2012: The Future of Mankind

It’s 3 hours, so be prepared! But it’s definitely worth it! By: Michael Tsarion

PICTURES:

QUOTES:

The history of man is the record of ego-existence. When the ego wanes in power, history ends. 2012 is the End of History.

2012 is the end of mankind. Man is the missing link between apes and human being.
The ego as we know it is only in existence under extreme stress. It presents itself as an exterior intrusion into consciousness, like the voice of a god.

Abusive behaviors are not natural to human beings. People enact such behaviors because something unnatural has happened to them. I and they have become deranged.

This period is a time of intense psychosis for the human race.

Insanity is a perfectly natural adjustment to a totally unnatural and negative environment.
It is a global psychosis. (Schizophrenia: “split mind”)

Society is our extended mind and body.

The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who and what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego. –Alan Watts
And we wonder why the world is in the state it’s in?

During the last 5,000 years, 14,600 wars have been recorded.

The real difference between man and beast: Man differs by the fact that he is a killer; he the only primate that kills and tortures members of his own species without any reason, either biological or economic, and who feels satisfaction in doing so. It is this biologically non-adaptive and “malignant” aggression that constitutes the real problem and the danger to man’s existence as a species.

Only man seems to take pleasure in destroying life without any reason or purpose other than that of destroying. Only man appears to be destructive beyond the aim of defense or of attaining what he needs.

The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. –Carl Young

If we continue to violate the natural order because of our inner and emotional and psychological toxicity, we inevitably breed “Orwellian” political and religious tyrants to take over the job, and turn us into Simmel’s “Smiling Depressives,” or worse…

It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free—to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private interest within the nation, wants him to think, feel and act…The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.

The sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology. It is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society—and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic.

George Bush Senior (1992) “…if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done in this nation, we would be chased down the streets and lynched.”
George Bush Senior: “Governments are only there for us to rob, loot and pillage.”
George W. Bush “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

They have control. But we have the power. To affect change is a road to salvation.

–

Rebellion

The true spirit of rebellion: Having no identity. Knowing we are not independent. Break through the lie of identification. Discover your own mastery. Don’t buy into the lie. Wake up to see it and acknowledge it.

Burning man and pop-rebellion: You won’t find anyone who actually knows how to change the system.

Know what you don’t what to do. Don’t be part of the problem.
What should you be doing? Where’s the solution?
Only you can create yourself.
These are the real fighters who will take down the system…

The enemy is not the problem. The problem is the ones who’s meant to be marching with you who haven’t the faintest idea of what’s going on. Or they’re fearful or undereducated about the fight. (Fear and ambivalence…you’re dead.)

We’ll be like Gulliver, and brush off and throw the George Bush’s and “hidden elite” into the ocean.

–

Hate, anger, nor violence has never caused any problems on this earth, except when they become pathological. It’s a limited understanding. Problems are caused by false love.

The apocalypse is an intellectual battle (fought in the air). It is an age of revealing. What is an apocalypse, literally? It is a leather covering…what’s the metaphor?…your body!

Consciousness can change our DNA. The whole of matter can be changed by thinking. DNA is an expression of vibration, of energy, affected by thought. It’s below thought. Your thinking will transform it. My god. What will this philosophy now do to the human race?

–

We can accept God becoming Man to save Man, but not Man becoming God to save himself.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

6+ billion will die in this century

From Rolling Stone (1/1/07) (LINK)

The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock. One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible — and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century. “But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting.” By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes — Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.

To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won’t make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. “Green,” he tells me, only half-joking, “is the color of mold and corruption.”

“Jim is a brilliant scientist who has been right about many things in the past,” Richard Branson says. “If he’s feeling gloomy about the future, it’s important for mankind to pay attention.” ( It was Lovelock who inspired his friend Richard Branson to put up a $25 million prize for the Virgin Earth Challenge, which will be awarded to the first person who can figure out a commercially viable way of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.)

The giant, inexpressibly subtle network of positive and negative feedbacks that keeps the Earth’s climate in balance is seriously out of whack, derailed by pollution and deforestation. Lovelock believes the planet itself will eventually recover its equilibrium, even if it takes millions of years. What’s at stake, he says, is civilization.

“The whole system,” he decided, “is in failure mode.” A few weeks later, he began work on his latest and gloomiest book, The Revenge of Gaia, which was published in the U.S. in 2006.

But evidence from the real world suggests that the IPCC is far too conservative. For one thing, scientists know from the geological record that 3 million years ago, when temperatures increased to five degrees above today’s level, the seas rose not by twenty-three inches but by more than eighty feet.

