There’s been a change in the way the news media is working. I’ve noticed it especially in the last 12 months. It started to grow last year with the focus on climate change at every opportunity. It became much stronger with the bushfires in Australia and it’s become even more obvious with the coronavirus.
During 2019 we reached a point where I sensed that the reporting of climate change was beginning to make the challenges worse than they actually were. I don’t mean that the reporting was making it sound worse than the reality. That’s normal and to be expected. I mean that the level of focus and fear-mongering was manifesting and speeding up the disruption to our climate.
On the principles of manifestation that I’ve studied for years, this makes sense. What we pay attention to grows. What we’re afraid of expands. And with the focus of the world’s media on the same topic every day, that’s a lot of people’s attention and a lot of fear.
When they first started reporting the bushfires it seemed to me like regular reporting at a quiet time over the holiday and new year period. But at a certain point the energy changed. We were told that “Australia is on fire”.
However disturbing and distressing the situation for the affected communities, Australia, which is a vast country, was not on fire. But at that point, it seemed that the intensity of the reporting started to fan the flames of the fires and was literally making them worse.
And now we have corona. I’m not an avid news follower and I try to avoid mainstream media because it’s clear to me that the choice of what constitutes news has little to do with what’s significant or meaningful. But I am absolutely shocked at what’s going on.
As I flew to Singapore two weeks ago in a plane that was three-quarters empty, I felt that I could pick up a fever psychosomatically. The fear was tangible and I’m wondering at what point we’ll discover you can catch a virus by watching too much news.
It might sound disrespectful. I understand that a new virus spreading across the world is a scary prospect, but the energy of this situation is bizarre. The fear that has been manufactured, and the extraordinary images of people in full protective gear, gas masks etc, are creating an energy that is more potent than the virus itself.
It would make sense to me that in a wise, mature society, the media would play a role in helping people to keep calm, focus on being healthy and protecting the vulnerable.
There’s an interesting side to this that I keep thinking about. It started with the bushfires. There was a global response and the consciousness community got busy organising a global online meditation to bring rain. I even know an 11-year-old girl who organised a rain dance with her friends. I’m sure there were many others.
At first it seemed as if nothing happened. A few drops of rain and the fires continued to rage. But a couple of weeks later it started to rain. And it rained and rained and rained.
Here in Queensland, we’ve had the wettest summer imaginable. In February only a handful of days were sunny and the all day downpours have continued into March. There’s been major flooding and we’re no longer hearing the story of the bushfires because they’ve stopped.
Now, this might be a sign of the new normal – just another extreme weather event, but there are two points that stick in my mind. The first that I remember vividly is an Australian bushfire expert on television predicting that those fires were just the beginning. The long-range forecast back then was for a long, hot, dry summer. What happened?
The other thing I remember was that when the fires were at their peak I received many emails asking if my husband and I were ok. One woman said she was praying for rain to fall all the way across Australia.
At the time it seemed odd. Most of this country is desert. It was very unlikely that it would rain everywhere. But every day now when I get up to another day of pouring rain, grey clouds and intense humidity I think of all those people who prayed for rain and wonder if there’s a connection.
As these scenarios play out, I get the feeling that we’re witnessing a wonderful phenomenon – the rising of global consciousness and the ability of an aligned crowd using subtle technologies (such as meditation and prayer) to influence world events.
Lynne McTaggart has shown time and time again how this works, through her books, “The Field,” “ The Intention Experiment,” and “The Power of Eight” and her massive group intention experiments. For a group to come together through the power of social media, and have this effect, is very encouraging for the future.
It’s important to point out that we can never be sure of these outcomes. I am not claiming that the global meditation caused the rain. Lynne McTaggart doesn’t claim that the global experiments cause the outcomes. However, I’ve seen these apparently coincidental occurrences so often and in so many ways that I have no doubt there is something significant enough going on to merit a lot of attention.
When I see the irrationality and craziness of the world’s media, as it increasingly focuses on a single topic and whips us into a fervour of fear, I feel that I’m witnessing the dying screams of an old way of doing things as a new way emerges into the light of day.
Can you imagine the power of well-designed group meditations and prayers for climate stability? Or powerful group meditations for cleaning pollution? Or global healing for the corona virus itself, so the drama simply quietens down and the disease is allowed to disappear as quickly as it emerged?
Anyone who’s bored with the news would do well to spend their time learning how to meditate effectively, how to pray in a way that works and how to manifest more of what you want to experience in the world and less of what you don’t want. You may or may not be successful in your desired outcome, but you will learn so much along the way that you will be very grateful for having put time into it.
It seems to me that our challenge now is to learn how to put out fires without causing floods, how to influence the climate without adding to instability; how to clean pollution without inciting more damage; how to heal viruses and other common diseases so we can all enjoy a better quality of life.
Now that’s worthy of our attention and it will help to keep us healthier at the same time.