Coming to some fear. Coming to some fear.
Can’t go over it. Can’t go over it.
Can’t run away from it. Can’t run away from it.
Can’t go around it. Can’t go around it.
Gotta go through it. Gotta go through it.
Alright. Alright.
OK. OK.
Let’s go. Let’s go.
Smack your hands on your knees, folks. Shout out and shake these bones. We’ve got some feeling to go through! (WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS ALONE!)
Here’s the thing: I think we all KNOW that we have to do this. We know it’s the fact that Brother Al’s movie [Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth
What we don’t know is how to do this whole “feel the terror” thing without it totally undoing us, without it leaving us debilitated and paralyzed. I mean, shit, pretty much every last thing the analysts and scientists I’ve been reading for the past four years have been saying is now coming true, with this exception: IT’S UNFOLDING WAY FASTER THAN EXPECTED. Foreign investors are fleeing, petrodollars are petrified and petrodenial is running dry, bubbles are bursting and dollars are dropping and the price for a barrel of light sweet is getting downright crude. The delusional belief system (aka “the economy”, aka “the market”) is staring on in dis-belief. Oh, and climate change? Well, let’s just say that you might want to buy those new waders you’ve been looking at in the Cabelas catalogue. Today.
You know things are moving quickly when you get to be a prophet and an historian all in one lifetime…
Atomized and ruggedly individualized, riven from our tribal roots, deprived of our healing arts, numbed, dumbed [read Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto] and bummed by an insane culture, alone and without community, how for fuck’s sake are we supposed to go through our terror? And why should we? If we can’t fight, and we can’t flee, what are we to do? If our terror is keeping us frozen, how do we know that feeling it and moving through it and unfreezing it (rather than denying it) will actually give us the power to jump before the truck turns us into road-pizza?
Well, here we are at the heart of it, folks, where the rubber meets the doe, so to speak. There IS no jumping out of the way. The truck is too big. And too close. And moving too quickly for us to even have time to get a good crouch in. So . . . perhaps it’s time to remember that sometimes . . . sometimes . . . when deer and truck meet . . . the truck gets totaled. And sometimes . . . sometimes . . . the deer survives.
We’re going to have to question some deeper assumptions here. Who says we can’t take the blow? And who says deer can’t protect themselves from attack? Who says we can’t find effective responses that will give us a better chance of surviving the impact? And who says we can’t align with the forces already in motion to help the death machine die with more dignity, and less destruction, than it otherwise will? Who says?
Ah, we poor Average Americans (TM). We’ve been bought off just like the Canarsies were before us (supposedly). But instead of the legendary “$24 worth of beads and trinkets”, we got iPhones and plasma TVs and hot and cold running water and The Sopranos and Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast. We’re so much smarter than those silly Indians, aren’t we? Look what we got! And all it cost us was . . . well . . . our very souls, not to mention the health of an entire planet, which is, technically speaking, bigger than Manhattan.
We seem to have so much to lose (as long as we can continue to externalize those darn costs) that talk of taking the blow, of acting to protect ourselves and the life of this planet, scares the rest of the bejesus (that residual bejesus which has not been frightened away by horror movies) right out of us. Take the blow? I can’t take the blow; I just got these new blue jeans! Fight back? Why, they’ll put me in jail! I can’t get a signal in there! Preparing for collapse looks, to those at the top, like hard physical labor and learning to cook possum and really greasy hair and no more trips to Caribou’s. Fighting back looks like embarrassing headlines and a date with Bubba in the showers. With possum stew and jail food on the menu, the Extinction Basket with pommes frites and a Coke (TM) begins to look like an attractive option.
Pampered and purchased, it’s pretty much agreed all around that the last thing Americans are going to do is rise up and take their lives back into their own hands. On the whole, that’s probably true, at least until we’ve already lost our toys. But while masses do not seem to change minds on any sort of a time scale that will help us at this point, individual minds can and do change. People can step out of denial and get into real and effective response. You can. Yeah, I mean you. That’s why I’m sitting on my ass right now writing. Because there are people out there who are ready to look where I’m pointing. Maybe you’re one of those people.
We can take the blow. (We don’t really have much choice.) Perhaps we can even survive it. We can begin by finding our place and our people. We can start an edible forest garden and clean out some old barrels for water catchments and walk down the road and meet all of our neighbors and get together for a potluck and a meeting and talk about what’s coming. We can find a facilitator and do the feelings work we need to do, moving through the grief and the hopelessness, the fear, the anger, moving through them and beyond them, moving together, arm in arm, hand to hand, heart to heart, discovering that we are strong enough to bear such things, that we are still whole enough to not be undone by them, finding that together, we can stand and face the headlights, we can stand and hold each other as the truck hits, and finding, maybe, just maybe, that some of us are still alive after it has passed. Some of us need to do this work, because most will not. Refusing to feel their fear now, they will be forced to feel it upon impact, when the trauma is greatest, the losses so hard to bear. They will need our help.
