Greetings;
In mid-July, I returned to the city of Merida, in the Yucatan area of Mexico, for the purpose of finishing my latest book.
It didn’t get finished.
Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out about that. But, as things turn out, I received instead some pretty powerful lessons about how I (and “we”) are living life.
Unlike my last stay in Merida, I decided to take a chance on “AirBnB” instead of staying in hotels. I got a great find: a great place, and a great couple (Tamara and Daniel) as my hosts!
Along with the house came a “room-mate” – in the form of a 3-foot long iguana that moved in the same day I did. While Tamara offered “removal”, I believe that things like this happen for a reason… removal means I’m tossing away the lesson. (I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been so “enlightened” had it been a rat instead of an iguana!)
This lesson was pretty unique. Lizards, as cold-blooded animals, prefer warm environments. My “Lizzie”, however, liked perching directly under my air conditioner, in my bedroom, all night long! (She was so big, she could use the doggie doors to move from one part of the house to another!)
To help with the lesson, Tamara did some research into the esoteric meaning of iguanas as an animal spirit.
Armed with this information, I went into my Dream Space, and came back with a powerful revelation…
You may remember that, when I was in the Himalayas, the Oracle of Saboo predicted success for my work, but that I needed “an assistant”. (This is how it came to me through translation.) What the Oracle really meant was that I need “COMMUNITY”.
I’ve always thought/believed/hoped that a “community” would jell around the principles and activities of Commonway – a community of people dedicated to the notion of “A World for All Beings” and understanding that systemic change needs more than “personal growth and development”.
It hasn’t happened.
I’ve done lots of activities and programs designed to trigger community. The kind of community where people can rely on each other, MORE than they rely on isolating institutions like “money”. People participate, but nothing jells into the kind of deep community that will get us through the coming troubled times.
Not yet…
The new book I am working on has a working title: “The Chronicles of the Upheavals”. This is my first entry into “speculative modeling” (what others may call “science fiction”). The book is set 100 years in the future. It starts with an assumption: that humanity “makes it” through the current and coming Upheavals, and forms a new civilization — a civilization based on inclusivity and “a world for all”. A society based on ecstasy. The book is about how that happened (happens).
“Chronicles” is a book that is NOT mired in dystopian systems. We all can see very well how societies do not work now, and won’t work in the future. (Hollywood makes a fortune on dystopia.) The real challenge is envisioning how we can live together, based on vision and values.
My friend and colleague Miki Kashtan recently posed a question to me: does my book “require” a dystopian collapse of society in order to usher in a new civilization?
My short answer: NO. Collapse is not necessary. What IS necessary is to stop our Breaker systems and structures. Not protesting them, not resisting them, not ignoring them… To halt our participation in systems and structures that are destroying our relationship with the Earth and our relationships with one another.
Many people won’t stop pushing the gas pedal until the car goes completely over the cliff. When Al Gore was asked whether people will end their addiction to fossil fuels, his response was haunting. He said, “Junkies look for veins between their toes to shoot heroin, when the veins in their arms and legs collapse.” (Think about that imagery the next time someone talks about “fracking”.)
Will we stop voluntarily? Or, will we wait for our global, interlocking meta-crises to “halt” us?
No matter what your answer is to that question, as a Mender, there is a role for you to play in our common future.
Peace,
Shariff
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