Earlier he said:

"United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster."

As an earlier article explained, American aggression caused a humanitarian crisis. Moreover, the alleged NATO handover is a ruse. NATO is code language for Washington, the Pentagon. It's America's tool, its "missile," reigning death and destruction across Libya and other operational theaters. European allies concur. They're more pawns than partners. Reports now suggest they'll participate in a late April or early May ground operation if air attacks don't oust Gaddafi.

On March 25, Russia's RIA Novosti news service headlined, "Ground operation in Libya could start in April - Russian Intelligence," saying:

According to an unnamed high-ranking Russian intelligence official, "(t)he international coalition force is planning a ground operation that could start in late April. Information coming via different channels shows that NATO countries, with active participation of Britain and the United States, are developing a plan....From all indications, (it'll) be launched if the alliance fails to force Gaddafi....to capitulate."

The official estimates a late April-early May timetable. UN Resolution 1973 prohibits an occupation force, but authorizes "all necessary measures," including boots on the ground. Hawkish Western military analysts urge it, a March 25 Wall Street Journal report saying:

"The history of air-only military actions is that they rarely, if ever, defeat an adversary without" ground forces.

On March 26, Rick Rozoff's Stop NATO web site mentioned reports of US forces in Libya with a planned ground invasion coming next month. Various March 26 sources were cited, including:

(1) Sofia News Agency reporting:

"US forces are rumored to be already present on the ground in Libya," despite official denials. According to Reserve Colonel David Hand, American soldiers have been in Libya for 12 days. US intelligence Colonel Tony Scheffer confirmed it.

(2) Voice of Russia's Alexander Vatutin said:

"We are witnessing an attempt to seize oil and gas reserves by means of force. Apparently, coalition forces are pursuing targets other than humanitarian operations...." Dozens of civilian deaths are reported.

"In the meantime, NATO has suggested the possibility of a ground operation in Libya unless Gaddafi chooses to surrender. The military are guided by the Second World War saying 'Put on the Ground' which means you can never expect to win unless you reach the enemy's positions on the ground." About 4,000 US marines are positioned in the Mediterranean to invade.

According to Russian Strategic Research Institute's Azhdar Kurtov, "a ground operation is inevitable" whether or not Gaddafi stays or goes, to seize Libya's strategic oil and gas reserves.

(3) AFP reported:

Washington and NATO partners may supply weapons to opposition forces. According to the Washington Post, "recently withdrawn US ambassador to Libya" Gene Cretz said "administration officials were having 'the full gamut' of discussions on 'potential assistance we might offer,' both on the non-lethal and the lethal side."

(4) RIA Novosti said:

"Any foreign military ground operation in Libya will be considered as occupying the country, Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said on Saturday," in violation of Resolution 1973.

(5) Russia Today reported St. Petersburg State University Professor Guman Isayev saying:

Libya, like Iraq, is becoming a "black hole....As soon as it became clear that insurgents lost the battle," Resolution 1973 was passed, providing wide latitude for intervention. As a result, "Libya may cease to exist, de facto, the way Iraq did. On the other hand, it's unlikely that Gaddafi's regime can be overthrown by air strikes alone. The hopes that insurgents (could oust him) are failing despite active external support."

On Monday, March 28, Obama will address the nation on the Libyan conflict. Expect none of this to be mentioned, just the usual boilerplate propaganda about "humanitarian intervention," when, in fact, Washington's aims are always imperial.

As previous articles explained, a protracted, destructive conflict is likely, including mass casualties so America can solidify its grip on the entire Mediterranean Basin, exploiting its resources and people freely.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected] Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

For me, the topic of peak psychotherapy is not about wild speculation regarding the status of mental or other health care two decades from now. Will psychotherapy even exist, and if it does, what will it look like? We cannot answer that with certainty, but it is safe to assume that it will look very different from how it looks today and that however it looks in the future, it will be accessible to many fewer people than it is in present time--which may or may not be a good thing.

Most individuals who understand peak oil, climate change, and the ghastly economic realities of our time are likely to agree that access to health care as we have known it is rapidly vanishing. Yes, as collapse intensifies, alternative and natural healing techniques will abound. For some individuals, those methods will prove much more effective than allopathic medicine has been. For others, perhaps those who have suffered severe injuries or have advanced terminal illnesses, the absence of traditional health care will be fatal.

In any event, physical and mental health care as we know them today will probably not exist a generation from now. As humans cope with peak oil, they will attempt to acquire some form of energy to replace oil, and because they will not be able to do so, they will not have the products and services made possible by fossil fuel energy. As all students of peak oil know, there is no combination of energies on earth that can be implemented in time to avert a planetary energy crisis. Thus, the global infrastructure that has been operated on oil must eventually disappear. As the infrastructure disappears, humans will be forced to live differently. Likewise, as health care disappears, humans will be forced to heal differently. (Dr. John House's article on health care in a post-peak world at Guy McPherson's Nature Bats Last blog is especially relevant and useful.)

The Birth Of Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy, descendant of Sigmund Freud's research, was born in the context of a burgeoning industrial civilization. Concepts such as neurosis, anxiety, cognitive dissonance, complexes, projection, and many more, became the tools of a trade that arose as a result of human beings attempting to come to terms with and make sense of the emotional turmoil within themselves evoked by the growth of industry and particularly urban industry. Distance from the land and dependence on people and places outside the city for resources appears to correlate with an increase in emotional distress during the industrial revolution and subsequent centuries.

The psychology of human beings who have never lived in cities, who inhabit limitless spaces of land, who do not abide in the milieu of sophisticated technology, and whose cosmology is interwoven with their relationship with the land is remarkably different from the psychology of individuals deeply entrenched in the urban industrial habitat. Considerable evidence suggests that disconnection from the land and the transplanting of humans from rural to urban environments in the 18^th and 19^th centuries contributed to the emotional turmoil in urban areas which gave birth to the science of psychology.

While native, indigenous societies of the twenty-first century have their own formidable challenges, having been directly or peripherally battered and undermined by industrial civilization, and while they should not be idealized as paragons of mental health, it is equally true that millions of inhabitants of industrial civilization have been drawn to indigenous traditions in recent decades and have discovered aspects of those traditions which resonate more fully with their deeper humanity than the values of industrial civilization. For some, it is as if their discovery of indigenous wisdom has allowed them to reclaim parts of themselves that they only vaguely realized were missing.

Emotional Repercussions of Collapse

In a world of collapsing institutions which is likely to become profoundly chaotic--a world where traditional physical and mental health care are no longer available to other than the very wealthy, we are likely to see an unprecedented level and severity of mental illness. What we are not likely to see are more resources and mental health professionals available to treat mental illness. In a milieu of privatization where mega-corporations are running the world and doing their best to contain the chaos, we may see innovative--and almost certainly nightmarish, techniques for containing "unruly" groups and individuals, but human beings are not likely to have access to psychotherapy as we have known it in recent decades.

So what do I mean by psychotherapy? One definition is: Psychotherapy, or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living. It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being. Psychotherapists employ a range of techniques based on experiential relationship building, dialogue, communication and behavior change that are designed to improve the mental health of a client or patient, or to improve group relationships (such as in a family).

As we know the profession today, therapy usually takes place in an office or consulting room where a trained therapist and a client sit together to engage in a confidential, professional dialog designed to promote emotional healing and well being. The therapist is either paid directly by the client, or is paid by the client's insurance company for services rendered. Typically, client and therapist meet only in the therapist's office at a specified time and for the duration of an hour or less. In most cases, the client has the option to end the therapeutic relationship at any time, as does the therapist, but generally, client and therapist work together for several sessions, perhaps for several months or years.

What I have just described is a rather typical arrangement as it occurs in a relatively stable society. But in a society in collapse, my description may be unrecognizable or laughably irrelevant. In a chaotic world where physical health care and doctors are not available, one may seek treatment from a nurse or another health care professional or even someone who has had little more than remote experience in the profession. It may be a world where nurses, radiology technicians, or physical therapists deliver babies, suture wounds, or even perform emergency surgeries. Medical emergencies and the lack of bona fide professionals may ultimately lead to extreme treatment measures and perhaps assistance from some of the most unlikely individuals.

Emotional Healing In A Chaotic World

Collapse will unfold in myriad ways throughout the world which at this time we cannot foresee with certainty. What is certain, however, is that in many places, panic, terror, grief, despair, depression, rage, paranoia, and a plethora of other emotional responses will pervade and overwhelm families and communities. It's safe to assume that the rate of suicides and emotional breakdowns will increase dramatically. The absence of services for children and the elderly will leave many in those age groups totally vulnerable or having to fend for themselves.

My sense is that similar to the transition in physical health care in a collapsing world, "psychotherapy" will take forms exceedingly different from how it is now practiced. I imagine a world replete with many more blatantly troubled people than we are presently witnessing even in these tough economic times. Today, the overtly mentally ill are incarcerated in the very few mental hospitals that still exist, but are more often among the homeless, and the average middle class American encounters them briefly and infrequently, if at all. An intensely unraveling world will result in more overt mental illness than is currently obvious, and it is unlikely that those with some degree of emotional stability will be able to avoid the ubiquitous presence of troubled souls in their midst.

Many people consciously preparing for collapse are arming themselves in order to protect themselves and loved ones from "the crazy people." While I support efforts to protect oneself by any means necessary, I would also ask: Do you plan to shoot every troubled person you encounter? Today, we have the "luxury" of ignoring emotionally unstable people in our environment. We can give them a couple of bucks or a beer and walk away. In a collapsing world, we may not have that option. And the real truth is that the "emotionally unstable" person may be any of us--or a loved one.

My work for the past decade has been about helping people prepare emotionally and spiritually for collapse, and I believe that mastering certain intra-personal skills is extremely useful in doing so. What is also true is that learning basic skills in discreetly reading other human beings in terms of body language, facial expression, and honing one's intuition, as well as practicing listening skills and learning how to be fully present with another human being may prove not only valuable but necessary. I emphasize this because some of the most "unlikely" individuals may find themselves in the role of "psychotherapist" in a collapsing world. "Therapy sessions" may occur in the middle of the night with two individuals or a group of folks sitting on the ground or in a pile of rubble, and the only "therapy fee" will be "paid" in the form of barter.

Beyond Psychotherapy

But "talk therapy" is hardly the only treatment for emotional distress and may become even less so in a post-peak world. Over the course of the past three decades, the discipline of ecopsychology has evolved, emphasizing that "there is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other"--a concept echoing the quote from psychologist, James Hillman, at the beginning of this article.

I believe that the science of psychology erupted during the nineteenth century specifically because humans became increasingly disconnected with the land and found themselves emotionally overwhelmed with life in cities and the attendant values inherent in the paradigm of industrial civilization. Mounting evidence in subsequent centuries and in the twenty-first century reveals that when humans are given the opportunity to consciously immerse themselves in nature, emotional distress is mitigated. Especially instructive is Martin Milton's "Waking Up To Nature: Exploring A New Direction For Psychological Practice"(2009)

In his 2011 article "Redefining Sanity," Brian Alger states that "Ecopsychology embraces the essential task of healing our relationship with the Earth and with life itself. Ecology is at its core the study of interconnectedness, the exploration of relationships, and the synthesis of belonging. Psychology is the study of the workings of the human mind and how we think, feel, and behave. Ecopsychology is the confluence of ecology and psychology and proposes that the path to healing the mind is the very same path to healing the Earth; that is to say, the human mind is inseparable from the natural world. The landscape, terrain, weather, plant life, and animal life that surround us are as essential to the development of the mind as are thoughts, emotions, and behaviour."

Thus it may be that in a post-collapse world, dialog, supplemented by guided immersion in nature will offer healing and restoration for individuals feeling overwhelmed by fear, grief, anger, despair, or other emotions resulting from acute or chronic trauma.

My work more recently has focused on emotional resilience in the face of trauma and loss in order to prevent emotional overwhelm as collapse unfolds. To reiterate: Collapse will manifest with varying levels of severity in different places, and in some venues, it will be sudden and terrifying. In other places, it will play out slowly, over time, nevertheless evoking more protracted sensations of loss, disorientation, depression, and despair. Moreover, the extent to which our natural surroundings will remain intact is also unknown. Immersion in the natural environment, while ideal for its salutary benefits, may or may not be possible. However, whatever remnants of the natural world are available in a post-collapse world, they must be protected for everyone's benefit and skillfully utilized for eco-therapeutic purposes.

Yet another aspect of emotional healing in a post-peak world is the simple act of creating beauty. In all discussion of collapse preparation, I include this as a necessity, not merely an option. We have only to reflect on the history of our species to notice a plethora of examples of the restorative and healing effect of poetry, art, music, storytelling, dance, and theater on the human soul. The more dire our circumstances, the more salutary these expressions of beauty have proven for human beings.

As part of our preparation, I encourage people to consider creating regular community poetry salons where poems can be shared, perhaps followed by sharing music, story, and other artistic expressions which encourage people to express a full repertoire of feelings and celebrate their creativity and vitality. If we become comfortable with this practice in present time, it is likely to evolve quite naturally, or perhaps even feel necessary, as collapse intensifies.

A world departing from industrial civilization and its values will undoubtedly be a world in chaos, regardless of whether the transition occurs suddenly or slowly. Two things are certain: (1) The transition will be emotionally disruptive and in some cases traumatizing. (2) The methods to which we have become accustomed for addressing emotional upheaval are not likely to be available to us in a collapsing world.

It is unlikely that psychotherapy as we have known it over the past three decades will be a viable option for the majority of humans on earth in a post-collapse world. Nevertheless, pathways of emotional healing and well being are likely to evolve out of necessity and foresight. Psychotherapy as we have known it may very well become a relic of a distant past, but as long as humans exist on earth, so do their options for emotional healing through interconnectedness with each other and with the earth, deepened and nourished by co-creating ever-new forms of beauty.

CB: David, tell us a bit about your background and your journey from the 1950s values that most people our age were raised with. How did you get from there to where you are now so that you could write such a phenomenal book like "The New Normal"?

DW: Back when I was a teenager in the 1960s, I felt queasiness lurking in the easy-going euphoria of the American lifestyle. Gandhi once said, "Speed is irrelevant if you're traveling in the wrong direction," and it was obvious to me that the accelerating pace of life in the U.S. didn't have a real direction. Everything was becoming automatic, comfortable, and "convenient," yet other than going to the moon, banishing germs from our kitchens, and scrapping with the communists, we seemed to be floating up and away from reality like soap bubbles. We each wanted to expend as little effort as possible but still get paid handsomely for it so we could live the good life, before we... popped.

I began to notice that people whose lifestyles didn't center on money were often healthier and more interesting. They seemed more caring and unselfish, and they were passionate about doing active, celebratory things like playing music, dancing, playing chess or bridge, embroidering, fly fishing, cooking delicious meals, studying history, gardening, and staying current with political issues. TV wasn't a central part of their lives; they were less distracted by commercial hype and less detoured by all the products. What they earned seemed less important than what they learned. I was fascinated that in many cases, the ordinary, American Dream-life was much more expensive than the extraordinary lives of these unique, self-creating people who lived their lives rather than trying to buy them.  They had the real wealth - things that made them feel glad to be alive.

Since those early years, I've worked ten years with the U.S. EPA, written or edited ten books, produced fifteen videos and TV documentaries on various aspects of sustainability, and helped design and govern the neighborhood I've lived in for 15 years.  My conviction that our species needs a new way of being in the world has only gotten stronger. The rules and norms we live by - our social "software" - are now obsolete in a world in which temperatures and populations are rising but water tables and human satisfaction are falling.

We urgently need to adopt and implement a simple but proven 4-step strategy to break our addictions to various substances from oil to stuff to prescription drugs. 1. Admit we have a problem of unprecedented proportions. 2. Humbly seek support and cooperation from each other, from whatever higher power we acknowledge, and from history. 3. Create a healthy new cultural identity. 4. With fresh new goals and priorities, intervene in the broken systems and patterns that are destroying the world with which we evolved.

We should shoot for health and wellness rather than wealth and "hellness," and agree to move, together, away from a lifestyle of deadlines and dying species and toward lifelines and living wealth. In The New Normal, I researched and presented 33 leverage points or key places to intervene to quickly shift our economy and culture in a more admirable, affordable, and sustainable direction. The big picture is that production and consumption will no longer be the defining characteristics of the emerging era - cultural richness, efficiency, cooperation, expression, ecological design, and biological restoration will be.

CB: Right now as you and I sit here, the prices of food worldwide are surging daily. Yet you tell us in your book to buy organic food. We can grow some food, but much of it we can't. And in this time of global economic crisis and skyrocketing food prices, why should we spend the extra money for organic?

Americans are overfed but undernourished. We have the cheapest food as a percentage of income in the "developed" world, but the most expensive health care. In recent years, national spending on health care jumped from 5 percent to 16 percent of national income, largely to treat preventable diseases. Meanwhile spending for food fell from 18 percent of household income to less than 10 percent.  However, judging by the trends, we will spend more of our discretionary income for healthy food in the near future and less for poorly designed gadgets, clothes, and monster-houses. And this change in dietary priorities will deliver solid, satisfying value. We'll have more energy and be more productive. We'll spend more time baking and breaking bread with friends and family, and less time at the doctor's office.

"Let food be your medicine," Hippocrates counseled long ago, and insurance companies nervously agree. Observes Michael Pollan, every case of Type 2 diabetes they can help prevent with better diet and exercise adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly every can of soda or deep-fried chicken nugget in a school cafeteria is seen as a threat to future profits. So the insurance and health care industries are part of a coalition with enlightened farmers, politicians, and citizen activists, that is bring radical change to the food system.

Evolution dictates that we should eat organic. The better food we eat, the less we go to the doctor. Furthermore, organic food gets CO2 out of the air and back into our food. What is more, organic materials hold water, and this is especially relevant here in Colorado with its water issues. We would all do well to shift our budgets so that we can eat organic.

But our backs are against the wall, there's no doubt about that. The assumptions and goals that guided agriculture in a world of one billion  (1800) or two billion people (1930) are way out of date. We need to preserve the source of our food - the farms themselves - or else the global food system will collapse, as it already has throughout history. Yield and profit are important, but so are preservation of soil and water; restoration of biological diversity; safety and healthiness of food; radical reductions in fossil fuel consumed and greenhouse gases emitted; and co-evolution with an increasingly urban population.

Fortunately, the global food system is one of most easily adapted major systems (though it won't be a snap) for several key reasons: agriculture has until recently been solar-powered, and can be again, when oil becomes too expensive to prop up the industry. The supply-and-demand economics of the food system are accessible to consumers, who are becoming more aware of the overall value of food purchases. Because food affects the most important issues of our times - energy, health, security, equality, biological habitat, and climate change, agriculture will come under increasing public and political scrutiny. The trend toward organic produce and whole foods grown in market gardens and small farms will continue - not just because it can be financially lucrative but also because the work is satisfying to a certain, green-thumbed sector of the population. For example, 2010 was the first year in many that there were more farms in the U.S. rather than fewer.

CB: We live in a state (Colorado) that is going to confront very serious water issues in the near future, especially as climate change worsens. From your perspective, what should we as a state and as local communities be doing about this now?

The issue of water has always been interwoven with keystone resources that lie beneath the bottom line of our abstract economy: oil, grain, minerals, and topsoil. Ask farmers and ranchers who have relied on "fossil water" from aquifers if water shortages are real. Many have now gone out of business. Many of the strategies we need to implement are already underway, but we need to amplify and expedite them. Our landscapes are far too thirsty, and can benefit greatly from a higher level of water-conservative design, using more appropriate plants, mulches and increases in soil organic matter to hold the water.  Innovative farmers drip water right into the root zone, however many of them still ship water thousands of miles in the form of juicy peaches and tomatoes. Long "food miles" to transport watery produce may one day become a taxable offense.

Water is embedded in many other products and practices currently in use. For example, although plumbing fixtures are becoming more efficient, there's still great potential in products like the dual flush toilet. Why use a gallon and a half of water to flush urine?  Water and wastewater treatment will be much more efficient in the future, and operate at a much smaller, more local scale. For example, "living machines" can treat wastewater right in the neighborhood with cattails, snails, fish, and other organisms in greenhouse tanks, without nuisance odors, providing clean water for irrigation. Another emerging energy technology, the fuel cell, can also produce clean water for neighborhood use, without any noise or pollution.  This is a huge departure from fossil fuel and nuclear plants which require up to 40% of a region's water for use in cooling towers.

We need to collect rainwater and use gray water in our state, which can only happen when state laws change. Already, Arizona, New Mexico and California laws allow these uses, why nor Colorado?

In the long run, the best way to conserve water is to host fewer people at a time on our small planet.  When the fossil water runs out and glaciers dry up, our current "normal" will be revealed for what it is: a very temporary and excessive binge.

CB: In "The New Normal," you have a section on the new affordable economy which is absolutely amazing. It is a roadmap for where we need to be in order to insure the continuation of our planet and our species. What are some of the characteristics of that economy, and what has to happen for us to get there?

Though we still cling to our current, high-stress lifestyle, it's become crystal clear to many that the half-millennium-long Industrial Era is running on empty. There's not enough rich industrial ore, topsoil, or biological habitat left for the same old hyper-consumption game to continue-- especially as human population and expectations continue to swell. There's not enough natural resilience to absorb our wastes and provide immunity; not enough climatic stability, psychological stamina, cheap energy, timber, or potable water, either.  A primary goal in the new era will be maturity rather than growth. In their most mature, climax stages, biological systems have learned how to optimize diversity, resourcefulness, and resilience, weaving partnerships among species to make use of each scrap of resource. As a subset of nature, so should we.  To create an affordable economy, the Holy Grail should not be unlimited growth but maturity, like a well-practiced, flawless concerto or a basketball team whose plays are perfectly executed. The players don't need to be bigger to win games, just better.

