Saturday, December 31, 2011

2012



‎2012. The turning of the wheel.

Praying for an astonishing shift in our collective psyche, one which will enable us to meet the astonishing shift in our circumstances; resolving to work diligently and live joyously into and through both of these shifts.

Blessings of love and vision to all of you. Beautiful beings, look at yourselves in the radiant mirror of this precious life.

Celebrate Gaia and she will sustain you. Celebrate Durga and she will protect you. Celebrate White Buffalo Woman and she will move among you.

The Gregorian calendar New Year is upon us.

I hope to meet 2012 with great peace and great clarity, and to move within it from great love and great courage.

But living from the global perspective, I remember that there are numerous beginnings wrapped within the beginning: Chinese New Year (Jan. 23), Tibetan New Year (Feb. 22), Persian New Year (March 20), Rosh Hashanah (Sept. 16), Samhain (Nov 6) and of course the Equinoxes (March 19 and December 21) and the Solstices (June 20 and September 22), and ...

The circle of life always ending, always beginning, always turning toward itself ...

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Solstice: This World is Kerdiwen's Cauldron




Winter Solstice. Profound. Turning at the nadir. Seeing in the dark. But simultaneously, Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. These realities do not contradict each other, they compliment and amplify each other. Choose to live with a Planetary Consciousness. All polarities exist, but only within a greater oneness.

Similarly, the Pathless Path leads from all four directions; if you journey far enough from one direction, you emerge from the others to meet yourself. There is nowhere it is not. Although it eludes mapping, it cannot escape you, because it is you. There is only one great circle.

This world is Kerdiwen's Cauldron. Everything is poured in; all good is broken open, all bad is boiled away. Pursue the human far enough and you will discover the divine; pursue the divine far enough and you will discover the human.

-- Richard Power

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Not a Political Crisis, Not an Economic Crisis, Not an Environmental Crisis; No, a Mental Health Crisis


Edward Curtis, Apache Girl (1906)

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society....To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.— Gore Vidal, 1961 Bruce E. Levine, How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation, Reuters AlterNet, 12-15-11

Not a Political Crisis, Not an Economic Crisis, Not an Environmental Crisis; No, a Mental Health Crisis

By Richard Power


A week has now passed since the greatest failure of governance in human history reached its culmination at the Durbin climate summit. And no, I am not indulging in hyperbole.

The UN climate talks in Durban were a failure and take the world a significant step back by further undermining an already flawed, inadequate multilateral system that is supposed to address the climate crisis ... Friends of the Earth, Disastrous "Durban Package" Accelerates Onset of Climate Catastrophe, 12-31-11

"Delaying real action till 2020 is a crime of global proportions. "This means the world is on track to a 4C temperature rise, a death sentence for Africa ... The richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%."John Vidal and Fiona Harvey, Durban Climate Deal Struck after Tense All-Night Session, Guardian, 12-12-11

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades. George Monbiot, Why is it so easy to save the banks – but so hard to save the biosphere? Independent, 12- 16-11

Yes, a week has now passed since the greatest failure of governance in human history reached its culmination at the Durbin climate summit, and there has been almost no debate about it in the US body politic or even mention of it on US air waves. (Instead, chillingly, the national discussion this week has been an utterly delusional one about whether "we achieved our goals" in Iraq, and whether or not "it is the right time" to leave.)

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street has brilliantly framed our current predicament as the co-opting of US economic and political power by 1% at the expense of the 99%. Of course, if the contrast were not so stark between the current circumstances and trajectories of the 99% versus the 1%, the framing would not seem so brilliant.

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and everyone in between in slipping downward toward the abyss into which the poor are already falling.

The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to anoint their own national property owners. Robert Fisk, Bankers are the Dictators of the West, Independent, 12-11-11

Yes, we are at a moment in history when the reality of our economic and environmental challenges have become inescapable. And yet, there is nothing much more than escapism being proffered from either our political establishment or mainstream news media; both are unabashedly propping up false memes of a 1% world-view.

