I believe that we are part of a movement that is greater, and deeper,
and broader than we ourselves know, or can know.
It flies under the radar of the media, by and large.
It is non-violent. It is grassroots.
It has no cluster bars, no armies and no helicopters.
It has no central ideology.
A male vertebrate is not in charge.
The unnamed movement is the most diverse the world has ever seen.
The very word movement, I think, is too small to describe it.
No one started this worldview.
No one is in charge of it.
There is no orthodoxy.
It is global, classless, unquenchable and tireless.
The shared understanding is arising spontaneously from different
economic sectors, cultures, regions and cohorts.
It is growing and spreading, worldwide, with no exception.
It has many roots, but primarily the origins are: indigenous culture,
the environment, and social justice movements.
Those three sectors and their sub sectors are intertwining, morphing and enlargening.
This is no longer, or simply, about resources or factions or injustice.
This is fundamentally a civil rights movement, a human rights movement.
This is a democracy movement.
It is the coming world.
We do not know how big this movement is.
It may be 250,000 groups. It may be 500,000 groups.
It’s marked by kinship, and community, and symbiosis.
It is Pachamama. It’s Mama!
It’s the Earth, talking back, ‘Waken up!’
It’s so new, we can’t recognise it.
We’re familiar with armies, and wars, and governments,
and churches and religions.
But there’s no precedent for what we’re doing.
What you’re creating is completely unknown.
It’s everywhere.
There’s no centre.
There’s no one spokesperson.
It’s in every country and city on Earth.
It is within every tribe, every race, every culture, and every ethnic group in the world.
This is the first time on Earth, that a powerful, non-ideological movement has arisen.
And during the span of the 20th century, big ideologies were worshipped, like religions.
They dominated our beliefs.
They dominated us with socialism, capitalism, and communism.
In the words of Ed Hunt, “Ideologies stalked the Earth, clad in armour.
They fought for the control of our minds, and the lands, and it wasn’t pretty.”
We were told that salvation would be found in the domination of a single system.
This is where salvation will be found.
We know that as biologists.
We know that as community organisers.
We know that as ecologists.
It’s found in diversity.
This movement is humanity’s immune response to resist and heal political disease,
economic infection, and ecological corruption, caused by ideologies.
So it is up to us to decide.
How will we be? Who will we be?
This is what it is we’re building: the capacity to respond.
It is about possibilities and solutions.
Humankind knows what to do.
Paul Hawken, leading environmentalist, social change activist and author. Based on his book:
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World
Paul has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on Earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media.
Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries of hidden history. A culmination of Hawken’s many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire all who despair of the world’s fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself.
Jennifer. Vyhnak says
27 September 2018 at 19:45Here at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, I am a participant at the extraordinary conference, ‘Co creative Spirituality: Shaping our Future with the Unseen Worlds 2018. We are truly part of a new evolutionary paradigm, one that Has the potential to bring us all into right relationship with ourselves, one another, and our beloved Earth.
Mattie Porte says
28 September 2018 at 10:47Wonderful that you have been participating in our Co-creative Spirituality Conference Jennifer! There are many happy, connected, kindred spirits about the place this week.
Enjoy the last day of the Conference!
With bright blessings, Mattie
Michael Wolff says
28 September 2018 at 09:15Yes, there is a great awakening because deep down we all sense the danger of climate change and the threat of extinction. Yes, there is a worldwide movement, and yes, it is currently totally chaotic and disorganized. But the genius of humanity is organization. That is how we have survived in the past and how we are going to have to survive now. All these disparate elements now need to come together with a single purpose and commitment to do whatever it takes to change ourselves and our relationships with each other and with the rest of life on the planet in order to be able to reverse climate change and live harmoniously and sustainably. My view is that this requires a quantum shift in both individual and collective consciousness and an organizational structure along the lines of the Drawdown Project in order to facilitate it. See https://freedomwithin.org/programs/facilitator-program/.
Mattie Porte says
28 September 2018 at 10:44Well noted Michael. There are loads of examples in Paul Hawken’s book, ‘Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming’.
Also, I just received by snail mail today Charles Eisenstein’s new book, ‘Climate, A New Story’ – looking forward to digging into it as my weekend reading project.
Michael Wolff says
28 September 2018 at 11:29Thanks, Mattie. Charles Eisenstein is absolutely brilliant. If you haven’t already read it, I highly recommend his book: The Ascent of Humanity. This is essentially the story of our collective Separation Consciousness. This is where we are now, and this is what is creating climate change. As part of our collective shift, we now need to re-discover Unified Consciousness and also heal our individual and collective Core Wounds (which are created and held in Separation Consciousness). The Drawdown Project is totally brilliant because it shows one hundred practical ways in which we can reduce our carbon emissions. What neither Charles Eisenstein nor Paul Hawkens are offering at the moment is a practical process and organisational structure for facilitating the exponential transformation of consciousness which is a prerequisite for both carbon reduction and capture (and all the other things we need to do to change our lifestyles and relationships with each other and with the planet. Unless we all experience inner change now, the required outer changes are not going to happen (other than in a very small way).
Bob Atkinson says
28 September 2018 at 12:58Yes, so very well said. There is indeed a global movement unfolding; it’s about everything Paul said, and it’s about building a culture of oneness. There is another book about this movement, its origins, the sacred story it is telling, and its latest chapter ~ The Story of Our Time: From Duality to Interconnectedness to Oneness. https://amzn.to/2MunMkM. As Pete Seeger said in the late 60s, “You start to clean up a river, then you have to clean up society; it’s all tied together.”
Jo Field says
29 September 2018 at 09:41This speaks to such a large truth…we all know this…why is it so hard to get traction for change and power?
Linda Ohlson Graham says
10 October 2018 at 18:31Hello Paul … Thank You so much for what you have shared … .
For yeeears I have believed Peace on Earth and calmer weather patterns can easily happen … in a moment or two of Silence in -enough- of ‘the collective Mind’..
Please feel welcome to share: -c- lg: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4WKpAHlmhy1SlowMTRVMzYtdVdqQVhXV2lzNjNrZXlNZUN3/view?ts=59e915e6.
Linda Ohlson Graham -. CO Department of Peace Poet Laureate 🙂