Nature, Nurture and the problem of Power Civilisation

The way I see it is as follows:

Nature or Biology is always geared towards optimal health.

Optimal health includes as a necessity the nurturing of the environment, which also includes a nurturing environment as a given.

That different kinds of organisms can find optimal health in almost every known habitat suggests this is the case.

There are also flows of nutrients from one habitat to another, such that they do not exist in isolation - there IS a whole.

We humans have emerged out of this biological whole, and the bulk of our history (mostly pre written history) we have lived as part of that whole - the development or emergence of the qualities I write about such as caring empathy, connection, sensitivity, responsiveness are part of this, as is the ability to deal with threatening or difficult situations (these are rarely chronic in nature - they are chronic only when the basic balance of optimal health is disrupted over a long period of time)...

The sense of deep connection we feel for our children, our partners,our families, our locale is part of that optimal biological health and we nurture all of this by our behaviour in the most natural state...

You and I, we have been born into a disrupted state, a system of Power that chronically abuses people and we are doing our best to recover from the wounds it has inflicted upon us, whilst living in it without much chance of altering how Power operates - until we at the grass roots re-gain enough of what our innate nature is, and then we will be able to thwart Power, and possibly help those who are stuck in that unhealthy state to recover - that is the intent in my work.

I would say too that the optimal biological health state is the natural norm, the base line of true reality, and that the Power state is the 'ideal' being imposed on the healthy reality.

Nature is realism, Power Civilisation is idealism, ideology etc.

And there IS evidence for all that I have written, solid scientific evidence as well as anecdotal and personal experience

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

THRIVIVAL: Context and Definition

1. Nature works. Impeccably. That impeccability implies, to my mind, the existence of a Natural Logic.

2. Nature does that which works, and generally does that which works in the long-term. There are exceptions, and these are situational rather than endemic.

3. Everything in Nature receives pretty much whatever is required to thrive, and returns any excess or surplus back to the environment in ways that return nutrients to the nutrient cycles of life. All life is food for more life.

4. Everything that lives has the innate ability to learn for itself those behaviours needed to  live successfully and to master it's own being in the environment.

5. All life, from the tiniest one-celled being to the largest is to some degree capable of some sensory functioning and has the ability to communicate with others and to adapt to subtle changes in the environment. by responding to those changes in precise ways. This capability is the basis of biological organisms maintaining dynamic equilibrium in an ever changing environment.

6. I am nature.

7. You are nature.

8. Any human designed process that does not return nutrients to nature, that deprives others of access to nutrients in nature is irrational in terms of bio-logic. The argument, that because we (industrialised society) are in nature, and we (industrialised society) make pesticides, then pesticides must be nature, is false.

9. Nature cannot be understood by Anthropomorphism or by projection. Just because we do not speak Elephant does not mean that Elephants are less intelligent than we are. The same goes for all organisms.

10. That assumption of innate human superiority over everything else in nature is a quasi religious faith or belief, it is a cultural artefact, one which lies at very the core of Industrialised Society, which means that those who hold it are, biologically speaking irrational.

12. They were not born irrational. That irrationality is learned, it is the outcome of what they have been indoctrinated to think, and having little choice in the matter, they learned to 'think' by adopting other peoples justifications as their own. Internalisation. Which only compounds the problem. However as all children of Industrial Society are essentially bullied, it's understandable. We are not to blame for being misled by our culture.

13. Natures fundamental logic is exceedingly simple, and the benefits of nature's simple logic are immense diversity, outstanding beauty and continued prosperity of all life. "Everything eats, everything gets eaten, all poop is food for more life." Materials are metabolised in living organisms, and then deposited for other living processes to build on.

14. The state of being and the collective noun to describe all processes that lead to nurturing the habitat so that more life flourishes is to be called THRIVIVAL.

15. THRIVIVAL; Noun : the state or fact of living such that the habitat is nurtured by one's behaviour. It is the antithesis of Survival, which implies struggle, insecurity, doubt, threat of imminent death.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

THRIVIVAL or mere Survival?

THRIVIVAL : A word I have created, and have been using for many years to describe the biological reality I have observed.

Survival as a word implies struggle, threat, risk and imminent potential of death.

Narrators of Nature Documentaries repeatedly use this term, not as scientists, but as a cultural meme. They claim to be scientific in their use of the word survival. The claim is false.

Natural communities THRIVE. The hunter hunts for but a little of their time. The hunted are hunted but for a little of their time. They do not spend the bulk of their time in aggression (hunter) or fear (hunted). Both are thriving most of the time. Natural communities THRIVE, and often in very large numbers... and their behaviour nurtures the world around them, way beyond their own species. This is both obvious and scientifically understood.

THRIVIVAL is thus defined as the state of existence, sets of behaviours and conditions  that nurtures more life for all life.

However, those who exert force or Power to control people are concerned with the use of force and control most of the time, for they know that as soon as they relax, those who are being controlled will break for freedom, in diverse emergent creative ways, urged on by their own biological calling towards optimal health. Power fears this calling.

Furthermore, those who use Power are in competition with others who would also use Power and Force to take over the position of Power. And so for them, they ARE concerned with Survival as a primary objective. They feel the threat is ever present, even when it is not. (most of the time the threat is non-existent: most 'ordinary people' have no desire to kill, murder, abuse those who have abused them, they mostly want the abusers just to stop and go away - that would be enough for most people, because we are biologically mandated towards empathic self organisation at the grass roots).

And the Power addicted always project their internalised view onto the world around them. The cultural projections of narrators speak to the conditioning which the narrator/writer has submitted to, internalised or assumed as normal, more than it describes the realities of nature.

