Deep Cultural Transformation: Education

In the last few blogs I talked a little bit about the need for sacred activism in a 2012 context and how that practice might lend itself to many areas of life including education, health care, technology, and environmental development. In terms of education, the chaos currently pervading our institutions all the way from K-12 to the university level is well known and documented.

No amount of top down “programs”and testing approaches are going to provide some sort of quick fix for this. As in health care and other areas, a deep cultural transformation is needed. A precursor to this is a forthright admission of failure and recognition that the way we are doing things now is unbalanced and not a path that resonates with the spirit of New Earth. And after this, there is process of discovery that needs to take place to identify more specifically what needs to change.

In this context, I ran across an excellent article called Seven Sins of Our System of Forced Education written by Peter Gray, a Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College, published in his blog on the Psychology Today web site. It’s a great list of things that have not worked in our educational system. Here are the main points:

1. Denial of liberty on the basis of age.
2. Fostering of shame, on the one hand, and hubris, on the other.
3. Interference with the development of cooperation and nurturance.
4. Interference with the development of personal responsibility and self-direction.
5. Linking of learning with fear, loathing, and drudgery.
6. Inhibition of critical thinking.
7. Reduction in diversity of skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking.

Deep Cultural Transformation: Getting There from Here

Our educational institutions seem to be putting less emphasis these days on right brain activity. Art and music are getting sidelined and math and science elevated. But as we head into the new paradigm, creativity and imagination will become increasingly important. If there is a "New Earth" to be built, as Eckhart Tolle describes it, positive intent will be extremely important. But so will digging in and doing the work. Every area of life will beckon us towards a new way of thinking and being. As eco-poet Gary Snyder puts it: "Find your place on the planet, dig in and, take responsibility from there."

This is where sacred activism as described by teachers such as Andrew Harvey come into play. It could involve helping those caught in the dire exigencies of transition and economic dislocation. It could involve discernment, interpretation, teaching or truthtelling. It could also center on helping to create the new social and cultural modalities needed to support the New Earth paradigm. There are many other areas needing our collective and individual attention. Everyone has a role to play and something to contribute.

Cultural Transformation: Health Care

I’m old enough to remember when going to see a doctor was a simple person to person transaction. After a visit you would get a bill in the mail and pay it. Health care is a deeply personal issue and when I look at the heath care mess today it seems that we’ve moved from the notion of a simple person to person human transaction to a complex, technocratically constituted system. What’s wrong with this picture? An array of “middle men” now have assumed as much importance in this scheme (or in some cases more) than that of healer and patient.

Intervening between you and your doctor is a whole infobureaucracy of insurers, pharmaceutical industry minions, paper-pushers, and second guessers. In my book Digital Mythologies, I wrote about this larger social and cultural phenomenon a bit in an essay that described the rise of technologically-fostered mediated relationships. Author James O’Dea who spoke at our conference last year describes this state of affairs as “the mechanization of culture”. Its mind-bending complexity is not only rendering the very process of getting care dysfunctional, it makes the ability to establish holistic and healing relationships difficult. As the Shift dissolves energies that support it, there will be great opportunities for alternative and holistic practitioners to step in and help restore balance of human dignity and direct, caring relationships in health care settings. Cutting edge technology will still be an important capability but will need to assume a much less obtrusive role in the healing process.

Understanding the Earth Changes

Here’s a posting from Annette about that appeared in our recent newsletter:

“I remember my mother exclaiming that she could feel the weather in her bones whenever a storm was coming our way. She would shiver and sigh and sure enough like a living barometer and without listening to any weather forecast, the rains would start shortly after. I reflect on this as the earth changes seem to be escalating and notice how I seem to have become a walking breathing monitor and barometer for each impending earth change, storm or affliction upon the earth, sensing each shift, turn, bump and sway as if I have taken on the consciousness and the body of the earth during her transition. This experience brings to mind the spiritual truth "As above so below." Indigenous elder and 2012 interpreter Barbara Hand Clow suggests that this is a time to deepen our soul connections: "These great earth changes are awakening our connections to divine levels because our highest levels of emotions are spiritual; we need to be in touch with our souls during these challenging times." As we accelerate towards the 2012 window, earth energetic activity seems to have gone into overdrive ranging from devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile to landslides and cyclones in Europe, to odd weather patterns here in the US. It seems that not a day goes by when we don't hear about some violent earth happening. Are we awakening to our intuitive connection just as the earth is making this huge
change into the new earth energy?

No one is immune to what is going on. Everyone is feeling this shift on some level. But what is all this activity pointing to and what can we do individually and collectively to lessen the suffering and effects that these changes bring about? Haiti is a powerful example of ways in which to respond proactively with compassion and concrete help. But what is our energetic response? Are we acting as transducers and transformers for these changes and can we use our collective intent of love and peace to help the earth manage these pangs as she births a new earth? The challenge is to hold the space of intent for the highest possible outcome in our hearts and minds as the earth changes and the Shift continues. - Annette Farrington

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