It seems that a majority of Americans don't yet understand that there are too many transactions, too much "throughput" for biological systems to remain stable. More consumption isn't the answer to our economic challenges; it's where the problems began. Every single day, the global economy extracts the volumetric equivalent of about 112 Empire State Buildings from the earth, disrupting the nests, seedbeds, roots, and hunting grounds of gazillions of living things--our planet's real wealth, which provides clean air and water, flood control, pest control, pollination, renewable energy, fertile topsoil, and climatic stability. When natural systems degrade, life becomes more expensive.

One of the most powerful points of intervention is social: the definition of "success." In the new normal, we won't consider individuals and cultures successful unless daily life is rich in discretionary time, trust, health, social connection, and meaning. Yet, in a recent Gallup survey of 150 countries, the U.S. ranked at the bottom, below 145 other countries in overall stress - just ahead of Iraq and Afghanistan. If the quest for material wealth is bankrupting nature and filling us with anxiety, why don't we just change the goal?  Stepping outside the box into a brand new paradigm may be the most effective lever of all.

Right now, our economy is all about plunder--destroy nature and make money. It must become about preserving nature as a way of making money.

The restoration of nature should be our overall mission for the remainder of this century. We already see remarkable results from approaches like marine reserves, where fishing is temporarily banned. After a New England snapper fishery was protected for a number of years, the local population of snapper increased 40-fold, and as supply went up, prices came down. Yet old-normal federal subsidies for fishing, farming, and forestry encourage depletion of resources like fish, water, soil, and old growth trees, because they reward yield and neglect to protect the source of that yield. Instead of subsidizing farmers based on quantity of yield, our money will be better spent rewarding maintenance of soil and diversity of species. Protecting natural resilience avoids environmental and social costs that make life more expensive, such as erosion, pesticide and fertilizer pollution, and loss of rural communities.

If we look at other systems that support our current way of life, we see many opportunities to create a truly affordable economy, in which we could work less and play more. For example, if we avoid energy losses in America's millions of buildings--with better insulation, windows, appliances and fixtures--energy experts document more than a trillion dollars in savings. We can finance these improvements as much with information as capital, because they provide a continuing stream of avoided costs, or "negawatts."

The redesign of America's suburbs can also make life less expensive. By changing zoning laws to permit restaurants and hardware stores, by growing gardens rather than lawns, by establishing neighborhood vanpools, shared power sources, and recycling systems, by creating town centers that supply what local residents need, we avoid the need for relentless economic expansion by meeting needs directly. Dysfunctional systems are not affordable.

The way we make and consume products offers a universe of opportunity, too. High on our hit list are reductions in unnecessary packaging and air travel, excessive meat consumption, glossy green lawns, and food waste (the average household throws away 14% of what they buy). Flagship American industries like cement and steel are only half as efficient as the global state of the art. In the case of steel making, we miss an opportunity to convert to high-efficiency electric arc furnaces because they use recycled steel, and our recycling rate for steel is a dismal 60%.  In the new economy, recycling will become a ritualized, standard practice, embedded in design and policy, so less costly extraction is required.

We can have much greater quality and durability in our products if we stage a cultural revolution of "consumer disobedience." Maybe our motto can be "fewer things but better." With fewer things, we'll be happier in smaller, less expensive houses, and as a society, we can convert much of our expansive housing stock to multi-family dwellings.

We currently spend $900 per capita to be shelled with unsolicited advertising, embedded in the cost of products and services. A culture that is less consumer-driven will tolerate less advertising and less debt. And less debt means less interest on the debt.

Close to half of the diseases Americans suffer are preventable with improvements in diet, exercise, and stress reduction. For example, we spend $150 billion annually to treat diabetes and $120 billion on obesity. Many of these ailments are symptoms of the way we live. For example, one economist suggests that the huge gap between rich and poor in America is creating unprecedented stress. Our unaffordable economy is making us sick. We are a nation on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We consume two-thirds of the world's anti-depressants as we battle for position in the economy. Why not just declare a cease-fire with the Joneses we've been trying to keep up with?  We've bought into the notion that if we're not wealthy, we're not good enough, which creates horrible stress and anxiety. Why not become citizens again, creating employee-owned businesses and member-owned credit unions that can reduce both killer stress and unnecessary expenses? (Credit unions save $8 billion a year in interest on loans because they are non-profit) Why not invest in community bonds, portfolios and banks and make living returns on our investments?

Savings like these are possible not because we are "cutting back," but because we're tuning up our value system, getting rid of waste, creating and adopting more sensible ways of getting things done. Rather than mandating 100,000 hours of work and commuting per lifetime, a more affordable lifestyle enables each citizen to work less and pay closer attention to things that really matter, like the health of our families, communities, and the environment.

Of course we can't do these things individually. It's an agreement, and the whole culture needs to say, "Enough! Now we must serve the economy instead of expecting the economy to serve us."

CB: In "The New Normal," you have another section that is my personal favorite and that we could spend all day on called "The 12 Paradigm Principles." As you know, I've written a book entitled Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, and my new book is Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition. One of the reasons I wanted to interview you has to do with something you say in the first paradigm principle which is: "The challenges we face are not just technical--they are social, biological, political, and even spiritual challenges."

So with that in mind, what do you think needs to happen spiritually and emotionally for humankind to embrace these 12 principles? Can you spell that out specifically for our readers and tell us a little bit about what that would look like? Some of it may be pleasant to think about, and some of it may not be pretty.

It's been said that we humans don't usually make major changes when we see the light--we also need to feel the heat.  That convergence is well underway, but many of the changes we are making are not visible. They are not about flashy new technologies or innovative policies, and they are not about "doing without."  You could say they are more about "doing within."

Changes of heart and mind have often created social tsunamis - almost-instant transitions to a new way of seeing the world (like a school of fish reversing direction). In turn, this renaissance leads to changes in technology, policy, and behavior. When that happens, we ask ourselves, "Why didn't we make these changes sooner?  They're far more sensible, comfortable and equitable than we thought they would be.  It's just the way we do it now."

But this cultural epiphany can't take place unless we are willing to leave our comfort zones, and unless we recycle some familiar assumptions that are no longer useful. For example, that the environment is inside the economy. That people are only worth what they are paid. That economic growth of any kind is always good. That one country can teach another how not to kill, by killing them.

We have experienced a mini-Golden Era since World War II. Many of our challenges have been solved (or at least apparently solved) with technological innovations that have increased labor and land productivity. However, we now face challenges of a different nature; technology is not the limiting factor of productivity--resources are. Deeper wells can't pump water that's no longer there, and larger boats and nets can't harvest more fish when fish populations have been wiped out.  Since we can't change certain biological and geological realities, we need to change ourselves instead. As in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's progression towards the acceptance of death or tragedy, we need to move through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression and accept that the game is different now.

We need to rethink what we are trying to accomplish as a species, and what we truly want to do with our time. Do we really want to let technology guide human evolution ever further into a blind, lifeless alley, or do we want to choose only technologies that enhance our humanity? Now is the time for ecology-based design that lets us participate with our hands and minds, that lets us produce what we need the way bees produce honey: without harming the flower.

New systems of accounting will track productivity in terms of quality, not just quantity. For example, exemplary companies now track tons of cement or sheets of paper produced per unit of energy (not just per dollar invested). Similarly, to evaluate the overall productivity of farming, the new metrics will track the nutritional value of the food and the health of the farms it came from, not simply bushels of grain or pounds of beef.

If we are to save our civilization, all human activity should be based on meeting needs, fully, rather than creating marketable but superfluous wants. A sustainable economy maximizes the productivity of resources in addition to people. When we maximize the productivity of people, we use fewer people, but we have more people than there are jobs. Basically we are using less and less of what we have more of (people) and more and more of what we have less of (resources). That kind of economy just doesn't make sense. Why not move toward full employment of a part-time workforce, giving us enough income to thrive in an affordable, secure economy and also have enough time for living?  It seems obvious that we could very quickly reduce the high unemployment rate by making workweeks shorter and sharing the work, as Germany has done successfully. To fund public services and infrastructure, why not finesse an American political stalemate by cutting taxes on income and levying taxes on fossil fuels and pollution?

These are some of the paradigm principles that guide the discussion in The New Normal. More than ever before, we need to rely on intuition and instinct to challenge the stranglehold of institutions.  Wouldn't it be fascinating to come back in a few hundred years to see if we stopped the stampede in time?

CB: Thank you David for taking time to answer my questions and thereby give us a powerful and inspiring vision of a new normal.

David Wann is a writer, speaker, and filmmaker on the subject of sustainable design and sustainable lifestyles. He's now completed a trilogy of books about culture shift: Affluenza, Simple Prosperity, and his most recent book, The New Normal. This interview draws largely from material in The New Normal. He lives in Golden, Colorado in a cohousing neighborhood he helped design. To find out more, visit www.davewann.com.

Obviously, the expression, "long emergency" is in itself paradoxical. The very word "emergency" implies a crisis that is sudden, immediate, short-lived, and abrupt. So when James Howard Kunstler entitled his book "The Long Emergency," he captured the paradox that lies at the core of humanity's current and future predicament.

The dictionary defines paradox as: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. Psychologist James Hillman in a recent interview, when asked about a number of world events, responded with:

We have to realize that our minds are our enemy. The current debate has become very ideological, with certain fixed ideas dominating the discussion. This is a result of thinking in opposites; it goes back to Aristotle, and has to do with an either/or kind of logic: If something is this way, it cannot be that way.

But this isn't how the world really is. For example, most people think that the opposite of white is black. But there are shades of black -- from blackberries, to black coal or blackbirds -- that have nothing to do with white. The point is to learn how to evaluate each issue on its own merits without having to bring up the opposition's point of view. In therapy, when you have a dream of your mother, for example, you don't necessarily have to talk about your father as a supposed opposite.

While I don't agree with everything Hillman writes or many things he says in the interview, I found these two paragraphs priceless in terms of how we need to think about the Long Emergency, particular in the areas of how it is likely to unfold, how we should hold it in our consciousness, and its implications for our species at large.

In older, more traditional civilizations preceding our own, one finds a remarkable capacity for embracing paradox. In fact, paradox inhabited the psyches of indigenous cultures as if in their DNA, as exemplified in their art, literature, stories, and other cultural artifacts. It was not until the dawn of modernity, greatly facilitated by Rene Descartes' dualistic perspective which became increasingly predominate in Western intellectual tradition, that either/or thinking triumphed.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after exhaustive research of traditional cultures, physician Carl Jung, brought forth an entire psychology grounded in paradox because he witnessed firsthand among his patients the pathology of the dualistic perspective and its severe emotional consequences. And indeed, we need only reflect on the fundamental values of industrial, corporate, consumer capitalism to notice the polarization of opposites inherent therein. Thus, we approach the reality of the Long Emergency with questions issuing from a Cartesian paradigm that belie one of the essential causes of our current predicament. Some of these questions are:

Will It Be Fast Or Slow, Positive or Negative?

A number of writers on the Long Emergency, including Kunstler, opine that the collapse of industrial civilization, transition to a new way of life, and what some have called "The Great Turning," will be a protracted process, punctuated by poignant, painful crises that deepen the severity of the overall unfolding of events.

More recently, robust discussion has ensued among Long Emergency-aware individuals and groups regarding what the process should be called and whether or not it should be viewed as "positive" or "negative." Again, this is an embarrassingly Cartesian approach to our predicament--and far removed from the troubling realities of it.

I personally prefer the notion of a process that is unfolding in roughly three segments, all of which are congealing, convoluting, and complementing each other. The first segment I believe is the collapse of industrial civilization in which we are currently deeply embroiled and which will inevitably intensify. The second would be a period of transition which has also just begun and will also intensify, followed by a Great Turning, in which after a long period of anguish and the decimation of Cartesian dualism, humanity will likely engage collectively in an unprecedented turning from its self-destructive paradigm and for the first time in many millennia, embrace and create infrastructures for living a paradigm that authentically and unequivocally sustains life on earth.

For me, it is crucial to acknowledge and name the collapse of the current paradigm as such. To avoid the word, tip-toe around it in fear of "scaring people," or cosmetically alter the unraveling of industrial civilization, is essentially tantamount to celebrating a rebirth while ignoring that a death occurred. To deny death while focusing only on transformation reveals the level of denial in which we are steeped and profoundly insults masses of human beings around us who are terrified of the future because no matter how much we prattle about "potential," "opportunities," or "resilience," they are terrified in the marrow of their bones of what the future holds. They do not need us to fluff pillows and bring them a cup of tea, but to validate what they already know is so, even if they are kicking and screaming with all their might against what they know--and to provide them with support for talking about their fears. Every human knows in their gut when someone or something around them is dying because whether we acknowledge it or not, we are connected with everyone and everything on levels which humanity has only begun to understand.

In his extraordinary 2010 book Requiem For A Species: Why We Resist The Truth About Climate Change, author Clive Hamilton states that the consequences of climate change will result in a near-death experience for humanity. But as is so often the case with such events, "Those who have had near-death experiences or life-threatening illnesses are often transformed so that they see their previous lives as empty and self-centered." Furthermore, not only is the impact of climate change likely to produce a near-death experience, but so are the impacts of peak oil and global economic crises. What sense then does it make to recoil from the world "collapse" when the entire human race is well aware that it is swimming in it and feels the relentless burden of it from moment to moment? The kindest and most compassionate response is to validate and name what our fellow earthlings intuit rather than colluding in industrial civilization's delusional denial-fest of "unlimited growth" and "recovery from the recession"--or even the notion that "nothing is collapsing; we are only 'transitioning'."

So let me clarify: "Potential," "opportunities," and "resilience" are very important and useful words, but not when they are used to obscure the last gasps of industrial civilization which are incessantly occurring around us in present time, and which, if we are honest with ourselves and each other, we know will only exacerbate. Such words serve us only if we are also willing to name the ubiquitous death by which we are surrounded and if we are willing to feel it and speak honestly about what we feel.

Are These Secular or Spiritual Issues?

First, let's notice that a question like this would never occur in an indigenous culture. For those societies, there was no separation between the two, and the notion of polarizing them is a thoroughly "civilized" one.

Secondly, the dichotomy results from dissecting the human psyche, insisting that only certain parts are worth keeping, and discarding all others. It also results from religious abuse and the belief that words like "spiritual," "sacred," or "transpersonal" are religious terms. In fact, the word religion is rooted in the Latin word relegare which means "to bind back," or "to obligate." It is a term of bondage and contraction whereas a word like "transpersonal" is expansive and refers to a part of the psyche that is larger and more comprehensive than the rational mind or human ego.

The words, spiritual, sacred, transpersonal have nothing whatsoever to do with theism. Theism is a doctrine of a monotheistic, personal god that is "out there somewhere" in the universe or as Matthew Fox notes, "is behind the universe with an oilcan." In an interview with Derrick Jensen in Listening To The Land, Fox states, "And of course, the next step after theism is atheism. It's easy to reject a God who's way out in the sky. I don't know any other civilization that has invented atheism except the West. The word does not exist in indigenous languages. The spirit exists."

I believe that collapse, transition, and Great Turning are revealing and will reveal the integrated wholeness of the human psyche and the inherent connectivity of all life. The unraveling of the paradigm that has fragmented the psyche and separated us from the transpersonal and the entire earth community is a sacred process, and if we can open to it, instead of resisting or trivializing it, we may have the opportunity to become a wiser, more compassionate, more connected species.

An integral aspect of the Great Turning, I believe, will be a turning away from all forms of theism and religious abuse and a turning toward and abiding with the sacred self within us and within all other sentient beings. This may be the ultimate "opportunity" of the Long Emergency--a protracted process which will be fraught with anguish alongside unprecedented transformation. None of us knows how much of either we will experience. What is certain is that our day-to-day reality will be comprised of both, and our challenge is to hold the tension of those opposites, rather than embracing one and excluding the other. I believe that is unquestionably the most difficult work confronting us, both now and in the future.

Author and educator, Margaret Wheatley, in her recent book Perseverance, speaks powerfully and paradoxically to the uncertainty of the future and captures the essence of holding the tension of, rather than polarizing, opposites:

Either position, optimism or pessimism, keeps us from fully engaging with the complexity of this time. If we see only troubles, or only opportunities, in both cases we are blinded by our need for certainty, our need to know what's going on, to figure things out so we can be useful.....

Certainty is a very effective way of defending ourselves from the irresolvable nature of life. If we're certain, we don't have to immerse ourselves in the strange, puzzling paradoxes that always characterize a time of upheaval.....

The challenge is to refuse to categorize ourselves. We don't have to take sides or define ourselves as either optimists or pessimists. Much better to dwell in uncertainty, hold the paradoxes, live in the complexities and contradictions without needing them to resolve.

Carolyn's latest book Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition is now available at Amazon and by ordering from your local bookstore. The Introduction may be read at www.carolynbaker.net

I have been researching the state of the world since approximately the year 2000. Few books or movies on the topic of the unprecedented changes facing our species have escaped my attention. My intention in writing this book is to offer something more in alignment with what the human heart and the community of beings inhabiting this planet are crying out for because I understand viscerally that one more piece of analysis will only bore the mind and completely bypass the heart.

My deep conviction regarding this issue was underscored by the words of Clive Hamilton in his brilliant 2010 book Requiem For A Species: Why We Resist The Truth About Climate Change:

Climate disruption's assault on all we believed--endless progress, a stable future, our capacity to control the natural world with science and technology--will corrode the pillars that hold up the psyche of modern humanity. It will be psychologically destabilizing in a way exceeded in human history perhaps only by the shift to agriculture and the rise of industrial society.[i]

While Hamilton's assertion was written in relation to climate change, it is applicable to the impact of energy depletion and global economic meltdown on humans and their responses to those, especially as these three crises converge in our lifetime in an unprecedented fashion.

In 2006 the Transition movement was born in Totnes, England and since then has virally spread throughout the world until there are now over 300 Transition initiatives on the planet. Some people reading this book are familiar with Transition and the efforts it continues to make to create sustainable communities everywhere on earth. Its model offers a brilliant map for transforming the conditions of the external world, or in situations where that may not be possible, responding to them resiliently. However, even though the Transition Handbook contains a section on the psychology of change, the focus of the movement remains on external Transition. Because I feel passionately that external Transition cannot succeed without a transformation of consciousness among the human species, Navigating The Coming Chaos has been written to address the void created by a predominant emphasis on outer Transition and offer specific tools to facilitate inner Transition. My hope is that this book will become an intimate companion of the Transition Handbook as well as a map of inner transition for individuals who are completely unfamiliar with the Transition movement.

But before proceeding, I want to tell the reader what this book is not. It is not a book for gleaning information; it is a study. If you crave more facts and do not wish to explore the myriad aspects of the human soul which may offer an antidote to the lethal cocktail of horrors which our species has created, this is not the book for you. If you have picked up this book in order to get more for yourself but have little interest in giving anything momentous to yourself or the world, it is likely that you will soon lose interest in what is written here.

Perhaps you have been preparing logistically for the collapse of industrial civilization for some time. You may have attended to food and water storage, energy supply, herbal medicines, organic gardens, and sustainable shelter. Perhaps you are exquisitely prepared for what James Howard Kunstler calls The Long Emergency[ii], and you have every base of logistical preparation covered, but some part of you feels queasy when you contemplate living in a chaotic world during or following the collapse of most or all of the systems of civilization which at this moment in history we take for granted, and have all of our lives.

Perhaps you have envisioned possible scenarios of that world or read books or seen movies suggesting similar or worse scenarios. As you sit with them you notice an eddy of emotions that churn and spin like whirlpools of molten lava throughout your body. One moment you feel fear, the next sorrow, and in another, disorientation as you imagine events, landscapes, situations, and behavior that in present time are scarcely fathomable.

Many options for responding to those feelings present themselves to you. You may choose to reach for a stiff drink, a comforting dessert, a hug from a loved one, the furry snuggle of a household pet, a mindless TV series--or you may just choose to go to sleep and forget about what you're feeling. Yet some part of you knows that sooner or later, you are likely to be faced not only with one of the disturbing scenarios you imagine or one like it, but even more poignantly, the feelings that such an event will activate in you.

Still another part of you hopes that everything you've read or imagined about the future is false. Perhaps all the prognosticators are wrong, and the diehard champions of "technology will eventually save us" are right. Perhaps the future isn't so bright that you "need to wear shades," as the eighties rock hit boasts, but perhaps it really won't be as bleak as the "doomers" say it will be.

In fact, even now as you read these words, you may fear or resent me for writing them. You may argue that I shouldn't be scaring people. Yet after a decade of studying the state of the planet in depth and after witnessing that the majority of the human species is still unwilling to acknowledge its plight, I cannot in good conscience report to you "good news" that does not exist. More recently, James Gustave Speth, environmental attorney and author of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, asserts that "We need to be reminded of the nightmare ahead...we will never do the things that are needed unless we know the full extent of our predicament."[iii]

In his June 18, 2010 blog piece, "Waiting For the Millennium: The Limits of Magic"[iv], John Michael Greer writes:

...the thing that most people in the industrial world are going to want most in the very near future is something that neither a revitalization movement nor anything else can do. We are passing from an age of unparalleled abundance to an age of scarcity, economic contraction, and environmental payback. As the reality of peak oil goes mainstream and the end of abundance becomes impossible to ignore, most people in the industrial world will begin to flail about with rising desperation for anything that will bring the age of abundance back. Even those who insist they despise that age and everything it stands for have in many cases already shown an eagerness to cling to as many of its benefits as they themselves find appealing.

