Unforeseen Changes

Autumn, with all the spookiness & fun of Halloween, is one of my favorite times of the year. Who doesn’t enjoy indulging our shadow side as we playfully interact with monsters and the mysterious, realizing our deep innate connection to all of it?

Today, however, the scariest monsters are the ones we find surfacing from within ourselves as we live in a nation that is divided and spinning out of control. The loss of stability, security, and safety within our government, our jobs, and even our personal relationships can trigger those darker aspects of our personalities which we try to subdue and keep hidden.

When the temptation is strong to self-sabotage, to stop searching for truth, to judge those whom you used to lovingly embrace.... When you are tempted to let your inner monsters out in order to say and do the monstrous things that you never wanted to allow, because the damage may be irreparable...... DON'T.

As we embrace Autumn and all the fun and festivities of the holiday season, let's agree to put the inner monsters to rest. Make choices that fortify your inner strength. Love yourself and others deeply. When presented with emotionally-charged conversations, find the common ground and let that be the filter through which one another can be heard.

Change can be scary and disempowering. Division makes us weak. When everything is changing, anything is possible. Let's be stronger together, so that we can be an active force in shaping the future.

- Jeff Crawford "Nashville's Shaman®"

Perspective

Given that we have a relative perspective of our world and of all the creatures and spiritual forces therein, both seen and unseen, we cannot possibly comprehend all of the nuances and their purposes.

What we can do is stay clear enough to live in the present moment, seeing whatever is showing up right now, with whatever measure of perspective we are granted and then choose our steps intentionally, realizing that we too are here by the Divine's will and pleasure. Our understanding is not a requirement. Our awareness and conscious participation is.

At a time when there are so many contradicting narratives and voices vying to shape our perspectives, remember that you are only working with a measure of truth. The more you can admit to yourself and others that you don't know, the more potential you have to know more. Don't get carried away in all the grandstanding and theatrics.... Don't lose perspective.

- Jeff Crawford "Nashville's Shaman®"

What is Common Sense as it Pertains to COVID-19?

Recently, it has become often that, in regard to COVID-19 precautions, people are slinging the notion of Common Sense at one another as though there is an actual baseline for what Common Sense is. So, I looked up the definition of Common Sense.

As per Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Common Sense is ": sound and prudent judgement based on a simple perception of the situation or facts". (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/common%20sense)

This begs the question; What are the "facts" of our current situation that we can all acknowledge as our common understanding, or Common Sense? Therein is the dilemma.

Masks vs. No Masks.... Vaccine vs. No Vaccine..... Lockdown vs. No Lockdown....

Now, like everyone else, I have my opinions and biases. However, I cannot consider myself a rational person if I do not acknowledge the obvious fact that many doctors, scientists, and researchers, who I think are probably more intelligent than I, have differing opinions, statistics, explanations, & demonstrated facts. What is a fact, is that statistics and studies can be manipulated and framed in such a way to demonstrate whatever you want them to say. Ask any scientist, researcher, or statistician and they will whole-heatedly agree.

What I perceive to be more credible, self-evident common ground, is that most of us alive today have never lived through a time such as what we are in right now. Another credible, self-evident common ground is that the full truth does not lie in either extreme, but rather in the coming together of those extremes, each bringing their remnants of objective, demonstrable truth, in order to collaborate in putting all the pieces together. That is how we find a more comprehensive picture (and resulting solution).

Common Sense, in our current time, is not attacking & bullying people with the remnants of information you believe to be facts, while masking your own fear behind pontifications and grandstanding, as if you have some actual moral or intellectual ground upon which to do so. Other than the experts actively studying COVID-19, vaccines, masks, lock-downs, etc..., all anyone is doing is regurgitating something that somebody else studied, wrote, or repeated. Pretend otherwise and you lose all credibility.

Be kind to one another. We are sharing a common experience of facing a potentially lethal threat to which all of us are vulnerable. Now, more than ever before, the Common Sense approach is to pull together, each with whatever facts we think we hold, so that we can place those facts side by side, recognizing the contexts, biases, presumptions, breakthroughs, flaws and genius in all of them in order to distill actual truth that can be repeated consistently with consistent results. Then we can make more informed and unified decisions about our shared course of action. Therein lies a Common Sense that you, your family, and your community call all agree upon. Somebody somewhere is going to get it right! When they do, we will all benefit.

- Jeff Crawford "Nashville's Shaman®"