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14 Oct 2020
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Why Mindfulness Matters

It was the slowest of times; it was the fastest of times. (Apologies to Dickens…) The year 2020 will go down in history as the longest year ever! Yet here we are already zooming toward Thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but it’s a trying year to stay grateful. That’s exactly why mindfulness matters…

When I’m caught up in the dizzying news cycle, I find myself gasping for air. I tell myself that all will be well…but I don’t believe me. That is, I don’t believe me until I step off the merry-go-round into my backyard where all is indeed well. The fig tree is dropping leaves right on schedule. The fall migrant birds hop along the lawn avoiding contact with our very lazy cat. The wind chimes sound in the breeze just enough to announce their presence. The clouds float by. I can feel my breathing, right here, right now.

Mindfulness isn’t complicated. It simply means stopping for a moment and actually noticing the moment. Without judgement. Without rushing into the next moment – it’ll be here soon enough. Without the jumble of thoughts that are vying for your attention. Just here. Now.

Some years ago, before everything became digital, I would use the analogy of lifting the needle off the record for three full breaths. Even when you put the needle back down, it can’t possibly be in the same place. And neither can you. That’s really all it takes is three breaths to reset your nervous system, soothe your mind and free your heart.

Your body is the perfect reminder to come back to the moment. It’s always in the present, patiently waiting for you. James Joyce wrote in Ulysses, “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.” And don’t we all? Or, as Jon Kabat-Zinn once described it, we go on vacation and send postcards that should say, “Having a wonderful time. Wish I was here…”

Mindfulness matters because YOU matter. Because life is actually happening NOW, in each moment. And if we’re always busy in our thoughts, we’ll miss it as it speeds by.   Consider this an invitation to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n, even if it’s only for a moment… I invite you to sit back, close your eyes, feel your breathing and come back to your body by giving your mind a rest.

Click the link below to listen to Breathe Deep a song about mindfulness from my Soul Feathers album, produced by Thomas Barquee

https://tinyurl.com/yy5reywo

About the Author:

Joy maker Sandi Kimmel, singer-songwriter, teacher, writer, wellness and spiritual growth advocate, shares Practical Spirituality tools and techniques with her warm soothing voice, uplifting music, spirit stories, and e-courses.

12 Oct 2020
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Vote Like the Planet Depends on It — Because It Does

by Bill McKibben

To understand the planetary importance of this autumn’s presidential election, check the calendar. Voting ends on Nov. 3—and by a fluke of timing, on the morning of Nov. 4, the United States is scheduled to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

President Trump announced during a Rose Garden speech in 2017 that we would abrogate our Paris commitments. But under the terms of the accords, it takes three years to formalize the withdrawal. So on Election Day it won’t be just Americans watching: The people of the world will see whether the country that has poured more carbon into the atmosphere than any other over the course of history will become the only country that refuses to cooperate in the one international effort to do something about the climate crisis.

Trump’s withdrawal benefited oil executives, who have donated millions of dollars to his reelection campaign, and the small, strange fringe of climate deniers who continue to insist that the planet is cooling. But most people living in the rational world were appalled. Polling showed widespread opposition, and by some measures, Trump is more out of line with the American populace on environmental issues than any other.

In his withdrawal announcement he said he’d been elected “to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris”; before the day was out, Pittsburgh’s mayor had pledged that his city would follow the guidelines set in the French capital. Young people, above all, have despised the president’s climate moves: Poll after poll shows that climate change is a top-tier issue with them and often the most important one—mostly, I think, because they’ve come to understand how tightly linked it is not just to their future but to questions of justice, equity, and race.

Here’s the truth: At this late date, meeting the promises set in Paris will be nowhere near enough. If you add up the various pledges that nations made at that conference, they plan on moving so timidly that the planet’s temperature will still rise more than 3 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels. So far, we’ve raised the mercury 1 degree Celsius, and that’s been enough to melt millions of square miles of ice in the Arctic, extend fire seasons for months, and dramatically alter the planet’s rainfall patterns. Settling for 3 degrees is kind of like writing a global suicide note.

