5/10 The Basic Miracle: Our True Nature & Power

In this episode, Joanna Tomkins, a Work that Reconnects facilitator, reads selected extracts from Chapter 3 of the book "Coming Back to Life" by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown. “The Great Turning arises in response to what we know and feel is happening to our world. [...] As conscious, embodied beings endowed with multiple senses, we are geared to respond. [...] Appropriate response depends on an unblocked feedback loop."

Transcript

In this episode I will include readings from the chapter 3 of the book Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macey and Molly Young Brown.

This chapter is called The Basic Miracle Our True Nature and Power.

The view of reality emerging now is breathtakingly new to those of us who have been shaped by the Industrial Growth Society.

Supported by postmodern science and ancient spiritual traditions,

It brings a fresh understanding of our relationship to the world and of powers within us for its healing.

This chapter is divided in four parts,

Which I will go through in this episode.

Each part digs deeper into the scientific,

Philosophical,

And spiritual influences at the base of the Work That Reconnects framework.

This framework can be brought to you today in workshops around the world,

And I encourage you to explore it further.

These concepts,

If you study them in depth,

Will bring you to the realization of how much power we truly possess to change the way things are.

So let's get started.

Part 1 Living System Theory The machines we made to extend our senses and capacities became our model for the universe.

Separating mechanism from operator,

Object from observer,

This view of reality assumed that everything could be described objectively and controlled externally.

20th century biologists began to look at holes instead of parts,

At processes instead of substances.

They discovered that these holes,

Be they cells,

Bodies,

Ecosystems,

Even the planet itself,

Are not just an assemblage of parts.

Rather,

They are dynamically organized and intricately balanced systems.

The discernments of these principles gave rise to the General Systems Theory.

Ludwig van Bitalanffy is the father of General Systems.

By shifting their focus to relationships instead of separate entities,

Scientists discovered that nature is self-organizing.

These systems are elegantly coherent and constant throughout the observable universe,

From sub-organic to biological,

Anti-cological,

And mental and social systems as well.

James Lovelock coined the Gaia Theory,

Demonstrating that the entire biosphere of Earth is a self-organizing system,

A source of all we are and can become.

And Deep Ecology became known as well in the 70s and 80s,

First written about by Arnie Nace.

And Deep Ecology,

Or biocentrism,

Is in fact a law of nature that exists independently of whether humans recognize it or not.

And the failure of modern society to acknowledge this as we attempt to subordinate all of nature to human use has led to the brink of collapse of the Earth's life support systems.

Biocentrism,

Or Deep Ecology,

Is ancient native wisdom but in the context of today's industrial society.

Biocentrism is profoundly revolutionary,

Challenging the system to its core.

This last quote was from a forest activist called Judy Barry.

You may also have heard the term of anthropocentrism.

Anthropocentrism means human chauvinism.

When humans investigate and see through their layers of anthropocentric self-cherishing,

You start to get in touch with yourself as a mammal,

As a vertebrate,

As a species only recently emerged from the rainforest.

As the fog of amnesia disperses,

There is a transformation in your relationship to other species and in your commitment to them.

This was a quote by John Seed,

That change is a spiritual one,

Referred to as Deep Ecology.

Arno Neis,

The founder of Deep Ecology,

As a subject,

Quotes also,

With sufficient all-sided maturity,

We not only move on from ego to a social self and a metaphysical self,

But an ecological self as well.

Through widening circles of identification,

We vastly extend the boundaries of our self-interest and enhance our joy and meaning in life.

Part Two,

Ancient Spiritual Teachings.

In the book,

Coming Back to Life,

There are many ancient spiritual teachings that are described as instrumental to the work that reconnects to this third dimension of the world that reconnects,

Which is the shift in consciousness.

And going back to the knowledge that is,

The knowledge that has always been,

That we have always been.

But I will only read an extract or two from the Buddhism section as it is so core and it lies deep in the foundations of the work that reconnects,

And in Joanna Macy's philosophies.

So,

The Bodhisattva,

The Buddhist hero figure,

Is one who deeply comprehends the dependent co-arising of all things.

