The status quo is only interested in one thing – keeping the status quo the status quo.
Whether it’s our own internal status quo, a community status quo, or a cultural status quo, at the heart of the status quo is a built in defense mechanism for maintaining things as they are. By definition.
You can see how hard the status quo works to maintain the status quo. You can see it in yourself, and you can see it in the culture at large. Even when a big part of us doesn’t like what is happening, there is a part that wants to keep things EXACTLY AS THEY ARE. That’s the inner status quo keeper.
We all have one. Yup, we all do.
For a moment, just feel your internal status quo keeper. Get a sense of how it will do almost ANYTHING to keep things the same as they are right now…forever…and ever.
And, get a sense of how it feels to fight against the status quo keeper. How does it feel? Like a battle of heavyweights going a full 15 rounds?
Fighting the status quo only gets the status quo to dig in its heels deeper.
And…consider the cultural status quo…the culture you live in. Consider how intractable some problems are. Racism. Misogyny. Religious intolerance. Homophobia. The devaluation of our planet. Greed…just to name a few.
Something in our culture, and within us, is trying desperately to hang on to the ‘way things are’ – the way we as a species has been living on this planet. We are in cahoots, whether we want to see it or not.
This something is really good at rationalizing. Really good at it. It rationalizes all over the place why this ‘one little thing’ won’t hurt, or that ‘way of doing things’ isn’t so bad.
This something is powerful, and NOTHING will ever come out of this something that could upend itself or its way of life.
No thinking out of this something will ever bring about the end of this something.
This is so important to get. Really important. Nothing will ever come out of the status quo keeper that will end the keeper.
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So what do we do?
What resource do we have as a species that can show a new way out of this seemingly intractable mess?
Our creativity. Yes, creativity. Not art. Not artistic talent. Creativity, the essential nature of each and every human being, and of all of life.
Life is a creative process. Life in general, and our lives. We are creative beings. I’m not talking problem solving. That’s almost always more of the same thinking…trying to solve rather than allowing, receiving, trusting in a deeper knowing.
The status quo keeper doesn’t like creativity. Not at all. It doesn’t like anything that knows that the unknown is a place of fertile possibility, an unfathomable mystery. The status quo keeper doesn’t like mystery. It holds up logic and reason as the sole arbiter of problem solving. And the more we try to ‘solve’ our intractable problems with more intractable thinking…well you get the picture.
Just look at what’s happening at the top ‘leadership’ positions in the United States. So many keepers trying to keep their idea of what is right and logical in place. At the heart of it all, there’s an ‘established order’ of things we have somehow all agreed upon…even if it was by simply being born into this culture. Institutions and systems all based upon some kind of agreed upon way for human beings to ‘run’ things.
We know we are failing and we don’t know what to do about it – but creativity does. Creativity is outside of the keeper. It sees the status quo and it sees the keeper of the status quo. And the keeper knows it.
What can upend the status quo? Creativity. Life. The wisdom of the Body. Embodied Creativity. Sacred Creativity.
We are life and when we embody our creative nature, we know we are deeply connected to life and our wisdom flows in harmony with life. We know we are living in a sacred world, and that we are sacred.
Talking about creativity can get people riled up. Much has been made about how creative people are crazy. They see things differently. They are a little out there. Yup. That’s the point. Don’t we need to see things differently? Is doing the same old thing, getting the same old outcome NOT crazy?
Creativity is a direct challenge to the status quo. It is a letting go of what you want, in fact perhaps even a letting go of the ‘you’ that wants it. It is getting out of the way of what wants to be born.
A creator is an activist. A creator activates something within that is much more intelligent than the status quo keeper – ANY status quo keeper.
Why? Because life is never stopped long enough to become a status quo. Life flows. Always. Life births, grows, dies, and is reborn again. There is no status quo. Everything is in flux. Change is constant.
I share this here because we’ve just begun our 24-week deep dive into embodied creativity for women – Becoming a Force of Nature. A force of nature is unstoppable because nature is unstoppable. It flows, moves, creates, lives, dies, and is born again. A force of nature is always transforming…and when we live from our creativity so are we.
I’m calling all women activists to come along
on the journey, but activists who are
willing to lean in to life itself, to nature, for nature.
Life lived through human beings CAN be in harmony with nature, rather than attempting to control or dominate it. The status quo keeper is into control and domination.
Take a look at the course. Listen to our Kickoff call, an hour long call where we experience a deep meditation, and talk about the deep erotic nature of women and the feminine, a nature that is at the heart of sustained change.
You’re not too late. You can register through midnight pdt tomorrow night, Tuesday October 22nd.Â
If you feel the urge, the nudge, the knowing that you belong in the course, please follow it.
It’s really good material. I know. I’ve taught it for eleven years now to a wide variety of people in a variety of situations, and I’ve seen the transformation that happens. We’re a beautiful group of women and we’d love to have you join us.
Right now, we are being supported in untold and unimaginable ways to help us make this shift as a species. It is time for this.Â
