A Nation (Or Me?) Divided

Summary

The author reflects on the cultural and spiritual divide between the eastern and western halves of the United States, using personal experiences and the teachings of Edgar Cayce to illustrate the contrast.

Abstract

The author, having lived in various parts of America, perceives a distinct division in the country's mass consciousness, with a north-south line to the east of the Rocky Mountains separating the conservative, decaying East from the progressive, future-oriented West. This division is not marked by the Mississippi River but rather by the transition from mountainous to flat terrain. The author describes the eastern half as largely conservative and resistant to change, while the western half embraces progressivism and new ideas. Cities like Denver and Colorado Springs are seen as border towns between these two Americas. The author also references Edgar Cayce's view on the westward flow of spirituality across the continent, from Virginia to San Francisco Bay, suggesting a spiritual journey that mirrors the physical migration from east to west. Despite this, the author made a personal decision to move from Colorado to Nebraska, which they consider a move against the spiritual current.

Opinions

The eastern half of the contiguous United States is characterized as conservative and resistant to change, while the western half is seen as progressive and forward-thinking.
The author believes there is a clear cultural divide marked by the Rocky Mountains, with the eastern side representing a potential future of entrapment and the western side symbolizing hope and progress.
The transition from the mountains to the flat plains evokes a sense of dread and foreboding in the author, associated with a life lacking hope and change.
Edgar Cayce's teachings are cited to support the idea of a westward spiritual journey across North America, with the Tidewater region of Virginia as the entry point and San Francisco Bay as the exit point.
The author views their personal move from Colorado to Nebraska as moving against the spiritual flow, despite the broader cultural trend of westward progression.

What direction am I headed towards?

I’ve lived on the East Coast of America, on the West Coast of America and in numerous points in-between. I’ve experienced the mass consciousness of most areas of the country and I am convinced that there is a north-south line separating the country.

No, that line is not the Mississippi River. You can cross that river either way at any point and you are still in the eastern half of the country.

I can’t speak about Alaska or Hawai’i as I have never lived or even visited either state but as far as the 48 contiguous states go it seems obvious that the eastern half of the country is hopelessly conservative, stuck in old paradigms and in a state of decay. Of course, there are a few areas, pockets, where the mass consciousness is more progressive, open minded and pushing the envelope of new ideas.

The western half of the 48 contiguous states are predominantly progressive and headed full-steam into the future although there are a few pockets of conservative mentality fighting the future and desperately holding onto the past.

To me personally, it seems that line dividing east and west is drawn from north to south just to the east of the Rocky Mountains. When you’re traveling from west to east and you come down from the mountains and you enter land that is flat then you have entered the eastern half of the country.

During the 18 years that I lived up in the mountains of Colorado I often had to drive down out of the mountains to the cities of the Front Range for various reasons. Sometimes it was to go to either the Colorado Springs or Denver airports. Sometimes it was to go shopping. Sometimes it was to take our daughter to the Denver Zoo or the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. Once it was to go to a Colorado Rockies baseball game. Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo…. these are all border towns. They are directly on the border between East America and West America.

On those numerous occasions when I drove down out of the mountains to the Front Range (the name given to all the cities and towns on the eastern slope of the mountains and on the edge of the prairie) I would drive down narrow two-lane highways that twisted and turned down through canyons. It made for delightful, if sometimes scary, driving with breathtaking scenery. But there always came a point at which I could see in the distance the eternal flatness of the land beyond the mountains. And every time I saw this I was filled with a sense of dread.

While it may have something to do with mass consciousness it had a lot more to do with me personally. I saw that endless flat land and I was filled with foreboding. I could sense a potential future in which I was entrapped — a potential mass consciousness in which I was trapped. Seeing that boring, unchanging landscape ahead, I saw a potential future for myself in which I had given up, a future in which I had lost all hope and just lived out my years in suffering and obscurity and hopelessness. It seemed like a place I would go to die.

The great American spiritual teacher Edgar Cayce said that spirituality always travels in a westerly direction. Round and round the planet it goes slowly bringing the entire planetary human population to enlightenment. According to him, the spiritual opening to the North American continent is the Tidewater region of Virginia and the spiritual exit point is San Francisco Bay. So as spirituality goes round and round the planet it moves from the American East Coast to the West Coast and then beyond…. only to come back around again.

So if spirituality moves in a westerly direction why the hell would I move from Colorado to Nebraska? That would be moving backwards, right?

But that’s what I did….