SUESpeaks

Searching for Unity in Everything

Conversation As If Our Lives Depended On It

The Conversation: An Introduction

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 How can we shift our greed-based worldview?

To lovers of truth,
forward thinkers, self-aware spirits, fighters for justice

This is a call to people who have a passion for the greater good to engage in a dialogue. We need a new vision — a shift of worldview to where we relate to one another cooperatively. What are your ideas for how that could come about? Talk to me here. And comment on what’s been submitted. Then, see Outside the Box Ideas for what’s been culled from this Conversation. Recently, it’s been Universal Basic Income to counter homelessness and the other ills of extreme poverty. Taking care of everyone would get us in a groove of mutuality. What else?

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts…they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric…

– Edna St. Vincent Millay

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. What a wonderful project you have created Suzanne! I will admit some confusion about priorities between work in/on the current political climate, and your broader scope towards a kinder, gentler consciousness. I’ll be very interested to see what people have to say about integrating the two.

    • There shouldn’t be any competition for time spent. What we’re looking for is what would capture all of humanity in a new idea. Like my fascination with crop circles, where the evidence is they came from something other than us. Now, there’s just us humans fighting with one another, but if we knew there was another intelligence humanity would be one entity in relation to “the other,” and, as someone in my movie, “What on Earth?,” says, “That could be what saves this civilization.”

  2. Hi Suzanne, I love your idea of generating conversation. I am deeply convinced that openhearted conversations are powerful pathways forward in this time. The word “conversation” can be understood in various ways, some trivial, some significant. I tend to think of the word in two related ways which I’ll throw down here just to see what you think of them. In generating a conversation we are hoping to engage the magical power of synergy to probe the most important ideas of the 21st century. I call that the local version. Second, in generating conversations we’re trying to provide a pathway into the leading edge of cosmic evolution or cosmic creativity, that zone of energies that at one time constructed a trillion galaxies and is now hard at work bringing forth a complex and vibrant Earth Community.

    • Oh Brian, you have such a gift for getting to the heart of the matter of who we are and what we’re doing here. I’ve been guided by your vision since I read “The Universe is a Green Dragon” almost 30 years ago, which is why you are my first Featured Hero: http://suespeaks.org/featured-heroes. Where would I be without you, kid?

      What you’ve written brings to mind Lex Hixon (http://www.mightycompanions.org/lexhixon), who went to hero heaven in 1994 as we were planning stadium events for Celebrations of the Human Spirit. He made us attentive to living in two worlds, the ultimate and the relative: http://mightycompanions.org/page6.html. Who knows but that had Lex stuck around we’d be in that big picture of yours, without interferences to running full throttle on the cosmic creativity we’re privileged to be able to contribute to.

      To our synergy in doing the Great Work!

      • Lex Hixon was at the front of the wave. Even though I did not know him well, he came to represent for me a new archetype in human consciousness, that of the trans-religious, trans-spiritual personality, a human being steeped in multiple wisdom traditions including various ancient lineages along with more secular recent visions such as socialism or contemporary science.

        This move toward a highly differentiated, profound unity proceeds at its own mysterious rate which is so much slower than most of us would wish for if we were in charge of the universe. That’s why I think it’s important to underline the real advances in this movement. Your mentioning of Lex brings an important one to mind which I’ll end with. In 1893, in Chicago, representatives from all the major religions were assembled in one place for the first time in Western Civilization. It was quite an accomplishment. One that involved ships converging on the North American continent across every one of Earth’s oceans and railroad trains covering the remaining journey to Chicago. That gathering started something but it was a one-off event. Then, exactly one hundred years later, in 1993, the idea came to duplicate the event. But here’s the amazing fact: in 1993, representatives from all the world religions could be found living right there in Chicago!

        Humanity diversified for its first 200,000 years. Maybe the next 200,000 years will focus on deepening our unity.

        • Beautifully put, Brian. The 1893 Parliament of World Religions actually introduced Eastern religions to the US, which was a massive expansion of awareness and consciousness for us. By 1993, Buddhism and other Eastern traditions were part of the landscape here, and, although we’d like to see everything wise and noble happen during this little life we get, on the march to an ever more enlightened reality I think it’s encouraging that massive change can happen in less than glacial time.

          Coming full circle, Lex had an important session at the 1993 anniversary event. Here’s the audio of his presentation, Open Space Beyond Religion, to unify us in what’s beyond the particulars of the different beliefs and practices. It was a theme he went on to act out with The Herringbone Project, where a living room full of people from different religious persuasions met monthly at my house. This was its mission statement: “There is nothing that matches well-developed clear minds getting together. These times cry out for extraordinary new understanding. We live inside a giant idea, which must be born anew periodically for civilization to progress. This is one of those times.”

  3. Beautiful, Suzanne!

    Ever since I’ve known you, you have always engaged people in relevant and purposeful conversations. I feel honored to have participated in your living room salons, so many many moons ago — and I’m so excited that you have invited us into this conversation now. Thank you for your timeless commitment and leadership.

    And I’m curious too. Since there are quite a few ideas on how to engage in meaningful conversations – some with lots of rules and some a bit too open – I’m excited to see how this unfolds. Personally, I’m most fond of David Bohm’s ideas on dialogue…. 🙂

    Thank you for creating SUE Speaks! I look forward to participating! xxoo

    • Thank you, Francine. When David Bohm, one of the wayshowers, gave weight to dialogue, I was thrilled that what had been happening here became spiritual news! He had the whole picture, of how everything was entwined and the action that would move it along.

      It would be so satisfying to create a parallel to the living room here, with so many more people plugged in!