Have we ever been so badly served by the press? We face multiple crises – economic, environmental, democratic – but most newspapers represent them neither clearly nor fairly. The industry that should reveal and expose instead tries to contain and baffle, to foil questions and shut down dissent. The men who own the corporate press are fighting a class war, seeking, even now, to defend the 1% to which they belong against its challengers. But because they control much of the conversation, we seldom see it in these terms. Our press re-frames major issues so effectively, it often recruits its readers to mobilise against their own interests. George Monbiot, Britain's press are fighting a class war, defending the elite they belong to, Guardian, 12-12-11

We do not have a political crisis, or an economic crisis, or an environmental crisis, as much as we have a mental health crisis, a moral crisis, and a spiritual crisis.

Scientific research is revealing that 21st century financial institutions with a high rate of turnover and expanding global power have become highly attractive to psychopathic individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and the companies they work for. A peer-reviewed theoretical paper titled “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis” details how highly placed psychopaths in the banking sector may have nearly brought down the world economy through their own inherent inability to care about the consequences of their actions ... Scientists believe about 1% of the general population is psychopathic ... There is emerging evidence that this frequency increases within the upper management of modern corporations." Mitchell Anderson, Weeding Out Corporate Psychopaths, Toronto Star, 11-24-11

As I have said since I started writing and speaking about these issues over a decade ago, our environmental and economic crises are inextricably bound up, and so are the solutions. Either our future is green, and altruistic, and grounded in declarations of human rights and Gaia's rights, or it will be a horrific one. The choice really is ours.

Remember, there are many mysteries about the pyramids, but the source of their strength is not one of them, the strength of all pyramids flows from the base, the broad bottom, and not from the pinnacle. That is a geometric truth.

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights


Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Mic Check Mic Check We Are We Are On Our Own On Our Own The Future The Future Is Being Abandoned Is Being Abandoned In Durbin In Durbin

John William Waterhouse, Mermaid, 1901

If the British chancellor won't take responsibility, most other political leaders in developed countries won't either ... Some say we need a miracle to save the eurozone and the banks. We need a far bigger one to save the planet. According to the World Bank's 2010 world development report, if all coal-fired plants scheduled to be built in the next 25 years come into operation, their lifetime CO2 emissions will equal those of all coal burning since the industrial revolution. Peter Wilby, Guardian, 12-2-11

Between 15,000 and 20,000 farmers, unionists, teachers, peasants, students, garbage pickers, transport workers and other indignant citizens gathered outside the U.N. consultation chambers in Durban on Saturday calling for "system change, not climate change". Many of these protestors marched to the U.S. embassy, demanding that the "world's biggest polluter" start supporting climate solutions that benefit the 99 percent. Kanya D'Almeida, US Inaction on Climate is "Criminal", Activists Say, IPS, 12-4-11

And this battle demands that the world see that, at some stage, as the water tables are dropping and the minerals that remain in the mountains are being taken out, we are going to confront a crisis from which we cannot return. The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.Arundhati Roy, Guardian, 11-30-11

Mic Check Mic Check We Are We Are On Our Own On Our Own The Future The Future Is Being Abandoned Is Being Abandoned In Durbin In Durbin

By Richard Power


So POTUS finally delivered a powerful and long overdue Roosevelt-style speech about economic injustice; but, of course, true to his predilections, it was a Teddy Roosevelt speech not an F.D.R. speech. Because, after all, no matter what fellow community organizer Saul Alinsky meant to him in the past, or still means to him in the solitude of his own mind, POTUS is, practically speaking, the ideological equivalent of what was once known as a progressive Republican.

And on the same day as POTUS' Teddy Roosevelt speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also delivering a powerful speech; one in which she called on the governments of the world to cease discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Well, I would love to indulge in revelry, and I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news (again), but ...

The Obama administration's actions in Durbin this week and last cancel out the positive benefit of both laudable speeches.

The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban. "The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world," said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International. "They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020," Charveriat said. Stephen Leahy, IPS, 12-6-11

Don't you understand? Even if we were to succeed in establishing a new baseline of economic justice in the USA (POTUS flirted with it in his speech), while bringing gay marriage to bastions of homophobia like Uganda and Saudia Arabia (which would be the logical extension of the principled position Hillary Clinton outlined in hers), it would all likely be for naught.