Here, in its oversimplified essence, is Lovelock’s doomsday scenario: Rising heat means more ice melting at the poles, which means more open water and land. That, in turn, increases the heat (ice reflects sunlight; open land and water absorb it), causing more ice to melt. The seas rise. More heat leads to more intense rainfall in some places, droughts in others. The Amazon rain forests and the great northern boreal forests –the belt of pine and spruce that covers Alaska, Canada and Siberia –undergo a growth spurt, then wither away. The permafrost in northern latitudes thaws, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more potent than CO2 — and on and on it goes.

To Lovelock, the whole idea of sustainable development is wrongheaded: “We should be thinking about sustainable retreat.”

Retreat, in his view, means it’s time to start talking about changing where we live and how we get our food; about making plans for the migration of millions of people from low-lying regions like Bangladesh into Europe; about admitting that New Orleans is a goner and moving the people to cities better positioned for the future. Most of all, he says, it’s about everybody “absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization, so that it doesn’t degenerate into Dark Ages, with warlords running things, which is a real danger. We could lose everything that way.”

It’s terrifying. We have just exceeded all reasonable bounds in numbers. And from a purely biological view, any species that does that has a crash.”

“We need bold action,” Lovelock insists. “We have a tremendous amount to do.” In his view, we have two choices: We can return to a more primitive lifestyle and live in equilibrium with the planet as hunter-gatherers, or we can sequester ourselves in a very sophisticated, high-tech civilization. “There’s no question which path I’d prefer,” he says one morning in his cottage, grinning broadly and tapping the keyboard of his computer. “It’s really a question of how we organize society — where we will get our food, water. How we will generate energy.”

For water, the answer is pretty straightforward: desalination plants, which can turn ocean water into drinking water. Food supply is tougher: Heat and drought will devastate many of today’s food-growing regions. It will also push people north, where they will cluster in cities. In these areas, there will be no room for backyard gardens. As a result, Lovelock believes, we will have to synthesize food — to grow it in vats from tissue cultures of meats and vegetables. It sounds far out and deeply unappetizing, but from a technological standpoint, it wouldn’t be hard to do.

Nuclear Power Is the Only Green Solution.” Lovelock argued that we should “use the small input from renewables sensibly” but that “we have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear — the one safe, available energy source — now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.”

Then, as now, the lack of political leadership is what’s most striking to Lovelock. Although he respects Al Gore’s efforts to raise people’s consciousness, he believes no politician has come close to preparing us for what’s coming. “We’ll be living in a desperate world in no time,” Lovelock says. He believes the time is right for a global-warming version of Winston Churchill’s famous “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech he gave to prepare Great Britain for World War II. “People are ready for this,” Lovelock says as we pass under the shadow of the castle. “They understand what’s happening far better than most politicians.”

“Our moral progress,” says Lovelock, “has not kept up with our technological progress.”

But maybe that’s exactly what the coming apocalypse is all about. One of the questions that fascinates Lovelock: Life has been evolving on Earth for more than 3 billion years — and to what purpose? “Like it or not, we are the brains and nervous system of Gaia,” he says. “We have now assumed responsibility for the welfare of the planet. How will we manage it?”

“Some people will sit in their seats and do nothing, frozen in panic. Others will move. They’ll see what’s about to happen, and they’ll take action, and they’ll survive. They’re the carriers of the civilization ahead.”

ACHIEVING FOOD SECURITY IN BOULDER COUNTY

2008 Food Summit, March 9

The invitation begins:
“For the past 40 years, our food system has been driven by the availability of cheap oil and government policies promoting large-scale industrial food production. While the system has succeeded in feeding us, increasingly this is made possible at great peril. With one-fifth of all our oil consumption going into food production and its transportation, our food system has become profoundly vulnerable at every level to fuel shortages and rising prices which are both now inevitable. In response to this growing perception of our local food system’s vulnerabilities, there is now growing community support for the promotion of local food-producing initiatives…

“The transition from relying on a national industrial food system to one that is local will require great innovation and concerted community and local governmental effort. If we as a community are to build capacity and an organizational structure sufficient for pursuing maximum local food security, this process must now begin in earnest.”

Such is the dramatic framing for Boulder County’s first Food Summit, sponsored by Everybody Eats! and Boulder County Going Local.

The focus of this invitation-only conference is to engage the people with expertise and experience in major sectors of our food network, including growers, producers, restaurants, grocers, and community organizations. Together this group will share their concerns and insights with the goal of developing plans and strategies for achieving greater local food security in Boulder County.

We expect that the participants in the Food Summit will be informed by the Community Think Tank on March 1.

Some of the food-related areas for consideration at the Summit and its subsequent initiatives include:

• Health and wellness
• Climate change and the role of peak oil
• A food needs assessment
• Facilitating the bridge between supply and demand for food
• Food policy analysis and recommendations
• Energy use in local agriculture
• Education and outreach to promote food-related issues

One of the anticipated outcomes of the Food Summit is the establishment of a guiding Executive Committee, which will interface with the new Boulder County Food and Agriculture Policy Council, described below.

Watch for the results from this first-ever Boulder County Food Summit!

