Bigger than Life...
Well, by now I feel like a rat digging for some ratsel - goodie deep below. Look what I found in my paper-pile now! THAT sounds intriguing, no?
Shall I read on? We got re-use permission from gracious Tom long ago and hope, he will forgive me for being able to only use choice-quotes for you here. Do you believe that he wrote this already long ago? How apropos is THAT!? R.J.
More and more, I feel called to talk about crises, as creatively and usefully as I can… Clearly crises are coming, some are very much here. Once reserved for the fringes, crisis talk has gone mainstream.
And after puzzling over these various conundrums, he asks, what exactly we could do about it and finds in this challenging process that he is coming to realize a few things.
“Nothing we do to change our small lives within the business-as-usual systems (i.e. the destructive systems at work on our planet) will change that disturbing fact. Only changing those systems will.”
But changing a system is a gigantic, long-term undertaking…. Nowadays it seems to me like there is nothing to prepare except the world. (R.J.: Or IS it, I wonder, thinking about that executive magnet-game that reorganizes the metal-shavings above instantly when we “change the magnet” below).
Of course, one wonders, reading on as Tom writes, “since we co-create our own suffering in our minds”, can we just…UN-create it and be like one of those instantly-changing magnets?
Here we are, he puzzles, us humans “together in the Great Story of Life.”
IN SEARCH OF BIG-PICTURE TRANSFORMATION
Wondering on, he asks himself, as we all should: “What does energize me - - and it is a calling filled with struggles, aliveness, and the most remarkable people I've ever met - - is to center my life on serving that transformation of the world that is crying to happen THROUGH the crises that are emerging around us.
When I look at the big picture, I get the sense that we are part of something larger that is "trying to happen."
…When I seek the transformation of The Whole - - the whole society, the whole culture, the whole world - - it feels like a symptom of the whole of humanity seeking to heal into something new, feeling its way into a future that is more wholesome.
It feels like none of it is really about me. It is about the whole, the whole of life, the thrust and intelligence of evolution working its way through time, through me, through you, through us all and our world.
BEING PART OF THE BIG STORY
He shares some of these emerging crises he sees, such as:
We are a billion year-old evolutionary adventure, he says, give or take a few years, dreaming of becoming conscious of itself - - of becoming knowingly choiceful -- able to evolve by aware understanding, will, and caring. If we awaken, evolution will awaken.
If we succeed with this thing, Tom writes, everything will be different, and we will be saved. All together. As a new world.
CRISES ARE DOORWAYS THAT LOOK LIKE HURRICANES
Hidden by our institutionalized not-see-ism, the crises that are coming are being co-created moment-to-moment by our collective consciousness, our technologies, our social systems, simply by doing what they were designed to do.
These co-created crises are magnificent in their complexity, their challenge, and their perfect fit for our evolutionary awakening, which is underway even as you read this. They call us to look in the mirror of evolution and see ourselves clearly, to look at how we have set up our world….
There is no waiting. There are no spectators. We are It. Our collective systems are what It is about, and we are All Doing It.
Our emerging crises are a call to become wiser, collectively - - to become the deep collective wisdom and monumental creativity of evolution, itself, becoming conscious through us.
He calls our Creative Source “the infinitely potent Great Radiance that birthed the universe as an Adventure, the Voice of the Whole - - is in every one of us.”
He calls us to “wake and know in every cell that our still-adolescent human awareness, which arose out of evolution, is creating problems it cannot solve without transforming itself. It is to know that we, collectively, are BOTH that adolescent awareness AND its transformation.
Ooops, here is a big mouthful for some of us lazybones: “To become evolution is to wake up to deeper and deeper awareness that our still-adolescent social systems - - especially our political, governmental, economic, energy, technological, and information systems - - all of which arose out of evolution - - are creating problems they cannot solve without transforming themselves and each other - - and to KNOW in every cell that they can't do that without our active, conscious participation. And that that is our calling at this evolutionary moment.”
“Crisis”, he writes, “is opportunity on the winds of dangers that can stupify OR awaken us.” …”We are All. In This. Together."…” My efforts, your efforts, are part of the human story waking up to find its new proper place in the Universe Story. Our efforts are not about us. They are not even about winning or losing, succeeding or failing. They are about the great Unfolding, which we ARE.”
A FEW GUIDANCES
Here are a few of the guidelines he shares:
* I feel called to learn and practice potent forms of interaction - - especially conversational and economic interactions - - that nurture deep aliveness and lead to breakthrough.
* I feel called to notice - - in my life and the world - - and to respond creatively to those interactions that generate frustration, violence, and breakdown.
* I feel called to notice the role of contexts,…and realize that he contexts we shape will shape what happens to our children, to the Seventh Generation after them, and to the children of all species….
CRISIS INVITES US, THEN PUSHES US
I have seen all this over the last few years. We are thoroughly dependent on systems that are destroying us and our world. The very designs and beliefs that make them powerful and toxic are the designs and beliefs that, once transformed, will make us new. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," said Thomas Paine in another crisis era.
"The birth of a new world is at hand."
I have seen so clearly that all this is not about us as individuals. It is not about issues and candidates. It is not about good guys and bad guys. It IS about the larger motions we make together, and the cultures and systems that shape those motions.
