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“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch”.”

Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut (1930-2016)

 

There’s only one thing worse than a cataclysmic occurrence; not seeing it coming.

There’s only one thing worse than not seeing it coming; knowing it one day could, yet ignoring it.

Hi Planet Person, here’s the blog ‘n white …

 

9/11 … 11/9. Tumble those numbers and it still isn’t fine. One added up to the dawn of Catastrophe in real time media, the other an outgrowth of its globally angst-ridden undertow. The former was the foreboding of Global Division. The latter a harbinger of New Global Vision. The comet has cometh, and it leaves its inextinguishable taillight of the Unprecedented and the Unpresidented alike.

Welcome to the next U.S. “Brexident”. Welcome to the new abnormal.

Right now Mother Country is about to remarry for the 45th time and walk down that aisle on January 20th with our next new Daddy. For many family members it feels like there was no say in the matter, even though he’s been romancing her these last years and we’ve met him periodically. He farts through his nose. He insults All That Is. His hair looks like a whipped weather system. And apparently he’s now going to parent us.

Weird – because our kid brother kinda likes him. Seems giddy in his presence. Like discovering a new bouncey-shiney play toy (but remember; our kid brother still poos in his jammies and believes in the tooth fairy). Good luck with Mom; she can only see hope eternal in his fiery, contradictory eyes (even though a tiny part of her wishes he weren’t so … fiery, contradictory). He seduces her weaknesses. He charms her disillusionment. Many of her past suitors left her with their trail of unfulfilled promises. They ignored her needs (not that she always expressed them beyond that of the courtship phase – after all, she assumed they’d protect her because tradition said so). But now she’s exhausted and ready to break from the “mold”. Mold has been his mojo, and she believes this time will be different because this mould-breaker is. Not all of her ex’s were bad, mind you. Some were even great. But alas, they all come with a limited 8 year warranty. Even this bombastic one.

Oh mama … if only you could get a quickie Mexican divorce – but then there’s that wall to climb.

 

So out with the old and in with the – WHO???

Good riddens, Good Judgement.

She’s just brought home You!

The ring’s on her finger,

With yours on the Codes,

I hope someone’s watching,

Before it explodes.

 

This is what Helplessness resembles. This is how impacted and betrayed the kid in many of us feels … or has been feeling based on past presidents with different leanings who seemed to all but dismiss the other Voice of Us. Either way, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. But you can try harder. This time the chasm grew too wide. Odd as it seems, many people worldwide now wince at this noblest of “democratic decisions”. Our new Daddy du Jour has pronounced his declarations of love to not just our Mother Country but our other Mother (Earth) … with his vows that She should love and obey Him till legislation doth he pass.

It feels like we’re powerless because we’re the kid and they’re the adults and adults always hold sway. Powerful Father Figure. Dutiful Mother Figure. Obedient Child Figure. ArcheTypical Trouble. This is the model of dysfunctional family embedded for much of the world. But there’s a grand flaw in the scenario and lucky us if we catch it. The desperate Mother who just got married … is in fact Us. The domineering Father Figure whose dark side we shudder … is also Us. The Parent Figure and The Child are one and the same. Family makes such strange bedfellows …

The parable gets richer still. “Love Our Self And Our Brothers As One”. We’ve praised this concept for so long it’s now like a marketing tool we use to flavour other sellable sound bites. But as conceptuality edges toward actuality, we’re brought to our very knees for a rarified and collective taste of what that truly means. Here comes a new fairy tale; of rocks and a hard place … of halves and have nots .. of alien nation … and breakdown in communication (both vertically and laterally, because it’s easy to criticise governments at the top for being out of touch with the people yet We the People are out of touch with each other … and our Selves).

Responsibility is embedded in Democracy. But we take it for granted. Freedom of Press, Freedom of Choice, Freedom of Expression and Freedom to Vote are those priceless, sought after and fought after privileges that should be our inalienable right the world over. But fighting for Democracy is only half the battle. Its intelligent use is the other. Democracy relies on the wisdom of its user. And it has no User Manual (though perhaps it now should). What happens when Democracy is in the hands of Insanity? When these cherished rights are available to all but All are temporarily asleep at the wheel? When we’re of age to drive a car we still need to pass a driver’s test to get our license for this powerful vehicle. But that doesn’t guarantee safe passage. When we’re of age to vote, however, we don’t require anything other than a finger and a lever. Talk about gun control? This lever is just as potentially hazardous and explosive. It simply takes longer to exact its damage.