The difficulty, of course, is that the end of the age of abundance isn't happening because of changes in consciousness; it's happening because of the laws of physics. The abundance we've all grown up thinking as normal was there only because a handful of nations burned their way through the Earth's store of fossil carbon at breakneck speed. Most of the fossil fuel reserves that can be gotten cheaply and quickly have already been extracted and burnt; the dregs that remain - high-sulfur oil, tar sands, brown coal, and the like - yield less energy after what's needed to extract them is taken into account, and impose steep ecological costs as well; renewables and other alternative energy resources have problems of their own, and have proved unable to take up more than a small fraction of the slack. These limitations are not subject to change, or even to negotiation; they define a predicament that we will all have to live with, one way or another, for a very long time to come.

...there is no bright future ahead.

It does not predict a future of unbroken misery, or claim that there will be no gains to measure against the immense losses most of us will suffer.

What it means is that the core faith of the age that is passing, the faith that the future will be better than the past or present, has become a delusion. In almost every sense, the future ahead of us will be worse than the present and the recent past. The vast majority of us will be much poorer than we have been; many of us will have to worry at least now and then about getting enough food to stay alive; most of us will have to do without adequate medical care; most of us will not have the opportunity to retire; most of us will die at least a little sooner than we otherwise would have done. The security most of us take for granted, with police and firefighters on call and the rule of law acknowledged even when it's not equally enforced, will in many places become a fading memory; many areas that have been at peace for a long time will have to cope with the ghastly realities of domestic insurgency or war. All these things will be part of everyday life for the vast majority of us for decades, and on the other side of it lies, not some imagined golden age, but a temporary respite of stabilization and partial recovery that might last for half a century at most before the next wave of crises hits.

This is the way civilizations decline and fall. It's our bad luck to be living at the dawn of the second great wave of decline to hit Western civilization - the first, for those who haven't been keeping track of their history, began in 1914 and ended in the early 1950s - and this wave will probably be a great deal worse than the first, if only because it comes right after the peak of conventional petroleum production and thus has to face a decline in net energy per capita on top of everything else. It's comforting, and will doubtless be common, to look for scapegoats for the troubled times ahead, but it seems more useful to recognize that this is simply what happens at this point on the curve of history's wheel.

Nearly all of our ancestors lived in times when there was no bright future on the horizon; nearly all of our descendants will experience the same thing. The great majority of the former and, no doubt, of the latter as well, found other reasons for living. That's an equally viable option right now, given a willingness to think the unthinkable, recognize that the age of abundance is ending, and consider the possibility that doing the right thing in a time of crisis, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging the right thing might be, may be a more potent source of meaning than waiting for magic to make a bright future arrive.

Nowhere in the literature of the Long Emergency have I read a more poignant description of the future than this. But during this past decade, I have learned much more about holding the tension of this overall bleakness with the profound inspiration the last sentence of Greer's forecast offers, namely, that doing the right thing in a time of crisis, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging the right thing might be, may be a more potent source of meaning than waiting for magic to make a bright future arrive.

So here Greer nails it. When industrial civilization as we know it no longer exists, what will matter--and perhaps all that will matter, is meaning.

Likewise, Clive Hamilton notes that:

As the climate crisis unfolds, and poses the question of the future of humankind, the meaning of our lives will come increasingly to the fore. After a long period of psychological disruption stability will return only with the emergence of a new understanding of the Earth, a story to replace the one in which the globe is seen as a repository of resources to fuel endless growth.[v]

But what is the fundamental definition of meaning, and isn't it different for everyone?

Before he left us in 2009, the brilliant and lovable Thomas Berry gave us in The Great Work the bigger picture of "meaning":

History is governed by those overarching movements that give shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to the larger destinies of the universe (italics mine). Creating such a movement might be called the Great Work of a people.[vi]

Humans have accessed and perpetuated the Great Work many times in our history, but industrial civilization has been a project designed to facilitate our forgetting that work, yet the work seems to keep returning incessantly to humans, however, not without incalculable anguish whenever they forget its pivotal role in their story.

Berry also tells us that the universe knows itself through humans who have developed conscious self-awareness. And certainly history seems to reveal that when humans de-value conscious self-awareness, they behave destructively, but when they deem it sacred, they function more harmoniously with the community of life on earth.

Miriam MacGillis, student and promoter of Thomas Berry's work, adds that:

The human is the being in whom the Earth has become spiritually aware, has awakened into consciousness, has become self-aware and self-reflecting. In the human, the Earth begins to reflect on itself, its meaning, who it is, where it came from, and where it's going. So in our deepest definition and its deepest subjectivity, humans are the Earth--conscious.

Mathematical cosmologist and physicist, Brian Swimme, in his lecture series "The Powers of The Universe" emphasizes that cataclysm, or the constant rising and falling of life, is contiguous and cannot be reversed because it is inherent in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that is, "things fall apart and break down."[vii] But for Swimme, the issue is not preventing or avoiding cataclysm but rather, attentively responding to it. "Cataclysm is happening," he says, but "the choice before us is whether we will participate consciously."

This was precisely the red thread which ran through my 2009 book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. Essentially, in that book I emphasized repeatedly: Stop trying to avoid or prevent collapse. Open to collapse, understand it, move with it, do not resist it, and discover what it is asking from you. Or as Brian Swimme states: "By allowing the destruction of the earth to be the ground out of which we think, we enable cataclysm to proceed in a more conscious way."

Yet some would argue that the earth may be saved by alien beings in the universe who are more intelligent or more highly evolved. Others would argue that humans need to vacate the planet they have nearly destroyed and colonize other worlds, simply relocating their venue of pillage after having learned nothing. While I do not wish to argue these theories here, I hold unequivocally that just as a "savior" politician or President cannot provide solutions that address the needs of local communities, alien beings or geographic relocations in our galaxy cannot enable humans to cross the evolutionary threshold to which I believe we are being inexorably called by our own conscious self-awareness.

Recently, John Peterson of the Arlington Institute spoke to a group here in Boulder, Colorado and asked the question: What's happening to us? What are we becoming? He called our predicament "a punctuation in the human species," an evolutionary threshold, and asserted that a "new kind of human being" is necessary.

Peterson then asked: Do you really want to become a new kind of human being? If we do, he suggested that we ask the question: What is my purpose?

When someone asked Peterson, "But how do I find out my purpose?" he replied, "Just ask, because when you do, magic starts to happen."

In fact, it may be that without deep reflection on our life purpose, we lack the capacity to create meaningful change in our own lives and in the functioning of our communities. The great Czech playwright and politician, Vaclav Havel, asks:

What could change the direction of today's civilization? It is my deep conviction that the only option is a change in the sphere of the spirit, in the sphere of human conscience. It's not enough to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions. We must develop a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence on this Earth. Only by making such a fundamental shift will we be able to create new models of behavior and a new set of values for the planet. [viii]

Much of this book is designed to assist the reader in asking and receiving the answers that serious reflection on one's purpose and calling may arouse. However, in order to ask the question and respond consciously, the wounds of industrial civilization in the form of so-called "dark emotions" must be explored. An entire section of the book is devoted to understanding and working with those.

Without adequate emotional and spiritual preparation for the collapse of industrial civilization, the human psyche is very likely to be overwhelmed to the point of madness or death. Collapse is humanity's next rite of passage, our imminent initiation into adulthood as a species. And as is sometimes the case, those undergoing initiation do not survive. In an August, 2010 interview I conducted with Transition Colorado's Co-Director, Michael Brownlee, he stated, "Primarily because of our use of fossil fuels and our profligate burning of fossil fuels, we've unleashed profound changes in our climate that are probably going to give us the equivalent of a species near-death experience. The near-death experiences for many individuals will be a profound wake up call and will produce a shift from an aimless, dissipated, wasted life to a focus on purpose and service. Climate change is likely to be affording us as a species, that kind of opportunity."

The "good" news, you see, is that we have such an opportunity because without it, we will have precious little to motivate us in persevering. Clive Hamilton reminds us that "The foundational beliefs of modernity--the unlimited scope of human achievements, our capacity to control the world around us, our belief in the power of knowledge to solve whatever discomforts us--will collapse."[ix]

One of the qualities desperately needed in navigating the coming chaos is resilience. All resources for preparing for the Long Emergency emphasize resilience, but few offer a detailed explanation of what it is and how to cultivate it. Within the following pages lie several explanations along with many opportunities to practice greater resilience.

This book is a hands-on, practical toolkit. Because it is a study, it offers a cache of personal reflection exercises to which a great deal of deep thought and contemplation have been given. These provide the essential implements of inner transition. If you are reading this book only for information and do not work through all of the exercises, you will have missed a treasure-trove of guidance, inspiration, and untapped inner resources. Again, this is about giving--to yourself and to the people and experiences you may encounter in the collapse process, as well as to the earth community. You will give and receive the most if you treasure and work the exercises that are provided at the end of every chapter.

The first section of this book "Building Your Internal Bunker" focuses on cultivating an inner life and utilizing internal resources to confront the shadow self in order to savor our inherent connectedness with the earth community. Without the fortification and nurturance of a rich inner life, it may be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to engage in the work of subsequent sections of the book. Moreover, without a robust internal bunker, it will be virtually impossible to navigate the coming chaos.

The second section "Allies In The Great Turning--Who's Turning With You?" explores the issue of relationship and relatedness--with nature, with other human beings, and even with our own bodies. A broader definition of relationship is offered than we typically encounter in modern culture with the intention of also expanding our sense of support as we prepare to navigate a daunting future.

Section three "Emotions: Becoming A Warrior of Vulnerability" provides extensive support for consciously befriending all of our human emotions, with particular attention to the so-called "dark" emotions. In this section we draw upon the extraordinary wisdom of psychologist Miriam Greenspan whose life and work offer tangible tools for enhancing our emotional health and deepening our capacity to experience joy as well as the emotions we may prefer to avoid but which will be invariably stirred in the Long Emergency.

In the fourth and final section, "Elderhood At Any Age: The Skillful Use of Inner Transition Tools" we examine the concept of elderhood and its relevance to our community and our own lives, no matter how old or young we are. Here we discover the seeds of wisdom and the capacity to create beauty which enable us to prepare for the many unknowns of the future as well as imagine and create a new culture.

[i] Clive Hamilton, Requiem For A Species: Why We Resist The Truth About Climate Change, 2010, p.222.

[ii] James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency, 2005, Grove/Atlantic.

[iii] James Gustave Speth, A Bridge At The Edge of The World: Capitalism, The Environment, and Crossing From Crisis to Sustainability, 2010, p. 234.

[iv] John Michael Greer, "Waiting For The Millennium: The Limits of Magic": http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53150

[v] Clive, Hamilton, Requiem For A Species, p. 219.

[vi] Thomas Berry, The Great Work, 1999, p. 1.

[vii] Brian Swimme, "The Powers of The Universe": http://www.brianswimme.org/store/default.asp

[viii] Vaclav Havel, quoted in A Bridge At The End of The World, p. 200.

[ix] Clive Hamilton, Requiem For A Species, p. 210.

The book may be ordered here

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D. manages the Speaking Truth to Power website at www.carolynbaker.net. She is the author of Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse (2009). She lives and writes in Boulder, Colorado.

In the ensuing discourse since the massacre, we have been incessantly reminded by media that mental health issues are as real and valid as physical illness and should not be viewed with disdain but rather treated by mental health professionals as any physical ailment such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer would be treated by a physician. Yet even as journalists and mental health and political pundits banter about mental health treatment in the United States, they fail to address, or perhaps even understand, the deeper questions.

 This article is intended to address those questions, the implications of which extend vastly beyond the January 8, Tucson tragedy.

The Loughner Generation

Almost no one has noticed that Loughner is a member of a generation which has virtually no economic future in this country. Were he to continue attending college, as a member of the working class, in order to graduate, he would almost certainly need to finance his education by way of student loans and complete his degree program by accumulating tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Upon graduation, he would most likely join the masses of unemployed or underemployed college graduates who will be student loan debt-slaves for the rest of their lives with income levels that will force them to default or live in poverty in order to pay off the loans. We can only speculate about how long young people in this nation will continue to pursue a college education under these circumstances and what the implications of millions of them rejecting the higher education shell game will ultimately be socially, economically, and politically.

Naturally, one might wonder what has prevented millions of other young people of Loughner's generation from erupting in displays of mass mayhem regarding their future, but a bit more research on their public school education experience and the pressures foisted on them by the college-to-cubicle philosophy of higher education answers the question. College is no longer a venue for learning, but rather an assumed guarantee of employment. College life is all about preparing for the big "J," and there is little time for all-night discussions, student protest, or deeply pondering what mortgaging one's future over the course of four years is all about. What is more, the pressure to "do whatever it takes" to graduate is so intense that more than 70% of students admit to cheating in order to make the grade.

Was Jared Loughner thinking about this when he mowed down 19 people on a sunny January morning last week? Probably not. But as with all socio-cultural phenomena, individuals who erupt violently may not be fully aware of the impact their milieu has on them. And since the Tucson tragedy, we have seen an increasing number of stories in the news media regarding the repercussions of economic crisis in nations throughout the world and growing speculation regarding the possibility of civil unrest as a result. For example: The Great Food Crisis of 2011; A World In Breakdown; and Global Food And Commodity Prices Spark Worries On Security, to name only a few.

Economic Collapse, Big Bad Pharma, And The Death of Therapy

Moreover, there is almost no mention in the current media mental health discourse of the death spiral of psychotherapy in the United States. While mental health treatment in the nation was never fully accepted without stigma, it may have been most widely embraced in the 1970s during the Carter Administration when the National Mental Health Systems Act was passed. Only a few years later, the act was repealed by the Reagan Administration, and mental health and substance abuse program funding was cut by 25%. While Reagan himself did not stand at the door of mental health institutions and tell patients to flee, the repeal had the same results in terms of the priority mental health treatment received in subsequent state and federal budgets.

With the advent of managed care in the 1990s, insurance companies limited the number of mental health sessions that would be covered for insured patients, severely curtailing coverage and duration of treatment. These limitations have remained in place, and in many cases increased, over the past two decades, and in 2011 with some 50 million uninsured individuals in the United States, receiving mental health treatment generally means paying for it out-of-pocket--an expense not likely to have priority in a milieu of massive unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosure, and skyrocketing food prices.

Not surprisingly, at about the same time as managed care emerged, the pharmaceutical industry debuted a new array of anti-depressants known as SSRI's or Seratonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and others, which not only alleviated symptoms of depression for millions of mental health patients, but were increasingly used to treat a wide variety of emotional disorders among children and adults who had never darkened the door of a therapist's office.

In 2011, each day brings yet another story of a state or states teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and spending cuts that are nothing less than amputations or inexorable eradications of all manner of health programs.

Thus, in a world of profound economic collapse, fewer people can afford mental health services, yet as a result of personal and societal economic meltdown, more need them than perhaps at any time in our history since the Great Depression. Psychotherapy and psychiatric hospitalization as we have known them are becoming increasingly difficult to access and within the next decade may well become non-existent--a gargantuan reality rarely addressed in media discourse about "mental health stigma" and "mental health treatment."

The Madness of Industrial Civilization 

The larger issue unaddressed because it is un-named and willfully unexamined, is the paradigm of industrial civilization itself. Historians note that civilization began with sedentary, agricultural communities which evolved into cities. Cities are by definition, communities that are not self-sufficient and depend on external venues for resources. Increasingly, cities became non-agricultural and dependent on other communities and nations for their survival. Disconnection from the land base facilitated what Thomas Berry calls a "use relationship" with nature and other members of the earth community, including humans. Once relationship devolves from relatedness to using the other, we are well on the road to madness because relatedness means seeing, appreciating, valuing the innate qualities of the other. Use inherently means not seeing the other and its/his/her attributes but objectifying the other and perceiving the other only in terms of how the other can benefit oneself. Such is the essence of dysfunctional relatedness.

Supplanting relatedness, use became the modus operandi of modernity and particularly of growth-obsessed, profit-driven industrial civilization. That which profit could acquire--stuff, possessions, and power replaced relatedness as the essential elements of meaning and purpose. These, it was assumed, would bring unprecedented happiness and fulfillment. Yet myriad studies in the 20^th and 21^st centuries indicate the opposite. The level of satisfaction and sense of well being in a society does not increase with the level of growth or economic prosperity.

In Richard Heinberg's Peak Everything: Waking Up To A Century of Declines (2007), he notes that "While a historical GDP (gross domestic product) chart for the U.S. shows general ongoing growth up the the present (GDP correlates closely with energy consumption), GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) calculations show a peak around 1980 followed by a slow decline. If we as a society are going to adjust agreeably to lower rates of energy flow--and less travel and transport--with minimal social disruption, we must begin paying more attention to the seeming intangibles of life and less to GDP and the apparent benefits of profligate energy use."

In fact, I would argue that as growth-driven civilizations decline, the madness engendered by use relationships and the vapid meaninglessness of acquiring possessions and power are increasingly laid bare. Industrial civilization is inherently crazy-making, and Jared Loughner is merely another poster boy for its paradigm.

Yet in our mental health discourses, we fail to consider what Derrick Jensen beautifully observed, long before the Tucson massacre:

I'm continually stunned by how many seemingly sane people believe you can have infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Perpetual economic growth and its cousin, limitless technological expansion, are beliefs so deeply held by so many in this culture that they often go entirely unquestioned. Even more disturbing is the fact that these beliefs are somehow seen as the ultimate definition of what it is to be human: perpetual economic growth and limitless technological expansion are what we do.

When I was a psychotherapist in private practice in the 1990s, I learned that 80% of mental health clinicians who had spent precious years and resources training to become psychotherapists would leave that field within five years of entering it. I have no idea what the statistics are for this phenomenon in 2011, but I do know that given America's economic meltdown and the inability of states, counties, and cities to fund mental health services and the inability of individuals to pay for it out-of-pocket, the psychotherapy profession is becoming an increasingly thankless one.

As the collapse of industrial civilization exacerbates, I anticipate epidemic levels of depression, suicide, and indiscriminate violence. Human beings blindsided by society's and their own unraveling will be desperate to be heard, comforted, and reassured that they are not alone. Anyone who is collapse-aware and even a little bit emotionally stable may become the "therapist of the moment." This will not look like two people sitting quietly in a tidy office and talking for 50 minutes. It may look like a group of human beings sitting in the street or in a community garden all night discussing how they will eat the next day, and the "fee" may be a bag of potatoes or a bottle of vodka. Such individuals will definitely behave in an "uncivilized" manner, but they probably will not be mentally ill.

Mental health necessitates taking a stand in the face of madness in order to live and love in relatedness with other earthlings--whether human or non-human. The paradigm of industrial civilization is inherently mad and proliferates mad people. Many of us have been called "crazy" for the past decade because we have named the madness of civilization and where it is taking us. Today, we may be perceived as "less crazy" since most of what we forecasted is now everyday, tangible reality--just as we said it would be. As industrial civilization accelerates its death spiral, our work is to imagine a new world of connectedness and to become a new human species. Measured by the criteria of the American dream turned nightmare, we may not only not be deemed crazy, but may be perceived as living and learning in ways that resonate with an aspect of the psyches of fellow earthlings that they are coming to recognize as essential to their emotional and physical health. Heinberg's "seeming intangibles of life" could also be called "the sacred," and they have been systematically marginalized by modernity for millennia. The sacred must now constitute the foundation on which any alternative to industrial civilization is constructed, for therein lie the fundamentals of sanity and wholeness.

Carolyn's forthcoming book Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition will be available for purchase within the next month. Stay tuned to her website at www.carolynbaker.net for publication details.

Anyone drawn to the Transition or Permaculture models is likely to stand in awe of Alexander's work and his capacity for envisioning the revolutionary potential in both models. Enchantment with Alexander's discoveries and his writings about them is inevitable the more one grasps their profundity, but often overlooked is what Alexander calls the "luminous ground" on which the pattern language theory is built. 

Vermont author, Karen Speerstra, has researched Alexander's luminous ground concept which is described in depth in Book Four of his Nature of Order series. When one grasps the implications of Alexander's understanding of luminous ground, one must also acknowledge that at its core, pattern language is a theory based on profoundly spiritual principles. In her article "Our Luminous Common Ground," commissioned by the Fetzer Institute, Speerstra extracts from The Nature of Order a number of statements from Alexander indicative of the place the sacred holds in his world view. 

The "ground" to which Alexander incessantly refers is, in his words, "The I which lies behind or inside all matter...an underlying substance, or 'original substance' [it] partially reunites us, part of the way, not all the way, towards a world of spirit. It does not make a separation between spirit and matter." 

This "I", according to Alexander, resides within us and is eternal. In fact, he asserts that it "does contain all that is in us; it gives primacy to the fact that this void is already in us; that it is a part of the human being which exists already, and is available to us...It is that which makes it powerful, which makes it useful." 

But Alexander takes this further: "To really make living structures, it seems almost as though somehow, we are charged, for our time, with finding a new form of God, a new way of understanding the deepest origins of our experience, of the matter in the universe so that we, too, when lucky, with devotion might find it possible to reveal this 'something' and its blinding light." 

In creating something beautiful, he says, we are not only deeply nourished, but we come alive and are filled with inner light. We are most nurtured and feel healed and whole when we are joining with others in creating living structures. In fact, "When we are in touch with our inner landscape, 'the ground,' we become a more 'rounded, more satisfied, more satisfactory being.'" 

Alexander sees no duality between the "inner ground" and our outer human-ness: "When you really put your humanness into the things you make, then you genuinely reach the wholeness we are striving for in the external structure we call order...it is at that moment that we reach the ground." 

