Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream

I attended this symposium today, April 18, 2009 at the Halifax Shambhala Centre along with about 50 others. It was led by Leila Bruno.

These are my notes - realizing that they are hopelessly inadequate to convey the warmth and power of the program, nevertheless I wanted to share some of the insights with you. Many of the ideas are not new but it is encouraging to hear of so many individuals, groups and organizations springing up at every level, locally and globally, to address the concerns that face us all.

The purpose of the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream program to bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.

There is an already emerging movement and we are part of this. We need individual, small-scale protests to continue - this is how change happens.
MicMac Grandfather Billy does a blessing/purification ceremony at the beginning and end to bring energy back to the heart. There is a new beginning between now and 2012 - this is what Pachamama is all about. Pachamama can be translated as Earth Mother, Universe and All Our Relations. Water is the blood of our Mother Earth and it is being threatened everywhere.

Four questions we will be exploring:
Where are we?
How did we get here?
What’s possible for the future?
How do we get there?

Pachamama Alliance was formed to help the Achuar tribe in the rainforest in Ecuador who have been displaced by petroleum interests. Rather than replace their culture with another, the Achuar and the Alliance are working together to blend the traditional earth wisdom with technical expertise and funding. We need to "change the dream of the modern world" to save the natural world.
The prophecy of the eagle (materialismj) and condor (earth-based wisdom) is coming true - there has been a 500 year cycle during which the eagle has dominated but the eagle and the condor have begun to fly together - "dancing together in one sky".

Where Are We?
Environmentally:
What is our current relationship with the planet, each other and ourselves? We have such a great opportunity to explore this question.
Industrial Revolution led to a population explosion which has continued. The earth is under very severe stress and human activity is putting an intolerable strain on the earth’s natural life-support systems. Climate change, resulting from burning fossil fuels, is the most imminent threat - we are already seeing extreme changes in weather patterns.
We are in the midst of a global mass extinction - African lions, tigers, elephants, 90% of large fish are gone from the oceans.
The "ecological footprint" is an accounting tool - by 2007 we were using 30% more resources than nature can keep up with. If this trend continues, by 2050 we will be using resources at twice the capacity of the planet to cope. We don’t have 50 years to solve this crisis. Nothing this destructive has happened in 65 million years. It is so catastrophic we can’t conceptually relate to it - what we need to do is to really feel the grief in our hearts.
Environmental justice - race and class still determine what type of environment people live in. When we destroy natural environments people are displaced to cities. This puts them at risk for many health and social problems because of the polluted air and other stresses. This impacts minorities hardest - blacks, native people, Hispanics.
Socially:
Ideally every person in society has an equal opportunity to live a fulfilling life and all are treated with equal dignity.
We are part of a world-wide society and we are inter-dependent. The notion that we can prosper individually just doesn’t work. We take so much for granted - food, clothes, shelter, etc. We care more about our personal economic well-being than about the well-being of society.
Spiritually:
There is a "great loneliness of spirit" - we feel hopeless and overwhelmed. This is how our lives are reflected to us, but we still yearn for connection with nature, each other and with ourselves. Mass consumption is fueled by loneliness and a culture of isolation and increasing depression. Children witness thousands of hours of violence on TV each year.
As we open to the pain of all this, we can use the energy of our grief to power our inspiration and our efforts.

How Did We Get Here?
Wendell Berry: "We can [not] live harmlessly or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration……in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want."

Human decisions and behavior, not evolution, have led us to this predicament. Thomas Berry - we need to change our human presence from a destructive one to a benign and constructive one.
Our worldview has become unsustainable. We feel ourselves separate from other species, largely because of technology. Our actions follow from our view - we have to examine our assumptions. One is that the natural world is there for us to use as we see fit. Since the post-Industrial Revolution population explosion this attitude has become destructive.

When we throw something away, we could ask ourselves, "Where is away?" There is no such place as away. We are throwing the planet and its people away. We are literally "trashing" the planet - disposables are insidious - disposable cups, species, people, cultures. This is the core mindset.
Once we see our assumptions we can consciously make different choices.
Most of our assumptions are based on our idea of a separate self - separate from nature and from each other. We are related to everything on earth. Whatever we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. Whatever we do to each other, we do to ourselves. We have developed a reductionistic view of the natural world since the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern technology. The Earth is our mother - whatever befalls the earth befalls us. We did not weave the web of life - we are merely a strand in it.
We have been using the wrong operating manual - but there is good news. Humans are not fundamentally flawed, we are simply mistaken, and that means we can change our behavior.

