by Berenice Andrews
Brave Old World
It was the year 1946. Although the unspeakable carnage and destruction of World War II had recently ended, the Cold War in Eastern Europe had already begun. Meanwhile, the war-weary survivors in the world’s other devastated countries were trying to rebuild what was left of their families and homes and get on with their lives.
In the meantime, here in North America, the troops who had not been held back to protect and police the rest of the world had been brought home. The men were mainly resuming their pre-war jobs. The women were mainly resuming domesticity (if they were not war widows who had to compete with the men for employment). And we children (I was twelve years old) were mainly waiting to see what would happen next. Unlike the child survivors elsewhere, most of us believed that we were going to be safe and secure.
In 1946, Hollywood continued to entertain us with semi-magical fare including a leftover war movie entitled “Wake Up and Dream.” The film featured a song, “Give Me the Simple Life,” the lyrics of which expressed a nostalgic yearning for simplicity…[“a cottage small is what I’m after, not one that’s spacious and wide”] for warm, uncomplicated, loving relationships and for a world [“free from the care and strife”]. That song became famous. For the next 50 years, it was sung and recorded by many great artists including Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby.
Yet, nothing in the lyrics was new. The allure was within them. They were actually expressing an ancient “memory.” It was a persistent feeling that somehow, somewhere, mankind had once lived in a Golden Age of peace, prosperity and well-being that could return.
But in 1946 our prewar world was already vanishing. By the 1970s it was mostly gone. In that decade, Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique) and Merlin Stone (When God Was a Woman) had helped to launch the feminist movement. It shook many of us (including me) out of the old paradigm and pushed us into what was awaiting. Like it or not, we were heading into a world that would become increasingly complicated and (for many of us) increasingly disturbing.
Brave New World
But had a “Golden Age” of sweet simplicity ever existed?
In our Judaic and Christian western tradition, we have the story of the Garden of Eden to remind us that from very early in our development, we humans were a disobedient and fractious lot in continuous conflict with our Creator. Then there are the stories of the Israelites. Despite being the “Chosen People,” they were constantly at loggerheads with Jehovah, with major punishments as the result.
Much later, there was the attempt by Paul the Apostle to create the ideal Christian communities of believers who pooled their resources and sustained each other in loving brother/sisterhood. It was an experience of ongoing frustration (sometimes even great anger) for Paul, who found himself constantly trying to persuade his recalcitrant followers to share his vision.
As Christianity expanded into a world religion, there were hundreds of attempts to create “intentional communities” of those who cherished what they regarded as the simple life.
One of the most famous and long-lasting communities was created by the Quakers. Beginning in England, it was later transplanted into a more-receptive North American environment. There it flourished and became so politically influential that many of the ideas found in the Constitution echo those of the Quakers. Modern replicas of this community or variations of it are still being attempted.
Their pattern has remained essentially unchanged since the ancient days. There is a charismatic leader whose consciousness is strong enough to keep the group together. And there is a rigorous resistance to practices that are regarded as antithetical to that unity. Even in this day and age, the community’s focus on a simple life (for example, the Mennonite) permits only the rudiments of modern technology (for example, farm implements but no automobiles). Clothing (especially for the women) carries no hint of sexuality and the children are carefully shielded from any “outside world” influences.
In some famous cases, the community became enslaved to its leaders and destructive of itself. Some of us can recall from the 1970s the “Moonies” and the tragedy of Jonestown.
Yet, despite the seeming evidence to the contrary, people have persistently harbored the felt-sense that the simple life had existed somewhere on earth before “the present” and could somehow return. It seems to be part of our “makeup.”
The Paradox
After the late 1800s and the beginning of “New Thought,” that yearning has revealed itself among an increasing number of people as a different and, for most of us, new form of spirituality. On the one hand, it has steadily fostered the idea that the Spirit could be regarded as a cosmic creative power much larger than an anthropomorphic rewarder/punisher. On the other hand, the different, new spirituality has steadily fostered the idea that people could be regarded as the evidence of creative evolution, i.e., of Spirit-in-Action.