Christopher Alexander has been called an architect, a builder, a mathematician, and a scientist, but throughout the passages from The Nature of Order cited by Speerstra, not out of context but very much in context, what we are hearing is nothing less than the musings of a mystic. Alexander is telling us that each of us has an "I" that goes beyond what we normally see and that it is connected with all other "I's." Moreover, "Each of us is connected to the world." In his mind and heart, the ultimate goal is wholeness--connectedness with ourselves, other "I's", and "a genuine desire for all things to be one...." In fact, he says, "Any trace of a desire for separateness will destroy completely my ability to hear the one, whispering through...." We might summarize all of his mysticism in just this one sentence offered by Speerstra: "Everything is filled with its living spirit." 

Why is a closer examination of Alexander's world view important, particularly in relation to Transition? In recent months, a healthy and heated debate regarding the place of the sacred or what some call spirituality in the Transition model has been occurring alongside much fascination with pattern language and its application to Transition. Surely, if those who embrace the Transition model find themselves resonating with Alexander's perspective on pattern language, then it seems imperative to understand the foundation on which it is built which happens to be unequivocally grounded in the sacred. 

At the end of her article, Speerstra suggests a number of questions about our ways of being together and our work in groups which emerge directly from a pattern language perspective and which are exceedingly relevant to the functioning of Transition initiatives and projects:

• What is the "felt reality" of the gathered people?
• When we meet other people, to what degree do we feel connected to them?
• Can groups model an improved "world picture"--one of already existing wholeness?
• How can a group of people be led to appreciate remarkable new results that embrace and foster unexpected and complex behaviors?
• How can each person in the group be more like their "eternal selves"?
• Are mental events connected with physical phenomena?
• How do we experience the unfolding of our centers?
• How can each person feel more "related" to the gathering place and to each other?
• What is the spiritual depth of what is achieved in "the work"?

What are we to make of mysterious terms like "an 'I'", "the something", "the luminous ground", "the eternal self", and oh dear, the word "God"? Above all, how do we relate such esoteric expressions to the nuts and bolts of the Transition model and other efforts to create sustainable communities? I would answer by saying that Alexander is showing us what the sacred looks like and that it is a thousand miles removed from organized religion, ideology, or some sort of New Age "grow, flow, and be" cultism. Furthermore, he is demonstrating that as we implement the Transition model, we stand together on luminous (sacred) ground and that knowing that in our bones may facilitate our capacity to experience unprecedented personal and collective transformation. 

What is more, it appears that Alexander's work serves to create not only sustainable communities, but sustainable people--individuals and groups that literally thrive on connectedness with each other and the earth community, for indeed, as he says, what really matters is "the degree of connectedness a given place, or thing or event has with the ground." 

In summary, we cannot consider pattern language and its application to any structure or group unless we are willing to open-mindedly engage with and integrate its sacred origins. Otherwise, we perpetuate a binary perspective which our species may soon discover is the root cause of the rise of an endless growth model and its current demise.  The history of modern humanity has been a sorrowful saga of abdicating the sacred because we were unable to appreciate its presence in the material world. The current collapse and transition is and will be an onerous, but perhaps ultimately joyful journey, in rediscovering and re-embracing our luminous ground. Out of this return to the mysteries of which Alexander speaks, an opportunity for unprecedented patterns of wholeness and relationship offers itself to human egos weary of pretending that disconnected matter, people, and places are humanity's final frontier.

Kunstler's non-fiction research on the likely consequences of peak oil is superbly documented and therefore, exceedingly plausible. His fictional pieces are as astonishingly engaging as they are deeply disturbing.

His most recent masterpiece is The Witch of Hebron which, like his 2007 novel A World Made By Hand, is set in upstate New York where Kunstler has spent most of his life and paints a bleak but beautiful and strangely riveting picture of life in a small community, Union Grove, after the collapse of industrial civilization. Remarkable indeed is the resourcefulness of a population that has been traumatized by cataclysmic events, some of which have occurred over time, others which erupted suddenly. Having researched as Kunstler has the likelihood of industrial civilization's demise, I find the fictional world depicted in his novels highly plausible and not the least bit exaggerated. He has masterfully created a mood that is eerily beautiful and beautifully eerie. Yet one cannot help but marvel at the serene contentment of most of Union Grove's residents even as they are surrounded by a milieu of unremitting death and dissolution. Kunstler's capacity for illustrating the heartwarming alongside the horrific is nothing less than uncanny. While he may not agree, he has clearly depicted a world in which the sacred elements of humanity have not been decimated and are exquisitely demonstrated by acts of unpredictable and fortuitous compassion.

My enchantment in reading both novels, however, has been profoundly subdued by Kunstler's disappointing portrayal of women. All female characters without exception are either spouses or partners of males or are in some way engaged in the world's oldest profession. The witch of Hebron, herself a prostitute, is a beautiful, charming, intelligent caricature, overly-idealized by Kunstler who argues that in a post-collapse world, the rights of women and minorities, so dramatically achieved in the twentieth century, will become virtually extinct in a "world made by hand."

Kunstler is remarkably dogmatic (as the dictionary defines it: "inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true") in both his fictional depiction of women and in his perspective in the Long Emergency regarding regions of the United States that are more or less likely to successfully navigate industrial civilization's demise. Not surprisingly, it is the Northeastern region which Kunstler finds most potentially livable in the aftermath of the unraveling. Of this area he opines that "...the region possesses the residue of a preindustrial or protoindustrial civic infrastructure, based on established habits of group covenant and, ultimately, a respect for the rule of law."

Like Kunstler, I believe that the collapse of industrial civilization is certain and that it will be profoundly shattering to individuals and institutions. However, the assertion that all humans in all places will revert to barbaric, pre-humanistic interaction as if the twentieth century never occurred, is absurdly implausible-as is the assumption that the demise will unfold uniformly in every venue in the same manner. In a "world made by hand" it is very likely that some indigenous people and some indigenous women in particular will survive and thrive and will offer their ancient survival wisdom to others in their milieu. Likewise, surviving women professionals of all ethnicities in small communities emerging in the aftermath of collapse are as likely as males to provide essential services such as nursing, law, and the operation of local general stores. I would fully expect to see myriad "Union Groves" emerging throughout the United States, perhaps in places most unlikely to Kunstler, demonstrating aspects of diversity that a stupendous but somewhat myopic author is not yet capable of imagining.

Carolyn Baker is the author of Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse (2009) and manages her website at http://www.carolynbaker.net/.

The subject comes close to home for me. Four decades ago, I could have been Tyler or any of these sweet kids who decided that life was not worth living if they must choose between death and an existence in which they would be forced to murder their souls and be someone they were not. Fortunately, I survived and at a time when there was virtually no sanity, support, or substantial research on the topic-and during a time when many more suicides were committed over sexual orientation than today and with the real reasons undisclosed.

Yes I know, in some countries, such as Iran and Uganda, gay and lesbian people are routinely imprisoned, put to death, or assassinated. Bullying, rather than happening randomly among the citizenry, has been institutionalized in the legal systems of those nations. And in some ways, that might be easier to deal with, would it not? One realizes one lives in a culture that maintains a barbaric attitude toward sexual orientation where in order to be who one really is, one must leave the country. The opposition to homosexuality is ubiquitous and daunting, rather than irregular, unpredictable, and in Tyler's case, uber hypocritical. It was not Fred Phelps of "God Hates Fags" who videotaped him and You Tubed his sexual activity, but rather a roommate who proclaimed tolerance and neutrality on the topic of sexual orientation.

Mainstream media myopically attempts to analyze this carnage in the limited context of bullying without connecting dots to the larger picture of a planet that appears to be increasingly marinated in anger. Last year, author and spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss, wrote in a Huffington Post article entitled "An Epidemic of Global Anger":

We are a community of nations on fire with anger. And we are getting angrier by the day. Whether we look at the increase in uprisings occurring around the world or at the escalating tension brewing in America, what is becoming more apparent is that we are witnessing a rapidly increasing rate of global anger, so much so that it qualifies as an epidemic

For nearly a decade I have been writing and speaking incessantly about the convergence of the Three E's: energy, economy, and environment and the unprecedented suffering the earth community is experiencing as a result of the deepening crises created by this convergence. The human race is angry, and perhaps the planet itself, but it is within the belly of industrial civilization that young men and women are killing themselves because of who they love.

This is also the civilization that has distorted the core teachings of Christianity beyond recognition, particularly in the area of love and sexuality. To a large extent, this is one of the tragic legacies of early Colonial Puritanism in the United States. More recently in the nineteenth century, one school of mainstream Protestantism dramatically diverged in a more conservative direction and gave birth to what we now know as fundamentalist Christianity. Irish minister, John Nelson Darby, began preaching a strain of apocalyptic theology that emphasized the imminent return of Christ and proclaimed that when evil is seen in a society, Christians should rejoice because it is evidence of the second coming. Since then, the growth of fundamentalist Christianity in the United States has exploded, but it was not until the George W. Bush administration of this decade that this historically new strain of the Christian faith in America blatantly sought to eliminate the separation of church and state and establish theocratic governance based on the principles of Christian fundamentalism.

Intellectually immersed in a literal interpretation of the bible and, in my opinion, emotionally terrified of the notion of same gender attraction, American fundamentalist Christianity has pronounced it as an abomination in the eyes of God. Yet the research I gathered for my 2007 book, Coming Out of Fundamentalist Christianity, suggests that significant numbers of individuals who identify as homosexual in the United States have been influenced by fundamentalist Christianity at some point in their lives. In the 1980s a number of fundamentalist movements claiming to "cure" individuals of homosexual attraction began to proliferate in this country and are still drawing in men and women from fundamentalist backgrounds who hope to be liberated from same-gender attraction. In countless cases, the "cure" has been psychologically devastating to individuals who have chosen it, and in fact, author Wayne Besen who has researched the "Ex-Gay" movement extensively writes that Ex-Gay therapy is nothing less than scandalous.

Nevertheless, the extent to which fundamentalist Christianity has influenced the American political system is painfully obvious. Without exception, Tea Party candidates are vehemently opposed to homosexual orientation and gay marriage. And although Tea Party candidates vary slightly in their opposition to abortion, illegal immigration, Social Security, unemployment benefits, and Medicare, their intellectually impaired agenda is conspicuously informed by a fundamentalist Christian perspective based on a literal interpretation of the bible and a predominantly Anglo-American perspective of privilege and xenophobia.

Moreover, as we learned last week, atheists and agnostics know more about religion than people who profess to be religious. One finding in the Pew Religious Survey revealed that many of the religious are devoted readers of the bible but, "More than a third (37%) say they read the Bible or other Holy Scriptures at least once a week, not counting worship services. But Americans as a whole are much less inclined to read other books about religion. Nearly half of Americans who are affiliated with a religion (48%) say they "seldom" or "never" read books (other than Scripture) or visit websites about their own religion, and 70% say they seldom or never read books or visit websites about other religions."

Intellectual integrity demands that anyone who embraces any belief system investigates its origin and history. All religions and belief systems have their light and dark sides, but fundamentalist Christians overall tend either to be unaware of the dark side of Christianity or to minimize it. In her stunning 1995 book The Dark Side of Christian History, Helen Ellerbe notes the principal danger in doing so:

Ignoring the dark side of Christian history allows the beliefs which have motivated cruelty to go unexamined. The belief in a singular face of God who reigns at the pinnacle of a hierarchy sustained by fear has devastating consequences. People must constantly determine who is superior to whom. Every aspect which differentiates people whether it be gender, race, belief, sexual preference, or soci-economic status, becomes a criterion by which to rank an individual as either better than or less than another. And it is the ranking and subordination of a person's humanity and value that comprises sexism, racism, and the intolerance of difference. (186-187)

The key word in Ellerbe's assessment is, I believe, cruelty. Any altruism provided to the suffering masses by any belief system is unequivocally mitigated by theological underpinnings which promote racism, sexism, homophobia-and I would add, disregard for the ecosystems. Don't tell me how much good you're doing in the world when you justify your profligate lifestyle by distorting the Old Testament declaration that humans have "dominion" over the earth, when you pathologize people for who they love, when you attempt to rid your country of the "scourge" of illegal immigrants, and when you demand the end of abortion for any reason, including rape and incest, because those are "part of God's plan."

When empires collapse, there are rarely enough scapegoats to go around, and the collapse of industrial civilization is no an exception. The global anger epidemic is real, and rage on the political right in the United States is palpable. Fundamentalist Christians, some of whom are Tea Party candidates, insist that the empire is not collapsing, but instead point to world events and behavior that defies their dogma as proof that the second coming of Christ is imminent and will rescue them from an apocalypse. Thus, their objective is to save as many souls as possible and acquire as much political power as quickly as possible in order to restrain and punish the evildoers. During the process of collapse, previous empires in human history have frequently been replete with acrimonious religious and political sects, escalating violence, scapegoating, and myriad schemes for rescuing a society in tatters from the "bad guys."

So they welcome an apocalypse, but sadly, fundamentalist Christians do not understand that the original meaning of "apocalypse" was "unveiling." Let's see, what exactly is being unveiled? A way of life based on power and control sanctioned by abusive religious dogma; the scapegoating of all who live on the fringes of the despicable paradigm on which industrial civilization is based; the delusional assumption that economic growth is endless or even desirable; the infantile loathing of placing limits on humans in relation to climate chaos, the ecosystems, and all other species that occupy this planet; the implacable determination to rape, plunder, and pillage every centimeter of earth in search of resources and profit? Yes, the bankruptcy of civilization's paradigm is being revealed in its demise, portending the possibility that as humanity stands on the threshold of annihilation, it will forsake the old paradigm and embrace not only a new paradigm but become a new human species.

At the same time that I call out fundamentalist Christianity in order to expose it for what it is, I call out my LGBT sisters and brothers who have been myopically focused on gay marriage and the right to bear or adopt children legally within marriage to question the kind of future your children will have as crises converge. As we champion our rights, we must ask what our responsibilities are. In response to fundamentalism's literal interpretation of the biblical assertion that humans have "dominion" over the earth, we must illumine and counter this distortion of an Old Testament directive to be conscientious stewards of the earth by living accordingly.

As the severity of the convergence of crises exacerbates, we can expect to see more fundamentalist Christians in power and their voices becoming ever more cacophonous and cruel.

So what can be done?

• We can research and prepare for the escalating consequences of the Three E's. A number of resources may be found at my website.
• We can disengage from global and national politics and direct our energy toward local solutions which the Three E's will increasingly force us to address in our neighborhoods and communities.
• We can expose the politics of fundamentalism in all religions, and in the United States, the ghastly misinterpretation of American history by Christian fundamentalists and their doctrine of scapegoating all who do not imbibe the Kool Aid with them.
• As economic collapse intensifies and services and educational programs evaporate, we can reach out as individuals and in our neighborhoods and communities to those targeted by scapegoating-our LGBT brothers and sisters, immigrants, at-risk youth, the unemployed, the homeless, and all who are different from us in every way.

Indeed homophobia and oppressive belief systems are not new, but at this historical juncture, they are escalating in the context of the disintegration of industrial civilization and the paradigm that has fostered it for nearly 5,000 years. This means that their influence is almost guaranteed to intensify and therefore, so too must our response.

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., is the author of Coming Out of Fundamentalist Christianity: An Autobiography Affirming Sensuality, Social Justice and The Sacred (2007) and Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse (2009). She manages the Speaking Truth to Power website at http://www.carolynbaker.net/.

To examine the movie and the movement, consider that organic farming in the Pacific Northwest is increasing by 20-30% each year. Consider also that the number one cause of death among small farmers is suicide. Of course, the latter statistic is not unique to the United States. Physicist and activist, Vandana Shiva, has passionately pointed out the relationship between massive suicides among farmers in India and the amount of debt foisted on them by the influences of industrial agriculture in that nation. However, as David Suzuki in "Good Food" argues: The bill for large agriculture is coming due. I believe that it is coming due not only in terms of these suicides, but in a revolutionary demand for food that is grown locally and organically.

This is remarkable given that organic food just simply costs more. Not using pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals is more expensive, and organic farmers and markets assert that people need to get over the idea that local food should be cheap. But perhaps for the first time since the Great Depression and the Victory Gardens of World War II, people are beginning to make sacrifices in order to eat clean, local, nutritious food. Almost daily we are bombarded with studies that confirm that what we eat dramatically affects our bodies and minds, and unprecedented numbers of individuals are now willing to pay more in order to consume food that protects rather than infects.

Ron Sims, interviewed in "Good Food", who works for King County Government in the Seattle area is adamant that what we eat is an enormous factor in our future health. If we want to reduce the number of people with diabetes and obesity, he says, we have to increase the accessibility of fresh foods in all of our neighborhoods. Thus for King County, eating local is a public health issue, and people are assigned to work on it all the time. Sims also notes that the Washington State Legislature is saying that schools should have preference for locally grown products. If current proposed legislation on this issue is passed, it would be monumental because kids would begin to know the taste of fresh food, rates of obesity would decrease, and a close relationship between local farmers and school districts would be formed which would also enhance King County's economy.

Relationships created by the local food movement are central to its success. Throughout the documentary this theme runs like a red thread from farmers to markets to restaurants to consumers.

One part of the film focuses on the enormous role of Latino farmers and farm workers in producing our food. Hilario Alvarez of Alvarez Family Farms, famous for his jalapeno peppers, is very concerned about the health of his customers and does not want to grow any produce with pesticides or chemicals. Small organic farms are more labor intensive, the documentary reveals, and vast numbers of farm workers are required for planting, tending, and harvesting. If there were no farm workers, there would be no agriculture left in this country says Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community, a development organization in Bellingham, Washington. Malaquias Flores of Washington State University states that the future of agriculture in America is in the hands of Latino farmers. These farmers are some of the best in the world because they bring with them the skills of growing exquisite produce in other countries such as Mexico. In an era of xenophobia regarding illegal immigrants, I believe that we need to consider carefully the vital role of immigrant farm workers in food production and distribution.

Since there are 10 calories of fossil fuel energy in every calorie of food we consume, and since volatility in energy prices and climate change are radically influencing food production and distribution, the only food security we may be able to establish is in local, organic growing. We can perceive this as a threat, or instead, as David Suzuki notes, "Climate change is not all disaster." It's an opportunity to redesign the way we're living and rediscover new values. "What lies at the end," he says, "is a richer, fuller, healthier life."

Doc Hatfield and his family raise cattle in Eastern Oregon. They manage their livestock in a very hands-on way. Because of the way they are managed, the livestock actually improve the land, and their meat is healthier to eat. Small ranchers are a dying breed, but the Hatfields have survived by joining other ranchers in a marketing cooperative. Customers who buy meat raised by these ranchers begin to develop a relationship with them because they appreciate knowing where the meat came from and who raised it. In turn, the ranchers feel as if they have given a part of themselves and their land to customers. Long story short, the locally grown organic food movement is a natural and ingenious way to build community.

But what is it that is drawing people to farmers markets?

Mark Musick of the Tilth Association asserts that it's about the desire to connect with our neighbors and the sources of our food and the land.

In fact, this is precisely why I believe that the local organic food movement is far more than a passing fancy. Rather, I believe its resonance with the American consumer lies deeper than even economics or nutrition. Industrial civilization has created a culture of consumption in which we have traded our desire and need for community for "things". As that civilization can no longer deliver the promises it has made because it is clearly collapsing, and as consumers starved for community experience profound connections with farmers, small markets, animals, and the land itself, the soul of food is becoming as important as its capacity to please the palate and fill our stomachs. Our ancestors experienced the myriad relationships involved in food production on a small, local scale. Until recently, we had lost that sense of relationship-an awareness, however fleeting, that the most heartfelt food chain is not the biological one, but the one that connects us with the community of life on earth.

"Good Food" documents the beginning of a movement--a revolution of relationships, and who knows what economic, political, social, and spiritual reverberations it could engender on this planet.

The producers of "Good Food" may be contacted at: [email protected]This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

U.S. History Uncensored provides well-documented resources beyond traditional textbook material to which the reader can refer to glean additional information about historical events and read for him/herself the primary and secondary sources that are so frequently ignored in college history textbooks.

I'm not Howard Zinn, even though my book has sometimes been referred to as "Zinn on steroids." Dear Howard left us just before the Texas history textbook controversy erupted, and I have no doubt that he's spinning in his grave in response to it.

So is this article a commercial for my book? In a sense yes, but more importantly, it is an urgent appeal to the reader to connect the dots of the rabid agenda perpetuated those who are currently obsessed with revising U.S. history. Why does this matter? Because if you want to conquer a people-any people, one of the first strategies for doing so is to eliminate or distort their history. While the neo-fascist revisionist "historians" would disagree, the fact is that nineteenth-century public education in the United States devised a specific agenda for removing Native American culture from Native children in this country who were forced (often kidnapped and then forced) to attend non-Native schools. Likewise, it was not until the 1960s that African American culture was taught in white schools in America because from the white perspective, the only history worth knowing was white history.

Excise a human being's culture and history from him/her, and you have a human being which you can fashion in any manner you desire.

The revision of U.S. history by the rabid, neo-fascist right in a tragically dumbed-down culture signals the conquest of young minds in service of a particular social and political perspective that indoctrinates them in geopolitical exceptionalism and expansionism, white supremacy, corporate capitalism, and a virulent religionist ideology. In fact all of these are characteristics of political fascism and a society immersed in its principles.

The revision of history did not begin with Nazi Germany, but the Third Reich's success in manipulating German history is a stellar example of revisionist history in the modern world. Later, in the Soviet Union under Stalin, that nation's history was similarly revised. Overall, historical revision emerges from attempts by political minorities to advance their political position or ideology.

