“Clare Hedin’s voice and melody with captivate even those who dare not look within… come and experience the sound of heaven, the sound of ecstasy, the sound of existence. Come gather and let the music allow you also to become heard!” Chandanni-Miglino, Mystic

  Hear…

Time & Location: 4.30-6pm @ 701 Teakwood Road, Brentwood, (LA) CA 90049. At the beautiful home of renowned Sculptor Rebecca Setareh

Suggested Donation: $15-$20.

RSVP: clare@clarehedin.com – or just show up on door. Wear comfortable clothes and please bring a soft blanket & cushion.

“When I first met Clare Hedin I was touched by the grace of her natural spirituality, a subtle yet persistent presence of mind and heart as one.  After hearing her sing, I was struck by the purity and passion of her voice, a quality that pierces as it soothes.” Antero Alli, Author and Filmmaker, Berkeley, CA

“Clare’s voice reflects her name – a clear and pure sound that reminds us that heaven is right here with us, in midst of life. When she sings one is swept upwards and held aloft like a bird on an updraft. Love,” Joan, Classical Indian Singer, CA

“There are harmonics our souls yearn for… seek, and when heard it strikes a deep chord of remembrance that we haven’t had before in this lifetime. Clare’s voice plunged me into this return to home, so her voice is truly of the divine. I’ve been waiting for her voice my whole life” Jan Cercone, Sound Healer, Song and Spirit Center, CA, USA.

“Your music moved me and touched me beyond words. It was like a soulful connection that radiated out of you and touched my soul in deep ways. Blessings,” Suzanne Baker, Santa Cruz, CA

“Clare’s voice is not like any other in this world. It resonates so deeply & is so magnificent that there are no words to justly describe it. She must be chaneling the divine.” ~Kim, New York, CA

The post Mar 31 4.30-6pm Brentwood, LA, Sound Healing with Clare Hedin appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

I have always been creative – it wasn’t something that I practised in order to become it, in other words, it wasn’t a goal, it was just me.  In fact, had I had my own way, I would have chosen not to be, as life looked so beautifully straightforward for those not burdened with a creative daemon (!) and relentlessly questioning mind (oh the happy sounds of ‘that’s just the way it is!’ that people would recite to me, as if that was a good enough answer for all the questions!); plus, although I suspect I secretly liked being ‘different’ and ‘anti-establishment’, I also often felt rather lost and sometimes alone, being in the minority.

Growing up in a somewhat conventional environment with siblings and parents that made the choice to go the well-trodden route of marriage, children, mortgages, second homes, and self employment (which is where we all diverge in our family from the truly conventional), I always thought I was weird and wrong for not having those as my own natural inclinations – and, I suspect, so did they. Quite simply, I didn’t fit in; my thinking didn’t fit in and my ambitions were contrary to those around me, both my own family and, more importantly, the greater environment of my local and national culture – that of Britain. Plus, I cared about the environment, which was considered naive and irritating and, overall, creatives were perceived in the same vein as people on the dole, welfare and social services i.e. there was an overall perspective of us as collective social dropouts without much of a clue about ‘how the world works’ and one day we’d all wake up and realize that we’d just gotten it wrong, whilst they’d been carrying the burden of our stupidity and then we’d shape up, grow up, and go get a real job and support the economy!

But no, it didn’t happen that way.  I waited for something to make sense, worked in the City (London) as a secretary (for a Far Eastern Investment Company) for two lovely guys, where I had a lot of fun but I didn’t really know what I was doing (which was eventually my demise, but that’s another story!) and the nagging feeling that there was more for me, more of me, just grew and grew like a cancerous ironic void inside of me – there was no stopping it, I wanted more! How Oliver Twist of me!

Taking a step sideways, I remember being on the stony beach of Aldeburgh in Suffolk, UK, (default setting of home for me, no matter where I am in the World and, in fact, where the featured picture of the red umbrella was taken) with my very pragmatic sister one summer’s day, many years ago, pondering this lack of sense of self in relation to the general global community and, out loud, stating that ‘I just don’t want to work in an office!’ to which the prompt reply was ‘no-one does, but you just have to do it!’ as if I was remarkably stupid for not getting how the game worked. Although I couldn’t refute her simple truth, I also couldn’t agree with it. No answers means no answers. If you don’t have an answer you don’t just take the nearest one to you – life isn’t musical chairs… is it?

Earlier, I mentioned feeling sad, angry and tense… what led to that? Well, in this endless search for money in a world of conventional (yet destructive – more on that later) approaches to life, I slightly over-reached and took on a job in triplicate – one I usually teach for 3 hours a week to 35 students, I was now teaching to almost 120 students, 9 hours a week and they are all so different. The joke is I’m teaching ‘Creativity & Innovation’ and have managed to practically cut off my own creative air supply in the process. But why? The hours themselves don’t justify that, even with all the prep and follow up and grading etc., so, is it my overall environment, since our environments are so important to our well-being and happiness, that is impacting my sense of creativity? Maybe the environment is the clue… I have talked about my outer environment, but what of the inner?

Sir Ken Robinson talks about this a lot in his book ‘The Element’ – it’s fabulous – and when he talks about the Element, our Element (which is essentially the experience of being completely in the center of our true passion and being instantly fed by our own aliveness in the process, by that to which we belong) he says ‘when we are doing something that we love and are naturally good at , we are much more likely to feel centered in our true sense of self – to be who we feel we truly are.’¹ My experience of this is that this is when I am being artistically creative I feel happy and relaxed, focused and alive… and so beautifully thought-less. And, in truth, when I am being intellectually creative (which usually means I’m holding my thinking lightly, experiencing it rather than drilling it into another) I also feel this sense of lightness, joy and freedom – it’s a lovely state of being and so uplifting! Actually, in truth, it’s utterly expansive and I love how that feels, don’t you?

So what am I doing when I’m being creative? Take now, for instance… I just walked away from the computer, picked up my guitar (tuned to DADGAD) and started strumming two notes in a repetitive pattern. Over that order I improvised with my voice which allowed my thoughts to wander, meander, through the fields of my waking dreams. I asked the question ‘what am I doing when I’m being creative, really?’ to which the thought came ‘you’re colouring outside the lines, you’re finding and stating what’s true for you’… ‘outside the lines’ – that seems to be so important. So, in terms of environment, the lines are the repetition of showing up at the same time with the same students, the same environment, same structures… how to keep my sense of self, my sense of surprise and novelty, around such repetition? And, think of the people with office jobs, how do they manage with their repetition, day in, day out? How do they keep their souls alive? Or at most schools? We use television, wine, beer, bicycling etc., is that the answer? Is that enough? Is the repetition the thing that takes us out of our playing field of creativity?

Although we can look to our own schedules and ways of prioritising i.e. where we ‘spend’ ourselves, to assess this, I think that maybe this is also where the outer natural environment (i.e. it’s state of health) can also come in, as a kind of collective gauge… if the use of television, wine, beer, etc., were enough I have a feeling (that I can’t necessarily prove) that we wouldn’t make choices that are so asleep to their consequences; i.e. if we were feeling alive within ourselves, we’d feel the aliveness of our entire environment (yes, our entire universe!) too. From there, we’d feel and see the consequences of unhealthy or unsustainable business practice and life choices (inner and outer pollution), as they relate to our inner and outer environments, because the connection would become viscerally apparent to us. When I’m in the center of my creative self, my creative identity, I feel a sense of wholeness and undeniable connection, which many would call healing (as healing is commonly considered the experience of reintegration or ‘wholeness in awareness’). That wholeness is an environment. It is also a state of being. Whatever I have to do to maintain that active relationship between my thinking mind and my creative self in balance, I must do. We are here for so much more than just our thinking and doing… we are here for our being.

And that voice of my sister’s on the beach, snapping at me like a sea turtle wrapped tightly in plastic soda hoops, was the direct result of unhappiness. I recognize it as my own, when I’m not happy, when I feel that life’s pressures have made me make choices that are not distinct from the norm, but simply reinforcing it – lives without enough freedom, spontaneity, imagination and joy. The result of tension vs. creative freedom.

