It seems that this video has gone viral lately, but if you haven’t seen it yet, here it is, in all it’s amazing-ness!
(warning, adult language)
George Carlin “American Dream” Video
He really hits it on the nose here, huh? The rumor is that this is the last 3 recorded minutes of his career or life, although I have no way of confirming that. I am so glad for this 3 minutes, though.
I had a heart-opening a few days ago, that I would like to share with you. I was freaking out because I didn’t know how I was going to do my work in the world. My resources are so limited, especially my time, and I just see so much work I want to do. This consciousness shift is happening, but I do get nervous sometimes that it might not be happening fast enough. Additionally, I start thinking that the weight of the shift is on my shoulders, and I start feeling like I have to push myself harder than my physical limits will allow.
In moments like this, I am blessed with the perspective of fellow shifters. Anthony, my facebook friend and one of the new Evolver Asheville Regional Coordinators, told me, “remember, this will be a revolution with no central command, and no leaders. Its a movement from the true roots of our society, and so every contribution, no matter how big or how small, is a step in the right direction.”
Right. Breathe, Virginia! Relax. He’s correct. When I read this on my phone,(as I was waiting in the park with Joy for the fireworks), something in me shifted. I felt that he was right, and that while it’s good I’m doing what I can, I can also trust in everyone else doing this work. I don’t have to do it all myself, and I wouldn’t want to. We are all rising up together, and it is happening! This shift in consciousness is taking hold of more and more people, and we are doing it, and we can trust that the work is happening, even when we don’t see every bit of it. That’s the whole point!
Also, this made me think differently about one of my unfortunate obsessions, fame. I’ve always wanted to be famous. I think there’s a few reasons for this, one is that this obsession is a way for me to deal with the loneliness I sometimes feel. This is clearly, not a healthy approach! Another reason I’ve always been obsessed with fame is because fame grants power in our culture, and I want to have as much ability to do my work as possible. Fame would allow my work to get farther out there than if I am not well known. Interestingly, his comment addressed both these issues. When I can realize that I am not alone, that there are lots and lots of us doing this work, I don’t need to feel lonely, because I am a part of something, even if its something that’s sometimes invisible. Also, I don’t need to have fame to create these changes, because we are all creating changes together, and by doing it together, we are stronger and more resilient. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like my work to be well-known. I would still like that, but something about these comments softened this desire in me… put it back into a healthier proportion to the bigger goal of contributing to the shift.
Joy and I enjoyed the fireworks, and on the walk had another experience. We were walking within a huge crowd of people traveling away from the park, and a woman’s voice rose up. As we got closer to her beautiful song, I noticed that a big crowd had formed around her to listen. The crowd was big enough that other pedestrians had to walk onto the side of the road to get by. Cars weren’t happy about the flow of foot traffic, but something about this scene made me very happy. I felt united, not only with the walking pedestrians but also the standing observers. I also stopped to listen to the woman sing. She had a basket by her feet, and it was overflowing with dollars. Everyone who passed by was moved by her incredible voice, and there was a feeling of connectedness and reverence within the crowd.
This is when everything hit home for me. Humanity is really all connected, and we can make the changes we need to make, because of our shared experiences. Sometimes, people might emerge as a focal point for our attention (like this singer) but what it’s really about is our common humanity. Not only was this a mental shift for me, but I felt it in my body as well. I felt a visceral connection with all these people, and with all people. I felt even deeper the truth of Anthony’s words, and I felt the change pushing up through the Earth.
Looking through a store window to the Singing Woman
In these troubling times, sometimes its hard to know how to function in the world and stay open and present. With the oil and methane continuing to gush into the Gulf, where it is mixed with toxic dispersants, and cover-up efforts being as extensive as clean-up efforts, it’s becoming clear how much power corporations really have in our country. This is as if Citizens United hadn’t already make this power distribution plenty clear already.
It’s easy to want to shut off and tune out. I have heard from many friends that they are in so much pain from the Gulf situation that they have turned off entirely. I can understand this perspective, even as I think it’s detrimental. People in the Gulf are surrounded by a lot of silence, some silence from those who are indifferent and some silence from people are in pain. When we show solidarity with the Gulf, we show people there that we care and that we understand we are all connected. What happens to a whale in the Gulf, or a fisherman, effects me. We are all connected, and if we can come into this awareness, we have a chance to work together to make this world the world we want.