WHEN & WHERE
March 9 (Sun.)
10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Panorama Room
Boulder Outlook Hotel & Suites
800 28th Street

Peak Everything, Quotes

Quotes from Richard Heinberg’s (2007) Peak Everything. Waking Up to the Century of Declines.

Introduction

The world is overwhelmingly dependent on oil for transportation, agriculture, plastics, and chemicals; thus a lengthy process of adjustment will be required. Fossil fuels supply about 85% of the world’s total energy.

In the course of the present century we will see an end to growth and a commencement of decline in all of these parameters: population, grain production (total and per capita), uranium production, climate stability, fresh water availability per capita, arable land in agricultural production, wild fish harvests, yearly extraction of some metals and minerals (including copper, platinum, sliver, gold, and zinc).

These declines will affect various parameters of social welfare: per-capita consumption levels, economic growth; easy, cheap, quick mobility; technological change and invention, political stability.

We are at the beginning of a period of overall societal contraction….population crashes and die-offs.

The only real question is whether societies will contract and simplify intelligently or in an uncontrolled, chaotic fashion.

None of this is easy to contemplate. Nor can this information easily be discussed in polite company: it is not likely to win votes, lead to a better job…most people turn off and tune out. The result: a general, societal pattern of denial.

Some not so-good things will also peak this century: economic inequality, environmental destruction, greenhouse gas emissions. (Whether as a result of voluntary reductions in fossil fuel consumption or societal collapse.)

In the decades just prior to the 20th century, the average income in the world’s wealthiest country was about ten times more than that in the poorest; now it is over forty-five times more. The richest one percent of people now controls 40% of the world’s wealth, while the richest two percent control fully half.

Some good things that are not at or near their historic peaks: Community, personal autonomy, satisfaction from honest work well done, intergenerational solidarity, cooperation, leisure time, happiness, ingenuity, artistry, beauty of the built environment, leisure time.

Addressing the economic, social, and political problems ensuing from the various looming peaks is no mere palliative and will require enormous collective effort.

People will need to believe in an eventual reward for what will amount to many years of hard sacrifice. People will not willingly accept the new message of “less, slower, and smaller,” unless they have new goals toward which to aspire.

We are at the brink of a collapse worse than any in history.

The world is full of crises demanding our attention–from wars to pollution, malnutrition, land mines, human rights abuses, and soaring cancer rates. Globally, there are two problems whose potentially consequences far outweight all others: Climate Change and energy resource depletion. Our efforts will be much more effective if directed at their (our laundry list of environmental and social problems) common root–that is, if we end our dependence on fossil fuels.

My thesis: many problems rightly deserve attention, but the problem of our dependence on fossil fuels is central to human survival, and so long as that dependence continues to any significant extent we must make its reduction the centerpiece of all our collective efforts–whether they are efforts to feed ourselves, resolve conflicts, or maintain a functioning economy.

Take the red pill and see the world beyond the Matrix: the very fabric of modern life is woven from illusion–thousands of illusions, in fact.

Emphasis on the need for dramatic, rapid reform in our global food system.

On Technology, Agriculture, and the Arts

In the U.S., as recently as 1850, domesticated animals were responsible for over 2/3 of the physical work supporting the economy. Between 70 and 90 percent of the populations of early civilizations had to work at farming in order to provide enough of a surplus to support the rest of the social edifice, including the warrior, priestly, and administrative classes.

Human societies are best classified on the basis of their member’s means of obtaining food.

A focus on energy as the determining factor in social evolution…with that shift has also come the sense that resource limits will eventually drive basic cultural change–rather than moral persuasion, mass enlightenment, or some new invention.

Preserve whatever is beautiful, sane, and intelligent. That includes scientific and cultural knowledge, and examples of human achievement in the arts.

In short, we created unprecedented abundance while ignoring the long-term consequences of our actions. …The Greeks, Babylonians, and Romans all destroyed soil and habitat in their mania to feed growing urban populations, and collapsed as a result.

The Key: More Farmers!

The need for a minimum of 40 to 50 million additional farmers as oil and gas availability declines… a transition that must occur over the next 20-30 years, and that must begin now.

Universities and community colleges have both the opportunity and responsibility to quickly develop programs in small-scale ecological farming methods.

A sign of what is to come, as we return by necessity to handcraft but without skill or cultural memory to guide us.

Workers will incorporate no or minimal fossil fuels, either as raw material or as energy source, in production processes. This is the defining condition for all that follows, and its implications will be profound.

On Nature’s Limits and the Human Condition

Collapse is a frequent if not universal fate of complex societies. It is the common destiny of societies that ignore resource constraints. It is a reduction in social complexity.

People who live a civilized life are like birds in a cage. As long as we stay within well-defined social bounds, we are rewarded with cheap food, as well as comfort and convenience in a myriad of forms: television, shopping malls, glossy magazines. We have our seed cup, perch, mirror, and toys. What more could a bird–or human–want.

