Enjoy the Show!

I recently heard John Trudell speak at the US Social Forum in Detroit.

He was talking about how reactionary politics and activism often starts from a place of anxiety and fear, from a place of trauma and defensiveness, under which lies an investment in the illusion that we’re not good enough.

Thus, rather than imagining what we’d like to see, and acting to shift power toward that reality, we stand as opposition, as the rebels. In doing so, we participate actively in a dynamic that is set up to mine that energy, absorbing it and using it to gain more power. John said that we can’t outfight them, we can only outthink them. His vision for this coherently thinking people includes a diaspora who are finding their tribal roots, and an acknowledgment that we are made up of the same DNA and minerals that comprise the earth's body.

Last night we had what we in Long Beach call a “sporeganizing meeting,” a time for people who come to the spores to sound off and voice concerns, ideas, and ways to help with upcoming spores.

While a lot of great things came out of the meeting, and I am excited about our plan to get new spore coordinators active, to have a Water spore for the youth, to have a day of action, and to the upcoming test run of the Time Bank we’re starting, some concerns resurfaced that initially can be summed up by one word: paranoia.

True, this sentiment of feeling that the powers that be are watching, and that we likely have informants in our midst, is usually triggered by something reasonably risky—an event discussing the future of psychedelics, or the idea of an action around bank accountability. By taking things into our own hands, do we put ourselves in the limelight in a way that we may be seen as a threat to the banking institutions, political organizations, and military-industrial state which work to keep control of the planet?

Do "they" really have control of anything? Or, are we simply entranced into keeping each other from meaningful action, endlessly replicating and co-creating a reality based on fear?

While violence begets violence, I think that a fight is also a key part of the picture, in the way that it concerns strategic moves to shift power toward the people. The corporate form holds great power, and this power can be alchemized to serve the planet, but many at the top of these companies are totally out of touch with the people, so we have to make our presence and our visions known. Trudell thinks that we need to evolve into coherently thinking, psychologically mature sovereign people. I would agree and say that this is the prerequisite to outfighting the industrial technological marketing machine that perpetuates the “collective trance” that Alberto Villoldo talks about.

For me, it started when I stopped watching TV, and started getting my information from independent media. When the people practice non-cooperation, whether through turning off the news, building a complementary system (with the idea of eventually unplugging from the mainstream system), an oppositional campaign, alternative community farming, a flash-mob performance action, a sit-in, lock-in, or occupation, or simply closing our bank accounts, we send a message to “them” that we’re not participating in the reality they’ve constructed until it changes. More importantly, since this whole predicament is a manifestation of the collective psyche, we send a message to ourselves that we are co-creating our vibrational matrix through our daily choices, and that we choose to recognize that our thoughts become things and that our actions matter. Non-cooperation means that we declare our sovereignty as humans and take responsibility to have a say over our towns, villages, and cities.

Still, non-cooperation requires sacrifice. Many have placed their worth in their accumulated stuff, and are not letting go willingly anytime soon. I can relate. I am getting ready to move into an intentional community, after sharing an apartment with my partner, C for some time. We will go from having a large apartment to ourselves to sharing a room in a small house that is solar powered, has its own compost, garden beds, and fruit trees. It's a great opportunity to step into a more self-sustaining community. Still, it triggers our attachment to things and places, in a culture obsessed with external objects and isolation.

Despite cultural woes, we seem to be part of a larger trend in pockets across the globe who are waking up to our potential, and that a big window of opportunity is among us. Invariably, we are being drawn back toward nature, toward connectivity to our environment, to our cities, to real people in community.

All of this requires non-cooperation with the governing systems, at some point. Those points can make for great ruptures to create larger changes.
We can fight in Chronos (logical time) for years and years, but the Kairos moment, "the supreme moment," is much more magical and is the tipping point for a shift. I believe we can and do create Kairos moments constantly in the Evolver network, and this inspires the type of chronological rat-race work that needs to happen to make legal and systemic changes.

So choosing a project or an action that resonates with truth and justice, basic human ethical principles long forgotten in this Iron age, could be an intuitive and magical way of facilitating the evolutionary process. When we take a stand in a Kairos moment, it sends out a ripple effect that a socially equitable world is possible. So perhaps choosing the points of non-cooperation carefully and strategically can be fruitful in getting more of a say over the way this machine operates.

But, still the issue of "them" invariably surfaces. "They" are against everything we stand for, whether "they" be reptilian predators, blockhead CEO's, or the ever-elusive "Elite." Instead of asking who are "they" in a global sense, it might be better to ask:

What are the interests and forces operating on the local levels that we can
engage directly? How can we support organizations that move progressive changes on the global level?

Sure, there are many among us who don’t want equity, equality, reciprocity, or creativity to be governing principles of this planet. Some are afraid of losing their privilege and the advantage it offers them. Others want to keep what they’ve fought for. Ultimately, society is sick from the rampant individualism of the West, and the extreme collectivism of the East. It seems they’ve both been entranced by materialist capitalism, and a market economy that gleans on technological ascension while devaluing the very core essences of being human. The stakes are too high to let paranoia destroy ya’.

So, to those who say that big brother is watching us, I say enjoy the show!

We are taking our best shot at building our own scaffolding, and though many are reluctant to climb aboard, as Evolver grows, our ability to change the world also increases. Evolver can be a platform for social media that is on the forefront of engaged spirituality, activism with intent and creativity behind it, and projects which move us toward an age of collaboration over fear and secrecy.

We don’t know exactly what we’re doing, but we know they’re not going to do it for us, but maybe some of “them” will start turning the tide as well. Those who cling to greed and privilege are bound to self-destruct as we move into this new vibratory frequency. As the new planetary culture emerges, we must prepare to be self-sustaning as the networks we’ve relied on will and are fail. Still, after 2012 and through this shift, its possible that many of the things we have today will still exist: democracy, socialism, corporations, non-profits, commerce…but on a plane of lesser density, in a more consciously evolved form. Perhaps its our job to figure out what can be used and what needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.