Some of the most memorable moments in our lives are punctuated by the moments when we move into the shadows of unmarked territory and when we courageously set sail beyond what we thought was previously possible. Our minds and bodies move out of old scripts of safe predictability and we are thrust into the exhilarating present moment where all of our consciousness is brought to writing new scripts for the task at hand. It is in this harmony between uncertainty and challenge which enables fresh perspectives, deepening of friendships and new insight to cascade through our beings. So to start our year, we decided to take action to achieve beyond what we thought was possible.
You may have noticed a few viral images going around comparing how humans raised 835M to rebuild Notre-dame in a short period of time, but nobody seems to care that the Amazon is burning. I was hurt to consider how and why we might respond so differently to these two situations and want to look at a few layers behind this statement which are deeply reflective of the human experience.
1. Culturally we hold significance to the things we personally spend a long time building relationships with, things that involve us using our hands, places we’re we celebrate our love, where we morn our loss of loved ones, use our money to build and places that provide community and spiritual nourishment. If this was a specific community farm that we personally helped grow, nurture and eat from every Sunday our response to this burning would be just as profound. I understand we may receive some of our food from this area, but it’s still an abstraction. It’s not directly connected to the fabric of our lives in a way we can comprehend like we can a local community garden or church burning.
2. The identity and responsibility of a specific, well known church is easier to raise money for than multiple different organisations who each care for the large scale protection area of the Amazon. People feel less likely to raise money for multiple broad blanket funds they don’t have an existing relationship with vs. specific let’s rebuild the church from the religion that “I already trust” funds.
3. Religious status and involvement is deeply interwoven into the fabric of our society, news and identity. The rainforest is far more removed from the personal and direct involvement of the church. The forest does not have a central human voice representing it and a community of devotees who all identify as part of the same organisation like the church does. This makes “listening to the wishes of the forest” more fuzzy, even though it’s cry for help is obvious.
4. I’m pretty sure in the past we held the majesty of nature as our churches, but those days are far behind many of us. The abstraction and disconnection from our earth is mighty and enables us to not feel the need to connect to such atrocities. The majority of us are no longer farmers, we are no longer custodians of large areas not our own. All of this makes it easier to let something like this slip past us like it’s not our responsibility to care. Our personal identity as humans often doesn’t encompass the earth as a whole. It generally encompasses our cultural identity as a country, a region, a city, a family, a religion.
5. We are basic biological primates living in futuristic societies, we are intellectually unable to fully comprehend the situation we’ve got ourselves into, we tend to respond most quickly to things that we can either directly empathise with or affect our lives personally. The idea of our place of worship being destroyed is something we can all identify with, the challenge here is that our place of worship is no longer a forest region in someone else’s country, our places of worship are now often established doctrines within our own towns, perpetuated from within concrete buildings.
If you feel like supporting the rainforest there are a number of ways you can get involved. There is currently a partition with over 4 million signatures asking Brazilian politicians to put a complete ban on illegal burning of the forrest. –> https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-burning-of-the-amazon-rainforest
This is the first episode of a new morning radio-show I’ve called Coming Alive. It’s a combination of my passion for sharing undiscovered music and uplifting spoken word insights that happen to flow through me when I dare to let them out.
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I’ll be honest in saying I am terrified sharing this with you as it’s new territory I haven’t fully explored before. I feel vulnerable, walking the plank of my own creative unknown. That being said, I can also sense that this is a wonderful way to share my vision for the future and ultimately one of the best ways to improve my craft. My aim is to enhance your morning experience, giving you pep in your step and a boost of clarity towards your vision in becoming a better more authentically aligned and alive human being.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section as I’m still learning and growing and would love to hear from you.
Yesterday I decided to massage strangers in public with a few friends. I learned that when we respectfully touch others in this way, we are subconsciously and consciously sending a message that says “I see you, I value you and I care for you”. I discovered there is a tremendous healing power in creating tangible experiences like this.
Remember that we are one and fundamentally united. Something magical happens during extended eye contact (also called eye gazing or soul gazing). This moment arises when we forget that there’s a “you” and a “me” and we become engulfed in an experience of unity. Personalities, gender, social class, beliefs etc all melt away. And we are left with this recognition of the other as purely a reflection of ourselves. A sparkle of the Continue reading →
FOREVER FREE First and foremost, this global event is and will always be completely free for all of humanity to experience. This is to ensure all people from all backgrounds are able to feel a proud part of the event, we believe that if you want to inspire a movement of world peace you need to enable everyone to be a part of it. That being said, it does cost months of time and thousands of dollars to coordinate such a large and inspiring event so we had to find another way to make it work.
We held space for each other… In Dublin, we restored peoples’ faith in humanity. We challenged each other in London, to look beyond the stories and judgements, seeing only the same 5 year old spirit inside each of us. In New Zealand, we shared a moment with others on our way to work and back again, with a beaming smile. We moved each other in Ramallah, changing the world by changing ourselves. We gave each other presence in Ljubljana.
We made friends in Deventer, Cologne and Naples. We created light and energy in Tel Aviv. We observed each other’s faces in Leuven. In Buenos Aires, we started a love revolution. In Lyon, we met our soulmate. We opened hearts in Zurich. In New Smyrna Beach, our eyes filled with tears of peaceful coexistence and love. In Columbus, we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. In Perth, in Vancouver, in Green Bay, in Stockholm, we were ready to be seen, realising there were no “others” just ‘us’…a mirror of beauty and love.
In Caracas, strangers invited each other to the ‘party,’ reaching out to share our event. In Belgrade, we travelled miles just to participate and share. In Oslo, we crossed our own boundaries, despite our discomfort to participate. In Cape Town, we uplifted sadness, giving a reason to leave the house that day. In Brazil, we enabled an ‘Ah Ha’ moment to solve an ongoing dilemma. In Kuala Lumpa, we connected without words. In Las Palma’s, we were a Syrian refugee’s welcome.
NOW, our story continues. On Sept 23rd, join thousands of people in 270 cities all around the world, in Australia through to Venezuela, to make history once again. Be part of the 100%. Be present. Be counted. Be a mirror. Be part of the global solution to war, terrorism, and ‘Us and Them syndrome’… Human Connection. We’re all in this together! Join the event here.
You step inside and welcome staff greet you pleasantly with a smile at the door. You are given gentle acknowledgement for your unique presence on this train. You find a seat with a comfortable pillow on it and notice fresh and thought provoking conversation cards hanging from the railings above. Another passenger who is sitting next to you kindly turns and decides to ask you one of the questions; “For what in your life are you most grateful?”. Before you’ve even had time to think about awkwardly moving towards your mobile phone, you’ve been engaged with an authentically interesting question.
In a world where people are scared to talk to strangers, knock on their neighbour’s doors, dance, sing, speak their mind or express themselves in public (the very things that came naturally to us as children), isn’t it time we began breaking through these self limiting beliefs?
Born in Perth, Western Australia; the most isolated city in the world where ‘nothing ever happens’, it seems that things are now well and truly happening: what was once a small group of outcasts & dreamers has now become a global network of a hundred thousand strong; The Liberators International. Modern-day game changers, who’s revolutionary new social experiments are continuing to gain momentum, expand their horizons and win powerful new allies.Continue reading →
The 2nd annual Eye Contact Experiment is exploding with people from all over the world rushing in to host and participate in what’s shaping up to be the biggest year yet! Last year over 100,000 people from more than 151 different cities participated in sharing eye contact with strangers in public spaces to re-build a sense of human connection right around the globe. “This year we’ve already had over Continue reading →
Inspiralight 