My dear friend Anjali Walsh with her children three of whom have now have children.
JUMPING IN TIME
A Grandmother's Guide Through Chaos
Anjali Walsh
This is for my grandchildren....
Arjuna Pinnell, Solomon Dass, Sophia and Max Sharpe, Raphael Pinnell, Gigi's yet-to-be-born baby....
and for our friends Charli, Jacob, Jaiia, Bodhi, Timna, Moksha, Honey, Beau, Tilly and Nicolau...
and any other young people out there who wonder what on earth is going on....
Here is a loving reminder of our evolutionary wings!
A Grandmother's Guide Through Chaos
Anjali Walsh
This is for my grandchildren....
Arjuna Pinnell, Solomon Dass, Sophia and Max Sharpe, Raphael Pinnell, Gigi's yet-to-be-born baby....
and for our friends Charli, Jacob, Jaiia, Bodhi, Timna, Moksha, Honey, Beau, Tilly and Nicolau...
and any other young people out there who wonder what on earth is going on....
Here is a loving reminder of our evolutionary wings!
You cannot solve a problem on the same level of consciousness that created it. ........ Albert Einstein
What is happening all around us?
Is our world collapsing?
Yes it is....we're at a crisis point!
Our planet is having a systems breakdown...
If it were a 'person', we could say it's having a 'nervous breakdown'!
All our systems.... our environment, our relationship to our planet, ideas about education, our concept of work, the way our countries are governed, our energy systems, ..... all our ideas about these have changed so dramatically in the last 50 years since new technology has moved our thinking into a much larger picture. But our actions, like outmoded governments still warring against other countries for dwindling oil supplies, have remained backward.... adding to the problems and quite unable to create innovative solutions to the crisis we're experiencing.
What is a crisis?
The Chinese have a symbol for 'crisis', which has two meanings...
one is danger and the other is opportunity!
Ervin Laszlo, a systems theorist, describes our present situation as a 'chaos point'....
A chaos point is the crucial tipping point in the evolution of a system in which trends that have brought the system to its present state break down and it can no longer return to its prior states and modes of behaviours. It is launched irreversibly on a new trajectory that leads either to breakdown or to breakthrough to a new structure and a new mode of operation.
That's where we are in the history of our species right now... and that's also how evolution operates...
So now we need to look at the really BIG picture to see how evolution has brought us as a species to this point.
Evolution operates by 'punctuated equilibrium', …. long periods of slow change punctuated by sudden apparent jumps.
And right now we're in 'JUMP TIME' (Jean Houston)
'Nature selects for what co-operates best'......Biologist Elisabet Sahtouris
Over billions of years Nature has progressed from energy evolving into matter, to planets like our Earth, to primitive life, to animal life, to human life..... and now..... to us humans going around the next turn on the spiral of evolution..
When we take a very long view and look back over the deep past of our history we learn that
Crises almost always precede transformation...
Before every quantum change in our evolutionary history, problems occurred – limits to growth, stagnation, unmanageable complexities, and impending catastrophes.
But seen through our deep past, through evolutionary eyes,
Problems are considered to be evolutionary drivers....... and that helps us understand that the crises we are now experiencing on our planet are evolutionary drivers that spur us to evolve beyond where we are today – or die!
That's a pretty serious ultimatum!
So we really need to pay attention and find out how we can best cooperate with how evolution is planning to jump!
Nature takes jumps through greater synergy , which is the coming together of separate parts to make new whole systems. And the new systems are greater than the previous ones.... and unpredictable from the sum of its parts.
In other words, we're in for a wonderful and unpredictable surprise!
Biologist Elisabet Sahtouris also tells us that when a species is young, it tends to overpopulate, pollute, compete with, and eventually destroy its environment. It then either learns to co-operate with itself, its environment and other species, or it goes extinct. We can certainly see the meaning of these lessons for us, and discovering how to co-operate best with each other and this evolving life is what we're going to focus on now.
'Think globally act locally'
Why is this happening?
Here are the words of a beautiful 88 year old grandmother and mother of five children.... Barbara Marx Hubbard, an evolutionary pioneer...
“I believe that we are being called to a great experiment, for no one alive on Earth knows how to make such a vast evolutionary shift in such a short time... it's like the birth of a baby...you might not be ready, but if the baby is ready, it's coming out NOW, ready or not! So this dangerous and exciting time we are in is motivating us to enter into the age of conscious evolution...which is evolution by choice and not by chance... this time we are the co-creators! For the first time in our conscious history, we are being given the opportunity to guide and ease our transition to the next stage of evolution. This situation is new for humanity, for we are the first Earth species to consciously face evolution or extinction.”
Today we are witnessing systems becoming increasingly unstable or dysfunctional.. We are using more of our energy to handle these problems but in ways that seem ineffective – like building more and more weapons and prisons, while hunger, poverty, social and economic pollution, overpopulation, the loss of rainforests ...all these factors are escalating and are now tending to converge in catastrophe.
