Russell Brand is on a roll ...

In the last few weeks Russell Brand has been stirring the establishment pot via various elements of the media advocating for a social and systemic revolution. First, there was his guest edited issue of the New Statesman. As he put it, "Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that’s not on the ballot. Is utopian revolution possible? The freethinking social architect Buckminster Fuller said humanity now faces a choice: oblivion or utopia. We’re inertly ambling towards oblivion, is utopia really an option?

With that question hanging in the air, Brand stepped out to speak with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC late night current affairs show Newsnight.



This piece has already had 9 million viewings on youtube alone. Interestingly despite Jeremy's classical antagonistic interviewing style, days later he voiced his agreement with the vue that people are disenchanted with politics. Why can't Jeremy have an open conversation and sharing of opinions during the Newsnight interview? Why is it he has to go on a evening entertainment show to be able to express his own views?  



Now we move into November, since the TV appearance and the magazine publication Russell Brands words have gone viral. It's stirred up a hornets nest of reactions across the political spectrum. Undeniable there are those with entrenched vested interests in the status quo who are taking the stance that Russell Brand is a vacuous waste of space spouting utter nonsense to be utterly ignored and undermined. And yet there are many, mostly the voiceless invisible ones in our communities who are nudging one another and saying 'he's got a point', 'it's about time someone said this stuff'.

I am one of those people who after realising that we live in a world facing immense scary challenges with no obvious instant answers can be overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. When I feel myself moving into a state of despair, disillusionment or nihilism the desire to reach out for my touchstones of comfort - food, TV etc is very strong. Better some method of pushing the uncomfortable feelings away than having to face up to the discomfort. And yet ironically turning to face the discomfort is the door to change, to an alternative, to freedom, to empowerment, to friendship, to reconnection with the world around me in all of it's vibrancy and uncertainty. My interpretation of Brands message, which he rightly makes clear is not new or unique to him, is to take responsibility and to participate in the world to make it a better place. DONT LEAVE IT TO THE ELECTED POLITICIANS. I ask myself how can I step up and get involved? Whatever I do, you do, we do will make a difference and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Where are we now in the Brand revolution? Today it's an article in The Guardian newspaper in which he continues to put forward the case that we deserve a better democratic system. "A system that serves the planet and the people" - all the people, not just a lucky few at the top table. It's time ... it's time ... it's time.

10 Rules for Being Human

Check out the list below and see where you are in this interesting reflection on being human.

There is a thread

The Way It Is

It goes among things that change. 
There is a thread you follow. 
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what things you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and grow old.

Nothing you do can stop times unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

— William Stafford

We learn with the great spirits

Below are some images of the Yanomami people of Brasil. More can be found on the website of survival international.

To the Yanomami every tree, rock, mountain and creature has a spirit.

The Yanomami shamans are not only protecting their own community, but looking after the rest of the world as well. They know that our planet is changing. The sky is full of smoke because our rainforest is being logged and burnt. The rains come late, the sun behaves in a strange way. The lungs of the sky are polluted. The world is ill.

Where will we go when we have destroyed our world?

When the planet is silent, how will we learn?

Everyone is an artist

Last Friday morning I heard an English translation of a poem by Joseph Beuys. I know little of Joseph Beuys and yet what I do know tells me this is a person of deep compassion. Observing Germany and Germans post world war two Beuys noticed an unwillingness or inability to feel. Without feeling how can humans be fully alive and realise our potential. From this sense of knowing Beuys developed creative, playful and artistic ways groups of people could come back into a felt experience of life. This is where his idea that everyone is an artists comes from. Through this process of creativity, however we practise it in our lives, we create social sculpture. The words alone - social sculpture - have an magical allure to them. The idea that as individuals in a community we shape and influence the world around us and this is our act of creation is beautiful.

Here is Joseph Beuys poem, translated by Leonie Scupin.

Every human is an artist
Let go.
Learn to observe snails.
Plant impossible gardens.
Invite someone dangerous for tea.
Make little signs that say "yes"
and distribute them all over your house.
Become a friend of freedom and insecurity.
Look forward to dreams.
Cry watching movies.
Swing as high as you can with a swing in moonlight.
Cultivate different moods.
Reject to be "responsible".
Do it out of love.
Take a nap.
Pass money on. Do it now. Money will follow.
Believe in magic.
Laugh a lot.
Bath in moonlight.
Dream wild, imaginative dreams.
Draw on walls.
Read every day.
Imagine yourself to be enchanted.
Giggle with children.
Listen to old people talk.
Open yourself, dive in, be free.
Bless yourself.
Let go of fear.
Play with everything.
Entertain the child in you.
You are innocent.
Build a castle out of blankets.
Get wet.
Hug trees.
Write love letters.
 