Top predators, or those creatures who have are rarely hunted by others, who reside at the tops of food chains, tend to ensure the health of the communities they get their food from. Industrial Society has stepped out of this paradigm. And this disrupts the nurturant cycles of biology.

It is well past time to disestablish the 'Survival' meme, and to move towards THRIVIVAL.

And what a lovely journey, a fine destination that is.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

DIRT : The Movie. A Nurturant Society...

Previously I have written a piece on the Nurturant Society, and coined the word THRIVIVAL. I have used this word in a few essays to describe a reality that I see in nature all the time. I have used it to make a distinction between the sense of 'survival' which is less than abundant, is fear based and generates unnecessary need to over control things that actually reduces the likelihood of Thriving.

A Nurturant Society is the emergent Society that by it's action nurtures life for all life, that by it's action takes an equal part in the biology of life, that by it's action enjoys the life it expresses and returns the gifts that life has bestowed upon it. Thrivival is the state of such a Society.

The movie DIRT is a stunning documentary, a profoundly nurturing expression of what is truly possible, what is within our ability to bring into being. It's about the living soil and our relationship to that living soil. It's not an ideological movie. It's a natural logic movie.

Watch it. It's amazing. See the effect working with plants and soil has on incarcerated people. See the rapidity with which soil and humans can remediate damaged lands.

DIRT : THE MOVIE

Get yer hands in the soil and help plants do what they love doing, gifting you and universe in the process.

We REALLY NEED to focus on the creation of a Nurturant Society, at every level of our Culture, starting with our own lives, and extending outwards into our communities, and we need to look at EVERY process and activity we are engaged in and really understand that if it is NOT Nurturing more life for all life, then it HAS TO GO!

It really is THAT SIMPLE. We are either nurturing life or we are not. And when we look at what we do, we have to take into consideration ALL the outcomes..... no 'externalisation' of costs. No justifying adverse 'collateral' damage because of one or two perceived benefits.

And we need to start NOW!

ALL LIFE MATTERS. There exists a viewpoint that is an expression of resignation, extreme low self esteem and profound selfishness.

It runs a bit like this :

"Nothing really matters, at the end of the day. We all live for a bit, have a few good times then die."

When we die, the materials our bodies are made of are released back to feed more life.

We give back what we have been given as a gift to those who have yet to come. We do this, and we gift life. That is the bare minimum.

It's a choice as to whether or not we take action in our day to day life to bring that gift or not, before we die and release the materials of our bodies.

Your materials will be released whether or not you like it or get it. That much is assured. Death assures us all of that.

What is not assured, and what is down to OUR CHOICE, is whether or not our actions nurture more life for all life and return the gift. It's your choice, it's my choice and yet I ask that each of us bears in mind that our choice has an affect on others, and if you chose not to, if I chose not to, then we deprive others yet to come of their access to that gift, by defaulting on the action possible in our lives.

I am not trying to lay a guilt trip on you. The Dominant Society is a pretty grim place to have been born into, and I wouldn't say to anyone DO NOT ENJOY BEING ALIVE.

I am just pointing out the REALITY. And the possibility.

When I confront the Church, the Government, the Corporations I do it to bring that gift through, and not to get revenge or to become the judge and punisher. That's not saying that I intend to let those Institutions of the hook, or that I give them an excuse or that I am going to be all soft and fluffy. It's to make it abundantly clear where I stand and what I intend. I will not back down, and neither should you!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

A Nurturant Society

A Nurturant Society

In considering the fundamentals of a Nurturant Society, one has to define the ground upon which one stands.

If that is not taken in hand, and clearly defined, then it is inevitable that the ‘revolution’, as many are calling it, by positing an ‘alternative way’ to the status quo or by adopting a position of resistance to that status quo, is to a greater extent defined within the frame of reference of the status quo. It is a response to something : that something defines the response. It is a reaction.

Thus it was with Marx, and with many others. They did not see the trap they laid for themselves by talking in terms of production, ownership, and control, which are the terms and structural processes that the oppressive Society uses to exert it's power over people and the habitat. Transferring those to the workers does not change the nature of the Society as radically as people believed, it still permits the current dominant systemic mindset of control of nature as a resource to exploit. Thus the fundamental dynamic and psyche of Power remains, with a merely a change in the Actors and their behaviour towards each other within that set of structural processes. Kinder to one another,  yet damaging to the environment, the shared habitat.

And of course, it has to be said, Marx was a man of his times, and lacked the data we have today about neuroscience, endocrinology, psychological and evolutionary development and the reality of natural empathy. A lack accurate information can lead to the invention of theory out of rudimentary thinking that is without the appropriate evidence. Marx was rightly concerned with human suffering that he knew could be avoided. 

The Nurturant Society avoids that predicament by defining itself on it’s own clear terms.

The Nurturant Society is a fundamentally simple concept.

To Nurture, as a biological process, and as in human action, is to improve the conditions of the habitat or the environment within which life occurs. This process can be observed by anyone who is careful and honest in their explorations of nature. Henry David Thoreau made this abundantly clear in his work during the 1800s, as did Rudloph Steiner (Biodynamics) and Bill Mollison (Permaculture). These three are sequential in that their lives began as one ended and they form one example of continuous thread of exploration of nature that is free of the lens of what I call Empire Logic, the 'struggle for survival' etc etc. All these people and others who were and  their contemporaries looked beyond the Herbert Spenser doctrine of struggle for survival, of civilisation as the apex of natural biological evolution.

To Nurture is to provide both space and materials for life to flourish.

To Parent? Perhaps. However, the word Parent is itself troublesome, for it contains meanings that are to do with control. Control always inhibits emergence. Parental Control implies a mistrust of the child. Control is often a question of fear.

The etymology of Parent.