This one knows there is no private salvation and therefore turns back from the gates of Nirvana to re-enter Samsara,

The world of suffering,

Again and again,

Until every being,

Every blade of grass is enlightened.

The choice to act for the sake of all beings,

That intention known as Bodhicitta,

Arises naturally when we open to our mutual belonging.

Part 3 – The Miracle of Mind Self as a choice maker.

In humans and some other big brained mammals,

Mind is endowed with a remarkable feature,

Self-reflective consciousness.

The self-observant I arose,

It arose by virtue of decision making.

So as many as sage has pointed out,

However dire the circumstances we find ourselves in,

We can always choose our response.

The power of choice is our nobility,

Our refuse.

Positive disintegration.

In humans,

Our internal codes and organizing principles are basic to our sense of self.

The realization that they are no longer valid can be very disorienting,

Making us frighteningly unsure of who we are.

As Kazimierz Dabrowski calls it,

Positive disintegration,

Because it allows more adaptive understandings of self and world to arise.

Everywhere anomalies appear that don't fit our expectations,

Because in systems terms,

They don't match previous codes and beliefs.

Bereft of comfort,

Confidence and old coping strategies,

We may feel that our world is falling apart.

Sometimes we panic or shut down,

Sometimes we get mean and turn on each other.

It helps to recall that the life living through us has repeatedly died to old forms and old ways.

We know this in the cyclical growth,

Flowering and decomposition of plants through the seasons.

Brave enough to let go of custom assurances and allow old mental comforts and conformities to fall away.

We stand naked to the unknown.

Out of the darkness,

The new is grown.

We are the world.

Individual choice making is too slow and too easily corrupted to respond adequately to the survival challenge we face.

But bodhicitta is manifesting collectively in defense of life on earth.

This holonic shift does not sacrifice,

But indeed requires the uniqueness of each individual and his or her perspective.

It includes all the hopes and changes that constitute the great turning.

Acting together,

We discover greater precision than we may have expected.

Given the dynamics of self organizing systems,

This is hardly surprising.

Part 4 The nature of our power.

Power over.

The old concept of power,

In which most of us have been socialized,

Originated in the world view that assumed reality to be composed of discrete and separate entities,

Rocks,

Plants,

Atoms,

People.

Power came to be seen as property of these separate entities.

And this property enables them to push each other around.

Power became identified with domination,

Equated with the exertion of one's will over others,

Limiting their choices.

Power with or synergy.

To the social system,

Power over is dysfunctional because it inhibits diversity and feedback.

By obstructing self organizing processes,

It fosters entropy or systemic disintegration.

Power with or synergy is not a property one can own,

But a process one engages in.

Power over blocks feedback.

Democracy requires the free circulation of information for public decision making.

In the present hypertrophy stage of the industrial growth society,

However,

Even government that calls themselves democracies suppress information and welcome corporate interests.

Any system that consistently suppresses feedback,

Closing its perceptions to the results of its behavior is committing suicide.

The power of disclosure.

It is our responsibility to give feedback to our body politic and to unblock feedback that has been suppressed.

This is essential to the great turning from the industrial growth society to a life sustaining society.

Our connectivity with others in the web of life does not mean that we should tolerate destructive behavior.

On the contrary,

It means we should step in when our collective health and survival are at stake.

Synergy and grace.

The resources we need are present within the web of life that interconnects us.

That is the nature of synergy,

The first property of living systems.

As parts self organize into a larger whole,

Capacities emerge that could never have been predicted and that the individual parts did not possess.

The weaving of new connections brings new responses and new possibilities into play.

In the process,

We can feel sustained and are sustained by currents of power arising from our solidarity.

This phenomenon is similar to the religious concept of grace,

But does not require belief in God.

Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.

That was Gaia speaking.

Thank you for listening.

I look forward to reading more from the book,

Coming Back to Life in our next episode,

When we will tackle the spiral,

Which is at the core of the Work That Reconnects work.

Looking forward to that.

Bye.

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