11-11-11 and “Thrive”

The following article was originally published on elephant journal on 11-22-11.

Just after 11:11am on November 11th, I posted a Facebook message reading: “We have just passed through the portal.” It seemed like the thing to write, although I actually had no idea what I was talking about. Like many people, I couldn’t help but attribute some significance to that auspicious alignment of ones, and spent the day with my psychic antennae fully extended, hoping to pick up on whatever transmissions might trickle through the noosphere.

As evening approached, I was ready to put the whole triple-eleven meme down for a century-long nap. I’d heard no angelic choir, felt no activation of my DNA, and experienced no shift in consciousness except that provided by Earl Grey. The thing that had most piqued my interest that day was the premiere of an “unconventional documentary” called Thrive: What On Earth Will It Take? that was to be screened in dozens of places in the Bay Area and beyond. The trailer looked compelling, so I headed down to my local metaphysical bookstore with my antennae at half-mast.

The film is the brainchild of Foster Gamble, whose family comprises one half of the Fortune 500 company Proctor & Gamble, who brought us Tide, Crest, Downy, and the anal leakage associated with Olestra. Groomed for business leadership, Foster instead became interested in sacred geometry and profane geopolitics, which inspired him to devote most of his life and inheritance to the making of Thrive. For all his silver spoon slickness, Foster makes a great narrator, speaking clearly and earnestly about his quest to understand why most humans live in suffering, despite the earth’s abundance and our natural capacity to thrive. The question is a salient one, and Foster’s thread of reasoning is surprisingly easy to follow, even as it weaves through free energy technology, ancient aliens, crop circles, international banking, and the global domination agenda, tying them all together in a seamless package.

Along the journey, we encounter such New Age and countercultural icons as Nassim Haramein, Vandana Shiva, John Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Catherine Austin Fitts, John Perkins, Paul Hawken, Amy Goodman, and Barbara Marx Hubbard. The ride is so smooth that I found myself wondering: “Who wouldn’t eagerly climb on board Foster’s truth-seeking, computer generated, toroidal spaceship?” The most obvious demographic, as the movie reveals, is the global elite, those sinister banksters who apparently conspire to keep humanity docile, subservient, and ignorant of its true potential. In venturing down this particular rabbit hole, Foster taps the twisted brain of David Icke, who, while explaining his insightful “problem-reaction-solution” equation of control, comes dangerously close to making his asinine assertion that global warming is a liberal hoax. By giving so much airtime to Icke, the movie treads onto thin ice when it could safely remain on relatively solid ground (assuming aliens can be associated with terra firma).

An even bigger problem, however, is that the movie devotes so much time to the global domination agenda and to a fear-based narrative. Indeed an entire section of the film is spent speculating on what the agenda might be and what its endpoint might look like, invoking a fascist police state engaged in constant surveillance, mind control, violent suppression of dissent, and torture. The section ends with the ominous warning that “there will be nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.” After dragging the audience through his New World Order nightmare complete with clips of goose-stepping soldiers, Foster calmly admits that the future is uncertain, but what is certain is that the domination agenda is based on fear and scarcity. Does he not see the irony, or did he hire a counter-production team?

After spending far too long on Illuminati stuff, the film finally moves on to proposing a set of solutions, most of which would please your average Occupy assembly, such as: abolish the Fed, bank locally, take part in critical mass actions, help keep the Internet open and free, consume independent media, support organic and non-GMO agriculture, reform campaign finance, and invest in alternative and free energy technologies. Just as remarkable as the filmmaker’s prescience is his preparation, as he directs the viewer to a substantial, well-designed, interactive website, which not only allows you to watch the film and “Play it Forward” but highlights the movie’s core themes, documents all of its assertions, and provides a host of resources for people inspired to change the paradigm and save the world.

Despite its shortcomings and overindulgences, Thrive manages to capture the zeitgeist, even more successfully than the movies and movement of that name, with which it can be compared. After flying through the cosmos with a room full of aging hippies and Gen X-ers on 11-11-11, I felt more certain than ever that the long-awaited shift is indeed underway. Hold on to your hats and let go of your hang-ups, because we’re passing through the portal.

The Real Zombie Apocalypse Has Arrived

The following post was originally published on elephant journal on October 17, 2011.

Look to your immediate left. The first object you see will be your only weapon during the Zombie Apocalypse. How will you survive?

This is the kind of post that has been showing up with disturbing regularity on my Facebook page over the last year or so. In fact, if not for the social medium we all love to hate, I would never have learned how the world is going to end. I would have continued to worry about global warming, mass extinction, resource depletion, overpopulation, economic collapse, nuclear meltdowns, global pandemics, meteorites and earthquakes. But no, the end of the world will be brought to you by the living dead.

That’s what all the savvy kids are saying anyway, and I’ve come to believe them. At first I thought the Zombie Apocalypse was just a fringe meme that would quickly go the way of Rickrolling and LOLCats. Instead, the Zombie Apocalypse has, if you’ll pardon the pun, gone viral. Just ask the Center for Disease Control, who in mid-May posted a clever article entitled “Zombie Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse,” which received enough hits to bring down the site and almost instantly increased CDC’s Twitter following from around 12,000 to 1.2 million. There are other sites and countless blogs devoted to zombie preparedness; there’s a Zombie Apocalypse movie in the works, a band called Zombie Apocalypse, and an Xbox game with the same name.

Clearly, the Zombie Apocalypse is big. The big question is: why?

Here’s my premise, which I invite you to take seriously: the Zombie Apocalypse is big because it’s real. And it’s not going to happen; it’s happening right now.

