Creating an empowering, participatory democracy would perhaps be easy—if it weren't for our disempowerment. So what is disempowerment, and how to resolve it?
Disempowerment, in the context of the democratic system we've inherited, exists with our exclusion from political decision-making. We are not empowered to directly participate in decision-making and, unless we strive to enter the arena and play the game ourselves—by becoming empowered through a system that functions by the disempowerment of the vast majority—our role is to vote, occasionally.
Why must decision-making power reside with so few people?
The oppositional system of government we have feeds an antagonistic and combative political culture that conditions our view of human nature and informs our beliefs regarding our assumed inability to live co-operatively, with mutual caring, kindness and ease. The corporate news and entertainment media regularly present a pessimistic view of human relationship, along with apparent evidence of our incapacity to govern ourselves—but not overtly presented so. When we believe that we benefit by the current political system, self-interest entices us to promote perspectives and beliefs which support current political and economic understanding.
Over time, culture and family condition us to non-involvement in important decision-making, and our willingness to participate often diminishes into disinterest, apathy and carelessness. Divided against one another, in competition to get needs met, and engulfed by self-interest in an economic climate of scarcity and fear, we struggle with our sense of self-worth and agonize quietly over whether we deserve to belong to something greater.
Disempowerment, then, is both the psychological outcome of the current political system, and the necessary condition for our continued exclusion from democratic institutions. Feelings of shame, depression, fear and anger are held down by beliefs about our inherent badness or our unworthiness to belong, and this has an enormous influence on how we engage, and disengage, with others. (For more on the dynamics between shame and self-worth, see the very inspiring work of Brené Brown: www.brenebrown.com.) But we hardly know this directly because the culture provides so much to distract us from simply experiencing how we feel, and from discovering the truth of our unmet needs.
With disempowerment, our challenge involves trusting our need to connect with feelings that we've come to believe are not okay to meet. Rather than meet all feeling, we habitually make judgments based on what we think is good or bad, or who we think is right or wrong, and the more oppressed we are, the more toxic our judgments tend to be.
Allowing ourselves to experience all of what we feel awakens our capacity to connect fully with life and resolve disempowerment. But this is neither easy nor comfortable for us, which is why we so readily go for diversions to throw attention into. We end up ignoring pain, pretending it isn't there, and who benefits from this? No one, really.
Maybe the degree to which we think that creating real democracy is challenging, we find actually embracing disempowerment difficult?
Disempowerment is not a solid, imprisoning structure, but rather a fluid state subject to change. And because it is a learned condition, it can be unlearned. This involves awakening from the sleep of self-interest and stepping away from disempowering perspectives that lead us collectively into imbalance, harm and suffering, rather than towards well-being, abundance and happiness.
Meeting disempowerment allows us to contact the oppressed life energy within us, shut down under layers of judgment and false belief, and bring on a rebirth of willingness to enrich the lives of others and create the kind of world we want to see. We long for meaningful connection: to belong with all humanity, protecting and creating this world, a beautiful place. And many hands make light work.
But discovering the desire to create a genuine democracy depends on our willingness to meet disempowerment, and the more we connect with that desire within us, and with each other, the less there is for us individually to do.
Empowerment is a road to healing and renewal, on all levels.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Imagining Deep Democracy
The will to create an authentic, participatory democracy is encouraged by the trust that, as an active, involved and empowered people, we will decide to create the social and economic conditions needed to support our collective well-being and protect also the complex biodiversity of Earth.
Imagining what an enriching experience of democracy might look like connects us with our willingness to make it happen, and once we've awakened to the possibility of creating an enlivening form of democracy, the steps ahead become more clear.
If voting, as we do now, to elect politicians to make decisions on our behalf, is an unsatisfactory and superficial way to do democracy—one that leaves all but a few of us alienated from important decision-making, and perhaps unconsciously believing that we are powerless to create positive change—then what might politics look like if we were to be involved in a meaningful and empowering way?
Let's imagine our democracy transformed.
Our current electoral ridings—where various candidates contend in elections with the expectation of entering the oppositional world of partisan politics—are really communities waiting to be fully born through the shared realization of our common needs and values. As we share our place on the Earth in community, it is in our geographically situated communities where we might come together and transform the oppositional character of the political culture into one that is actually supporting, hopeful and sustainable.