Pare

"to trim by cutting close," early 14c., from O.Fr. parer "arrange, prepare, trim," from L. parare "make ready," related to parere "produce, bring forth, give birth to,"

Thus Parenting has to be redefined or qualified. Natural Parenting or Nurturant Parenting better describes this new paradigm.

Nurturant Parenting then, is fundamentally about facilitating the emergent, about recognising the innate desire and ability of the natural child to learn, to master his or her self, to develop life skills, to be able to meet his or her own needs, and with that the needs of others, as an empathically alive human being, in essence to contribute to his or her family, community, society environment such that all may thrive.

All of which is diametrically opposed to the concept and awareness of the consumer, whose concern lies solely with consumption.*

And, because human life does not occur in a vacuum, but rather takes place in a continuum, in a non-linear web of activity that is typified by connection and interdependency, it follows that when life is nurtured, it is nurtured for all life.

Thus Natural Parenting is an activity that is not exclusive to the biological parents, but includes the entire community. "It takes a village to raise a child." And a forest. No community exists independent of the habitat.

Everything is food. There is no waste.

This can only be achieved by each element with the biological process web being it’s true self, having it’s own needs met. It is therefore a question of meeting inherent needs. Nature is a web of intersecting needs being met. Algae make oxygen. Bacteria eat all kinds of materials and transform them into their bodies, which are eaten. They also produced 'waste' which is not waste, but is in reality food. Plants take in Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen. Bacteria in the plants take in Zinc, and other trace elements and create new chemicals the plants need. Animals breathe oxygen and eat plants. And so it goes.

This - being one's true self - is not a limitation, because in all living organisms we see the same responsive ability, the ability to learn, which has been called ‘adaptation’,  that is foundational to the maintenance of the dynamic equilibrium of the processes of life. That responsive ability is biological empathy in action.

THRIVIVAL

What we see in Nurturant Biology is an outcome that can best be described by the new word, Thrivival.

Thrivival goes beyond survival**.

Thriving, in relation to the human being, is that positive sense of well being that is inherent in the process of growth. Thriving, for the human being and for all mammals, originates in utero, and extends throughout life. Thriving applies to the individual, the family, the community, the society and to the environment from which all emerge.

Because this is a simple paradigm, and because it is an empathic paradigm, it will find expression in diverse ways, mirroring the diversity of the environment, the habitat, from micro to macro, leading to diversity in human expression of community and society.

The Nurturant Society is complex, and yet it is not at all complicated. This is the nature of nurturant empathy. The precise solutions emerge out of the experiential of each community.

*The consumer eats and does not seek to nurture anyone other than him or herself; for his or her eating is the penultimate act in the receipt of a service that the consumer has paid for, and having paid for it, the consumer does not trouble him or herself with the conditions within which the food was produced, or what happens to the by-products, but merely the presence of the food on the plate, it's appearance and taste, and other similar immediate considerations and the of course the price he or she has paid for the meal to be consumed. Quite often the consumer has no concept of what it takes to produce that end product on the plate. This because the human being, the citizen consumer, unlike every other living organism, is cut off from the source and the processes that create the food. Likewise the consumer is not concerned with what happens to that which is not eaten. It is considered waste, not food.

The 'consumer' is a dehumanising term which reduces each unique human being to an object to be crafted and then manipulated for profit. And for Power.

**Survival carries with it the sense of threat, the sense of scarcity. Whilst there exists the possibility of being eaten, for each individual, that does not in and of itself threaten any entire species, and what we see is that no predator nor herbivore will consume the entirety of that species which it eats.

Both prey and predator thrive in the natural state. The are interdependent, mutually nurturant. The struggle for survival is in fact a projection of the dynamic of fear that the Hierarchical, non-empathic Society feels, generates and promotes.

This is due to a fundamental undermining of natural empathy, which leads to disconnection, and with that insecurity arises, and the need to control follows and it is from this that violence flows.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Empathy : a biological imperative.

Borage Flower, my garden, a haven of careless nurture

Empathy : Standard Definitions

The English word is derived from the Greek word ἐμπάθεια (empatheia), "physical affection, passion, partiality" which comes from ἐν (en), "in, at" + πάθος (pathos), "passion" or "suffering".

The term was adapted by Rudolf Lotz to create the German word Einfühlung ("feeling into") from which the English term is then more directly derived

Wynn Schwartz defines it thus: We recognize others as empathic when we feel that they have accurately acted on or somehow acknowledged in stated or unstated fashion our values or motivations, our knowledge, and our skills or competence, but especially as they appear to recognize the significance of our actions in a manner that we can tolerate their being recognized.

Most definitions express empathy in Anthropomorphic terms, limiting the word to a given cultural assumption.

I intend to extend those definitions to define empathy as a core biological function that enables a level of precision that for most of us is almost unimaginable.  


Biological Communication and Precision

Firstly we must to look at how cells communicate. The biology of intra-cellular and inter cellular communication operates from the atomic and ionic level upwards; that is to say at the frequency wavelength of any given atom with a variation of one electron, plus or minus.

It is clear from current scientific observation that all cells communicate; that all cells examine their immediate and distal habitats, gathering information and then acting on that information.

It is also clear that all cellular movement creates an electromagnetic pulse that is strongest closest to the cell, yet extends indefinitely as does a radio signal, getting weaker as it travels. The particular signal appears weaker as other signals, including any background ‘noise’ crowd it out.

Arrays of cells can detect what appear to us to be extremely tiny variations within the electromagnetic spectrum, by a process of averaging the combined signals from each cell, and by stochastic resonance, can use the background ‘noise’ to amplify the minute signal they are looking for.

And example is the sensitivity of the arrays of cells that run the length of a sharks side, that detect electrical energy.

