A Manifesto for Our Times

[GliderGuider]

The Pachamama Alliance is the organization behind the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, an eco-spiritual-justice group whose mission is "to bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Planet Earth." The piece below was included in the preparation materials for their facilitators' training workshop. I hope some of you find it as inspirational as I did.

A Manifesto For Our Times
By Vicki Robin

You’ve heard the bad news. Yes, it’s bad. Everywhere you look, problems are multiplying faster than technology can wipe them up, faster than laws can contain them, faster than wisdom can put them in perspective. Everyday people – you and me – feel disconnected and powerless. But there’s good news. We’re a healthy species. We’re a young species. We’re designed for success. And every single one of us is a member of the species, so we all have the capacity to think and feel and experiment our way into a future that’s healthy for all life. Here are some principles you can count on.

1. We’re not dumb. Ask anyone what the biggest challenges facing the world are in the next decade and you’ll get the same list. We know what’s wrong. We even know a bit of what “right” would look like. It’s a child’s vision of happiness: sunshine, family, flowers, friends, good stuff to do. The problem seems to be a sense of powerlessness. We’re up against a wall. There is no door. We want to do what’s right but every day we contribute to what’s wrong by doing what we must – driving our cars, working for large corporations, buying food grown with poisons, sending our kids to inadequate schools, watching stupid, violent TV programs to numb out. There must be a way to put into practice what we want to be real, what we know to be right. Therefore, we are people committed to creating a door in the wall and opening it so that everyone can have a decent life.

2. We are not greedy. We are a generous species, given half a chance. Once we know we have enough and feel secure that it won’t be taken away (which is totally possible in the world as it is), simple playground fairness tells us we won’t ever be really happy until everyone has enough. Physical appetite teaches us that over-consuming leads to belly aches. You can’t get enough of what you don’t really want. Once you have enough to meet your real and perceived needs, you can liberate yourself from building personal material security and devote yourself to assuring the collective material security for all life. In this context, barter, sharing, gifting, generosity all make sense and are a source of real wealth. Therefore, we are people who pledge to understand and have compassion for our needs, to fill them wisely and to devote the ample overflow of intelligence, care, attention, creativity, love and inventiveness to contributing to the health, sanity and sustainability of life on earth.

3. Good work and good works. We’re a helpful bunch. We like to work (but not all the time, for Heaven’s sakes!). The purpose of work is not just to make money. CEO’s know that. Child care workers know that. Unpaid volunteers know that. We work to learn, to participate in the work of the world, to challenge ourselves, to pass the time, to get out and meet people, to prove ourselves, to play. Therefore, we are people who pledge ourselves, to the best of our ability, to work for the good of the world while assuring our own well-being and that we meet our financial obligations.

4. Success. We are not the “best” species, but we are a wonderful species – full of creativity, compassion, tenacity and devotion. The fact that we are, in this moment, contributing to a major die-off of other species and degradation of the biosphere isn’t proof that we are bad. It shows that we are immature and need to grow up. The young of any species must learn the consequences of their actions. As a young species, our task is to face the dark side of our expansiveness and become collectively as wise as our great wise ones: Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Confucius – to name just a few. We are people who pledge ourselves to face our errors, to correct our errors and to become wise and generous companions to other people, cultures and species.

5. We are the Natural World – we recognize that the economy is embedded in the natural world, not vice versa. We recognize that “economy” originally meant “household management”. Through the economy, we fill our needs. We launched the Industrial Revolution to win our “battle with nature.” Nature, to some, seemed cruel and unpredictable. The Industrial Revolution (run by manufacturers and machines), and later the consumer economy (run by the current priests, economists), ironed out so many wrinkles so well that we’ve forgotten that our survival DOES depend on a healthy ecosystem. We need clean air, clean water, rich soil, biodiversity, and the web of life. If we treat the natural world like a bottomless cookie jar and a vast sewer system, WE will grow ill. If we eat the seed corn, we won’t have crops in future years. If we tear the siding off our house to feed the wood stove, eventually we won’t have a home. Therefore, we are people who pledge to discover how to achieve real fulfillment of every real need while preserving the integrity of our home, the natural world.

