Keynote Address for the HumaNova Nordic Psychosynthesis Forum, Stockholm, Sept. 2009.
Hello, brothers and sisters in the global psychosynthesis community. I am honored to share some thoughts with you to open the Nordic Psychosynthesis Forum. We come together this weekend to explore how psychosynthesis can help us face the enormous challenges of our time, both psychologically and spiritually.
Centering exercise
Let’s begin with a centering exercise, to bring ourselves fully here. Please find a comfortable position, close your eyes if you want, and pay attention to your breathing for a few moments. (pause) Notice how your body feels. Notice any areas of tension or pain, and send your breath to that area. (pause) Notice any feelings that you have brought with you from your day, or that are arising now. (pause) If you can, just watch your thoughts flow by for a few moments. (pause)
Now in your imagination, go to a place in nature where you feel especially good, to a place in nature that you consider sacred or especially meaningful to you. (pause) Experience this place with all your senses, as fully as you can. Let’s all be silent in our sacred places for a minute or two. (long pause) Now imagine that you can breathe in the qualities and energies of this sacred place, and then breathe them out into this room. Do this for at least 3 breaths. (pause) Now once again, let us sit together in the silence, now filled with the combined energies and qualities of our sacred natural places. (long pause)
Thank you. Let’s let this soulful energy hold us as I talk now about the challenges we face today together.
Climate Change and Catastrophes
With the chaotic effects of global climate change impacting life around the Earth, it’s clear that radical change is upon us, along with the suffering that such change can bring. We may have to endure years and years of intermingled catastrophes, one after another, as our oil-dependent economies unravel and collapse, natural disasters and epidemics sweep through the lands, military solutions are attempted, and civil society struggles to survive. David Korten calls this collapse of our unsustainable system, “the Great Unraveling.” Many people are already reacting with fear and denial, as people all too often do, making matters worse.
I live in the United States, one of the worst offenders in carbon emissions, a key cause of global climate change. I’m not proud of that fact. By contrast, Sweden topped the 2007 list of countries that did the most to save the planet – for the second year running – according to German environmental group, Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44%. So congratulations to Sweden. (clap) And guess what: according to climate change experts, even if every nation followed Sweden’s example, that would only slow the pace of global climate change. Things seem to have gone too far to stop altogether.
But I am not here to talk about the technicalities and threats of climate change. I want to address the underlying causes of this crisis, which has to do with our consciousness, our most essential sense of identity as humans, and our understanding of our relationship with Earth and its myriad life forms. And I want to share a vision with you, a vision of a Great Turning that is occurring right now all around the world, a Great Turning from the Industrial Growth Society–based on profit, greed, and competition–to a Life Sustaining Society–based on gratitude, love, and cooperation.
In our individual lives, it often takes a crisis to catalyze change. You probably all know people whose lives have been transformed by a life-threatening illness. So it is with groups of people, nations, and even humanity as a whole. At this pivotal time in human history, we walk into the unknown together, as into an initiation, a collective encounter with the human soul. We in the industrialized world have reached the end of our collective adolescence; it is time now to grow up, to move fully into true adulthood, with a broader, more encompassing sense of responsibility to the Earth, all its peoples, and all its life forms.
Global climate change can be a rite of passage for humanity. We can do more than endure the dark times ahead; we can actively embrace them and use them for transformation. That’s what the Great Turning is all about.
Before I go any further in describing the Great Turning, and how psychosynthesis can contribute to it, I want to invite your participation in this exploration.
Gratitude sharing
Please take a moment to think of one thing you love about life on Earth at this time. Just pick the first thing that comes to mind. Now turn to your neighbors in the audience, making little groups of 3 or 4—people sitting next to you or in the next row. Each of you share something that you love—as briefly as possible.
Now let’s hear from a few people in the audience, some little tastes of things we love. Stand if you can, and take turns speaking it out so we all can hear.
Thank you. Now let’s be in silence for a few moments, and just feel this energy of love and gratitude alive in our hearts.
