Revolution of the Heart
“They can take the park. They can’t take our hearts. They can’t take that from us. You can’t take our hearts, buddy. Remember that. We’ve still got our passion. We’ve still got our beliefs.”
Anthony Robledo was an occupier at Occupy Wall Street.
“Big ice where I come from is the clock on Mother Earth. It ticks and shows the changes. Whatever is happening on earth, that’s where it shows up first. I live with the big ice, literally a few kilometres away from me, and I’m seeing the big ice vanishing into thin air.”
Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq is an Eskimo-Kalaallit Elder from a long lineage of shamans, medicine men, elders and ‘carriers of the drum’ in the Far North of Greenland. The Eskimo-Kalaallit people, a peaceful culture thousands of years old, have never known war.
Angaangaq was recognized and trained by his grandmother to become the last shaman of his lineage — a role and responsibility he accepted in 2004. He has been a longtime ‘runner to the world’ of the messages of elders from tribes all around the world.
He was taught by his father that “the greatest distance in the existence of man is from his mind to his heart,” and that man must learn to conquer this distance. He was told his work would be to learn to melt the ice in the hearts of men, and to change his own ways. For him, the greatest hope for mankind is that we each learn to change ourselves to access and use our unique wisdom in the world. He encourages we walk our spiritual path “with practical feet,” and learn to bridge the gap of imbalance — both personal and global — though strength, gentleness, compassion, love, courage and grace.
Angaangaq is quoted on the effects of global warming as well as on environmental and indigenous issues, and has represented the Arctic peoples at the United Nations. He speaks before governments and universities, and in schools, prisons, senior homes and businesses. With teachings rooted in the oral tradition of his people and promoting interracial and inter-cultural harmony, he leads healing circles, intensives and traditional sweat lodges. His work has taken him to five continents and over 50 countries around the world.
His name means ‘The Man Who Looks Like His Uncle.’
Visit his website:
Video:
“Eskimo-Elder Angaangaq: One Earth and one Race” (Natural News, 14 min)
“Standing in front of 10,000 saying ‘down to Mubarak’. This is one of the best moments of my life. At 11pm the guy that sells the state owned newspapers, lies and lies and lies and lies. We’re just looking at him. We don’t care about newspapers. We are the news! We are 10,000 occupying Tahrir Square.”
Amr Adel has been a protester in the Egyptian revolution.
“To love Mother Earth as if she is my real mother, as if she’s my real grandmother, you know? For me, to love her is to take care of her, even to cry for her sometimes.”
Recognized as one of North America’s most prominent indigenous activists, Tom Goldtooth is the Executive Director of the Indigenous Environment Network, based in Minnesota. An environmental advocate and economic justice leader within the Native American community for over three decades, he has built an organization of 250 indigenous communities focused on climate justice, energy, water, globalization and sustainable development whose motto is to “strengthen, maintain, and respect traditional teachings and natural laws.”
Goldtooth speaks on environmental justice and the rights of Mother Earth and all her species, especially with regard to indigenous peoples of the world as both injured parties and as source of restorative wisdom for our planet’s ecological imbalances. It is his belief that the indigenous people play a key role in supporting and speaking for Nature’s elements and species who don’t have a voice, and most importantly for Mother Earth’s right to sustain her processes without threat of poisoning or destruction by human activity.
Tom co-produced Drumbeat For Mother Earth, a documentary feature film describing the effects of bio-accumulative chemicals on indigenous communities, which was awarded Best Environmental Documentary at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
Active with many environmental and social justice organizations besides the Indigenous Environment Network, Tom Goldtooth was honored in 2010 by the Sierra Club and by the NAACP as a “Green Hero of Color.”
The Indigenous Environmental Network website:
http://www.ienearth.org/
Find out more about Drumbeat for Mother Earth:
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/dfme.html
Tom Goldtooth on System Change (12 min)
Tom Goldtooth at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit (3 min)
Tom Goldtooth on Democracy Now: Climate Change Bill Fails to Address Indigenous Rights (10 min)
“I’ve never felt so human in my life than coming out here. Watching the homeless get fed every day, watching people who would not normally have dialogue with each other talk every day.
You don’t have to die physically. We dying emotionally. We dying financially. You know what I’m saying?”
