Feb 27, 2013 | Food Security
The sacred within us instinctively resonates with the sanctity of food. Therefore, the growing, transporting, distribution, and consumption of food are sacred acts that deserve ritual and reverence from the moment the seed is planted in the earth to the moment we have washed and put away the plate on which our food was served.
Feb 22, 2013 | Emotional/Spiritual
Living without reflecting is like driving without looking. Refuge, on the other hand, encourages a collective dropping of the shoulders; breathing more slowly, counting our blessings, sifting carefully the good from the bad, doing things more thoughtfully, waking up and smelling the roses, or the coffee, depending on your preference.
Feb 20, 2013 | Economic Meltdown
The effects of government-imposed austerity[iv], erroneously claimed to restore fiscal responsibility and restart economic growth, are a reflexive (or cybernetic[v]) reaction to protect the economic interests of wealthy elites at the expense of other citizens.[vi] The funding and operation of the public health system and the array of socioeconomic factors that ultimately ensure a nation’s health[vii] are damaged by austerity
Feb 18, 2013 | Carolyn's Interviews
On Radio Ecoshock, Carolyn and Alex Smith discuss the interconnectedness of science and spirituality in the age of transition
Feb 12, 2013 | Book Review
Greer argues that the myth of progress for modernity, and especially for Americans, has transcended a “notion” and has actually become more of a civil religion—a fundamental tenet of civilization and that questioning it is tantamount to heresy. And, the emotional ramifications of questioning progress or abandoning the myth altogether are enormous. In fact, much of Not The Future We Ordered is an explanation of the psychology of coming to terms with the end of progress.
Feb 9, 2013 | Economic Meltdown
While most people are paying attention to Europe’s financial woes—and they are serious—there’s a lot of instability in other places…places you might think don’t matter much, but they do. In a world of global finance, global industry, global climate, and global instability, it all matters, as all of these systems are interconnected and inter-related. It’s been called “a perfect storm of catastrophic confluences.”
Feb 8, 2013 | Climate Change/Environment
If we are rational and consider objective scientific evidence of environmental collapse including groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, chemical contamination, ocean dead zones, species extinction, bio-diversity reduction and climate disruption, we need to be apocalypticists, argues Robert Jensen.
Feb 8, 2013 | Carolyn's Articles
I invite the reader to review the features of community resilience and personal resilience several times. In doing so, I believe it is impossible to miss their inextricable connection and how the two types of resilience impact the other given the reality that individuals and communities foster both.
Feb 6, 2013 | Emotional/Spiritual
Nevertheless, here we are, we humans, possessed of this amazing intellect that can invent a false self and a dream state ‘world’, and persuade ourselves (and/or be persuaded) that these are real, to the point we ‘forget’ our knowledge of what is really real. This is what I mean when I say that because of our brains’ complexity we have become “too smart for our own good”.
Feb 1, 2013 | Options/ New Paradigm
In the twenty-first century, industrial civilization is crumbling around us, and we are compelled to notice that a number of Enlightenment assumptions no longer apply or at the very least, have outlived their utility in a world unraveling. One of these is the notion that the universe is rational and orderly. The word that perhaps best describes the current era is chaos. So does this mean that reason is dead, and chaos reigns? Does it mean that we must choose which of the two is actually true, despite what our instincts tell us?