How Do We Make Change?

BLOG 3.1.11

Photo from Chapter 8 of Anodea Judith's Waking the Global Heart

How Do We Make Change?

One way that change happens – and certainly not the fun way -- is the path of adversity. That’s when we get beaten so far down that we surrender. An alcoholic hits bottom; we run out of money; the sea level rises, oil sources dry up, the economy tanks, or civilization collapses. There’s lots of  “doomers” out there who say that’s how it’s going to happen, that humans don’t change anything until they absolutely have to. From this perspective, humanity is headed straight toward its collective dark night of the soul.

Such dark nights are a time of deep listening. So many people I meet these days are in a state of confusion, not knowing quite what to do right now. The “I don’t know” means we are open to ideas, instruction, guidance. A collective “We don’t know” would mean we have to listen to each other, to the earth, and to the divine intelligence that is actually running the place. Dark nights lead to deep systemic change.

There’s another way change happens that’s a lot brighter and easier. It’s simply having a better idea. We didn’t need a failure of the typewriter industry to switch to desktop computers. Nor did main frame computers have to self-destruct for us to buy laptops or smartphones. We just self-selected for superior performance. When small groups of people get together and start doing things differently -- and are successful at it --  people around them start taking notice. They look over and say: “I want what she’s having!”

The yoga movement that’s sweeping the world is a case in point. You go to a party and run into a friend you haven’t seen in five years. She looks great, fit and shining with light. You ask: “Wow, you look good. What have you been doing?” It might be yoga, or it might be a good diet, meditation, or a new kind of snake oil, but it’s the success that makes you want to try it. As new ideas form on the edge and people find benefit, these ideas grow into movements. What works expands and evolves. People want to join. 

In Tapscott and William’s book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything they show how companies that collaborate are making more money than those that have full time R & D personnel. Wikipedia out-performs the old encyclopedia sets. Countries like Germany are shifting their taxes from income to ecotax and have created a green industry with 250,000 new jobs. 

What if there were a subset of the UN called the Union of Peace Nations?  If a nation was willing to get rid of nuclear weapons, keep their military down to a small fraction of their national budget, agree to human rights principles, and other such things, they could have protection from other countries. Meanwhile these countries could balance their budget, rebuild their schools, give their citizens healthcare, develop green technologies. They could prosper and be a model for others who would then want to “get in on the club.”

What it takes is showing that something works better, then getting more people involved. As it grows, we get better at what we’re doing. We get more visible. We’re not knocking anything down, we’re simply galloping beyond it.

Photo/Artwork by Will Zero

As Mark Gafni said at the World Spirituality Center opening, we’re transcending, which is ending the trance.

Anodea Judith
April 8, 2011

EPOCH COLLAPSE OR APOCALYPSE?

BLOG 3.4

EPOCH COLLAPSE OR APOCALYPSE?

It all depends on how you look at it.

I’ve been reading a deeply disturbing and truth-telling book by Carolyn Baker called SACRED DEMISE, a book who’s subtitle says it all: WALKING THE SPIRITUAL PATH OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION’S COLLAPSE.

Needless to say, she doesn’t mince words about what’s going on in the world: the perfect storm of economic crisis, climate change, peak oil, peak food, peak water, political corruption, and environmental decline. What the Japanese are experiencing now could become all too common, and is already present in many parts of the world. We are not immune here in the West as these pictures of the collapse of Detroit imply. It is already happening. Even here in the good 'ol US of A.

We are witnessing nothing less than the collapse of an entire epoch, outgrowing the organizing principle that has held us together for the last 5000 years, since the beginning of Empire. The fall of Egypt as an empire ruled by a single dictator was a telling omen, and we are watching that movement spread across the Middle East, through struggle and death, hope and eventually healing.

Creation and destruction always happen simultaneously, so what is the other side of this impending picture of doom? How do we navigate these changes and hold our heads high with vision and our hearts filled with hope.



The collapse of an epoch can bring apocalypse. Apocalypse is a word from the Greek meaning “lifting the veil” or “revelation.”  Wikipedia defines it as “a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind (sic) in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception.”  Our times couldn’t be more ripe for it.

Revelation is a spiritual initiation, an aspect of the dance of Shakti in Her eternal hide and seek, to lure us deeper into the mystery. (Revelation is also one of the characteristics of the planet Uranus, which in previous blog, mentioned it just started a new cycle in Aries).

