By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
The greatest obstacle to creating the required shift in world values is the deep pain and resulting numbing that so many of us experience when we confront the consequences of our lifestyle choices. The sound of the Earth crying is loud for those who choose to listen. We need support from like-minded souls to sustain ourselves.
Malidoma Patrice Some, a West African medicine man with three masters degrees and two Ph.D.s, in his book "Ritual, Power, Healing, and Community," gives us some clues to our confusion. He says, "Industrial cultures live with the essence of two extremely dangerous phenomena. One is the good side of production; the other is the danger of what happens to the tools for production when they are devoid of any spiritual strength."
Some says, "The spirit liberates the person to work with the things of the soul. Because this reaching out to the spiritual is not happening, the Machine has overthrown the spirit and, as it sits in its place, is being worshiped as spiritual. This is simply an error of human judgment. Anyone who worships his own creation, something of his own making, is someone in a state of confusion."
Some gives us a powerful clue about how our culture has shifted us away from core values based on life. He says "Western Machine technology is the spirit of death made to look like life. It makes life seem easier, comfortable, cozy, but the price we pay includes the dehumanization of the self." He says, "It has made the natural way of living look primitive, full of famine, disease, ignorance and poverty so that we can appreciate our enslavement to the Machine and, further, make those who are not enslaved by it feel sorry for themselves."
Our only home. Earth from space taken by Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter (Photo courtesy U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
How many times have you seen a story in the newspaper and felt sorry for all those people in "Third World" nations who live their lives without fancy clothes, washing machines and vacuum cleaners? What if, instead, we chose to envy those that are closer to the natural world and living fully in its cycles?
It is true that many people in the lesser developed worlds are suffering. But they are not suffering because of lack of superstores and dishwashers. Their deaths are usually because of nutritional deficiencies and tainted water. Nearly five million children each year die from diarrhea caused by diseases transmitted in polluted drinking water.
This is not a necessary consequence of living in a country that is less technological than the United States. Their suffering can usually be directly tied to the choices being made by political leaders who choose weapons of war over clean water systems. The lives all those five million children who die each year could be saved for about $700 million - what the world spends on armaments in six hours!
So what will it be? Will you choose life? After the initial pain and shock of fully appreciating the consequences of your impact on the world, a great peace can set in.
Start out small: drive less, buy less, walk more, seek out connections to the rhythms of the world. Take a chance and attend a drum circle, shop at a health food store, cancel a credit card.
You don't have to wait for politics to catch up with you. That will be along wait. Just look into the clear eyes of a child and you will have all the motivation you need. Choose life.
RESOURCES
1. Joanna Macy's work will change your way of looking at the world. Get her book, written with Molly Young Brown, "Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World," New Society Publishers, 1998. Learn about the book at:
http://www.newsociety.com/
cblfs.html
2. Read articles by Joanna Macy at: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC34/
Macy.htm and at: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC28/
Macy.htm
3. The wisdom of Malidoma Patrice Some is beautifully captured in the work "Ritual: Power, Healing and Community," Swan/Raven & Company, 1993.
4. Follow the work of Echoes of the Ancestors, Inc., a non-profit group headed by African scholar and activist Malidoma Some at:
http://www.malidoma.com/Malidoma/
5. Try on a new perspective and see how it fits. Visit the Indigenous Women's Network at:
http://www.honorearth.com/iwn/
6. Find suggestions in other Healing Our World commentaries, particularly the ones at:
http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2000/
2000L-06-09g.html and http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/
1999L-07-19g.html
{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found trying to clean up his act while waiting for his new baby. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at
jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at
http://www.healingourworld.com}
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2001/2001L-05-11g.html
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