So, in terms of the relationship between healing and creativity – maybe healing can be considered an integration, a working model of taking ourselves seriously, our creative drives seriously, and managing our outer environment so that it doesn’t invade that but simply supports it in ways that serve. Maybe ‘healing’ simply means ‘knowing ourselves’? Let me ask you… do you feel creativity has to be for something? – I’m thinking that perhaps it does. But not necessarily in ways that are ‘for sale’; i.e. for me, creativity is for my sanity, my sense of aliveness, my identity, my happiness, my social lubrication (i.e. I’m easier to be around when I’m happy and I’m happy when I’m in my creative genesis). And then there’s the unpredictable outcomes of creativity for society as a whole – no innovation that has impacted our lives in dramatic ways has come from conventional thinking – it has always come from stepping ‘outside the norm’, colouring ‘outside the box’ and going beyond identifiable form into a future that is yet to happen. And we are all part of that future. That’s why creativity matters. And that’s why you matter.

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to comment – what ‘tricks’ do you have up your sleeve for times when you’ve forgotten that your creativity is actually responsible for your entire life and therefore you have a profound responsibility towards it?

Clare

P.S. Clare’s Club: I should mention that I have started a new adventure to keep me (and those that join) in touch with their creative drive on a weekly basis. Visit the information/signup page and see Clare’s Club for yourself:) I’d love you to join and help shift the tide of commercial and social perspectives on the creative impulse – where it comes from and what it’s for.

Reference:
¹ The Element, Sir Ken Robinson (pg.90)

The post Healing, Creativity & You – the missing link? appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

About the Presenters

Steven Halpern

is an award-winning and Grammy nominated composer, recording artist and producer whose healing music has helped millions worldwide to experience the blessings and benefits of deep relaxation and inner peace. CHAKRA SUITE, his debut release in 1975, helped establish a quiet revolution and a new genre in contemporary instrumental music. To date it has sold over 700,000 copies. DEEP ALPHA is currently nominated as ‘Best New Age Album’ in the 2013 Grammy’s. His music continues to set the standard of excellence in the field. Based on his own spiritual and health-related experiences, Steven discovered secrets of combining ancient sound healing traditions with quantum biology and energy medicine to produce recordings that support relaxation, stress management, yoga, meditation, massage, sleep, accelerated learning and pure listening pleasure. www.stevenhalpern.com

Clare Hedin

is a sacred sound singer and creator of songs. Focusing on our inner and outer natural environments, she seeks to express and deepen our connection to our wandering wildness. She has created 7 CD’s, some lyric-based, some purely vocal-based layers of sound that guide us back home. Her most recent, Sacred Water, was recorded at sacred UK Sites. To her, our relationship with ourselves is key to our collective evolution. She fosters this by helping others to deepen their own Voice Presence and Creative Impulse. She has taken music into Oakland Children’s Hospital and co-visioned the Institute of Psychoacoustics Sound Healing Program, teaching there for many years. With an MA in Consciousness Studies, she writes on the subject of sustainability, imagination and Dynamic Emergence and talks & performs internationally. For more information visit www.clarehedin.com

Randy Masters

is a multi-disciplined alchemist, award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist musician, teacher and sought after speaker. He has an MA and PhD. in Divinity and has composed music for movies, played and recorded with many international music stars and Grammy winners. He has taught at both the Sound and Consciousness Institute and the CSMA in Mt View for more than 20 years. Heis a wellness facilitator for sound healing, spiritual counseling, Regenesis, and Universal White Time. His company, Resonant Living, makes specially tuned wind chimes, desktop chimes, tuning forks, sacred geometry energy jewelry and other custom designed specialist sound tools and musical CDs. www.universalsong.net

Timothy Surya Das (Timothy Dixon)

was born and raised in England, spent 9 years living in eastern France before moving to San Francisco in 2000. He is a classically trained pianist and composer, didgeridoo and native American flute player. His piano, as with all his compositions, flow from the heart. He plays intuitively allowing each piece to flow and take on the form that winds its way from start to finish in a completely organic manner. Because of his ability to listen for the music, his approach has drawn him into the world of sound healing and mantra chanting. He has his own healing practice which brings the power of sound together with Reiki, crystals and light energy. www.harmonicdreams.net

February 23 is an introduction to a series of sound healing workshops that will be offered monthly March through August at 333.

Saturday March 16, 10-5:00 with Randy Masters, $125.00
Saturday April 27, 10-5:00 with Sylvia Nakkash, $125.00
Saturday May 18, 10-5:00 with Patricia Everitt, $125.00
Saturday June 29, 10-5:00 with Steven Halpern, $125.00
Sunday July 21, 10-5:00 with Lisa Rafel, $125.00
Saturday August 24, 10-5:00 with Clare Hedin, $125.00

Purchase all Six for $625.00 by March 16 and save $125.00!

Purchase Full Series Tickets Now

The post The Power of Music to Heal, Shift & Transform appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

Join below!

“Living In Your Center”

This ‘weekly inbox’ club helps us become more centered within ourselves, to begin to find the answers to our most pressing questions, raise our sense of faith in our own intuitions and open up our creativity.

Enjoy weekly tips, insights, sneak peaks of creative work in progress, inspirations, poems, songs & special offers.

In addition - receive 15% off of all Clare’s services for duration of membership!

for $5/month – less than a fancy coffee! – you can be part of this growing community.

(All content exclusive to members)

Sound & Healing, Consciousness & Creativity… ask me a question and I will address it in the weekly VideoBlog!

It’s time for us to SHINE…

What people are saying:

“I love Clare’s Club. The week 7 happiness video was very uplifting!… Thank you so much for addressing my rut question. Amazing…and this week was just the ticket… Your last Clare’s Club was fantastic… Week 2 was so great! thank you – I love this!!… I am enjoying your club, you look radiant and sing like an angel… That last song was superb… I’m interested in exploring how/ways I stop myself from moving forward financially, beliefs etc.. very sweet song for our first week! Thank you – a pleasure hearing and seeing you…“

The post Join ‘Living In Your Center’ Club! (Clare’s Club!) appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

Hello Fellow Humans,

I’ve been thinking (yes, again!) and I’ve decided that if I think I have a good idea, well… I should share it. How else will I find out if it’s got traction?

It’s to do with our whole complex organization around life and business, business and creativity, business as a spiritual path that is strengthened by social justice (what?) and measured by everybody’s – yes everybody’s - joy.  I just said business three times in one sentence. That’s new. And I just completed a semester of teaching Creativity & Innovation for business, so I’m all fired up with the potential for positive change!

Business is such an important infrastructure to all our lives – whether voluntarily or by default – that if we can start to inject it with conscious awareness and positive intention, I think what’s possible goes beyond what we can even imagine in this moment. I suspect our potential is limitless. And that’s very exciting!

I invite you to read this, see what you think, and let’s talk! I’m writing, not as an expert, but as a human being. I want a better life for those who want it. For people’s basic needs to be met and I want happiness and environmental health to have economic value.

And, by the way, an economy, by definition, is not intrinsically linked to money… it is, amongst other things, ‘the [frugal] management of resources of a community…an organised system or method…the prosperity of a place.’* Quite wide open!

So maybe we can play with that a bit… what would make our approach to ‘economics’ holistic and positively impactful?

First Idea: Job Sharing.

Working hard has this ‘ring’ to it that seems to elicit pride. And I do like to work hard but I also like to contemplate, walk in nature and play. Given that we are all probably in need of more personal time, and more play/nature time, if we job shared, we not only give ourselves more of that but we give someone else a chance to have work, and some income too, should they require it. If two or more shared one job then this idea could sustain people having at least 50%-65% more of their year for themselves and their families.

Second Idea: Consider phasing out money as the currency and switching to ‘time for time’ instead.

If we used hours for hours as the basis of our economy, and we all contribute a certain number of hours/wk, or per year, we could figure it as a credit system i.e. value our time itself, not what we do with it (just a thought!). There are 8,760 hours in a 365 day year, and right now, in a 50hr work week we spend 2,450hrs at work/yr (assuming 3wks holiday/yr), 2,184 sleeping (averaged 6hrs/night) 735hrs/year commuting (averaged 15hrs/wk). That leaves us with 3,391 hours which we apparently have to ourselves. But do we? For many their wages are low enough to warrant two or three part-time jobs and for others they can’t even get one job (in UK, average stable unemployment rate is 7.8%** of population and in USA it is 7.7%*** ) whilst there are still others who don’t get clear breaks from the role of parenting, which is a full time responsibility. And remember, at the moment, the stuff that we don’t do for money is not included in the exalted GDP (more about that little monster later!).

