All Change Now

Change: Noun: an act or process through which something becomes different.

Sea Change : a complete change in someone’s attitudes and behaviour.  Sea change denotes a substantial change in perspective, especially one that affects a group or society at large.

Change: Verb: make (someone or something) different. Alter or modify.                              : replace something with something else, especially something of the same kind that is newer or better. Synonym: alter, vary, modify.

Yes – it’s a sea-change we need alright.. 

None of the verb meanings for Change express anywhere near the root and branch transformation that is needed in order to respond to this crisis of out-of-control human centric capitalism that we now find ourselves stuck in. 

We surely need a more powerful objective than to ‘modify or alter’ capitalism. Now I understand why, at election time in capitalist countries, the politicians promise ‘change.’ What they promise is to modify or vary the status quo. Clearly that isn’t going to do it.

My naive understanding of those promises was that they would put an end to the drive for economic profit. But economic profit defines our system of governance and so it seems that our politicians are compelled to stick with capitalism.

But individuals like you and I are not compelled to keep striving for profit. We are free to make that sea-change in ourselves whenever we choose.

Here’s what Krishnamurti (K) says regarding change:

K: ‘One projects what one should be. The projection of that is from one’s own desire, from one’s own belief, one’s own demands, and you project that. And when you want to become that, you are becoming what you are, perhaps slightly modified. Is that clear?’ 

‘So, when we have an objective or an end in view, projected by our own experience, from our own knowledge, from our own belief and conclusions and opinions, such movement is not change at all. So we are asking: transformation implies, does it not, uprooting that which has been. Not modifying that which has been.’

Our previous chapter ‘Let’s Look at Capitalism’ makes clear why this consumerist, competitive, selfish way of living cannot continue for much longer without imploding.

Implode : collapse or cause to collapse violently inwards.        

Irish writer, broadcaster and journalist Manchan Magan explains in an interview with the Irish Times that his agenda is ‘to connect people to the potency of the land, because I believe that people who are alienated from the lands cannot survive. The only way humans have managed to survive is by being in tune with and connected to their surroundings. If we break that bond, we won’t survive very long.’ 

You and I both know that the bond Manchan refers to has already been broken. That we’ve been shaped, mind and body, by human-centric capitalism – a system of governance where the essence of nature doesn’t even feature.

So if I am to bring about a sea-change in myself, then it’s outside of the field of that societal shaping I must look. That makes sense doesn’t it?

The only knowledge we have is the knowledge that has brought us to here – to where we are now. And where we are now is a mess. Please recognise this truth. We’re not making a criticism about knowledge itself. We’re saying that what knowledge we have learned from within our cultural and education system – all of it – has not prevented us from destroying this Earth. That is a simple, easy to recognise truth.

So where to begin? – Obviously not by the use of our accumulated knowledge. Please see the practical common sense of this.

So because I have no knowledge that will tell me what to do – because I don’t know what direction to go in – I will stand still.  Get it?

I will simply watch the movement of leaves. I will listen to the wind under a dark sky. I will stand before the ocean,  with my feet in the sand and feel the salt spray on my face.

Turning our listening heart towards nature, may well be the needle and thread that will repair our bond with nature and restore us to human-kind.

‘Nature has a way to respond to these times, if we will but listen.’ This from the Mother Earth Delegation of United Original Nations.

The responsibility is on my shoulders, obviously, because I am here now. And you are also here. And together we are looking for a way out, knowing that neither of us has a clue how to go about fixing the mess we’re in here.

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Try saying out loud: ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a clue what to do about the mess the world is in.’

What happened? – Was there a slight feeling of vulnerability? Or did you relax a little? Did the pressure of needing to know everything all the time ease off your shoulders a bit? Try it again. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Notice what happens.

Remind yourself by saying this statement out loud everytime you forget that you don’t actually know what to do. Every time you’re about to start telling someone else what ‘they’ need to do – why not just remind yourself that you simply don’t know what to do.

In this way you can drop the whole burden off your shoulders. You don’t need to know how to fix the whole world. You only need to wake yourself up and live consciously, according to your own values. 

No longer the leader – the finder of solutions and conclusions – but just one small human being standing on the Earth, listening to the world. No longer searching and striving – but just being here with no sense of knowing anything. Is that a new feeling? Could that be what change feels like?

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In that state of not striving – having no motivation or direction – I went to visit my collaborator – Her Ladyship (HL). Of the two of us, she’s the one, remember, that has not been shaped by human-centric capitalism. 

She shows me, in that subtle tree-like way she has, that big old trees like herself have been consistent in their experiences, throughout the seasons and down through the years. She allows the seasons to regulate her actions, and responds accordingly. There’s no struggle – she is receptive, in tune with, the Earth’s timeless laws.

