"...What a great time to be born, what a great time to be alive, because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world."-Paul Hawken "Blessed Unrest"


Thursday, June 16, 2011

Stop Saving the Planet!


Has anyone out there gotten as sick of the "Save the Planet" meme as I have?

This slogan started out as a people-friendly way to personify environmentalism by portraying the earth as a stray pet needing rescue from the planet shelter. "Please! This poor innocent earth will be euthanized unless you recycle!"

Science tells us the earth has been here 8 billion years, through ice ages and an asteroid collision. We can’t destroy it, so what's the hoopla about saving it?

It's useful as a way to distract us from the real crises we face. When we put our attention into "saving" this rock-solid planet, we unwittingly sidestep massive issues of collusion between government and corporations, then play right into political and media campaigns that distract and isolate us.

Here's a short list of what we have dumped into our own habitat: Nukes, GHGs, carcinogens, GMO crops, oil spills and nanoparticles. Are these ever discussed around the water cooler? If we lift the veil, we might affect this year's bottom line. So, we accept the partnership - make it our job to help keep the veil in place.

If not the planet, then what do we want to save these days? Our way of life? Maybe the habit of living within that way of life, but really - our way of life itself?

Something in our collective soul understands that our "way of life" is based on killing others for their resources and putting them to work for us at starvation wages. That model will never provide a foundation for true prosperity, or for anything else that is lasting or good. Somewhere in our hearts we know this.

It’s coming into our consciousness that we don't really want to save our civilization or our way of life. Our mainstream way of life is only about money, guns, surveillance and shopping. It makes us isolated and unhappy to live that way. This dilemma of consciousness can alternately drive us to chaotic energy (e.g. Egypt, Syria, Greece) or put us into a drowsy and hypnotic state (the U.S.). 

To "save the planet", we just have to do something for it once in a while. A little favor, a bottle into the recycle bin, like we’re throwing a quarter to a beggar.

I have news for you: The planet is no beggar. It's our landlord. 

Planet Earth is our fierce master, a once-peaceful dragon now grown impatient with a people that would poison and defecate in its own nest. It is already coming after us, with a juggernaut of water from the ice caps we melted, along with the cruelest summer heat waves imaginable.

Maybe a signal from our galactic center is getting through: This planet doesn't need to be saved. We need to save ourselves from what we've done to its weather patterns, from what we've done to our own habitat.

We are also seeing that government and corporations have led the way in bringing these consequences, but have no intention to change anything. Corporate power has deafened government's ears. To them it is as though we're in a bad dream, where we open our mouths to shout in protest, and no sound comes out.
We will find our voice when we move into the new form of humanity that we're called to become. As we find ourselves abandoned by our big box consumer world, we can also consider that a release from imprisonment. We are in the unique and exciting position to create what we need for ourselves and each other, off the grid with our families and our neighbors.

Remember that part about our consciousness bringing heightened energy states? We'll need spiritual resilience to ride that, a strength that comes from our spiritual source. For you that may be Christ, the Buddha, the Medicine Wheel, whatever calls to you. To the Maya that source is Hunab Ku, the center of our galaxy. According to shamans, the galactic center communicates its energies to us and will do so increasingly over the coming years.

Of this I'm sure: My spiritual source isn't guiding me to save a planet, but to save my community and my own soul. Our spiritual sources are guiding us to remove our veils and become the new, spiritual humanity.