Doomsday of the Dead
Sure, it’s easy to chuckle at the high camp of the early zombie films, and at the old-school zombies in particular, who tend to stagger through the night like monkeys on morphine. Indeed many zombie films are openly self-mocking, and even the Zombie Apocalypse is usually presented in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Despite the fact that zombies have been portrayed as quick and agile in recent years, they remain a titillating but toothless threat.

By contrast, the apocalypse has never looked so threatening, as many of our life support systems—ecological, economic, and social—continue crumbling beneath us. Both the extent and magnitude of the crises we currently face are unprecedented, a fact well understood by ecophilosopher Joanna Macy, who writes: “…we have lost the certainty that there will be a future for humans. I believe that this loss, felt at some level of consciousness by everyone… is the pivotal psychological reality of our time.”

Although there have been groups in the past who have proclaimed the end of the world, never before has the prospect been spelled out in sober scientific data.

At the very least, it’s the end of the world as we know it, and very few people feel fine. In fact, the spirits of the times are fear, grief, helplessness, and uncertainty. To avoid feeling overwhelmed by these harbingers on horseback, we need a scapegoat, something that poses a more manageable threat.

Enter the zombies. They’re scary, but in a cool and campy way. They are, in other words, a defense mechanism against the genuine fear of doomsday.

Still, beneath the cheesy makeup there is something apocalyptic about zombies that accounts for their sudden popularity. First of all, they have the ability to multiply exponentially and overwhelm all social safeguards, causing widespread panic and chaos. Another reason for their relevance, I believe, can be found lurking in the psychological shadows. Like all horrific monsters, zombies represent our unconscious fears; but with their vacant, emotionless stares, the brain-dead undead can be seen to represent unconsciousness itself. Whether driven by primal forces or manipulated by sinister overlords, zombies know not what they do, and something about that strikes a deep and ominous chord.

Lifting the Veil
Readers with a strong political bent may already be thinking, “Yep, those folks on the other side of the ideological divide are obviously zombies, operating under the control of their sinister puppet masters.” I confess that I’m hard pressed myself to see the spark of humanity in the eyes of certain politicians who speak with pride about executions or with cold indifference about the environment, or in the parasitic greed and outright thievery of Wall Street executives. Like walking corpses, these people seem to have lost their connection the living Earth, to their own souls, and to reality itself.

It’s all too easy to turn my political adversaries into zombies, but as soon as I accuse them of being inhuman, I lose part of my own humanity. To dismiss someone as completely bereft of self-reflection and compassion is to fail to use these uniquely human capacities myself. If I assume that my perceived opponents are acting unconsciously rather than malevolently (a challenge, in some cases), are they not confined to a narrow spectrum of emotion? Are they not imprisoned by their conditioning? Indeed, even if they are acting with malicious intent, are they not even further removed from true vitality, beauty, and love? Are they not suffering?

Truth is, we’re all suffering. But it’s not really because of the Koch brothers, the radical right, the loony left, or even the 1%. It’s mainly because of the real zombies, and the real apocalypse they’re bringing about. “Apocalypse” is a Greek word meaning “lifting of the veil” or “revelation,” so let me finally reveal the identity of the true zombies.

The real zombies are mindless, emotionless, soulless, and devoid of conscience. They cannot usually be located in space, yet they exist everywhere, and affect almost every facet of human life. They are not people, yet they hold many of the rights of persons, and uphold few of the responsibilities. They’re not even alive, yet they grow and multiply, mainly by consuming resources that rightly belong to everyone. If left unchecked, they will destroy life as we know it. Their only aim is to maximize profits, regardless of the consequences.

If you’re still not sure who the zombies are, just ask the Wall Street trader who bluntly told a BBC reporter that “Governments don’t rule the world; Goldman Sachs rules the world.” Or, ask the protestor on the other side of the barricades, camped out in Zucotti Park with a sign reading: “I won’t believe corporations are people until Texas executes one.” For that matter, ask the thousands of Occupy Wall Street supporters slowly amassing in city centers around the country to demand accountability from the corporate elite. Just ask any world leader who the real zombies are. Or, ask the venerable Noam Chomsky, who concludes a recent Al Jazeera article with these words:

“I do not want to end without mentioning another externality that is dismissed in market systems: the fate of the species. Systemic risk in the financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be destroyed is close to an institutional imperative. Business leaders who are conducting propaganda campaigns to convince the population that anthropogenic global warming is a liberal hoax understand full well how grave is the threat, but they must maximize short-term profit and market share. If they don’t, someone else will.” (italics mine)

Peaceful Warriors vs. Zombies
By this point in the story, zombies have overwhelmed and infected the military and police forces, and cannot be counted on to defend the citizenry. We the people are basically on our own. But it’s not “every man for himself;” it’s time to take stock of our collective resources, talents, and skills in preparation for the showdown between the living and the undead. The situation looks daunting, but it’s far from hopeless.

To help people move from despair to empowerment, Joanna Macy often tells the prophecy of the Shambala Warriors. Dating back over a millennium, this Tibetan prophecy speaks of a time on Earth when mighty nations possess powerful weapons capable of laying the earth to waste. At this time, says the prophecy, there will arise a coalition of nonviolent warriors dedicating to dismantling these weapons of mass destruction. Without leaders or uniforms, and armed with wisdom and compassion, the Shambala Warriors will have confidence in their success, because they know something crucial: since the weapons have been made by the human mind, they can also be un-made by the human mind.

Although Macy usually applies the Shambala prophecy to nuclear weapons, it could also apply to corporations, which are indeed more powerful than nations and arguably as lethal as WMDs. But they have been created by humans, so humans can undo them as well. Granted, this undoing will be met with strong resistance and will thus require great courage. As Shambala Warriors, we will have to fight, nonviolently, against the zombies.

