Alice Miller and Darcia Narvaez

I would like to recommend the books of Alice Miller, a German psychotherapist, which opened my eyes to a deeper level of understanding than I had received in training as a child psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, London. By opening up to her childhood feelings, Alice was able to identify 'the true origin of the vein of ferocity which runs through human relationships everywhere'. The methods recommended by paediatricians to impose obedience and firm discipline on young babies up until recently, are revealed as cruel and damaging to helpless infants. Darcia Narvaez, in her book, Neurobiology and the development of Morality, has shown in detail how the true needs of the child, when not met by parents or carers, eg when a baby is left to cry themselves to sleep, a very common practice, can damage the development of the child and produce anxiety and depression later in life.

Healthy Birth, Healthy Earth, Findhorn Conference 3-9 Sept 2016

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Healthy Birth, Healthy Earth

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An International Conference, Findhorn, Scotland, Sept 3 – 9

Join the Inquiry!

PUBLISHED ON April 23, 2016

This conference is an inquiry into the transformation of human consciousness through re-visioning how we birth and care for our children.

Our earliest experiences as infants set the tone for how we later respond to the world around us. Our capacity to love ourselves, others and the Earth is either enabled or suppressed as we come into being. We are all born and have a story to tell.

Facing the challenges of climate change, can we think in life-affirming ways about this critical period of human bonding? From conception through to early childhood, a consciously supported beginning to life is crucial to the future of civilisation and the Earth.

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https://hbhe.co/presenters/

Inventing the Future Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams

This book offers the framework of building a campaign strategy around the demand for full automation and a basic income for all. This is not a short term demand but a vision of what can be achieved if labour groups come together with academics and supporters to design the future. 

Personally I believe they have drawn the supporting network too narrowly. But that only makes the case for this campaign even more strongly. I wrote some time ago:

BIG (basic income guaranteed) may be revolutionary, but it does not need the economic system to change drastically in order to be introduced. In that sense it is reformist, although the effects are revolutionary.
The big advantages are that
1. it can be introduced without massive changes to the economic system.
2. It is a very simple idea which can be appreciated by people without much knowledge of the economy.
3. It has been tried in pilot experiments, and found to be successful in stimulating economic activity. (Brazil)
4. Many economists agree (James Robertson, Jeremy Rifkin, Edward Snowden, Richard Swift) that with technology replacing many jobs that previously required human labour, BIG of some sort is necessary.
5. Naomi Klein highlights it in her latest book This Changes Everything, as one of the game changing battles that 'don't merely aim to change laws, but changes patterns of thought.'(p 641)

The authors are coming to Leeds for an open discussion on Saturday Nov 14th, organised by PlanC.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1624336424483090/

I believe that this campaign could appeal widely across all political spectrums. Hope to see you there.

The book costs at the moment £9.09 for hard copy with e-book thrown in for good measure (30% off)

Anna

BBC drama Dr Foster

Dr Foster drama on BBC tv a brilliant portrayal of the modern dilemma facing women. Gemma stands for the best in women who actually have the wisdom and the courage to save life, save humanity from the devastation being wreaked upon it by the generations of men, blinded by greed and without the courage to face the truth about themselves, who are selling out and bankrupting our human species and the future generations. The pain caused to her by having to face the truth about this man, her husband, who did not understand what he was doing to destroy the beauty they had created together. She alone stood against the conventions of not upsetting people at a dinner table, in heart stopping audacity, in order to bring home the truth of what was happening. Her medical assistant pleaded she just didn't want to hurt anybody. But Gemma was a wolf, ferocious in her defence of the next generation, determined in her maternal role, while totally supporting her family herself, to the point of alienating her son, who just wanted a mother like other boys have. As women activists maybe we can't fulfill that picture book sort of mothering at this time when the world is burning, our priority as Gemma's, is truth and justgice.

It's interesting that one of the most frequent criticisms has been that Gemma wasn't "likeable". And that she was irrational! That's why people didn't like her, cos she didn't play by the rules. She was unpredictable. She didn't even obey the law! To obey something above the law, like truth or  life, is really challenging. And I guess it usually only happens in a crisis. Are we in a crisis??