At the same time, innovations of all kinds in all fields, or “new mutations”, are springing up everywhere. Thousands of acts of caring, sharing and healing, as well as new social and political solutions are emerging. Social innovations that share a similar value system are also converging, connecting and increasing at an increasing rate. And this process is accelerating rapidly with the help of the Internet.
But will the convergence of positive innovations happen before the convergence of destructive tendencies? Will the planetary system repattern to a higher order, or will it fall apart into the political chaos and environmental collapse that has been predicted?
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein
A system in balance and functioning well is difficult to change, but as a system falls into disorder, change becomes more and more feasible and finally inevitable. At that inevitable point the least bit of coherent order can bring to order the whole disorderly array. We can't right the current situation by restoring or reforming old forms and structures, including governmental and religious institutions... they simply can't handle the crises we are facing, which in many ways, they are still causing. We must seek new forms, new structures, new ways of living that are vital, sustainable and just – for all Earth life.
- Joseph Chilton Pearce (the Crack in the Cosmic Egg)
Systems theory shows us that a small island of coherence in a sea of chaos can jump a whole system to a higher order, and this kind of quantum leap in society is a real possibility now.
“We are right at that point now, when we as a species are finally entering the age of conscious evolution and the mass appearance of a new type of human. As universal humans, we are consciously integrating our social, spiritual, technological, and scientific capacities with our highest aspirations to create a world that works for everyone. We can now imagine living in a more synergistic, cocreative society with extended intelligence, extended lifespan, extended creativity, the development of space, tapping into new clean energies, and much more.” - Barbara Marx Hubbard
Young 'universal humans', like you and your friends, are waking up. They are connecting and communicating at the speed of light through cell phones, Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social networking. We'll be taking a look at how we can each be that small fluctuation....what we can do together to make the changes....and how we can each find and give our unique gifts to the world to help bring this about. But first we need to understand some background about how we got to this situation....
‘The problem of the world is that humanity is not in its right mind” - Mahatma Gandhi
HOW DID WE GET INTO THIS MESS?
There is a deep divide among humans at this time about our attitude to the Earth. One part of our species loves and honours the Earth, even holds it sacred, as Mother Earth, the source of all our needs and nourishment. Others of our species want to plunder it and destroy it out of greed and ignorance, seeing it only as dirt beneath their feet.
Right now the situation we're in on the planet is like driving in a veryfast car towards a brick wall … collision is inevitable! That's the danger! The conditions we need for life to continue on Earth .... our atmosphere, climate, clean air, water for everyone to drink, and land that can grow food and have wild places for other animals ... all these are SO threatened by how we are living now...as if we have four planets instead of just one!.... that we have only this next ten or twenty years left to turn things around so that the systems that support life on earth can continue.
That's why all of us... you and me!... who are not blinded by greed, fear or ignorance need to take urgent immediate action!
And that's the opportunity!
But first, let's find out more about how we got into this situation .....
In our history as a species, we are now at the end of the CARBON ERA …. that's the time when we used fossil fuels, by digging them up from the earth and burning them to make energy (power.)
Now we know that's a primitive way of getting power and that harnessing the elements like the sun and the wind and water is a much better and safer (no carbon) source of energy. We've discovered that our current way of using power is destroying our Earth's biosphere and endangering our future survival ...so we know it's time to stop before it's too late.
But our governments have been taken over by fossil 'fools' who are scrambling to make their money by digging up the last vestiges of fossil energy while they can, even though fracking for coal seam gas has been demonstrated to be poisoning the rivers and digging up uranium is threatening all life on earth while the poisonous undealt-with leak of radioactive waste from Fukishima continues to poison our oceans. Our governments are being paid BIG money by mining companies and corporations to pretend not to know this.
New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings. – Lao Tzu
So they are not protecting us, their people, but instead, protecting the corporations. They are even signing secret agreements with the corporations (like the TPP) which give the corporations more power than we have, so they have betrayed our trust and we can no longer believe that the government is thinking of our future survival. That's a very hard and sad thing for us to recognize...
What can we do about this?
At a time of corrupt or inept governments it is necessary for the people to become more intelligent, and that is what is happening. Right now there is a world wide movement of people who are way ahead of their governments in understanding the general issues necessary to our survival - no longer as separate warring nations who spend billions of dollars on armaments - but as informed and intelligent global citizens who are alert to the planetary dangers.
