As the world unravels around us, I am reminded of a time when I was on the city council. I chose to run for council when I understood that my town was going through significant changes, and I wanted to help usher the area through the change. After 2001 people left the cities and moved to smaller towns and Whitefish was no exception. Between 2001 and 2007 the population almost doubled in size. Thus, our community was struggling to deal with the changes because we had not updated our zoning since the 70s. We were woefully unprepared and rather than adapting, many people in the community and the county at large reacted and tried to stop the change.
It was during this time that a man came to speak to those of us in elected offices and other community-minded people. He spoke about what happens when change is rapid. He said that change is a part of life, and yet, people tend to get stuck. However, when it is coming faster than we can process, whole communities, countries and the world can have problems.
He said there were people who got stuck in endings. Whether it is the death of a loved one, a new neighborhood being built near you, forest fires burning trails that you have hiked on for years or developers or billionaires buying up land and closing off access to land that was always open. These are all examples where an ending leads to a way of life.
Whatever the ending is, if you get stuck in endings you can’t see the good in change. Personally, at the time, I realized I saw every ending as a loss. Every building that was torn down to make way for all the people moving here made me cry. I was having lunch with a woman, much wiser than myself. I told her about crying when buildings were knocked down. She asked if I had ever left a planet as it was being destroyed. Of course, we were in a busy restaurant, and I just started bawling. I sobbed and cried like a baby. I was shocked at how intense the emotions were and that the change happening seemed cataclysmic to me. As a storyteller, I made up a whole story about being pulled off of a planet and then as we were leaving, watching it being blown into smithereens. Whether it was literal or not, the intensity of the feelings was similar. Though to others it would be like comparing apples to oranges. Knocking a building down so something new can be built, versus blowing up a planet. Not comparable on one hand, but both felt like tremendous losses to me.
Then the man talked about how people get stuck in the neutral zone. The ending has occurred, but there is a pause of sorts before something new begins. I know several people who hate this phase. They tell me it feels like they are free falling and they have no control. It takes a special type of person to be okay in the in-between spaces. Personally, once I accept the ending, the neutral zone is a time to dream of possibilities, a time to rest, a time to recalibrate and a time to be still.
The third phase of change is New Beginnings. For some people there is a lot of anxiety in new beginnings because of the uncertainty that things will work out. Finding a new rhythm, a new self-expression, and new ways of being are extremely uncomfortable for some. Like going off to college, starting a new job, becoming a parent for the first time. All these things push us into being someone we have never experienced before.
No matter where you get stuck, he suggested that some sort of ceremony could be very helpful. Ceremony to honor what was, acknowledge the unknown and celebrate what is next helps us as individuals and collectives to move more gracefully through change. He used examples from our culture to and other cultures, to show that on some level we do this. For example, rites of passage to mark the transition from youth to adulthood, wedding ceremonies, baby showers, and funerals all mark and celebrate the changes in life. He felt that when rapid change comes to a community, ceremonies would be helpful to unite us in our transition from what was to what will be. Like the festivals during the season mark the shift from Autumn (Halloween) to Winter Solstice/Christmas/Hanukkah etc.) to Spring (Spring Equinox, Easter, Passover, Ramadan) to Summer (Memorial Day, Summer Solstice, the 4th of July)
With the changes that are occurring, personal and collective ceremonies to honor the little births and big births, the little deaths, and the big deaths, might be necessary to support people as we undergo these rapid changes.
Understanding where you get stuck in the cycle of change will lead you to the ceremony that will help you move from endings to new beginnings. If we resist change, wherever we get stuck, we can often make things harder on ourselves and sometimes create more trauma and drama for ourselves and others. If we can’t accept that the world is changing or make the changes necessary to meet the challenges coming, there is a chance we will create cataclysmic change.
Over and over, I have heard people complain about their jobs, their partners, and their lives. They know change is necessary, but they resist until the universe takes charge and they get fired, their partner leaves them, or they have some sort of health crisis. I always have compassion for them when they seem surprised, but I remind them of their previous unhappiness and support them in accepting the change. In my own life, I have overcome, to a large part, my fear of endings. The overwhelming grief that kept me from seeing the possibilities and potential due to change no longer gets me stuck. I know that grief is about loss, but it is also about love. Every loss I have ever had has brought great gifts, so now as we go through this rapid change, I honor the sacredness of change.
CH-Ch-Ch- Changes! Turn and face the strain - ch-changes! (Bowie). Dig the way you weave your story of dealing with changes together. I too got involved in local politics in my gentrifying East Village (NYC) neighborhood in the early 2000s as one of the founders of my very successful Avenue A&B block association. We dealt with mostly quality of life issues based on the huge explosion of late night cocaine fueled club dance parties that brought a tornado of trouble for half the week nights. Our Association used money donated by HBO for shooting on our block for an extended amount of time (annoying) to pay a decent lawyer to come up with a template agreement for any new/renewals for bar/clubs to agree to at via our Community Board 3-branch of NYC gov. It worked so well that many other Block Associations used it as well to demand reasonable conditions to run a night life establishment in our downtown East and West Village neighborhoods where the rents were going through the roofs and we all were fed up with non-respectful big business owners who did not live in the area stampeding all over our quality of life. Unfortunately - gentrification with all the Wall Street traders, tech bros and trust fund kids squeezing out the last of the middle class artists and bohemians that made downtown Manhattan cool in the first place - took over the entire island and now it may as well be any other big boring city with Starbucks, Wallgreens and Chase banks on every corner. But gentrification did bring a few good things - many new bike routes, cleaner parks and more food choices like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. But otherwise - our world soft power of the Arts keeps getting weaker because no middle class dreamers can afford to move to a big a city and chase their dream any more. Collaboration and the inter-being of human connections cannot be replace by a guy/girl creating digital art in a room by themselves in rural America. There is no human alchemy which brought us the best music, art, writing and films of the last 100+ years! C'est la vie! Change is the one constant in the universe - better to go with the flow - kinda like what you said in your essay - no? God Bless this human made mess!