Malik Rhassan was a protester at Occupy Wall Street and is the founder of Occupy The Hood. As a construction worker and father of three who grew up and still lives in Queens, Rhassan understands the ramifications of poverty and the difficulties his neighborhood faces, namely that of having the highest foreclosure rate in New York City. Though he has always supported local community organizations, he also had ideas of his own as to how things could be done.
Upon first visiting OWS at Liberty Square, Rhassan immediately noticed that few people of color were participating and he decided to do something about it. Using social media, he created a sub-movement called Occupy the Hood to raise awareness and bring minorities into the protest.
He brought in his friend and longtime community activist Ife Johari Uhuru from Detroit to run Occupy The Hood with him. They began by reaching out to community organizers who could benefit and lend a hand, and calls rapidly came streaming in. The grassroots effort has grown into a national community organizing movement that includes locations in 21 cities across the United States. Occupy The Hood has received support from everyone from “professors down to cats who just got out of prison,” says Rhassan. A recent “Feed the Hood” effort in Atlanta provided food for 500 homeless people.
Rhassan co-hosts a weekly radio show called Occupy The Hood on Progressive Radio Network. What drives his ongoing work is his passion and ability to organize efforts towards empowering communities.
Occupy The Hood radio podcast:
http://occupythehood.podbean.com/
Malik Rhassan on The State of Occupy (4 min)
Malik Rhassan on Occupy The Hood (8 min)
“All over the world, people are using the language of horizontalism to talk about how they’re organizing now, in assembly forums, and it implies attempts at breaking down power and upsetting hierarchy, having a form of direct democracy.”
Marina Sitrin is a writer, lawyer, militant and dreamer who has participated in the Occupy movement from its beginning and was a member of the legal team for Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park. Having lived in different parts of the Americas and currently based in New York City, she has been involved in political organizing since she was a teenager and continues to collaborate with various movements globally.
Marina has written extensively about citizen movements and specifically about the rise of horizontalism in Argentina, a radical movement that sprouted in 2001 following the economic collapse. Horizontalism, resulting from a dynamic self-management process, advocates that social structures be created, developed and maintained for an equitable distribution of management power, and that the best interests of the collective whole be reached through continuous commitment and exchange between participants. According to Marina, horizontalism presents a new form of social creation in its rejection of political programs and its desire to develop direct democracy, autonomy and new social relationships.
Sitrin is the editor of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina (2006), an oral history of the movements that emerged in Argentina in the wake of the economic collapse, also published in Spanish and Greek. She is the author of Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina (2012), which delves into the challenges Argentinian movements have faced in their development of autonomy and self-organization.
Sitrin co-authored Occupying Language: The Secret Rendezvous with History and the Present (with Dario Azzellini, 2012), which observes how current militant movements draw inspiration and tools from previous historic movements. Marina and Dario are also the co-authors and editors of They Can’t Represent US! Reinventing Democracy From Greece to Occupy (2013), which gives a voice to participants from Occupy, Greece, Spain, Argentina and Venezuela, and illustrates a collective desire to create something new.
Marina’s works have been featured in various publications including The Nation, Yes! Magazine, The International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Znet, Dissent!, alternet.org, Prensa Latina and Huffington Post. She holds a JD in International Women’s Rights from CUNY Law School and a PhD in Global Sociology from Stony Brook University. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Committee on Globalization and Social change at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.
Marina Sitrin strongly believes in the creative power of our imagination, and that through it, most all things are possible.
Visit her website:
http://marinasitrin.com/
How Do You Measure a Dream? (Yes! Magazine article)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-do-you-measure-a-dream
The Occupy Spring (Video Nation, 2 min)
Marina Sitrin on Occypy’s Anniversary (with Arun Gumpta, Bill Moyers (20 min)
On Horizontalism and recuperated workplaces in Argentina (10 min)
On historic and current movements in Argentina, Spain, Greece and USA (30 min)
“We know that the system is broken. It was designed that way. It was designed to exploit, and we need a new economic paradigm, one that doesn’t sacrifice communities at the altar of irresponsible economic policies for the benefit of the privileged few.”
Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathais Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, is an activist, writer, public speaker, facilitator and activist for indigenous self-determination and environmental justice. Working as co-director of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign of the Polaris Institute, as North American native energy organizer and tar sands campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, and as an organizer with the Defenders of the Land Idle No More campaign, he has been on the front lines of stopping industrial society’s assault on Indigenous Peoples lands.
Growing up in Winnipeg and familiar with inner-city realities, Clayton began his work as a community organizer for Aboriginal youth, gaining vast experience in grassroots movement building, fund raising, strategic campaign planning and policy development. He co-founded the Aboriginal Youth with Initiative organization (AYII) and served as its executive director for two years. He was co-founder of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Youth council as well as the architect behind the National Assembly of First Nations National Youth. In his role as a national youth spokesperson Clayton was instrumental in the creation of a 350 million dollar funding stream known as the Urban Aboriginal Youth Multi Purpose Center Initiative (UMAYC), sponsoring hundreds of Aboriginal youth initiatives across Canada.
Clayton has repeatedly led Indigenous delegations to lobby United Nations bodies at international conferences as well as governments in Washington, Ottawa, and in the European Union. He campaigns across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend against sprawling pipelines, refineries and extractions related to the exploitation of tar sands. He has also collaborated with Canada’s National Aboriginal Health Organization to further advance health care delivery and health education for Aboriginal peoples.
Involved in multiple initiatives working toward an inclusive movement for energy and climate justice, Clayton serves as a board member of the Global Justice Ecology Project, the Collective Heritage Institute, Raven Trust and Black Mesa Water Coalition. He was recognized as a “Climate Hero” by Yes! Magazine in 2009, and has been named one of the United States’ top 30 activists under 30 by Utne Magazine.
A guest lecturer at universities, conferences and seminars around the world, Clayton has been published in numerous books and publications and has appeared in media broadcasts internationally as an expert advocate on Indigenous rights and on environmental and economic justice.
Also a poet and rap artist, Clayton lives in Ottawa with his wife and two sons.
“Just Environmentalism,” an interview with Clayton Thomas-Muller (Rabble.ca)
http://rabble.ca/babble/environmental-justice/just-environmentalism-interview-clayton-thomas-m%C3%BCller
Occupy Talks: Indigenous Perspectives – Clayton Thomas-Muller (25 min)
Clayton Thomas-Muller speaking at Idle No More protest (10 min)
Clayton Thomas-Muller speaking at Keystone XL protest (CTV News, 4 min)
“It’s so important that we have a conscious mind. How are we going to restore our relationships? If we are advocating for harmonious community, and we would love to have a sense of justice and prosperity, we cannot be using the same methods and the same tactics. Ends and means for me are the same.”
Francisco ‘Pancho’ Ramos Stierle is a Mexican-born former astrophysics student turned full-time community activist and humanitarian. He became a known figure of the Occupy movement after being arrested while meditating during the dismantling of the Occupy Oakland Camp.
The man everyone calls Pancho was previously a doctoral student of astrophysics at the University of California at Berkeley, but when he realized his work would serve as one of the institution’s facades to create “safer nuclear weapons,” he resigned from the program, stopped cooperating with the university and became involved in community organizing. An avid student of Gandhi, Pancho believes that “if we are working for liberation, we better stop paying for war,” and that his energy would be better used encouraging “matching the collective madness with a collective love.”
His activism work has focused on issues of human rights, nonviolence, restorative justice, immigration, permaculture and the development of a gift economy. He has worked with youth and supported families affected by Arizona’s SB1070 law. He is involved in Free Farm, a San Francisco garden distributing vegetables to city-dwellers. He has participated in movements to democratize the University of California system, protect old growth trees, facilitate urban farming, and move past youth violence.
Actively involved in the Occupy movement, Pancho’s view is that 10 percent of the occupation community’s energy ought to go toward protests, marches, boycotts and civil disobedience, and 90 percent toward the construction of alternatives to the rotten system. “The more we concentrate on the constructive program, the more we’re going to have food sovereignty and water sovereignty. And we will be ready to make a bonfire of passports and visas and GMO seeds. But first we have to have our own food system, our own justice system, our own restorative system.”
