Welcome to 3r Squared!
This site hosts my concerns about the Eco-twins, ecology and economics. Eco means household, so I am writing about the conflict (in my view) between knowledge about, and management of, this planet, our homeworld. This situation has now escalated to where we can say, "Those twins are behaving as if they are not even on the same Planet!"
Some of you know I have been working on Renaissance Arising for sometime now. The current working draft is posted here, and the very first Review Draft of 2010 is tucked away here also. I tried to post that one on Free E-books.net, as well as here. From my efforts to elicit reviews in Liberty and my solitary wanderings in the woods at Unity Village I accomplished a re-write that is the following manuscript, Renaissance Arising, The Rebuilding of Our Future.
You will first find recent short postings that will become part of the Epilogue that will be drafted after the election. My purpose is to let the then completed manuscript out locally, find my kindred souls (The Heartlanders?) and invite contributions to the Appendices, and guest essays. Then the book will be completed and "released" as an E-book, hosted by Create Space the first part of the year.
Renaissance Arising is about a long standing vision that initially manifested many years ago by my forming Ecology Action in 1967 while at UC Berkeley, then leaving College to continue with environmental organizing and education. First came some essays while at Cal Berkeley and San Francisco State, What’s Ecology was published by Hubbard Scientific Press in 1971. The pioneering of community recycling programs came next, first steps were taken in Berkeley, then matured in Modesto California. Our Ecology Action Educational Institute worked for the protection of agricultural lands and conservation of resources. (see Your Author Reports In.) My activism and a slow blooming Spiritual Path next ran concurrent for a decade with a variety of employments as well as periods of political activity.
My path crossed with Billie Schupp’s, then of Sedona, after she had left Kansas City and sold her business’s, Contacts Influential and The Written Word. We went traveling through the western states, and enjoyed convening metaphysical workshops. Our path also took us outdoors, to Pow-Wows and the glowing embers of campfires, and has now brought us together into the Heartland.
The effort at a manuscript was started in 2009, in Gladstone after moving from Grand Junction Colorado. It was recently completed while living in Liberty between my walks in the woods at Unity Village. I wrote a story of my first walk in those woods, an experience that lives in what you are about to read. (First visit, http://sites.google.com/site/billieandcliffwriters/ then look in recent site activity for the Unity entry ). As of October 1st of 2012 we have completed our move into an apartment on the Raytown Kansas City border. I am already off into those Big and Little Blues!
This book presents a vision of a modern times Renaissance arising from the midwest of America. It's posting here on Blogspot is for local comment and the inclusion of local material. You have a possible role (See Appendices) with it’s final form and content. My intention is to further stir Kansas Cities’ manifesting potential of the Heartland’s solid and self-reliant center, with a vision of a peaceful future on our shared Homeworld. My point of entry into such a wide ranging venture is our shared dependance on environmental well-being.
The soils of the midwest have supported the United States ascension to historical greatness, as it has been defined in the past. The Geographers concept of Heartland goes beyond harvested corn and winter wheat, to a place of clarity and strength. When in college out west, the view was advanced that ‘the Heartland’ stood apart, a real life Camelot, a place of calm, wisdom, as well as culturally defining, and having a wealth of independent spirit.
National greatness is in need of being redefined, can this task be undertaken here in the Midwest? Can the Heartland strike the beat for the March to greatness once again? In my view, Kansas City is already on the move. As these pages came to be, the word renaissance has been used to describe everything from the new Performing Art’s Center to those who made some very good pumps for a mine rescue in Chile. The Chamber and the Star can list such accomplishments, however it is the vision of the originators that tells the tale. I say it is proper, and perhaps to be expected, that this ‘midwestern region‘ has a major role to play in turning things around. I’m suggesting that the field of play to be is the revival of the world’s view of itself. I wonder if those who have recently left this region carry a bag of those special midwestern mustard seeds. Can a signal be sent out to plant? Perhaps it has been sent already. Do we not have several International Religious Headquarters here?
The election in November will soon be decided. Ask, who is most likely to welcome the makeover described? Then vote! And then we and the Country can mostly heal and turn to the work at hand. The Kansas City Playbook is ready to be opened, and shared, by the few who find themselves gathered, and considering what to advance. By virtue of your occupying this special region as the world searches for a new focus, the present-day swell of Kansas City pride and accomplishment can grow and show the way into a new era in America, and for the world to learn from.
You will find my explicit message easy to follow, however the implicit one is perhaps the more challenging. It concerns the matter of what I term ‘Doing Church.’ We have just in our lifetimes, learned of Life’s components and mechanisms within the Biosphere’s web of life, and also just gained a glimpse of what glues it all together in the realm of Quantum Mechanics. For now, the implicit message within Renaissance Arising is that, ‘Doing Church’ includes recognizing, respecting, and the revitalization of all Gods creatures and creations.
We can see now that the care of the Earth is not just an ad-on, such as Earthday, and reusable shopping bags. The care of the Earth and the Love of Life is to become the centerpiece of our existence on this ‘Homeworld,’ settling in for our wondrous trip as a tag-along within the Milky Way, now traveling to the Andromeda Galaxy. (see xxxxx) We shall gather and plan ahead for a time of Love, Sharing, Compassion, and Stewardship.
You will also find here the first, now two year old version of Renaissance Arising that I attempted to post on a Free E-Book site as a Review Edition. It never showed up, so, went back to working it over on my own. And, as this will be, “released,” after the election, I’ll add a “Looking Ahead” chapter at that time. You will find a ‘last revised tag’ with an explanation, as I bring this manuscript to completion by folding in these first two posts, and completing it with notes, referances, Appendices, and perhaps a CONTRIBUTION FROM YOU.
Billie, (formerly Mrs. Billie Schupp of Kansas City ) and I are pleased to announce some success with our writings, Billie has Angels Awaiting up on Kindle, and has had short pieces published in the Liberty Tribune. Cliff also did one on recycling and now has this major manuscript almost ready to post through Create Space. We have also created a place for our writings at, http://sites:google.com/site/billieandcliffwriters/home/. My story, A Walk in the Woods at Unity is posted there. Billie’s book can be downloaded for kindle titled Angels Awaiting at Amazon Books, author Billie Schupp Humphrey.
We are currently (the Month of Oct. of ‘12) busy with sorting, shedding and garage sales. We have moved from an older double-wide north of the River, to an apartment twenty some miles south-west in Kansas City proper. Move-in accomplished on October first! We hope to keep our phone number, going for the new Magic Jack?
Peace be with you,
Cliff Humphrey
cliffhumphrey77@gmail.com
LAST EDITED or ADDED TO:
September 10, 2012 a site address
" 13, 2012 added some page numbers
" 15, Text paste up completed! Now adding
pg. numbers, next will be notes, ref.
graphs and Appendices.
October 1, 2012, Brought the first page (above) up to date and edited it. Still adding page numbers, notes and references, and deciding which appendices are essential at this point, and making sure my Unity Walk piece is there as advertised above!
October 7, Did further editing to: In A Nutshell and the following Heartlanders piece. Continued to add page numbers.
October 9, page numbering complete, now concentrating on the "under construction" pages, those after 113.
(Oct. 10th. Note to the Unity Community here in the Kansas City Region. At the Unity Village Library Margaret showed me the address www.unitybirth.org, my visit to it was just amazing. One is left to wonder what else has been pulled forward, by others in other lands, of differing orientations. I have decided to write the Epilogue as the weeks go by, this will transition into a continuing Blog.)
Recent Reflections
Someone said, “Two hundred pages? Give me one good page!” So, here it is.
In A Nutshell
We have three conditions that, in my view, require a response to assure the continuity of Life on this Planet as we have come to know it. First, the life support systems of the Biosphere are being overtaxed by human activity, the uninformed exercising of our God given free will. This can be said another way. We have yet to take responsibility for our actions, to ourselves, each other and the Earth, with all the living systems that support us and are nurturing us, the Mother of the flow of Life. The second condition has to do with the unrecognized implications of extremely rapid development of modern civilization. We are still of the Pleistocene, living in the, ‘next world.’ This very rapid breakout of say, chemistry and electronics, is the mystery of our time. The third is related to the first two. We have put in place an economic system of growth for growth’s sake, a truly unsustainable practice we have become dependent upon. We have indeed, “called ourselves out.” It is fascinating that, who can best bring about the continuation of an impossible scenario is, and has been, the major issue before us at Presidential election times.
The American Dream sums it up. Get an education, get a job, have a family and send your children to college, having joined the middle class. That reflects a good, worthwhile, positive attitude. However it is not wise, being not reflective of our experience to date on this Earth. I hold that we are in need of a period of reflection, of course embrace our capabilities, and decide what we want to apply ourselves to. I say we have overshot the mark, on becoming the Kings of this Realm.
We could say, Let’s play this all the way out, how many people can have how big of urban settlements? All over the world. Some futurists are now designing underground cities, floating cities, and even vertical agricultural storied plots. (Setting aside all counter-points and criticisms, as well as ignoring revolutions and terrorist activity for the moment.) We are faced with with a heaven, or hell on Earth, in my view, that is the choice before us right now. Technological progress has delivered abilities, although not what is the best or worst thing to do with them. To do or not to do, that is the question. Love and compassion can be shown both ways.
Those who say, “Heal the Earth,” are in danger of being called people haters. Perhaps some are. A full life on Earth requires being in a human place, a place of comfort, a feeling of belonging, a sense of contributing, and most of all a sense of being loved and able to offer love, and to continue learning and creating. Are we on our way to more of that for more and more people now? No, I don’t think so. Is a course correction challenging? Yes, absolutely. In my view we can have the challenges of a Global makeover that we put in place, or we can suffer whatever are the developments that await us by proceeding full speed ahead.
This book offers an alert, to provoke a pause, a review, and to point out that everyone can play a role from where they sit or stand right now. I feel that the time has come for a major shift, a Renaissance, or whatever it is to be called, manifested by ‘the people,’ rather than the Government or the Churches. As love overcomes fear, we will relax and live as the family we are, we will then know more of our place and future in the visible Cosmos, as well as the unseen, that larger part.
C. Humphrey, September 7, 2012
“Heartlanders,” The Regional, and Global Kind?
While completing this working draft, I began meeting with a ‘Scenius discussion group’ through my Unity Church community involvement. There I learned of the term Spiral Dynamics, a field of study regarding the spiraling, repetative, accumulative, and ‘advancing stages’ regarding the ongoing development of consiouseness. The two originators that I know of are Clare Graves of the 1950s and Dr. Don Beck who took it farther. Spiral Dynamics immediately opened new vistas for me regarding the very awakening that I had just been writing about. Perhaps it can even be said that Pitirim A. Sorokin recognized this same cycling, even a spiraling of stages. And, can these two observations be linked or related to the ancient imagry of a serpent consuming it’s own tail, the finishing point of the last cycle? Can the Ouroborus of Alchemy and life’s continuity be seen as demonstrating an awareness that we have been coming to know with increasing clarity?
My bow once again to the matter of Divine Timing that has graced the delivery of this manuscript. This Scenius Group meets with E J Niles who worked tirelessly with Harv Morrow, initially applying this tool to an understanding of the Bible. They presented their work to over one hundred and fifty Unity congregations. E J is now lecturing widely on Spiral Dynamics and I look forward to her return from her current Lectures to more fully deveolop my usage of the term Heartlanders.
Many people speak and write of hearing ‘the call or, a call,’ to make a a major change in their life. In Renaissance Arising I speak of hearing and issuing such a Call. My confidence in the usefulness, the focus, of ‘such callings’ is further strengthened by learning of Spiral Dynamics. And, you just may be one of a very rare bunch. A few of the inhabitants of this planet are now awakening to, and engaged with manifesting this current major shift in consciousness. Many more have been placed on 'alert' by the interest in the Mayan Calender's signalling a shift in late December of this year.
This development may be cosmically due, or in divine order, or the result of a spiral dynamics that seems to feed on itself, the living flow of life, and achieve, reach for ever-higher plains of understanding and behavior.
These individuals are now forming a connected strata, like a net that embraces the world. It could be, that each such individual has a different self-awareness of their involvement. This on-going development is perhaps stimulated by the emotional mix within the flow of life, and it's never ending back-trail.
This book stands just outside of such processes, but is aware of them, and knows that this development of, what I at the moment, choose to call a transcendental heartland, will continue to form. Their is most probably a Theology to go along with this view, however Renaissance Arising is looking out ahead of it’s full blown arrival, loosening the soil, so to speak.
In Renaissance Arising the talk is of paradigms and cultural dynamics, and the coming adjustments of values, priorities and behavior. Know that these adjustments are buttressed by realignments within our very souls, just beyond our ability to fully fathom their origins. Perhaps I risk credibility by sharing such notions, however I believe we can all appreciate that we have entered challenging, and yet promising times. I do not see disaster, I know of the strength and peace that is available. I see these challenging times as provoking a Grand Response, unsettling you ask? Yes, and a joyous makeover as described within Renaissance Arising.
Within metaphysics the term Light Worker is common. I am proposing that this term become a universal code-word for those (with or without self awareness) who are handling this development of the now arising, embracing and sustaining source of positive energy and creativity. And I ask, “Is it possible to feature proper nouns for the world of the unseen?” Seekers and Scientists have discovered the same unseen ‘energy dynamics.’ At this reading, we only need know that ‘they,’ those light-workers are in place and doing the work.
Socio-geographers have long used the term Heartland to designate a secure region that is self reliant and independent. I am proposing an additional meaning. The Global Heartlanders are those who accept and understand enough of what is developed throughout the pages of Renaissance Arising to know them as their own. We are on a new trajectory now, only left to align all the pieces. “The Heartland Renaissance ” then becomes a term for a global, dynamic resonance, a manifesting power, brought into the light of day by the Heartlanders of the Aquarian Age. This "Land" exists within the souls of us all as the best we have to offer.
You may be such a 'new-age manifester,' the work of this Renaissance will be to reach out to all such Heartlanders, whether or not they live in one of these geographical heartlands found in all major interior regions of the planets continents, and regardless of political boundaries. You and they are just as able as I am, to speak, act and write further on these matters, to form a protective web that supports and embraces the entire human family.
May we recognize the Divine in each other.
C. Humphrey, Sept. 8, 2012
RENAISSANCE ARISING
The Rebuilding of Our Future
by
Clifford Clark Humphrey
The Working Draft
August 20, 2012
(ISBN 978-147512882)
Assigned by Create Space, not yet in circulation.
Copying and duplication for noncommercial personal use
is permitted. I encourage the generation of reviews to be cited
in the First Edition, enabling the perfection of this manuscript,
and not to prematurely yield my rights in any way.
For permissions contact Cliff Humphrey at:
cliffhumphrey77@gmail.com
(After this cover will come Dedication and Acknowledgments)
1 Prologue
This vision of a renaissance comes to you from the heartland of america. This is where the winter wheat is grown, where the financial hub of Kansas City supports the production, domestic utilization, and the export of thousands upon thousands of tons of food stuffs every year. The Midwest is also able to assist both coasts with the development of artistic talent with a variety of venues and facilities for writers and performing artists of all kinds, and the fine arts of paint and line as well.
Kanas City sits at the heartland’s center, in two States, ringed by some two dozen Cities, Towns and Villages, one million people with a huge serving of fountains, organs and libraries, the brand new and already world renowned Kaufman Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the unique Nelson Atkins Art Museum, and a nationally recognized World War One Memorial. Kansas City is also very proud of being the birthplace and home of Hallmark Cards, it’s presence and contributions add so much to the civic mix, the Country Club Plaza, copied from Seville Spain, and the region’s assortment of eating and dining establishments. This center of the Heartland contains the haunts and homes of Harry Truman, Walter Cronkite, Samuel Clemons, Walt Disney, Ernest Hemingway, and outlaw Jessie James.
Midwestern folk have a certain strength of character, combined with physical and mental stamina. The heartland gave birth to Kansas City Jazz, and all the swing and bebop it is noted for, a double handful of fine athletes, as well as the world famous and trend setting, Hazelle Puppets and that molasses flavored K.C. style barbecue sauce!
Historically known as the edge of the frontier and regarded as the birthplace of the Pony Express (St. Joseph). Early on the Santa Fe, Oregon and California Trails all headed west from here, now Independence. Later; hemp, cotton, cattle, wheat, tobacco, broom straw, and more went east from here by way of the Missouri River, and then by rail.
The view from the center offers a fresh focus, and some solid footing in the heartland, as we all step-up to the challenges of these times, and the forthcoming joy of the successes that await us. Close your eyes, imagine the Midwest, and see those amber waves of grain, waving us onward. Such rhythmic waves of corn, wheat, and rice unite the human family all around the world in the role of stewardship, and call us back to the center. There is a healing of the land to be undertaken, then we will be a well nourished family, with our roots and futures deep in fertile soil, respectful of the life force upon our Homeworld.
The midwest has supplied food to the west and the east for over one hundred and fifty years, becoming a self reliant Heartland, assisting the economic and industrial growth to the East, and the expanding Frontier to the West. The midwest was and has been relied upon to supply the American push to excellence. This historical source of strength can come alive for you, in this glimpse of what a breakout, a modern-times renaissance1 from the Heartland would accomplish.
2 Calling All Heartlanders
I’m especially inviting greater Kansas City folks to look this working draft over before it’s forwarded as a First Edition. It just feels like this Call is to come from the Heartland, and also as my life’s path has delivered me to your doorstep.
The site 3rsquared.blogspot.com/(use a Google search) is for your responses to this Review Edition. August 2012 marks the start of a more intense period of refinement. (See pg. xxxxx) Could it be that the Makeover described herein could amplify and compliment the Mayors 2 plans for a rebuilding of kansas City’s infrastructure and neighborhoods? Can it be said that a Makeover is breaking loose here, now?
Does Kansas City wish to stand in this way? We can demonstrate what a full partnership of all stakeholders looks like as we accomplish such goals, accepting the Legacy of Midwestern strength and resolve. This vision of such a Renaissance Driven course-correction is transforming, and it welcomes writers, and producers of all types to add their own voices!
Locally I have taught picture framing Classes through Community Education of North Kansas City Schools, and two classes at Communiversity, and also performed some Radio Theater at KKFI. My wife, the former Billie Schupp owned The Written Word Bookstore in Mission Kansas, as well as Contacts Influential. She led me here from California, one could say to launch this offering from the Heartland. We have lived in Gladstone and Liberty,3 now moving south of the River, to Kansas City on the western edge of Raytown.
Additional review copies can soon be attained from Amazon, and a Kindle version will also be
available. For the I-pads and smart phones? Stay tuned. Contact me at cliffhumphrey77@gmail.com
3 Also by Cliff Humphrey
The Anthropologist and Contemporary Society, Presented at 22nd Annual Northwest Anthropological Society Conference, Victoria, British Columbia, April 1969
‘Doing Ecology Action,’ in Ecotactics: The Sierra Club Handbook For Environmental Activists, Pocket Books, New York, April 1970
Contributor to, The Environmental Handbook, Prepared For The First National Environmental Teach in, April 22,1970, Ballantine Books
What’s Ecology, Hubbard Press, Northbrook, lll, 1971
The Journal of Cultural Transformation, Ecology Action, Modesto, CA, 1972
Ecology at Home, 101 Productions, San Francisco, CA, 1971
Back to the Bike, 101 Productions, San Francisco, CA, 1972
The Recycle Game, The Box Factory, South San Francisco, CA, 1977, This is an overlay board, it ‘recycles,’ Monopoly into a recycling educational game
Animal Totem Deck with Booklet, 1998, Self Published
Note: The University of California at Berkeley Library has compiled an Archive of Ecology Action’s early materials.
4 Introduction
This book was originally conceived of as helping to pull things along, as President Obama put together a program of recovery from our economic collapse. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, before he was elected, we could see and feel the bubbling of a cultural shift. A new paradigm was forming, and then the dramatic news of global economic collapse took over the front pages and was featured in the global media spotlight. Cultural values continued to shift and many very positive developments occurred that I have called, precursors to the arising renaissance.
My writing was initially focused on those individuals attracted to paying it forward and going green. Then it became important to show how environmental issues offered job opportunities that could help the economy recover. And now, as we turn the page to the of we have a fresh breeze of spiritual renewal from a sprinkling of metaphysical groups, new thought congregations such as Unity, and a shift to a positive future, also marked by the suggested new beginning of December 22, 2012. We also have been paying increasing attention to quantum mechanics and the evolution of consciousness. The work of many researchers can now be seen in a new development known as Spiral dynamics.
This book is for those who feel isolated, standing flat-footed, encircled by a variety of out of balance conditions, alerted yet curious, and willing to consider new ideas. We have arrived at this present moment of mixed results very quickly. The progress of the last hundred years was astounding. Everyone has been very busy applying themselves, working at the job that was available, or tending a farm, banking, entertaining, spying on or shooting an enemy, assembling TV’s, burying garbage, pruning trees, and so forth. A very few are speaking and writing about what it is all coming down to, some continue to create documentaries about our fragile earth, and all who live here with us.
You may find that you already agree with what is offered. You may also feel that such a historical reorientation is impossible. Such feelings are understandable, given their is no single standing authority to petition, one that has the authority, the respect, and the funds to implement such a homeworld makeover, born of an arising renaissance. We have only ourselves. The good part is, we are free to implement the new, as we are so inclined and able to manage.
5
Our challenges actually show us the way forward. While on the one hand, the quest for economic growth and sustainable development, is tragically malformed, on the other hand, these issues do illuminate a solution, and a new direction because this politicly myopic discussion takes place within a wilting Global environment. Environmental recovery requires a condition of peace, as well as the redirection of those resources now focused on death and destruction. This book calls for a global revolution in perception, that spawns a Homeworld Makeover.
We face two challenges. First, accomplish a rejuvenation of the global Biosphere, to something like it’s 1950’s conditions, and secondly, to put in place reformed economies that grow by reducing gross consumption, economies that would accommodate compassion, draw out kindness, as well as eliminate financial hoarding, and put in place policies that assure an adequate income for all labors.
We have come to worship monied economic growth, rather than our well being and our happiness, even rather than the mesmerizing beauty and sophistication of our home worlds life support systems and the diversity of life it supports.
The American Dream is being redefined now. Some embrace the emerging new version gladly, others will be backed into the new smaller, greener, less demanding, more at home . . . call it, an American Vision of the balanced life, featuring an equatable, peaceful and harmonious diversity. This book offers a soft sell of such a breakout, such a renaissance. The numbers to illustrate what is offered here are available, however this briefing in your hands is for hearts and souls.
You may choose to ignore these writings, as well as the thousands who have already issued similar words, however I urge you to tell your stories to family and friends. The larger the aggregation of our isolated experiences and thinking, the more complete will be the view of our future, the wiser our response. My journey to these pages began when, as a surveyor for California’s Department of Transportation in 1965, I helped flag a small property with a home, a garden, animals and barn, for the jury in a public domain case. Jurors and alternates were to arrive soon by bus, and inspect the property being condemned, taken for the public’s welfare. The Interstate was being expanded out East of San Diego, and this rural property was in the way.
That old man had his place set up so that he could stand with a cane at the back door and turn on the water for chickens, a goat, his garden and fruit trees. His entire place was to be cut away and used to fill in a low spot, on the way to Phenix. He had his hilltop, he was settled in. We are all faced with permanently settling in. We need to know that we are safe, that are families are secure, and that we will have enough to eat. This is true for all families the world over. We must talk it out, focus on our desires and dreams, move on from accusations and complaining to sharing. We have a homeworld show to put on.
6
In a nutshell, we have an unprecedented opportunity to live within a world at peace, right here, right now. We have, in effect, thrown down The Gauntlet at our own feet, calling ourselves out, into the greatest challenge imaginable, and, at the same time, quite possibly into the most rewarding experience that us Earthlings have ever been blessed with. The residents of this Earth have the knowledge, the resources and the funds to put things right. It will take something like a ‘Global Eco-Potlatch,’ a massive, supportive, sharing and redistribution of labor, funds, and land, inspired by the Native Peoples of our own Pacific Northwest. The grasping of such a redistribution is occurring now, with the sharing of everything from mothers milk to automobiles, as well as thousands of acres zoned and given for conservation.
We already have stabilizing human populations, more discriminating consumers, profits keyed to efficiencies of regional production and soon, a world wide shrinking of offensive military capability, and a period of National Service for all. We will evolve a Global Society that maintains a dynamic equilibrium between it’s collective desires and the Biosphere’s capacity to provide them.
At this time a renaissance person or family lives just down your street. Their is someone within four blocks of you who has gone green, paid it forward, given books away out by the sidewalk, joined with others and cleaned up this, that, or the other thing, worked on a Habitat house, or made a Micro-loan to someone in Morocco, or Iraq, so on and so forth.
We can have a world-wide fabric of families living in harmonious diversity, work for all, even joyous dancing in the streets as we bring it home. Such a turn of events is supported by the need to put in place a way of life that reflects the best of who we are. In addition we all know in our heart of hearts that our present course of aggression, conquest and enforcement can not be maintained, and it will not deliver us to a peaceful, harmonious world, and it will not bring us closer to the spiritual, philosophical issues of our very own existence. We are faced with the journey of coming home, to finally achieve a Global relaxation into the absolute knowledge that all is well. We find ourselves standing upon the threshold of a new age.
You could say that this book is all about expanding humanities collective worldview, then the manifesting of a Global network of diverse Cities and settlements that share the responsibilities, the stewardship of maintaining the life blood of the planet and the continuing evolution and receiving of new life. Humans bring the Love of Life. We shall bring an immortality to the surface of this Earth, one smile, one kindness, at a time. This is our sacred bond.
This Global maturing transcends all nationalities, political orientations, religions and even our respective Citizenships. All Earthlings are now faced with the promise and the challenge of this historical, most compassionate, loving and enabling shift to a future of harmony and joy. We are to stand united and embrace our individual uniqueness. We are experiencing a homeworld renaissance, you can help fill in some of the details, by how you allocate your abilities, time and funds.
7
Can we see our world in such a new light? A revolution of perception is indeed called for. The totality of our present behaviors, and where they are most likely to take us, is a view of ourselves that we have managed to avoid. Present challenges are actually a new light that illuminates our path forward. The broad outline is given by the geographical and biological parameters within which we all live and breath. We have now fully expressed our human talents, our smooth sides and our rough edges, our history has many lessons for us to consider. Let us work out the details together.
As you watch and read the news you will be observing a, special program. It could be titled, Building The Case for a Global Makeover. You may also catch glimpses of the emerging renaissance. At this moment we have hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide who have made pledges and commitments of time, funds and labor to a makeover of the old show of conflict and exploitation. Can we pause, take a step or two off to the side of the modern-times expressway, and see the expanding and massive shift that is right in front of us?
Nuns On the Bus! Did you see that? And then just the other day my Wife and I were in Walgreens and we hear the clerk say, “Thanks for choosing Walgreens, this is Paula, how may we help with your wellness?”
Renaissance Arising presents the case that, the glass is actually filling now! It has been pointed out in song, book and film that, you do have a choice, help to fill it, or stand aside!
By the beginning of this century we might well have wondered, would this breathtaking run of very rapid development be coming to an end? We have been pushing all obstacles aside, and ignoring some major issues. That mesmerizing spell of ever expanding economic growth has run it’s course. Now we are stalled, faced with very mixed results. On the one hand, we did achieve astonishing progress over the last hundred years. Americans can take pride in many remarkable accomplishments. Expanding knowledge was applied to abundant resources with ample financing. No other civilization has been blessed in just such a way.
On the other hand, many voices have urged caution, if not outright alarm. The cost to ourselves, each other and the Earth3 has been huge, due to such a narrow focus. We are now learning that behind the scenes new and largely unexpected factors have been brought into play. Have we brought ourselves to a standstill?
Their is now a heaviness hanging about in the background, laced with anxiety, even spiked with fear for some. This heaviness is just out of reach, and drags on us as we go about our lives, yet we prefer what we know about, what we are used to.
8
A spaceship analogy is offered, to illustrate our situation and reveal this required new direction. Most of us can recall Sci-Fi scenes where deep space is viewed from the helm of a spaceship, or of seeing a huge rotating chamber to stimulate gravity and so forth. Such an analogy offers everyone a chance to sit down together at the same time, and gain a shared viewpoint. Let’s just imagine that all Earthlings are passengers on a ship drifting through the Milky Way4 Galaxy. That is, everyone except you and me. We can sit back and watch.
The first thing we observe, is that the hull of this drifting Earth-ship is very special, it is translucent and yet offers everything and more than a solid hull does. The passengers are able to walk about on deck in the sunshine, go to work, tend to gardens and crops and play in the sunlight. The rest of the time we can observe the heavens, sometimes while attending outdoor events, or singing around a campfire with friends. Gravity and pressurized air are automatic, and pure water falls in upon them.
The passengers are not sure just how they got on this ship of mysteries, and they do not know where they are going. We can easily see from the outside that everyone on board shares exactly the same adventure, even though there are conflicts about what is the most important thing to do at any one moment. They also disagree about how long they have been on board, and argue most violently about basic religious issues.
Everyone realizes now that the ship is round, and has many diverse geological features built in, deserts and mountains with rivers, lakes and oceans. Parts of the hull are more readily consumable, even edible, than other parts. They have flocked to those parts, building settlements. The passengers have formed into groups, that share certain beliefs and points of view. They have learned how to harvest and mine parts of the ship’s hull to create homes and forts, barriers for privacy, and weapons for protection from the others.
“ Seven billion are on board now, all busy doing their own thing for the most part, many chewing away at that miraculous, protective, living outer skin. The totality of their present behaviors can be understood from a historical perspective however it would have been very different if they had arrived on board with a Earth-Ship Maintenance Manuel. Especially true as they don’t have any resupply or repair stations ahead of them. Let’s continue to watch.”
We have observed that the passengers were very quick to set up house with money, banks, and private property once early nomadic ways shifted to the tillage and irrigation of the few alluvial soils. The efficiency of farming has led to new opportunities, offered them by reserves of food. They expanded their colonies, sought better shelters, learned how to work with metals and to breed animals and plants. Some of these groups argue and even fight over resources and differing beliefs. Their quest for improvements, given the vastly differential access to basic resources has continued. Even now, they still have nomadic tribes over there, and the ongoing construction of massive cities over here.
9
The passengers are now individually working within one very small group of people and living with another even smaller family group, and many are traveling about in enclosed capsules between their own respective little groupings. Even with the billions on-board, the Earthlings now live more isolated lives than ever before.
“If you stand back and look closely, you can see that all the passengers love their children. One thing for sure, that earth-ship is their home right now, all are on that space adventure together, whether they have chosen it or not.
To share a destiny is the most basic human relationship. Can they learn to work together and enjoy the ride? Watch for the next Earth-ship report on these stations and devices, good night and good luck.”
The remainder of these pages allows you to sit with this viewpoint awhile, turning things this way, and that way. I do present my thoughts on what comes after you grasp this homeworld point of view in the summary. As for our current election cycle, I have no idea of what might happen regarding this viewpoint. This Review Edition will become a First Edition in 2013, reflecting it’s initial reader reviews and early reception.
Now then, are you still seated in The Renaissance Lecture Hall? You may have things to do and places to go, that’s true. Perhaps this present day moment of stem-to-stern economic and financial upheaval has caught your attention, could you be persuaded to sit still a little longer?
These first few pages have been laid out in front of you to slow you down, so you can grasp the scope and promise of such a homeworld makeover. My desire is to place you on alert, prepared to consider what is laid out later.
Some forty years ago there was a very popular and powerful environmental movement marked by the celebration of annual Earth Days. That citizen movement resulted in the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and many regulations and statutes5 that were enacted. It resulted from both scientific inquiry and citizen alarm. It was celebrated annually coast to coast with thousands of events. The focus was protection of this earth-ship’s outer hull and the clean air and water it provides. Those Earth Day activities have introduced Americans to the Ecology of our Planet, and particularly to the Biosphere, the planet’s zone of life. In many other Countries the Government has always had the lead on environmental care.
Back in 1970, then with a global population half of what it is today, Americans made a very good start on aligning our activities with care of the Earth. It was a very unique moment for America, the Vietnam era and the birth of Earth Day all rolled up and blasting out as one, all parties seeing the mix differently. Perhaps it was a mix that did not taste so good.
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Our words and intensions were correct, however the green point of view was very slow to enter the realm of business and finance. The belief in economic progress was so massive that, obviouse reforms to a few, were simply unthinkable. Advocates for long-term protection of the living hull of this Earth-ship, raising the specter of serious changes and reorientation, were seen as enemies of progress itself, enemies of the very greatness of the United States and it’s leadership of the free world. Their remained a sub-culture of hardened Gaia, living earth, advocates that continued to accumulate the evidence and build the case that reforms are absolutely nesassary.
That past Environmental Movement can now be seen as a warning bell that rang some forty years ago. We have since acquired, let’s say, at the most, only a green taste bud. We did not and have not come to grips with the long term implications of an ever expansive debt driven economy laid upon a shrinking resource base. Neither have we come to grips with the individual issues that were raised, from population growth on to depleted fisheries along with ocean acidity, nor the implications of extreme resource depletion, and not the absolutely tragic and accelerating extinction of animal species.
By 1975 we had resumed our very busy lives, supporting and caring for ourselves, our families, and enjoying whatever was being offered in the rec-hall. We have only just now recognized the possibility of severe Global Warming.
It appears that we have used up our grace period of forty years. Very strong actions, unprecedented, are now required to maintain this earth-ship’s ability to provide life-support for all on board. The same thing that can happen to our cars is happening to this ship, lack of maintenance and caution equals excessive wear and the possibility of tragic crashes. The Basic Solution is as simple as it is complex, simply move the money and the work force around to take care of business, take on the restoration of our Earth-ship, achieving a balanced, harmonious condition, a revolutionary realignment5 to save our skins.
