When we think about the future, I hear people say all the time, ‘There’s nothing I can do about climate change. So I’m just getting on with my life.’ Our most difficult problem as a culture and a world is that we have no vision of what we could do and how we could live differently from the way we do now. My vision is what keeps me going through thick and thin, staying in a positive creative state even though I’m well aware it may be too late.
Here is practice to give us a bit of space to envision what kind of different world we could create.
Go slow. Leave gaps where the dashes are to leave room for your imagination to explore.
Here is someone’s feedback on how she read it.
‘Envisioning a Healthy Future was the best thing I have read for ages.
First read I went too fast. This time I was led through and had the experience I needed.
Great stuff dido so positive.’
Interconnectedness
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When we practise compassion, how does this work – change the way I live? – how could it change the world? – how would the world be? – whatever I say, explore your experience – don’t think about it – percolate it through the depth – how could the world live, if we lived from compassion – if we saw the preciousness of all creatures – rather than thinking about how to dig up forests to get money – what would it be like?
One quality of compassion is, it’s connected – we feel it because we’re interconnected with all things – we’re not separate selves – who have to defend ourself – we’re interconnected – what’s the feel – get the feel of being interconnected rather than an isolated person.
What would the world be like if we were aware of those interconnections? – if we ruin the fish life in the oceans – what does it do for humans? – if we as a world saw the world in that way – how fish and bees – phytoplankton – all these things we’re wrecking – support our lives too – feel how the bees support my life – the plankton in the ocean produces the oxygen I breathe – the miracle of that.
The miracle that tiny creatures in the ocean are part of my life, that I depend on – how grateful do I feel to the phytoplankton – gratitude is a big key – what does it feel like when you feel grateful to the plankton and the bees – how does it change how your heart responds to them – do they seem even more precious – heartfelt precious – these tiny creatures support my life.
Have a feeling of our whole culture – Europe, America, New Zealand, Africa, Asia – all pulling together to support the plankton and the bees – don’t get into what laws we might have to change or how we might do it – just the feel – what would it be like for us to cooperate – so we could feel our governments cooperating too – we could support what they did – they’re supporting us – we’re all supporting the phytoplankton – what’s the spirit of that?
How exciting would it be to have the government producing a law that helps this – that we could all implement – instead of the anger and frustration that arises on both sides at the moment – anger is so divisive – imagine the excitement if we all could pull together.
Imagine – you don’t have to have images – what would it be like to live in a culture which saw happiness was not to do with money – people’s priorities were to support life – each others’ life – the life of nature – what would it feel like to live in a world like that – what does it do to you to imagine this – do you feel excited – hopeful – enspirited – or what – what’s the physical feeling – does it raise your energy – inspire you?
Have a feeling of the kind of community spirit that might arise – if we were all pulling together – you might feel terror of a future in which things will get tough because of climate change – that will happen – it’s too late for it not to happen – sometimes you hear that after an earthquake as in Christchurch – people pulled together – their community strengthened – because people saw that helping each other was good – made them happier.
Imagine that feeling – when you help people in crisis – it makes you happier – get a feel for that in your gut – or your heart – the other side is fears people will loot and steal from each other – kill each other for food – dire scenarios.
Imagine that community could come together and realise these other ways of living – of being happy – by being interconnected – when we help others we feel the interconnection – their happiness makes us happy – we’re so connected – not just at a physical level of the air we breathe – how we emotionally respond to each other – get the feel of what a wider community doing that might be like – where that was valued – not people saying, he’s got lots of money, that makes him better – more secure – or you should earn more.
When we’re more interconnected we see the deity in each other – even in the nasty politicians who are behaving so rottenly – they also are gods – mainly gods, not goddesses – if only we could reach that – what kind of god is inside the nasty politicians?
They think they’re gods, getting more and more money – doing terrible things without consulting the people – bringing out the tanks – that makes them feel like gods – what is the real god within them – the real deity – the same as the real deity within ourselves?
Get a feel for how precious this kind of imagining is – in our culture where hardly anybody has the vision of what could lie beyond economic growth – beyond the hierarchical nonsense we suffer from – that’s killing the planet – what is beyond that – how precious it is to try to get a feel for that – however vague and confused – this is the treasure we need.
It may seem idealistic – maybe you see gardens in everyone’s back yard – full of veggies – lovely vision may seem idealistic – find the deep driving force behind that that can lead us to health if we can envision that – and do it – the driving force of compassion that makes us want to preserve life – where do you feel that in your body in your spirit.
Enjoy it – feel the preciousness of that – the treasure you have there – the gift you can make – just by having that treasure and treasuring it – feel how that treasure enhances your own life – how it makes you feel to have that vision of creative possibilities for the world – how does it make you feel – now let it go.