OK so this is me just working it out and sharing the product. ***TRIGGER WARNING*** This is me saying aloud what happened with my words in text so you can read along if you want, turn off the audio, but it will be triggering for some folks so, you are forewarned.
I don’t want to die. I want to exist forever. And I will. I always have. Every molecule is eternal, until the universe itself ceases to exist.
I don’t really like being in this form. I know it’s temporary, thank goodness, and I know that my attachments to “like” and “don’t like” cause me to experience emotions that are felt as pain or distress, pleasure, joy, all of that, the whole human emotional spectrum, energy that flows through the body, subject to/filtered through interpretation and alteration in the mind (brain and everything else?), filtered through the subjective individual “consciousness.” And since we exist in groups, there is also a group aspect to this, where experience is filtered through the group and the group has responses. Both the individual process and the group process drive our behavior. When I say I don't like being in this form what I mean is...it will be great to become other things. This cohesive consciousness will dissolve most likely, maybe not, certainly these molecules will become other things, I like that.
There are so many aspects and interpretations of what it is to be human. Suffice to say that if you aggregate all the philosophies in their purest forms, without dogma or doctrine, from Atheism to Zoroastrianism and everything in between, you can see that we are energy, matter and electricity, and something else which we cannot quantify. It is often called spirit, or soul or consciousness (these terms are not necessarily interchangeable depending on your belief system). There are other words. The point is, this is what we are. And if you are reading this, odds are you know enough about the planet Earth to understand some of the biology, the ecology, the interconnected of all the life forms as a system.
OK, humanity, here we are. These beings with all that consciousness stuff going on. On this Earth.
Humanity is like french fries. Batch after batch goes into the hot oil to be removed when done, and then eaten. That’s pretty much how human life works. By the batch we come into this world, and we are changed by it, and eventually we die and are transformed (eaten) and become whatever we become, our bodies going ultimately into the earth to become more growing things. What happens with the other part, the ineffable, remains a mystery.
Maybe it’s amazing, maybe there are billions of other examples in the cosmos, but we have this thing we call “free will” which is that we are capable of acting as an individual regardless of the direction of the collective, or of other individuals. Exercise of free will as action requires something that motivates, and some kind of thought/emotion process.
We know that thoughts and feelings can be mitigated by instincts, so if a person is in a fear state, perceives danger to their existence, survival will dominate their thinking and their feeling, they will be in a constant state of reaction, and so analytical nuance may be reduced as energy is channeled into discerning the danger and how to survive it; fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
We also know that there are people and agencies who exploit human instinct, who manipulate the group with disinformation which is designed to keep them in reaction for the purpose of political and economic manipulation.
Put all this together and it’s a mighty complex system of interconnectedness. Now we think in terms of multi-dimensionality, so look at reality with the actual physical aspects, all the thinking and feeling going on in all the people, driving all our actions. Add in awareness of the free will of each person and how it functions, and the group mind responses. Add in all of the electro magnetic fields we are surrounded by, both naturally occurring and human-made (arguably naturally occurring since we are part of nature and we make them). Etc.
All of this to say, ok humans, what do you want to do with this? Do you want to rebalance how we exist on Earth? Leave Earth behind and take our circus elsewhere? Die off or become much smaller in number? We have choices. Some folks are all for leaving Earth and are already working on making that happen. Some want to rebalance things here. Some favor a smaller number on Earth to be more in harmony ecologically. Maybe all of these things are possible.
I started out saying I don’t want to die. I don’t. I don't want to be in this form forever, and I won't. None of us will. However living within the current circus, even at the periphery, sucks for a lot of humans. Billions of us are subject to the aforementioned political and economic manipulators. Humanity as a group has not yet learned to combine prioritizing the common good with the free will of the individual, rather then posing them in opposition to each other.
Let us also address the issue of human violence. Violence has created trauma which has been passed down through thousands of generations. We see the results of that trauma in human behavior around the world. However the instinct to survive, through the lens of trauma, goes awry and becomes a fear-driven greed, which can lead to violence. Violence can be physical in the obvious ways but it can be structural through societal or cultural institutions that maintain unjust social conditions. Poverty is structural violence, just as war and rape are physical violence. In order to stop our own violence against each other and against other life forms, we must, as a group (through individual and group process) make violence taboo, unthinkable, obsolete.
Caring for the individual AND the group, not one or the other, must become part of how we view ourselves. In order to do that we must address our collective trauma so we can stop perpetuating it. In order for humanity to step into a sustainable future we must stop traumatizing each other and the Earth.
Many thoughts converging...natural disaster in Vermont where people are coming together beautifully to help each other, and the human tendency to rise when things are really bad, contrasted with people going low to create social disaster for political and monetary gain (the Republican Party, evangelical Christian churches, the oligarchy, and all their allies); my own emotional cycles of up and down, which I am pretty open about, and noticing how so many people I am in communication with are navigating feelings of hopelessness and ennui. It's all related. Humanity is collectively experiencing fear of annihilation due to what we have done to the biosphere. We are now experiencing significant disruption due to climate change related weather events which create disasters for humans (and animals and plants). Not only are we experiencing this, we know we did it to ourselves. Even those who deny climate change, deep down, they know. Most of the public deniers are simply liars making political and monetary points off of polluting industry or the ideological political machine. Fear is driving a lot of the hate and division we see in the world. People are splintering off into groups where they feel safe because of likemindedness. Ideological positions then become more extreme because people live in echo chambers which amplify their fears and beliefs. It's all a big distraction, though, from the real issue facing us, the increasingly imminent collapse of the biosphere.
