Just a couple months into 2016… What an exciting year already!
I started off the new year with a journey to Guatemala, where the group I led participated in sacred ceremonies with Mayan teachers and shamans in the highlands outside Antigua, the lowlands around Lake Peten Itza, amazing Tikal, and several other ancient sites. Then I traveled on to Costa Rica, where I taught at the Omega Institute’s Blue Spirit program about changing consciousness and how to combine the shamanic vision of the world with transforming a Death Economy into a Life Economy. I’ve been leading workshops there for seven years, but it’s always different and exciting. From there, I journeyed for the third year to Sivananda Ashram in the Bahamas, where I spoke to 300-plus people and conducted workshops about the Consciousness Revolution. Talk about variety!
Last month, my speaking focus shifted to my new book, The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. At the International Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in February, I was honored to deliver a keynote address to about 1,000 people. Some of the other speakers included Gail Sheehy, Joyce Carol Oates, and NPR’s Scott Simon.
My focus once again was on converting a failed global economic system, a Death Economy, into one that future generations will want to inherit, a Life Economy—and on the important role writers play in making this happen. I have to say that I was thrilled by the positive reaction of the audience and by the words of the conference organizer, Susan Page. “The work you are doing is so extraordinarily important,” she said. “Your visit was a high-water mark for the environmental movement here. We are motivated!”
I come away from all of these amazing experiences and now continue my book promotion speaking tour. I hope I can meet you somewhere along the tour and hear your ideas on changing our world for the better! I feel inspired and confident by the knowledge that we have fully entered this Consciousness Revolution, and people are awakening very quickly to the idea that we must change.
My job, like that of many of you, is helping people feel motivated to take action. One of the things I point out in my talks is that we humans are the only beings, as far as we know, whose lives are controlled by two realities. There is the objective reality – e.g. the computer I’m using. And there is the imagined reality that dictates the organization and behavior of human societies – e.g. the concepts I discuss on this computer.
Cultures, country borders, legal systems, religions, and economic concepts are a few of the many imagined realities. Because we accept them and codify them into law, they have a huge impact on objective realities. Revolutionaries have always understood the need to replace one imagined reality (the British army in 1775 was invincible) by a more appealing reality (American frontiersmen could defeat the British army by hiding behind trees and firing at the ridged line of red-coated targets). What is important today is to recognize that we can and must replace the imagined reality of a Death Economy with a new, more appealing imagined reality of a Life Economy.
When I led a small group to meet with the Dalai Lama at his home in India a few years back, he told us that it is good to pray for peace. “But,” he added, “if that is all you do, it’s a waste of time. It may even be a distraction. You have to take appropriate daily action.” People everywhere I go are awakening, praying, meditating, and focusing on how to bring about a Life Economy that is just and balanced and inspires care of our fragile Earth. And now we all must act accordingly. Every single day. We can take simple actions like sending emails, or more complex ones like demonstrating against Monsanto, Chevron, or Wal-Mart. The important thing is to act!
It’s been exciting to start hearing feedback on my new book through reviews on Amazon, Publishers’ Weekly, Library Journal, blog posts, social media, and other publications and radio and TV shows. I welcome your feedback and your stories. Please share them. Let’s keep the momentum going by connecting and working together to help bring about an environmentally sustainable, regenerative, and socially just world.
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