An Introduction

Popular. Consciousness. It's sort of funny considering that consciousness doesn't always seem to be the most popular thing out there these days. But if you look around, I believe we'll see something that's growing. So what is popular consciousness anyway? There are tons of definitions out there for both the words “popular” and “consciousness”, so I've improvised this little breakdown on my own:

pop‧u‧lar con‧scious‧ness [pop-yuh-ler kon-shuh-s-nis] noun
1. the collective thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs shared by a group of people
2. the predominating belief and value systems of a culture and its sub-cultures

It's all about what's on our minds---literally. On top of our basic human experience, we have layers of worldviews, paradigms and thought systems that guide how we live our lives. It's the software we've accumulated over a lifetime. Some of it is absolutely necessary to survive, but there's a lot that's outdated and inefficient. And then there's all the bugs and viruses. Consciousness is the process of waking up to these systems within us and between us, strengthening what's healthy and getting rid of what's not.

And like anything that's worthwhile, that process can be exhausting. If you become so acutely aware of everything going on in your mind and the world, you may want to knock yourself . . . unconscious. Because we're bound to see so much madness in ourselves and so much injustice in the world once we start to really look at things.

But there is so much beauty here at the same time, so much passion and ingenuity and creativity and compassion and spirit bubbling over all around us. Both are happening at the same time: the dark and the light. And that's the reality we're trying to wrap our heads around, to truly see the Whole Picture. And it doesn't happen overnight. Just as the evolution of our consciousness as a species is a process, so are our own individual journeys. We take it step by step.