Where to From Here

I watched an amazing movie last night called “The Song of Names”, based on a true story, set in wartime Britain. A scene in an air-raid shelter, where two violinists from Poland performed a violin duel for the benefit of the people, reminded me of stories, heard from my parents, of the way we Brits coped in places like subway stations, hiding from the bombs.

The songs that were sung to keep morale up, were a permanent feature of the strength of  wartime resilience. I know this didn't just happen in London but applied across the world. The songs of 'wartime darling' Vera Lynn came to mind. Mum was still singing them to me in 1950. ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ was a favorite.

As I sat having my morning cuppa, I started to sing the words in my head, strongly bringing up in me tears and sadness. Those words spoke of better times to come:

“There’ll be blue birds over the White Cliffs of Dover,

  Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

  There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after.

   Tomorrow when the world is free”

Oh, that she had been right. It was to be the war to end all wars. That generation could not conceive the possibility that anything so awful could ever happen again. But the truth is, as hard as it is to swallow, we have never stopped fighting. The Cold War led to the Korean War led to the Vietnam War, finally to the war in the Ukraine. The problem is we have never learned to resolve conflict any other way, neither nationally, nor personally.

Conflict is about meeting needs. Doesn’t matter whether it is between toddler siblings, teenagers at high school, or within the workplace. How can we expect politicians to manage a conciliatory approach to worldwide issues when unresolved conflict  is so deep within us?? The thing is that resolution requires a new approach to whatever the problem is. If the old ways worked, there would be no need for an issue. But things change all the time. After all we live on the conveyor belt of time, where everything shifts constantly. It is a system designed to make us grow by facing continually different issues, tackling them, thereby learning new skills. The purpose? Gaining wisdom.

But wisdom is in short supply. Rather than accumulating it in our species consciousness, we reprise the old worn-out ways again and again. If we are going to call a halt to this wasteful process, we must learn to prize seeking new answers rather than proving we are right. If not, we will throw away our species, disposing of it along with everything else that got in our way. In my book ‘The Way Through, A Guide to Psychosynthesis in Everyday Life’ https://www.spiritflightnz.com/the-way-through I talk about the principle of the AND. Opposites are not wrong. They are a way of realizing that something new needs to evolve to solve the challenge we have reached. But ongoing opposition is futile without the eventual recognition that there is nothing new here. We need to move on. We can either keep pivoting backwards and forwards from one opposite to the other, like a child moving from foot to foot, wanting to use the toilet, or we can stop, taking a huge leap into the unknown. That's where all the solutions we haven’t tried yet exists. Then we find a new balance, arriving in the future, instead of extending more of the past.

So, I guess the choice is ours. Either we step out bravely, trying something new, or we continue as we have,Articles by Sparrowhawk since the beginning, taking one step closer to the end, rather than towards a new, wiser beginning.