      • I’m so excited about the creation of your virtual living room! 🙂 and I look forward to participating in the SUE Speaks conversations…. Standing with you and extending much love. <3

  4. Perhaps there was a time when we could afford to be nonchalant and leisurely engaged in our citizenship in the world. If so, those times have passed. Urgency is in the air, and time is not on our side. We are the first generation who can, yes, see an end. Citizen action, marinated in love, can see us through.

    As novelist Alice Walker says, “Anything we love can be saved.” And as poet W.H. Auden said in the 1930s, “We must love one another or die.”

    Pretty much sums it up. Count me in.

    ~ Larry Dossey, MD

    • Right on, Larry. I’ve got some heavy duty guidance that delivered this echo of your thoughts:

      This is an intelligence speaking. It is the wisdom of the circle.

      Dialogue is the necessary activity now to save the earth. Everyone sees glimmers of a peril looming; all must attend. Reordering must come. It will not result from legislation or from mediating between warring factions. Any imposition will just create more war. No, this needs to BE an otherness that births inside the womb of now.

      This is the voice of humanity’s soul. Snap to attention. Come off the meditation cushion. The family needs to forge. The mother is overblown with pregnancy. A creature must emerge.

      “Marinated in love.” I really like that.

  5. I wonder if anyone is as stoked as I am about the increasing likelihood of universal basic income becoming policy. It addresses the otherwise impossible problem of not enough jobs thanks to automation. But, not only do I see its practical level but also how it would affect our psyches. If we are taking care of everyone getting people off the streets and assuaging extreme poverty, that’s what would happen in the kind of caring world we aspire to. I see it not only as a solution to social ills but as an instigator of a change of worldview where we go from greed to compassion as our bottom line. This will affect every ill that besets us, putting us in the best position to handle everything!

  6. Sue! I’ve just been fishing around the site and I love the conversation you’re starting here and the great work you do. Hope to see you soon and keep posting! XOXO ANDY

    • Glad you like it. Trying to kick some cosmic ass.

      Before I had this conversation, here’s something I was trying to float to someone who wanted turn the crass world into a metaphysically oriented one. This is what I suggested to him:

      Create a dialogue– CALLING ALL HEROES What Shall We Do?

      Simpatico people engaging with each other would produce exponentially more than the sum of their parts. In this world where pop stardom and high office are intertwining, for a moderator I thought of Andy Cohen who is a friend and a doll. He’s so at home in his being that he can interface with anyone. He’s delightful and smart, hip to the human condition and the spiritual one. You’d get Hollywood with him. He has access to everyone. I can just picture Andy with the Dalai Lama or Prince Charles or Bill Moyers. Everybody would be folks together.

  7. Thanks very much for inviting me to participate in your 2014 TEDx event. From my talk being online I have been able to tell more than a million people about my research showing that our consciousness is nonlocal and that it transcends our ordinary understanding of the space and time in which we live. I have spent fifty years as a Buddhist student and ESP researcher. They both strongly urge us to understand and experience that who we really are is timeless awareness, not the meat and potatoes we see in the mirror in the morning. Any meditator or remote viewer has noticed that as you internalize your experience of timeless awareness you let go of thinking that who you are has anything to do with the face in the mirror and of the suffering associated with material madness.

    • Ah Russell, that was such a wonderful talk and I am so glad that it took off as it did and continues to do, getting more views all the time. Indeed, if everyone was tuned into what makes remote viewing possible we would be in a world of people aware of their interconnection rather than being in the dog eat dog mentality in which greed instead of compassion runs our lives.

      • Russell, your point about the importance of “internalizing your experience of timeless awareness” is seminal. And right on Suzanne, in your reply, in commenting that with this timeless awareness our interconnection would bring forth (our natural state) of compassion.

        So here are, where almost 17 years have passed since the days you were promoting me and the work of Radical Awakening. I am so happy to see the importance of waking up to our True Self as timeless, infinite awareness is still in the conversation. As long as we are not connected to our True Nature, we are just creating (as Ram Dass said in Be Here Now in 1970), more “cops and more radicals” and perpetuating the game of separation.

        So thank you, Suzanne, for bringing Russell’s message to the forefront (with going on over a million-and-a-half view on the Ted Talk you so masterfully promoted)! Kudos!

        Lastly, Suzanne, your comment to Russell’s post brought to mind an amazingly insightful look at our condition and the vital need for ‘tuning into’ what is most fundamentally true by one of my favorite authors, Doris Lessing (in her book, Shikasta). Although it was Lessing’s flight into science fiction, the message is better said (IMHO) than most spiritual and political commentators. I promise you will find this fascinatingly fresh and meaningful: http://www.thesmith.org.uk/words/food/sowf.html

  8. There is a posting on my website called Awakening to the New Story which offers a kind of summary of what is emerging now and what could emerge in the future. There is certainly an urgent need for new ideas. There is plenty in that article that could contribute to the new thinking and actions you are calling for. We really need to change our way of thinking before we will be able to change many of the things that we can see need to change.

    I admire you, Suzanne, for never giving up but continually reinventing yourself with exciting projects to get us out of the mess we are in.

    • Oh Anne, I love the way you think and the way you write. We are so simpatico. I was looking for a salient quote to pass along so readers would be impressed and click through to read this whole piece (not to mention your others!), and picked this:

      As the New Story comes into being, there are two old stories that need to be relinquished:

      1. the first story we need to let go of is the Myth of the Fall of Man recounted in the Book of Genesis which gives us a very negative view of our presence on this planet. It tells us that we were expelled from the Garden of Eden because our primordial ancestors disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. It does not give us an image of our innate divinity and our inseparable relationship with the Divine Ground.