Some of these pioneers who are alerting us to the crisis we are in are called 'whistleblowers' and are being persecuted by our governments.... like our Australian hero, Julian Assange, from Wikileaks who has been under illegal house arrest and threatened with death for exposing the true extent of America's complicity in wars, and US army soldier Bradley Manning, who was held in solitary confinement in the US for revealing frightening details to the public from an administration that carries out 'a grand international terrorist campaign with drones and special operations forces that is generating potential terrorists at every step' (Noam Chomsky). Edward Snowden is another brave hero being persecuted for sharing revelations about the actions of the US government in it's outrageous plundering of world resources and inhumane treatment of civilians in other countries.
Now, more of us are beginning to recognize that our tiny planet is like a spaceship, and that the conditions under which we live are a narrow arrangement of temperature, layers of air, and precious water. The people at the helm of spaceship earth right now are cowboys who are wrecking our life support system and who have control of many of the governments, and that's why they're able to gouge holes in the earth and poison water... so they can make money from oil and gas extraction, and even worse... dig up uranium to make bombs which could kill us all!
“The Earth is our Mother... we must take care of her” - American Indian chant
So you can understand that we really need people with clear heads and true hearts to take action now so that the future governments on our planet will be run by us the people, fully educating ourselves to participate in online democratic voting over intelligently discussed issues about our shared survival.
But until that happens, we are in a very chaotic time of change, and our education system has mostly taught us to repeat second-hand ideas, not to think creatively... so we are having to find our own models to inspire us to find solutions.
( there are some inspiring people and links to courses in the appendix)
In Australia, the Aboriginal people who lived here for as long as 60,000 years, deeply loved and respected the earth ...it was like their religion...they belonged to country, they weren't separate from it....they sang special ceremonial songs to the earth, and they rubbed their feet in ochre and walked along the energy lines of the earth singing songs from their dreaming stories to keep the earth alive. From their perspective, the earth is dying because their lands have been invaded and they can no longer nourish and protect the earth in the old ways.
All indigenous people knew that EVERYTHING we need to stay alive... our air, water, food and shelter....everything we need comes from the Earth. They treated these things as sacred... precious, to be revered and never to be destroyed... the land was like their temple, and the land (country) where they lived was where their spirits were.
Then, just over two hundred years ago, white people from the dominator culture invaded these Aboriginal nations, as they also invaded and plundered other lands which had been cared for by Indigenous people. The invaders pretended that the Aboriginal people hadn't really lived there for 60,000 years, and that Captain Cook 'discovered' this empty land. (terra nullus)
Then they not only stole the land, but they also murdered the Aboriginal people in the Black Wars, which were never mentioned in our white history books, and stole the babies and little children from their weeping parents and sent them far away from their sacred homelands to be closed into white-fella dormitories with walls and locks... and sent them as slaves to work for white families.
Rather than a will to compete and dominate, the essential impulse of all of life is a will to connect. - Lynn Mc Taggart.
Imagine how heart rending it would be for us if someone did to us what our ancestors did to those people who had lived here? They loved their country in a way we simply cannot understand... and to them it was truly sacred. Their people knew, as all Indigenous people did, that everything we need to live.. our air, water, food and shelter...all comes from the earth and they knew that the earth must be respected and protected.
Sadly, we can't change what happened hundreds of years ago, but we can do something now. We can join together in being Earth's protectors and custodians. We can learn the Aboriginal way of seeing the earth, not as dirt to dig up and exploit, but as Nature itself... to honour and revere.
We can take up their practice of Dadirri.... to sit quietly on the earth, turnoff our thoughts and let it 'appear' to us..... and this can be our way of saying 'sorry' for the terrible wrongs that were done to the keepers of this land, and to recognize that now it's our turn to share in protecting our mother from the madness of the dominators who are so out of control with greed that they are threatening the life of all of us by destroying our planet's life support system, our biosphere.
The American Indians have a prophecy from long ago about this time we're in .... they believe that the Earth will be saved, not just by the red man but by the coming together of the rainbow tribe ... people from all colours and countries coming together to speak for the Earth.
This is what we are doing now together.
WE NEED TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD TO PROTECT OUR MOTHER THE EARTH
AND WE NEED YOUR HELP TO DO THIS!
This is a quote from an Aboriginal elder from the Bungalung tribe in Northern NSW whose land I'm writing from
“AN ABORIGINE IS A PERSON WHO KNOWS THAT THE EARTH IS A LIVING BREATHING BEING”
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope." - Noam Chomsky
Gratitude's the attitude!
'Coherence' is a heartfelt connection with others as part of yourself. It's the quality that people like most in someone they meet … a sense that they're being 'seen' and met. What we need now is GLOBAL COHERENCE, an awakening of the global heart, the feeling of being one interconnected planetary body with a shared purpose of mutual growth for the sake of the whole Earth community and for our future thriving.
WATCH YOUR ATTITUDE
That will keep your heart open, keep you shiny and bringing your Light into the world!
