A New Century of Social Innovation

Man has in him two distinct master impulses, the individualistic and the communal, a personal life and a social life, a personal motive of conduct and a social motive of conduct. The possibility of their opposition and the attempt to find their equation lie at the very roots of human civilisation.
-- Sri Aurobindo, The Future Evolution of Man

The upcoming decades will be different from what has gone before. Our global society is in the midst of great transformations that will usher in new social and cultural formations. Many nations have been living the high life as a result of the prosperity afforded by rapid industrial, technological and material growth. The long tail of this -- the technological revolution -- has been fundamental in stretching tentacles of dependency far and wide. Complex structures of supply, demand and energy are now near to their breaking points.The new century for humankind begins as the traditional structures provided by governments and social and political institutions are overwhelmed and no longer capable of serving humankind in its best interests. Problems and difficulties are likely to continue rising up, like a tsunami, and manifesting in our immediate social environments. Yet unlike a natural tsunami, these social uprisings can also serve to clean the slate and clear the brushwood. They can provide the opportunity for individuals and communities to re-evaluate their life priorities. It can be a time for reconstruction and reorientation based on newly-emerging perceptions of how better to lead a fulfilling life. Yet this outcome, perhaps, will not be for everyone: There will still be many who choose to return to the old, familiar, tried-and tested ways. However, this will prove difficult, as some of the old systems will no longer be functional.

New forms of social innovation need to be encouraged to emerge from the chrysalis of the fossilized structures. By this it is meant that more appropriate and creative social, economic, technological, cultural and political edifices can replace current dysfunctional systems. For example, new -- or previous -- skill sets can return for inclusion in our social and community roles. This may force many people to shift from office and administration jobs, from the service and manufacturing sectors, toward functions that serve a regional and localized need. These may include community teaching (in both theory and practical skills), maintenance and construction, localized economies (both currency and barter), permaculture, farming, creative inventions, regional management, community committees and more. Many farms may need to shift (or return) to organic forms of agriculture and crop growth in order to combat the rise in soil depletion. As many of us are now aware, petrochemicals and synthetic fertilizers negatively polarize the soil. While they may produce apparently abundant growth in the short term, in the long term they deplete the soil and exhaust its natural growing capability. The food produced is thus often lacking in nutrients and minerals. In short, many methods now employed will be forced, or catalyzed, into change.

Never doubt that individuals have the necessary skills to respond to critical needs. As the expression goes, necessity is the mother of invention. New knowledge sets can be learned and passed on; apprenticeships can become widespread once again as sustainable skill sets become more valuable and appreciated than institutional and service-sector jobs. Never doubt that communities can find the resources to reshape local cohesion and growth. Creativity and inventiveness are central to the human talent for tinkering. Innovation is the prerogative of people, not the governments. Let us not forget that transformation comes from the tiniest changes.

As events begin to unfold around the world and social changes become more manifest, it is likely that more and more people will feel the "pull-and-push" toward downsizing and re-evaluating their life principles and needs. The old thinking and energies of self-survival and material gain will need to be replaced with a new paradigm of creation, communication and collaboration. The new imperatives and opportunities now arising will require us to embark on a path toward revitalized partnership relations of community. The era of global excess and greed, which filtered down to the masses as consumer excess and credit greed, is no longer a viable future path. We have now been getting a wake-up call we cannot ignore. As one-time business advisor David Korten put it: "Rather than to give in to despair in this often frightening time, let us rejoice in the privilege of being alive at a moment of creative opportunity unprecedented in the human experience ... Let our descendants look back on this time as the time of the Great Turning, when humanity made a bold choice to birth a new era devoted to actualizing the higher potentials of our human nature -- We are the ones we have been waiting for."

We have been waiting for the opportunity and challenge to adjust to new changes. In this respect, we have been waiting long enough for what will be an epochal transition. The challenges facing us are not so much about a "one-off change," which once enacted will leave us to sit comfortably in our newly-adapted state. Rather, we are being encouraged to shift into a permanent state of adaptation so as to be better placed to face uncertainty. Such uncertainties may push social affairs toward reorganization at more contracted levels and scales of activity. In the face of these contractions, individuals need to start thinking soon about what courses of action to take. We can walk into the future willingly, or we can be back-flipped kicking and screaming like children. Either way, it seems highly likely that novel social innovations are coming down the line.
According to social commentator James Howard Kunstler, those of us who presently live in the comfortable Western countries are facing "the comprehensive downscaling, rescaling, downsizing, and relocalizing of all our activities, a radical reorganization of the way we live in the most fundamental particulars." This may come as a shock to many people who are still somewhat unaware of the vast changes occurring in the world today. Yet does this mean we are to be transported back into the Dark Ages where tumultuous events will play out over a prolonged period of time? Not necessarily; rather it may be the case, I suspect, that once the social turbulence has passed, which may well be a relatively short-lived situation rather than a protracted one, there will be a different kind of age. It may well be a return to values and relationships no longer obscured by unbalance and folly. And it could very well lead to a new century of social innovation. This is my hope.

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WorldShift Now!

Worldshift International (an organization I co-founded) has now launched its very own social network - WS NOW! - where we hope to bring like-minded people together: to share ideas, blog postings, videos, discussions - and the 'Substance of We Feeling'. So please come and join us at - www.worldshift-now.org - and help us to develop together.

WS Now! - A Conscious Evolution Initiative

 

www.worldshift-now.org

 

Co-creating a new paradigm in which social, cultural, political, and conscious evolution form the foundations of a harmonious global society

WorldShift International

A Global Conscious Evolution Initiative
It has been said that our generation is the first in history that can decide
whether it’s the last in history. We need to add that our generation is also the
first in history that can decide whether it will be the first generation of a new
phase in history. We have reached a watershed in our social and cultural
evolution.
Dr. Ervin Laszlo

WorldShift International (WSI) is an autonomous worldshift initiative that seeks to promote, support, and engage with the concept of a world shift within our current global systems, as well as an inner-world shift at a personal level, and an evolutionary shift in human consciousness.

The WorldShift International website is a portal to information that supports and encourages both an inner-world, and external world shift, and aims to provide resources that will help to empower individuals in their own process, as well as an awareness for the urgent need for global change. WorldShift International also hosts the ‘WorldShift Now!’ social network, inviting individuals to create, develop and share their own networks of WorldShift aligned interests and activities with like-minded people.

WSI offers a platform upon which it invites collaboration with like-minded individuals, groups, and organizations for cultural, political, social, environmental, ecological and economical reform, and for the establishment of a healthy, functional and progressive global society.

WSI views as imperative the need for us all to recognize the urgent necessity for global change. Not only change in our external systems, behaviour, and practices, but also change in our very way of thinking. A new consciousness is now required if we are to successfully manage our shift forward into the 21st century. It is imperative that we seek the means to transcend the current system and to establish and nurture ways that allow us to live in creative harmony and balance with ourselves, with others, and with nature. As Buckminster Fuller said – ‘You never change anything by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete’.

WSI is committed to supporting and co-creating a positive, evolutionary change; and acknowledges the fundamental strength, dignity, resilience, and spirit of each individual and the inherent capacity we all have to make this shift.

WorldShift International: A conscious evolution initiative seeking to ensure that our generation is not the last generation, but the first generation co-creating a new paradigm in which social, cultural, political, and conscious evolution form the foundations of a harmonious global society.

Coming Together: Time to ‘Occupy Our We’ Feeling

It is now openly apparent, and can no longer be denied or covered over, that many of the material structures in our social world have become a transparent fiction: our financial systems, our job securities, pensions, etc. It is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that these structures will continue to provide for our needs. As our rafts search for land, our paddles are being taken away from us. This has happened time and again. That is why it is important now that we realize the responsibility to reach the shore is in our own hands. And when we eventually find fertile land it will be from our own efforts — and the cultivation that much more rewarding. As personal circumstances become more affected by the changes occurring in the world it will become necessary that people “wake-up” to new responsibilities and decisions. This is what we have been seeing throughout 2011, first with the Arab Spring social revolutions, and now with the Occupy movements. Many people now realize and accept that the upcoming years will be different from what has gone before.
As these physical changes begin to impact and encroach upon each person’s well-being, voices will be rising from within the self and calling for a new way forward. Action should not be an act alone; it needs to be accompanied by an equal, if not greater, act of inner awareness. Each pathway of experience is unique to every person for there are as many ways to the inner self/knowing as there are people’s hearts. Nor is the true spirit one of contemplation alone, for the spiritual ideal of our era now is one of considerate and compassionate action. And through this action, change will come. How difficult or easy these changes will be depends much upon the response of each person. What is important is not only the event itself but also how each person deals with it. The challenges we face may be out of our hands, yet each of us has the power to choose how we respond to them.