It's in community where we could periodically explore our understanding of our shared needs and values, and this process could flow into an evolving, collective Constitution that expresses who we are and what we want as a people. At this time of exploring our common needs, a number of individuals could step forward with the intention of participating in local government. Although individuals are chosen by the community, they wouldn't represent that community, but rather they would work to allow people to participate fully in informed and considered decision-making.
So instead of our electing politicians to make decisions for us, we would choose people who we believe could best facilitate our involvement in decision-making, people whose role could be to explore the possibilities surrounding all aspects of the decisions that we might all participate in making.
But our participation would be voluntary, and various in its many ways. There could be opportunities for us to contribute to the development of policy and proposals for action, as well as frequent opportunities to indicate our choices of preference and priority. Meetings would occur at places of local government, and be accessible via the internet, and the entire process of government could be open to public observation and contribution. And what happens at the local level would inform what takes place at a greater, collective level.
From those we've selected to facilitate our local self-governance we could send one (or perhaps more) to participate at the next higher level of government, where the local process would be mirrored on the larger collective level. At this higher level, perhaps separate ministries or departments would form, emerging from the principle areas of mutual need, so that different people might pursue areas of greater personal interest: like health, environment, agriculture, industry, culture, etc. At the highest level of government, maybe we'd want to have a council of elected decision-makers, prepared to make decisions—based on our common values and needs, as expressed in the Constitution—in urgent and unusual circumstances.
Predominantly, our mutual desire to meet common needs would motivate our collective purpose in self-governance. Is there any other way that the will of the people could be more clearly manifest?
As empowered citizens, we can decide both the form and the content of the democracy we want to have, so that we may more easily create the world we want to have. But if we are to do politics in a way that fosters our collective well-being, I believe that it's important that democracy not be a game of winners and losers, but rather an inclusive process where everyone's contribution is valued and honoured.
It's my intention to leave this here as a simple sketch, because I'm very curious to know how you imagine democracy.
Through imagining, we deepen our will to create.
Through love,
John
Imagining what an enriching experience of democracy might look like connects us with our willingness to make it happen, and once we've awakened to the possibility of creating an enlivening form of democracy, the steps ahead become more clear.
If voting, as we do now, to elect politicians to make decisions on our behalf, is an unsatisfactory and superficial way to do democracy—one that leaves all but a few of us alienated from important decision-making, and perhaps unconsciously believing that we are powerless to create positive change—then what might politics look like if we were to be involved in a meaningful and empowering way?
Let's imagine our democracy transformed.
Our current electoral ridings—where various candidates contend in elections with the expectation of entering the oppositional world of partisan politics—are really communities waiting to be fully born through the shared realization of our common needs and values. As we share our place on the Earth in community, it is in our geographically situated communities where we might come together and transform the oppositional character of the political culture into one that is actually supporting, hopeful and sustainable.
It's in community where we could periodically explore our understanding of our shared needs and values, and this process could flow into an evolving, collective Constitution that expresses who we are and what we want as a people. At this time of exploring our common needs, a number of individuals could step forward with the intention of participating in local government. Although individuals are chosen by the community, they wouldn't represent that community, but rather they would work to allow people to participate fully in informed and considered decision-making.
So instead of our electing politicians to make decisions for us, we would choose people who we believe could best facilitate our involvement in decision-making, people whose role could be to explore the possibilities surrounding all aspects of the decisions that we might all participate in making.
But our participation would be voluntary, and various in its many ways. There could be opportunities for us to contribute to the development of policy and proposals for action, as well as frequent opportunities to indicate our choices of preference and priority. Meetings would occur at places of local government, and be accessible via the internet, and the entire process of government could be open to public observation and contribution. And what happens at the local level would inform what takes place at a greater, collective level.
From those we've selected to facilitate our local self-governance we could send one (or perhaps more) to participate at the next higher level of government, where the local process would be mirrored on the larger collective level. At this higher level, perhaps separate ministries or departments would form, emerging from the principle areas of mutual need, so that different people might pursue areas of greater personal interest: like health, environment, agriculture, industry, culture, etc. At the highest level of government, maybe we'd want to have a council of elected decision-makers, prepared to make decisions—based on our common values and needs, as expressed in the Constitution—in urgent and unusual circumstances.
Predominantly, our mutual desire to meet common needs would motivate our collective purpose in self-governance. Is there any other way that the will of the people could be more clearly manifest?
As empowered citizens, we can decide both the form and the content of the democracy we want to have, so that we may more easily create the world we want to have. But if we are to do politics in a way that fosters our collective well-being, I believe that it's important that democracy not be a game of winners and losers, but rather an inclusive process where everyone's contribution is valued and honoured.
