fear
Take Time To Renew Your Spirit
[youtube=http://youtu.be/czZNsI8Uvhc]
TED Talk Monday
LOL – you will note that today is Monday, not Tuesday, the usual day for “TED Talk Tuesday” postings. I wish I could claim I just posted it today to confuse folks, but alas I’m not that clever – I just got my dates mixed up. Whatever the case, enjoy this talk.
Fascinating!
Imagine you’re a shipwrecked sailor adrift in the enormous Pacific. You can choose one of three directions and save yourself and your shipmates — but each choice comes with a fearful consequence too. How do you choose? In telling the story of the whaleship Essex, novelist Karen Thompson Walker shows how fear propels imagination, as it forces us to imagine the possible futures and how to cope with them.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwgWkUIm9Gc]
What Are We Waiting For?
A powerful message beamed onto the Verizon building in New York City:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OROZBOj8nM&feature=youtu.be&a]
Now is the time to STAND UP for yourself, to be BOLD, be CREATIVE, be RADICAL To Dream BIG, IMAGINE, Feel the fear but DO IT! Anyway its time to Question Expert Authority, ASK hard questions, PROPOSE and DEMAND solutions. To Participate and AGITATE. DISOBEY if you must. To VISUALISE and Organise. To KILL the fear spreading Media – EDUCATE and INFORM yourself and Others. NOW is the time to invest in HOPE.
To cultivate LOVE To Give Thanks for what we have and to help those that Haven’t. We Must DANCE, PLAY, ENJOY ourselves. TRANSFORM your situation no matter how bad it is. It can be done, EAT WELL, REST, MEDITATE. PROTECT yourself. BECOME a SOUL WARRIOR. Don’t Apoligise for being a DREAMER – we need MORE DREAMERS. PERSIST Resist and ignore the begrudgers, hold firm to your vision. Don’t make up excuses or get caught up in Blame. In the Game of them and Us RESPECT Everyone, even if you dont like them. Enemies are Great Teachers. TRANSCEND, RISE, Reach for the STARS.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. LAUGH at yourself. LOVE YOURSELF. You are WONDERFUL if you let yourself BE. ABANDON JUDGEMENT, Age, Roles, Stereotypes. Take RISKS. Drop LEFT RIGHT and RELIGIOUS Dogma. THINK FOR YOURSELF. Take control of your Diet, Money, Home, Family, Work Spend Time in NATURE. Listen to your Gut, Instinct, Intuition, Heart. Go offline to get ONLINE. Take QUIET TIME for you, to WRITE, DRAW. EXPERIMENT. Learn a SONG, Call a Meeting, Start a Petition. BUILD COMMUNITY. See what happens. SHARE. Take your time. Slow Down – Small and Slow are POWERFUL and BEAUTIFUL. Wake up to REALITY. It’s not that bad. If it is THEN CHANGE IT. Don’t wait for others to do it. TELL OTHERS, JOIN them, ASK for HELP.
SING IT LOUD. BE Proud you’re not a Zombie caught up on the harsh production line of Commuting, Work, Shopping, Consumption and SLEEP. You’re MUCH MORE ALIVE This is not a PRACTICE RUN, THIS IS YOUR REVOLUTION TO MAKE IT HAPPEN THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE POSSIBLITIES THAT YOU THINK! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
The Night is Dark, and We are Far From Home
On this Remembrance Day, here’s the choir of Wells Cathedral singing Lead Kindly Light:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QSG1ymbEzs]
Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom,
lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
the distant scene; one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
pride ruled my will: remember not past years!
So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
Musings from a Mom on Climate Change
Day 4 into the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, and my initial caption for my posting today was going to be “Living in the Age of Stupid”. But as I began to write, I remembered that this is the Weekend of Action for a Real Deal around the globe. Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons and grandparents around the world will be gathering en masse to send our leaders a message that the world needs real, binding, and ambitious agreement. While there are incredibly diverse ways of being human, we have this in common. We are all someone’s son or daughter. Many of us also have children of our own. My daughters are why I can’t give in to pessimism and hopelessness. They are worth fighting for.
Recently, I’ve heard skeptics argue that “fear mongering” regarding the dire planetary emergency we are in should set off warning bells. Fear = untruth seems to be their argument. As a parent, I know when fear is a healthy thing to employ. When my daughters were younger, if one of them went too near a hot stove, I didn’t stand back and point out to her that 1% of people who have touched a hot stove believe that it isn’t harmful. If one of them went near the edge of a precipitous cliff, I didn’t stand back and engage her in debate about the odds of surviving a fall.
California’s Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger explained it like this:
“If 98 doctors say my son is ill and needs medication and two say ‘No, he doesn’t, he is fine,’ I will go with the 98. It’s common sense—the same with climate change. We go with the majority, the large majority.”
