Brezsny fix for the day
This is an awesome interview:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/30/findrelig123008.DTL
some of my favorite moments:
"It's easy to dismiss the wacko prophets who are constantly emitting visions of gloom and doom. The more dangerous prophets are the storytellers of our culture - the journalists, the filmmakers, the writers of fiction and many musicians who are constantly besieging us with dark visions. I think about Muriel Rukeyser, the poet, who said that the universe is not made of molecules - it's made out of stories, and if the storytellers of our culture are constantly telling us that the only true thing is an ugly thing, then yes, I do think that's a problem."
"So what is the good news?
Well, in the next 23 hours, 200 million people will make love on the planet, and they do every day of every year. The average human life expectancy is something like 30 years more than it was a century ago and still climbing, and a lot of scientists think there is no upper limit to the human life span. The violent crime rate has decreased significantly since 1993; even though it's had a small increase in the last two years, it's down by over 40 percent since 1993. There are hundreds of stories like these that you don't hear much about."
"My personal opinion is that the first line of defense and the most effective thing anybody can do is to negotiate with their own shadow. I think that's where it all starts. If you know the Jungian concept of shadow, it's the unripe unregenerate aspects of ourselves. We don't want at look at those aspects - we'd rather ignore them - and because of that, they tend to sneak up from behind and cause us chaos. They also tend to be exactly what we project out into the world. I believe we need to take a stand, to say "I'm going to find out what my shadow is up to, I'm going to tenderly try to bring it along so that it's at least conscious in me, and it's not going to sabotage me." I think that as long as we're not projecting onto the world our own darkness, we're much better able to see the beauty in the world, to identify it and to deal with it."
"I subscribe to Krishnamurti's principle... he said that "we need four billion religions." Now that number is up to 6.5 billion - a religious tradition for everyone on the planet, 6.5 billion paths to God."
I heart him. It makes me a huge dork, but I do.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/30/findrelig123008.DTL
some of my favorite moments:
"It's easy to dismiss the wacko prophets who are constantly emitting visions of gloom and doom. The more dangerous prophets are the storytellers of our culture - the journalists, the filmmakers, the writers of fiction and many musicians who are constantly besieging us with dark visions. I think about Muriel Rukeyser, the poet, who said that the universe is not made of molecules - it's made out of stories, and if the storytellers of our culture are constantly telling us that the only true thing is an ugly thing, then yes, I do think that's a problem."
"So what is the good news?
Well, in the next 23 hours, 200 million people will make love on the planet, and they do every day of every year. The average human life expectancy is something like 30 years more than it was a century ago and still climbing, and a lot of scientists think there is no upper limit to the human life span. The violent crime rate has decreased significantly since 1993; even though it's had a small increase in the last two years, it's down by over 40 percent since 1993. There are hundreds of stories like these that you don't hear much about."
"My personal opinion is that the first line of defense and the most effective thing anybody can do is to negotiate with their own shadow. I think that's where it all starts. If you know the Jungian concept of shadow, it's the unripe unregenerate aspects of ourselves. We don't want at look at those aspects - we'd rather ignore them - and because of that, they tend to sneak up from behind and cause us chaos. They also tend to be exactly what we project out into the world. I believe we need to take a stand, to say "I'm going to find out what my shadow is up to, I'm going to tenderly try to bring it along so that it's at least conscious in me, and it's not going to sabotage me." I think that as long as we're not projecting onto the world our own darkness, we're much better able to see the beauty in the world, to identify it and to deal with it."
"I subscribe to Krishnamurti's principle... he said that "we need four billion religions." Now that number is up to 6.5 billion - a religious tradition for everyone on the planet, 6.5 billion paths to God."
I heart him. It makes me a huge dork, but I do.