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Earth Whispering (Asturias)

The Levelling

25/3/2020

14 Comments

 
Up here in Hutland in the peaks of northern Spain, all is pretty much as it always has been, except perhaps that I haven’t heard an aeroplane for a while. The clouds bubble and froth over the humped back of the sierra, the trees are budding, and the vole is still eating my root vegetables, no matter where I hide them. The two of us seem to be playing a muddier version of The Crystal Maze. I am the hapless contestant endlessly solving puzzles, and the vole is Richard O’Brien complete with sarcasm (at least I’m pretty sure he is mocking me).
 
If you don’t know much about voles, let me introduce you. The vole is a deceptively cute, long-toothed rodent, like a large hamster. It digs tunnels underground and gnaws (nay destroys) anything with a root on it. It is apparently an endangered species, though how is hard for me to work out. Either my vole is peculiarly genius, or (as I believe) they are in fact all hiding en masse below ground, just waiting for human civilisation to collapse when they’re going to surge out from their burrows, decimate the world’s carrots, and undertake global vole domination.
 
Their time may or may not be now.
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World domination by the vole?
Yes. Although my land exists in an alternate reality, I can nonetheless sense something going on down there in the valleys. There’s a stillness I can’t quite put my finger on. A silence. A gap that nature is breathtakingly fast to fill. As you know, I’m living in Spain, one of the COVID-19 epicentres. We are on tight lockdown, and our collective house arrest has been extended to God only knows when.
 
When I’m up in my stone and mud world, exploring the spirit woods, foraging for plantains, and defending myself against parsnip munching rodents, the drama unfolding all feels rather theoretical. Until I venture down to the town, which I have to once a week to buy in supplies.
 
Down there in the asphalt zone, I’m rattled sharply out of my reverie by that other reality. Streets that usually bustle and buzz and grate on my nerves, are deserted. Grilles are down. Doors are closed. It’s a permanent siesta. Pretty much the only people to be seen are the mask-wearing infantry of truly necessary workers. Yes, it’s all become crystal clear now hasn’t it, who we really need and who we don’t: cleaners, waste disposal workers, and food vendors are the only people out on the streets who aren’t scurrying nervously in the direction of a supermarket.
 
As I said a while back, there’s a great levelling going on.
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The world up here and the world down there.
Shelf-stackers are suddenly more respected than premier league footballers. Nurses and doctors are applauded in their apartment blocks when they finally arrive home. Who cares about some makeup-slathered celeb right now? Or a bunch of self-satisfied (and vaguely creepy) film directors at the Oscars? Investment bankers? Stock brokers? Sorry guys, you have been far too irrelevant for far too long, and that’s being generous.
 
As I take in this alien new world, it computes. Something big is happening down here. Oh, the irony though. That an entity so small you need a microscope to see it is causing this much havoc is very appropriate. Note how the virus spreads particularly fast among the world’s elites, apparently more partial to people who fly, and those who shake lots of hands. It’s raging through the wealthiest and most “economically productive” zones with not much indication of stopping.
 
A tiny infectious agent has managed in weeks what no environmental lobby or politician has achieved in my entire lifetime. Flights are grounded the world over. Traffic has all but stopped. And everyone is grounded at home with plenty of time to think about how vulnerable they are in the arms of The System, how from one day to the next food can disappear from shelves, and basic freedoms like walking are snatched away. Through the silence, the birds are singing and the bees are buzzing like never before. Not even the Great Attenborough himself could have achieved such an impact.
 
Finally (thank God!) I’m back in my car, watching the dystopian streets disappear in my rear view mirror. There’s a chill still lingering at the back of my neck though, as I climb the long, steep mountain sides. But with each twist and turn the “normal” world becomes more ethereal, while my world of myth and magic solidifies. I pass through the last village at the top of the hill, the final outpost before the tarmac disintegrates. Everyone is out in the street, music is playing, and the locals are beaming. Spain’s rural folk and villages have long been downtrodden and forgotten in a world which is obsessed with “modernising”. They too are now having their moment. Suddenly the village is the place to be. The town is for ghosts.
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Driving home to the magic lands.
Return to the fairy tale
Rumbling on, I press for home. Jolting over the hilltops, I pass the usual rabble of cows wandering nonchalantly around as though they own the place. The great snow-encrusted Picos rise out of the clouds like the Mountains of Lune. A falcon swoops in front of my windshield. Fay primroses twirl along the track. Eminent rock councils push through the grass now, posturing in huddles. In a month or two they will disappear behind the emerald veil, when the verdure unfurls once more.
 