Legitimate revision of historical interpretation evolves in many cases because new historical facts have arisen which compel historians to adopt a new perspective. It should be noted, however, that revision is not the same as denial. For example, this past week, Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour asserted that when he was attending high school in Mississippi in the mid-1960s and when attending the University of Mississippi during the same era, race relations were "no big deal." This statement is not an example of revisionist history, but blatant denial of the historical fact of white hot racial tension in the American South during the 1950s and '60s. And in the worst case scenario, people sometimes blatantly lie about history which is beyond either revision or denial. For example Glenn Beck reluctantly admitted that he lied when in his infamous August 28 "Restoring Honor" rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial he stated that he had visited the National Archives and "held in his hand," the original draft of George Washington's Inaugural Address. Turns out that someone showed it to him, but he was never allowed to touch it. Another example of high patriotic and exceedingly manipulative drama.

But are the promotion of ideology or the drive toward political power the only motivations for revising, denying, or lying about history? Absolutely not. In my opinion, a huge motivator is the desire to purge history of illuminating one's own shadowy past. Let's face it, coming to terms with the facts of white European genocide of the Native population on this continent, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the eclipsing of the U.S. Constitution by corporate capitalism and imperialist expansionism--barbaric and shameful realities in our nation's history, is challenging for any American citizen. Conveniently, these are denied, distorted, or completely eliminated in the new fascist history brought to us by largely fundamentalist Christian conservatives.

Moreover, this ideological mangling of U.S. history not only omits the odious aspects of our past but serves to justify them since ideologically speaking, racism, imperialism, sexism, and corporatism have been overwhelmingly embraced by conservative Christianity for the past two millennia. Thus any hint of social justice, a la Liberation Theology is viciously denounced as "un-American" and "socialistic."

A literate and well-informed citizenry would not tolerate the ignorant fabrications and outright lies of conservative Christianity with regard to this nation's history. Had a commitment to scholarship taken precedence over consumerism in our panoply of cultural values in the past century, the new-old fascist history would have been recognized for what it is and would have been resoundingly rejected. In fact, it could be argued that conservative Christianity can only implant itself in the soil of corporate capitalist values, thereby spawning monstrous perceptions of a society's past, present, and future with implacable determination to perpetuate its earth-hating, soul-murdering agenda throughout the farthest reaches of the planet.

As the collapse of public education in the United States exacerbates, parents and educators who are awake and who may well end up with no options for educating children beyond home schooling must educate themselves in American history. They must investigate history beyond what is taught in traditional textbooks, and certainly beyond the ideological mutilation of history by those who seek to proselytize and politicize using a new-old fascist agenda. Otherwise, citizens young and old-of all ethnicities and genders can be manipulated in any direction that serves the whims of religious zealots and political opportunists.

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U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You may be purchased at the Speaking Truth to Power website or at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IUniverse Publishing online.

CB: So Michael, as a subscriber to Truth to Power's Daily News Digest, I know that every day you see the headlines regarding skyrocketing food prices. Can you say a bit about why you think this is happening?

MB: Well, I think what we're seeing with food prices, with spot shortages and commodities in various places around the world is just the beginning of a much larger situation. Fundamentally, what's happening is that as the cost of fossil fuels goes up, then the whole agricultural production system is affected because the whole system is dependent on fossil fuels for fertilizers for fuel, pesticides, and herbicides. The cost of all of these is going up, and we're just now reaching the point where, as the era of cheap fossil fuels ends, and as fossil fuels continue to become increasingly expensive, the entire global industrial agricultural system is going to collapse. We are seeing the very beginnings of that right now, and for most people, especially here in America, it seems very remote, but it will have tremendous impact here in this country within the next two or three years.

CB: What would you say to people who would argue that actually the price of oil has gone down and doesn't seem to be rising much?

MB: Well, the price of oil fluctuates a lot, but the trajectory is steadily upward. Since we've reached the point on the planet where we're beyond Peak Oil, that is, we've burned more than half the oil that's on the planet, it is inevitable that oil from here on out will be harder to get out of the ground and more and more expensive. This is not a bullet we can dodge.

CB: Currently Transition Colorado is working very hard at finalizing your first Eat Local Campaign for Boulder County. You have the Boulder County Commissioners on board and the Boulder City Council as well. Transition Colorado could have chosen to focus on a number of other issues this year. Why is this event so urgent, in your opinion, and what do you hope to accomplish by organizing it?

MB: As we've been emphasizing the need for relocalization and our community's needing to be able to meet our most essential needs locally instead of being dependent on globalized systems, we've seen that the area where we are most vulnerable here in Boulder County is food. At the moment we're spending about $700 million a year on food. From all that we can tell from the limited data that's available, less than 1% of that is being spent on food being grown in Boulder County. That's a tiny, tiny amount. So currently, our food shed, which is kind of like a watershed, stretches across the globe. We're bringing in food from China, South America, Europe, and as the industrial agricultural system begins to fail, we have no choice but to shrink our food shed to be much, much more local. And it looks like we don't have much time to do that. The impact on industrial agriculture will begin to unfold within the next two-three years, so we need to quickly rebuild local food and farming.

Fortunately, there has been a tremendous amount of work done by people like Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Joel Salatin-people who have been working on these issues for years and have helped to educate millions and millions of people about the importance of local, organic food. So there's a great readiness and a rising demand for locally grown, organic food. So what that means is that this is an area where we can have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time. It's not everything that we need to do in terms of relocalization, but it is maybe the most important thing.

There are lots of reasons for this besides needing to meet our food needs locally. There's a benefit to health that comes from local, fresh, organic food. One of the most important but perhaps least recognized issues in the transitioning from an industrial, fossil fuels agricultural system to a localized organic system is that the latter will greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We're beginning to understand now that the way we grow and process our food, the way we ship it-all of that, contributes about 31% to our greenhouse gas emission. So here in Boulder, while there's a lot of effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through pretty advanced climate action plans, there is no discussion of the impact of food and farming and greenhouse gas emission. So this is one area where we can make a huge difference in a very short period of time. And since no one else locally is taking that issue on, we will and we are because we must. This is also an area where Transition initiatives around the country can demonstrate leadership.

CB: This leads me to ask the next question which is: What should individuals be doing in terms of creating their own food security? And what should neighborhoods and communities be doing to create food security for their place?

MB: For a long time now we've been saying that it's a good idea for everyone to learn to grow at least some of their own food. This is something that everyone can do, no matter where they live, even if they live in a high-rise apartment building. They can grow at least some of their food. Initially it's not so much about how much food they might each produce, but it's about learning the skills. It's about reconnecting with the natural processes and cycles of life and beginning to understand soil, how to build it and restore it. These are skills we have become very disconnected from and that will be essential for all of us in the future.

So we think that those kinds of skills are going to be more important to food security than storing up lots of food. We can always grow food. As we're compelled increasingly to eat seasonally again, we're going to have to learn how to preserve food from harvest so that we can consume it during the winter months. So we get to learn all those things like canning, drying food-ways that we can feed ourselves year-round. We've gotten so accustomed to being able to eat whatever we want anytime we want it. We just go to the grocery store. We've become totally dependent on this system, and we've lost those basic skills. That's the more real aspect of food security.

On a neighborhood level, I think one of the most important things we can do is to organize as neighbors to support each other. A lot of people can't have their own gardens. They might be able to have a window box garden or some tomato plants on their porch, but they can't really produce much. But community gardens can easily be organized. Again, it's not so much about the amount that's grown, but rather about the process of people working together and rebuilding those fundamental connections between people. Those kinds of connections have been at the heart of civilization from the beginning, and they have eroded away the last two hundred years or so.

On a broader level within a local food shed, let's say an area of a couple hundred miles or so, such as in Boulder County, we need to focus collectively on greatly increasing food production. 75% of our agricultural land here in Boulder County is being used either for pasture land for animals or to grow crops to feed animals. We need to be using much more of that land to grow food for our own people. Agriculture has gotten focused over the last century on exporting commodity crops to other countries and has totally lost site of the need to feed our own people. We need to reverse that priority and make the purpose of local farming and the whole food system to feed our own people first, then export surplus once those local needs have been met. It's a huge transition we have to go through, but that's ultimately where our food security will come from.

CB: One of the presentations you frequently do is entitled "The Extent of Our Predicament". In a few words, what is the extent of our predicament, and what should we be doing to deal with that predicament?

MB: First of all, what inspired me to talk about this is Gus Speth's book The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability where he concludes that we will never do what is necessary until we understand the full extent of our predicament. So I've been speaking more and more about our predicament in terms of first of all, the end of the age of cheap fossil fuels-the reality that we will never be able to replace the amount of energy we're burning in fossil fuels today and that we will have no choice but to dramatically reduce our energy consumption. That's the first realization that we have to come to.

The second is that climate change is going to change the face of the planet and will certainly change the trajectory of the human presence on the planet, and this will happen much more quickly and much more painfully than almost any of us is willing to think about. But we need to begin. Primarily because of our use of fossil fuels and our profligate burning of fossil fuels, we've unleashed profound changes in our climate that are probably going to give us the equivalent of a species near-death experience. The near-death experiences for many individuals will be a profound wake up call and will produce a shift from an aimless, dissipated, wasted life to a focus on purpose and service. Climate change is likely to be affording us as a species, that kind of opportunity.

The third aspect of our predicament is the reality is that our economic system will not recover but will go into a steeper decline, eventually plunging into an irreversible global depression that will last beyond our lifetimes. Of course, it's because our entire global economic system has been based on cheap fossil fuels and the American dollar. The whole system now is beginning to collapse. So we need to understand that the global systems on which we've come to depend are already failing, and they will fail dramatically in the future. So we have to rebuild from the ground up our capacity to live well, to live meaningfully, in a healthy and productive manner on this planet.

CB: Michael you often speak of the "evolutionary threshold" on which humanity stands in the present moment. What do you mean by this?

MB: I think that where we are as a species and what gives me hope perhaps, is the realization that we are a very young species in the universe. We are living in a time where we are beginning to emerge from our species adolescence into adulthood. It's not a very comfortable time just as is often the case for adolescents when they begin to shift into early adulthood, but that's what's up for us, and as we shift into adulthood, we'll have to live very, very differently. But seeing it that way is very good news because it means that as a species it means that we're not doomed, we're not fatally flawed-it just means that it's time for us to grow up together. Of course, in order to do that, we're going to have to make some pretty significant changes. We're going to have to put behind us our childish way of living, our very selfish way of living, but we certainly have an opportunity to begin to realize the potential and destiny of the human species.

There's no guarantee that we'll make this transition. In fact, there are a lot of reasons to doubt that we'll be able to do this. In our adolescence, the problems we've created for ourselves are so overwhelming that if we don't make the course correction very quickly, the window of opportunity will have passed, and we will not survive. But right now, the window is still open, and if enough people can wake up to our predicament and put into place the basic processes and structures that will enable what's best about the human species-what's the most important, what's the most precious about our species in order to survive beyond this transition, then ultimately humanity will fulfill its purpose and destiny.

CB: Thank you Michael for taking this time to talk about the crucial role of local food and farming. For readers in Boulder County, please attend the Eat Local Campaign. For readers elsewhere, check out the Eat Local website and think about how you might implement a local food and farming campaign in your place.

Michael Brownlee is the Co-Director of Transition Colorado, Boulder County

I share their enthusiasm for profound, bone-marrow transformation of the status quo. Jefferson really was right when he proclaimed that the United States needed a revolution every twenty years. Many of us who were activists during the Vietnam War era were determined to pull off a revolution that would destroy the military industrial complex, institutionalized racism, and the entire capitalist agenda.

Today's visionaries and activists cherish similar hopes, yet I fear that they do not yet grasp the kind of revolution that the planet seems to be asking for. And unlike the revolution we envisioned four decades ago, this one must be in response to the planet and the earth community. From this perspective, I believe there are two kinds of revolution in front of us: The kind that is inappropriate and the kind that is both useful and critical for planetary survival.

Inappropriate Revolutions

The most truly inappropriate revolution would be one based on false assumptions, principally, the notion that political change on a grand scale is meaningful. Pundits of this kind of revolution include all cheerleaders for the Democratic Party and all others who champion the Progressive, left-liberal landscape. These folks are currently obsessing about the November election and agonizing over Tea Party cacophonies. From this perspective, if the far-right were resoundingly defeated by the election of liberal candidates, the nation might be spared from spiraling downward into fascism.

Other well-meaning but naïve proponents of revolution argue that social upheaval and more people in the streets will signal enough distress among the population to provide fertile ground for a political and cultural revolution. While not directly advocating the overthrow of the federal government, these individuals are poised to organize and assume positions of leadership should sufficient unrest unfold.

Inappropriate revolutions tend to focus on widespread global (whether literal or symbolic) measures that will result in mass consciousness raising, mass movements, and mass political and cultural change. This philosophy mirrors "bigger is better" and assumes that significant change only happens when society at large is involved. Models of this kind of revolution in the modern era would be ones such as the Russian Revolution, the Maoist revolution in China, and the Cuban Revolution.

Such revolutions rarely address the emotional and spiritual aspects of social change because for the most part, the possibility that any force greater than the human mind and ego exists is rejected out of hand. A revolution operating from this assumption is by definition, human-centric. Whereas political revolutions may include individuals who care deeply about the ecosystems and argue passionately for stewardship of the earth, their agenda is not fundamentally informed by the earth. Man is still the measure of all things and therefore, given the desired political context, humans can reverse their species' destruction of the planet and engineer something approximating utopia.

So what is an appropriate revolution? And appropriate to what, you may ask.

Appropriate Revolutions

An appropriate revolution is one that is relevant to what is actually needed in the light of human and planetary evolution. It is not primarily political but rather informed by what the earth community is asking for. For example, the earth is not asking for more efficient and accessible healthcare. Rather, it is asking that humans live in such conscious intimacy with the earth that nearly all of humanity's diseases and injuries are prevented as a result of that relationship.

Likewise, the earth is not asking for renewable energy but a cellular level transformation of consciousness regarding how we live on the earth-how we eat, what we wear, the products we use, where we live, where we travel and how.

The earth is not asking for jobs, but rather a painfully honest examination of our purpose in walking on her body in terms of the work that is most beneficial for her and all species that inhabit the planet.

The earth is asking, no pleading, for inhabitants who are willing and eager to live and relate locally in small communities, cooperating with neighbors to replenish what has been stolen from the earth and to enhance the well being of all species.

In his essay, "A Revolution That Is Arising From The Earth", William Kotke states:

We who can read these words are civilized people who have been mentally conditioned by the culture of civilization and the industrial society from birth. We have precepts loaded into our subconscious minds which cause us to see reality in a certain way. To a native Maya person in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, the earth speaks through them. They live integrated with the earth in their everyday energy systems and in their mental attitudes. To them the fact that the earthlife has manifest these living things around us, and us, means that we are children of the Mother Earth and we speak as one of the voices of the earth. To the Maya this is obvious on a deep level. To us it is an interesting intellectual proposition only, because we have been conditioned by a cultural upbringing that filters out this deep understanding and we do not mentally link our life with the life of the living earth.

To the Maya security is the earth and its care. The Maya live with the earth and feed from its natural bounty. Historically for a million years our species has been very successful. We have been adapted to the earth life. We lived within the ecological web and energy flows of the earth. Our traditional migratory patterns carried us over our gathering areas. In the season when the game were fat in one place we went there, when the berries were ripe in another we went there. Our success was adaptation to the life of the earth. We also had a culture that respected the earth and living things. The proposition is simple. We are alive, we live because of the other living things which feed us, we are obligated to respect and encourage those other living things so that we too can live.

In order for these indicators of an appropriate revolution to be actualized, a new kind of human must emerge-a new species with conscious self-awareness that knows-not thinks or feels-that it is not "in harmony" with the earth, but that it is the earth. This knowledge can only be acquired if our species is willing to experience, not theorize, that it originated from something greater and emerged on this planet for the purpose of serving something greater in order to perpetuate its values throughout the earth community and for countless generations in the future.

This revolution has already begun and manifests itself in the mission and work of organizations like Transition, Business Alliance of Local Economies (BALLE), and the permaculture movement. These organizations are about much more than growing organic gardens. One of their principal functions is the revolutionizing of how money works-a revolution without which fundamental change is impossible. They are creating self-sufficiency and resilience in neighborhoods and local communities, both of which may serve as mainstays in the event of infrastructure collapse, food and water shortages, natural disasters, economic devastation, and loss of essential services.

The localization efforts of organizations such as these have far more implications than mere "emergency response" preparation. They will eventually become the new normal as the collapse of industrial civilization exacerbates. The sooner these systems become firmly in place, the more resilient their citizens will be in navigating a world that in a couple of decades may be unrecognizable by current standards. They have evolved not merely out of vision and ingenuity but out of

a palpable sense that a new humanity is in the process of emerging-a humanity that functions optimally not in a global economy or through mass consciousness raising, but through networking and smallness of scale.

So with those who argue that a revolution is desperately needed, I would heartily agree-with the caveat that it must be an appropriate one, skillfully moving in response to the earth and the evolutionary threshold on which humans stand. It must focus on building vibrant and discerning communities who will keep ears and hearts to the ground, listening for what the earth is asking of them.

In closing this piece, I must notice that three years ago on the Speaking Truth to Power website, I wrote in depth about the fallacy of placing confidence in Barack Obama as the candidate who would "revolutionize" the United States. I was called cynical, narrow-minded, and hopelessly pessimistic. Three years later I am hard-pressed to find anyone who is enthusiastic about the record of President Obama or the likelihood that if he has a clue about anything, he would actually abdicate his Goldman-Sachs designed throne and implement the platform of "change" on which he ran for office. Even if he were to do so, there is no money for such an agenda, and a cataclysmic Gulf Oil disaster has become an unimaginable game-changer.

All of this only validates my premise that local action, self-sufficiency, and taking charge of issues in one's community are the essential ingredients of revolutionary change rather than dependence on a distant President and Congress, bought and orchestrated by the very system that is annihilating the earth community. Do not take my word for it. Research for yourself what the three organizations mentioned above have accomplished in the last three years. If you still insist on calling me cynical, I would argue that the definition of that word completely escapes you.

About one year after Barack Obama became President, I noticed on one radical left website the words "the ‘hopium' is wearing off." While the majority of Americans believe that Obama is a better President than George W. Bush, Jr., it has now become painfully obvious that Obama's leadership has offered little divergence from the policies of the Bush administration. In the throes of what can only be described honestly as the Second Great Depression, Americans suffering from a deluge of unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies, loss of health insurance and retirement savings have not yet fully confronted their despair. They pretend that a return to unlimited growth and delirious consumerism is possible and even likely in the long term, but all the while, just beneath the surface of that chimera the demon of despair is growing increasingly restless and ominous.

Despair moves us to confront existential questions, and let's remember that that big word isn't just a philosophical term but directly refers to our existence. Existential questions are questions of meaning and purpose-questions about the human condition such as: Why do the innocent suffer? Why do those who commit brutal acts so often go unpunished? If there is a God, why do these things happen? Why am I here?

Despair also brings us face to face with an emptiness that is at our core, regardless of how fulfilled and serene we feel. And while some theologians would assert that the emptiness is a God-shaped void that only religion can fill, I would argue that the emptiness cannot be filled by anyone or anything because it is a fundamental reality of the human condition. However, I hasten to add that the pain of the void can be minimized in a variety of ways.

Citizens of industrial civilization have attempted for centuries to fill the void by cherishing the delusions of unlimited growth, unbridled progress, the acquisition of material wealth, the sanctity of the family, the piety of organized religion, the status of obtaining advanced degrees, and of course, the use of substances to obviate or medicate the sensation of emptiness. As civilization continues to deteriorate, and as fewer and fewer options for filling the void are available, the masses will be brutally confronted with their own despair. When the people, things, and activities that have provided meaning for them throughout their lives no longer exist, we are likely to witness madness and suicide on an unprecedented scale. I state this, dear reader, not to incite fear, but to prepare us for a milieu of chaos resulting from a pandemic of meaninglessness as nearly all of that which has provided meaning for so many is swept away.

What is more, I realize that anyone reading these words may be at times overwhelmed with despair. This is difficult to avoid when contemplating the scale of horror that humans have inflicted on the planet in terms of wars, resource depletion, environmental devastation, and innumerable forms of injustice and brutality. Unless one lives a hermetically sealed life, one encounters these realities daily.

When I first published Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, I was afraid that it would be reviled at the worst and virtually ignored at best. While it is true that it did not and will not become a best-seller, I have been astounded at the book's success and the comments I have received from readers. Consistently they report that Sacred Demise profoundly lowered their level of despair by catalyzing a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. In most cases, readers completed the book, or re-read it, and took away a palpable appreciation of the demise and what is truly sacred about it.

As I engage with collapse-aware individuals and communities throughout the world, what I consistently hear is the profound alienation they feel in a world unraveling. We all have personal wounds that evoke despair, but as psychotherapist Miriam Greenspan notes in her book, Healing Through The Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear and Despair, "Despair grows not only out of our personal wounds, losses, and disappointments, but also out of our needs for community and a shared sense of meaning-spiritual necessities for which we harbor a profound and aching, though largely unconscious, nostalgia."

Greenspan also notes that often our personal despair will not let up until we confront our despair for the world. You may be familiar with Joanna Macy's despair and empowerment workshops, designed to help people face their despair and create community with others who are engaged in similar work. Macy believes that despair is to be trusted because it is a natural, visceral response to a planet in crisis inhabited by beings who are committing suicide.

