The Art of Spell-Casting Part VI: Polarization

The Condensing of Extremes

I’ve been procrastinating writing this essay on Polarity, the 6th principle of the oscillation of magic for over a week. Inspiration struck awhile ago. I jotted down my ideas in the little gold notebook embossed with the Hawaiian islands I carry with me everywhere, yet still I’ve put off putting my fingers to this keyboard and funneling my ideas into a few paragraphs that would propel this series through the gateway of condensing extremes, the definition of polarity according to Heka, which if you haven’t been reading this series from the beginning, is the name of Mū Hawaiian magic. (Here’s a link to Part I if you want to begin to the journey.)

Why have I been stalled? A few days ago, I realized my personal connotation of the concept was holding me back. In my mind, polarity is polarizing, meaning it’s something that pulls people apart to the extreme ends of the spectrum, most notably in politics. Polarity sows discord and is the cause of war. As someone who tends to be conflict avoidant, I did not want to look at it.

While knowing the Heka definition differed, as well as the scientific meaning of polarity as a property of light, I still felt uneasy about writing about it and continued to put it off, leading to that old familiar feeling of dread that comes up with procrastination.

I’ve heard some people say don’t worry so much about procrastination, stop judging, give yourself a break, lean into it and wait for inspiration to strike, but I was inspired, so that just didn’t sit right with me. Why was I putting something off I knew I wanted to start?

The answer came when I remembered that procrastination, according to many somatic therapists, is characteristic of the freeze trauma response, my trauma response to be specific. Even though my mind knew it was far more than my personal definition of conflict, my body was not letting me override the programming and was keeping me from sitting down to write this.

What changed?

Yesterday, the town of Lahaina on Maui burned to the ground. I used to live on Maui and have many pleasant memories of strolling down Front Street. Yesterday, on the edge of this historic colonial whaling town, also home of the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Hawai’i, and before that, as I learned from Ke’oni Hanalei’s Instagram posts yesterday, the piko of Mū where all four elements converged, two of those elements, fire and water, met in an explosion of such force that it engulfed all the historic buildings, spreading out over the water to burn docks and the boats moored there.. People leaped into the water to escape. Fathers, sisters, mothers, brothers. People died. At least 56 known so far. I’m numb writing this, but I can also feel the tears building in my heart, the grief welling up like the waters of Moku Hina, the ancient pond filled in to create the colonial town, site of the famous and well-loved Banyan tree that so far seems to have survived the conflagration.

I’m not going to intellectualize this and say, at this point, humanity is so polarized it needs extreme wake up calls to come together and recreate a vision of how we are going to coexist on our planet before our reckless, mindless, and selfish behavior destroys it. I’m going to let that water rise up. I’m going to feel. I have many friends on Maui. They are all safe. Right now, my heart aches for strangers’ loss.

Why do so many of us need suffering to feel? Why do we need to be forced to run from the flames?

Go gently, my heart tells me. Let the dream awake us from slumber. Don’t force the heart to carry more blood than it can handle.

But what if it’s too late for that?

And what’s happening in the dream? All I have are vague memories, flickers of light, and my body’s freeze response telling me if I just hold still maybe I will survive this cataclysm.

Only yesterday, if I’d been in Lahaina, I wouldn’t have survived if I’d stayed frozen. It was a clear black and white. I would have had to run for my life.

Is that what’s coming for us all now on planet Earth?

Do you remember the ancient cataclysms when the elements seemed to turn against us, swallowing our civilizations like crocodiles, dragging us down to be devoured in muddy riverbanks?

I bet most of you are most familiar with polarization as something done to sunglasses to reduce the glare when looking at water. These kinds of lenses are commonly worn by fishermen and people who spend time on the ocean. I like polarized sunglasses, but maybe it’s time we let ourselves be rattled by the glare?

3-D movies are also an example of polarization of light. They are actually two movies shown at the same time through different cameras filmed at slightly different angles. In this way, what could have been dueling narratives, become one, a more vivid version, perhaps closer to reality than we can see at this point without cardboard glasses in a dark theater.

