IF WE DARED OPEN OUR EYES

“We are a species that has lost its way.” -- Eckhart Tolle

Awareness is growing of the global crisis unfolding before our very eyes—income disparity, corporate kleptocracy, unraveling biosphere, water shortages, and the converging catastrophes of oil depletion, global warming, and the financial train wreck. Our world quandary can be a stern but magnificent teacher, ushering us into a grand rite-of-passage that will push our individual and collective evolution forward—if we will heed the call. But initiations can be hard and demanding. Many are finding that the big picture is deeply distressing. Growing awareness empowers us, but it also brings more heartbreak. The global situation is also challenging traditional notions of spirituality, calling forth an enlightenment more engaged with the world, and calling us to use our own self-transformation towards world-transformation.

We take for granted gas at the pump, fully stocked supermarkets, climate-controlled buildings, internet service, and football season. Everything runs as expected. Actually, the whole contraption is much closer to being held together with string and duct tape than many realize. We perch unknowingly on a precarious foundation, built upon toxic layers of non-renewable resources and delusional economics. We say our problems are just temporary snafus, soon to be straightened out...we'll be back to growth in no time—but deep within those mute places, we are not so sure.

The closer we inch to the edge of the abyss, the tighter we shut our eyes. We dare not look around.

We are in a crisis of perception. Not only are we rearranging the deckchairs of the Titanic, we are arguing about where to put those chairs, and about whether the ship is even headed for an iceberg. Many barriers distort our worldview and lock us into maladaptive behaviors. Some are inherent in the brain's structure, others are cultural, and others are denial strategies. Hard-wired to face immediate threats like saber-tooth tigers, we dismiss intangible, complex threats. By not seeing the long-term impact of our choices, we only compound the problems, both collectively and personally.

If we dared open our eyes, what might we learn?

We depend on the global industrial system for our basic needs. This also blinds our perception. We don't want to bite the hand that feeds us. As author Derrick Jensen says, if you get your food from the grocery store, you will defend that system that delivers it. If you get your food from the field, you will defend that land. Our civilization is set up to keep its dependents from questioning the underlying agreements by which it operates and finds meaning. We don't see the stories that shape our lives, and we're not encouraged to.

Stories have always guided us. But corporations have become our storytellers – they've taken the stories and run. Relentless advertising tells us we are autonomous individuals with all the lifestyle choices that matter. Through technology, we can control nature and continually improve our lives. We can infinitely expand our economy and population upon the ever-abundant earth. Underlying all this are narratives about the superiority of humans, our nation, our religion, and our modern way of life. We tell ourselves that's the way it is. The truth is obscured—that we privileged Westerners plunder the rest of the world for our high standard of living, and that our runaway materialistic train is about to crash headlong into a wall of resource limitations.

CONSOLIDATION OF WEALTH AND POWER

Corporations, politicians, and media moguls in the 20th century have developed elaborate tactics to tap into unconscious desires for self-fulfillment. The cornucopia of lifestyle choices, products, sports events, travel destinations, and cable channels temporarily fulfill our false needs. But ironically these "choices" are a form of control, as we yield to immediate sensate gratification, thus staying passive and distracted. In doing so, we forfeit our own freedom of awareness and action. If we can disengage from the corporate consensus media machine and learn to trust our own perceptions, the hidden narratives are revealed, and we can grasp the fraud and delusion that resides in our government, our financial system, and our corporations.

The unholy alliance of government, bankers, media, and corporations creates a consolidation of wealth and power—a form of covert fascism far more effective than Mussolini or Hitler’s fascism, as few people even notice. As Mussolini himself said, “Fascism should be more properly called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Prison camps and overt fear tactics are not needed—yet. Runaway corporate power is the beating heart of this insatiable beast. For over a century, U.S. corporations have held the legal status of personhood, with far-reaching implications. Hidden power, not mandated or elected, is held by the elite and by corporations—exerting untold influence. This variety of "conspiracy theory" is worth examination only to a point. There is little value in unraveling these intrigues, and obsessing on the elites' stranglehold on our world is disempowering. Envisioning a different world—a time when their game is up—and acting upon that vision, is far more productive.

