The image is the circus performer twirling plates on sticks, except in the circus those plates are sometimes attached to the sticks and their precarious balance is an illusion.

Sometimes, though, the plates are really being balanced on the ends of the sticks.

Do you ever feel like you're watching a bad movie about the collapse of civilization, while doing your best to hold visions of viability and creative possibility? There is so much about the governing corporate bodies that essentially rule the world that is corrupt. We can see that their game is rigged. The plates are attached to the sticks. There is no balance, no real brilliance, just illusion.

Outside of the circus ring, however, real people are balancing plates on sticks everyday. We all know places where we are pulling off the challenging, maybe even the seemingly impossible. We know others doing the same.

The possibility for continued human viability, for a while anyway, lies in our resilience and our ability to do the seemingly impossible, or even just the very difficult.

Yesterday both before and after the radio show I experienced such a feeling of well-being. One of my key practices is awareness; holding many disparate, similar, geographically and through time realities simultaneously. As I get older my capacity for holding this awareness, or residing within it, grows. The value, as I see it, is that I continue to gradually see more of the hologram that is this universe. I see more the micro/macro patterns more dispassionately, and with greater appreciation for them. Maybe it was the combination of solstice and new moon, and the rain storms that were passing through the region all day. Good stuff.

The latest edition of Paradigms is now archived and ready for downloading. More good stuff!

Wow, 10 days goes by fast! The radio show has aired twice now, third one will be this Sunday with a live band and some great interviews. I am about to call Dr. Helen Caldicott in Australia and interview her. It's pretty exciting. Paradigms is definitely gaining momentum!

Personally I am experiencing some health issues which I don't fully understand, but I think the remedy is to spend time walking the land at Neruda Community, so that's what I'm going to do.

Tonight is the first episode of my new radio show Paradigms. I've been working on it for over a month. I've got interviews and music, and am lining up more interviews and live music for future shows. paradigms airs every Sunday at 8 PM ET on wbkm.org The show is based on the theme question, what are our visions of a viable future for life on Earth that includes humans? It's an optimistic question, and the interviews are really fun and interesting.

I am the kind of person who has to feel everything. I score at twice the average for empathy. In order for me to put my heart into a question about a viable future I have to go through all these feelings that the question brings up. There are so many reasons NOT to see a viable future for humans. The things that humans are doing right now on earth, the cruelty and injustice, the corruption, the deep deep depravity of our so-called leaders, the profit over life mentality of business; I weep.

I know myself well enough, at nearly 50 years old, to know that I have to go through this emotional discharging to make space for the optimism and creativity which allow me to visualize a viable future for humanity. In fact, it is my ability and willingness to feel that makes it possible for me not to live in despair. I wish for, and offer, the idea that to feel the sadness and anger is a gift. If we are willing to feel and to let those feelings pass through us, we can heal and learn and be free.