Over my many years in the program room with women, I have often said: If you don’t like the conversation you’re in, change it! Become more adept at hijacking the conversation and taking it where you want it/need it to go. The polite alternative is to leave it and, in doing so, make no difference. The deadly alternative is to numb yourself and stay in a meaningless-to-you conversation to the bitter end, waiting for someone/something to give you permission to exhale. For that, you have to be willing to surrender your own evolution. That is a big price to pay for remaining invisible.
This was written more than six years ago. Originally sparked by an awareness of the climate change mantra, I am among those who now question the validity of the gloom-and-doom narrative. I now wonder more about its value as a mechanism for unquestioned acceptance of a tool for leverage in the global effort to redesign and redefine what a human being is and can become (i.e. the transhumanism movement – and more on that later).
Today – as I re-read what was written those 6 years ago – it feels even more relevant to remaining resourceful and resilient in the face of great forces, in play. I am choosing to repeat the Manifesto, below. To access the complete, original post click here. May you find some meaning in the invitation, below.
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Manifesto for Meaningful Moments
- I choose the moment I’m in. For that, I must live in that ever-unfolding moment and not lose myself to the past (coulda/shoulda/woulda) or long for a future that does not yet exist. Only in the moment I am in, am I able to receive the intelligence that can guide me to shape and define a powerful choice for my own wellbeing.
- I choose to own what I can do rather than lament what I cannot. Consumption has lost its appeal, resulting in my significant reduction in participation with the long list of suspects grabbing at my wallet. That includes the little things (like another pair of shoes) to the bigger things (like trips to Hawaii and holidays abroad). I have made peace with my choosing to find joy in my neighbourhood.
- I choose to act in my own small and seemingly insignificant way rather than seek to convince others to act. I continue to believe: if we stop buying it, they will stop making it. In a consumption-driven society fuelled by debt, it won’t stop until we do.
- I choose to live from this mantra: think globally, act locally. In that, I watch for patterns and make choices for my personal experience in recognition of those larger patterns. Looking up is making looking down far more potent.
- I choose delight! Every day, I catch myself in a moment of loving my life! The way the clouds move. The colour of the sky. The life-giving breeze, following days of oppressive heat. A visit with my precious grandsons. Sharing a meal with my sons and daughters-in-law. Conversation with my dearest friends. Every day, my life makes me smile!
- I choose grace in the face of my own mortality. It’s not like it’s a surprise! I’ve known for a long time that this body – this device that permits the Force of ‘me’ to move through space/time in this reality – is on loan. Its inevitable demise was a given from the moment of my birth. Rather than choose to direct my efforts at extending this corporeal journey, I choose to recognize imminent departure with grace: with acceptance, appreciation and a sense of delight at the next leg of my journey. It will be as I anticipate, given the Force of creation that I know mySelf to be.
- I choose silence. I choose to slow down; to breathe deeply and frequently into the base of my spine. I choose to stop… look up… and watch the world around and above me, rather than seek to look elsewhere to avoid tripping over the impediments I may have placed in my own path.
- I choose the truth of my own experience. In the moment that I’m living. Not good/bad, right/wrong – it just ‘is’ as a legitimate and compelling platform from which I choose my life.
- I choose the solemn and sovereign journey of my unique existence. I cherish the precious moments shared with others for whom a deep connection resonates… and I also cherish the deep and great undulations of my own ‘oneness’. That there is no one here with me in this moment in no way diminishes or denigrates the majesty of my own Presence. Although I have been ’trained’ to be a creature of pack-thinking, I have discovered that it is not the essence of my Being… as I have been lead to believe. The only way I can intimately know that – in the very cells of my being – is to live it.
It is all a choice.
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