Willaru Huayta, a spiritual messenger in the Inca tradition, has been traveling the globe telling people that: “The world is at a critical point of transition, which is highlighted by the crisis in spiritual and moral principles. Nationality is no longer important… Human truth is one. The most important thing now is to awaken the consciousness in a positive form.” The upcoming changes, to some degree, are unstoppable, yet they function to “sweep the house clean” rather than to reinforce any negativity. This is important to remember so that we do not mistakenly feel over-powered by the disruptions coming with the change. Such disturbances, however distasteful, are necessary — just as the odour of bleach is distasteful and potentially harmful, yet its function is to clean and purify. As the world struggles to accommodate the necessary changes there will be countless ripples spreading out into the personal lives of many people. Whilst for some people meditation may prove a means of practising inner balance and focusing intentions, for others there may well be a need for disciplined action.

Part of this can be fulfilled by shifting our behaviour patterns away from a self-centered and material consumerist lifestyle to a more community-centered set of values. As Nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing wrote in her book “Shikasta,” the “broken” Earth needs to regain the energies of SOWF (“Substance Of We Feeling”). The keys to growth and renewal have been planted within each person. Much will be expected from people in the coming years as they face increased fears and challenges; challenges for which history holds few guidelines for the immediate future. Such challenges, whilst resonating within the heart of each person, must surely be in harmony also with our social contexts and responsibilities. The spirit does not live in isolation, but walks with us in life. As the Native American elder “grandfather” says (in a series of books by Tom Brown, Jr.): “Trying to live a spiritual life in modern society is the most difficult path one can walk. It is a path of pain, of isolation and of shaken faith, but that is the only way that our vision can become reality.”

The human species is, after all, a social species (as anthropologists keenly like to remind us). It is easy to behave “spiritually” when one is confined to the hermit’s cave — then our only struggles are with our ceaseless thoughts. However, sincere spiritual activity also requires that each individual understands and accepts the role of their social participation, of their presence and responsibility with friends, family and within the community. It may well be that as times become harder for many people the emphasis will shift toward the need for more integral communities. Social development needs to come through “right action” — with the knowledge and understanding that growth can be achieved more harmoniously when worked at through right intentions and actions.

A “Substance Of We Feeling” is needed like wine grapes need a good soil. As a global community of individuals we are being pushed toward developing and supporting a creative and shared developmental consciousness. Through a combination of physical changes on the social, cultural and political levels, people worldwide will begin to awaken to the audacity of our situation. From this there may be further “awakenings” as the ironic, incredulous and absurd factors of many of our lifestyles are brazenly shown in the shocking light they deserve.

However, there is great need to “work.” We have a responsibility to work toward revitalizing our connection with our “selves” as well as our communities — to regenerate our relationship with the world we live in. This is not a time to fear for loss, but rather a time to aspire to new possibilities. A renewal and regeneration brings in new air, new potentialities and new gains. There is no clinging to the old when there is much vigorous work to be done. Any spiritual endeavour cannot — or should not — be separated from the physical. The human is a physical creature that is nourished from a physical world. Whilst we sojourn on this planet, and whilst our home remains physical, we have a responsibility to manifest our spirit within the physical domain. This is what is required of us, and deep within we all inherently know this. We are here to work together — time to occupy our “we” feeling. Or, as Doris Lessing would say: our “Substance of We Feeling.”

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THE WORLDSHIFT 20 DECLARATION

The new declaration from the WorldShift Council has now been issued, as a response to the recent G20 Meeting in November. Here you can find some extracts as well as a link to the pdf of the Declaration – please distribute and share.

The WorldShift 20 Council offers its alternative to the G20 Declaration in order to call attention to shortcomings in the philosophy of the G20 and introduce a more appropriate holistic and humanistic perspective.
1. Elements of the global crisis
1.1 Financial instability
The current global monetary and financial system is innately dysfunctional on an unprecedented scale; it is approaching a breakdown. Although the on-going crisis is the biggest since the 1930s, it certainly is not the first and without fundamental reform and re-setting it will not be the last. The IMF has identified 145 banking crises, 208 monetary crashes and 72 sovereign debt crises between 1970 and 2010, crises that have repeatedly affected three-quarters of the 187 IMF member countries. These crises feedback to exacerbate each other. A banking crisis can lead to sovereign debt problem (e.g. Ireland), a sovereign debt problem to a monetary crisis (e.g. Greece); and a monetary crisis to a banking problem. Increasing globalization of markets have also become progressively destabilized and dangerously volatile by the lack of effective regulation, over leveraged financing, exponential increases in speculation and hyper-speed transactions.
Until now, governments have kept borrowing from the financial system to bail out banks. They have been tinkering at the margins with regulations, but without any meaningful reform or touching the monetary structure itself. How many crises do we need to experience, or indeed are able to withstand, before systemic problems are addressed with systemic solutions?
1.2 Climate change
Unless decisive measures are taken, the climate changes produced by global warming will come together with such profound synergies that no human power will be sufficient to retain them. They will inexorably synergize in spontaneous interactions and disastrous effect. By the end of the 21st Century, a considerable percentage of the human species may perish due to climate-induced catastrophes, epidemics of diseases sweeping into new terrains, and human conflict and war resulting from the most massive migration of peoples in human history, with hundreds of millions, even billions of climatic refugees moving across the continents. These scientific predictions merit the most sober consideration and urgent large-scale actions.
The year 2011 has seen the most significant melting of the Polar region ice caps since the “perfect storm” of atmospheric and ocean conditions in the year 2007. Ice extent for September 2011 was the second lowest in the satellite record for the month. The last five years (2007 to 2011) have had the five lowest September extents in the satellite record. The linear rate of decline is now -84,700 square kilometres (-32,700 square miles) per year, or -12% per decade relative to the 1979 to 2000 average.
1.3 Nuclear weapons
The abolition of nuclear weapons, in turn, is no longer merely a lofty goal and noble aspiration: it is essential for human survival. Peace is impossible as long as the threat of nuclear war hangs over our heads. A Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibiting the production as well as the use of all nuclear weapons in all circumstances is urgently needed. In a democratic world, such a Convention must be constructed by awakening the public to the threat of maintaining vast arsenals of weapons that could destroy all life on Earth. Such an awakening is already in progress.
In 21 countries, including the five major nuclear powers, polls show that 76 percent of people support negotiation of a treaty banning all nuclear weapons. But powerful military-industrial complexes are trading on the fear that has been purposively foisted on the public. An impartial debate on the subject is almost impossible, and in consequence it is difficult to bring about the consensus needed to initiate democratic measures that could eliminate the nuclear ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over our heads.
1.4 Population growth
In the year 1911, the world population was approximately 1.8 billion. In 2011 it has reached 7 billion an increase of almost 400% in just 100 years. The United Nations predicted that World Population could reach 10 billion by 2100, even if the birthrate in all countries slows over time to a replacement level. More than 95 per cent of the future population increase will come from less developed countries (defined as all countries except the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) where the populations are overwhelmingly young.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
Argentina yesterday, Greece today—Italy and Spain tomorrow, Serbia, Poland and Hungary the day after? Sub-prime crisis yesterday, banking crisis today, major-power default tomorrow? The economic, financial and political systems that dominate the world are fundamentally flawed. Global economic and financial instability is an indication of a structural malady. Band-aid solutions applied to the symptoms of this malady are not enough. The malady itself needs to be addressed.
THE WS20 RECOMMENDATION
The G20 leaders need to appoint an independent body to examine the structural causes of instability in the world and recommend effective approaches to cope with it. This body is not to represent the governments of the G20 and is not to report uniquely to the governments. It is to be composed of ethical individuals who serve in their own capacity and represent the basic human interest: the interest of every woman, man and child on the planet. They are to report directly to the people, enlisting the cooperation of the world’s foresighted and ethical media.
In a democracy it is the people who lead, and in a global democracy it is all the world’s people who must lead. The world’s people have woken up: they are ready. They are divesting themselves of dictatorships and hierarchies, they are raising their voice and forming networks and alliances through throughout the globe. They know that the world is reaching a watershed, and that the year 2012 will be decisive to deconstruct the old and launch the new.
The malady is real, but the cure exists, individuals who have the integrity and the wisdom to identify the cure exist, and the people are ready to respond and take the lead. The leaders of the G20 could be the catalyst of an urgently needed worldshift. This would be in the leaders’ own interest. A tidal wave of change is coming, and leaders either enable the people to ride its crest or will be swept aside.