AWAKEN, SLEEPWALKER

Beyond our cultural trance-making, we have our own internal barriers to clear perception. We who are privileged spend much energy insulating ourselves from the world’s suffering with forms of denial that are legion. We fear that if we allow ourselves feel the pain, it will be unending. Starting five years ago, I was compelled, even gripped, to discover the true state of the world. If issues were going unnoticed, I wanted to find them. By stages I went deeper, and further from my comfort zone. It took time to process and grasp the dark layers sequestered beneath civilization's conveniences and pleasantries—in cycles of realization, shock, sleepless nights, anguish, and retreat. At one point, I even broke out in eczema.

Pain and fear are essential for survival. They demand attention and signal that something needs to be taken care of. Grief is an appropriate response to foreclosures, soil loss, melting glaciers, war, and disappearing species. Many are now in despair, whether brought by job loss or by hunger for truth. It is a risky time, as one could cave in to the weight of darkness. But avoidance of pain is also risky. Spiritual guide Gangaji's words are relevant: " The rawness of our time can seem unbearable....The more we see, the more our heart breaks. In our surrender to the heart broken open, all the way, there is freedom. In our attempts to not feel the pain of the heart breaking...there is bondage." We might practice full presence with the pain, anger, and fear that arises, even if it feels like falling apart. The anguish will flow through. On the other side, the knot of despair dissolves into spaciousness, much larger than one’s self. Facing despair helps one move beyond paralysis into a more fluid and conscious place. To do this we need support from others who care deeply and understand. Be prepared to help others with similar struggles. Visit darkness, but don't live there. Creativity, music, exercise, meditation, nature, friendships, gratitude, and humor are helpful counterbalances.

We grieve to let go; change is inevitable. From the micro scale to the cosmic scale, everything always changes—usually imperceptibly, but sometimes abruptly and dramatically. A trip to a natural history museum is hardly reassuring from the standpoint of human stability. Earth has endured many global-scale calamities—ice ages, huge exploding calderas, asteroids, and shifting magnetic poles—some of which brought about mass extinctions. Since the last ice age, stable climate conditions allowed a flourishing civilization to develop. In post-war America, decades of economic stability encouraged the expansion of the greatest empire ever seen. We take our way of life for granted as "normal", rather than as exceptionally unusual, and this unsustainable illusion has become our reality.

Our system is not so resilient after all; industrial civilization is but a brief flash, a nanosecond in the expanse of eons. I have a queasy gut feeling of imminent discontinuities, of a fundamental re-ordering of civilization at every level already afoot. We are virtually unprepared for it, yet it will be the work of humanity in the 21st century to envision and create a wholly new arrangement—to "re-invent the human," as eco-theologian Thomas Berry put it. No one knows how the now-converging crises will play out, yet much will depend on our response. We can attempt to maintain the status quo, or we can embrace impermanence and get on with the task of creating a post-petroleum world. There is no stable footing. This will become even more apparent in the era of energy constraints we are now entering. There is no better teacher than impermanence.

REDISCOVERING ONENESS

Collapsing fisheries and bee colonies remind us that we are just further along the line of cascading dominoes. We are increasingly reminded that not superior to, but a part of nature’s web of life. We live in a contingent and relational universe. Together we either sink or swim. We’re not going anywhere else anytime soon, except maybe gone forever.

In his book "The Fall," Steve Taylor persuasively asserts that recent archeological evidence reveals that pre-agrarian humans were egalitarian and mostly peaceful. Initial encounters with indigenous peoples support this. These groups also showed an absence of individual separateness that defines Western culture. Early humans were successful partly because of their ability to cooperate. Ego development gave humans rational problem-solving abilities, but it also created the sense of an individual self as separate from nature and from one another. This has now morphed into a glorified hyper-individuality, perhaps our most dangerous delusion. Our relentless pursuit of material gain is trashing the planet while disconnecting us from nature, from others, and from our authentic selves. If we are to survive, we need to rely much more on cooperation with one another and with the natural systems that support us.