So many questions to pose – from the philosophical to the practical to the deeply personal. But pose we MUST, as in US, if we’re going to get to the bottom of the Fear that drives the troubled human spirit to the wall.

1. why are we hypocritically endorsing Democracy in its current naive form? Naive Democracy relies on that cherished freedom to choose and presumes that those choosing it know how to use it … that they’re of sound mind. Mature Democracy recognises the disturbing possibility that perhaps they don’t, that they’re misguided / misinformed / both. What, then, does Democracy look like when unleashed in an insane asylum? Or a society that’s unaware?

2. what if Democracy works only as well as those sane enough to comprehend how demanding Freedom is (because it’s full of constant choices and decisions). How then to measure the sanity of an entire society as opposed to a single individual?

3. what if Democracy comes at a very high price not only because of the constant vigilance to keep it from controlling hands, but because it assumes the user (the majority) will choose it wisely – what is the standard bearer for “wise” when each side thinks they’re the wiser?

4. what if, in the name of Democracy, a level-headed minority sees the ship about to hit the iceberg? Do they owe it to themselves and unaware others to avert collision by veering Democracy temporarily off course … or do they abide by and honour its principles at all cost while observing the oncoming danger, and hope for the best?

5. what if we were indeed upended by false social news media sources that influenced the vote of an understandably gullible public?

This politically incorrect President-elect has flip-flopped his rhetoric numerous times. He’ll be coached and strategically spruced up like a Christmas Tree proudly blinking his lights for the extended season. And perhaps he’ll flip still further, miraculously to our favour and proving so many Doubting Thomas’ wrong. Could we even accept that – or does some unspoken darkness within us actually relish having a scapegoat upon which to vent our emotional lather? What better outlet to let off steam than a steamroller seemingly absent of insight and abundant with incite.

A political tsunami has emotionally washed ashore with its closet-vote as true revolt (which revolts us all the more because we estranged ourselves from this glaring oversight while he was cleverly exploiting it). Yet something’s afoot. As the wave slowly recedes and reveals its devastating aftermath, it also reveals an unexpected glimmer of opportunity. There’s a diamond amidst the debris. It glistens with hints of hope on a dim horizon. A New Paradigm wants to emerge. Now that we’ve broken the spell and witnessed that the Improbable is in fact Possible, will we use this to conscientiously empower … or wield more power?

From the ancient ashes of 9/11 was there birthed a Refugee Crisis … which jettisoned a Brexit … which reinforced the raging riptide that now winds up ripping us apart and tipping the scales of Western Democracy with a radically different political voice. But this is not the Stockholm Syndrome. We have not been taken hostage and forced to love our captor. We’re in foreign terrain right now. The compass is facing Inward – with an all-encompassing new direction we’re being urged to explore in the demanding name of Awareness. We have incredulously voted for our Shadow Side. This unprecedented event is no more an accident than Females Roaming Earth. Conscious Birth takes courage. So does change.

But change has negative connotation – and yet it’s our essential Life Force; from cells in our bodies which constantly regenerate … to Earth’s magma which constantly shifts … to the air in our atmosphere which constantly circulates (many of these experiences occurring unbeknownst to our conscious self). Change is not the bad guy, but how we perceive it is how we’ll receive it. And though we’re not receiving it well right now, this moment is a game-changer.

From hereon we must move beyond blame to brain – as in using ours to wriggle out of this riddle with a determined heart-centered intelligence. The PET Bulls may come and go (Putin, Erdogan, Trump) but the notion of WE is eternal. The burgeoning New Paradigm is ironically based upon the very rebuilding principles espoused by this President-elect. But its implications far transcend Mexican Walls or Berlin Walls or Great China Walls or any walls erected in the name of anything legislated on “the people’s behalf by the powers that be”. We need to rebuild internally. And the looming question is “how?”.

On the shorelines of hurricanes and the fault lines of earthquakes and the embers of volcanoes and the footpath of tornados do we repeatedly rebuild the same structures upon the same vulnerable soil. It’s what we know, it’s where we live, it’s what we love. But now something “else” stirs … like a warm sleep where your partner / kid / pet – or even your bodily reflex – suddenly shifts positions drawing alllll the snuggly blanket away from you and onto another. You awaken. You’re exposed. And maybe even annoyed. You want to resume your comfy position but it’s changed – through no fault of theirs because they were sleeping through it. We’ve been sharing that same global blanket since time immemorial. But we forget this until our bedfellow stirs sufficiently to shake us awake.

