From a public conversation with activist, farmer & founder of The Orphan Wisdom School, Stephen Jenkinson
In this brief clip, Stephen suggests that the growing epidemic of pain killers is really a coping mechanism for living in a disfigured landscape. As natural born “practitioners of beauty,” we are brutally confronted by the specter of our dying planet. Overwhelmed by that pain, we desensitize and our capacity to create and appreciate beauty withers.
But many of us awaken from our denial. Initially, we may become paralyzed with sorrow for the damage of our “head-in-the-sand” existence.
But there is a parallel realization — a kind of “burdensome privilege” that from this moment on, we must proceed in full knowledge of our responsibility to each other and our impact on the world. Stephen says the claim that this lays upon our days is actually ennobling—“true grief”.
Such grief can become “an animator of our days” and the root of a deep gratitude for the remarkable, quixotic alchemy of being alive.
Register to access the full dialogue and other Beyond Awakening dialogues here: http://www.beyondawakeningseries.com/
Nuclear non-proliferation treaty non attendance at talks/signing
Terry and fellow Americans Would you please get your country the USA to engage in the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty talks in Europe in May 2017 and then the follow-on decent and rational signing of the international non-nuclear proliferation treaty as AMOST EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO DO. The problem is not the degradation of the world’s ecology: it’s the US wanting to dominate the rest of the world with its ideology as if endless free trade and economic growth is the panacea for all. Sorry to report but it is the US’s indulgence in developing it’s nuclear weapons capability which is the greatest threat to our earth. Everything else pales into insignificance. Tomorrow morning I am going to a protest outside of my Parliament House to ask that our Australian government stops blindly following the dictates on warfare as if the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons is a protector against our next war. It isn’t. It will be the instigator of it and the first mini nuclear bomb (as if that’s better than a big one) will be set off not by Pakistan, not by Israel, not by North Korea, not by India but by your country, the USA. Why aren’t you bothering with than instead of your endless talk of dying nicely or taking pain-relievers. Reinvent the USA so that it is a country worth admiring and following instead of a sickening mishmash of desires to dominate in every field as if it is the world leader of anything good and wholesome,