On June 21st, Obama made a speech about the proposed climate bill. Click Here to See Speech. One thing from the speech really caught my attention: “Real change is only possible when ordinary Americans are willing to organize from the bottom up.” This is true. Although it sometimes seems like our government is owned by corporate interests, to some degree, we can influence the government by speaking out. Obama has said this before, as have past presidents. If we want our government to represent our interests, we need to be very vocal about what we want. It’s a start anyway.
So, how do we stay open and aware to the difficult situations in the Gulf (and other places) without becoming so cynical we close down and give up? That’s where I think spirituality comes in. Not spirituality as in religion, or dogma, that tells us what to believe, but spirituality in the sense of connecting with Spirit, the life force, our own internal divinity or wisdom. When we come into a sense of greater connection with everything, painful events can’t overpower us. When we can live with the flow of life, we can live with peace in our hearts at the same time that we are able to respond to the pain of others and speak out about abuses of power.
Here’s a metaphor I’d like to share with you about how to live open in this way:
When I was in college, I loved to go spend time at the Kinnikinnick River. I did a lot of hiking, but sometimes I also did what I called River Walking. Here’s a sample of that experience (written in present tense for immediacy):
Breathing in the fresh woodsy wet air, I push through foliage for a nice flat place to put my shoes. My breathing slows down and I feel peaceful as I listen to the river rushing, talking to me, soothing me. I set my shoes next to a distinctive tree (so that I remember where I left them), and I ease my feet into the icy cold water. The sun beats down on my head and my breath quickens as my feet get accustomed to the cold. I shift my weight onto my bare feet, listening to my feet. With my tender soles, I feel where the rocks are shifting or holding steady, I feel the rush of water and the cold creeps up my legs.
Carefully, listening to information from the skin of my feet, I creep towards the center of the river. My mind quiets as I discern whether rocks are steady enough to bear weight or not. Occasionally, a rock slips, and because I feel it as it happens, my weight shifts to the other foot and I continue to search for steady rocks. As I get closer to the center of the river, the water rises higher and higher until it is well above my knees. The water pushes against my legs, threatening to throw me off-balance, and I counter by slowing my breath even further and listen more deeply with my feet.
I exist in a state of balance as the water rushes against and past me. The top of my body is hot from the sun as my legs are getting numb from the cold. I can hear nothing but water rushing over rocks, and my thoughts dissipate to near silence. A cool, steady calm washes over my brain, washes over the anxiety I brought with me. Soon, I am aware of only the cold wet, the sound of water rushing, my tender feet on the rough rocks, the fresh air cleaning through my steady lungs, and the conscious choice to shift weight, test a rock, steady, shift weight, test a rock, steady… My life is this… this motion through the water, this union with the river, this motion, steady, testing, motion, steady…
After a little while, insights start pouring into my mind… answers to my life’s problems, clues to my internal puzzles, ideas about new directions to go. I can’t help but get excited as these new insights start pouring in, but when I try to hold onto anything, I lose my balance a bit. A rock doesn’t hold as steadily as I thought it would, and I scramble a bit on the slippery rocks to regain my balance.
The struggle floods me with adrenaline and clears my mind for a moment as I focus my energies on not being carried away by the rushing waters. Soon, I am centered and balanced again. I decide to let the insights come… and go. As insights flow into my brain, I let them arrive, and then let them go just as the flow of water flows past me.
Whenever I try to hold onto an idea, the experience repeats itself. It’s just as if I am trying to catch the water flowing past me instead of letting it flow by… the resistance created by holding on creates drag and I lose my balance. Eventually, I stay in a state of complete openness, letting information flow into me and back out again. I stay in a state of peace and balance as I walk my way upstream. I make an agreement with my subconscious that these ideas will come back to me later at a time I can use them. My conscious and subconscious mind work like this, together, with ease.
Eventually, I turn around and head back downstream to where my shoes are. By the time I climb onshore, I feel cleansed through and through, as my spirit and mind feel clear and light. In walking with the river, I became one with the river and the insights that flowed through my mind enriched me even when I didn’t hold onto anything.