And so here we are today, in a human world dominated by money, news sports, entertainment, employment, and investment–a world in a which nature appears as something peripheral and mostly unnecessary. Nature is merely a pile of resources.

The End of one Era, the Beginning of Another

Nations will simply burn whatever is available in order to keep their economies from crashing.

Energy is essential to the maintenance of agriculutre, transportation, communication, and just about everything else that makes up the modern global economy.

There are only two kinds of solutions: substitution strategies (finding replacement energy sources) and conservation strategies (using energy more efficiently or just doing without). The former are politically preferable, as they do not require behavioral change or sacrifice. The least palatable option, from a political standpoint, is also the quickest and cheapest–doing without.

The task of clearing up all past and future nuclear wastes will require more energy than the industry can generate from the remaining ore.

Strong motivation is required in order for the people of the world to undertake the enormous personal and social sacrifices required in order to quickly and dramatically reduce their fossil fuel dependency.

The courage to tell a truth that few policy makers want to hear: energy efficiency and curtailment will almost certainly have to be the world’s dominant responses to both climate change and peak oil.

If we really want to change the world we should change our heads first.

By now, the American governmental-corporate system is far too large and complex, and has far too much momentum behind it, to permit a fundamental change in direction.

The nation, now hallucinating uncontrollably from toxic exposure to Fox New, is in debt to the point that no conceivable decision made today will prevent a devastating implosion of the US economy, especially in view of the impending oil and gas peaks.

The American dream is going down, yet we still have some control over how it goes down. In the decades ahead we will be going through hell. What we must do down is lay the groundwork for collective survival. We must build lifeboats.

Future???

• The government will become utterly fascist.
• There will be local uprisings and brutal crackdowns.
• The central government will collapse.
• It will be called “The Die-off,” or “The Cleansing,” defined by wars, epidemics, famines.

What people really need is some basic commonsense information and advice, somebody to tell them the truth–their way of life is coming to an end–and to offer them some sensible collective survival strategies.

Learn how to grow your own food. A frustration will be the lack of good seeds… Very few people know anything about saving seeds from one season to the next, so existing seed stocks will be depleated very quickly.

Learn what’s important in life: good soil, viable seeds, clean water, unpolluted air, and friends you can count on.

There is an overwhelming likelihood of a crash of titantic proportions. This should be glaringly obvious to everyone.

An implicit belief comon among ruling elites–it is the duty of wise leaders to cloak their policies in potent patriotic and religious symbols and myths in order to galvanize the internal ethical imperatives of the masses. In other words, lies are not only good and necessary, they are the very foundation of responsible statecraft.

We are at war with nature and future generations.

A rapid surge toward collective self-limitation might come about.

To be successful, such an effort would require the enthusiastic participation of the advertising, public relations, and entertainment industries, as well as organized religions and all major political institutions.

A New Earth: Ch. 1 Quotes

Quotes from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. (2005)

FYI: Oprah is doing a 10 week bookclub online discussion about it, starting March 3rd.

Chapter 1. The Flowering of Human Consciousness

We have been preparing the ground for a more profound shift in planetary consciousness that is destined to take place in the human species.

The messengers–Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known–were humanity’s early flowers. They were precursors, rare and precious beings.

To sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to life unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering.

The human mind is highly intelligent. Yet its very intelligence is tainted by madness. Science and technology have magnified the destructive impact that the dysfunction of the human mind has upon the planet, other life-forms, and upon humans themselves.

By the end of the century, the number of people who died a violent death at the hand of their fellow humans would rise to more than one hundred million.

Driven by green, ignorant of their connectedness to the whole, humans persist in behavior that, if continued unchecked, can only result in their own destruction.

If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived “enemies”–his own unconsciousness projected outward. Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.

The history of Communism, originally inspired by noble ideals, clearly illustrates what happens when people attempt to change external reality–create a new earth–without any prior change in their inner reality, their state of consciousness.

Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight–that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect.

The good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation.

Responding to a radical crisis that threatens our very survival–this is humanity’s challenge now.

A significant portion of the earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.

Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality–and it has a relative, not an absolute, reality–this is also its definition: complete identification with form–physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every “other” as well as with the Source.

The inspiration for the title of this book came froma Bible prophecy that seems more applicable now than at any other time in human history. It occus in both the Old and the New Testament and speaks of the collapse of the existing world order and the arising of “a new heaven and a new earth.” We need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness. This is its meaning in the teachings of Jesus.

“A new heaven” is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and “a new earth” is its reflection in the physical realm.

Coming Attractions: Violent Revolution

What happens to people’s minds when they’re left hanging just a little too far past the moment when they’re ready for transformative change?

We’ve already lined up all the preconditions that have historically set the stage for full-fledged violent revolution.

