The End of the World as We Know It?

"I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever I was in my life — except in hope, which is by no means bankable."

Edgar
Allan Poe   

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Let me be honest. Poe and I both know firsthand hope is not bankable. Another year almost over, another book published, and earnings as a writer I have none. I haven’t yet succumbed to insanity with a black raven perched above me, dimming the bust of the Goddess of Wisdom, calling “Nevermore!” And yet, this December, this darkest time of year, when the cries of the citizens of the world—animal and leafed and wind- and wave-filled—shock me with their waning health, and I recognize the futility of willpower, and tremble at the ferocity of the world’s polarities, I realize my mortality and ask, as Poe did, “Is there--is there a balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

And here things decidedly brighten. Because no raven but a Sufi teacher flies in the open window. He’s cawing about the end of the world, December 21, 2012. Will we succumb to catastrophe this time, or start a geo-spiritual renewal, or wake up the morning after the newest apocalypse and find things are exactly the same?

Elias Amidon asks, “What if this time is different, not because of celestial influences but because of something closer to home, something that could shift in us from the inside out? What would that be? What would need to 'end' in me for the world to resurrect itself? It’s an honest question."

Click here to read Amidon's superb essay. Click here to read Poe's "The Raven."

Look up. Breathe out. No judgment, first or Last, will end this “world of division.” Your openhearted view can.


Click here to listen to "It's the End of the World as We Know It."