If one took a 1.5 volt battery and place one terminal at the East coast of the Atlantic, and another at the West coast of the Atlantic, the shark would be capable of detecting that signal!

Bacteria exhibit a similar capability, which is extended as they gather in larger and larger self organising groups.

There are many, many examples of this level of precision in nature. In fact, given that natural living processes are built from the ‘grass-roots’, that is to say that minute bacteria are the fundamental building and metabolising agents of all living processes, we can begin to comprehend somewhat the amazing hidden universe of the communications and responses of the myriad of living organisms in any one habitat such as a forest or river or ocean; and even within one larger physical body, such as a grass plant, a tree, an animal of any kind which is a essentially collection of self organised organs all of which work together.  


The Human Being : a self organised bag of bacteria

For the human being, we understand now that our bodies are composed of approximately 1 trillion human cells. There are a further 90 trillion bacterial cells that co-habit within and around the human being. These cells are absolutely vital to the functionality and health of the human being. They are of course invisible to the eye. It is possible to state with some certainty that while the framework might appear human, the organism is bacterial.

Thus Empathy as a biological imperative means for me that I can to certain degree comprehend the fundamental dynamics of natural living processes that increase fecundity and generate abundance for all life – it is the innate and intrinsic ability to ‘feel into’ the habitat and all that dwell there to elicit information that is pertinent to the living processes themselves in terms of how they thrive, how they maintain a dynamic equilibrium within a constantly changing environment.

With regard to the human being, research clearly shows that there are two main poles or modes of human society – the egalitarian and the hierarchical, and that the egalitarian has been the predominant mode for most of our existence on Earth.

This makes sense to me, in that there is no proven, discernible hierarchy in the natural world.

Self organisation is the primary mode, involving co-operation from minute to macro habitats. So it is with our bodies. The western concept of ‘mind’ does not operate the body. We call it ‘automatic’ a mechanistic attribution. From what I have written above, it is clear that it is far from being ‘automatic’, rather it is the result of trillions of cells engaged in exploration, communication, and responsive action.

Furthermore the collective conscious intelligence of the bag of bacteria can be sensed by an individual if she or he choses to ‘lose his or her mind’, to set aside that acculturated sense of identity and to experience that range of sensings that emerge into awareness as a result.

Now I would like to look at empathy as a human attribute within the human societal context.  


The Empathetic Human Being : The Natural Child

A child gestates for 9 months, living inside his or her mother, as part of her, and is directly linked into her entire being – and lives in absolute empathy with the mother. Twins display an a profound level of empathy, and that emerges from their ‘living together’ in the womb. How could it be otherwise. Their cells are entraining, growing together at the same time.

We know from biochemistry that any chemicals the mother is exposed to are amplified by 100 times when they reach the developing child. This effect was discovered primarily through research into the effects of toxic chemicals such as DDT etc. which are now found in breast milk and in the foetus of most people on Earth, certainly ALL of those born to ‘civilisation’.

We know that the brain development of the baby within the womb is intense, that the growth and organisation of the brain is extraordinarily rapid and complex, and that learning occurs, that is to say that experience within the womb is written into the developing neural structures,

On birth, the baby moves from this deeply connected state, to one of disconnection, of separation.

It is crucial to understand that the new born baby has twice as many neurons in his or her brain as an adult, and that the learning process that writes neural pathways already underway in the womb, is geared for a rapid increase immediately on birth, and that this learning is experiential.

The first learning’s are to do with developing appropriate empathetic neural pathways for life outside the womb.  


Egalitarian Biology

In egalitarian societies the mother-child bond is retained as a primary focus from birth onwards, and extends throughout childhood, albeit modulating as the child grows and becomes independent. Thus the child is not separated from the mother, breast feeding is extended, skin to skin contact is maintained. The smells, sounds, movements, sights, tastes and other sensing’s all contribute to the development of appropriate neural pathways. A secure and happy child-mother bond results in hormonal cascades originating from the heart that increase the ability to make connections, to write neural pathways, in effect to learn.

Any stress the child experiences releases cortisol, the fight or flight hormone, which damages the neurons and inhibits the development of the appropriate neural pathways the child requires to complete his or her empathetic learning. Damage or Trauma caused at this stage is relatively difficult to address later on. However there are plenty of examples of children with neural damage in one area of their brain transferring the functions normally assigned to that area, language for example, to another area. This demonstrates the plasticity of the brain and of the child’s learning process, given the appropriate nurturing and environment. Recovery is possible.  


The Dominant Culture : a product of damaged empathetic neurology

In the current dominant culture, the child-mother bond is broken in many, many ways, and we see a profound lack of empathy distributed across all sectors of society, from the individual to the collective. Teachers who ‘need’ to ‘control’ a classroom; politicians who demonise an ‘enemy’ and orchestrate wars in which innocent people die and are maimed; religions that proscribe certain behaviours; marketing that resolves around stereotype; racism, sexism, ageism, scientific reductionism, vivisection all require a profound lack of empathy. The money system that coerces us all to work for money to buy food produced for profit so as to enrich a tiny percentage of the people above and beyond all others; the hubris of the elites, the discrimination learned in school and amongst the divided poor all depend upon a lack of empathy that is practically hard-wired.

Colonisation is the process of extirpating the natural societies from any given land base, and replacing that lived experience with ‘progress’ … and is an expression of lack of empathy at it’s core; a lack of empathy for the people and for the land itself, from which those people emerge.

The current ‘crisis’ of the Church, that paragon of Virtue, demonstrates such a profound loss of empathy, that even with the evidence in the clear daylight, those who identify with it, both lay and clerical even still seek to assign blame to anything other than the Church itself, and characterise those who are bringing the sordid evidence to light as their ‘enemies’. And so it goes.

