i believe that we as a species are constantly on the verge of evolving conciously. however, that doesn't mean that we will at any given moment. we will go to the next step when we are ready. i believe that we have the potential to be ready because for me this means that we first need to take care of some basic necesities like food, shelter, medicine, education , etc, for everyone on the planet by birth right. this has never been possible before in the history of this planet. ( the us alone throws away more food than there are people actually starving on earth, several times more.)
today we have the technology, transportation, communication, storage, distribution... to easily do this.
the day the 'haves' wake up and realize that they will 'have more' by sharing and distributing a very small of their resources to those that don't, becuase it will raise the bar, the standard of living of everyone on this planet, that day their will be a massive shift in consciousness because their will no longer be any fear.
today, politics of scarcity are because of greed not need.

OK here are some thoughts and replies to the post.

Hey everyone... I'd like to know what everyone thinks of this and hear people's experiences, knowledge, ideas etc...

At our gathering coming up in may, we're focusing our Intent on personal power and change. This is an exerpt from our webpage:

"With each new year comes new thoughts, changing potential, shifting, surging energies, and new directions and challenges, both within our individual lives and within our global community. One of our goals with Spring Gathering is to live and grow in tandem with these changing energies to provide a new-formed vessel each year that is not separate from the greater world, but is a part of its movement –and of our individual movement.

<That statement makes me think about how all of our existence can be thought of as one giant organism. If you look at everything in the world as one great big organism then it is logical that different parts of it can cause it to go in different directions. You say that one of the goals is to "provide a new-formed vessel each year". I think that we should be trying to avoid having to make a "new" vessel each year since the creation of something "new" takes more energy than the upkeep of an existing one.>

This Gathering is a powerful magical tool. It is our Intent to refocus its power for magic and healing each year so that it may impact our daily lives and breathe new life and positive change into the world spirit.

<it may be that I am just reading things wrong or it may just be semantics but once again I am seeing some wasted effort in "refocus[ing] its power for magic and healing each year" . Actually I think that this phrasing is OK but maybe it would help to not think of last years gathering and this years gathering as different events, or entities even. Instead it could be thought of as another day in it's life since the "gathering" is an active part of your everyday life even when not happening in a specific geographic place or time. Maybe think of each “physical gathering” as a breath. With each breath the blood starts circulating. It does so many laps of the system and then s back for a fresh kick of oxygen to send it on it’s way again.>

This year our focus is on our own individual potential, our dreams and goals and on our own personal power. It ’s a question on everyone ’s tongue: What are the barriers that keep us from reaching anywhere near our real potential? How can we be so free and yet so captive in our lives? What can we do to break these cycles? We ’re living at a critical point in human history. What we do now matters and it ripples outward in a billion directions. How do we create a strong sympathetic wave of change to manifest our dreams and goals? How do we create a strong sympathetic wave of change to manifest our dreams and goals? How do we create the positive change we seek within our lives?"

What I want to know is: do you feel that we're coming up on one of the most important times in human history, or is this just the feeling because *we're* the ones alive now?

<I do think that we are at an extremely important point in existence. You can say that any point is extremely important because it only takes one action to change the course of the world and civilization. Would one good art showing have kept Hitler in Art School? What would have happened if Castro’s tryouts for the Washington Senator’s (baseball team) had gone better? It may seem more or less important to us because of where we are at in our lives or because of how we see it affecting us but it is real nonetheless. EVERY moment it important. This doesn’t mean that we have to be serious at all times. Play is just as important.>


Do you feel a shift in global consciousness and the energy rising?

<NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!!!! But the Potential is there>

How does this manifest in your own life? What have you seen and experienced that has made you believe or feel this or not believe or feel this?