And we can act to protect ourselves (the larger “ourselves”, which includes everybody else). We have no real idea what small groups of us can do to that truck if we stand up to it when it hits, but we can acknowledge the possibility that the truck will end up overturned in the ditch, damaged beyond repair, never to “let’s roll” again, while we manage to limp away and lick our wounds. It could happen. And since it’s possible that finding some way to deflect the truck into a ditch will “work” (and remember I’m defining “work” as “somehow avoiding our headlong plunge into global mass extinction”), then it’s worth the responding, the trying, the being, the doing. Things are going to get a bit crazy. The rules are all going to change. Stay awake. Stay aware. Stay poised. All will become clear.
The people I see engaged in effective response have all faced into, sat with, chewed on, and stared down their fear. This does not mean they are no longer afraid. It means that they have confronted their fears and found themselves more than a match for them. It means they have found their power to respond even when afraid, which is the definition of courage. They are still standing in the headlights, for there is no real place to hide, but they are not frozen. They are readying themselves for the blow, however and whenever it comes, responding, moment by moment, intuitively, rationally, non-rationally, and with heightened awareness. And they are getting prepared to play their parts in tossing that damned truck into the ditch.
It seems fair, in a way, that someone takes the blow. Not necessarily at the individual level, of course. There are many, many victims in this story. We were all born into this situation. I will not argue that any one of us in particular has a debt to pay. That’s for each of our own hearts to know.
But at the collective level, at the level of our nation, and our culture, the
re is a fairness here that feels deep and clear. This particular troop of clever monkeys has acted abominably. As dysfunctional (if not self-acknowledged) members of the Community of Life, as supposedly informed and qualified delegates to the great Council of All Beings, we have amends to make. Perhaps feeling the fear we’ve engendered, the pain we’ve caused, the grief we’ve created, the anger we’ve provoked, the guilt we’ve earned and the clear and soaring joy we can step into at any moment, perhaps feeling deeply is one way to begin making those amends. Feeling. Then moving into defensive and protective responses that might actually “work”. It’s sort of a cosmic you-break-it-you-buy-it situation we find ourselves in. We created this, we “civilized” ones. We broke the Laws of Life. The results belong to us. So how much do we have in our wallets? Who are we going to be?
I know my path: I’m going to finish growing up. I’m going to do whatever it takes to rejoin the community of living souls as a fully initiated adult human being. Refusing to feel one’s fear is just a dressed-up form of adolescent indestructibility, just another facet of Civilization’s millennia-long PCP frenzy. Fuck that. It’s time to grow up. I’m ready.
I’ll feel my fair share of fear and grief and anger and shame and joy, and savor the sweet delight of being alive in this amazing time. I’ll find those few people who see the truck coming, and sit with them in circle and share my heart, and my tears, and we’ll stand together and watch the truck as it nears. I’ll read the headlines, at the very least, in Carolyn Baker’s Daily News Stories, and let the fear and anger wash over me and through me, and I’ll use that fear to keep me aligned, and in response mode, with reality.
I’ll use the fear, rather than refuse it. I’ll use it to keep me awake and alive and in action. I’ll use it as an antidote to the culture that seeks always to lull me back to sleep. I’ll use it to help bring an end to that culture.
Damn, that feels good.
Bring on the truck.
FURTHER UNLEARNING
Your Box defends its sovereignty by claiming to know. Learning anything new challenges your Box’s dominion. Since Boxes defend their territory with a vengeance, your first step in learning is to unlearn, to dismantle the certainty with which your Box paints its interpretations over your direct experience of the world. Adopting unlearning as part of your daily practice keeps you liquid enough that your Bright Principles can move you during the course of your daily life. The following are useful resources for further unlearning.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Baker, Carolyn. Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse. Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse, 2009.
Baldwin, Christina. Calling The Circle – The First and Future Culture. New York: Bantam Books, 1998.
Berne, Eric. Games People Play – The Psychology of Human Relationships. New York: Grove Press, 1964. Note: Eric Berne died in 1970, but there is an informative website about his work at:
Blanton, Brad. Radical Honesty – How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth. Stanley, Virginia: Sparrowhawk Publications, 2005.
