Which way does your North Star point? What would you say rules your life? Where does trust fit into the picture?

Let’s start with the universe. Here on earth, we humans have calendars that count the years and place us somewhere in relation to time. Ours is about to flip another big page here in just a couple of days.

Regardless of which culture we’re from or how we count the days, we can trust that the universe will make the days get longer and shorter each year with brief spells of equilibrium.

Gravity is similar. We don’t have to read the works of Isaac Newton to know that when an apple slips from our grasp it will land on the floor. In our little corner of the universe gravity is predicable and we can trust how it works.

Water is wet, the sky is blue, springtime in America means baseball season. Predictable laws of nature that we can trust in are part and parcel to our universe.

Whether or not you trust the universe depends largely on how you see yourself fitting into the big picture. Which brings us back to your North Star and what you recognize as the ruler of your life.

There are many things you could hold in your hands, but since you have just two, let’s boil it down to maps labeled love or fear.

With love leading the way, you’re on the path of gratitude, generosity, and benevolence. Above all, you trust your ability to manage your reactions to whatever life throws at you and keep moving forward with your chin held high.

With fear as your map, the path is cloudy. Trouble lurks behind every curve. Every opportunity is regarded with suspicion. It’s hard to move forward when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder.

Fear sees life as a line, while love sits on the surface of a sphere. Linear thinking is a zero-sum game, while love lets everyone exist equally in an infinite universe. Every point on the surface of a sphere is the center.

One might even say that the real trick to trusting the universe is in developing the ability to trust your own reactions to it. Love gives you agency while fear tricks you into believing that something else is in control.

A friend I’ve known since the earliest days of the magazine compared my work to that of the famed 60s philosopher Alan Watts, which is high praise indeed. I blush at the comparison, but so be it.

He came down from the hills last night with a new friend to me, and we went to a multimedia show called Trust the Universe at the Chabot Observatory featuring the words and wisdom of the late Mr. Watts.

Much of the Zen zinged over my head, but I will say this, we agree that leading with love and appreciating friends old and new is an approach to life that works.

Next week is another year, and we’ll be together right in the center of it, wherever we are, so much love till next Monday, and Happy New Year!

M+

Merci et à bientôt!

M+

ML #660

Mark Metz
Monday Love Movement Calendar