Evolution is evolving from unconscious chance to conscious choice. We are entering the first age of conscious evolution.
Why? Because we obviously affect our own evolution by all the choices we make -- from the food we eat, the number of babies we have, the cars we drive and the weapons we build.
Humans have no experience at being responsible for global change at this level. We are facing, as Bruce Lipton and Deepak Chopra recently wrote, the possibility of the collapse of our life support system. Or, I believe, the emergence of something new, something better than we have ever known before.
This shift in evolution began overtly in 1945 when the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan. The signal went out to the world: We now have the power to destroy life on Earth. I was 15 years old. I could see at that time that self-conscious humans, in top-down competitive structures such as nation states, organized religion and global corporations, could not handle this degree of power. We had suddenly gained capacities we used to attribute to our gods. We can blow up worlds, and we can build new worlds in space. We can travel with the speed of light by image; we can create new life forms or destroy our life; we can tap into immense energy or run out of energy.
I began to ask a great question: What is the meaning of our new powers in science and technology that are good, and what are positive images of the future that are equal to our new powers?
I read religion and philosophy as a young girl and found that no one knew the answer. The powers were so new.
I went to Bryn Mawr College and found I could not even ask the question there. There were no subjects on it. My father used to say to me, "Barbara, you are the best in the field... but there is no field!" I went to Paris in 1947 to study at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques. Despair and a sense of the absurdity of life were rampant in Paris after two world wars and the bomb. One day I was having lunch on the Left Bank, and a handsome American walked in and sat down next to me. I asked him my question: "What do you think is the meaning of this new power that is good?" and he responded, "I am an artist, and I am seeking a new image of man commensurate with our powers to shape the future."
The idea crossed my mind, "I'm going to marry you!" And I did. He told me that when a culture loses its story and its image of the future, it declines. We had clearly lost our story of progress, and the image of humans now portrayed in the arts and theater was of a disintegrating destructive force. Yet I had innate hope and had to find out what I was hopeful about.
I went to see President Eisenhower in 1952, just after he became president. My father was an old colleague of the president. I was taken into the Oval Office. He greeted me kindly: "What can I do for you young lady?"
"Mr. President," I said, "I have a question: What do you think is the meaning of all our new power that is good?" He looked startled, shook his head and said, "I have no idea." So it flashed in my mind, "Well, we better find out!"
This has been my life quest, and I believe just now we are discovering the proper response. We do have a new story. It is the universe story. When we place ourselves in this 13.7 billion-universe story we discover the pattern and an evolutionary process of action we can do. We see that our crises are comparable to past evolutionary shift points. The only difference is now we are conscious that we are causing our own extinction. This is what I call "conscious evolution" -- the greatest wake up call we have ever had for the human species to grow up!
Here are some lessons we can learn and apply to our own situation:
What we need now is a "peace room" or a "synergy center," a new social function to connect the positive in time.
Dec. 22, 2012, has been selected as day one to consciously contribute to this process. It is our first Planetary Birth Day to celebrate the coming of the next era of evolution based on what works.
Birth 2012 has been initiated and will be produced by The Shift Network as a convergence of what is working; we will celebrate human creativity and call for the greatest experience of mass coherence and compassion the world has ever known. We will connect with positive innovations, projects, people, artists and musicians -- every way we can to converge and emerge together as a newly-born planetary species.
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Co-Creating a Planetary Shift with Barbara Marx Hubbard | Birth 2012
there is no resources to be taken in peace at least not other's resources.
the last thing most americans want is peace, most of us have grown up with wars and the fear of wars our entire lives. we are conditioned for wars, on going wars. americans actully think they have the right to police the world and do nation building as a guise for stealing resources of course.
we have much yet to learn in america; we are like a teen thinking we know more than the world call it exceptionalism or whatever.
now the good news; this selfishness hidden as the savior of the world, as all selfishness does, will create much suffering and much chaos and then and only then will americans even consider a new paradigm.
when that will occur who knows but I suspect the environment will have much to do with our future suffering and chaos and a transformation in consciousness from selfish competition to peaceful cooperation.
"Problems are evolutionary drivers. Crises precede transformation." this is well stated and history demostrates this time and time again.
What's being called for now is a new vision for humanity, one that acts as an attractor for the energy of the collective. Historically, we've evolved primarily when we've been repulsed by what's not working, by responding to external crises that threaten our very existence. The fear of change has been what holds us back, but that doesn't have to be the case any longer. What our expanding consciousness enables us to do is leave behind the need to suffer enormously before we decide to change. With greater awareness of our surroundings, we can enjoy where we are in the present moment and still acknowledge that we have the capacity to do things even better in the future.
That shift will mark humanity's transition from a material growth culture to a genuine wisdom culture.
Co-creating is in full effect and I'm so grateful to be part of this