“Matter is Spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.” –Teilhard de Chardin

In a wonderful scene from one of my favorite films (for children of all ages) called The Dark Crystal, a group of monks meditating on the mountaintop suddenly, simultaneously hear a powerful sound-- the chanting of the sacred OM.  They recognize it as a signal from the Divine that now is the time. They have to leave their protected place in the high mountains and journey back down to the city below that’s been taken over by mean, dark creatures. They know they have a mission to bring their light into the world and help transform it.

Well folks, this inner, sacred word is being sounded loudly now in our world as we begin 2006.  Now is the time.

It’s time to bring heaven down to earth—into all the dark places. It’s time to reveal the hidden light of Spirit in the material world-- to reveal the beauty, goodness and higher purpose within physical forms.  It’s time for spiritual people to pay closer attention to what’s going on in the material world today.  It’s time to recognize the inner Divinity within all life and to draw it forth. It’s time to honor the Divine Mother, the sacred feminine principle within our world. 

The Mother of the World is the matrix of matter, the root substance of all existence, the form-building force.  The Mother veils the inner light, nurturing, protecting and guarding the soul within each form, until the soul outgrows the form and shatters it.  In this lies hid the secret of all evolution.

Let the heavens be reflected in the earth, that the earth may turn into heaven.

So you may say—“Great, but how exactly can I help reveal the light in the material world?”

The first step is transforming your old thoughtforms about spirituality. Let go of the idea that only transcendence of the world is spiritual. Spirituality removed from daily life is ineffective. Subjective abstraction in the inner worlds is not the only way to develop spiritually. In fact, it can be a way to avoid the work that is urgently needed to transform your personality. Spiritual truths have to be experienced, embodied and lived everyday. Honor the material world--it holds surprising power for spiritual development.

As Alice Bailey writes in Esoteric Psychology I, “[T]he sign of a person’s spiritual unfoldment lies in his ability to include in his consciousness not only the so-called spiritual values and the power to react to soul contact, but also to include the material values, and to react divinely to the potencies which lie hidden from him in the custody of the other forms of divine life, found in the three sub-human kingdoms.” 

By interacting in a conscious, loving way with the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, you can be affected by the hidden power found within matter itself. Welcome this transforming experience.  When you create or build something, or clean or organize something, you can practice drawing forth the light and beauty within the form. See this physical activity as an act of blessing.

Focus your energy in an arena that you care about, something that needs your light and your particular gifts and talents.  Do you care about money?  Money is simply concretized energy.  See it as a spiritual asset—a means to support good work in the world.  Invest your money in socially responsible companies.  Buy from companies with integrity and good values.  Be generous in your donations.  The Social Investment Forum, Green Money Newsletter and Co-op America provide great resources in this arena.

Do you care about business?  Bring your spiritual values into your workplace.  Help your company find ways to expand the bottom line beyond just profit.  Corporations are amazingly efficient at producing and distributing everything we could possibly need or desire.  All that is needed is to change their mission to include higher values, such as the well-being of employees, giving back to the community, or reducing the company’s impact on the environment.  Organizations such as Spirit at Work, Spirit in Business, Businesses for Social Responsibility and The World Business Academy support businesspeople in these new approaches.

Do you care about politics?  Support honesty and transparency in political campaigns and campaign finance and other reforms.  Support political leaders who truly embody spiritual values. Work for causes that promote the greatest good for the greatest number. Avoid angry, adversarial approaches and seek higher common ground with opponents. Christian groups such as Sojourners, Jewish groups such as Tikkun and Buddhist groups such as The Buddhist Peace Fellowship are exploring how to bring non-denominational spiritual values into politics and raise the visibility of ethical issues in public policy.

Do you care about science?  Help people see that science and spirituality can complement each other, rather than be in opposition.  Test spiritual approaches to life and prove their effectiveness. Examine the subtler realms of the mind and soul to understand how they affect the physical world. Mind and Life Institute and the University of Wisconsin are researching the scientific effects of meditation. Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology tracks new scientific research on spirituality and religion.  Patients who have people praying or meditating for them get better much faster than control groups in scientific experiments, for example.

Do you care about the quality of food?  Support producers of natural, organic food and shop at health food stores and local farmers’ markets. Join a local CSA group (Community Supported Agriculture} where subscribers support a local farmer and in turn receive all the fresh produce they can eat. There are over 1200 of these farms around the country which are part of a growing movement. Avoid pre-packaged, preservative-laden and genetically modified food and support legislation that labels food to alert consumers.

Do you care about healthcare?  Your body is sacred, a temple of the Spirit. You can bring greater health and radiance to your body through a wholistic, preventive approach which uses natural remedies and energy healing. The Center for Mind/Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. and The Center for Integrative Medicine in Arizona and thousands of other wholistic centers around the world promote more natural, spiritual approaches such as homeopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, and naturopathy.

There is so much work to be done to transform the physical world, and so many areas of life that need greater light.  Take some time for quiet meditation to reflect on what field of service calls you.  Can you hear the inner note drawing you back from your mountaintop into the world? As the ancient Zen wisdom recommends:  “Enter the marketplace with helping hands.”  Now is the time.