Generally, the psychotherapy profession does not address despair for the world. In fact, if you were to walk into a therapist's office and say that you feel grief and despair for the world, you are likely to be labeled depressed, paranoid, phobic, or pathologized in some other way, presented with myriad reasons why your despair is unwarranted in a world so full of glorious potential, and probably asked to consider taking an antidepressant. It is likely that unless you consult a therapist who is fully informed regarding the coming chaos, you will need to find support from other individuals similarly informed and share your feelings about the future with them.

Joanna Macy speaks to this directly:

But because of the individualistic bias of mainstream psychotherapy, we have been conditioned to assume that we are essentially separate selves, driven by aggressive impulses, competing for a place in the sun. In the light of these assumptions, psychotherapists tend to view our affective responses to the plight of our world as dysfunctional and give them short shrift. As a result, we have trouble crediting the notion that concerns for the general welfare might be genuine enough and acute enough to cause distress. Assuming that all our drives are ego-generated, therapists tend to regard feelings of despair for our planet as manifestations of some private neurosis.

This is precisely why in recent months I have begun a Transition Counseling practice, which some people have called "Collapse Coaching", that offers people an opportunity to share their feelings about the future and receive support and practical input regarding preparation. I believe that increasingly we will need this kind of coaching in our communities as the wheels fly off of a civilization dependent on cheap fossil fuels for its operation and the illusion of endless growth and consumption for its motivation.

When we do not acknowledge despair, it reinforces our tendency toward numbness, the preferred "feeling state" of most citizens of modern culture. If we remind ourselves that emotion has the word motion in it, and if we consciously allow the despair, yes even dialog with it, asking it what it wants from us, we may find that it is indeed an ally.

In reality, despair presents us with an opportunity to enhance our sense of meaning and purpose. As Greenspan states: "Despair is faith's darker handmaiden. There is no faith without doubt and despair, just as there is no good without evil, no day without night. To be authentic, faith must be all-inclusive-encompassing Auschwitz as much as it encompasses paradise." If you bristle at the word faith, feel free to replace it with meaning, purpose, inspiration, or some other word.

The human psyche is extremely comfortable in the territory of despair. For this reason, we need to trust our despair and allow it to guide us to the transformation that is waiting to happen within us. We also need to remember that we feel our despair in the context of a world that is withering and a species that is rushing headlong toward extinction. Our personal despair and the wider story of despair cannot be separated. This does not mean that we stay stuck in blame and abdicate personal responsibility where it should be claimed. What it does mean, however, is that suffering is both personal and collective, and that the latter is larger than our personal egos. It may be that despair is a catalyst not only for our personal transformation, but also that of our species.

Thus arises another opportunity to remind us all that service in the world is often an excellent antidote to despair. Service can give our lives meaning and help place our personal story in the context of the larger story of a civilization that has reached its growth limits and is currently in demise. However, we do not need to reach our limits of soul growth as individuals. In fact, the more we acknowledge our limitations of material growth, acquisition, and control, the more expansive our souls are likely to become, and service frequently enhances the process.

Yet another tool for soothing our despair is to follow the example of Wendell Berry in his beautiful poem which opens this article. In it he states that when despair for the world grows in him, he consciously enters nature and allows it to comfort him so that for a time, he can rest in the grace of the world and experience himself as free. Yet it is not only comfort he receives but the "peace of wild things." But how can "wild" be synonymous with "peaceful"? Isn't wild unpredictable and therefore anxiety-producing? Could this actually be one of the most important antidotes to despair: Wild, unpredictable, capricious, even dangerous? Is not part of our death-like despair the lack of wildness? Psychologist Bill Plotkin states in Nature And The Human Soul that "Something in us is truly wild and wants to stay that way through our entire life. It is the source of our deepest creativity and freedom."

I want to underscore Wendell Berry's advice. I am blessed to live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado. Recently, I have committed to journeying twice a month into the mountains and spending sacred time in some isolated places there. It may be as short as one hour or as long as an entire day. While I have taken many extended trips into the mountains earlier in my life, having lived at the foot of Pikes Peak in my late-twenties, I now journey into the mountains more contemplatively and for shorter periods of time.

My intention when taking these short trips is exactly the same as Wendell Berry's. I go in order to "rest in the grace" that is there. It is a comforting, soothing, inspiring, and restorative experience. However, without exception, grief comes, whether I invite it or not. It is quite simply, ever-present these days as I allow myself to become intimate with nature--and I give my grief to the earth. Sometimes I do it by lying face down on the earth and sobbing. Sometimes by standing with my back pressed firmly against a towering pine tree and feeling its strength coursing through my body until I break into laughter. Sometimes by sitting in the soil and sifting it tenderly through my fingers as tears of both sorrow and joy flow.

Part of me realizes that it is only a matter of time until the lush landscape into which I have immersed my body and soul will be destroyed by climate change. In Colorado, this is already happening with the death of incalculable numbers of trees infected by the pine beetle. Another part of me is also keenly aware of the earth's magnificent history of regenerating herself. The very elements of nature in which I revel on these journeys are remnants of the earth that have been destroyed in eons past. Perhaps in a million years, the landscape in which I sit, that may be destroyed in my lifetime, will metamorphose into another lovely landscape or other elements that will provide comfort and revitalization for some other members of the earth community.

Somehow, when I return from my short mountain getaways, I am buoyed; I feel some distance from my despair for the world, and I am renewed in body and soul. It is as if I have spent hours communing intimately with a dear friend. And even as I return to the low-intensity urban community in which I live, my "friend" remains in my heart. She is still up there in the mountains, and I can return to her, but more importantly, she is in my body, and I take her with me as I do the work I came here to do. Even if she is made extinct, she is within me, and her palpable sacred presence within cannot be made extinct. I am exhilarated by her effervescent, wild fecundity, and my despair recedes. I feel my wildness; industrial civilization has not killed it because my wildness inspires me to find meaning in the madness of a collapsing world. And it compels me to write these words and to invite you to immerse yourself in your wildness, as well as your gifts of service, because when you do, it will be impossible to be driven by despair.

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This article is an excerpt from Carolyn's forthcoming book Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Toolkit For Inner Transition which will contain a treasure-trove of exercises and resources of emotional and spiritual preparation for an uncertain future.

In October, 2010, Carolyn will lead a 2-day workshop in Boulder, Colorado on "Sacred Demise and The Soul of Transition". For more information, contact [email protected]

In some spiritual and psychological circles we often hear unambiguous proscriptions against the emotion of anger. However, in many indigenous traditions, anger is not experienced with the same suspicion one finds in Western psycho-spiritual circles. While ancient teachings regarding anger do not condone aggression, they do not unequivocally assume that feeling the emotion of anger will lead to hostility or violence. In fact, they tend to revere anger as an innate human emotion which may be utilized on behalf of the earth community without inflicting harm. Ancient teachings often include practices for "uploading" the raw emotion of anger to higher chakras or physiological energy centers on behalf of preserving boundaries or protecting the innocent-both of which are characteristics of the non-aggressive warrior.

Anger is one of the Five Stages of Grief articulated by the death and dying researcher, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. As I noted in Sacred Demise, in the context of those stages, anger shows up in reaction to a loss. First we feel shock and denial, then move into anger which may include frustration, anxiety, irritation, embarrassment, and shame. Subsequently, we move into depression and grief, followed by bargaining, then acceptance and re-investment in our lives. As Kubler-Ross emphasizes, none of the stages are neatly detached from the others. We tend to move through them fluidly, with each stage somewhat blurring into the next stage or containing remnants of the last one.

In the process of preparing emotionally to navigate the coming chaos, it is crucial to examine each stage of grief, to note where we have been in the process, to look at where we are in the moment, and to honor each emotion along the way. Many people today are stuck in anger because they have not allowed themselves to move through it into mindful grieving. In fact, I believe that the United States, and many nations throughout the world are currently mired in anger. In 2009, author and spiritual teacher Caroline Myss, stated in her article "An Epidemic of Global Anger": "We are a community of nations on fire with anger. And we are getting angrier by the day. Whether we look at the increase in uprisings occurring around the world or at the escalating tension brewing in America, what is becoming more apparent is that we are witnessing a rapidly increasing rate of global anger, so much so that it qualifies as an epidemic."

Many Americans are enraged at their government. Some who have been researching the demise of the current paradigm and understand the self-destructive aspects of corporate capitalism, the limits of economic growth, and the unsustainability of a civilization dependent on fossil fuels feel angry because their leaders refuse to acknowledge what is so. As their minds have been awakened, so have their emotions, and anger has been part of the process. But as they have come to understand that industrial civilization itself is collapsing, they are likely to have stopped wanting to repair and improve it and have begun to entertain a larger picture of how they could join with allies in constructing a new paradigm and a new culture.

It is likely that for these individuals, anger metamorphosed into deep grief or despair as a feeling of powerlessness to "fix" civilization set in. Implicit in the emotion of anger is the sense that something can or must be done to alter the that has evoked anger. As one comes to understand the inevitability of the unraveling of industrial civilization and the futility of attempting to prevent it, one may in fact experience a sense of relief that collapse is beyond control and proceeds in its own way, in its own time. One grasps that our mandate as a species is to move with the demise, not against it, and find within the unraveling a greater purpose than the one civilization has offered, proceeding with the work we came here to do. At that point, even though we may carry some residue of denial or anger, and even though our willingness to see what is so puts us directly in the path of deep grief, the embrace of our purpose and our role in the collapse process, is in itself a re-investment in our lives and the well being of the earth community.

However, the individuals I have just been describing do not comprise the vast majority of those in the United States or the world who are fixated in anger because they are also fixated in denial. One cannot move through the Five Stages of Grief if one does not move beyond denial. Refusing to see what is so guarantees that the journey through the stages will not occur. So whether one is an enraged Muslim suicide bomber or a vitriolic white, middle class Tea Party enthusiast, one's emotional state and behavior belie an inordinately diminished perspective of reality, resulting in a desperate need for vituperative scapegoating. In other words, fixation in anger.

The Mary Oliver poem above about loving the world which in part means reveling in the sensual delight of nature which means becoming "accustomed to savoring that which is momentous, concealed within bare bones simplicity." It also means a profound gratitude which the poem describes as "mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here." The world has given us stupendous gifts which Oliver says causes her to "stand still and learn to be astonished."

But does our gratitude for the world mean that we should never be angry about the injustice or self and eco-destruction its inhabitants have perpetrated upon each other and the earth community? Certainly not, but being deeply connected with our purpose in the world provides perspective that buoys us and allows us to keep moving forward when the magnetic pull to become fixated in anger may feel irresistible.

When we are intimately familiar with our purpose, we understand that the world is not paradise, it is not a vacation resort, and it is not a place to which we have come to live in perpetual bliss. Rather, the world is comprised of both the magnificent wonderment and extraordinary beauty depicted by Mary Oliver as well as the horrors engineered by a species about to become successful in its incalculable attempts to commit suicide.

Author and spiritual teacher, Marshall Vian Summers, writes in his book Greater Community Spirituality:

Be without judgment of the world. If the world were a perfect place, you would not need to come here. If the world were a place that functioned harmoniously, without friction or conflict, this would not be the place for you....The world is your place to work and to give. Its pleasures are small but real. Its pains and difficulties are great. The world cannot give you what you seek, for what you seek you have brought with you from beyond the world.

That which we have brought with us from beyond is something greater than our personality or human ego. Summers refers to it as Knowledge, and others use terms like the sacred, spirit, the Self, the divine within. However we choose to name that part of ourselves, it comprises our core. I believe that the more intimately familiar we are with it, the less we expect from the world, and the more we are willing to serve the world in order to imbue it with the sacred. Loving the world, as Oliver names it, is not about sentimental emotion, but about a commitment to the work we came here to do which by definition, serves the earth community.

The mathematical cosmologist, Brian Swimme, in his extraordinary lecture series, "The Powers of The Universe"clearly articulates this concept. Cataclysm, he notes, is one of the inherent powers of the universe, and "it is currently happening on our planet. The choice before us is whether we will participate consciously." Participating means that "as all the structures that are destroying the earth are collapsing, they are releasing us into the essential nature of who we are." While this awareness does not remove our anger or our anguish, it brings us face to face with the deeper meaning of the collapse of industrial civilization and our purpose in it.

I believe that the world of the future will be a chaotic world which will be, among other things, an angry world, especially in the initial stages of the demise of the current civilization. In a December, 2009 article "America The Traumatized" , Adele Stan argues that a series of events that occurred in the first decade of the twenty-first century have made us a PTSD nation--and that was before the BP oil disaster of 2010. Until we understand trauma and post-traumatic stress, the need to blame the traumatizing event or person(s) who inflicted it is exceedingly compelling. When we do grasp the magnitude of trauma and its consequences, we come to understand how futile is our rage in the face of an inundation of horror.

I write these words more than two months after the BP Gulf of Mexico cataclysm. Am I angry as I witness the horror? Am I enraged at the lies of BP with regard to its prior knowledge regarding the safety of the Deepwater Horizon rig? Am I livid when I hear the stories of people who tried to warn the corporation that its bypassing of standard international safety regulations would result in catastrophe? Does white hot rage pulse through my body as I witness BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, taking a yachting trip and begging to "get his life back" as the entire world lays the blame for this debacle at his door and as the entire ecosystem is now in the path of the destruction visited upon it by a multitude of corporations and CEO's of BP's and Tony Hayward's ilk? Am I incensed when I see millions of people immersed in an epic blame-fest, pointing fingers and mouthing incessant sentences beginning with "they shoulda, coulda, woulda"?

The answer to all of those questions is a resounding "yes", and from the moment the catastrophe was first made public, I realized the probable scope of it, and I saw the word t-r-a-u-m-a writ large all over it. What purpose at this point will my anger serve? How could I be seduced by the inherent assumption in my anger that the there is a possibility that the situation can be remedied? In my opinion, the BP oil disaster of 2010 is nothing less than 100 Hurricane Katrinas in slow motion. It is an unfathomable game-changer-perhaps the tipping point in humanity's destruction of this planet. As I witness countless animals dripping and dying from disgusting quantities of crude oil resembling raw sewage suffocating their bodies; as I consider that perhaps 40-50% of the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico will soon be covered with petroleum; as I reflect on the spread of the spill into other oceans and the death of plankton and the ultimate devastation of the food chain; as I consider the economic devastation of a section of the country that comprises about 20 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, and as I speculate that perhaps the entire Gulf Coast region may become uninhabitable, I see, hear, and feel nothing but trauma. Furthermore, if the entire population of the United States were not already suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, it is now.

Yet what I have personally discovered about my anger over the years is neither that I shouldn't have anger or that I should discharge it whenever I feel like it, but rather, to approach my anger mindfully. A stellar article by Holistic Psychologist, Jennifer Franklin, entitled "Mindfulness In Practice: Anger Management" defines mindfulness this way: "To be mindful is to be conscious, more awake, more informed about how one lives one's life.

Being more mindful, therefore, allows us to make more awake or informed choices in every moment. Our words and actions would be more mindful if we were more awake or conscious in those moments in which when we choose them." According to psychotherapist Richard Pfeiffer, quoted in the article, anger is a neurological response process that essentially prepares us to fight or flee.

We have many options for creating more mindfulness within ourselves. Meditation is, of course, one of the principal tools for strengthening mindfulness, even if the meditation is not the specific technique called "mindfulness meditation." It is important to remember that mindfulness isn't so much about becoming mindful of the world around us, although that generally accrues from a meditation practice, but rather, mindfulness is about being mindful of ourselves. It helps us become centered observers of our own process.

For example, the Dr. Franklin's article offers the classic example of road rage and how it can be handled mindfully instead of reactively:

When you exercise mindfulness, you exercise non-reactivity or the capacity to stay centered, grounded, and unshaken in response to a stimulus. Now, don't confuse non-reactivity with non-feeling. Let's use road rage as an example. You're driving, and someone cuts you off, and in response to being cut off you flip the driver the bird. You've just behaved reactively.

Contrast that with what non-reactivity would look like in that scenario: You are cut off by the driver, and rather than focusing your attention on the event itself, you focus it on you. You focus it on the sensations you are feeling in your body, most likely a fast heart rate, perhaps a tightness in the chest, or constricted breathing. Then you shift your attention to your breathing, sending the breath into the parts of your body that are feeling the anger-your heart, your chest-wherever it is for you. In the time it took you to do this exercise, you never even thought about flipping the driver the bird because you were too busy focusing on your reaction; that driver has probably gone on his or her merry way by now. This is non-reactivity.

Non-reactivity allows us to feel all of our feelings but not react to them. We feel them until we organically feel something else or until we decide mindfully, with awareness and choicefulness, that either we want to focus on something else or we want to act.

As I sit with the BP disaster, other emotions course through my body-deep, deep grief; fear, despair, and helplessness, and I have to wonder about the emotions of the earth itself. And since I believe that Gaia is a living, breathing organism, I must correct my use of "the earth itself" and state unequivocally that I believe she must be very, very angry. Within the past two years prior to the BP disaster, we have witnessed what many believe is an unprecedented number of natural disasters. Although officials from the U.S. Geological Survey insist that the number of earthquakes has not increased in recent years, many question that conclusion. Is Gaia "working through" her Five Stages of Grief? And if she is angry, what might she do next?

Perhaps those questions feel too anthropocentric to the reader, so I refer to the natural process of homeostasis which is "the ability of a system or living organism to adjust its internal environment to maintain a stable equilibrium." When a system is out of balance, some internal process attempts to adjust the imbalance and return it to a state of balanced functioning.

In a 2008 interview with C-Realm Podcast, Albert Bartlett, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of The Essential Exponential for Our Planet, stated, regarding population and unlimited growth, "If we don't stop it now, then Nature will stop it through a big die-off." Bartlett argues that population and growth spell annihilation for the planet if humans do not radically change their ways of occupying our planet.

One might argue that if Bartlett's theory is so, it is all a matter of simple physics and that speaking of earth's anger is pure anthropocentrism. Yet the distinguished doctor of medicine and biophysics, James Lovelock, who penned the book The Revenge of Gaia, argues in that work, as he does in many places, that humans have created out-of-control global warming and climate change which are now wreaking revenge on our species. Lovelock too may be indulging in rampant anthropocentrism, but if the earth itself has conscious self-awareness, both Bartlett and Lovelock may be onto something.

While we cannot validate with certainty earth's anger, we can certainly attest to our own in the face of humanity's devastation of the ecosystem. And while I do not concur with some in the field of psychology who argue that anger isn't really a fundamental human emotion but a kind of mask for other feelings such as fear and grief, I do believe that in the case of our anger toward members of our species who are committing ecological suicide, it is crucial that we connect with our grief and terror regarding the state of the planet and the dire consequences of the project of industrial civilization which we are now beginning to experience.

In the short term, anger may be useful in motivating us to act-to prepare for the coming chaos, to help raise the awareness of others, and to inspire others to prepare, but if we allow ourselves to fully grasp the calamitous reality of the future into which we are moving, I believe that our anger will soon be eclipsed by fear, grief, and despair. My forthcoming book, Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Toolkit for Inner Transition, provides an extensive array of options for utilizing all emotions we might encounter in a world unraveling in order to sustain and protect ourselves.

Among the myriad reactions I hear to the BP disaster from the folks with whom I interact, the one that overshadows all others is anguish. We hold hands across the sand and bodies of water, we pray, and we talk to our friends, but fundamentally, we are absolutely powerless to remedy or reverse what occurred on April 20. We knew our planet was in a state of full-blown collapse, but we didn't expect it to unfold this way. As one friend recently said to me, "It's just a matter of time now." I could have said, "Until what?" but I long ago learned not to ask questions I already know the answer to. My friend and I could just as well have been standing on the deck of the Titanic having the same conversation.

In an angry, chaotic world, it will be important for us to read the deeper emotions that underlie the rage we are likely to see erupting in society and in our communities. We will need to fortify ourselves emotionally and logistically from the collateral damage that myriad wounded-animal outbursts from others could inflict upon us, and even more importantly, not allow our egos to succumb to the momentary pleasure our own indulgence in rage might afford. At the same time we validate the rage our fellow humans feel, our compassion must penetrate the vitriol and understand the shipwreck that any human soul might become after years of sailing the waters of dogged denial and unwarranted faith in the American dream. If you are reading these words, it is likely that you have awakened from the dream or are in the process of doing so. Millions more never have and never will. How will we hold all of our emotions in the face of the rage their sense of betrayal will evoke in them? How will we go on loving the world?

**Portions of this article are excerpted from Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Toolkit For Inner Transition, By Carolyn Baker,  which will be submitted for publication in the fall of 2010.

More recently, Callahan has published Directing The Power of Conscious Feelings: Living Your Own Truth (Hohm Press, 2010) This book is nothing less than an encyclopedia of emotional healing, offering a "biblio-boot camp" of preparation for the collapse of industrial civilization and the Next Culture that might emerge from it. I highly recommend the book, and although I have not experienced any Next Culture trainings, they appear to complement all that I have written and taught about the inner transition necessary for navigating the coming chaos.

In recent years, writers such as myself and Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, Richard Heinberg, Michael Meade, Malidoma Some, Joanna Macy, and others have written extensively about the infantalization of the citizens of empire and have suggested that rites of passage or an initiatory process is needed in order for us to become responsible adults who accept and live within the limits of our planet. Callahan adds:

Modern culture is a child level responsibility culture, far below adult level. Modern society does not require that a person grow up prior to being given (or allowed to take) positions of responsibility...Our society makes messes without having consciousness of, or taking responsibility for, the consequences of those messes.

The example Callahan gives is the corporate practice of "externalizing costs", but a more timely and poignant example is quite simply, the worst manmade environmental disaster in the history of the United States, created by the BP Corporation, now turning the Gulf of Mexico into a giant dead zone-an event which will soon have unfathomable ramifications globally. In a child's world, there are no worries about cleaning up messes. Caretakers (governments and taxpayers) exist in order to provide the child everything it wants and needs, and if messes are made in the process, then it is the caretaker's job to clean them up.