Happily, we could go much faster if we wanted. The price of solar and wind power has fallen so fast and so far in the past few years that they are now the cheapest power on earth. Plenty of calculations show it will soon be cheaper to build solar and wind farms than to operate the fossil fuel power stations we’ve already built. Climate-smart investments are also better for workers and economic equality.

We need to have climate justice

“We need to have climate justice, which means to invest in green energy, [which] creates three times more jobs than to invest in fossil fuel energy,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said in an interview with Covering Climate Now in September. If we wanted to make it happen, in other words, an energy revolution is entirely possible. The best new study shows that the United States could cut its current power sector emissions 80% by 2035 and create 20 million jobs along the way.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris haven’t pledged to move that quickly, but their climate plan is the farthest-reaching of any presidential ticket in history. More to the point, we can pressure them to go farther and faster. Already, seeing the polling on the wall, they’ve adopted many of the proposals of climate stalwarts such as Washington’s Gov. Jay Inslee. A team of Biden and Bernie Sanders representatives worked out a pragmatic but powerful compromise in talks before the Democratic National Convention; the Biden-Harris ticket seems primed to use a transition to green energy as a crucial part of a push to rebuild the pandemic-devastated economy.

Perhaps most important, they’ve pledged to try to lead the rest of the world in the climate fight. The United States has never really done this. Our role as the single biggest producer of hydrocarbons has meant that our response to global warming has always been crippled by the political power of Big Oil. But that power has begun to slip. Once the biggest economic force on the planet, the oil industry is a shadow of its former self. (You could buy all the oil companies in America for less than the cost of Apple; Tesla is worth more than any other auto company on earth.) And so it’s possible that the hammerlock on policy exercised by this reckless industry will loosen if Trump is beaten.

But only if he’s beaten. Four more years will be enough to cement in place his anti-environmental policies and to make sure it’s too late to really change course. The world’s climate scientists declared in 2018 that if we had any chance of meeting sane climate targets, we had to cut emissions almost in half by 2030. That’s less than 10 years away. We’re at the last possible moment to turn the wheel of the supertanker that is our government. Captain Trump wants to steer us straight onto the rocks, mumbling all the while about hoaxes. If we let him do it, history won’t forgive us. Nor will the rest of the world.

This article originally appeared in YES! magazine

About the Author:

Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, the founder of 350.org, and the winner of the 2014 Right Livelihood Award. He is a YES! contributing editor.

08 Oct 2020
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An Economy With Heart

What would a healthy world economy look like?

With me, it all comes down to biology. I took a lot of courses in physiology while I was in grad school studying for a Masters in Bioengineering. As a former Catholic priest, I also have a Master of Divinity degree. But for me, when I understand something on a physical/biological level, I really get it.

My plum research assignment when I was studying bioengineering was to work in Penn State’s artificial heart lab. We tested our heart pumps in the earliest stages of development using a “mock circulatory system” developed by a genius member of the faculty named Gus Rosenberg. I won’t get into the nitty gritty details (or the sticky, viscous, messiness of the blood substitute glycerin when the system sprung a leak).

There are four key aspects to the system that delivers blood to the human body: A pumping mechanism, capacitance, resistance, and the blood vessels themselves (rubber tubing in the mockup).

The pump in the circulatory system is obvious—it’s the heart. It provides the energy needed to push the blood to all parts of the body, delivering oxygen to tissues, from the brain to the toes; then the return journey from all part of the body back to the lungs where the blood picks up oxygen and returns to the heart to start the routine again.

In order to get blood get back and forth though the smallest capillaries, the heart has to fight against resistance. In this world we live in, there is always resistance. Think of gravity. In the mock system, resistance is provided by a junction where a one-inch tube becomes several quarter-inch tubes. (I don’t remember the exact dimensions. Gus forgive me.) The capillary tubes are located between two metal plates with turnscrews that can increase or decrease the resistance.

The heart pumps blood in a rhythmic pattern. That is the reason why our blood pressure is measured in systolic pressure and diastolic pressure. In order for the flow to be manageable in the body, the up and down pressure has to be smoothed out in some way. It is like chugging a drink instead of slowly drinking it. At the very least, chugging will make you take in a lot of air leading to belching, stomach aches, and possibly passing beer through your nostrils. The blood vessel’s capacity to absorb and smooth out blood flow is crucial. They do this by expanding and contracting.