As I pointed out above, empathy is the ability to sense or feel into the world within which one is embedded, and is a skill-set that is intrinsic to all cells and all groupings of cells. It is absolutely a bio-logical imperative of all living beings, and extends across species. It is the basis for appropriate behaviours which enable all life to thrive, to sustain life beyond mere ‘survival’.  


The Natural Child : Natural Society

For a natural human being empathy is a core quality, one that enables an accurate ‘reading’ of the habitat, and indeed of other human beings within one’s community. This ‘reading’ is essential to egalitarian ways of living.

The ability to sense what any action one might think upon might have in terms of repercussions of those subject to that action, in terms of feeling that within oneself, is a far greater driver of healthy behaviour that any set of rules or morals. Indeed, rules and morals emerge from a community that lacks empathy. The anthropological research shows this time and time again.

The ability to include rather than exclude information, to gather the widest possible data-set for any experience though sharing perceptions, observations and other sensing’s as well as stored memories is a crucial to the well being of nature based community.

There are many examples of this behaviour that emerge from groups of living beings working together, from bacteria to ants, bees swarming, flocks of birds in flight, shoals of fish and more. It is likely that this level of empathy, of natural precision inheres in all living processes.

It goes a long way to explain the precision and diversity of nature, without recourse to mechanistic explanations which are both crude and inadequate to the task to describing what transpires in living processes, and are most often the result of projections of a certain mindset onto natural processes.


The Heart as a cognitive, sentient organ of perception


Empathy as described above involves the full range of somata-sensory abilities inherent to the human body, and the primary organ in this regards is the heart, amongst other centers such as the 'gut' and various parts of the body, including the standard sensory organs.

The heart is linked directly to the seat of the brain, the region called the amygdala, and the hippocampus and other areas... by 80,000 single neurons (that is there are no breaks or synapses between the heart and the brain) and signals from the heart reach the brain for processing before even visual signals - thus much is 'felt' even before it is registered.... This has been 'measured' scientifically and is now proven beyond any doubt.

The heart is an electromagnetic transmitter and receiver, emitting an electromagnetic field that is 5000 times stronger than the brains magnetic field, and that encompasses the entire body and nearby surroundings, with an ever extending range, peaking from the skin to about 8 feet, then trailing off into infinity. The heart receives inputs from that immediate area, and can also focus onto and amplify weaker electromagnetic signals.

The heart regulates the brain and all other parts of the body by releasing hormones known as DHEAs and others. This regulation is crucial to the well being of the physical body, and is undermined by focussing on the brain/mind as the seat of consciousness, which forces the body to entrain to the brain and the concept of mind, which is usually the product of  acculturation, and overlays the natural stasis. The old usage of the heart as in 'heart-felt', 'hearty', 'heart broken'  etc etc suggests that in times past there was an awareness of the locus of consciousness in the heart.


While most of us born into the dominant culture would find it quite difficult be truly precise in noticing and determining incoming signals to the heart from the environment, and from other co-habitants, human and non-human, it is absolutely possible to retrain ourselves to do so, though this does indeed take some time, possibly decades. Nonetheless it is a worthwhile path of self exploration and learning. 


To start this process, one needs only to breath gently into one's heart,  and allow the 'mind' to silence, and to sense the entrainment of the body to the heart. If one is looking for information, one needs only to ask "what or how does this feel?" and to allow all the insights, images, senses that follow just to be, noticing them. The feel of being heart centered is deeply pleasant, and grows with practice. It is extremely beneficial for one's physical health.


For further exploration of heart awareness I suggest the Heart Math Institute and the book "The Secret Teaching of Plants : The intelligence of the Heart in the direct perception of nature" BY Steve Harrod Buhner and googling the term 'heart coherence' and 'HRV + Heart'.  A research paper on Intuition and the role of the heart in processing intuition.

And here's a song to go with this piece, it's called The Heart Song.

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_1171480

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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on Earth Life Processes That Build Habitats for Diverse Populations of Mutually Interdependent Autonomous Life Forms

I feel we are innately, biologically designed to 'tread lightly, do no harm'.... one of the oldest maxims I know of is 'all is born of womanlife, no harm shall come to the children' which puts males in a place of deepest respect for woman and child, thus naturally concerned with the continued abundance of all life and the habitats that host that abundance.

That fits in with the known ways in which nature (defined for the purpose of this piece as : Earth Life Processes That Build Habitats for Diverse Populations of Mutually Interdependent Autonomous Life Forms) works in balance, with such precision, without any known centralised driving force, working from the grass-roots, from bacteria (who are arch metabolizers, factories of food, recycling experts, and also seed rain clouds! which is why they live inside us - we eat their poo! and their decaying bodies! no waste. all is food.) to the largest organisms such as the great barrier reef and the fungal tissue that extends across entire continents through forests.... everything eats, none eats beyond the sustainable levels of what they eat, few starve, most live full lives - that's not a struggle, its certainly no competition based system of evolutionary 'perfection'.

bounty!

Nature is abundance. Nature is. And there are variables. Weather does change. Volcanoes will erupt. Tsunamis do occur. Floods will happen. The are all necessary parts of nature and life on Earth. Nothing natural is useless. Everything matters.

We learn to fear in the way 'civilisation' fears; as children we 'adapt to' a dysfunctional situation by internalising the values of the situation, the values of those who control the situation. That's the nasty little voice to the side, (I sense it on my right hand side, just above my ear, just outside ) that feels like judgement, that tells me I am 'bad' etc etc....the repeated lies I was told about my body, my spirit, which were told so often I took them to be true. And they ruled me. Those voices were once physically embodied in the voices of the adults who 'raised' me, of the authority of the adult world over me, and for a long time the ghosts of those voices ruined my life, because I believed them to be my own voice......