It's my intention to leave this here as a simple sketch, because I'm very curious to know how you imagine democracy.
Through imagining, we deepen our will to create.
Through love,
John
Friday, October 15, 2010
Envisioning Transformation
The act of envisioning, seeing or imagining something allows us to get in touch with what's alive in us, so that we may know more deeply what we need, and what we'd like to create. Can we imagine what political transformation might look like?
How might we transform the way we do politics now into an effective, participatory democracy, where the decision-making process truly reflects our shared needs and values?
When you hear the word transformation, how do you feel? Are you apprehensive, nervous, afraid? Are you curious and excited, or do you feel hesitant and uneasy? Maybe you experience a range of feelings.
Transformation is about changing the form of something—like how, as children, we agree to change the way we play a game. Transforming democracy is our agreeing to change the form of how democracy is done, and because democracy is an arranged social construction, and not naturally occurring, we may decide to change it for our mutual benefit—if we collectively discover the will to do so.
In our disempowerment, much of our willingness has gone to sleep, however, and our needs to participate and to be empowered, for instance, we have either lost touch with, or these needs have been channeled into activities without a lot of relevance to the whole.
In order that we might carry out political transformation, it would appear necessary that some inner transformation first occur—some kind of remembering of who we are. When transformation occurs within us, what changes form is our beliefs, and beliefs are the containers of energy. When we bring attention to our beliefs and feelings, and they open up, then the energy that has stayed stuck underneath our disregarded beliefs, and embedded in our neglected feelings, starts to flow again.
Overcoming disempowerment on the personal level involves the awakening of desire, the shifting of perspective and feeling, the meeting of resistance, and the liberation of energy and will. Empowerment and the liberation of energy on the collective level involves our forming some kind of social movement as a vehicle of our willingness to catalyze change, to help bring us collectively where we want to go.
To create new forms of political engagement would perhaps require a significant investment of energy—as it is the investment of energy that changes form. But we already have that energy right now: it is just tied up in the condition of our disempowerment. That willing energy, trapped within us and often difficult to access, may yet be liberated for our greater well-being.
When I imagine political transformation, I see a gathering of individuals who experience some awakening to the possibility of change, a gathering which eventually flows into a larger movement with a clear purpose, a movement which increases in energy and form until our mutual goals are realized.
Outer transformation may first flow from inner, but we might also imagine how outer transformation will help us catalyze inner change. A social movement with the intent to transform how we do politics would have an enormous, transforming effect on us, and it might show us how the promise of such a movement—perhaps, the enlivening connection and sense of hope, trust and well-being that we'd experience together—would be fulfilled by formal, political transformation.
Inner and outer transformation are involved in the ongoing dance of co-creation, but it is up to us, and our willingness, to create the kind of world we want to see. So, let's imagine what an ideal democracy might look like.
When we imagine, we also call upon the will to create.
How might we transform the way we do politics now into an effective, participatory democracy, where the decision-making process truly reflects our shared needs and values?
When you hear the word transformation, how do you feel? Are you apprehensive, nervous, afraid? Are you curious and excited, or do you feel hesitant and uneasy? Maybe you experience a range of feelings.
Transformation is about changing the form of something—like how, as children, we agree to change the way we play a game. Transforming democracy is our agreeing to change the form of how democracy is done, and because democracy is an arranged social construction, and not naturally occurring, we may decide to change it for our mutual benefit—if we collectively discover the will to do so.
In our disempowerment, much of our willingness has gone to sleep, however, and our needs to participate and to be empowered, for instance, we have either lost touch with, or these needs have been channeled into activities without a lot of relevance to the whole.
In order that we might carry out political transformation, it would appear necessary that some inner transformation first occur—some kind of remembering of who we are. When transformation occurs within us, what changes form is our beliefs, and beliefs are the containers of energy. When we bring attention to our beliefs and feelings, and they open up, then the energy that has stayed stuck underneath our disregarded beliefs, and embedded in our neglected feelings, starts to flow again.
Overcoming disempowerment on the personal level involves the awakening of desire, the shifting of perspective and feeling, the meeting of resistance, and the liberation of energy and will. Empowerment and the liberation of energy on the collective level involves our forming some kind of social movement as a vehicle of our willingness to catalyze change, to help bring us collectively where we want to go.
To create new forms of political engagement would perhaps require a significant investment of energy—as it is the investment of energy that changes form. But we already have that energy right now: it is just tied up in the condition of our disempowerment. That willing energy, trapped within us and often difficult to access, may yet be liberated for our greater well-being.