So now we are working with three definitions of polarization—my personal one is the most literal, polarity as extreme ends of the spectrum that lead to conflict. The definition we find in Heka that says polarity is the condensing of extremes, and finally, the definition of polarity as a property of light as defined by science. Let’s take a look at that one and see what we can discover.

Light moves in waves. Polarization occurs when light waves occur in a transverse, or single plane. An example of transverse waves are the ripples of water that move across the surface of water when a stone is thrown into it. To me, polarized light looks like an arrow moving toward its target without straying, absolutely intent on reaching its aim. You can see what I mean from this diagram. The unpolarized light moves out on horizontal and vertical planes, the polarized strictly follows a vertical path. While it may not be as multidimensional as light that moves in many directions, mechanically and metaphorically it shows us how to be effective in moving toward our desired aim.

How does polarization occur?

Polarization occurs when an electrical field distorts the negative cloud of electrons around the positive atomic nuclei in a direction opposite to the field. A slight separation of charge makes one side of the atom somewhat positive and the opposite side somewhat negative.

Why does polarization occur?

Polarization occurs because, in this world, in order for creation to occur in the material, we need to condense these extremes, shoot forth like an arrow on a transverse plane to move with intent beyond the clouds of amnesia that keep us from remembering our purpose here on Earth.

Polarization occurs when our hearts have frozen and need to be thawed.

Can you hear the screams of the people running toward the water? Buildings exploding, the roaring flames, the monotone voices of trauma survivors in shock, but most of all can you hear the weeping?

Sound waves cannot be polarized.

According to the Mū doctrines, the experiment of the last world was electricity, and the responsibility of beings alive in that time was to seed the next world—ours, with voltage. A simple definition of electricity is the flow of charge. We have channeled it as an energy source, a polarizing one that has created wars and exploitation all over our planet, but it exists without us. What would it look like to align with voltage as allies instead of usurpers?

The octopus, he’e in Hawaiian, is the one survivor of the last world, successfully carrying electricity into this one. As most know, an octopus has eight legs. But did you know it also has nine brains and three hearts? Each leg is innervated by its own brain and a central brain oversees them all. Two of its hearts pump blood to its gills, and the third circulates blood to the rest of its body. The blood of an octopus is blue because its blood contains copper, not iron like human blood. Copper is known as a superior conductor of electricity.

Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash

Why do we need electricity? Not the kind that lights up our night skies so we can’t see the stars, but the primal voltage that causes charged protons and electrons to flow?

The heart is powered by electricity. That is both a scientific and metaphorical truth. And according to the HeartMath Institute, two hearts in close proximity come into coherence, in other words, their electrical charges flow together. They become one river.

In June 2000, the Hopi elders released this prophecy:

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

The Hopi elders say we are at the end of the fourth world, about to move into the fifth. According to the Mū doctrines, the experiment of this world we find ourselves in, the one that looks like it will end in war and wildfires, is love. Aloha. Not an emotion. A natural law.

Will we have the courage to let our hearts thaw, to feel the pain of the cracking ice before our skin is burned to a crisp and we don’t get the change again to touch another human body, or the parched Earth, or the smooth bark of an ancient banyan?

I want to say polarization needs to end, but if it’s a principle of light and the oscillation of magic, it’s a natural law, which means we must embrace it, not resist. We must learn how to flow with the charge.

It rained tonight here on Moku o Keawe. I hear the fires are almost contained, but what is coming? What can we learn from this condensing of extremes, this meeting of fire and water that destroyed Lahaina town?

In Greek mythology, curiosity led Pandora to open a container left in her care by her husband. Her transgressive act released sickness and death into the world. Realizing what she’d done, Pandora did not stay frozen, she closed the container. And what remained in it? Hope.

Tonight I read the magnificent banyan of Lahaina still stands. And while I can’t predict if the tree will live, I do know that trees, rooted deep in the Earth, often regenerate quickly after being burned.

Polarization. The condensing of extremes.

Suffering is not a natural law, but grieving is. So weep. Let your tears flow. Water the Earth. Feel your heart as another’s.

Maui, we grieve for you, but most of all, we grieve with you.

Kō aloha lā ea

Concentrate on love by way of the light