In my view their are three approaches available to bring such a major realignment about. The most obviouse is through the Federal Government, even setting aside present problems of its being ineffective, we think of Washington as the protector and provider. However the Government has heard it all before, income tax reform to wetlands, in years of hearings and published studies, our elected representatives have decided either, that we were wrong then, and are still wrong, or, that they are powerless to act within todays political realities, meaning, not willing to risk it, everything from chaos in the streets to loosing at election time. Our elected leaders have not shown any inclination to consider even the smallest pieces of such a realignment. Volumes of testimony regarding progressive actions line the shelves in D. C. and many other offices and Libraries.
A second approach is through our Churches, making a unified mass appeal to respect the sanctity of God’s Creation, the totality of Life upon this Planet. There is only the smallest of movement in that direction.
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We then are looking at ourselves, currently the non-aligned reserves, shall we call the average Citizen. Margret Mead and many others have reminded us that it is those occasional small groups of individuals who coalesce and cease the moment to make the widely desired changes. This appeal is focused on such groups, while knowing full well that the long standing environmental argument is being well presented to Washington by existing conservation organizations.
The present day public shift will continue to grow and then eventually be reflected in official actions and budgets. There will be two theaters of operations, moving ahead at different rates in different parts of the Country. The official one reflected in legislation and funding priorities, and then the, citizen operated one, reflected in shifting values and evolving worldview, and manifested with volunteer driven projects of all sizes.
Ideally this progress, at some point, would include a pledge for a stand down of all Countries military forces and militias of all kinds, and a commitment to a contraction of United States Military, on schedule and with or without other Countries. Only America can start the shift to a International showing of goodwill. If we believe, “The repair of our Earth-ship supersedes hostilities,” then we must act accordingly very soon. All the Worlds Economies do indeed need a lift, and our habitation of homes, farms and infrastructure needs repairs, and our heavy footprints upon both land and sea, needs attention now.
Their is work for all! Their is earth-ship work to be done! All at living wages, not a hundred thousand, and not for peanuts. Again, the key will be to spread the work and money around, to honor the social contract that binds customers and providers, and the implicit assumption that when we pay taxes, our elected Government is taking care of our general welfare, which certainly includes taking care of our ship’s life support 6 systems.
Such a reapplication of resources has started with many people shifting time and funds, toward the relief of human suffering and environmental destruction. A renaissance arises just so. Governments and institutions will follow with a new economy based on a vibrant equilibrium between consumers and providers. And then both will be proceeding in harmony with the pulsating, cycling, Biosphere.
My intention is to illustrate glimpses of how a Global Habitation that offers maximum diversity and wellness can be manifested now. With a relevant core understanding of the challenges and opportunities before us, we will be able to live in peace and to show each other the love and respect we so desire. Our shared adventure will continue in a more relaxed manner, we will know widespread public joy as all members of our human family make their own contributions to the ship’s wellbeing and the comfort of us all.
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Spiritual growth has now led to an increasing understanding that we are on board as co-creators of our world and our experiences within it. The Creator of all things, has empowered us all with the capacity of living at peace with ourselves, each other 7 and the Earth. We have started the process of religious mutual respect.
Renaissance Arising presents glimpses of a new day. We need to float fresh new ideas, then see how they resonate. Which of the included ideas and vistas resonates within you? Will they lift the forces pushing us down, restricting our movements? We can achieve it if we know it. We will soon be looking inward with the questions, “Have we run the course of our various pursuits on out to their logical conclusions? Are we now all standing together, poised to start anew?”
Race cars are now so fast that special equipment is needed to hold the driver’s head in place! The same thing is true from football to finance, such concluding moments are seen in bounty payments and bundled derivatives. That old chapter of, “full steam straight ahead,” and “pedal to the metal,” has played itself out. Been there, done that. This coming new day will be grand and auspicious, with more of a focus on our personal well being and happiness, and less on our possessions and work schedules.
A Homeworld Makeover it will be. We will have hammers and saws by day, and dancing in the streets by night! Can you feel it? Could the cultural shift already underway become a Global makeover, carried forward by a modern day Renaissance? Such silver linings are not obvious, they have to be looked for. We are paused in these, in-between times, searching about, gathering our wits and acquiring a fresh focus.
It is as doable as we believe it to be. I will say that over and over, from different angles. We are challenged as well as rescued with a shift in our individual world-views. We have a decade or two to put right what took us a century to harm, those parts of ourselves and our ship that were damaged, even destroyed. I will be using the terms Renaissance, Global Makeover, and Homeworld Point of View. They all contribute to the manifestation and recognition of a new nexus, a new center, a vital core, from which all future decisions emanate from, to Main Street and Wall Street, and off into the woods and fields.
A few years back, when going green and paying it forward were first talked about, it was possible to sense a shift for the better. Undertaking random acts of kindness was the word of the day. We also heard about very exciting projects initiated by individuals of all ages and stations that were focused on simply making things better for someone, near or far. We learned last year of little dresses being made for girls in Africa, and earlier of a dentist who assembled a mobile office and drove through Appellation coal mining country offering free dental care, and oral hygiene education. Such bellwether individuals did what they could with what was available. A very important cultural shift was visible for a while, the creation of a new paradigm was coming into public view.
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Then the old economy was black-flagged and forced into the garage, our spirits sank. I had already picked up the pace of my writings and thought that the emerging shift was, just perhaps, going to be the cultural transformation that I have envisioned for over forty years. I was alerted to just such a reality when Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust8 became the first woman president of Harvard University, and we read that she was a Civil War scholar, talking of the men on both sides being absolutely committed to irrevocable positions, and she was lecturing on the roles of women in that war at the time her appointment was announced. We have those amongst us with much to offer as we turn to address such a historical shift.
The vision of a full-blown global makeover, powered by the energy of a Historical Renaissance, rose before me as I wrote, and walked in the woods of Unity9 Village, just to the east of Kansas City. Such a Global shift offers a Golden Opportunity, born of today’s, yet unrecognized Silver Lining, now obscured by the medias rush to feed us the bad news. We are being told all about our collapsed economy and partitioned Congress, as well as an ugly primary season coupled to an extraordinarily divisive and expensive Presidential election, and very little about the continuing widespread efforts by positive minded, creative individuals and groups.
National Governments all over the world are currently ineffective, broke, and broken. They fear for their political lives, as the voters stand largely ignorant of, and unprepared to evaluate the corrective measures required for the repair of our ship and the restoration of human spirits.
We can start our voyage to that new-day this way, just suppose that we think of ourselves as containing two groups of forward looking, positive thinking individuals. First, we have a group that could be called the Placeholders, the level headed ones holding the line, protecting the opportunity of going ahead in a good way. Then we have another group we could call the Creators, manifesting and building the new. These individuals have, and are being, called into the service of life on earth.
The main task of the Placeholders is to reduce the anxiety and fear, to provide, the space for the new to come into the light. The Creators will construct the future of our dreams, including health care, food and shelter, education and training, as well as offering compassionate examples that will result in the eventual closing of most emergency
Then, there will be the audience, the individuals not knowing what to make of it all. They can be thought of as ‘The House,’ the one that the Placeholders and Creators are playing to. Care is to be taken to avoid deafening boos that would signal derailment, as well as lost chances to recruit both placeholders and creators from the audience at large. The watchword for all is, to pause and think it through, we can do this so much better.
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Just who is it that I expect to arise in such a way? Who will assume this, “Homeworld Point of View” and power-up the Civilizations of this Earth to a future of wellness and joy, as well as goodwill and sustainability?
I have no idea what their names are. However every fiber of my being knows they are in place and coming into alignment with a cultural shift of historical proportions. This now blossoming period of change is different from historical conflicts, from bloody strikes to world wars, because we know what we want the result to be composed of, indeed, must be composed of. We are going for stewardship of life, from all the world’s neighborhoods and cities, to the planet’s prairies and forests, the rivers and oceans. We are now moving toward kindness and compassion, rather than continuing on with competing enemy camps.
We can easily agree, the time has come to settle down, and live together peacefully as we raise our children in a warm home with ample food, and all blessed with clean air and water. While it is true that we have been confronted with an unimaginable run of calamities, a period of renewal awaits only our embracing of it. A realignment has begun. It heralds meaningful work for all, as the basic tasks of earth stewardship and compassionate global citizenship are undertaken. Can you see this silver lining so announced? What is brewing deep down within the psyche of humanity?
People the world over are undergoing physical suffering and economic hardships through circumstances seemingly beyond their control, “To what end?” we ask. They are illustrating in living color the necessity to revamp, reform, revitalize, and regroup.
We have lived our lives by the options available to us, by the processes and procedures administrated by our governments. It seems that our collective actions have now painted us into such a corner that many are provoked into showing their worst behaviors. How can that be? Each one of us knows that we are capable of so much more. What else might we do with all the resources and time now applied to negativity, violence, and wars? How might we revive the spirits of those who have been struck down by circumstances beyond their control?
We can accomplish a Global Makeover of Mind and Matter. A very strong worldwide desire for positive change has been expressed. Going green, paying it forward and recent worldwide demands for one hundred percent equitable treatment, these developments and more are precursors of a major Global shift.
The past few years have offered a finishing school for Earthlings, if we will only sit down and learn the lessons laid out before us. Continuing on, full speed straight ahead, will assure more pain and tragedies of all kinds. On the other hand, it will someday be asked, “Would we have changed course without those lessons?”
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Soon we will see this paradox as a historical Tipping Point, when the human race grew into maturity and grasped it’s responsibilities of stewardship and loving compassion, thereby opening the door to a harmonious future upon this Earth.
Native peoples respected the balance of nature, and their place within it, let us see what a modern day Global balance looks like. Will you stand with the thousands of people who have already found new pathways into a fulfilling life? Come along and experience your heart filling with joy.
“Your soul is standing by to give you a smile.”
Tammy10 Brady, Independence Missouri.
16, 17, 18 Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue -1
Calling All Heartlanders - 3
Author’s Forward - 5
Table of Contents - 16
PART ONE, PAUSE AND CONSIDER
Introduction for Chapters One and Two
Chapter One, The Call - 21
Looking Ahead-22, A Formula of Renewal-23
Current Affairs-26, A Fresh Look- 27
The View from Missouri- 29, Household Choices-30
Breaking Out- 32, The Road Ahead- 33
One More Thing- 34
Chapter Two, Arising Now- 37
Arrival Schedules- 38, Precursors Abound- 41
Use What’s Available- 43 Speak Up- 45
Breathe Some Fresh Air- 46
PART TWO, LEARN AND REFOCUS
Introduction for Chapters Three and Four
Chapter Three, Preparation - 47
Future Focused Conversations-48, Life on Earth-49
Global Warming-51, Footprints-53, Externalities-54,
Population Draw Curves- , Population Dynamics-
The Demographic Transition of Developing Countries-
Dynamic Equilibrium-58, Biogeochemical Cycles-59
Ecological Succession-59, Loose Money-60
The New Bottom Line-60
Chapter Four, Person by Person, Acre by Acre - 61
Take A Seat-62, Awareness-63, The Work of It-64
The Politics of It-65, The Economy-69
Armed Conflict-70, Basic Ecology and Resources-72
Sacrifices and Miracles-73, Class and Culture-74
Religion-74, The Throwaways-75, Music and Literature-76
PART THREE, REBUILDING OUR HOMEWORLD
Introduction for Chapters Five, Six, Seven (and Eight?)
Chapter Five, Planetary Stewardship -77
What is Your World View-77, "America, sit down and
pay attention!"-80, Energy-82, Resources-84, Currency and
Finance-86, Land Use Policy-88, Water-90, World Law-91
A Diversified Web of Societies?-92
Chapter Six, Finding Your Place - 94
Your Emergence-95, Messengers-95, Organizers-96
Workers-97, Sponsors-98, Action Call!-99
Chapter Seven, The Work of It - 100
Focused Achievers-100, Students-101, Individuals-102
Community Groups-104, National Non-Profits-105
Small Businesses-106, Corporations-106,
Governments-107, Federal-109, State-110, Local-111
(The following pieces are Under Construction, they will come to be as you watch!)
Chapter Eight, Makeover Projects - 113
Epilogue - 118
Appendices - 125
Notes and References - 125
Your Author Reports In - 130
Being Completed and Incorporated:
Please Submit
A Summary
I Agree, Now What?
The Implicit Assumption
Recycling Note
Promotional Materials:
An E-mail, an Essay,
A Work In Progress
Earlier Writings
19 PART ONE, PAUSE AND CONSIDER
Introduction for Chapters One and Two
People have gathered over the ages to hear the stories. Those tales and songs that have raised our spirits and supplied hope anew. The arrival of this earth-care renaissance is to live forever as a collection of our stories, about how it all came about, the trips and triumphs, through thick and thin. Our families to say, “Then, one day, all the people stood up, went to work, and together they worked it all out! Now, there was this one project when your Uncle decided . . .”
A Global Makeover will join with and encourage all existing intentions to put a more compassionate, kinder civilization in place upon this planet. Many current efforts have already marked the beginning of such a profound historical development. This book is an appeal, perhaps it is more of a letter to you than a book. I’m hoping you read it with a certain attitude, a curiosity of just what is it that I see, to speak out in such a way. All about us now are those things to be felt, not measured or named. Proceed slowly, let what may, arise, to meet us here, in this space we share.
This Section contains the first two Chapters of the seven in Renaissance Arising. We start with The Call. Here are the best words I have now, to bring you in with me for a pause and a look around, after my lifetime of watchings and ponderings. This is the third time that I have called out to report (see note), to whomever might hear. The second Chapter, Arising Now offers a place to start the process of our stepping out anew. We can begin again. We are forgiven and blessed automatically when we do so. We all have many gifts to offer.
Note: See Earlier Writings in the Appendices for, The Berkley Papers, and The Peace Essay
CHAPTER ONE
21 The Call
A call to meditate, to consider, and reflect. What is stirring deep within you? We have been taught to believe in certain things, and behave in certain ways. We are called to step back, and examine them anew. Have you watched the fire burn down to glowing coals? It winks and glows bright, and sometimes pops. Take a walk in the woods, find a place to sit awhile, listen for the woods to play you a tune. You may hear forest sheddings falling though the branches, headed back into the soil, you may hear young ones at play. I have heard birds having a convention, up in the canopy, right above me. Everyone now past who has gone up on the ridge to watch for the messenger, the stage, or the train, has had this experience, of sitting in woods, looking ahead. You can go up now, to sit and visit with your ancestors.
All right, you made it in this far, very good. Now, there are several ways we can do this. I am strapped down in these pages, however you can run straight through, or jump and skip around. I suggest you read it twice. Plan on it? It will grow and shift under your feet. One more thing, I’m talking to the both of you. The one who walks the dog, and shops let’s say, and the other you who goes off to work and leaves the dog at home. Both of you are being called.
22 Looking Ahead
Let’s bring that space-ship analogy down to earth for a moment. The people of Earth are standing as one, wondering what is coming next, yet, each is also in their own wheelhouse, upon the river of change.
Where do we want to go? How would you like it to be . . . like it to feel? Have you ever been a midwife before? You might be. All of us who have pushed the pause button and thought, there just has to be a better way. Yes, there is a better way. We have a birth to watch over.
Some of the folks are in essence off by themselves, in a meadow. They are formed into two long lines standing shoulder to shoulder and facing each other, ignoring the commotion back over the hill. They stand ready to receive the new, and see that it glides gently into place with grace and goodwill. A few regard them as the Angels amongst us. We are headed for a new world featuring a loving and harmonious diversity of healthy humanity. Just by reading these pages, you are part of this process, regardless of your response to them. You and everyone else are putting their personal spices into the soup we all live by. Everyone is part of this process, regardless of their station in life.
Those who sit at polished walnut conference tables . . . or those who eat down by the tracks . . . those refugees who ring a fire in the desert or the mountains . . . even that family on the move, resting in a war blackened building . . . all are equal, all are deserving of our compassion, and all can contribute to the general welfare.
It could be put this way; we face a, “All hands alert,” from the observation deck calling for a major course correction. The main thing is, that we look forward with the loving anticipation of everyone hearing the Call, sitting at the table of humanity, and eating together as the Family we are. Our world is sprinkled with positive changes and good deeds. Many have heard such a call, and found themselves saying, “Why yes, I can do that!” or, “Here, let me help you,” and even, “the Wasa crackers are over by the salad bar.”
We can see a blooming of the new, from the slow food campaign of French origin, through those now required larger dress sizes in 1 Buenos Aires. Remember the amnesty and forgiveness in South Africa, new hybrid automobile choices, don’t forget all those “random acts of kindness” as well as the paying it forward, again, and again. There is a shift upon the wind. Let us stand arm in arm and welcome it, contribute to its wonders and celebrate its arrival! Many have learned that we are as fragile as we are tough.
We already possess the tools needed to do this. Academically we know, spiritually we know, and we have the time. Present difficulties are only restrictions we have placed upon ourselves. We are all in our places, all of equal importance, that is our bond, our humanity.
What is offered here is only one little part of the call to Peace that has been made by thousands over decades, and is being offered anew now. My objective at this point, is the Global recognition of this particular moment of common focus. We have a tremendous potential right now, even miraculous, as this very explicit Global budgetary review offers the chance to line up all the pieces, to assemble a unified Homeworld response. We need to merge talents and tools from all the different compartments that we have gravitated into, some of this, and some of that, all on a grand scale. The ingredients for such a course correction are carried by all of us.
The following chapters are offered as illustrations, glimpses, and clues, that you may hear the Call, for you to find and release your unique seeds of transformation. We can manifest this future of our dreams. Many have been at it for years, they have known that others would join them. There is no telling who will rise next to speak or act.
23 A Formula of Renewal,
Three R Squared Equals Two P Over E
A long time ago this formula just popped into view. It happened when taking a break from my environmental organizing efforts 2 while attending the University of California, Berkeley. A small group of us older students and their spouses, one nuclear physicist, and a handful of volunteers had founded the Ecology Action Educational Institute in Berkeley California, in 1968. We were granted Alternate Service status for conscientious objectors to warfare.
At that particular moment I was enjoying a powdered sugar doughnut in Weed, California, only a few miles from Mt. Shasta, staring at the summit, and giving thanks. My wife, a very fine painter and print maker, had studied at the Museum School in Boston and was with the Lawson Gallery in San Francisco. She had been invited to give a workshop with her work at a nearby State College.3
Mary Pacios worked alongside me in Berkeley and Modesto to spread the word and keep the offices of Ecology Action humming, usually involving many volunteers. Our teamwork was crucial to the success of Ecology Action’s many events and programs, overseeing our support and encouragement of hundreds of other similar groups around the Country and a scattering of groups overseas, in jails and military units.
This formula’s arrival was soft, and unexpected. When it was finally written down for the first time, it was a knowing, it was the answer for me, a world at peace and a world in ecological balance! Some time later when mulling over the original three Re words, Reconciliation, Restoration, and Rebuilding, I decided to make it three R squared, to include nine of the many dozens of candidates. You could say that a REnaissance has been nesting within me right along, all the way through those early Ecology Action years in Berkeley, and then in Modesto, all some forty years ago, to finally spring to life now, in the Heartland. (See Your Author Reports in appendix.)
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This formula represents the energy flow within, what I call, an arising renaissance. This vision has been held close, knowing that someday I would do more than occasionally share it in a workshop. This notion of manifesting a culture that champions stewardship of all life on board, whether it be called a Renaissance or a Paradigm Shift or a Homeworld Makeover, has now matured within me.
These hundred plus pages may be viewed as an expansion, a blooming, of this formula. The three R squared stands for all the Re . . . words that are so important for our Homeworld Makeover, from the reconciliation and rebuilding on to recodification, and of course, responsibility. This formula works in two ways: first it demonstrates the goal and the breadth of a Global makeover. In the second place, it unifies all the positive energies of all those who use any of the RE words, in any language, to describe desired and improving conditions. That heaviness of these. “in-between times” will be so lifted. Add in, That Loving Compassion part, and there you have it. That's how I have explained this formula. Try reading it out loud, how does it feel?
The reforms to accomplish a new balance will be obvious from The Homeworld Point of View, as this makeover becomes the unifying theme of our future. The formula speaks to the work ahead, accomplished with a Global Makeover, powered with the energy of a Renaissance. These words are as a whistle blowing in a crowded roomful of screaming, raucous people. “Your country is calling you, the Earth is calling you!” Many have blown such a ‘proverbial whistle,’ in past years, while others are blowing theirs now.
Eventually the signal to stop and look around at what we are doing to each other and the Earth will be heard.
Peace and Prosperity for Everyone will result from our individual
Reconsidering, Reviewing, Releasing, and our eventual Reconciliation
and achieving Renewal
through
Restoring, Rebuilding, Recycling and Recodification
which yields
A loving and harmonious diversity of healthy humanity.
3R2 + (TLC) = 2P
E
Three R squared delivered with tender loving care, equals peace and prosperity for everyone.
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Widespread contemplation upon this formula for the manifestation of positive energy constitutes a ceremony of our shared desire for a successful Makeover. It is powerful because it contains the elements needed to be effective. We all know the strength and inspiration of these Re . . . Words. This formula is also offered as a working example of an Aquarian Age concept. Very focussed, even formalized intensions, have tremendous powers of manifestation. Such widely held intensions and desires can serve to unite us and lift into the achievement of a Global Makeover, restoring the internal harmony of the Human Family. Global success will come from our being of a united focus, becoming of one mind, mounting a desire to carry the unifying work forward.
In past years America did recognize this type of Citizen Power. Programs were started to create jobs doing the work of reform, creativity, and revitalization. In 1938 we had over three million people employed by the Works Progress Administration. 4
The Civilian Conservation Corps, 5 1933 to 1942 employed unmarried, unemployed men to undertake Public Work around the United States. At one point an additional three million young men were at work with the CCC constructing many of the infrastructure features we see today. Today we have the Peace Corps, 6 anyone can volunteer for one to twelve weeks for an overseas assignment, men and woman are welcome, and AmeriCorps 7 formed by the Clinton Administration in 1993 and continues to this day offering 75,000 opportunities every year for adults of all ages to serve their communities.
I envision something equal to combining the efforts of our depression era W.P.A., and C.C.C., plus todays Peace Corp along with AmeriCorpse. What would it be like if one person in seven were eventually involved to some extent in such restorative projects? There is universal agreement about the restoration and repair needed right now, let alone our just emerging green and solar chapters. Top to bottom, things have to be sorted out and put back in place, as well as building anew, water purification plants to energy facilities, that will reduce our footprints.
This formula for success speaks to the vast array of tasks to be accomplished and it demonstrates how we can all sit in the same boat and row in the same basic direction.
Can you imagine what that would feel like? On a smaller scale, that is happening right now, we are just not in the habit of seeing it that way. We are in the habit of seeing volunteer work and charity causes as a normal result of the way our societies function. Do you think that food banks and street repair are the same kind of normal City maintenance? Thousands are already at work on the makeover, they have so voted with their money and time for a new day; they are healing, repairing, painting and building parts of our new home as you read this.
26 Current Affairs
A new Global vision is needed, with bold and galvanizing new ideas, where everyone will have a constructive role. A plan that champions diversity and harmony? That is what philharmonic orchestras do. We could make such music if only we would. Everyone has to back off a bit, surrender a little, yield to the flow. America is not down for the count; a signal has been given that the primitive age of the exploitation of resources and people is over. The old profit-driven model that states, “All progress comes from economic growth” has been shown to be a bankrupt idea, as broken parts are still falling in upon us.
We can emerge anew from the rubble of greed and complacency. America is again called upon to lead. There is still one very tragic and fear driven conflict that has taken center stage in the Middle East. Most are now standing back watching dreams of an Islamist Theocracy battle it out with, primarily United States forces, who some think of as Mr. Monopoly. However, these two “sides” don’t represent everyone. Those who can duck around the corner, and lead almost normal lives are doing so. Fighting breeds more fighters, that is true. No one is born a terrorist, they are developed. They have been exposed to such fear and hatred that they will martyr themselves. Within the resolution of any conflict, the first step is to find the humanity within. When this is done, we then see how the conflict is to be resolved.
In the past we focused our efforts on one military conflict at a time, isolated from the whole. By bringing them together we can create a new nexus, a fresh point of Global focus, a wide view of all issues, see how they are related through time and space and turn the page, placing the survival of all life squarely before us.
This Makeover, this ‘coming home,’ has to do with accepting the knowledge that all is well, we are aboard a miraculous ship, we can learn how to keep her fit and our families prosperous. We are that earth-ship crew, to search out the tasks and chores we are best suited for. From such a universally shared understanding will come a fountainhead of strength and rejuvenation.
We will find ourselves grinning at each other as we pass in the hallways, or out in the fields, or at the construction site. These grins reflect the inner knowing that we each have turned within and found guidance, forgiveness, and grace. We all smile at the same things, laugh over same things, and we know that we can be an excellent crew. We all see the same Moon, are warmed by the same Sun, and are able to share blood and organs. We are family.
This family features an expanding population of individuals who understand the power of positive thinking, the miracles of prayer, meditation and visualization, . . . and projecting ahead the feelings of joy that will mark our success. These individuals are building a vigorous Global tranquility. “Saws and hammers by day, music and dancing in the streets by night!” Indeed, indeed. Yes, we shall live at peace with ourselves, each other and the Earth.
27 A Fresh Look
Do you remember the phrase, The Dawning of Aquarius? A new age to last two thousand years, “Make love, not war.” The shift from the Piscean Age to Aquarius will be, is, and has been, very dramatic. We are still seeing the rise of widespread desire for equality in revolutionary changes of all kinds.
In this year of Mayan Prophesy 9 we are reminded of human interest in such cycles that mark the shifts and changes of our evolving human affairs and points of view. We have been worshiping economic progress and still cling to an age that is past. The shift to a new paradigm 10 will continue to be dramatic, as the faith in a forever expanding Gross Domestic Product 11 of materialistic economic theory weakens, and the new becomes manifested.
While Centralized authority continues to weaken, their is also a sprouting of compassionate values that first erupted some forty years ago. Today’s Church scandals,12 the 99% movement, 13 and world wide political chaos hold our feet to the fire now. The past sudden
Those assassinations of President Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Attorney General Bobby Kennedy spelled out the pain being inflicted, the fears being felt. They can be seen as expressing this most dramatic shift between the Age of Pisces, sacrifice and obedience, into the dawning age of 16 Aquarius, knowledge and liberation.
After all the tragic killings of forty years ago America sat stunned and silent for a while. We did hear the music and the speeches, we did march in the streets, we have commemorated those lives for many years. We did suit up for a later emergence. The New Age did take shape within us, it did grow, and the bloom is on the way now. A Renaissance there will be! There is a restlessness in the air, impatience with the old status-quo. Pressure is building. The shift is upon us. Precursors abound, we all have choices before us. Control is being passed to the Placeholders and the Creators.
Look at the tipping points that we have reached; health, nutrition, and going green. No longer is, “Too big to fail” an acceptable corporate strategy. Prestige will now come from how well the job is done, not how big the profit. The seedbed has been prepared, perhaps for you to plant a small and local service focused enterprise. You are presented herein with a number of ideas for a fresh look; as well as implicit questions for your consideration. Your dwelling on these things will be as prayers, within the Religion of your choice. You may choose to turn inward, to clear your mind with a combination of meditation and actual walks in the woods or parks, and to sit awhile.
We can imagine sitting in that earth-ship and listening to an emergency briefing about the choices before us. “We are now faced with choices about our behaviors on board. When we awoke we did not know about how the living hull worked, nor how many resources were on board. Our choices can be called the A. B. C.’s of our survival. Option A is choosing more of the freedom and growth we have enjoyed by feeding on just some parts of the hull. Option B would be deciding to go for the most likely political, financial and cultural reforms under present conditions and values. Some of us believe that option B falls far short of what is necessary, assuming we desire to complete this mission. Option C calls for a ship wide makeover to stop using up parts of our hull faster than it can repair itself." To know the truth, even through harsh, is comforting.
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Option C is now within our reach for several reasons. First, because of the worldwide economic anxiety we share, we are ready to listen, ready to learn that what is going on over there, is perhaps because of what others do, over here. Second, our widespread resentment, fear, and even hatred, that was released when many were taken for granted and shorted 17 financially, by those able to do so. These circumstances have assured that reforms are now possible. Third, our long-standing desire to restore and protect our planet’s life support systems from oceans and forests to wheat fields and vineyards.
To cap it off, we are entering a long overdue period of reflection. Whereupon it is dawning on us that we simply can’t maintain the trajectory of bigger and more over here, while expanding warfare upon those over there. We cannot simultaneously ignore our own countries inequities, and engage in unwelcome Nation building for others, and maintain our sense of humanity, and our integrity. We also have the American Dream to look after, we have been caught up in ever bigger, and have left quality of life behind.
The current alignment of all four of these developments offers a yet unspoken alliance for manifesting a Homeworld Makeover. The fear and guilt, the cost in death and destroyed lives, in scattered national treasure and misdirected resources; it is simply too great a burden to carry indefinitely. These are the four main causes of the paradigm 18 shift now upon us. When do we pick up our hammers and shovels? Reconciliation, reclamation, and reconstruction, all call us forward to a New Age. Many are galvanized into action by the continuing effects of Global financial instability. We are reevaluating our needs and reducing our wants. The world is eager for news of recovery, now is a rare moment.
In any case, we are headed for a new game plan. You can bet the farm on that. As of, say 2004 we would have gone with option B, the first cousin of the old plan, featuring the same basic goal of rapid economic growth with strong profits, with an improved flow of ‘trickle down.’ However, more is desired nowadays, much more. People everywhere want to live a full life as a whole person.
By changing existing mindsets, creating a new 18 nexus, we advance the possible solutions from barely acceptable alternatives, into miraculous manifestations. We do know how and we can work together to fully develop option C, to finally recognize and take responsibility for our ship and this voyage. This makeover will require everyone to do what they can as we install this viewpoint into our fields, gardens, shops, our homes, offices, cities and governments. Think about it, make a list, what does the future of your dreams look like? How would you like to feel? Can you conjure up images of yourself engaged in your most desired activities? What is your vision? Combining them all is to form the definition of our humanity.
29 The View From Missouri
Living in Liberty Missouri, in the northeastern part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Region, in that ‘Show Me State,' now gives me the chance to say, “the Missouri Mule is waiting,” for us to get it together. This slogan serves as a metaphor for the waiting it out that we are all participating in. Rethinking is hard. The Rebuilding will be the easy part. It is important to realize, going in, that by definition we are not going to realize the future of our dreams by just doing more of what brought us to this present juncture.
Person by person, we are seemingly waiting for a new heading. First, a little humility is called for. We have learned to drape ourselves with comforting beliefs, some more useful than others.
The warmest of these beliefs, the blankets we have each chosen, deals with who we are, individually, each one of us has our own favorite blanketing beliefs that defines us, both within our conscious minds, and before our families and friends. Our individual behavior both past and present, reflects who we believe we are.
Assuming changes are desired all around, we are called to trade in our old blankets, something that was unimaginable for Charlie 19 Brown. The changes that are necessary to achieve our desired future will challenge some of those old comforting beliefs that held us on the old decision path that has resulted in today’s existing conditions.
That Missouri Mule is waiting for us to take responsibility for our actions. For example, let us consider energy consumption. All of a sudden we all realize that America has been producing gas guzzling highway cruisers and muscle cars! Hey! They made ‘em because we bought ‘em! It’s like, “Who’s on 20 first?” with the advertisers, consumers and manufacturers. Lighten up, and think it through. We loved our big, fast, heavy cars, every Great Uncle should have one to show the kids. As he gives them a ride, they get the earth-ship lecture!
Not too long ago, everybody on-board so to speak, ate locally without any packaging or refrigeration or shipping. Of course we enjoy our new options, more choices and more flavors. We are challenged to remodel our very posture upon this planet, to assure the ample production and distribution of food and maintain adequate mobility from homes to schools, to jobs, and to play and to enjoy entertainment. We have all been too ready to consume what we could ‘afford.’ Now we learn of the consequences, global warming and air pollution, pipe lines and fracking for gas, all learned about in a most awkward manner, in political campaigns rather than our schools? Much to review.
30 Household Choices
Two very important words represent the major challenge in our future; economics and ecology. Just about every decision before us now and for years to come will deal with one or both of these words. They can be thought of as the twins, as they share the same origin, grew up so differently, and are destined to become such close supportive friends in our new quarters. They share a Greek ancestry, Oikos, which means household. It translates into the eco of both economics and ecology. These two most basic words mean household management and household knowledge respectively.
These ‘eco twins’ shape our lives now and they will define the width and depth of our Homeworld Makeover. How much of everyone’s earth-ship will be dug up and bled out for the needed makeover? How much of the ‘natural environment’ must be left alone to supply us with the air, water and food we require? Just how much of ourselves are bound up in our living close to, and our visiting pristine beaches, mountains, and deserts? We have already learned we can go too far, much has been lost.
World wide trade and commerce in the days of clippers and schooners spawned our modern corporate economies without any knowledge of ecological principles. While our modern profit-driven practices have long been seriously out of balance, we have moved on to destroying some of the components of Earth’s protective network of interdependent species and systems that support all life. This network of living relationships is the very thin and fragile Biosphere 21 that we have taken for granted. This is the zone of Life, from deep in the sea to the top of the clouds with an average thickness of about ten miles.
Our expanding population and increasing consumption has interfered with these life support systems. Today we are hearing two drumbeats, first, “We must have more production, more jobs,” accompanied by, ‘send out those new credit cards.’ With the other ear we hear, “Save the rain-forest,” “The bees are dying, and, The water is polluted,” and so much more.
These conflicting drumbeats point us in opposite directions, what psychologists call a ‘double-bind.’ 22 Some follow one beat and a few follow the other, I feel that the vast majority of those Earthlings we stepped back to watch are numbed, confused, and being brought to a standstill. Their are those amongst us who do indeed understand this situation, and find themselves tucked away, at work somewhere. These folks are called up now to become ambassadors for our survival. We are faced with household choices throughout society such as: should remaining open land be used for wildlife habitat, or cattle, goat, and sheep grazing, or solar energy farms? Widen the bridges or restore the marshes? More schools or improved senior facilities?
