"Two Visions by Laurie Corzett and David Heron Wallace" from Writers and Artists Online Roundtable: Visions 2040. Sponsored by Planetshifter.com
Submitted by Willi on Thu, 30 Jun 2016 - 10:50
"Two Visions by Laurie Corzett and David Heron Wallace" from Writers and Artists Online Roundtable: Visions 2040. Sponsored by Planetshifter.com
Logic of Evolution by Laurie Corzett
Successful progenitors
survive to sow seed
by force or persuasion
or hiding off screen
or banding together
that more may succeed,
and upgrade conditions,
enhance the breed.
But, for such teams to work well
we must
learn to respect, honor, and trust;
expect to contribute and take and share,
accept the caring for and care.
In community varied seeds are sown.
Thus is a thriving future grown.
Or, sibling rankling infests
to neighbors as scorn.
Barriers proliferate,
preparations for war.
Who is emboldened by
destruction and blood,
blowing civilizations
back into mud?
Are these principled people
filled with kindness and joy?
Those who can create good;
the lacking destroy.
Guns, bombs, cruel words,
contempt, angry sneers,
promotion of pain,
preying on fears,
paying us naught but
unneeded tears
and advancement of certain
unsavory careers.
We can reject their lies,
realize the prize.
Here! before our eyes.
Simple. Easy. Free.
Expect, accept, embrace
the abundance
of Peace.
* * * * * *
Essay by David Heron Wallace
The process of conscious evolution of humankind
How we are seeking a better way even though the worst things we are still doing are so stupid.
It's not about the money, but it is about success.
New ideas for the healthy functioning of the modern world
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One of the greatest problems our site Society faces today in America is income inequality. This commonly known phenomenon is a primary hang up for both our well-being and our social system of interdependence and our economy. The severe levels of income inequality we face in America today have the cumulative effect of causing economic and social stagnation. Because the level of inequality is so high it represents both the psychological and physical, or functional, barrier to the average person. An average person is just born to family who does what people do - they talk, they hang out; and they also deal with their regular lives. However, in the modern world we have such immense resources; the task, process or Endeavor of dealing with just the simple magnitude of how great the amount of wealth we as a culture actually hold is a daunting one.
However, money exists for a reason it is in fact he consciously adopted Fiat specifically design for the purpose of the implementation of a certain fine something, to stand for, that is representing - real or actual wealth. Wealth is whatever Holdings either physical or psychological a person, family or Community, etc. has that contribute to or promote sustained etc. well-being.
So how can we as humans actually be on the path to evolving a better, or more advanced, way of being in the world and as a species of technologically Adept and self-conscious beings? How can we move Beyond both the perceived and actual barriers money can represent? This is where the Principles of Permaculture can be decisively important. They are important because they point us at and deliver us to; the well-considered Direction of tuning into, and thereby learning and subsequently following; the patterns, or ways, of actual Real Nature. The Nature that is in fact the reality of the physical world!
Up until this point in human evolution, much of what we have accomplished has been a game of one-ups-manship with nature. All the inventor's artists and philosophers of the western world that put us into the industrial revolution looked at, and into, the natural physical world and extracted some sort of exalted relationship or truth about this world. These visionaries saw the way the world worked in reality and they translated these realizations into ideas and inventions we could use. These Grand insights gave us electricity, telephony, Rockets, steel, cars, engines, etc. It goes without saying that these are truly incredible accomplishments magnificent Feats of intellectual achievement. So how very natural it is for us as human beings to become thoroughly captivated by these breakthroughs and developments?
However herein let us go about discussing the next step. The next step is what your mind has been telling you has been missing from our culture throughout your life. The next step is what your earliest teachers were trying to tell you about when they had Garden education or introduced you to the importance of recycling, or turning off the lights when you're not using them, or conserving water. These efforts are in fact like the uncoordinated first attempts a baby makes to move its hands, fingers or arms, or to take its first step. A more mature person always sees these activities as awkward Half Baked and ultimately ineffective (because in large part they are).
