What does it mean to Awaken? Part Four
 
Awakening to the Natural World
 
I’m yet working with the article "What Does It Mean to “Awaken”?
By Patrick Paul Garlinger via MEDIUM.  Here, again, is a summary from the article.  He writes:
 
Let’s look closer at four key stages of awakening: (1) awakening to the constructed nature of society; (2) awakening to the conditioned nature of the mind; (3) awakening to the unseen universe (what might also be called the realm of the Divine); and (4) and awakening to the natural world. There are no doubt other forms of awakening, but these four are often connected, and each one may inform or lead to another.
 
The natural world.  That is everything that we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell.  It is MOTHER NATURE herself. It is creation and the natural order by which it is all organized.
 
Some of us experience a deep connection with a part of creation, be it another person, a pet, or a place, or any “thing” else in all of creation.
 
This stage of awakening, which I would likely deem to be the 3rd, not the 4th, is what has grabbed my soul over the years.  Like many of us, I’ve experienced awe on top of a mountain, or by the ocean... or in the most ordinary of places.

In 1973 I hiked up Mount San Jacinto in California.  It was a trip with three high school students working on their God and Country Aware. Awesome.
​

Awakening to the Unseen Universe
 
I’m yet working with the article "What Does It Mean to “Awaken”?
By Patrick Paul Garlinger via MEDIUM.  Here is a summary from the article.  He writes:
 
Let’s look closer at four key stages of awakening: (1) awakening to the constructed nature of society; (2) awakening to the conditioned nature of the mind; (3) awakening to the unseen universe (what might also be called the realm of the Divine); and (4) and awakening to the natural world. There are no doubt other forms of awakening, but these four are often connected, and each one may inform or lead to another.
 
Awakening to the Unseen Universe is right on the cutting edge of awareness for me and for a growing number of people. That fact is important to awaken to in itself. More and more people are connecting consciously with an “Unseen Universe.”
 
After we have awoken to the constructed nature of society, and then to the conditioned mind, the next state of awareness to emerge is an awareness of that which is between and within all.
 
I’ve often wondered if St. Paul was dialed into this Unseen Universe/God/Christ when he wrote in Acts 17:28-29 - For in Him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’ Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.
 
We are into the quantum field of energy when we speak of an Unseen God.  Within and between everything physical and metaphysical is an active energy field. 
 
My wife is a Master Reiki Practitioner and her bodywork practice, to which she has clearly been called, is organized around energy work.  She ordinarily sees people in her office, but she also works distantly because “Energy knows no bounds.” 
 
Our daughter is also a Reiki Master and she has her own work which she does entirely at a distance.  She is particularly adept at working with the attachments that have come from the distant past, and which have been conveyed to us though our genetic and energetic systems.
 
For years, seven years of seminary in fact, I worked at filling myself with the conditioning that was given by my society, my tribe, my family.  My mind was filled with maps of God.  Then, right at the end of my Doctoral program, I had a profound experience of the Divine.  From that moment on - my life turned, and I went down a road less traveled by me, and those around me.  At first, I was hugely disoriented. For about a decade I began to re-file the maps I had learned, searching instead for direct experiences of the territory, of the Divine.
 
An Incarnational Theology grew within me.  Everything is an Incarnation of the Divine.  Everything physically seen, and everything metaphysically unseen… all of it, everything is God.
 
Thus, Albert Schweitzer’s basic moral injunction made sense to me: Live with Reverence for Life.  The concept of the Kingdom of God (masculine and hierarchical) was replaced by the Kin-dom of God (no boundaries).
 
I recall a moment of awakening early in my evolution into an awakening of the Unseen Universe.  I was working with a university student who was a budding astrophysicist, and I asked him to explain energy to me. He held up his thumb and said, “Imagine the most basic element, a hydrogen atom.  It has a proton at the center and one electron circling around it.  If my thumbnail was the proton, the electron would be like an eraser head circling around my thumbnail at a distance of some miles out… and everything in between is pure energy.” Unseen energy everywhere.  There is no place energy is not. And, there is no place God is not.

The Conditioned Nature of the Mind.

In my previous blog post I addressed the Conditioned Nature of Society.  The sea in which each of us swims impacts our worldview.  My society has a role to play in forming me.  As I have said, and as I wrote... if I had been born black, female and in Zimbabwe my worldview would be way different than it is today.  My individual and personal worldview is conditioned by the society in which I live.

​From birth we develop mental models, worldviews, constructs that are informed by the world in which we live.  In the process we develop frameworks for navigating life. Think of them as beliefs, personality traits, normative behaviors, and so forth.
 