DO WHAT YOU LOVE
Giving your attention to what you love is a quick trip to finding your compass of joy . You've been designed to give a unique gift...no-one else can give it but you!... to the world we live in. If you can't fiind it yourself, ask your friends what they see about you which stands out as your gift...sometimes we find it hard to see ourselves.
KEEP DANCING
Difficult times call for serious dancing, never stop!
NEVER STOP LOVING
Go against the mainstream....forget being 'cool'... dare to be different!
Love everyone, enjoy everything.
RESTORE THE BALANCE
Ancient cultures, like Indigenous ones, used to pass on wisdom to their children who were learning to be adults ...in rituals and rites of passage. These were like operating instructions which we can also use in this time of such a big transition..
You only get one body/mind (they're interwoven) and it's designed to last a lifetime with proper maintenance, so we need to pay attention to its upkeep ...
diet/health.....thoughts moods....staying in balance
eating clean wholesome food (not processed crap)
drinking water and fresh juices (not fizzy drinks with sugar!)
... and to keep the body moving (with dance, gymnastics, walking, swimming, and sport) to keep our energy running freely.
Hope is not what we find in evidence; it's what we become in action. - Frances Moore Lappe, author of 'Diet for a Small Planet'
What IS this energy we're talking about?
We're CONSCIOUS ('Hey I'm awake')..
….and we call the presence of that energy, 'consciousness'.
And because we're all made up of swirling masses of vibrating energy (even though we look so solid!) we can vibrate at different rates... and the food we eat, the thoughts we think, and the emotions we feel... all these things move us into different frequencies on the vibrational scale.
So feeling angry and trapped or depressed or obsessing is different from feeling light and free and not thinking much...
and navigating these states can be as simple as noticing what's happening...
('AHA!') and returning to our HOMEPAGE.......stillness!
(Sometimes, though, if that's not happening, you might need to ask for help from an adult you trust.... or to remove yourself from a situation which is harmful or upsetting. Trust yourself to do that!)
Meditation is a good way of clearing the mind and coming back to zero... we're giving our brain a bath in alpha waves when we meditate, and there's a free iphone app. called Insight Timer…..which offers many different meditation techniques.
Or you can sit somewhere quiet and comfortable and focus on the breath going in and out of your nostrils .... until you fall into the quiet ocean of PEACE that lies below the level of thoughts.
Sitting in a quiet place in nature and practising 'dadirri', as the Aboriginal people did, is a beautiful way to feel into the place where you're sitting while the mind is still.... also deeply relaxing.
Since our body/mind is the instrument that gives us our experience of the world, it's important for us to stay clear and steady in ourselves in this time of change when everything around us in such movement, so we can be part of the coherence that can make the jump.
Our BODIES need to allow energy to move freely through them, so we need to eat clean and green and especially to avoid eating GM products, products made by Monsanto and Nestles, and eating beef, since cattle farming is one of the largest contributions to rainforest loss and methane production.
…....................................Where attention goes, energy flows
Part of our standard operating equipment is a laser-like Jedi wand ….. it's the focus of our attention!
Our attention 'grows' things, just like a magic wand … and that's why we need to become aware of what we are giving attention to. If you want to help the emergence of the new world that is being born, you'll need to focus your attention on the new news, the new things that are emerging. We don't have to ignore the struggles we feel strongly about or pretend they're not happening, but by focussing on the positive news we're producing waves of coherence which add to the vibration we're wanting to create right now.
Spreading news that inspires people (even just a smile can uplift someone!) will greatly increase our chances of survival. It will increase the vibrational rate of the earth … imagine! Every thought you think, and every action you perform is like part of a vast symphony being played here as Earth Music. .. you can add to the harmony or you can add to the discord, and the note you sing will also show up in your body. We enlarge whatever we focus on, so we can scare ourselves silly if we look at the breakdown events, or believe our negative fearful imaginings ..... or we can leap forward into creating the new world we're visioning together by staying aware and encouraging our most positive thoughts.
Of course, our actions matter too, so DON'T FEED THE BEAST!
If you care about the Earth and are wanting to have a future, stop buying ANYTHING from the corporations. When you give them your money, you're feeding the BEAST! You're supporting the people who steal water from Indigenous people, who steal seeds and poison the earth and who are stealing our future with their greed and destroying our planet's life support system. So let's be very wise with what we buy!
I think we are beginning to see who the radicals in the scenario are. They are not us. The radicals work at oil, coal and gas companies. They are willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere. That is the most radical thing anybody ever came up with...' - Bill McKibbon 350 degree org
The fossil fuel industry is by far the most profitable industry on the planet
The stillpoint of the turning world... there the dance is. - TS Elliot
Eating as if the Earth Mattered (which it most certainly does!)
We face some big challenges on planet Earth.
Hunger is now taking the lives of 20,000 children daily!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!
The rainforests are being slashed, burned and turned into deserts by cattle ranching and large scale soy plantations.
