- More and more people discovering a closer connection with nature, (e.g. through permaculture, deep ecology, nature-based therapy).
- Those from western cultures returning to an exploration of their pre-Christian spiritual foundations.
- A spread of non-western spiritual concepts and ways to western nations.
- People in western-styled cultures beginning to truly listen to the wisdom of indigenous cultures.
- An exploration of consciousness at both a personal level and also as an area of scientific study.
- Emergence of the field of eco-psychology and soul-based psychology. (See especially the work of Bill Plotkin and others).
- The Great Turning (also called The Work that Reconnects) that helps participants move from a place of pain and despair into a hopeful and active future. (see especially the work of Joanna Macy)
Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.
Pages
The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.
Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.
Wednesday 24 June 2020
Which Way Will We Tip?
Wednesday 17 June 2020
Can We Vote For The President Too?
Remember Henry Kissinger? He was the Secretary of State for Presidents Nixon and Ford. In 1999 he spoke at Trinity College in Dublin on “Globalisation and World Order.” In that speech he made a remarkable, candid admission that
“… globalisation is really another name for the dominant role of the US.”Think about it. Of the ten largest foodstuffs companies in the world, 6 of them are US companies: Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mendelez, and PepsiCo. If it’s fast food we are after, then the top 10 companies are all US companies. I probably don’t even need to name them, their logos and advertising hoardings are in just about every town and city in the world. Headed up by McDonalds, the list includes KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Burger King.
When we go to the movies, what do we see? The 100 top grossing films in 2015 were all made by US companies. Musically it is not much different. The Big Three music companies make up over 80% of the world’s market in the recording (and our listening) sector. And those three are based – you guessed it – in the US.
Who is it that lets us know the news? US companies. The four largest news corporations are all US based: Comcast, Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, and Time Warner. And if we think we can bypass such giants of news and head for the Internet, then think of which companies largely control the content on that: Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Okay, we won’t buy anything, we’ll stow our money away in banks, and not be part of the globalisation/Americanisation of the world. Unfortunately, that won’t be easy – four of the world’s ten largest banks are US owned.
It seems we can’t escape. If we do try then the US is not likely to leave us alone. The US had 662 military establishments in 38 countries, in all continents except Africa, around the world in 2010. By comparison, Russia had military bases in 10 countries, all in Eastern Europe and Asia. The UK had bases in 18 countries and France 14.
Bases are one thing, military incursions another. The US has by far been the nation most likely to have sent troops or other military personnel to another country, often in an aggressive manner. To list all of these would take many lines of text. But it doesn’t take much delving into history or our memories to name many of these. Since the end of World War Two there has not been a year pass when the US has not deployed military operatives to someone else’s lands. We all know of the “invasions” of Korea, Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, Panama, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Laos, Oman, Chile, Angola, El Salvador, Grenada, …. Over the past 50 years the US has been militarily involved in at least 35 nations around the globe, on all continents. For the reader that would like to see a thorough list of these incursions (or whatever euphemism may be used) since 1890, then click here.
When there are US bombers flying overhead, naval ships in your ports, and soldiers in US uniforms in your land, it is hard to pretend that you are not affected by the decision as to who becomes President of the US.
Perhaps somewhere in the world there is a community, or maybe a few individuals untouched by US movies, fast food, the Internet. Perhaps there is somewhere that has not been “invaded” or had a US military base established. Even somewhere like this is not immune to the effects of US policies and practises.
No-one is immune to the effects of climate change. Here, the US has again played the most significant part. Carbon dioxide is a long-term gas. Hence historic emissions are just as important, if not more so, than current emissions. Since 1750 almost 30% of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere has come from US sources. Even today, China, the second highest cumulative contributor, has contributed only 9%.
Around the world we are all affected in many ways, some significantly so, by the decision as to who becomes the POTUS (President Of The United States).
So, can we vote for the President too?
- President Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation. The US is presently the second highest emitter of CO2 in the world, behind China, yet on a per capita basis emits 2 ¼ times as much. Furthermore, over the past 250 years the US has emitted a whopping 29% of the world's cumulative CO2 emissions.
- President Trump is threatening to pull funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO) - a body that seeks to improve the health of people all over the world (including the US).
- President Trump has sent a message to men everywhere to say that the abuse of women is okay - "When you're a star...you can do anything...grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
- President Trump has described murder as okay - "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any votes."
Wednesday 10 June 2020
Racism's Building Stones
Wednesday 3 June 2020
Five Phony Sayings To Reject
We seem to be pre-wired, from an early age, towards
helping rather than hindering.
In 2007 a team of researchers from Yale University
showed a group of pre-verbal babies a puppet show.1 In the show a character was shown, twice,
attempting to climb a hill, each time failing and falling back. On the third attempt, another character
either helped the first by pushing them up the hill, or hindered by pushing
them back down.
Once the show had finished and the three scenarios
shown, the “helper” puppet and the “hinderer” puppet were placed in front of
the babies.
Overwhelmingly, the babies reached for the “helper”
puppet. The researchers suggest that
this experiment “supports the view that the capacity to evaluate individuals on
the basis of their social interactions is universal and unlearned.”
Our natural instincts then seem to be pre-wired
towards helping rather than hindering.
Yet, many of our socially constructed institutions
teach us something different. We are
taught to compete for the best jobs, the most money, the greater prestige, or
the “right” to rule. And, if that means
hindering others in order to do so, then that is all part of the economic game.
Have we allowed those few, who as babies would have
chosen the “hinderer,” to construct, and maintain, the systems and institutions
upon which our society is based?
If that is the case, then the “hinderer choosers”
have been doing so for a very very long time.
Time enough for the rest of us to think, and believe, that it is
normal. Thus it is that a whole belief
system has been constructed. Our
pre-wiring has been dismantled and our ideas about who we are have been
re-wired.
Yet, it is phony.
So, how do we dismantle this phony system? How do we return to a state of innate
(unlearned) “helpfulness”?
Perhaps a good place to start is by disconnecting
our re-wired understandings and ideas.
Many of these phony understandings have been encapsulated into pithy a
saying, which gives them a potency they do not deserve. Here are five of those phony, pithy, sayings
we must reject:
· Might
is right.
· Self-interest
is good.
· Life
is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
A quote from the philosopher Thomas Hobbes and adopted without thought
by many in western-styled cultures.
· “There
is no such thing as society.” Margaret
Thatcher’s famous quote that underlies much of neo-liberalism.
· “Survival
of the Fittest.” Misattributed to
Charles Darwin, the term “fittest” often mistakenly taken to mean, quickest,
smartest, biggest, fastest. A meaning
Darwin never intended. His conception of
“fitness” was similar to that of a jigsaw piece “fitting” into a whole picture.
Notes:
1. J. Kiley Hamlin, Karen Wynn & Paul
Bloom. Social evaluation by preverbal infants, in Nature, Vol 450, 22
November 2007