The End of Days

This was written in September 2002, in response to the predictions of total anarchy, the end of life on Earth and even the end of the Earth itself. People were stockpiling food, clothing, tools, weapons, anything they could imagine needing when they woke up tomorrow to utter destruction.

One of the first prophecies of the end times came from Nostradamus and had to do with the Jews going home, which they did a number of years ago. The Middle East has not settled down since. Another of his prophecies had to do with the mark of the beast on the forehead of a world leader, and was interpreted to mean the birthmark on Gorbachev’s head. Much was written about the bear and the eagle, possibly referring to Russia and the U. S., or perhaps China.

Even the book of Revelation in the Christian Bible referred to the end times in graphic detail. More of these prophecies are coming true with each passing day, the end of the world as we know it is more and more certain. Operation Desert Storm brought us closer to the end as did the American declaration of war on terrorism. Iraq is heating up. India and Pakistan are at the ready and both have nuclear weapons, in part, thanks to Canada giving freely of our technology to make nuclear reactors to generate electric power. China is ominously silent. Both nuclear and chemical weapons exist in abundance. The ability to deliver such weapons anywhere in the world is an accepted fact.

The attack on the U.S. September 11th last year signaled the end of innocence and freedom as we know it. More and more freedoms are being taken away in the name of safety and the populace is accepting gladly these changes. The world economy is shaken to its very roots. The U.S. economy is heading for a very real, very drastic upheaval as the bills for the aftermath of 9/11 come due. The Japanese economy teeters on the brink. Even here at home, we lose services at a steady rate without making any real dent in the national debt. More of the world’s population slips below the poverty line every day. Starvation is no longer a Third World prerogative. It is happening right here at home.

Everywhere there are predictions of dire events, global warming, untreatable disease, floods, droughts, famine, earthquakes, destruction of our environment at an incredible rate, holes in the ozone layer, extinction of more and more species of both plant and animal life before they can even be cataloged.
I think it is obvious that if we do not succeed in wiping ourselves off the face of the earth, Gaea will have a flea bath and certainly reduce the number of Earth’s inhabitants drastically.

There is truly no way to prepare for what is to come. Because the course of history is cyclic, civilizations rising and falling, going all the way back to the decimation of the dinosaurs, Atlantis, Egypt, Athens, Pompeii, Rome, the Biblical Flood (a version of which exists in all religious histories), the European Dark Ages, the British Empire, the Russian Tsars, and now the USSR, Aztecs, Incas, and the list goes on, Life itself is in an eternal spiral of becoming, such that with every turn of the wheel, civilizations fall, but with something left over to begin again with, I believe our emphasis must be not on saving life, but on saving souls. Death, is the eventual outcome of all births, and as we know, death is simply a rebirth on another level. Panic is not called for; we are simply living in the end times of another civilization.

Because it has become truly a Global Village, we are much more aware of what is happening than in the past, which means that the general populace is privy to much more “News” than even twenty years ago. I am not sure I would want to survive, at my age, to greet a “Brave New World” where living simply is a must, with no medical services, no system of care for the elderly nor any of the modern conveniences that make life easier as we age. I believe that is the job of the young. There will certainly be survivors to repopulate the world and start the cycle once more. It would be hoped that these survivors would be much more spiritually aware than past generations.

Perhaps our responsibility lies in trying to make for a more enlightened populace. People are definitely searching for answers, for a better way, for connection with the Divine, the Creator, the Cosmic All. That is why so many Eastern Religions have taken hold in the West, among them Buddhism, Baha’i, Hare Krishna, Transcendentalism, Wicca, Native Medicine, Spiritualism, and any number of fakes allying themselves with the New Age movement. I see our role as one of bringing light to the dark recesses of the human condition, in all possible ways.