<I see friends that I have grown up with and they are not thinking. Not imagining. And as hard as I try a lot of them will not listen. Some have. The current admin has given a lot of a needed kick in the butt and gotten many of us up and moving and thinking again. But we need more. To go back to the organism metaphor, the people are individual cells and if they are not growing then they are stagnating and will either die or go cancerous.>


Also, I'm wondering, do you feel held back from your own personal goals and dreams in life, and what is it that holds you back? How do you see one person having the potential to change not only themselves but the entire world for positive good?

<35 years of not knowing what to do with my personal attributes (I don’t want to say habits or skills. This refers more to the way that my mind works) have kept me from accomplishing a lot. A lot of people on the left are that way. We have so much going on inside of us that we don’t know what to do with it and so get confused or lost. How many people do you know that could do amazing things but something holds them back? (I was drunk for 10 years.) We need outlets. We need to work to make sure that as many people as possible have the outlets and encouragement to do something with their own brand of weirdness.. I studied business history in college and I can tell you that unlike the corporate bastards that you hear about today most of the really great businesses in history were started by people who thought more like artists than CPAs>

<as for changing the world I feel that communication is the most important thing. The more people each ONE person can communicate with the better.


For any that don’t think I am insane please drop by the Renaissance Farms tribe and drop me a line. I have a lot of ideas for doable projects involving communication and would love to hear and help with any that you might have.

Peace.

Andy

Thank You Boys. And now the lovely Lemon Sisters will sing there stunning rendition of Prison Bound.
(Sorry . on a social D kick. LOUD music is a good thing)

My thoughts on the future of mankind:

We are always on the brink of discovery, as we are also on the board of creation. Create/Discover.

So here we are, so often waiting for discovery. Looking for a change in the world or in ourselves that is yet to come, and behold what we find: change in the world or in ourselves that has not yet come. Could it be that we confused discovery with creation, and therefore have not?

We all dream of a better way. We wish to implement it. We see the world around us, full of bitterness and poor imprinting. We see hunger and anger, and we see fear.

Unfortunately, the dominant paradigm grants little outlet for expressing the will to change it, and the people have grown restless as a result.

Everyone today can feel that change is coming because change is. It's been happening constantly, since the first environmental resistance upon the first prokaryotic cell, but never before so intangibly or so quickly. The industrialized mind is spiraling out into increadible conflict.

There will be change and the course may be random, but I tell you this: We don't need waves... waves are a constant. We need the will to slap our hands against water.

What is important for us to realize is that it does not matter what happens to the world. We cannot exercise control over that... but we can have influence over our own experience/impact. All around us there are fertile minds, grown and taught in arrogance and shame who are desperate for salvation.

We need to renounce the spoiled ideology of this consumer/"sinner's" culture and provide examples of an alternative paradigm so that our brethren understand the full implications of their passive choice. We have to provide eachother with hope and become contrast against the setting sun of this world. Not to complete the dichotomy, but to disregard it completely.

What I believe our blockage is:

I think we are faced with a difficult challenge. To reconstruct our neural networks; to alter the course of our mindings and inner struggles; to remove our intentions from the sytems of our imprintings; to forge the new paradigm, we first have to understand what is unnecessary and happenstance.

I do not rely upon the intention of the ONEness. I do not see a great dawning before me. I do not feel that "spirit" is guiding us toward any end that is not also the consequence of our actions and attitudes. I see a great wave of the mentally abusive and abused being pushed upon society and I am confident the height of human suffering has not reached its peak. What I need is a viable alternative, and I've devoted my life to creating one.

This alternative is going to take searching, formulating, plotting, and acting. It is going to take revolutions of the mind and body. It is going to take appreciation for the phenomenal world, and reverence for the physical. It is going to take disclosure and intimacy, individualism and community. It is going to take networking and resource management. It is going to take daring and increadible patience.

All we need is to implement the change in our lives. Connected to eachother, and manifesting of our own grand visions, we will be ready for whatever occurs, and will find ourselves having had a hand in creating it. But no passiveness. What we need is action, not reaction. We need revolution, not rebellion.

Let the renaissance come