There’s no trace about HL that she creates an idea of being important. Nor does it seem that she’s striving to be better than what she is now. She doesn’t engage in comparison with other entities, or have anxiety about not fitting in. She doesn’t seem to judge herself or even consider herself. She doesn’t long for anything she doesn’t already have.

She lives in the same world as me, yet, of the two of us, she appears to be the one who is unaffected by grief at the tragic state of this world.

Not long before we bought the land, in the farmer’s desire for more grass and more grants – a digger had been in scraping away HL’s entire woodland community, Trees have been cut down all around her over the hundred or so years she’s been here, and some have fallen through old age and storms. Now young trees are springing up around her out there at the edge of the lakeshore. 

And there she stands, through all of the changes, rooted to the Earth below and stretching up to the sky above. She is absolutely in the now-moment – full of vitality. At one with her place. At home. 

One huge branch fell over a decade ago. The white inner wood jutts out, exposed to the elements, but still connected. This massive limb rests on the ground, thick  with leaves and life, laced over by a vigourous web of brambles and nettles and wild roses that together support an abundance of life. 

HL just stands there being blown by the wind – holding up the sky – in direct reciprocity with her community – all the other plants and animals, water, air, sunlight and stars. 

Her life seems to work for her. She shows no sign of discontent or anxiety. She’s blunt and always straight to the point. Meeting up with her never fails to cause joy in my heart and in the hearts of others who visit her. She has that atmosphere around her of always knowing exactly where she’s at. .

Reciprocity : a state of mutual exchange and benefit.

Reciprocity Concerning Nature: giving back to the environment as much as we take from it. This can take many forms, from reducing our carbon footprint to supporting conservation efforts and reconnecting with the natural world. (This definition from Tree Sisters)

You and I were not raised in a ‘sharing culture,’ as in the case of HL or in the case of Indigenous cultures. Nature itself is an intricate web of reciprocal, sharing relationships – that’s what underlies and perpetuates the precise and finely tuned balance of the whole system of life on this Earth. Up until now. Up until this time of the anthropocene. Please look at this fact squarely in the face.

In stepping out of Nature’s law of reciprocity and into the makey-uppy laws of man, the human family from countries developed by capitalism has been shaped to be the opposite: self-centred in our priorities, competitive in our relationships and unilateral in our decisions. Isolation, insecurity, fear and loneliness are the outcome.

And on the global scale, our stepping away from Nature’s laws has netted us division, exploitation, wars and the destruction of the exquisite balance of this astonighingly complex and miraculous Earth.

Unilateral : a way that involves doing or deciding something without first asking or agreeing with another person, group (or the Earth.)

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K: ‘Go slowly, sir, think it out carefully. If one has an idea, a concept, a conclusion, an end to which you conform, to which you change to, or from this to that, is that change? Or is it a continuation of the same thing, but modified. They have modified – they build better roads, better cars, better aeroplanes, better ways to kill, and so on, – but psychologically, inwardly man has not changed.’

‘Is this all a means of avoiding actually what I am? Which is my extraordinary sense of idiocy. (Idiocy: extremely stupid behaviour) My vanity. So if you can drop those things actually… then what? Then I have discovered a state in which there is no direction at all. There is only dropping away of everything that I have held. You understand what I am talking about? Can you do this?’

‘Can you do this’- Krishnamurti is asking you. And what is your answer?

And this, dear Krishnaji, if I may – is where I think nature steps in. 

To be with nature, not practicing mindfulness or taking photographs etc., but to just be there, listening, watching, beside the sea on your special beach; to stand before your favourite tree or mountain; to look up at the moon and stars, your feet balancing on this whole moving Earth. In this way Nature offers a different model –  a taste of living normally. Not carting around the burden of accumulated knowledge everywhere we go. Not feeling as though you must know it all. But knowing nothing. A way to let the mind fall silent and for the heart to be heard. A glimpse of a way of meeting life that is entirely possible and natural.  

Without that profound quality of stillness and silence that Nature holds, even in a storm, would a change of paradigm be even possible? 

                                         

Excerpt from “What Are You Doing With Your Life” by J. Krishnamurti  (One of the greatest thinkers of the age. – The Dalai Lama)

“Don’t you want to find out if it is possible to live in this world richly, fully, happily, creatively, without the destructive drive of ambition and competition?

Don’t you want to know how to live so that your life will not destroy another or cast a shadow across their path?

We think this is a utopian dream which can never be brought about in fact, but I am not talking about utopia; that would be nonsense.  Can you and I, who are ordinary people, live creatively in this world without the drive of ambition which shows itself in various ways as the desire for power and position?”

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Photo: A bee and a poppy – living in  reciprocity since the dawn of time.

Photo by Jan Alexander. Teelan, County Donegal