As our institutions come under major stress and as many of us have lost jobs, we find that our beliefs, dreams, and identities are challenged. The Great Recession has impacted my own endeavors as a visual artist. Although I saw it coming, this financial contraction has been more disorienting than I anticipated. The apocalypse archetype, gaining popularity as we approach 2012, literally means a "revealing"—a stripping away of the false, constructed self. Ask: “who am I?" while looking past thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, and beneath external trappings such as careers and wardrobes. Our frenetic shopping and entertainment is an attempt to satisfy a most elusive "self." When first questioning this, we can feel alienated and disillusioned. By identifying instead with the “Witness" (awareness behind thought) we can move towards more authenticity. Shifting identity from the egoistic “little me” to the collective, relational Self—the part that realizes “I am none other than the world”—will help us develop a global environmental consciousness.

Locked within our small separateness, we don't realize we are embedded within an unspeakably grand and miraculous universe. She is calling us back into communion. Isn't that a song we hear in the air?

HOPE AND UNCERTAINTY

Hope is apple-pie-American; it’s the optimistic faith in our Yankee ingenuity to overcome all obstacles. Our current obsession with "hope" bespeaks of a deep unease, revealing the taut relationship between optimism and pessimism. One can be buffeted between the polarities of hope and fear as flip sides of the same coin, ending up in an unstable state of emotional exhaustion. For example, current debate rages as to the nature of the energy crisis. Various solutions are trotted forth as the next new techno-fix that will enable us to maintain our driving habits and our energy-hungry lifestyles. Last year, hopes for corn ethanol eroded when it drove up food prices and destabilized the global food system.

In our situation, it is important to clarify the meaning of hope. False hope is passive trust in the “experts," that somehow things are going to turn out fine. True hope emerges from self-empowerment, action, inventiveness, and possibility—even in the face of darkness. In every situation, both uncertainty and possibility co-exist. True hope involves living with the insecurity that things may not go as desired, while also knowing there is always potential, no matter how slight the circumstances. Potential is what we live for and our visions are made of it.

I have been an addict of hope; fearful future stories have consumed me. Who knows...some of these scenarios may come true, but I have to focus on my life now. I am led to Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual practice of grounding in present-moment awareness, connecting with the body and with momentary experience—while noticing the continual flow of thoughts and feelings. I also feel better when I find others with similar concerns and put those concerns and knowledge into action.

Paradoxically, passionate engagement without attachment to outcome is a powerful force. For activists, disappointment can be a real killer, leading to burnout and disillusionment. Victories are often unrealized, unnoticed, and unsung. Buddhist author David Loy says, “We should not expect to see the fruits of our labors, but neither are we free to give up the work.” Our dilemmas have no quick fix. The old cultural forms are dying. In darkest hours we grope to find our way forward. We are planting the seeds of the new, but their fruition may be beyond our lifetime.

It really comes down to surrender. This doesn’t mean passivity or giving up; rather, it simply means we stop internally arguing with reality—an important distinction. Acceptance reconnects us with authentic power and energy. To work for change from a position of non-acceptance is to continue operating from the old dominator mentality. A new power structure is needed—not based on dominance and manipulation, but on collective, creative, synergistic relationships.

I continually surrender to the fact that I am alive at this time, in this place, and to the possibility that collapse may happen in my lifetime, that it may indeed be just around the corner. Sometimes I notice my own internal chafing against this looming possibility, and sometimes I must stay present to fear or anguish. What am I surrendering to? Reality itself—that ultimately I must die, that our consumerism must die, that the planet might even die. What am I surrendering? Ego. Control over the future. Knowing.

