"Collapse" is already happening, and it's speeding up.

What is it, if anything, you need to do to prepare for the changes it will bring to our lives? How will you thrive?

Here are some of the things going on in the world just from today's headlines (Mostly NOT in the Lame Stream media) that are going to drastically affect how you live and who you are.

• Japan's death agony continues  (Collapsenet.com) Typhoon Roke will pass right over Fukushima - 1 Million may evacuate.
• TEPCO says up to 500 tons of groundwater already flowing into Fukushima Power Plant (japantoday.com)
• China cannot save Europe when it's defaulting on it's own debt (Forbes)
• China Pulls The Rug From Under Europe, Halts French Bank Transactions, Makes Good On Trade War Ultimatum (ZeroHedge.com)
• Saudi King heralds the dawn of the new World Order (Yahoo Business)
• The new most dangerous cities in America (BusinessInsider.com) There are 25 of them....
• Eurozone crisis coukld push Britain back over the edge (independent.co.uk)
• There will be peak oil (Acklett's Energy Mix)
• Palestine: The move to vote on statehood begins Friday. I'm trying hard to imagine an outcome that won't trigger war or uprising. Pres. Obama has said the US will veto statehood (haaretz.com)
• Europe's Central banks load up on Gold (theglobeandmail.com)
•  Global energy use to jump 53% (CNN) The question is, how?
• The corporate bank run has begun (zerohedge.com)
• Mayor Bloomberg says world social unrest will hit America's streets (bbc.co.uk)

I could go on and on. The point here is not to be negative, but to be aware of what's happening on the planet. I'm not negative, but I am alarmed (as if that were an inappropriate reaction, and is a much better place than denial). Few of us are eager to contemplate, let alone truly face, these looming changes. Just the threat of losing chunks of the comfortable way of life we’re accustomed to (or aspiring to) is a frightening-enough prospect. But there’s no avoiding the current facts and trends of the human and planetary situation.

From The Waking Up Syndrome by Sarah Anne Edwards and Linda Buzzel:

What’s going on may or may not be inevitable, but we don’t have to speed it along. We can do at least one thing to ease or lessen the negative impact of these changes. We can join an environmental action group, plant a tree, bike to work, help with a protest march or write letters to our congressperson. Just doing our little bit to limit the damage eases the psychological distress we’re feeling, even if we’re not “saving the whole world.”  Taking even a small stand for what Joanna Macy calls “the life-sustaining society” (as opposed to the life-destroying one) gives us back our dignity and sense of agency.

Raise our level of consciousness so we can maintain some serenity and not burn out in the midst of all this change. We might adopt a spiritual practice of some kind, take up meditation, expand our understanding of ecology or history, or spend time reconnecting with nature, learning to live our lives in harmony with the rest of the earth.

To Learn More

Books

Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life by Cecile Andrews.
World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal by Joanna Macy.
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community by David Korten.
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change and other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century by James Howard Kunstler.
Middle-Class Life Boat, Careers and Life Choices for Staying Afloat in an Uncertain Economy by Paul and Sarah Edwards.
Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
Peak Everything: Waking up to the Century of Decline by Richard Heinberg.
Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg.
Reconnecting with Nature by Michael J. Cohen.

Documentary DVDs
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream. www.endofsuburbia.com/previews.htm
Escape From Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of the Empire. www.whatawaytogomovie.com/
Crude Impact
Collapse

Organizations

The Post-Carbon Institute www.postcarbon.org

Photo credit: Jos van Wunnik

Just Your Everyday, Run-of-the-Mill Apocalyptic Shamanic Breathwork Journey, Part Two...

In my previous entry, "Just Your Everyday, Run-of-the-Mill Apocalyptic Shamanic Breathwork Journey, Part One...", I laid out a little background on this entry. In one way, I've been a little fearful about writing this down and speaking publicly into my breathwork vision experience. As I said, it's a dilly...

I don't personally know anyone who isn't shocked and dismayed about what's happening in the Gulf and the very real sense that it is a tipping point of some sort. If it isn't at least a tipping point in waking people up to what we are doing to ourselves, then there seems very little hope that anything will wake us up.

