"I make more mistakes than anybody I know, 'cause I try more things. There's nothing wrong with building something and finding out that it doesn't work. This is where you get your experience. There's nothing wrong with criticism...
...all of us stand on the shoulders of one another. And we shape the future."
Jacque Fresco
creator of The Venus Project
I discovered him today and have been watching clips of his talks and interviews on YouTube. I strongly suggest you do the same.
Listen with an open mind to his thoughts on government, money, religion, god, science, democracy, socialism, communism, depression, language, why a utopian society is impossible, invention, groups of people around the world, land, our history, and our future.
I know this post is a little general, but there really is just too much I'd like to say. Much more than I can write. It's just so comforting to find what aligns with your soul, isn't it? While watching I've teared up, clapped, and cheered.
Here's a good place to start: US Has Never Been a Democracy
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 13, 2013
Made of Stars
When I'm asked about my religious beliefs, it's hard for me to answer. Simply because I don't know that there's an existing label that fits, nor do I find the vague answer of "I'm spiritual", satisfying or informative. I can claim New Age more than anything, as I don't dig dogma. I can tell you I lean toward Eastern Philosophy. That I find a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism both beautiful and sensical. That maybe a part of me deep down feels like we can't be anything other than agnostic. That I believe all religions are true, because they are all someone's truth, meaning it's their reality and their right to believe what they need to believe to guide and comfort them through their human experience. That "if there is only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?" That "we are all just walking each other home".
But maybe the pairing of words that ring truest for me are a combination I came up with myself back when I was writing my speech for the funeral for my uncle Chuck, last May. I called myself a Spiritual Scientist. I feel the most comfort and the deepest sense of truth in my Scientific Spirituality leanings and learnings.
Funny enough, my deepest sense of home, truth, soul, magic, absolute wonder, view of humanity, and comfort have come from science.
Some people come to Earth with minds so ahead of their time. We are so lucky that sometimes they not only choose to share their thoughts and knowledge, but find themselves with a vocation or status to do so. Like Carl Sagan. Nothing has opened me up quite like his influence of understanding the universe, or of finding and trying to endlessly understand our origins.
So much so, I recently tattooed "star stuff" on my arm to serve as a reminder that we are so much more than these physical bodies and will be so much more again when they expire. Literally. As much as I'd love to think our consciousness goes on, and I'll wake up time and time again as something else (and even feel as if that's what I've always done) right now the literal is comfort enough. The thought of recycling. Reincarnation in the most literal sense.
It's enough that I can look into the sky and know I'm looking into my origins.
Ancestors.
My future.
Nothing else has ever brought me a deeper feeling of complete and total spirituality.
I was moved by an editorial about how the Hubble telescope is showing us the immensity of the universe. With our sun one among 50 billion stars in our galaxy, among more than 50 billion galaxies, it is easy to think of ourselves as lost on a speck in space.
Indeed, one common outcome of modern education is the widespread feeling that we humans are forever separated from the rest of the universe by unimaginable distances, and that the forces operating in the universe are utterly alien to us.
Spiritual traditions give us ways of feeling connected with the universe. I want to remind you of another, scientific, way of feeling connected to the stars.
The same science that reveals to us the vastness of the universe also tells us another story: Astronomers explain that all the elements heavier than hydrogen originated inside stars. The carbon in the ink on a page, and the silicon in glass and microchips, were created in the heart of a star, long ago, as that star shined by fusing hydrogen. The iron that carries the oxygen in your blood as you read this, was created when a star, in its dying phase, exploded.
You and I are not merely separated from the galaxies by unimaginable immensities of space; we are also connected to them by unimaginable immensities of time. We are literally made from stars. We are their descendants. The only difference between us and stars is time.
I don't know how this way of looking at things strikes you, but it raises in me an absurdly wonderful sense of celebration, and I look at the night sky not with a sense of hopeless separateness, but with a feeling of kinship: There shine the origins of every element in our bodies. Because stars exist, I exist. The processes that created those billions of unimaginably distant galaxies also created us.
We human beings are not separate from the universe. Those galaxies are not merely distant--they are distant cousins.
With this in mind, I urge you not to miss the nightly wintertime rising of Orion in the Southeastern sky, followed by the star, Sirius, flashing red, blue, and golden light. Or the summer rising of Scorpio across the Southern sky, with red Antares burning at its heart.
That is a kinship worth celebrating.
But maybe the pairing of words that ring truest for me are a combination I came up with myself back when I was writing my speech for the funeral for my uncle Chuck, last May. I called myself a Spiritual Scientist. I feel the most comfort and the deepest sense of truth in my Scientific Spirituality leanings and learnings.
Funny enough, my deepest sense of home, truth, soul, magic, absolute wonder, view of humanity, and comfort have come from science.