If we keep the idea of money, then what if we put a cap on how much we each earn and excess of that goes into a (shared?) pool that we draw on to finance the larger amount of time we are now having to ourselves and our families from our job sharing?

[Please see ADDENDUM at bottom of article for an additional thought on how this Second Idea relates to population growth and distribution of wealth]

Third Idea: Update our idea of ‘growth’ away from size and towards quality.

We currently measure growth as something that ’gets bigger’ (i.e. counting quantitive profit margins and # of plant/office locations opened/yr.) but we could measure it by its qualitative improvements and contributions to our overall quality of life, i.e. what is it providing to humans and other species, and is it doing a good job? And how do we measure that? Well, we could look at quality of service/product, relevance to people’s genuine happiness, environmental sustainability, marriages & civil unions (rather than divorce which seriously boosts the economy with all the fallout costs that come with it), civic health, how we’re boosting and benefiting from our creative intelligence and increases in caring… all as a general shift from a ‘grab economy’ to a ‘share economy’.

To help with this idea, you can read about General Progress Indicator (GPI) in the following Atlantic Monthly edition (which measures the complex intricacies of life as an interconnected, felt and lived, experience in relation to family living and business), and consider Bolivia’s move towards a Happiness Index and maybe ask yourself; would I like that? “If The Economy is Up, Why is America Down?” - Atlantic Monthly GDP/GPI Article.

After I read this article, I found myself conscious of the idea that perhaps GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is not the greatest measure of wealth (yes, just a little irony in there!) as all it does is add up all monies spent in an economy over a period of time. For example here’s a GDP line of thought: “war spending = more money spent = economy is up = good”.  In this instance GDP is measuring our capacity for death-making, and for creating it en masse. That’s not a measuring system I feel I can genuinely be proud of. At all. And I don’t see it as a sign of progress even though the economy may measure it as such. In other words, GDP does not measure our standard of living, nor our evolutionary progress. Is it possible that we can adjust our measurement of the economy to part of a greater whole? A standard that includes dignity, reverence for life and the state of our resources?

Fourth Idea: Sharing resources; don’t presume to own them but do treasure them.

We don’t exactly know how we came to be here and yet, here we are. Native Americans are known for thinking seven generations into the future. Humans of a different cultural orientation seem to have imported the idea that the piece of paper that says ‘I own this piece of land’ is synonymous with actually owning this piece of land – but they are two different things. One is an idea that forms part of the economy and one is an actual living entity that can only belong to itself or, if it of religious persuasion, perhaps to its maker! And on that subject (of belonging to oneself)…

Let’s remember Water… that is fast becoming the next resource that we need to love and protect.  As an entity, it belongs to itself, its system, to the Planet, and yet we ALL are recipients of clean drinking water as a resource to keep us alive, to stimulate growth and health – how lucky is that! For us to protect that ability for all sentient life means addressing issues of how business manufacture, mine and pollute. Pollution is an unaffordable and careless business practice – a lack of care that is harming the planet and our collective imagination.

I think we pride ourselves on our capacity to protect and honour so, when we fail to do that, we feel shame. Weirdly, shame leads to ‘bad’ behaviour (let’s not even go into cruelty of – and in – factory farming that we see such sickening examples of in hidden camera footage – this article is long enough! I’m so sorry for that).

Fifth Idea: Build community around Food – go SMALL again & invest in Local Organic Farming & Crop Rotation (healthy soil is the ‘root’ of our system – excuse the pun – and could be the physical equal to consciousness itself)

Er… sorry, I thought we were talking about business and work, new frontier, new paradigms etc., so… farming? Well, food is our fuel and industrialised farming is a remarkably unintelligent business! And, like all business that gets so big it becomes a monopoly, it ruins local culture and community, which thrives on intimacy. We need to treasure the intimacy of food. And it has very convoluted federal & corporate relationships to water rights and chemical usage in USA – and this on things we put in our collective mouths and bodies! And the air that we all breathe!   So, I propose we shift government subsidies away from chemical farming, to organic farming… make it cost efficient and affordable. Let the monetary cost accurately reflect the systemic cost! In fact, how about we stop calling toxic farming ‘conventional’ and GMO products ‘natural’?  So, yes, I support clear labeling of all products (for those left guessing!). Help the soil regain its composure (in all senses of the word!). And, you could watch the documentary ‘Dirt!’ for more info. Really enjoyed it. Also, the title link for crop rotation will share how even NY Times sees the need for a shift here. Healthy soil = healthy plants = healthy people (which, btw, would lead to a spectacular economy if it was evaluated by health rather than by money spent on unhealthy living i.e. hospital visits/drugs etc.).

I’ve studied a lot about saving seeds this semester, seeing the seed-saving bank at Kew Gardens, London, and Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya in India and also Seed Savers in Iowa. Too many farmers are committing suicide over the right to grow their own produce and over lawsuits induced by ‘Monstrous Monsanto‘ (!) who seem to have mistaken themselves for a character from a Bond movie, wanting to take over the world.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt for the FDA (USA Food and Drug Administration) to have leadership without conflicts of interest, in order to make decisions that are more practical and healthy around GMO and bio-technology regarding our food, i.e. GMO foods are not safe to eat, they can cause – amongst other things – cancer. And, right now in Kansas a company called Ventria Bioscience is growing experimental rice which has human genes in it (I kid you not!). Is it just me or is that a little… um… ‘off’? Also, our diversity in food is what gives us a chance to survive in a blight where homogeneity will lead to a wipe out of food supplies. Michael Pollen covers this in his many books – one you might like “In Defence of Food” and you can also check out Food Inc.- another great documentary!

Also, I’d like to ask our governments to have a role in planetary food sharing and food waste reduction in restaurants and grocery stores. There is enough food – and we have the ability to share it in well-organized ways. We have the intelligence (and yes, we have the technology)! And this, by the way, really does link to our health & wellbeing… so here’s

Fifth.five Idea: Care about our Health. All of our health.

Business booms in pharmaceutical heaven when countries impose ‘super-expensive’ (in oh so many ways, with all their dramatic and somewhat comical side effects! Check out this list from a print ad for Xanax – it’s hysterical!) synthetic chemical drugs and ban communities use of locally farmed and created medicines. I’m looking around the world for how other countries deal with healthcare – I grew up in UK and health was assumed as a community concern. We don’t have to think ‘money and debt’ when we break a leg or think we’re dying of food poisoning, or if we get cancer, or have a child born with a disability – our community approach means we cooperate, we exist in a cooperative system. This is missing in USA and with it humans suffer a loss of dignity and security. This is not good. [And, on a side note, I think it does have an influence on crime levels - I think we become more susceptible to our 'dark side' if we live in constant fear of not having enough cashola to meet our basic needs - it's common sense to adjust to your conditions]. I’ve heard that Israel has a good combination of the socialised and private systems; affordable, clean and reliable… does anyone reading have info on that? (please share in comments below)

Sixth Idea: Think ‘Future’… NOW.

So, now we’re thinking about the gifts of our planet and recognising their innate rights as independent, free-living beings, and simultaneously as elements that we enjoy and need as resources, intelligence prevails upon us to protect that which we have. A great example would be to ban PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE. If a lightbulb is capable of lasting 2,500 hrs, then don’t redesign it to last for only 1,000! Don’t squander earths resources in search of short-term gold. In 1920′s a cartel of business people got together to reconfigure how to make products that would break easier, last a shorter period of time, just to train people to become profit-generating ‘consumers’. Consider watching The Century of The Self (a 2002 BBC documentary that tracks the life and influence of Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, who invented Public Relations – aka Propaganda in war-torn Europe, literally a name change there, by Bernays – and prided himself on his co-development of the relationship between Wall Street, Corporations and Media, leading to the birth of ‘The Consumer’ – yes, that’d be us). Also, for the sake of thinking future now, we could learn to avoid using petroleum as the basis for products that we throw away within minutes or hours - and use plant-based materials instead; saving the depleting ancient energy source of oil, that takes millennia to develop, for the task of adapting our own infrastructures and systems to solar, wind, hydro, etc… (see ‘Bag it!‘ & ‘A Crude Awakening’ documentaries for more info).

