The Second Coming

Celebrating the Works of WB Yeats

Yesterday marked the birthday of W.B. Yeats—an Irish mystic, poet, and political thinker whose words echo with eerie resonance today. In university, we studied his work for its dreamlike rhythm and symbolic richness, but The Second Coming always lingered like a shadow. It’s one of those poems that crawls under your skin—and lately, it feels like the world is living it line by line.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

With the tension rising globally—from the eerie choreography of Trump’s birthday celebrations in conjunction with the US Military parade to the “No Kings” protests pulsing across the world to the height of the geopolitical tensions across the Middle East—Yeats’ famous lines seem less prophetic and more documentary:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

We’re witnessing a time where old systems are crumbling, authority is being questioned, and collective anxiety is spilling over. Yeats wrote this after the horrors of World War I and during the 1919 flu pandemic—another era where people were grappling with chaos and trying to navigate through a fast-changing world.

🌟 Is Yeats talking about Jesus here?

Yes — and no. The poem is about the idea of a Second Coming, but not necessarily the return of Jesus in a comforting or redemptive form. Yeats believed history moved in 2,000-year gyres or spirals (he was very into mysticism and the occult). The first gyre was Christ’s birth; now, the next turning is due — but what’s coming may not be the Christ we have been taught to believe.

The “Spiritus Mundi” line is key. It’s the "world soul" or "collective unconscious," and Yeats suggests that this new force isn’t a divine saviour, but a monstrous, ancient energy rising out of humanity’s spiritual crisis.

The image of the beast:

“somewhere in sands of the desert / A shape with lion body and the head of a man”

...feels both Biblical (evoking the Book of Revelation and Egyptian/Sumerian myth), and anti-Christ-like — not a saviour, but a being birthed from moral decay and spiritual disconnection.

Yeats once asked "what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." But maybe that beast isn’t just terror—it’s transformation. Maybe it’s the part of us that’s finally waking up.

If Jesus Christ were born in Bethlehem today, he would arrive in a war zone. Bombs would greet him before shepherds. The cries of mourning would drown out any songs of angels. The very soil that holds so much sacred history is now soaked in conflict. It begs the question—what have we done with our divinity?

But maybe the Second Coming isn’t about a single saviour descending from the skies. Maybe it’s the rebirth of consciousness itself—the quiet rising of love in a world that has forgotten how to listen. Maybe it’s compassion taking form in everyday people. A mother protecting her children. A stranger offering food. A protestor standing with courage. A child, still laughing, even amidst rubble.

The Middle East, like so many parts of the world, is not just a site of suffering—it’s a mirror. It reflects our disconnection, but also the possibility of remembering. The Earth is groaning beneath the weight of violence, greed, and separation. But she also whispers of healing. Of stillness. Of another way.

The Second Coming will not arrive with trumpets unless it first arrives through us—through our choices, our empathy, our willingness to see the sacred in every face.

Until we realize that this awakening is ours to embody, maybe the Second Coming will remain just out of reach. But if we become the very light we’re waiting for—if we live it—then perhaps that long-awaited return is already here, blooming quietly through the cracks.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

It rings louder now than ever before.

We’re living in a time where wars rage, power is hoarded, and humanity feels splintered. And yet, I believe Yeats wasn’t just speaking of a single apocalyptic event or the return of one divine figure — he was gesturing toward something deeper. Something unfolding within us. He wrote of the collapse of the old world, yes — but also of something strange and new rising from the “Spiritus Mundi,” the collective soul of the Earth.

In many ways, the Second Coming is not about the return of Jesus in the flesh, but the emergence of Christ Consciousness in the hearts of many.

This divine spark — of love, truth, wisdom, and courage — is stirring in those who are sensitive, intuitive, and spiritually attuned. But often, those same people doubt themselves. They stay quiet. They shrink back. Meanwhile, the loudest voices in the room — fueled by greed and fear — continue to dominate.

But what if this is our call?

What if the poem isn’t a prophecy of doom, but a wake-up call to those of us who have felt that flicker of awakening?

The world doesn’t need another saviour. It needs many of us, choosing to live with clarity, compassion, and conviction.

When I go out into nature — when I lose myself in the forest, meditate by the creek, or sit with the trees in silence — I feel it. The pulse of something ancient and sacred moving through me. The animals, the wind, the light... they remind me of the magic that still exists in this world. And they remind me of who I truly am.

This awakening, this return to Source, is what I want to share with others. Especially children. Because they get it. They still remember.

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So perhaps Yeats did see the unraveling we’re living through now — a time when humanity’s spiritual center collapses, when the world spins faster in confusion, and the lines between light and shadow blur. His words weren’t just a warning… they were a mirror.

We've disconnected from the Earth. We've lost touch with our soul, with silence, with reverence. And in that absence, chaos has crept in.

But the Second Coming isn't about waiting for someone to save us. It’s about us remembering that the light we seek has always lived within us. That Christ Consciousness — the love, wisdom, and spiritual clarity we associate with divinity — doesn’t arrive on a cloud. It rises in the choices we make, the compassion we extend, the stillness we return to, and the courage we embody.

In 2025, as the noise of the world grows louder, we are being asked to listen more deeply — to the Earth, to the children, to our breath, and to our intuition.

This is how we reclaim our spiritual power. This is how we anchor the light.

These quiet adventures — in the forest, by the lake, in moments of unexpected connection with bunnies and butterflies — are not just aesthetic. They are sacred. They are the real world. And they remind me that the Ghibli life I long for isn’t fantasy — it’s a portal back to the spirit of life itself.

If you’re reading this, maybe you needed this reminder too.

So here’s your invitation:

✨ Touch some grass.

Follow the whisper of the wind.

Say hello to a stranger.

Chase the light through the trees.

Ask the Earth to show you a sign — and stay open long enough to see it. 

Let’s raise our frequencies, not just for ourselves, but for the world we’re helping to birth.

And maybe — just maybe — the Second Coming isn’t coming at all.

Maybe it’s already here.

In you.💞