Those voices rule many people, and those voices drown out the voice of the heart for many people, to the extent that they become ideological or fundamentalist, to the extent they find it easy to de-humanise, to the extent they respond to 'charisma' ..... Obama, Osama......

Let me make this quite clear. My true conscience is in my heart,embedded in body, that's where I feel my true feelings of empathy, my sensings of others in this world, which is conscience itself, really. It is NOT in my head.... and there are aspects that are reflected all over my body... 'my hand can feel the burn on your hand' my heart the wound I might inflict when I think of that .... and knowing the pain I sense is real, that by action I might realise it in you, I cannot take any such action - I feel you' There is no deeper base for behaviour that this, and it is innate.

Unlearning the 'fear' is not easy, it takes time, and a little dedication..... it is a process of becoming more human in a 'civilised' and industrialised world that dehumanises, de-souls and that objectifies all life in order to 'exploit' it.

This is the struggle I am engaged in for myself.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Natural or Civilised?

Taking is not receiving. That is one way to describe the difference between civilised processes and natural processes.

Civilisation, takes; most often by force, whatever it ‘needs‘/ ‘wants‘, irrespective of the cost to others, irrespective of the natural continuity of the community from which it takes.

Nature gives; everything is provided by processes in which each participant entity simply by being what it is, by it’s unique and precisely adapted metabolisation of nutrients available in the habitat it lives in.

Civilisation is organised rape and pillage. Survival and Power. Survival is Fear driven.

Nature is organised abundance. Thrivival.

These are the stark facts.

These are the facts of life on Earth. Not the facts of Civilisation. One of which, for example, is if you refuse to ‘work’ you must starve. Not only that but you also become the pet kicking object of a load of people who have sold their souls so as to ‘survive’ in that Civilisation. Another fact of Civilisation is Slavery. War. Child Abuse.

Thus when Scientists speak of the ‘struggle for survival‘, they are projecting their Civilised doctrines , their Indoctrination, onto nature….. Civilised Humanity has to struggle to survive, never mind thrive, to remain in place on Earth precisely because it is so anti-Nature, and cannot therefore easily survive in Nature, as it does not abide by Natural Processes, in fact it actively undermines those processes. It is also resisted by Indigenous peoples up to the point where they are all but annihilated, extirpated, erased.

Let me tell you something about Darwin. He was a Racist. He stated that the inter-breeding of ‘good stock’ with ‘bad stock’ would lead towards an inevitable degradation of the ‘good stock’, his example being the English inter-breeding with Irish. Implicit in this is the understanding that indeed there are some human beings, who by birth and race, are superior to all others. That’s a fundamental premise of Civilisation. And for them survival of the fittest and natural selection were merely ways to ‘scientifically’ prove their assumptions regarding superiority. Making it all to easy in their minds to extirpate that which does not ‘comply’. Compliance.

Darwin was, as it happens, from an extremely wealthy ’landed’ family, a man who socialised with European Royalty, a man who was part of that same class. A member of the Elite. With an agenda. And an enormous budget. He was a propagandist. The one who got there first. As in his books were published, promoted and given support. Before Wallace. Who saw that Nature is co-operation.

Civilisations come and go, and so too will this one which we find ourselves born into.

The question arises : with whom, or with what do I or you most identify?

Civilisation or Nature?

Only when I/you have answered that gritty question, can I/you start to deal with the problem of Civilisation…..

Look at it this way : our entire body is produced and sustained by nature. Every cell is wild, self organised, and getting on with it without any need for direction from our thinking selves. The only civilised part is the thinking, and the lack of empathy that arises from that thinking. We ARE nature. We only THINK we are civilised.

Only when one recognises that one is of nature, rather than of civilisation, can one start to deal with the problem of civilisation. The civilised cannot, by definition, deal with this problem in any meaningful way. They cannot see it. They see other problems, which are symptoms, and will attempt to suppress the symptoms rather than seek the root cause.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

We are the only creatures...

....that turn our poo into toxic sludge, and we are the only creatures that claim superiority over all life forms on earth......... ha ha ha ha!

How utterly crass! How rude is that!?!

We deprive the habitat of nutrients that we cannot use (only 20% max of food is metabolised, the rest passes through, and in nature is re-used by other life forms to create more abundance, more food).....

The phrase "dealing with your shit" comes to mind....

http://www.weblife.org/humanure/

Learn about yer poo and it's potential, and deal with it, if you can or if you are wise enough to do so.

Good poo inspired essay!

http://thisisawar.com/InspirationDavid.htm

Enjoy!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Bees, the BBC and the obvious but obscured truths about food production

Just watched a docu on the BEE BEE SEE about bees and the massive die-offs of bees everywhere except Autralia.

It’s really obvious, to me at least, that the single most important factor in this occurrence, and in many other similar ‘events’ throughout nature HAS GOT TO BE the kinds of human interventions that tend to undermine natural resilience, which is founded on bio-diversity …. variety is the spice of life, so to speak, and when humans monocrop for profit, on a huge scale, the natural resilience and variety is destroyed....

Nature is a huge ineteraction of trillions upon trillions of creatures and plants, with no hierarchy other than that which human beings of the ‘civilised... Read more’ sort project onto it…(we project our own ideas onto others, because we have an inability to see others as they see themselves).


Thus messing around with something that works (nature definitely works, which is the strength of permaculture) is utterly stupid, and pretending that we are somehow ‘more intelligent’ than that which makes us is hubris of the worst sort.


We (industrial civilisation as is) are to nature as Tony Blair is to Iraq, Education and Spirituality.. and we brag about it….
sheesh!