The silver lining of industrial civilization’s demise is that it’s collapse reveals a far more magnificent reality. The walls we have erected between ourselves and Divine Nature must collapse for us to have the revelation. When we can no longer drive to work (some as much as 2-3 hours per day), we will discover time with our family. When groceries get expensive, we discover back yard gardening. When we can’t go shopping we discover we feel lighter with less. When our ego gets ground down to a layer thin enough for the light get in, we flood with Grace.

Baker says: “Sooner or later collapse will force humans to interact directly with nature.” Our original distortion of Nature is part of our current insanity.

Two weeks ago, I included a letter from a woman in Japan saying they were discovering starlight in the darkness, quiet in the broken roads, community in the sharing of resources. Despite the untold suffering of the Japanese tragedy, something deeper is being revealed.

The Divine cannot collapse. We can only collapse that which stands in our way of receiving it.



If a woman had never heard of birth and went into labor, she would think she was dying, and even if someone told her what was going to happen, she’d say it was impossible. The pain of labor is designed to create an opening that allows something BIG to come through. Bigger than we can believe.

We are all midwives in the process of this miraculous birth of humanity. We are all doing the labor, feeling the pain, breathing through the contractions and reaching for each other’s hands. And we are all being guided by Grace toward something so wonderful and enlightening, we can’t even see it from here. It emerges like Springtime, from the age old partnership between Heaven and Earth in its infinite mystery. It is fertilized by the fallen stalks of the old. But there beneath the rubble, the light is calling of forth. New stalks are arising out of the old.

Facing epoch collapse and apocalypse is the challenge of our global initiation -- a rite of passage that is nothing less than the rebirth of humanity into its next organizing principle, a birth from the limiting love of power to the unlimited power of love.

Anodea Judith

April 1, 2011

FROM YANGXIETY TO YINSIGHT: THE BALANCE OF THE EQUINOX

BLOG 3.3


FROM YANGXIETY TO YINSIGHT:
THE BALANCE OF THE EQUINOX

Well, friends, here it is. The long-awaited beginning of spring and the point of sacred balance between the dark and the light. As Uranus leaves Pisces, where it’s been lurking for the last seven years in Neptunian formlessness, it now moves into Aries, the start of the zodiac, signifying the start of a whole new cycle, with new fire and focus. No wonder we’re getting earthquakes and threats of meltdowns. The fires of transformation are upon us. But how do we ride all this energy with balance and equanimity?

Too much fire can be too much yang, and with all the radiation panic, it seems the whole culture is suffering from yangxiety. Most people are yanged out – too much to do, too much stimulation, moving too fast, and face it, too much masculine paradigm superimposing itself on the natural world.

Isn’t the threat of nuclear radiation pouring into the air, water, and earth near one of the largest and most productive cities in the world enough cause to make us all stop and think about what we are doing and where we are going? (as if we didn’t already have enough reasons). If this doesn’t do it, what will it take?

What we need for balance is a little yin-sight. Slow down, take some quiet time to reflect, have a nice long bath and think things through. Emptiness softens, informs, allows new things to come into being, and creates ease. And who couldn’t use just a little more ease in their life as we head round the bend into the future? If Springtime signifies rebirth as well as balance, it may be that balance is necessary for rebirth.

There are many things out of balance in our world, but none quite so long-standing and globally pervasive as the imbalance between masculine and feminine. Here at the Spring Equinox, the Greek Goddess of the Underworld, Persephone, returns to the light and brings back the flowers and greenery—and with them, food for the people and hope for the future. She’s had a long hard winter, birthing the souls of the dead back to life again and living under Hades rules.

So let’s give Her some room to distribute her magnificence. Let’s take time to smell the flowers and remember the miracle of spring. Let’s combat global warming with some chill space – less driving, less doing, less stuff. Let the feminine lead a little more in your life – your own feminine side, or the women in your life. You may be surprised that your life gets a little easier as corners turn to curves, hard edges to softness, and that dry job gets a little juicier.

If this yang civilization collapses, we won’t be able to go anywhere or do much of anything. The yin will then predominate, and we’ll be out of balance again in a different direction. So we may as well do it now, while the Divine Partnership that gives birth to all possibilities is still possible.

At birth all people are soft and yielding.

At death they are hard and stiff.

All green plants are tender and yielding.

At death they are brittle and dry.

When hard and rigid

We consort with death.