      For too many centuries, we have been indoctrinated with the idea that we are fallen, sinful creatures, condemned to a life of toil and hardship on this planet. This has left us with a legacy of guilt, fear and a sense of sinfulness and unworthiness. The Christian myth tells us that we have been redeemed from this fallen state by the sacrificial death of the Son of God. But this removes from us the responsibility of releasing ourselves, not so much from a state of sin as from a state of limitation or ignorance and discovering how to reconnect our consciousness with the eternally present Divine Ground within and around us while living in this material dimension of reality.

      2. The second story that needs to be relinquished is the current scientific worldview that material reality is the only reality and that consciousness begins and ends with the physical brain. Science gives us a story about our relationship with the universe that is as negative and depressing as the first story, telling us that we are alone in a randomly created, uncaring universe that is without life, meaning or purpose. When we die, that is the end of us because the physical brain is the origin of consciousness and the death of one must mean the end of the other. Is it surprising that people commit suicide because their lives seem to have no meaning and value? Science with its recent discoveries is giving us what amounts to an astonishing revelation that is an essential part of the New Story but its limited view of the universe and of consciousness blocks our access to a deeper meaning to our lives and, above all, to a profound sense of relationship with the universe.

      The materialist paradigm offered by reductionist science is not acceptable to many people like myself who hold a vision of a living universe that is open to the existence of countless worlds, dimensions and adjacent universes that are inhabited, and the awareness that our presence on this planet has purpose and meaning. If we hold a view of our potential and destiny that is limited to a material universe and our present state of consciousness, we are living in a virtual prison.

  9. The amazing Suzanne Taylor is at it again! As in so many years before she is inviting and insisting that we talk about what really matters. And what really matters, matters more than ever before. It’s always a privilege to be an instigator and / or a participant in these dialogues—the only kind that have any hope whatsoever of bringing humanity to its senses and actually changing the world. A deep bow of thanks to you once again, Suzanne.

    • So, Love Doctor, bowing back for the inspiration you are — and what are we going to do about this world? Ah, I read it again and you are saying what I say — it starts with dialogue. I am considering this your enrollment so when people come up with things you would have some says. Hopefully, you have checked the box to be informed about susequent postings. It will be a trick to pull this off, so fingers crossed.

  10. A talk I produced on my nickel after TED cancelled my license to produce TEDx West Hollywood, deeming it too dangerous to their reputation to go on, has over a million views now! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBl0cwyn5GY) In a worldview based on greed and not on mutuality, this and the other talk they were most critical of, by Larry Dossey (http://www.dosseydossey.com/larry/default.html), speak to our interconnection at a deeper than surface level. TED cut off conversation that was of much interest to the participants and I’m inviting that conversation to continue here. TED said my Ex TED West Hollywood talks were pseudoscience, and what I’d say is that given an undefinable line between science and pseudoscience a basis for TED evaluation of ideas worth spreading could come from the credentials of the speakers instead of from their subject matter. What do you think?

  11. Sue, you never cease to amaze me. In the 20 years that I’ve known you, you have continually reinvented yourself and your means of outreach to continually nudge people out of complacency and into change. You never give up, and that tells all of us that these values and these intentions are worth staying around to stand up for. You rock!

    • I love being described that way. Nudge, nudge, nudge indeed. (Hopefully not becoming drudge, drudge, drudge.) It is wonderful to be “gotten.” How about an outside the box idea to turn this world around from you? Like “if we all would be vegans…” would be your logical one.

  12. It’s puzzling how thousands can rise to a catastrophe with so much selfless energy (Houston), but then we go back to our daily paradigm based on greed and competition. We suspend the paradigm for a moment in which everyone feels richly rewarded for their selflessness and their usefulness to their fellow humans. Then we return to a system that drains us and reduces meaning.

    How to fully expose this dynamic for what it is? Via a movie? A TV series? Viral social media postings?

    • That’s a big encouragement that how underneath the surface of greed and competition, hearts beat with selflessness and compassion. If we didn’t have that capacity we’d never be able to make it a universal way of being. How to get there indeed is the question that’s on the floor. Back to the idea of generating conversation. When the need is on everyone’s lips, movies, TV Series, etc., are likely to ensue.

  13. Hi Sue, as I’m sure you know, I am a big fan of Universal Basic Income, and I’m happy to see you advocating for it. One thing I like about it is that it is premised on a basic trust in human creativity and generosity. It says, “If people are not forced to work, they will still be productive members of society, because it is human nature to want to give, to want to contribute to the wellbeing of something bigger than yourself.”

    I don’t think automation means the end of work though, but rather an evolution in the nature of work. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, machines have been replacing human labor in more and more arenas, and doing the work with far greater efficiency and speed than humans can. Therefore, they allow the production of greater *quantity* with less labor. However, to meet our non-quantifiable needs, we need human beings. Anything that cannot be encapsulated in an algorithm of formula is inaccessible to automated production. So, I see an evolution toward more music, art, and healing work (human, social, and ecological) the requires intimate relationship. For example, mechanized agriculture can produce a high yield per hour of labor, but regenerative agriculture or permaculture, which aims to heal and enrich the soil, requires a direct relationship between the farmer and the land that cannot be standardized.

    Thank you for initiating this conversation.

    Charles

    • What an interesting evolution it will be if Universal Basic Income becomes the law of the land. It’s not human nature to just sit back and veg out with only minimal sustenance, and freeing people from drudgery so they can get involved in things that require intimate relationships and arts sorts of things would make for such a different societal vibe. In what is already on the table that really would be doable, I think this could be the big impetus to move us into the worldview of mutuality over self-interest that we so badly need to adopt.

  14. Sue — Well done for doing this — needed more than ever if only enough of us would pay heed.

    I just sent a one-page to the excellent Kosmos magazine that invites readers to submit short pieces. In this one, I’m harping on about my usual — much about gender difference without it being Feminism per se because we need consciousness raising by men and women as you know well. Incidentally, do you know an interesting website http://www.goodmenproject.com which is sometimes humbling and touching?