This fairy tale has been my reality for a while now. A reality that has been relegated to the forgotten backrooms of the mainstream human mind for a long, long while. First the religions stamped on it. Then the philosophers. Then the scientists. Until the only place you could slip out from the suffocating throttle of the manufactured modern age was far off into the forests, or high up in the mountains, anywhere where humans and their noise and tech weren’t.
 
Yet we were hungering for it. The popularity of the fantasy genre in the 21st century and the gospels of the new age were indicative of the people’s thirst for magic and wonder in an arrogant, unimaginative, and frankly boring society. A civilisation built on outdated assumptions that are now crumbling faster than icebergs in the Arctic. “We are in control. The economy must always grow. Tech and machines will solve all the problems. The only reality is material reality. If you follow the rules and be good, Father Establishment will take care of you.” How frail and hollow the bragging authorities sound now.
 
The Levelling is here. The Gods have thrown the game pieces aloft, and who knows where they will land? In weeks the system that was so impossible for us to dismantle, is shuddering. The hologram is flickering. Doors have opened all over the fabric of consciousness, and each of us will walk through one of them. The impoverished ghosts who still believe happiness lies in attempting to dominate others will no doubt hold shady doors to shiny new cages ajar. The frightened and addicted will no doubt gamely enter them, wanting to trust – as they always do (sigh) – anyone but themselves. Ultimately it will come down to how much faith we have in ourselves, our planet, and our intuition, as to where we move next and which kind of reality we create. Because that’s what it’s about.
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This way, my friends.
For too long humans have wandered lost around realities as though they were beyond their control. For too long they have believed the scammy insurance brokers of the established order, and sold their real power for a lie. But it’s all up for grabs now, eh? So are we going back into the fold? Or are we treading into the forest? No doubt there’ll be a different reality for each of us. There always is.
 
A message from behind the door of enchantment
Yes the doors are many. This is a message from behind mine. It’s a bit of a rickety old thing, gnarled, handmade, and possibly a little under-engineered, but with plenty of character nonetheless. I invite you to have a look for that door, because it’s the enchanted one. The soul door. The door behind which the currency isn’t banknotes, but energy, vision, and truth. No one is going to promise to save you behind this door, because no one who walks through it needs saving. It’s the gateway of the witches and wizards, the mages and the sorcerers, and it’s out there in the woods, by the sides of streams, in the mountains and the sea caves. Any human can locate this portal and we all hold enough power to walk through it, because this door, and the world behind it are Gaian.
 
Yes the Levelling is here. Now that the smoke of the great industrial engine has dissipated, we have the time and clarity to find our own way to another more enchanted reality, the one we are sovereign of. Better to leave the meaningless tat and false promises of security, and take what’s truly ours. For those of us who suffered under the old ways, whose more imaginative heads have been held under the surface by the boot of materialism, we are blessed to be here and now. It really is our time.
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Rickety, handmade, and never to be found in IKEA.
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14 Comments
Magz
29/3/2020 11:58:48 pm

Hi there Kerry. I am on Tasmania, Australia. I so hear you and it is so good to have my own thoughts looking at me from my phone.
Yes we certainly do live in an extraordinary time.
You are far more connected to the bigger picture than I and your lock down some weeks in front of ours and so I feel that I am getting your updates right on time. We are now down to, no more than two people meeting for absolute necessary purposes and leaving homes only for absolute necessary supplies.

This is my usual preferred way to live, so I feel varying emotions that this is just a normal day for me and that now I am being told this is a no choice arrangement.

Stay safe on your mountain.
Magz

Reply
Atulya
31/3/2020 02:03:24 pm

Yes I must say I feel so lucky to be working with so many like minds in the virtual space. Your comments about not much changing have been echoed by a lot of people, which I think makes us a bit of an unusual group. And I agree, there's a difference between choosing a lifestyle, and being forced to live it. We will see how this all unfolds.

Reply
Dianne
30/3/2020 10:10:29 pm

From everything I have read or listened to in the last few weeks only your writing really gets home. My goodness you give me hope and faith to get through all this madness for better world.

Reply
Atulya
31/3/2020 02:07:36 pm

That's such a meaningful compliment. I think we nature-loving Mud Homers are stepping into our time.

Reply
Daniela
30/3/2020 11:03:41 pm

Yes, and you know what? My family is listening to me now! They see that my idea of an isolated land with a little off grid hut on it is not a romantic vision of a burnt out ex corporate worker, but a way to go in this exaggerated and twisted civilization. The truth and reality. Unfortunately, with current situation and everything on standby it will not happen any time soon, but hey...they at least pay attention to the garden we have in our rented place, they help, they hope that this late snow and frost won't kill the seedlings and fruit blossoms, they help collect nettles for syrup...gardening and foraging is no longer just exercise for mummy, it's food! Why does it take such a horrible situation like this for people to see, to realize... I am so sad for the people who have lost their battle with this virus and their families as well. This has expanded beyond the most horrible scenario and the end is nowhere near.