Pancho was arrested during an early morning raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment while he was meditating. Considered a “high profile undocumented protester” by authorities, he was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody rather than being released on bail. A campaign was launched for his release, including a Change.org petition that gathered 8,000 signatures. To which Pancho responded in his spirited style, “Just tell them I love them all. Great space to meditate!”
In a statement from jail, he declared “When the city of Oakland decided to raid Occupy Oakland, it spent around 2 million dollars to do it. On the same day, Oakland closed five public schools. This is the same thing happening across the country. We do not have an economic crisis, we have a crisis of priorities.”
Known for his easy smile and kind heart, Pancho’s mission is “to live in radical joyous shared servanthood to unify humanity.”
Visit his blog:
http://www.servicespace.org/blog/view.php?op=auth&mid=45066
An interview with Pancho Ramos (Yes! Magazine)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/pancho-ramos-stierle-nonviolence-is-radical
Protester Pancho Ramos Stierle Faces Deportation After Arrest (Democracy Now, 7 min)
On Spiritual Activism and Nuclear Guardianship (10 min)
“We aren’t just facing an economic crisis. We are facing a profound ecological crisis that is intimately linked to the same greed-based, growth-based economic model, a model that can’t ever say ‘enough’ or have enough, that has no brakes. This same mentality that trashes people trashes the planet.
It isn’t enough just to confront power. We have to have alternatives. We can’t just be against. We also have to be for.”
NAOMI KLEIN is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times and #1 international bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Published worldwide in 2007, The Shock Doctrine is being published in 30 languages and has over a million copies in print. It appeared on multiple ‘best of year’ lists including as a New York Times Critics’ Pick of the Year. Rachel Maddow called The Shock Doctrine, “The only book of the last few years in American publishing that I would describe as a mandatory must-read.”
Naomi Klein’s first book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies was also an international bestseller, translated into over 25 languages with more than a million copies in print. The New York Times called it “a movement bible.” In 2011, Time Magazine named it as one of the Top 100 non-fiction books published since 1923. A tenth anniversary edition of No Logo was published worldwide in 2009. The Literary Review of Canada has named it one of the hundred most important Canadian books ever published. A collection of her writing, Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate was published in 2002.
In 2007, the six-minute companion film to The Shock Doctrine, created by Alfonso Cuaron, acclaimed director of Children of Men, was an Official Selection of the Venice Biennale, San Sebastien and Toronto International Film Festivals. The Shock Doctrine was also adapted into a feature length documentary by award winning director Michael Winterbottom and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. In 2004, Naomi Klein wrote The Take, a feature documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories co-produced with director Avi Lewis. The film was an Official Selection of the Venice Biennale and won the Best Documentary Jury Prize at the American Film Institute’s Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Naomi Klein is a contributing editor for Harper’s and reporter for Rolling Stone, and writes a regular column for The Nation and The Guardian that is syndicated internationally by The New York Times Syndicate. In 2004, her reporting from Iraq for Harper’s won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. Additionally, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, El Pais, L’Espresso and The New Statesman, among many other publications.
Naomi is a member of the board of directors for 350.org, a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. She is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics. She holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia.
She is currently at work on a new book and film on how the climate crisis can spur economic and political transformation.
Naomi Klein on Occupy Wall Street and her book Shock Doctrine (RT, 13 min)
Naomi Klein on climate change (Bill Moyers, 31 min)
“Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine,” a short film by Alfonso Cuaron (6 min)
“An economist says that essentially more for you is less for me, but the lover knows that more for you is more for me, too. If you love somebody, then their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. That’s love. Love is the expansion of the self to include the other, and that’s a different kind of revolution.”
Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His writings on the web magazine Reality Sandwich have generated a vast online following; he speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts. Charles Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator. The author of Sacred Economics, he currently lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
WEBSITE
http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/
READ ARTICLES
No Demand Is Big Enough – Reality Sandwich
WATCH VIDEOS
Inspired by Jeremie Battaglia’s gorgeous black and white film on the Casseroles uprising in Quebec, I shot this solidarity march in Vancouver with a pots and pans revolt of our own.