We must fight the zombies in the streets by raising our voices to raise consciousness, by marching, dancing, shouting, and singing for equality, justice, freedom, and life. Slowly and surely, our numbers will grow, our movement will crystallize, and we will become impossible to ignore.

We must fight the zombies in the courts by working to take away their rights to personhood and restore our human rights and dignities. It’s happening in places like India, where the country is suing Monsanto for bio-piracy, and in Ecuador, which is suing BP for the 2009 spill in the Gulf. Zombies may be stealthy and even invisible, but they are not invincible or immortal.

We must fight the zombies in the marketplace by supporting local businesses, shopping at farmers markets and co-ops, joining credit unions, using local currencies, and spending less money and more time sharing with our friends and neighbors. Zombies are kept alive by our money, which is derived from our life force, and they thrive on our ignorance and laziness.

We must fight the zombies in our homes and communities by turning off the television and tuning out the advertising that infects our minds, erodes our souls, shrinks our imaginations, and compromises our relationships. We must remain connected—to each other by interacting in the “outernet,” and to our precious planet by tending gardens, riding bikes, walking, and wandering in the wild.

Most importantly, we must fight the zombies in our own minds and hearts by working to change our own unconscious programming and destructive habits, eradicate our own greed and selfishness, and enlarge our unique human capacities for self-reflection and compassion. We must not let the zombies dehumanize us. We must fight the living dead by remaining fully alive and awake.

Look within. The gifts you find there will be the weapons you will use during the Zombie Apocalypse. How will you survive?

Rising Tides and Shifting Paradigms: A Post-Election Breakdown

Looking back on the Presidential election, it would be easy to be cynical. Most people seem to have voted against the greater of two evils, and total turnout was only 57.5 percent, lower than in the previous two elections. This means that Obama was re-elected by about a quarter of the American electorate, which is hardly a mandate. In fact, every one of the so-called United States has since filed for secession. A progressive might say that at best we dodged a bullet; at worst the drones are set to blast what remains of our civil liberties.

But when we shift our focus and cast our gaze beyond the Presidency, a different and more hopeful picture emerges. Although overall numbers were down, voter participation increased among young people, African Americans, Asians, and Latinos—all left leaning groups that aren’t about to shrink into obscurity. Needless to say, this does not bode well for Republicans, especially if this election portends the color and shape of things to come.

What Democracy Looks Like
More women senators were elected than at any other time, bringing the total up to twenty—one-fifth of the Senate. Among these women are the first openly lesbian senator (Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin), the first Asian American—and first Buddhist—senator (Mazie Hirono of Hawaii), and the first female senator from Massachusetts (Elizabeth Warren, a supporter of the Occupy movement). The House will have its first its first Hindu (Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii) and its first bisexual atheist (Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona), while West Virginia and North Dakota will have their first openly gay state legislators.

At the state level, marijuana was decriminalized in Washington and Colorado; same-sex marriage was legalized in Maryland, Maine, and Washington; and Montana and Colorado passed initiatives stating that corporations are not people. The Senate seats from Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida all turned from deep red to blue, and in California, Democrats won a super-majority in the state legislature.

In general, the GOP took such a trouncing that pundits immediately began calling it obsolete and irrelevant. Indeed, it’s hard to see how the party could possibly continue standing on its rickety old platform—anti-women, anti-gay, anti-minority, anti-poor, anti-intellectual, anti-environment—amidst rising tides both figurative and literal. Ever since the 2008 stock market crash at least, most Americans realize that the Republican panacea—trickle-down economics—is nothing but snake oil. Furthermore, the party’s Christian base is shriveling, inspiring the blogosphere to proclaim the end of the old white man era, perhaps even the beginning of the end of patriarchy itself. At the very least, the GOP will be forced to moderate its views and distance itself from its kookier constituents.

Nothing less than a political paradigm shift is afoot. Although there are practical reasons for this that involve changing demographics, I would like to venture beyond the mundane into the cosmic realm in order to show that dramatic change is not just in the air; it’s in the stars.

Prometheus the Awakener
Before going galactic with 2012, let’s start in our own solar system with the first of the three outer planets, Uranus, associated with revolution, rebellion, novelty, ingenuity, and with the mythological figure of Prometheus, bringer of fire. Back in 2009, Uranus entered into a 90° relationship with Pluto, correlated with profound transformation, raw power, libidinal urges, and deep unconscious forces. The last time these two planets were in dynamic aspect was during the 60s and early 70s, when enormous strides were made in the areas of civil rights, gender equality, sexual liberation, gay rights, and ecological awareness. It was a period of artistic experimentation, radical self-expression, and psychedelic exploration that threatened to upend the status quo. Understandably, conservatives were freaked out, and the inevitable backlash lasted for decades—arguably until November 6, 2012.

The current Uranus-Pluto square will last until 2020, providing another window of opportunity through which the forces of radical change can leap. This time around, our growing edges seem to be gay marriage, transgender issues, drug use, religious tolerance, and freedom of information, especially in regard to the Internet, which began taking form during the previous Uranus-Pluto cycle. Partly because of this Promethean global medium, formerly fringe issues are gaining wide exposure and gradual acceptance among the older mainstream, while most younger folks who’ve grown up in a digital, multicultural, postmodern world take it for granted that people should be free to marry whomever, dress however, smoke whatever, and worship however they please. Mitt, meet the politics and the politicians of the future.

That is, assuming there will indeed be a future beyond December 21st, 2012, when the solstice sun aligns with the galactic center for the first time in 26,000 years. All signs say yes, 2013 will arrive, although the forecast calls for intense solar activity that could disrupt the electrical and communications grids and cause more extreme weather on a rapidly overheating planet.