Unfortunately, what the grown-ups that run our world our society are missing in their assessment of these naive actions and understandings, is that the Actual Reality that these impulsive efforts are attempting to involve us in a positive and interactive dialog with; is in fact pre-eminently vital and of the utmost importance. Important not only to our relationship with nature but to the nature of reality itself.
Everyone is wondering. For some people they are secretly wondering, for they others are actively fighting against the insecurity they feel, because deep inside there is a truth they cannot begin to face. Many of us though are wondering out loud and some of us are even talking about it. We are attempting to conceive of what we are intuitively grappling with: Our lack of real understanding about the nature of human's real place in the natural world; and we seeking some way to come to terms with this. If we are at odds with the nature of reality the greater pattern of life, then there's no way forward for us there's nothing we can do that will bring us lasting success. We even have a law of physics which humans have discovered and identified, known as Entropy. Entropy tells us that any system is always trending towards a state of Greater disorder in time. So how can any of our human systems such as Government, Community, buildings, organizations or even friends and family, not fall prey to this?
In order to answer this question, I will repurpose money. I hereby take money to be my canary in the coal mine.
LIFE, though but a tiny subset of all of existence - is still hugely vast in nature. Every morning when we wake up the sun is rising on a new day that is truly, unbelievably full of potential an opportunity.
Therefore, we as discrete entities are bound to a default to a state of feeling overwhelmed by all of this amazingness. In this state we might blame the weather: it is too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry, to accomplish what we would. We might blame other people: they are too black or too white, too rich or too poor, too far away or to close by; they talk too much or they do not talk enough. We might blame ourselves: we are too young or too old, or too dumb or - too much smarter than the others. Too hurt to help or too well to become hurt by becoming involved. Certainly too tired! ~ but what if we are also too bored?
Each and every one of these thoughts and feelings relates directly to some specific aspect of the nature of reality itself. That is to say - every one of these thoughts and ideas is Real, in the sense that they are psychological, neurological responses to a real perception of the way the world actually does work.
Furthermore, there is also an inherent struggle for any thinking person to come to terms with these sort of basic factors because we cannot control the existence of these things; we can only control how we react or respond, to them. Enter the Dragon: money. I'm talking about money because as I have noted it is in fact specifically designed like a worm, or genetically engineered virus, to go to the very core of our interrelationship between the physical world its resources including: time and energy - and the resulting product, achievement or state.
In today's world how can we not be paralyzed by the awareness that there are businesses with billions of dollars - while we can hardly pay our rent? How can we as tiny, little individuals be anything but victims in the landscape of business transactions taking place on a ginormous, multinational, corporate level? Surely there can be one, and only one, answer: we must Bow down to 'the Man'. We must accept our position as nothing more than Pawns, in this giant game of global competition. We must seek to ingratiate ourselves to our masters, adopting our role as subservient consumers, good for nothing more than what is taken from us - including our natural resources.
How can we possibly make any greater connection or relationship with the world around us & the Human Society we inhabit? Honestly isn't this what rich people are: those who are better at bowing along to the rule of others? Doesn't this by Nature compel us to Bow as well, or fall under the blows of Our Own egotistical misperception of Our Own self-worth? How can we even begin to do things differently when the deck is so stacked in someone else's favor?
Answer: We must seek to re-Place ourselves in nature; to put ourselves back where we truly belong in the natural, or real, order of things.
We must replace our ego with understanding. We must replace our drive to succeed with the willingness to help out, and to become involved. We must tune-out the high levels of toxic noise, of the hordes of minions - desperate to feed at the trough of fear and greed. We must replace this with the Harmonies of an Environment which sings. The natural world is singing with the sounds of the patterns, and pathways, of the coursing vibrancy of sunlight, and wind, and water. THIS! - is the Truth that your Mind has been Seeking. The natural patterns of the world - are patterns that supersede those of humankind. In relationship to this, we are truly specks of sand on a Beach of Infinity. Even billions dollars are a triviality in the face of totality.
Therefore, it is for those of us that seek to Tune ourselves to this greater reality that the way forward exists. This is abundantly clear, but let me look a little more at the specifics of this Attunement.
