When I was a young child, I was confronted many times with what I came to call the buzz, an intense vibratory experience I’d abruptly awaken to in the night. Generally, my body was paralyzed and, as the frequency and rapidity of the vibrations intensified, it took all I had to hold onto life as I felt my consciousness begin to disintegrate and be swallowed up by this all-pervasive energy.

Eventually, I learned to visualize myself in a race car with no brakes, as I gripped and turned the steering wheel around a circular race course to match the speed of the high-frequency vibrations I was experiencing. These images and actions provided me with a shield to preserve a cohesive sense of self, as I waited for the vibrations to pass and my body to reconstitute into solid physical form. Never again could I rest only in the security of everyday life. I knew there was more.

The outer world, in this time we live in, is in obvious energetic free fall. All are confronted with the disintegrating impact of, as the band R.E.M. once put it, “the end of the world as we know it.” The world itself is not ending, but the solidity of the predictable world we once knew is being shattered at an exponential rate. This is indeed a deeper energetic encounter that requires a shield to maintain cohesion and to safely navigate this cosmic maelstrom. Our world is on a journey beyond the known, as we venture deeper into human possibility.

Don Juan Matus recommended that warriors fashion a shield from their path of heart, to hold together in such uncertain times of evolutionary change. By path of heart, he refers to one’s deepest values, that which lends spirited meaning to one’s life. Regardless of the calamity of events that befall one from the outer world, one can always find respite and sanctuary where ego-Soul meets with High SOUL on one’s path of heart.

Aurobindo’s spiritual partner, The Mother, goes so far as to suggest that if one’s ego-Soul is truly aligned with one’s High SOUL, on one’s path of heart, one will remain completely unscathed, regardless of the calamities one must traverse through. This was certainly the message of the final scene in The Matrix, where bullets themselves could not penetrate the enlightened Neo.

Immediately following the most recent US presidential election, I consulted the I Ching for guidance. The message was clear. Keep the candle burning in the inner cavern of one’s path of heart. Nothing can forestall the coming breakdown of the world as we know it, but keep the focus on that inner light, kindle it, and wait patiently for the time when it will serve to re-enlighten the world.

This time of waiting is not one of idleness, nor ruminating upon the losses and breakdown of all that one holds sacred. To the contrary, one must keep the focus on one’s path of heart, with every thought and action one takes each day. To drown in bad news is energetic wastefulness. In fact, bad news is purposely orchestrated to sap the energy from one’s deeply convicted path of heart.

Victor Frankl gave us the legacy of keeping focused on one’s path of heart when all else has been robbed from us, with the guidance that nothing can take away the attitude that one will take toward one’s life. That attitude is the touch of the spirit of one’s High SOUL upon one’s ego-Soul, invigorating every moment with meaning, regardless of circumstance. Nothing can take away one’s free exercise of imagination, a viable channel to the spirit of the High SOUL.

Michael Talbot, in his short life, gave us the gift of The Holographic Universe that reassures us that all of the universe is within us, and, therefore, our own ability to remain steady on our path of heart deeply contributes to the world finding its own way to its path of heart. When outer influence is denied, stay the course within; it matters deeply to the ultimate course without.

Finally, there is Jung’s Rainmaker story; of the Taoist priest who resolved a drought by sitting alone in deep meditation in an isolated hut, restoring himself to the Tao. It takes but one heart to restore the Tao.  As within, so without.

Embrace the shield of your own path of heart, as we all journey on this rollercoaster time of great transition. All will be well when this era is done. But live this era with the gusto of one’s true path of heart, filled to the brim with love.

On that path to love in the heart,

Chuck