Perhaps 2012 is largely symbolic, marking our official transition into the Age of Aquarius. The waning Age of Pisces has been dominated by Christianity (symbolized by a fish) and by religion in general (associated with Neptune, ruler of Pisces). Given that Aquarius is ruled by our freewheeling friend, Uranus, astrologers expect the next two millennia to be characterized by democracy, humanitarianism, universal tolerance, and accelerated technological innovation.

The Peril and Promise Ahead
Zooming out even further, we can see signs that an even deeper shift is underway. Another significant astrological alignment involves the two outermost planets, Neptune and Pluto, which are in a 60° relationship that began in the middle of the 20th century and will last until the middle of the 21st. As noted astrologer and cultural historian Rick Tarnas writes:

“We are living today at the moment when . . . the largest planetary cycles known to us have just completed their conjunctions in succession, marking the full initiation of the corresponding archetypal dynamics for the next several centuries . . . Our present moment in history is most comparable, astronomically, to the period exactly five hundred years ago . . . that brought forth the birth of the modern self during the decades surrounding the year 1500.” (Cosmos and Psyche, p482)

The modern era has been all but defined by what the philosopher Jean Gebser calls perspectival consciousness—a single-minded rationalism that has led to world brimming with technology yet wanting in wisdom. This is partly why Gebser also calls this the deficient mental structure of consciousness, which began crumbling during the early 20th century under the weight of discoveries by Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and other physicists who challenged the Newtonian, mechanistic paradigm that had held sway for the previous few centuries. Also during the early 20th century, artists like Picasso and Braque began depicting objects from multiple perspectives and times, while postmodernists initiated a mental deconstruction project that continues to this day.

In fact, we’re still struggling to assimilate the insights of quantum physics and to broaden our collective worldview to include other forms of consciousness besides left-brain, linear logic. The emerging form integrates yet sees through all the more fundamental forms—mental, mythical, magical, and archaic—in order to access deeper truths and realize the numinous. What Gebser dubbed the integral structure of consciousness is characterized by freedom from the constraints of time and of the ego, among other qualities difficult to describe in language (and a in brief overview). Perhaps it is best likened to an altered state in which “the witness” remains fully present, as in lucid dreaming.

Not only does a shift in consciousness take time, it takes diligence to maintain the emerging structure. During a transition period such as we’re now undergoing, it’s easy to slip back into magical and mythical thinking, as we can see in certain New Age groups and among conservatives who cling to a pre-rational worldview that rejects scientific notions, particularly evolution—arguably science’s most profound insight—and climate change, our most urgent global problem. Author Gary Lachman explains: “As the dominant structures collapse, a ‘free space’ is made available, a ‘spiritual vacuum’ that will be filled with either creative or destructive forces. Any sort of leap also includes the possibility of a fall.” (Secret History, p243)

So just because we have certain cosmic forces on our side does not mean that the coming decades will be easy. If the Occupy movement has taught us anything, it is that the forces of resistance and oppression remain strong. But perhaps the heavy-handedness of the powers-that-be is just an indication that they are losing their grip. Whether consciously or not, even the minions of Saturn know that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, equality, and a fuller expression of human being. From the rejection of monarchy to the abolition of slavery to civil rights to gay rights, history does not march backward into darkness. Though she may occasionally lose her way, she stumbles inexorably toward the light of freedom.

Ending Empire: An Initiation Speech for the Class of 2012

Dear graduates,

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you here in the hallowed halls of my imagination, in this remarkable place where iconoclasts like me are asked to give speeches at major universities. This is a tremendous honor.

As I’m sure you all know, commencement means beginning. The word is synonymous with start, onset, outset, inception, and initiation. Thus under ordinary circumstances, I would be expected to tell you about the glorious future that awaits you on the other side of tomorrow’s hangover. But this speech will not be ordinary, because these times are anything but ordinary.

In fact, it makes much more sense for me to talk about endings—things that are finishing, stopping, terminating, concluding, ceasing, and dying. The list, unfortunately, is long, so I’ll mention only the grandest of finales.

Let’s start with the fact that we’re currently witnessing—and causing—the most significant geologic shift in 65 million years. The Cenozoic Era, which began with the relatively sudden extinction of the dinosaurs and initiated an unprecedented explosion of biodiversity, is now closing with the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history. Our only known living companions in the universe are disappearing at a staggering rate, never to return. This information is so overwhelming that each one of us will spend the rest of our lives trying to process it.

Yet if we don’t start processing it, in our schools and institutions and media and ultimately in our hearts, our own species might soon join the dearly departed. This would mark the last stop on the evolutionary journey of a species uniquely capable of reflecting on and celebrating its own existence, considering its own mortality, and feeling compassion for other living and dying creatures. This is to say nothing about symbolic language, poetry, music, dance, art, Facebook, and other uniquely human forms of expression.

In terms of duration, the next longest period wrapping up is one that should be familiar to all of you: the end of Mayan calendar. Technically, December 21st, 2012, is widely thought to be the terminus of the current Long Count calendar, which has a cycle of about 5,125 years. Whether or not this coming winter solstice will be the actual end of the world is up to you, this year’s graduates. To be fair, it’s up to all of us who are alive today. Surely we cannot expect to be saved from our own ignorance, arrogance, and irreverence by Jesus in a spaceship.

Interestingly, the period of the Mayan Long count corresponds roughly to the period of recorded history, most of which has indeed been his story: an account of bearded patriarchs, masculine messiahs, virile warriors, powerful rulers, intrepid adventurers, and founding fathers. In short, it’s all been about Empire—the quest for domination and control rather than partnership and cooperation. So how’s that been working out? Not so well, obviously, especially for the life-bearing members of our Earth community, and for Mother Nature herself. Thankfully, this juvenile phase of our existence is also coming to an end as its faulty phallocentric assumptions crumble under the weight of its excessive armor.