When soft and flexible,We affirm greater life.

Lao Tzu

Anodea Judith

March 24, 2011

Death and Rebirth: The Dark and the Light of Japan

Photo from Ashbury Park Press

Death and Rebirth:
The Dark and the Light of Japan

The crisis in Japan is of epic proportions. Like so many others, I sat transfixed by images of burning buildings, floating cars, and exploding reactors playing across the TV screen, my heart ripped open at the level of destruction and tragedy. How do people even begin to clean up something of such magnitude, let alone rebuild and heal from the trauma?

This is exactly the kind of disaster I write about in Waking the Global Heart – disasters that seem to be coming more frequently, like painful contractions in the birth process of humanity. (e.g. Katrina, Haiti earthquake, Gulf Oil Spill, floods in Pakistan, etc.) As terrible and awful as they are, we must also remember they contain an awakening to a new order. As ordeals of initiation, their extreme loss reveals gifts that were previously obscured: the gifts of community helping each other, the appreciation for simple things like food, warmth, and water, the experience of hearing quiet and seeing the stars, as this beautiful letter from a woman in Sendai expresses.

From Anne Thomas in Sendai, Japan where she has lived for the past decade teaching English.

Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly, where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains of Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an Enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that is much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all,

Anne

After the shock and pain, grief and loss, and the long hard clean up, there is something remarkable that I expect will come out of this. More than any other subculture on the planet, the Japanese are known for their quality, efficiency, elegance, and beauty in design. With whole towns and cities devastated, there is now opportunity to design and build from scratch, cities that are ecologically modern, more beautiful than before, that really serve their communities. Who better than the Japanese to take on that task? I predict that their new cities will be models for the world.

Commentator Fareed Zakaria said that the Japanese had prepared better than most for this kind of disaster and that indeed the deaths were fewer because of it. But they were economically unprepared as their country had fallen deeply into debt. Where will they get the money to rebuild? Yet rebuild they will, simply because they must. By necessity they will need to innovate socially and economically as well. And this too, will set a tone for the future. A means of working together out of necessity, more from the heart than from financial interest.

Also inspiring, in a devastated country of 128,000 people, there has not been one reported case of looting. The Japanese are being patient while standing in line for food, helping each other out as this report shows.

Destruction and creation are an inevitable pair. In the midst of the devastation, something new is being born. Evolutionary thinker, Barbara Marx Hubbard, noted on a call recently click here to access the recording. that if a woman went into childbirth without any idea of what was happening to her, she would surely think she was dying. Another woman, Ariel Spillsbury, said she felt that the tsunami was the waters breaking of humanity’s birth. There is much labor still to go, but we are birthing a new world.

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Anodea Judith

March 16, 2011

TO REALIZE IS TO SEE WITH REAL EYES

Photo from Photobucket

TO REALIZE IS TO SEE WITH REAL EYES

An amazing thing about consciousness is that once you really see something in a new way, you rarely go back to your old way of thinking. Think of those optical illusion pictures, like these:
 
Do you see both the old woman and the young woman in this black and white picture below?

Do you see the seated figures as well as the elder couple in this one?

Once you really get something, deep down in your bones, you can’t forget about it. You’re never quite the same and neither is the world around you.


We’re seeing this in the Middle East right now. Now that Tunisia and Egypt have broken the political “sound” barrier with successful uprisings, others are following suit. They’ve proved it’s possible, bringing hope to millions and sparking fires of liberation.

Two combined images from Anodea Judith's
Waking the Global Heart



In Madison, Wisconsin, the Capital Police refused to comply with the order to move out the protesters. How’s that for standing up to authority from those whose jobs are supposed to enforce it?

In Libya, some pilots chose to parachute to safety and crash their planes in the desert, rather than follow orders to drop bombs on their country. Once again, soldiers, trained to follow orders, choose to follow their conscience instead. They give a message to every other person that is blindly obedient or afraid to resist, that conscience has a power of its own. Story here.





A local pizza company in Wisconsin decided at 3:30 a.m. to give free pizzas to the demonstrators. It made the news and suddenly their business boomed as people all over the world ordered and paid for pizzas to be served, proving that generosity breeds abundance. See left the states and countries that ordered pizza. Go here and buy a pizza yourself.

Full story here.





It’s happening dear co-hearts. Once people see what’s possible, there is no stopping this wave of evolution toward freedom and democracy, no matter the cost. It may ebb and flow, but it won't stop. 

