I’ve been noticing something lately. In conversations with Shaumbra, with friends and family, even in brief encounters at a store, there’s an uneasiness. Sometimes it comes out as worry. Sometimes people seem unusually defensive, as though one more little thing might be one thing too many.

On the surface, life is going along. We answer emails, buy groceries, make plans for next month. Yet underneath, there seems to be a rumbling. It’s hard to put a finger on it. Ask someone what’s wrong and they might give you a perfectly reasonable answer, but there’s often the sense that the answer doesn’t quite cover it.

I’ve been feeling it myself. And after a week or so of thinking about it, I decided to write this down. Perhaps you’ve been noticing something similar. I’m not conducting a survey, and I don’t have a chart showing the planetary anxiety level. I’m sharing what I’ve been observing and how I understand it. What keeps coming up for me is the feeling that the familiar ways of finding our footing aren’t working quite as well. A belief that once provided certainty now has a question mark beside it. A role that gave us purpose doesn’t fit the way it used to. We look toward the future and find it difficult to picture ourselves there.

That’s a very personal kind of uncertainty. It’s easy to talk about changing governments or economic systems. It gets considerably more “interesting” when the system being questioned is the one we’ve used to get through our own day. I think this is part of what makes these times so uncomfortable. In principle, we can welcome change, even feel passionate about it, and still be rather annoyed when it arrives in our living room. 

For me, Heaven’s Cross provides a way of understanding this. I perceive more light becoming available on the planet, and with it, more awareness of things we’ve lived with for a very long time. Some of those things are beautiful. Others leave us wondering how we ever managed to accept them as normal.

I think of turning up the light in a familiar room. The furniture hasn’t moved, but suddenly you can see what you’ve been walking around, what you’ve kept simply out of habit, the clutter accumulated in the corners, and what you might enjoy having in that space instead. There’s possibility in that. There can also be a moment of, “Oh, damn. Now I have to deal with this.” 

In my view, something like that is happening within many of us. We begin to reexamine beliefs and obligations that once seemed beyond question. We notice how much of our life has been organized around getting approval or avoiding trouble. Even when we’re ready for something different, the familiarity of the old arrangement can be surprisingly difficult to release.

Then there’s technology. In conversations about AI, I hear both excitement and real apprehension. I happen to see extraordinary possibilities in my own experience with it, but I can understand someone wondering where they belong in a world that seems to keep changing the requirements.

I’d much rather explore those questions than spend my days rehearsing the end of humanity. There are plenty of places to do that, complete with dramatic music and somebody asking you to subscribe. Still, I don’t want to dismiss the discomfort with a comforting spiritual explanation and a wave of the hand. Some people I care about are going through very difficult things. I find myself wanting to take away their pain and make everything better. Holding a hopeful view of where we’re headed doesn’t make that ache disappear.

Nor does every difficult experience need to be assigned a grand metaphysical purpose. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is listen, arrange some practical help, or simply stay in touch. There is room for that very human tenderness in all this talk about consciousness.

For Shaumbra, I think one of the useful questions right now is how much of our attention we’re giving to the uneasiness around us. What we call mass consciousness can become a seductive place to spend the day. There are so many opinions to consider, so many fears to anticipate, and before long, we’ve forgotten what we were enjoying before we got on the Internet.

We can notice how other people feel without making ourselves responsible for carrying it all. We can acknowledge our own response without immediately deciding it means something terrible is about to happen. A feeling deserves attention, but it doesn’t have to become a prediction.

This is where I come back to “I Am. I Exist.” I find something wonderfully simple in that. For a moment, I can stop trying to determine where the whole planet is headed. I can be here, in my own life, and allow myself an easy breath.

Lately, once I’ve found that bit of balance, I’ve been allowing what I think of as a wisdom pause. I take a deep breath and allow my wisdom to come forth. There’s nothing to figure out in that moment, nothing to force or direct. I don’t need to know what the wisdom will look like. I can simply allow it, then go about my business without checking to see whether anything happened. I’m finding something quietly remarkable in that little pause. Often, somewhere along the way, I realize there’s an ease or a clarity that wasn’t there before.

Then I can see what actually needs my attention. Some days that might mean having a difficult conversation or asking for help. Other days it might mean getting away from the screen, taking a walk, or enjoying dinner without inviting the entire world’s troubles to the table. Coming back to ourselves has space for very ordinary things. And please, let’s leave some room for enjoyment. We don’t have to wait for humanity to settle down before allowing a beautiful afternoon. At that rate, the wine would be well past its prime.

I believe there is beauty in what is unfolding. I see the possibility of people becoming freer to live beyond old fears and inherited limitations. I see room for creativity we’ve barely begun to consider. The outcome depends, in part, on what we choose to do with those possibilities. Having more light available gives us something to work with, but we still get to choose how we live.

That is part of why I believe we’re here at this extraordinary time. We’ve talked for years about consciousness and change. Now we have the very personal experience of living through a time that asks us to reconsider so much we took for granted. Some days I’m fascinated. Some days I’m almost terrified. But every day I am filled with awe at what is happening. 

If you’ve been feeling that rumbling beneath the ordinary, perhaps the first relief is simply being able to name the uneasiness. You don’t have to solve it all tonight. There is still a life here to enjoy, and people with whom to share it.

I’m going to keep caring about the people around me, keep exploring what interests me, and try to remember that my own life deserves some of that attention, too. I want to be available for the beauty of this time.

And I’d like to enjoy a few ordinary afternoons along the way.