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Those ‘eco twins’ point out that the earth is only partly a stage, upon which to feature an economy. The earth is first and foremost a living household that sustains all life. We have now come face to face with the oikos challenge. The term sustainability is becoming the new watchword, and that is good. However it is not enough, sustainability is only an interim goal, and in todays world, puts us on the knife edge of maximum productivity.
The destiny of our eco-twins is to blend their respective skills and establish a Household Economy that features the stewardship of life sustaining processes, and would oversee the drafting of official policies that assure the continuance of planetary fertility, abundance, and reasonable levels of improving prosperity. This Homeworld point of view explicitly calls for the establishment of a network of societies where everyone can have a life beyond crippling toil and debt.
This implicit Oikos Challenge starts by our collectively accepting that our Earth’s sustainability is now being depleted, and that it’s carrying capacity is limited; how many people can we house, feed, educate, and provide health care for? In how modern of cities, and living in how luxurious of homes? Economists tell us the real cost of anything is calculated by the value of the alternatives foregone. Build one aircraft carrier and you have lost ten hospitals, or dozens of clinics, churches and libraries. It is up to us to decide what we desire the mix to be, rather than continue with expansive, crusading, business as usual.
Excellent projects in exactly the right places are called for as human civilization approaches “build out 23.” This is easy to see if you imagine the family farm with a variety of animals and crops. The in-laws need housing, put in an RV Park or a bowling alley for winter income, lease some land for billboards, sell off unused water rights, and build a pump station for the new oil sands pipeline. What happened to the farm?
We need to pause and ask wise questions. We have been in such a rush, unable to look ahead, just whose job is it to ask those questions? In earlier times the Council of Chiefs 24 asked, and then spoke to such questions as deemed worthy of contemplation. Today many wave answers about, but it is the correct questions that will help us the most, that will illustrate the pathways and the opportunities before us.
Such an ecologically driven realignment within this Global Makeover may seem harsh; however it is the coming of age for Humanity. It is this ultimate eventuality that binds us, to finally share what is here, on this wild, jaw dropping ride we find ourselves upon. The time has come to leave the primitive age of discovery and exploitation behind. In how many ways can we show our love and appreciation for all that is of this Earth?
32 Breaking Out!
Our shifting into ‘renaissance mode’ will be to break out of our old ways and accept, even cherish the opportunities and challenges of the new. You can decide to undertake such a personal shift at any time. Societies are apparently able to mount such shifts, as if some kind of shared conscientious opens in the right circumstances, “When the time is right, it will happen.” Many people are at least aware of Nostradamus, 25 the Age of Aquarius, the Mayan Calendar, and in addition their are sociological theories about cultural evolution, stages of personal and societal development, as well as repetitive cycles of dominant trends. An underlining of the now arriving “breaking out” that I have envisioned is found within the academic work of Pitirim Sorokin, 26 a pioneering and controversial sociologist concerned with cultural evolution. He broadly saw the ego driven past yielding to an altruistic future and a decrease in warfare. He wrote of the “spontaneous manifestation of altruism,” as a dominant characteristic of the “Ideational Phase” that he prophesied to rise following the just past “Sensate Phase, a fall into decadence. Are we due for such a breakout, perhaps a Sorokin scholar will address this point for the first edition? He saw this emergence in the past and expected it to occur again.
Such a ‘breaking out’ of renaissance scale will not be planned or manageable. It will involve all segments of society. It may look and feel like chaos. It will be an organic happening. We have already observed the undertakings of many individuals that are far from the normal range of charity work. We could assume the rash of recent, diverse, large political demonstrations mark the rumblings of related discontents brought on by the enforcement of the overreaching status-quo. This was revealed in the Occupy Wall Street global breakout, we know we are way out of balance. In this regard Renaissance Arising proposes that we focus and unite the energy and hopes from the breakout of anxiety and tension, along with any academic cycles and shifts, and the fully rational personal decision to help out in the face of a planetary emergency, into the emergence and completion of this makeover.
Examples are in the news every week. Precursors have been duly noted; consider the spread and spontaneity of paying it forward and green shopping 27 bags, as well as the arrival of electric cars and fuel cells, harbingers of a new age. Have not you read of individuals taking on special projects to assist, heal, preserve and create? Many individuals now find themselves doing the unthinkable of last year. You know what some of them are. Workers taking pay cuts to share the funds available. Adults doing unpaid internships, and pilots camping in the parking lot of the Los Angeles International Airport!
Speak to all your clerks, from grocery store to gas station, they serve you slices of your life, offer respect and kindness, and perhaps even discuss both the good and the inadequate parts of what is being offered and bought. How many first names do you have? We all need our identity. That’s a start, seeing one another as unique individuals, and yet so very similar to ourselves. Watch for those faces to give a smile to, chances are they will see you coming and greet you first!
Look about, what is within your reach each day? Have you ever put something back, or picked up some litter as you go in to pay for gas, or buy groceries? The average piece of litter is seen hundreds of times, pick it up and amp up your breakout energy. You can feel it. If you are stared at, take a bow, or ask, “Get that one over there?” Break loose.
Breaking out can be slow or fast. Some have started new projects that involve hundreds of people, sometimes reaching overseas. Say you want to work with animals, then walk the dogs and play with the cats at a shelter. Talk with whom you meet there. Listen to what you say. Watch for additional opportunities. Perhaps a friend will come along with you.
Voting in a Democracy is the least of it. Have you ever called on an elected official? Have you ever attended a hearing? Gone to a trial? Looked over the bulletin boards lining the hallways of schools and colleges? Have you priced your casket yet? Break loose! Most of us are busy behaving while others are being bulldozed. Do you need some TLC? Then give some, it will come back. Each one of us can positively affect ‘what is in the cards, what’s possible, by what we think about, what we watch, how we feel, and by maintaining a high energy level. And so it follows that the bigger our crowd is, the more joy for all of us. We all know who we like to be around, and whom we avoid as they are gloomy and pessimistic. We all have the power to boost the group energy, facilitating the manifestation of our dreams. Listen for your cue. Your Angels are standing by, ready to help you, when you ask.
33 The Road Ahead
Let us stand together and look ahead, what will be playing on, “The Home World Show,” next year? What about in ten years? Let’s just see what we can come up with. This idea of a Global makeover is starting to shape up, with many people writing, speaking, organizing, protesting, praying, meditating, visualizing and preparing for its manifestation. This showing of our best traits will arise within the expectation of increasing peacefulness and prosperity.
The academic and pragmatic overhaul of our ships living hull will combine with the energy of an arising renaissance. This development is as achievable as we believe it to be. Cynical attitudes will be replaced by cautious optimism. Talk of good news will join the casual conversations of weather, health and family. The buzz on your street is changing.
It will become the stated basic desire to feed, house and heal all the people of this earth. Many are working on this goal now, and more will join in. We will find ourselves doing what we can with our skills, and the resources available to us now. Businesses and corporations will do what they can, some have started already. Projects will be undertaken; platoons of employees will work on others. Shops will be used by volunteers to create needed items outside the market economy. Examples include the new fuel efficient forest people’s cooking 28 stoves, as well as water pumps, wind turbines, and solar panels, composting bins and rain barrels. All of such devices are, ‘Survival Appliances.’ The road ahead also includes many events we have not dared to consider.
Consider these, Makeover Glimpses:
*Individual initiative will lead the way with local projects and Internet link ups.
*Local Governments will notice, and offer facilitation of private and volunteer projects.
*The Media will grasp the ‘good news,’ putting a Homeworld Makeover up on our collective radar.
*Washington will eventually notice, then create a combined WPA and CCC jobs program, and then lead with diplomatic initiatives of all kinds.
*Corporations will fund “Makeover Projects” to help kick-start the economy.
*The total number of military aircraft in the sky, worldwide at any one moment will steadily decline.
*Troops will come home; some will be retrained for duty with the Homeworld Makeover.
*Blueprints for the next generation of bombs and destroyers will be put away.
*Earth stewardship will take center stage. Biodiversity will be protected. Water supplies will be shared. Limits to urban expansion will be set.
*The gulf between Wall Street and Main Street will be reduced. Fair play will replace, “Whatever you can get away with.”
*A sustainable, steady state economy will be implemented.
Each one of us will be confronted with new choices, as well as being challenged to accept responsibility for our actions outcomes. You will probably find yourself wondering why we didn’t do this sooner. Is there someone on your block who has been hit really hard by this ‘selective depression’ who needs a hand? Well, find out how you can help them. You may have knowledge or a connection or resources that would be of tremendous value to them.
34 One More Thing
Your contemplation of such a shift into a Modern Day Renaissance will soon enough turn towards actions, however there is one more thing to consider now. The following thought is given for you to hold, and consider as you read on. Forty years of personal puzzlement has finally yielded a simple and quite astonishing reason that may explain why we have persisted in heaping abuse upon our planet, our neighbors and upon our very own life support system.
Simply put, our cleverness and our inventions have outpaced our ability to anticipate and manage their future implications. Is this disjuncture reflected in our DNA? One could ask, are we biologically fit to live within this modern world we have so proudly outfitted ourselves with?
In our prehistoric cave dwelling days, new developments, spear throwers or fire starting techniques for example, stayed local and gave status to the originator. Then these improvements spread outward slowly. In other regions with different conditions or resources they were found to be less or even more desirable.
These improvements may have became the new normal at the place of origin; however, there was no short-term feedback loop from experiences elsewhere. Can an Evolutionary Biologist or Developmental Anthropologist help make the case that we grew up with inventive cleverness, abilities that became favored in our DNA? Then able to conclude there was nothing added to that gene pool of the originators breeding group regarding the questioning of how it worked out over hundreds of years of application?
At this moment then, do we stand as descendants of clever originators, striving for accolades from the group, today or next month at the latest, with no natural, inbred compunction to sit and consider future results?
This insight has drawn into view two formerly unrelated tidbits. Margaret Mead 29, a beloved Cultural Anthropologist once talked and wrote of our becoming, “The Humanes,” when we grew up. Other writers have also made predictions of what our new name would be in the future. The second ‘tidbit’ was my memory of the Comic Strip, Pogo, 30 who famously said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” Was this Pogo’s creator, Walter Kelley’s way of saying, “It’s time to grow up?”
In the dictionary we find: hu-mane 1. characterized by tenderness, compassion, sympathy for the distressed, kindhearted, benevolent.--hu-mane'ly, adv.-hu-mane'ness.
Some forty years ago, did we almost reach a public understanding that we may have outpaced the normal protections that are afforded to animals by the dynamics their biological evolution? We have free will. We have yet to learn restraint through applied wisdom.
Our survival is to be assured through consciously manifesting the transformation of our societies, managing our cultural evolution, our survival, with acquired wisdom, with humane restraint. We are challenged to learn and look ahead, to put conscious processes in place, to select with great care and wisdom, our path into the future. Those with the most power at their fingertips seem the least likely to understand the free will that we are born with. Much to explore here later by you and me, as well as theologians and philosophers, our politicians to be dragged along.
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You may have come across articles that talk about how our brains are “hardwired.” 31 These articles indeed point out the fertile ground for a new field of academics. “Nuero-sociology” perhaps, looking into how we may have leaped into our future, Unprepared? Could it be, that we have, called ourselves out? Are we being called right now to go beyond the Humans of old, to become the Humanes of tomorrow? This is The Call within the Call. What is to be done? Do we have a Big Wrench to fix this with? No, only about seven billion little ones 32! And each one with a bag of seeds, from mustard seeds to the seeds of loving compassion, and creativity, and wisdom.
It is time for each one of us to count our blessings and move forward with respect and grace. It is becoming clear that we will soon be able to look back and group certain texts, songs, plays, documentaries and books as comprising “The Humane Teachings,” or, “The Renaissance Literature,” that has been, and will continue to be presented for some time to come.
Thinking it through in our pause for direction, is to understand what it means to hear, or to say, “We don’t know, what we don’t know.” From Sylvia 33 Richardson’s, Growing Winds of Freedom speech, at the Grassroots Radio Conference, August 19, 2011, in Kansas City.
Our individual and collective growth will come from this very difficult, although very affordable, thinking it through. We can see the results of such a thinking it through within a collection of essays in Ecotherapy, 34 edited by Buzzel and Chalquist, that describes the current rethinking of psychotherapy, with a nod to everyone taking a walk in the woods.
From years ago we have Psycho-cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz 35 as well as all the turn of the Century New Thought 36 literature. These religious writings point the way to a goal of personal spiritual development. This handful of inspired authors develop the concept that we each have a divine nature within, and stand as co-creators. We now have such a vanguard of adherents for this Makeover. In addition we continue to read of remarkable developments by visionary and kind individuals, who have put their best foot forward, showing our humane capabilities, placing the actualization of the divine in our midst?
We are being pushed out of the nest, pulled and pushed. Perhaps all ‘grass roots’ movements have been attracted to, and energized by the allure of moving out and beyond to new sensibilities, to a new view of what is the right thing to do, reaching for the new alignment, to take part in defining that new nexus. The Age of Aquarius is pulling us free.
Considering those ‘grass roots’ political campaigns, and perhaps games such as Dungeons and Dragons, along with similar computer games; have they provided the excuse to move outward, to the new? Have gamers pulled away, yearning for a new alignment? When these political campaigns are concluded, it becomes ‘all over’ and that candidate or issue focused action is then folded back into the normal course of events. When the computer game is over, a rest is taken, and then the experience is repeated.
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A living Renaissance type of energy burst will capture that driving forward, and create a shift that will continue, no end in sight. We shall be shifting from human habits to actions and expectations of the humane alternative. People are quick to catch a shift, evaluate it and run with it. Intentions of Goodwill can be felt and will become emulated, it is simply what we do best.
We shall each learn to put our best effort forward, always asking, what is the Humane thing to do? As Nobel Prize awarded Biologist George Wald 37 used to put it, “Simply ask, is it good for the children?”
The tea kettle will whistle, up in that wheel house upon the river of change, and the Captain will be tweeting away. The children will wave from the bank.
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CHAPTER TWO
Arising Now . . .
We are called to find that place to start the process of stepping out anew. We are forgiven and blessed automatically when we begin again. Chances are, you have been nudged to do something a little different. Those are the first notes of the Call. Your emergence is expected. The answers are within the doing of it. Look over what others have done, are doing. Can you feel the pull? What has repeatedly caught your eye? Are you pacing the floor? The Call is for you and the others, those who will follow and support you. Be patient and offer a strong signal. Then step up, they will come along with you.
You can begin again, you are forgiven and blessed automatically when you do. It is your choice. There is something just ahead for you. Watch for it. Expect the way to open for you, when you so desire. Their is a parade passing by right now, going off to work on the makeover that we all desire. You can step into this parade at any time. As you watch for your place within this shift you will become energized with joy, realizing that you do have a place in the grand scheme of things. Your listening for, and responding to the Call will strengthen the signal for others. We are recapturing a part of ourselves. We all run best with a warm core, watch for your opportunities to stoke the furnace that fires your soul.
38 Arrival Schedules
We are on one ‘ship,’ with two schedules. We have more than some control over them. The space schedule, and the homeworld makeover schedule. We find ourselves poised to begin new journeys, that to quite some extent, ones that we ourselves have scheduled. We are set to begin anew.
News of the week now includes space related items; the resupply of the Space Station, speculation on Mars missions and the continuing discoveries of Earth like planets, and just recently, the prospect of constructing a Ship just like the Enterprise of the Star Trek series. 1 This space quest has to do with our place in the Universe, and that most basic question, are we the only ones? Can we come to know such a thing with certainty? In any case, Mars and beyond is now on the agenda, we have the vision, and the funding? Well, it is related to the second schedule. Once we park the tanks, and everyone returns to base, then decide how many aircraft carriers to keep for relief measures and so forth, at that point we can see about starting the research phases for beyond Mars.
The creation of a homeworld makeover schedule is implicit in the current Global Warming discussion, however very cautious in most other regards. A fresh shoot has been offered by the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation’s sponsored quest for the Toilet of the Future (Link ). I’ll bet you can think of several other recent developments that would so qualify.
This schedule for homeworld makeover is currently stuck in that ‘heavy mud’ of these in-between times. We have yet to grasp the totality of the work to be done here on Earth now to allow the Space Schedule to ever be drafted, and then completed. Continuing self-serving and flag-waving warfare on our hungry planet is to bring hell upon us all. May the apostles of peace arise.
My posting of this ‘arrival schedules’ portion was called up by the Arab Spring 2 developments, occupy wall 3 street, then the Chicago NATO 4 demonstrations in May of 2012, and the continuing news of Global fiscal folly and the distant drums of war. It is quite fitting that the Nurses of the world are carrying forward the Robin Hood 5 Tax campaign and forming alliances with other groups, all focused on matters of bringing about a cense of proportionality and fair-play. The issues of our time are blending into and illuminating the dawn of a progressive point of view, beyond the scope of any one of our current hot issues. In my mind I see the possibility of a Global “Hold the Phone” moment when all parties just stop sharpening their swords, take a deep breath, and share a commitment to creating a Homeworld of our dreams. Again, it is as possible as we believe it to be.
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The Homeworld Point of View can be a unifying force for what appears to be, “a collection of mixed messages” as was said of NATO demonstrators in Chicago. The clashes that make the news are only a minor event compared to the talk in the kitchens and hallways. I believe their is also such a schedule for the withdrawal of all armies to their respective Countries and camps. Is the United States able to show respect for a Grand Vision of harmony and healing? Shifting our focus to a world at Peace? I say yes, it is in the works. All participants in all of the hardened issue focused disputes, are all missing the matter before us. It is a massive “Hello!” And a, “Good Morning to All on Earth.” And yes, print money if we have to, we know how to ramp up production to absorb it. We can make those survival appliances and place them on point to ease suffering and recover Global goodwill. To continue sharpening our pencils while the earth wilts would be the height of folly.
You could say we have selected 2012 as the date of our Final Exam. Do we see the glass half empty? Or half full? Renaissance Arising see’s it as filling up. The Place Holders and Creators, (see: Authors Forward, p. 25) and those Culture Creatives 6 of a few years back, you are all called to join those who have already pledged their time and funds to the arrival of compassion throughout the entire human family, and all our relations who fly, swim, walk and crawl amongst us.
I’m aware that many others have thought they stood at a crossroads of History, and this moment just might take it’s place within a long march of such, in the end, minor events. However it seems to me that Love is to win out in the end, we are to settle down and move closer to God, I prefer the inclusiveness of, a single Godhead, or Divine Source, many rays of light radiating from one creative power.
I see an anticipation of arrival, our journey Home to be completed. The actual hour is up to us. We could make the turn for Home very soon. While you are pausing, on a bench or a log, take a look at our Centuries long back-trail, consider the ways we have shown love and compassion. You can see a roll-out of concern and compassion to ever expanding regions and populations. We are scheduled to soon extend compassion and assistance to all aboard this Earth-ship. Phases can be labeled to mark our progress.
First came the historical family phase, nuclear family and reaching to the tribe or clan members we grew up with, on the savanna, in the caves, and on forest fringes, and then during those long sea and land journeys. Once we were, with money, donations were collected, and assistance beyond family or tribe was offered. I think of this as the ‘sympathy phase.’ This phase would include Religious Ministries to the ‘heathens’ and the poor. We then had a corrective phase of a more modern Brotherly Love, seen in soup kitchens the world over. Next came an outbreak of what could be called a corrective phase, featuring Habitat houses 7 and free 8 cars, even dream fulfillment projects for ill children, shelters for women and pets, and refuges 9 for lab chimps and old elephants.
Then the current phase of ‘Loves Triumph,’ of transformation whereby that, “spontaneous manifestation of altruism” of Professor Sorokin is sprouting forth, many receiving answers to Prayers and discussing it in group, or simply the coming to our senses, probably ‘all of the above.’ Such events will continue to dazzle us with joyous wonder as individuals and organizations continue to stage their own breakouts. Can it be said that all the closely held religious writings point to the arrival of just this event? What do we see right now to love and cherish, that is the question for each of us. The future is our choice, we stand as co-creators. We also know that all negativity will register in someway, somewhere, so then, our basic personal responsibility is to watch over what ingredients are added to the public elixir of Life.
We are challenged to find the sparkle of our own souls and hearts, amidst the clammer of stepping free. Speaking of schedules, I believe that their are many other arrivals to come, on the way to creating such a Grand Vision, with this shift to a new Nexus. An example; stand with me and call-out explicitly for others to also call out, cast the light of a new day upon other situations that poison us from behind the scenes. What of the drug wars in Mexico and beyond that American users on one level are ultimately responsible for? What of the private pain that leads to such choices by all involved? From the users to the rule-makers and enforcers? The pain and violence of distribution far outweighs the suffering of usage. Legalization is on a schedule.
Those who understand the workings of the Call can manifest the best outcome for all concerned. The leadership on this matter will appear. How can we expect Mexico for one to be a compassionate neighbor, perhaps trading their petroleum for our food? The shift from money goals to humanitarian goals is being scheduled by an arising enlightened renaissance.
40 Precursors Abound
Those ‘arrivals’ that are becoming more firmly scheduled are generated by a shift in our thinking about how to accommodate our huge and diverse human family. These emergences of fresh acceptances and preferences are generated by our individual reviews, the selection of alternatives, and then the embracing of the new. It is the process of manifestation, and results from our investment of personal energy, from thoughts, then to voice, and finally actions. In addition to such personal chunks of step by step manifesting energy we have the sprouting of projects, seemingly from nowhere, that are a shift in and of themselves, and also a visible witness, a cheer leader to assist these other so scheduled arrivals of societal shifts, and programs. These are the precursors to manifesting a Global makeover.
For example, Queen Noor of Jordan continues to build support for Global 10 Zero, a group campaigning for a world free of nuclear weapons. This group is a precursor, one of many, to the eventual establishment of World Peace. Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby in Washington D.C.,1951. She came to my attention years ago and alerted me to watch for other extraordinary examples of ‘Global Citizenship.’ Currently over two hundred world leaders including Presidents Jimmy Carter and Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as retired military brass from China, Russia, and America are working to eliminate all nuclear weapons from this earth.
It may be that they sense the same shift that many others do, we are coming to our senses, or call it what you will. She is Blogging, Tweeting and Skyping to bring about Global Zero’s twenty-year plan to remove all nuclear weapons. A sea change of Renaissance proportions is necessary for this goal to become believable, and then onward to becoming publicly championed around the world as the right thing to do, and then for these bombs to be formally retired, and then dismantled, even perhaps recycled in some symbolic way.
Second, we have the use of an ‘RE word’, “Reinvigoration” 11 by the Feds. That’s how they put it when they described recent efforts to make the Federal Trade Commission, the Labor Department, OSHA, the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the EPA and the FDA more responsible to the public it serves. The use of these ‘RE words’ speaks to a desire to get back on course, to fulfill an expectation that is growing, perhaps a rush to get to where we know we are supposed to be. Look for more ‘RE words’ to show up in the news and even in advertisements. Let us reinvigorate our own expectations of what tomorrow can bring.
Two years ago I found two very unexpected precursors, one dealing with animal rights and one with money. In Catalonia Spain, bullfighting 12 has been outlawed. “We have a responsibility that goes beyond the borders of Catalonia. It is a responsibility to civilization,” said Joan Puigcercos. Observers did point out that, the battle between Culture and Animal rights will continue, and there are other political flavors to it as well.
Then we have a story you probably saw, Billionaires signing the “Giving13 Pledge.” Fifty people have pledged to give away half their wealth during their remaining years, and many more such pledges are expected. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are given credit for getting it rolling.
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It has been reported that Social Security has reached a Tipping Point, and for the first time, funds out the door, surpassed the deductions coming in. It was expected on down the road, showed up early. We probably have not heard the last word on this. The accounting is complex, and the Politicians are at play.
In August of 2011we learned of, “B” corporations, 14 as in, “Benefits,” for you and me, and the environment. The previous S and C type corporations are bound by their charters of incorporation to put the financial interests of shareholders above all else. For instance, “No! Funds are not available for a drive-through recycling kiosk at the bank! Read the charter,” That is what bank manager Mr. Jones would have said previously. Now he can say, “Why yes, that is a good idea, I’ll call for bids.” In Maryland, Vermont, and possibly soon to follow in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington and Colorado it will be possible to do just that, to spend Corporate money on matters not directly related to shareholder returns.
We could even put up a sheet metal shop that would feature bringing in volunteers to fabricate solar panels for local non-profits. These new companies would be incorporated and financed to do this work, being in business to do good things, with investors applauding!
From my perspective, the past year, June 2011 to June of 2012 is being dominated by a very important event. On June 20-22 the United Nations Rio+ 20 conference 15 on sustainable development takes (took) place. Precursor it may be, or the line in the sand that essentially defines those that wish to move ahead with a Homeworld makeover, and those that don’t agree, or believe that it is unaffordable, or unnecessary. During the past year many Countries have given notice that the time has come for aggressive measures on the environment and humanitarian issues. It is my intention to include the Worlds response to this UN Conference in the forthcoming First Edition.
Listen to the news with an ear for items that could have been led with the phrase, “And now from the Renaissance desk we have . . .” Finding your own current examples can define your membership in the Renaissance Clan. When telling family and friends about these developments use the words renaissance, bellwether, precursor, and paradigm, when bringing forth the good news. You have the power of manifestation and can help bring about this homeworld makeover. How hard is that? For some it may still be a stretch, we have not allowed ourselves to believe it was going to get better any time soon, so some haven’t learned to give optimism a voice.
42 Use What's Available
As preferable ‘Green options’ present themselves, support them. This applies to everything from reusable grocery bags and those incandescent light bulbs, through the food you eat. Conversely, refuse to utilize or purchase those choices that are obviously retarding this makeover. Shop local and eat as fresh as possible, read the ingredient labels on packaged foods, and of course watch for new recycling programs. Visit the showrooms of the new electric and hybrid vehicles, don’t overlook 'propane’ conversions. Talk it up, amp the buzz, shift the landscape.
Could you step up at work, say, with the cartridge recycling program? Ask if you could help out, then talk to the individuals who change them. You will probably have to select a proper place and box to store them in before they are returned. The same challenge applies to all other recyclables; containers and space are required, businesses can make this work, and some are offering client and customer drop-off recycling opportunities.
You may have a chance to take recycling to the next level, say your workplace is in an office park, perhaps office paper aggregates at your office, those cartridges go over to the Copy Shop. Cardboard goes on down the street to the grocery store with a bailer.
Make the effort, show some recycling progress. Others may join in and help out. Post recycling articles on the bulletin board. Even appeal to the boss for more support. Find out what other similar businesses are doing. You may find great comfort in becoming a hands-on worker, sorting out recyclables and dropping them off, you may prefer the talking it up part. Sometimes it may seem not worth it, a few newspapers and a dozen soda cans. You could even say that the thirty pounds a week has little to do with “Getting it done” in the long term, however recycling can be a reminder of a very important principle. We are affected negatively when we witness practices for which we know there is a better solution. Not completing the obvious better alternative, is akin to suffering a failure, bit by bit, week after week.
Some are callous or becoming so, reducing our ability to show kindness in other situations. The energy becomes sticky and hard to move through. Our inattention to such repetitive, built-in little failures can be turned around so easily. Keep the issue open, do the best you can and be attentive to possible improvements over the long term. This applies to average consumers as well as our purchasing agents. Some of whom are buying by the ton or truckload. They can watch for recovered, replenished, and recycled options, everything from fertilizers to carpeting, and those new “hardwood” flooring products made with old tires 16.
I have a wheat or gluten sensitivity and first found relief through buying gluten free bread and scone mixes through the mail, so when mixes showed up on the Natural Foods aisle at the market, I bought some immediately. When Betty Crocker first offered a Gluten Free chocolate cookie mix right alongside the regular mixes, I bought one. (When will we see those famous Macaroni and Cheese makers do the same?)
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When we bought our manufactured home in Liberty Missouri I pulled open the skirting to check on the water pressure regulator and there were two five-gallon pails of used engine oil confronting me. Liberty does have a hazardous waste drive once a year, but I happened to notice that one of the auto parts stores accepted engine oil as a service. Guess where I buy all my auto supplies now? Of course, one can choose to be cynical, and I have to say, pouring that oil into the big drum was difficult and messy, however it’s a start, a pioneering effort, shoulder to the wheel, that sort of thing.
This progressive mindset does offer a two-for-one special. When you accept assistance, at least two parties benefit and glow. Recently for us it was more like a 12 to 1 benefit ratio. It was hard for us to accept, and it had a glorious outcome. My Billie, with her worn artificial joints was being processed for a power chair by our Doctor, when she happened to break a bone in her foot.
The chair and a ramp became an immediate necessity. A friend suggested a new group that was part of the President’s first Economic Stimulus Plan, Rebuilding Together, for assistance with building the now required ramp for the power chair. Twelve men, three boys and some proud Moms built our ramp in one day. For me it was an emotional and overwhelming end to my era of absolutely always carrying my own weight. For the Golden Rule to work, someone has to offer assistance, and someone has to accept it. Most all of us are in the habit of politely shutting out those who offer to help us. I’m sure the psychology of all concerned would be most interesting. Our souls are to out-shine yesterdays culturally enforced psychology. Just accept, and let the kindness come to life. Watch for your turn to offer assistance, putting good stuff in that soup we all live by.
44 Speak Up!
When have you cheered at the movies? When someone achieved unpredictability, when they had a successful, “At bat.” We go back to the theater to be reminded that we can do it, that we can stand in there and take our best swing. Such moments are examples of Citizen Sainthood, achieved by that person who can leave the house looking for whatever is pitched their way, ready to swing away and do the unheard of, “I saw the most amazing thing,” the onlookers will say.
Some turn away and don’t take their swings. That is also portrayed in our movies and books. What are your favorite movie moments? Can you see them as, “At bats?” There are many ways to speak up. In one very important way they are all equal. Your soul sparkles with loving energy at that very moment of decision to do the unpredictable, snapping up a scrap of litter on your way into the Quik Trip, or deciding to sponsor a micro-loan 17 in Morocco. At such moments the Arising Renaissance receives a little pull.
Talk to someone about this Makeover reading material, right now, today. It is so easy to fault the cable television provider, or ‘that # * % clerk,’ why is it so hard to bring up good news about things getting better? Choose someone, even if you have to call long distance. It seems that talking up the good news is a challenge for many. This simple connection is so important, it can be compared to launching your personnel vessel upon the river of change, the wheelhouse soon to be occupied by dreamers and manifestors.
Repeatedly in the papers, and on TV you have heard and read of hard times not spoken about until a certain point is reached, then someone came forward, and made a phone call, or started a project. They had finally suffered enough, seen enough. The breakout made the news! It is such an important thing to release the soul's voice, it will warm your belly when you do. This process of bearing your soul is the process of becoming authentic and healed. You can pay hundreds of dollars for retreats that will help you do this. Do it for yourself, a step at a time. Talk to your friends and relatives about your heart’s desirers, or possibly a dark secret that is hanging on to you, such talking can release you, and launch an embrace of love and compassion.
These moments of liberating your soul will serve you well. You can feel the shift into alignment with the arrival of this new point of view, that light bulb coming on, you will feel your motivation increase as you become a contributor to the developing momentum of an Arising Renaissance.
45 Breath Some Fresh Air
Most of us are flat out busy. Our lives seem beyond our control. After pausing for a while and going, ‘inside,’ starting to feel your way, the time will come for you to fully open the door to your involvement with this “Homeworld Point of View.” Are you squared away? The Call of Chapter One says, literally, ‘light it up.’ Without your energy being brought out into view, you will sit by with potential, your life could be opened up so to speak, with your personal contribution revealed. We all need to feel it. “Hey man, what’s happening?” We are always looking about for what is going down. When you speak of this new homeworld perspective, you will be breathing some very refreshing air.
‘Breathing such air’ represents choices you most likely have never been faced with before. “How do I help, where do I go”, you wonder? “What are my options?” I see four basic possibilities for your involvement. You may be a messenger, an organizer, a sponsor or a worker. Then again, you may decide to think it over for a while, the invitation is still good. You may do all four to some extent. A messenger would convey this material to selected individuals; an organizer would recruit people to help carry out a fresh idea and suggest how they could start; a sponsor would bring funding to the table; and a worker would decide when and where to show up and offer to help. What is the most comfortable for you? Your choice will be influenced by your past choices, those comforting and defining blankets you have dressed, defined yourself with.
Your response to, and role within, this makeover will evolve over time, over months and years. The challenge for all will be to settle on, “What is most appropriate for me at this moment?”
Do you understand that these pages have come before you with a purpose? Change comes to each of us differently. We tend to repeat where we go and what we do. What would come of your first visit to a flower show or a baseball game, a historical landmark or a graveyard? Perhaps for your next three meals out, take them at new restaurants.
These winds of change will bring illuminations for everyone. It is like asking fans to switch from football to volleyball, or from country music to opera. All will be thrilled and challenged. How hard is it to greet the new, to appreciate it? Take note of what others have chosen, respect what they see in it. It will be easier to encourage others to explore new possibilities, if you have done so, and learned a thing or two.
It may be that your perspective and personality will be useful within the political challenges to come. Many people define themselves in political terms, progressive or libertarian for example.
For the renaissance to enter the political spectrum depends more on your actions than those of our elected officials. Such eventual acceptance depends on the voices of a few who apply this new homeworld viewpoint, a perspective that transcends all existing political orientations. Could you help with that? Even the thought of it is fresh air. What is on your plate now? Can you put part of it aside, or even let it go? Assuming the Makeover calls to you, how would you rearrange your own priorities? It is a matter of your experiencing now what is being proposed for all. This active empathy supplies the energy that will move mountains. It is honest and it is a miracle hatching force. Fresh air is catching the scent of what’s coming up for you, for all of us.