Early in life we develop a socialized mind; a mind conditioned by the social environment that surrounds us.  For example, I grew up around the New York City metro area, Long Island and New Jersey, and that experience in a melting pot impacted my view of the world and my strategies for navigating through life.  When I went to college in Holland, Michigan, I had to figure out how to navigate in that very different environment.  It was a major adjustment for me.
 
In 1966, my understanding of reality had to be adjusted as I migrated from the East Coast to the Midwest. My perspective on the world shifted. That is not to blame a liberal college education, but only to note the consequence of a shift in my realities, which was then fertilized by my new college environment.
 
Then, as in moments before and after, I became aware of the fact that there are different social norms at play in different cultures and I more-or-less adapted.
 
I take issue with Garlinger’s assertion that one jettison’s old, more limited realities while incorporating previously ignored or rejected realities.  I’ll address that in another post on transcending and including.  Rather than jettison, I would propose that the new realities might simple be new.  Maybe they have been previously ignored or rejected, but maybe they are just new and unfamiliar.  For example, in Holland, Michigan, folks went to church on Wednesday evenings.  Never heard of such a thing back in New Jersey.  Different norms to which I had to adjust.  I could return to the East Coast and function well there, and in Michigan.
 
What I had previously understood and accepted was no longer useful in navigating the norms of a new community where expectations for mid-week church attendance was strong, accompanied by shame should I fail to comply.  I figured out how to handle the shame and stayed home.
 
The Constructed Nature of Society changed for me in a very small way. When my wife and I moved briefly to Orange County, Fl, and then ironically to Orange County, CA, we both had to adjust to very conservative values.  We adapted… sort of.
 
Recognizing that my reality is limited and partial is a critical awakening.  Many times I’ve said to clients that had I been born black, female, and in Zimbabwe – my framework for navigating life, my construct of the nature of society, would be very different. 
 
Awakening is realizing that my reality has been informed by the world in which I emerged, and that everyone has a reality that has been informed by the world in which they emerged.
 
Once final example.  There is a grocery store on our side of town and behind the checkout counter are phone cards from 32 different countries.  Imagine that.  Different realities embedded in our community. There are as many realities as there are people on this planet. Ponder that.

What Does It Mean to Awaken?
 
Patrick Paul Garlinger wrote a wonderful article, published on Medium.  The question he asked and answered is a clear explanation of what it means to “awaken.”  Here is his summary, followed by some comments.  Note, too, that I have separate posts on each of the other three stages Garlinger identifies. Here I address only the first.  His summary follows.
 
Boiled down to its most basic principle, awakening is a process that challenges and subverts your framework for understanding the nature of reality. During a stage of awakening, you shift your perspective on how you see the world. In doing so, you jettison an older, more limited framework for understanding the world and incorporate new concepts that you had previously ignored or rejected. A genuine awakening causes you to recognize that much of what you previously thought or understood was quite limited or partial.
 
Awakening to the Constructed Nature of Society
Awakening to the Conditioned Nature of Mind
Awakening to the Unseen Universe
Awakening to the Natural World
 
Now, for some commentary.

I've been helped enormously by the work done by Clare Graves, popularized by Don Beck and Christopher Cowen in their book Spiral Dynamics.  ​For a very helpful blog post on Spiral Dynamics, go here.

Spiral Dynamics is a framework for understanding and working with the evolution of values socially, and individually.  The chart below, taken from the blog noted above, is an excellent summary.

We begin at PURPLE and evolve stage by stage up to GREEN, and then there is a huge leap ahead to Second Tier where YELLOW and TURQUOISE emerge.  There is no mistake that I chose turquoise for the cover of my book. 

Societies evolve.  In 1491, before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, this land was occupied by the first peoples, and they were primarily PURPLE and RED.  Today we are spread something like this - 55% are BLUE and below, and 45% are primarily living in the modern and post-modern worlds of ORANGE and beyond.  We don't jump from one stage to the next, but we morph over time from one to the next, moving back and forth as a society.

I lived through 1968 when GREEN really emerged for the first time.  In 2020, GREEN is challenging everything below as the progressive movement pushes ahead, and PURPLE and RED and BLUE resist.

Awakening is the collective consciousness evolving up the spiral, occasionally regressing under pressure, but inevitably moving ahead.  Spiral Dynamics is a wonderfully easy model to grasp and we have taught the framework to our children as they grew up so they could understand the news, politics, religion, technology with greater awareness.

​Society is Constructed, and that construction evolves.

"Our research shows that modern consumers lean into brands that are socially and environmentally friendly. Consider the following numbers:
·        65% of consumers look for products that can help them live a more sustainable and socially responsible life
·        60% of consumers buy products and services from companies that are socially and or environmentally responsible
·        54% of consumers try to purchase products or services from brands that take a stand on social or environmental issues
·        43% tend to purchase products and services from high purpose brands more than from their low purpose competitors."

