23 Comments

You should have a discussion with Bernardo. He seems easy enough to reach. Until recently he responded to all of his Facebook threads; I think he still monitors them.

Also curious if you're familiar with Stephen Jenkinson's work. He voices an insistence upon meeting the demands of dying. I don't think I would have found the same urgency around my own mother's dying without his guidance. He talks about dying as the crucible the makes human beings- this obviously relates to initiations and the ecological crisis. Idealism plays an important role in understanding death at a metaphysical level, but I think what Stephen talks about is what is actionable in human life. And the thing that creates a context from which we can address all of our larger problems.

Ian McGilchrist seems important in this conversation as well. He's bridging the gap between science and idealism.

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I’ve been thinking on this one for the last few days. Ruminating. Because yes, I also am moving forward with my life in a normal way. I do realize that big changes are coming, and living in Los Angeles the hard times are already creeping in. And yet what else can I do? Except continue my life, take care of my family, our dog, the garden. I’m working towards the good in my small in incremental way, and I also realize that it’s not enough. I guess I’m waiting for the vision of the future that we all can trust.

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Jul 22, 2022·edited Jul 23, 2022

Magic! I think the main hurdle is not the efficacy of what you are saying it's the learned helplessness and fatalism in the collective. This is where large scale healing work becomes a beautiful invitation. Powerlessness is trauma induced. So, yes, there is nothing like a compelling vision--and this is the most compelling--- to get folks off their asses. Right on.

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Love it as a marketing pitch! I totally agree with you that the vision needs to be inspiring. I wrote something similar here: https://guyjames.com/2016/10/04/here-be-dragons/

I see the 'advantage' of the climate emergency is that it WILL affect EVERYONE; even the billionaires will have to go into their bunkers eventually (until their money is no longer worth anything, then we'll see). So that's a pretty big target audience.

There are climate tipping points, but there are also social tipping points, and we are reaching one now: the number of people who are determined to at least mitigate the outcomes towards something more beautiful and less terrible.

If this mass social movement happens (and I don't think it's as unlikely as it might sound), the '60s will look like a child's tea party in comparison. We have to really step up and unite now, otherwise the outcomes range from very bad into undreamed-of hell realms. In fact some version of that may already be inevitable, but at least let's go down swinging (in every sense of the word).

btw love your one-on-one sessions ad! :)

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A lot of clarity in this piece, but fresh and punchy! Can't go wrong with Oscar Wilde.

Happy Mary Magdalene Feast day.

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great one. i wonder how

you see analytic idealism and the christian mythos working together. is idealism a secular theism? is idealism a stepping stone for people who are allergic to religious language to move out of the materialist stupor?

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Daniel, you nailed it once again, but there is truth to what the commenter with the same name as yours expressed. But I have been expressing a “magic” that will breakthrough to the masses. At the very least, it will birth a catalyst that with birth the idea that will work.

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Nice marketing pitch but im afraid it is more hopium. The capable movers and shakers are too distracted and aren't paying attention otherwise we would have seen movement by now as, brilliantly as you put it, this is not exactly a new message. Something might actually begin to transpire once the inevitable mass death heat event (see wet bulb temperature or the 1st chapter of Kim Stanley Robinson's new book The Ministry for the Future) that is surely on the very near horizon becomes a reality. Sorry to say any action at that point . . .even now . . .is almost certainly way too late as too many tipping points have been crossed. We're in runaway mode.

As Starhawk said a decade or so ago "it's too late for anything but magic."

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