Last Sunday, June 21st, Jim and I celebrated the summer solstice with a small ceremony amidst the natural world. His emphasis was the Magic of Life and Being, and mine was Easy Street—all within the expanding and deepening matrixes of New Songs, New Stories, which we began dyadically in March for this natural world‘s four-season theme.
“Easy Street” was the title I gave to a large-scale dream I experienced in the later 1970s. In the dream I had been attempting to drive to the top of a steep mountain, using a more powerful car each time. Then when I got to the bottom of the hill for a third time, I decided to look at a map. What I saw on the map was that to the left of the steep mountain there was a flat and tree-lined road that went past beautiful beaches, with interesting little side roads I could explore off to the right of the tree-lined one. And the road to the left would get me to my destination. My initial interpretation of the dream was that it was telling me there were easier ways to accomplish what I wanted to achieve. It furthermore said that if I stood back and looked at a situation I would be able to figure out those easier ways. “Easy Street” has continued to give me specific ideas I have needed to hear in various circumstances at various times over the years.
Since the late 1970s when I experienced the dream, I have learned a lot more about who/what I AM, the importance of my moment-by-moment choices and energizations, the importance of the process itself, partnerships, relationships, my body organism, letting go and moving on, and developing/expanding elements of my personal power. I've realized even more clearly that what “our” forthcoming experiences are depends upon the matrix I and my body organism are within, and who/what I/we are Being. That is, I can emphasize a specific energization, but the results are different in various matrixes! It's been fascinating to play around with specific patterns for the contents of an emphasis—like Being Safe—and how safety changes within various pattern constructions.
A central energizer and evaluator I and my body organism are using now is emotional ease and satisfaction with each and all activities or non-activities. “We” are putting more ebb into the ebb and flow of our Life, with more non-doing.
Jim and I/we have completed our thorough cleaning of the upstairs, and the outside plants are gorgeous. One night recently as we were going to sleep about 11:30, delicious fragrances from the dark purple petunia-supertunia plant on the front deck table wafted into the bedroom through the open window, and I told Jim for the moment it didn't get any better then that! Then the first peony from an abundance of buds on five vigorous plants in front of the front deck emerged fully on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, and a few days later peony blossoms dramatically came forth all at once on another plant! My body organism has decided to spread out our closet cleaning, taking the process only so far for now; I agree it's been much more enjoyable.
Random fun has been emerging and erupting in unexpected ways … at times I find myself saying with surprise and delight, “This is really fun!”
Yes, materials for a probable new manuscript have been and are emerging—some of which will be about the past/present patterns used for male/female roles and relationships globally. I'm convinced that gender identification and the disengagement from same as a spirit-being is essential to any real and lasting liberation and expansion. But so far I /we are not ready to write anything more than what we just said.
In response to the question of what are my thoughts about some national and global events, my initial reply is that most of the time I'm in a compassionate Observer mode. This past May, I carefully and slowly read Barack Obama's book about his early life—Dreams from My Father—first published in 1995 with an updated 2004 edition, which is what I read. The 2004 edition includes a new Preface and the addition of the Keynote Address he gave at the Democratic National Convention on July 27, 2004. While reading Obama's stories about his life as the son of a white mother and an absent black Kenyan father, (a couple who met at the University of Hawaii and were married while still in school there), daily news reports were also coming forth from the immediate present, where Barack Obama is now President of the United States of America. (During the lead-up to the 2008 election I had read his later book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006.)
I have been grateful I don't need to try to sort out the various patterns Obama and his Administration members are now using; I see them all as people of enormous intelligence, skills, and backgrounds. I think our national political leadership—by both the Democrats and Republicans—is very complex and intermingled amidst a shifting global culture that is also very complex and intermingled. From my point of view it was much easier to show the direct relationship between beliefs, their energizations, and then the results with the George W. Bush Administration, such as I did in my manuscript, Within.
Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly agree with what I/we recently read from the book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Solve Our Two Biggest Problems by Van Jones. He was featured one Friday night on the PBS program, NOW. Bottom line: From what I read online from Jones‘ book, within the framework of the major emphases he's using, his is the most basically realistic and inspiring overall perspective I've heard or read from our current-day culture. Two of his main focuses are combining solutions to social inequality and environmental destruction.
Jones is an African American. He was a 1993 Yale Law graduate. He's also the founder of the organization, Green for All. To my mind he has a very impressive activist background, and this past March he was appointed as special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The following are my culled quotes from The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones: “But even if our movement fails to avert (environmental) disaster, the work of building a national Green Growth Alliance to birth a green New Deal won't be in vain. The effort to reinvent the system will build up important knowledge and establish invaluable relationships. Even in the most dire, ‘hard-landing‘ scenario, we can redeploy that wisdom and those networks to make the best of even the worst situations … We should not let the possibility of eco-apocalypse paralyze us; we should let it motivate and propel us. Whatever our fate, we know one thing: hiding out or holding back won't save us.
“Many of the best people in the country and the world have not been heard from yet. Many of the best ideas have not yet surfaced or been taken to scale … Just as there are unimaginable bad things on the horizon, there are also unimaginable good things. And I am betting on them … Given the capacities available to us, our wildest dreams and biggest hopes are probably too small … Now is not the time to shrink from the challenge of saving our only home in the universe. Now is not the time to pull into ourselves, retreating into either a survivalist or an escapist mode. To the contrary, this is the time for titans, not turtles. Now is the time to open our arms, expand our horizons, and dream big. Big problems require big solutions … To prevail we will need tens of thousands of heroes at every level of human society … So each and every one of us should stop playing small and license ourselves to become one of the giants of the new century. We will need champions by the truckload.
“If we stand for change, we can spark a popular movement with power, influence, magic, and genius. We won't just have the movement we have always wanted. We will have the country we have always wanted—and the world for which our hearts have longed. Now is the time for us to raise our sights. Now is the time for America to dream again. Even in the midst of new dangers, now is the time for us to unshackle our imaginations.” (End of culled quotes from Jones‘ book.)
My sense about Van Jones is that he literally operates more expansively and consciously as a multidimensional composite being than most people do today—and as a multidimensional composite being I/we resonated with him! I think my worldview is a complement to his, where I fill in some more of the details of how.
At the end of my chapter from Within, “The Global Economy and Environmental Realities,” I talked about Lester R. Brown's book, Plan B, Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. I wrote: “For many years Jim and I carefully followed materials that came forth from the Worldwatch Institute, an organization Brown founded in 1974 and headed for decades. On a yearly basis they published the most accurate environmental information they could of what was taking place around the globe. I have a lot of respect for Brown, for his continuous diligence, and for his grasp of the connections between the various parts of the overall ecological and economic picture. I think his current-day ideas can be used as both food-for-thought and as stepping stones for wise changes in the present and on into the future, to move us beyond our current-day realities. And then as the process evolves and we become more consciously empowered, we can expand our visions.” Brown says the key to restructuring the economy is the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth, especially about indirect costs and future deficits.
While being aware of what is happening in other countries, I have been breathing sighs of relief about the freedoms we have here in the United States, including freedom of expression. In May, hearing about the protests by some abortion rights activists at the U. of Notre Dame over President Obama's forthcoming commencement address and his responses to them, I wrote in my journal, “Yes, this is my country, land of my birth, and I'm continuously Appreciating that we have the right of freedom of expression amongst a world where other people are being jailed, beaten, and killed for speaking out. Yes, it's messy when there's room for individual thinking and its expression within agreed-upon lawful limitations, but what are our alternatives?“ The inner answer I heard and hear is, “More expanded and deeper matrixes.” (I am writing this during the aftermath of the recent elections in Iran, where there have been street protests and violence about the legitimacy of the election outcome.)
As I listen and see President Obama emphasize common ground with other humans, my suggestion is: Why don't we make the natural world we all Live within our common ground, mutual centrality, and foundation for what we build upon together as the human species?
With More Best Wishes,
No comments:
Post a Comment