Andy of Mayberry and the Rise of Polarity

Andy of Mayberry and the Rise of Polarity

"All policemen in training should be required to watch the entire series of 'Andy of Mayberry'," declared my younger brother out of the blue today during one of our marathon talking sessions. I've come to appreciate these talks because he's, first of all, a kook like me, and second of all we both increasingly have come to see human life as a spectator sport.

"Andy always handled things. He was the last word, and people loved him for it. His good nature and down-home philosophy fit in with a type socio-emotional small town Utopia," he said.

I joined in, "Yeah, he always was kind of pre-crime--always right there when potential trouble could have started, so nothing ever got out of hand that couldn't be fixed with good ol' common sense and a handshake."

"Uh huh... I love that style of TV way back in the day, when the Beaver had to apologize to his dad, and Fred McMurry was the wisest dad in the world," my brother waxed nostalgic.

I then pointed out that those TV shows were more about feeling snug and cozy in a predictably small world with predictably smaller world views. And as the 60s "family show" began to go out of fashion, it seemed like it was more because script writers wanted to be more dramatic and show how things "really are"--maybe a product of pressure from TV execs to increase ratings: we all know what suckers we are for drrraaammmaaa. Or, there were darker agendas at work.

The rise of the police procedural drama really illustrates this point. Shows like "The FBI", "Hawaii 5-0", "The Untouchables", "Police Story", and "Kojak" all snagged the lion's share of ratings back then--and shows like these continue to do so today. But at a deeper level, the police procedural is all about separating the good from the bad, and bringing "justice" to crime victims by discovering the "truth" behind a particular crime. Audiences love that stuff, because it's a no-brainer. There are the bad guys doing bad things over there, and here come our good guys to make them pay--the dramatization of polarity.

It proves to us that the world is basically black and white, good vs. evil, a place where crime doesn't pay, and if it does, it's only for a little while--and the longer it does pay, the harder the fall. This is comforting psychology to take refuge in, as life became more and more complex and the grey areas continued to expand into the 21st Century.

Mass entertainment media like this has, in my view, too much power and influence over casual consumers. TV is already one of the greatest of hypnotic medias, with its rhythmic scanning of electrons across a framed screen with the viewers' attention focussed on a small area. It's actually outright hypnotism. And now these days, with tiny digital dots in dense arrays, it's the very essence of high definition mind control.

And if you were wanting power over a society, well, TV is THE way to go. Throw in subliminal messages and images, and you've got a recipe for creating a hoard of unthinking, unreflecting zombies with emotional "on" switches and little self-control. You've created a polarized society, which is exactly what any power monger wants to see, because a divided, polarized world is easy to control, and easy to profit from.

The point I'm laboring to make is that the more we become aware of the darkness, the more important it is to embrace the light. Embracing the light is not the arduous task the perpetrators of the dark side would have you believe, because we ARE ALREADY LIGHT. Consciousness IS light. So it's just a matter of being what you ARE, as you face what you are not. Yes, we all have that popular "dark side", and we've stored a lot of power in there in the form of unconscious energies we've purposely created or agreed to. But that doesn't mean we have to automatically be victimized by our own dark choices.

Just observe it all--get into spectator mode about your own mind and attention and where you control it, and where you allow it to be controlled. Get into the non-duality of mindful awareness. There is no "good" or "bad"--just different states of energy. For all his simplicity and good intentions, I believe Andy of Mayberry really knew this to be true. And, yes, all police training should definitely require a nice, long visit to Mayberry.

What Healing Really Means

I woke up suddenly the other night--it might have been the thunder of a Kansas spring, or a nearby train whistle in this railroad town--with a distinct voice in my head. Actually, a loud voice in my head: "There is no 'out there'!", it seemed to rant, then a short pause, and, "External, internal--it's all eternal."

I turned over in bed onto my back, staring at the ceiling slowly being illuminated by the early morning light, with a faint patter of raindrops, and comforting far-off thunder. I found myself reflecting back on a conversation I had with my younger brother, where we had both concluded that we had "not signed up for this"--meaning human physical life. He was bemoaning making certain choices that he felt powerless to change, and I was offering up what seemed like lame platitudes about the perfection of the moment and the "master class" of three-dimensional living. We both realized we were referring to opposite ends of the same spectrum.

The loud voice continued: "You are the eternal. You are life." At this point, I really wanted to fully wake up and track where this commentary was coming from. So as I looked around, I realized I had said these things to someone, and now they were echoing back to me.

I've been going through some uncomfortable shifting physically. I wouldn't go so far to say it was a healing "crisis", but it is a healing, and it has been painful. I was on a "Zoom" conference call last night with three shamans, and had related this bit to them, and one of them said, "You are releasing your unconscious into the eternal, and your body is resisting it." They all nodded, and I remembered that loud voice. What if what we call "healing" is more a matter of bringing what is internal and external into the Eternal?

The most basic of bottom lines is that we are all eternal consciousness that has simply agreed to muck about in this thick earthbound density for a period of time, and after we're done "mucking around", we release whatever grasp we have on physicality, and retreat once again into the Universal Field of Consciousness.

I think that because I have been characterizing my stint here on Planet Rock as "mucking about", that is probably what I'm here to heal. All the resistances I have about it, and the resistances I have to what happens as a result of it, is really what I have been called upon (by myself) to re-contextualize.

When you're a rebellious renegade like me, after 60-some years of pain, suffering, and observing the transitory nature of it all, it ends up seeming like a joke. But I'm coming around to the Truth of it: I'm here to make the internal and external eternal. I'm here to live my life to reflect back to me the eternal, infinite nature of what and who I am. And if I can do it HERE--of all places--then I've really DONE something for the Universe at large. I've contributed to a morphogenetic field that bridges the duality of life and death. A field that says I am love, and that I am always here, and I have never been anything other than that, and never will be anything other than that.

So what "healing" really means is to heal the lie of death that would have us believe we are not eternal, victimized by the false construct of "in here" vs. "out there"--the death we create by not believing that love is all there is, and not understanding that creation and destruction are the same thing.

Hence, by claiming that "I didn't sign up for this," it is a direct denial of the eternal love that could potentially transform the Universe. Rather jaded of me, don't you think?

Let's transform all the little, petty complaints--deaths, really--into grand commitments to and expressions of the infinite and eternal love we all truly, and most basically, are.