The sky was moody this morning; pearlized clouds veiled the rising sun as seabirds pirouetted on wing-tip to the chorus of song-bird trills. The air was cool and damp, with a hint of dew. The deep purple of wild spiderwort communed with the butter yellow of meadow beauties, attracting the attention of a fuzzy bumblebee. As I watched the world awaken, the satin waters of the Intracoastal were parted by the rolling rhythm of two sleek dolphin backs, and the sun suddenly shone forth, overlaying a path of gold on the silver sea. It was a gift from Mother Gaia, and a message that all is right with the world.
My last post was so doomy and gloomy and yicky sticky that I thought I would offer an antidote. Today I came across this lovely idea and intend to try it out.
I'm not going to cut and paste and ruin a perfectly good story. You'll just have to read it for yourself!
There is so much going on in the world and on the internet right now that it's hard to absorb even a tiny fraction of it, much less find time to form an intelligent opinion, but I'm going to try.
A while back, I posted a couple of posts on Kony 2012, but since that time, I've learned a lot more. This refutation of the video seems more complete and thoughtful than most: Top Ten Ways to Tell Kony is Phony.
So I walk away from all of this chastened. In the world of instantaneous, global communication, it is increasingly difficult to discern what is real and true and what is not.
I had another brush with the obscurity of truth a day or two ago. I visited the website of Tom Brown, Jr., a man who has taught thousands of people wilderness survival skills, reverence for the earth, and awareness of Spirit. Tom is not a person who is easily hoodwinked, nor is he one to panic, so it was with a shock that I read an email he sent out in November of 2011. In that email, he references
a warning from NASA about the major solar flare storm that will batter the Earth in 2012 along with several other related reports and research papers. A quote from one of the papers reads as follows; “A ‘Space Katrina’ coronal mass ejection would devastate modern civilization, bringing down our power grids and frying satellites en masse. Food would rot, trains wouldn’t move, traffic would be gridlocked, phones and the internet wouldn’t work, the financial markets would be devastated, planes and ships would be lost or wrecked.” Many other articles warn of looting, gang wars, rioting, starvation, disease, and martial law. Consider that the major solar storm of 1859 turned 2/3rds of world's sky red this is even more disturbing for they forecast this storm to be much bigger.
So I went to NASA to see what was actually being said, and I found only this:
Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012? A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.
That's not to say there are not a lot of panicky websites out there claiming that NASA did indeed make that prediction, and that specifically, "award winning astrophysicist Alexia Demetria" had been the spokesperson. I could not find any reference to this elusive astrophysicist, however, at NASA or anywhere else.
So the takeaway from all of this is that the internet is a powerful teacher and that one of the most important lessons it teaches is skepticism. I'm still learning!
While I'm here, I am going to link another video. I cannot verify the accuracy of the information therein. If anyone knows another side to this story, I would love to hear it, for this is the stuff that nightmares are made of. It is hard to believe that mankind has become this depraved . . .
"Within every institution of our civilization, no matter how ugly or corrupt, there is the germ of something beautiful: the same note at a higher octave. Money is no exception. Its original purpose is simply to connect human gifts with human needs, so that we might all live in greater abundance."
"The story of our separation from each other and from nature is becoming obsolete, is no longer true, is generating crises that are unsolvable… At each crisis moment we have a collective choice: do we give up the game and join the people, or do we hold on even tighter? It’s up to us to determine at what point this wakeup will happen." Charles Eisenstein
I really ought to be more grateful to James Howard Kunstler. It was, after all, his book, The Long Emergency, that introduced me to the concept of Peak Oil. What's more, he is a master wordsmith who can paint more color into a single sentence than anyone else I know. I was a big fan . . . and still am to some extent . . . until I read World Made by Hand and came to the conclusion that he doesn't seem to think much of women. His female characters are either weak and dependent women who are only good for home cooking and sex or else sex sirens who lure men into compromised positions (yes, he does seem to be obsessed with women as sex objects. . . ) The other problem I have with JHK is his virulent antipathy to suburbs and the people who live there. I think he is wrong there, and have stated so before. Now I have proof of what is possible . . .
In the article linked in yesterday's post, Guy McPherson and Sherry Ackerman talk about authenticity -- about living the truth of one's being. Today, Rima Staines posted an elegant tribute to an exceptional man. As I read Rima's loving words, it struck me, "This is what an authentic man looks like! This is the potential we all share" -- not that we will all live on the edge of elfdom, weaving lives from the elements of nature and strands of fantasy, but that we each have a brilliant core that is unique, and loving, and endlessly creative. Rima's words elicited the image of an entire planet inhabited by people who feed their inner fires, who live from the core of their beings, and who honor and love the web of life. That is the promise of authenticity.