Somethings got to give, and unless we revert to localised food production, and in ways that rebuild natural diversity, and fast, we are seriously and possibly fatally compromising our very existence.

There have been a few other programmes on the BBC which show how food production has changed since the end of World War II, when the Pharmaceutical Industry switched from killing people to killing bugs and plants - the same chemicals are used to 'fertilise' crops as were used to make bombs - and what nobody mentions is that the HUGE profits that the Pharmaceutical Companies made out of the war (while everybody else near starved on rations) allowed them to expend huge efforts to lobby Governments excessively so as to promote their chemcials as the 'green revolution', which has led inexorably to Monsanto, GMOs and patented seeds etc etc... and has been the cause of massive toxicity in our foods, our soils, our waters and also placed us in a very vulnerable position as food growing is ever more concentrated if fewer and fewer hands (only 1400 dairy farmers left in the UK.....!).


Keep on blowing the trumpet for local growing and eating. It’s the only tune that nature knows… apart from some species that travel to food such as some whales, great white sharks, birds etc etc….


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Derrick Jensen - A clear voice and a call to natures arms!

“How many environmentalists does it take to change a lightbulb?”

"Ten. One to write the lightbulb a letter requesting that it change. Four to circulate online petitions. One to file a lawsuit demanding it change. One to send the lightbulb lovingkindness™, knowing that this is the only way real change occurs. One to accept the lightbulb precisely the way it is, clear in the knowledge that to not accept another is to do great harm to oneself. One to write a book about how and why the lightbulb needs to change. And finally, one to smash the fucking lightbulb, because we all know it’s never going to change."

from Derrick Jensen, Endgame ....

http://www.endgamethebook.org/index.html

Excerpts are available, online, of this inciteful and uncompromising book on the nature of our culture or 'civilisation' and it's relationship with earth and her inhabitants, as an abuser in a dusfunctional family. Jensen has a genius with word, phrase, fact and insight and his way of correlating the microcosm of a dysfunctional family with the macrocsom of our 'civilisation' strikes afr too many chords to be dismissed. Similar in vein to David Smail and Alice Miller, he traces the issues we are faced with today from their roots 16,000 years ago in Babylon through today, and comes to some uncomfortable conclusions regarding change and that system of control.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

POWER, Psychological Distress and Society

"Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called 'neuroses', 'psychoses' and related forms of suffering are nothing to do with faulty biology; nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning).

Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society."

From David Smail......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smail_(psychologist)

My Comments :

That adverse POWER, when exercised over any other living being, is at the roots of psychological and much physical distress should be blindingly obvious.

Recent events in Gaza are surely evidence enough, given the bland platitudes of political leaders, the cowardice of mainstream media, the bigotry of various citizens and the willful ignoring (verb) of human suffering by these various actors, not to mention what we know of our history and of the genesis of and use of so-called 'scriptures' as tools of control, rather than inspirational texts.

Yet all too often that is not the case!

What in the name of all that is good and beautiful that is of life is going on here?

Education, Psychiatry, Religion, Economics and Ideology as we know them in our society all share this quality of the exercise of adverse power over others. Of ignoring the true and terrible consequences of adverse POWER.

The process of denying a child the responsibility for and expression of her or his true feelings is the basis for all of the above, and in my mind, is the basis for all that is corrupt in our world. Corrupt in this context means isolated from the dynamic equilibrium inherent in what we call nature.

That dynamic equilibrium is at the core of the adpative ability of natural beings - an ability to read intelligently the multiple changes of any environment so as to retain optimum living balance. This implies an innate feedback process of cognitive understanding in order to function. That this exists and permeates all living systems is understood by science (at last), has been understood by indigenous peoples for millenia and is probably understood by all life forms - the indigenous peoples have said time andf time again that their knowledge of herbs, of plant and animal life comes direct from those life forms.

We know, for example, that there are 14,550 natural varieties of apple indigenous to England - that speaks volumes to the specificity of adaptation to locale, precise adaptation to subtle changes in environemnt that occur as the land flows. Similar variations account for the immense bio-diversity of the rain forests etc etc and that variety also affords these living systems their fundamental resilience.

Adverse POWER by it's very nature is an impediment to that feedback process. De-forestation as opposed to harvesting what has fallen. One cannot eat the fruit of a felled tree or nor the berries of a burned bush.

And that is at the core of the problems we are all faced with. POWER most often assumes that because others do not speak POWERS language that POWER is somehow superior. That is the meaning of 'experts' such as Lawyers, Priests, Rabbis, Imans, Psychiatrists etc etc. When in fact it is POWERS inability to empathetically connect and integrate feedback that is the problem.

We learn at home, in school, in our temples and at work that feedback is not appreciated - don't talk back! - and that such honest feedbcak can in fact be life/career threatening. And so we shut down that process within ourselves, and that leads directly to distress. Blocking our own internal flows of sensory information is deeply harmful.

The solution to this problems is so simple that it is overlooked by most of us. Certainly those in POWER, denigrate this approach in favour of over-complicated jargonised instituionalised narratives that are designed to "blind us with brilliance of baffle us with bullshit" and thus retain that adverse POWER. Psychiatry, Pharming, 'Experts' etc etc......... all wish to justify their positions......

The solution, as I see things, is ruthless self-honesty in the personal, familial and societal arenas of our lives and within our culture, founded upon an understanding and experience of Love as a joyful awareness of the wonder of being a living creature. Such an awareness can also be described as an expression of sensory acuity. It would naurally extend itself to all life.

Sensory acuity based around joyful awareness will always be sensitive to even the most subtle changes in the environment, and that in turn enables cognitive intelligent responses to those changes - sensory acuity is 'de facto' a neccessity so that this essential feedback loop process can function.