    Love from here in Woodstock, where we had the woodstove on last night — when it was still August! But/and for now, lets any of us with dry floorboards, be grateful!

    • What a great tip to http://www.goodmenproject.com. A great idea, and so well executed, for men to share their experiences and perspectives on the road to a more enlightened world. I could get lost there for a long time. “The conversation no one else is having®” indeed! Akin to my Conversation in its way — and to my perspective that talking together is about the most valuable thing to get us moved into a more life-sustaining paradigm.

      • WHAT WILL IT TAKE?! — another Hurricane Harvey in Houston? another Charlottstown? Health-Care log-jams? more climate-change denial? crippling cyber-attacks? food and water insecurity? the reality of our world busily disuniting itself? Will we ever have the sense to apply what we know about the complex human brain —and our own human-nature — at the root of all this? Particularly the dubious effects when the “extreme male brain” is dominant over the ‘pink collar’ empathy factor. Neuroscience after all, can help cast light on what’s so off-kilter that’s going on with us today, and why. And….to figure out what happened to ethics and principles in Washington. Where are they?

        A crucial —but hardly surprising — clue is flagged in this article from the New York Times in March this year by Thomas Edsell: The Increasing Significance of the Decline of Men. He writes: “At one end of the scale, men continue to dominate. In 2016, 95.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were male and so were 348 of the Forbes 400. Of the 260 people on the Forbes list described as “self-made,” 250 were men. Wealth — and the ability to generate more wealth — must still be considered a reliable proxy for power.”

        What Edsell failed to mention is the pivotal factor that it’s men who make up 81% of our representatives in Washington. Since the New Deal’s fairest examples of more principled patriarchal power, the “legalized bribery” of the worst of today’s masculinized politics, smoothly and skillfully perpetuates itself around us. Fordham Law School Professor, Zephyr Teachout’s 2014 book, Corruption in America, traces this back to the beginning, even with Ben Franklin and his cohorts. Sadly, the lack of moral ground in Washington and Wall Street today, is nothing new. Among other little details, our life source — this forsaken planet, and we the people on it, will continue to pay the price. To say nothing of what we are leaving or future generations. Truly, how can we?

        When the irresistible lure of big-money, big-oil, and big-pharma drives the good-old-boy motivations of our decision makers — more than ever it is ours to stand for open honest democracy and equality. Something for all women — and men — to be aware of now is the hard-data that measurably affirms the ‘soft-values’ of empathy, more biochemically embodied in — but not exclusive to — women. Alas, would that these six pointers could be swiftly integrated into the governing of this nation:

        • In The Divided Brain, Iain McGilchrist flags our brain’s left-hemisphere’s proclivities as brilliant, but blinkered, authoritarian, fixed, directed and dominant.The right-hemisphere by contrast, more contextual, big- picture, pliable, holistic and empathic.

        • Simon Baron Cohen’s Essential Difference, tags the extreme male-brain’s (naturally having more testosterone than women) as inclined to incite more hostility and competitiveness due to less oxytocin, thus less empathy.

        • Michael Gazzaniga in his Ethical Brain says “the left-hemisphere will stick to its rigid belief systems, no matter what”.

        • Professor James Heckman’s “economics of human potential” tags the inherent costs of society’s “empathy deficit” valuing cognitive skills over empathy and mutual understanding.

        • Sherry Turtle in Alone Together shows the impact of technology on reducing empathy levels thus fewer one-on-one connections and resulting lack of overall relatedness between us.

        • Paul Zak’s The Moral Molecule perhaps most significant of all, flags the neuropeptide oxytocin, as most prevalent in women and which fosters feelings of reciprocity, trust, safety and forgiveness. It is empathy which stimulates ethics through which respect for differences emerge.

        With this access to a few nuanced gender differences we weren’t aware of a few generations ago, perhaps we can help restore the moral ground, principles and ethics so sadly lacking in politics a today. Perhaps — with women and men working separately, and together —we can better acknowledge the value of ‘the other’ — be it personal, political or planetary or all of the above!

        • All the accumulation of info pointing to what ails us is in the bag of accumulating enough contradictions to the prevailing worldview to where a shift will occur. I’ve always got the Hegelian Dialectic in mind, where the thesis is what’s so, the antithesis is all that contradicts the prevailing what is so, and the synthesis is when the misfitting realities grow strong enough so that the center cannot hold for the old worldview and we tip to the next thesis — which immediately starts accumulating contradictions and we are in the cycle again. We are so far into antithesis, but what can trip us over to the new synthesis? That is the question.

          Anne Baring, who is in this conversation, has brilliant material about the male-dominated reality we are all victims to now, and how it evolved from what used to be female based — from lunar female to solar male, and we’ve got to be dealing with the destructive ramifications of that at this time in history.

  15. HI Suzanne, kudos for all you do! Another refreshing idea of forum from your creative mind – thank you. I have been feeling the need for communication to begin between Muslims and those of other faiths – particularly for those faiths who are in fear of Islam, and vice versa. There are many sides to the story of what we stand for in the religions that have ‘guided’ us to this point, and much fear of ‘us and them’ is being generated from a great lack of understanding. I would like to see ways in which we can mutually ask our questions, be heard, share perspectives and get a better understanding of one another. Without this, fear will only escalate, and it’s not going anywhere but to ‘more intense’ without beginning with at least a thread between these age old beliefs that are screaming for priority. Thanks and love.