If you want to think globally and act locally, you can't get more local than the food on your plate.
What you eat has a bigger impact on our world than you probably ever imagined.
Do you want a world where everyone has enough to eat?
Do you want a world with a stable climate and healthy ecosystems?
It turns out you can help change the world with your knife and fork.
Deliciously.
Good food isn't just healthier and better for the world – it's good for your conscience too.
Also, our BRAINS function best if we can spend some time relaxed and being in state of calm awareness, so we need to stay aware of what we're feeding them... we can stay away from crap soapies, bitchy gossip and emotion-manipulating dramas.... and be alert for media propaganda or getting sucked into too much cybertime.....(have you noticed it's addictive?)
Discovering what's happening in the world around us right now can also be very stressful. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the bad news the media is reporting and think stuff like “Gosh, what can I do? I'm just a kid!”
We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don't 'win,' there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. - from radical historian Howard Zinn
Habits kill life. - Osho
And often what we're learning can bring up feelings of being outraged and helpless, which can be scary, because many of us have those feelings already, pushed down inside us from things that have happened earlier in our lives as small children, and this situation on the planet that we're hearing about can bring up strong emotions in us. And that's why it helps to have tools to stay in balance, because once we lose our balance, we can drown in emotions and be unable to help anyone!
Here's a really good emotional first aid tool … “STAY PRESENT!”
IF YOU ARE ABLE TO STAY IN THE MOMENT FEAR WILL NOT FIND YOU!
Fear is the projection of something that has happened in the past, into the future, through a large magnifying glass.
So when you are in fear, you are not in reality.
But rather than deny that you feel it, just say what you feel in the moment, like .... 'Right now I'm feeling fear'.
This act alone will bring you back into the present moment and then you'll be out of fear.
Always come back to THIS MOMENT …..NOW...
whenever you're caught up in thoughts....
just stop thinking.....
. ...come back to yourself
….....by being JUST HERE, JUST NOW!
That's our HOMEPAGE!
…...return here.
'If you aren't outraged you aren't paying attention'
'If you aren't in awe, you aren't paying attention'
- John Robbins ’Voices of the Food Revolution'
Where your heart is, there you will find your treasure. - The Alchemist
NOW LET'S LOOK AT WHAT MAKES US HAPPY!
Abraham Maslow, a research psychologist in the US, studied well people rather than sick people. He found that everybody who was successful, creative, joyful and productive had one thing in common: they were doing chosen work that they found to be both intrinsically self-rewarding and of service to others. He found that self-rewarding action that is simultaneously of service to others is the key!
When you are doing what you love to do and expressing your potential you experience an inner reward. And by helping others by engaging in this work you become what he called self-actualizing. You are actualizing your own dormant potential by giving it to others who can use it. It is beyond selfishness or selflessness. It is self-fulfillment and self evolution. And this is what makes people happy!
Now isn't that a surprise? It's not by GETTING something, but by GIVING something that real happiness is won! And now you know the real secret! What wants to be born in me?
There's a seed already growing inside each one of us, a potential, that Barbara Marx Hubbard calls our 'compass of joy'. If we notice what draws us ...what gives our spirits satisfaction, and what makes us full of energy and most alive, that's the direction to follow.
We are being called upon to shift from ego-centrism to living from our essential selves, to discover our vocations of destiny... what our unique gifts are to bring to this change, and to share that gift with others and to evolve our communities, our world and ourselves” - Barbara Marx Hubbard
WHAT CAN I DO?
ARE YOU AN EARTH LOVER?
Do you want to protect the earth, oceans, rivers and creatures from the epidemic of greed that's endangering their lives?
Do you want to speak for the trees or the whales or the seals?
Can you make your voice heard in protecting the earth and its species?
Another world is not only possible, she is already on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. - Arundhati Roy
WHAT CAN I DO?
- make a garden at home or in a community garden plot
- sign online petitions to speak up for the ocean, the land, the trees, and be a voice for the animals.
- volunteer at environment centres
- sign petitions to save endangered species and spreading awareness about them and writing letters.
- volunteer work at animal shelters, giving kindness to distressed animals.
- register with WIRES and learn how to rescue native animals.
- meet with local Indigenous elders and ask them to share their Dreaming stories of the places around where you live … meet their country!
- spend some time lying flat on the earth and star gazing, remembering that what you are made of is very ancient stardust.
- research marine biology, permaculture or deep ecology, so you can learn more about taking care of earth and her creatures.
- connect with other people who are earth minders, and combine your ideas for actions ...like applying to work as crew on Sea Shepherd's boats, or manning street stalls to inform people.
- create street theatre actions to raise public awareness of some issue that means a lot to you.
- enrol in one of the courses listed in the Appendix to further your knowledge and meet other activists.
ARE YOU AN EDUCATOR? Do you like to inform people?