Deeply conservative nations very reliably create the conditions that eventually make violent overthrow necessary. And our own Republicans, it turns out, have done a hell of a job.

Seven Criteria:

1. Soaring, then Crashing: middle-class America is being hollowed out by health-care, bankruptcies, higher college costs, and a tax load far heavier than that of the richest 2 percent.
2. They call it class war: the stage for revolution was set when the upper classes broke faith with society’s other groups, and began to openly prey on them in ways that threatened their very future.
3. Deserted Intellectuals: Revolutions require leaders — and those always come from the professional and intellectual classes. In most times and places, these groups (which also include military officers) usually enjoy comfortable ties to the upper classes, and access to a certain level of power. Revolutions catalyze when these deserted intellectuals make common cause with the lower classes.
4. Incompetent Government: Conservatives invariably govern badly because they don’t really believe that government should exist at all — except as a way to funnel the peoples’ tax money into the pockets of party insiders. This conflicted (if not outright hostile) attitude toward government can’t possibly lead to any outcome other than bad management, bad policy, and eventually such horrendously bad social and economic outcomes that people are forced into the streets to hold their leaders to account.
   1. Liberal democracy avoids this by building in a fail-safe: if the bastards ignore us, we can always vote them out. But if we’ve learned anything over the last eight years, it’s that our votes don’t always count — especially not when conservatives are doing the counting.
5. Gutless Wonders in the Ruling Class: Revolution becomes necessary when the ruling classes fail in their duty to lead. Most of the major modern political revolutions occurred at moments when the world was changing rapidly — and the country’s leaders dealt with it by dropping back into denial and clinging defiantly to the old, profitable, and familiar status quo. When the leaders failed to step forward boldly to lead their people through the looming and necessary transformations, the people rebelled.
6. Fiscal Irresponsibility: As we’ve seen, revolutions follow in the wake of national economic reversals. Almost always, these reversals occur when inept and corrupt governments mismanage the national economy to the point of indebtedness, bankruptcy, and currency collapse. There’s a growing consensus on both the left and right that America is now heading into the biggest financial contraction since the Great Depression.
7. Inept and Inconsistent Use of Force: The final criterion for revolution is this: The government no longer exercises force in a way that people find fair or consistent.
   1. This kind of capricious, irrational ineptitude in deploying government force leads to public contempt for the power of the state, and leads the governed to withdraw their consent. And, eventually, it also raises people’s determination to stand together to oppose state power. That growing solidarity and fearlessness — along with the resigned knowledge that equal-opportunity goons will brutalize loyalists and rebels alike, so you might as well be a dead lion rather than a live lamb — is the final factor that catalyzes ordinary citizens into ready and willing revolutionaries.

Over the past 350 years, almost every major revolution in a modern industrialized country has been preceded by this pattern of seven preconditions.

Hillary Clinton is failing because this is a revolutionary moment — and she, regrettably, has the misfortune to be too closely identified with the mounting failures of the past that we’re now seeking to move beyond. On the other hand, Ron Paul’s otherwise inexplicable success has been built on his pointed and very specific critique of the kinds of government leadership failures I’ve described.

And Barack Obama is walking away with the moment because he talks of “hope” — which is clearly the very first thing any would-be revolutionary needs. And then he talks of “change,” which many of his followers are clearly hearing as a soft word for “revolution.”

Source: AlterNet

Summit Experience: Day 3

Disaster is not approaching. It is here now.

Grace is not approaching. It is here now.

We close our hearts to pain, but it doesn’t help.

Who would you be if you were willing to risk believing that grace is real?

Question: If this is an initiation, What is the challenge that is to be fully faced in order to complete the initiation?

-To be stronger and wiser.

-To know our part in this.

-To surrender.

-To engage as many people as possible

-To grow our circle

-To remain engaged.

-To support each other: To come together on a regular basis.

-To get people to feel what we’re feeling, not just talk to them.

Summit Experience: Day 2

The circle is a sacred place.

 

The spirit was not being mentioned yesterday. It’s sad.

North: thanks to the land that we live on, that nourishes me.

East: air: thanks for inspiration, the beginning of a new day and to start over.

South: fire: thanks for passion.

West: water: thanks for tears. For the emotions that keep us connected us to Truth.

Center: spirit, and mother Earth. For true love, for peace.

 

Conflict: all the LISTS we make!

Vulnerable letting go of ego.

Wanting to know what will happen…

 

Circle: sharing the experience of life: sharing and connection

With intense passion and love and bonding!

To be prepared for the game, the process

 

People are waiting for answers, to be reached out to, for impetus, for leadership, to be part of something larger than themselves.

 

The pain of evolution: Emptying or Organization

We need to act with a great sense of urgency.

We’re not going to be able to feed ourselves.

There will be a bloodbath.

I need people who are ready to be part of the solution.

 

You have to experience it, know it, embrace it, embody it, and spread it.

