Sunday, July 12, 2009Cafe Society and the Heart Chakra Roger is hearing the music of Paris for the first time. And in our conversations, we have been trying to figure out exactly how and why France seems to be so entirely different from the US. Not only France, but the little snapshots of Europe we've been lucky enough to see this time around.I've used this metaphor a lot over the years, that the US is a young country and got very powerful very quickly. With good reason, we have become a very strong, affluent and intimidating country. But we've grown up very quickly relative to the rest of western civilization, and the uneven growth spurt has had some unintended consequences. In many ways, we're like the big adolescent on the playground, who likes to throw his weight around and make sure all the other kids know who's boss. It's getting better now that we're approaching diplomatic relations with a bit more humility and grace than we have in recent memory, and of course the image is gross and crude and does not take into account a lot of mitigating details. Still, every time I travel abroad, I get the same image. Bullies on the playground; adolescents; a country still so young that it has not yet gracefully learned to understand some of the bigger picture. And this time around, I've realized something else. Countries like France are not even ON the playground. They're sitting at a cafe somewhere, sipping wine and conversing about history and politics and art and love. They understand the importance of fewer hours in the work week, gatherings of friends, the need to take care of the sick in a compassionate way, the sanity of taking time off to spend time decompressing. This is something that we haven't woven into our culture and don't even understand the need for. We are too busy being on the playground, defending our position in the world. Roger phrased it perfectly: the societies we've been visiting live in a whole different chakra than we do in the States. We are very "third chakra" -- the yellow solar plexus chakra, seat of will and action. Driven, motivated, pushing -- all attributes of the third chakra. And the French are more "fourth chakra" at this stage of their history -- the heart chakra, seat of emotion, compassion, refinement. They have certainly had their time of living in their solar plexus. We walked through halls in Versailles dedicated to the battles of Napoleon III, the conquering of other nations, the power of the state. And they've had their moments of humility as well, with their revolutions and occupations. They've done the third chakra, and -- at this moment at least -- seem to be living more in the heart, concentrating on activities that embrace the family, the social structure, the things that provide joy. It's an interesting concept: that civilizations can move up the chakras as they evolve. One could argue that the further east you travel, and the older the cultures are, the higher up in the chakra ladder the people ascend. But then there are places where the cultures collide, and you have the technology revolution in India, and the commercialism in China, and it all gets very interesting and the center of power changes yet again. All the aspects that we move through have power. There is no better or worse aspect. Every chakra, every aspect of an evolution, has a unique and powerful meaning and purpose. Individually we move through our phases, and our personal change is mirrored in the cultures we create around us. As we age and mature and learn, so do our civilizations. The tides of history evolve the underlying structures of a society much like the ocean creates new shorelines. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 2:17 PM  
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