The end of history itself was proclaimed in 1989 by Frances Fukuyama, who saw the culmination of mankind’s ideological evolution in liberal democracy and free market capitalism. Unfortunately, Fukuyama was a neocon—one of those economic fundamentalists who worship the “invisible hand” while ignoring the all-too-visible fist that smashes real democracy by imposing structural adjustments and austerity measures upon debtor nations, thereby killing the middle class and relegating the population to perpetual servitude to the World Bank and IMF.

A similar process is now happening in the Divided States of America, the last and largest national empire in history. Although the demise of our country has been happening for a few decades, it has become painfully apparent as we confront deepening crises in the areas of economics, politics, health care, criminal justice, education, and the arts. With the rapid rise of our prison system—the most expensive and extensive in the world—and the introduction of automated spy drones, free speech zones, warrantless wiretaps, and countless other measures, we are steadily becoming a police state: one nation under surveillance. So ends the greatest experiment in human freedom, with a barely audible, muffled whimper.

The American Empire has been fueled in large part by cheap oil, the disappearance of which signifies the end of another era. In a pathetic effort to keep our economic engines running on long-dead organisms, we are now tar-sanding and fracking our selves and our planet into oblivion. These extraction processes are extremely costly, both economically and ecologically, representing a frantic attempt to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Comparisons to a junkie searching for a fix are not merely metaphorical; they are the only explanation for our profoundly irrational and self-destructive behavior. In an article entitled “Welcome to the Asylum,” Chris Hedges writes:

“When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged.”

This disconnection from reality, from Nature, from history, from sanity, from our own heart-minds, makes us susceptible to becoming mere automatons—robotic entities running on unconscious, destructive programs fed to us by the Military-Industrial-Corporate-Media-Education Complex, which understands only one word—profit—and obeys only one directive: more. The Empire Machine, although created by people and granted the rights of persons, does not speak any human language. Knowing only quantity, it is blind to quality, to truth, to beauty, to love. It does not understand the language of the heart, nor does it speak the language of life. In fact, it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that The Machine is programmed to destroy life on Earth, and by all accounts it is doing an excellent job.

At this point on our history, we know better than to listen to the Washington politicians and Wall Street banksters who slavishly serve The Empire Machine. They feed it with life energy in the form of natural and social capital, and in return it feeds their collective addiction to power, prestige, and money. These worldly treasures will be offered to you, too, just as they were offered to Jesus during his ordeal in the desert, and to the Buddha on the eve of his enlightenment. Indeed the shimmering spoils of Empire are dangled in front of your eyes at every waking moment, through the sophisticated and relentless efforts of media and advertising.

I am here to beseech you: resist the allure of power and money with all your might. These are counterfeit forms of wealth, fool’s gold. Not only will they will fail to make you happy, they will destroy your capacity for happiness. At best, they will provide the illusion of happiness, just like any drug, and at worst they will turn you into an addict who will lie, cheat, steal, and betray those he loves in a desperate attempt to maintain his habit. I urge you to let the pusher know that you are not a pushover.

Do not buy into the myth of progress. Things are not getting better, and they will not get better, unless you make them better. And the way to do that is to break the cycle of addiction and put an end to Empire, to take part in the revolution to end all revolutions. This is your mission, should you choose to accept it. It will not be easy, but it will be rewarding beyond measure. You will get to apply your natural abilities and creative gifts while engaging your deep capacity for caring. You will make real friends and experience true intimacy, most importantly with yourself. Instead of feeling hollow inside, you will feel holy inside, and thus see sacredness everywhere you look.

In order to succeed in stopping The Empire Machine, we must also unplug the machine within ourselves: the unconscious impulses and false stories of our deficiency. Despite what you have been taught, you are enough, just as you are. You are beautiful, talented, knowledgeable, capable, and complete. Not only that, but you are also a member of the largest, most ecologically conscious, politically aware, culturally sensitive, technically savvy, and interconnected generation in history. The success of your mission is all but guaranteed, should enough of you embrace it fully.

One of the keys to happiness is having a sense of purpose. Because of how much is at stake, we who are alive today have the opportunity to live the most meaningful lives that have ever been lived. Either that, or the best and brightest minds, with all their unique capacities and gifts, will be squandered, along with the infinitely precious gift of life itself.

May the force be with you.

PS: Good luck paying back that student loan.

Video: Americosmos and the Psychology of Empire

This presentation was delivered at the 4th Cosmology of Love conference held on April 14 & 15, 2012, at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. The talk addresses some of the themes presented in my recent article and blog entry entitled “Americosmos: A Mandala of the Unenlightened States of Affliction,” while also offering some context as well as delving deeper into the heart of the matter.

Please note that the talk itself begins around 8:00 minutes, after a heartful carryover from the previous presentation and a bit of technical fumbling. So its actual length is about 25 minutes.

To watch other fascinating presentations from this conference, visit the Cosmology of Love YouTube channel.

The Corporate Death March

The Republican primary race has been so sordid and depressing that pundits have begun to routinely call it a “death march.” This term, recently revived by Obama advisor David Axelrod (whose boss used it to describe his own campaign back in ‘08), might evoke laughter and perhaps even pity if it weren’t so frighteningly accurate in describing not only the current roster of GOP contenders, but also American—if not global—politics in general.

As Santorum, Gingrich, Romney, and Paul all stumble over themselves on their way to almost certain defeat in November, the corporate cash keep rolling in. For despite the candidates’ seeming incompetence, they have been quite successful in furthering the neoconservative agenda, which includes shifting the discourse—and thus the electorate—ever further to the right while portraying the current President as a radical leftist. Although the Republicans may well lose this election year battle, they are winning the war.

