Mutation: When Is It Time For Change?
We are living in a time when mutation and transformation are especially relevant to us in terms of consciousness. Our awareness is as much at the foreground of our experience as it has ever been and rivals the drive to reproduce as a focus of our attention. According to the Global Cycle knowledge of Human Design, as a society and on a global scale, we are moving away from a collective focus on institutionalized organization toward a time of individual spirit, power and expression. It is more timely than ever that we understand the frequency of mutation, especially as it applies to consciousness.
In terms of Human Design, mutation is associated with Individuality, the individual channels and gates of the bodygraph. Individuality is quite common so it is a prominent theme in the experience of being human. Although it is a common theme and frequency, meaning that most of us carry it to some extent, it is by nature the capacity for any individual to bring forth something entirely unique. It can express through communication, through a quality of consciousness, through form and through relationship and the ways we connect. Mutation is the sudden appearance of something entirely new. It happens in a moment.
Mutation is not only a capacity that most of us carry, it is transmittable. Have you ever had an interaction with someone where they said or did something that altered you? Where you felt as though something was transmitted to you through communication or energy that suddenly made you different? Perhaps it gave you a new perspective or insight or just changed your state in a significant way? It was not a process of step by step change but a sudden new sense of yourself or the world. This is mutation at work. It hits us and changes things in a moment. And once it has happened, it can not be undone. In other words, we can not undo what we have seen or felt or become aware of. It requires adaptation to deal with it or deliberate denial to escape it.
Relationships, families, small communities and larger societies, seem more stable when mutation isn’t happening. There is a way that the structures and consciousness of the group become known and fixed. There is a way of communicating, or a consistency of customs and agreements, or a reliable pattern that is being followed as part of the culture of that group. But at some point, the group hungers for the mutation. The stability within us becomes bored, weary or irrelevant. We hunger for something new to arrive and not only is it wanted, but it is needed in order for us to survive well and to feel alive and viable.
Timing becomes an important issue with mutation and individuality. First, because we are not in control of when the frequency of mutation arrives. It is the moment when we feel a spark or a sense of inspiration or an intense presence and sense that something is happening right now. It can feel like a rush, a high or a burst of clarity and aliveness. It is inherently creative. This pulse-like nature also sets the stage for creativity’s counterpart, melancholy, which is the frequency of emptiness, stasis or suspension that occurs when the creative, mutative pulse is not there.
It can be hard to accept timing as it is. From the conditioned mind, we would like to believe that we have some control, as though we are deciding what we do and when, as if we choose and determine the way things unfold. Although Strategy and Authority are described as ways of being able to make decisions, they are actually tools for recognizing the nature within us and the life force of our bodies coming in contact with time and space as it unfolds. This may sound esoteric but it is very practical.
To wait to respond or to follow a splenic hit or sense of emotional clarity is a way of coming into alignment with a timing and unfolding of life that is already there for us. We can simply become alert in recognizing it and vigilant in distinguishing between that recognition and the mind’s attempts to control what is happening.
As we develop the capacity to witness, we can sense when the pulse of mutation and inspiration is here. We can accept the stasis, emptiness and melancholy when it is not. We can become aware of when recognition, invitation or clarity is here and allow ourselves to speak or do what is correct for us.
When the timing is right, what we naturally are is not resisted by those around us. There is a natural place for it. Rather than being resigned to what Ra described as a “choice-less universe”, we enter into a kind of witnessing which he described as a way of becoming an “enthralled audience” in watching life and energy move through us.
What we can count on, as many have said, is that change is inevitable. Mutation is its catalyst. When we respect the timing of it, in both our inner experience and outer expression, we can sit back and enjoy the ride. Whether we are experiencing stability, emptiness, or the arrival of something new, we can accept it, knowing that neither ever lasts.
Really the experience of creativity is an entry into the mysterious. Technique, expertise and knowledge are just tools; the key is to abandon oneself to the energy that fuels the birth of all things. This energy has no form or structure, yet all the forms and structures come out of it.
-Osho