If you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding ... Just think of the coming Age of Thirst in the American Southwest and West as a three-act tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions. William deBuys, Coming to a Theater Near You: The Greatest Water Crisis in the History of Civilization, Tom Dispatch, 12-5-1

Severe drought has hit Europe's second largest river, the Danube, turning it into a navigation nightmare for shipping companies all the way from Germany to Bulgaria ... "There is just no water! The situation is critical not only here on the lower Danube but also upriver in Hungary, Austria, Germany," Ivan Ivanov, deputy chief of Bulgarian River Shipping (BRP), told AFP. Agence France Press, 12-4-11

Storms and droughts that have unleashed dangerous surges in food prices could be a “grim foretaste” of what lies ahead when climate change bites more deeply, Oxfam said ... “This will only get worse as climate change gathers pace and agriculture feels the heat,” said Oxfam’s Kelly Dent. Agence France Press, 11-28-11

The U.S.A. government has indeed led the world - into the greatest failure of governance in human history.

But it is not just our political leadership that is responsible for these dire circumstances.

The Climate talks in Durbin are well into the second week. And yet, the U.S. mainstream news media has spent the last few days and nights doting on the madness of Cain, Trump and Gingrich, and then, in turn, analyzing POTUS' new-found populism.

Sadly, so have progressive cable news sources, e.g., Maddow, Schultz, O'Donnell, even Olbermann (although K.O, to his credit has been in-depth and relentless on Occupy Wall Street). Likewise, progressive talk radio hosts have also been AWOL on the Climate Crisis this last week and last, first obsessing over Cain, Gingrich and Trump, and then fawning over POTUS' speech (only Thom Hartmann consistently deals with the Climate Crisis in any meaningful way).

None of these sources (as of this post) have provided coverage worthy of what is at stake in Durbin.

Only Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! have provided coverage worthy of what is at stake in Durbin. Day after day, this week and last, we have been reminded of how much Democracy Now! does with so little, as opposed to how little CNN does with so much. (See some examples in the embedded videos below.)

Yes, we know Durbin is a lost cause; but honestly that it is a lost cause (and why) is even a bigger story than if a meaningful agreement were to come out of it. Madness. Madness. Madness. We are on our own. But you knew that, didn't you? For thousands of years, human civilization has been hurtling toward the impossible situation in which you and I find ourselves. All that is blessed has been fused with all that is wicked. What will come of this singularity? Emergence or extinction?

Choose to meet this unprecedented moment with unconditional love, simple awareness and bold creativity. There is no other way forward. If you look ahead and see no one in front of you, well, that's because you are leading the way.

You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in DC in August against the Keystone Pipeline? We’re not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history ... 2011 showed we could fight back. 2012 would be a good year to step up the pressure. Because this time next year the Global Carbon Project will release another number. And I’m betting it will be grim. Bill McKibben, The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium, Common Dreams, 12-5-11

Oh, and while I have your attention ... let us share some insights on what is really happening to the European Union:

Fundamentally, this is a struggle to take a crisis, caused by the business community and the governments they support, and make the mass of people pay for it. That’s what austerity means. And the test here is whether the mass of people will absorb it and accept it. And I think what’s happening is that they didn’t accept it in Greece, they’re not accepting it in Italy, and so they’re trying to make it a continental austerity program, led by the powerful countries. And I don’t think that’s going to work any better than what has been done in the individual countries. Richard Wolff: Eurozone Woes Result from Mating of Our "Dysfunctional" Political, Economic Systems, Democracy Now! 12-2-11

How did things go so wrong? The answer you hear all the time is that the euro crisis was caused by fiscal irresponsibility ... But the truth is nearly the opposite. Although Europe’s leaders continue to insist that the problem is too much spending in debtor nations, the real problem is too little spending in Europe as a whole. And their efforts to fix matters by demanding ever harsher austerity have played a major role in making the situation worse. Paul Krugman, Killing the Euro, NYT, 12-1-11

Greenpeace Director Kumi Naidoo, from Anti-Apartheid Activist to Leading Voice for Climate Justice

At Durban Summit, Leading African Activist Calls U.S. Emissions Stance "A Death Sentence for Africa"

Nobel-Winning IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri Urges Obama to "Listen to Science" on Global Warming

Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights


Richard Power is the author of seven books, including Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. He writes and speaks on security, risk, human rights and sustainability, and has delivered executive briefings and led training in over 40 countries. He blogs athttp://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com