Quotes for the Day, from a wide variety of sources, are posted on our website, as well as on our Riverwalker Facebook page.
“When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, then they do not know how to nurture their environment or how to rule their world…healing our society goes hand in hand with healing our personal, elemental connection with the phenomenal world.” —Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the great Tibetan meditation master and founder of Shambhala
Read more here: Shambala
Yesterday, in a dream, I uncharacteristically was toying with investing in the stock market, something I’ve never done. I wasn’t really serious about it. Jeanne’s father, John, came to me. I knew he’d had experience with the market when he was alive, so I asked him for advice. He immediately and forcefully snapped at me: “Don’t invest!” Upon waking, I appreciated my time with John, but saw little relevance to our interaction.
Upon encountering my stepson in the kitchen I spontaneously blurted out, from some unknown place: “iPhone, therefore I am!” He assured me that I wasn’t very original. I thought I was quite clever but, with self-importance in check, I was nonetheless struck by the meaning of the words that had come through me.
Rene Descartes, contemplating how he knew he existed, came to his famous conclusion: “I think, therefore I am.” In our time, right now, “I” has become a collective identity. Technology and the human need for interconnection have merged into a new identity for this current generation. It knows it exists because of its interconnectedness. Indeed: iPhone, therefore I am!
When I connect the dots of these two experiences on the day of the burgeoning global Occupy movement, I come to the following message: I Phone—Don’t Invest! What does that mean?
I=the collective Occupy movement.
Phone=communicate as a mass united whole.
Don’t invest=use the power of the purse to force change.
It’s unity through interconnected communication that is creating revolution, bringing down governments. Turn that power now, as a mass, in a targeted way at the market. Don’t just Occupy Wall Street, rattle it through the power of the purse!
On Friday, with Apple’s release of the new iPhone, a mass ripple of commerce flowed through the market. Everywhere in the world people lined up to purchase their new phones.
Occupy has the power to send ripples, if not tidal waves, through the market by targeting a specific company or bank, by coordinating worldwide to boycott a store, a product, a bank, etc.
You have to hit a corporation where it hurts. The only language it understands and listens to is the bottom line.
Michael Moore says it well. It’s not about bringing down capitalism, but it is about restoring fairness and human decency. Corporate greed must be checked. This can no longer be accomplished through government. In one form or another the 1% own the government. But the 1% do need the 99% to buy their goods and services to stay in existence. This puts direct power to change the world in the hands of the people.
The worldwide Occupy movement may seem to be in a fledgling stage, but its intent touches the hearts of the masses who cannot march. There is majority sympathy with this minority movement. Bring the march of communication toward a targeted goal. Everyone can march this way.
It’s time to put the brain and tools to work. A targeted effort toward a specific corporation must be communicated on a mass scale. The message to the corporation: Make specific changes or we withdraw our support.
No laws broken, no one hurt, simply a market correction from the people, by the people, for the people.
If this resonates, please pass it on,
Chuck
The Macintosh computer has been a family fixture since the 1980s. My kids grew up using them, and Steve Jobs was my son’s hero from the time he first clicked the keys of our old 128k Mac when he was a toddler. There was indeed sadness in our house when we heard of his passing, but we also know that he lived life to the fullest. With death as an advisor he lived fearlessly. How can it be any different for any of us?
If you haven’t heard the commencement address that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005 in its entirety, I suggest that it’s well-worth listening to. His perspective is quite shamanic indeed! Here it is: watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Ever since I was a girl and started carrying Stalking the Wild Asparagus around in my backpack I have been on the hunt for the illusive wild asparagus. Eureka! I’ve finally found it! I’ve been passing it for years probably, but the other morning my attention was caught by a large and beautiful plant, its color and wispy fronds reminding me of the vibrancy of the early morning and the energy of all things.
“Wow! That’s a wild asparagus!” I exclaimed, without a hint of doubt. It was as if I always knew what it looked like and it was just sitting there waiting for me to recognize it.
Here is a picture I took of it, and here is some of what Mr. Gibbons wrote about the wild asparagus. He first discovered it as a twelve-year-old school boy while living in New Mexico, and it wasn’t until he was a middle-aged man and living in Pennsylvania that he found it again.
“The edible tips and spears, in which we are chiefly interested, appear long before the asparagus puts on its summer finery, and they must be located by that drab, old, last year’s stalk. My neighbors often smile when they see me by the roadside with my asparagus knife and pail. They think it is much simpler to merely buy the asparagus one wants at the supermarket. But I have a secret they don’t know about. When I am out along the hedgerows and waysides gathering wild asparagus, I am twelve years old again, and all the world is new and wonderful as the spring sun quickens the green things into life after a winter’s dormancy. Now do you know why I like wild asparagus?” –From Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons, page 31.
I’m posting a couple of articles that strike the dire note of truth, yet why do we still pretend? It really is time to prepare to live differently. The polar ice cap is melting at an incredible rate. Many cities along the coasts are already preparing for rising waters, taking matters into their own hands while some wayward politicians and the big industries pretend, for their own profit alone, that there is no looming global warming crisis. They know they are lying.
The rain forest is turning into desert, the wild weather over the past year is showing us just what we have to face in the future: tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, flooding.
It really is time to change how we live. Make some personal decisions. We can’t stop what’s happening, it’s too late for that, but if we each do something to change our current lifestyle we may be able to adapt to the new world. 2012 or not, the world is changing dramatically, as we speak. Take a look at the following articles, just a sampling of the truths being spoken and written about. This is the new reality—the future is now.
This regarding the truth about radiation leakage at Fukishima.
This about the real truth of global warming.
Not a bright message to start the day, today; I can only offer a very honest one. It’s time to get sober and really decide how to flow with the inevitable rather than continue fighting, lying about it, and denying it.
On a serious note,
Jan