Seventh Idea:  Shift the legal structure to enable humans to be guided toward Nature-Safe choices in business and home.

In other words, relieve the pressure to ‘do bad’ in order to ‘do good’ in business. This process is already in place in some countries (Bolivia) and in UK we are lucky enough to have scottish-born lawyer Polly Higgins who decided, one day, to make Earth her client.  She, and her team, are working to make the corporate bottom line legally bound to ecological health & protection thereby reducing the legal pressure for corporations to ‘only and primarily’ focus on fiscal wealth. She has reintroduced the term Ecocide and founded an intention ‘Eradicating Ecocide‘ to facilitate this. It is UN level legislation, a simple but impactful amendment to an existing bill that focuses on crimes against peace (making Ecocide the fifth crime against peace), and totally worth our time to support fiscally and perhaps even with some of your time, just spreading the word. As a global measure this makes life a lot easier for environmental activists and environmentally aware groups like Sierra Club and Greenpeace to bring justice to our trees, lands, oceans and birds, etc.

I personally don’t think there is a more important piece of legislation that needs our attention or that we’d do better to support in any ways that we can (this is where our creativity can come in too… I started The Arts For Earth and instigated a public arts campaign for people to flash mob ‘Be A Tree!‘ in support of rising awareness of our natural earth’s needs and how they are linked to our own)

Eighth Idea: Recognize the ‘people’ in other species and the elements.

I chat with trees, mountains, oceans, wind, creeks, animals, cracks in the road, rocks. To me, because it’s all alive, I listen and feel all these elements, and thereby receive so much love and wisdom. Nature is intelligent beyond words. Life is intelligent. If we cannot speak its various languages, we must learn how to feel the relationship, the interconnectedness, for our soul’s sanity lies therein. Without our ‘natural connections’ our minds explode with a certain kind of neurotic overwhelm of responsibility. We can be with our aliveness – it is not merely a source of triumph, but of joy. You could always visit my blog ‘Why shouldn’t we blow up Mountains?‘ for more thinking on the sentience of life

Ninth Idea: Be Creative! Be Intelligent! Innovate!

I’ve found that life becomes interesting when we become interesting and solutions become available when we become intelligent. It’s really a win-win system. Such is the glory of living systems! So, what does it mean – or require of us – to be creative? Well, it begins with becoming open-minded, adopting beginner’s mind (humility before progress), becoming playful, curious and receptive, allowing all ideas to present themselves from a place of deep-listening (i.e. don’t judge, just listen!), feel the energetics of your body and ask yourself ‘is this a new idea?‘ And, if you don’t know where it comes from… that’s a good sign! Being intelligent is a wonderful synthesis, a dance, between different parts of ourselves… our capacity for logic, for imagination, for communication, association (joining the dots), leaps of faith, finding patterns, being intuitive and being emotionally present.

Businesses have discovered so many ways to create novelty, to go beyond the limitations of the past and innovations can happen in the blink of an eye, in fact, that’s exactly how they do happen. Quickly. After many, many hours of focused contemplation and consideration. There’s a certain teleology that happens at this point, where our thinking gets lifted up and beyond ourselves to some future point that knows what will work. This is business as collaboration, with the future.

For inspiration, check out Magnus Larsson’s idea for building a wall across the Sahara – it’s phenomenal and exciting (and not at all what you’d expect). Really, if you ever need some inspiration, just go and visit TED.com.

Tenth Idea: Fall in love. With everything… be at Peace. 

This is not necessarily as hard as media would have us believe – especially if we choose to simplify our lives! For example, I’m not at war… are you? I hear people on the news (well, when I used to watch it) talk about countries being at war and rarely about being at peace. I always found that strange. It’s not actually logical to cite one over the other to such extremes. And, to be honest, I can’t believe I’m here (as in ‘alive’)… can you??!  We can choose to let go of thwarting life-perceptions, we can choose to accept and love ourselves (no, it’s not sappy, it’s actually an act of great courage, to stand in the face of all you heard as a child about what you could and couldn’t do and decide to go find out for yourself), we can rely on each other to carry us when we’re down, or weak. We can relaaaaax.  We are trustworthy. We care. We breathe. Happy people = happy planet. Happy planet = happy people. So let’s fall in love… consciously.

And, by the way, the amount of money it costs to ‘go to war’ (did you know some people think it creates social status to be able to afford to go to war? Yes, I know it’s odd, but some people dress up and go to cocktail parties to purchase their next fighter jet. Bit weird.) could fix the social problems we have in a heartbeat. And, in a 24 hour period, our hearts beat 72,000-144,000 times. That’s a lot of children that could be fed, a lot of schools that could be built, a lot of happiness that we could be spreading.

And, by the way, this thinking is all so doable. It isn’t naive to expect better from ourselves as a crazy complexity of creativity & intelligence! So, if you’re feeling cynical, please don’t mistake that for wisdom, it might just mean that you’re afraid of happiness, afraid of knowing how to best contribute. And we can fix that… together. You can talk to me – let me help. These aren’t just pretty words, this is real. Let’s find out what’s possible and let’s go beyond that!

~ ~ ~       ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~      ~ ~ ~

Caring about each other not only serves to alleviate the shame of where we may have gotten it wrong in the past, but you can use it as a spiritual practice. Being sensitive and intelligent at work is an extension of that. Being honest and transparent are keys to courage, and courage is a path to fulfilment. Business requires courage of that nature and, as in any relationship, it requires sensitivity, systemic (consequential) thinking, futuring, practical common sense, humility, consideration, patience, imagination, the ability to listen, to care and to plan. In short, business is a spiritual practice because it is a relationship – it has edges, painful moments, mistakes, limiting behaviour, challenges and triumphs and, as in any relationship, in order to be sustainable and of real value to its community, it requires the courage to collaborate, to admit to vulnerability, to ask for help, to be co-operative and, perhaps most importantly, to hold beginner’s mind alongside wisdom, to feel for the modicum of humility that anything with the potential to really affect people’s lives, genuinely needs. So yes, it is time for business to grow; however, no longer in size, but in self-perception. Our evolution is the evolution.

Perhaps you can share some of these ideas with a business near you? Let’s practice bringing integrity back into business to the same level we expect of ourselves in all our daily relationships. Therein lies our physical, psychic and emotional freedom, as a Creative Collective. Let’s make sure everyone is taken care of, joyfully.

We are so capable.

Thanks for reading!

Psst!… And, if you want help clarifying and refining some of your own ideas for how to have a positive impact on your own world, visit www.clarehedin.com or contact me directly @ clare@clarehedin.com and I will help you identify your unique strengths and how to turn your own passions into a life path that matters. Let’s engage!

 ~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~

ADDENDUM 8 Jan 2013: Second Idea
If we continue to use money as our currency of exchange, we will have to keep printing more of it in order for each person to have access to it, rendering it less and less valuable, given that we live on a resource-fixed planet. So, if we chose to phase out money and switch to a time for time system, we avoid the issue of loss of value and, instead, as the population increases, we actually have more people to share the number of hours needed. We do, however, need to find a way to recycle resources above all else, as they cannot grow along with our population.

Citations:-
*http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/economy?s=t
**http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate
***http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

The post A Life Worth Living appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

Do you ever have insights in unexpected places?

One April morning, I took my brother’s dog for a walk. I had woken at the crack of dawn, driving from Glastonbury to Essex (a five hour drive) on an impulse, to spend the day with my three nieces and their undeniably gorgeous golden retriever; Drew. He really is golden, his brown eyes soft, attentive and loving. 

We walked the fields, and discovered a long, well-chewed stick; perfect for throwing, leaning on and wrestling over… he picked it up and ran with it, absolutely thrilled.  As I lunged playfully at this slightly splintered branch, gripped tightly between his teeth, failing to grab it from him, I experienced this bizarre thought; ‘what if this stick were my success? And, if it were, then what would that make Drew and who would I be?’

It was an easy thread to follow. If the stick were my success, Drew could be my fantasizing and I the consciousness, Clare, walking through life trying to achieve (grab!) my success. I began exploring my own relationship to success, wondering what it really means to me.

I was hesitant to wrestle the stick away from him; hesitant to grab it, for fear of splinters and pain. I was only willing to commit one hand to reaching for it, while the other held onto something else (his lead), disabling my ability to truly go for it, and his – the ‘fantasizer’s’ – ability to fly free.

