You Do Realise...

... that we are living inside a REVOLUTION, don't you?

Just take some time to give that idea a chance to sink in...

What does that mean for you?

Maybe it would help get some perspective if we looked back at all of the other revolutions and rebellions we have instigated or fought against...

and there are many, many, many of them... see this (not exhaustive) list:

Revolutions & Rebellions Through The Ages

Seems we are a restless, confused, capricious, difficult to please species... 

Well not really; it seems like some of us have a need to be in power and control over the rest, and others of us don't like being dis-empowered and controlled...

So, given that we don't seem to have the knowledge or the will to do things differently, eventually, we fight it out... 

What's different this time?

One thing that is certainly different, is that this time the revolution is global...

AND there is more at stake - the survival of our own and all the other species living on the planet, if not the planet herself...

So, in the first place, do you believe me?  You don't have to take my word for it... open your eyes and ears and your mind... look all around you...

And if you then do agree that we are living inside a REVOLUTION, where do you stand?

For or Against?

And what will you do for or against this REVOLUTION?

Everything?

Something?

Nothing?


LYRICS

History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
Don't say the words you might regret
I've lost before you know I can't forget

There was a girl I used to know
She dealt my love a savage blow
I was so young, too blind to see
But anyway that's History

(I say) History never repeats
I Tell myself before I go to sleep
Don't say the words you might regret
I've lost before you know I can't forget

You say I always played the fool
I can't go on if that's the rule
Better to jump than hesitate
I need a change and I can't wait

History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there's a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart (ah-ar)

History never repeats (x2)

Deep in the night it's all so clear
I lie awake with great ideas
Lurking about in no-man's land
I think at last I understand

History never repeats
I tell myself before I go to sleep
And there's a light shining in the dark
Leading me on towards a change of heart (ah-ar)
Never repeats (x3)
Hey Hey, Hey... 

Choosing Action Rather Than Rhetoric...

Life is grey - not black and white, either/or...

The universe is a place of paradox - of and/also... 

Find solutions that support the whole and do no further harm...

Then replace rhetoric with action...

Invisible Snow from Reuters  Tokyo Pictures on Vimeo.

An Act Of God...

Saturday morning...

Surrounded by stuff, some in boxes, more waiting to be packed up and moved...

Thank god it doesn't all have to be done in one day, though it would make the utmost practical sense to get it over and done with...

Stuff...

Hate it...

It needs caring for, cleaning...

 - though cleaning could be considered an act of genocide, with each swipe of the cloth killing billions of microbes!

It takes up energy, time, attention, space...

It cramps my style - I can't just get up and go whenever an amazing opportunity for new adventure comes along...

It's a ball and chain around my ankle...

I want to do what I challenged others to do on a Facebook thread about the global energy/food crisis and our own personal responsibility in that - reduce all my possessions down to 20% of what I have now, and live in a space that is 20% of  what we now occupy...

Better yet - give it all away and walk the earth with nothing but a begging bowl, doing what I can where I can...

 Stuff...

Love it...

It gives me a 3D sense of continuity, of travelling my life path, of connections I've made, places I've been, people I love and who love me...

I've got a gift for 'arranging' it, decorating houses, creating warm, inviting, calm spaces that people tell me are like a "sanctuary" and they say they wish they could do what I do...

It brightens my world with beauty and light, with imagination and memory, with colour, texture and sound... 

- though I'm surrounded by that in every dimension, in all of the eternal now, if I have eyes to see and the awareness to be awake to it...

In some weird way, it makes me real, solid, in 3D... 

Or I think it does...

As though my stuff is me?

Who am I without my stuff?

Would I cease to exist?

Would I have existed at all, if I don't leave any stuff behind as evidence?

- and does any of my stuff mean anything to anyone else, or will it just be nuisance clutter, to be given away, dumped, discarded, after I cease to be physical?

 

When I took my first family of kids to live in Australia in 1996, we were without our 'stuff' for more than three months.

Through some mistake, our own 'stuff' sat in a container on a wharf for that time, instead of being shipped to Brisbane.

So I had to rent and buy basic household necessities while we waited for our 'stuff'...

Three months without art, music, books, knick-knacks, personal items filling the space we were inhabiting...

We didn't miss it at all...

And then the boxes etc were delivered and there was the fun of unpacking and remembering and choosing where things would sit/fit best energetically...

