Steve Bhaerman, The Great Upwising: Time to Face the Elephant – and Donkey – in the Living Room
“We’re all in the same boat. The Titanic is sinking. And the lifeboat is the Love Boat.”
-– Swami Beyondananda
There’s a great awakening afoot, and you won’t hear about it on the news.
The news cannot report it, because the news is beholden to narratives – and ultimately beholden to those who “be holdin’ the purse strings.” Yes, polarization sells, and fear and anger ensure engagement. But there’s a bigger story than that.
Beyond the decadent spectacle of turning the White House into the Thunderdome, beyond the No Kings protest on behalf of free speech by the same folks who invented the cancel culture, beyond the bipolar insanity that has debilitated the body politic with autoimmune disorder, there is a quieter truth.
That quieter truth embraces the best of both progressivism and conservatism, reveals the deeper meaning behind “No Kings” and the broader promise of “Make America Healthy Again,” and offers a pathway for moving forward together.
And that means facing the elephant — and donkey– in the living room.
Neither political party is the “villain,” and neither is the “savior”. Neither by itself can change the system because it’s the “you’re either with us or against us” mentality that holds the system in place. It ensures that we keep our energy on the lose-lose battlefield, unable to unite to hold the system accountable. Each party’s first priority is self-preservation, and we are the collateral damage.
That’s why long-time progressive strategist Eleanor LeCain declared a few years ago that left vs. right is the wrong battle on the wrong battlefield and that it is now “the oligarchs vs. the rest of us.” And this, by the way, is not some call for class warfare.
It is a call to do something that hasn’t happened in America since the New Deal – bring together populists and progressives in a unified movement to end corruption, and bring integrity, truth, and transparency to the endarkened corridors of power.
Such a movement will take “No Kings” out of its current partisan context and make it the “kingpin” of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. That document and the subsequent preamble to the Constitution declared that the true sovereign of this country is “we the people.”
Until now, this entity, “we the people,” has been unable to speak in one coherent voice. I’m not talking about uniformity of belief systems here; I’m talking about people, despite varied and often opposing viewpoints, uniting around a higher purpose to face a common challenge together.
Consider that the Founders of this country included a wide political spectrum, ranging from Jefferson emphasizing individual freedom to Hamilton’s preference for a strong, central government. They shared a common desire to maximize individual sovereignty AND collective wellbeing. That is the TRUE American dream.
Now, two-and-a-half centuries later, we face a common existential threat that our Founders couldn’t imagine. Because of the interlocking authority of what we might call “the everything industrial complex” that combines unfathomable wealth, media control and military power – we are on the threshold of a totalitarianism so totalizing that individual sovereignty AND collective wellbeing are in danger of being “totaled.”
Divide-and-conquer is the “sociopathogens’” racket – unite and prevail is the remedy.
That’s why I’ve come up with the playful – yet utterly serious – idea of the Great Upwising, a fractal awakening and spiritual evolution that will finally allow us to claim the inheritance our Founders left to us.
Each of the four steps declares our independence from the mutually-destructive battlefield, so that we can build the mutually-beneficial playing field that is humanity’s destiny.
Wake Up … to the illusion of separation, to how we’ve been divided not just from one another but from Spirit and our own soul.
Wise Up … to the power of Loving Coherence, the untapped super-power based on the Golden Rule.
Grow Up … from children of God to adults of Good, beyond shaming and blaming to shared responsibility.
Show Up …on a new playing field, ready to play a new game – thrival for each and all, intentional mutual benefit.
These may seem like catchy, playful terms, but they represent a movement that as yet has no name, one that calls for deepening personal awareness and acting from that awareness. And the “upwising” suggests “wising up”, as in becoming more politically street-wise. It means that instead of reflexively defaulting to one side or another, we “wise above” the racket, and not get pulled on to the battlefield of futility.
I will “boldly” state my point:
The system remains in place because it keeps us divided.
The Great Upwising is the process by which enough of us awaken to our common interest and common humanity to move beyond that division.
Can that happen … really?
I want to share a story that offers us hope and a way forward in times of division and misunderstanding. Years ago, spiritual psychologist Patricia Sun encountered four fundamentalist Christians picketing a New Age bookstore where she was presenting. Ignoring warnings that “you can’t talk to those people,” she spent a few minutes speaking with them. Three of the four ended up hugging her and saying, “That’s just what Jesus taught.”
The fourth resisted, and continued picketing.
The lesson? Most people are far more reachable than we’ve been led to believe. I’ve come to call this the Law of 75. Roughly three-quarters of humanity, regardless of ideology, can respond to love, respect, and genuine listening. A 2018 Pew survey found similarly that roughly 75% of Americans would cooperate in a crisis, even with people they didn’t fully trust.
The problem is, there has been no context for this kind of coherence – until now.
Through Signs of the Upwising, I am looking to highlight individuals and groups helping to bring about or nourish this fractal awakening. Each of the podcasts I’ve posted helps connect the dots …deepens understanding …offers tools for connection … or strategies for collaboration.
My first podcast, with Richard Flyer, author of Birthing the Symbiotic Age: Ancient Blueprint to Unite Humanity offers real world examples of spirit-based thriving communities.
Then, renowned journalist and propaganda expert Mark Crispin Miller helps us learn to discern the “likelier story” in a world of fake news and real lies.
Andrew Freeman presents a model for an online “non-school” that helps build functionality and community at home.
Laura George, founder of Founding Mothers, points us towards a partnership society where the “masculine” and “feminine” become dynamic duo dance partners.
Christopher Life, founder of United Independents, offers a practical strategy to create a coherent independent political center in our country – and an organization to help do so.
Consider each of these individuals’ resources – WE-sources, if you will – in what the Swami is calling the Great WE-Set …where we the people become coherent enough to set the standard for the institutions of society to follow.
Finally, here is something I referred to in an earlier post.
1965.
That was the year I was the first kid on my block to come out against the Vietnam War. It was not a popular position. My good friend in Army ROTC took exception to it. And yet, just two years later, he joined me marching down Fifth Avenue to protest the war.
What happened?
Teach-ins. New information is flooding the campuses that offers a deeper and broader perspective to help us “wise up” above the official narrative. We now have a similar window of opportunity to awaken a “critical mass of the heretofore uncritical masses” to step off the battlefield of mutually-assured destruction and on to a playing field of mutually-insured benefit.
I’m inviting you to “join the upwising.”
Share these posts with others. Support us if you can. Practice the four steps in your own life, and don’t forget the all-important fifth step – a vow of levity. Seriously. Laughter heals the heart and frees the mind, cultivates courage and compassion, and sets the stage for coherence.
As Swami says … Humorize …Humanize …Harmonize.
Bottom line is, we ARE all in the same boat. So, are we going to continue rearranging the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic – or worse yet, throwing them at one another?
Or will we build the Love Boat together?
It’s sink or swim. All hands on deck.
This article was published with the permission of the author
Learn more at The great upwising
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