It’s called many things: God, love, enlightenment, universal compassion, the absolute truth.

In True dialogue: (1) We are all colleagues w/o hierarchy; (2) Willing to suspend core beliefs and assumptions, because it is limiting in conflict; (3) There is no goal: be free, be creative and holistic. This will lead to clear directions.

 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies in the field, the world is too full to talk about ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.” -Rumi

 

Song

“It is a gift to be simple. It is a gift to be free…”

 

I want you to be here with me. If I go there first, I hope you’ll follow.

All the white American male shit: We were robbed. Grief will undue worship.

Deep appreciation and respect for the path that we’re all on.

 

“It’s not working for me.”

Assumption: I’m different from the group.

Truth: I am the same as the group.

 

Discomfort that there’s so much sadness:

Everyone needs to purge.

We’re not healing sadness.

“No one is more uncomfortable than just before a breakthrough.”

 

We’re here to help the world’s needs, not meet our own needs.

It’s pushing my comfort to the very extreme.

Let go of your need to have things work out.

 

There’s a beast struggling to be born, to break through.

 

Is this self-indulgent: Tempting: impatient, intellectualization, To help each other mature.

We need to create a vision about how to move through.

 

BREAK

 

We need to create a vision about how to move through it.

 

Necessary before entering into discussion about solutions, working together.

Don’t wall yourself off, pretend, caught in delusion.

It takes a long time. And it hurts. Let go of your pain.

Ethics: We are so pleased with ourselves when we help others. We mess with things we don’t understand. We need to stop. We have to listen–to be appropriately responsive. We don’t have the answers for everyone.

 

SILENCE

 

Between differentiation and individuation.

We need to find assumptions, to hear each other.

 

Do you notice polarities?

 

I will never be allowed to show up as who I am. I will always be lonely.

 

We need to purge our body of evil: Thoughts and chemicals.

There is no me. There is only we.

I want the village. Can we gather now? It’s what I long for.

I feel crazy. Things are going too fast inside me and Polarity: My own stuff and the gthe world.

We don’t hold hands enough.

We’re in little worlds that aren’t real.

We have to let yourself and those you love, go.

Let it go.

 

I feel like a volcano, exhausted.

Mapping out what to do. It doesn’t matter what I do.

 

Polarity: My own stuff and the groups stuff. There are lots of paths, and one destination.

How am I starved? Do I recognize when I am fed?

 

Polarity: Speak up for yourself or not. Assumption: separation between the individual vs. the group.

This is the main assumption!!!

 

PAUSE.

 

I need to understand my path. Share my understanding. Organize.

 

Powerful psychological bond: The group conscious.

To see through the eyes of others.

Is responsibility (Response Able) a burden?

 

I have begun to see how much I love people; this planet.

 

This is our calling: To make Change.

 

Like cleaning a mirror: letting the suspended particle settle to s to see the gem.

 

We all have such amazing potential!

 

Let go of the extra crap that’s weighing you down.

 

It’s painful to watch how unthoughtful we are when deal with life.

The painful parts is where we awake It’s work.

 

The ego death to the birth of the community ego.

Everyone’s afraid: If you’re not afraid, you’re not human…

Reaction: No. You are released from attachment to life.

 

Is there any way for the beast to life past Sun @ 6 pm?

 

If there’s somewhere we’re trying to get to, we’re not there. If there’s a destination, we haven’t reached it.

Truth: There is no destination.

 

We’re exchanging words, but the meaning is not agreed upon.

There is a problem of true communication.

 

To find direction: Embrace the death of my ego and proceed strategically so as to have the greatest impact and hope that others will see the value in this work.

In building community, connection, and spirit.

In creating groups.

 

Hamlet: I did something bad. If I were sorry, I would accept the consequences of our actions:

Abdicate the Thrown!

 

A want to be acknowledges

 

We need ceremony:

A rite of passage!

You come out with a new identity than with what you came in.

 

Tangent: You Tube Video

“Why does my heart feel so Bad?

I’m here all alone.”

 

Not knowing where to go. How to affect change.

 

Sit down and be quiet.
You’re drunk.

And you’re at the edge of the roof.

-Rumi.

 

We are called to intervene now.

This doesn’t get talked about.

The place we live and the people in that place.

Functional community: Taken away by empire.

We have to regenerate what: Where we live, work.

 

Relocalization: It looks like it’s impossible.

But it’s something that we must do, even if it fails.

 

Drum: Prayer to the Earth!

 

 

Every action flowers in the depth of time.

We will come together as the human family we were meant to be.

We can each be a beacon of peace and light because we have embraced it in our hearts.

What assumptions prompt the use of a talking peace?

Do you want to join with others to resond to the greatest challenge the human species has faced? With these assumptions unquestioned and unexplored?

 

If this is an initiation, what is the challenge that is to be fully faced in order to complete the initiation?