This is a way to move through life, not just rushing water. I chose to try to stay open, let life flow through me without resistance. In this way, I can stay open to the problems, solutions, joy and pain of life without getting carried away. Flow is my answer.
Here’s a great article about what the oil spill teaches reflects about the consequences of our beliefs about the Earth. When we view the Earth as a machine, the article says, we do not plan well for things going wrong, because we expect predictability to be high. In fact, the Earth is a very complex system of systems, a big ecosystem with many smaller ecosystems within it, and it rarely is predictable. As the article states, “Calling the Earth ‘sacred’ is another way of expressing humility in the face of forces we do not fully comprehend. ”
Yep. That’s exactly it. A great example of how paradigms effect actions. That’s exactly the kind of thing I am interested in revealing in a lot of my work… how ways of looking at the world impact how we act in that world. That’s why all art has political consequences, because art (visual, music, film, etc) impacts the way we see the world. This is why artists should be culturally supported more than they are here, because that power is very real. This is also why it’s important that people develop visual and media literacy, to understand the messages that they are bombarded with, and have tools to create resilience around resisting messages that are toxic. Yes, when we think of the Earth as a predictable machine, we feel less hesitation to mess with it however we want to. What other messages lead us to irresponsible and destructive action?
I’m really seeing how everything is connected. Reading this speech helps me to see that what I’ve been seeing about the world is right.
Martin Luther King Jr. talked about how racism, poverty and militarism are connected. Click here to check out his speech.
Here’s an excerpt:
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
Wow. Yep. There we are, still. A revolution of values is what we need. The issues are a little different, partly because some time has passed, but it comes down to the same stuff. That’s why I’m so interested in blending the spiritual and the political… spirituality (for me) is all about realizing the interconnectedness of all life, and that kind of realization is what we need to happen on a global scale if we are going to survive. It’s not just one political issue or another, it’s everything, our whole value system that needs to be revamped!
Here is a great article I invite you to read and ponder. You will have to cut and paste the URL because i can’t hyperlink from my phone.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/mary-kaldor/reconceptualising-war
This way of looking at war, or even political conflict, makes a lot of sense to me. It’s about brokering power, not trying to win. By going to war with an “outside” force, you garner support and power from your own people. Sure, people suffer and even sometimes die, but power is worth the cost, right?
A point that I especially like in here is the idea that peace cannot be attained by trying to appease the so-called grievances of the warring leaders. These excuses for war are created and manipulated in order to establish a sense of “us vs them” mentality which keeps rulers in power. Instead, the article suggests, focus on the everyday people. Instead of engaging in the artificial ideological arguments, take care of human needs and cultural infrastructure and economies. Make it possible for regular people to meet their basic needs (clean water, food, shelter, health care).
It’s an interesting theory. It resonates within me although I can’t really say I know for sure if it is true or not (particularily the offered solution). I do agree that “spin” is one of the most powerful forces in shaping human events. Whoever controls the flow of information has the power to control everything.
These are some of the reasons I’m so fascinated by the nature of reality, or rather, interested in how perceptions of the nature of reality are shaped. The media has so much power in this realm, which is why I am so interested in mefia reform, media literacy education and even creating media myself.
I don’t buy the messages of “us and them” any more than I buy the illusion that we are all on our seperated, isolated journeys. We are all connected, and what happens to one person effects all people. If we can get past our fears of “other,” of “them” and see that they are *us,* we can bypass these stupid power games and reclaim our world!
Recently, on the Diana’s Grove Mystery School on-line discussion forum, someone asked about the paradox of believing in both faith and free will. Below is my personal answer.
I do believe, as Rob Breszny states, “The Universe is conspiring to shower me with blessings.” Right now, I’m especially feeling that way because things in my life are really coming into fruition. I’m starting a new radio show on the local Low-Power FM station, and I am sort of feeling like everything in my life has led me to this moment.
The show is called “Systemic Effect” and is about the current conciousness shift, changing of the ages, and people who are riding the front wave of it and doing the work. Although this is a volunteer producer position, Ive decided (or been called?) to dream big for it. My goal is for it to become a nationally syndicated radio program by a year from now. I feel like it could really happen, too. I have the necessary skills, I know lots of people who are in some unique way dedicated to the shift, i have an ever-solidifying vision of the structure of the big shift, and I think a lot of people would be very excited to access the information and ideas of this show.