Jeremy Rifkin The Third Industrial Revolution

What can we do to support this work? I am in UK and as yet we do not have a Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) project running. Italy has Rome and France has Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

TIR has the possibility to unite many sections of the population. The Trade Union Climate Change Group has put out a publication calling for a million climate jobs   https://www.climate-change-jobs.org which has a very similar plan to TIR. Those who protest at the increasing inequality between rich and poor generally see big business as antagonistic to their demands. Environmentalists blame polluting corporations for having profit as their priority. How can we help these groups to see that TIR is expressing their interests?

As Rifkin points out in his latest book there is no guarantee that the international community will wake up before Climate Change kicks in to an irreversible feedback loop. It is urgent that we do our part to bring these ideas to all sections. If you have suggestions or would like to take part in an active way please contact me at anna@shsh.co.uk

Response to Deeper Darkness http://deeperdarkness.net

 Thank you Matt for starting this website and giving us the chance to ponder these deeper realities.

Deeper Darkness seems to connect with a theme I have been pursuing recently. It starts with a quote from Keats I read in the 1970s which I still remember because it so struck me at the time:

'I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable  reaching after fact and reason.'

The possibility of resting in uncertainty seems to express what is needed to be open to this deeper reality.

This links with something from R.D. Laing:

  'The really decisive moments in psychotherapy, as every patient or therapist who has ever experienced them knows, are unpredictable, unique, unforgettable, always unrepeatable, and often indescribable.'

 I think these guys are pointing to the same thing you are alluding to, approached from another perspective. It seems to me that this perspective, or experience, exists in all aspects of life, if we are open to it. It is not necessarily a comfortable place to be. And because of that we tend to try to avoid it, and stay with what is familiar, and 'known'.

(I put 'known' in inverted commas because this is what has come to be called knowledge in our society, not an inner knowing, but what is socially accepted as true.)

You also link this to the dark night of the soul and I agree with you. Doubting socially acceptable truth can rock your whole world, crash your foundations, and threaten your security, both personally and socially.  Think how whistleblowers are seen as terrorists.

For Bion, a psychoanalyst I came across in the 70s negative capability is 'the ability to tolerate the pain and confusion of not knowing, rather than imposing ready-made or omnipotent certainties upon an ambiguous situation or emotional challenge.'  

These sorts of feelings usually generate embarrassment and shame if exposed socially. We try to keep them hidden. We don't expect our leaders or politicians to express themselves in this way. So we end up with a totally false idea of reality. It is essential for our sanity to allow these aspects of ourselves to be not just tolerated but welcomed.


 

Sit until the world becomes still

There is a lot of truth in what Brandon says in this article. http://www.projectglobalawakening.com/2014/05/10/sit-world-becomes-still/

But it is not the whole truth. 

Sitting until our minds become still enough to see clearly, will help so that when we act we are not overwhelmed with the enormity of the task in hand, or so depressed that we become paralysed. 

But this article assumes, as many spiritual beliefs do, that all the problems exist within my mind. I don't have to worry about what is going on 'out there'. Some activists believe, on the other hand, that it is all going on 'out there', and if I sort it out there my problems will be solved. 

Both are true, but only partially. They both need each other to complete the picture. We will tend to emphasise different aspects at different stages of our lives, and according to our culture. I think that the 'it's all in your mind' camp most probably came from the upper classes, the ones who wanted to keep everything the way it was, who were well provided for materially, but still found they weren't happy. The 'get it sorted out there' camp probably came from radicals who wanted to change society because of the inequality and poverty around them.

We are both individuals and social beings, and while we have some choice about what we experience and how we feel, we have less control about what sort of society we want to live in. It feels good to focus on the part we can have more control over. That can help us to feel empowered. And we can choose to stop there and just focus on as Brandon says what fills us with the most bliss, the most peace, inspiration, enthusiasm, satisfaction, and fulfillment. 

When we feel that fulfillment in our own lives, and through connection to higher energies we experience the constant generosity of the universe, we can develop a desire to serve which takes us beyond our own personal interests, to become an active force in the world for peace and justice.