The gods and goddesses do not exist as "separate entities." Nor do the avatars. Nor do you and I. The gods and goddesses are like vortices. You and I are like fractals. The avatars are fractals morphing into vortices. There is no "above" or "below" or even "within." All are the dance of particle and wave, all are the revelation of the Matrix. This era into which we enter now demands great courage, great love, great laughter, great patience, great strength, great cleverness, great silence, and great song. You have access to inexhaustible resources of all that will be demanded of you, otherwise you would not be here now. -- Richard Power, Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in An Era of Global Peril, 2012
"We Must Learn to See in the Dark" - Future Primitive Gaialogue with Richard Power: Humanifesto, How to "Become the Change You Seek in the World"
By Richard Power
The life journey of Joanna Harcourt-Smith is a compelling story that spans the turbulent history of our remarkable era: from growing up in Paris, where she learned to speak five languages, to living the fugitive life in Afghanistan with her long-time lover LSD pioneer Timothy Leary, from writing "Little Green Book"(widely read in Europe during the 1960s) in response to Mao's "Little Red Book" to hosting the Future Primitive podcast series from Santa Fe, New Mexico since 2006. So it should not be surprising that Joanna recently invited me to engage in one of her Gaialogues, this one introducing my eighth book, Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in An Era of Global Peril. In this hour-long interview, we explore numerous issues, including the profound challenges of the Climate Crisis, childhood trauma and the power of the Shamanic path, the long-overdue return of the Divine Feminine, the scourges of sociopathy and corporatism, the vital role of women in that great evolutionary leap forward (that must come soon), as well as practical tips on actualizing Gandhi's exhortation to "become the change you seek in the world."
Future Primitive offers a treasure trove of free podcast interviews with a broad spectrum of over 300 iconoclasts and evolutionaries, from Van Jones, , Charles Eisenstein, Daniel Pinchbeck and global trobadour Fantuzzi to Joan Halifax, Riki Ott, Laurie David and Jean Shinoda Bolen. And I am honored to be in their company.
Make yourself a pot of tea or coffee, and take off an hour to indulge yourself and listen to this Gaialogue:
Future Primitive is a Marion Institute project. And I encourage you to support this shining example of the kind of citizens' media so essential to bringing about the massive, NON-VIOLENT evolution our species and our planet so desperately need.
The Inner Game
Humanifesto is about the inner game; it is about what YOU can bring to this profound shift in the nature of civilization and culture. For that is what our circumstances demand of us. And that profound shift in civilization and culture is impossible without a profound shift in consciousness.
Organized into three sections, "Humanifesto" includes both practical techniques for the journey of self-discovery and a bold agenda for collective social action.
The first section, End as Beginning; Perspectives from Within the Singularity is the text of my un-TED talk. It is a twenty-minute presentation. It tells who I am, where I came from, what I have to tell you, and why you should listen to me. I conceived of this un-TED talk in 2010, and have been working on it since, distilling the message down to its essence.
The second section, Primal Reality, is a series of ruminations, revelations and exhortations on light and shadow and the oneness of all life. These writings are explorations in search of new global language for a new global spirituality (embodied and individuated).
I have also included, as an Appendix, Burning Man 2011 – Primal Culture and Core Civilization as A Moveable Feast, my report on Black Rock City. This remarkable event offers us all some powerful lessons. Such laboratories of living are of vital importance.
Our way of life is unsustainable. We are destroying the natural order upon which we depend for our physical existence. Our governance has failed protect us, or our world, from our own ignorance. Governments no longer serves the common good, they has been subverted to indulge the voracious appetites of corporations.
We are lost. And just as we have lost our sense of oneness with the life of the planet all around us, we have also lost our sense of oneness with the divine reality within us. Neither religious fanaticism nor soulless materialism nourish our beings. Sentient life everywhere calls for a new humanism, with which to redeem the past and rescue the future by revitalizing the now.
We must call upon our primal reality to birth a new civilization from the singularity which we have created for ourselves. Our primal reality is not savagery or selfishness or survival of the cruelest; our primal reality is unconditional love and impeccable clarity of mind. And it is accessible to us here and now. Humanifesto (Y-O-U manifesto) is a guide to how to live and be the change we seek in this era of planetary peril.
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.
Richard Power is the author of eight books, including Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in an Era of Global Peril, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. Power writes and speaks on spirituality, sustainability, human rights, and security. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com, and is a member of the Truthout Board of Advisors. He also teaches yoga.