When I imagine political transformation, I see a gathering of individuals who experience some awakening to the possibility of change, a gathering which eventually flows into a larger movement with a clear purpose, a movement which increases in energy and form until our mutual goals are realized.
Outer transformation may first flow from inner, but we might also imagine how outer transformation will help us catalyze inner change. A social movement with the intent to transform how we do politics would have an enormous, transforming effect on us, and it might show us how the promise of such a movement—perhaps, the enlivening connection and sense of hope, trust and well-being that we'd experience together—would be fulfilled by formal, political transformation.
Inner and outer transformation are involved in the ongoing dance of co-creation, but it is up to us, and our willingness, to create the kind of world we want to see. So, let's imagine what an ideal democracy might look like.
When we imagine, we also call upon the will to create.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
(Not) Seeing the Possibility
If we truly wanted to envision and create together a participatory democracy that enabled us to make collective decisions based on a mutual understanding of shared needs, I imagine that we'd find a way to do this.
But why don't we really want this? Why does the thought of striving for such change hardly come up? And when we consider what we imagine to be such enormous and challenging change, do we judge it as a fond dream, a foolish adventure or as a fantastic impossibility? However we may think about it, by our not believing that there's any real possibility of such change, we ensure that there will be none.
If we don't really want genuine democracy … this is probably because we're heavily conditioned by dominant societal beliefs and unconscious assumptions not to see the possibility.
Carried predominantly through the education system and the corporate mass media, we are conditioned by views about ourselves, our world, and our place in it—views promoted by those who, consciously or unconsciously, think they have an interest in maintaining things as they are. To a large degree, “our” beliefs are shaped by others, and we're led to think that authority and power exist outside of ourselves. We've become used to our relative advantages and comforts, and we maintain our expectations about what we think is possible, and not possible, in this world.
Conditioned into disempowerment, perhaps we must appreciate the scope of this before we can imagine what liberation might look like.
One place to start is by examining our judgments and beliefs when we consider the prospect of political change. Judgments and beliefs are like gateways through which our awareness must pass, moving into contact with feelings that we habitually avoid and ignore, and where a lot of our energy is tied up—in anxiety, frustration, anger and fear. (For more on going beyond judgment into the underlying feelings and needs, check out the work of the Center for Nonviolent Communication at www.cnvc.org)
Embracing our resisting judgments and beliefs allows us to open the gates of our conditioning and liberate the creative energy that's been trapped within.
Although getting in touch with the desire for such transformative change may not easily occur when we hardly see a possibility of how to achieve it, our experience of actually wanting it may just be what calls that possibility into being.
And, if the potential exists within us to create a mature form of democracy, then one might presume that setting our attention—and intention—there would call this into being sooner than if we were to stay turned away from the possibility.
As a critical act of social evolution, our moving from a superficial to a deep democracy would be a cultural rite of passage for humanity, and mark our spiritual transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Perhaps this is as inevitable as it is necessary.
What do you see?
But why don't we really want this? Why does the thought of striving for such change hardly come up? And when we consider what we imagine to be such enormous and challenging change, do we judge it as a fond dream, a foolish adventure or as a fantastic impossibility? However we may think about it, by our not believing that there's any real possibility of such change, we ensure that there will be none.
If we don't really want genuine democracy … this is probably because we're heavily conditioned by dominant societal beliefs and unconscious assumptions not to see the possibility.
Carried predominantly through the education system and the corporate mass media, we are conditioned by views about ourselves, our world, and our place in it—views promoted by those who, consciously or unconsciously, think they have an interest in maintaining things as they are. To a large degree, “our” beliefs are shaped by others, and we're led to think that authority and power exist outside of ourselves. We've become used to our relative advantages and comforts, and we maintain our expectations about what we think is possible, and not possible, in this world.
Conditioned into disempowerment, perhaps we must appreciate the scope of this before we can imagine what liberation might look like.
One place to start is by examining our judgments and beliefs when we consider the prospect of political change. Judgments and beliefs are like gateways through which our awareness must pass, moving into contact with feelings that we habitually avoid and ignore, and where a lot of our energy is tied up—in anxiety, frustration, anger and fear. (For more on going beyond judgment into the underlying feelings and needs, check out the work of the Center for Nonviolent Communication at www.cnvc.org)
Embracing our resisting judgments and beliefs allows us to open the gates of our conditioning and liberate the creative energy that's been trapped within.