My experience of the march, and I hope what it conveys above, is simple joy. And most of all wonder. This mirrors the reports from Quebec, as shared in the sincere by scathing post “An Open Letter to English Media“:
If you do not live here, I wish I could properly convey to you what it feels like. It is magic. It starts quietly, a suggestion here and there, and it builds. Everybody on the street begins to smile. I get there, and we all—young and old, children and students and couples and retirees and workers and weird misfits and dogs and, well, neighbours—we all grin the widest grins you have ever seen while dancing around and making as much noise as possible. We are almost ecstatic with the joy of letting loose like this, of voicing our resistance to a government that seeks to silence us, and of being together like this.
There is a beauty that emerges when we learn and inspire each other, just as Quebec has done for the rest of Canada; when we speak to each other instead of through governments or the mainstream media. Here in Vancouver, we discovered what it means to make music together in the streets, in the rain, and you can see it on our faces.
Ethan Cox, also writing on the revolution, speaks clearly that this movement is about much more than tuition:
As this movement goes on, and grows by leaps and bounds, it is increasingly clear that it is not a movement of anger, of rage or of hate. It is a movement of love, of community and of hope. People who would be alone in their houses watching TV take to the streets and march with neighbors they never knew they had. Back when we had real communities, they were driven by the coming together of neighbors each night. Instead of watching TV, we met in the street, we exchanged details of our day and we made plans for our future. Just as the “casseroles” cause us to do now.
Perhaps the most lasting effect of this movement will be to build stronger, more connected communities. Every day that it goes on, more of us meet in the street, build relationships and talk about what kind of a society we want.
For me, there is a clear relationship between the Quebec Spring, the Occupy Movements, and all the social uprisings around the globe. They arise from the same source – the deep knowing that we have lost our way. We have forgotten how to live. And most importantly, we are starting to remember.
(crossposted on ianmack.com).
Sharing a short clip from my recent shoot in Japan for another project – Reactor. In this video, Buddhist teacher and yogi Michael Stone shares his thoughts on what it truly means to be in the present moment. For him, there is no difference between being present and being generous – at ease with the flow of life. This is the presence that permeates the Occupy movement… to show up is to truly give each other and the planet our attention.
Today I’m excited to release “Sacred Economics” a short film dedicated entirely to the work of Charles Eisenstein and his book of the same name.
After watching the film, head immediately over to listen to a livestream Q&A with myself and Charles.
About the film: Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme – but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.
After first reading Charles Eisenstein’s book in the summer of 2011, which speaks eloquently about the return of the “gift economy”, I felt compelled to gift back. The best way I knew how was to use my filmmaking skills to share Charles’ work, and spread it to communities around the globe.
His vision of “the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible” is the salve that so many of us need at this time, in the age of great transition. My hope is this film catalyzes those who work with passion and dedication to live this world right now.
Thanks to Velcrow Ripper and Gregg Hill for their help co-producing the short. Enjoy!
– Ian MacKenzie, Director
“The economy of love is – the more you have the more I have. If I can make you feel happy or hopeful or beautiful I might feel more that way myself…. If I want a society that works, then I need you to be powerful, I need you to be responsible, I need you to be fully engaged, and maybe I need you to be joyous. The more I can give you the better my society is, because we are actually in this together” – Rebecca Solnit
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
APOCALYPTICISM is an actual word. According to Wikipedia, it is “the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God’s will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one’s own lifetime.”
The idea that “the world will end” is not limited to fire and brimstone. Various New Agers believe that 2012 will result in an alignment of the galactic something or other, fulfilling the Hopi prophecy of the Blue Kachina and the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles…and stuff…then we will enter a golden age. Sound familiar?
Darin Drda, author of The Four Global Truths, writes:
Although they speak different languages, both tell the same story: the fate of life on Earth will be determined by forces beyond humanity’s control. This idea strikes me as a very dangerous one, certain to accelerate our collective journey down the road to ruin. What’s more, it doesn’t jive with the powerful and paradigm-shifting insight of 20th century physics that reality is participatory.
In 2011, TIME magazine dubbed “The Protestor” Person of the Year, their cover emblazoned with a shrouded figure peering out from behind a kerchief. I believe the more accurate label would have been “The Participant” – to reflect the global awakening that is gaining steam around the globe. From the streets of Cairo, to the towers of Wall St, as Charles Eisenstein intoned “We the people are awakening and we will not go back to sleep.”