6. Connection. Everything is hitched to everything else. We separate things to control them, but our hearts know that life is a seamless whole. Through the scientific method, we learned to solve one problem at a time. But New Science teaches that life is a complex web, not a simple machine. This reflects our current reality; our ingenuity, together with liberalized trade and sophisticated technology, can create new solutions and therefore new problems at unimaginable speed. Indeed, our imaginations are exhausted. We can barely cope. So we leave the future to “those in the know.” Instead of being overwhelmed, however, we can learn to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can hold contradictory information in our awareness without having to settle on one thing. We can hold six world problems and 12 world solutions in our awareness and watch new patterns form. We can, as groups, recapture the innocence of fearing and hoping and thinking together about everything that troubles us. Therefore, we are people who pledge to grow our capacity to simultaneously think and feel about the state of our world without going numb, to engage in seeking solutions with the joy of a young child feeding ducks by a pond, to absorb the pain of one another’s ignorance and yearning, and to shift from hopelessness to possibility as our ground of being.

7. Spirit. We are a species who creates value and meaning through stories. Who can contemplate the 15 billion year unfolding of our universe without an overwhelming sense of awe? Or the mysterious emergence of life, the miracle of a nurturing earth and the unpredictable capacity for love of our species? Whatever other species make of this journey through time and evolution, humans everywhere have invented and collected tales, true and mythic, to help us understand this mysterious gift we participate in. It’s called religion. It’s called spirit. It’s called “the gods.” Whatever name we use, the truth is the same. We have values, things we hold dear, hold sacred. We feel shame and remorse when we violate our own truths. We worship. We pray. This is as true about humanity as our biophysiology, our institutions and laws, our material creations. Therefore, we are people who acknowledge our humility, who will incorporate our reverence along with our passion and intelligence in our work of healing the world.

8. Freedom. We are the species that can change its mind; we have the capacity to choose. Pretty awesome! The only catch is that if we choose only our own good to the exclusion of the good of others, the system (be it democracy or the natural world) stops working. So, it turns out we are free to choose the high road or the low road, what’s good for all or just good for us. Could we choose to amend the rules of the game to create a society that values people over profits, life over pollution, mutual care over guns and prisons, vision over dysfunction? Can we use our freedom to dream a new dream for all of life? Therefore, we are people who will claim our freedom to recreate the world in the image and likeness of health, sanity, diversity, joy, sufficiency-for-all, connection, spirit and wisdom for all.

9. Courage. Deep heart, passionate action on behalf of ideals. We have what it takes. We can face our own shadow. We can grieve and release our past, acknowledge our shortcomings, rely on one another as an expression of strength. We are not a nation or planet of sheep, satisfied to be spoon fed mental pap in exchange for security. We rise to the occasion. And this moment in time is one helluva occasion. Therefore, we are people who act on our best information and intuition on behalf of the evolution of life.

10. We have a future. Our children, grandchildren and many generations to come will continue to be the crew of Spaceship Earth. Evolution isn’t over. There is much to discover, within and without. We can’t do it in one generation. We will, for better or worse, pass on unfinished business to the next generations. We are wayfarers. Campers in an ancient and ongoing forest, both natural and human-made.

Therefore, we are people committed to leaving this earth in better shape than we found it.

[silverweb]

1. Love it!

:kick:

[phantom power]

2. That made me feel...

happy?

[Delphinus]

3. Could we choose it?

Yes, we could. Some of us already have - and may our ranks increase.

Will humanity as a whole choose it? That's the $64,000 question.

[GliderGuider]

4. That's the nice thing about being imaginal cells

It doesn't take all of us. Just enough of us.