Despite the superficial differences among Santorum the theocrat, Gingrich the plutocrat, Romney the robocrat, and Paul the maverick, they all march to the same drumbeat, singing the praises of the free market while decrying the evils of big government and the “nanny state.” The way forward, they proclaim, is to privatize or eliminate public services like education, roll back laws protecting workers, consumers, and the environment, shift the tax burden from the upper class to the working class, and provide loopholes and subsidies for corporations, who (being people) should enjoy unfettered freedom in their pursuit of material gain.

The tune should sound familiar. Whether called free market fundamentalism, neoliberalism, laissez-faire economics, or the Washington Consensus, it was composed by Milton Friedman in the late 1950s, preserved for posterity in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, and adopted in the 70s as the theme song of the political right. It was a particular favorite of Ronald Reagan, and all subsequent Presidents—Democrats included—have cheerfully chanted their own rendition. Indeed, whether by conversion, coercion, or compromise, even the “socialist” Obama has learned to sing along, albeit at a slightly slower tempo than the corporate elite would like.

In many parts of the world, the neoliberal number is hardly music to the ears, accompanied as it usually is by bomb blasts and machine gun fire. Regardless of the rhetoric that free people and free markets go hand in hand, the truth is that the latter are almost always enforced by undemocratic and often brutal means. The examples—Chile, Bolivia, Russia, and Iraq, to name a few—are well known to serious students of history and to readers of Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, which painstakingly connects what she calls “disaster capitalism” with violence, repression of dissent, terror, and torture. To survivors of the dead, the disappeared, and the displaced, Friedman’s magnum opus sounds like a frightening dirge.

Indeed the same requiem can be heard throughout the Earth community, which continues to lose species after species to the industrial growth machine. Among the causes of the current mass extinction (the sixth in geologic history) is global warming, which—owing to a relentless and well-oiled disinformation campaign—has been religiously rejected by the New Right as either not real or not caused by humans (none of the current GOP hopefuls take it seriously). This position conveniently releases from responsibility both producers and consumers of fossil fuels, guaranteeing continued profits for the former as well as for corporations ready to rebuild houses, hospitals, schools, sewage systems, and power grids in the wake of the tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, and other natural disasters that are sure to increase in frequency in the years ahead.

This is to say nothing of the steady demise of the middle class, an inevitable consequence of the upward movement of wealth that corporatism creates and demands. For the hardcore Friedmanites, extreme economic disparity is desirable in that it weakens the electorate by ensuring that most folks are too preoccupied with working and meeting the demands of daily life to pay much attention to politics. How can someone in survival mode be expected to devote energy to protesting the breakup of another union or the repeal of another pollution law? As political thinkers from Aristotle to Jefferson have understood, a thriving democracy depends on a thriving middle class, and the decline of one means the disappearance of the other.

The good news is that the corporate complex, and the global economy upon which it depends, are both destined to fail because they are neither ecologically sustainable nor politically tenable. As resources become increasingly scarce and expensive, and global wealth is filtered into fewer and fewer hands, the people of the world are being jostled awake from the long sleep of history and the nightmares of Empire. We are coming to understand the true meaning of wealth—the natural abundance of the Earth, the riches of community, and the joy of creativity. We are rediscovering the value of cooperation over competition, of diversity over homogeneity, of giving over having, of kindness over cruelty, of the power of love over the love of power. Slowly and surely, we the people are coming back to life.

The human psyche, according to Freud, is dominated by two opposing forces: the instinct for life (Eros) and the urge for death (which Freud called Todestrieb and his followers called Thanatos). Surveying the desolate political landscape against a sky growing dark with smog, one can’t help but wonder which of these forces will prevail. In considering this vital question, we might turn to a Cherokee story in which an old man tells his grandson about the fight between two wolves—one generous, gentle, and kind, and the other greedy, violent, and angry—that rages within his own heart. Nervously, the boy asks, “Which one will win?” to which the elder replies: “The one I feed.”

Americosmos: A Mandala of The Unenlightened States of Affliction

Anyone who has ever been to a Tibetan Buddhist temple or a California meditation center has probably seen the Bhavachakra. Known in English as the Wheel of Life, the Wheel of Becoming, or the Wheel of Suffering, this popular mandala depicts the structure and dynamics of samsara, the universe of cyclic existence. As with other traditional Buddhist images, the Bhavachakra is loaded with stylized figures and arcane symbols, each rendered in strict accordance with long-established formulae regarding placement, color, size, bodily proportion, etc. Not surprisingly, Buddhist art is not about self-expression; rather, it is meant to facilitate spiritual awakening.

When I first encountered this fact, and Buddhist iconographic painting in general, I was fascinated and perplexed. I had just arrived for a multi-month stay at Norbulingka, an institute in northern India dedicated to preserving Tibetan art and culture. Although my position as volunteer graphic designer ostensibly involved sitting in front of a computer, I would often wander into the painting studio to watch the young trainees working diligently on their thangkas. I was impressed by their deep concentration, captivated by their beautiful handiwork, and hard pressed to define what I was seeing. Was it art or craft? Were these Tibetan refugees to be admired as exemplars of selflessness or pitied as paintbrush-pushing peons?

I was, after all, raised in the US, where art is primarily a secular thing, a commodity even, and where being an artist—a real artist, anyway—involves trashing tradition and forging a unique pathway to infamy. A Bohemian by blood, I had adopted the label of “artist” after learning to draw Snoopy in kindergarten, and later adopted Salvador Dali as my personal hero, partly because of his utterly bizarre persona. I took tons of art classes in college, majored in graphic design, and subsequently pursued my childhood dream of being a cartoonist, albeit more Tom Tomorrow than Charles Schulz.