In the mock circulatory system, capacitance is provided by a cylinder with an inlet and an outlet, on both the supply and return sides of the system. When the heart pumps, the reservoir fills quickly but drains out more slowly. It’s like taking in a big breath and then letting it our more smoothly. Or think of an airplane cycling between high speed and low speed. It wouldn’t stay in the air for long.

The Heart of the Global Economy

So what can the dynamics of a circulatory system say about the world economy?

Think of the heart as the energy of the economy, the creating and distribution of goods and services. Think of the capacitors as banks that take the swings of the market forces and pass it on, through loans and investments, in a controlled and predicable manner. Like a body, the economic system does not like sudden increases and decreases in capitol. Banks, like capacitors, offer securities as a way for investors to guard against the sudden rising and falling of the market.

In today’s global economy, the vessels are all the ways capital flows around the system—mostly now through the internet and trading floors. And finally, the resistance is provided, in a healthy system, by the gradual movement of capitol from banks to investors, and corporations, down to small businesses and individual mortgages and savings accounts. So the whole body is able to benefit from the energy of the heart.

A healthy global economy, like a healthy body, efficiently directs the flow of capital to nourish the whole body. In this case the body includes the heart, which gets the first freshly oxygenated blood through the coronary arteries. The heart of the economic system is the energy of those creating and selling goods and services.

In an unhealthy body, blood flow does not get to the heart because of blocked coronaries and high blood pressure. So too in the global economy. When money remains largely in the financial markets, in the banks and the big investment houses, the dynamics of the system slow and the people who make goods and offer services are not fed with the capitol they need to thrive. And like in the far-flung parts of the body, the fingers and the toes, when the flow of capitol doesn’t reach the farmer in Kenya or the small businesswoman in Egypt, or in Iowa, the whole system begins to die. People with uncontrolled diabetes resulting in a lack of blood flow into their extremities die in parts. (I’ve known people who lost toes, then feet, then legs, then they died.)

An economy cannot ultimately flourish when segments of the economy are left to wither and die. This leads to famine, a lack of meaningful work, homelessness, and poverty; millions of refugees fleeing dangerous areas looking for safety for themselves and their families. Like a body, a global economy, if not serving all parts of the system, will die in parts too. And an unhealthy global economy is in no position to handle crisis such as Global Climate Change and pandemics such as COVID-19.

The Distribution Resolution

For example, in an efficient global economy, personal protective equipment (PPE) would be distributed efficiently all over the globe to health care workers, food handlers, schools and other crucial service providers. Instead, in the United States, the states are bidding against other states for the equipment they need. And profiteers, as during wartime, suck capitol from the system without contributing to solving the problems many of them have produced. Storehouses all over the world are full of weapons systems that are paid for but should never be used. Ordinary people hoard toilet paper, creating a crisis in bathrooms all over the world!

We don’t have a supply problem in this world. We have a distribution problem.

Another example of the importance of a healthy global economy is the worldwide response to Global Climate Change. The increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the last century or so acts like a layer of insulation, keeping too much energy in the weather system, leading to floods and droughts, fires, and famine. A functioning, global carbon trading system would gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. And a carbon tax could do the same.

The way I’ve presented both the human circulatory system and the global economy is simplistic and does not go into great detail. That’s why the world needs wise cardiologists and smart and compassionate economists. We need responsible political leaders that are able to cooperate with other leaders to bring the best minds to the biggest challenges. I think we have the first two covered. In the United States and around the world, universities and medical schools train the best and the brightest, who provide crucial advice to governments and business and offer high quality care to patients with cardiac and other diseases. (The availability of quality education and training for everyone is another story.)

Political leadership, at least in this country and notable others, is not so great; in fact, right now it’s abysmal, corrupt and dysfunctional. Look at the dismantling of the Post Office, it’s own kind of distribution system for a functioning economy. So vote!

