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This article first appeared in our Earth Day 2023 issue of My Green Pod Magazine, published on 22 April 2023. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
We are witnessing a rise in activism.
Extinction Rebellion will lead a march at Parliament Square 21-25 April.
Demonstrators are blocking motorways in protest against fossil fuels.
Activists are spraying paint in museums and sticking themselves to works of art.
Younger generations are boycotting brands that don’t meet their values.
This powerful list goes on – and I fully support each action.
The big questions is: is this activism? My sense is that it’s actually reactivism, which is perhaps why it creates such a strong reaction from those who feel it’s nothing more than selfish disruption.
I’m pretty sure that every single person – perhaps with the exception of those at the top of this old-paradigm food chain – wants to support the drive for change when it comes to the climate and biodiversity crises unfolding before our eyes.
I was recently reminded how ruthless nature can be, but there can be no sane justification for consciously abusing the Earth – the very source of life.
Yet report after report confirms that we are driving towards the planet’s sixth mass extinction.
Those billionaires using up the Earth’s resources, making bundles of cash and then building spaceships and space stations, are beginning to make me wonder whether they are simply trying to save themselves.
Rising seas, searing heat, floods, fires, storms and earthquakes; it does feel like the apocalypse is nigh – and there’s no chance we’ll be invited on to those spaceships when the temperatures rise beyond anything we can handle as a species.
Rather than arguing over who to blame, there could be another way of being an activist – one where we look inside ourselves for the truth, with an awareness that we are intrinsically and cosmically connected to everything there is, within and without us.
If we responded from this perspective, would we behave in a completely different way?
Would we recognise ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience, trying to solve this unravelling mystery together? And could there be an uprising of conscious truths, stirred and awakened by a life lived from inner truth, and not the one we are seeing outside ourselves?
For me, the simple answer is yes.
By meditating more, as a collective, and embracing more of the arts of hatha yoga, Wim Hof breathing, ecstatic dancing, qigong and more, at least for that time we would be honouring our place in the universe, drawing upon the wisdom and energy of nature, living in the moment and not taking resources from the planet.
If we all did this, we might feel healthier, more alive, more connected to nature and each other and more loving and allowing.
I believe this is the only way we will truly evolve as a species during the next 10-50 years of climatic changes; we need to try to remember our rooted and indigenous ways, perhaps how our ancestors lived before capitalist ideology became embedded into today’s dominant culture of control, power and greed.
The old paradigm is killing us, but by raising our vibration and remembering our innate purpose we can become a solution – maybe even a leader and spiritual activist – in the most important time in human history.
If you are interested in trying to live in a more awakened way, this Earth Day and beyond, sign up to the World Upshift Movement and the wonderful Love Peace Harmony movement, where you will get the tools to heal your own life so you can truly live your purpose.
I’d also love to see you at my Spirited Business and Leadership retreat in June and the Sustainability Show, where I will be guiding a mass meditation and reconnection with Mother Nature.
By doing some or all of these things, you’ll be committing to a different kind of activism – for Earth Day and beyond.
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