Although getting in touch with the desire for such transformative change may not easily occur when we hardly see a possibility of how to achieve it, our experience of actually wanting it may just be what calls that possibility into being.
And, if the potential exists within us to create a mature form of democracy, then one might presume that setting our attention—and intention—there would call this into being sooner than if we were to stay turned away from the possibility.
As a critical act of social evolution, our moving from a superficial to a deep democracy would be a cultural rite of passage for humanity, and mark our spiritual transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Perhaps this is as inevitable as it is necessary.
What do you see?
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Awakening Desire
I feel deep gratitude for the miracle of life, and for all the love and beauty that I experience in this world. Like you, I strive to enjoy life fully, and enrich the lives of others. Because of this, I'm disheartened when I see the degradation of the Earth and how, in our suffering, we hurt one another. I'm concerned when I see signs of stress, disharmony and hatred, because I want kindness, compassion and ease in all relationships.
As I believe that we are all connected, and that each one of us plays a role in creating our world, it disappoints and frustrates me that so few people are involved in making the decisions that affect the lives of so many.
And I wonder about this political process that we’ve inherited and how it appears to have developed so far to serve primarily the needs of the relatively fortunate. When I see how our political system—not open to meaningful citizen participation—does not respond to our deepest needs, and I see how we've fallen asleep in our disempowerment, I feel anxious and insecure about our future.
I’m concerned for our collective well-being when I see how the way we do politics now does not meet our needs for: participation, equality, inclusion, choice, contribution, self-expression, creativity, growth, understanding, trust, support, safety, stability, equanimity, integrity, purpose, belonging, empowerment, authenticity, freedom, peace and celebration. Were these needs met through our meaningful involvement in important decision-making, I believe that we could more easily create this world as a nurturing, caring and loving place, and as a reflection of our then genuine gratitude for life.
Because I know that we are fundamentally the same, with the same needs variably arising, I imagine that a political process that accepts and encourages the significant participation of all citizens would produce decisions that truly reflected our shared needs. I would like to see everyone—who would want to be—involved in the decision-making process regarding how we best share resources and organize ourselves to meet mutual needs.
Yet when I see how (understandably) disengaged we are from the current political process, how indifferent and apathetic we can be, and how distracted and absorbed we can become by our separate activities, I worry about our inability to meet the coming of further conflict, loss and suffering in a way that would be safe, and healing, for all.
However, I do know that the spirit of true democracy, expressed in the way we come to make decisions that affect the lives of future generations, is the spirit of love in action. And I know that love is the most powerful force on this planet. I'm encouraged by what the human spirit can achieve when motivated by its deepest connection and highest reach, and I’m hopeful that we will somehow come together and change how we understand and do politics, and help create the necessary conditions for global democratic empowerment based on shared values and needs.
I believe that only through social action aimed at achieving citizen-empowered democracies will we be able to sufficiently support and nurture the greater well-being of all life on Earth.
I'm curious to know what's alive in you as you read this. Is the energy of desire moving in you? Or are there resistances that have come up inside? Perhaps you feel both desire and fear, or hesitation?
When we get in touch with our desire, that willing energy starts to flow—until we meet those resistances within us that act to shut down this flowing energy. In order to pass through any resistance, we must completely embrace it in awareness.
So, what are our resistances to moving in this direction?
Working with this dynamic of desire and fear allows us to meet where we've become shut down in our disempowerment, and liberate the enlivening flow of life inside us.
We are all the same at heart, and I invite you to share what you find there.
Through love,
John
As I believe that we are all connected, and that each one of us plays a role in creating our world, it disappoints and frustrates me that so few people are involved in making the decisions that affect the lives of so many.
And I wonder about this political process that we’ve inherited and how it appears to have developed so far to serve primarily the needs of the relatively fortunate. When I see how our political system—not open to meaningful citizen participation—does not respond to our deepest needs, and I see how we've fallen asleep in our disempowerment, I feel anxious and insecure about our future.
I’m concerned for our collective well-being when I see how the way we do politics now does not meet our needs for: participation, equality, inclusion, choice, contribution, self-expression, creativity, growth, understanding, trust, support, safety, stability, equanimity, integrity, purpose, belonging, empowerment, authenticity, freedom, peace and celebration. Were these needs met through our meaningful involvement in important decision-making, I believe that we could more easily create this world as a nurturing, caring and loving place, and as a reflection of our then genuine gratitude for life.