To read more, please visit the WorldShift International website

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Why We Are in Need of a Positive Worldshift

It is now apparent to even casual observers that our world is reaching a critical stage. Most of what we see in the daily news reports informs us of dramatic Earth changes as a result of climatic disruptions: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, etc. We are also witnessing a surge in people protest as decades of corrupt or inefficient social systems are taking their toll. Yet within this outward surge of turmoil and disruption there are other shifts occurring, such as the transition from the industrial-globalization model of the last two centuries into a more ecological-cosmological worldview. We can perhaps say that our current struggles are between the present model marked by the inequalities of dysfunctional global systems, and that part of humanity which is realizing that a new model needs to be manifested and put into place. Thus, the revolution(s) we are currently witnessing are not only of the physical kind, with civil disobedience, rioting, and unrest. There are also revolutions occurring now in our perceptions and worldviews — a revolution in our collective psyche.
Why we are in need of a worldshift is that the old model is attempting to maintain its grip on power, resulting in resource wars, loss of civil liberties, and the on-going struggle for control and management. At the same time there are many forecasts trying to predict the outcome of the present geopolitical turmoil based upon what has gone before; there is a lack of ability to discern the uncertain, the unpredictable, and the unexpected. The western mindset has a preoccupation, or even obsession, with a linear view of history and progress. Yet the concept of a linear development of human civilizations is erroneous and misleading. Many ancient teachings, both spiritual and secular, and many indigenous cultures, have long known about and taught the concept of cyclic processes that repeat themselves over long periods of historical time. These expansions in social cycles also coincide, or are co-existent with, changes in perception and worldviews. In other words, major social revolutions are accompanied by great shifts in human consciousness. Why a positive worldshift is so timely is that these decades are ripe for a new consciousness to enter into our social systems and push for change at exactly the time when such systems are at their weakest point.
The spiral of cultural history involves a complex interplay of various cycles and systems; of social systems, energy systems, and communication revolutions — all co-dependent and integral. The 21st century has been reached through a growing series of critical thresholds — ecological, biological, social, and technological — moving towards current global, social, and environmental limits. However, at such thresholds new arrangements can be catalyzed into being. The ‘modern mind’ that has exerted itself upon the present world and which largely developed through a trajectory of western history and industrialization, finally arriving at the technological age, exhibits a great deal of short-sightedness. It is a narrow mental framework that either doesn’t quite seem to understand past patterns of historical change, or doesn’t want to. It seems to posses a great amount of guilt (myth of the Fall?); a large amount of blindness (the myth of progress?); and little historical remembrance (ignorance is bliss?). It is little wonder then that a majority of people living today, especially in the developed nations, are surprised, bemused, and somewhat dazed to find themselves staring into a melting pot of uncertainty.
It is our responsibility to recognize that we are living through an extraordinary passage of change, whereby what we do for the next twenty years, from now to 2030, will create the template for the future. And what happens between now and 2050 will be a crucial period for establishing these patterns of change and getting them in place to serve for the long run.
Our current global systems, now more complex and pervasive than ever, form an intricate and entangled web of interconnections, dependencies, and dubious alliances. We are, quite literally, struggling with the older energies of black goo, sulfuric slime, and the dangerous blackened coal pits where humans dig like slaves. Yet we need to recognize, and quickly, that there’s no infinity in a finite world. Despite some of the optimistic claims from the energy industry, planet Earth is a finite resource. The world we are moving into requires new myths, whereby we are not constrained by the powers of corporate greed, political tyranny, and the suppression of human creative vision. It would certainly help if we could break away from the culture of cultivating uselessness. As if bored with our experiences, we create a whole array of artless gadgets to amuse us and infantile our hours. We live in distracting times, racing towards the cliff edge like a convoy of excited, pharma-fuelled lemmings. Instead we should be using both our physical and our psychical energies into moving through this shift and preparing for a re-arrangement of life circumstances. Rather than hoping to maintain the cracking, crumbling, and now dysfunctional status quo we should be thinking about creating an alternative path. The industrial cultures of Modernity, which are attempting to model itself as a global culture, are an artificial device — a prosthetic artifact — that devalues our original and creative component. We may be in danger of replacing the creative capacity of the human mind with technological crutches; unless, that is, we are shocked back into our ‘rightful minds’.
Yet when faced with uncertainty we might be tempted to avoid seeking out the new and to search instead where we are most secure — still within the old comfort zones/systems. The following is a classic tale that illustrates this human tendency:
Some local villagers came upon Nasrudin one night crawling around on his hands and knees under a lamppost.
‘What are you looking for?’ they asked him.
‘I’ve lost the key to my house,’ he replied.
They all got down to help him look, but after a fruitless time of searching, someone thought to ask him where he had lost the key in the first place.
‘In the house,’ Nasrudin answered.
‘Then why are you looking under the lamppost?’ he is asked.
‘Because there is more light here,’ Nasrudin replied.
There will be obstacles in the years, decades ahead, yet at the same time we should be reassured that there very definitely is a future awaiting us too. The degree, and quality, of the change ahead will depend very much upon the degree to which human consciousness is able to change; and to the degree that we can collectively, in our myriad of different ways, help to usher in and manifest a positive worldshift.

New Book Now Out!

My book ' 'NEW CONSCIOUSNESS FOR A NEW WORLD' is now out and available from all good online retailers, including Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk; and The Book Depository.

A call for a paradigm shift in human thinking in recognition of the
interconnectedness of all things—a new mind for a new world.

• Explains how the instability of our current time is part of a larger cycle of
human evolution that will soon turn toward renewal and regeneration
• Explains how to participate in the process of conscious evolution to
maintain resilience during these transitional times
• Examines new findings in quantum physics and quantum biology on the
interconnectivity of all life and how to utilize this for conscious evolution
 

For centuries, indigenous wisdom traditions have talked of an epochal shift on the
horizon, of a spiritual renaissance for the earth and her living family. Now the timelines
are converging and the potential for an energetic “upgrade” for humanity is
here, but first we must survive and evolve through the current period of transition.
Explaining that evolution is not a gradual process but more like a “shock to the
system”—radical waves of transformation after a period of dormancy—author Kingsley
Dennis reveals that we are currently undergoing an evolutionary leap and shows not
only how to survive but also thrive in this period of global upheaval and change.
Examining the nature of evolutionary cycles, he explains that the instability we are
now experiencing—climate change, economic meltdowns, and increasing political
polarization—is the convergence of complex systems that have reached a critical state.
What we need in order to push through to the coming spiritual renaissance is a paradigm
shift in human thinking and perception, a conscious evolution in recognition of
the interconnectedness of all things—a new mind for a new world. Examining new
findings in quantum physics and quantum biology on the interconnectivity of all life as
well as opportunities for us to reawaken our slumbering souls, this book offers a glimpse
of the new global society to come, a renewed humanity for the 21st century, and how
we can each participate during the process of planetary transformation.

