Archive for the ‘ReEnchant Planet Earth’ Category

Dear Oprah,

My hope is that dialogues between Re-Enchanters here will be a positive and fruitful example of civic discourse for solutions to our problem issues, motivation to live beyond only our selfish interests and a place to organize our efforts.

I once heard a business coach and motivational speaker, in referring to how some people are more successful than others; offer this analogy to the concept of some people being “luckier” than others. His intent was to pull the responsibility and the power to succeed back to each one of us when we feel like giving up on what’s important to us because of circumstances, i.e. excuses. The empowering acronym for “luck” is: Laboring-Under-Correct-Knowledge. The person reaching a new accomplishment does not do the same old thing and hope to get “lucky”. Acquiring new knowledge, more relationships and/or better relationships opens up opportunities.
When you put this together with Albert Einstein’s thought on reaching new levels of understanding; “You cannot solve a problem from the same level it was created. You must rise above it to the next level”, you get a breakthrough to new thoughts and paradigms.
Too much of our understanding around our place on Earth is formed from myths we know are not true to the facts of our empirical investigations of the formation of the universe. In my opinion, there are two grounding thoughts that frame a truly sustainable future for life on Earth; one: don’t take more than you give, two: leave the world better off than you found it. These precepts serve to keep us in balance and respect for all life and our true place in creation.
Is it possible for Humanity to live not dominating the whole Earth?

Sustainability, Carbon Footprint, and Emotions

Dear Oprah,
and the world,

I made a commitment this year to grow my awareness and take more actions to live more sustainable, lower our family’s carbon footprint and bring political pressure to bear for changes. With the current slow down in the economy there’s a natural impetus to be conservative with our resources. Broadening that conservative reflection across all aspects of activities that use resources has made me see just how far outside of sustainable we (humanity) has gotten. We’re on a path to nothing left, we know it, and we still can’t get off that path. I’ve come to the conclusion changing our thinking is not a strong enough or deep enough level of change to carry us to new actions and understandings. A good example is gasoline prices. When they’re high we conserve, when they fall we consume more as if the problem is only the money cost. No, I think the effective level of change is on the emotional level.

What emotional change(s) could we make to change the path we are on?

The Right World View

Dear Oprah and the Word,
This emotional change, as opposed to more thinking and doing; our more normal culturally biased response to effect change, is really about changing our relationship with the source of our life. Our cultural life view is that we live “on” the Earth and the Earth is a collection of things we are charged with using and possessing to prove our value and usefulness. Ours is a culture of consumerism. The Earth and the Universe are a collection of objects to us. How much of a fulfilling emotional relationship can a person or a culture have with a collection of objects? I’d say industrial consumerism by evidence of the amount of depression, anxiety disorders, drug use to escape it and the amount of suffering brought on all Earth’s life forms is a bankrupt worldview.
Our culture is not even based on the on the true understanding of the nature of the universe we live “in”. We live in an unfolding universe that requires our awareness of our, and all its subjects’ place in relationship to the fundamentals that support life.
I’d like a culture that lived in deeply bonded relationships with our enveloping Earth community.

Who’s experimenting with your life?

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