 

There is a huge avoidance in this room!

There is a huge loss of inquiry!

Ex: “Why do we not renounce our kinship?”

 

We don’t know how to fight, to disagree.

 

What are you going to do when big differences get thrown into the circle?

 

Things don’t get noticed…no inquiry…it’s part of me.

Am I being loved, ignored, or tolerated?

We’re walking wounded. People want to be healed.

 

Moderator:

I don’t really care what happens in a real way. I’m leaving Monday. We were here to work together. You’re trying so hard to try to do something so good. I want to yo have everything that you can have to go forward.

 

Circle:

How to do conflict? How to move forward like never before?

 

Dissonance between two things: Solve the world’s problems with a psychotherapist.

Problem with a large group, a bad dynamic.

THAT’S NOT THE PROBLEM.

Assumption: community building over time.

If I disagree, you’ll go away and I’ll be alone.

Silent people won’t be heard without a talking point.

 

Language: this maze we’ve built.

We’re stuck wandering in it.

Do I have the vocabulary or ability to explain the Truth?

 

Are you afraid that I’m angry?

That something bad will happen if I’m angry?

 

That our dialogue would weave a threat and have community…

 

People don’t have the heart.

Polarity: Head v. Heart people.

Physical v. metaphysical.

 

Assumption: What we are doing is healing.

It’s a problem that can be solved.

But, it gives us hope, a goal.

 

No matter what we do, We can’t solve it. Adapt.

Assumption: no solution means no action.

What Are Our Intentions?

To reach out and to stay available to this group.

To help ReLocalization efforts

To balance Reality with Our Vision.

To be open and present at every moment.

To follow Our marching orders.

To facilitate groups such as this.

To pass on my knowledge.

To join with my friends and build a new World.

To focus on what must be done Now.

To do whatever it takes to ensure the continued life on this planet, including humans.

To find, to surpass Hamlet’s stepfather: To relinquish My thrown.

To cherish life, love, and support for Earth.

To expand our work. To release our barriers.

To feed the long starving spiritual animal with Our Knowledge.

To find our voice and assist others.

To develop our the skills of observation and and communication.

To create space for others to talk about what’s difficult.

To simplify Our lives.

To make the best of every moment; every minute.

To sit in council with the Great Spirit.

To act when called to Service.

To enjoy life to the fullest. To be here fully.

To love and nurture all beings part of nature.

To spread Our Awakening.

To be a catalyst for Relocalization. To be a bearer of the Flame. To share it with others.

To join with others to preserve what’s most sacred and important about humanity.

To stay awake. To speak Our Truth. To discover the best way to communicate.

To fully enter knowledge. To relinquish control. To sit with Our Power.

To find my home.

To stay connected with people here, so I don’t fall asleep.

To develop Ourselves, Our knowledge.

To help others in this transition.

To face my fears. Allow spirit to guide me to create change, to bring hope.

To do my work for Spirit. To speak my Truth.

 

With the seed of intentions.

With the flower & Life of our intentions.

May It Be So.

Summit Experience: Day 1

Prompt: The Reason We Came Today?

My Response

 

Group Circle (39 people).

“I want to find people that have passion, that want to change things.”

To talk about the end of life as we know it.

I’m looking for something to be involved with.

To NETWORK…

How much this culture is driving me nuts.

How to be in it, but not part of it…the insanity is too great.

How to bond to address what we’re facing, together.

How to solve the problems; sustainability.

I’m looking for something to do, to help.

What can we do???

 

I don’t see a way out. I see massive amounts of suffering.

Let’s live in the moment. Let’s be compassionate.

It’s a difficult journey to find the Truth.

There’s a lot there we don’t want to know.

 

I want to be part of the solution.

I’m hear for the community.

To help people step into the brilliance of collective wisdom.

To grow, learn, contribute.

We’re in the right place at the right time.

 

 

Tangent: Assumptions

Worries about the end of oil.

Assumption: There is not enough energy.

Axiom: We have too much energy: the stored energy of all Life that lived before US! (Fossil Fuels).

 

 

Tangent: What Can We Do?

 

 

Building the Dialogue Community:

Inclusion: Building the container

-Getting to know each other.

-Including unseen forces

-Grief: healthy denial

 

Differentiation: Instability in the container

-Surfacing differences, assumptions, passions.

-Conflict is inevitable: fight, flight, freeze

 

Individuation: Inquiry in the container

-Looking within, suspending assumptions

-Experience of differences

-Grief: mourning

-Grace: willingness to learn

 

Affection & Connection: Creativity in the container.

-Acceptance of difference source of possibility

-Safe to be fully oneself: breakthrough levels of intelligence, purpose, meaning

-Grief: acceptance, renewal.

“It’s not something we’re in control of.”

 

Break out into groups of 4:

5 min each: What’s my story? How’d you get here? What were the turning points (3/4)?

