"We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For"

by Alice Walker
 

It is the worst of times.  It is the best of times.

It is the worst of times because it feels as though the very Earth is being stolen from us, by us: the land and air poisoned, the water polluted, the animals disappeared, humans degraded and misguided.  War is everywhere.

It is the best of timed because we have entered a period, if we can bring ourselves to pay attention, of great clarity as to cause and effect.  A blessing when we consider how much suffering human beings have endured, in previous millennia, without a clue to the cause.  Gods and Goddesses were no doubt created to fill this gap.

Because we can now see into every crevice of the globe and because we are free to explore previously unexplored crevices in our own hearts and minds, it is inevitable that everything we have needed to understand in the most basic of ways, will be illuminated now.

We have only to open our eyes, and awaken to our predicament. We see that we are, alas, a huge part of our problem.  However: We live in a time of global enlightenment.  This alone should make us shout for joy.

It is as if ancient graves, hidden deep in the shadows of the psyche and the earth, are breaking open of their own accord.  Unwilling to be silent any longer.  Incapable of silence. No leader or people of any country will be safe from these upheavals that lead to exposure, no matter how much the news is managed or how long people's grievances have been kept quiet.

Human being may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our own enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.  We will know at least a bit of the truth about what is going on, and that will set us free...

The world is as beautiful as it ever was.  It is changing, but then it always has.  This is a good time to change, and remain beautiful with it.

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Excerpted from Alice Walker's "We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness",
first published by The New Press (Nov. 2006)
© 2006 by Alice Walker