the power of the positive

I was very saddened this morning by a short video that was circulated on Facebook on the far reaching (literally and pun intended) consequences of our garbage culture.

We create our reality through all the thoughts and beliefs we generate, either the fear-based ones about everything we don’t want, or alternately the ones that were not thought out carefully enough, such as  "more and more stuff."

Watch the video: the situation is the result of a culture that keeps wanting more and more in disassociation with nature and our fellow men.  I had to remind myself of the power of positive thinking.  Only when we begin to formulate in our minds the kind of world we actually do want to create, and when it is formulated in cocreation with nature, can we turn this ship around.  The thing is that it starts within each of us.

working smart, not hard

This country was built on the hard working pioneer spirit that persevered over adverse conditions with dogged determination.  Stretching the workday to all hours, eating lunch at the desk, refraining martyr-like from taking vacations, are all still remnants of this dedication.  But times have changed and we know better now.  Working smart, not hard, is the new paradigm.  Recent research, as reported in the NY Times, suggests that we are much more productive working in a few 90-minute intervals with breaks in between, taking our vacations, and getting enough sleep and recreational time.  This mirrors what spiritual disciplines mean when they say that we need to “slow down in order to speed up.”

sitting and more sitting

DSC07564Of course I am also guilty of what I am going to say next.  In the recent past we have culturally regarded thinking professions - our parents wanted doctors and lawyers, not farmers or workers - more highly than doing professions.  But already the ancient Romans acknowledged that we need exercise to think clearly and stay healthy when they said “mens sana in corpore sano.” Between our sedentary professions and farming out snow shoveling, cleaning or lawn mowing, we find ourselves having to get the needed exercise elsewhere.  It is quite ironic that we work long hours and don’t have time to clean or walk the dog, but then rush past dinner to catch the next exercise class or run to the gym, all the while spending precious money on all of the above.

do you see the connection?

Do you see the connection between:

Concurrently in different parts of the world breakthroughs are happening on the women’s rights front.  Not that I want our culture to veer in the opposite direction, towards a female domination.  No, this time around I believe we are finally headed, slowly but surely, towards cooperation, equality, mutual respect and understanding.  Check out Barbara Marx Hubbards’s websites

evolve.org and birth2012.com

on our consciousness evolution and what the end of the Mayan calendar is really about –a new consciousness structure, not the end of the world; although I am hoping it will be the end of the world as we know it now: war, environmental destruction, capitalistic exploitation and  domination.

crazy times - creative times

Crazy times here on earth!  Between the end of the Mayan calendar, the insane shooting last week, and all the other serious problems we have created - environmental, cultural, nutritionally, agriculturally and so on - it is a pretty chaotic world.  But it is also an insanely creative and opportune time to awaken and turn things around (before it truly is too late).  Like in a huge thunderstorm, where warm and cold air masses collide, the old and new are colliding in front of our eyes.  There are so many conservative and fundamentalist movements out there composed of people afraid of change, confused by what is going on, and who would like to take refuge in the old known ways.  And then there are the new movements, from the Occupy movement, to the Arab Spring, to the many women’s lib initiatives all over the world.  I mean a woman, albeit conservative, was just elected to the Korean presidency! Because 12/21/2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar usher in a new consciousness, 2013, more than any other new year in recent times, is a grand opportunity to follow your heart, make sweeping changes in your life, make a difference in the world, in your community, for yourself, and move this evolving consciousness along and in the direction of a better world, a more cooperative world, a more compassionate world, a more creative world, a saner and healthier world.

Black Wednesday?

Ever since our evolution away from a nomadic lifestyle to a life in permanent settlements we have lived out the economic misconception of scarcity, believing that there is not enough to go around, and that only “the fittest survive.”   Among many other apparitions this cultural delusion is responsible for the Black Friday – and now Black Thursday - phenomenon.  Instead of spending meaningful and quality time with family and friends, many now rush out of the house even before Thanksgiving Day is over, to stand in line, fight the crowds, and feed the big box stores some more money, truly believing that there won’t be another deal around, that “it’s now or never.”

We vote with our spending dollars.  How about voting instead for local merchants who add diversity, creativity, and a sense of community to our lives - and enjoying your turkey dinner a little longer, too?  Otherwise we’ll have Black Wednesday soon.

the busy trap

Being busy for the sake of being busy ……Tim Kreider wrote in the NY Times recently how we worship busyness as a virtue and are addicted to it.  Yet, it fills life with meaningless activity, and I have caught myself at it.  Checking Facebook or email five times a day, snacking, driving around shopping, hovering over the children, staying late at the office because of peer pressure (because working hard is a virtue here in America, right?), even when the day’s work is done. Busyness is not only a mechanism of procrastination, but also a shield against delving deeper into life in general, filling emptiness with busyness.  I say “work smart” not “hard,” and fill the rest of your time with meaning.  It’s quality that counts, not quantity.

energy for the future

Not coal, not oil, not natural gas, not wood, nor nuclear are energy solutions for the future regardless of what the politicians are or are not saying.  “Drill baby drill” and “fracking,” or "liking coal," are indications of increasing desperation, and talk of energy independence without investing in alternative energies is simply a short-term stopgap measure and not a long-term solution.  Closing our eyes and ears to the inevitable, that some time in the not-so-distant future we’ll have depleted the reserves of non-renewable energy sources, is childish and irresponsible.   The sooner we accept responsibility that the world is changing and that we must change with it, the better for all of us.

A large roof with southern exposure is ideal for solar panels that can meet your hot water needs and/or supplement your electric needs.  State and federal tax credits make them worthwhile considering, and they can also be leased now.  Consider triple-pane windows (the standard now for new construction in Germany) and thicker and better insulated walls to avoid heating the outside (in Europe walls are usually about 12” thick).  Geothermal systems use the constant 55o subsurface temperature to heat and cool with much less energy input than conventional HVAC systems and the federal government offers a 30% tax credit on equipment and installation costs.  Passivhaus is a German concept of insulating a house so much that not much energy gets lost, period.  Inevitably, the price for non-renewable energies will keep rising.  Investing in one of the renewable energy sources for your home is like an insurance policy against higher and higher utility bills.

Renewable energy sources are indefinitely available, they never deplete, how great is that.   Solar panel applications, for example, are now ubiquitous in Europe and many other countries.  We saw them everywhere in Italy this summer.

 

 

are you a cultural creative?

It is quite possible that you have never heard of them. It is also quite possible that you are one of them, or us. It is estimated that we – yes, I am definitely one of them - are more than 80 million strong in this country alone, and that there are about 250 million of us worldwide. The funny thing about the Cultural Creatives is that they don’t realize how many others share their values. Cultural Creatives believe in authenticity, in quality over quantity, in contributing to a healthy planet, in transparency, in many of the values that people embrace who are into sustainable and green living, homesteading, the farm-to-table and locavore movements, sustainable agriculture, and so forth. The Occupy Wall Street Movement is full of Cultural Creatives, but fizzled because of lack of leadership and lack of realization how many actually share these new values; dare I call it a newly emerging consciousness structure? If this has perked your interest, you can find out more about The Cultural Creatives and whether you are one of them, on Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson’s website. They are the sociologist psychologist husband-and-wife team who gave this emerging phenomenon its name and wrote a book about it in 2000.

Filmmaker Frigyes Fogel made a movie about the movement, its ideas and values, and is now planning a TV station.