Troubles sharing
Now please turn to one other person nearby, preferably someone you don’t know well. One of you tap the other on the arm…Whoever tapped first is Person A. The other is Person B. Person A is going to take about 3 minutes to share what troubles you about the world at this time. Person B listens with an open heart, but without saying anything in response. Just listen. I will tell you when your time is up. (3 minutes)
Now please switch roles. Person B speaks and Person A listens silently. What troubles you most about the world today? (3 minutes)
Thank you. Now I invite us all to make a sound that expresses the anguish we feel right now. Just a big sound, whatever comes.
Thank you. We feel this anguish because we love this world, we love this life. We love because we are all deeply interconnected within the web of life. Love and anguish are two sides of the same coin, and they are the keys to the Great Turning.
The Great Turning
Joanna Macy is an eco-philosopher and activist—and my beloved mentor, with whom I co-authored Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. She identifies three mutually reinforcing dimensions of the Great Turning.
The first dimension includes practical work-in-the-world, actions to slow the damage to Earth and its beings, to buy time; e.g. protests, boycotts, education, and legal action; cleaning up rivers and lakes; creating laws to limit damaging practices; recycling and changing personal habits. I have brought these bandages to symbolize the first dimension.
The second dimension includes both the analysis of the structural and institutional causes of the problems, and the creation of alternatives. We examine the tacit agreements that create obscene wealth for a few, while progressively impoverishing the rest of humanity? What interlocking causes enslave us to a greedy economy that uses our larger body, Earth, as supply house and sewer? What new institutions can we create to live more harmoniously with one another and the Earth? Ecovillages, cohousing, community gardens come to mind. I have brought this growing plant to symbolize this dimension of the Great Turning.
The third dimension is more inward work that we can do alone and together. It includes psychological and spiritual study, processes, and practices that can bring about a shift in our world-view and values, and connect us with a Source of strength, love, and courage for the challenges before us. In this third dimension, we work to change our essential world view, from “anthropocentrism” to “ecocentrism,” from seeing humans as the center of the world, to seeing ourselves as interconnected participants in the web of life, no more or less important than any other parts. Yes, we may have a special role to play, but so do the decomposing bacteria that turn waste into nutrients. Think of where we would be without them!
To symbolize the third dimension, I have brought these two hearts carved from a quartz crystal, because none of us can do this alone.
Many people today are engaged in at least one, if not all, of these three dimensions. All three are necessary for the creation of a sustainable civilization, and each supports and feeds the other two. For example, people who are engaged in defending a particular watershed against destructive development may have to study the history of corporations in the United States to understand why they have so much power (analysis of structural causes). They may need to deepen their sense of interconnection within the web of life, and strengthen their commitment to non-violence (psychological and spiritual work).
Since the turn of the century, and for a decade before, we have seen this Great Turning happening within and around us. We have seen a worldwide awakening of concern for the planetary environment. Many young people especially have taken up the cause of defending the environment from destruction. Yet the crisis seems only to intensify, and we face the real possibility that our civilization will not survive. Although the outcome of the Great Turning remains uncertain, it will surely fail if we ignore or deny the problems—or just give up.
Each of us may already be contributing to this Great Turning in large and small ways, perhaps some we don’t even recognize. Yet we may also find ourselves held back by fears, a sense of inadequacy, or confusion about how to proceed. We may feel over-whelmed by the challenges of our personal lives, with no time or energy available for action in the larger community.
No matter how busy, most of us still want to make a difference, to make the world a better place for ourselves, for each other, and for the children. We know we must learn and grow as individuals at the same time that we try to change things around us. We want to become more effective and more healing in our actions. We want to feel connected with the natural world and with each other. We sense the need for new depths of spiritual courage to face the challenges ahead. We seek wisdom and wholeness.
This is all part of third dimension of the Great Turning, the inner psychological and spiritual work that will help us make a fundamental shift to a new relationship to our planetary life support system and with the whole human family. And I believe this is where psychosynthesis can make its greatest contribution.