And in a week or two, it was all being taken for granted again, a backdrop to the routine of living... 

In many ways a limited and limiting definition of who we were, as individuals and as a family...

A self-created prison... a mask, a facade, a half truth and a half lie of who we are that we present to ourselves and project out to the world...

My higher Self wants to let it all go...

My small self wants to hold on...

I would not grieve if an Act of God destroyed all our earthly possessions...

Do I have the will and strength to be that Act of God?

Do I have the right to make this choice for my son?

Phenomenal Woman...

To my sisters in this season of change...

 

Who knows better than we

what all life needs?

 

It's time once again for us to DO, not just talk...

 

What small thing will YOU do today, 

and tomorrow, 

and the day after that,

to birth a better world into being?

All The World Longs For Peace...

 

So, if all the world and all the cultures in the world and all the spiritual teachings of the world long for, call for, beg for peace, what are we going to DO to make peace real for us all?

Our leaders don't seem to want peace... 

They talk about it, but nothing they do seems to end the conflict that's killing our planet and everything that lives on it...

Maybe that's because there is too much power and money in war and disease and planetary destruction...

Making peace is a personal responsibility, a personal choice, a personal ACTION...

What will you do today and every day, in your personal life, in your family, in your community, in your society, in your country, to BIRTH AND RAISE PEACE?

John Lennon Sings Christmas...

The soldiers...

... and the civilians...

So - we all hate this, abhor this, cry about it, want it to end... 

But... peace doesn't happen by itself...

WHAT

WILL

WE

DO

  

TO

MAKE

PEACE

REAL

FOR

US

ALL?

Feel The Fear & Do It Anyway...

A hard-core, 'pull no punches', award-winning female documentary film maker in New Zealand, told my journalism class that there are no such things as mistakes - they are learning experiences... 

Such a difference a choice of words can make...

 

 

Feel the fear and do it anyway - 

what have you got to lose, really?

What To Do In The Face Of Doom & Gloom...

So, I rub your noses in how bad the world has become... democracy is dead, the environment is dead, our society is terminally ill, the rich get richer and rule the world and the poor go begging...

Such a horrible mess... But - what to do, what to do?

Resist, Rebel, Revolt...

Follow Gandhi's lead and practise satyagraha, defined as

resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience...  

Some ideas on how to resist passively:

• stop paying taxes - income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes (stop buying things, or buy mail order from states that don't have sales tax); there is reason to argue that US income tax demands are unconstitutional and illegal

• take all your money out of the merchant banks; use only cash and if you must use a financial institution, use a community bank or credit union

• when you have to pay government or utility or corporation bills, pay late in tiny amounts... or everyone pays on the same, last day... or pay with coins... or pay "in kind" with goods and services - turn up with $100 worth of groceries, or an I Owe You (IOU) certificate for two massages, or two hours of ironing, or a computer clean up, or a car detail, or a painting, or a concert or whatever is your skill and talent

• buy local, supporting small businesses and local producers - food, clothing, other goods and services

• stop listening to/watching/reading mainstream radio/TV/newspapers - they've all been bought and are only giving you the information the oligarchs want you to have

• counteract the media propaganda machines -  place full page ads broadcasting your message in newspapers etc

• start up local community radio and TV stations, print off your own news sheets and hand out and paste up flyers on local issues

• name names - identify the people involved in this destruction of democracy.   They're easy enough to investigate and to discredit - they all have skeletons in their closets they'd rather we don't know about

• organise in your own communities and take back the power - sit-ins, rallies, marches.   Make your demands and refuse to compromise or give in until you get those demands met

• choose a day and organise local, regional and/or national days of non-violent protests or sit-ins and continue doing it on that day each week

• connect with other communities to share ideas and resources, and for moral support

• carry out rolling strikes in industry and the service sectors, public and private - those who have resources, share with those who have not, organise child and elder care for those who need it, share picket line duties

• write and record and broadcast music that reflects how you feel

• write songs and have large groups of citizens gather to sing them on a weekly basis

• decommission surveillance cameras on public buildings and streets - have you been asked for your permission to be videotaped  while you're going about your lawful business?

• turn off water supplies to the buildings in which corporations have their headquarters

• decorate buildings with flowers, flags and slogans like: "An elephant cannot swallow a hedgehog."

