The Cosmic Orchestra

This week I have undergone a “sea change”—“a broad (spiritual?) transformation”—that has, I think, been in the making for long years, accelerating this summer and reaching the tipping point Tuesday, when a great friend suggested I read the book The Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the mystic cosmology that underlies the premise of The Vortex—I think of myself as a sceptic (although I’m suddenly reminded of a college professor, Howard Booth, who was both sceptic and mystic at once), and the metaphysical elements of the book don’t necessarily ring my bell—but I find myself powerfully affected by the premise itself: that we inevitably attract the things to which we pay the most attention (whether positive or negative); that the “Vibrations” we broadcast determine to greater or lesser degree what happens in our lives and that we have the power to tune our own “Vibrations” to play a variety of notes. As a nominal Christian, I've struggled for years with the common Christian notion that God is the initiator of all that happens in the world—that God directly acts to bring people into (and take them out of) our lives, that God orchestrates every good thing that happens (and by logical extension, every bad thing that happens, too)—and the reasons I resist accepting this idea are:

• It seems to drastically limit the exercise of “free will”
• It lays responsibility for sometimes terrible suffering on a “good” and “loving” God
• It excuses people who are passive when confronted with injustice, suffering, or wrong: “It’s God’s will,” many say as they shrug their shoulders and avert their eyes
• Many start with “it’s God’s will” and conclude that their good fortune implies their greater worthiness
• ...

I can, however, get behind the idea that the universe is so made that a kind of “sympathetic resonance” plays out, similarly to what is suggested in The Vortex. I can imagine a universe so constituted that everything has its own metaphoric “resonant frequency,” and will “vibrate” in response to other “vibrations” on the same “frequency.” Good things and relationships have particular “frequencies” and will naturally manifest when another person or thing is tuned to and vibrating at the same “frequency,” with the same being true of less than “good” things. For most of my life I have given my attention to that which I lack, “vibrating” to a “negative” “frequency.” If the “Law of Attraction” has any basis in reality—if in fact the “vibrations” we give off do in fact attract (or awaken) similar “vibrations” in similarly “tuned” things and people (and my recent experience supports the premise)—my focus on what is missing instead of on what is present would result in more of what I was focused on. When I began reading The Vortex, previous lessons—“Just show up and breathe,” “Choose your emotion,” “Celebrate what is,” etc.—clicked into place and in a matter of hours I could feel myself vibrating on an entirely new frequency. (in the interest of full disclosure, I must credit the cast of RENT on Maui and our own personal “Summer of Love” for softening my heart and preparing me for this “sea change.”) It amazes me, the speed of this transformation, not to mention its radical nature. There is something different (and awesome) about me; it isn’t that I haven’t always been awesome; it’s just that I didn’t believe it in my heart of hearts, and the universe around me resonated to that disbelief. Now it resonates to a new note, and the universe around me is awakening to that new note. Others are commenting on it (not that I require external validation, although it’s certainly pleasant), but most importantly I can see it, feel it, hear it, smell it, touch it, taste it. It’s real to me; as real as love, as desire, as passion, as joy. It doesn’t matter if the universe works exactly the way this metaphor suggests; this is working for me, and as a practical matter, that’s all that matters.