I am suddenly very clear that this is my life’s work at this time, and that everything before this is leading to this work, and everything after this will in some way benefit or stem from this work.
A lot of my current life situations are due to my following some very intense guidance I have been getting. Moving to Asheville is the biggest example. I felt so called to come here even thoigh it seemed crazy to make such a big move with a toddler and I did not have the resources to do this transition smoothly. As a result, I have had the *opportunity* to confront and release my deepest fears. It has been a hard road, and yet through it all I have managed to stay true to my deepest core values. Even through intense poverty, I have been a great mom. My daughter, Joy, has continued to have a great life, and I have remained true to myself even through crushing doubt. As a result, I am stronger in myself than ever, and I am now living in a great town that is the perfect launching place for my life’s work. See, it is all coming together!
Regarding free will, I fully believe that fate is an infinitely flexible thing. I think it is possible to refuse the lessons we came into our lives to learn. The result is that our lives then repeat the same lessons over and over until we get it and can move on to the next thing. Once we learn to listen to and follow our deepest passions and guidance, we are able to break our patterns and live as co-creators with the Universe. That’s how I see it, anyway.
One of the beauties of the approach at Diana’s Grove is the leadership approach of “leading people to their own discoveries.” I like this because no one but me can actually know or discover what my real lessons are. From the outside, many of my recent actions may have seemed self-destructive, but only I could have known how trully I have been following destiny’s call. Because DG is a community where no one preaches to me and tells me what my path is, I am able to really listen deeply to what my own heart knows. I am so grateful for the love and encouragement I get here.
So, I believe in fate and free will as both real and seperate, yet symbiotically interrelated. Anyone else? How do you see these forces at work in your life?
Health has been very much on my mind lately. Last week, Joy got thrush and this week we have a doctor appointment where I know her tooth decay will be mentioned again in the context of suggesting I stop night nursing.
I chose to treat the thrush with homeopathy, diet change and probiotics instead of going to her doctor to get anti-fungals. This was a hard decision for me, but one I felt and still feel very strongly about. So many Western Medicine treatments only throw the body further off-balance, creating more and more future health problems. I would like to avoid this chain reaction, so I abstained from the easier way of doing things. We changed our entire diet in one day and pursued unconventional treatments in the face of intense skepticism. In the process, I had to learn more about standing in my own truth. Difficult, but a valuable learning experience.
Now, Joy seems to have recovered fully from her thrush, but we have the trickier issue of her teeth. Interestingly, too many refined carbs is a culprit in both of these issues, hence the diet change is so important.
I’ve been doing a lot of research this week and found that science backs me up in my belief that breastmilk does not cause tooth decay. In fact, it has healthy bacteria which fight tooth decay. Cow milk would have the same makeup except for the pasteurization process.
Turns out, many factors go into tooth decay. Diet, bacteria, genetics, and in kid’s teeth, gestation. One thing that can cause tooth decay like this is stress during pregnancy (and boy was I stressed), or illness (I had a wicked flu second trimester).
The good news is that we might be able to stop the decay. Diet change is huge, and we are doing that. Homeopathy can help, and we are doing that too. Probiotics, ditto. Interesting that the treatments are the same for both these issues. That falls in line with the concept in Natural Medicine that an illness is just one symptom of the bodies overall imbalance, and that multiple illnesses can be treated by the same single method because it treats the core imbalance.
There are other methods which I plan discussing with the dentist when we see him in a little over a week, icludong essential oils and also more conventional treatments (like sealants). The sad thing is, this whole “nighttime breastfeeding is bad” mantra is not only untrue, it also distracts from other types of problem solving. I think I’ve found a dentist who is a little more savvy, and hopefully he can help me navigate these waters.
It’s really interesting to me how false ideas about health, bearing little substantive evidence, enter the mainstream and become conventionally considered fact.