Thank you, Rima, for sharing this amazing person with us all. And thank you, Thomas, for giving us a glimpse of our human potential. Once the encrustations that dim our lights are chipped away, the core star, the authentic self, may shine forth with a power as yet unrealized. Here's to you both . . . and to us all!
I don't agree with everything they say; to my mind, they state the current situation in overly harsh, critical terms. I don't think we are a bunch of robots; I think most of us are well-meaning, loving individuals who are being distracted by the smoke and mirrors of 'civilized' life. Even the blindest, most distracted among us generally have someone they love, and that love may very well be contributing to the evolution of mankind as essentially as the words of McPherson and Ackerman. Maybe the reason there are so many of us in the world right now is that in order to raise our collective vibration to the next level, it takes this many hearts loving their children, this many hearts loving their pets, this many hearts loving even their favorite sports teams, to reach the critical tipping point.
I also think their assessment of our education system is too one-sided -- I think we do a better job of teaching kids to be articulate and thinking than they give us credit for. Having taught for many years myself, I know that most teachers out there are doing their level best to educate the whole child; we don't always succeed, but we try.
Those critiques aside, this dialogue promises the possibility of a much brighter, more authentic future and is, overall, quite heartening and well-worth the reading time.
I heard about this diet through Oriah Mountain Dreamer, a woman who has suffered from chronic migraines and chronic fatigue syndrome for many years. After switching to this diet, she has experienced her first 'normal day' in quite some time. We all know we should be eating more fruits and vegetables, less grains and dairy, and choosing grass fed meats, but here is more proof of just how powerful, how essential those choices may be: "">
Okay, there's this whole Kony 2012 phenomenon going on and I'm finding it fascinating. There's The Invisible Children video, which I posted yesterday, and there's the controversy surrounding the organization, its aims and its finances. The Daily Whatsums it up well with somewhat of a rebuttal here.
I love it when I find an opinion of mine challenged by intelligent, informed dissent, and the article in The Daily What does exactly that. I love intelligent, informed dissent (as opposed to the more common canned spin that masquerades as opinion) because it challenges me to rethink my position -- perhaps to realize where I've been mistaken, perhaps to clarifiy and solidify my original thought. And so I've waded through the arguments pro and con and come out with the following:
The finances of the organization don't matter nearly as much to me as the message -- and the message is that love and compassion can change the world -- that by banding together in a common cause, we can help alleviate some of the pain and suffering of those who are without hope.
If we start by taking a stand against one man, just one man, and if we hold just that one man accountable for his crimes against humanity, then the message we send is, "Bullies beware. You, too, may be hunted down and made to pay for the lives you have destroyed." On the other hand, if we stand by and do nothing, then the message we send is that the world doesn't care -- the tyrants and bullies can do as they wish, no matter how horrific and destructive, and get away with it.
Could we be making a mistake? Could we be arming one group to take down another, creating more conflict in the long run? Maybe. Prudence suggests that any action should be well-considered and as minimal as humanly possible. There are no guarantees about anything in life . . . you do what you think best and hope it works out. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, that's a risk we all take. But doing nothing is just as risky as doing something -- if we err, let it be on the side of the angels.
There are so many things piled up in my head right now that I'm not sure where to begin.
Maybe I could begin with The Hunger Games, the popular series that I am currently reading. Maybe it has to do with seeing parallels between the United States and "The Capitol" -- both of which exploit others in order to maintain their luxurious life-styles, both of which maintain the status quo militarily, both of which have citizens that are largely clueless and don't really understand the human cost of their privileged status.
and all the layers of resonance. There is the 2012 connection and the hope that I cherish that this year may be the year in which humanity changes course. There is the outpouring of love and the recognition of how we are all connected that is at the core of how things have to change. There is the call to the young people who will be the ones who lead the change. And there is even James Inhofe, a man who has led the global climate change denialists, taking a stand against injustice and earning my love and respect for the first time. And then there is Kony, symbolic of man's inhumanity to man, perpetrator of his own Hunger Games, only 30,000 times worse.
Watch. Join. Send love. And when March 23 comes around, go watch The Hunger Games and understand how we are all in this together.