So writes Jeff Fromm, a contributor to Forbes, on 11/10/20.  

Here are a couple of challenges facing us.  

1. Where there were once a small number of eco-labels, such as "Organic," there are now over 200, and that adds confusion to customer choices.
2. The eco-label companies used to focus on environmental impacts, such as carbon footprint, waste management, renewable energy, packaging footprint and water use. Since the pandemic, social inequality and health issues have become more significant in marketing and consumer choices.
3. Add to that a growing interest in "regenerative" farming practices.
   

Bottom line: you should know that companies are looking at sustainability relevant to the earth and human health.  These are trends that align well with LOVING MOTHER EARTH and while confusing at times, do add positively to shifting purchasing choices.

"FED WEIGHS IN ON CLIMATE CHANGE - The Fed, which conducts a report on risks to the financial system twice a year, is adding climate change as a category. The central bank underscored that a lack of clarity about true exposures to specific climate risks can create vulnerabilities." [Such is the report from FOX Business News on 11/10/20]

Finally, no more denial about the impact our Global Environmental Emergency is having on global economics... and that translates right down to your own checking account.  That things are unclear is absolutely true. As we awaken to the reality, clarity will come, and with that enormous change will ensue.

How is climate change impacting your check book?  Watch, and learn.

We have a sign in our front yard.  I had 10 printed up and gave them away strategically to friends and family.  Enough said.

Thank you for LOVING MOTHER EARTH.

​Andy Atwood

Why you should NOT believe in Climate Change

You should NOT believe in Climate Change if it is more important to you to belong to your tribe of climate deniers than it is to WAKE UP, GROW UP, OPEN UP,  and CLEAN UP so you can SHOW UP as one who creates a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren. 

One of our basic human needs is to belong.  In fact, I work with a list of human needs.

1. Belonging
2. Love
3. Self-Esteem
4. Success/Power
5. Fun
6. Freedom
7. Recognition

Conversely we are driven to avoid, or repelled by the opposite of each.  We don't want each of these in our life. We don't want to be...

1. Abandoned
2. Rejected
3. Made Worthlessness
4. Be a Failure
5. Bored
6. Controlled
7. Ignored

Our need to belong is primary because all those other needs are met in community.  And all those opposites that we want to avoid, all of them come from community.

So belonging well is critically important for our health and well-being.
If you belong to a tribe of people that satisfies your needs in a big and powerful way,  and they are people that deny science, then you better stay close to them so you can feel secure.

But if you can meet your own needs, if you can differentiate yourself out from your tribe and attach yourself to a larger truth, to larger principles, to more enduring revelations about the world beyond your tribe... if you can stand strong against your own people and say, in your own way, "Here I stand; I can do no other," then you will be your own hero.

Heroes are needed as we learn to LOVE MOTHER EARTH more than our own ego's need to feel securely attached to the tribe that denies the facts that point to Mother Earth's heartache.

Read more in Chapter 10 of LOVING MOTHER EARTH: Integrating Environmentalism and Spirituality.  Become an Outlaw!

LOVING MOTHER EARTH
Dr. Andy

+++++++++
Below you can find a summary from the back of the book to remind you of what we are trying to do, Together, to LOVE MOTHER EARTH.

That we are in a Global Environmental Emergency is beyond dispute. Why is Mother Earth fed up with us? How do we prevent her from expelling us? What can we do to help Mother Earth to change her mind so our children and grandchildren can have a sustainable future?

We can WAKE UP, GROW UP, OPEN UP, and CLEAN UP so we can SHOW UP as Enlightened Lovers of Mother Earth.
​
LOVING MOTHER EARTH is about integrating environmentalism and spirituality in a Virtuous Cycle that encourages us to evolve as we live in reverent communion with all of creation.

I am an average guy with a fairly big work ethic, and a huge concern for the future of our planet.  Yes, I've written LOVING MOTHER EARTH, but I'm not foolish enough to think that my book can't be improved upon.

Here is a fundamental truth: the collective genius of the group is far smarter than the smartest member of the group.  Why? The more perspectives, the wider the view, the more truth is revealed.

There are five ways you can help me to re-write my book.  You can find each if you click on the ABOUT link at the top of my website.

Email me.
Read my blog and comment.
Challenge. Confront. Question. Wonder. Confirm. Contribute.

Share your stories with me.

Yes, the Nigerian proverb is correct: it takes a whole village to raise a child.

Yes, it will take you and others, all contributing personal perspectives, to make the second edition of LOVING MOTHER EARTH even better.

I've self-published through  PrintNinja, at my own expense.  $5.00 from each sale will be donated to The Sierra Club.  

Please help me to re-write LOVING MOTHER EARTH: Integrating Environmentalism and Spirituality.

Thank you for your help.
Andy Atwood