- Joseph Beuys -

What kind of time are these

There are some few who will meet you there
in that place where judgement has fallen away
There are some few who will meet you there
in that place unknowable until the veil drops from your eyes
where questions have more meaning than answers ever will
There are some few waiting for you
holding the mystery in all its magical beauty for you to see a new
There are some few who will met you there
holding out cupped leaves in their hands to catch your tears
There are some few who will meet you there
feeding a fire for you to sit and be warmed by

These are the best of times and the worst of times
These are troubled times and times of transformation
As the old takes it leave and the new is coming into view
May we always speak in the language of trees.

Adrienne Rich: What Kind of Times Are These

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

She Is Gone

You can shed tears that she is gone
Or you can smile because she has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her
Or you can be full of the love that you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember her and only that she is gone
Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what she would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.


by David Harkins

Learning (A Kapow of New Wave Inspiration)

This photo was taken on Yonge Street, Toronto and it sums up the spirit of openness, exploration, adventure, creativity and curiosity that should be part of any learning environment or experience. Life is messy. Learning is no different. Why can't the idea of making mistakes be reclaimed as a positive? It should be. How else can we find our learning edges unless we cross them.

To quote the poet John Keats,  “Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.”


Today I have come across two more nuggets of learning inspiration.

The first is by Rob Brezny, an astrologist, who is deftly reading the night sky and interpreting it for our learning pleasure. Rob suggests that the present moment is providing us with an epic drama of extremes and an opportunity to royally let go of the old and make way or birth and create the new. No shades of grey or middle ground here. This is the time to seize the day. Or in Star Wars parlance 'feel the force Luke'! It is the showdown of the shadow vs the dream.

In Rob's own words, " The Collective Shadow of our time is a composite thought form made of the following negative tape loops: We're Running Out of Time, The Rich Take All, Love Can't Happen, Truth Can't Happen, Humanity Cannot Change. In certain parts of the world (like political arenas) this shadow thickens and dominates the psychic space, very hard to shake off, very hard to even see that it's a story. It masquerades as The Way Things Are, rather than as something we constantly tell ourselves is true that squeezes out alternative ideas. When caught in this shadow the undertow is deadly, making more constructive ideas seem hopelessly naive or preposterous.

Standing opposite to Pluto's Shadow is the Jupiterian Dream: whatever bright truth of the soul longs to be born from the deepest part of you, whatever you incarnated to express, whatever cosmic urge drew your soul from spirit into matter. Jupiter's Dream is the Big Dream that your individual dream is a part of. And when Dream opposes Shadow a rigorous initiation is at hand, because this clash of the titans brings on the very challenge that must be faced to coax the fuller scope of the dream out of hiding and make that dream real.

When Jupiter opposes Pluto, the biggest, brightest, most positive vision engages a showdown with the main obstacle in its way. This is like a showdown between Buddha & Genghis Khan. The sheer intensity of the polarisation can ground you deeper into the Dream, or turn you into a wild scourge foaming at the mouth.

When Dream opposes Shadow many deaths and births enter the evolutionary canal. Your vision and motivation are being called up to the plate. Your commitment is central. What sacrifice are you being asked to make to make that dream real? During this month of opposition, when the dust settles you'll either have a galvanised dream or an empty womb space where a new one can be born."

And so to the second nugget that sprung forth from the digital highway today. The discovery of two twin souls traversing the earth in search of stories that re-imagine higher education. Oh my dreams, my dreams are being nourished and inspired in one fell swoop. Udi Mandel and Kelly Teamey call what they have discovered 'Enlivened Learning'. As they state on their website "[it] is taking place in innovative spaces of learning that are emerging outside mainstream universities and colleges. These innovative initiatives are challenging what it means to learn and how knowledge is created. Born from social/ecological movements and indigenous communities, these initiatives are creatively addressing the questions – what is a university for? and what knowledges are important for us to creatively address the challenges we face today?
 
The answers these initiatives provide transforms people and communities through a process we are calling enlivened learning. Individuals learning in these places are connecting with their passion and creativity. They are engaging with community, land, history and culture. The nourishing connections that enlivened learning encourage, offer hope and imagination, offering different possibilities for re-imagining higher education. We feel this is an important and timely story to tell."

