Hello everyone,

Having come back from a silent retreat and having settled for a couple of days, I’m now reading all the comments on the thread. Thank you all for expressing and for the constructive communications exchanged here. I would also like to take this opportunity to add to these conversations that in my view, invite us to open up more and more to what the Openhand community is about – for me: authenticity, curiosity, empathy and the willingness to connect with each other because we are all on the same boat no matter where we have come from, ‘who’ we are and what our experiences are - or our views.

So, I would like to start very briefly with the why I posted this article on Openhandweb and why I think its ‘groundbreaking’, ‘informative’ and ‘illustrating the inevitable’. I can see now that I could have unpacked my motivations for posting this article a lot more, so as to offer more perspective and clarity. I didn’t have enough time though and also assumed that this is an inquiry we are all invited to engage in, if we wish so. And of course, so we did.

The article is ‘groundbreaking’ because these ‘alarming’ conversations about Climate Change do not normally reach wider audiences from mainstream media but are tucked away as being glossy, sensational happenings that are witnessed as ‘just happening somewhere else’ and not really affecting ‘my’ life – of course until we perceive they do really affect our lives because all is interconnected. There were other related reasons, including the accumulation of scientific data, which are discussed here in this thread, so I wont go into these. I have a science background and of course I acknowledge there are issues with Science (its also still a narrative indeed), however the consensus is strong and reliable enough to at least respond to the invitation to ‘look closer’. In that sense it is also very informative, covering a wide spectrum of interrelated issues that we may not be aware of. And it does illustrate the inevitable if we don’t somehow respond to the calling to look closer.

I can also see and acknowledge that the alarming tone in the article can disempower people. It triggers the survival mechanism and it can ‘push’ certainly more vulnerable individuals to chaotic reactions and depressive modes. I can see how more sensitive individuals will be affected greatly. Also, if one over invests in these narratives, indeed one can loose ‘oneself’ and their own heartful wisdom.

The interesting observation is that everywhere I look in the world there is a degree of violence, a degree of ‘alarmness’. The foundation of this society contains fear. But fear - to me – is one side of the coin; the other is Trust. Fear and Trust. To really feel the Fear is to re-discover Trust. I also feel that no one is forcing our state of consciousness upon us and no one is making us act out of fear, blame and delusion. We will either relate from a conflicted mind state or from at least a less conflicted one, a more spacious, empathic space. In doing so, we can express our beliefs (expressing soul) from a place of love and rightness for the expression rather than from a place of blame towards the perceived ‘other’.

And of course, at the same time, I totally agree that statements/narratives like the article, which feel they push fear on people and even manipulate need to be approached/heard/read with awareness and discernment. In the Openhand community I believe, there is a lot of awareness and discernment and a willingness to look inside too. This thread is indeed a great illustration of this process. Narratives such as Climate Change are shared here as part of a wider context - a spiritual context in particular - so that a sense of Trust, care and deep understanding is also mediated. What comes to mind is the Buddha’s teaching that says: ‘Life is Suffering’, which was taken by a lot of people to be nihilistic and depressive. But what the Buddha really talked about - when you read further the texts – was that ‘There is suffering in Life’ and there is a cause and there is a way out of suffering. That was the wider context he offered. I feel we need that wider context to normalise and to be able to open up to ourselves and to what is real right now (in both the absolute and relative sense). Here on Openhand, this wider context: ‘The Paradigm Shift’ is offered and people who engage with the site or just visit can explore the whole picture.

Trust was brought up a lot in the thread very beautifully. For me, the inquiry is always this: How do we orient our beingenss towards trusting ourselves? I believe empowerment comes from trusting in the unfolding of our own experience every single moment, especially as we face crisis upon crisis in this world. And therefore, as we inevitably face ourselves every moment. The usefulness of a teacher here in our spiritual journey as it were (as life is a spiritual journey) is paramount. One of the many things they can do is be mirrors, save us time and orient our being towards Presence (our true nature) intellectually and energetically. Of course, they can’t give us the Truth to what we already are. Only we can realise this. Only we can find Trust in this – in ourselves.

I feel that we are face-to-face with our own mortality and the mortality of us as a species and of the Earth as we know it. – right now. We are facing our inevitable existential challenge. I feel that such crises can catalyse change of consciousness. The question is what change this is? The most common reactions to the uncertainty of change – including the inevitability of death, climate change etc- is fear, blame and anger. We have all been there! And we may still go there! And that’s fine, that’s the process. I feel that these feelings arise because we tend to merge with the narrative, we become the narrative and hence a contracted sense of selfhood. This leads to divisions, more blame, anger and fear rather than openness to communicate, look inside in truthfulness and earnest and come forth with more of an attitude of curiosity, discernment and empathy. I will be direct and clear here and say that the communications in this thread have been heated yes – which to me is fantastic – but in no way blame thrusting. I don’t feel this. I feel the communications have been powerful, fiery, honest and explorative. I’m grateful for all the conversations that push our individual comfort zones to expand – mine included – and encourage us to connect with each other in earnest, authenticity and care. So, lets keep exploring, in our own unique ways, life and death in every moment.

Wise Love