Here's a link to an article that I found useful, regarding the basis for a thankful life, written by Dr. Peter Breggin...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/fifteen-principles-of-lif_b_34782.html



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Right or wrong, what works, works!

The factual recent history of Palestine is clear. 

 Utilising standards current in International Law, the Israeli Government is the aggressor, the US/UK Governments their supporters, the Palestinian and Israeli civilians are the victims, and the UN and the rest of us appalled and somewhat confused bystanders. Let me help clear some of the confusion. This situation has little to do with Religion, and a lot more to do with colonialism, conquest, Empire.

The Palestinians are 'guilty' of violent resistance. A somewhat lessor crime perhaps, though current International Law allows for armed resistance to military occupation by foreign powers, from invasion right through to departure. Thus guilt is the wrong word, even though I detest violence, the intentional causation of harm to anyone. 

 This aggression we are talking about is the aggression that is driven by power politics, often using religion or race as a 'white phosphorous" smoke screen. 

 Power politics is essentially about adverse control over the lives of others considered 'inferior' by those exercising that power - the power of life and death, full dining, charidee or scraps. 

 One can say that those who make the decisions to exercise that power in that any harmful way are culpable for they have transgressed the natural state of welfare and it is correct action, on the part of a mature adult, to confront that head-on... 

 We know that by conditioning children, such governments condemn those children as parents to become the instruments of that conditioning, innocently harming their own beloved children. 

 It is correct action, on the part of a mature adult, to confront that head-on. That means making accurate assessments - not to be confused with 'judging' which in common use means to see the other as inferior. To assess means to call the behaviour what it is, distinguishing that from the person. 

 A person thus confronted who denies and/or shows no remorse has judged themselves in the eyes of those who confront adverse dysfunctional behaviour. 

 Within the so called mainstream Peace and Environment movements there is far too much proto-Christian/hippy-psychoblather about the 'ego' and 'judgement', way too much political correctness, essentially an unwillingness to call it for what it is. 

If you feel it, then you feel it, so say it... Otherwise it's fear! 

 If only right and wrong was so easy to see…. If only........ 

Many people express this sentiment. Here's my take on it, for what it is worth. 

 Take the side of the civilians on all sides, and oppose the military power on all sides. 

 But as to the question right and wrong, in Gaza, right now for example, it is the right to life that is being violated and in that the Israeli Government is behaving in a way that is clearly anti-life, and doing so in a well organised, mechanised, industrialised way. 

 Their propaganda machine is well served by our western media and by a lack of critical thinking and feeble sentimentality. 

 Have you seen or read any of the work by Derrick Jensen? He is right on the ball with this void of critical analysis. Worth a watch. 

 Here's a quote, in which he debunks survival of the fittest, elegantly and precisely - I suggest you read it out loud : 

 "Those creatures that have survived in the long run have survived in the long run; you don’t survive in the long run by exploiting your habitat; you survive in the long run by actually improving your habitat; that’s what salmon do, that’s what merganzers do, that’s what bears do, that’s what everybody does; except us." 

 Thus, my question is this : what exactly have the Israeli Government done to improve the habitat of the Palestinians? 

  Precision Munitions 

 And another aspect of this connection to habitat is that we do have an innate and precise sensory ability that allows us, if we chose to use it, to listen to and comprehend all the elements in nature, from clouds to oceans, from mountains to clay. 

 Our hearts are neurally set-up to receive and transmit electromagnetic communications. All living beings emit electromagnetic information. These are signature transmissions. This has been scientifically measured. We are talking KNOWLEDGE here. Fact. 

 The ancients all claimed that their plant knowledge and herbal lore came direct from the plants themselves. We laughed at them, patronised them, slaughtered them and took their lands. 

 We know that in swarms of bats, that their ability to fly in huge swarms, at high speed, comes from their rapid 'reactions' - each individual is acutely aware of the seven around him, and as they fly in formation,  their so-called 'reactions' are 14 times faster than the human brain can think. 

They are using electromagnetic info to co-ordinate their efforts. 

This happens in all swarms, flocks, shoals etc etc.. 

 A mechanical instinct, driven by trial and error rather than direct comprehension is simply too blunt to craft this level of finesse. They think faster than we can! 

 In school, empire school, the one most of us went to, I was told that the ancients learned what they knew by trial and error! Profoundly arrogant and a fatal flaw in our ‘civilisation’. Fatal. 

  Precision - Natures Weapon of Mass Interaction 

 The point being that each living entity has within its being the facility to discern clearly what is appropriate for it's well being and what is not, to communicate with other life-forms and to thus adapt to a changing environment that is in dynamic equilibrium. And it is that that is at the core of the amazing diversity, vast co-operation and deep balance of nature. 

And it’s abundance. This quality/ability is missing in Israeli/US/UK governance. By reducing things to mechanics in order to understand them in a laboratory one gains knowledge of a bit, only in the case of urban civilisation, to than lose contact with the whole being. 

 In order to justify that loss, in itself an act of incredible stupidity and a functionally fatal one at that, intellectual philosophers and religious leaders of the city civilisations who evolved using that 'scientific' methodology had to create a disconnect, and elevate them selves ABOVE nature. As did the Constantine, the first Imperial Pope

.

Nature does not do right and wrong, nature does what works and what works is co-operation. Everything in nature that is alive works. What does not work, dies. Every creature devotes a large slice of it's being to improving the environment it inhabits. 

Apart from civilised humanity. And that does not work. Neither is the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people ‘working’. 

  It is an insanity to suggest that either ever was, is, or might be working. 

 Kindest regards 

 Corneilius 

 Do what you love, it's your gift to universe