The Great Acceleration (Part Two)

The great acceleration that marks our move into a new planetary era suggests a model of greater connectivity and global communication (horizontal), with closer intimacy with earth customs and ethical, moral perspectives (vertical). This acceleration will make many older systems obsolete, as many people have been sensing for some time now, as events in the second-half of the 20th century have indicated. Also, within developed nations there has, over the past few decades, been a significant shift of values in that more and more people are seeking a quality of life that is away from materialism and towards meaning and happiness; towards simplifying their lifestyles (even before the recent economic crashes). So far quality of life for too many people has been provided by raiding the world’s finite energy sources and co-opting other nation’s resources. However, being forced to downsize can be a good thing, turning people’s emphasis away from external status and material possessions and to focus on what is local and meaningful – relations, local resources, working with one’s self and the needs of others. Any form of inconvenience, or even hardship, needs to be taken as a beneficial interiorizing process; a way to developing self-reflexive consciousness. Sometimes in order to gain we must first experience what it is to lose something. Troubled times can lead to an extension or manifestation of empathic consciousness, as we realize the interconnectedness of our worsening situation – just like the war ‘bunker’ mentality during World War 2, a coming together of the people in times of need. 

It is also important to remember that not all of the ‘old models’ of technology will work for us in the future. Our technologies not only need to be more fluid, as in distributed and open source systems, but also more egalitarian and democratic. Technology that aims to dominate will become less efficient and more of an obstacle for us to move forward. People will increasingly demand more transparency and justice in our national and international systems. There will be many more social protests and strikes on the horizon if these systems do not begin to better serve egalitarian and ethical human interests. Further, as the social transition goes through many years of change the world may first have to pass through a period of fragmentation due to energy depletion in the future and/or technological infrastructure problems. A new form of integral consciousness is less likely to embrace a global techno-industrial complex future, despite what some thinkers argue. However, even though there may be initial periods of fragmentation this will not diminish a collectively evolving emphatic mind that will inform a greater awareness for working together; community-building; shared values and ethics; and working towards re-modelling how the world operates. It will not be ‘business as usual’ as most future forecasters seem to predict; many forecasters simply offer a linear view that is just a more ‘planetary’ version of today’s world. This view does not take into account ‘system jumps’; the tipping points, or rather phase transitions, that characterize the energy fluctuations of growth. The future may well be a more mindful, spiritually aware and ecologically-integral period, yet it may also be a more chaotic, fragmented and disturbed global picture as the people of the world – and the world’s structures – learn to reassemble themselves into a radical new form of existence in line with the resources available to us.

This period of psychophysical transformation of life on Earth is likely to include heightened impulses for radical social change and cultural renovation; alongside new discoveries in science, energy, and our knowledge of the cosmos. There will manifest an increased drive for human betterment that will be marked through intensified activism for social, political, and ecological change; and for changes in the balance of global power. Also, large demographic shifts and the active presence of many cross-cultural movements will release much concentrated energy for psychophysical change. Planet Earth is entering a sustained period for historical change, requiring humanity not only to draw on all its physical and psychic resources, of creativity and vision, but to shift into capacities that could ultimately serve to be extremely liberating for the self.

It is certainly no small claim to say that the 3rd millennium will stimulate and nurture a new form of human consciousness. To paraphrase the famous saying of B.S. Haldane, the future of humanity may not be only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. And as Terence McKenna once said, we need to take out our conclusions from being central to our culture and replace them by a sense of the mysterious. The future may open up a greater sense of the mysterious than we have anticipated. Some of this mystery may likely surround the greater capacities inherent within the human. To help us arrive where we are already heading we will have to question, and perhaps discard, many of our belief systems. Rather, we should put the role of direct experience in place of enforced belief systems as these belief systems are self-limiting functions. It is immaterial to have beliefs when the universe is stranger than we can suppose and is thus continually over-riding our beliefs, making them limiting factors if we cling to them. Experience must be made primary; therefore the language of the self must be primary. We need a new language, and in order to have a new language we need a new sense of reality. Rather than consuming ideological visions we need to be the creators of them – to send them out. Let our visions and creativity breed and mutate like viruses in proactive and beneficial ways. Terence McKenna used to urge his listeners to ‘Live as far into the future as you can live’; reminding them also that energy is now rushing into our reality like into ‘the realm of the densely packed’. 

The opportunity is here for change and betterment like never before in our recent history. This means that the responsibility is also here; and these two factors may never be present again at exactly the right moment when they are so badly needed. What the human species may now be witnessing during this great acceleration is the rise of intuition, empathy, greater connectivity to the world and to people, and a sense of ‘knowing’ about what each given situation demands. Further, being nurtured within each person is a growing sense of the greater cosmic whole: the realization that humanity exists and evolves within a universe of great wisdom and meaning. This can serve to impart within humanity a more profound, and acknowledged, spiritual impulse. 

After all, we are already on the way to where we are heading. One can see clearly that Bob Dylan was right when he sang ‘There’s something happening…but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?’

Small-scale Innovations

Also on the increase are localized micro-finances whereby communities are issuing their own specific local currencies as a means of promoting local business growth. This is a Depression-era idea and helps to tie-in local consumers with their neighbourhood suppliers. It works by local businesses printing money and then consumers exchanging national currencies for the locally issued one and redeeming them in participating stores. Communities throughout Europe, North America, and Asia are buying food and fuel with such currencies as the ‘Detroit Cheers’ and the Bia Kut Chum. Exchange and credit/barter systems have also been running successfully as in the ‘Local Exchange Trading Systems’ (LETS) that are local, exchange networks that trade goods and services without using a currency. Instead, a credit system is in operation whereby individuals can earn credits by performing services which can then be swapped for gaining the services of others. At present it is estimated that over 400 such schemes operate in the UK alone, with others in France, Australia, and Switzerland.

Such schemes also encourage the interaction and sense of proximity between people and neighbourhoods. We are seeing a shift that utilizes small-scale innovations to replace broader top-heavy dependencies. As elitist Henry Kissinger once famously remarked: ‘Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people’. Such monopolies of control belong to the old paradigm and will find no welcome as people collectively shift towards self-determination. It is predicted that these ‘agents of self-determination’ will emerge as a new social generation of disruptive innovators. A recent UK Report has described this ‘new wave of environmental pioneers’ as bringing in new and unexpected forms of ‘disruptive innovation’. Disruptive innovation is that which is unexpected and arrives, usually from the periphery or bottom-up, to provide services that have previously been monopolised. Such disruptions are highly threatening to the hierarchical status quo, yet often empowering to civil society. The UK Report states that: ‘In short, we need disruptive forms of innovation – cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives to existing products or services often produced by non-traditional players’. It further notes that this is not only a question of ‘new technologies’ but of ‘wider forms of innovation’. There is much disruptive innovation taking place around the world, with many ‘tinkerers’ searching for solutions beneficial for people rather than for profit. And this shall be the new paradigm, the new civic order: a re-organising of the social sphere away from consumerist dependency and exploitation, and towards self-empowerment and community sustainability. People shall be motivated for their families and for other people rather than for profit and those binary digits in a virtual bank somewhere. The fallacy of the old world with its delusional constraints will become transparent and will anger a lot of people. The veil will begin to fall, the curtain pulled back, and Dorothy will see the Wizard as the small grey-bearded man and not as the powerful Maestro. We have been fooled for far too long, and it is time to wake up, to engage with the program of evolutionary change, and to move on. As Doris Lessing wrote:

There is no epoch in history that seems to us as it must have to the people who lived through it. What we live through, in any age, is the effect on us of mass emotions and of social conditions from which it is almost impossible to detach ourselves. Often the mass emotions are those which seem the noblest, best and most beautiful. And yet, inside a year, five years, a decade, five decades, people will be asking, “How could they have believed that?

The time is ripe for a new kind of emergent innovation; one that comes from high energies of experimentation and enthusiasm. Whatever the disastrous social consequences that the world may be forced to live through in the early 21st century, the regeneration will be worth it. Evolution is moving up a spiral and needs to shed some dirty, unclean energies. In short, it needs to get its house in order for the move. And so do we - for we shall be moving too.

A revolution can exist at many levels. It can manifest in physical, emotional, and spiritual change. When that change arrives it is important to accept the uncertain, the unknown. Many people may be forced into action, even if this seems distasteful and unwanted at first. People are often initially afraid of change; afraid of leaving secure territory. Yet we need to change. And when many things are not understandable, the worth of a person will be found not through their wasted thought but through their constructive actions. The next, and final, chapter will discuss some of these evolutionary and potentially radical changes for humankind.