Drew chewed on this prized stick in direct proportion to my hesitation, and I noticed my possibilities for success dwindling alongside the fast disappearing branch. In this relationship between fantasizing and succeeding I saw a fine balance; without the fantasy one cannot create a vision but without risking and committing to grabbing it, success becomes elusive and, over time, unobtainable.

How often do we do that to ourselves? How often have I done it to myself? It is a timely question. As I go through the process of finalizing many months of work on my CD, ideas and website development, activities that ‘grab’ at that stick, I realize that it’s taken me this long to do it because of this hesitancy.

And then there’s the ‘leaning’ part of it (remember; a stick to throw, lean on and wrestle over); it occurred to me that once we achieve a certain amount of success – however we  define it – it can become something to lean on, something that might pay some bills, contribute to others’ lives, extend our community, grow a sense of ‘home’ within ourselves.

As far as ‘wrestling’ over it; my best discovery was that when I tried to force it, he resisted exponentially, his own grip tightening, but when I let it go, so did he; a certain ballet of the mind. And, once dropped, I could pick up the stick and ‘throw’ it, allowing my imagination to find its own, new, resting place.

Heading home, I glanced over at my happy companion realizing, heart-warmingly, that no matter how far we walked on this path, my fantasizing (thank you, Drew!) kept abreast of me, showing me proudly how fine this stick was and how it wasn’t actually going away. The only question was one of ownership and timing; was Drew going to walk away with the prize until it became a discarded memory in a field, or was I going to lunge, seize and risk my all for the prize, my own success, with both hands?

The highlight was noticing how happy Drew was being both the ‘fantasizer’ and carrying his own ‘success’ – he was delighted in his prize, smiling at me with those soft brown eyes and huge lolling tongue as he pranced alongside me on this mutual walk of discovery.

Clare Hedin is a long-time singer/songwriter, healer, teacher and writer. She works and plays in both San Francisco, CA, and Glastonbury. She is available for sound healing concerts, private healing work and counseling. To contact visit www.clarehedin.com or email info@clarehedin.com.

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I so appreciate your taking the time to give me specific feedback on your listening experiences. I often hear people say very unusual things, whether listening to one of my CDs or experiencing a live Sound Journey. e.g. “I actually felt things clicking and shifting in my cells” and “What a journey, I was a huge bird, flying over mountainous landscape – I felt so free, it was exhilarating!”

Whatever you have experienced and are willing to share, please put in the comment box and either sign with your name (and what you do, if you like) or simply leave it anonymous if you prefer.

By putting your comment here you are automatically giving me permission to use your quote on my promotional material and website.

Thank you again for helping me to reach more people!

Clare

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For me, after years of growing up in England, watching BBC documentaries on WWII, something finally sank in that night, when NBC spelled out that the Germans bombed London every single night for 73 consecutive days (the Blitz). Really imagine that! Suddenly it was easy to picture being there, having to run deep underground every night to sleep with 1000′s of others and being dazed every morning as you’d come back into the light of day from the train tunnels only to see nothing as you remembered it from the day before. Rubble, rising dust clouds, eery quiet, silent bodies, missing buildings, unfamiliar sounds of recovery, loss and surprise. Death had come to visit. And it got me thinking… death matters; but why?

Well, it opens the door to unexpected relationships, for one…

As I watched the old black and white footage of crumbling, smouldering London, and listened to the gravely voices of british newscasters I understood something instantly about camaraderie and how it comes about. All these previous strangers had had their realities – their individual lives – merged by exploding boundaries, disappearing buildings, disappearing lifestyles, disappearing lives. They had to queue up to share food – they were always hungry and their lives, their reference points, their habit patterns… all gone. It was a devastating moment to witness. I saw death dissolve boundaries between lives and habits. Suffering bringing whole groups of people close together. Watching it merge realities, normal was no longer the familiar visitor. The living room was empty.

Now, I’ve been around death – from an early age. Which does not mean it has been my friend, in my opinion. Three weeks after my 14th birthday, my mother died suddenly, from a brain aneurism. I was too young to have any understanding of what that actually meant, so I focused on the results, watching people become withdrawn, dumbfounded and broken. Myself, well I felt embarrassed that I was no longer ‘normal’ amongst my friends (I was assuming it normal to have two parents and I think I was also assuming that death was weird, like a deformity) and self conscious to have this extra attention on me – people asking me how I was. It felt like a burden (I felt like a burden) and my place in the world raw and ‘displaced’. I think I actually wondered if it was still alright to be here, without her. It was a bit like being in a space suit far out in a dark universe, held only by an umbilical cord of connection, but to nothing. She had been my absolute compass in the world, my ‘ground zero’. I was utterly lost without her. I watched my mother’s friends well up with tears when they’d talk about her but I felt nothing.

I actually didn’t know how to be sad. And I don’t know why.

Life changed abruptly after that, although you might not have known it to look at us as a family. We tried hard to make everything carry on, as if we were doing her part for the family, on her behalf. If we were a car, the engine had been removed and we all jumped out to take turns pushing the car, the same car, to the same destinations, but without an engine. We tried so hard to make it seem the same. It still hurts to think about that. All that suffering and no-one talking about  it… we really didn’t know how (sound familiar?). And I spent as much time as possible not thinking about death. So, when I ask ‘why does death matter?’ I have to say because it changes things irrevocably and dramatically (I’ve since learned that death can have a certain peacefulness to it, as when my father died more slowly – I like having time to say goodbye). And why does change matter? We’ll come to that.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross talks about seven stages of grief. 1. Shock and Denial (yup) 2. Pain and Guilt  (yup) 3. Anger and Bargaining (oh yes… I just wrote a song ‘Freedom’ about letting go of all the anger) 4. Depression, Reflection, Loneliness (indeed, lots of it and very painful it is) 5. The Upward Turn (I’ll come back to that, although the song in Freedom’s next line is about ‘feeling all the grief subside’) 6. Reconstruction and Working Through (hmmm, sounding a bit ‘new-agey’… perhaps I’m still working on that one)  7. Acceptance and Hope (getting there, getting there).

I think death and grief are so interlinked that it’s hard to really form a ‘happy’ relationship to death because of its associations with suffering – it’s not a strong selling point.

And talking about feelings is hard – and it’s so crucial to ‘moving on’ (oh how I hated that phrase – it made personal timing so public! I actually used to feel like there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t forgive). Talking about feelings – it’s so physical, as well as emotional. Have you noticed? Because death changes the boundaries, it also changes the rules. There’s a feeling of ‘all bets are off’. That can be both disorienting, confusing and, after a bit of time, I noticed for me a certain defiance set in (and I was just becoming a teenager), as if I was walking on the other side of a thin line where social etiquette and rules didn’t apply. I saw myself as ‘special’ because of my suffering (I was really just angry and sad) – exploited the pity where I could, and avoided it, with equal force, as it felt quite repulsive to me. I actually felt weak because I needed love. God! So death can be disturbing to our equilibrium. I think defiance is a way to avoid feeling grief. And I was very good at it.

Because of my early acquaintance with death, after the somewhat excruciating numbness, pain and anger, I also developed a proactive relationship to the unseen world – I became curious. I was motivated by this lack of cognition of what death was, where it fitted into life and where it actually was – and I mean physically, where did people go?? Was death a place? Why weren’t we all talking about it?? Death made me ask questions. Important questions. About life. And I found that not everyone wants to join in that kind of conversation, in fact very few do – bit frustrating, really. As a younger child, before my mother died, I was very dreamy and contemplative – I saw magic in life but had not yet separated from it so did not consider it as a ‘subject’ but merely as reality. I ‘knew’ things, could read people’s energy (often feeling confused by the disparity between their words and their energy signals) and atmospheres in rooms. I could (can) even receive other people’s thoughts, like a dolphin, so I knew there was a lot more to life than people were letting on. And I was curious. Very.  Still am. And if you’re not, I have to ask, ‘why?’