Then, during my stay in India, I got into Buddhism. My affections changed from Dali to the Dalai Lama, whom I met several times at Norbulingka, one of many institutions over which he technically presided. In fact, my living quarters were located just below the sweet suite reserved for His Holiness’ occasional visits. And just outside my front door, adorning one wall of the ornate, brightly colored central temple, was a magnificent rendering of the Bhavachakra. Every day on my way to “work,” I would pause to marvel at the intricacies of the cosmos within which I was presumably embedded.

A Brief Breakdown of the Universe

Having returned full circle to the Wheel of Life, I now present the basic layout, from the inside out. Smack in the center of the wheel there appear a rooster, snake, and pig, representing desire, aversion, and ignorance (the three poisons or root causes of suffering). Just outside this inner circle is the ring of karma, within which tiny figures rise on one side and descend on the other. The main part of the wheel is divided into six pie slices depicting the six realms of existence (those of the gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings), while on the outer rim are depicted the twelve links of dependent origination (which I won’t get into here). The whole of the wheel is held in the grip of Mara, the demon of illusion. A moon in the upper left corner symbolizes liberation, while the Buddha in the upper right points the way.

As complicated as this all might sound, the Wheel of Life is often used as a teaching tool for children, containing as it does many core concepts of Buddhism. The image is designed to provide the viewer with a quick download of dharma and, ideally, inspiration. For despite Mara’s menacing features and the system of suffering over which he presides, his main function is to remind us that nothing is permanent. Neither hell beings nor even gods dwell eternally in their respective realms, but are reborn elsewhere in accordance with their karma. And all beings have Buddha nature, the capacity for full awakening. Essentially the Bhavachakra, like Buddhism in general, is primarily about freedom.

 

A Sort of Homecoming

So too does the USA stand for freedom, or so I had been taught. When I finally returned stateside after over a year in the shadows of Shangri-La, my reverse culture shock was profound. Although I had seriously considered staying indefinitely in India to study Buddhism and perhaps even become a monk, I realized almost immediately why my conscience had called me back. Where once I had perceived only sickening abundance, I now saw abundant sickness and heard a desperate cry for help. My former cynicism had (mostly) morphed into compassion. I had, in effect, been reborn into the realm of my own culture, and into a full awareness of the ubiquity of suffering. It’s no less present in the McMansions of the Midwest, I grokked, than in the hovels of Himachal Pradesh.

In fact, the America of my rebirth seemed even more mired in misery than any so-called “developing country” I had ever visited. I saw it in the ostentatious affluence, the pervasive obesity, and the vacant expressions of my fellow countrypersons. It was apparent in the advertising that relentlessly assaulted the senses and insulted the intelligence. And it was there in the statistics: epidemic use and abuse of prescription drugs and painkillers, world-record rates of violent crime and incarceration, widespread heart disease and other stress-related illness, chronic over-consumption habits leading 5% of the planet’s population to ravage 1/3 of its resources, and a military budget as big as the rest of the world combined. To my acclimating eyes, the pursuit of happiness appeared to be an epic failure.

As for freedom, I could only recall Goethe’s observation that “none are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” As I settled back into American life, I had the unsettling realization that the whole country was little more than an elaborate prison in which the inmates were also wardens, and the walls made of illusions maintained by an invisible entity I came to call “Uncle Samsara.” Indeed, the more I thought about American culture, the more it seemed like an extreme caricature of the human condition as depicted in the Wheel of Suffering. The cartoonist in me couldn’t resist flushing out the parallels, although it wasn’t until years later that I committed the scheme to paper. It is now preserved for posterity as a freely downloadable, tabloid-sized, digital image whose title matches that of this article. Like all cartoons, it embodies a certain amount of snark, but like the Bhavachakra, its ultimate purpose is to educate and to inspire genuine freedom.

A Key to the Matrix

What follows is a description of my mandala, again from the inside out. At the hub of the wheel appear a dollar bill, a tank, and a television, representing the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion (these exist institutionally as materialism, militarism, and the media). Just outside the central circle is the ring of financial karma, in which people slowly climb the ladder to prosperity, only to slide back down into a hole of debt.

The main part of the mandala depicts the Six Realms of Socioeconomic Existence. At the top is the Imperial Realm, in which ultra-wealthy beings live in mansions, ride in limousines, and suffer from arrogance, isolation, and the occasional bad hair day. Below and to the left of this realm is that of the Imperial Wannabes, who abide in sprawling suburban homes, drive expensive cars, and suffer from envy and existential angst. To the right of this realm is the Public Domain, populated by working class humans who live in modest homes, apartments, and trailers, and drive used cars. They speak highly of freedom while being severely constrained by desire, fixation, and fear. Many of them suffer from high blood pressure, low self-esteem, and bad credit. Lower on the ladder lies the Animal Turf, wherein many creatures are subject to displacement, confinement, and cruelty on the part of humans. Some of them are kept as pets and often treated much better than beings in the adjacent Homeless Dimension. This realm is populated by nearly invisible “hungry ghosts” who wander endlessly in search of food and shelter. The lowest of all realms is the Hellish ‘Hood, the residents of which suffer from intense anger and psychological illness. Beings in this realm possess very little freedom, whether held captive in prisons, mental institutions, or army barracks.

