This morning, like most mornings, I let the neighbor cat in. I held the cat lovingly, stroking its soft fur as it raised its face to me, exposing neck and chin for the ritual of me gently rubbing my nails and finger pads along the sides of the cat’s face. This cat would be content to stay in my arms, to make a home there where petting is the rule, where safety always seems to just be. Yet, at some point the cat grows heavy and must be set down.

So on these mornings, as I put the cat down, he complains with a plaintive meow, sometimes not wanting to let go his claws attached to my sweater. This morning I had the thought, “He objects to being kicked out of paradise.” Does that mean it is better to never experience paradise or is getting kicked out the price for existence of heaven on Earth?

I suddenly saw the similarity to human life. We humans also complain loudly each time we are kicked out of paradise. This paradise is the setting where change in natural. Each day we have a new awakening, a realization, and that is the moment we are kicked out of the paradise of remaining asleep, of things remaining exactly the same.

These mini-awakenings are the shock of realizing things are not as we thought them to be. Then the social narrative we live begins to fall apart piece by piece, and the sanctuary of placid belief drops its hold. This is necessary for humans to see more of the big picture, for humans to perceive their greater part, their clear responsibility, in the co-creation of Heaven on Earth. This is how we take up new threads of reality.

Being kicked out of paradise is like that moment when we realize that all politics are corrupt; not just the other side, our side, too. Yeoweeee! we complain, taking a swipe at someone else thinking that will ameliorate our pain. “If only I can make someone in the wrong for me needing to wake up I will feel better,” we each subconsciously tell ourselves. We act out like children then who want to continue to play a game (chosen or not in our case), even when we see the game threatens so many humans and beings of nature, in fact Earth’s ability to hold us, to hold human life.

Yet, it is a new day. We can no longer afford to play the same game. We can wake up to the many ways that children are actually bringing in the energy of the narrative we are here to take up. We can wake up to the possibility of letting go our resistance to what needs to change.

For what will happen if Earth stops petting humanity? What will happen when the load of humanity becomes too heavy and must be put down?

Can humanity see that it needs to grow up and realize that being held means taking a role in protecting the heaven on Earth that is enjoyed?

When will collective consciousness reach that point if agreement that the awakenings are the new bliss? The awakenings that are part painful for what must be left behind offer new ideas of security and divinity. These we must be open to and embrace as the new narrative.

Never are we truly left out in the cold; it is merely momentary disruption of our comfort zones.

Our individual and collective comfort zones we must learn to leave in order to ENGAGE what is newly real and possible.

It is then that humanity can take up the bliss of living as aware co-creative beings who experience the disorientation and the joy of leaving what is known for the unknown, because we understand it beckons just as potently for us to enjoy if we but listen to the calls of our collective ONE heart.

Melissa Wadsworth is a futurist, artistic visionary, and the author of Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Intentional Community, www.CollectiveManifestation.com