Moving on a number of decades, six days ago, my seven year marriage was officially dissolved. And, it is probably no coincidence that with the death of my marriage, I have come down to LA to record some of the most amazing music of my career. So death brings new life (I know, I know, it sounds so Christian!). It clears out the closets of the old, allowing new possibilities to come a-knocking. I’d say death makes us face our own readiness for our lives and our (in?)ability to let go into its inevitable movements forward. And I think I’m still a bit afraid of it, truth be told. Although I think I’ve noticed that subsiding exponentially, in relation to my sense-of-self arising. Actually, how is it possible to be afraid of something on the one hand, and strangely comfortable with it on the other?

You see, one of the doors that death opened for me was this sense of feeling comfortable around other people’s genuine suffering (and strangely short on patience around their insincere suffering). For instance, I was a visiting artist at Oakland Children’s Hospital for about four years and would take in music (my own) and play it to children in isolation (sometimes wearing cap, gown and mask), families visiting their children and even staff. Now, maybe it’s just me being me, but I have to think that having spent so many years fighting my own invisible battle with death and its imminence (or should I say immanence) that I felt such an easy empathy for these people and for what they were fearing, that I just sort of turned into an angel at work – feeling waves of love pour out towards them, caring deeply that they felt somehow held and lifting them up with a presence that felt like it came through me (like walking, singing, Reiki).

All this came up unexpectedly (isn’t that just like death!) in the recording studio last week. Serendipity, death and fate must be good friends, I think (I wonder which myth depicts that triad?). I had been sitting in the garden with my guitar, on the day of my annulment, last Sunday, writing a song, feeling strangely peaceful (I had totally forgotten what a portentous day it was). I wrote a song that felt very happy and free. Took it into the studio, recorded guitar parts and then it came to the vocals. Now some of you will know that I both sing – and teach singing – with a focus on authenticity. What this means is that it is impossible for me to sing and not feel any emotions that are hiding in my body. So I sang about two lines, was halfway through the third and had to stop. I took a moment, tried again and just burst into tears, sobbed, in front of my producer and new friend, Jeff, who jumped up to hug me, concern splattered sweetly all over his face. Then, immediately after that, I withdrew, my interior world suddenly and silently emptied of words and, weirdly, emotions; as if every thought that had occupied space in my mind vacated and left me alone to feel me, be me, alone with my grief and my sense of death. My insides had turned to rock, actually I had turned to rock (which felt strangely calming) and I didn’t want to speak – there seemed no point. Words became costume jewellery. ‘I’m so sad my marriage has ended!’ I had finally managed to blurt out. Oh, the pain of letting go. I know you know it.

So, again, why does death matter? Because it breaks our hearts open. It keeps us real. It brings us home. And, as I say in my new song ‘Freedom’, it brings us closer to our angels. It seems they are ongoingly waiting for ways to connect. They are very patient, aren’t they:) (thank you, Angels). (Again with the Christian references, sorry! It’s not really my bag but sometimes the language just fits!).  We cannot fake our lives when death is looming. It tears us apart, forces us to melt. If we don’t surrender into the grief it brings, our hearts cannot break and, if they do not break, then we never really become whole. So perhaps, is it odd to consider death as strangely generous? I sometimes imagine that we make a pact with life before we are born. And that pact is to let our hearts be broken again and again in order that each time it heals it becomes that much bigger and that much more capable of holding and exuding love. And so we become fully human.

Perhaps death is the harbinger of love. And love is our evolution?

How brave are you when the end of something is looming… do you waste years waiting for that particular freight train to pass you by… as if it is not going to pass through your station and take you, and some of your dreams, with it?

I do trust death now, more than I used to – it’s a bit like vomiting. Something I try hard to avoid and always feel so grateful for after the fact, when the chills and fever fade and I can finally come back home, to the me that I truly recognize, rather than the me that I spent so much time manufacturing, just to be safe.

On my 45th birthday, I stood atop the Tor in Glastonbury, England, and sank into the release of acceptance of my own mortality, again, and after a brief rush of sadness, something in me lifted… I highly recommend it:) And, right about now, death is the biggest prompter for me to get on with what I love, which is to sing my socks off for film and tv – and win an Oscar. So, what’s your dream? I hope I see you on the other side! (Of your dream, that is).

Oh, and if death wasn’t in my life, our lives, then how the hell would I know what to do when it’s my turn? And how would I measure my life? How would I value anything?  The old adage ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ – perhaps it’s the anticipation of parting that provokes us to stretch for joy. What do you think of that idea:)?

Thanks for reading, it’s been a pleasure:)

And, perhaps you feel like considering this question of Death yourself… how, or why, are you finding that it matters to you? Big question, I know.

The post Why Death Matters appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

And I have a REQUEST: please scroll down to bottom of page and leave your comments/feedback below on your experience of the sounds/singing that I shared live that day, and/or the talk itself – I’d love to include your feedback on my site. Thank you! And have a beautiful day! … Clare

(remember, scroll down for comments box or click on ‘leave a comment’ above!… A good question to ask yourself if wondering what to write “what did I experience when Clare sang? What did I learn, or revisit, when I listened to Clare talk?”) 

• “Dowsing For Enlightenment!” - Talk, San Jose. Oct 13th 1.30-4.30pm ($7 on door/$5 members)
• “Finding Self, Finding Life” – (follow on) Workshop, San Jose. Oct 14th 1pm-4pm ($35) *note new time & price!

Both events hosted by San Jose Dowsers Chapter – click on flyer or this link for bigger version. 

REGISTER:  info@clarehedin.com/call (1) 720 382 8414.  Attendance at either event, or both events, is welcomed.

VENUE: Divine Science Center, 1540 Hicks Blvd., San Jose, CA 95125. 

The post Dowsing For Enlightenment! appeared first on Clare Hedin, MA.

Because without that basic knowledge, decisions are rotating around principles of money and resources, not context or meaning, not on celebrating and supporting basic needs like health, somewhere to live and freedom of speech. So I wonder ‘how would we manage without human-friendly air, water, food or protection from the more aggressive sun rays? Can money really buy certain people’s way out of that?’ Just wondering. I know oil has been important, but this is the past looking us in the face, while the future runs away from us, giggling at our seemingly apparent non-thinking (look, even pumpkin guy’s baffled).

And what does the above – politics towards the environment – have to do with how we think?

A step back.

Turns out, I had a bit of a fun adventure a few nights ago, somewhat unexpectedly… after a spontaneous change of plans, I got involved a conversation – about two different perspectives on reality, and how we each measure our versions of ‘reality’.  I found myself in a bit of a crossfire… and wondered why do I so often seem to find myself here, defending my earth-based/sentient-based position rather than just presenting it; debate turned to debacle? I felt a bit frustrated, as if a friendly trap had been artfully laid out in front of me and whilst I danced around it with my own sense of earnest debate, the other person patiently dug the hole wider and wider until, suddenly, whoops, I fell in. Bollocks!

I took this thought (the ‘why do I always find myself here!?’ thought and, a bit of the ‘bollocks’ thought) away with me – along with the slightly bruised and prickly skin I bore – as an opportunity to revisit this same question of discussion that’s been bothering me for decades. And here it is: How do we make friends with there being two different factions, two very different mainstream (yes, both are mainstream) ways of being in the world, one based in empathic communion with sentience, the other in left-brained mechanistic science that seems to deny sentience in all but human form – and even then specifies that that same sentience is not influencing that which we ‘discover’. Is it possible for the two to collaborate? And what is the cost if we can’t?

When something doesn’t make sense to me, I tend to tease it, prod it, deconstruct it and question it in every way imaginable until I can understand what is going on. It doesn’t seem to be a choice, more just ‘how I work’. Ironically I use the scientific method, but in its totality (more  on that later). For me, the prickly-skin syndrome is simply a sign that I have something to explore, something to better understand. And, being partial to building bridges rather than destroying them (as a general rule), I am easy prey for that part of consciousness that wants to know itself.

I think I’m lucky because I have the tools of an artist, an intuitive and an academic – it renders quite an involved perspective. Perhaps this is why I get frustrated with a use of knowledge through a singular, limited, lens and perhaps this is why I feel drawn to bridge that gap between ‘seeing with our eyes only’ and ‘seeing with our whole self’. One is information, the other is comprehension. And I feel like breaking it down, to really understand what is going on here, and see if we can all get on the same page, a universal page.