About the Author:

Ascension Lifestyle Contributor Jim Gunshinan was in turn Assistant Editor, Managing Editor, Editor, and Senior Editor at Home Energy Magazine/Building Performance Journal for 20 years. He is now a freelance writer and editor who explores life through personal essays, poetry, and other things that pay the bills.

03 Oct 2020
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Unlearning Cultural Scarcity

Many of us see the world through a filter of scarcity. This pervading feeling of lack causes us to hyper-focus on what we don’t have and leads to enormous stress, anxiety, and fear. A scarcity mindset doesn’t merely limit our material wealth. It robs us of rest, creativity, and intuitive guidance.

In mainstream spirituality, the “scarcity mentality” is often portrayed as a personal issue, one that is only connected to our financial situation and nothing more. We are told to fix this personal failing by shifting to an “abundance mindset.” And moving to this state of abundance is as simple as willing yourself to think positively, repeat affirmations, and employ linguistic tricks.

But I believe the root of this scarcity worldview is much deeper and more pervasive than your personal “money story.” Our belief in scarcity doesn’t arise out of thin air, or even solely from our individual experiences. It is a cultural phenomenon. Unregulated, late-stage capitalism conjures this pervasive feeling of lack through artificial scarcity.

Artificial scarcity is a process of limiting and wasting supply to increase profit. This manufactured scarcity is all around us in American culture. While millions go homeless, fancy houses sit empty. A third of our food supply goes to waste, as 14 million children go hungry. Billionaires buy up life-saving community hospitals, turning them into luxury hotels amid a population lacking adequate health insurance.

Here in late-stage capitalism, artificial scarcity is a cornerstone of our cultural conditioning. It becomes so inherent that we forget the lack is manufactured.

We live in a cycle of scarcity, working long hours and hustling on our side gigs, feeling we are always on the brink of ruin, trying to outrun overwhelming burnout.

My whole adult life had been a scarcity cycle: working jobs and pursuing degrees that demanded all my energy. Eventually, I would end up in burnout and retreat for a while. Then the process would begin again.

And this cycle didn’t just limit my imagination in terms of monetary earnings. I began to see even the intangible as scarce. I was drained by the constant, nagging anxiety that I wasn’t doing enough to earn money. All of my attention went to the potential of making money. I felt creatively blocked, emotionally lost, and lived in constant brain fog.

But I need to make money NOW. That thought went round and round in my head in my last phase of scarcity burnout. I was months away from finishing a master’s in Data Analytics, for which I felt no passion. I wanted to write and embark on spiritual exploration. Yet I couldn’t even let myself dream because I couldn’t afford NOT to use this degree.

So I finished the program with a 4.0, and spent months in an arduous job- interviewing process for political research positions. I did all the “right” things, according to my rational self. But each time I got to the final interview, I flopped. I fell into a deep depression and felt like an utter failure because I couldn’t land a job in the field. All the time, I was ignoring the fact that I didn’t WANT any of these jobs.

Yet in this scarcity bubble, I couldn’t see another way. Not only could I not afford to take time and explore my writing and spiritual practices, but I was also afraid creativity was scarce, and maybe I hadn’t been allotted any of it.

Our rational, logical self, which seeks to keep us safe by following family patterns, social norms, and cultural standards, often becomes dominant and directs our actions. While our rational self is beautiful and necessary, it is also not a very good director. It uses the culturally embedded fear of scarcity to drive us to exhaustion. Nothing we do is ever enough to satiate this anxiety over lack. We become hyper-focused on money and production to keep us safe, which drains our creativity until we feel like husks.

The scarcity mindset has robbed us of our right to rest, create, and live in the intuitive flow of our bodies’ rhythms. And when we are operating from the cultural conditioning of scarcity, it is easy to see everything as finite: love, ideas, compassion, and safety. We must earn them all.

After months of not landing a job, I said to hell with it. There has to be a better way to live. I simply couldn’t sustain the hustle any longer. In my desperation, I turned to my intuitive guidance and began a process of reconnecting with my intuition, learning to value its instinct over my rational, strategic self’s desire to meet societal standards of success.