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PART TWO, LEARN AND REFOCUS
Introduction
This second Section answers the question, What are we dealing with? It also has two Chapters. The first of these, Preparation, addresses the ability to speak in expanded detail to your desires, intentions, and beliefs about the future of your choice. Your illuminations and your ability to speak to them, are both needed now. We will soon hear ourselves speaking with a new clarity about our world, and the visions of what we would prefer.
The fourth Chapter, Person by Person and Acre by Acre, demonstrates how a Renaissance would weave itself into our Societies and produce a network of interrelated, and mutually supportive global cultures. All of these examples will probably be surpassed by what is actually manifested.
47 CHAPTER THREE
Preparations
To answer the Call . . . It suggests preparation, to be able to speak to your desires, intentions and beliefs. Your illuminations are valuable, learn how to wrap and deliver them, they are needed now. We will soon hear ourselves speaking with a new clarity about our world and the visions of what we would prefer. These topics are each complex, however it is easy to grasp the basic idea behind each one. The principles of each can be applied to many circumstances, and used to illustrate the choices ahead. These terms when spoken will call up and deliver a more credible Makeover Vision, and see us well into the launch period.
We are all challenged to learn anew. We now stand with comfortable assumptions, yet to learn the fundamentals that may or may not support them. Learning implies the desire to separate and set aside our comforting assumptions. The quest for clarity is the way to travel forward. We are assembling the specifications for our Homeworld now. It will help if you can wrap your ideas with the terminology now in use, embracing the basic understanding of how the Biosphere supports us. We will come into alignment with all who have wondered about and probed the miracles of life upon this Earth-ship.
48 Future Focused Conversation
As you become excited about the possibility of such a massive realignment, you will feel the desire to talk about what is stirring deep within you. You will see the shifts swirling about us. You will find yourself face to face with individuals who are ready to gain a life-changing glimpse of the future through your conversations with them.
You will be serving as an ambassador to the arriving Homeworld Makeover, in essence ‘selling’ something that is not quite here yet. The overriding priority will become the comfort of those on board, well fed and housed, educated and entertained, all respected and offered opportunities to grow as desired. This planet serving as our spaceship to be monitored and
maintained.
It follows then that you will speaking about the time of transition to the new balance, and the actual tasks of restoration and reconstruction of our cities as well as the biological systems of the biosphere. Many have sampled the satisfaction of serving the greater good by volunteering after storms, fires and floods. Perhaps one in five will serve in such a way in the decade before us.
Then will come a way of life that is not dominated by toil and schedule. The lessons of our passage to date are all available for review. Governance will be modernized to match present-day technologies. Everyone can have a voice. A future of peace and empowerment awaits us all.
Your preparation to serve as an ambassador has two basic dimensions. First, stand tall with a positive energy orientation. When you go out into the world take a moment and prepare yourself in advance to speak in a positive way. Can you say, “Hello” and share a smile with a so-called stranger every day?
Watch your mouth for an upchuck of the “aint it awful,” or the “poor me” syndromes, fight it off with ready comments on good movies or inspiring books. You might even keep in mind your two or three best wishes for a brighter tomorrow. Avoid being pulled into negative responses. You can always be ready to interject something like, “Oh say,” or “By the way, do you know where the closest bookstore is?”
If you find yourself mired in unpleasant conversation, at least listen to how negative and destructive it sounds. Some people take steps to protect themselves when gong out into the world through prayer and meditation. Perhaps you can visualize a color to go with your positive mood. See yourself in gold or azure . . . what is your own favorite color? You know what the blah colors are. Have you ever looked in the mirror and said out loud, “I love you!” Then add, “ Every day, in every way, I’m improving more and more.”
Secondly, place, some homework is called for. A societal change in both priorities and overall direction takes us into uncharted waters. Knowledge of the basic principles concerning our future welfare will become more timely. We desperately need more individuals who understand the basic parameters of the major Homeworld issues facing us.
49 Life on Earth
Life on planet earth is about to change and yet stay the same. On the one hand, iron will always be heavier than aluminum, woman will still do the birthing, and water will continue to freeze at 32 degrees. On the other hand, massive shifts and adjustments will be made to accommodate our huge human population. Kindness and love are still desired by all. We all desire to eat in comfort and to be of some use within the group. Some know this planet to be millions of years old, others know of it as being much younger. Does this have any bearing on how you behave, say, driving in traffic? Or your response to anyone needing a hand? We are equal partners on this earth voyage. Over the years I have just about filled up what I call my curiosity locker. My family has a strong Methodist wing as well as a Mormon one, my, isn’t that interesting? No action required. I am attracted to our diverse journeys, the evolutionary dynamics of modern societal values, and the philosophical inquiry into our arrival and purpose. To ponder it all, that is what we do best of all.
We have only been here a short while, on this earth with chemistry and circuits, fuels and medicines. I’ve been getting a smile from those articles about how we are ‘hard wired’ for this or that. It has now been pointed out that we are biologically well suited to live a much simpler and slower lifestyle, like say during the Clan of the Cave Bear days, a popular series of books by Jean M. Auel. She places Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people side by side for a time, thousands of years ago. That point of view is a long way from the Old Testament Creation story of Christianity, and quite different from other beliefs around the world. The Native People of Turtle Island (now North America) let it all go simply as, “The Great Mystery.”
Diverse peoples are almost coexisting now. What can we teach each other? I don’t mean core religious or spiritual beliefs, everyone is entitled to their own heritage. What about how they sing, and their language nuances? We are in the habit of thinking that early music is primitive, inferior to that played on modern instruments and scores. Did those early ones have ‘musical notes’ that we are missing now? I have experienced notes and tones in nature that were haunting and spellbinding. I’m sure we once knew how to imitate them, even make them more effective. Are we letting our global families heritage deteriorate?
Everyone shares an obligation to protect what sustains all life, both biologically and emotionally. This is our basic humanity, to wish everyone well, strangers on the street, felons, detractors and friends alike. I may just invite anyone to dinner, and I hold best wishes for everyone, regardless of the path they are on, it could have been me. We can learn to disagree without destroying the place. We are building toward a Global Harmony born of diversity. We all need our space. We are not a cog in anyone's wheel. Some feel more protected in a big outfit, others squint and wonder what is over the hill. Some will run, others look for a place to sit.
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Big business has grown large beyond the human scale of things. Those holding the carrots are also competitive and distracted. No one has yet been empowered to look where we are going. A proper human life is composed of playing with our kids, being engaged with friends, and fishing about, malls and stadiums, casinos and tracks, clubs and gangs have filled the gaps left open from the ‘old days,’ as we moved into the lines at the check out stands? We are still biologically suited for life in the raw, alert, poised to judge a threat, and ready to laugh and sing.
We are too sure of ourselves, in a rush, trampling things that are important to the voyage. Life on Earth has two levels. First comes the Biology of it all, then comes everything born of our consciences. Have we managed to scramble them together? Take advertising. We are awash with claims that are not true, perhaps creating a pervasive static that is quite new to the human experience. When we pause and consider, it is nesassary to think of rising above the fray.
The first thing to consider is, “Have I joined a Tribe?” Could be the Catholic or Ducks Unlimited, Democrat or Libertarian Club. Chances are every single such Club has important understandings to contribute to going forward in a good way. It seems we have a need to stand our ground and defend our Club, rather than expecting everyone to offer assistance. The dynamics of an arising renaissance has many parameters. By learning more about how the earth lives and supports us, we will become more of a team, all focused on the same outcome. One could say, the ecological understanding of our homeworld has arrived right on schedule.
51 Global Warming
Back in the seventies global warming was not on the short list of things we should take care of. It was indeed a concern, even a Nuclear Winter was theorized as the Cold War ended. It was not today's cause celebre of the public environmental discussion. To be crude for a moment, (As of 2010 I wrote) Global Warming is a very poor poster child for our environmental concerns.
The two headliners when Earth Day began, on April 22,1970, were population growth and the chemical pollution of the planet, Dr. Paul Ehrlich and Rachel Carson were sounding the alarm on those two issues. Today Global Warming is better addressed implicitly within all the other concerns. We can keep track of how we are doing by monitoring our planet’s temperature. Then lowering it by reducing average miles driven per job, capturing methane, renewable energy, and so on. We know what activities most likely contribute to this warming trend. Everyone needs to know the full dimensions of the challenge we face. Many activities will be modified, from travel to manufacturing.
We need to step aside of present day acrimonious name calling and deal with more grounded and defensible responses, focused on earthly stewardship for the long haul. The most serious issue in the 1970s was and is still, the loss of agricultural soils, both in extent and in vitality. A close second, then and now, is the increasing rate of animal and insect extinctions. This can be said today because Global Warming has so many contributing factors, perhaps atmospheric warming is more like a syndrome than a stand alone issue. A “just enough” response to Global warming alone is totally inadequate. The general health of the planet has been under siege for decades and requires much more than a tailpipe fix.
Global warming has perhaps become the issue because it can be identified so easily and effects are becoming obviouse. As of this rewriting in the summer 2012 it is clear that rates of increase require massive shifts now. Many have despaired at the thought of dramatically restructuring society, yet that is exactly what is called for. The main point continues to be, we need a top to bottom makeover, within which current warming trends would be brought under control.
We have taken the bounty of the earth for granted for many years and have been caught flat-footed. To some extent, global warming appears to have technological approaches, which deals in political players and corporate interests. Are we waiting for a Miracle cure?
The cast of European immigrants became Americans as they cleared the way for businesses and investors that were focused on subduing the wilderness, fostering modernization, and reaping profits. The emergence of a new, free standing industrialized nation was in the cards, just as regaining our balance is the task before today’s Citizens of America. There was one New Englander who saw today’s environmental issues emerging in 1864, George Perkins Marsh of Vermont, with the publication of Man and Nature. He wrote at great length about the price we would, and are now paying for our abuse of the land, done with the agricultural practices offered by petrol based fuels for farm machinery and their respective emissions of manufacture and use.
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If one assumes we have a limited ability to fix things, then a Global makeover of Renaissance proportions will require a truly unprecedented effort, rather than a just barely adequate reduction of green house gasses. The rub will be that the Makeover requires energy, What about half of the military allotment to be applied immediately to the makeover?
On another level, global warming is normal and desired. It drives our natural water delivery system and supplies those very comfortable warm days we enjoy so much, and that every sprouting seed must have. The incoming solar radiation warms the earth’s diversity of surfaces from roof tops to open fields, our cars and streets, giving them all a buildup of heat energy, which then has a different wavelength as it reradiates outward as heat. You could say that portion of the Sun’s solar energy ‘left hotter than it came in.’
So then, sunlight has a desired warming effect on the surfaces and plants it shines on, some ‘light’ is reflected right off and out quickly, and some is reradiated out into the air as heat, this portion being of a different wavelength is restricted by greenhouse gasses, and thereby over-warms the atmosphere. In my research for What’s Ecology published in 1970, the concern was a loss of incoming solar radiation, then being measured on the Washington Mall. The issue was large smoke and soot particles reflecting the sun’s energy back out to space, away from plants and sprouting seeds.
Today’s very small particle green house gasses act as little reflectors retarding the return of the sun’s energy back out to space, where it has always gone. You can think of these gases as putting a blanket around us, holding in the heat. We absolutely must have just the right amount of global warming for there to be life on earth. We explained all this in the seventies by pointing out how your car warms up when parked in the sun. The sun shines in, warming the seats and dash, then, that light is reradiated as heat, now a different wavelength, and is therefore trapped inside by the window glass, now a barrier.
If enough ventilation is provided with lowered windows or air conditioning, we have a representation of the dynamic equilibrium of atmospheric temperature, which is only one of the basic physical conditions required to sustain life as we know it. This discussion of atmospheric heating is still left uncompleted as our direct warming of the air is not mentioned. We have seen those photos of the Earth at night, aglow with lights, all giving off heat, and add in the direct heating from exhausts of all kinds, air conditioning to jets. How about turning out, some to all, of those nighttime lights? Has that calculation been made yet? Are we just to rigid to dream of it? In any case, changes there will be.
We have pushed the envelope regarding global warming into other dimensions. First, relative global inaction has put us behind the curve of our desired recovery goals, seriously exacerbating our planets over heated condition. Second, as many of the other issues are tangled with global warming politics, we are temporarily unable to discuss energy policy, population planning and urban sprawl alternatives in relatively clear air.
Global Warming has now changed from an issue of the seventies, into an earth-audit of 2012. Our salvation will be to put in place a Global Makeover that is children friendly, one that we can look forward to as we tell our grand children how families the world over turned for Home, making sure their would always have enough food for everyone.
53 Footprint
The term ‘Footprint’ has become commonplace, and it can be used in many ways. It most commonly indicates a specific environmental contribution of greenhouse gasses linked to global warming, usually carbon dioxide being added to the air from combusting coal, natural gas, methane, gasoline and kerosene as well as a few others. It is a general reference to the carbon being emitted from the smokestacks and tailpipes of everything from cars to jets, and apartment complexes to manufacturing facilities, all burning petroleum based fuels. Even where these gasses are injected into the atmosphere is of importance, how high for instance, at sea level, or from jet engines at forty-thousand feet.
The second basic meaning Of the term footprint is the total carbon released in the objects original creation, from the mining of the raw materials all the way through to the manufactured objects eventual burial in a landfill, and a possible last exhalation of methane. (Perhaps not the last we see of our set aside trash piles.) Such a total accounting will involve several different gases being released from different operations. We first have the original mining, logging or pumping, to acquire the raw resources, then the transportation and storage, the final manufacture into packaged products and their distribution, even your trip to and from the store, and the objects eventual disposal! This can be tricky to figure in some cases, for example, consider solar cells. “Yes, that one may be more efficient, but look at what you used-up to make it!” That type of comparison is now recognized as a life cycle analysis and would include service life and regular maintenance. The discussion goes on. For example, Carbon footprints would then have two levels of sophistication, the common footprint of immediate usage, then the complex layered footprint of its entire lifecycle of use. In some cases ‘footprint’ means just that, the physical outline of all the buildings and roads required.
Television news has shown us that traveling by jet aircraft has a much larger carbon footprint than driving, and that trains are very good, especially for freight. You could say, “Footprints” are a media-driven political hot potato. It is easy to say, hard to grasp. It is a big concept as all the pieces and the outline of the Footprint under discussion are hard to define. Manipulation by the media and politicians is almost invited. For instance there is a book out comparing the footprints of dogs and cats to cars. The authors claim that pet footprints are currently larger than from our cars.
Well, dogs don’t eat the nonrenewable resource oil, while cars do have a choice between very old carbon and fresh biofuels. The authors main point is, the land and resources required to raise the crops to feed the animals that yield the meat the pets eventually eat, is a larger footprint than the space required by our cars. I see apples, oranges and confusion.
Arguments will bounce all over the place for a while. We should avoid jumping to conclusions, especially those we like the best. Extractive industries such as petroleum pumping and coal mining have many kinds of footprints, in many locations. However, the basic analogy of the grass being trampled underfoot is a good one in my view. We can certainly learn to step lightly, and go around those very sensitive spots.
54 Externalities
When we make anything, we make a little mess, from scraps of materials to dirty rags. If you are making a few thousand of them, you have a waste disposal problem to solve. The main mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to control and reduce the polluting externalities resulting from the processing, manufacturing and distribution of our foods, cars and merchandise. Sixty years ago the success of many companies depended on the plant’s location, allowing them to maximize those externalities, known to us as pollutants. Piping wastes into rivers and delivering unwanted chemicals into the air with a white plume of steam was simply just the way it was done years ago. If a factory can avoid the costs of ‘proper waste disposal’ then profits will rise.
This is a major factor in the discussions of lax standards in other countries because it costs more to do it the right way here. This term also includes the eventual health costs that result from dumping such “externalities” onto the land, and into rivers and bays. Remember the Erin Brokovich film with Julia Roberts?
That community in Southern California suffered from the utility companies almost successful hidden disposal of very dangerous chemicals in evaporative ponds to avoid detection and achieve lower costs. This resulted in contaminated ground water. The avoided high cost of proper waste disposal was tragically absorbed by the local residents, their insurance companies, their hospitals, and taxpayer provided health coverage. Such practices put us further in ecological debt in terms of achieving a sustainable balance.
We don’t know what awaits us, as we fully provide for seven billion people. We need to keep some room in our, ‘pollution budget,’ for those unexpected, yet absolutely necessary production activities of the future, and their externalities. We should consider saving pollution space for the time when we might have to generate extra energy with petroleum reserves to grind rock, mix, and transport it to create new soils for additional agricultural fields and tree farms, and the energy to pump the required water in from somewhere. In addition we may well find ourselves reprocessing our landfills to recover metals, containing hazardous wastes, and to possibly produce a stream of rehabilitated organics to combine with some of that ground mineralized rock to make soil.
The term externalities can lead us to a portion of our future that no one talks about. Besides the possibility of making a polluting mess of it, we are using up our basic stock of resources in a most fundamental way. We are in effect running the movie backwards of how the earths resources were created. Disposal after use has been the norm, instead of conservation and recycling, and that brings Thermodynamics into view. The Entropy Law reminds us, we are using up a limited supply of energy and resources by reducing them to cascading lower levels of utility. Every carpenter knows he should look around for the short scraps rather than cut into a new eight footer. Aluminum cans contain three different alloys in their three parts, body, lid, and pull tab. When melted this new alloy is only suited for ‘lesser’ applications, and some is lost in the process.55
The focus of this Homeworld point of view, is on the next few years. The time focus of Thermodynamics and the, entropy challenge is many many years ahead, however worth noting as we are in effect working as hard as we can to reel it in closer and closer. That is a whole different ‘book.’ Read, Entropy, A New World View, 1980, by Jeremy Rifkin. He could well receive the Prize for the most important book to be totally ignored.
Population Draw Curves
These two curves are well known and originally existed far apart in different fields of study. The first curve is a graph of exponentially expanding population, that normaly belongs in a census report. It is simply an accounting of our earth-ship's passengers that have been increasing as we travelled.The second curve is the upside-down reflection of another well known graph, the economic plot of total goods produced, either in tonnage or value. Shown together they tell us the story of our lives, of all human life on
(Currently working on bringing over three pages with graphs)
Population Dynamics
How many people in ten years? How old? How well educated? These questions will be front and center as we start planning for a more stable and balanced economy. The first tool to learn about is the Population Pyramid.
(Graph goes here.)
Any identified population can be represented by plotting age groupings in a tapered tower made of a layered stack of age brackets, as of a certain date, and usually separating males and females to the right and left. The bottom tier representing births and each ascending layer defined as desired. These Pyramids narrow over time, reflecting mortality by age group. When these models are put in motion we see a bulge or a depression move on up, eventually reaching and becoming the the top tier, for those say over eighty years old.
As more people live beyond eighty, the top tier can even enlarge as a ‘hat,’ until more tiers are defined for the modeling exercise. We are now seeing these pyramids growing taller and maintaining wider layers longer. These population modeling exercises have proven valuable in many ways. For example, a transportation planner can see that he will need to increase bus and subway seating by 18% over the next ten years, to welcome the expanding demographic that will most likely rely on public transportation.
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Japan can now see far enough ahead to release that they will be facing a shortage of younger workers in future years, as their birth rates have shrunk. Ours has slowed also, pointing to a precise date when we will be looking for more workers in certain fields, possibly reviving the economy. It is expected that trade schools and Universities will become prepared to expand, having been demographically alerted. The population pyramid shows exactly what to expect when. We now have very sophisticated, precisely focused computer models that can see arising health challenges as well as emerging shoppers within a defined demographic group, within a defined location, from City to Continent. Such modeling is also done for animal populations as well by Conservation Biologists.
The theory of a Demographic Transition was of major interest during that breakout of environmentalism years ago, and it is one of the main issues making my case for proclaiming that we have used up our ‘grace period.’ We had it going back then, for a moment we looked at what these curves show. Now the population has doubled, reducing our options of reaching a sustainable, steady-state condition.
In my view, we have burned our grace period, when we had more economic and resource maneuvering room, now we have presented ourselves with the global challenge of a complete makeover. It just may prove out that, the now obviouse fact of our togetherness, brought most recently by global Warming and financial collapse, may be to everyone’s advantage as we undertake a massive and obviouse shift.
‘The Demographic Transition’ is an academic and theoretical term that brings our focus to the challenges of a future transition whereby both the working poor, as well as impoverished populations can become upward mobile and maintain all the normal life expectancies of health, education and family. The mechanics of such a transition of well-being to both longer lives and reduced family size has been a point of disagreement for over thirty years. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1969 was adamant that exponential population growth had to be stopped, period. Dr. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle, 1971, 1980 maintained that poverty was the problem. He wrote that once the families of the developing world were beyond poverty, the average family size would shrink, and therefore we have the challenge of rapidly increasing standards of living, rather than preventing population growth. Variations of both approaches have been put into practice, depending on the agency giving the aid, and in what Country.
Behind the curtain of this very tense off-broadway production, Bio-Ethics was being launched by Dr. Garret Hardin. He famously wrote of, “Lifeboat Ethics” in a full page add in the New York Times whereby those who have fallen overboard into abject poverty should not be rescued. Such matters are now a recognized field of study known as Bio-Ethics, dealing with the issues of allowing, not allowing, or encouraging, populations that can not be supported. This is a matter that will have our attention soon, it speaks to the nitty-gritty of our global togetherness, the transcending nature of our sharing this Earth.
It is certainly one dimension of any discussion of population growth and resource policy. Today this transition has a few new faces, those isolated in-country populations that are stuck in cycles of increasing poverty. The options are best identified from a position of our loving commitment to Life, while standing in God’s Graces.
58 Dynamic Equilibrium
Dynamic equilibrium refers to a balance of forces that control an outcome. Kids very soon learn just how much they can get away with. Parental control and our childhood appetite for adventure are balanced out for good, safe outcomes most of the time. We reach adolescence not too banged up.
This term is usually used as an ecological term. It is often illustrated by discussing the amount of dissolved oxygen in streams and lakes, and now in the oceans. It is critical to the life in all those bodies of water. Oxygen levels are at a maximum when water levels in ponds, lakes and streams are ‘high,' full flowing and cold. The most common issue is the reduction of dissolved oxygen as organic materials are added to sun warmed shallow waters, and then ‘consumed, decomposed’ by bacteria, which require oxygen. Organic pollutants, from logging debris to industrial leftovers decompose using up the available oxygen. You may have seen a green ‘scum’ on the edges of streams and lakes, perhaps even completely matted over ponds in a particularly hot dry summer. This is a seasonal occurrence, reversed with a return of higher water levels and colder weather. The equilibrium is thereby reestablished.
Another often used example has to do with the pelts of wolves and rabbits bought by the Hudson Bay Co. in Canada two centuries ago. These records demonstrate the rise and fall of prey and predator during the harsh winters and the evolved natural, seasonal breeding of these animals. They also recorded the arrival of the new two legged predator, whose take can be managed with official hunting seasons and permits. The historical count of wolf pelts cycled right along, a season or so behind the increases and decreases in rabbit pelts. This natural rhythm of nature was in place before the arrival of trappers; these cycles became very dramatic with the increasing pressure of the expanding fur trade, and the occasional very mild or harsh winter.
The human pressures on all ecological systems worldwide has caused and is now threatening the extinction of many more species. It has been claimed that half of the remaining species will be gone in one hundred years. There is no longer enough of at least one, of the many factors required to maintain the natural dynamic balance of these species for a sustainable, breeding population.
Every animal’s habitat or specialized niche has many such ‘balancing acts’ within them to maintain the conditions necessary for that particular community. You could even say that a bank has such a relationship between deposits and withdrawals, large and small, and then expenses, interest payments and profits. Mechanics maintain the governors on many types of equipment to assure maximum rated rpm's are not exceeded, as well as assuring the engine idles properly awaiting the signal to work, delivered by the throttle. Maintaining a dynamic equilibrium assures the Bank stays open, and the City Bus’s engines do not overheat, or even blow-up!
The accomplishment of large construction projects involves someone maintaining a dynamic balance of many factors that changes day to day, labor, funds available, the weather and so on. We don’t see the management skills that modern dynamic equilibriums require. The ones that we are dependent upon, like the coordination required to supply energy and water to our Cities with cycles of high and low usage.
When we say, “It all depends,” we are acknowledging dynamic balancing acts that are unpredictable. In all of nature’s healthy ecosystems this is done internally, automatically. By understanding these lessons from the natural world we have a better idea of what our job is, going forward into the specifics of this Global Makeover. We will be relying on those folks we regard as sharp, those who will quickly grasp the dynamics of the situation, at the moment of decision, from the politics of it, to the finances and even perhaps how it will play out in the media.
Everyone who is regarded as ‘sharp,’ with good common sense, possesses the innate ability to understand the internal dynamics of any situation, and has a nose for the key factors at that moment, and she or he may never have heard of this term. They are the very alive ones, who will become our leaders for the hundreds of makeover projects to come.
59 Biogeochemical Cycles
I was asked to teach ecology to young advanced students in Modesto California, when Ecology Action was developing curbside recycling. We examined the biogeochemical pathway of calcium. I did it with the student’s assistance, with the help of their own calcium. They heard me say, “Close your eyes,” then, “Now touch your elbow with your index finger, imagine you are feeling the calcium atoms that are on the very tip of your elbow.” Then we talked about the journey of how the calcium got there, from the grass a deer ate, “No a dinosaur!” someone yelled. I said, “Perhaps, could be.” As they screamed and roared I sketched it out on the board.
From a mountain lion who ate the deer, then through elimination into the soil, up into the grass again, perhaps trampled by a moose, rotted its way back into the ground and up as grass once again; then mowed and compressed into a hay bale, and finally into a feed trough at a dairy to be eaten by a cow, digested and ending up as milk in the udder and finally, finally into a bottle of milk that you drank from, and then into your stomach which looked it over and sent part of that calcium on out to that bulging elbow of yours!
Someone asked, “Where did that calcium ever come from?” and I asked them right back, “Do you have to know everything right now? You have College ahead of you.” Like I said, they were advanced students. Interesting stories can be told of many such elemental journeys, from the knee of a mosquito, to the tusks of an elephant. This is life with a small brush, the circulation of all of life’s tiny building blocks, and interlinked supply systems, to deliver everything to the right spot on time, everyone up and running, molecule by molecule. The living of it is so much more than just the beating of those wild hearts.
59 Ecological Succession
Remember the big fire in Yellowstone? Parts of that fire were exceptionally hot. Everything was “fried” even the soil. Mt. St. Helens provided another look at how Nature can start over. We didn’t expect trees right away, we knew it would take awhile. We watched for the stages of plant growth, each one being determined by what was there to start with and each new stage of plant growth providing the conditions and raw materials for the next stage. When Lewis and Clark traveled through what is now Yellowstone, the forest was in a climax stage, a relatively old, large and mature forest. The large pine trees created such a canopy of branches that hardly any sunlight reached the ground any more. This resulted in little browse for deer and other game. The Corps of Discovery faced starvation until they were beyond that climax forest. Very easy open walking, but no forage, no game to hunt.
We are starting our makeover contemplations from almost bare ground. Who talks of public joy or a renaissance now? I don’t know just where, or what will grow first or second, to bring this new growth into view, this giant redo. We will learn to watch for emerging shoots and look into who got them started. We will emulate the conditions of success. As in nature, progress will be both slow and fast.
Programs and projects will tend to be opportunistic rather than well planned in advance. Tall trees are not to be expected right away. Individuals will spread the word, the energy will begin to rise. Existing efforts will receive expanded support. At some point the Arising Renaissance will be talked about here and there.
Fresh efforts will begin. At some point governments will pick up on it, as well as existing groups will be adding Homeworld Makeover protects to their literature. An expanding progression of events will be most likely, just as with pioneering species arriving to hold and build the soil, retain the moisture, then comes the taller grasses and brush for browse, finally onward to mature trees. You can see this progression on any cleared or open ground. Look for them, cycles and grand progressions are everywhere.
60 Loose Money
This term is offered to help address the difference between the dollars in your wallet and those empty dollars which recently fell in upon us. There is a history to that cave-in. The Government, banks, and investors have been betting on our behavior, our ability to borrow and pay interest, and carry debt, big debt, all of our lives.
We have enabled more than we know about. The activity of buying and selling those bets made on us became so complex that even the players lost tract. Some have said we are as pawns in a giant parlor game, played out with loose money. It also seems we have been drafted to carry the notes on the very Casino where the bets were taken. This parlor game can be likened to a feeding frenzy worth billions upon billions of dollars.
We became the forgotten star of their big splash. The dollars in your wallet and in the wallets of the wage earners before you, have enabled the Big Game that is beyond our view, being played with the loose money that our hard work spawned over time. Reforms? Of course. At the least Wall Street should never be too big to fail. We still stand ready to put our savings beside our neighbor’s savings, to see houses bought, and college attended. However, we have no interest in being drafted as a final guarantor for a pile of dried up, loose money.
60 The New Bottom Line
It is Stewardship. Make believe Grandma Gaia, and Uncle Sunshine are coming by. Time to take the trash out and clean the kids up. Businesses will still run at a profit while being responsible to employees, customers, and suppliers. All parties will watch over the balance with Mother Earth. Regulations will assure fair play, cultural sensibilities will grow into place, and regulations will become less relied on over time. Credit Unions and Co-ops will have expanded roles. More people will work for a living rather than fish around with money nets, hauling in cash without contributing to the welfare of man nor beast.
On the twenty-seventh floor somewhere we will soon hear, “What piece of the Global Makeover can we work on from over here?” Answer, (Perhaps from Uruguay) “Just route your shipping through New View Incorporated by rail, and we will be able to get our wind turbines in before the rains.” Then down on the eighth floor, “Perhaps if we change our feed stock, the pulp can be used for erosion control up in that big burn in Idaho.” Renaissantial business is the new way of doing things, new and exciting, out there on the frontier. “That’s business, you say?” “Yes indeed, now with a new green twist.”
A great joy will be taken in this type of growth within the workings of business, as well as improving the vigor and diversity of the ecosystems. Life will be championed, human beingness will shout with integrity. More people will park to watch a really great sunrise or sunset. Smile and honk. Can you feel it? Yes, I believe you will, you can feel it. That is the call to, “Come on Home.”
61 CHAPTER FOUR
Person by Person, and Acre by Acre
We now begin to see how a Homeworld Makeover will weave itself into our Societies and produce a network of interrelated and mutually supportive global cultures. All of these examples will be surpassed by what is manifested in the future. People will be pounding nails over here, while a few are foot dragging over there; who can say what will be accomplished first, or last? These following vignettes stand as a preview. They offer the power, show the reach, and some of the expectations of a shifting point of view. They offer a way of opening up the discussion, a phraseology of it, if you will.
When have you said, “I’m going to go sit awhile, be back in a bit.” We are in such a rush. I can remember when people went to the airport just to watch the planes. Just go sit and not be going anywhere, not even meditating or pondering, just sit and pay as much or as little attention as you wish. Be still for awhile, every day, while the ground shifts underfoot. Clearing your mind is good. Actually anticipating, listening for your Angels, your inner voice is good. And allowing your soul’s guidance to appear is also very good. You have help, right with you, ask and you shall receive. Many Churches maintain continuous Prayer services, visualize those people at prayer services, acknowledge these efforts, and join in with them.
62 Take A Seat
Once I sat down at a Winchel’s Doughnut House and watched the building next door burn down. The firefighters offered no clue that they saw us. We didn’t know them, nor from which firehouse they had come from. Clearly, all would agree there was a fire to put out. Could you be as they were? On stage, doing what was required, under observation from the, ‘Doughnut House crowd?’ The arising renaissance will be very similar to that smoky doughnut day. At the moment, most of us are each day, as if in that audience at Winchells.
Those sitting closest to the alleyway windows saw the smoke first. Then we were all in the audience, waiting and watching, for someone to rise up and do what was required. We looked around at each other, saw someone run out of the smoking building, then heard the approaching fire engines.
No one will train us, give us the proper equipment, nor ring the bell and tell us where to go and to do whatever the most important thing would be. However, a few have figured out what to do now and have mounted the stage. We have no idea who will step up early or who will run away. I wish a safe haven for all those whom the required changes may frighten or deprive. At some point the Renaissance Desk at the local station will cover who has stepped up and initiated action on . . .(your project?). The cast of The Makeover Show will emerge from just such an audience as sat at Winchels.
Do you see chaos around the world or do you see new beginnings? I believe that the big roller coaster ride we are on has exposed us to new territory. We have shot right past our cultural caution signs and safety nets. It has been said that the Internet has taken away our gatekeepers, those who determined what was the true story, what is fair and proper, most beautiful, good or bad to read, or worth the money.
Anyone can and will say anything nowadays. Gone also are the Uncles and Grandmothers who could talk some sense into it. I would also say the Internet has removed past year’s wisdom keepers, perhaps they became too self centered to be of use in these fast moving times; however, we have put ourselves out on our own very quickly. Now we are challenged to find the new wisdom, then grow its keepers.
Do you see evil intent, or the ignorance of those who hung on too long and greased the skids for our recent financial fall? Of course there were a few crooks who took advantage. However, what else was to be expected? Given our host culture, developments within the Modern World have overridden the ability of ordinary cultural safeguards to protect us.
The world of trust in a handshake was obscured by regulations and layers of law long ago. It all got too big, and so quickly. We will find a new mix, acre by acre, and person by person. Salaries no longer reflect a person’s contribution to the welfare of society. They reflect the heat and demands of the Market, coaches to singers, perishable all. Do such high salaries indicate an inability to produce similar competence? Would a cynic say, “Those high salaries are needed to keep the market going?” Now even shopping has a fan base.
The makeover is an inside-out change in direction, new dreams bursting forth into actions and becoming the new reality. There are many existing projects in place that will eventually be listed as the very beginnings of the Homeworld Makeover, putting a shine on our Home World. Earth as a Homeworld, it has a certain ring of permanence to it, expecting visitors, and traveling outward. We have already stated our expanded focus on Mars, as well as deep space curiosity. Of course the telling of what happens on this Earth during the next fifty years will be spoken to by our children and grandchildren.