ARE YOU AN ARTIST, A CREATIVE OR A VISIONARY?
Do you want to express your ideas, your passion and the things you care deeply about in song, music, film, dance, stories, theatre, painting, sculpture, street theatre, or in some other way?
Do you want to help create a whole new vision for our lives?
This is a good time to connect with other creatives … remember that we can discover ideas and possibilities in groups beyond anything we can imagine by ourselves!
Live simply, that others might simply live. - Gandhi
MAKING PEACE
How to end war and make the planet safe for the next seven generations?
- BE the peace you would like to see in the world!
- by watching your thoughts – don't entertain violent thoughts when they appear.... thoughts like hate, scorn, bullying, or making someone less than you....send those thoughts away out the back door!
- by taking time in nature to be still and connect with your spirit, and with the stars, remembering you're made of star stuff
- by being inclusive (all of us) with people instead of exclusive (only US and not 'THEM'
- by spending your time with others on the same wave length as you, to welcome this new unfolding energy being ushered in.
This is our new way of being... so we may all shine our light in the world while we step up boldly to create a revolution of love and caring on our beautiful Earth.
Let there be peace and love among all beings of the Universe....
Let there be peace, let there be peace...
OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI...' - Papaji
The mind can go in a thousand directions,
But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.
With each step, a cool wind blows.
With each step, a flower blooms. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Some FACTS about our earth ..the POPULATION is exploding!
This year our Earth's population reached 7.5 BILLION people, and out of them, 60 million people are homeless refugees and have no place to live.
Some have been bombed out of their homes by our Australian army, blindly following the US in its invasion of the last oil rich lands. (The US is currently invading seven countries!) And now Australia, to our utter shame, is treating these desperate families fleeing from the rubble of their former homes as if they are criminals...and locking them up together with their children! This is a terrible blot on our humanity and clearly shows us the cruel mindset we can so easily develop when we judge people by what they wear and how they look, without seeing their hearts.
Our dominator culture, which ignores the earth's limits and pretends we can expand forever on a finite planet (Unlimited growth? Unlimited stupidity!) is blind to what is happening and pretending nothing's wrong ('keep buying!')
But the indigenous people are warning us that the fate of the earth is OUR fate, that if the Earth dies, we die...and that we need to make all our decisions with the next seven generations in mind, a way of thinking from the American Indian people which shows respect for the people of the future, yet unborn ... maybe your grandchildren will one day thank you for your actions now!
So is there a problem having so many people on the planet?
We could actually cope with that many people if we made room for everyone with simple housing and renewable energy. We have enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed! WE have the technology but we don't yet have the MINDSET. (That's where you and your friends come in.... to create a change!)
Buckminster Fuller (a famous genius futurist) put together all the information on the world's resources and population numbers (he called it the World Game) and discovered that it was indeed possible, if we turned 'weaponry' into 'livingry', meaning that if we spent the amount of money and manpower we spend on armies and wars on feeding and housing the population, we could do it! Good idea isn't it? Protecting, not attacking...that's co-operation!
We also have huge inequality of wealth on the planet...just a few people
1% have more wealth than the rest of the people combined!
And that leaves many people in third world countries living on less than $1 a day and working like slaves in sweatshops (boycott Nike!)...and even children are working in factories... to produce cheap goods for us westerners to buy......yet another reason to look carefully at where our money goes and to check out who makes the things we buy.
So you see we are at a tremendous time of change and there are so many jobs to do in so many areas that we are all going to be very useful and very busy as we set about contributing to the inward and outward changes that are needed to bring us into balance on our planet over the next few years.
Our galaxy and other nearby galaxies are being pulled toward a specific region of space. It’s about 150 million light years away, and here is the best part. We’re not exactly sure what it is. We call it the Great Attractor.
Part of the reason the Great Attractor is so mysterious is that it happens to lie in a direction of the sky known as the “Zone of Avoidance”. This is in the general direction of the center of our galaxy, where there is so much gas and dust that we can’t see very far in the visible spectrum. We can see how our galaxy and other nearby galaxies are moving toward the Great Attractor, so something must be causing things to go in that direction. That means either there must be something massive over there, or it’s due to something even more strange and fantastic.
FOOD FACT: from UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report 'Livestock's Long Shadow' ...18% of the world's entire greenhouse gas emissions stem from livestock production......more than cars trucks planes and all other transport modes.
World Bank scientists (in their journal 'World Watch') put the figure above 50%! They took into account that about a quarter of the world's landmass is used for grazing livestock, and about one third of all arable land is used to grow animal feed. They believe that the reforestation of land currently being used in livestock production would be the fastest and most economical way to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
As you read these words, a radical change in humanity's movement towards global solidarity is taking root. The transformation from an egocentric model of 'me and mine' into a world-centric mindset of 'we and ours' is the vessel that accommodates such a revolution of values, creating space for the emergence of a global citizenry. - Michael Bernard Beckwith, teacher.