    • For all that there are genuine conflicts, there are misunderstandings that would dispel if we had a light shining on them and how valuable that would be. The popular perception of Muslim so needs to be addressed for the millions of practitioners who are as upstanding and you and I are. Would that my great ally, Lex Hixon, were alive cause he’d be front and center taking that on. What an awesome being Sheik Nur was. Lex was sheik to a string of mosques on the East Coast, as well as being a practitioner of four other major religions where he recognized that sameness of love and caring at the heart of all of them. If you want to take a trip through the world of Lex, that anyone would be touched and moved by, our activities together made for the best scrapbook of Lex online: Lexscape: http://www.mightycompanions.org/lexhixon.

      • Meredith and Sue: Thank you for bringing up the need for better understanding between Islamic people and westerners. I’ve got a plan brewing helping to do just that. I’m working on the website now as I await my Islamic husband to get visa approval.

        The Universe sent me to West Africa for a reason. I know it is to help grow understanding between us. We are not that different.

        I’ve married a Muslim from Gambia who is articulate and willing to discuss and share. Our intentions are to better humanity with knowledge, raise up feminine power, and increase kindness.

        So far, this multicultural diversity idea of workshops has been well-received. Our public-speaking engagements address this need for understanding contrasts and comparisons of our cultures. I’ve started to speak at high schools about My past six years’ of experience living in west African countries. I’m bringing over my husband next month–at the tail end of the visa process now. (Crossing fingers!)

        Small Senegalese cities, crowded Lagos, Nigeria, and tiny Gambian villages each have many variances within their lifestyles, as well as their understanding and practices of Islam.

        I’m in SoCal now, Sue, and open to get more ideas for my talks with these school kids.

  16. As I was reading I couldn’t help but visualizing the conversation and thinking how much I’d also enjoy seeing it taking place. And I’m sure you thought of this, to simultaneously have some conversations live or on video. Not just between you and one other, but one can click on conversations occurring worldwide, maybe between Prince Charles and Bono. And I can also picture convention centers having ‘Conversation’ events. You can have tables of 10 and after 20 minutes you’d switch to another table. And some of the best ideas of the night will be shared. Now here’s the hard part. You come up with great ideas, i.e. Universal Basic Income. Now, what can we do to get that working in the foreseeable future? We don’t have much time before matters dangerously devolve. So what are some ideas that will cause change? Get enough people to care? Lots may not have the capacity to care so it’s up to some of us to cause this change, and we need media coverage, gatherings, word of mouth. If you agree, please join the conversation and share.

    • May we get going to where we are so robust that we do branch out into other things. I discovered a robust Conversation site where what I do by the seat of my pants at live events, so people interact, they have systemized for widespread sharing, including events with several thousand people. But that’s about connecting people, which in itself is great, but it’s not focussed on achieving a result. I’m talking to them about some liaison we might have.

  17. Zoom is a great tool for connecting with others worldwide. I have been passionately involved in various …. We Space
    groups for over a decade and from these experiences have come to understand one of the most popular Einstein quote’s of our time; “We can not solve our current problems with the same kind of thinking that created them.” The most effective We Space group’s I have been involved with worked on the basis of shared agreements, guidelines, understanding and intention. Without going into a long explanation, Quaker Worship Sharing is a forerunner to We Space practices. Anyway dear Susan you are amazing and I am so glad to have been introduced to your work! We are on very similar paths. What is possible when we come together beyond our separate sense of self with a surrendered collective intention is very exciting! There is hope when we get outta the way!

    • I look forward to doing conferencing events and thanks for the steer to Zoom. Strange but true, I am almost certain Einstein never said any version of that quote he is so widely credited with (an Einstein expert testified to that), which speaks to what I’m looking to deal with in this Conversation. Whatever the antecedent, may the time be now for a meaningful exploration of how to get beyond the worldview that isn’t serving us now.

  18. Sue and I have been talking on her Youtube page regarding The Conversation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26dmAiKf-YI&lc=z22txzbbgv2hg1fc2acdp4355vnkb5aiseaixrquwphw03c010c.1504565602857007). I hope you all will follow it.

    Considering what I know of the Military (Industrial Complex), I’d rather suspect that they know all if not close to all. Paul Hillyer, former Defense Minister of Canada, for example, knows probably a lot less than the US, but it’s still enough to rock our world. And it’s relevant because there are a few of us reckless souls who still think there is a slim chance that a Cosmic Brotherhood, of sorts, might assist us through this most painful time in our history. I mean, we are looking for answers, and if anything goes on the table, this is one potential. Small, but a possibility.

    First: By discussing Mind Control, as if it is not already in low-level usage, I am not trying to make judgments about individuals and the beliefs they hold, or to suggest one “group” of “us” (meaning the entire homo family) is better or worse than the other. What I’m suggesting, among a great deal more, is that this division, whatever it’s about, is directly blocking “our” group from taking the actions necessary to reverse the damage done to our environment, get it under control, and begin restoration work. It’s a project of such vast scales that the money and market system simply cannot accommodate it — in a timely manner, if at all.

    If we find mind control (if it’s even physically possible – if this difference is somehow genetic, it might not even be possible to reset a conservative brain to think progressively) unpalatable, then maybe the conversation could include some kind of “suspension”, temporarily, of their antagonistic behavior towards us, and denial of the severity, even existence, of the giant looming over the horizon.

    The officials worry about scaring the public with off-planet intelligence visiting us. And the alternative community is concerned about “fear mongering”. Well, damn it to hell, it’s time to get scared. You want to get the conversation to sizzle, Sue? Let the fear flow baby. Embrace it. It’s natural, normal, and healthy. Yes, I want to monger fear, because the public is like a deer in the headlights. If we don’t move our asses, we are going to be squashed. Stupidity is deadly.