Because I know that we are fundamentally the same, with the same needs variably arising, I imagine that a political process that accepts and encourages the significant participation of all citizens would produce decisions that truly reflected our shared needs. I would like to see everyone—who would want to be—involved in the decision-making process regarding how we best share resources and organize ourselves to meet mutual needs.
Yet when I see how (understandably) disengaged we are from the current political process, how indifferent and apathetic we can be, and how distracted and absorbed we can become by our separate activities, I worry about our inability to meet the coming of further conflict, loss and suffering in a way that would be safe, and healing, for all.
However, I do know that the spirit of true democracy, expressed in the way we come to make decisions that affect the lives of future generations, is the spirit of love in action. And I know that love is the most powerful force on this planet. I'm encouraged by what the human spirit can achieve when motivated by its deepest connection and highest reach, and I’m hopeful that we will somehow come together and change how we understand and do politics, and help create the necessary conditions for global democratic empowerment based on shared values and needs.
I believe that only through social action aimed at achieving citizen-empowered democracies will we be able to sufficiently support and nurture the greater well-being of all life on Earth.
I'm curious to know what's alive in you as you read this. Is the energy of desire moving in you? Or are there resistances that have come up inside? Perhaps you feel both desire and fear, or hesitation?
When we get in touch with our desire, that willing energy starts to flow—until we meet those resistances within us that act to shut down this flowing energy. In order to pass through any resistance, we must completely embrace it in awareness.
So, what are our resistances to moving in this direction?
Working with this dynamic of desire and fear allows us to meet where we've become shut down in our disempowerment, and liberate the enlivening flow of life inside us.
We are all the same at heart, and I invite you to share what you find there.
Through love,
John
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Welcome to Awakening Democracy
With increasing pressures and stresses on ourselves and the planet, it is growing ever urgent that our practice of democracy sufficiently evolve so that we may come to live in greater balance with the Earth, and with each other.
If we are to live in harmony, safety and trust, with confidence, ease and hope, and in gratitude and celebration of life, it's my belief that we will have to find a way to bring how we understand and do politics into accord with our most deeply shared values and needs.
I expect that it will become more and more apparent that a vibrant, citizen democracy, based on meaningful and widespread popular participation, is essential to our present and future well-being and survival.
It's my wish that this blog serve as a nurturing place for us to awaken the sleeping desire inside each of us—the passion and sense of purpose we feel in enriching the lives of others. I think you can appreciate that it will take a significant generation of awakened energy to reorganize ourselves to address our imbalances and heal the wounds that are awaiting our collective attention.
Through cultivating a shared vision of how we want to live, the possibility for authentic democracy opens up, and we expand the collective capacity required of us to create the kind of world we want to see. But we can only first take a step in this direction after we truly get in touch with our desire to go there.
Awakening democracy is about exploring our willingness to step out with courage and speak from the heart, and it is also about meeting what resistances appear to prevent our often sleeping desire from moving towards realization.
I offer understanding, compassion and support as we discover what is easy and difficult within us, and collectively awaken to greater empowerment.
This is a place of co-creation, so I invite you to share your thoughts and feelings and visions here as, together, we explore this path, and make the road by walking.
Through love,
John
If we are to live in harmony, safety and trust, with confidence, ease and hope, and in gratitude and celebration of life, it's my belief that we will have to find a way to bring how we understand and do politics into accord with our most deeply shared values and needs.
I expect that it will become more and more apparent that a vibrant, citizen democracy, based on meaningful and widespread popular participation, is essential to our present and future well-being and survival.
It's my wish that this blog serve as a nurturing place for us to awaken the sleeping desire inside each of us—the passion and sense of purpose we feel in enriching the lives of others. I think you can appreciate that it will take a significant generation of awakened energy to reorganize ourselves to address our imbalances and heal the wounds that are awaiting our collective attention.
Through cultivating a shared vision of how we want to live, the possibility for authentic democracy opens up, and we expand the collective capacity required of us to create the kind of world we want to see. But we can only first take a step in this direction after we truly get in touch with our desire to go there.
Awakening democracy is about exploring our willingness to step out with courage and speak from the heart, and it is also about meeting what resistances appear to prevent our often sleeping desire from moving towards realization.
I offer understanding, compassion and support as we discover what is easy and difficult within us, and collectively awaken to greater empowerment.
This is a place of co-creation, so I invite you to share your thoughts and feelings and visions here as, together, we explore this path, and make the road by walking.
Through love,
John
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