The World's Dark Night of the Soul

Jan 19, 2022


Hello {{first_name}},

The World's Dark Night of the Soul

South Africa, my country, is going through a very hard time. There is looting. There are riots. There is desperation. There is opportunism. There is so much fear. Friends I know can't buy food as all the shops are closed. The TV footage has our mouths hanging open.

This is not a uniquely South African situation. Last year we watched similar footage of looting in many parts of the US.

Systems are shaking and changing.

There are uprisings and there will be more.

There are issues with governance in multiple countries and there will be more.

There is rampant inequality and there will be more.

It just struck me that it's Bastille Day. A day which, a little bizzarely, the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille, a fortress and state prison, during a time of famine and populist uprisings. It was the beginning of the French Revolution. Yes, good came of it - but there was much loss of life. Scarily resonant of the situation in South Africa today, I read about in the context of Bastille Day that "Unemployment was likewise a problem, which the populace blamed in part on newly reduced customs duties between France and Britain. Following a harsh winter, violent food riots began breaking out across France at bakeries, granaries and other food storage facilities." *

No doubt I will not be the only person writing about these comparisons on this day.

I wanted to write an uplifting message, the one I pondered as I went on my walk this morning. I'll save those thoughts.

This is what I feel called to share now.

I cannot attribute the below quote properly, as my online search has revealed only numerous people reposting these paragraphs and passing them off as their own. If anyone is able to provide me with the true source, I'd be grateful.

"The Mayan people call this the “Time of No Time.”

From here on, we’re on Earth time.

Mother Earth is shaking to her core. It’s a time of madness, disconnection, and hyper-individualism. It’s also a time when new energies are coming into the world, when people are growing a new skin. The Mayan vision says that we in the West will find safe harbour only if we can journey past a wall of mirrors.

The mirrors will surely drive us mad—unless we have a strong heart. Some mirrors delude us with an infinity of reflections of our vanity and shadows. Others paralyse us with our terror and rage, feeding an empire that manufactures our fear into resignation. But the empire has no roots and it’s toppling all around us. In this time everyone is called to take a stand. Everyone is called to be a leader.

To get beyond the wall of mirrors, the final challenge is to pass through a tiny door. To do this, we must make ourselves very, very small. To be very humble. Then we must burrow down into the Earth, where indigenous consciousness lives. On the other side is a clear pond. There, for the first time, we’ll be able to see our true reflection..."

What does this mean for lawyers?

I think we have to start viewing our role in society in a new way. Don't resign yourself to "what is". Don't be deluded by the mirrors and the vanity.

My soul sang last week when my fellow soul-led lawyer, Radhika Lakhani, who's in the process giving up her legal practice but will continue her work to heal clients and other lawyers -said she has realised she is here to heal conflict in people, not for people. This is not everyone's path but it spoke to me deeply. Intrigued? Then come and work with me on understanding the transformative power of conflict.

“Law has had me at war for thirty-five years. Every case I’ve had left me shell-shocked, fatigued, full of fight. One could say I’ve played all my life, because I like what I do, but no, I’ve been sent to innumerable fronts of war. It hasn’t taken genius to win. It has taken energy. Energy.”~ The Lure of the Law p. 81 quoting lawyer Gerry Spence

We let justice be determined by who has the most money; we re-traumatize victims of crime on the witness stand daily; we incarcerate black bodies in a school-to-prison pipeline that shows us slavery is not over it’s just taken different forms; we put judges on the bench who display a poor moral compass and we reward lawyers for working such long hours that a good proportion of them are suicidal.

It is completely nuts.

But we’ve been programmed to believe the law is noble and just, that justice is blind, and we’re now so heavily invested in upholding the system that we cannot see it for what it is.

Like all our planetary systems, the legal system has become largely toxic, dysfunctional and largely unable to meet the current needs of mankind.

Yes, the legal profession is evolving, but not fast enough for many of the lawyers in it. Not fast enough for the people dependent on the legal system. The legal system is not bad. Lawyers are not bad but we have work to do. And it's time.

If you want to be part of the change.

If you want to meet other awakening lawyers around the world.

If you want to figure out what your soul-path of lawyering is.

Then I'd love to hear from you. It's time.

Sending love to you, and prayers for our country. For the world.

xxx

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