Assumptions (from group discussions)
- someone else will take care of it
- don’t question progress
- it can’t happen to me
- I deserve what I have
- rationality is superior to feeling
- more is better
- money fixes everything
- entertainment is engagement, not distraction
- the individual is the most important unit
- our actions have no consequences
- earth’s resources are infinite
- if we can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist
- humans are separate from, and superior to, other species
- technology will save us
- we have lots of time
- technology helps us communicate
- new is better
- chaos is un-natural
- capitalism works
- I can’t make any difference
- my happiness is #1
- we’re right, they’re wrong
Unintended results of these assumptions:
- loneliness
- separation
- more consumption
- bullying > aggression > wars
- enemy making
- ethnic cleansing
- misogyny
- small view - me, mine
- everybody needs their own space
- lack of urgency - just put it off
- no spiritual connection
- individual is primary

What is Possible for the Future?
Pachamama Alliance - the indigenous connectedness of the world joined with modern science.
The human story is the story of the universe. An emerging universe is a new concept, but we have been profoundly related for a long time - we came out of the earth - thus we are kin with all beings. There is a profound wisdom at work in the universe.
Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago - all space and all time started at that one point. Everything came out of that molten rock - creativity and consciousness as well as all sensory phenomena and all life forms. We are cosmological beings - we are the universe in the form of a human.
Our current path is unsustainable. But can humanity really transform in such a fundamental way? Humans have the creativity - the future is in our hands, once we are aligned with others. We have seen so many changes already that would never have seemed possible and that started with one individual.
We need to engage in holding actions (stop harming), pro-actions (start helping) and consciousness raising. All three are necessary. We need to know what is happening in our local areas as well as globally.

The Emerging Dream
Paul Hawken - "there is a movement, the most diverse ever seen, a global movement where no one is in charge - a shared understanding that has its origins in indigenous culture, environment and social consciousness issues. This is the coming world. We are in the largest social movement in the history of humanity. Our actions now will determine the future."

Grassroots actions make the most difference - it is where we can start as individuals. We have the means to address our global problems - we can emulate nature and work with it rather than destroy it. In terms of our personal spiritual growth, once we become aware of this movement, we will see it everywhere. It is who we are. The crisis of imagination and creativity needs to happen now. We need to speak from the heart about what we care about.

Where Do We Go From Here?
George Bernard Shaw: "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

So what do we do now that we know?
The Power of One is the power to do something. Authentic action comes from the heart - feel it, don’t think too much about it.
Community is vital - we are already profoundly interconnected - we must work together. There are no ‘single’ issues. We need to be able to combine what we already know into what we need. But we don’t have much time. The word community means coming into unity - together we are a genius.

"When a caterpillar reaches a certain point in its own evolution, it becomes over-consumptive, a voracious eater and it eats everything in sight.
At that same time, in the molecular structure of the caterpillar, the "imaginal cells" become active. While all this gorging is going on, those imaginal cells wake up, and they look for each other inside of the caterpillar’s body. When enough of them connect (they don't need to be in the majority) they become the genetic directors of the future of the caterpillar. At that point the other cells begin to putrefy and become what’s called the nutritive soup——out of which the imaginal cells create the absolute unpredictable miracle of the butterfly.
What’s possible is that we're the imaginal cells on the planet right now. "
Inspired by Elisabet Sahtouris

We don’t have to be in the majority to effect change but we do have to work together. Today we have created a cadre of local citizens who have woken up and who have a vision for the future. This is what we call Blessed Unrest. We will become the instrument through which the world works.
Hope is a state of mind that is already in us - it is the certainty that a course of action makes sense, no matter how it turns out. If only one person in the world has hope and is committed to action, then there is hope in the world. We get to start over every day and this is a miracle.
We stand now at the moment of creation. This is the moment when the human species can rise to its full potential. We have the opportunity to live the most meaningful lives ever lived. We are the people we’ve been waiting for, and we have enough love to save the planet.

And as if that weren't enough for one day, there was a wombat video!

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I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
LC
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