That different, new form of spirituality has slowly promoted a new awareness in at least four generations of people. Arriving at the 21st century, many of us are now carrying a nontraditional concept of what we are as the energies of consciousness, as microcosmic expressions of a creative macrocosmic power. We have also become receptive to other teachings more ancient than either Christianity or Judaism. In other words, the different, new form of spirituality has made possible an expanded capacity for knowing.
For many of us, the path of moving beyond tradition has not been easy. If we had been deeply dedicated to a particular set of beliefs, the new knowing often appeared to be spiritually dangerous. We had to choose to take those first steps into expanded awareness.
We often were able to do so by acknowledging that all the world’s religious teachings had probably also been inspired by the Spirit. Thus, they could safely be accepted as gifts we could (at the very least) open. When we did so, we discovered that those teachings were filled with the insights for which we had been hungering.
Here was Spirit-in-Action helping us along.
By acknowledging and accepting all the teachings Spirit had provided for us, we were actually taking our huge first steps of entering into our own expanded “beingness.” And we were discovering that we had plunged into an immense paradox.
We began to see ourselves as we really were—a multidimensional product of a creative force, a consciousness energy in which we lived, moved and had our being. And we could do so while we lived on this Earth plane. We joyfully began to realize that we were “already in heaven,” as Ernest Holmes had already pointed out.
Next came the wonderful “work” of allowing ourselves to grow into the paradox. It’s the paradox of being human. With Spirit making it happen, we discovered that we were in a dance. It has been called “the Dance of Shiva and Shakti”—the great dance of the cosmic Masculine and Feminine. While we surrendered into those energies, we expanded into an increasing complexity. We became a whirling kaleidoscope of light and color. That complexity was and always would be beyond our capacity to describe and analyze. And we really didn’t have to do so. With Spirit in charge, the complexity was inherent in the paradox. We only had to be aware of an increasing degree of inner simplicity, while we let go of what no longer mattered to us.
With Spirit in charge, our cosmic dance continued and intensified. Yet, with each increasingly complex movement we were engaged in simplifying and at the same time purifying and unifying what we really were.
And in this amazing process, we could become increasingly aware of what we required as evolved beings. With Spirit in charge, we were being “in-formed” by an ever-expanding detachment, discernment and clarity. They were the indicators of how simplified, purified and unified we could and would become.
So, for those of us who have been spiritual journeyers, “give me the simple life” is really a statement about holding paradox and letting a spiritual process unfold.
In the Final Analysis
And is any of this really new? Have the prophets, seers and other way-showers not been trying to describe this inside job for centuries? To answer those questions: although none of this is new and the more enlightened people have been trying to make it known since ancient times, there is a readiness that must be in place before the shift can really happen.
Now, perhaps, we’re ready.
Within the last half-century, when the world has shrunk to the size of a global village, there have been unmistakable signs that an accelerating undercurrent of change has been moving mankind. While some of it is disturbing, it’s also quite exciting to be part of such a shift. But what’s happening on the outside has only been a reflection of what has been steadily emerging on the inside. And here we are in the middle of a cosmic paradox. The more complicated our outer world gets, the simpler our inner world can be. As spiritual seekers, we can have both. With Spirit in charge, “give me the simple life” is more than an impossible yearning or the title of an old song.
Berenice Andrews is a shamanic teacher/healer. For more details about the healing practices mentioned above, see her book Rebirthing Into Androgyny: Your Quest for Wholeness…And Afterward. See also her articles “Finding Your True Self: A (Sort of) Socratic Dialog,” September, 2014, and “Understanding the Human Energy Being,” June, July and August, 2015 in Transformation Magazine. If you are interested in reading more and/or becoming her student, see her web site: thestonecircleclassroom.com.