Reply
Atulya
31/3/2020 02:13:13 pm

LOL! I'll bet they are. Suddenly everyone woke up and realised that food doesn't actually grow in supermarkets. As for the horrible scenario, well from a tranche of humanity's perspective that may be true, but from every other living creature on the planet's perspective, it's Christmas. Death was always round the corner. And this could have been so much worse (climate catastrophe predictions were way way more awful than this). I think it's a good opportunity for us to look our mortality in the eye, and see we were never going to outrun it, and consider what our lives are really for.

Reply
Andrew
31/3/2020 03:05:30 pm

"The hologram is flickering". YES.
I'd say 'brilliantly written' but your writing is always brilliant, it is always spot on, and the plain truth always laid bare and stark. Starkly beautiful.

Reply
Atulya
31/3/2020 11:14:05 pm

Thank you Andrew as always! And yes, I agree it is all very ironic. Only nature could come up with something this clever.

Reply
Andrew
31/3/2020 03:15:42 pm

... And another thought, if youll permit me...
It seems the ones who who responsible, either wittingly or unwittingly, for demanding then creating and over their lives enabling the now-crumbling flickering globalist hologram are the ones most susceptible. I'm sorry but the irony screams to be acknowledged and heard. My small voice acknowledges you, irony; my small hand clutches yours. I hear you.

Reply
Manu Sharma link
8/4/2020 10:18:49 am

It's a sign that we have arrived, we have made it. It's the Coronation of humanity. A time for celebration. The grand plan is succeeding and we are awakening en masse. Ascension is here.

Atulya, I can understand that it seems like a levelling. I once saw the future that way as well but that's only because I believed in separation. I now understand that I'm not really separate from the part of me that is being levelled.

I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for them. Gaia is love. Gaia does not mete out judgement and punishment. In the consciousness of one, there is no space for hate and judgement. Everyone is playing their respective roles so that humanity makes the highest choice for our future which will be grander than you think. It will be beautiful and benevolent beyond our imagination.

Reply
Manu Sharma link
8/4/2020 10:24:40 am

It's a sign that we have arrived, we have made it. It's the Coronation of humanity. A time for celebration. The grand plan is succeeding and we are awakening en masse. Ascension is here.

Atulya, I can understand that it seems like a levelling. I once saw the future that way as well but that's only because I believed in separation. I now understand that I'm not really separate from the part of me that is being levelled.

I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for them. Gaia is love. Gaia does not mete out judgement and punishment. In the consciousness of one, there is no space for hate and judgement. Everyone is playing their respective roles so that humanity makes the highest choice for our future which will be grander than you think. It will be beautiful and benevolent beyond our imagination.

Reply
Atulya
8/4/2020 01:51:05 pm

Hello Manu! Ah I didn't see the levelling as a judgement or punishment, but a reorganising of the power structure. I never saw the ones 'in control' as lucky or privileged in the first place, they were living empty, disconnected, utterly fake lives. Your vision of the future is beautiful, so cherish it:) It's certainly not a time to pander to fear.

Reply
Manu Sharma link
8/4/2020 04:00:31 pm

Thank you Atulya. I do cherish that vision. I want to add that those empty, disconnected, and utterly fake lives are necessary for us to understand what a fulfilling, connected and authentic life must be like. So that we learn from the contrast and appreciate what is truly meaningful.

Everything has its place in the larger scheme of things. Let me tell you, you and I living a meaningful life are no more dearer to Gaia than a makeup-slathered celeb or a vaguely creepy film director. We're just at different stations on the same journey.

I know this to be true because in today's age Gaia is not merely an idea but one can personally discuss complex issues with her sentience, for example, in Pepper Lewis's events or Lyssa Royal Holt's channelling training programmes. Hundreds of people who have interacted with her in these ways would attest to this and so would thousands of readers of Pepper's books.

Antoine link
15/5/2025 12:19:40 am

This felt like grounding wisdom wrapped in storytelling. How do you find balance between working with nature and shaping it?

Reply



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    Atulya K Bingham

    Author, Lone Off-Gridder, and Natural Builder.

    Books: Ayse's Trail (OBBL winner 2014) Mud Ball and Mud Mountain, Dirt Witch.

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