There’s a big difference between knowing about something and realizing it. You can know about the events of your childhood, but you might not realize the effects they had on you. I can know about poverty, or I can visit a village in India or a ghetto in New York, and realize what it’s actually like for people. Toward the realization of the gap between rich and poor, there’s a new TV show about millionaires going to live in poverty to see what it’s like, who then get moved to help out. Too bad there’s no TV in jail. Bernie Madoff could use this kind of entertainment.

Realization isn’t knowledge. It is full revelation, a total chakra experience, complete with feeling, seeing, understanding, and truly ”grokking” in your heart the full the implications in your heart.

We may know Monsanto produces genetically engineered foods, but we don’t realize the implications of the fact that there is a dangerous pathogen in GMO Alfalfa, yet the USDA approved it anyway. The article states:
“Researchers believe that this pathogen could be causing infertility in livestock and diseases in crops that could threaten the entire domestic food supply.” (Italics mine). This should be top news. Essential reading here.

That’s pretty scary, but here’s some good news:

Last night I saw a movie about one man’s realization that portrayed everything I’ve tried to say in WAKING THE GLOBAL HEART. The movie is called I AM and this was a preview showing with the director Tom Shadyac who was present to answer questions. (director of Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, The Nutty Professor, et al). After buying up multi-million dollar houses with his movie revenue, Shadyac had a “realization” of another way of being. He made this movie to show how people can move into the power of love. It’s funny, powerful, and inspiring and nobody's shooting anybody. Tell Hollywood we like these kinds of movies, by spreading the word to go see it. Ask for it in your local theatre. Trailer here. Show times here.

Once we see what’s possible, we can’t imagine how we lived with less. Miracles are happening everywhere. Times are changing fast and the new world is making itself right before our very real eyes. And that’s the many “I’s” that are coming together to form a far bigger and more powerful third “I” which is WE. And WE outnumber the dictators and wealth mongers exponentially. Once WE fully realize this amazing truth, everything begins to shift in a new direction.


Anodea Judith

March 1, 2011

Photo/Artwork by Will Zero

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TRANSFORMING THE BIRTHPLACE OF EMPIRE

Two combined images from Anodea Judith's Waking the Global Heart

TRANSFORMING THE BIRTHPLACE OF EMPIRE

It was a tough choice last week between writing about Valentine’s Day and the liberation of Egypt. Valentine’s Day was about love itself. Egypt is about the transformation from a dictator’s love of power to the people’s greater power of love. As technology and those who use it evolve, hierarchical power structures fall to the power of social self-organization. The one ruling the many, typical of the third chakra era, is evolving to the many ruling themselves.

What struck me is that Egypt is the land where the third chakra era began. Here grew the first empires that many mark as the birthplace of modern civilization. Though stable far longer than any civilization since then, Egypt was built upon a top down power structure from the God-Kings to the masses. Most believe the pyramids were built on massive slave labor, while kings, queens and pharaohs lived in elegant palatial complexes. (How’s that for a gap between rich and poor?) The fact that this edifice of imperial organization is giving way to what the world hopes will become a functional democracy is richly symbolic for the world at large. Historians may mark this as the shift in power from the third chakra empire to the birth of a fourth chakra collective global community.

It is still far from certain what will emerge in Egypt as a result of this upheaval. Will one oppressive regime be replaced by another or will the people have the maturity to rule themselves with peace and justice? The first instances of youths in the square taking their own initiative to clean up the litter after the 18-day demonstration was encouraging. We are no longer children, needing to be ruled by a stern parent, but emerging adults, literate, capable, infused with a vision of freedom and justice, and ready to take responsibility.

An essential key to this awakening is the reclamation of free will. An army, trained to obediently function as a unified force, wielded at a ruler’s command, is still made up of individuals. These individuals can listen to their conscience and take a moral stand. Since armies have long been instruments of imperial power, they may be the very place where that power turns. But that free will exists in all of us, and we all face moral decisions every day. Do we choose to serve power or love?

Common people of today are anything but common. This uprising was not made of any single faction but represented every strain, segment, and class of Egyptian society, from Muslim Brotherhood to Coptic Christians, from disenfranchised youth to successful professionals. Furthermore, it happened non-violently – at least on the part of the protesters, a miracle in itself. The “common” individual today holds more power than at any time in history. We have the power of information and access; we have the power to communicate and organize; we have the tools of power—computers, cell phones, and cameras-- for printing, broadcasting, writing, traveling, and organizing, once limited to only an elite class.