*************
Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute
http://www.co-intelligence.org
Shall I read on? We got re-use permission from gracious Tom long ago and hope, he will forgive me for being able to only use choice-quotes for you here. Do you believe that he wrote this already long ago? How apropos is THAT!? R.J.
Something Bigger than Life is Trying to Work Through Us
By Tom Atlee
More and more, I feel called to talk about crises, as creatively and usefully as I can… Clearly crises are coming, some are very much here. Once reserved for the fringes, crisis talk has gone mainstream.
And after puzzling over these various conundrums, he asks, what exactly we could do about it and finds in this challenging process that he is coming to realize a few things.
“Nothing we do to change our small lives within the business-as-usual systems (i.e. the destructive systems at work on our planet) will change that disturbing fact. Only changing those systems will.”
But changing a system is a gigantic, long-term undertaking…. Nowadays it seems to me like there is nothing to prepare except the world. (R.J.: Or IS it, I wonder, thinking about that executive magnet-game that reorganizes the metal-shavings above instantly when we “change the magnet” below).
Of course, one wonders, reading on as Tom writes, “since we co-create our own suffering in our minds”, can we just…UN-create it and be like one of those instantly-changing magnets?
Here we are, he puzzles, us humans “together in the Great Story of Life.”
IN SEARCH OF BIG-PICTURE TRANSFORMATION
Wondering on, he asks himself, as we all should: “What does energize me - - and it is a calling filled with struggles, aliveness, and the most remarkable people I've ever met - - is to center my life on serving that transformation of the world that is crying to happen THROUGH the crises that are emerging around us.
When I look at the big picture, I get the sense that we are part of something larger that is "trying to happen."
…When I seek the transformation of The Whole - - the whole society, the whole culture, the whole world - - it feels like a symptom of the whole of humanity seeking to heal into something new, feeling its way into a future that is more wholesome.
It feels like none of it is really about me. It is about the whole, the whole of life, the thrust and intelligence of evolution working its way through time, through me, through you, through us all and our world.
BEING PART OF THE BIG STORY
He shares some of these emerging crises he sees, such as:
We are a billion year-old evolutionary adventure, he says, give or take a few years, dreaming of becoming conscious of itself - - of becoming knowingly choiceful -- able to evolve by aware understanding, will, and caring. If we awaken, evolution will awaken.
If we succeed with this thing, Tom writes, everything will be different, and we will be saved. All together. As a new world.
CRISES ARE DOORWAYS THAT LOOK LIKE HURRICANES
Hidden by our institutionalized not-see-ism, the crises that are coming are being co-created moment-to-moment by our collective consciousness, our technologies, our social systems, simply by doing what they were designed to do.
These co-created crises are magnificent in their complexity, their challenge, and their perfect fit for our evolutionary awakening, which is underway even as you read this. They call us to look in the mirror of evolution and see ourselves clearly, to look at how we have set up our world….
There is no waiting. There are no spectators. We are It. Our collective systems are what It is about, and we are All Doing It.
Our emerging crises are a call to become wiser, collectively - - to become the deep collective wisdom and monumental creativity of evolution, itself, becoming conscious through us.
He calls our Creative Source “the infinitely potent Great Radiance that birthed the universe as an Adventure, the Voice of the Whole - - is in every one of us.”
He calls us to “wake and know in every cell that our still-adolescent human awareness, which arose out of evolution, is creating problems it cannot solve without transforming itself. It is to know that we, collectively, are BOTH that adolescent awareness AND its transformation.
Ooops, here is a big mouthful for some of us lazybones: “To become evolution is to wake up to deeper and deeper awareness that our still-adolescent social systems - - especially our political, governmental, economic, energy, technological, and information systems - - all of which arose out of evolution - - are creating problems they cannot solve without transforming themselves and each other - - and to KNOW in every cell that they can't do that without our active, conscious participation. And that that is our calling at this evolutionary moment.”
“Crisis”, he writes, “is opportunity on the winds of dangers that can stupify OR awaken us.” …”We are All. In This. Together."…” My efforts, your efforts, are part of the human story waking up to find its new proper place in the Universe Story. Our efforts are not about us. They are not even about winning or losing, succeeding or failing. They are about the great Unfolding, which we ARE.”
A FEW GUIDANCES
Here are a few of the guidelines he shares:
* I feel called to learn and practice potent forms of interaction - - especially conversational and economic interactions - - that nurture deep aliveness and lead to breakthrough.
* I feel called to notice - - in my life and the world - - and to respond creatively to those interactions that generate frustration, violence, and breakdown.
* I feel called to notice the role of contexts,…and realize that he contexts we shape will shape what happens to our children, to the Seventh Generation after them, and to the children of all species….
CRISIS INVITES US, THEN PUSHES US
I have seen all this over the last few years. We are thoroughly dependent on systems that are destroying us and our world. The very designs and beliefs that make them powerful and toxic are the designs and beliefs that, once transformed, will make us new. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," said Thomas Paine in another crisis era.
"The birth of a new world is at hand."
I have seen so clearly that all this is not about us as individuals. It is not about issues and candidates. It is not about good guys and bad guys. It IS about the larger motions we make together, and the cultures and systems that shape those motions.
*************
Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute
http://www.co-intelligence.org