• paint murals all over the city, making your views and demands public

• paint out corporate billboards and advertising

 

• turn up en masse at all local authority meetings and demand that your representatives listen to you... and keep it up, week after week after week

• write letters of complaint to every single ombudsman or civil authority you can think of - tie up the system with paperwork until it collapses

• use flash mob ideas to stage protests, block major intersections

• go "off-grid" as much as you can, and build communities of people "off-grid"

We Are The System

it can't exist without our participation...

 

I'm As Mad As Hell & I'm Not Going To Take This Anymore...

Hope - Fact or Delusion?

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.  

~Lin Yutang (1895– 1976), Chinese writer, translator and inventor

"Hope never abandons you, you abandon it."

- George Weinberg

 

"When you believe in something, that's when it's real...

We're all dreaming together..."

- Ashmol Williamson in the film Opal Dream

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hope is patience with the lamp lit." - Tertullian

 

But... can hope become real without action?

 

 

Passive Resistance

I am prepared to die, 

but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill 

- Mohandas Gandhi

What Are Your Limits?

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.” 

-   Frederick Douglass

Does Subservience Protect Us From Injustice? World Affairs Journal, Egyptian Case Study 

"There is a true story from the early 20th century that is told by the great writer Ahmed Amin in his excellent book “A Dictionary of Egyptian Customs and Traditions.” A peasant laborer acquired a vast fortune and bought a large boat, called a dahabia. He bought smart and expensive clothes and sat in his dahabia as it glided across the water. The man who owned the land he worked on, an arrogant and cruel-hearted man, saw him and ordered his workers to storm the dahabia and arrest the peasant. The peasant begged for forgiveness, swearing he would never sail the dahabia again if the landowner thought he had done wrong. The landowner accepted his apology, but then gave orders to his servants, who tied the peasant up and dragged him along he ground until his new clothes were covered with mud and ripped to shreds. Then they started to beat him until his knees, his feet, and his back were bleeding. 

 

To my mind, this story reflects a widespread pattern for the relationship between the despot and his victims. 

 

I remember this lesson when I follow what is happening in Egypt. Generations of Egyptians have grown up in the firm belief that submitting to injustice is wise, and that kowtowing to those in power is the best way to protect oneself from harm. Egyptians have long believed that objecting to the authoritarian system is sheer folly and will never change things for the better, and that those who resist injustice will be detained, tortured, and even killed. Egyptians have believed that coexistence with the authoritarian regime will save them from the harm it can inflict, trusting that the vast apparatus of repression which the state possesses only goes into action to crush those who stand in its way.

But now, perhaps for the first time in decades, Egyptians are waking up to the fact that submission, failing to speak out for justice, and being obsequious towards oppressors will not prevent injustice, but often add to it. Khaled Mohamed Said, the young man who was killed in Alexandria last month, was no political activist and did not belong to any movement aimed to change the regime; in fact he may never in his life have taken part in any demonstration. He was a completely peaceful young Egyptian, dreaming like millions of Egyptians of escaping by any possible means from his oppressive homeland. He was waiting to obtain a U.S. passport like his brothers, so that he could leave Egypt forever. 

 

On the evening of his death, he went to an Internet cafe to pass the time, again like millions of others. He committed no crime and broke no law, but as soon as he went into the cafe two plainclothes policemen pounced on him and without a word started beating him brutally. They banged his head on the edge of the marble table with all their might, dragged him out of the cafe and took him into a nearby building, where they continued to beat him and banged his head against the iron gate of the building until their purpose was fulfilled. Khaled's skull was smashed and he died in front of them. 

 

Regardless of the real reason behind this brutal murder, and regardless also of the successive statements issued by the Ministry of the Interior to justify the crime, all of which have turned out to be untrue, the clear meaning of this murder is that submission is no longer enough to protect Egyptians from repression. Khaled Said was beaten in the same way as young people demonstrating for freedom. Repression in Egypt no longer distinguishes between demonstrators and ordinary people, sitting in cafes and sleeping at home. The brutal murder of Khaled Said and the fact that the killers have escaped punishment plainly indicate that any police officer or any plainclothes detective can kill whomever he wants, and the apparatus of despotism will step in at once to exonerate the killer..." 

 

What will you risk for freedom?    Look around you - your freedoms are being taken away, one by one, day by day.   We are all economic and social slaves.   For how long will you just quietly submit?