Did you learn french at school? If not, they have two verbs for ‘to know’. One is ‘savoir‘ and the other is ‘connaitre‘. And I love this distinction; the first, ‘savoir’, speaks to knowing ‘pieces of information‘ it is an objective relationship to knowledge as data. However – and this I love – ‘connaitre’ is about really knowing and understanding someone, not something, but someone [and, check it out - very important - they do not limit use of this verb to purely human relationships]… i.e. making acquaintance with who they actually are. Big difference. Scientific method says it uses ‘savoir’ (I wonder if that’s really possible, to be 100% separate? – aren’t we always projecting something onto that which we observe? Can numbers lie?) and I use ‘connaitre’ for really important topics, like our relationship to knowing both our Earth & its inhabitants, ourselves and each other.

So, back to the aforementioned debate of that Friday evening; the truth of reality – and here’s where the french comes in:

• ‘I know’ (‘because I can see reality in 4D reality and is therefore measurable empirically‘ – we’ll call him Steve Savoir) vs.
• ‘I know’ (‘because I can see/feel reality in 4D+ levels of reality, and is therefore measurable radically empirically‘… we’ll call her Connie Connaitre.  (suggestion: think of savoir & connaitre as the difference between going to see a film in regular format vs. seeing the same film in 3D IMAX – same story, different experience.)

Steve, in his objective empirical nature, is comfortable measuring things outside of himself, where he can see them, from their outside. Connie is comfortable measuring things inside herself where she can feel them and also entering inside that which she is experiencing. Bear in mind they are both capable of being naturally talented in either way, or of learning to use either talent, should they so wish. Also, it is probably worth noting that for Connie, seeing and feeling are often interchangeable… and sometimes there’s a third eye in the picture (let’s face it, on numbers alone, we can see Connie’s got the edge here!).

I posit that Steve’s reality does not contradict Connie’s but simply sits inside of it, as part of the nested heirarchies known as living systems theory (love that!) and therefore that Connie’s knowledge is not invalidating Steve’s – she merely has access to meta information, i.e. in addition to what Steve can see from his position (think ‘Russian Dolls – with Steve’s doll sitting inside Connie’s').

This meta information can emerge in the form of mythology, dance, music, feeling, dreamtime, channeling, intuition, direct knowing, ancestral or nature consciousness, to name a few. Steve knows how to verify his data with numbers and Connie doesn’t necessarily know how to verify her information to Steve in quite the same way, because her data is based in not-easily-transferrable direct experience which, if he has no personal reference point for that, his ability to ‘know’ in the same way as Connie, is naturally disadvantaged.

Connie’s knowledge is creatively informed involving her own body and imagination in very disciplined and yet freeing ways. It is a knowledge acquired through adaptation of self over time, rather than through adaptation of equations, and uses its own symbolic language. It has a different temperature. Steve’s tools are often based in technology and served by highly skilled mental mathematical faculties intersecting his intellect with his imagination. However, when Steve wants you to prove that the rain-dance you are telling him about – that happened in the desert – is directly responsible for the rain that subsequently fell, Connie doesn’t know how to meet that kind of inquiry because it’s so far from what she relates to that to try to verbalize, or numericize it (yep, just made that word up), can cause alienation between the knower and the knowable. It is not logical for her to quantify it in those particular traditions and, worse, it might even be considered disrespectful to the deep and personal relationship between rain-dancer and rain. Interestingly, it is unlikely that Connie would feel compelled to ask Steve for the same kind of verification of his findings.

Both versions of logic act as if diametrically opposed. One values repetition and inspection, the other comes from deeper in the body, it is receptive listening; introspection. One person’s dreamtime is the other person’s mystery. For Steve to understand Connie’s truth, he would need to enter her dreamtime and that’s outside of his paradigm – it would mean a leap into the larger russian doll, which requires changing his shape – it becomes personal. For Connie to translate her learning down to fit into the smaller russian doll can only lose some of its essential information, rendering the myth a shell, whose hermit has long scuttled off back to the sea. I am reminded of TIFF files converting to JPEGs or WAV files to MP3′s…

This seems to be the crux of the problem… the western scientific method alienates the personal in order to be ‘objective’, and seems to be unfortunately (however unintentionally) disrespectful to this more personally involved, comprehensive, process of relational knowing, that has deep underbelly commitment in the body of the of the shaman, the channel, and the radical knower. And this alienation literally cuts into, and across, science, politics and environmental decisions and conversations about the meaning of reality.

In Steve’s world, truth is something you prove, not feel, and the methods for proving are very clear cut if they’re to be called ‘hard’ science as opposed to ‘soft’ science. In Connie’s world if you need to prove your reality to someone who has not experienced it, words and numbers just don’t cut it, it requires first person experience, which is why people who are interested in this kind of sympathetic knowledge will take a Guru or various classes that suit the acquisition of those kinds of skills, or simply spend time in nature, or sing with the sacred, as I do. These experiences are hard to explain with words to someone new to these fecund, immanent, dimensions of life… especially if they are adverse to taking a personal risk. And that part of it is BIG.

Now all of this wouldn’t matter, except for the part where Steve, in his inability and frustration to truly see Connie’s perspective, inherently invalidates her perspective in his perception and description of reality (as has happened to oh so many indigenous peoples, as well as so many feeling-oriented westerners and becomes – irrationally and unethically – an apparently viable reason to take illegal ownership of people’s land or the health of their land – it has something of a dominant flavour to it, the savoir), which she will find hard to refute because she is being asked to prove it to him in his style and on his terms, rather than the onus being on him try to understand an ‘other’ (Connie) well enough to get her permission to do something… or not get her permission… how often does that happen? And, let’s say that Steve works for EPA and has shares in Oil and a fellowship at an Ivy League university, which makes his need for Connie’s kind of knowledge rather inconvenient (hence the film ‘an inconvenient truth’) and un-necessary. For him, reality is blindingly comfortable. Blindingly.

Can you see why I keep feeling reminded of, in US politics, the often accusatory slice and dice narrative that seems to be so Republican in nature, vs. the Democratic narrative of a receptive/empathic sensibility? As I said earlier, I don’t find either party to be ideal or successful, I’m simply looking at behaviours in how we meet difference in perspective – and asking how to make room for both… both. Without it, politics seems too easily capable of bringing out the child-ego in many leadership systems; at least in the mainstream. And it’s always at the loss of empathy – this is a crucial cost. Knowledge isn’t always about ‘stuff’, sometimes it’s about ‘position’.  Now, do I want someone who doesn’t ‘feel’ nature or ‘understand’ nature, hired to protect it? No, not really! I would say that, without the bigger picture within him; Steve’s just not qualified to lead or inform in a comprehensive way i.e. with a knowledgeable sense of listening to the sentient living system for solutions that comprehend its beautiful complexity and changing form.

So where does all this come from?… Well, back to Friday night, on the subject of my shenanigans…

The person I was talking to that night (we were both passionate which is good news… we both cared) was surprised to hear me refer to pre- and post- conquest frameworks. I think they evidence well the thread of competitive vs. cooperative engagement (this still shows up very strongly in political rhetoric – and business practices – today, dominion over rather than power through or with). In my understanding this is what is beneath the conflict between Steve and Connie’s perspectives (just think ‘Avatar’). Steve doesn’t listen holistically as he’s been trained to aggressively disseminate information to make sure it’s true in one particular way; that’s the post-conquest – (it seems historically tied to destroying a pre-existing order in its search for dominance to meet perceived basic needs) and Connie (pre-conquest) doesn’t move to dominate un-necessarily, against self-serving logic, her way of being has a different relationship to time i.e. she wouldn’t destroy the living system on which she depends for life, faced with someone like Steve, because he’s not listening with the right ears; he’s too busy looking for proof in, or auctioning off the proverbial, perceived-to-be, vacant house of a planet.  And we’re too busy trying to help him understand something he hasn’t asked to hear. How do we bring someone into our world, if it requires skills and desire that just might not be there? And, conversely, how do we enter theirs if we have to change who we are to get there? And where are emotions in all this?

With the post-conquest approach, it is the combative energy that is the problem, not inherently the content it carries – that can be information that can serve us all very, very well. The combative energy seduces with its simplistic take on deep ecology, holding up a picture in the Senate of Alaska’s snowy wildes, stating ‘look there’s nothing here! Let’s drill!’ This lack of comprehension is what needs to be transmuted into something community-oriented and sustainable. Kay Griffiths (Wild: an elemental journey) believes that we have really lost our way in our relationship to indigenous knowledge and sacred earth worship – and she’s not alone. It’s basic respect for that which provides.  And it’s missing from mainstream business. Why’s that a problem? Well, look at the planet… it’s changing, dramatically, as is our collective health and well-being.

