4th March - The Great Awakening

I was spurred on in my search for a ‘simple’ answer when I joined a group of women working through the Roots of Change study material[1]  which was a real eye-opener.  It looked at how the spread of capitalism is destroying so many rich human cultures  and imposing the one-size-fits all culture of consumerism.

I faced these readings with some trepidation – they seemed daunting, pretty academic and often lengthy – but they addressed just the questions that had been puzzling me.

Throughout this work the fact that the very environment on which life depends is being destroyed and that so many people in the world – rich and poor alike – are so very unhappy threatened to lay my spirits low and I am eternally grateful to those writers who are chronicling what has been termed ‘The Great Awakening’ seen by many as a change for humanity as momentous as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. This was well put by Paul Hawken[2]  -

‘What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world…  Humanity is coalescing.  It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries and slums.  You join a multitude of caring people.  No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more.  The is the largest movement the world has ever seen.”

I’m not too sure that the changes we are seeing can really be described as a ‘movement’ but it suits me to hold on to the hope that things they are a changing!

 Almost five hundred years ago Francis Bacon said ‘Knowledge is Power’. so my hope is that in gaining more understanding of how Mankind has created an unsustainable way of life which is miserable for so many  we might begin to feel a sense of power and the realisation that we can all play a part in creating a bright new future.

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[1]  Roots of Change published by the International Society for Ecology and Culture

[2] Paul Hawken; The Commencement Address, University of Portland, May 2009