I suspect you know this pattern. It feels familiar these days. You move through your day - coffee, some work, familiar routines and rhythms - and then a headline, a conversation, a yard sign. Something breaks the illusion that things are as they’ve always been. Something is shifting beneath the surface.
In their recent article, “Three Earths: A Way of Understanding Our Present Moment,” Ai-jen Poo and Lorella Praeli suggest that we are living in a world with multiple realities playing out, what they call three “Earths.” Their insight gives language to something many of us are already sensing. We are living between worlds.
There is the world that is unraveling (“Earth One”). A familiar world where systems once held more steadily, where shared norms and structures offered a sense of coherence, even if imperfect. And alongside it, there is a more turbulent reality playing out on the world’s stage (“Earth Two”). One marked by fragmentation, authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, and deep strategies to disrupt the way things have been.
As we attempt to navigate this clash, we naturally try to make sense of the threats and challenges using yesterday’s assumptions and the strategies of from “Earth One”. We try to apply yesterday’s wisdom to today’s complexity. We reach for familiar strategies, only to find they don’t quite fit. We look for clarity in places that once provided it. And when it doesn’t come, we feel disoriented, sometimes overwhelmed.
This is the great unraveling.
But there is also something else happening.
A third world is emerging (“Earth Three”). It’s not fully formed. Not very visible. And yet, it’s quietly surfacing in pockets around the planet in moments, relationships, group gatherings, and unexpected graces.
This is the world of what can be. This is the emergence.
It is not a return to what was, but the birth of something new, something more aligned, more humane, more spiritually attuned, more whole. And here is the deeper invitation: this new world isn’t something we arrive at someday. It is something we begin participating in now.
It may be choosing presence and kindness over reactivity in a difficult conversation.
It may be turning off the news, going for a walk, and paying attention to the birds.
It may be asking a respected and wise friend over for tea and asking what is bringing them hope.
Movement into this third worldview isn’t through the mind that has the right answers, though they will emerge. It’s more about becoming aware.
Awareness of ourselves. Awareness of how we are relating to what is unraveling. Awareness of the subtle signals - the synchronicities, the shifts in energy - that point to what is emerging.
Awareness itself becomes the sacred act.
When we begin to recognize there is an Earth Three we can align with and support, something softens. We release the pressure to fix everything. We loosen our grip on needing certainty. And instead, we begin to trust there are greater, benevolent forces at play amid the chaos and unraveling.
We begin to sense that it is here, in these overlapping worlds, something sacred is at work, quietly but powerfully giving birth to what comes next. Not in spite of the unraveling, but through it.
With an ear tuned to Earth Three, we can listen more deeply. We can notice what is quietly emerging beneath the noise. We can take one small step in alignment with what feels true and life-giving.
And over time, we begin to realize that we are not just witnessing the emergence. We are participating in it.
✨ 3 Points to Ponder
Where do you notice the currents of unraveling and emergence in your life right now?
What helps you stay present when old structures feel uncertain or are falling away?
What small step might align you with what is quietly emerging within or around you?