    So, again, Sue, if we get consciousness on the same plane, even temporarily, then we (all humans) can, at once, in a coordinated and peaceful way, lay to rest the old game of Monopoly, and replace it by instituting an economy which, as Peter Joseph, the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, suggests, actually economizes. Make better, higher quality durable goods instead of disposable trash in the rush to make yours cheaper than the other guy – what BS is that? Now, with all the resources of the planet at our disposal, we can easily and quickly get the materials, the people, and the machines in place to start cleaning the air, water, and land, using technology currently under the lock and key of the military, to really-really clean it up – at a molecular level in some cases. We can generate our energy from smarter sources which do not require the consent of a for-profit group to proceed, with thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel, for example. All kinds of energy projects, again, based on sequestered technologies. Not that we don’t have most or all of the technologies already in the public sector, BUT imagine how sweet it could be if we also, now, have all their toys to play with (for good of course).

    If anyone can suggest some other chain of events which could honestly turn around this bus in time, I would love to hear it. Let’s assume, for the sake of the conversation:

    WE HAVE TEN YEARS LEFT

    in order to do what needs doing, or else humans will be added to the list of victims of the 6th Great Mass Extinction, now playing at a planet near you. If we have more time, that’s gravy. But let’s assume (as some of us already do) that we have about ten years before crops fail at a massive scale and the economy collapses, essentially putting us back a few hundred years in advancements.

    Personally, without some kind of EM technology “playing” the human brain, I don’t see any other way we can do this in ten years. No way in hell.

    • I agree about following all potential leads, where curiosity instead of skepticism about what is outside our usual boxes would serve us, as in paying attention to Paul Hellyer’s stunning testimony about ET presence. He’s no fool. But, there is an argument about how disorganized our government is and the idea that we have some secret stash of UFO info being held from the public would not be consistent with our disorganized government that could keep such things from us.

      In all the conversation we’ve had on my YouTube page, you keep returning to some method of mind control that, if possible genetically, would move everyone into a higher state from which we could act cooperatively. And I keep saying how pie in the sky that seems to me to be, where even if everyone could be stimulated to raise their consciousness to where we would indeed behave in very sane ways, there would not be the body of authority to enact such a program so that it’s not something to give attention to thinking about. (But it is fascinatingly trippy to contemplate.)

      • I am convinced, beyond any doubt, that if we are going to find a solution, at the right scales, and in the time we have, that there will have to be SOME way to get people on the same page, seeing the same dangers, and seriously thinking about what to do.

        How do we get from here to there? Change our socio-economic structure. How? By a universal vision of the need for one.

        Capitalism is not prepared for such social/civic projects, the costs are too high Capitalism is a contest. Better score, better toys, lower score no toys. Why is the Harvey relief all coming from social organizations? Why is capitalism not helping the victims? Why does socialism swoop in to do what capitalism can’t? There is no profit in feeding the poor and there is no profit in saving victims of climate, or in fixing the climate.

        There is nothing else, really to discuss, until this single issue is worked out.

        • So, Jon, you will surprised that this comment of yours is a shadow of what you wrote where you said that given the premises of capitalism plus the stranglehold conservatives have on any liberal/changeful bent the most progressive people may have there’s no way to get everyone on the same page, that being the essential element for change to occur. I do agree with that being what’s essential, but — and forgive me for truncating you – look at what the Conversation has been set up for:

          This is a call to people who have a passion for the greater good to engage in a dialogue about what to do to bring about this shift. That’s what this conversation is for — to look for what changes could be made that move us into caring for each other as much as we care about ourselves.

          The Outside the Box Ideas page has a few possibilities. I didn’t add what you have suggested cause I can’t get past the science fiction aspect of “mind control” to elevate everyone (well, now that I think of it, I guess Ecstasy in the drinking water would fall in that slot, too), but fingers crossed there’s more to come.

  19. I am writing this from Krakow after our excellent Scientific and Medical Network conference on Shaping Metaphors – one of the concerns we reflected on was the need for a revival of real democracy and I am pasting below my review of the new book by Cass Sunstein which I think is important reading:

    #republic
    Cass R. Sunstein
    Princeton 2017, 310 pp., £24.95, h/b.

    Harvard law professor and bestselling author of Nudge has produced another game changing book about divided democracy in the age of social media. Although his thesis of fragmentation and polarisation is best illustrated by his chapter on polarisation entrepreneurs on terrorist sites, he argues convincingly that the issues are far more widespread, and affect us all. He quotes John Stuart Mill, writing in 1848, that it is essential for us to be exposed to people and ideas dissimilar to ourselves, what Sunstein calls competing perspectives. Facebook holds out the prospect of the Daily Me newsfeed based on filtering one’s preferences and views, but this process creates ‘echo chambers’ of self similarity and group identity based on like-mindedness. This can be a self-reinforcing process as we become less open to arguments from a different perspective. Sunstein gives the telling example of the polarising issues of GMOs and climate change, where the dominant scientific position on the former is mainly espoused by Republicans, while on the latter it is by Democrats.

    This shows how prior ideological commitments tend to shape our views, with, as David Hume observed, reason being the slave of our passions and reflecting our confirmation bias. The author draws an important distinction between our roles as citizens and consumers in relation to free speech and free choice. His proposals encourage a commitment to public forums and democratic deliberation or deliberative democracy, where we are exposed to opposing viewpoints and serendipitous encounters in order to encourage us out of our self-created information cocoons. As Benjamin Franklin observed when referring to the American Constitution, its status as a republic must be carefully guarded and nurtured. As the author’s colleague Lawrence Lessig remarks, we need a public informed enough to govern itself in order to uphold democratic ideals. Essential reading for our time.

    • Dear hero of mine – You are like a library. I think you know every book related to enlightenment ever written as well having reviewed just about all of the ones written since you started reviewing books so many years ago. Would that we had something like your Scientific and Medical Network (not a descriptive name given it’s all about enlightenment) in the States.

