Facing Climate Change and Other Great Adventures

talk by Joanna Macy
at Wesley Memorial Church, Oxford, 9th May 2005.

Cleansing Ritual:

everyone standing with hands making the following gestures:
- wipe the blood off our hands
- wipe the tears from our eyes
- take the lump from our throat
- take the tightness from our chest
- hands wipe off whole body, down into the ground

The Psychology of Social and Environmental Activism

The media are lying with impunity, they produce a lot of confusion, exaggerate global warming issues and expose people to frightening reports. Individuals are left overwhelmed and confused with no clear sense, they think climate change is too vast, it's just too much to take on. Fear and guilt are poor motivators, they activate our reptillian brain - the fight or flight response. The American media still cultivate the perception that climate change is uncertain. Well it is uncertain, there are no guarantees in this life. Guarantees don't bring forth creativity and courage. Here we are engaging in something who's outcome is not predetermined.

Transition to a Life sustaining economy

At the moment in the climate change arena, success is seen as averting something. But we can be called to something positive. Climate change can be served by an enthusiastic release of creativity, becasue we don't know if we're going to survive. The nature of an adventure is not knowing the outcome. At the point when there is not hope, people rise up and band together. Not needing to know is joyous, nobody is sure they are going to make a grave difference. Climate change can help us release. Unblock the root chakra, summon up blood, summon up the kundalini, life wants to continue. We need to feel our erotic connection to life itself. It's not about keeping ourselves safe, this is risky business.

The Third Revolution:
The Ecological Revolution know as "The Great Turning"

Three Body Gestures:

1. Slow down the destruction - holding/pushing hands/arms out to slow down/block the industrial society.

2. Circling the head - thinking of new ways, patterns, structures for health, education, finance, etc. Example, green entrepeneurs, sea travel is needed, energy efficient passenger liners.

3. Touching the heart - feeling the shift in consciousness, the realisation that we are interdependent. We can develop a new relationship with space and time, a sense of interconnedness on this planet. And commit to something larger than our individual lives. What we do right now, this week and next month, is part of a thousand years of being.

Deep Time Work

Getting up glab for a thousand years of healing. Time lag - global warming is a 'creeping problem', effects we are experiencing now are from fossil fuel burning centuries ago. Slow onset with long-term consequences. Once we see the symptoms, its too late.

A Taste of the Adventure

The coming of the Kingdom of Shambala
(Shambala Warrior = Bodhisattwa)
Hands dancing the dance of Compassion and Wisdom

People are afraid to be with painful information, don't be afraid to see the pain and suffering. Capacity to see into the dark, unafraid of what is happening to our world.

Life wants to continue, So may it coninue