The following examples can be seen from wherever you choose to sit, as long as you are looking for the shift, perhaps having heard the Call. I believe you will talk of such developments with relatives, friends and workmates. The glimpses ahead do not stand as planks in a political platform or even as an outline of a survival program, they are offered to give a contemporary Renaissance driven Makeover a magnitude of scale, and a scope of concern.
63 Awareness
We are indeed putting the cart before the horse. The cart won’t move very far without a healthy and willing horse. We have not collectively grasped the fact that our future on Earth depends on maintaining it’s vitality. Right now we are focussed on what we want, going right out there to dig it up and cut it down, more stuff to sell, more profits, and then more digging. We are in the habit of answering to man-made institutions and rules, at the expense of the systems that keep us alive, those biological systems that we did not create.
The desire for a renaissance driven makeover originates out of concern with our basic stance upon this Earth. It is just as possible to have the same desire for a Re-Do from different points of view, say equity of access to what the world offers, or have a Makeover regarding equality of justice and health care. The arising of a modern times Renaissance will be supported by all such desires. It is the energy of these visions and our intentions that drives the show.
We also have the spreading awareness that something is stirring. Each person will have their own moments of realization, and decision time. This shift in awareness is an overlay upon all existing activities, without a central control of any kind. As our literature understands, “It was the dawn of a new, day, or era,” as the case may be, depending on the story or report.
Perhaps twenty percent of what could be called the global work force will ultimately be involved to some extent in the makeover. This, “Self Awareness” within the Makeover is the Homeworld viewpoint becoming permanent, the birth of spoken understanding, a powerful thing, securing our future. The immediate point of view will be, “Do what you can now, with the resources at hand, recruit others to help.”
The government has no initial role. The political process worldwide is broke and fresh out of options. Those who are ‘called’ will blaze the trail. Societies the world over to soon contain experimental seed beds; Projects will be location specific. “Gold is where you find it,” as well as, “Gold is where you have never found it before.” True for all gold miners as well as these discovery sweepstakes
The expansion of awareness to all the States and around the globe will be chaotic and also perfect. It is hard to say what those who speak to, “The culture wars,” or, “political correctness,” will make of it all. There is a strong core of individuals now who have already made their choices, to go on those less traveled roads, and they will stand firm. By definition, this shift into a Makeover Mode is immune to political attack. An expanding core, those placeholders to help, will hold on to the promise of a Renaissance Arising, come hell or high water.
I can easily imagine a moment of trial when circumstances require many of us to speak up at the same time. That eventual moment of Makeover maternity will be smoothed out by a special type of, “messenger.” Things will go faster and smoother with some early organizational support. Perhaps you could be such a messenger, one of those who put it on the agenda somewhere, or introduce it to a study committee? Groups, not thought of as being politically focused, could embrace the Homeworld point of view, and endorse a cross-town project, or start a new one, thereby providing a strong and visible lattice for our desires to grow on, hopes and visions coming into view. At some point the vision of a Renaissance will come in off the street, down from the Net, and into workplaces and study committees, and a workbench in the basement. Many of today’s new-world projects are initiated by students. Can we, or should we, see the Renaissance’s arrival move from hatching in the hallways, to be included in the lesson plans?
That is a tough one. Could the Global makeover be advanced in school outside of ideological and partisan battle grounds? Probably not right away. On the other hand we will need many skilled technicians to staff the rebuilding and the reclamation work to be done, the reconciliations to be accomplished. It needs to be discussed further, and most probably will be.
In the past I have proposed special educational sessions for students and parents at the same time on our ecological challenges. Could it be, that at least one day a month our children and adults share a day of education, or working on a project? We are to be calling on them, to be the powerhouses they are, the rich uncle who lives far away. They need to visit and take a look around. We are the stockholders, once removed in most cases, clinging to our insurance policies and retirement accounts. Those amongst us who have access should speak to them. Walk our Makeover goals right inside, and expect the best.
Corporations have the largest potential to implement new ways of doing our business, on the way to Earth-wise stewardship. Consumers have now precipitated several recent tipping points, such as the developments around responsible eating, those gluten-free choices, and reduced calorie snack packaging. We are moving away from, ‘anything that tastes good,’ to reasonable and more nutritious.
The driving public has almost abandoned the allure of horsepower for adequate and cheaper to operate. Transportation choices beg for an urban planning revitalization.
Awareness becomes exciting and unstoppable. How can the Corporate World bring forward it’s awareness of the refocusing that has driven these merchandizing tipping points?
64 The Work of It
The work of it promises benefits beyond the tasks accomplished. Today the words ‘job’ or ‘career’ don’t carry the same meaning of yesteryears solid, old-fashioned work, work that you are good at and proud of, work that was needed and appreciated. Good work well done is at the core of a prosperous family, profitable business, good government, and a happy, healthy community.
Once the promise of a Makeover is grasped, the work of it will become a common point of focus for everyone. Those who are not directly involved in rebuilding projects will be in support of those who are. Schooling for eighteen year olds could be interrupted for at least a year of Global Recovery Service. Moderate pay could be supplemented with privileges to be collected later. This could be scholarships to health care, even lifetime passes to our National Parks.
The work day tasks will be diverse and more diverse; the payrolls will be from none to handsome. The jobs will be part time to overtime, night time and seasonal, from a day to years. No central accounting, and the dust of it will be everywhere! Everywhere it will happen differently, what has come first, will next come last, what proves out, will be copied and improved, and we will learn from our mistakes. Opportunities will be seized. Breakthroughs will be praised. The talk of the town will be about recovery, entertainment will have a, “3R squared equals peace and prosperity for everyone,” ring to it. Editors and publishers will provide the information and encouragement, as well as document a few skinned knees.
Detractors will gather and protest, some will prove our case, others will provoke a rethink that delivers results. We especially need those who can listen with both ears, ask those illuminating questions and find that new path. I feel the real work will be the thinking it through, being patient here and in a rush over there, see if we can avoid ripping any of it out, to try again. Stories to tell the kids. We will cheer and weep as the refugee camps around the world are torn down. We will cry for those lost to the final removal of land mines and we will cheer at the reintroduction of animals into yesterday’s ravaged habitats, we will applaud at the banquets and the celebrations of our accomplishments. That is the Work of it. Are you ready?
65 The Politics of It
Will there be a sea change of historical proportions in the hidebound political arena? There just has to be a few players who get it, even a few lobbyists. I feel that the best way to bring about such a homeworld makeover is through citizen examples, with donated funds and labor, and perhaps a few local governments stepping forward. Retired people who are connected can play a huge role here.
A citizen enabled makeover accompanied by a scaling back of military forces requires a new day in the political theater of operations. There is undoubtedly a strata of retired diplomats that are disappointed at how things are going now. At the very least, these folks could take up the task of installing the homeworld point of view with our current team of elected and appointed players. It is possible that Heads of State will find themselves ready to announce that, “ Houston, we have a problem,” as they grasp the scale and urgency of our situation. To do so would at the least suggest a lack of leadership, a huge oversight that is occurring on their watch. Are we all ready for our leaders in Washington to change course from the top down as dramatically as is apparently required? The diplomatic corp of professionals worldwide is ready for such an event.
A positive, forward looking citizen breakout would pave the way. The phases of such a Governmental coming on-board can be imagined. We know the politicians and social think-tanks love opinion polls. It will soon be possible to plot the shift in these polling questions, as our eyes move from the opening bell on Wall Street to new indices of well-being in the neighborhoods. Then we can easily imagine staffers throughout government searching out
past proposals worked up for everything from tax-reform to the advancement of World Peace, but never allowed out of the filing cabinet and into the light of day. Thousands of pages of progressive measures have been salted away, awaiting the right timing. If not now, just when, pray-tell?
Washington D.C. is having a hard time. They are stuck in those, in-between-times-blues, as well as posturing for the election. They will eventually see what is coming down the pike, and may even like it, however they will be caught up in the old ruts for a while, before they can change expectations and alliances. They will still have the responsibility of keeping things going.
To switch focus will take time, more for some than others. “Look, now Charlie, I don’t like this any more than you do, we have to do something. We want two Republican committee chairpersons to stand with us at the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday.” The partisan divide is becoming confused and soon it will crumble, wouldn’t that be great? It is impossible to overstate the respect that this, New day Arising, deserves within the political arena. The National Debate is pressure packed, and could strike out with fear driven measures of control and containment. Can you carry the challenge of emerging perception down deep inside the political animal?
We have a very rare opportunity that is being provided at a huge cost to millions of people and animals, as well as acres of woodlands and mountains, true the world over.
Many attempts have been made with books, documentaries, songs and sermons to awaken us to seemingly worsening conditions. Politicians have held the old line. Now that we have these latest financial wrinkles, the time has come to move on. We have reached that point when,” Enough, really and truly is enough!” Those staffers looking over earlier legislation will soon be starting the phase of internal analysis and some soul searching.
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In chemistry there is one particular test that exemplifies what is happening now in our society. The chemical titration test is used to determine how acidic or basic a solution is. A beaker of the liquid in question is placed under an apparatus holding a reagent of known concentration, and then it is added a drop at a time to the solution in question. At perhaps drop seventeen the color of the fluid in the beaker shifts dramatically to pink or blue, and the Ph is known. No one in the lab has any idea when the color change will occur, “That’s Enough, hold it right there.” That’s when it will dawn on the politicians that a major course correction is called for. New alliances will be formed.
We on the outside will be engaged with Renaissance Projects to what ever extent we can manage on one hand, and watching for signals from Washington that they get it. It is for us to look forward to that day, expecting it, visualizing our favorite reform or brand new ingredient, thanking God for it’s manifestation.
Will it be said that the cure is worse than the problem? Probably so, we need all the various voices that will contribute to a period of wise caution. Anthropologists tell us the world’s tribal peoples understand the possibility of a gathering of all the tribes in the region at some point in the future, to consider major changes for the long-term welfare of the people. They have listened to the Council of Chiefs before. They know the lay of the land. We are faced with Moneyed Power, and that is a hard thing, and now competing monied powers is even worse.
Today’s politics has left us with an ‘in-bred-ness’ of advocates, councilors, corporate types, elected representatives, and legions of staffers behind the scenes. They have been having a time of it, assuming they are the ‘Headliner’s’ in the main stadium. Many of us would rather they simply would have recently gone home. However they are all our relatives, and they will need our compassion and welcome as we form new working groups in our local communities, as we will soon be looking for allies and friends in Washington.
There may have been a time in the past when sending them all home was a useful point of view, but not now. A Homeworld Makeover driven by an arising citizen renaissance will elevate political activity to new levels. Some political players will work on damage control, others will try to find out what is going on. Reformers will follow the money, with a new popular mandate in hand. All those in basements and narrow hallways who have become comfortable far from public view will be introduced to an exciting, packaged in new information, and establishing a new set of values and priorities. To sort out what is worth keeping from yesterday’s legislative proposals and draft the new, will require a different analysis.
Does legislation that champions the arrival of such a shift in priorities have a chance in our currant election year? In my view, no. Government needs to be shown by example. So, is 2012 a year to look beyond the Presidential Elections, and focus on the following year? Do what we can now, true for every single day, election season or not. One thing for sure, you work the election , be on the lookout for new friends for later actions.
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I have committed myself to work for a better fit between the recycling instructions for ‘single sort programs‘ and the capabilities of present day materials recovery facilities. They are not hand in glove yet, not reaching their potential. For all of us, ask yourself, of the candidates at every level, who would best promote the Makeover? Welcome the Renaissance? Yes? Vote of corse, and begin your work on the parade of breakout projects.
To be clear, I am not calling out for traditional political pressure to be eased, there is a new front opening, a paradigm shift is occurring, resulting in a cultural transformation, and it is of such a scale as to be written of as a Renaissance Arising. However it would be very helpful if those with access took the message down in there deep and did some spade work. As the national mood swings up and out to, “Yes let’s have a Makeover!” Then it will be time for even stronger political pressures to close the deal.
We will discover that some of the Think Tanks have seen the need for a makeover coming up for years. To what extent do our elected leaders seek coaching about what are, regardless of the political fallout, the best policies for the General Welfare? We know politicians are glued to the Polls, as is the media and advertisers. Was it decided in the back-room some time ago that we just couldn't handle the truth of it? When we consider the current political realm, dominated by a few players, with a demographic fan base that is catered to, it becomes apparent that what we have here is a spectator based form of entertainment. The real stuff is done behind closed doors.
California has notedly broken free of such hidden away talk, of what is needed versus economic dislocation regarding auto exhaust standards. Their is a backlog of science and proposals to reduce air pollution and gasoline consumption to be reevaluated. The Environmental Protection Agency has been involved with Congress in a power struggle just trying to do it’s job.
As we have no federal agency specifically charged with looking ahead several generations, it will be up to those elected leaders who see the big picture to break loose and find their voices. There will be players behind the scenes, enabling the larger makeover projects to move along.
Perhaps we should try different approaches in different States, see what works, by going with a variety of programs, on say water conservation. Now we have the worst of it, new approaches end up in Court costing everyone time and money. We could clear the table and use a new version of war-room mentality, search for what works the best by evaluating current experience and new regional programs, rather than striving for a centralized, singular plan.
The recent Congressional gridlock is the worst possible outcome, along with the hardened partisan positions and cynical attitudes amongst our citizens. We have a chance right along in here for a major step forward. Our President is well informed about, and sympathetic to, the Lincoln Presidency. The President of Harvard University has studied and written about the, “Irrevocably committed positions adopted by the Representatives of our Northern and Southern States,” thus sending the Country of into the hell of Civil War. Education of all hands can illuminate our circumstances to international standards, we are not arguing about how to make brownies! We have just seen irrevocably committed, rather than success with compromise, for the benefit of all concerned.
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We are faced with an urgent undertaking that the populace does not fully understand. It is ripe ground for the worst kinds of political behavior. Citizens have and are continuing to come forward to help put things right on this Earth. Political activity is being ridiculed rather than being given the mission of overseeing and offering guidance to the massive transformation of our laws and procedures. Our elected officials are expected to demonstrate the best of Politics, by listening to the evidence, the concerns of one and all, and then to undertake the assembling of compromises that spreads out any duress, compromises that are simple and straightforward, allowing the Homeworld point of view to transcend the partisan divide.
Globally speaking, can the United States set an example of readjustment and creativity? An example that demonstrates the diplomatic vitality to grasp the new, and the political-will to achieve the shift from economic growth forever, to the relatively economic blandness of steady and sure Planetary Stewardship? Such a shift holds the promise of a healing, moving on to a new view of, ‘duty called.’
All the world’s politicians find themselves in the Big Meeting. Call it kismet, fate, or destiny, they are in office at this time of Global Reanalysis. The people of this earth expect, and are relying on them to do the right thing, regarding the best course of action to manifest a fabric of vibrant civilizations. We stand ready to applaud their success. Take every opportunity you have to point out that this matter of sustainability and stewardship transcends all the political issues, all the assorted interest groups and the spectrum of officials. There will be arguments and favoritism, and yet everyone needs a healthy and vibrant home base.
69 The Economy
Riches and labor will be donated and taxes will be raised. Contractors will be paid for new electrical grids, the impoverished will be supplied with the resources needed to provide for some of their own needs. Perhaps rationing will be necessary. The voluntary and spontaneous initial efforts will eventually be supported by government programs, the media and foundations. Trades
and exchanges will be computerized. “That works for me” will be heard around the world as individuals shake on it, and get to work.
There will be a strong economic center, as a relatively normal economic core ensures a flow of basic goods and services, and pays taxes. This bedrock economy will deliver the bread and gasoline, repair the furnace and nurse us as needed. The history of International finance gatherings provide a procedure and a setting for financial affairs to be massaged into a process that enables, rather than retards, a compassionate and ecologically enlightened Homeworld Makeover.
Will it be necessary to restructure western capitalism? Some say, “Yes.” Our currant arising to the work of it will not wait for an answer. The challenges we will meet going forward and our responses to them will show the way in for the new multifaceted economy. Instead of considering add-ons here and there, should we look at wholesale replacement? At some point the emerging mandate will link up with the already in-place advocates of, ‘reform and overhaul.’
We know there will be a street economy. We will still have that bedrock economy that we pay taxes on at the stores. The nuts and bolts of the big global one is beyond our direct reach. We of the Makeover Clan can let it be known that we expect the best for all people and the Earth, rather than Washington’s continued pampering and growth of the Capital Stock. We simply will refuse to purchase those products that have no place in the world we see our children and grandchildren being raised in.
What about having our own private money? ‘Local notes’ and bartering have been used as currency before, printed by groups of citizens, at least on both coasts. An example: I want some labor to help me remodel my business. I will pay, in part or full in Deli-Notes which will be good for salads and sandwiches when the work is done. How far could we take this?
It is widely agreed that smaller scale businesses, regional and local, are better on the hunan scale of values. Ownership of outlets will become more localized, still dependent upon corporate suppliers for equipment and inventory.
The total energy footprints of our production and distribution of consumer goods could be greatly reduced. At the moment we are unable to monetize such reductions that would benefit us. It is time to fully account for all externalities, as well as management decisions that reduce gross consumption and provide more employment.The energy needed to secure and ship raw materials, run the plant and distribute the goods, literally all over the world, is huge. We have just begun to be aware of when the seasons change, and our table grapes now come to us from Chile, or Peru. There is much to learn regarding our bread, milk, and vegetables. Will everyone eat cheese from cows within twenty miles of home? No, not right away, a trend will appear, we will move in that direction.
Will both businesses and politicians follow consumers heading for those ‘smaller footprint’ options? Bankers will find themselves rubbing their chins as both the old and new-age loan applications pile up before them. More local food options will be offered. I have a gluten sensitivity and am managing my personal expression of diabetes. A neighborhood gluten-free bakery could really help me. Having access to a private ‘local cash’ program, I would work weekends to finance my next fifty loaves of bread along with four dozen mostly friendly doughnuts! Will the Mayor buy it?
New world energized thinking will be responded to in dozens of other exciting ways, offering new approaches to great customer choices and services. I see clusters of small businesses to offer efficient shopping, a health clinic with bike and scooter racks, and bus routes with bikes and cars for rent at the ends of transit lines. Some of these options are becoming available now.
70 Armed Conflicts
All commanders of regional conflicts and revolutions hold beliefs about what the world, and their part of it are coming to, and they don’t like it. A few stand as pirates, while some are visionaries, encouraged by the historical accolades given to the victorious. Still others are in the terrorist mold, some are coupled with an enabling popular religious or cultural orientation. All are determined, and represent challenges to a peaceful Global Makeover. Is it possible for the World to change course enough to get the attention of these commanders and their supporters? Yes, and we should negotiate with them.
The game-board is shrinking, and we have come to the understanding of just how fragile our Planet is, modern warfare is just to expensive and to damn destructive, to the soldiers and their families, their supporters and suppliers, and the environment. A world-wide warfare culture offers nothing but desolation and ruin. All present combatants in fact have bigger fish to fry. The United States of America can dress the stage for an era of disengagement by withdrawing military forces from around the world. In addition multinational Corporations have to similarly stand-down, and become empowering agents, rather than exploitive ones. We need a symbolic bonfire of all the pointed sticks that have enraged so many. Those who have been left behind by Corporate giants need assurances of respect and assistance, as they may desire. No more prying open new markets for western made goods, we shall offer loans and technology, as desired by the developing world. In this way future battles can be avoided, and we become more squared away, better equipped to settle in for the long haul.
We could start creating that new nexus by addressing all armed conflicts at the same time, expecting that the reality of our situation will become increasingly clear. “How would you like the money saved by all parties to be applied? What projects are most important to you?” Let the bandits squirm in the sun, those very few amongst us. The day is past to imagine all these revolutionary forces surrendering unconditionally. They are all members of the Human family, with their own stories. We have been to quick to shoot it out with those we disagree with, those we have labeled as our enemies.
Could we settle all present shooting conflicts at about the same time, send envoys to all with the same offers? This could be initiated unofficially, sound out the supposed aggressors of record, ask, under what conditions would they accept a peaceful role as we attend to the emergence of a harmonious diversity of societies?
New thinking is required, an example follows. Define a process for Countries and groups, those not shooting it out now, to register complaints, those grievances that one day might cause a war, then mediate them as best we can. Any armed aggressions after that would be regarded as a criminal mutiny on a deep space vessel. And a question, how sovereign can Countries be on our crowded, fragile Planet? Room for fresh ideas here. Dig out all those tough questions!
The existing grievances being fought out now are real, they all have a history, and they shall all be accommodated one way or another. Precedents are to be created, counted on, not feared. All affected parties can yield some. We will gain more from a showing of goodwill than trying to bomb others into agreement and submission. Every Countries borders are to be respected.
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I feel the key to this approach is a stated recognition of the severe challenge we face, and the chance for peace and harmony as never before. The United States can take profound steps to put such a fresh perspective into concrete actions. I believe their is already a diplomatic hallway buzz about what might be, if only . . .
Well, it can be, it can be empowered by the likes of you and me, by expecting it, rather than believing such a thing is impossible.
Can the whole world take a ‘cooling off period?’ I believe that could be arranged by putting “X, Y, and Z,” out on the table for all to see. For those that are shooting it out, they could soon have an emissary attending a Global Stewardship Gathering. “We need all the resources now going into wars and the preparations of wars for the Makeover, to secure food and water and shelter. We will mount these following programs, 1, 2, and 3. What would you like to add? Let’s talk about it.”
Pondering the dynamics of Global conflicts eventually brings us around to considering population and resources. Are we overpopulated now? Is that the driving fear of these hard times? We will go on past our present seven billion, planing for a slowdown, then stabilize back at the seven billon, plus or minus level.
These continuing armed struggles also serve to cheat us out of the cultural and scientific contributions that would have been made by those lost to these conflicts. Shattered lives are what’s to be avoided. A Renaissance driven makeover will bring with it the compassion, the respect for due-process, and the goodwill to see such unprecedented things done. Armed forces can be parred down, and refocused to serve as a core of support that can be applied immediately to the tasks of relocation and rebuilding, once the weapons are put down. In addition, as aid and reforms are laid in, it will be necessary to protect remaining forest, mineral, and wildlife resources.
72 Basic Ecology and Resources
In some fundamental way the very earth is, the us, of the future. It just is. We are of the earth, the earth provided for and contains us all, all who have come before, are physically still here. We don’t own it, we are of it. The next ones are here already, in our genes, in the air, and in our farms and gardens, as well as waiting in the water.
You may have watched or read scenes in books or movies where someone squats down and sifts the soil through their fingers. It may be that the person’s thoughts are about land ownership
or crops to come, it may also be seen in another way. Our story is in the soil, blessed by the Sun, and the Source of all there is, those that have gone, and those that will arrive, all taking shape from the soil.
Every acre of land has a best use in the coming revisions of our diverse supply systems. Recover prime farm land from urban sprawl, rebuild urban cores for energy efficiency, plant even more trees in our watersheds, plant urban gardens everywhere, and especially by the neighborhood clinic with its exercise veranda.
Every acre has two faces, a space for us to do something, and then being part of a life support system within the ecosphere. “The land” is the basic resource. We have been all to quick to own it, and “put it to good use.” Every acre is many parts of something bigger, the habitat for this one or that one, a sloping surface returning rainfall to the sea, and vegetation that offers water vapor up into the air, as well as nooks and crannies for the eggs and offspring of many crawlers and flyers. An acre is forty-four thousand square feet, a square eighty paces to a side, a splendid house lot. Room enough for a brook, a frog pond and a stand of Aspen trees, and a huge display of blossoms, bushes and flowers. Cherish each acre of our Homeworld.
We all share the responsibilities of planetary vitality, whether a landowner or a High School student, a baker or a nurse. As guardians of Earth’s well being, we all have tasks to fulfill, and proceeding in a good way. This includes speaking up, recognizing your ‘at-bats,’ and taking a corrective swing at that moment. We need these reminders to be spoken about, to put them out there, where they will grow and shift our culture’s notions of what is and is not acceptable.
From tossing litter to ordering shark-fin soup, you might be the only person at that moment who has a chance to exercise a shift, speak up. The flip side is, each one of us stands ready to learn and shift. Diplomacy and timing will be called for. None of us like being called out in a rough or embarrassing manner. This speaking-up is necessary because as a realignment is called for. I can imagine that we will invent social customs to deal with moments of such, increased awareness.
All issues of ecology and resource management start with the decisions of ‘the consumers.’ We have been slow to recognize that our shopping is what drives the show. As we buy much more often than we vote, shopping decisions are by far the most important. The Internet has delivered the means to make our satisfaction, our complaints, or disgust very evident!
Whatever we exhale, someone else inhales. Our breath is ours and theirs, the same for everyone. We are related, linked, standing in a circle. Billie and I have several “Circle of Friends” ceramic pieces, usually three to seven people holding hands, with a candle in the middle, sometimes the figures are cats. Are similar pieces available in other cultures? What might convey the same message in Bolivia, New Zealand or China?
72 Sacrifices and Miracles
If you look forward to a good outcome, you will have it. Some will experience more hardship and sacrifices than others. All will benefit from unpredictable and miraculous developments. For many, a new beginning born of collapse will be heaven sent. We will learn what is truly rewarding. Individuals will find themselves welcoming new and challenging circumstances because so many unpleasant expectations and impositions will be lifted. You will be called upon to comfort others. You will be challenged to speak up. You will find your place.
The most important work will be with those people around you. Are you able to contribute to a good outcome? Will you be a pillar of strength? “This is why the glass is at least half full,” you will explain. “Just relax, watch how it develops, everything will work out just fine.” Testimonials have already been given about tragic circumstances that have opened the door to a new world. Fair to say courage is called for, and a willingness to try the new is a blessing.
Quiet time is highly recommended, you may find what you need within Church services, or those Churches open for sitting are good, as is a park bench or a log in the woods. Are you being pushed by the clock? Stop somewhere on the way to work, take five minutes for yourself, and acknowledge those of us who are reaching out to you. Take a deep breath, relax your hands, your jaws, and reach for the stillness. You can visualize a good outcome to anything on your mind. Anything in your life, from an animal that needs a home, to a work-mate having troubles, all can be held in the light of Prayer and visualization. For yourself, what would you like to change? How would you like it to feel?
We need your glow, your contribution. Miraculous developments will come to you in many sizes. Your job is to be in a place of reviving, of accepting. Perhaps you will find a parking place, “Right then,”you may say, and you will tell how you heard the radio announcement of a new program to introduce alternative healing modalities into the care of our Veterans, just what your friend Jim needs. You are parked, so you can write it down.
Some of the changes in our lives that would have been just terrible a few years ago will just slip from view. Others will come with immediate, and perhaps extreme, hardship. At these junctures it is to be realized that something new and big is on the way to you. Many will receive lessons about slowing down. Remember to be in good humor and be able to see and accept the help that is offered. Can you ask for help?
74 Class and Culture
We all know our place in society, and most all of us accept it. A class society has an order to it, a Renaissance brings an explosiveness. You don’t quite know what to expect. We are seeing a realignment now. Displays of fear and hatred will be seen, as well as cries of relief from those who have found their perfect place. Pain here and joy over there. Deep within are the drivers of our culture, and they are a-shifting.
Status will be defined differently. The entire intellectual arc that explains “how things work” will change. The current green wave is only the tip of the iceberg. What has been insightful may soon become nonsense? The unimaginable of yesterday will become commonplace. Progress and stress; stress and progress. We will need our comedians more than ever.
It is to be expected that the ingredients of chaos and uncertainty will appear to be overwhelming to a few. They will need our compassion and attention. Many will be called to cool the debate, bring facts to the table, urge caution, and be willing to step up and set an example. Those who might have felt rejected by not belonging in the past will find themselves on open and level ground. Creative content of any kind will stand on it’s own merits, regardless
of where it comes from. Perhaps you have a hunch, the germ of an idea, that fits right in, try it, toss it out as an offering, right into that River of Change.
Scan the paper and listen to a local progressive radio station for the items that herald the arrival of this shift. Soon, we will move on from the old days of, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Soon the headlines will be about forest restoration, “Refugee Camps Closing,” “No evictions last month.” And so much more. An “Aquarian Age Culture” is evolving as you read this. Will this happen within that famous, “Rock solid middle class demographic?” Of coarse. “Will it arise from those individuals of any class, those with a computer, and the knowledge and leisure to use it?” Of coarse. Will they be the only Messengers and Organizers of this Arising? Who can say who is sitting just so, to hear the call? It will be revolutionary in scope, and degree. For compassion to be shared, and for the Light to shine, we need a time of peacefulness and respect. The challenges and opportunities to come places us all in the same boat, or better, on the same train, shovel that coal!
74 Religions
Our common creator blesses us all equally. Can the religions of the world stand as one and support the human family as we take on the magnitude and scope of all the changes that we understand to be necessary? Can our religions agree on say, a unified Godhead, with different paths reflecting each Religions cultural, historical and theological evolution?
Life is sacred, we agree. Perhaps the core issue here is that we have no understanding of what Life is, relative to the Cosmos, what it represents. For humans to breath, and to be nourished, and to breed, required a very long period of preparation. From soils to atmosphere, our Homeworld’s preparation was a masterful, long-haul effort. It is possible to say that our future depends on our ‘surviving,’ not only the Christian Bible but all Religious writings, as there is not a word about the absolute necessity of long term care of this Earth’s Biosphere, call it, Life’s Embrace, that we stand within, it is sacred and provided all the sentient beings as well those scientific detectable biogeochemical cycles that we happen to share this earth with, and the secrets wrapped in the vessel, the one that quantum physics is walking around tapping on the outer covering, listening for a clue. We just don’t know what we are sure of. Caution in all regards is called for. Religion as a whole thing can give us the strength to examine everything, and discover what insights and wisdoms are the most meaningful for us at this time.
When you bend down and sift the soil, is it not obvious that fertility is equally offered to everyone? And everything? All the seed’s that would fall upon that spot, or what seed’s that would be planted here? The ground brought all our bodies forward, and accepts us all back. We will have a hole in the Family of Humanity as long as we believe that one Religion or the other is more correct than this one or that one. The soil is the same for all life. There are many paths. Many have said, “The One Above and Within, answers to many names.” However, fighting over evolution has become almost a favorite sport for some. Perhaps we are struggling with what is humanly knowable.
Just now (March of 2012) a Scientist is going to trial over his support of Intelligent Design, he works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, on the Parade of Roses Route, where my Mom drafted torpedo plans, and then did drawings for the Palomar Observatory, so this development has a home-town ring to it for me. Cannot science driven evolution have even a teeny pinch of Fairy Dust? All players need to lighten up, show some respect for the sacred mysteries of creation.
Congregations all over the world do good work. They stand as a unified force celebrating the universal lifting of the Spirit, in spite of differing beliefs in their founding theologies. I see all congregations as reservoirs of strength, and as The Reserves, at the ready, some doing community work now. Their faiths lend a strength we will need even more tomorrow. I see the Churches as a source of sacred balm for smoothing troubled waters. Grief, pain, anger and fear will we know. Sanctuary will be offered and taken.
What kind of a show of strength could the Churches of this town and that City make, to point the way toward a Universal Renewal of Spirit? Could they work for an integrated commitment to the Stewardship of all Life upon this Earth? Take this offering to your Minister, bring this call for the Love of all Life forward, to triumph over fear and destruction, bring it into the Sanctuary, imagine the miracles delivered by a united body of Religious Leaders of all faiths. We shall learn to live with our differences as all points of view are transcended by the necessity of maintaining Global ecological vitality.
75 The Throwaways
Not talking bottles and cans here. We are talking people, animals and children. The issues of homelessness, slavery and worse. These issues are, upon examination, even worse than they appear to be. Individuals do indeed suffer, that is the surface part. Their are also realities also stand hidden from view, as a pox upon our humanity.
The birth of this Global makeover/renaissance will be retarded by our allowing such practices to remain. Throwaways are the dogs and cats without a home, and all those others along the way down . . . through still homeless veterans, on to a slave trader’s collection, and child labor, then down a street near you, around the corner to our old folks living in isolation, as if used up and forgotten. These blights cannot be removed overnight; however, our mental health as a society depends on steady progress.
Working toward the elimination of such throwaway set-ups will champion the emergence of this Makeover. There is a class of actions and reforms that are best thought of as removing restrictions from the Arising of the Renaissance. Right now we are personally suffering the traumas of being pulled by our emotions in two conflicting directions at once. It can happen in the home and regarding any number of outside issues. This is called cognitive dissonance, it can be disabling for individuals, as well as for a country. Look at immigration reform, or the long-standing issue of the death penalty.
Such dissonance is illustrated here because we have become bogged down, desensitized, and seemingly, have thrown away our ability to act on situations that are so repugnant, so terrifying to us, we would rather believe they do not exist. Removing the causes of our being immobilized by being repeatedly ‘short circuited’ is of a high priority. On a personal level, if so affected you need to reach out to someone, that pain needs to be talked out and released. For the Country, call it what it is, We have a grave matter to deal with, to pray and meditate upon. “May we know the Grace of God as we reach for a solution, and return these children to the light.”
Those individuals, now cast into darkness will know that we are coming for them, and we will be able to say that these practices are being stopped, as they show the worst of us. Can you help with the self-esteem of someone within your reach? Perhaps on your block, or even in your own family you will have a chance to build and restore.
Next, turn it around and take care of the other half, yourself. Learn from those things that come to your attention. If you find yourself challenged by a situation, becoming angry with yourself or another, seek the help of those standing by for you. This Makeover needs your help, in any form you can offer. All of those involved with boxing up these ‘throwaways’ for disposal are placing a disrespect for life in our midst. They are holding secrets that, “Pollute the souls,” of themselves as well as, all of humanity.
We all live with the possibility of having secrets that are destructive to our souls. Every one of us has the responsibility of keeping the world’s Global Soul bright.
76 Music and Literature
The arts have seen the future, and we are doing our best to catch up. It is known that music can heal, paintings and prints can inspire, words can embrace us and deliver strength. We have been serenaded and pleaded with for years. These creators and visionaries are not serving in the political realm, however they are within reach as many representatives of the arts serve on advisory panels with a limited mission. We are no longer living within complete and rounded out groups. We used to eat with those our lives depended upon. All pertinent information was the clan’s daily business.