      I like the reflection on the need for a revival of real democracy (made me think about the practice in old Athens of names drawn out of a hat — or maybe a toga — for its governing body, where all citizens were candidates), but wonder if the carp about not having a broader base of contrary opinions from which people make up their minds is the message of the day. Having level playing fields to understand the likes of the Trump supporters wouldn’t be about stretching our minds to see both sides, which would exist in other dynamics but not here.

      • I agree that the media have occasionally distorted this call for balance, but I share the author’s concern about people becoming stuck in their own information cocoons and becoming too passive – this is partly due to information overload itself as we have so much to deal with on a daily basis.

        • There’s the rub. Indeed, we are swimming in overload. I see it trying to establish a playing field for connecting that isn’t to be found elsewhere, but am finding my allies so overloaded they just have time to handle themselves. “Will get to what you are providing in a couple of months” is somewhat typical. What to do?????

  20. ‘A state-centric world order has shown its inability to find sustainable solutions to nuclear weapons and climate change at the global end of the spectrum and address severe and prolonged situations of criminal injustice in Syria, Palestine etc.’ — from The Courage to Hope edited by Fred Dallmayr and Edward Demenchonok, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Nation states are incapable of responding to global challenges, and global solidarity is helpless against preventing genocidal violence and crimes against humanity. The old geopolitical realism is still based on hard military power where law, morality and people are fundamentally irrelevant. The current global political leadership still treats this old geopolitical realism as the basis for rational behaviour, but this is manifestly inadequate with its focus on narrow national interest rather than planetary responsibility.

    A new geopolitical realism [recognises that] war and militarism can no longer generate security and stability in an era when species vulnerability has become the signature reality. Structural reforms must be brought about so that global and human interests become primary. Then the development of political will to regulate the world economy on the basis of the values of justice, sustainability, self-determination, and ethical and ecological consciousness.

    • I wonder about this defining the issue but how do we bring about cultural reforms so that global and human interests become primary so the development of political will to regulate the world economy on the basis of the values of justice, sustainability, self-determination, and ethical and ecological consciousness comes into play?

        • My thoughts exactly. We need to be talking about a new vision and not just about fixes for the individual challenges we face, all of which will be more workable when we up-level the premises with which we run the world. I am happy to see you changed the name of your wonderful journal that was called Network Review but now is so much more compellingly named as Paradigm Explorer.

  21. Hi Sue et al, Many good comments here already, so what can I add? First, can we call this a dialogue rather than a discussion? Dia logos in Greek implies harmony (not necessarily agreement) through the word, while discussion is about taking things apart.
    That said, here is my latest writing on why cities may prove more important that nations in the future:
    http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/a-tale-of-cities-and-cells-by-elisabet-sahtouris/
    As for a workable democratic economy,am currently liking Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia U;reading his latest book: The Price of Civilization And I follow Van Jones’ trajectory….

  22. Suzanne, I love this idea, a worldwide conversation! I think we have lost our principles. Honesty is not practiced. Sensitivity is denigrated and the Magic has gone. There are greater and lesser lies, but I mean the subtle dishonesty of maintaining a veneer of polite superficiality with each other that in fact divides us.

    I mean Sensitivity to all beings that is extra-sensory, a capacity to identify with any other being as if we are them. Not in words, but by feeling.

    And by Magic, I mean making room for a way of perceiving our world and each other that, in comparison to our normal everyday perception, is on another wavelength — that ‘sees’ in other languages of perception, listening to our gut feeling and observing conjunctions commonly known as coincidences and ignored.

    Much fear is generated by the unknown and of powers greater than ourselves. Fear and its consequent anger and resistance are traits run amok that we turn on each other in a continuum of wars, and on Nature in a callous presumption of entitlement to profit from her. Love also is a power greater than ourselves, but it’s currently drowned out by an excess of its opposite.

    I think the denial of a magical side to ourselves has created a culture of bland, shallow monotony to our chronic and tragic detriment. It’s life half-lived. Facing the fear of Magic (most quickly done by ingesting one of nature’s gifts) by practice at seeing ‘the other’ or meditating on extra-sensory perceptions, gives another dimension to our life. Our potential for Magic is dormant, but it is strong. In fact, we are hungry for tales of strange happenings, instances of the Divine Unknown. Not even the witch hunts could eliminate that. It wants only open minds in an atmosphere of acceptance. By facing fear we learn from it. We gain humility and courage.

    So, when crises come, because Mother Nature is ‘bucking’, we will be joined in fear. These events may once have been read as omens, which if we still ‘saw’ we might actually be able to avert by ‘reading the Earth’. Nature is a teacher and we have severed our bond by fearing, and by attempting to dominate or eliminate her mysteries. Because of exploiting and trashing Mother Earth, instead of living with her and in reverence of her, she is now forced to make the lesson strong.

    • Alice, that’s a beautifully expressed characterization of what’s going on. We need to ‘see’ beyond the boundaries of scientific materialism that has us too confined to objective reality, when compassion and love, that we so need to operate by, come from elsewhere.

  23. All human behavior that is exclusively self-serving is rooted in a Foundation Perception of separation, where the individual does not see that they are connected to anyone or anything. Asking, telling or trying to make such a person be nice, to be compassionate, ill not compute to them …. you will be seen as the crazy one.
    Whereas, a person operating through a Foundational Perception of Oneness, knowing they Are innately connected to all people, the Whole of Life, will behave more in unity. Where, what they desire for themselves is Inclusive of the Whole, all people. They will honor and respect all people as One Humanity, much as we do all parts of our individual bodies.

    Our functional perspective, subconscious programmed patterns, reactions, thought, and behavior are all based on our Foundational Perceptions of Life and Self …with the most basic perception determining our state of being, are we connected and to what degree?

