Going All the Way Upstream

Where solutions actually work.

Hey, I’m on Substack, my first official post here. A little nervous, hoping it will broadcast OK. You can leave likes. You can make comments, you can converse with me and with each other. Very cool. A few confirmations that this landed in your system OK would be nice, thanks.

You can listen if you prefer, the audio is just 8 minutes long.

Typically, I’m going to start with a bang, by approaching a very challenging subject. My take on this may alienate some of you but it will surprise more than it will offend. I’m going to discuss a radical use for love.

So, a question I’m sure most of you have pondered a few times: how do we best contribute to helping others, making the world a better place, give our gifts, etc? My strategy is to go all the way to the source of the problem. I’ll explain with a quick myth.

African village. Baby floats downstream, rescued. Another baby shows up, then another, until someone says: “Let’s go upstream and find out where all these babies are coming from.”

Upstream is where our problems originate and where solutions are best applied. So, what’s upstream of all human struggling? An easy answer is greed. Most suffering relates to conditions caused by financial inequity and people doing things for money rather than love or difficult situations that can’t be solved without money... and the money is not available. Like adequate health care in poor countries.

I was just listening to a podcast with an investigative reporter, talking about the opioid crises in America. Criminals and doctors made millions of dollars. And millions of people died from overdoses. The only motivation was money, deemed more important than life. Likewise, a health authority was questioned about the 4,000 people who had died, so far, from a flawed medicine he advocated. His response, “People die.”

But identifying sociopathic attitudes and exposing greed is not going all the way upstream. Why do people want money? Why will good people do terrible things to each other for money? There are so many reasons but all of them can be traced back to lack. They want something they believe money will give them that they don’t already have.

I’m not talking about necessities like food and shelter and medicine. I’m thinking of the expensive toys, stupid spending, buying fame, wielding power over others … all of which are symptoms of a spiritual vacuum.

This reminds me of the joke - time to lighten up a bit - about the guy who sees his neighbor on hands and knees at midnight under their streetlight. “What’s up,” he asks. “Lost my keys,” is the reply. “OK, I’ll help you find them. Right around here somewhere?” The neighbor points across the street. “No, I lost them over there.” His friend is puzzled. “So, why are you looking here?” Drumroll, “Because the light is better here.”

We can’t find answers for inner problems on the outside, even if we’re more comfortable here (where the light is better). Something on the fifth floor of a department store can never be located on the third floor. We have to change levels to find what we’re looking for.

So, if we’re not really looking for money and all the stuff money can buy, if the upstream problem is a burning lack caused by an inner spiritual vacuum, how can we solve that? Where should we look? How about looking exactly where we lost what we lack?

Don’t Look Up is the title of a recent Netflix film that tells the story of a giant asteroid on a collision course with earth. “Don’t look up” becomes the denial refrain of the many millions who refuse to believe they’re in danger. Until it’s too late. It’s also an accurate mantra for what we’re told every day: Don’t look up. Look everywhere else. Reduce carbon emissions. Regulate gun sales. Criminalize recreational drugs. Pass laws against gender bias. Elect saviors. Drink. Do drugs. Have sex. Eat a pizza. Take vacations. Get married. Get divorced. Have a family. Get a pet.

Why not look up?

Today I’m singing a song that’s very familiar to many of you. Connect with Source. Develop a relationship with Spirit / God, by whatever name. But there are two unique wrinkles today.

1. Change positions. Instead of looking up from below, look down from above. Identify with Love and express it. And - here’s the kicker - offer love where it is most needed.

2. Take the perilous journey from head to heart. Since my melt down last week which I wrote about and many of you commented on, thank you for your stories of death and rebirth, I’ve begun to orient to heart-led life which is profoundly different. It’s like my feeling antennae is out there ahead of my mental sensors. I’m literally feeling my way through the day and sorrow is a constant companion, even in the midst of joy. I love it.

Where’s is love most needed? In those who most lack love. Sure, this will include the poor and downtrodden but there are psychopaths out there totally bereft of love. That’s why they are hurting so many others, acting out of their own wounds. Why would we love them? Because they need love! The most! And when we live in our hearts we don’t demonize them anymore… we feel the pain behind their vampire facade.

But surely they don’t deserve love? Really? Does the sun refuse to shine on bad people?

I’m inviting you, my Love Casting friends, to defy convention and begin to cultivate a loving attitude towards those we consider “bad.” This is not easy. It goes against our programming about justice and what’s fair. OK. Let’s heed Einstein’s two great advices: “We can’t fix our problems with the same thinking that created them,” and “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

Let’s do different. Very different. So we can create a different result.

What we’ve been doing - demonizing bad people and trying to fix symptoms - hasn’t been working. So, how about loving bad people and going all the way upstream where the problems originate and applying this solution there?

We must travel heart first, feeling our way rather than thinking about solutions. I am the solution, the energetic environment (like a petrie dish in the lab) that is brewing medicine for those in my world. So are you. It doesn’t make sense to withhold a cure from those who need it most, unless I believe I’m an old testament God, judging and punishing evil doers.

I’m discovering what this shine-like-the-sun attitude means in my life and I’d love to hear what it might mean for you to approach the subject of evil differently, including the ways you may totally disagree with me. If you do, what do you suggest instead? Let’s talk.