When we ate by the hearth of long ago, we had a more realistic idea of what our survival depended upon than we do now. We have become compartmentalized, and desensitized, unaware of what is required to sustain us. I have often wondered if the real push behind the creative arts is a call to come together and view the Art, and share the frequencies that those artistic pieces have came in on. We used to live with and eat with our artists, before we had the modern world. The clans and tribes lived as a complete being.
The artist feels this, and has been compartmentalized, profiled into the Bohemian ‘drop out,’ creating in the only spaces available to them. Artists as a class have a message of beauty and new possibilities. They are calling implicitly and explicitly for a shift in priorities. We will turn to them for support and encouragement.
While the Renaissance’s emergence is not yet widely known, all the emotional challenges before us are covered in song, on stage and screen. There are many famous words and scenes for us to emulate, as well as others to see and view as warnings, “This could happen to you, you know.” The arts show us images of the future that can assist us, and also remind us of the distance we have come. Murals and sculptures, as well as those Music in the Park events, all stand in testimonial to our universal agreement upon artistic values, artistic expressions that lift us up to a view of our integrity and strength, our abilities and accomplishments, and Art can also show us the chaos we are capable of.
It is widely held that chords are struck within the viewers, and we shall have more tempered, more compassionate Societies through our honoring of the Arts. Contemplate upon our writers composing many novels and stories. It used to be that they, and I would have, spoken to you at the hearth, or out in a shady glen, rather than chance you will discover our brushstrokes and keystrokes, offered in morning’s early glow.
PART THREE, REBUILDING OUR HOMEWORLD
Introduction
This third section is focussed on the goals of this makeover and how you could start your own magical breakout. This may seem overwhelming at first until you realize that many have started out already. Perhaps their efforts are recognized as a personal breakout, however not yet being called part of a Renaissance, or a Global Makeover. All creative endeavors are of a Soul reaching out to live to the fullest expression, and also reaching out to you as a witness of the truth they feel and see.
Chapter Five illuminates the major concerns that will necessarily become the major building blocks of our Homeworld makeover. Chapter Six offers an up-close and personal look at just how you could fit into the tasks at hand. Chapter Seven points out that every organization in every society can determine a way to facilitate the shift to this Revolutionary point of view, to empower the acquisition
of a United World View, by way of a contemporary Renaissance.
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CHAPTER FIVE
Planetary Stewardship
Global Stewardship is the focus of it all. This Chapter begins to outline where the thumb nail sketches of Chapter Four could lead us, as we have taken it for granted that the Earth is rock solid in it’s ongoing support of us and all our various endeavors. From more salty oceans to loss of ozone caps, and a few relatives we have evicted, we have now learned to pause and consider. We are headed for a makeover; just when is the question. At the moment we stand frozen in time. The basic core notion of everyone gathering around and supporting an ever growing economy has served as an orientation beacon while we reached into the Atom and landed on the Moon. This planet has now been populated, depths plumed and life forms examined. We are fully present. What’s next? First, keep it alive, and able to support us. Then we take our places as the creators we are.
Start small, look around and imagine, that all you see is your domain. What could you do to improve it right now? Is there a banana in the grocery aisle? Are their no to-go cups left for the variety of dressings? Has the sign for a pick-nick come loose? Is that a stray dog? Don’t we all live together? The Humain ones are always able to stop, and do what they can.
Planetary Stewardship, Chapter Five, is the focus of it all. We begin to outline where the thumbnail sketches in Chapter four could lead us. We are indeed headed for a makeover; just when is the question.
77 What is your Worldview
Global stewardship begins with considering our collective worldview. You could say that the human journey is the ‘worldview story.’ Every person has had their own view of the world, but we have never lay them out for examination. These views serve alongside our values and priorities, as well as in-house cultural orientations to give us our basic direction, what is important as we arise every morning. All these human features combine to give us our individual compass for assistance when needed, when we are challenged or presented with a wonderful surprise.
We are now challenged to hold our worldview out from us in one hand, and then examine and search out the vital signs of a healthy Biosphere in the other, and see how they match up. For most people, it is not yet a match-up as we have not incorporated the Homeworld point of view into our house of knowledge, and then into our personal world views.
Renaissance Arising holds that formulating and embracing a new worldview is one of overarching stewardship, by necessity. We can unite around this view and share the responsibility of manifesting it’s suggestions. The Homeworld Renaissance of the early twenty second century is driven by your becoming a contributor to the active stewardship of this Planet.
While we have an adequate concept at the moment of goals to be worked toward, we do not have the same degree of understanding regarding Planetary health as we do for ourselves. We know we are experiencing a warming trend, water supplies are being polluted and in some places on some days the air is not fit to breath.
We know animal extinctions are accelerating rapidly and we need to bring more acres under intensive cultivation. This human centered accounting thinks only of what we need, what does the earth need to keep itself together? Their are at least three very challenging types of differences amongst people that have to be “transcended” for such a universal point of view to result in our coming to Peace, harmony and joy on Earth.
First is philosophical orientation, from Socialist through Anarchist, and on to Capitalist. Second is the matter of Religious orientation. We have been killing each other over these differences for Centuries. Can we call it quits now and move on to giving our ship a Makeover? And then we have the current array of Political parties or should we say, tribes? The big lesson, it is actually sitting on us now, is the realization that the era of modern day Tribal Warfare is over. We need a diversity of expression and conviction to fully express ourselves. The interesting thing is, the digital age offers us new opportunities of overlapping boundaries. The side by side of yesterday can become the multiple-option set-up of tomorrow?
This shift from Tribal Warfare to Collective Stewardship will be initially driven by individuals, not enforced by governments, or led by churches. This arising renaissance is simply the peoples work and it is already on the move. The Call will attract who it attracts. Once a project is started, it can be seen by others. It will be very interesting to watch Corporations, Churches, and Countries shift and expand their respective points of view, to the place where major management decisions are made from the transcendental Worldview of sharing the homeworld of us all. This will happen as we agree to respect, honor, and embrace the planets life support systems, through revitalization and on-going loving care. This shift will come into place, seemingly on it’s own.
We all assemble our personal worldview from a remarkably small number and universal list of factors. They include individual points of focus, or concern, such as these outside factors, family, education, wealth, drugs, and so on. These are mixed in with our very own inside factors, how we see ourselves, as leaders or followers, relatively active or passive, and whether worthy or not worthy. The mix changes as we learn, grow and mature, so our personal world-views are always just a snapshot, a firm core with edges that are personally and culturally fuzzy.
The Global Warming discussion is so heated because it represents, not only a hot-potato political/economic issue, it stands right up and challenges our personal and collective world views. My goal with this presentation is to add to the fermentation of a major shift in worldview. The implicit question tucked into these pages is, “How does this knock on the door fit in with what is disturbing or pleasing you at the moment. Does some of this presentation ring true for you at a deep level? Might it help you line-up some of the pieces that have come to your attention? “
In my view, the Homeworld Makeover has seven major concerns; Energy, Availability of Resources, Currency and Finance, Land Use Policy, Water Supplies, World Law, and Our Settlements. All seven are to become mutually complementary as we retire outdated economic models of growth and profits, to implement the goals of Planetary Stewardship. Standards and procedures will not be the same everywhere, they will have similar goals and safeguards. While your processing that mouthful, I have a story for you.
78 A Walk in the Woods
“Once upon a time, there came a day when instead of saying, Hello, or Have you eaten? The traveler began to say, “Whom have you fed?” As the Traveler approached the City, some were able to say, “A chicken” or “A cow.” Once in the City they answered, “My Grandmother, my pet pig, my dog, or my cat.” The Traveller returned to the woods and called a meeting of all the Little People who keep the water clear and the flowers blooming.
He reported to them: “Well, they are not helping yet, most people like the trees and flowers very much, and those that fly or swim or run, yet they help us not.” The Little People of the deep woods all talked and talked until they all drifted off to sleep, and shared a dream.
The next time the Traveler asked the people, “And whom have you fed?” He was always told of a dream about a little girl who would ask the brooks and the trees, all the animals and especially the flowers and bees, “What do you like to eat?” Then she would reach into a sack her brother carried and drop a bright marble into the creek, place wriggly worms and ground up dandelions around the trees and flowers, and sprinkled fairy dust all about. Oh did the birds sing, the owls hoot, the fish jumped and the coyotes did sing.
“What do you think it means?” asked the Traveler. This time the people answered with, “Well, we talked about it, we don’t have any Fairy dust, and none of that stuff, so we just do what we can.”
They would then go on and on to explain how they picked up all the trash, went for walks in the woods, planted more flowers for the bees and butterflies and on and on they went, until the Traveler dozed off as he sat and rested his chin on the staff.”
What will be our shared Worldview say, in that year of 2056? That is forty four years from now. In the last forty four years we doubled the population from 3.5 billion people to seven billion. Can our families then stand tall and say, “The population did not double again, agricultural acreage has been increased, and the Planets temperature has been stabilized . . .” And so on. Then be able to go on to describe the advancements by governments, economies and the cultural shifts that are ensuring the well-being of the Homeworld.
The major task of manifesting the full potential of a Global Makeover is to apply informed, personal responsibility to the whole. The will of the entire Earth Family being expressed. You will be called upon at some point to speak up. “That is not acceptable, we have to do it correctly, people are counting on us.”
79
Whether you are repairing a car, or down in a ditch with pipes or wires, or in a lab gazing into a test tube, you may see the unexpected and realize with a rush, that something is wrong. At such moments all the world supports you in doing the right thing. At those moments it is as if the world turns to us, waiting to see if it is safe to continue, that the wrong part is replaced, the wrong size wire is pulled out and installed anew, and the chemicals in the lab are checked and properly labeled. You are having a solitary, “At bat.”
You are the one trusted to come through at that moment, “Oh my, look what we have here,” and you take care or it. We are each, trusting in the, ‘all the rest of us,’ to do the right thing, we all know you will come through. Is this why many professions have traditional dress? Slip on the smock, welding helmet or stethoscope and you are connected, ready to go.
Such a thing may also happen to you anywhere between the parking lot and water cooler, the copy machine and the walnut conference table, you will find yourself at bat, in a conversation. You may well have something to say that is very hard, perhaps even damaging to your reputation. Can you feel the support of the world to do what that moment requires of you? You do have world wide support you know, as well as spiritual backup. Do the work, the work that is pitched right down your alleyway!
We have ongoing examples now of Stewardship being put into place, parcels of land are being tucked away, expanding enforcement of endangered species regulations, increasing efforts to protect women and children from all forms of abuse, trafficking and slavery. Global manufacturing standards are under increased scrutiny to eliminate environmental impacts, and we will learn to pause and think it through. In fact, I’m suggesting a pause right here. You could call what follows the paper I did not write in College. Once again, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” (see pg. xx ) There is always more to it, hold what you know absolutely to preferred foods and places of your choice.
80 "America, sit down and pay attention!"
When we hold the whole Earth as our object of concern, we first see that the air and waters circulate, here one moment, over there the next. In addition, soils, forests, and mineral resources are not evenly distributed. This planet now features a collection of sovereign nations that reserve the right to do as they please with their portion of the planet. International corporations mine and harvest from the lands of the least and sell to the lands of the most. The United States now plays a larger role in international affairs than perhaps all of the Colonial Powers combined, and we came along last.
I have an observation on America’s ascendance, offered to show where progress might lie, on the ‘fitting in’ of the United States. America is more correctly the world’s child, rather than the greatest nation ever. It would be wonderful if all the world were proud, rather than allowing us a begrudged existence; and just as well for the U. S. to show greater respect for the people and lands from where this very successful American stock originated.
It could be said that North America was the last to go, to make the transition from a “vast tribal region,” to a modern civilization. The young country then grew rapidly into a dominating superpower. We can see a ‘gold plated perfect storm’ situation in United States history. Resource development there upon an easily travelled ‘fruited plain,’ awaited the rapid application of all the technology developed around the world over the prior centuries, triggered by a wave of self-selected immigrants, and their Bankers, also from around the world, equipped with a very focused collection of attributes that resulted in the United States jumping up and out upon the world stage, and now standing strong and firm, just now with very mixed reviews. The whole world is aware we consume almost half the world’s petroleum, yet are only one fifth of the passengers on board. It could be said that our garbage pails and disposals are better fed than all those other passengers over there.
This gold plated ‘child of the world,’ now grown, and still looking for more, sits in the driver’s seat concerning planetary stewardship, arguably holding it back. It is to be remembered that America has two faces, the small town one with parades and picnics on the fourth of July, and then the ‘hungry looking one’ bred by our Houses of Finance living on Wall Street, and the Multinational Corporations sprinkled about. Both with stealth bombers and robots overhead. Will we have stealth bombers overhead once we have achieved cooperative Planetary Stewardship? It will have been agreed that we are not going to fight over remaining resources, nor pollute the Biosphere; instead, all peoples will be manifesting the Homeworld Show.
The TV version of “western” society is becoming the norm around the world. At the moment big money is chasing new markets. People the world over are being taught to leave their fields and workbenches, to sit down and watch others having a good time. Depth of local knowledge is being sacrificed for a dash of global generalities. However, we do have another silver lining here, producers of TV shows and movies do understand that we are one big family who have way more in common than is generally suspected by politics and culture war soldiers. However personal accomplishments are being set aside for the electronic allure of, hmm, what is that anyway? That hypnotic glitz and glam of TV land? Can we all learn to do our leg lifts and upper body isometrics as we join our brothers and sisters worldwide, watching whatever is on?
TV land is a fine example of the paradoxes and dichotomies all about us now. Can advertising be responsible to, and supportive of the emergence of a Renaissance to power the Makeover as we sit and watch the screens before us? Perhaps this arising renaissance will expose the full role played out over the last hundred years of advertising developments. The rush to buy on credit comes from the totality of carefully crafted advertising in newspapers, magazines and on TV. We continue to enable our own addiction.
Once you concern yourself with Earth-ship capacities, you realize we are faced with defeating a propaganda machine of huge size and sophistication, and paid for by us, those carrying heavy burdens of interest, reaching for the life-styles depicted. We will soon experience the disbelief, confusion and anxiety of putting on the brakes, releasing past expectations, and then being confronted with far too much information as we assemble a new balance. The work of it will arise before us.
All major areas of concern are soon to be integrated into a package that makes sense ecologically and diplomatically. As many have found out when insulating there house, all factors of achieving a ‘snug’ home must be considered, from windows, on through to ducting. Planetary Stewardship also requires a package of such concerns to create an integrated whole that is obviouse and can be promoted and understood readily.
World leadership will pass to the first advocate of a grand plan for achieving such a self-sustaining Homeworld. The United Nations is now active in the following areas, however the UN has been very slow to promote them as an integrated bundle for every sovereign Nation to follow. They have a limited mandate.
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The seven major interdependent concerns are:
Energy, from all sources, renewable and non-renewable
Resources, everything sold in bulk for processing
Currency and finances, financial affairs that are regulated
Land use policy, imposed restrictions and plans, projects
Water supplies, again, restrictions and plans, and projects
World law, constructed with Treaties, the United Nations
Our settlements, nomadic to megalopolis regions
These concerns can be easily understood as applying ourselves to the management and fine tuning of all human life on planet Earth. It is to be noted that much is left to individual invention and discretion. By such mechanisms as Soil Conservation districts the cream of the crop ideas will become known and shared. The lattice of seven boundaries defines the field of play, shall we say.
I watched and supported the attempts Governor Jerry Brown made to reform California’s water right’s statutes in the 1970s. He failed to reform water rights in the tug of war between existing “inefficient” agriculture usage and the “necessity” to lock up water supplies in order to secure financing for urban expansion in southern California. I look for this water-war to surface again in the context of our currant Global circumstances. California can become a source of wealth and pride by respecting the agricultural potential of the worlds only valley known by Geographers as the Great Central Valley of California, now fingered for a bullet train right of way from Sacramento to Los Angeles, as it is flat and fast. Those possible lost acres of right of way could be reclaimed from sprawling suburbia now squatting on once prime soils. (Couldn’t help it.)
Shifting world-views will make such trade-offs and integrated stewardship policies relatively obviouse, desired, and politicly achievable. The few paragraphs here on each one highlights new approaches to well known issues. The goal being to illustrate the revolutionary nature of a Homeworld Makeover, as well as the distance we have managed to travel down the money road in our present out of balance condition. There is an obviouse aside here, should protection of planetary vitality become a Constitutional law issue?
We have war crime prosecutions now, what of rain forest clear cutting and ocean pollution? Are not these insidious crimes upon all of humanity when we realize that we are being progressively choked-off and poisoned?
We need to think about what the Constitution might have spoken to, if the framers were schooled in Ecological Principles. It is obvious that they would be deplored by environmental conditions, seemingly acceptable poverty, as well as the political foul winds that are blowing now. Perhaps we can reverse ourselves and lead the way for the United Nations, rather than threatening derailment of the few modest measures they have attempted.
82 Energy
This is where we start the up close and personal aspect of a renaissance, a universal personal shift in lifestyle priorities big enough to assure a rejuvenation of the Biosphere, it will be a major adjustment for each one of us. At the moment, you are on your own schedule to reduce your personal direct consumption.
Energy links these seven issues, as each one seems to require more of it. We will soon face the basic questions regarding energy of, for whom, where? To do what? Of course the Global rebuilding will require fuel, a priority use for major stewardship projects. Who decides? Fuel hybrid cars in our major cities now, or tractors and light industry in the developing world? These coming questions point to perhaps the most valuable ingredient of a Homeworld Renaissance, the ability of modern society to proceed apace in a spirited and peaceful manner. We could start by assessing fees and taxes that would address the cost of eliminating those externalities that are harming the land and water where resources are mined or pumped.
The best response right now is to focus locally. Three examples; Billie and I live in a manufactured home park, Is it a collection of small homes dreaming of being a little Village? We could set up a shop in a vacant unit and prefab solar roof panels, they could then serve as awnings over decks, front doors and porches.
We used to live in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where the city owns the local electric power distribution system of poles and wires. It is a snow-bird town to some extent. Solar electric panels could be installed on these seasonal homes and others, giving the city a local source of power and some of those meters would even go backwards when those snow birds flew north in the spring. The work could be done by trained local crews, working as a barn raising, everyone offering what they can, ice tea to layout.
How much big city grease is still being thrown out, that could be used for diesel fuel? Most likely more than we can imagine. With some planning and a little dough to get started we can use this “waste” to fuel the meals on wheels trucks and the emerging kitchen trucks that gather up and drop off eaters to clean out the kitchens! (Yes, new regs and procedures required.)
83
Many residential developments share a pond or lake, and even if they don’t, my understanding is they could still make cooperative use of the ground’s steady temperature for more efficient heating and cooling. Contractors would do this type of work. Start on the path that is before us. Flow ahead with the mandate for sustainability.
Nuclear, hydro, or solar, oh my. What to do? Could electrical energy ever become a Global Utility? Is that where we are headed? Nuclear does offer advantages, however, it requires much careful work on the front end as well as the back end. It is a nonrenewable resource, right? Then it is only of limited use? Nuclear is here now in any case, smaller much less expensive assembly line reactors are being developed. They could pull us through the transition when even more energy is needed for awhile.
How do we separate the competing energy supplier’s street fight from the information we need to determine what is really the best plan for the long term? We are so used to standing in our own little compartments and speaking only when spoken to, until they really do make us really mad. The ranks of the retired are a rich seam. You folks are not through yet. Many amongst us are not now ‘in play’ shall we say, however each one of you can still contribute to sorting this out.
Being vicariously specific, University Presidents could assemble teams, have them draft the outlines of the Grand Scheme, how urbanization and land use, water and energy, resources, global finances and world law all merge into an integrated whole. Let’s look at a dozen such roughed-out models. Start funding the pieces that would work out the best new away.
It is interesting to ponder energy applications. It is obvious it would be easier to electrify railroads than say, heavy duty construction equipment. Liquid fuels are best here, and solar would go better over there. What is not thought about, should similar priorities for the liquid fuels themselves be established? We have forced ourselves into short-term behavior by focusing on the bottom lines of today. Some will argue it serves us well. Somehow the picture is not complete.
For example, as ‘affordable’ petroleum supplies dwindle, should we reserve those stocks that are best used for fertilizers, for medicines and then ask, the cleanest burning is held, for What exactly? Don’t just burn them all up in the cars and planes of today; those are the remaining supplies for seven billion people and more, save how much of what for how long? Do we really need to crush rock and make, or mineralize soils? Do we have any idea what we will need to build, to equip ourselves for space travel?
84 Resources
When modern day community recycling programs, (See, Your Author Reports In) the only question of resource availability was price. As we begin to draft a plan for long-term homeworld survivability we can see beyond price, to ultimate availability. The first concern would be to lay in proper energy capturing and generating facilities with remaining resources. The switching, storage, and distribution of electricity is an exotic undertaking, are rare earth minerals, precious metals, and high temperature ceramics desired? How much of this and that to be set aside? This kind of looking ahead has the advantage of bringing all current energy suppliers together. A joint mission statement by suppliers and governments be would be very reassuring.
When Ecology Action began collecting recyclables from the curbs of Modesto California in 1971, the mines that supplied the raw materials for those cans and bottles were given a tax break, because the value of those mines decreased, as the ore body was depleted. Legislation was recently introduced, ( The Elimination of Double Subsidies for the Hard-rock Mining Industry Act of 2011 (S. 26) by Senator Jeanne Shaheen D-NH.)
This discussion has continued for at least thirty years. From a purely financial point of view, it does make sense to recognize marginal costs increasing as the ore deposit is depleted. However that is no longer the applicable point of view. Old school geologists went to some length to set a mine up to maximize tonnages recovered, rather than profits realized. That older principle is in keeping with our need now to get all the tons of all the minerals that may be in that particular deposit. And to keep them in our service. In the broader picture of efficient utilization of minerals, the situation is muddled by haphazard recovery of secondary materials and recycling policies, which the increased recovery can extend the supply of, and depress the prices of virgin materials.
Did you see the news about developing asteroid mining companies? Science fiction may be surpassed by reality, in the foreseeable future!
Should it be assumed by all, that recovered, secondary materials will always move to market ahead of virgin supplies? That prolonging the life of reserves is a good, valuable and wise thing to do? We are now facing huge rebuilding projects, with implicit and monumental disposal tasks, and also the recovery of any still reusable resources? All of such thinking begs the question of which energy supply would be best suited for the specialized recovery processes.
In the seventies our thinking was, why subsidize extraction while ignoring reclamation and recycling? Perhaps the main work of modern day WPA type programs will be to deconstruct carefully, and recover those metals, fixtures and wood that are in short supply. The costs of recovering irreplaceable resources are of little concern in the face of the shift we face, toward a long term stable habitation of this Earth.
Within these seven factors of planetary stewardship, resource recovery through recycling offers a success story, and public acceptance. Existing recycling efforts can be improved to recover higher tonnages, and with greater efficiency. In addition to energy and resources being directly linked, these two offer the first look at the web of interdependent links between all seven stewardship factors.
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We are used to the concept of disposable income, that left over part after paying all the bills for necessities. Life on this Planet is similar, we have to pay our bills first, which now means repairing environmental damage first, fix the roof, and from then on taking care of our life support systems. Once squared away we can choose between hobbies, sports, travel, concerts and so forth.
We have metaphorically been cutting it short on solar roof remodeling and repair, as well as adding rain barrels, while we protest higher taxes. The quality of our stewardship depends on our ability to identify how these factors are linked, then put in place procedures and regulations that optimize these links.
For example, the energy efficiency of appliances and furnaces have been tremendously improved. What progress can be made with service life by improving repairability? Can all the metals be stripped or melted out for eventual recovery? The ratio of human lives lived, to tons of metals lost to our immediate use, can be greatly improved.
This is to be done for the preservation of future options, we may have no idea for what at this moment. We do know that we have discovered all the natural building blocks of trees, stone and metals that are readily available to us. Let’s just say that for the moment we are conserving resources so we can make the equipment to manufacture artificial building supplies. Do we not now have plastic wood for decks, fences, and siding made in equipment manufactured of metals? All plastic toys and a huge assortment of ‘plastic things are made from petroleum by-products, a non-renewable, quite possibly beyond peak production now. How can plastic be best put into reuse cycles, perhaps at some point putting it into a relatively longterm, ‘permanent’ use,
Did you happen to see, some time ago, a National Geographic picture layout of a Celtic stone house being freshened? All the stones laid out on the ground waiting reassembly while the few fresh timbers were gathered to frame in door, windows and roof?
This glimpse into the world of resource availability is one reason it is easy for me to predict that we will put in place some kind of National Service Work program, as part of public education perhaps. There are housekeeping chores to be attended to, begin to engage society in a real home-life. This is also an example of spreading the work and money around.
At the moment mining is driven by finding deposits that can be accessed at a profit, sold at what the market will bear. Let’s just say, if we had a shrinking supply of mineral, call it Alpha, and it is used for television sets, and the highest quality artificial hearts, would we ever have to take control of it’s availability? In essence assuring better artificial hearts than TV sets? We have something similar going on now with rare earth elements and cell phones. It seems these recently located deposits were found, mined and taken to market even before any such possible policy issues could be raised.
86 Currency and Finances
Of all these seven factors we can declare this one the most difficult to reform. It is far from public view and removed from democratic processes. Concerns of stewardship puts the light on the very foundation of wealth creation and the formation of capital reserves. All financial matters are built on the assumption of our ever increasing consumption, and the consumers ever lasting ability and willingness to pay interest. We are, must be, headed for a time of stable population and declining Global, gross, consumption.
Banks have issued credit on the speculation of continued economic growth, that much we agree on. It is easy to talk about reforms of that entire process. It can also be argued that a new element has been added, at the moment it is called lack of consumer confidence. Not only that, I believe it is understood at a deep level that we have lost our way. For me, out on a walk in the woods, the basic reforms are easy to identify. “Switch to a steady state population model, determine the growth needed to reach the sustainable production of essentials, and then build an economic model that works off of savings.”
It is quite possible we will first have to take an unprecedented world-wide write-down before we begin anew. The continuing transfer of bad loans to future taxes is not a good-will gesture, it will not help with the open minded thinking that a Homeworld Makeover requires. Such a move may look and feel like a regressive depression, however it would actually be just one dimension of a rescue mission wrapped in a modern-times renaissance.
We have experienced early symptoms of this issue years ago. They were addressed by what the press at the time called trade wars in the past. We are currently appealing to China in the name of fair play, perhaps saying more in private, that reforms are nesassary. Throughout Europe the main question now is, how to reestablish rates of growth, begging the question of establishing a new, future oriented balance of new construction, environmental recovery and debt construction and servicing. How can the Earth be in debt? To who, for what? Of course we can afford any measures nesassary to survive. And consider salaries, they are part payment and part certificates to draw down resources. Could we put two kinds of dollars into play?
A steady flow of interest payments coming in was seen as security in the past. However as we have just learned, through the collapse of economic indicators, financed consumption can not be maintained. To some extent, this was caused by shuffling the massive piles of financial papers, looking to squeeze some of that loose, or non existent money out, right now.
The good news is the worlds Finance Ministers and Bankers will have to work together for a solution. If we assume wide spread agreement on this Homeworld point of view, then a fresh round of agreements will have to be reached to mount a new and level playing field. Releasing the target, of rapid growth forever, will involve everyone taking their medicine. Our savings are so interwoven with stocks and bonds it will eventually require Government action to hold the line. At the moment, The United States has said, “No medicine for us, we are going to have a fast recovery and we will soon return to normal rates of growth.” The implication being, that we can easily take on more consumer debt, so let’s get going. We have yet to see how this plays out at home, as well as with those societies in Europe now under austerity rules.
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The rebuilding of human settlements and ecological rejuvenation will result in traditional economic growth; this is best done within a unified plan to heal inequities, rather than accelerate them. Financial affairs is where the Eco-Twins of ecology and economics (household knowledge and management) will finally shine, and shake hands to our applause. We can avoid the tragedy of fighting over what’s left, if we try to. The recently awarded Nobel Prize in economics (1910 ? ) that theorized Herding Rules will come into play, resulting in sharing, and encouragement to invest in National Shares for joint developments of projects that involve multiple Countries for those projects needed most. It seems that, the herd is smart, and will not seriously overgraze the known commons, as long as other somewhat reasonable options are open. Conversely, an obvious success will attract a ‘herd’ of additional implementors.
Soon, repair and replacement of what we have already built will loom large. We have an upcoming opportunity for a new kind of bond between nations, forged by the planets survival. It has been determined that Haiti’s recovery is slowed by a lack of building supplies, as well as not enough equipment to clear the remaining rubble, hmmm. Could citizens of Haiti go to work on second shifts at facilities elsewhere, in another Country, creating the resources needed at home? Why can’t we create such ‘time-outs’ from world law and business expectations? I suggest the World Bank may be in for a key role, and be able to support such progressive programs. We have a spot at the table for the ‘what if’ financial types.
Should new construction and additional industrial capacity serve the world’s emerging societies, allowing them to make it to the new balance on their own? I see a time in a decade or two when the challenge will be how to apply the brakes evenly, to nationalistic, socialistic, and free market economies alike, to avoid a very argumentative, and hard landing as we complete the shift away from growth for growth’s sake.
Capital stock is for our survival, one company at a time. However all such funds reflects the actions of consumers. We have an enlightened model to complete. We need big business, and small companies, both need customers. We need a joint effort by everyone, now more than ever.
This is the moment to look ahead, plan the recovery, and rebuild, with a wise eye on the longer term future. At some point down the road, it will be said, parcel by parcel. Loans could come to be financed by savings. “We own it free and clear!” Will you and I ever be invited to, ‘burn the mortgage’ parties? In the short term, most believe the developing world needs and deserves assistance. How much for how long? There may be an implicit understanding in the hallways of World Finance meetings, however it is not common knowledge. The old cynical opinion would be, this assistance is being done to jump start those new gigantic markets that will develop soon. Hearing such things puts you at bat, be ready.
88 Land Use Policy
We sometimes speak of our expanding Cities as approaching build out. This is an urban planning term, used to define the final boundaries of a single urban development as well as an entire City. All the land beyond these limits is seen as required for open space, a transition to agricultural regions, necessary water sheds, and so forth. This term now has Global application as we learn to speak of the planet’s condition of Global build out. We are faced right now with evaluating the planet’s ability to sustain at least eight billion people, in a lifestyle similar to the middle class of Norway or perhaps, Costa Rica. (give an example) (where is the Happy Index?)
Yes, start the conversation now because accomplishing this makeover takes quite some time to educate, forewarn and prepare for such a readjustment plan and start the shift. The consideration of such a planetary build-out marks an end to an age of innocence for earthlings. To accept the responsibilities of stewardship is to acquire wisdom, and become the Humanes. We have delivered ourselves to the gates of science fiction, and into the jaws of Entropy.
Progress will not be marked by construction of new and bigger, neither as more tons of consumption per hundred thousand population.You could say that we we have completed Phase One of the physical colonization of Earth. We have built what we could imagine, regardless of cost or resources required. We have placed these creations wherever we wanted. The current shift will take us into a second phase that will be more focused, more pragmatic, purposeful. Solar and wind energy projects are examples. Future phases will feature polishing the new Homeworld in every way, education, healthy vigor, and restored habitats, as well as becoming more energy efficient, and the further development of our skyward focus and travels.
Land use and zoning is one area where we could very quickly kick up a hornets nest. Ownership of land, of the family spread, has been very highly regarded. It will be necessary to install examples of the future patterns in the most accessible sites to show the way forward. Incentives and taxes will be used to leverage change, while avoiding broad brush approaches. We have the beginnings of Government awareness in the playing out of the foreclosure issues facing us today. Perhaps this build out reality will be the issue that brings home the message of Global stewardship.
In the near term we have some interesting issues of temporary use to address.. Can neighborhood zoning regulations be relaxed so as to avoid being accommodate extended families and relatives? Good will can be shown, every possible measure taken to avoid forcing people outside into tents or worse. Relax residency rules, even subsidize move-ins, a form of open door foster homing available to family groups? The possibilities for showing good will now are just as important as laying in the zoning pattern were years ago. XXX
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Eminent domain will become a coordinated Global issue? Will some people have to be relocated eventually? At the moment in the United States we have a system featuring a host of players that results in “new land” becoming available for development every year. Presently those short automobile trips Billie and I take out into the countryside are a tour of the lands that might well be urbanized next. Banks are in place, ready and expected to lend money soon for new developments, just now slowed a bit. We are making the turn already, as many have gravitated toward personal choices that reflect the goals of Global Stewardship.
The real estate community has been busy selling the farms and ranches that the annexation and zoning processes have targeted. To slow and even reverse this process has been unimaginable in the recent past. “That’s just the way it is.”
Is there always room for hundreds if not thousands of new houses, complete with malls and ever bigger super markets? How many acres of agriculture does one more Billion people require? We are right now speeding past seven, when do we start removing urban sprawl from agriculture lands? Population issues and land-use patterns are tied together and raise complicated issues of civil liberties and even religious beliefs. So far we have wrung our hands and allowed our government to kick the can on down the road.
From my experience with LAFCO, the Local Area Formation Council in California, and the use of Negative Declarations within the Environmental Reporting process, it can be said that
in America we have had the procedures in place to assure more and larger urban developments, and we do not yet have the laws and procedures to protect the long-term general welfare.
For us in America, that general welfare may well mean perfecting our ability to export food to a hungry world. We could fill returning ships with appliances and furniture? It needs to become at least legal to look after our own survival. We will conserve water to grow crops. Adding to the Constitution has been considered, and at the United Nations, as awareness is moving toward alarm, we can expect more frankness, and even alarming reports.