Callahan, Clinton. Radiant Joy Brilliant Love – Secrets for Creating an Extraordinary Life and Profound Intimacy with Your Partner. Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 2007. (Also available in German under the title Wahre Liebe im Alltag – Das Erschaffen authentischer Beziehungen. Bremen, Germany: Genius Verlag, 2007.)
Callahan, Clinton. Wild Thinking – 52 Adventurous Thought Experiments – Radical Knowledge for Liberating Your Effectiveness and Delivering Your Destiny, available as a PDF file on CD by request: [email protected]. (Also available in German under the title Abenteuer Denken – 52 Abenteuereisen zu größeren Möglichkeiten. Bremen, Germany: Genius Verlag, 2004.)
Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games – A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986.
Castaneda, Carlos. Journey to Ixtlan – The Lessons of Don Juan. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. Note: Carlos died in 1998, but there are various websites about him. A useful starting point is
Dawson, Jonathan. Ecovillages – New Frontiers for Sustainability. Foxhole, Dartington, Totnes, Devon, UK: Green Books Ltd, 2006.
Diamond, Jared. Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed. New York: Penguin Group, 2005.
Dunhan, Bandhu. Creative Life – Spirit, Power, and Relationship in the Practice of Art. Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 2005.
Fritz, Robert. Creating – A Guide to the Creative Process. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991.
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Critical Path. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1981.
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Grunch* of Giants (*Gross Universe Cash Heist). New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
Garfield, Charles, et. al. Wisdom Circles – A Guide to Self Discovery and Community Building in Small Groups. New York: Hyperion, 1998.
Gatto, John Taylor. Dumbing Us Down – The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2005.
Glasser, William. Choice Theory – A New Psychology of Personal Freedom. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
Goettner-Abendroth, Heide. The Way into an Egalitarian Society – Principles and Practices of a Matriarchal Politics. Winzer, Germany: Hagia International Academy, 2007.
Gordon, Thomas. P.E.T. Parent Effectiveness Training. New York: Penguin Group, 1975. Note: Thomas Gordon died in 2002, but his wife and partner Linda Adams carries on the good work of Gordon Trainings along with her daughter Michelle Adams.
Hansen, James. Storms of My Grandchildren – The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2009.
Hartmann, Thom. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight – Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
Hawk, Red. Self Observation – The Awakening of Conscience, an Owner’s Manual. Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 2009.
Hawken, Paul. Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. New York: Penguin Group, 2007.
Heinberg, Richard. The Party’s Over – Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, second edition. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2005.
Hendricks, Gay and Kathlyn. Conscious Loving – The Journey to Co-Commitment – A Way to Be Fully Together Without Giving Up Yourself. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
Hillesum, Etty. An Interrupted Life – The Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996. Note: Etty died in Auschwitz in 1943, but there are many links to information about her listed in Wikipedia:
Jensen, Derrick. Endgame, Volume I – The Problem of Civilization, and Volume II - Resistance. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006.
Korten, David C. The Great Turning – From Empire to Earth Community. Bloomfield, Connecticut: Kumarian Press, 2006. (The one thing I disagree with in David’s thinking is when he several times equates Christianity with spirituality – fish of a different feather, in my opinion. The rest of the book is super.)
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying – What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1969. Note:
Elisabeth died in 2004, but the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation carries on with her work
Kunstler, James Howard. The Long Emergency – Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. London: Atlantic Books, 2005.
Lankford, Valerie. Four Feelings and What to Do With Them – Questions and Answers for Problem Solving. Baltimore, Maryland: privately published pamphlet. Request through email: [email protected] Telephone: +1-410-771-1234.
Lerner, Harriet. The Dance of Anger – A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships. New York: Harper, 1985, 2005.
Lobaczewski, Andrew M. Political Ponerology – A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes. Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada: Red Pill Press, 2008.
Lozowick, Lee. Getting Real. Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 2007.
Lozowick, Lee. The Alchemy of Transformation. Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 1996.
Macy, Joanna. Coming Back to Life – Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1998.
McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature – Humanity, Climate Change, and the Natural World. New York: Random House, 1989.
Meadows, Donella H., et. al. Limits to Growth – The 30-Year Update. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004. Note: Donella Meadows died in 2001, but there is an informative website about her work at:
Moore, Robert, and Douglas Gillette. King Warrior Magician Lover – Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine. New York: Harper Collins, 1990. Note: The Conclusion chapter was my original source for distinguishing the four archetypes of king, warrior, magician and lover. Associating the archetypes with the four feelings and the procedure for stellating (initializing) the archetypes were empirically developed during Possibility Management trainings and laboratories by Clinton Callahan.
Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings- Living Your Own Truth Page 35