EVOLVE OR DIE

The world situation is challenging our spiritual traditions to become more relevant and more engaged with the world. The great wisdom traditions developed in a simpler context, and are incomplete in the face of today’s quandaries. Humans now have the godlike ability to end life on earth. We’re not just hitting a wall of resource limits, we’re hitting a philosophical wall in the ability of our institutions and belief systems to address the interrelated and compounding issues we face. It's as if we need Maslow to guide us to the next developmental stage.

New Age / Eastern spirituality could become a potent social force if its context were expanded—if enough of us identified with a Larger Self that not only includes humans, but also daisies, starfish, and antelope. Nondualistic teachings suggest that form is illusion. But the ultimate statement of nonduality is that form and emptiness are one—which means all of this is "real." The implication is that if this is all real, then our relationship to it all matters. Spiritual detachment from the physical world can be just another form of insulation. Is it appropriate to recite the New Age mantra “Everything is perfect as it is,” while the world comes unglued? Self-liberation can be just another form of narcissistic self-preoccupation. Beyond just freeing ourselves, we can apply our own transformation towards affecting the whole.

A new spirituality is emerging that grounds us not only in the Ultimate, but also in the realization that we are co-creators in an ever-unfolding process. Humans are the forefront of evolving expression—the 14 billion year trajectory of the universe towards ever-greater cooperation, consciousness, and complexity. But, our industrial civilization seems an aberration in that long arc. Our challenge is to realign ourselves with that lovely arc, and with the rest of the living world.

Who are we collectively, as a species? Will the coming meltdown be a sort of near-death experience, serving as a wake-up call for humanity? Some believe that breakdown may ignite breakthrough. But in hard times, people usually contract, not expand. In the 20th century, the world faced numerous cataclysmic events with no widespread awakening—why would it be different this time? Evolutionary pioneer Barbara Marx Hubbard asserts that now we must evolve or die. She notes that problems are evolutionary drivers; that crisis precedes transformation. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

We are all involved co-creators—the question is, of what? It seems that we have launched a big Frankenstein experiment that has gotten out of hand. We may not be in control, but collectively as a force we can affect the outcome. A trickle turns into a stream, which turns into a river, which feeds the ocean. Our awareness matters. Our actions matter, and affect the whole. Fragments of new stories are emerging. We open our eyes, but our vision is still clouded. We grope towards that which is not yet fully conceived, but grope we must.

SIDEBAR:

TECHNOLOGICAL ENVELOPMENT

Homo sapiens extended our planetary reach in pivotal steps that include the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago, and the adoption of fossil fuels just 200 years ago. Suburban sprawl, superhighways, the electrical grid, and airports have become an integral part of us—like our blood vessels, intestines, bones, and livers. Like hermit crabs, we are embedded within this industrial detritus. Technology’s shell envelopes us; it has become an aspect of our physical existence. We cannot perceive it, as fish cannot perceive the sea. We cannot see its implications or embrace non-technological avenues for existence. Fossil fuels are the life force for our collective industrial exoskeleton. But rather than life giving, they are toxic and nonrenewable. As the oil flow even begins to wane, we find ourselves crippled and exposed to the world. We depend on it for our very survival, even though it will ultimately be our undoing. Paleontology is littered with species that, in their evolution, ultimately became maladapted. We might have a chance only if we end our fossil fuel dependency—at the core of our most urgent issues.

Humans are ultimately subject to nature's laws—though we tend to forget this. People will expand to the limits of resource constraints, such as water, just like any other species. Population expansion and die-off happens continually in nature. Human population is always catching up with food production, so as a whole; humans have inventively stayed a step ahead of catastrophe ever since we learned to sow crops. In this civilization, we have postponed the inevitable reaching of our physical limits...thus far. Our food system devours massive inputs of oil, yet we stand at the brink its declining availability. Even if we discovered an easy, unlimited energy source—which we haven’t—we would still hit other bottlenecks. But unlike other animals, our consciousness allows us to anticipate our own demise, as well as envision new possibilities. Could we collectively face our own predicament, then envision and create a viable future?