(This meditation is excerpted from the revised and expanded edition of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia.)

Listen to the sung version of this piece here:



This is a perfect moment. It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because you and I are waking up from our sleepwalking, thumbsucking, dumb-clucking collusion with the masters of illusion and destruction.

Thanks to them,
from whom the painful blessings flow,
we are waking up.

Their wars and tortures,
their crimes against nature,
extinctions of species
and brand new diseases.

Their spying and lying
in the name of the father,
sterilizing seeds and
trademarking water.

Molestations of God,
celebrations of shame,
stealing our dreams and
changing our names.

Their cunning commercials
and blood-sucking hustles,
their endless rehearsals
for the end of the world.

Thanks to them,
from whom the awful teachings flow,
we are waking up.

*

Their painful blessings are cracking open more and more gashes in the shrunken and crippled mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality."

And through the fractures, ripe eternity is flooding in; news of the soul's true home is pouring in; our allies from the other side of the veil are swarming in, inspiring us to become smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

We are waking up.

As heaven and earth come together, as the dreamtime and daytime merge, we register the shockingly exhilarating fact that we are in charge of creating a New Earth. Not in some distant time or faraway place, but right here and right now.

*

As we stand on this brink, as we dance on this verge, we cannot let the ruling fools of the dying world sustain their curses. We have to rise up and fight their insane logic; defy, resist, and prevent their tragic magic; tap into our sacred rage and supercharge it.

But overthrowing the living dead is not enough. Protesting the well-dressed monsters is not enough. We can't afford to be consumed with our anger; can't be obsessed and possessed by their danger.

Our mysterious bodies crave delight and fertility. Our boisterous imaginations demand fresh tastes of infinity.

In the New Earth we're creating, we need lusty compassion and ecstatic duty, ingenious love and insurrectionary beauty. We need radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks.

*

So I'm curious, my fellow creators. Since you and I are in charge of making a New Earth -- not just breaking down the dying culture -- where do we begin? What stories do we want at the heart of our experiments? What questions will be our oracles?

Here's what I say: In the New Earth we're creating, we will ridicule the cult of doom and gloom, and embrace the cause of zoom and boom. We will laugh at the stupidity of evil and hate; we will summon the brilliance to praise and create.

No matter how upside down it all may appear, we will have no fear, because we know this big secret: All of creation is conspiring to shower us with blessings. Life is crazily in love with us -- brazenly and innocently in love with us.

The universe always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

*

Pronoia is our word of power . . . the antidote for paranoia . . . the spell we cast to gleam ourselves awake again and again. It means that even if we can't see and don't know, primal benefactors are plotting to emancipate us.

The winds and the tides are on our side, forever and ever, amen. The fire and the rain are scheming to steal our impossible pain. The sun and the moon and the stars remember our real names, and our ancestors pray for us while we're dreaming.

We have guardian angels and thousands of teachers . . . provocateurs with designs to unleash us . . . helpers and saviors we can't even imagine . . . brothers and sisters who want us to blossom.

Thanks to them,
from whom the blissful blessings flow,
we are waking up.

The roads they pave us,
the places they save us,
the tomatoes they grow us,
above and below us.

Their mysterious stories,
their morning glories,
their loaves and fishes,
granting our wishes.

The songs they sing us,
the gifts they bring us,
the secrets they show us,
above and below us.

Thanks to them,
from whom the blissful blessings flow,
we are waking up.

*

I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well. But more than any other vision I've ever tested, pronoia describes the way the world actually is.

It's wetter than water, stronger than death, and truer than the news. It smells like cedar smoke in the autumn rain, and if you close your eyes right now, you can feel it shimmering like the aurora borealis in your organs and muscles. Its song is your blood's song.

Some people argue that life is strife and suffering is normal. Others swear we're born sinful and only heaven can provide us with the peace that passes understanding.

But pronoia says that being alive on this rough green and brown planet is the highest honor and privilege. It's an invitation to work wonders and perform miracles that aren't possible in any nirvana, promised land, or afterlife.

I'm not exaggerating or indulging in poetic metaphor when I tell you that we are already living in paradise. Visualize it if you dare. The sweet stuff that quenches all of our longing is not far away in some other time and place. It's right here and right now.

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew the truth:
"Earth's crammed with heaven."