So too with the vote, which wasn’t political so much as glaringly, distortedly personal. Everyone wants a better life. Even those with better lives. We’re all worried there won’t be enough to go around. So if nothing else we share this vulnerability in common. But we see its acquisition through different eyes. Such was the morning of November 9th when “votus extremus” reared its nasty head because of unaddressed self-reflection that became a reflection of our Unaddressed Self.

So let’s go diving into the Great Barrier Relief and offset our worries about Climate Change with an even more pressing concern (because whether you’re a champion of Global Warming or not, it’s just gone to boiling precipitated by Le Vote). There’s a far more imperative newcomer now on the ballot than Climate Change … one which poses an immediate threat like no other and speaks to the underlying root of even that mega issue:

Changing The Emotional Climate. This Is The Issue Of Our Times.

You may not believe in Climate Change but there’s no denying the existence of its probable birth parent, whose immediate-visceral effects affect us all. The Emotional Climate Change being played out on the global arena is one of the most vivid recent expressions of “We Are Connected”. A slim majority’s reaction has sparked reactivity amongst us all. And in this collision of division is remarkably reflected our unity. But it’s “dark unity”. Unity through catastrophe has been the measure of our knee jerk reflex for too long. Punch. Counter punch. That’s the habitual worldwide rhythm. Bonding in “dark unity” is strengthened by individually housing an unconscious breeding ground of fermented, uncomfortable thoughts. Delving into this realm is like a diver searching the murky depths for buried treasure. There lies the chest, peering from a cavity that teeters on the abyss of a great continental shelf – beyond which lies an unfathomable unknown. And the chest is weighted down by barnacles. So the diver treads carefully, maybe dislodging only one little nugget to resurface into the light of day. If each of us decides to dive just a little, thus is unburdened the outmoded legacy of “dark unity” we’ve learned to suffer with.

The political animal’s growing appetite now causes us to freeze in confusion at the blazing, multiculti-coloured headlights that threaten to make us all eventual refugees escaping each other’s bias. Yet within this lies a golden moment no matter who’s brought it to light; alchemically transforming emotional insanity into renewable energy.

So get angry if you like (in non-violent protest) – but also get educated by learning more about Democracy and its healthy breeding ground … by impartially engaging with others to understand their viewpoint and what makes them tick … and by honestly examining the dreaded “enemy within” (our conflicted nature, which ultimately just wants to feel worthy, though sometimes at the great expense of others). We can humbly bow to our political beast with inquiry, thereby diffusing its power by learning to understand it, and in so doing others’.

The blemish of our times is Anesthetized Being. Consciously birthing a New Paradigm is tricky. Plato was the Modern World’s Spiritual forefather. Aristotle was the Scientific. Mixing Spirits with Science is a powerful elixir that Governments would do well to imbibe on the barstools and banquettes of their cushy world enclaves. If only Governance would draw upon this kind of power-source to light our world.

So, ladies and gentlemen of The Divided States of America … while it appears that we’re reeling backward in time as Neanderthal edges out his Cro-Magnon rival in the race for The White House, take heart. The Democratic system hasn’t failed us. We’ve temporarily failed it – by forgetting that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon are part of the same Homo-sapien … and we now get to bridge that neglected gap with The Missing Link; US. Some Neanderthals drive a rolls and defy the polls. But not every Cro-Magnon with a fancy degree is necessarily without greed. The moment we become a Human Brand is the moment we stop branding each other as opponents on opposite sides. No matter how logical or reasonable our “right” side seems to be, the other side also claims likewise. What better side to advocate than the Inside.

Perhaps the greatest yet most unlikely of legacies from this Cro (for some) and Nean (for others) is not his ideology so much as his symbology; of having jumpstarted the end of “dark unity” by bringing it to light. Dark Unity is indeed a kind of unity but with endless internal and external torment. Next time let’s exercise our body AND our mind so that when we exercise our right to vote it includes the political body as a whole, not a hole. Cro-Nean anyone?

In the West, Autumn leaves are falling like confetti (for some) or lost ballots (for others) as the spectre of Emotional Climate Change sheds its vote upon the political landscape. Fear not. Nature is no more dead than Democracy is. Nature seasonally recalibrates. And we are Human Nature. So too shall we.

Wishing us all presence of mind … and presidents of mind.

 

Sync Big! Planet Person

Yours,

global know-mad

 

Vodka helps … Laughter heals … Love votes.

Here’s to those future votes, Planet Person (German style; with our thanks to Move 24)