The revolution in Egypt did not happen in a vacuum. The entire modern world was watching and was also a part of it. The spark of fire that blew up the old regime is now spreading across the Arab world. How that fire burns may depend on how we all hold it. I am holding that we have entered a window of transformation where the evolution to our next organizing principle is ripening like a plump fruit. The time has come for that fruit to fall from on high into the hands of the people.

It’s up to all of us what we do with it. 

Anodea Judith
Feb 17, 2011

  

Photo/Artwork by Will Zero

Fair Trade Flowers

 

Late last week, we mentioned that the largest florist in the world, 1-800-Flowers, was oppressive to women farm workers. Apparently they responded to 54,000 Change.org members and agreed to begin selling Fair Trade flowers and insist on a strong code of conduct for all their suppliers to counteract the deplorable working conditions that thousands of female flower workers face in South America. They’ve promised to offer Fair Trade flowers in time for Mother's Day, making 1-800-Flowers a leader in the industry.

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OPENING TO THE POWER OF LOVE!

Still shot from Anodea Judith's The Illuminated Chakras

 

OPENING TO THE POWER OF LOVE!

Every day should be a celebration of love. Yet, once a year on Valentine’s Day, we pause to remember this quintessential element of the universe in whatever ways we can make it special. Mostly this holiday reflects romantic love, with infantile forms of Eros as a baby-fat Cupid flying across Hallmark greeting cards. Nothing wrong with romantic love but it’s just one slice of the major force in the universe. And by the way, if you’re going to send flowers, be aware that the largest flower distributor (1-800-FLOWERS) is quite abusive to farmworkers. Is this what it means to really love?

We think that because love is an innate need within all human beings, that we are born knowing how to love. Not so. We are born wanting it, but learning how to get it, give it, and keep it alive are acquired skills that take a lifetime to master. Moving beyond our ego based needs for attention and approval to genuine care for another’s well-being is the challenge of our time. Our future depends on it.

Every situation is an opportunity to find your way to love. Looking for the perfect one is a way to discard all the wonderful learnings you can get from each person you meet – or the perfect way to be perfectly lonely. It’s a way to avoid looking into that person’s pain, and saying, “What can I do to make this person’s day a little brighter, a little happier, to make this person feel loved and appreciated? What can I do to help, what can I offer?”

In Easten Body, Western Mind, I say: “If everyone were perfect, there would be no need for love.” For love is that which comes in the darkest night of the soul, when it is least expected and most needed. Love doesn’t seek the light, it lights up the darkness. Love is the demonstration of the universe that keeps all this complexity running in absolute harmony despite our ignorance that keeps messing it up. It is that which keeps things in relationship, which means they keep relating in a kind of perpetual reciprocity that continues to sustain our reality. 

Still shot from Anodea Judith's The Illuminated Chakras

It is innate to feel attracted to some and not to others – and much of this is programmed by society’s magazine ads, romance novels, and movie scripts. Our biological urge to procreate has us wired to search out the best genes with which to make children.

But how many of us are still operating under this genetic imperative when we have already raised our children, or have no intention of doing so, or are in Gay relationships? Here’s some statistics that put this in perspective for our future:

Estimates for cutting world hunger in half with clean drinking water for all come in at around $35 billion. Meanwhile, the industries of make-up and perfume take up $33 billion annually. When you throw in the purchase of furs, it’s another 1.8 billion. Add in the 10 million plastic surgeries augmenting breasts, tucking tummies, or staying young with facelifts, at an average of $5-10 thousand per surgery and you can throw in another $10 billion, enough by itself to supply reproductive health care for all women and control population. Aren’t these the tactics of a culture that wants to be loved and thinks these superficial elements are the way to find it? (Statistics from Yes! Magazine and internet sources).

This Valentine’s Day do an act of selfless service as love. You don’t have to forgo getting dressed up for that romantic date, but you can donate a $20 to the beggar on the street. You can volunteer at a soup kitchen. Clean trash from the neighborhood. Give extra attention to your kids, or your neighbor’s kids. Give a valentine to a stranger who looks lonely and watch him light up. Distribute your love in unexpected places. 

You may be surprised at how the power of love fills your heart. Today and everyday.

Anodea Judith,

Valentine’s Day 2011

 

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