90 Water Supplies
Water is constantly on the move from the ocean or puddle, to the sky and back to the ground, bringing life to flowers and redwood trees, and to all those who walk, swim or fly. Transpiration of water vapor from trees and shrubs, even eliminations from animals and birds releases moisture to start water’s return trip to the ocean, all life’s reservoir. Water, salt or fresh, is the lifeblood of the planet. We all know the expression, “We are what we eat.” And drink, should be added. The oceans serve to clean the water before it returns to us as rain, and the oceans also supply us with the major portion of the oxygen we breath, as well as being a source of food for millions around thew world.
The billions of tons of phytoplankton living in the planets oceans are the leading source of net oxygen production. In spite of our absolute dependence upon the planets ocean’s they have become the sewers of last resort. We live by clean air, and these waters of the sea, that grow the fruits of the sunbeams that bless our lands. Water and world law are linked by the lungs and thirsts of all humanity. We all live by breathing and drinking this circulating clean air and water.
Restraint is one of those Re words, Will we, nation by nation, impose restraints on dumping into rivers, marshes and bays? How much Global muscle is needed? Europe has much more experience with this issue of river pollution as in many cases, several Countries share one watershed. How clean should the river be when it flows into the sea?
The challenges of providing clean urban water and sewers for the cities, towns and villages of the developing world are absolutely stupefying. We will determine we can no longer flush our sewers with fresh water, bringing wastes to central locations. Could we at least process it and pump it back for a grey flush? Fire hydrants along the way? Collect black wastes in another way? Much to do here. More to come. Have you heard? Bill Gates hopes to have this one covered, he is sponsoring research now.
Some grass clippings end up as compost, some are ‘rotted’ back into the lawn. Is there another option? Did not a University do a study of moveable cages with rabbits to “mow the turf?” what about Goats? What are the options here to get more from all that water than just the lawn’s good looks? Can we even ‘afford’ to water all these lawns?
Some places yes, others no. Car washing establishments the same, some have recycling in place now. Ground Water basins are adjudicated in some states requiring permits for wells to be dug and water pumped. There will be more legal wrangling to be sure, depending on historical grants of water rights. It must be said, water management needs a modern day overhaul.
91 World Law
Issues of amnesty and sovereignty are just ahead of us. Perhaps the first step on the path to our demonstration of International Goodwill, would be the embracing of all branches of International Justice. What of the death penalty, could we agree to send each other’s Nationals who murder home, perhaps never to return, sent home to serve a Universal Life Sentence for taking a life abroad? Such a convention would be an accomplishment that speaks to reaching better working agreements between Nations. This is an example of looking for points of progress.
At this time World Law, or it’s absence, for the most part is focused on, and supports commerce. Humanitarian and environmental protections are set aside by the current appetites of Commerce. You could say we grew up plundering, became very good at it, and have been successful in converting those episodes into the International framework of how things are done today. Global commerce has been the King, the palace is upon the graves of (Your Regional choice). We can all complete that story, for our own lands and peoples. What is the end game? What can the losers expect? With one hand, we still rob them, and with the other we send them condoms and nut paste. This has been the case in Africa.
It must be duly noted that our Global response to Haiti started out just fine, however it has collapsed into a worse situation than before the quake. There is a poignant warning here. It is indeed possible to slip backwards. What is the plan? Set them up as a full fledged player on the world stage with a submarine, skyscrapers and a stock-exchange? We need to figure this out.
Earthquakes and volcanoes are ready to test us again somewhere else. Haiti also demonstrates the huge burdens we have expected them and others to carry in silence, and the huge costs to the treasuries of the world as we do our best to put things right. I see the germ of a plan here. Let us speed the evolution of a Global, level economic playing fields.
Suppose we advanced an international proposal to adjudicate the extraction and exportation of raw materials. We do this now with our own ground water basins. It would assure the value-added activities such as the milling, smelting, casting, sewing, and that at least some of the final manufacturing, would take place in the country of origin, especially regarding those items that would have a local market.
Perhaps Haiti offers the first page of, “ Economic Recovery in the Modern Era,” a report yet to be written. Home World Protocol and Law will eventually oversee these rebuilding efforts to be more focused on elevating pockets of poverty that are now used by others as a ‘natural resource’ of cheap labor. What will Haiti’s special sparkle be? Beyond the economics of survival? As you may know Haiti needs freshened soils, break up and level out that remaining rubble, grind up a final layer and make some soil, thinking caps on, ask the Danes for help.
How about we guarantee every Country unfettered access to the sea? A new Global Commerce of Stewardship would establish business ties that slow hostilities, build alliances. Somalia needs a business, a product, what could be processed and made there. The ransom dollars would go farther for all if they funded some startups. Who can step in with the know-how to make this happen? World law could require a future of equal trading partners. Justice Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court believed in and wrote that world trade should be between equal economic partners. It is still a good idea, the point is, the world’s major players have advantaged themselves all these years, creating wealth at the expense of others, rather than do what is now widely seen as the right thing to do. We need International Controls on chemicals used in manufacturing and agriculture, as these possibly contaminated foods and products are being sold around the world. Such regulations will be slow to implement as the current modus operandi is one of secrecy and intrigue. There would be no such exploitation if such practices were both culturally taboo, and illegal.
National demonstrations of goodwill are essential. I believe the major players have, in effect received pardons for earlier periods of plunder, from today’s regimes in the developing world. These countries leaders have settled for half a loaf and their Citizens stand by in rags as their resources are harvested, and shipped out. The in-country Corporations share responsibility with their home base country, who say, “Thanks for the new tax revenue.” Moreover, what about the Country that is exporting, selling out their people? It is what it is.
The truth will out, the new balance will be achieved. Politicians, land owners, corporate executives, and government leaders are being called out to take center stage, a new perspective is here to support them as they accept the new mandates. On the other hand, a sea change implies movement, and scandals and illegal activity will be uncovered. Compassion and forgiveness are called for, as well as exile and prison terms. Let’s freshen our work on The International Conventions of Human Rights as a goal to base the required legal work. Education about it to follow in our schools, to eventually cultivate a Global Pride in our efforts to fully reveal our Humane nature.
We do have some very interesting cases coming up. Take rising sea levels, that will soon take all the land out from under sovereign nations. Water taken by corporations for industrial profits, shorting people and food production. These issues will be in our courts soon enough. Tim Flannery makes the point that our destructive weather events will shift from, “Acts of God,” to the, “Acts of Man,” in his book, The Weather Makers. His book is already out of date.
92 A Diversified Web of Settlements?
What about an alternative future of human habitation composed of cities, towns and villages, each tier with less energy per capita? Even nomadic settlements? Within a five hundred mile cross-section there would be examples of each type, and the roads would reflect it. Big cities would be as modern as we can make them, towns would be like going back to, say, half the energy usage of today? Villages would be using even less and the nomadic settlements would be as high-tech hunter gatherers with some agriculture.
To quite some extent, we can have that very same energy diversity in our cities and towns of today. We can make it in our best interests to behave and consume responsibly. What if we rationed energy and allowed individuals to sell their share? I've also heard of being paid to stay out of jail, and to do your homework, as well as lower insurance rates if you drive only a few miles a week, or don’t drive at all. Bikes, cabs, busses and trains for increasingly more people will be the norm.
Today’s zoning regulations assumes we are all heading for the same grand suburban conclusion. It doesn't have to be that way. What is suburbia? Is it only a place to get to work from? I have seen first hand the mountains of alternative Urban Planning literature generated by our Universities and housing studies, as well as many European proposals. Social Scientists have long hoped to ‘build in’ our well-being by arranging our Cities just so. China has begun to build futuristic ‘domed’ complexes, and builders have made great progress with going green on a building by building example. Electronic commuting indicates changes to come. (Time to read Jane Jacobs again.)
Modern auto driven suburbia has proven to be beyond the control of the permitting processes, and unwilling to listen to academic recommendations. We have defaulted ourselves into a corner, now with built-in high costs of the commuting and maintenance of these expansive neighborhoods. We know how to be much more self-contained and diverse, with smaller, lighter footprints. Add a kitchen to modern two story townhouses and you have, what we could call, a renaissanced duplex! Once population density picks up, put in a transit service. I see a different balance, tighter and greener on the one hand, and with more family leisure and vacation time on the other. The desire is to work within a society that features tangible personal benefits, rather than financial growth that is taken offshore or placed out of sight.
Within such a diverse scheme of settlements we could raise our kids with old-time barnyard chores, or be as natives for a while, even have a family life instead of a career? The choice could be ours. I’ll bet more than a few would raise their families in the country, move to town for the High School years. As Seniors later on they might choose a Super City, cars parked at the gate, nothin’ but little trains, belts and elevators, Rocket City and the Trading Post. Yahoo!
You know, as long as we are having some fun, how about this? Could we bring gaming out into the real world and have layered alternative economies?
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For starters, the full welfare choice would feature the ‘Swedish Model’ with 35% taxes, no fooling around with deductions, and very, very good benefits, or you can be in the ‘on your own’ model with few taxes and few benefits? How far can we take this? We can do what we can imagine, it will just take some time to work it out. What do you want to try? Perhaps Gamers have come to the point of initiating a new political party to pry open our collective imaginations.
All factors of Planetary Stewardship carry an educational component. On one of my walks in the woods of Unity Village I focused on just what is the single most important issue to make some headway on.
Education came to mind, would we have done, or rather, will we do better, once better educated? I soon decided that ‘the trick’ will be a combination of rules, education and incentives. This question has continued to percolate and points ahead to my next writing project. Formal schooling is quite different from cultural shifts in values. At the moment, experiencing projects that demonstrate people making an investment in new values, the playing out of a new paradigm in plain view is most valuable. That is how community recycling started. One of the early objections was that the set-outs of cans bottles and newspapers would be tossed about by kids on the way to school. As far as I know, that never occurred.
The success of present day community recycling programs demonstrates that if the reform is logical, and easily conformed with, it will succeed. Of corse, there is that other mysterious matter of timing. For Ecology Action in Modesto in 1971, the mood was set by the first Earth Day and the greater environmental movement it grew from, and we were able to place that project right there in front of the house in plain view. It became part of the landscape overnight. And it was gone by four PM, in almost all cases.
My inclination to this day is to simply continue. Plant more flowers in the medians, paint out more ugliness, clean up the trash on the river bank, make sure those misplaced bicycles get to those special people who fix ‘em. When we see ourselves caring, we will shift into the next gear. There will probably be extensive educational efforts made on down the line, for now we simply do what we can, extra points if it is done in the pubic eye.
94 CHAPTER SIX
Finding Your Place
Participation in a Renaissance driven Makeover has to do with our integrity. For each one of us these projects are restorative physically and emotionally. They feed strength of character into our respective host cultures. Accomplishments build Global pride, and this yields a unified family of common purpose. It will bring forth a future focused habitation, going in a new direction. Yes, we will change our cultures and world views, however it is our individual hearts, the very soul of humanity that is being restored. Find your place of comfort, the Homeworld show is about to begin.
You can step out of the past, and into your own self. You can avoid being profiled and assigned a place of work, enter anew wearing your true colors. Show what you have to offer, be a good listener. Can you recall those occasions that left you really pleased with yourself? A renaissance will accomplish many things, all in support of our souls warmth, it’s wellness. It just might be that someday, somewhere it will be said, “Now take those folks on Earth, they really have it together!”
95 Your Emergence
You may have assigned yourself to a role in life where you are functioning in a capacity that does not reflect your true self, nor your abilities. You can break out right here, right now. Self-esteem and new friends await you. What has come to your attention lately? You may very well have ‘stumbled over’ what would be just the ticket for you, then out of habit you just went right on by.
The four following categories are points of entry into the Renaissance Driven Makeover and illustrate how thousands of people around the globe have already stepped forward, and are contributing now. You can mark your beginning with a ceremony. It may be that you will return home triumphant after doing exactly the right thing when challenged by a ‘at bat experience.’ It may just be that you have a plan to mark your shift.
Play with it. Mark the calendar. Buy a special memento. You could pick out something special to wear as you head out toward, ‘your breakout moment.' It would then represent a special moment, your power shirt or blouse. Reserve it for special occasions. You can enrich your life by engaging your challenges. Perhaps even more fun if you can share them with a friend. You can also choose to give away something or even smash a reminder of how you pigeonholed yourself. Many of us face difficult friendships where we find ourselves listening to and casually agreeing with a friend on that same old tired subject, over and over. Are you a friend, just a rented audience, even an enabler? Speak up and find out! On your way with you, you are needed over here.
This is difficult because so much energy is being released on the expectation that you will behave in certain ways. The millions upon millions of dollars spent on advertising are focused on us consumers. Thousands of people watching over us, polling and sampling, walking us over into the accounting records of their clients. Perhaps you have a relative who expects you to support her or him in a certain way. And of course our culture, from job to Church, expects things of us. Your ‘Breaking out’ offers you the chance to say, “ I can’t because . . .” Here are your pathways to a new beginning.
95 Messengers
The best way to spread the word, is directly from person to person, and so it is for revealing the emerging paradigm shift. Talk to your friends, experience their reaction, as well as your response to them. You can do this on your own schedule. Say it your own way, of course you can quote what is here, or refer to, a writer who believes in some global makeover type of theory. Take the word to groups that are already doing those Renaissance Chores, and they will join with you in ‘talking it up.’ You can take it to any level, from casual conversation, to business cards with a slogan, and E-mailing, or even ad buys in local papers. I am as a cheer-leader, the play is yours.
Perhaps you have access to someone or a group of people, say Rotary or Toastmasters, take it to a member, suggest a presentation. Your way of putting it will be more important to your friends and relatives than these pages. The Call can be amplified in two ways, what you speak or write, and through the example you live. It seems that nowadays it has become very important to walk your talk. Being a good messenger can therefore occur with a silent “walking it through,” no talking at all, every passerby can see your solar roof panels.
The Internet provides a way to put your heralding examples way out there. It may be that, back about when “Mother Earth News” became well read, that The Renaissance was launched? Those sentiments have been with us and have been acted upon for many years by modern day pioneers. They have years of experience to share. There are other examples right under our noses to learn from. The fermentation of organic wastes into burnable methane gas and worm tanks that can produce humus for gardens.
It will be up to a special breed of messenger to catch us up on all such Makeover details. You may prefer to be a ‘Manifesting Angel,’ sending Love to all you see, envisioning the Renaissance complete, and feeling already snuggled down in a happy place, knowing that all is well, as you search out new details and solutions.
96 Organizers
An organizer works with anything from a gathering in a home, Church, or a conference. Of the four points of entry into the Renaissance, the organizer has the widest perspective. Their purpose comes into focus when something is repaired, or built anew. What to do first? Ask an Organizer! This person has more ideas than birds have feathers. They often need a sidekick, someone to bring a specialized skill that the organizer lacks, or perhaps that calming voice needed to help maintain an even keel. A good pairing up is a sight to behold.
Let’s say the organizer type and your interests include fresh, local food, and you need a project. Where to begin? First survey existing Farmer’s Markets, talk to venders. Put in a new one or help enlarge an existing one? Acquaint yourself with what is available, perhaps visit them several different times. Talk to the in-place coordinators. By definition the Organizer is like a General Contractor, putting projects and people together in the right place, forming an arrangement that will function successfully.
To assist an existing Farmer’s Market, find the weakest link and offer to improve it. This may be anything from parking to publicity. Nutrition is the payoff, however shifting dollars to local commerce, soil husbandry and energy savings are noteworthy issues.
There is probably at least one aspect that has escaped attention so far. Ask yourself, what is missing here? It may be food buyers for groups of people, caterers for example. “Has anyone approached them?” Then again, it may be that no one has hooked up Four-H talent with the needs of an aspiring farmer’s market. Put the right pieces together and it will work. Some Markets have more than food booths: voter registration to entertainment. Does that aspect need a push? If a farmer’s market does not exist now, start with the City to see where one might fit in, and learn if there has been one in the past, what happened? Talk with City council members and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as local reporters, this is an established issue, they will know a few names to get you started.
As the Makeover message rolls out, new types of gatherings will become the norm. Social salons and cadres have been used in the past, we are seeing similar formats in networking, and job hunting breakfast gatherings. The internet facilitates the like-minded to attend a ‘meet up,’ or post it on your wall or, a bulletin board out there somewhere! You can put out a call for all those interested in making and shipping out ‘Survival Appliances,’ remember those new more efficient forest stoves? What about water pumps and solar collectors? Someone has to stand up and give the signal! The Organizer will do it, by golly.
I like the idea of casting a wide net, find your access providers, find your working crew. Meet Ups offered on the internet are very popular. My old romantic side likes the format of a Salon, you could just drift through, listen to the music, see what turned up. I see the new version as organic, and yet having a posted agenda. A two or three chambered space would be best, a combination of verandas, rooms and hallways, a room with a microphone for the ‘meeting’ part; and then the ‘hallway’ part where the buzz is going on, with a combination of standing and sitting, and then a separate space for refreshments with seating if you wish.
The key is the people, utilizing the sign-in boards, glancing over the bulletin boards, and schedule of events. Organizers sign in over here with their projects, Workers can find where their skills are needed over there, and so on. Maybe even a place where suggested agenda items could be posted. Are you the one who will Arise, and demonstrate how to do this in the digital age? With all the tools and procedures available now. The intention is to assemble teams, clans and collectives that get things done. Every metropolitan region is awaiting that first Makeover convening, or whatever you would prefer to call it!
97 Workers
The workers are the backbone of all makeover activities. This is the best place to stand and take a look around. It is also the least demanding as it is affordable and you can determine your own schedule. Some worker-bees just seem to take refuge in the work itself, others tend to be quite outgoing and are busy calling and tweeting. If you have special training, or are licensed, these abilities are indeed valuable ways for you to contribute. You may prefer to volunteer that particular skill, rather than perform it professionally.
I have especially appreciated the skilled recycling volunteers of years ago who took an interest and helped develop the advertising campaigns, along with the apparatus and processes that allowed us to handle large tonnage's of paper, cans and bottles in 1972, at our Ecology Action Center Modesto California. The work of preparing what we called “the goods” has now been passed on to Cities and contractors that operate Materials Recovery Facilities. Their is a major era opening now for recycling volunteers. The link-up between waste generators and these modern day facilities can be vastly improved. (See Recycling note in Appendix.) Vastly enhanced materials recovery programs can be a centerpiece of our Homeworld Makeover. Find out who is organizing around the recycling issues in your town now, help out and see if the time is right to implement a new publicity phase, or new program elements. Do you have a friend to work with you on this?
When you report in to an established project you will see an in-place etiquette of who does what when, so watch for a while, be slow to offer changes in routines. Go with pure labor, and don’t make any quick promises. It should be pointed out that you don’t have to build Habitat houses or send your blood to Haiti to make a difference.
Many of our parks are in need of able bodied workers for pick and shovel work as well as phone answering and hosting. Ever thought of volunteering at the Zoo? The idea is to start, ask about other things going on when you get there. You may wish to bring a friend along for a time or two. In some cases you will find yourself face to face with a project, say repairing a fence. You may well end up recruiting more help and spending fifty bucks on materials. Most will experience an, “All is in perfect order,” happening. Things just fall into place, like your pet sitter left on vacation, you bumped into a neighbor and she offered to sit with your two dogs on Saturday, so you could go to a Milkweed planting project, and so it will go, for you, as you step up.
98 Sponsors
The scale of any effort is determined by the budget. Sponsors have a choice between applying funds to local projects they can observe, and possibly take some role in, or sending the money in to headquarters. Sponsors have a golden opportunity to alter how things are accomplished by funding alternative ways of getting the job done.
For example, a ‘sponsor’ could buy a shipment of solar panels for the nonprofit medical clinic to achieve reduced overhead, promote the manufacturer, create a TV spot with a documented success story, and provide that sponsor with a write off! In addition we have a visible pull towards the re-prioritization of energy sources. The Not-for-Profit Community is very layered, and diverse, as well as sophisticated. In some cases, it may be better to give the project the needed object, from utility trailers and storage space, to office equipment or even a new rug. All parties are involved in creating the trust that is required for the new work to go forward. That is the magic stuff of it, the manifestation of simply going in a good way, placing that new Nexus first on High, then on, Automatic.
Once we have moved well into this first phase of, The Renaissance, and Homeworld Makeover becoming household words, we can imagine all kinds of hybrid projects coming along. Urban cores are now literally going green, small rooftop plots and block-size community gardens, occasionally at schools and jails. The scale of it is about to burst forth into becoming a major source of food. Community canning and freezing techniques are due next. What about washing some of the still whole, recovered bottles and jars for local refilling, creating a new business? Let’s say a choice piece of property adjoining a City or County Park would make a wonderful visitors center, bird seed to bike racks. It could be bought, the structure completed and then given to the Park. Most likely this would be done by a group that included messengers, organizers, sponsors and workers.
Americans have a rich history of Philanthropy, as well as many successful fund drives and pledge nights. One could figure out the “normal” ratio over the years of total capital assets available, to donated funds. It may be that a fivefold increase is in the range desired for the work that is to be done soon. Do we even have enough workers available? Such expanding efforts will necessarily hire people and contractors, supplies and materials will be bought. Will the hundreds and hundreds of millionaires join the Billionaires and push half of their wealth forward? The workers are available just now, put the funds into circulation.
The priorities will change, from golf courses to more urban truck farms, from redoing a mall to affordable housing, from a new hospital to one hundred health maintenance clinics. Diverse partnerships are required, large corporations working it out with government agencies, as well as small local efforts that fold in private with not for profit, whatever works on a case by case basis. As always, money with a vision talks the loudest, sponsors are the new pioneers who can pull together custom teams and get things done, now.
All the above will need a ‘vehicle’ to move on out with. This can be as simple as an address with a business license in the right Zone, say light industry, as you probably can’t make Forest Stoves in the parking lot of a dry cleaners. In other cases, a full corporate shell will be required to move ahead. Non-profits can serve as a vehicle for pass through grants for those projects that are aligned with the organization’s incorporated purpose. In some cases the ‘vehicle’ will in fact be a vehicle, the key to allowing a project to move ahead. In some cases it will be a truck, perhaps one with a trailer hitch! And two strong helpers. Small businesses have a tremendous potential as Sponsors, because usually there is someone clearly in charge who can give you an answer.
You can think of a Focused Fundraiser as a Sponsor. This could be anything from a Garage Sale to a Talent Night. Think of the effort as a tune-up for your core people. Perhaps you can find an individual who will double what you raise. Show your passion, have a handout.
99 Action Call!
Talking about this Homeworld Makeover in any context adds to the general energy of manifestation. The Call will be spread initially by someone telling a friend, then it goes outward to other friends; the word will reach those busy with existing projects, Can you say, “Someone believes this is part of a new renaissance, can you believe that?”
The Call can be seen as four waves of Makeover Energy that brings the actions and projects of the Renaissance of the Twenty-first Century. How long will this take? I don’t know. You yourself may warm to it slowly, or you may experience a life altering epiphany, allowing those old security blankets to slip from your shoulders.
First Actions can happen very quickly, immediately upon hearing the call. They would be your shifting into an open, more positive world view, opening your heart, feeling the flow of love to and from all life around you. You may choose to support an existing effort or simply spread the Renaissance perspective and the Homeworld point of view to friends and work-mates, perhaps even that somebody who has access to the media, or is a fundraiser.
Second Actions would be new initiatives and projects that are created from scratch, usually requiring phones and files, address and correspondence, all demonstrating that the reworking is coming into it’s own, with a real place in society. Such actions could be a Renaissance discussion group, social networking to promote projects, or committees forming inside existing organizations and schools, and then eventually to be reflected in articles, and books.
Third Actions will be taking place when two or more parties, government agencies, corporations, community service clubs, schools, governments, foundations and churches will work together, arranging to gain a wider presence or to undertake larger projects. All precipitated by the arrival of Renaissantial thinking. Projects would include everything from the future of our overseas military bases to environmentalists and loggers working it out on the Clark Fork drainage in Montana. At this stage we may well detect these Homeworld point of view values emergence in opinion polls.
We can look ahead to Fourth Actions which will be the banquets of celebration upon completing our projects. Some of us have attended such celebrations already, we just didn’t know we were also involved with energizing a Global Redo. From you and me to the whole world. “It could happen.”
Social scientists recognize self-fulfilling prophecies; in my view we are not pushing the river, we are going within an existing flow, expanding the pull. The ranks of Makeover oriented workers could swell very quickly to one person in seven of the potential Global work force. Part time, full time, fund it by any means necessary, donations or taxes, Global Recovery Stamps and Bonds, and more ways yet to come.
There is something magical, miraculous even, about achieving a critical mass, or a tipping point. Much like getting a fire going on a cold, wet and windy day, once you have it right, it will ignite. “Are we to discover fire the second time?”
Basking in the Joy of Life upon this fine Homeworld is absolutely wonderful.
We have strayed off-path into accepting, behaving, and drudgery. We can all have a win. What better for business than consumers who read the labels, have discriminating taste buds, and are well educated? Businesses can offer services and products that can be vibrantly pleasing, in much the same way that an orchestra is.
And those politicians, have you ever, ever sat down and talked it over with one? Wouldn’t it be a joy to be part of the arrival of smart and committed officials and staff that are focussed on the general welfare, and not afraid to tell us, “It’s time to take a corrective action.” And us telling them face to face, “the food packaging and some of the containers are almost impossible to open,” and, “why can’t we shop at neighborhood mini-malls with golf carts and scooters?”
Well, you have a better chance of knowing such a one, if you do go inside, and stop assuming you know what politicians are made of. It may be you then, who has to hold your ground. These visits are crucial. The Call is going out now, to come home. We can’t expect support for preferable shifts that local officials know nothing about.
100 CHAPTER SEVEN
The Work of It
The doing of the Work has two dimensions. The part that can be photographed, and that other part that can’t, the part that cannot be weighed or counted. A Renaissance has both parts. Can you hear the Call to create, feel the loving embrace of doing the work? Give yourself a smile as you pull your boots on, the world is hoping to see you. There is no rush, we have all the time we need. You will find someone you enjoy working with, bonding with. To work together toward a shared vision is the best of friendships.
Hammers will ring out and saws will sing. Those able to sweat their way through the Makeover are on the external path, out in the sunshine, perhaps with a set of plans to work from. There are other paths. There is an inside path that is very challenging. For instance, what about those sovereign island nations that are being flooded out of existence? An inside track with no plans. Many people are in circumstances that takes them out of the physical game. From jail cells to long-term care facilities they sit, not interacting with society. Could they help? “Yes, indeed.” Letters, Posts, and the visualizing of our eventual success.
100 Focused Achievers
Who would you like to work with? Men or Women, both? This is one of the best opportunities for two or three men to pull together in a way not usually available. They would bond around the work of it, not the job that was available and required to take. To actually have a workmate has become less common as we have automated the workplace and eliminated much of the physical labor. ‘Volunteering‘ has many dimensions.
The ambassadors, manifestors and the initiators of this Renaissance will initially be a ‘fresh crop,’ of concerned individuals. Along with such a fresh workforce, we shall have a new way of defining what the focus of a community project is. Categories of these new-day ‘first-responders’ are offered to show you how individuals will migrate into the Renaissance tasks. Each group will bring a different set of energies, skills and resources.
The ideal situation is to create innovative projects that involve all the, “Stakeholders” in both past, and any existing standoffs. Let’s use rain-forest preservation as an example. Clear cutting and mining as well as poaching are big problems with clearly defined ‘sides.’ In the United States, we sponsor the preservation of the habitat for migrating water fowl with the sale of Duck Stamps, ten dollars and up. What if we had a similar global fundraising effort for the rain-forests, millions upon millions of dollars worth of “Rainforest Stamps,” sold world wide? Even, “Endangered Species Stamps?”
It could be that somebody knows somebody who has an Uncle who is involved with this very efficient Government run Duck Stamp program. The discussion begins and very soon the idea has caught up with someone who attended the recent United Nations discussions of Rain Forest Conservation. Goals were established, now waiting on Nation by Nation funding commitments. Funding that is independent of this traditional Government route is just as available as we believe it is. Could the sale of such stamps be handled by say, one of several international associations of students, or even by the U. N., or even those good folks who issue Duck Stamps now?
Who knows where this new front door is to be found? Even an accessible back door? Just who has that first piece? Many groups could sell such stamps, these Duck Stamps have been carefully cultivated, are now valued as collectables. Could they even be sold within one of those Internet Games? Wow! That would be a Breakout! Right up there with fish and farm animals? What can you and your friends get started?
101 Students
Students of any age, and those adults who have chosen to increase their knowledge in any subject or skill are future oriented seekers. It is an interesting exercise to ponder the different futures envisioned by our young students, adult learners, and seekers of all stripes.
Do you suppose that our young students are aware of media claims that, “The adults have stolen your future,” referring to financial matters and/or environmental destruction? We could tell our students, “You do have a better chance than most to get your hands on the helm, out there on the river of change, and set a new course.”
I feel that all ‘students’ are by definition actively seeking, gathering, learning, and are therefore open. They can develop a special sensitivity to how things are going, some focus on areas of particular interest, from dentistry to banking regulations. This results in raising the likelihood of reforms and innovations.
We need young people to become experts regarding the Earth’s vital signs, besides just running a fever. “What are this Planet’s preventive health care procedures?” Will you be prepared to help accomplish what was fumbled and stumbled over, some forty years ago? Global Recovery is one of the roads to your Self-esteem, Earth Stewardship, and the integrity of All Humankind. To sit as a student is to be in a rarefied atmosphere of seeking, read well indeed, the big questions just might show. If you are a college student headed for a Masters or a Doctorate, consider a research undertaking that would be of, “Renaissance Class.”
For students the A, B and C’s of it are Questions:
Start with asking:
A. What are the vital questions and issues before us?
B. Which of these ‘needs to know,’ do I want to speak about?
Where and who should I study under?
Think about it. As a student you are plugged into an existing program, formed years ago. We are in the habit of focusing on the tests and grades. Doing school is a special time, for personal inquiry and searching about, take it in bite sized amounts. Find what is there for you, doing school, seeking.
102 Individual Initiators
As the Age of Aquarius ascends, it’s properties will become manifest through individual initiative. You may be Called to do “the work” and start by making phone calls or driving nails. A few will be able to remember precisely when ‘that call came in.’ Others will find themselves gravitating in a new direction. “It just seemed like the best thing for me to do at the time,” they will say. This shift does not need hours of consideration by those who come forward. Most will not have seen these words. Some readers later on will have heard talk of a Renaissance, and then these words will be as a release for them to change course.
There are three major arenas to work in: The Biosphere, all the outdoors; Global society, the health and general welfare of all the people on board, and our Habitat: the structures, homes to factories, pipes and wires, as well as the cars, planes and trains, all combining to offer us the comforts of home. We do have one more, small and essential arena, a research lab down the hall. In a Homeworld Makeover context we need inventor types to mess with everything from fuel cells to stem cells, and those survival appliances I mentioned. Research is critical.
In many cases the work of a makeover can be done unofficially. For instance those Biogeochemical cycles function without knowledge of whose land or lake they are part of. If you want to plant Milkweed for Butterflies, find some suitable acreage, obtain permission and plant.
Human assistance is welcomed, whomever it comes from. If you want to open up a free Bar-BQ every Saturday to do some Makeover recruiting, or bring Volley Ball nets and balls to the park, then do it. You will be putting yourself on notice to demonstrate reliability. ‘Draft’ some friends to help. Involve a close-by Church, or just hang out and play, let the word spread. Form a Collective, a group of dedicated like-minded individuals.
I recognize that not everyone will be equally blessed with the personal circumstances to become involved in such undertakings. All “Renaissance” oriented people are holding a vision of positive outcomes for everyone. If you are not able to move out in that way, for any one of a dozen reasons, will you hold the vision of peace and harmony? From your Military Unit? From your three part time jobs? Even from jail? Do that which is within your reach. Your prays and visualization of a successful Makeover have tremendous power.
These examples of entry pathways are provided to offer stimulation rather than my thoughts on the main things to be accomplished. The physical accomplishments, of making forest stoves, donating blood, etc, are one part of The Makeover Work. The other is your contribution on an energetic level, adding your personal soul’s spices to the soup we all live by.
I have toyed with this next particular idea off and on for many years. I have tossed it out on occasion but provided no framework for it to grow on. The Internet now is ready to help. I am proposing Social Action Contracts between individuals and/or organizations. We do have a contemporary example. A person or Company pledges to match all the donations given. Let’s imagine that you have not regularly donated blood yet. You can say to your E-mail list, or your Face book friends, “I will donate blood on a regular basis if six of you (or ?) will join me.” Carpooling can be thought of in this way, “I will carpool with folks from Claywoods, if someone will ride in with Jim and Linda?” Could there be a Global noxious weed pulling club, members pledging their hours? Post pictures and tweet it about!
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This mechanism can be used in any way you can imagine. Seven to finally take the bus, three to drop in five thousand each to sponsor shamanic healing work for our Native American veterans, so forth and so on. Call people world wide who share your last name and form a clan of individuals who walk the dogs at the Animal Shelter. Some of you will move on to foster-homing, or taking animals out to help heal children. Hell’s bells, print up a T-shirt! “The Mackenzie's are now walking the dogs in X, Y, and Z cities.” Share photos and stories.
Start a discussion group, usually meeting in our homes. Share your stories of who you had a smile with, met up with, how you received or gave a kindness. “Have any of you ever experienced paying it forward?” Billie and I have now experienced both ends of this kindness at grocery stores and in a coffee shop.
Many people regard themselves as, ‘on the shelf’ for one reason or another, stuck indoors. These folks have a special opportunity to fill in some blanks. The good efforts that others are making should not go seemingly unappreciated. If you come across a good news piece on the Net, in a magazine or newspaper, write the person featured, and or the writer, an E-mail, or drop a postcard to the paper.
Think of recreating, extending, the ‘village atmosphere’ we all used to share. We used to talk with each other. Thank them for the good work they are doing, ask if they feel that a Renaissance is coming. You probably have a friend who would help you look for ‘super-citizens tales,’ and help you with mailing your letters, or how to post them on the net. It is easy to see that reporters and journalists would like to hear from their readers and viewers. We can’t buy this Buzz anywhere.