Social Innovations

Frustration and despair can soon shift towards resilience, renewal, and regeneration. When the ground beneath the feet becomes loose, the human capacity to furrow anew comes into play. What is being proposed within this framework of a ‘new civil order’ is that as people are forced to learn new skills, people will take more and more responsibility for themselves. This will manifest also in revitalized concerns for one’s family, friends, and community. A shift of dependency is likely to occur that will take back power that many people had previously given away into external socio-political institutions (and commercial dependencies), and use this to empower themselves. People’s relationship with technology is also likely to undergo a re-evaluation. Instead of being wholly dependent upon complex, unknowable technologies, people will learn to re-design tools to aid and empower them rather than pacify. The view taken in this book is that future years will not see the coming of a super-technological singularity (as envisioned by Ray Kurzweil ), but a re-configuring of our technologies. By this it is meant that instead of technology working beyond us and out of our reach, it will be working for us, and sometimes in more simplified forms. One of the immediate concerns will be energy requirements. Given that a true free-energy revolution is still an uncertainty, alternative energy will need to be harnessed from solar, wind, water, and other natural sources. The corporate red-herring of agro-fuels (mass-produced ‘bio’-fuels) is likely to be rejected by local communities who are seeking to shift to low-carbon alternatives using ‘real’ biofuels. True biofuels are produced from waste such as biogas from manure or landfill or waste vegetable oil. Their development, however, is so far limited. This situation is likely to change once necessity becomes a key factor. Already some local communities are developing their own low-key diesel manufacturing through re-cycling waste vegetable oil. These DIY projects can be developed further by well-organised communities using agricultural processes.

There are a range of oilseed crops, such as sunflower, rape seeds, soy, palm and jatropha, which can be converted into biodiesel used on its own or blended with conventional diesel. A range of cellulosic materials, such as various waste products from crops (including grasses, trees and wood) can be broken down with enzymes and turned into bio-ethanol. Bio-ethanol can also be produced from a number of crops including sugarcane, sugar beet, barley, corn/maize, grain, and cotton. Using cellulosic biomass to produce ethanol would lessen the strain placed upon standard agricultural land needed for growing crops. Butanol is currently a potential second-generation bio-fuel produced by fermentation from a range of organic material, such as molasses left behind by sugar production or whey from cheese production. Butanol has several advantages over ethanol in terms of higher energy output and being easily blended with diesel. In the future we may see regional areas, and localized communities, adopting a bottom-up biofuels market that would serve to create energy-sufficient lifestyles. This can be achieved not only through a supply of recyclable waste but also through citizen-managed low-scale farming. Genuine biofuel schemes could be located within sustainable programs based within active communities and separate from corporate top-down energy suppliers. This would involve a move from mass production to distributed and localised schemes which would aid many communities. It is foreseeable that these, and more, energy innovations will begin to manifest through grass-roots pioneering and newly emerging citizen information networks. The corporate control and monopoly upon such natural resources, and primary human needs, will be rejected for local empowerment projects. Part of the civil revolution will occur when people, desperate in terms of supplying basic needs, will be forced to create these supplies for themselves. Then there will be no going back; no return to former dependencies.

Projects and schemes already underway around the world include gardening workshops for growing-your-own. Information made available for ‘self-farmers’ will encourage food production to be once again a prime aspect of family and civic life. There is currently a growth in the number of urban gardens and communal composting. Neighbourhoods are sourcing water supplies and introducing local permaculture schemes. Social networks are already established that seek to bring home-gardeners together to share tips, advice, and friendship. One such social network - Freedom Gardens – describes itself as ‘a food security movement person to person…A modern gardening era/movement for the 21st century resulting in efforts to become free of foreign oil, corporate controls, contamination and food miles while creating a sustainable future by promoting local food production’. Inspired innovators are currently developing new sustainable alternatives to industrial agriculture that push towards forming a ‘post-industrial food system’ that is less resource intensive and more locally-based and managed. An array of such start-ups include BrightFarm Systems,SPIN-Farming, Virtually Green, Aquacopia, and NewSeed Advisors. Similarly, new networks are emerging of investors, donors, entrepreneurs, farmers, and activists who are committed to building local food systems and local economies.

In a similar manner the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) elders suggest a re-vitalizing of sustainable, locally-orientated cultures; they suggest the creation of 'liberation technologies'. By this they mean technologies that can be created and used by people in a specific locality to enhance self-sufficiency and respect for the natural world. Wind turbines, solar power, biomass plants, and organic agriculture are all examples of liberation technologies. Likewise, Dhyani, who puts forth Cherokee teachings, states that

This age ending has been a time when people have gathered information about building and about inventions to make life better. Now it's time for people to recognize that the inventions are a creation of mind, to put aside such inventions as cause harm, and to bring forth and further develop those activities that benefit all beings and the future generations.

Alternative technologies are arising that seek to bypass traditional dependencies as the civil movement grows in power and determination. There are now markets for rocket stoves, vegetable oil generators, solar fridges, cheap wind generators, and reusable water bottles used as solar lamps. Innovations are also turning shipping containers into virtually cost-free homes. Social information networks are advising people on how to make their own soap, toothpaste, clothes, and much more. Instead of re-cycling there is now a movement towards pre-cycling; that is, training people on how to exist not only on what they have but to transform their conception of necessity so that non-primary needs are taken out of the equation. Individuals and communities are learning how to live more on less. Part of this re-education is a perceptual paradigm (a ‘new mind for a new world’). For many of us, if we don’t choose to think and behave differently in the upcoming years, then we may be forced into change – and perhaps brutally.

New Civic Order

A prescient report from 1997 forecasted a possible future social scenario that was termed the Great Transition which involved a social shift towards new paradigms of sustainability in the form of Eco-communalism. In this the report envisioned a network of self-reliant communities:

Eco-communalism could emerge from a New Sustainability Paradigm world if a powerful consensus arose for localism, diversity, and autonomy… Eco-communalism might emerge in the recovery from ‘breakdown’. Under conditions of reduced population and a rupture in modern institutions, a network of societies, guided by a “small-is-beautiful” philosophy conceivably could arise.

Physical social networks modelled on self-reliant communities could be established that are based around ecological practices. Already some urban design groups are using industrial ecology techniques, as in the integrated resource management system (IRM). In this way there is a shift that sees urban centres becoming closer to ‘living’ centres that encourage closer physical proximity and interaction between citizens.

Another example of creative architectural thinking is that of the ‘Compact City’ proposal from celebrity architect Richard Rogers. Rogers proposes that the creation of the modern Compact City rejects the dominance of the car and instead favours a design whereby ‘communities thrive’ and the streets are re-balanced ‘in favour of the pedestrian and the community’. Further, Rogers’s ‘Compact City’ design proposes that home, work, and leisure districts/regions/zones become more densely interrelated and overlapped rather than as separated areas.

The compact city idea is to increase the density of shared spaces so that there are increased opportunities for social connection and interaction. There is a rise worldwide in urban innovation that seeks to move towards constructing more compact, sustainable communities. This will become more of an imperative, rather than luxury thinking, in the ensuing years. Such changes will need to be implemented if our social systems are to be resilient enough to adapt to the coming global changes. The emphasis needs to be upon recycling of goods and waste, efficient alternative energy production, localized distribution, and change in such social drivers as consumerism, economics, and general well-being. Already several precedents exist; one of these being the concept of garden cities and the ‘garden city movement’.

This movement was founded in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard in England as an alternative to existing urban schemes. Garden cities involved the merging of town and country, of rural partnerships with urban dynamics. They were designed as self-contained communities containing living, working, and agriculture surrounded by green belts and public spaces. In this respect Howard’s thinking was ahead of its time in seeing the need for both rural and urban improvement as a single process. The garden city movement was inspired by Howard’s first book titled To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898). The Garden City Association was founded in 1899 and led to two new cities in England being constructed around this design: Letchworth Garden City in 1903 and Welwyn Garden City in 1920. Howard planned his garden cities to be located on roughly 6,000 acres of land, with 1,000 acres set aside for accommodating up to 32,000 residents, and for an additional 2,000 people on the surrounding agricultural estate. The circular garden city town plan had 120-foot wide radiating tree-lined boulevards, and each city linked to other larger cities via railways. The design for such garden cities even today seems remarkably environmentally aware:

Howard meticulously separated pedestrian streets and vehicle traffic, and residential and industrial areas. When a garden city had reached its optimal population of 32,000, its growth would be halted and another town of similar size would be built within its own zone of land. But the inhabitants of the one could very quickly reach the other by a rapid transit system, and thus the people of the two towns would really be part of one community.