Contributions to the Great Turning
I would like to pause here again for another exercise, if you are willing. I would like to ask you to turn again to one or two neighbors—maybe the same people you talked with before. This time, each of your shares with your little group one thing you are already doing for the Great Turning. I know everyone here is doing something, for one or more of the three dimensions. It may seem small and insignificant, but it isn’t. Everything anyone does helps move things along. So tell your neighbors how you are contributing already. (5-6 minutes)
Thank you. Could we hear a few examples of what people are doing? Maybe you would like to tell us what you learned others are doing. (Input from audience)
Paul Hawkin has written a book called Blessed Unrest about the more than 2 million grassroots organizations and projects underway today all over the world—dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. His subtitle is: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He provides us with proof positive that the Great Turning is real. It is happening right now, and you are each playing a part.
The Role of Psychosynthesis
I see psychosynthesis contributing to the Great Turning, especially in the third dimension, in three main ways.
1. Psychosynthesis can help individuals heal the wounds from their past, wounds that create fear, greed, and confusion—what the Buddhists call the three causes of suffering. Psychosynthesis applied to counseling, psychotherapy, family therapy, addictions, and so forth does this effectively—probably it’s why most of you are here.
2. Psychosynthesis can help strengthen and center people who are working on the front lines, as it were, in the first and second dimensions of the Great Turning. I would like to find ways of making the powerful principles and tools available to more of these people, perhaps through non-profits and foundation funding.
3. I see psychosynthesis contributing to the shift in consciousness we all need, away from self-centeredness and egotism, to experiencing and acting from our essential oneness in the web of life. I believe the tools of disidentification and Self-identification can help with that shift, as we expand our sense of who we are from little monads, little embattled egos to interconnected participants in the grand adventure of Life.
Joanna Macy calls this the “holonic shift.” It’s as if we are starting to think, feel, and act as one larger organism, using our collective wisdom, not simply adding up yours and mine. We still act as individuals, but we sense the promptings of a larger Intelligence guiding us. We expand our identification from separate egos (subpersonalities of humanity?)\ and begin to identify as part of Ecological Self. Perhaps this is another name for Higher Self or Transpersonal Self. And we celebrate the diverse roles that everyone plays, including our own.
As we listen and learn from one another this weekend, no matter what workshops we each attend, let’s try to see everything we learn as potentially contributing to the Great Turning. How can this help us to heal old wounds that may be holding us enslaved to addictions, fear, or powerlessness? How can this help to strengthen and center us, preparing us for the challenges ahead? How can this help to expand our identification to the most inclusive, compassionate sense of Self?
We face huge and complex challenges in the coming decades, possibly greater than any other challenges humanity as a whole has ever faced. Here we have no experts, because no one alive today has ever dealt with this enormity of change. We truly walk together into the unknown. So we must call upon our deepest spiritual resources, and the wisdom of wild nature, to guide us, moment to moment, on the journey ahead.
The Spirits of the 3 Times
I would like to end by calling in the spirits of the three times: Past, Present, and Future, to help us hold our activities in these contexts. I would like to follow this invocation by holding the silence together again.
Be with us now all you who have gone before, you our ancestors and teachers. You who walked and loved and faithfully tended this Earth, be present to us now that we may carry on the legacy you bequeathed us. Aloud and silently in our hearts we say your names and see your faces…
Then let's call on the beings of the present: All you with whom we live and work on this endangered planet, all you with whom we share this brink of time, be with us now. Fellow humans and brothers and sisters of other species, help us open to our collective will and wisdom. Aloud and silently we say your names and picture your faces. Again, pause to allow people to murmur names.
Lastly, let's invoke the beings of the future: All you who will come after us on this Earth, be with us now. All you who are waiting to be born in the ages to come, it is for your sakes, too, that we work to heal our world. We cannot picture your faces or say your names – you have none yet – but we would feel the reality of your claim on life. It helps us to be faithful in the work that must be done, so that there will be for you, as there was for our ancestors, blue sky, fruitful land, clear waters.