Yet few who have addressed infantalization have offered a specific path for the journey from it to adulthood. While Callhan has no formula for this, he asserts that the principal rite of passage from emotional immaturity to maturity is the capacity to consciously, constructively work with one's feelings, directing the power of feelings in service of the entire earth community. In Directing The Power of Conscious Feelings, he validates what most of us have felt all of our lives regarding our feelings in relation to modern culture, namely that none of them are acceptable.

Many of us have experienced that feeling sadness, fear, or anger in this culture is threatening to others, so we keep those feelings in check, preferring to share them only with trusted others. Yet even joy in the culture of empire is unacceptable.

Recently, I was speaking with a friend who had just returned from a visit with her son who is in his late-twenties and works as an executive with a major transnational corporation. My friend has done a great deal of work on feelings and appropriately expressing them. In a conversation with her son, she verbally expressed her sadness about something in her life, and he responded with, "Could we not have any drama today?" The next day she mentioned feeling angry about something that had nothing to do with her son, at which point, he said, "You know, I'm really tired of your drama."

I share this story because as Callahan clearly demonstrates, the ideal in the culture of empire is a state of numbness. No feelings--sorrow, fear, anger, and even joy, are acceptable. People are esteemed for abiding in a state of numbness which is defined as sane, stable, and even-tempered. While following the recent oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there was a public outcry for President Obama to become outraged regarding the devastation BP had created, but the ideal perpetuated by political pundits and advisors was for Obama to remain "cool-headed". They and the President knew that any passionate display of any emotion would result in a decrease in popularity and a perception of him as "irrational." The desired and only acceptable state in the culture of empire is numbness, and any variation from it is frequently perceived as "drama."

Curiously, Callahan talks about drama in the book but uses the term "low drama" to describe any action that is designed to avoid responsibility. Actions like this are legion, but we could say that any time we avoid feeling our feelings, we are engaging in low drama because the abdication of responsibility begins with numbness.

The author inspires us with the term "next culture", also the name of his website, and gives us a glimpse of what that culture might look like in terms of how people relate to their feelings and to each other. He uses the term "archearchy" to describe a culture that is not dominated by the masculine principle or the feminine, but by both. As he says, it is "a new and truly sustainable culture, oriented more toward being present and being with, and less toward consuming, owning, having, going, and doing."

Directing The Power of Conscious Feelings is filled with diagrams, charts, illustrative photos, and "maps" which make the book remarkably reader-friendly and beautifully clarify the author's concepts in no-nonsense fashion. My favorite is a map comparing the attributes of modern culture and the next culture which contrasts the essential mottos of both cultures and leaves us with: "Human cultures are so immature. Can you grow up?"

By the time the reader reaches this point in the book he/she will have been given a treasure-trove of tools for boarding the ship of feelings and steering it in the direction of a new culture that cannot be realized without conscious emotional, and I would add, spiritual, preparation. I believe that these tools constitute a profound rite of passage for non-indigenous people and provide a structure for psychospiritual maturation.

The work Callahan offers us doesn't look easy, but it does look amazingly rewarding. The time to begin that work is not when we are in the throes of the collapse of life as we have known it, but now, as we create all manner of lifeboats for navigating inner, as well as outer transition.

Clinton Callahan may be contacted at the Callahan Academy at: clinton(@)callahan-academy.com

I disagree and feel adamant about using the term for a number of reasons. In the first place, I am an historian, and as I endeavor to make sense of human history, I notice that monumental changes do not occur in one fell swoop, but over time through a variety of stages. Personally, I am deeply involved in the Transition movement, and I am also strongly aligned philosophically with individuals such as Joanna Macy and David Korten who frequently use the words Great Turning. I could not agree more that in the larger scheme of the unprecedented changes we are navigating, a Great Turning is indeed occurring. However, I believe that it is crucial to hold both the larger picture and the current predicament in our consciousness simultaneously in order to remain effectively present in this moment, as well as in a state of preparation and anticipation for a more redemptive future.

What is more, the Great Turning/Transition is a process, and like all processes, each stage is important. While it is tempting to minimize the stages in favor of our natural human longing for the desirable end result, we may actually jeopardize our appreciation of the destination by refusing to be present with each segment of the journey. The stage in which we happen to find ourselves at this present moment is the collapse of every institution within industrial civilization. I challenge anyone reading these words to give an example of one institution that is not in a state of obvious, irrevocable decline. While in the larger scheme of things, we are in Transition and also experiencing a Great Turning, we are profoundly in the early stages of a shattering unraveling such as our planet has never experienced in human history. That must not be minimized.

In addition, inhabitants of industrial civilization who have not yet understood its consequences seem particularly averse to the word "collapse". Unlike millions of indigenous and dispossessed peoples throughout the world who have been unconscionably devastated by it, their identities remain invested in the false security that it promises and the hope that the next two or three decades will somehow deliver an extension of what life in present time is like. Therefore, I believe that coming to terms with the reality of myriad, ubiquitous forms of collapse in the first decade of this century is imperative. Long term, a great turning is occurring, and we are in transition, yet we have only to observe the breathtaking changes that have transpired in the past three years to notice an undeniable unraveling of this civilization. A collapse by any other name is nevertheless a collapse.

Within the human psyche reside many themes, including death and rebirth. The two always travel together without exception because both are integral aspects of the human story. Attempt to minimize or eliminate one, and you invariably minimize or distort the other. We all wish to be "in" the later stages of the Great Turning, but we aren't, period. We are where we are, and where we are is painful, sad, frightening, enraging, uncertain, and yes, dark. Who would not wish to be basking in the light of the journey's end or near-end? Who would not prefer to look in the rear view mirror (oops, I use an expression from pre-Peak Oil days) and see clearly that we have come through the ordeal, and we are now on the other side of it--free to live out the new paradigm in all of its promise? We can hardly contain our elation as we contemplate that possibility, right?

But we are not in that stage of the journey yet; we have just begun. Our work now is to be present with what is, even as we hold the larger vision in our hearts. To be present means to be willing to look, and the beautiful thing about being present in this moment is that we can utilize all of the qualities of our deliciously imagined future to buoy us in the here and now. In fact, as I emphasize repeatedly in Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, without savoring and practicing those attributes moment to moment, we cannot endure the future emotionally or spiritually.

Notice I said cannot. I am profoundly frightened for the numbers of people I meet who are highly collapse-aware, but who are doing nothing to prepare emotionally and spiritually. Without that preparation, they are extremely vulnerable to breaking down; with it, they are more likely to break through.

The proper response to death is respect and ritual. Respect literally means "to look again." When people die, we review their lives and renew our appreciation for their contributions and accomplishments. We create rituals to honor those and to express our gratitude for their presence in our lives. Ritual simply means "to fit together" which is to say, we reconnect the broken, separated pieces and in doing so attempt to find meaning in the experience. Given the Great American Death Phobia, this culture is particularly challenged in its capacity to respect death as a part of life and find meaning in it. I believe this may be the principal reason for resistance to words like collapse or unraveling.

What is most challenging for us to hold in the throes of the magnitude of the current oil spill, in the face of being daily deluged with increasingly frightening information about climate change, witnessing around us the beginning of the obliteration of world financial markets and possibly the end of money as we have known it, witnessing the extinction of species at previously unimaginable rates, finding ourselves surrounded with unrelenting natural disasters-this, all of this IS the Great Turning. And at the same time, in this moment, it also IS the collapse of industrial civilization.

Who would not want to be reveling in rebirth? Yet rebirth does not, cannot occur, without death. In present time we may feel marinated in death as its ubiquitous presence threatens to overwhelm us. It is as if we are being asked to walk through a war zone, witnessing around us the fallen everywhere and not knowing if we ourselves will survive. And we my wonder, why can't we just get to the other side and as Thomas Paine said, "begin the world all over again"?

It may be that our species, tortured and toxified by industrial civilization as it has been, is incapable of beginning the world all over again without having lived through the ghastly consequences of what unprecedented growth and disconnection from the earth invariably produce. Perhaps we need this death in order to mould, shape, treasure, and protect the new life we ache to create.

In present time, what we can do with the unraveling is honor and respect what everything that is dying has given us. We can creatively construct rituals that erupt out of our hearts and out of the earth, acknowledging what the oceans, the land, the animals, and all other treasures of this beautiful planet have provided. We can thank and bless them, and we can invite our loved ones to join and co-create rituals with us.

Above all, it appears that we are being asked to allow our old way of life to die. Something in us is dying as we walk through the war zone. Something in us is dying with maybe as much as 100,000 gallons of oil being released daily into the Gulf of Mexico, now slithering into the loop current of the Atlantic Ocean. Something in us is dying with all the life that this cataclysm is extinguishing. Perhaps we need that death in us in order to unequivocally grasp in every cell of our bodies that disconnection, endless growth, competition, and entitlement kill everything in the universe. Perhaps humanity requires devastation of this magnitude in order to become a new kind of species-the kind of species that will never again allow such madness to prevail on this planet.

A very old myth written in myriad versions in ancient texts may be instructive in this collapse/transition/Great Turning journey, namely, the story of our old friend Noah who was instructed to build a lifeboat. Storyteller and author Michael Meade, in his latest book The World Behind The World, offers a timely, poetic appreciation of Noah's mission and ours:

The problem wasn't that the end of the world had come; rather the issue was how to act when it seemed that way. Secretly, each of us is a Noah sent on a distinct and seemingly foolish errand that can help the world as well as fulfill us....Noah stands for the timeless dreamer in the human soul who knows what to do when the floods of change gather and the sense of dissolution grows. (102, 120)

I do not wish to imply that we cannot experience joy or celebration until the Great Turning is complete. Even in the face of horror, we can have moments of humor, play, and elation. Our vision of a "greatly turned" humanity can sustain and inspire us, producing periods of unprecedented community and conviviality in the here and now. The turning is happening, and the collapsing of a way of life that does not work is a pivotal piece in the process. In fact, accepting the natural process of collapse as the first step in the Great Turning is profoundly liberating and empowering.

As always, the poets say it better than prose, especially the mystical poets who catapult our minds to the depths then propel us back up into clear-eyed, laser awareness. So often when they speak of love, they are not referring to human love or romance, but to the soul and the unbounded freedom our intimacy with it generously offers us. Within the cacophony of civilization's demise, Rumi whispers:

Transition, Great Turning, Collapse? The words matter and don't matter at the same time. It's all about being fully present where we are while holding the vision of being somewhere incomparably different.

Essentially what Williams tells us is that the Deep Water drilling operation was under unparalleled pressure to drill faster and deeper, cutting corners and defying essential aspects of the industry's well established drilling protocol. We can argue about whether BP and other oil giants are ramping up drilling due to the end of cheap and abundant oil on this planet or simply because of greed and a voracious obsession with profits. To engage in that kind of debate, however, is to ignore the most fundamental issue at the root of this disaster. Corporate culture, media, politicians, and the misguided American public are all failing to grasp the issue, and I suggest, are behaving like enablers responding to an addict's fatal overdose, as well as failing to recognize the extent to which they themselves are addicts.

Let me clarify: The addict is the oblivious citizen of industrial civilization who delusionally demands that he/she must at all costs maintain a lifestyle made possible by cheap hydrocarbon energy. That citizen overdosed on April 20, 2010 and may have taken the planet to their grave with them.

Now let me count the ways in which this cataclysmic oil spill is very much like a fatal drug overdose. In order to fully understand the analogy, it's necessary to grasp the extent to which the culture of industrial civilization is addictive. What makes it addictive?

Quite simply, an uncompromising-yes relentless insistence on maintaining the lifestyle to which it has become addicted, and like the addict, willing to do whatever it takes to do so, despite voluminous evidence to the contrary. This includes evidence that the addiction itself will ultimately and invariably prove fatal for the addict, for the addict has little interest in rational, scientific research. He is obsessed with only one thing: lifestyle. It doesn't matter what it costs him or anyone else. Life is all about the next fix, period. The fix could be a possession, a person, or a position in life.

So when the addict, the culture of empire, overdoses and takes everyone and everything with him, he can use the defense mechanism of blame. It wasn't my lifestyle that caused this, he says, but the corporation that pumped the oil. Furthermore, it was the administration's fault for not adopting tougher regulation. While these factors may have entered into the equation, they are not the fundamental issue. Focus on blame works beautifully for awhile to distract attention from the devastation caused by the addict. But eventually, it wears thin.

Another favorite distracting tactic of the addict is "Look how I'm trying to fix it." He mobilizes his enablers to convince the world that something is being done to reverse the repercussions of his latest shitstorm. First we'll try a dome structure to cover the oil leak and capture the oil. Or if that doesn't work, we'll blast garbage into the leak. Or if that doesn't work, we'll use a siphoning tube. In fact, even as I write this article, BP is proclaiming that it has "turned a corner" in the oil spill. This should reassure all the oil addicts, facilitating their craving and assuaging any embarrassing traces of guilt. It's all better now; this temporary nightmare is going to go away. Ya see, human ingenuity, especially of the corporate kind, will solve all problems and clean up all messes created by the addict.

Then there's my favorite addict appeasement approach: alternative energy. Don't worry, says the enabler. We'll get wind or solar or something online for you as soon as we can so that your lifestyle won't miss a beat. Yes, that may take fifty years, but meanwhile, we'll think of something to keep it going for you because this is America, and the lights never permanently go out here.

Before the addict experiences a fatal overdose and ravages everyone and everything around him, there is always the choice to end the addiction and enter treatment. Treatment involves withdrawal from the substance, then taking a long, exhaustive, meticulous look inside oneself to confront the demon of the addiction. Much support is necessary; the addict cannot make the journey alone.

The Transition Handbook frames our dependence on hydrocarbon energy in terms of an addiction. We can blame, rationalize, project, deny-we can employ whatever defense mechanism we choose from humanity's vast repertoire of them, but like the hard core addict, the human race is committing suicide. It is willing to kill every form of life in the oceans, cause the extinction of every species on earth, pollute every cubic inch of breathable air, poison every drop of water on the planet, and yes, enable an unfathomable cataclysm such as we are witnessing in the Gulf of Mexico at this moment, in order to perpetuate the lifestyle to which it feels entitled. Like all addictions, this one is both irrational and insane.

Every person who has chosen to research Peak Oil, climate change, global economic meltdown, species extinction, and population overshoot is not unlike an addict who has some moment of clarity in which he can actually choose to walk to the nearest rehab facility and fall on his face screaming for help. None of us can do that investigative work without the massive support of other "cheap energy addicts in recovery". None of us can do it without a spiritual as well as a logistical recovery program which all authentic recovery absolutely requires.

Like the recovering addict there will be moments of terror about what the future holds, and the greater the devastation we have created, such as the largest oil spill in the history of the world, the more daunting the future will feel. Like the recovery of the addict, our recovery will require rigorous honesty and a commitment to finding meaning and purpose, not in the substance, which is killing us and the planet, but in a different kind of lifestyle. This will be a lifestyle of simplicity, cooperation, and deep connection with nature and our fellow humans. It may mean alterations in our behavior that feel like sacrifices until we realize that the joy, meaning, and contentment they bring us are what we wanted all along.

Therefore, as we witness the spread of the most devastating and widespread oil slick in history; as we see the photos of oil saturated wildlife and watch frantic fisherman in despair because they have lost their livelihood; as we watch enablers blaming and scrambling to fix the un-fixable, let us do as they say in Twelve Step programs, and take a searching and fearless moral (and energy) inventory of our lives and notice where we are in our recovery from addiction to cheap and abundant fossil fuels. Richard Heinberg's book The Party's Over documents how brief in the history of the human race the party was, how much fun it was, and of course, how lethal it was and is. So while the enablers are blaming and fixing, it behooves all of us to ask of ourselves the toughest question of all: What are we doing to recover?

These days, wherever I speak or conduct a public event, and whenever I check my inbox for email, I hear similar stories of conflict or estrangement in the lives of courageous men and women who have chosen to dig deeper into the state of the macrocosm, only vaguely aware of what it might bring forth within the microcosm of their own lives. Onerous it is to be preparing for the future-contemplating and acting on the weighty issues of where to live, how to earn a livelihood, what skills to learn, and how best to fortify oneself for survival in an unraveling world, but it is nothing like having loved ones distancing or parting ways when one wants and needs them now more than ever.

Sometimes it's about fear for the well being of loved ones; sometimes it's about wanting to share something as momentous as collapse and transition with our best friend who also happens to be our beloved. Sometimes it's about wanting to be validated, heard, and seen. Maybe it's just about wanting help with the extensive, arduous tasks of preparation. But sadly, perhaps tragically, in countless instances, the kind of joining for which our hearts desperately yearn cannot happen-for whatever reason. That doesn't make our loved ones sick, bad, crazy, or stupid, but it does mean that we have reached a threshold in our relationship with them that will result in distance, perhaps permanent estrangement.

How do we cope with this? After all, isn't human connection the larger hope we hold for this transition? Isn't that what's it's all about?

Nothing I could say would make this easy, but perhaps the pain can be tempered with a larger perspective.

First, we need to remind ourselves that in the milieu of industrial civilization, we have all been thoroughly indoctrinated in the "necessity" of romantic partnership. If by a certain age we don't have a partner or have lost too many of them, we are deemed terminally defective. This is, like it or not, particularly true for women.

Furthermore, facing the future alone is frightening, and again, I believe this is especially true for women. Wouldn't it be nice, we think, to go through the transition with a partner or with all of our family members? We'd be safer, and so would they. And what a bond we could forge with each other, holding each others' hands at the end of the world as we have known it and working together to create a new one!

Yet I am becoming increasingly convinced that the transition we are heading into is going to change everything, and I mean everything. Far beyond the amount of oil we use, electricity we have available, food we grow, or skills we learn, if we survive physically, we will be transformed, re-made, and utterly metamorphosed at our core. In fact, this process challenges us, I believe, to become a new kind of human being. Can this happen if we are surrounded by exactly the people we would like to be surrounded by? Perhaps-and then again, perhaps not.

What is certain is that we cannot navigate collapse and transition alone; we must have allies, but it may be that we do not get to choose entirely who those allies are. Our most intimate companions may be strangers we barely know, and our strongest adversaries may be people we thought we could always rely on.

What I'm referring to here is the non-rational, soul level of transition that is beyond our control or reasoning or planning. It has to do with doing what we have come here to do and fulfilling a greater purpose-one that may be only dimly visible to us now. This may require joining with people we do not even yet know and parting with those who cannot walk where we feel compelled to journey.

Not for one moment would I minimize the grief many people are walking through as they find loved ones distancing from or leaving them. The loss is heart-wrenching, and it must be felt.

All of this is part of the burden of letting ourselves know what is so. Truth is no free lunch; it always exacts a price. Small wonder then that the overwhelming majority of humanity has no interest in knowing it. And really, why would anyone sign up for knowing the exact state of our planet? As my friend Mike Ruppert says, it really is much easier on a sinking Titanic to state unequivocally that the ship is unsinkable or to saunter into the bar and order a drink.

In a chaotic world of endings, unraveling, catastrophe, or protracted demise, relationship will be a pivotal issue. For this reason, the survivalist mentality which purports to "go it alone" with an "every man for himself" attitude, not only will not serve those who embrace it, but will profoundly put their physical survival at risk. For our well being, we will absolutely require connection with other human beings in times of chaos and crisis. Therefore, cultivating a broader perspective of relationship in advance of the coming chaos may be exceedingly useful in learning how to navigate relationship challenges in the future-challenges on which our survival may depend.

In today's affluent milieu of social networking, fitness and body obsession, tanning salons, fine dining and dance clubbing, the roles that civilization has proscribed for men and women are maintained and nurtured impeccably. In navigating the dating scene in an effort to secure a partner, men generally prefer to present themselves as well-groomed, sensitive gentlemen, and women typically project intelligence and self-sufficiency alongside beauty and sexual prowess. The protocol for relationships between the genders is civil and respectful. But imagine a world in chaos where projecting the current popular persona of one's gender is rendered irrelevant or even dangerous. Stereotypes and the roles we consent to play will no longer serve us because in that world, survival will be paramount.

For this reason, it behooves anyone consciously preparing emotionally and spiritually for a chaotic future to forge strong relationships with friends, neighbors, and family members. In fact, I believe it is wise to consider all of the relationships we have in our lives as sacred in that they are venues for learning about and cultivating our inner world. Even more importantly, they are opportunities for serving the earth community with whom we are inextricably connected by living out our purpose. In this way we begin to understand the relationships in our lives as part of our preparation for the future because they are as essential for our inevitable well being as food, water, shelter, or weapons. In fact, they may constitute the ultimate advantage.

And if relationships are part of our preparation for the future, we will need to forge ones that are mutually supportive and sustainable. We will need to deeply evaluate our relationships and ponder which ones enhance our preparation and which ones do not. While this may sound heartless, we have only to recall the familiar example of the airline flight attendant who admonishes us to first put on our oxygen masks before putting them on our loved ones.

As we allow ourselves to be schooled by our relationships, we recognize places where we have fallen short of how we prefer to relate to another, places where we have transgressed boundaries, failed to be present, subtly or blatantly abandoned others, failed to speak our truth, or perhaps, spoken our truth so forcefully and insensitively that we have inadvertently hurt the very ones we care about deeply. From our errors we can learn how we need to be in relationship and increasingly glimpse the momentousness of our connection with every person in our world. Quite naturally we may entertain the notion that people are in our lives and we are in theirs for specific purposes, and though we may never know the totality of the purpose, from hindsight we gradually understand that some purpose was served.

