Our Moment of Choice brings together 43 evolutionary leaders to reflect on a series of interconnected crises that threaten our very survival at a time when there are also signs of a global level shift in consciousness, whereby we can co-create ‘a flourishing, life-affirming future.’ The content was arranged in seven circles: bridge building, restoring ecological balance, conscious enterprise and social change, healing ourselves and the planet, integrating science and spirituality, new frontiers beyond space and time, and finally the big picture. The message of this book is also that we need to come together ‘in a synergistic convergence of the worldwide network of interconnected humanity ushering in the next level of human consciousness.’ Readers ‘are an integral part of the collective field of love and healing that will generate a heart-centred future based on procreation, compassion, appreciation and cooperation.’ (p. xv) Interestingly, this corresponds to a rebalancing of left and right hemisphere thinking as propounded by the seminal cultural work of Iain McGilchrist. He said in a lecture that the left hemisphere does not do empathy, while the Bulgarian sage Peter Deunov foresaw a shift of culture from mind to heart over 80 years ago.
Again, there are too many riches here to be able to give more than a few indications of the guidance, where each chapter is summarised by a spotlight and a call to action. Gregg Braden shows how we can change our story and hence our world from one of separation and fear to oneness and interconnectedness. John Perkins is one of the few contributors explicitly aware of global manipulation of opinion through a system based on war or the threat of war that ironically entails the destruction of the very resources upon which war depends. For him, this is ‘a death economy, consuming itself into extinction.’ (p. 76) He identifies the characteristics of this death economy, comparing it with a life economy perhaps best illustrated by the contrast between industrial and regenerative agriculture; the former involves suppressing biodiversity by killing life – pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides – where are the suffix ‘cide’ tellingly means to kill, as in suicide.
Larry and Barbie Dossey remind us of the metaphysical centrality of One Mind corresponding to One Life where a sense of connectedness leads to love, and love to caring: ‘our existence is based on unity, connectedness and co-operation, not on separation, competition and rugged individuality as we have been taught. The act of caring arises naturally from these intrinsic relationships.’ (p. 122) Justin Faerman writes about evolving our culture from breakdown to breakthrough, recommending that we mirror ‘the pattern of the decentralised, self-organising systems that are at the heart of how nature operates and have been refined and tested over billions of years to produce life affirming outcomes at the planetary scale.’ (p. 252) This is the opposite of mechanistic centralised control. He proposes sorting for deep self-healing and symbiosis at all levels, shifting from logic to intuitively driven thought and action, and fostering the development and expression of purpose at scale, noting that 75% of people have no sense of purpose. Robert Atkinson proposes a series of unifying principles to live while Ervin Laszlo identifies evolutionary trends oriented towards feeling, healing and consciousness. Barbara Marx Hubbard sees a crisis of birth that is giving rise to an invisible inner structure and a process of synergistic convergence. Elisabet Sahtouris provides the afterword in a letter to her great-granddaughter. She sees ‘the transmutation of energy from anger and hate to love, from war to peace, from fierce competition to caring collaboration is a matter of maturation, of our growing up as human species. (p. 289)
This book provide powerful blueprints for evolutionary transformation towards a heart-based culture of belonging, empathy, love and kindness. It is crucial that increasing numbers of people take this possibility seriously enough to engage in the necessary inner and outer work together to bring about its ultimate realisation. A renewed flourishing of life depends on it.
OUR MOMENT OF CHOICE
Edited by Robert Atkinson, Kurt Johnson and Deborah Moldow
Atria Books, 2020, 346 pp., $27, h/b – ISBN 978-1-58270-762-4
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