i see the economists and the biologist and the spiritualists and the teachers and the children all involved. the challenge-sphere remains communication. language itself, the stories that touch all these silos and re-bind them together into a healthy corpus. following that line of thinking, to me communication is really about shared context, a local mind-body environment which gives rise to thoughts and words in the first place. so it’s also a matter of infrastructure. okay well i’ve studied the urbanism of the 20th century and those planners were invested in cybernetics and explicitly “changing human nature” to support a consumption model of governance… bad! yet we must not ignore this. i call these “fallen landscapes” and the consciousness they produce is disconnected. i have even been exploring superfund sites in America (for example the Hanford Site in Washington costs billions of dollars ever year to maintain and slow the leaking of radioactive material into the ground water… which it has been doing for decades as well as poisoning the river). these American landscapes are inherited and costly, any thinking that doesn’t account for them will never be tenable. the first step is educating people about the extent to land degradation and that is a process of immense pain, terror, and mourning. a healthy journey though it entails community, mentors, and a confrontation of death— which is really where the spiritual traditions can help. BUT following this we realize “uh oh” the healthy psychological development of children through adulthood requires careful parenting, you can’t just tell the children the planet is dying ! we’ve been doing that and there are now millions of traumatized kids all over the world. finally, to wrap up this train of thought, TRAUMA itself. if we want people to self-transform rather than cling to dying self-conceptions, we know what will be stirred up in the process. a whole ton of pain and anxiety, and panic attacks, and mini-deaths as we let go of things we used to believe. this can be helped with a positive loving image to step into of course, it’s not all about what we have to lose, it’s also about the beautiful thing we will gain. but the loss must not be underestimated. my politics are inter-generational. i will not be the one to make things better. hopefully my grandchildren can begin. my life will be slowing the descent and preparing the kids for impact. this will be done through JOY, yes joy, and beautiful tears.
-jm