NUCLEAR POWER IS A VERY BAD IDEA!
What was the most dangerous nuclear disaster in world history? Most people would say the Chernobyl nuclear disaster In Ukraine, but they'd be wrong. In 2011, an earthquake, believed to be an aftershock of the 2010 earthquake in Chile, created a tsunami that caused a meltdown at the TEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Three nuclear reactors melted down and what happened next was the largest release of radiation into the water in the history of the world. Over the next three months, radioactive chemicals, some in even greater quantities than Chernobyl, leaked into the Pacific Ocean. However, the numbers may actually be much higher as Japanese official estimates have been proven by several scientists to be flawed in recent years.
If that weren't bad enough, Fukushima continues to leak an astounding 300 tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean every day. It will continue do so indefinitely as the source of the leak cannot be sealed as it is inaccessible to both humans and robots due to extremely high temperatures.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Fukushima has contaminated the entire Pacific Ocean in just five years. This could easily be the worst environmental disaster in human history and it is almost never talked about by politicians, establishment scientists, or the news. It is interesting to note that TEPCO is a subsidiary of General Electric (also known as GE), one of the largest companies in the world, which has considerable control over numerous news corporations and politicians alike. Could this possibly explain the lack of news coverage Fukushima has received in the last five years? There is also evidence that GE knew about the poor condition of the Fukushima reactors for decades and did nothing. This led 1,400 Japanese citizens to sue GE for their role in the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Even if we can't see the radiation itself, some parts of North America's western coast have been feeling the effects for years. Not long after Fukushima, fish in Canada began bleeding from their gills, mouths, and eyeballs. This "disease" has been ignored by the government and has decimated native fish populations, including the North Pacific herring. Elsewhere in Western Canada, independent scientists have measured a300% increase in the level of radiation. According to them, the amount of radiation in the Pacific Ocean is increasing every year. Why is this being ignored by the mainstream media? It might have something to do with the fact that the US and Canadian governments have banned their citizens from talking about Fukushima so "people don't panic."
Further south in Oregon, USA, starfish began losing legs and then disintegrating entirely when Fukushima radiation arrived there in 2013. Now, they are dying in record amounts, putting the entire oceanic ecosystem in that area at risk. However, government officials say Fukushima is not to blame even though radiation in Oregon tuna tripled after Fukushima. In 2014, radiation on California beaches increased by 500 percent. In response, government officials said that the radiation was coming from a mysterious "unknown" source and was nothing to worry about. (Cover up?)
A HANDY REFRESHER ON THE BASICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change throws natural systems out of balance – to often devastating effect. Here’s a helpful 01-style refresher on how. Scientists are clear about the reality of climate change and we should be too. And with our future at stake, it’s more critical than ever that we support leaders who listen to scientists and are committed to making climate solutions a reality. The simple fact is that climate change throws natural systems out of balance – to often devastating effect. What does that mean?
GIVE ME THE ONE-SENTENCE PITCH ON EXACTLY WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS
(SO WHEN MY GRANDPA ASKS…)
When we talk about climate change, we’re talking about the scientifically observable – and increasingly severe – changes in global climate patterns that became apparent in the mid-to-late twentieth century and can be attributed to the rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, in particular) produced by human activities like burning fossil fuels. That’s a long sentence, we know – but it covers the basics.
REALLY QUICK – WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WEATHER AND CLIMATE?
Time, mostly. Weather refers to atmospheric conditions in the short term, including changes in temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, brightness, wind, and visibility. Climate is the average of weather patterns for a particular region over a longer period of time – typically, 30 or more years.
According to NASA, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming over the past century is “extremely likely due to human activities.” Among climate change deniers’ favorite arguments is that there is not “scientific consensus” that it is man-made. You’ll hear that phrase often, usually alongside talk that the current proven warming trend is part of a natural cycle.
While the Earth has indeed experienced cycles of warming and cooling, scientists estimate that in the past it has typically taken around 5,000 years for the planet to recover – by warming between 4- 7 degrees Celsius – after an ice age has ended. This makes the global average surface temperature increase of 1.1—1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6—0.9 degrees Celsius) across just the twentieth century alone roughly eight times faster than the usual post-ice-age-recovery warming rate. And it’s a cycle that is only accelerating. Fifteen of the 16 hottest years on record globally have occurred this century.
Ninety-seven percent of the climate science community agrees that climate change is real and that it is being caused by human activities such as our use of fossil fuels. Indeed, some scientists have asserted that the evidence linking human activities to climate change is as conclusive as the link between smoking and lung cancer.
HOW CARBON POLLUTION CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE.
When carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted into our atmosphere, it can hang around for a very long time. The more carbon pollution in the air, the more the sun’s energy gets trapped in our atmosphere as heat. Think about it like this: a build-up of carbon in the atmosphere is acting like a blanket around the Earth. As more heat gets in and less is able to escape, things keep getting hotter and the result impacts every element of our climate system.
1. SEA LEVELS ARE RISING
Sea levels have been rising for the past century.
And the pace has increased in recent years as glaciers melt faster, Artic sea ice dwindles, and water temperatures increase.
“Flooding will become more frequent as sea level rises,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“In a sense, today’s flood will become tomorrow’s high tide, as sea level rise will cause flooding to occur more frequently and last for longer durations of time.”
2. THE WEATHER IS GETTING MORE SEVERE
Speaking of the coast – do you love the warm water at the beach? So do hurricanes. As worldwide temperatures continue to increase, storms are able to absorb more energy from the resulting warmer oceans. Hurricanes and typhoons can arrive ashore with intense and damaging winds, very heavy rainfall, and major storm surges, often leading to devastating coastal damage and serious loss of life.
As evaporation increases with warmer temperatures, there are some big implications for those further inland, as well. As the atmosphere gets warmer, it can hold more moisture. This greatly increases the risk of major flooding because, to put it simply, clouds brimming with ever-more evaporated water move over land and burst at the seams.
And it’s not just hurricanes and floods either. Climate change has also been linked to an increase in many other weather extremes, such as heat waves and droughts.
IS IT TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING?
Not at all.
It’s true that even if we completely stopped emitting carbon pollution today, we’d still be likely to experience global warming for a considerable time. The pollution that has caused our current crisis stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years – so it’s difficult to stop climate change in its tracks. But acting now to swiftly transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean energy can limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Two degrees of warming could have significant impacts, there’s no denying. But if we do nothing and continue on the path we’re on, the global average temperature could rise 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. To say the difference between these two scenarios would be dramatic is perhaps quite literally the understatement of the century.
A bright, sustainable future for our planet is finally in sight, but only if we support leaders who work to make climate solutions a reality. This is where you come in. Join people all around the world in speaking up for clean energy so that when our leaders take action to cut emissions and stop rising global temperatures, we’re with them all the way.
It has been said that our generation is the first in history to decide whether it's the last in history....... our generation is also the first in history that can decide whether it will be the first generation of a new phase in history. - Ervin Laszlo
THIS IS A PERFECT MOMENT
Hear this as a song: bit.ly/1NDeqiZ - Rob Brezny
This is a perfect moment.
It's a perfect moment for many reasons,
but especially because you and I are waking up
from our sleepwalking, thumb-sucking, dumb-clucking
collusion with the masters of delusion and destruction.
Thanks to them, from whom the painful blessings flow, we are waking up.
Their wars and tortures,
their crimes against nature,
extinctions of species
their engineered diseases.
Their spying and lying
in the name of the father,
sterilizing seeds and
trademarking water.
Molestations of God,
celebrations of shame,
mangling our dreams and
defiling our names.
Their ruthless commercials
and blood-sucking hustles,
their endless rehearsals
for the end of the world.
Thanks to them, from whom the painful blessings flow, we are waking up.
Their painful blessings are cracking open more and more gashes in the sour
and shrunken mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality." And
through the fractures, ripe eternity is flooding in; news of our souls' true
home is pouring in; our allies from the other side of the veil are swarming in,
inspiring us to become smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.
We are waking up.
Appendix
.....(many thanks to Bobbi Allan for these links)
Here are a few links:
One Earth Sangha - Expressing a Buddhist response to climate change and other threats to our one home.
Eshana Bragg and Peter Cumming run the Centre for Sustainable Leadership
Eshana has developed an online program called Joyality
Of course there is plenty of good info on the theory of Deep Ecology on Joanna Macy’s website:
There is a page of good links to other positive organisations
John Seed is still giving talks and workshops
There is a Centre for Ecological Learning in Bellingen
They are the only ones I know doing deep ecology programs specifically for teenagers.
Some inspiring people you might like to check out online -
- Barbara Marx Hubbard, a brilliant woman pioneer of the evolutionary movement in her eighties
- Jeremy Rifkin, another genius futurist who heads a think tank which is changing Europe's power base into renewables, (renewable energy from the sun, stored on computers) and who refers to young today's young people as 'the Empathic Generation'.
- Buckminster Fuller ('Bucky') futurist, designer of the World game, geodesic domes
- Paul Hawken, whose book, Blessed Unrest, was subtitled... 'How the largest Movement in the World came into Being and why no one saw it coming' and which describes and gives links for the growing social justice and environmental movement, which is now making itself felt worldwide.
- Jean Houston ...Pioneer philosopher and scholar, author of 'Jump Time: shaping your future in a world of radical change'
- The Shift Network..... see the film to inspire you