Thursday, February 2, 2012

Is this the world to come?

It is morning. The radio automatically comes on. The news is bad, all bad? F......k this! I turn it off. I have heard enough.

Healing and transformation are possible. In fact, they are inevitable!

The first option is that we as human beings will die quickly or slowly by direct annihilation or poisoning. In such circumstances, the planet itself will rejuvenate and some life will probably survive in some form. We then get to evolve again starting from a different baseline and we will have lost amazing innovation, culture, diversity and wisdom. We won’t know this because we will be dead.

The second option is alternating with living in pain or numb to the suffering of other beings through emotional disconnection, social distancing or physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural rape. This manifests in symptoms consistent with depression or we might also call it living death, despair, alienation and lack of power and meaning. This is a survival response to try to get the love we need - simply not effective if we seek this love outside of self. In such circumstances, uniqueness, conceptual evolution and intellectual diversity are profoundly invalidated. Our inner realities are directly reflected in our outer environments Voracious appetite for physical perfection, power, status, money  are simply failed attempts to fill the empty hole within!

The third option is for paradigmatic change in our relationships with self and the physical and social environment sooner, rather than later. Each of us could move with and through the past (in all its complexity) and into the present and future. Perpetuating feelings of terror, disgust, rage, despair and greed happens in the absence of real alternatives. However, each of us can choose not to repeat these experiences in relationship with self in the now. We can also go around this whole cycle again and again. Either way, we are left with self. We have an ongoing choice of active, present and loving intervention across all levels of functioning- body, thoughts, behaviour, feelings and relating.  Being or connecting with self from a place of deep unconditional love through the up and downs, challenges and delights in daily living is an ongoing process - ultimately enabling greater joy, peace, spontaneous fun and creativity- that is not about externalised notion of worth reflected in acquisition and consumerism.

Each person can facilitate the evolution of individuals, communities and societies. We can develop empathy and move beyond gender, racial and cultural stereotypes and seriously consider the consequences of sabotaging quality of life and then life, itself on our planet. We can call back our power as informed and socially responsible consumers. We can collaboratively develop goals and a systematic  programs to achieve them. We can identify and document the current resources available in creating change in environmental practices. We can highlight and challenge fragmentation, duplication, and hidden and delayed costs. We have the skills to research, draw upon and integrate aspects of specific successful programs, nationally and internationally.

From this fluid, dynamic and responsive place we can address universal issues  of fundamental safety, health, environmental and social need.