ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

Our Vision: Rediscovering Humanity's Niche

It is time to create new stories, and rediscover our place in the global web of life!

Come visit A New Story Foundation:  www.anewstory.org

 

Envision the earth's life-sustaining processes as a beautiful and diverse web of interrelationships--a kaleidoscope of patterns, rhythms, and connections whose very complexity and multitude of possibilities remind us that cooperation, sharing, honesty, humility, and love should be the guidelines for our behavior toward one another and the earth. -- Ecosustainability student   Our Vision - Rediscovering Humanity's Niche: Following the lead of author Daniel Quinn, we believe that modern society has lost its way.  Humans have abandoned the tried and true survival mechanisms established over thousands of millennia, forgetting that they were once a fully-integrated member of the global ecosystem.  We believe that the tired old story modern society tells itself has seen its last days, and that the global self-deception is about to be exposed for what it is.  We believe it is time for new stories, stories that tell of the rediscovery of humanity's place in the global web of life.  We envision a time when these new stories depicting humans within nature, and not separate from it, will be the human story.

Want to Change the World?

 

 

Change the Story!

Duane Elgin

The next five to ten years represent an unprecedented break in the human journey. We are between stories, or the guiding narratives, that serve as beacons for our collective future. For example, the “American Dream” that pulled the U.S. forward for at least three generations is fast becoming the world’s nightmare as the excesses of consumerism produce climate disruption, the depletion of cheap oil, growing income disparities, and more. Instead of a different “dream,” people want wide-awake visions of real possibilities told in ways that are believable and compelling.

We face big challenges and it will take an equally big vision to transform conflict into cooperation and draw us into a promising future. The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to the energy crisis or climate crisis or population crisis; rather, it is bringing images and stories of the human journey into our collective awareness that empower us to look beyond a future of great adversity and to see a future of great opportunity. Stories of great transition offer alternative big-picture perspectives that place our time of transition in a larger context and illuminate a promising future. These narratives are of universal concern, simple and relatively easy to understand, emotionally powerful, and able to call forth our higher potentials; and all involve a time of profound initiation and deep transformation.

 

Indigenous People's Message to the World: Myth & Story Audios from Better Listen

 

Excellent audio files from some of our leading scholars on great myths and stories. Hear James Hillman, Ram Dass, Thomas Moore, Coleman Barks and many others...

http://shop.betterlisten.com/collections/myth-story

 

 

About the Featured Audio, The Indigenous People's Message to the World:

 

About this program: BetterListen! was called in to document on audio, the lectures and cultural music presentations at The First World Conference of Indigenous Peoples in 1992. The result is this award winning program produced by David Ison, endorsed by The United Nations, Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly and now available for the first time in digital format. 

"This is our chance to listen to a message from people closely connected to the Earth. The industrial world has put their very existence at stake. Stop and listen to their world!" - Mickey Hart (Author of Drumming at the Edge of Magic and Planet Drum, drummer with the Grateful Dead.) 

"This authentic product is a "Who's who of ritual tribal music and ceremony" - Publishers Weekly. 

 

The Educated Heart - Robert Bly (FREE Download!)

 

FREE DOWNLOAD AT BETTER LISTEN!

 

http://shop.betterlisten.com/products/the-educated-heart-by-robert-bly

 

During this talk, Iron John author Robert Bly gives a delicate and lively view of the fantastic flowering of feeling in 12th Century Provence. The feeling thought, developed from Arabic, Gnostic, and Albigensian sources, blossoms as love poetry famous at that time. In this recording, Bly distinguishes between the literal mode, the psychological mode, and the mythological mode, and locates the “Amor” or ecstatic love in the latter, which led to Sufism among the Arabs. Bly’s recitation of Provencal poetry brings to awareness the terrible loss we suffered when these traditions were uprooted and destroyed.

Author Bio and Links

2012: Mayan Prophecies and Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl is Much More Than an Entertaining Mayan Story or Myth

By Sandra Musser

The Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl and his twin brother came into being through virgin birth to the goddess Coatlice. He represents the Morning Star. But, the real story is found hidden...between the lines.

This Mesoamerican deity has been worshiped at least since the time of the Olmecs. Kukulcan or Ququmatz were the Mayan names. Quetzalcoatl (ket-tsul'kwot-ul) was Aztec, for the deity Feathered Serpent. For simplicities sake, I'll use this name throughout, because the Aztecs left us more information.

Source:  http://www.2012-spiritual-growth-prophecies.com/

Empowering Ways to Find Peace in a World of Chaos

 

Why the Arthurian Legend of the Fisher King is Important Now...