It’s the same for anyone who did a fine job, even the Gardner who takes care of the plantings around the sculpture in front of the Library, mention it at the front desk, inquire what are the names of that variety, what fertilizer he or she uses. We just assume we all have ‘a job to do’ and that no one else notices how it’s going. When you receive good service, tell the manager, and if you receive poor service, tell about that too. Yes, we need to live as the family we are.
What about starting a Renaissance Family? I’m sure soccer moms know about sharing the load to get all their kids to the practices and games. Many outdoorsmen also know how to work it out so that the group’s objective can be met. Let’s do the same for milkweed propagation to benefit migrating butterflies, or helping with local food choices, cultivating to promoting. . . whatever your group decides.
You may show up at a graffiti paint over, or riverside clean up project with a friend or two and on that day get a taste of this new
style of Family Life. Others did the publicity, and all the organizing. A Renaissance Family would be a free standing unit and would return to the work of it repeatedly. Self motivated and self funded, self blessed and automatically warmed through and through.
Your ‘Family’ may wish to do your work anonymously, or you may wish to encourage others to follow your lead, give your family a name, even have a flag or staff you plant at your chosen work site? Letters to the editor? Call the environmental and community affairs writers at the paper. You can start with a dear friend or mate, and then pull in others each time you get to the work of it. In my experience it can happen that all of a sudden it is recognized that, “We are a family, let’s do this again.” On other occasions a Family will have to be assembled. You probably wont need an expert as a member. Access to information is so easy now, everything from the Internet to the Biology Department at the University can be accessed. If muscle is required, then youth is desired.
You can also start your own Harmony Circle on the Internet that goes around the World. At first it will be enough to find someone to the west or east, who feels as you do about the desirableness of a modern day Renaissance, and who will then tell others to the north. They would, in turn, continue the linkup onward with another until the circle returns to you, and you then send out the concluding announcement. Once such an idea catches on, initiators could be increasingly specific. Could someone find a Renaissance Circle of Harmony, with all the participants having a different religious faith?
We could find Pen Pals in those countries we are warring upon, the Internet is tearing down the barriers between us. We are refusing to respect the old boundaries of ‘proper and correct.’ Follow your heart. My first Harmony Circle will link up Professors and Instructors of environmental education for public school teachers.
There are two approaches to this work. First of all be clear if you are interested more in advocating or wanting to actually accomplish a project, pulling invasive weeds to installing solar panels.
A. Spread the word.
B. Contribute, your blood, time, skills, resources.
C. Shop as if the World depends upon it.
104 Community Groups
You may find yourself in a “family” setting already. Softball teams to quilters, any kind of group can take up a Renaissance task as a family within the membership group. In some cases, Renaissance Family work is ongoing now. For instance we now have a wheel chair ramp built by Building Together, Liberty Missouri. The workers were from the same church. More teams are needed, they were funded through stimulus money. This could continue with local matches of money and labor on the Net, or at the, “Makeover Meet Ups” yet to come.
It could be posted, “We are ready to go to work on painting a senior’s house, will you match our, so far five-hundred dollar’s worth of pledged labor, with white paint? Come meet Mrs. Jones who is 73 years old and lost her husband last year,” and so on. This type of assistance can be given on an add hock basis or formally with a proper shell, a 501 C-3 and a ‘official program’ that accounts for insurance and liability concerns.
Churches as a category hold the greatest potential. If we assume that congregation members know each other well, then discussing the big issues, that herd of, ‘elephants in the room,’ is quite possible. “What actions can we take, as part of our living and growing together?” The Global Makeover can be discussed and answered to, within the strength of those Religious Communities, within all our Cities. There is much more to do than those issues of the Bible driven pulpit. Churches find themselves sitting at the crossroads of yesterdays charity and tomorrows Global Makeover. The possible conflict between your church's welfare and the taking on of outside projects should be discussed openly. To identify competing priorities, and defining a course of action, that is part of living it through.
All local organizations have a very strong Messenger possibility open to them. Once the group commits, the members can learn and reach out in presentation teams of two or three. Veterans groups have power as they have the only fraternities of military personnel. They are long-suffering, and soon to expand, as we bring home our troops from overseas. There should be an increased veterans visibility, initiated by us civilians desiring a more upfront showing of TLC for all of them, those older ones left to live under the bridge, as well as those with fresh wounds. You may be one of those who will work to build a more viable, more visible Veterans Community that would come to have a speaker’s bureau, increased fund raising, local clinics, and so forth. Are you pulled in this direction? Our veterans welcome home is up to us, not the corridors inside the beltway.
Your softball team or your Texas Hold Em’ gang could be the nucleus of a new community effort. The thousands of self-help groups that meet regularly have tremendous potential to reach out to other similar groups around the world, share stories, methods and approaches, every bond of friendship is a step toward a world at peace. Bring the time of The Great and Global Makeover forward. The A B C’s of it could be:
A. Solicit local Makeover suggestions for the agenda.
B. Recruit volunteers, and obtain needed supplies.
C. Publish, distribute Renaissance awareness materials.
105 National Non-Profits
Large national groups such as Nature Conservancy and the Salvation Army are already at with reservoirs of professional talent, many ‘can-do skills,’ resources of many kinds, and some of these groups are already fully committed to the same future the Renaissance driven Makeover is reaching for. It seems to me these
organizations are at the boundary between our current aggressive growth economy, and the coming slower and wiser practices of household management.
One school of thought has it that our country needs three distinct operational hubs: first would be our elected government and those hired and appointed, second would be the private sector offering us goods and services, and then we have the poor relative, the, “Not for profits.” These organizations serve most dramatically as the cleanup crew for a society that is proceeding in a reckless manner, scattering wounded about. They have taken on many responsibilities and are now woven into our society. They start with community shelters of all kinds, and spread out to include activity centers and clubs. Schools and conservation groups stand in a neutral corner and concentrate on doing good work.
The Renaissance can’t wait for a better name, than, “Not for profit” they should be a for something, rather than a, ‘not for,’ something. They are a very important ‘hub’ since these community focused organizations are destined for a major role. They are sponsor friendly, and penetrate all aspects of our civilizations. These Non-Profits have access to our jails and pet shelters as well as refugee camps and natural disasters. By definition they are not in it to turn a profit, no owners nor shareholders, only success matters.
We will see their Executive level involvement as well as a Chapter by Chapter responses. These organizations will welcome the chance to shine, they are powerhouses and by definition, stand apart from the political process, and can undertake some of the bigger projects immediately. Many of these organizations have hundreds of local chapters that are ready to initiate new programs. In addition we have Co-ops and a sprinkling of ‘think tanks’ who may put on a more activist face to move things along.
We are reaching for a tipping point, the Global realization that we are indeed a proud Family of peoples, including all our relations that walk, swim or fly. We are committed to the welfare of all our members. Big and small alike, need these A. B. C.’s taken care of.
At national:
A. HQ staff evaluation of Makeover opportunities.
B. Print advisories for local Chapters.
Originate new programs.
In the community
A. Educational tasks at local level
B. Increase in volunteers
Expansion of programs
106 Small Businesses
When my Billie and I had our yogurt parfait break of a few pages back, we noticed that a particular corner was decorated with three other fast food shops. It simply came to my attention. I have learned to take note, something more is coming, and sure enough, a great example came in as I write this section, it goes right here.
Every other day one of those kitchens could offer a meal for a smile or a dime, or a hundred-dollar bill from a Sponsor type. Are we so rigid we can’t take care of the real business? This is the new frontier, how do we accomplish the makeover and bring everyone in? We have kitchens and we have hungry people. Any existing restaurant or commercial kitchen could help, say with a breakfast at ten or a big meal at two. This illustrates another point. We have to survive our own regulations. Insurance would be an issue. Will it be a Muffler Shop or an Appliance Repair Store that will make those Survival Appliances? A muffler Shop in Cleveland, an appliance repair place in Portland, what shop in your town? Should zoning regulations be allowed to slow our Global Makeover?
Small businesses are very flexible, have local knowledge, and contacts including Banks and Churches, Scouting and so forth. Everything needed to remodel the domestic abuse facility, or sponsor a Renaissance Meet-Up. The customer base is most important, make the sponsorship of a work crew visible, similar to what Sears did here in Liberty, putting the rebuilding team’s pictures on the wall. Solicit ideas from the neighborhood as well as the customers.
The A, B, C’s of it are:
A. Welcome bright ideas, evaluate them, let it shine!
B. Gathering the Team and supplies.
C. Create publicity around the work getting started
106 Corporations
Big business knows a shift is occurring. They are paying attention. Good, and they are making an effort to ‘go green.’ That is not enough. The world of Corporate ownership and profits is huge, beyond most people’s imagination, therefore the potential is huge and the possibilities for Corporate involvement are beyond our wildest dreams. Surprise us, we can wait a few days.
The most obvious need is for quality tools and needed supplies that can’t be paid for by those who need them. An example, I have cringed every time I see a door smashed in by one of
our troops overseas. We paid that soldier to kick it in, let’s help repair the door and latch with the combined efforts of our business community and an International not-for-profit. (Assuming, for the strength of this example, that our Western door hardware is similar to theirs.) Our manufactures put the latches and hinges out at a discount, a relief agency could fund training and jobs for local youth to restore the front doors lost to these conflicts.
We can’t ever remove the terror of those moments from the effected families; however, we can make it clear that we wish them well. We have in years past helped rebuild all those neighborhoods and Cities we bombed in Europe and Japan. We will continue to do this, perhaps now for the last time.
Sponsorship could enable such a latch and lock replacement team’s formation, perhaps with people who known each other, they would create a first hand report with videos to be shared back at this end. While they were over there, it could be asked, “What would you most like to know about us?” Perhaps encourage applications for micro-loans? Or present gifts of tools, books, and even exchange recipes? It would be a chance to meet the ancestors of those who lived in some of the Bible Villages. Who at the plant speaks their language? Who has served over there, or even has relatives who still live there? Could you or someone you know stand up right here, right now?
We are in the habit of saying life is stranger than fiction? Let’s prove it again and again. Let’s say we have a class A smuggler type, blood diamonds or heroin, even weapons; and he or she teams up with a Billionaire Corporate type and builds demonstration villages, an in especially tough spot. Such a team could put in place local manufacturing shops, schools and so on and so on. Why not? We are about to ‘break the molds.’
Where are the retired or displaced Diplomatic types who could help sew this all together? The key here and elsewhere will be a good share of, ‘creative assembly’ featuring whatever resources and ‘players’ are available. Corporate World Headquarters realizes that PR will only go so far. They watch over us in many ways.
Our voting on where a small percentage of profits should go reveals the Green heartbeat of us consumers. These programs tell HQ that we are still asleep, aroused, or, have just now become demanding, “They are insisting we do something!” The moral of it is, take part in these programs, and write a letter. This time the A B and C’s of it are simply, “You have our money, do some great things with it.”
107 Governments
All governments face the challenge of stepping outside themselves. New regulations and programs are required to bring those Eco twins home, to support each other. All countries will learn to survive their own presently inadequate constitutions. This will take some time, it will happen by looking back, going into filing cabinets, making phone calls, and work as a deep source with a reporter.
Many authorized programs are on the books right now that could become parts of the rebuilding program. One example is the national noxious weed removal efforts, volunteers are now invited in to pull them up at Federal, State, and Local Parks. More willing hands are needed. Ask your friends and take a lunch. Then tell others how well you did. Now then, raw labor is good; however, we have more than a few biology and anthropology majors poked away in furniture departments and assembly lines who would love to help out, given the opportunity. They need a rescue.
Those anonymous agency staffers know of opportunities beyond existing programs. You may be the one who is key to lining this up. Let’s do additional habitat monitoring, as well as animal census studies, more nesting boxes, and what about the health of our fisheries? Four classmates, with the help of an 'inside person’ could head for Chouteau Montana and check out how it goes in the Bob Marshall Wilderness area. Then write me and Outdoor Magazine about it. (I helped survey the first dedicated scenic trail by the Forest Service, as the Wilderness Area Program was launched in 1964!)
Many things to do with one part flair and one part imagination, with a dash of ‘Breakout Salt.’
Several economies will function side by side, in two groupings. One is “normal,” the manufacturing and production of essentials, food stuffs, gasoline and electricity by the business world, local and corporate, taxes being paid. The other grouping is all the garage sales, thrift store, backyard and alleyway deals, and they are going to increase, no taxes collected.
Then we have a new growth economy that will soon be on the charts, the Earth’s ‘salvation army’ of the Great and Global Makeover, buying supplies, taxes paid, and accomplishing the major work of the Renaissance powered Makeover, supported with the sharing of, homes, facilities, vehicles, expenses, and land. As time goes by this two-part economy will become more official with government recognition. There is no Government Money yet to save the day, it will be the dollars, time and skills that you and I have to apply to continue the Makeover for now.
Official Governmental involvement will eventually be able to smooth the edges between these two worlds. Such a two-tiered existence could continue for a generation, individuals may opt in and out several times during their lifetime. We need to call for scholars of that flow of powers from the Federal level on down to the States, and then outward to Counties and Cities. At one point, and perhaps still, recycling business initiatives were prevented because of how a municipality was incorporated, under State law. A new Company could not pick up only the recyclable portion of the trash, depending upon how the City was charted under their respective State laws. Such blockades need to be identified and removed.
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The A. B. C.’s for all Governments can be boiled down to,”Who’s on first?” Where do we insert the task of looking down the road at least fifty or a hundred years? Businesses respond to the anonymous Marketplace. Governments respond to those very large, for profit, business pressures. Advertisers follow orders to lead us around, And all of em’ do their damnedest to sell us on it.
All governmental units should start by defining just what does, ‘The general welfare’ mean in the twenty-first century. Many understand that we simply are not taking care of business on this Planet. We have identified the problem areas, in most cases nothing of sufficient scale is being done. Is it for you and me to establish our contemporary planetary priorities? With our actions born of convictions? As there is no one, nor is there an agency of any kind, to give or grant a Golden Opportunity to restore our balance, and manifest a joyous voyage into the future. Such will be manifested by love’s application, by the millions who continue to step forward and paint in the complete picture of a revitalized world.
A renaissance offers an incubator for restoration and realignment, a re-habitation by the Humanes. Governments that try to block it will be removed, replaced. Revolutions have twists and turns, and many faces. Violence may be present, it would be in proportion to the containment of the new over time. Governments should see to the release of new projects, approaches, and embrace new partnerships.
109 Federal
Our President will eventually make the determination of the scale of this effort, its ‘official’ place in history. For a while Washington will go along without being affected. Then we can expect surprises of all kinds. Could we see unemployment insurance ‘extended’ by adding on a modern, and massive combination of the recent Civilian Conservation Corps and the old Works Progress Administration? “You are first entitled to what you have deposited, and then we have these work programs available to you.” The question for the Administration would be, just how many existing domestic issues can we touch on within such a Renaissance Makeover focus? From Welfare to Reconstruction.
It may be that an entire package of measures equivalent to the War Powers Acts of the nineteen-forties will be required to facilitate the placement of talent and resources that are required for the Global makeover. It is true that the planetary ecological issues will not bring the relative immediate effects of the bombs and invasions we feared at the beginning of WWII. However, It is also true we have caused an accelerating dying back of planetary abundance and natural robustness.
We will wake up and realize we are fighting for our lives on a different plain. We have done little to prepare society for such a massive shift as now required. A Renaissance implicitly offers it’s own press program, nothing like an idea whose time has come. We don’t need all the possible, “I told you so!” voices to show up, we need all the help we can get to sort out the issues and develop our sense of priorities.
The federal government will eventually accomplish it’s own makeover, having survived the swamps of reintrenchment, breaking out to protecting our life support systems, and then, establishing incentives for, and the regulation of, a sustainable economy where increasing GNP comes primarily from reconstruction, innovation and efficiency.
Our very own Government has played the part of the enabler. Not done with a tyrannical bent: Ignorance and self-aggrandizement were enough. The current negative feelings about President Obama have deep roots in our history. In addition we have a new and deep frustration, born of the last twenty years or so, one that is producing fear and anxiety. We know deep down that something is very wrong, and out of balance, and we are pulling our individual security blankets tighter around us.
These two factors have complicated our National Scene, and handicapped our recovery. We have turned our backs on a source of Truman or Kennedy or Roosevelt like visions, direction and calmness. In my view, we have shamed ourselves, before the world. All countries should support their elected leadership. Our Character will be assessed anew, by how we welcome this new day arising. We as citizens, stockowners and consumers have been quick to cheer on those Corporations charged with gathering up the most, the quickest. We will have a period of years while the new, “National Disposition,” is being formed as we swing away from worshiping “The Market,” leaving our appetites for more and more, behind.
110 State
This is where the shift is becoming intense. Already State Governments have been rattled, they are now in various, ‘States of Emergency.’ The disruptions are financial at the surface, and have so shaken the political process as to cause the opposite public mood of the one required for a widespread and progressive response. The breakout required is therefore akin to a revolutionary development. The initiators within local government will be observed to be way out there in left field. Perhaps some can find an outlet for their concerns by helping small grass roots groups blossom, or devise cloaked actions on the Internet.
It may be that somewhere soon one of the States will see the Makeover as the Light at the end of the Tunnel. We need folks to stop beating on the State House door and take a look at how the tasks of such a ‘Renaissance sized Makeover’ would help out, given the current state of affairs. We won’t know how official recognition would work until a State Government takes a serious look at aiding the Renaissance, and then steps forward.
Can Government mandates and volunteering be a good fit? State by State, and Township by City, the local governments will eventually oversee the cataloging of the major infrastructure projects and the ecological rehabilitation tasks to be undertaken. More watershed authorities could be developed between States so entire watersheds of rivers, streams, lakes and forests could be analyzed effectively. The Colorado River is currently scheduled to deliver more water than it has to several States in two Countries. Ag Extension, Colleges and Universities, along with the pertinent environmental groups can work together to prioritize projects and determine the level of support required.
The new, “Burma Shave” phenomenon will be signs along the roads identifying who did the replanting, or who built the new facilities, pulled those invasive weeds, or did the erosion control. If rapping can help with Algebra, it can help with A-Res-tor a-tion for-you. People of vision and humor, where are you?
It is what it is. Time to simmer down and focus on achieving what is most important. “Our democracy will work it out.” We need everyone’s head in the game. Globally, we are running from the Insolvency Boogeyman, a creature of our own making, we made him, we can unmake him. Such is the nature of these times. We had a good time playing Monopoly, now it is time to dust ourselves off, clean up, and move on. Our Corporate capital and financial assets, as well as individual savings are all called forward, with caution. Reserves are for a rainy day. We have one. Call in the real money, roll those sleeves up.
An African proverb reminds us that, “It never rains on one roof alone.”
Can the States give a Money Certificate to the two people who sign up to share one job? Could we have State sponsored, tax exempt, bartering exchanges? Where is the goodwill? Where is our inspiration to come from? What regulations need to be relaxed, even suspended, so that new openings appear?
111 Local
Education takes place in our communities with adults going here at night, and children attending over there during the day. It occurs to me that we could use a course of studies that would be attended by families. Who would prepare the lesson plans? This question points us in the right direction. We have talked of the easy environmental issues in our schools, never the big ones, our Planet’s serious wilting, our expanding populations, how can we get our ecological mental health back?
Expert and scholarly voices have no pathway into our classes, nor into the education of our instructors, nor into City Council and County Supervisor sessions, let alone the Congress. The warnings and wisdoms now in hand are, for the most part, ignored or even proudly debunked and left outside the halls of learning.
Is this a deficiency of our school boards? As a society we simply have not taken care of business. We have never posted any ‘lookouts’ on down the road. Native peoples have a traditional wisdom of a seven-generation look ahead. The warnings from those few volunteers that have travelled out to the edge, at risk of public ridicule, have returned with as dire a set of warnings as could be imagined. Our culture does not honor science, not even the science and maintenance of our very own Space Ship. Parents have fretted over drugs and sex while ignoring their children’s anxiety on the Global issues. The kids know what Bono and many other stars are doing, and why.
Our so called adult behavior in the face of it all, that is what we are teaching our children. We are building what could be called The Gulf of Separated Generations. We adults are demonstrating the inability to learn and adapt. We are not holding the doors open to an engaging and hopeful future. I suspect we will soon see School-Districts break away from the existing standards, and face our Global issues head on.
It is at the local level that the nuts and bolts of our lives are watched over, zoning, fire and health inspections, and agencies that look after the welfare of people and animals. So it would be here that Citizens are expected to speak up. They usually don’t, except for those rare issues that produce a ‘Hot-Mob-in-your-face’ type of meeting. These can lead to the proverbial baby being thrown out with the bath water.
Once we achieve community wide recognition of the current efforts of the few stepping forward, and new Renaissance oriented programs, then local government can be approached to hold a Renaissance Forum. The objective here would be to engage the next tier of participants, those who need some assurances that, “This is the real deal.” They could learn directly from participants of the local current ‘Renaissance oriented projects,’ what they are involved in and why. Who will next say, “How can we pull this effort together in our City?”
It may be that zoning and housing regulations could be relaxed. For example, allow ‘residential’ use of the vacant commercial spaces that have working utilities, just as if we had a tornado or a flood. Good fortune if this site is next to a large potential Community Garden. We need more local food production capacity to assure food supplies for our shelters and nursing homes. Where are the canning skills? Why not build solar collectors in the winter, install them in the summertime. Skill pools can be organized, along with support groups that would ride share to the grocery store and mall.
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While we don’t need anyone to roll bandages, we do need help with the conservation of resources at every level. All materials that are ‘surplused’ on out into the trash, say, those end of season plants from the nursery, and cutoffs at the lumber yard, all should be sorted and used. Again, the item has value to someone, and it becomes apparent that someone is paying attention, the buzz lives!
A more expansive policy of carpooling has a place. Farmer’s Markets and local festivals can give a push into a Renaissance frame of mind. Local officials are used to being the authority figure, and that will continue. However two hats will come into style, the old one for still saying, “No,” and a new one for the occasional progressive, “yes,” especially to exceptions and precedents that would have been just too scary last year. The local levels of Government are called upon to show even more patience, as many residents new to the process come forward. People should start by attending a few meetings, they will be called upon to do their homework, and think it through before making statements and suggestions.
Occasionally the issues at hand are better addressed at the County or Township level. Don’t forget to talk to the reporters on that beat, start with the weeklies. You are now on the move, cruising along on the U. S. Homeworld Makeover, to a New and glorious Day! It is quite likely that as you work your way into this Makeover you will be asked by a friend, “What is the main point of this Makeover?” It can be explained with a story about a mountain town called Camp Connel, and a conversation at the little Post Office tucked into a corner of Aim’s General Store. You can put it anyway you want to, but simply put, we only have, what we have, to work with.
The Mayor is addressing a just arrived new resident, both are now standing by a taped up sign that says, ‘Notice! Don’t drink the water until further notice.’ “What is this about?”, says the man with a wife and two kids waiting out in the car by the single gas pump. “Well, seems a toxic vine has invaded the woods up above, the spring water is going bad, and birds are dying. The Village doesn’t have any money left after fixing the bridge. Taxes are very high, as we still owe money on the clinic expansion.” “So then,” the newcomer answered, “raising taxes again wouldn’t go over too well then, would it?”
The Mayor smiled and said, “That is why we are going to gather at sunup Saturday with shears and hoes and go up into the Dinglewood preserve and start cutting back and digging up those vines ourselves. Even if the Town had the money, it would take at least two months to get a bid proposal issued and awarded. So then, can you folks make up some sandwiches? We’ll meet at the School.” “Why yes, we can do that.” “Bring your gloves. We have plenty of bottled water for you, take some from the porch.” “Thank you, I’m Tim Wainwright we bought the Harkin’s place.” “I’m the Mayor, everyone calls me Chief, retired Navy.” “Well, then, see you Saturday.”
Someday soon, will you also say, . . . “Can you make a few calls, and bring some sandwiches next Saturday?”
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CHAPTER EIGHT
Makeover Projects
(Under construction)
Where does a Renaissance begin? For most of us, the answer is, "Right there, doing whatever you can." You will soon be announcing, or being observed, in your 'breakout moment.' You will be seen doing a good deed, or telling a friend what are going to do next, or about your concern with recycling at your apartment, or you may lay your path out in front of you with a leading question or two. The main thing is to begin. You could begin by researching an issue that interests you, and then learn about all the 'stakeholders' that are currently active, citizen groups, politicians, special interest groups, and reporters. Call them, write them, and text them. Head for the Stage with your Breakout tucked under your arm. You have been Called, and you are ready to go.
The most needed projects are yet to be determined, we have a good idea about the goals and objectives, however, the actual nuts and bolts, or the habits and values are yet to be determined. We know about Community gardens and collaboritive sharing, even those book boxes out by the curb. What will spring forth next? We certainly need more of all those. You may well be carrying the germ of an idea who's time has come. Here are some ideas about looking for new project possibilities. (Remember, "It could happen.") Watch for the Light-bulb to blink on, no, expect it to flash on with joy!
Within my reach, right now.
Call someone and congratulate them on a job well done, concerning anything from a clean restroom to a well done job of reporting.
Introduce yourself to your neighbor (s)
Go back out and pick up that phone book in the street, or return that shopping cart.
Make a donation to a good cause, of any amount, $1, to a million!
What else can you think of? Write them down, becoming a possibility.
Subscribing to a Magazine or a site.
You just went into an active mode, or at least got a taste of it.
Lifestyle Management
Signing Up !
Everything from volunteering at the Thrift Store to the Zoo, or even entering the Peace Corp.
Building houses with Habitat and similar programs.
Attend a variety of community group meetings, see what and who interests you.
Reading and tutoring, at the Library, daycare or school
Change.org
Looking Ahead
(To be completed)
Epilogue
(To be completed after the election)The Kansas City School of Economics
The other 53%, thanks Mitt Romney
Heartlanders
Spiral Dynamics
Fiscal Cliff
Appendices
Your Author Reports In
These two woman witnessed and participated in my living that produced this offering. They were the first to tell me, “Throw out the first two pages.” They both propped me up in various ways and heard my sermons, disappointments, and dreams. Mary’s children, Janice, Marilyn, and Bill Taylor were dealt a tough hand by the shift westward move from proper Bostonian Schools to the Flower Child breakout of California, and my dedication to Ecology Action and the challenges of Ag Land preservation and recycling. At this point it is fair to say I was addicted to the cause, and my choices dealt them tough times. Poverty was a factor, we had no time, nor funds for family fun. I’m sorry for neglect and lack of family love expressed during those times.
This manuscript reflects a long affair for me. Those who spotted me early were most important. I too have a Scoutmaster in my past. He saw in me more than I knew about; it was a rehearsal for a show that came years later. In the same vein I was turned loose by several teachers to complete the most unusual class projects in my own private bubble.
I worked through my early employments with the Forest Service in California, duties with the Army in Massachusetts, and then did several rounds of nonproductive door to door selling in Great Falls Montana before running back into the woods, this time in Montana’s brand new Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, in 1963 on horseback; always focused on my role as a wage earner, and still with one eye ‘looking out the window.’ I will write at length about that very privileged opportunity at length in a forthcoming Memoir. Mom stepped in when that backwoods trail surveying trip ended, sent me sample questions for the upcoming test for surveyor jobs in San Diego with Cal Trans, California’s Highway building agency. Yes, employed again, this time with traffic, red cones and big stakes, instead of on-foot with trees and streams and dragging a cloth tape.
Then came a break from regular employment of some twenty years, first the two years of Ecology Action’s formation in Berkeley, then we walked to Los Angeles by way of Modesto, perched in the orchards and fields of the Great Central Valley. I discovered that Modesto had markets for cans, newspapers and possibly for glass bottles as the Gallo Winery had their own glass furnace in Modesto. We met Lester Corn there, who left town with us. With Lester’s urging and my desire to point out the importance of Prime Farm Land, it was decided to start a recycling center to raise the funds to work on the issues of prime farm land preservation and water conservation, far away from the ‘easy ground’ of Berkeley.
This move led to the help of hundreds and the strong friendships of a dozen or so that supported Mary and I and assured us of our place ‘at the table.' I’ll do my best to mention the Modesto crew in my in that Memoir. I left EA ten years later, my son needing medical attention that was available to us in San Francisco. I worked as a consultant then, both on my own, and then with a firm.
Years later I returned to regular employment back in San Diego on recycling staff for the County, then with private consulting firms. My places of regular employment all offered possible paths out of my deep contemplations regarding the environment. Instead I always moved on, to a new job that may have been a fresh start, from a different angle.
From my present vista in Liberty Missouri it is easy to say I have always been coming this way. I thank all who served to pass me along to, “Wherever Cliff is headed.” To all those people, from my Army buddies to work-mates in the cubicles, thank you for your role in moving me along, my thinking-cap intact. I survived that fire-walk. My focus is still intact. During the Ecology Action years in Berkeley we knew immediate notoriety. Volunteers joined in and “Go Money” came in the mail. I was fascinated with the dedication of the hard-left players. Peter Cameo of YSA chose me for a scouting trip regarding a planned demonstration at an upcoming convention at San Diego’s Coronado Hotel. It was to feature Viet Nam’s head of state at that moment. He was assassinated before he could get there; I returned to the tumultuous streets of Berkeley.
Musicians helped us. Malvena Reynolds played for us at ‘Damn DDT Day’ in San Francisco. Later Pete Seeger read our literature and gave us a benefit in Modesto, California, as did Country Joe McDonald. When I drove Pete Seeger to his next show at UC Davis, we talked of the word ‘love’ not having the meaning of ‘sharing.’ We also talked of auto ferries replacing bridges, to slow things down a bit. I was able to use two of the cable ferries along the way in the San Joaquin Delta, and he made my son a bamboo flute.
The press was always good to us. We told it straight and stood as reformers, rather than revolutionaries. We were once chosen for the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, we were shown pushing a bandaged globe in a baby carriage; that article also featured the first Ecology Center, also in Berkeley. I later became a deep source for an environmental reporter at the New York Times.
While Ecology Action was establishing community recycling in 1971 Look Magazine gave us a spread in their Earth Week issue of May 4, that year. Some weeks earlier Margaret M. McGlynn interviewed us, and John Vachon, a renowned WPA era photographer, did the photos for the story. I wish I knew who sent them . . . that article did as much as anything we did to establish recycling in America. What about William B. Arthur then the editor at Look, and the entire crew that put that extraordinary issue together -- did they ever understand their role in establishing basic environmental values? . . . I wish I knew. That issue sold for .35 cents a copy. Look Magazine was taken down a few months later.
Those past regards for me allows these words to be placed out front now, for your consideration. A proposed Homeworld Makeover is probably in the same league as a seven-foot toboggan was in the eighth grade! My college classes were pivotal, one could say in divine order. Those instructors at the historic Merritt Junior College Campus, down by the elevated BART tracks, where I brought up my GPA before attending UC Berkeley, are still in my highest esteem. The Misters Rudolph Larlios with Anthropology, George Papas for Economics and Yale Maxim offering Political Science, I quote you all still.
A special mention for Marsh Pitman of Merced, a biology instructor, he was the only one to take me under his wing. A proofreader extraordinaire. We shared lectures by Garret Hardin and Buckminister Fuller. He saw me sparkle and then fade in the 1980s, as the environmental blossoms of the 70’s blew away.
The Berkeley Gazette gave us extensive coverage of our theatrical street demonstrations, even Time magazine picked up our pace setting Smog Free Locomotion Day. We found ourselves on the front page of the Chronicle when we symbolically unfilled, the filled-in San Francisco Bay, into money bags that our son, Bill Taylor, found in an abandoned apartment. This media attention led to requests for manuscripts from me, a palatable shift was in the air, a very encouraging time for all.
In 1969 it was Garrett De Bell, editing The Environmental Handbook an early Anthology for The Friends of the Earth, followed by Ecotactics by the Sierra Club. Next was Jacqueline Killeen with her 101 Productions in San Francisco, we did Ecology at Home in 1971, then Back to the Bike a year later. A representative of Hubbard Scientific heard me speak at the Aspen Design Conference of 1968 in Colorado and I wrote What’s Ecology? for them, a High School supplemental text.
A special mention for Thorn Grey of the Modesto Bee who saw to it we had a community presence to prove out curbside recycling and raise the issue of prime farm land preservation. In those salad days in Modesto, it was EA in the streets, Peggy Mensinger on the City Council, and Thorn at the Bee.
I wish to mention three more friends, for whom circumstances prevented me from realizing the full benefits of the friendship they extended me. Dr. Eugene Odum, an Ecology Professor of the University of Georgia was most kind and helpful. Dr. Lucille Green of Citizens Assembly in San Francisco demonstrated dedication and optimism in the face of it all, and Carl Casebolt hung onto the notion of the Churches playing a major role in restoring environmental values. I will conclude with the mention of the very special helpers we had in Modesto when we started our pioneering recycling programs in 1970.
The “ Well-heeled and soft-spoken” doctor’s wives of the Stanislaus County medical Society really got into it. Their environmental chair Mrs. Robert Purveys mimeographed hundreds of leaflets that moralized in part: “The Affluent Citizen is the Worst Polluter in our Culture.” Her “Gals,” were very active behind the scenes, they had our backs, and spread the word, some helped us directly. “We soak the labels off glass bottles in the swimming pool, just put them in a laundry bag, works great.”
They were the first to take part in a modern-times, post-consumer glass bottle recycling program. That article in Look Magazine shows Cub Scouts bringing in paper, and two volunteers breaking some of those early bottles on the way to Gallo Glass, right there in Modesto, in the Great Central Valley of California. There is nothing quite like an idea whose time has come.
I’ll park my very special thank you right here, to all the Sponsors Ecology Action had along the way. From those first few dollars and a, “Dough-nut” or two in Berkeley, to the hundreds of donations given and all the helpers in Modesto, thanks again. It seems we were all on a journey to these pages, God Bless You one and all.
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