 

Group Circle

Passion and enthusiasm about change.

A desire for transformation.

It doesn’t require belief: it is real.

Make contributions if you’re moving forward.

There is a lack of focus: We don’t know what the endpoint is.

 

Journal: One member Left. What’s my Part?

 

WhiteBoard: Network!!!

 

Poem

I would love to kiss you.

The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life, yelling what a bargain, let’s buy it!

 

3 People can’t commit to the rigid schedule…

What would happen if people stayed focus for a while? It’s a group commitment.

Are you ready to surrender and fully commit?

Consensus decision making (Quakers).

A community experience: It should not be atomized.

Group votes are a tyranny, unacceptable in our circle.

 

You have to do the dance of shedding ego to get to the final stage.

 

Tangent: Our Swarm

 

“The way out of chaos is organization or emptiness.”

Are we going to get to the destination?

“I’m afraid we won’t get to the starting point!

“We are here as a group to help each other die. And then help civilization die.”

 

Tangent: Our Community Collapse

 

Everyone here has a great commitment.

 

The process here is symbolic of the larger Enlightenment necessary for a humane transition. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all come into it enlightened? But we have no control over that. But the goal, the progress of history, is for us to extend our love from our self, to our family, to our immediate community, to our brothers and sisters around the world.

 

“I do not feel like I need to prevent a collapse.”

-What about intergenerational equity? Not caring about this is a consequence of our industrial, corporatist, money dominated, brainwashed culture.

-We can, and should, cause a more humane transition to Perpetual Peace.

 

Meditate.

What were the major shifts in the session?

 

3 Beans:

Be aware. When you want to speak, throw it into the center. To slow things down. Level the playing field with introverts with extraverts.

 

Question: What’s inside of you that you’re not aware of, that would be helpful to the circle?

 

Terror. 9/11 Conspiracy (inside job)…hatred.

 

Expectations of more purposeful intent: Very hard to sit through. 2 hr on whether we can come late, 1 hr on thoughts and feelings. It’s a hard style. I didn’t want to come back. This process sucks. Confused. … It is what we make it.

 

Terror and fear of the collapse and the loss of everything.

 

I thought it was a summit about leadership. What can my role be as a leader?

 

I want to be challenged. I want to be more effective.

What’s it going to take for us to pull together? Ideas?

 

The “U” pattern. The downward slope: experiencing the whole of our reality, letting go.

At the bottom: emptiness, presence.

 

It scares me when we create an Us v. Them mentality.

 

Our Community: Things don’t stick. Relationships fizzle out. How can we get together faster?

-Litmus test: the “What a Way to Go” documentary… need a look, a gesture.

-Can I trust you? Are you reliable? Are you going to do what you say?

-Can you motivate action and collaborate?

 

I thought we would have more focus and direction.

What are your expectations? …A sense of closeness, a discovery of a mystery.

 

Solution: CSAs. It’s been the most magical thing in my life. Period. I’ve learned who my neighbors are.

 

An Idea for Our Vision

 

V Tangent:

Revolution

 

I want an open ended topic that can be addressed on all levels and speak to the truth of who we are.

 

We are in council. And the topic: The film: What a Way to Go.

 

We don’t react to crisis until it runs us over, when it gets intense. How can we connect with others in such a big group?

 

Everyone has useful things to say and useful perspectives. In the real world, we don’t talk much about this stuff. It’s frustrating to wait it out.

 

I was juiced, and saying this is going nowhere took it out of me.

 

Vision: local economic: I feel trapped with my job. We should work together.

 

Eco-Architecture, passive solar: living green.

Are there any answers?

 

I’m really worried about China: Everything is made over there. And their building so many coal plants. And they’re going to tip the boat.

 

I want to be a hospice worker for our civilization… and help it die.

 

We need to be doing something. We need to become food secure.

 

How realistic are we being about the change?

 

Is Boulder going to be a livable place?

I don’t know what to do, but it’s up to us.

It would be wonderful if we did anything that we’ve been thinking of. Just do them.

 

I feel a struggle and loneliness in myself. We need to support each other for things we’re enthusiastic in doing. It would be a wonderful gift.

 

Church CSA…simple things are transformative.

We will have to take on outreach to people who are less outreached.

We should choose an issue and do it around the circle.

 

Our communication is not working. We have to do something else.

It will kick the shit out of this culture of death and destruction.

 

I am optimistic that 2008 will be the year this gets going.

 

We are not listening to each other well. People don’t want to stay.

 

Out of the container: into ourselves or organization and structure (quicker). But what I have to offer is that it is more profound to go into oneself and really empty out what’s in the way. I am not disappointed with what we’ve done today. …the depth of what we’re trying to face: we are facing the end of the human species.

We’re the one’s we’ve been waiting for.

 

Meditate: What was most meaningful? What was most challenging? What do we want to create with our buddies tomorrow?