As I prepared for my breathwork journey, the news around the spill grew worse. It turns out there are three leaks from the well, not one, and two of them are from casing failure and damaged strata far below the ocean floor: Scientists are now saying the amount of oil leaking in the gulf could be 3-4 times more than admitted by BP or the US Government; Tremendous amounts of methane gas is being released along with the oil, which has the very real possibility of creating huge "dead zones" in the gulf, and spreading who knows where. Last,  because of the "doomsday scenario," they can't shut the well down because of pressure buildup and the danger of underground blowouts in the rock formation. There are more disasters waiting.

What does it all mean? We don't know. Uncharted territory.

In an earlier breathwork vision several years ago, I was shown planets all over the universe who were not able to move in into higher awareness that had literally killed themselves off, and was told by "Spirit" that we had very little time to shift. If we didn't, our fate would resemble the other planets who had committed species suicide.

In this new breathwork, which happened just last week, I was "shown" that we have exceeded the tipping point where we had an opportunity to save ourselves: that we have passed the last opportunity to salvage our existence on the planet. At first, I was overcome with grief around our stupidity, then I tried to get out of the vision, looking for some way to escape, some way out of the vision that was being presented to me.

I couldn't.

Then, finally, surrender. I just let go. I still carried the numbness from the vision, but rested in surrender until the music finally took me out of the process. I then created a mandala (the illustration at the top of this entry) of what the planet might look like should the "doomsday scenario" take place. For the rest of the day and early evening, I was literally in shock.

It wasn't until later that evening that I was able to find some resolution around the vision: I had to "shift my perspective," stand in another place and view it from a different angle. What I found was this:

What if the shift so many of us have been working and preparing for doesn't look anything like we've imagined it? Existing stages of consciousness never really know what the newly emerging stage is going to look like. What would the effect be on the universe if 6.8 billion souls were pretty much dumped into the sixth "Bardo" at the same time? Sometimes referred to as the "store-house" consciousness, or the aggregate of consciousness which administers and yields rebirth, what impact might that have on consciousness itself? What impact might that have on the shamanic consciousness of death and rebirth?

From this point of view it is because the store-house consciousness, while being originally immaculate in itself, contains a "mysterious mixture of purity and defilement, good and evil" that the transformation of consciousness can take place and enlightenment can be experienced. In this analysis, mental and physical manifestations are nothing but discriminations of Mind and all aspects of the first seven physically enumerated consciousnesses are just the reflections of the store consciousness.

Maybe this is the shift, and maybe we are the ones we've been waiting for. Maybe it won't look anything like what we thought it would look like. Maybe we need to move out of this "little picture" consciousness, walk over here a few paces and look at it from a new perspective....

Hey, I don't know. What I do know is what we're doing isn't working on so many levels.

Partial image of mandala image by Gary Stamper

James Howard Kunstler's 2008 Predictions

I so want to write about my previous blog, A New Years' Message, because it is so eloquently written and presents such a positive view of what is possible at this turning of the ages. I firmly believe that there are people who are capable of embodying the essence of Christ Consciousness and who represent the second coming that is so close within our grasp, and yet so likely to slip between our fingers....and I will, but not today.

Instead, I'm going to write about what I fear will be the more likely scenario, deftly summarized by the author of "The Long Emergency," James Howard Kunstler.

Why present such a negative view when I could write about things so much more positive? Because we simply must look at all of the possibilities, and Kunstler's been dead-on for years.

Heres' a sample:

"I shudder to imagine how things will play out now as we turn the corner into 2008. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my little walnut brain can't imagine any scenario in which the US economy doesn't end up on a gurney in history's emergency room. It's not necessary to rehash the particulars of the Greenspan bubble-blowing disaster. The outcome is what concerns us. The web cables have been blazing for months with arguments as to what form the workout will take. There's little disagreement about the fundamentals at the housing end of things."

Read the whole enchilada here.

The shift we've hoped and prayed for may not look anything like we imagined, and could be very, very expensive and dear.