 

 

 

From Yahoo Answers:

Before I answer the question directly, I have to comment that some of the same basic spiritual issues that we face today have been faced by seekers many thousands of years ago. So, in a way, our sense that we are at the crest of modernism and breaking new ground for the continuing enlightenment is only partially true. In many ways we may also be so advanced in some areas (such as our scientific and technical understanding of the world around us), that we have become morons on the spiritual plane. A good example of this is that western thinking barely acknowledges the reality of reincarnation. And all of those spiritual influences from the past (and perhaps the future) are at the core of who we are. This mindset (not shared by billons of non-Christian people around the world) thus shuts a major portal to self-knowledge.

So there were cultures and subcultures and people throughout history who really understood some fundamentals much better than we do even in our post-modern existence (and granted they may also have been clueless in other areas). And I have my own personal spin on the Percival legend that I haven't heard from other sources.

Consciousness, Occupy Movement & Planetary Culture (Lecture)

 

 

 

 

Jeremy Johnson of EL interviews one of our greatest scultural historians, William Irwin Thompson for a fascinating discussion about the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, digital culture and planetary crisis.

What is the role of myth and mysticism in the new planetary culture?

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Biography of William Irwin Thompson:

(See Below)

 

 

"Where is God Not?" - A Mullah Nasruddin Story

 

Mullah Nasrudin

 

Assignment: Where is God for you? Write a reflection on the Presence of God in your life. Write Now!  GO!

 

From Mullah Nasrudin Stories:

My beloveds, I travelled again to the village of my friend Tekka, after years away. He had become very devout in his ways, sometimes a little pompous, but still the kind soul I had loved for years.

I visited him, and we picked up our friendship as if we had never been apart.

"Nasruddin, you are a light to the eyes," said Tekka, "Please stay with me. I insist."

I accepted his kind invitation. He showed me my sleeping room, with a window to the east, and the bed made up. "I have arranged it so your head faces toward Mecca," he said proudly. "You must always sleep with your head toward Mecca, out of respect for the Prophet, on whom be peace."

 

Coyote - The Native American Trickster

 

Assignment:  Does your life need some Coyote Medicine, some beneficial chaos?  Where might you take on the role of Trickster, and create some useful mischief which promises to bring transformation and perhaps a new world view?  Are you tired of being in a rut?  Call on your Coyote nature and stir things up!  Write Now!  GO!

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In Native American thought, it is often the trickster, Coyote, or some other animal who brings a chaotic element into the otherwise orderly world. Ruled entirely by his passions, both cunning and credulous, and forever getting into trouble, Coyote often acts entirely counter to social and sacred order.

In that role, he makes it possible to experience in speech actions that are not permitted to humans. The trickster, however, though he looses disorder upon the world, is not evil or a devil. He is truly a necessary figure for understanding the sacred.

As the Chumash, and indeed the Hopi, stories about Coyote and Sun illustrate, not only does the trickster by his contrary actions illuminate the proper way by indirection, he also reflects an awareness of the nature of the chaotic element.

Hopi Creation Stories: The Four Creations

 

 

Hopi Spider Woman Kachina

 

      The world at first was endless space in which existed only the Creator, Taiowa. This world had no time, no shape, and no life, except in the mind of the Creator. Eventually the infinite creator created the finite in Sotuknang, whom he called his nephew and whom he created as his agent to establish nine universes.

Sotuknang gathered together matter from the endless space to make the nine solid worlds. Then the Creator instructed him to gather together the waters from the endless space and place them on these worlds to make land and sea. When Sotuknang had done that, the Creator instructed him to gather together air to make winds and breezes on these worlds.

      The fourth act of creation with which the Creator charged Sotuknang was the creation of life. Sotuknang went to the world that was to first host life and there he created Spider Woman, and he gave her the power to create life. First Spider Woman took some earth and mixed it with saliva to make two beings. Over them she sang the Creation Song, and they came to life.

What Is Worth Fighting For?

 

Assignment:  Do you agree with Samwise Gangee's statement, below, that "There's some good in the world, and it's worth fighting for?"  What greater good is calling to you?  What do you care about with your whole life?  What cause or causes do you find irresistible, compelling, and necessary for the fulfillment of what you define as your personal Grail Quest, Heroic Journey, and Soul Mission?  Write Now!  GO!

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Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy?

Retelling the Past & Reimagining the Future: A 2012 Dialogue with Daniel Pinchbeck and Graham Hancock

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:  Pinchbeck and Hancock discuss the implications of the Mayan Calendar "end-times" date 2012 which Hancock first drew to the attention of his readers in Fingerprints of the Gods published in 1995. Hancock's evidence for a great lost civilisation wiped out in a global cataclysm 12,500 years ago is explored in depth together with his suggestion that the survivors of that civilisation may have sought to pass down a message to the future and indeed specifically to us in the twenty-first century -- a warning that the next great lost civilisation may be our own.