1. One permaculture principle that I have personally proposed is what I call multi-modality. I first learned about this in relationship to transportation. As it turns out, often-times the best way to get from one place to another requires more than one means of Mobility. After many years of thinking about this idea, it began to occur to me that this concept of thinking about things from multiple perspectives, to achieve a common goal or a singular goal - could be applied to design in general. In fact, the concept of multi-modality can be very helpful in assisting with conceptualization or visualization. The way that this works is that: it challenges the designer to be open to solving a problem through an alternative means, other than the way that one has done so previously, or had already thought would be the way to do it.
If we take this sort of thinking one step further, I have found that something very interesting begins to emerge. If one is able to apply a multi-modal thought process reciprocally, or retroactively, it is possible to change the nature of the goal you're trying to achieve in the First Place! As well as to change the solution to be implemented. This change is remarkable in that you may realize A Solution that appears entirely different superficially - and yet retains the very same Spirit, as your original intention. So that one is able to meet precisely their original objective - under a seemingly entirely new guise.
2. By reorienting our perspective, we are able to give ourselves the tools to open our minds up to looking at the world from a multitude of perspectives. Scale is one factor that I have found to be centrally important to evaluate from a multi-modal perspective. Therefore, let me conclude by applying the idea scale from a multi-modal perspective to the question of money or financial resources.
In a standard framework one would say that bigger would be better. Actually this is often further confused as it is considered that: more is better than less - therefore bigger must be more, right? But this is where we can break this down by seeing that in fact: Let's say a carrot is grown in Asia using all sorts of chemicals and fertilizers, that would be mined using giant machinery, on a giant Asian farm and then transported across the Pacific, on a giant container ship, to California and where is sold to a large grocery chain store, and then to you. This Carrot is all part of a giant Global agribusiness - but, we know for sure, there is no way it will be more nutritious than the carrot each and every one of us could grow in a patch of nice soil here in California.
So, this is in fact a case of Bigger Being Less, and worse, Not Better and More. I in fact it really is far, far less because: Not only is the actual product, or yield - as a permaculturalist would say, less per Carrot - it also takes many orders of magnitude more energy to produce the inferior carrot; not to mention the vast expenditures of time and effort. So we can readily see that by contemplating the nature - of what is really going on - that this is a system which would not make sense. It does not add up.
3. Furthermore, from this, what I can do is to come up with an actionable conceptualization of both sides of the equation.
The goal: having a really nice carrot, and carotene.
The method of providing this carrot: (Real requirements) -
Nice soil
Adequate space
Means of delivering Carrot to buyer.
By boiling the challenge down to its constituent Parts the equation is far more readily approachable. The falsehoods of our cultural, or intellectual, bias have been ironed out. Through careful observation, and by attuning ourselves to what the true nature of our objective is, We Can See that someone is Growing and Delivering carrots to the supermarket near us.
Now at this point the only remaining challenge is for us to find out very specific things:
a. Who is growing these carrots?
b. How are they doing it?
Furthermore, this second component quickly becomes:
c. How can I get involved? Because we can easily, or readily, realize the only way for us to really know what is going on is to be directly involved.
Hence direct involvement trumps Scale. Direct involvement is like the fulcrum of a lever - nothing works without it.
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Ways to get involved:
Think about it formulate questions imagine answers.
Talk to someone; either friend or someone who's actually involved in the business or organization.
Take a class or go to a lecture.
Read a book or publication about the subject.
(Last, but not least) Google it.
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Once we understand and know what is really going on a great deal more starts to make sense. At this point we definitely have enough to get going in a direct fashion. If you understand the challenges a given business, or activity/objective is facing: then you can also begin to understand what specifically is needed to be done.
However here again it must be a well-rounded or multifaceted understanding. This approach implicitly teaches and shows us that the interrelationship between things is far greater than any single Factor can be on its own.
So in the end we find that as stewards of the natural world, and thereby the Nature of things, we are in fact - caretaking the Canary. We are sustaining it; we are generating it. And if there is to be any Master, it will - and can - be only our mastery at understanding our true role in the Great Way of Nature.