    Operating through our innate Oneness has us thinking and acting in unity, from which peace arises.
    Whereas, perceiving as separate has us needing to create a specific ‘self’ in order to have value and feel good about it. This leads to all thought and behavior based on a specifically defined self-concept, all exclusively selfish behavior, greed, etc.

    • If what the Foundational Perceptions of Separation and Oneness are and lead to are not understood, the importance and potential of altering your most base perception of Life and Self will appear to be merely a fuzzy spiritual concept, not very applicable to your real life situation. Many “awakened” people claim to be One yet still are operating through separation, as Oneness has only been accepted as an intellectual idea, not a way of Being.
      The mind commonly claims it already knows something when certain terms are used that it has previously attached some meaning to, preventing a deeper understanding.

      The solution to dropping your perception of separation is quite simple, yet many will resist, claiming it is difficult …come to realize and Know you are connected to all of humanity, all of Life. When you Do function as if all people and planet Are part of you, just as your right toe and liver are parts of your body, what you think and do for yourself will be Inclusive of the Whole, rather than Exclusive.

      The only actual problem or error at cause of what we call human ‘problems’ is separation, which has a person acting Exclusively for their own ‘self’ interest, with little to no regard for others. How we improve or enhance our individual lives as well as the world is to think and act Inclusively, which is automatic when we Know our innate Oneness.

      With a perception of separation, not connected;
      there is a void felt that something is missing – which we seek to fill,
      we feel alone – perceiving that we must fend for our self,
      and we feel of no value – perceiving that we must create this by our self.

      These perceptions lead to the creation of a specific self identity about who/what we are, and how life is. This ‘self’ is based on our collected experiential memories and information acquired as we grow up, highly influenced by the people we are close to and .

      Each individual must come to Know their/our Oneness, which is why it is said that we must Be The Change, and We can only change ourselves. As we individually change, we will change collectively, as more people think and act Inclusively rather than Exclusively.
      How do we shift to Knowing and Living as our innate Oneness? Through rediscovering it or ourselves, which has our need for a specific ‘self’ drop away with all of it’s exclusively self serving perspective and behavior.
      There are many ‘ways’ or methods taught to help bring you back to recognizing your Oneness, to drop away the attachment to the specific ‘self’ which has been filtering out your Wholeness, yet the most basic is through setting an intention to do so. Meditation and asking are the basic vehicles to support this intention, as these help bring your awareness.
      Most spiritual teachings are intended to help us rediscover our True Self, yet most people get tangled up not understanding there is a ‘self’ and a Self. So, what is being said about one is taken as about the other!
      This is really just a matter of dropping the filters restricting you from your Wholeness, True Self, Higher Self, Spirit … basically who you are before you collected specifics to identify as and become attached to.

      A good helpful tool is applying a basic Litmus Test to your thinking, reactions, and behavior.
      Ask yourself, “Is this serving my specific ‘self’ or the Whole of Life?” or, “Is this Inclusive or Exclusive?”
      Asking and looking at how you are Being will reveal how much you are operating through separation or Oneness, allowing you to discern and choose.
      As with any change or shift, it is possible for it to be immediate, yet most often there is a transition period as we gradually alter our habitual patterns.

      We cannot go into an organization or group and expect them to change when the kind of thinking the people are operating with does not change, we also cannot change our own individual thinking and behavior. However, we must actually go deeper than the level of thinking, as thinking is directed by perception. This is what humanity has not previously done, and why human behavior is much as it has been for centuries!
      People have been trying to change the soup with the same basic ingredients.

  24. We are experiencing a convergence of modalities like the world, in our current epoch of history, has never known. We are being shown in multiple ways that life can be lived through our own vision, that reality in non material and that our genetics and DNA are programmable by our OWN Spirit’s vision. The new science of Neural plasticity, Hear/mind coherence, Epigenetics and Source realization, using love as a technology to access the dimensions beyond are just a few of these “new” ideas that are shouting out to us now. How wonderful! But, personally I feel that too much thought about these revelations is not too good for us. While it is great yo have a clear and present mental capacity it is not good if we over think everything! The real key that all points are now converging on is our own personal experience of Love. Once we do that we become a the universal expression of love. Accessing our hearts now becomes the gateway to the new age. This IS the new technology! Changing our “frequency” is the key. This is done through the heart with the mind as the tag along… Ancient wisdom converging with the “new” science, resonating with all the mystical traditions of our history past, is a beautiful thing. This is the time of Emergence, when the energy and love coming to us is unseen by those who cannot grasp it but, completely embraced by those who can. Next up on the stage of life is the conscious effort to unite the hearts of Humanity. Look for this at it represents the next leap forward in our evolution! 🙂

  25. The essence of the solution to all of our problems is for us to awaken out of the conditioned mind of polarized dualities and the illusion of separation. What we awaken to is our natural state – the ever-present awareness of being; this is our innate point of access to our Universal intelligence. Once we’ve learned to recognize this open, clear and inclusive awakeness which underlies all our experience, we can return to this recognition again and again until we live from and as this presence of being. By means of neuroplasticity our neuro-physiology, our neuro-psychology and our neuro-relational field is reshaped by our repeated short moments of re-recognition. Gradually,we live more and more from the clarity of our being and less and less from the dualistic reifications which constitute our conditioned mind’s fixed points of view.

    As we awaken to our natural state, it is self-evident that every one of us is an expression of the same one Universal intelligence. We increasingly see our shared oneness and we are spontaneously drawn to collaborate for the benefit of all of us.

  26. LOVE your site. So much good information to comb through. And great insights. Thank you for being a one-stop shop for evolved thinking!

    • I love that line — a one-stop shop for evolved thinking. Add any items you think of for shoppers to find!