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This unique dialogue brings together two leading counterculture thinkers, Daniel Pinchbeck author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age, and Breaking Open the Head, and Graham Hancock author of Fingerprints of the Gods, Supernatural and most recently the fantasy adventure novel Entangled. Pinchbeck and Hancock discuss the implications of the Mayan Calendar "end-times" date 2012 which Hancock first drew to the attention of his readers in Fingerprints of the Gods published in 1995.

Mayan Prophecies & Crop Circles: An Extraordinary Connection

 

KIDS! Pacha's Pajamas - A Story Written by Nature, A Dream to Change the World

 

 

"Hero" From the Auditions for Pacha's Pajamas,

A Story Written by Nature

 

Visit the Website:  http://www.pachaspajamas.com

 

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Pacha Starts to Dream …

 

Pacha’s Pajamas is a story whose time has come. One night, the plants and animals on Pacha’s new pajamas come alive to share their own stories. Eventually, Nature takes the stage at a global music festival where the critters come together to bring balance to the planet.  

Surviving Our Initiation Into a New Level of Consciousness

 

 

Quotations for our Times from Cultural Historian William Irwin Thompson

We are experiencing the initiation of the human race into a new level of consciousness, and that is a very terrifying experience. It does no good to turn and run from the terror of our darkness into light; we must sit it out: zazen. We must take our counsel from The Tibetan Book of the Dead and realize that these frightening projections of famines, economic disasters, ecological catastrophes, floods, earthquakes, and wars are all only the malevolent aspects of beneficent deities. If we sit and observe them, do not identify with them, but remember our Buddha-nature, we will not be dragged down by them into an incarnation of the hell they prefigure. If we run from them, we validate them; we give the projections the very psychic energy they need to overtake us. Then, as Jung has pointed out, the situation will happen outside as fate.
William Irwin Thompson, Evil and World Order

 

More quotes from William Irwin Thompson...

 

The 2012 Enigma: Blueprint for a Golden Age - David Wilcock

 

 

 

 

The Mayan Prayer of the Seven Galactic Directions

 

From the East, House of Light
May Wisdom dawn in us
So we may see all things in clarity

From the North, House of Night
May Wisdom ripen in us
So we may know all from within

The Hero's Journey in Modern Life (Mindshare 2010 - TED Talk)

 

MINDSURFING: Visionary Activism - The Coyote News Network

 

"If we're not having fun, we're just not serious enough!"

If you are ready to take a daring leap into the wonderful world of Caroline Casey, check out her website:

http://www.visionaryactivism.com

 

and listen to a few of her recent radio programs, which may stir your thinking into some new spaces and places.  She is brilliant, theatrical, funny and great fun, but hidden in her words are treasures of cosmic wisdom and tips for sanity and survival in these unpredictable and generally puzzling times.

Caroline W. Casey

is willing to cahoot with all contributing to the emergent culture of reverent ingenuity and reciprocal blessing!

Co-Operators are Standing By!

proffering personal and collective guidance whereby to effectively engage with forces currently active in the memosphere, that we may be ever more effective players on the team of creation at this time of Dire Beauty.

Our primary dedication: moving our emotional default setting to "Woof-Woof Wanna Play?!" (Because as ally B'er Grimes quips: "If we're not having fun, we're just not serious enough!")

2012 & Why the World Doesn't End - Michael Meade

 

 

Michael Meade is a Storyteller and Mythologist, and Founder

of the Mosaic Multi - Cultural Foundation

http://www.mosaicvoices.org/

 

In your journal: What is your story?  What golden thread of purpose has given meaning to your life? What new story do you need to write for yourself?  GO!

 

Michael Meade: The Growing Chaos and the New Year

January takes its name from Janus, the old Roman god of gates, doorways, and thresholds. Depictions of Janus show two faces looking in opposite directions; past and future, old and new, outer darkness and inner light. As ruler of all endings and beginnings, Janus was invoked at the onset of any change in the course of life. Janus was especially present at the end of the calendar, in the long, dark nights that give birth to each New Year.

The Origin & Significance of Our New Story

 

 

The Origin and Significance of the New Story - About Thomas Berry

Berry's ideas on the New Story began in the early 1970s as he pondered the magnitude of the social, political, and economic problems we were facing in the human community. His articulation of the need for a new orientation and direction was motivated by his deep concern for the almost suicidal path of humans in their destruction of the earth and in their violence and indifference to one another. The need for a New Story or a functional cosmology, then, arose not as an abstract idea, but as a response to the sufferings of humans in a universe where they saw themselves as deeply alienated(20). This alienation was, no doubt, a particular experience of the west in the post war years as expressed in existentialist philosophy, the death of God theology, and the theater of the absurd. Nonetheless, the spirit of disaffection, ennui, and alienation has spread to other parts of the world due to western cultural influences. Berry's New Story provides an important antidote to this disillusionment and despair. It creates, above all, a new context for connection, for purpose, for action. It is an idea with direct implications for providing the human energy needed for positive social, political, and economic change.