This has not been a quick or straightforward process. It is messy and complicated. I had to learn to discern between my rational mind and my intuitive voice. It required I heal traumas that kept me disconnected from my body. And trusting intuitive guidance required unlearning many ingrained beliefs that connected my worth with my production and my value to my financial earnings.

I am learning to trust my instincts, gut feelings, and energy patterns above the rules and outside advice. I am beginning to trust what feels most natural and expansive, instead of what seems most immediately rational and practical. Over the past year, I explored this process’s layers, and I don’t imagine I’m done yet.

But claiming my intuition and beginning to trust it with the decisions opened a new aspect of me. I can touch into grounded stability, channeled creativity, and an inherent sense of worth, which lies underneath the choppy waves of my rational, scarcity conditioned mind. There is abundance in my intuitive center, an abundance of ideas, passion, and flow.

Before I stepped into a new relationship with my intuition, it was impossible to imagine feeling stable, creative, let alone worthy. The practices I have used to begin unlearning the cultural scarcity cycle and reconnect with my intuitive abundance were not always clear and straightforward, but I have found them ultimately transformational:

Honoring Cyclical Energy Patterns

I no longer live in a linear manner, which means that I don’t force myself to push through when my energy is low. I allow myself more time to rest and process emotions. And when my energy is high, I move exponentially.

Honoring our natural energy patterns is the bedrock of reconnecting with your intuition. We must rest to heal and to create. I found the rest necessary to get back in touch with my intuition wasn’t scrolling through social media, but spending time in nature. It’s not flipping through channels but sleeping deeply and meditating regularly. Not that my life doesn’t also include social media and Netflix, but I also needed to make time for this deep rest that allowed for reconnection with my intuition.

Discerning + Unlearning Scarcity Messages

Moving away from linear living brings up cultural and familial messages about the fear of not having enough. I noticed a lot of scarcity beliefs arose when I began allowing myself space to rest. Resting is laziness. I won’t get ahead if I don’t push and grind. There is only so much time, and by relaxing, I am letting others get ahead of me. I’m not worthy of care, comfort, or affection if I’m not earning it.

These culturally conditioned scarcity messages were my rational mind trying desperately to keep me safe by returning me to “normal.” It takes a lot of patience and tenderness to recognize and sit with these messages. Over time I have found they have quieted. And when they arise, I can name them and question if they are real.

Healing Frozen Parts

Trauma disconnects us from our intuition, because through trauma, we learn to dissociate from our bodies. When we live with the effects of trauma, it can seem impossible to feel our intuitive guidance.

Reconnecting to our intuition involves healing these frozen parts by making space for them. Whether we are survivors of abuse, natural disasters, or just the trauma of living in a scarcity culture, there are parts of us that need to be acknowledged.

For me, healing some of my core trauma wounds through intensive therapy and embodiment meditation brought about the most profound shifts in my internal guidance system.

Feeling What is Present

Intuitive guidance is present-focused. What are we feeling here and now? Shifting to intuitive living has required that I let go of my obsession with to-do lists, setting goals and rigidly scheduling my life. I have to feel my internal rhythms and energy patterns, directing me in the present. Meeting friends on Friday can sound fantastic on Tuesday, but could feel draining on Friday afternoon.

Our intuitive guidance is here to support us in the present. We can no longer set a plan, then turn off and blindly follow it. I catch myself all the time living on autopilot, going through my usual schedule until I remind myself to come back and check in. Is my body longing to get up and stretch even though I haven’t finished the paragraph? Am I hungry, or am I just used to eating at this time? Living intuitively requires feeling the directions of your deeper self moment by moment.

Author bio:

Lisa Greene (she/her)

Lisa is a freelance intuitive writer for holistic entrepreneurs. She has a BA in psychology from Western Washington University, and spent years working in sexual health education and anti-violence community organizing. She is now learning to balance her passion for service with intuitively-led living, and writes about her insights on her blog, Intuitively Guided Living.

Why Mindfulness Matters

Vote Like the Planet Depends on It — Because It Does

We need to have climate justice

An Economy With Heart

Unlearning Cultural Scarcity

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