The true definition of ‘apocalypse’ is more akin to ‘the lifting of the veil.’ What has long been hidden shall be revealed. Is it possible to understand this potential, and how to apply it, without falling victim to the aforementioned ‘isms of divine destruction, collapse, or extraterrestrial saviours?
Daniel Pinchbeck points the way in his book 2012: The Return of Queztalcoatl. He suggests we are being called to participate in a shift in human consciousness, catalyzed by the crises that appear to be culminating in this age.
“Right now, we are being forced to witness the shadow of the psyche projected into material form through systemic misuse of technology, biospheric destruction, and corrupt geopolitics based on entrenched egotism and greed. […]
Like the coiled arms of the galaxy, the development of consciousness appears to follow a spiral, sidereal motion, represented by the archetypal symbol of the mandala, which is universal in sacred art.
Whether found in dreams or wheat fields, mandalas symbolize stages in a psychic process – the helical approach of the psyche toward integration of the ego and the self or higher self, through the difficult work of illuminating the dark matter within the unconscious.”
The dark matter of our unconscious has created the human world we inhabit, including the crises that we appear unable to solve. Our old story of the Self, that we are “isolated beings in an indifferent universe” (and all it’s variations), is breaking down, because in fact, it was never objectively real in the first place. It was constructed by our level of consciousness.
The new consciousness struggles to be born.
The Occupy Movement seemingly embodied this desire to participate one again, erupting onto the collective stage late last year. And yet, even as creative direct-actions continue, many camps are struggling with the old patterns of Separation – the idea that to change the world we must apply Force. If only we could exert enough pressure on the “bad” elements of our society, we can keep humanity’s innate greed and destruction at bay.
But that’s not enough.
Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, in a fascinating interview from early on in the Occupations, said “Most of the people want to change fully, but they don’t want to engage fully, because it confronts your life and the depths of who you are,” says . “When people are confronted to make a shift in their consciousness, they stay with the [old patterns].”
This is why the current Occupations are embroiled in conflict. The repressed trauma and old wounds of Separation have now found an outlet, and any attempts to stifle them, even in the name of achieving organizational unity, will meet more resistance.
Thomas continues:
It cannot be a movement that is against something. Most movements that are against something are stuck being against. And they are not for something better. And you need to have more people that are for something better. For the light, not against the structure.
Around awake people, more awakening will happen. Awakening is spiral. If you spend time with someone who is more awake than you, then chances are your consciousness will be elevated. And if through your practice, you manage to stabilize your consciousness at this level it will become your reality as well.
What is needed at this time is those who can hold a global awareness. People who are grounded, that are literally coming from the future. They look the same, but they are motivated from a different place. If you are coming from the future, and you embody this, then the future will manifest around you.
This future ‘global awareness’ unfolds from the consciousness of the Connected Self.
Darin Drda explains:
We are not, as the old guard preaches, feeble and passive observers of a fixed, objective order or cogs in a giant, lifeless machine. Nor are we, as the new guard intones, the all-powerful masters of our own destiny, capable of instantly conjuring anything we want out of pixie dust and wishful thinking. We are co-creative participants in a great cosmic adventure, the outcome of which must always remain unknown.
In summary: consciousness creates our world. Our current story is now breaking down, an inevitable conclusion to the unconscious shadows we have collectively repressed. The Apocalypse is about uncovering/reintegrating our projections, essentially forcing us: not to evolve, but to make a CHOICE to evolve.
This choice is crucial. Without choice, we are merely pawns of fate, adrift in an indifferent cosmos.
Instead, we are called to embody this new consciousness, not as an opinion, but as a lived relationship with ourselves and the Other. While we can only do this on an individual level, we need other “awakened beings” to hold us at this higher note until we can stabilize – and then help others do the same.
This is the true meaning of the apt quoted maxim “Be the change you want to see in the world.” We must literally BE from the future – retrieving a higher order of self that does not recreate the past. We must resist the death throes of our old institutions, even while we flow towards our new ones. We must bow humbly to our ancestors and their echoes of pain, include the injustice of the present, and embrace the uncertainty of our Great Transition.
If this sounds ambitious, consider the words of Arundhati Roy:
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
– Ian MacKenzie, Co-Producer, Occupy Love