want it to look like? How do you want humans to be? To do? Do you have a mental blueprint of what a world of peace looks like? In order to create it, you gotta have the vision.

“This world is in peril. All its beauty and glory and suffering and pain… its totality is threatened by… yes, humankind. The missile, the tank, the nukes, war itself- these are all inventions of the human mind. If we can create this, we can create its opposite– that other reality- and bring it out of the world of dreams into this world, this reality where everything can be traced back to a longing, a dream. 

“It’s your world; what is your wish for its future? What do you want to do with your world? How do you want it to look next year? In twenty years? In a hundred? What kind of world do you want your children to inherit? What kind of planet? The fate and future of the world is in your hands.”

And in a moment of passion and inspiration, I threw my “Earth” beach ball into the crowd.

They played. The whole crowd intuitively played. It was high play.

HIGH PLAY.

It still is high play. We are capable of better.

Oh sure, you can tell people but if you give them the experience…
You can talk about love or you can let them feel your heart…

Do you think any of those people at that rally will EVER forgot that moment? Even if they don’t remember it consciously, they “got” the experience of holding the world in their hands. They knew the feeling of juggling the Earth. Of being responsible for keeping it lifted in the air and the game alive. The metaphors landed.

Something unseen and greater than the sum of its parts was at work that day. In me. In the crowd. In the simple game, in an activity of affirmation– “You are the world.” “We are the world.”

Can you feel it? It is high play. And we are capable. That is what Michael Jackson was saying. In everything he did he was saying it. He said “every day you create your history.” You create the world by who you are being. He wanted you to engage in high play. HIGH PLAY. He said it in all his work and in every way he knew how.

My point is that minds and visions and dreams are capable of creating reality. Micro reality and macro reality. Macro reality is a vector of micro reality. And micro reality (or any given situation) is a vector of the minds and hearts of those involved. Vectoring can become exponential (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or a holon, or a super nebula.) What would an explosion of LOVE do to a situation, an activity, a planet?

A courtroom?

Callibrate it: a heart centered person operating at love or above can counteract how many operating below or before awakening?

See it. Envision. Remind yourself daily. Yes, put a sticky note on your mirror. Sell 40 million… other people. Actually it only takes about eight thousand. Hold space for miracles. Then conciously project that faith to a space you want to establish as an ecosystem where hearts and truth prevail.

Get the message? Good; let’s dance.

What Michael was trying to tell you…

You are humans on a star trek journey. Humans exploring life and worlds and universes and how to create them. It’s holodeck time. Warp speed people. Engage. Make it so! The force is with YOU.