Watch the introduction and make up your own mind.

  Enlivened Learning an introduction from Multi-Sense Media on Vimeo.

In a room

Caught at the back of a room
With seemingly no way out
(there is always a way out,
the door to the prison is open)
I've arrived in that place
Not somewhere I intended to venture
Not knowingly chosen
Or is it?

This is where I am
It's dark, dank, damp and heavy
My emotions are like over ripe fruit
They hang ample and full
Bursting open full of anger
Resentment, vitriol, bitterness
Sadness, seething frustration
GRIEF!

My body voice wants to sing and shout
To be heard
I could lash out
Physically expressing the years
of repression
of oppression

How so?
Born into privilege
Into material abundance
Into a surfeit of seeming opportunity
Wanting for supposedly nothing
Except for ...
... except for ...
... ... and that's it ...
The place where words end
And feelings begin
Unfathomable feelings burst forth
Where cognitive sense ceases to have meaning
And experiential knowing unfurls itself
No schooling speaks of this place

I'm surely not the first
Nor will I be the last
to find myself here

I'm being stewed, broiled, cooked and boiled.
I'm being stripped, peeled, sliced and diced.

Played like a mouse caught
In the paws of an stealthy alley cat.
Learning life lessons
Faster than a hare running across a
sun drenched summers field.

I am mountain

Mountain's in many cultures are revered places. They are honour places of pilgrimage, refuge and sacredness. One such mountain in the UK is Cadair Idris found in the mountain range of Snowdonia, Wales. Cadair is regarded by locals as the great seat of poetry. Legend has it that anyone who chooses to spend a night on Cadair's peak will wake either mad, dead or a poet. Another Legend is that Arthur made his Kingdom here, hence the name 'seat of Arthur'. Many who have visited Cadair will tell you the same; there is something truly mythical, magical and mysterious about this great mountain. Irrespective of all the legends Cadiar is a mountain of transformation.

I am rock
I am mountain
I am tor

I offer perspective
I offer vision
I offer clarity

I am ancient
I am forever
I am present

I offer sanctuary
I offer pilgrimage
I offer silence

I am shaped by everything
I am welcoming
I am forgiving

I offer a place to belong
I offer memory
I offer a meeting point

I am of this place
I am part of you, as you are part of me
I am home

I offer stories
I offer acceptance
I offer a door to the unknown

I welcome the lost, the lonely and the unsure
I welcome the curious, the searching, the explorers
I welcome the challenging and the challenged
I welcome the committed and the uncommitted
I welcome the ecstatics, the joyous, the celebrants

Burn your fires upon me
Flow your waters through me
Blow your air around me
Place your soil on top of me.

Look into my eyes and you will see the moon, the stars, the whole cosmos
Lean against me and you will feel my warm and gentle embrace
Place your ear upon me and you will hear the song of your heart
Drop a fragment of me into your mouth when there is nothing left to nourish you
Stand upon me and in a moment from eternity exchange a breath with me.

I am rock
I am mountain
I am tor

Coke Ad - This is how to say NO MORE

A good friend pointed out today that we are far too nice and polite to one another and this can sometimes not serve us. It results in nonsense, inequality, ridiculousness, abuse and general bad behaviour going unchecked. And then through another friend via that ubiquitous social media known as facebook I saw an image by Banksy who absolutely nails how we should say NO MORE. He says what needs to be said and how it needs to be said. It's a defiant NO to the system that condones shafting people and then protects its own back in unscrupulous ways.

There are numerous genius methods to get creative and to rage against the inequities and to say NO MORE. Many thanks friends and Banksy for this timely reminder. I needed it.

Expand your heart

Find a story, 

let a story find you, 

share it with another 

and watch your hearts expand :)

We live in a storied landscape.

We are visual dynamic imaginal beings.

We are by nature story carriers.

There comes a time ...

 

On this day, post supermoon, it's the beginning of a brand new week and I am woken by a call from the estate agents to say we have been gazumped !!! Three weeks after our offer had been accepted, plans being made for buying our home are full speed ahead, solicitors have exchanged letters, contracts are being perused and we now find ourselves back at square one. It is simply a case of getting back up on the house hunting trail and starting again because getting back up is living. No biggy really. This is in the end one of those priviledged problems. Not everyone is in a position to buy there own home. We are very lucky. Then again, who'd have thought gazumping was back - not me :(