The concept of the garden city was also especially influential in the United States with the creation of Pittsburgh’s Chatham Village; Sunnyside, Queens; Radburn, New Jersey; Jackson Heights, Queens; the Woodbourne neighbourhood of Boston; Garden City, New York; and Baldwin Hills Village in Los Angeles. In Canada there is the garden city of Walkerville, Ontario, and the first German garden city, Hellerau, a suburb of Dresden, was founded in 1909.

Howard also believed in citizen participation whereby the town residents could own a share of the city’s assets. Even today a foundation jointly owned by the citizens of Letchworth controls 5,300 acres of land, including two farms and 118 shops. All the money earned from these ventures stays in the community, and from the period 1997 to 2003 the community’s assets trebled to £160 million. This shows that with the correct organization, intention, and dynamic motivation, communities can be created for the better well-being of its citizens. Also, such living centres can become more self-sustainable and environmentally connected to the Earth. The garden city concept can be an inspiration for those communities wishing to accommodate increased agricultural spaces for growing vegetables. Over recent years there has been a vigorous interest in permaculture as a way of combining living centres with agricultural systems.

Permaculture is a way of integrating the ecology of natural agricultural practices with the needs of the community. The word permaculture, as a combination of permanent agriculture and permanent culture, reflects the social aspects of the system. Permaculture encourages the construction of self-sufficient communities that work with nature’s cycles within the surrounding ecosystem. Permaculture is often seen as a more holistic system as it looks at both the natural (agricultural) and human systems as a whole, rather than as separate systems. In this way localized communities could benefit tremendously from incorporating permaculture practices into their way of life. Not only would it provide a means for self-sufficiency but also help to sustain the local ecosystems at a time of increased strain.

The future years will demand that we change many of our current practices. It is imperative that creative individuals begin to think ‘out of the box’. Civic regeneration requires left-hemispheric thinking as well as the right; lateral thinking as well as rational. The good news is that the world is already awash with impressive grassroots social innovations. It seems that our future will be steered more from the bottom-up than from the top-down.

The Social Collective

Just as humans are a social species, individuals are the building blocks of society. The worth of any society is the sum of the citizens who comprise it. Unfortunately, most political systems dumfound and dumb-down the masses, and castrate the power of the people. Yet this form of social castration has been increasingly contested over recent years by the welcome emergence and rise of some powerful and potent civil movements and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). A part of the upcoming social transitions will be the need for increased social agency. The social community should once again become an empowering body; a collective that invests diverse individuals to work together for the common good. In this way people are encouraged to become more creative, constructive, and influential within collective life. This can work as an encouragement for each person to develop to the best of their capacity; to be a functional human, able to transform dynamic inner power into a productive and useful force. Repeating what was said before, the renowned metaphysical poet John Donne once wrote - no man is an island.

Social scientist and futurist Duane Elgin has researched and written extensively upon the subject of social consciousness and evolving societies. In this respect he writes that

When we communicate and reflect among ourselves as citizens—publicly learning about and affirming our shared sentiments as an extended community—then we “know that we know.” In our dangerous and difficult time of global transition, it is not sufficient for civilizations to be wise; we must become “doubly wise” through social communication that clearly reveals our collective knowing to ourselves. Once there is a capacity for sustained and authentic social reflection, we will then have the means to achieve a shared understanding and a working consensus regarding appropriate actions for a positive future. Actions can then come quickly and voluntarily. We can mobilize ourselves purposefully, and each person can contribute his or her unique talents to building a life-affirming future.

Elgin goes on to state that for a sustainable future to be viable it needs six requirements: to dismantle consumerism; to return to ecological living; to engage with sustainable futures; to create a conscious democracy; to embrace a reflective paradigm; and to work with reconciliation. All these features support a communal immersion; the very opposite of what has been occurring within the western urban landscape. To a large degree modern urban living has contributed in isolating individuals from their wider social community and from the influence of their peers. Many have been starved of developmental input that comes from dynamic social intercourse. Progress cannot be achieved through extremes: neither through total individualism (anarchy) nor through an absolute collective (totalitarianism). As in quantum physics, each living organism has the capacity to function both as a sentient individual (the particle), and as part of the unified collective field (the wave).




In fact, the concept of the ‘organic collective’ has been a central theme running through many science-fiction stories. As just one obscure example, a pulp paperback sci-fi book from Norman Spinrad called ‘The Solarians’ (1966) has the following extract:

‘As the human race evolves, the differences among its individual members become greater, not less. Specialisation becomes more and more pronounced. And if the race continued to be organised on the basis of nations, clans, families of like clustering together…

‘The human race would explode!’

‘Exactly,’ said Lingo. ‘The Organic Group is a new basic unit, based not on the similarity of its members, but on their differences. It’s not merely a good idea – its an evolutionary necessity…And of course, with the basic unit built upon this kind of functional cooperation, the whole civilisation is stable and unified.’

So the growth and development of the individual within a diverse yet coherent collective might be, using the words of Lingo above, not merely a good idea but an evolutionary necessity. To accomplish this may require new forms of social community: emerging micro-communities; transit-orientated communities; garden cities; eco-cities, etc. This could foster a new sense of contracted and coherent communities to replace the alienation of large urbanized areas and suburban sprawl.

Urban life is increasingly out of balance with the needs of the people. This situation will be exacerbated when disruptive events impact the daily life of the urbanite. This is especially so if the individual is dependent upon supermarket food supplies, petrol station fuel, and other necessary external amenities. In short, the average urbanite is partly (and sometimes wholly) dependent upon the plentiful supply of ‘always available’ goods, such as food and energy. As western societies, and their cities, have become increasingly complex, their supply infrastructures have likewise become increasingly complex, interdependent, and fragile. In these modern times, no event occurs in isolation as everything is connected to everything else; thus, everything matters. As most major cities go, life is comfortable within the home, yet moving around within the city offers less and less pleasure, safety, and comfort. As civil unrest manifests, as it is almost certain it will, major European cities will see bouts of violence, disorder, and potential chaos. Perhaps even some areas will become ‘no-go’ zones (as they already exist in some US and South American cities, for example). It is necessary then to address the issue of creating more sustainable social living zones. Until now, too much effort has been placed into creating suburban sprawls that alienate the community; families are either boxed-in their homes or boxed-in the iron-cage of the car. The rise of suburban living has been described as ‘best understood as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world’.




It is important then that creative individuals view the upcoming years (or even decades) as opportunities to transform these dense urban zones into more compact, sustainable living centres. For example, instead of segregated areas the city could be functionally integrated between living, working, and leisure areas; mixed-income communities integrated as different skill-sets are likely to be important rather than traditional income status. Also, public spaces can be transformed into well-integrated and interconnected walkable networks and easy-access corridors. A sense of community needs to be re-vitalized through open spaces, parks, and community landscaping projects such as communal gardens and food gardens. Superstores and large shopping complexes should be replaced with local shopping areas and farmer’s markets. Whilst this may sound the death-knell for many corporate giants, their presence will be replaced by something more beneficial to the community. The large supermarkets have exploited and manipulated consumer demand for too long, and many smaller retailers and farmers have suffered greatly over their monopoly. There are already positive signs that groups of individuals are recognizing the urgent need to transform urban living centres.





A recent movement called NewUrbanism was established online in 1998 and has grown to promote ‘good urbanism, smart transportation, transit oriented development and sustainability’ . The organisation promotes policies for national and local governments to revitalise many existing cities and towns into walkable, car-free, mixed-use communities. This has influenced the creation, in 2001, of the Charter of the New Urbanism, which states that:

We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.

Out of this ‘new urbanism’ movement has also emerged a trend in urban development called Transit Oriented Development, or TOD. For example, in the town of Orenco Station (15 miles west of Portland, US) transit-oriented development has been successfully implemented. It was designed as a neighbourhood community and organized around a pedestrian spine that extends out towards a grid of walkable tree-lined streets and parks. The town promotes a walkable, pedestrian-friendly community and discourages the use of the car and other fossil-fuel transit.