Take flouridated water. While flouride can help teeth, it is also a very dangerous chemical. It’s put into our water but it actually has not been proven to benefit our oral or overall health when taken this way. Actually, it’s a toxin, considered slightly more toxic than lead, and yet is used in much greater quantities than lead is safe at. Flouride overdose has been linked to many cancers and other illnesses including Alzheimers. Why do we put it in our drinking water?
How about lice treatment? Remember getting lice in kindergarten, and having to use that awful shampoo? The toxic chemical smell, the burn on your skin. Did you know that olive oil kills lice even more effectively than that crap? Load your hair with olive oil, don a shower cap, and let it sit for an hour. All the lice and nits will be dead!
In my opinion, a lot of this comes down to greed and corruption again. People want to make money, so they invent ridiculous crap and then convince the public we need it. I’ve heard the whole Flouride thing was an industrial cover-up by industries that didn’t want to have to pay legal consequences of their actions, as they were facing numerous lawsuits for health damages done to people downstream of plants that were dumping Flouride. Instead, they created a giant spin campaign to convince the public that Flouride in drinking water is good. Then, instead of spending money to dispose of toxic waste, they get paid money to dump it into the drinking water. Messed up, huh? I don’t know if this story is true or not, but if you know, please tell me! Makes me want to buy a reverse-osmosis water filtering system, but they run about $300!
Alas, it’s so much effort and money to stay ahead of all the toxic crap being shoved at us, and so hard and scary to defy convention in pursuit of healthier healing. Push those edges too far, and get treated like a freak. Avoid pushing, and become complicit in your own pharmaceuticalized (sure, its a word) destruction. It’s oh, so easy to fall for the lines. It’s so easy to not see the harm. I know. I get hypnotized by it sometimes, too. But, I continue to fight this toxic culture. Because it’s who I am and what I am here for.
Yesterday, for several hours, I regressed back to being a person who believes in the conventional paradigm, that tired old shared dream. What a trip! I learned a lot! I’m not sure why I clung to normalcy for as long as I did, but I’m deeply grateful I’m off that path now (more and more each day). Man, normalcy is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live…oh wait, it’s not even really that great to visit. 
Glad to be back! Smoooooooooch!!!!
One way of examining the merits of a system of thinking is to ask, “who benefits?”
For a very current example, the supposition that a public health care option is socialism. This spin technique takes advantage of our cultural paranoia of socialism. Our fear of socialism is of course linked with our fear of communism, which evokes memories of the Cold War.
Pundits and politicians scare up socialism fears because it’s an easy and effective button to push. By pushing this button, they bypass meaningful dialogue and yet stay afloat politically.
Who benefits from this negative hype? Who benefits from the cultural fear surrounding even the word socialism?
In this case, Insurance Companies. Lobbyists. Politicians who will receive campaign backing from Insurance Companies.
I think any policy choices should be examined against what we hold valuable.
See now, here is where it comes down to the shared dream. Here is the place our personal beliefs effect everything, not only about what is important but about how things actually work.
Say, I believe that all people should be able to see a doctor when they are sick. Ok, time for the public option, then? Well, maybe.
Say I also have the belief that in our country, anyone who wanted to find work can find it, and buy their own health insurance. According to my belief, someone who doesn’t have health insurance is obviously not trying hard enough, so it’s not my problem that they can’t get it.
The issue I have with a notion like this is that it assumes an amount of independance that I don’t believe ever really exists. I don’t believe anyone is ever really self-made (unless they are a recluse in the woods). Generally, people are vulnerable to shifts in the economy, are dependant on the government for things like basic law enforcement, keeping the roads driveable and all sorts of other things. Every person who is a financial success had things turn in their favor, often starting with their birth into a white and/or affluent family. There are, also of course success stories of people who started poor and “made it” but, as exalted as these stories are in our culture, they are not the norm. Class mobility is both more rare and more difficult than it is believed to be in this country.
I feel these things are often underplayed in public discourse. “The American Dream” of making it big is still a major part of our cultural tapestry, while the truth is that middle class and poor families keep getting poorer as the rich keep getting richer. In any economic system, policy helps determine how the money moves. Right now, the equation is still tilted towards those who already have plenty.
Who benefits from the belief that anyone can make it on their own? It’s not too hard to see! Now, when will we begin to dream up a new dream?