Where do we go from here?

I'm so excited to both be a part of and witness where we go from here! I am enthralled by your vision and synthesis of philosophies. Thank you for your work, Jackie!

I would love to hear your thoughts and explorations around peace. What does peace even mean? What does it look like in action? What does it look like to cultivate peace? Create peace? BE peace? I would love to put some boots on the ground to a concept that I feel has been over-spiritualized and under-practiced.

I also had an epiphany that went something like "If you want your parents to be elders, start seeing them and treating them that way." I know from experience that people are forced to live inside my projections of them. What if my projection of my parents (and their generation) was that of elder? How would my behavior or attitude toward them change? And in turn, how would their behavior change? Would they show up in the world differently? I would love to hear your thoughts on creating elders as I see you more and more stepping into this role in your own community and way of being in the world. Love you.

Hi Joe!

Thanks for the comment.

On meaning and purpose, Forrest Landry writes, "There is no single purpose, or any single value for all of life, all of consciousness, all of beingness, in any world or domain. The purpose, value, and significance of each life, consciousness, and being, is always plural. No "eventity" or domain is ever without - or ever has just one - purpose, value or meaning."

He says later "The nature of purpose is from top to botton, largest to smallest, and from without to within. The nature of value is from bottom to top, smallest to largest, and from within to without."

Lastly he says "Meaning (in contrast with value and purpose), cannot be held either by self or other. Meaning is always (and only) in between both sel and other. Meaning is neither given nor taken, nwither shared nor not shared. Meaning is - and has being ; at all scales, from the smallest to the ultimate (the all). Purpose is individual. Evolution is universal... evolution is the purpose of life to become more alive. Life is its own purpose, value and meaning. All that is life, all that is alive, is valued and sacred. The purpose, meaning, and value of all life is to live, to live well and fully, on all levels of being and in all worlds."

As I've Mention, Mr. Landry is not a fan of paraphrasing and emphasizes that everything he writes to be taken into context with everything else he writes in the book, which is no easy feat. It's a highly philosophical and rational book. He is attempting to rationalize metaphysics and ethics.

So now I'm just riffing on the guy. He definitely has a North Star, and it's far more than what I'm quoting.

What I resonate with in those statements, is that our meaning cannot be derived from just our own thoughts or ideas. Our purpose in context to meaning can be derived from the self. He points a bunch of arrows from inside to outside and self to world, but ultimately that which is important to me, must also be important to us.

The challenge with finding meaning in a post-modern society is that it is so rare that we as a community share the same values. Oddly enough, religion and politics add meaning to our lives (albeit not always good). How often do you talk to friends and family about this, and how often are your personal views different from theirs?

I find it incredibly difficult to have purpose and not get paralyzed when I'm unsure if everyone around me cares about what I'm doing or finds it important. Even as the "senior land steward" I often wonder if my work actually has meaning, because those I work live and work with don't always reflect the cultural aspects of life I would expect to arise out of this work.

In other words, meaning binds culture together. It is the bricks that builds and sustains a culture. And we don't really have a culture.

Right now I'm asking the question why. Which I find to be a slow and laborious process that involves slowing society down, which society is not terribly interested in. They way results. The why question will require everyone to take a breath and sit with the discomfort of existing in a fractured culture. Don't be afraid to take a moment and be paralyzed, and look at the why.

We think our values belong to us, and that's part of the problem. We think our choices belong to us, and that's part of the problem. We think freedom equals individuality, and that's part of the problem. This country is embedded in a long line of puritanism and empire. We are its children.

To exist in meaning, we need culture. To exist in culture we need belief in something bigger than ourselves and shared among many. To find purpose, we must direct our purpose toward the greater meaning...

Happy to hear your thoughts.

Hey Jackie-

Thanks for posing this question. I've found the podcast to be an entertaining listen so far, and the ideas presented are compelling. Compelling enough, in fact, that I've been asking the same question to myself that you are asking in this thread..."Where do I go from here?"

The thing I'm realizing about internalizing a belief in the existence of Gaian Consciousness is that it hasn't exactly made decisions any easier. Quite the opposite actually. Maybe it's just the vestiges of my own Irish Catholic roots popping back in to say "Don't forget about the eternal damnation by fire if you're bad," but some days the weight and responsibility that comes with the awareness of how interconnected this tapestry is can feel morally and ethically paralyzing for me.

In the episode on Coherence and Co-Emergence, you briefly touched on this and made mention of Forrest Landry's "Effective Choice". I'm wondering if some of the ideas in this book when you share them will present some new ideas for what to look to as a north star in the absence of moral absolutes.

Peace and love my friend,

Joe