Likewise, Principles of Intelligent Urbanism (PIU) is a theory of urban planning that aims to integrate various environmental, technological, socio-cultural, and mobility needs into urban design. As put forward by architect Christopher Charles Benninger in 2001, PIU works towards maximising human interaction, public spaces and movement, and environmental sustainability. A similar movement has been gaining momentum within the UK and which specifically aims to transform smaller towns into sustainable communities.




The ‘Transition Towns’ movement was established as a means to design a strategy for helping small towns move away from fossil fuel dependency. It also promotes public participation and citizen action within the context of a sustainable and self-sufficient community. The first UK ‘transition town’ was Totnes in Devon, where local town forums were created for citizens to come together and decide on ways to develop low-carbon energy resources. In other words, how better to survive in a ‘post-peak oil’ world. The ‘Transition Town’ network, in its mission statement, aims to

inspire, inform, support and train communities as they consider, adopt and implement a Transition Initiative. We’re building a range of materials, training courses, events, tools and techniques, resources and a general support capability to help these communities…We’re hoping that through this work, communities across the UK will unleash their own collective genius and embark on an imaginative and practical range of connected initiatives, leading to a way of life that is more resilient, more fulfilling and more equitable, and that has dramatically lower levels of carbon emissions.

The ‘Transition Towns’ movement aims to raise awareness by giving talks and screening films in various towns and villages. One of their creative projects has been the introduction of a local currency (such as the ‘Totnes pounds’) that can only be spent in local shops. The move to local currencies is also on the increase in various towns across the US as a way to revitalize local businesses in the wake of the global financial crisis. Representatives of the transition town movement have also conducted ‘oil vulnerability auditing workshops’ with local businesses to see how they can reduce their reliance on oil. Other local projects set up under the scheme include running workshops on growing fruit and vegetables, bread-baking and sock-darning. So far there are over thirty towns and cities in England signed up to a ‘Transition Town’ plan, with others in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and as far afield as Australia and New Zealand. Schemes such as this, and others similar, are on the increase in communities all over the world. People are reading the signs and becoming motivated and inspired. The writing is, as they say, already on the wall; and as more people get this ‘gut feeling’ there will be more and more alternative community projects arising. It is essential that in these times people – individually and collectively – start to take power back into their own hands. The creative energies residing within the human network has been either ignored or under-used for far too long. People need to take the initiative as familiar structures around begin to fail and dissolve. The opposite, doing nothing and weeping for sorrow or in despair, will do nobody any good. We are being encouraged (or pushed) to show ourselves how wonderfully resilient, resourceful, and creative we can really be. Many of us may be surprised at what can be achieved when a group of motivated people join together. To quote again the words of anthropologist Margaret Mead: ‘A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has’.




For now the transition town initiative is largely restricted to smaller towns, where civic engagement and localised sustainable practices from the bottom-up have some chance of success. However, the same model could work in larger cities if they split into smaller scale sustainable neighbourhoods.

Re-evaluating life principles

As events begin to unfold and social changes become more manifest it is likely that more and more people will feel the ‘pull-n-push’ towards downsizing and re-evaluating life principles and needs. The old thinking and energies of self-survival and material gain will need to be replaced with a new paradigm of creation, communication, and collaboration. The new imperatives and opportunities arising will require us to embark on a path towards re-vitalized partnership relations of community. The era of global excess and greed, which filtered down to the masses as consumer excess and credit greed, is no longer a viable future path. We have now been getting a wake-up call we cannot ignore. As one-time business advisor David Korten now explains:

Rather than to give in to despair in this often frightening time, let us rejoice in the privilege of being alive at a moment of creative opportunity unprecedented in the human experience...Let our descendants look back on this time as the time of the Great Turning, when humanity made a bold choice to birth a new era devoted to actualizing the higher potentials of our human nature - We are the ones we have been waiting for.

We have been waiting for the opportunity and challenge to adjust to new changes. In this respect, we have been waiting long enough for what will be an epochal transition. The challenges facing us are not so much about a ‘once change’, leaving us again to sit comfortably in our newly adapted state. Rather, we are encouraged to shift into a permanent state of adaptation so as to be better placed to face uncertainty. Such uncertainties may push social affairs towards reorganization at more contracted levels and scale of activity. In the face of these contractions individuals need to start thinking soon about what courses of action to take. We can walk into the future willingly, or we can be back-flipped kicking and screaming like children. Either way, it seems highly likely that novel social transitions are coming down the line.

Social Transitions

According to social commentator James Kunstler those of us who presently live in the comfortable ‘west’ are facing ‘the comprehensive downscaling, rescaling, downsizing, and relocalizing of all our activities, a radical reorganization of the way we live in the most fundamental particulars’. This may come as a shock to the many who are constantly connected into a networked global world. Does this mean we are to be transported back into the Dark Ages? In a previous post I made mention to an almost Dark Ages scenario that I termed ‘Lock-Down’. This was suggested as a physical possibility should tumultuous events play out over a prolonged period of time. However, once the turbulence has passed (which I feel will be short-lived rather than protracted), there will be a different kind of age. It will be a return to values and relationships no longer obscured by unbalance and folly. The 21st century should be the Age where we recover many of the valuable insights and skills in the art of living. Our efforts and skills, the very basis of our human activities – our spiritual and moral values – need to be re-directed towards creating a more integral relationship between human living and our earthly environment. In other words, we need to discover a ‘way back’ to the Earth that has been forgotten. We, as individuals, need to develop our critical reflexive faculties and to find a balance between inner and outer needs. We require food, clothing, shelter, and community; we also require a sense of worth and belonging, of communion with our environment. In giving shape to ourselves radical new social and cultural forms are needed. These new forms should serve to place the human within the dynamics of a living cosmic, creative, intelligent universe. After all, the universe of which we form a part is a fundamental sacred reality. By losing our connection with the sacrosanct we create a bubble of alienation between our species and our planetary and cosmic home. This is not esoteric blurb, these are natural laws. For many of us the context for our existence has become mechanical and often unfulfilling. We have lost touch with the organic, with the alive and renewing, and exist in material cocoons that are drip-fed. Within this barren context we obscure our natural capacity for intimacy and cohesion with the living sea of energy that surrounds us. We have so far lacked the epiphany (or revelationary experience) needed to shock human consciousness awake to its sacred communion with living processes. Perhaps that shock epiphany will come in the form of crisis transitions. In this sense we ‘need to reinvent the human within the community of life systems’. Instead of being a pivotal force the human has become an addendum or intrusion into organic, living processes because of a lack of spiritual insight and understanding. Cultural historian Thomas Berry reinforces this predicament when he says

The proposal has been made that no effective restoration of a viable mode of human presence on the planet will take place until such intimate human rapport with the Earth community and the entire functioning of the universe is reestablished on an extensive scale.

This point emphasizes that the human presence exists within both a physical environmental context as well as a cosmic universal one. All things thus exist in differing degrees within all levels: this is our integrative creative, living matrix. It is another name for LIFE (Living an Integrated Fulfilling Existence).

New Social Formations

The upcoming decades will be different from what has gone before. Our global society is in the midst of a great transition which will usher in new social and cultural formations. Many nations have been living the ‘high life’ as a result of the prosperity afforded by rapid industrial, technological, and material growth. The long-tail of this – the Technological Revolution – has been fundamental in stretching tentacles of dependency far and wide. Complex structures of supply, demand, and energy, are now near to breaking points.