Bottom line, if we want to stop the hate, stop the violence, we should all, ALL of us, focus our attention on how we can stop the polluting. That means the wars, which are huge polluters, must stop. Polluting industry must stop, which means we in the industrialized parts of the world will have to go without some of what we are accustomed to. It means all governments must immediately focus on sustainability and climate mitigation. This stops the hate because it gives people a common purpose and something to do to fill their time. Stopping wars reduces violence in the obvious way but also, countries at war have more violent societies at home than countries that are not at war. Violence begets violence.
Humanity can do this, if we choose to. It may be too late, in terms of the climate, but at least we could go out on a more positive note, and maybe, just maybe, if we really get on it, humanity will survive into another, wiser, kinder, iteration.
Why do we humans elevate the least evolved among us to positions of the most power? The list of "powerful" people, politicians and CEOs, who are psychopaths, whose cravings for power dominate their lives, is extensive. If you list the politicians and CEOs in power now, how many of them are psychopaths? Most if not all. That means they do not care about anyone or anything but themselves and that which pleases them. And we see the result. The world is on fire. The social contract has been shredded in the US and is in the process of being shredded in other countries. More violence, more hate, more religious insanity. Aren't we tired of this? I know I am. Aren't you?
Ironic that on Independence day weekend the "Supreme" Court has chosen to take the nation one step closer to theocracy, the very thing this country was founded NOT to be. By ruling that businesses can refuse to serve someone based on religious preferences is an appalling and unethical "flipping of the bird" at the founders of this country, and at the people alive now, the majority of whom do not want the US to be ruled by so-called christian tenets.
The civil war is on, the evangelical, white supremacist and Catholic extremists are fighting tooth and nail to establish the US as a "Christian Nation" to be ruled by white heterosexual men.
I awoke feeling the weight of the world today, seeing all the hate being stirred up in the US by religious extremists against transgender people. I understand the machinations of cults, and I understand how republican political extremists use religion to manipulate folks who are susceptible. We have seen in Germany and Rwanda and elsewhere, how those seeking control will demonize a group and get their followers to hate and harm those they've demonized. This is what's happening with transgender people in the United States. The Christian "Right" has chosen trans folk to demonize. Social media is rife with religious extremists, not only Christians but also extremist Jews and Muslims, broadcasting their fear and hate. It's very sad and misguided, and eventually, as the "good Germans" did, most of them will come to regret their participation in the Republican death and hate cult, but not until they have caused great harm and suffering. Make no mistake about it, they are causing harm and suffering now.
I do not care what people believe. I care how they behave. If you don't understand transgenderism, that is fine. If you disagree with the science and psychology, so be it. Please, however, do not make other people's lives more difficult because of your beliefs and feelings. Be kind, even when you don't agree or understand.
One of the things I do with this life I have been given is to travel. I am fortunate to be able to do so! Part of my intention, in all I experience, is to make my experiences available to others so they might find some value for themselves.
On May 9 I flew to England for a month. I went to visit friends, and to meet up with old friends from Vermont to hike Hadrian's Wall, an 80+ mile trail which runs from one side of the island to the other near the Scottish border. I attended a friend's concert, I met new friends, I did some bodywork happy to see that I still "have it," I received some excellent bodywork, saw great art (the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit), ate good food, drank lots of cider, and felt the strong connection I have with that land. I have 0% Celtic genetics in this body but 100% spiritual connection to the Earth in that place. I grew up in New England, and if you look at the Pangea maps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGdPqpzYD4o) you see that New England and the British Isles were all once part of the same land map adjacent to each other, which may be part of it. I recognize the flora and fauna as familiar.
Something I notice traveling is how easy it is to share kindness, whether with friends or the person serving in a pub or café or the person ringing up groceries in the store. This is not news to me. Traveling across Canada and the US in the early 2000s I found the same thing. Most people are available for a smile and a friendly word, if not more. With all of the political sturm and drang, and the active efforts by political agents to polarize We The People, I hope this is not lost! Nowadays politics and religion serve more to divide us than to bring us together, and more's the shame.
Now I am back in Jamaica. It's hot and green. The politics here are as corrupt as they are anywhere, with the politicians recently giving themselves a 200% raise while giving teachers 2% and police 5%.
My vision, and I thank my parents for their contribution to this, is for humanity to collectively reject violence, to reject the power-over paradigm and blossom into co-operation and kindness. We can do it! I know we can. I wonder if we will.
This week's episode of Paradigms focuses on a specific modality of healing music coming from African traditions, infused with some modern instruments and multi-cultural foundations. I hope you'll check it out at Paradigms.Life. The episode speaks to our individual healing needs and possibilities, which of course informs the well-being of the whole of humanity. Made with love.
