Elevators and Escalators

an early morning reflection

(I know – it’s a really big photo, and, for me, a really big topic! Photo credit – simpleexelvators.com.au)

It felt too early to get up but too late to try to go back to sleep.

So, with the vote of one cat, we got up.

Sitting with my coffee and open journal, the visuals of elevators and escalators popped into my head. That’s how it often goes. Boom. I have no idea what is going to pop in.

So, I went with them and am grateful for their arrival.

The word “escalation” is front and center.

As I read the word and its current context of what is happening in our country, what comes with the word are feelings – so, so many feelings, feelings on multiple levels.

Feeling the varied feelings in my mind, heart and body, I began to picture, first, escalators.

The kind you get on in department stores to go up from the ground floor to your desired department.

Then, maybe you get back on to go to the next floor or the next floor up.

I remember, as a child in the big department stores of NYC, that we’d then say, “We need to find the down escalator.” When we were on the “down escalator” we were not increasing. We were, so to speak, decreasing, de-escalating. We were going back to “grounding.”

So here is my reflection.

The dictionary says to escalate is to increase rapidly – or - to become or cause to become more intense or serious.

It is not just an undercurrent in this moment.

It is not just imagining.

It is real.

There is an acute awareness every single day that some in this country want to purposely and purposefully escalate cruelty, depravation, violence, fear, “disappearing” people, separation, accusation, job loss, medical loss, food loss, housing loss, and more on many different levels.

It is extreme meanness toward human beings. It is with total absence of conscience, compassion, and moral compass, much less a shred of love and kindness.

Those who are acting in such a manner are on one escalator, and they are trying to create, if there is such a thing, a high-speed escalator.

To grab the power, the greed, the selfishness, the money, the, what I think of as neutralization of all people who are not like them. Maybe there’s a better word.

I do not want to keep talking about them, but I want to talk about them enough and loudly enough that no one buries their head as if nothing is happening.

What is happening on that escalator will, in some way, impact and harm every single one of us.

It is not only those who are on this escalator but also those supporting them, whether out of true support or fear of retaliation if not.

This morning, I visualized a second escalator.

Part of me wanted this escalator to be far away from theirs. But then, I realized I want it to be right next to it, so close and so absolutely lit up that if those on the first one take even a second to look (which might seem doubtful), they will see the opposite intentions and actions.

This second escalator already exists, just as much as the first one, and we need it to become much more crowded, far louder and oh, by the way, filled with joy and in service TO others. Peace is present even in the raucous – raucous peace.

We need this to be the high speed escalator right now.

This escalator is packed with people who are true leaders, true leaders being all who lead from the heart, from fierce love for this world and for one another, even for those who are on the first escalator who have lost their way, though that is a challenge hard to meet on many days.

The second escalator is filled with beautiful diversity, languages from all cultures, minds from around the world that are brilliant and come together to lead the ways that create a truly better world, together.

This escalator is filled with field laborers, dishwashers, cooks, educators, caregivers, all the medical people who sacrificed their own lives to serve during Covid, researchers who are finding ways to save lives and our planet and so many more.

There are thousands of children on this escalator who know what it means to play fair and comfort and care for one another when life isn’t fair – the children are present in heavy numbers because they are the ones who remind us of what we learned when we were children. They also remind us that everything that happens today in any other kind of escalation will have lifelong impact on them, and they beg us to consider that.

The “olders,” the elders are also on this escalator in huge numbers because they bring wisdom from past sufferings, from other escalators over the decades and centuries that hurt lives. They still bear what they lived, lost, and learned and ask us to not repeat the past events that stole people’s lives and livelihoods.

And all the ages in between. Those paying back student loans, carrying mortgages, trying to buy a car, looking for jobs that will be secure rather than in constant threat of layoffs, those raising children and caring for aging parents and more and more and more.

This is an escalator where people create a container for one another that is based on legal justice, social justice, conscience, moral integrity, connectedness and interconnectedness, community, and commitment to creating a world that brings out our highest good.

I will end with the elevator, which came before the invention of the escalator.

Thinking about elevators took me to realizing the word elevate has a different feeling than the word escalate.

In my childhood city, most elevators only went up two or three levels, and slowly. Before the elevator could move, the elevator operator had to close the doors to make sure all were safe. Only then did we go.

Same going down. Going back to the grounding from which we began.

The same with the “down escalator.” De-escalating. Going to ground. Another important escalator to get on right now.

I leave myself with these questions and invite you to join me:

If I choose an escalator, which one am I going to get on?

Once on, am I willing to live on it for a while as we make our way through the days ahead?

If I am not yet ready to show up on that escalator or for understandable reasons cannot get on in the ways described, can I at least elevate someone else today? Perhaps a call or a note (even snail mail to surprise them later) or picking up supplies for those in need. The list of how we can elevate one another is limitless.

Elevators and the raucous escalators make all the difference.

And grounding. Come back and stay in your grounding, wherever you find it and the strength of it. Remember who you are at the deepest level of your heart and soul that gives you confidence and “staying true” power.

As Oriah Mountain Dreamer ends her poem, “The Invitation,”

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer. "The Invitation." Family Friend Poems, https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-invitation-by-oriah-mountain-dreamer