Transformation is among the most stunning of the powers of the universe.

Unlike the power of transmutation which creates small changes over time, transformation is sudden, dramatic.

One day in July, a few years ago at our community’s summer place, Mary noticed a nymph crawl out of the lake to attach itself to a plant. Mary, who has spent some twenty summers tending our lake, observing the life it contains, clearing deadwood, decay and weeds from its floor, knew what was about to happen. She carefully carried the plant with the nymph still attached up to the lodge. Then she invited everyone to come and watch the miracle. Within an hour the adult nymph had shed its tight skin, expanded its new body.

Before our wondering eyes, this pale, fragile, newly-emerged creature, its transparent wings delicate, took flight as a dragonfly.

Transformation.

In his DVD series “Powers of the Universe”, Brian Swimme notes that while transmutation is the power of change at the individual level, transformation is change that is worked into the whole universe by the individual.

Scientists believe that the universe was aiming towards life from the beginning, yet the universe had to transform itself over and over through almost 10 billion years to get to LIFE.  Early events in the universe are present in the early structures to which they gave birth.

Within stars, the birth of the universe is re-evoked, returning to its earlier stages.

Galaxies come to birth holding different eras in their structures. Galaxies enable planets which enable life.

These are transformative events leading to a time when more of the universe is present in one place.

Life is a way of holding a memory of an event. For example, in photosynthesis cells learn how to interact with the sun.

That learning process is remembered in the genes so it can be folded back out. Now that whole event of photosynthesis is here. It’s not a “one-off”. More of the universe is folded into it.  The memory is passed on by cells.

With the invention of sexuality, two beings fuse, the memories they carry shuffled together in new ways.

The ancestral tree remembers, folds itself into a new being, shuffling events, shuffling genes so new combinations can arise.

The energy that permeates the solar system has been there for all time. Elements of the earth came from the stars. Life holds together all these ancient events.

A colossal interweaving enables this moment to exist. We can’t say the universe is simply here “by luck”. Swimme says that the universe is aiming to participate in the creation of community, attempting to become involved in a four-dimensional way in every place to activate community.

We have to orient ourselves to the reality that the universe is aiming towards this.

We are invited into a huge responsibility as part of this unfolding. An individual’s experience can become the source for the recoding of the planet. All of cultural DNA can be recoded. The way in which we organize ourselves is recoding the genetics of other species.

With the appearance of the human we have the possibility of the transformation of the planet.

Swimme asks what laws we are proud of : ending slavery? votes for women? laws to protect animals? Where else do we see possibilities for transformation?

Today, as I write this, transformation is happening here in Canada, in the US, and spreading to countries around the planet that will affect the whole concept of policing, restoring a call to “serve and protect”. Practices such as racial profiling leading to harsh treatment, even to serious injury and death will no longer be tolerated either by political leaders or by the people of our countries.

As Canada‘s CBC News reported: Thousands of people took part in an anti-racism protest in downtown Toronto Friday (June 12, 2020). Protesters have called for greater accountability from Canada’s police agencies, cuts to policing budgets and acknowledgement of systemic racism in law enforcement. 

From small transmutations in our personal lives, we can consciously seek the larger changes that will alter the planet, testing them for their coherence within the powers of the universe, asking whether these changes will contribute to the enhancement of life, becoming transformative.

We are part of the unfolding of the four dimensions of the universe. The universe is present now, enfolded in the work we do.

The mystics and poets intuited this before the scientists sought proof. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a century ago that, “We are the transformers of Earth.  Our whole being, and the flights and falls of our love, enable us to undertake this task.”

One of the clearest descriptions of the experience of transformation at the personal level comes to us from the 20th century mystic, Caryll Houselander. After a long illness, a bout of scrupulosity, Caryll had an experience of God that removed her obsessive fears and gave her a profound peace.

She writes: It was in the evening, I think. The room was dark, and the flames of firelight dancing on the wall seemed almost to cause me pain when I opened my eyes…. I no longer attempted to translate my torment as particular sins; I had realized in a dim, intuitive way that it was not something I had done that required forgiveness, but everything I was that required to be miraculously transformed.

Jean Houston advises that when we are moving into an experience of transformation we should go looking for guidance from the mystics, writers and poets who have experienced this.  Welcome beauty into our lives. Know that we have within us a visionary process which is a source for the recoding of the planet. All the codings for the life of the unborn future are available in us. We are the recoding, the reset button