277) The Children Remember: Toxic families, and how and why they resist change, growth, and healing
Children always remember. While adults spin their self-justifying stories, make their excuses, give their false wisdom about '“seeing the best in everybody” and having “good Christian values,
the children remember the stark, experiential truth….
254) Day 22 -- Reason #22 to revolt against Predatory Capitalism: True Happiness
With very, very little in terms of material possessions, but rich in purpose, rich in play, and rich in love, you can be happy, every day, forever. And so can your loved ones, your neighbours, and people on the other side of the world. Happiness is not a zero-sum game, in which if one person gets more the others get less. But Predatory Capitalism, is.
248) Day 16 -- Reason #16 to revolt against Predatory Capitalism: David Suzuki
We are the Earth. This is not just a slogan. It is one of the deepest, most robust and profound facts of human existence.
And yet, we have built a civilization largely in denial of that fact.
169) The despair you are feeling right now: Dead children, bombed hospitals, the lies of tyranny in a dying world, and the crushing hopelessness of “What the hell can I DO about any of this?”
What can we do, in the midst of a genocide? What can we do, in the midst of tyranny that’s been happening, and strengthening, since before we were born? We can we do, in a world that burns its own living flesh, due to the greed of the most-privileged minority who clamour for ever-more wealth and power?
None of us want this.
167) Thanks Mom: Intergenerational Wisdom, Part 2 -- Friendship and Community
I am coming to realize that this Tale of Aloneness was never actually true, and that what made me feel alone was simply Shame, not the reality of being disconnected from people.
When I look at my life from a different angle, then that same passage of time that seemed bereft of social connections was, in fact, RICH with relationships!
Realizing this has given me a sense of almost something like awe…
145) Coming Full Circle: Part 5 — The Bleeding Hearts and The Artists Make Their Stand
There’s no sense pretending we are not in this situation, just like there’s no sense in a budding sapling pretending it didn’t germinate in poor soil, if that’s the reality.
No, that sapling has to grow those roots deeper, and proliferate its root system so thoroughly that it gets the life energy it needs to survive and thrive. Right there, in the poor soil it was planted it. Or, it dies.
144) Coming Full Circle: Part 4 — My Personal Piece of Performance Art
It’s not ideas that will make the difference, so much as it’s people connecting to their gentle, and passionate, animal hearts, their sensuous flesh, their mortal vulnerability.
How many of us, truly, have dug down into our guts and done the deep, soul-work necessary to heal our wounds and fill our hearts with love for our neighbours?
73) Dear Ancestors,
Dear Ancestors, thank you for this chance you’ve given me, to live. For the songs you passed on. The babies you nursed at your breasts, taught to walk, and speak, and play, and fish, and build, and love, and read, and forgive. Thank you for your courage, the sacrifices you made in the wars of your time. The wisdom you discovered in silent meditation. The poems. The traditions, dances, beautiful creations of art and worship. Thank you for the recipes you passed down through generations of care-takers labouring over hot stoves, for the endless mouth-watering concoctions we coaxed from the abundance of water and soil and sunlight. Thank you for the luminaries who inspired all who came after, to strive for the Good, to love unto death.
70) Purpose -- Part 2 -- Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) -- Act III: Full Circle
My message is, I love you. I believe in your good hearts. I honour the sacrifices of your visionaries. I weep with you as ecosystems fall apart. The Amazon burns. The Arctic melts. The Great Barrier reef disintegrates. The oceans become a graveyard. Forests turn into grasslands, and grasslands into deserts. Bird song turns into the white noise of traffic. The buzzing and clicking and colourful vibrancy of insect life turns into the empty whisper of barren spaces.
69) Purpose -- Part 2 -- Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) -- Act II: Change or Die
“Change or die” does not work. It convinces basically nobody. Changes almost no behaviours. It’s like being attacked by an enemy. You don’t open your doors to them and welcome them into your home. You barricade your door, dig trenches, lock and load.
This is one of the biggest reasons the “environmental movement” has largely failed. And it’s why it will likely continue to fail. Unless it changes its strategies.
68) Purpose -- Part 2 -- Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) -- Act I: Me & You
I love you.
You might be thinking….”Really? That’s creepy.”
Or you might be thinking….”Really? We’ve never even met!”
Or you might be thinking…..”Why, what’d you have in mind?”
Or you might be thinking…..”Huh? I thought this was about why the environmental movement has failed.”
50) Dirty Feet (TW: suicide, sexual assault)
Thinking about suicide has been my main hobby for 14 years, 7 months and 16 days.
You were right about sexual assault, especially for kids.
“It makes you see yourself as a demon. So you check-out, dissociate, a lot of the time, because who wants to be a demon?”
I realize why I kept this fantasy alive for so long.
I believed the only worthy thing to do with my life was make sure my last act will be one of love.
20) Gratitude: Day 1 — Slider
There’s something rather….intimate….about another ‘being’ who shares your bedroom for 40 years. They go through a lot with you.
17) The larks, still bravely singing
Have you ever wondered, what “Torch” were they throwing to us? What were we supposed to hold high? What faith did they have that if we broke it, they would not sleep?
Is it the torch of war? Did they want us to keep fighting, to keep killing each other, to keep distrusting, hating, wanting, taking?
#Infinity) September 29, 2017 - TurnAround
So…what now?
Well, this marks the end of normal life. The beginning of a rapid global awakening that is unprecedented in history. The people will reinvent the world. And we won’t wait for the politicians and corporations. We will force them.