Everything Is Speeding Up — Field-Reading – Week 24
Last week we explored the theme of Sudden Shifts, and as I sat with the field throughout this week, I found myself noticing something that appears to be connected to those shifts. It is not simply that life is changing direction more frequently. It is that the pace of the change itself seems to be accelerating.
Many people have spoken about this in recent years. Some describe it as time moving faster. Others describe it as reality becoming more responsive. Whatever language we choose, there is a growing sense that the distance between cause and effect has become shorter than it once was, as though life itself is responding more quickly to the choices we make, the thoughts we think, the emotions we carry, and the directions we choose to follow.
The best way I can describe it is that the feedback loop has become shorter. A thought arises, and reality responds more quickly. An emotion is ignored, and the body responds more quickly. A choice is made, and the consequences arrive more quickly. A dream is embraced, and opportunities begin appearing more quickly. What once seemed to require years now appears capable of unfolding in months, weeks, or even days.
I have been reflecting on this because I have experienced it repeatedly in my own life, particularly during the last year. A simple example occurred recently when I broke my toe. Had this happened twenty years ago, I would have expected weeks of discomfort and a long recovery. Instead, I watched my body respond with a speed that surprised even me. Within only a day, the healing process had accelerated far beyond what I would once have considered possible. It felt as though the body itself was operating from a different set of instructions than it had in the past.
Perhaps this is one of the great invitations of our time. We are being asked to reconsider what is possible. Not because the laws of nature have changed, but because our relationship with life is changing.
This week I found myself remembering something from 2017 during my two-year shamanic training. One of our assignments was to build what we called a manifestation cairn, a stone structure placed intentionally into the landscape as a ceremonial declaration of what we wished to create and invite into our future. I built mine in Rondane National Park.
Stone by stone, I placed my intentions into that cairn. As I worked, I allowed myself to imagine the life I wished to create, the work I felt called to do, the books I hoped to write, the people I wanted to serve, and the future that was quietly trying to emerge through me. Looking back now, I can see that many of those visions are becoming reality. Being in ceremony is a way of aligning our inner world with our outer actions. It creates coherence and commitment. It allows us to step into relationship with what we are trying to create.
What fascinates me most is not that these things are arriving. It is how quickly they now seem to be arriving. Of course, from one perspective I could say that it has taken nine years. Yet from another perspective, it feels exactly right. I could probably have moved faster. I could have chosen a different path. I could have focused entirely on my own ambitions and left parts of my life behind in pursuit of a vision. But that was never the journey I wanted. I wanted my children with me. I wanted my family with me. I wanted my partner with me. I wanted the people I love to have the time they needed for their own journeys.
And now, as I look around me, I can feel that something has changed. The timing is different. The people around me have grown. They have walked their own Hero’s Journeys. They have faced their own challenges, their own initiations, and their own transformations. Now the field feels ready for all of us.
One of the people who reminds me of this most clearly is my daughter. She is currently walking through a difficult chapter of her own Hero’s Journey, and as any parent knows, there are moments when watching someone you love move through pain can feel harder than carrying the pain yourself. Yet the Hero’s Journey has never been a story about comfort. It is a story about transformation.
Every meaningful transformation requires a period where the old identity begins to dissolve before the new one has fully arrived. It is often uncomfortable. It can feel uncertain. Sometimes it feels as though life is falling apart when in reality life is reorganizing itself into a form that is more aligned with the soul’s deeper intentions. This is one of the great paradoxes of manifestation. We often imagine that manifestation is about acquiring what we want. Yet before we can receive what we want, we are frequently invited to become the version of ourselves capable of holding it.
That process can be beautiful. And it can be challenging. We live within a world of polarity, where growth often emerges through apparent opposites. Expansion and contraction. Hope and uncertainty. Trust and fear. Creation and destruction. The very tensions we sometimes wish to avoid are often the forces shaping us into who we are becoming. What feels different now is that the support available through life itself seems stronger than ever. The field feels responsive. Reality feels responsive. Life feels responsive.
The thoughts we repeatedly think seem to gather momentum more quickly. The emotions we avoid seem to demand our attention more quickly. The dreams we nourish seem to find pathways into reality more quickly. And perhaps this acceleration becomes even stronger when we are willing to surrender. Surrender is often misunderstood. Many people hear the word and imagine giving up. Yet surrender is not giving up. It is giving over. It is releasing our need to control every detail and allowing life to participate in the creation of what we are trying to bring forth. Again and again, I have noticed that the moment I stop forcing and begin listening, life starts moving with extraordinary speed.
Doors open, people appear, resources arrive and the next step becomes visible. Not always according to my plans, but often in ways that are far more intelligent than anything I could have organized by myself. This is why I do not see my path as unique. The details may be unique, but the path itself is universal. Every human being is invited into this relationship with life. Every human being carries dreams, longings, callings, and possibilities that wish to be expressed. Every human being is invited into their own Hero’s Journey. Every human being is being asked, in one way or another, whether they are willing to follow what calls them.
The invitation is not reserved for mystics, therapists, shamans, authors, or teachers. It belongs to all of us. And perhaps that is the deeper message of this week’s field. Everything is speeding up. Not so that we become busier. Not so that we accomplish more. Not so that we run faster. But so that we learn to trust more deeply, surrender more fully, and participate more consciously in the extraordinary process of becoming who we were always meant to be.