Some of the converging crises now facing us range from global climate, energy resources, urban population growth, geopolitical insecurities, and solar storms. Having the potential for a range of critical impacts to converge simultaneously upon our social systems offers the possibility for a major revolution on a worldwide scale. Some of the consequences of these unstable systems are already beginning to play out on the global stage. If, on top of these crises, we witness the reality of political mismanagement then the ensuing fallout may be exacerbated. The new century for humankind begins as the traditional structures provided by governments, social and political institutions, are overwhelmed and no longer capable of serving humankind in its best interests. Problems and difficulties are likely to rise up, like a tsunami, and manifest in our immediate social environments. Yet unlike a natural tsunami, this one will serve also to clean the slate and clear the brushwood. It will provide the opportunity for individuals and communities to re-evaluate their life priorities. It will be a time for re-construction upon newly emerging perceptions of how better to lead a fulfilling life. Yet perhaps not for everyone: there will still be many who choose to return to the old familiar – tried and tested – ways, especially if they wielded power in those systems. However, this will prove difficult as some of the old systems will not longer be functional. New forms of social innovation will have the energetic support to emerge from the chrysalis of the fossilized structures. By this it is meant that more appropriate and creative social, economic, technological, cultural and political edifices will emerge. New skill sets will be required for the new social and community roles. This may force many to shift from office, administration jobs, from the service and manufacturing sector, towards functions that serve a regional localized need. These may include community teaching (in both theory and practical skills); maintenance and construction skills; localized economies (both currency and barter); permaculture; farming; creative inventions; security management; community committees, and more. Many farms will return to organic forms of agriculture and crop growth in order to combat the rise in soil depletion. According to philosopher Meishu Sama, petrochemicals and synthetic fertilizers negatively polarize the soil. Whilst this may produce apparently abundant growth in the short term; in the long term, they deplete the soil and exhaust its natural growing capability. The food produced is thus often lacking in nutrients and minerals. In short, many methods now employed will be forced – or catalyzed – into change. Never doubt that individuals have the necessary skills to respond to critical needs. As the expression goes – necessity is the mother of invention. New knowledge sets can be learnt and passed on; the days of apprenticeship may become more widespread once again as sustainable skill-sets become more valuable and appreciated than institutional and service-sector jobs. Never doubt that communities can find the resources to re-shape local cohesion and growth. Creativity and inventiveness are central to the human talent for tinkering. Innovation is the prerogative of people, not the governments. Again, as Meishu Sama reminds us, transformation comes from the tiniest changes:

…the fruit is the world and the seed becomes the center...and at the center of the seed itself is its essence. Because of this, in order to change the world the smallest seed only need be changed. It is just like throwing a rock into a pond - it creates ripples. In this way, making this world into heaven, the very center of the center, the tiniest point - that's where the various changes are made. Make these changes and you create a paradise on Earth.

A Call to Consciousness

A ‘Substance Of We Feeling’ is needed like wine grapes need a good soil. As a global community of individuals we are being pushed towards developing and supporting a creative collective consciousness. This is our ‘new mind’ for a ‘new world’, as discussed previously. This in turn is a reflection of our inherent connectivity within a species energy field of information and communion, as verified by the new sciences. Yet this call for a new way of thinking is neither new nor unique. Each generation has supplied its spokespeople who have argued for a more elevated and illuminated way of thought and life. In recent decades this call has come increasingly from tribal elders and indigenous traditions.

In 1977 the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Indians) penned a paper to an agency of the UN titled 'Basic Call to Consciousness' in which they stated: Today the species of Man is facing a question of the very survival of the species. The way of life known as Western Civilization is on a death path...Our essential message to the world is a basic call to consciousness...The technologies and social systems which have destroyed the animal and plant life are also destroying the native people... As an ‘intelligent’ species we are being called into consciousness; as a necessity rather than a luxury of choice. So will there be a ‘spiritual renaissance’ where the inner search comes home? What will it be like – will it hit home like a sudden bang on the head, or like an inner explosion shaking the body to pieces? Well, not quite (but then again, nobody really knows!). Personally, I am not one of those people to propose that the body will be shed like dead skin and the etheric body to jump into 5th-Dimensional vibrations. If it happens I will be pleasantly surprised and no doubt welcome the humming sensations. However, my understanding is that the way forward will involve harmonizing inner realizations and knowing with physical well-being and humanistic development. By humanistic, I mean a conception of the human within community, ecological, and cosmic contexts: as a functioning part within grander (and lesser) systems. So part of the ‘coming home’ is likely to be the dawning that we are currently living ‘out-of-synch’ with our natural functioning and that we, as a species, are letting the side down. As living, sentient beings, we are veiled from the truths of our own energetic potentials. Some individuals may get the ‘WoW factor’ one day when they realize that their life has been ignoring these truths for so long. Other realizations will come as material systems increasingly reveal the transparency of their corrupt and inept natures.

Through a combination of physical changes on the social, cultural, and political levels, people worldwide will begin to awaken to the audacity of our situation. From this there may be further ‘awakenings’ as the ironic, incredulous, and absurd factors of many of our lifestyles are brazenly shown in the shocking light they deserve. It is my suggestion that these physically coerced changes will coincide with increased cosmic activity (meaning energetic radiations) that are set to impact our Earth and solar region. These radiations may likely stimulate neurological and physiological activity that whilst unbeknown to the person will force in them new feelings, intuitions, perceptions, and conscience. Taken in combination it can be foreseen that the coming transition times will catalyze change upon many levels. However, there is great need to ‘Work’. We will be required to renew our selves and communities – to regenerate our relationship with the world we live in. This is not a time to fear for loss, but rather a time to aspire to new possibilities. A renewal and regeneration brings in new air, new potentialities, and new gains. There is no clinging to the old when there exists much vigorous work to be done. Any spiritual endeavour cannot – or should not – be separated from the physical. The human is a physical creature that is nourished from a physical world.

Whilst we sojourn on this planet, and whilst our home remains physical, we have a responsibility to manifest our spirit within the physical domain. This is what is required of us, and deep within we all inherently know this. We are here to work together.

Unprecedented Times

We are now living through unprecedented times. Yet this is not a time for fear, as with preparation and certitude the times ahead can be navigated. The keys to growth and renewal have been planted within each person. Much will be expected from people in the coming years as they face increased fears and challenges; challenges for which history holds few guidelines. Such challenges, whilst resonating within the heart of each person, will be aligned also within an Earthly context. The spirit does not live in isolation, but walks in life. As Native American ‘Grandfather’ says:

Trying to live a spiritual life in modern society is the most difficult path one can walk. It is a path of pain, of isolation and of shaken faith, but that is the only way that our Vision can become reality. Thus the true Quest in life is to live the philosophy of the Earth within the confines of man…we must walk within society or our Vision dies, for a man not living his Vision is living death…It is very easy to live a spiritual life away from man, but the truth of Vision in spiritual life can only be tested and become a reality when lived near society.[i]

The human species is, after all, a social species (as anthropologists keenly like to remind us). It is easy to behave ‘spiritually’ when one is confined to the hermit’s cave; then our only struggles are with our ceaseless thoughts. Whilst the realm of the spirit may appear to exist ‘not of this world’, it very definitely is an important component ‘of the world’. Again, it is the significant play of polarity – to bring matter into contact with the non-material. Without the material playground, the spirit becomes ephemeral to us; unable to manifest tangibly within our everyday lives. So the life of the spirit needs to become very real for us, and well-lived. By living it, the presence of spirit can have greater effect. As ‘Grandfather’ again reminds us:

If a man could make the right choices, then he could significantly alter the course of the possible future. No man, then, should feel insignificant, for it only takes one man to alter the consciousness of mankind through the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things. In essence, one thought influences another, then another, until the thought is made manifest throughout all of creation.[ii]

Any spiritual re-vitalization requires that each individual feel the worth of their participation; of their presence with friends, family, and within the community. As there is likely to be a forced social contraction, the transition times will usher in the need for more integral communities. Progress will come through action; and knowledge, understanding and growth can also be achieved through right actions and intentions. The window of opportunity being presented to humanity through the evolutionary ‘trigger point’ will provide the energies for growth along new values, emotions, and intellectual reasoning. To miss this opportunity and crave for the security of old perceptions and status-quo material gains will be a sore transitory pleasure. This is neither a conspiracy nor a fairytale – it is a narrative of resilience, renewal, and regeneration. This is a cyclic process that occurs at all levels in some form. However, at this present juncture, there is much necessary change required: call it an evolutionary imperative. Really, it’s quite serious this time around.

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[i] Brown, T. (1991) The Quest. New York: G P Putnam’s Sons.

[ii] Brown, T. (1991) The Quest. New York: G P Putnam’s Sons.