The outer wheel depicts the Twelve Steps of Codependent Consumerism. The sequence begins and ends with shopping, an activity which leads directly to the accumulation of material objects. Possessing lots of stuff leads to the need for a “stuff storage facility,” commonly called a house and usually located outside of town. This necessitates having a motorized vehicle with which to transport one’s person, groceries, and additional stuff. Driving a car necessitates buying gas, which contributes to debt and the need to maintain employment. Working generates stress, which leads to an urgent desire for relaxation. This often involves consuming alcohol and/or watching television. Depressants, TV and advertising all contribute to a sense of lack or emptiness, symbolized here by a black hole. This feeling of worthlessness leads to an impulse to shop, which begins the cycle anew.

The Wheel of Suffering is held in the clutches of the aforementioned Uncle Samsara, the Lord of Illusion. This fearsome figure presides over a vast empire of desire, despair, death and taxes. Outside of this wheel lies liberty in the form of planetary consciousness, lunar consciousness, and compassion (symbolized by a green Tara). Ultimate freedom is found in the form of cosmic consciousness, wisdom and peace (symbolized by a meditating Buddha).

May all Americans, and all beings everywhere, be happy and truly free.

We Are the 100 Percent: A Metta-tation or the Masses

It’s been a crazy couple days in the San Francisco Bay Area. For a group of about 170 Occupy Oakland protestors camped near City Hall, the madness began at about 5am on Tuesday the 25th, when police in riot gear began tearing down tents and forcibly removing people from Frank Ogawa Plaza, issuing at least 70 arrests in the process. Later that day, hundreds of protestors reassembled and attempted to take the park back, only to be met by a large regional police force who fired volleys of tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, and flash grenades. In what looked like an urban war zone, more arrests were made, several people were injured, and a young Iraq war veteran named Scott Olsen received a critical skull fracture.

The next night, partly in reaction to the overbearing force used by police, at least 1000 people convened for a general assembly meeting, from which emerged a call for a daylong, citywide strike designed to shut down Oakland. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bay, a similar number of people amassed along the Embarcadero in response to reports that the Occupy San Francisco encampment would also be torn down. Apparently, the massive show of support prevented the eviction from happening, although a live feed that I tuned into just before midnight seemed to show police throwing sleeping bags, food, and other personal belongings into the back of a garbage truck.

Just to be clear, I received all this info in digital form, mostly via Facebook friends who braved the elements, surrendered sleep, and risked arrest and injury. But it wouldn’t be quite accurate to say that I witnessed it all from the comfort of my home, since much of what I saw made me distinctly uncomfortable. Especially disturbing was the video footage of Oakland protestors clashing with police, culminating in the now-notorious clip of Olsen, lying injured on the pavement, being helped by comrades who are then dispersed with yet another deafening flash bomb. “WTF?!!” I thought, “Did that really just happen? What country is this? What kind of world is this?”

My disbelief turned quickly to anger at the cops. “Why are they so violent, so ruthless, so uncaring, so inhuman?” Then came cynicism: “Some of them must be henchmen of the 1%, mercenaries paid to show protestors across the nation who’s the boss.” My mind fell right into the all-too-familiar dichotomy of “us vs. them,” of peaceful protestors against Blue Meanies and their evil overlords. But as I watched and researched a little longer, the grays became more apparent. Some of the protestors were clearly antagonizing the cops, and others were allegedly pelting them with rocks and bottles. This is not to say that the behavior of a few black-bloc types would justify an all-out assault against a largely peaceful crowd, but to say that the line in my mind between good and bad began to soften and eventually fade.

What slowly came into focus was a moving picture of human beings in pain. Some were in physical agony, half paralyzed by tear gas or projectiles. Some were filled with rage, at both the imbalance of power in the situation and the system that maintains it. Many were fearful of what harm might come to them, their friends, or their allies, and some were simply doing a job they had hoped would garner admiration or at least provide some security during a time of financial uncertainty, perhaps even thinking of their families back home, their own physical and emotional ailments, or the dim prospect of a decent night’s sleep.

The more that everyone’s humanity emerged, the more that compassion welled up inside me. Through moist eyes and a soft heart, I could clearly see all the wounds of the past being played out in the present. I well understood that despite our deepest desire, none of us are truly free, least of all those caught in the game of power and money. I saw anew how extreme wealth indicates a poverty of spirit, of real community, of love. I later shared these feelings and insights with my wife, a student of Indian mythology, religion, and language, who reminded me of Lila, the divine play. We are the 100 percent, performing our unique roles in some cosmic, karmic drama whose outcome and purpose lie forever beyond our understanding. In other words, we’re all in this together.

Given how much is at stake—not only our individual futures but also perhaps that of humanity at large, if not life as we know it—do we really want to keep playing the tired old game of “us against them”? Can we not take to heart the words of Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote “…the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.” The Hindu master Ramana Maharshi put it even more starkly. When asked how one ought to treat others, he replied, “There are no others.”

Call me an idealist (many have, and I take it as a complement), but I want this movement to be different from all previous movements that have pitted the righteous against the depraved. I long for a true revolution of the heart, a love-olution in which there are no others. As we of the 99% stand against the injustices of a dysfunctional and dying system, let us stand for profound change by embodying the respect, tolerance, patience, empathy, kindness, and other qualities we find so lacking in our supposed adversaries. Indeed, we have a precious opportunity to teach these qualities by example, by being the change we want to see in the world. Remember, the whole world is watching.

As a way into a sacred heart space, I offer a brief meditation on loving-kindness. Watch it at the peril of your cynicism.

The Four Global Truths: Occupy the World

On the eve of my book release, this video goes out to all the Occupy protestors and supporters throughout the world.

NOTE: I do not hold the copyrights to the song.

The Four Global Truths: Creative Emergency

A slide show of my 2011 Burning Man adventures, set to the tune of a song entltled “Creative Emergency”… a celebration of human self-expression and an invitation / reminder for each of us to bring forth our unique gifts and talents in service of the Earth community during this critical time…