Some people come to Earth with minds so ahead of their time. We are so lucky that sometimes they not only choose to share their thoughts and knowledge, but find themselves with a vocation or status to do so. Like Carl Sagan. Nothing has opened me up quite like his influence of understanding the universe, or of finding and trying to endlessly understand our origins.
So much so, I recently tattooed "star stuff" on my arm to serve as a reminder that we are so much more than these physical bodies and will be so much more again when they expire. Literally. As much as I'd love to think our consciousness goes on, and I'll wake up time and time again as something else (and even feel as if that's what I've always done) right now the literal is comfort enough. The thought of recycling. Reincarnation in the most literal sense.
It's enough that I can look into the sky and know I'm looking into my origins.
Ancestors.
My future.
Nothing else has ever brought me a deeper feeling of complete and total spirituality.
We are Literally Made from Stars
by Gerald Grow
I was moved by an editorial about how the Hubble telescope is showing us the immensity of the universe. With our sun one among 50 billion stars in our galaxy, among more than 50 billion galaxies, it is easy to think of ourselves as lost on a speck in space.
Indeed, one common outcome of modern education is the widespread feeling that we humans are forever separated from the rest of the universe by unimaginable distances, and that the forces operating in the universe are utterly alien to us.
Spiritual traditions give us ways of feeling connected with the universe. I want to remind you of another, scientific, way of feeling connected to the stars.
The same science that reveals to us the vastness of the universe also tells us another story: Astronomers explain that all the elements heavier than hydrogen originated inside stars. The carbon in the ink on a page, and the silicon in glass and microchips, were created in the heart of a star, long ago, as that star shined by fusing hydrogen. The iron that carries the oxygen in your blood as you read this, was created when a star, in its dying phase, exploded.
You and I are not merely separated from the galaxies by unimaginable immensities of space; we are also connected to them by unimaginable immensities of time. We are literally made from stars. We are their descendants. The only difference between us and stars is time.
I don't know how this way of looking at things strikes you, but it raises in me an absurdly wonderful sense of celebration, and I look at the night sky not with a sense of hopeless separateness, but with a feeling of kinship: There shine the origins of every element in our bodies. Because stars exist, I exist. The processes that created those billions of unimaginably distant galaxies also created us.
We human beings are not separate from the universe. Those galaxies are not merely distant--they are distant cousins.
With this in mind, I urge you not to miss the nightly wintertime rising of Orion in the Southeastern sky, followed by the star, Sirius, flashing red, blue, and golden light. Or the summer rising of Scorpio across the Southern sky, with red Antares burning at its heart.
That is a kinship worth celebrating.
Apr 6, 2013
John P. Shanley
John P. Shanley the playwright has the best Facebook updates of anyone. Ever.
I didn't know when I saw you that you were engraved in me forever. Before they built the house where we first embraced, the land there waited for our arrival like a mother. I watch white clouds fall from the sky. The sea hesitates between tides. The sun itself seems uncertain. There is a gathering up of the powers. What is this finite silence that fills me with dread? It's not the future I fear. It is Now. Bring me Tomorrow.
The energies that govern us, come from us. The greater energies that we witness from our own obscurity, confirm an overarching Spirit.
When the prison is invisible, the escape may also be invisible.
On my way to you, I walked through a rare perfume. It conjured a night undone by days. What makes us too weak to forge a destiny? Why did you let me go? Why did I set you free?
What you leave out is the story.
The first daffodils escape the earth. A prison opens up its gates. Spring breaks free. That heavy heart rushes out towards the sun. You are forgiven.
What do you want? Love? You have it. Oh, you want to give it? Then do. But give it to those who want it. Don't impose your love., for love imposed is not love at all; it's pain you'd like to shed. But what should you do with your pain that's not an imposition? Jump into the sea and worship life.
I didn't know when I saw you that you were engraved in me forever. Before they built the house where we first embraced, the land there waited for our arrival like a mother. I watch white clouds fall from the sky. The sea hesitates between tides. The sun itself seems uncertain. There is a gathering up of the powers. What is this finite silence that fills me with dread? It's not the future I fear. It is Now. Bring me Tomorrow.
The energies that govern us, come from us. The greater energies that we witness from our own obscurity, confirm an overarching Spirit.
When the prison is invisible, the escape may also be invisible.
On my way to you, I walked through a rare perfume. It conjured a night undone by days. What makes us too weak to forge a destiny? Why did you let me go? Why did I set you free?
What you leave out is the story.
The first daffodils escape the earth. A prison opens up its gates. Spring breaks free. That heavy heart rushes out towards the sun. You are forgiven.
What do you want? Love? You have it. Oh, you want to give it? Then do. But give it to those who want it. Don't impose your love., for love imposed is not love at all; it's pain you'd like to shed. But what should you do with your pain that's not an imposition? Jump into the sea and worship life.
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