Western mechanistic science expects its subject to conform to its study or it dismisses its subject as nonsense. Non-sense. Ironic. It’s a demanding and impatient energy, often aggressive and very meticulous. If I think of how the Democrats have been handling this election period, their approach, which I’d call pre-conquest (to a degree), attempts to adapt itself in order to better understand its subject and its environment, and will even consider the possibility that it is influencing the subject’s behaviour (enter quantum physics – and here we reach a cross-over point!).

A true academician, a true researcher or explorer, a true artist or philosopher, a true scientist, is open to learning, being informed, and transformed, by their listening. The desire to listen is a desire to understand, to cooperate. The difference is acquisition vs. comprehension. Being open to being changed is not naive – it is beginners mind (humility in knowledge), it is receptivity.

Bottom line is that for some people, life is sentient, feeling and deserves our respect. For people who relate to this more strongly, they more easily identify with animals, nature and the elements in ways that increase connection, because the desire is there and diverse community beckons. For some people, that is considered ridiculous and beyond logical (and here, of course, we have to acknowledge the various number of intelligences commonly written about and identified by scholars such as Howard Gardner e.g. intuitive, rational, basic pattern identification, associative, emotional, motivational, musical, ethical…).

Perhaps Steve uses rational intelligence as his primary measuring stick and Connie her intuitive. Or perhaps, if Steve is unable to let go of his identified framework, he’s actually being irrational and using his emotional intelligence to block paradigmatically challenging knowledge and Connie, who is oriented holistically, is being rational because holistic thinking is systems-based thinking, which takes into account the future impact of actions, and the fact that we don’t always know what they will be. Given our current ecological dilemma, I would say Connie’s desire to listen to the system through her knowing is rational and Steve’s desire to maintain systems as they are i.e. failing, is irrational. Kind of turns things around, doesn’t it?

People have to want to begin the journey out of the 4D paradox into something that makes sense in far vaster ways. If you don’t believe in something simply because you don’t know how to meet it, can you genuinely negate it? Likely it is revealing a learning edge for you. I guess the question is ‘how committed are you to finding truth… really?’ How actually scientific are you? And how committed to knowledge? And is learning different from knowledge?

I am reminded of a Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness class I took at CIIS (San Francisco, CA) one semester when a mechanisticly science-based peer said very matter of factly “well we all know rocks don’t have consciousness”.  I was livid, 0-60 of internal combustion outrage in less than 2 seconds, and I thought to myself… if your great great grandmother was in this room, speaking her native language, and none of us spoke that language… would it be ok for us to negate her, saying ‘oh, she’s not making any sense! She must not be saying anything of value’?  In other words, if you don’t speak ‘rock’ don’t make the mistake of assuming that the rock is not talking. Empirically, all you can be sure of is that you are not hearing it speak. That would be a scientific truth. So, let’s acknowledge that person’s impasse and consider trying something new to expand his/her horizons: Ask people that know (connaitre) how they know, and how they can help you to know more deeply the truths that might be waiting for you, beneath the surface of your current knowing. Humility and confusion are often precursors to discovery. This planet and our lives are depending on us learning how to listen and respond with humility and great learning.

Connaitre comes into play if you understand the earth and life as sentient. Savoir is for those with different access points of knowledge. And that’s fine. The concern I have is that there seems to be a loss of knowledge that comes to the collective when Steve’s perspective is holding decision-making parliamentary, environmental and political positions without being fully able to understand the complexity of the territory (even though the consequences seem to be fairly simple to understand). The unfortunate arrogance of knowledge limited to 4D is that it feels as precarious as being led around the side of a vertical mountain on a ledge half a foot wide by people who are both drunk and blind – all tied on one rope. It is not based on superior knowledge (as if often proclaimed), but is perhaps based on an inadequate knowledge. This has, for me, become un-nerving. We need to change our collective process.

A call to wisdom is in order. And, in the face of the bluntness of police brutality, how do we do that? When due process in the political forums becomes circumvented by violence and distrust – how do we approach our much-needed decision making, as an inter-dependent collective?  How do I stop the British government from thinking it has the right to sell publicly-owned forests for development? How do we deal with NIMB villages in the British landscape who refuse to allow energy-generating wind turbines on non-productive fields because they think the design is ugly, or prevent the unethical massacre of hundreds of badgers, and millions of humans… how do we stop the proposed fracking that people know is a devastating practice for the environment, or give foreign company EDF the power to destroy acres of british fields on the off-chance that they get permission to build a highly opposed nuclear power plant – Hinkley 3?  How do we stop voter injustice in the US electoral campaigns? How do we stop the massacre of dolphins and barrier reefs, if the perception is that nothing has sentience and nothing feels or thinks?? How do we explain that it’s NOT ok for radioactive waste to enter the oceans off of Fukushima (who doesn’t know that the oceans are the source of oxygen and life, biologically speaking?)?  Where is our common sense? Surely that’s neither pre- nor post-conquest?

Change seems to be a requirement of our times, a change in how we engage our different voices, a change in political and social democracy. A change in our understanding of life.

It might not be that we must absolutely ‘get’ each other’s way of knowing, because loss looks pretty much the same in any culture. And this is to do with looking only as far as our own immediate future, often our own immediate wallet. You can’t eat money and you can’t buy air. You can’t remove the systems for shade, deep ecology and photosynthesis and expect to find water, food or oxygen at the end of it. You can’t dig up water from aquifers that are not yet ripe or ready for use and you can’t simply say ‘I have money therefore I have power’ – this is not logic. This is living on borrowed credit, just like so many countries are doing in the economic structure of international finance, and look at the results for Greece, Portugal, USA, all hovering on bending twigs…

We can’t just go shopping and replace Nature or our need for it. That’s not just illogical, it’s insane. Does this madness really come from our own minds? Because if it does, we can do something about it. Anything less, as said by Frank Borman – of Apollo 1 – is simply a tragic ‘failure of imagination’.  And, I guess, wilful dis-intelligence just pisses me off. When entities rights are ignored, and here I’m referring to the planet and its sentient beings, I think that’s a fairly appropriate response.

Does the mystical really come in number form? The numbers are in service of describing, but not defining, the mystical – I think that’s the part that’s gotten lost here in the Age of Enlightenment. And just because it can’t be explained in a smaller way, doesn’t mean it isn’t huge.

This is a work in progress – there are many thoughts and it could take months to get this down to a succinct few paragraphs, so, if you made it this far… thank you for reading:)

Clare

*ADDENDUM 1  (11 Oct) : A friend, PhD Astrophysicist, commented on the idea of first order thinking,which feels like it absolutely belongs in this discussion in terms of its relationship to the western scientific method and to politics also. It might be the missing term that ‘mandorlas’ both elements… “first-order thinking, that is, considering immediate consequences of an action, but not the consequences of those consequences.” (see: https://replacingtextbooks.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/on-first-order-thinking-or-not-really-thinking-at-all/) the consequences, for me, are obviously the environment and our spiritual well-being.

*ADDENDUM 2  (11 Oct): Same friend also pointed out that the idea of of 4D and 4D+ dimensional thinking, being housed in nested hierarchies (as per the russian doll idea) suggests superior and inclusive skills for the radical empiricist, yet not all people who can see with their third eye or act consciously with their radical empirical senses can ‘do the math’ and not all scientists are limited to a perspective that does not include ‘elaborate thinking’ – but something about this idea still makes sense to me, even though I agree with him on the skill issue. Is it possible for the russian doll idea to work and yet not be perceived as superior individuals, but simply a description of the size, and expansion, of the potential view itself… the horizon line? Do the two points of view sit side by side or are they nestled within one another? What do you think the nature of the relationship of these ways of knowing is? (thanks, friend!)

References:

William James is my reference for the term Radical Empirical and his work can be found easily in bookstores or online.

Fritjof Capra and Donella H Meadows have both written very accessible books on Systems Theory.

Photo Credit: This amazing featured photo is by Ray Villafane (Amazing Pumpkin Carvings).

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