Not only must we, in my opinion, contemplate relationships between ourselves and other humans, but between ourselves and everything in our lives, for the truth is that we have a relationship with our homes, our possessions, our pets, our careers, our roles, our communities, our neighbors, our past, our present, and our future. If we are willing to consciously examine each of those relationships in terms of the purpose they serve in our lives, we participate in a deeper evaluation of them and thereby clarify their place in our lives. As a result, we counteract a tendency to wed our identity to people, places, and things while paradoxically making it possible to cherish them more because we are more keenly aware of their purpose in our lives. Likewise, this deep evaluation may precipitate a natural letting go of those things in our lives which drain our energy or finances or which make our lives more complicated and less resilient at a time in human history when survival depends on simplicity and the ability to adapt.

Stripped of that to which we have wedded our identity, collapse and transition will compel us to confront questions of purpose on a regular basis, perhaps hourly-perhaps moment to moment. We are likely to find ourselves contemplating every meaningful relationship in our lives, and many that seem devoid of meaning. Relating to diverse human beings and their idiosyncrasies, even depending for survival on individuals we may never have encountered in a less chaotic world, could become our new normal.

Schooled as we are to grapple with the tangible, logistic aspects of the "End of Suburbia" such as being forced to downscale everything we do as a result of Peak Oil, we may have failed to notice that the collapse of industrial civilization will produce not only an outer transition but an inner one as well. Are we preparing for the inner transition to the same extent that we are preparing for the outer one? The relationships in our lives may be the first, but not the last, arena of our lives that compels us to address inner preparation.

Poetry, the language of soul, often captures meaning more aptly than rational, linear prose. The Spanish poet, Juan Ramon Jimenez, in his poem "Oceans" captures best the distress, as well as the possibility that unwanted losses offer us even as we agonize through them:

I have a feeling that my boat

And we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?

Portions of this article are excerpted from Carolyn Baker's forthcoming book Navigating The Coming Chaos: Tools For Inner Transition.

Historical and Current Perspectives

First, even a cursory understanding of church history provides numerous clues regarding the inevitable outcome of the initial agenda of early church fathers. Of course the word fathers signals the birth of patriarchal religion in the West which even beyond male domination is synonymous with a way of life based on power and control. Shortly after the birth of Christianity and as the Christian church became an organized system in the Western world, the top priority in its agenda was to exterminate paganism and its indigenous roots and influence. The supreme irony, of course, is that Christianity had deep roots in paganism and could not have congealed into a viable religion without it.

The significance of the disavowal of paganism cannot be overemphasized. The word "pagan" originally meant, country dweller or rustic and implied that the pagan had an intimate relationship with the earth. It was that relationship, more than anything else about paganism, that made it so repugnant to the custodians of official church dogma. Moreover, the earth and the female gender were clearly associated in the minds of early church fathers with irrationality, defilement, chaos, and evil. St. Tertullian wrote to women: "Do you not know that you are each an Eve? With the sentence of god on this sex of your lives in this age, the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway. You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant to attack. You destroyed so easily god's image, man. On account of your desertion even the son of man had to die."

Researchers of the early Christian Gnostic sect, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their book Jesus and The Lost Goddess, point out that in the early stages of Christianity, a protracted struggle between literal and symbolic interpretation of sacred texts continued until the literal interpretation triumphed in roughly the 5^th century. In the earliest stages of Christianity, many pagan converts to the religion believed in a Christian goddess, and indeed this teaching became an integral part of Gnosticism. As the church became increasingly male dominated, church bishops "vigorously suppressed the idea that there was a Christian goddess." Ironically, in 431 at Ephesus, which had previously been the site for worship of the pagan goddess, a church council met and "bestowed the title of the ousted goddess upon Mary, the mother of Jesus." The larger significance of this action is that it "put an end to Gnostic ideas of equality between the sexes." (44)

The Gnostic Christian sect struggled valiantly with the official church hierarchy to modify the church's perceptions of women and nature, but ultimately, the church prevailed, and Gnosticism was declared heresy. The subsequent history of church leadership reveals a burgeoning pattern of male hierarchy distancing itself from the earth, from the feminine, and from matters of the heart, thoroughly preoccupied with intellect and domination. Medieval scholar, Lynn White comments on the Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis:

While many of the world's mythologies provide stories of creation, Green-Roman mythology was singularly incoherent in this respect. Like Aristotle, the intellectuals of the ancient West denied that the visible world had had a beginning. Indeed, the idea of a beginning was impossible in the framework of their cyclical notion of time. In sharp contrast, Christianity inherited from Judaism not only a concept of time as non-repetitive and linear but also a striking story of creation. By gradual stages a loving and all-powerful God had created light and darkness, the heavenly bodies, the earth and all its plants, animals, birds, and fishes. Finally, God created Adam and, as an afterthought, Eve to keep man from being lonely. Man named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them. God planned all of this explicitly for man's benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes. And, although man's body is made of clay, he is not simply part of nature: he is made in God's image.

White's analysis of the Christian doctrine of dominion over the earth illumines how it institutionalized an attitude of disconnection from nature and the fundamental philosophical underpinning of Western civilization, namely that humans were superior to other species and therefore had the inherent right to dominate them. Notable exceptions to this pattern were mystics such as St. Francis of Assisi, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich who wrote and taught prolifically about their own and humanity's relationship with nature. Christian mystics always held a decidedly feminine perspective and were marginalized accordingly.

Two thousand years of church history reveals a progression from a small group of diverse Jewish and pagan adherents of disparate spiritual paths to an increasingly standardized hierarchy which exists today as both a government and one of the major religious organizations on the planet.

Enter the second perspective necessary for making sense of epidemic pedophilia in the institution: an understanding of large systems and their role in the collapse of industrial civilization. At every turn, organized religion throughout the world has supported corporate oligarchies and their pillaging of resources and people. "Infinite growth" has been the hallmark not only of industry but of proselytizing religious hierarchies-a model which is inherently unsustainable. Moreover, adherence to the model of infinite growth guarantees its ultimate dissolution. Add to this more than two millennia of suppression of women and nature, and you have a deadly recipe for implosion.

Organized Religion's Monstrous Shadow

Like rape, pedophilia is not about sex, but rather about power. For this reason, it would not matter if priests were married. In fact, most sexual abuse of children is committed by heterosexual males. Thus, attempting to treat symptoms of institutionalized pedophilia by allowing priests to marry or by accusing abusing priests of homosexuality is pointless because it does not address the systemic nature of these criminal acts against children which has little to do with marital status or sexual orientation.

Incidentally, I have not failed to notice that millions of children are sexually abused in their homes in every country and that in some countries, the sexual abuse and mutilation of children is ubiquitous and virtually accepted as an integral part of the culture. In those places too, parents and pillars of the community often proclaim their impeccable morality and righteousness.

What is more, whenever any individual, community, or organization declares itself a healing agent in service to the world, it must be aware of its shadow self, which if not consciously addressed will erupt in behavior unimaginably antithetical to its explicit mission. The shadow is simply all parts of self that we have disowned as the "not me" which takes up residence in the unconscious mind, i.e., We are the church; we are moral, upright, and here to save your soul from sin and eternal damnation. Our intentions and behavior are above reproach.

In a remarkable anthology on the shadow entitled Meeting The Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature, the Buddhist-oriented Benedictine monk, David Stendl-Rast, in an article on "The Shadow In Christianity" notes that when we "try to live up to the standards of a God that is purely light...we can't handle the darkness within us. And because we can't handle it, we suppress it." (132) Indeed, Catholicism is not the only religion or spiritual path where the shadow exists. It abides in every person, group, and institution. Rather than something to be feared, however, it is something to be worked with, understood, and its energy utilized in service of living consciously and compassionately in the world.

Connecting All The Dots

Every institution in industrial civilization is in the process of collapsing. One has only to observe education, healthcare, finance, media, transportation, government, and yes, religion, to observe institutions, not merely in a state of crisis, but in a profound process of dissolution. Moreover, the collapse of one institution does not occur in isolation but is rather connected with the collapse of all the others. And each institution is inextricably linked to the "Three E's" of industrial civilization's demise: energy, environment, and econmics.

Religion is but one institution, and the Catholic faith is but one religion in a web of faiths rapidly unraveling as "something greater" in the psyche of human beings attempts to make sense of things like financial collapse [TRANSLATION: the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world]; increasing healthcare costs [TRANSLATION: money-driven medicine devoid of one shred of compassion]; public school closings [TRANSLATION: the abject failure of standardized testing and the triumph of the public school to prison pipeline]; energy depletion [TRANSLATION: the permanent end of cheap and abundant fossil fuels]; climate change [TRANSLATION: the abject destruction of the ecosystem]; and the war on terror [TRANSLATION: infinite global conflicts sparked by industrial civilization's desperate attempts to secure the last remaining drops of oil on earth.]

The problem with the Catholic Church is not the pope or pedophile priests; the problem with the Catholic Church is the Catholic Church-one of the most toxic systems in human history which has unflinchingly colluded with corporate capitalism and the worst of humanity's repressive regimes for gargantuan profit and the standardization of power and domination as a way of life.

As organized religion continues to unravel, human beings who have been seduced by it will be tempted to abandon their innate tendency to attempt to make sense of disappointment and loss. In the worst case scenario, they will become bitter, enraged, violent, depressed, and maybe even suicidal. Others may opt for a "new atheism" which while currently quite fashionable is not producing much more than what journalist Madeline Bunting calls "a lot of sore heads." In her most recent piece she asks "Are The New Atheists Doing Anything To Stop The Ills of Religion?" Bunting argues that the new atheism has sold a great deal of books but that in fact, "The paradox of New Atheism is that in its bid to make religion unacceptable, it has contributed to making it a subject that is considered worth talking about again." Perhaps that is because as she also notes, "When someone is killed in a car accident, western rationality is good at analyzing how the brakes failed and the road curved, but has nothing to say about why, on that particular day, the brakes failed when it was you in the car: the sequence of random events that kill. This search for meaning is part of what drives the religious spirit."

It is precisely this search for meaning in the face of the collapse of civilization that I have attempted to address in depth in my 2009 book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. One of the opportunities collapse may offer is a return to the application of indigenous, earth-based wisdom disavowed two thousand years ago by patriarchal Christian theologians. In my opinion, this knowledge must sculpt the new paradigm that begs to be created by and for the earth community in which neither children, animals, soil, seas, forests, mountains, and rivers are exploited.

What is needed is not more priests or more religions. One Catholic priest who fully grasped his intimate connection with the earth chose to call himself not a theologian, but a geologian. That remarkable human being was none other than the late Thomas Berry who lamented that "Unfortunately, Western religious traditions have been so occupied with redemptive healing of a flawed world that they tend to ignore creation as it is experienced in our times."

In 1999 Berry published his landmark book The Great Work-the great work, of course, being the lifelong process of understanding and knowing ourselves in relation to the earth. In The Great Work, Berry quotes a devout Catholic educator, Maria Montessori who believed that "only when the child is able to identify its own center with the center of the universe does education really begin." Institutionalized pedophilia is the inevitable, systemic outcome of an entity which glorifies masculinity, disavows the feminine, repudiates nature and the human body, revels in the profits of global corporate capitalism, and makes domination and exploitation its implicit canon. I celebrate the collapse of organized religions, but I mourn the casualties of that collapse-the countless innocent children who never had the opportunity to identify their own center with the center of the universe.

Joe Bageant, a man after my own heart who's hunkering down in rural Mexico making tortillas, pens a scathing article, "Americans Are 'Hope Fiends' Because Honestly Looking At The Present Situation Would Destroy Just About Everything We Hold As Reality". In it he states that hope is political pablum for an infantilized nation. He too, reluctantly voted for Obama because he thought Obama just had to be better than Bush, but now Joe is crying on his tortillas and saying things like, "Hope is magical thinking, believing that somehow, some larger unknown force is in motion to set things right."

And a journalist for whom I hold the greatest respect, Robert Jensen, writes an article on getting rid of "hope" and "faith", inspired by his interview of Abe Osheroff, long-time activist and documentary film maker. It opens with a short vignette by Jensen:

After a recent talk about the struggle for social justice and the threats to the ecosystem, a student lingered, waiting to talk to me alone, as if he had something to confess.

"I feel so overwhelmed," he finally said, wondering aloud if political organizing could really make a difference. The young man said he often felt depressed, not about the circumstances of his own life but about the possibilities for change. Finally, he looked at me and asked, "Once you see what's happening -- I mean really see it -- how are you supposed to act like everything is going to be OK?"

Boy do I know this one. I lived with it regularly as a professor of college history and psychology as I laid out in molten lava the state of the world which they had been programmed to ignore while drowning in the propaganda of realizing the American dream through getting a college education.

Jensen proceeds in the article to talk about how unacceptable it is among progressives to be anything less than upbeat. And he continues:

Some organizers respond to such concerns with upbeat assurances that if we just get more people on board and work a little bit harder, the problems will be solved -- if not tomorrow, certainly within some reasonable period of time. I used to say things like that, but now I think it's more honest, and potentially effective, to acknowledge how massive the obstacles that need to be overcome really are. We must not only recognize that the world's resources distributed in a profoundly unjust way and the systems in which we live are fundamentally unsustainable ecologically, but also understand there's no guarantee that this state of affairs can be reversed or even substantially slowed down. There are, in fact, lots of reasons to suspect that many of our fundamental problems have no solutions, at least no solutions in any framework we currently understand.

Some have challenged me: Why give in to such despair? My response: If honest emotional responses based on rational assessments lead committed activists to feel despair, why try to bury that? It's better to grapple with those emotions and assessments than to respond with empty platitudes.

The damage to the ecosystem may mean that a large-scale human presence on the planet cannot continue much longer. The obsession with self-interest cultivated by capitalism may be so deeply woven into the fabric of contemporary identity that real solidarity in affluent societies is no longer possible. The deskilling and dependency that comes with a high-energy/high-technology society has eroded crucial traditional skills. Mass-media corporations have eroticized violence and commodified intimacy at an unprecedented level, globally.

None of this is crazy apocalypticism, but rather a sober assessment of the reality around us. Rather than deny the despair that flows from that assessment, we need to find a way to deal with it.

Jensen cites a couple of gems from Osheroff that must not be dismissed, such as, "But personally, I'm not hopeful because I think hope is a kind of religion, and religions don't work. If you're hopeful you're going to suffer disappointments, whether it's politics or your personal life. You can care about things, you can want things to happen, you can work to make things happen without being hopeful." Make things happen without hope?

So now we come down to the crux of the issue: What is the definition of "hope"? For an answer to this question, I'm reminded of James Howard Kunstler's incessant vitriol about hope. After he has thoroughly bashed the notion of hope, he usually moderates a bit and defines it as something that comes from within the person, rather than from the exterior. Similarly, in Jensen's interview of Osheroff, the latter notes the capacity of humans to be decent, kind, and compassionate. I've noted this as well in my 2009 review of Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster in which the author emphasizes that in crisis situations, humans more often tend to cooperate rather than resort to violent or destructive behavior.

I want to underscore this because I am repeatedly called "pessimistic", "fear-mongering", or my very favorite, "cynical." The latter is my favorite because I like to point out that the word "cynic" actually comes from a Greek word that referred to a dog chewing a bone for hours non-stop, the point being that the cynics in ancient Greece held onto an idea and "chewed" it incessantly until everyone except their fellow cynics were sick of them. Why is this important to me? Because the real cynics, in my opinion, are those joined at the hip with "hope" who refuse to look more deeply into the psychological and political history of a candidate like Barack Obama and as a result, are flummoxed in 2010 that he has become the reincarnation of George W. Bush, Jr. As I've said before, it's the "high definition" definition of insanity-following the same pattern which yields negative results ad infinitum but expecting that the next time, the result will be different.

And then there's "faith" which is a cousin to hope and also a cousin to religion. Faith is usually about violating one's rational mind in order to feel better or to appease the gods or some tyrannical human authority figure. It is erroneously used synonymously with "trust"-erroneous because trust is about relationship whereas faith is about obedience. Therefore, I must agree with Bageant that it is indeed infantilizing.

So what is the cure for hope and faith?

The first aspect of the cure, quite simply, is total honesty. The statements by Hedges, Jensen, Osheroff, and Bageant, are replete with white-hot honesty. And whenever we get brutally honest, we are confronted with emotions-most of which are unpleasant. That said, let's start with the most basic reality of all: Industrial civilization is in the process of collapsing which means that as a result, there is absolutely no return to normal, and our lives are also in the process of being permanently altered.

Recently, two subscribers to my website's news digest reported that when they took my book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse to their local public libraries to ask the libraries to order a free copy, the response was, "We just simply can't have a book like this in our collection." This is the response one might hear upon requesting that the libraries include pornography in their collections. Is my book pornographic? Yes! In this culture at this moment, naming and understanding the reality of the collapse of civilization is nothing less than pornographic in the minds of infantilized Americans.

And one even witnesses the empire-programmed addiction to hope in the most well-intentioned activists. Hope is not the same as having a vision, but I believe we must be cautious about confusing the two. As my readers know, I am deeply involved in the Transition movement which offers a vision of a positive future, but that vision will only become real as a result of our commitment to make it happen. Moreover, any vision of a positive future must be open to addressing and feeling the feelings around the consequences that so few wish to contemplate, namely, that the human race is committing suicide.

If we are willing to think with much more adult minds than the two library staff persons mentioned above, and if we are willing to grapple with the reality of collapse, with what attitude, mindset, or sensibility do we persevere in the face of it? And...is persevering the most important issue? If it isn't, what is?

I submit that after honesty comes the willingness to accept reality. That means stopping all pretense and delusion that we can prevent collapse. News flash: Collapse now has a life of its own, and I am convinced that whether it's 10 million activists in the streets of every country on earth or the hundredth monkey principle on steroids, collapse is an inevitable part of our future. It cannot be prevented because it is well underway. It has its own trajectory and its own velocity, but it can be slowed, and the effects can be lessened.

However, before we get distracted by how to slow it down, we need to deal with the next quandary which is much less appealing, namely, our despair. As Jensen states above, rather than deny or minimize our despair, we need to find a way to deal with it. But if you can't take a Joanna Macy "Despair and Empowerment" workshop, what can you do?

You can certainly read my book, Sacred Demise and complete all the exercises in it, but you can also read poetry, make art and music; you can not only talk about your feelings about collapse with other people, but talk about your values and priorities-what is important to you, what is your individual purpose in life, what is your shared purpose together? And of course you can keep doing what you're already probably doing if you're reading this article-getting deeply involved in your community to help it become resilient and self-sufficient.

Above all, you need to spend a significant chunk of time every day-I suggest a half hour twice a day-in contemplation. If you have a meditation practice, wonderful. If not, develop one. It should be a time of stillness and restoration. It should be a time of listening to the inner wisdom of the soul/psyche-a time when thoughts and feelings are not censored but simply allowed and witnessed-and perhaps later, journaled about. While it is true that no one can navigate collapse alone, it is also true that while navigating it, the relationship with oneself may be the most crucial of all.

Civilization has robbed us of an inner life to such an extent that most people in this culture are terrified of or perplexed by the notion of one. Yet no matter how many gorgeous organic gardens we can grow, no matter how much food and water we can store, no matter how much we re-skill ourselves, no matter how many dialog circles we sit in, no matter how well we raise our chickens, if we don't have an inner life, then we are perilously at risk of emotional and mental breakdown when the daunting stress of collapse is in our faces, and we won't be able to answer the most important question as we navigate it: Who am I and who do I want to be during this incredibly challenging time?

Finally, I highly recommend my upcoming online course "Navigating The Coming Chaos" at the Post Peak Living website which runs from April 24-May 15, and there is a significant discount for early registration. This course is an ideal venue for applying all of the options stated above and more.

In any event, it's time to become discerning, pro-active adults-forsaking our "hope" and "faith" in people and distant forces outside us to do for us what we can only do for ourselves and with others of like heart and mind whom we love and trust. The abject betrayal that most progressives in this nation are currently experiencing confirms that any hope that comes from outside us will most likely result in a force to be reckoned with that is much worse than the one our "hope" was intended to avoid.

I was inspired to focus on Kathleen because she is a friend and because I had firsthand awareness of her passionate commitment to a local cause-a commitment that shared by a small community of activists, has now made an enormous difference not only for Vermonters, but for all of New England and perhaps the rest of the country also.

In fact, in an article "David vs. Goliath Vermont Style", Charlotte Dennett, who ran for Attorney General in Vermont in 2008 stated on February 26:

A driving snowstorm could not keep Vermonters away from the statehouse in Montpelier yesterday as the Vermont Senate convened a historic debate and then voted on the future of the state's aging nuclear power plant.

Some 1300 people - most of them standing before live video coverage outside the small, overcrowded Senate chamber -- listened to several hours of respectful debate that even included the proposition of building a new nuclear power plant in Vermont as per President Obama's pro-nuclear agenda. But when it was all over, senators from both parties resoundingly voted against a last-minute amendment for a new plant to replace the old one, and similarly defeated re-licensure of Vermont Yankee in 2012 by a vote of 26 to 4. Amidst cheers, clapping and hugs from the victors, it was clearly another Vermont moment for a state that prides itself on being cutting edge on social, political and environmental issues. As the only state in the nation that by statute allows its legislature to decide whether to re-license a nuclear power plant, the vote is likely to have wide-reaching ramifications, including for residents of Massachusetts who live near the Vermont Yankee plant.

I caught up with Kathleen by phone on the day of the Senate's historic vote and she graciously gave me this interview. 

Kathleen, please tell us what motivated you initially to begin organizing for the closure of Vermont Yankee.

In my work, I am standing on the shoulders of many anti-nuclear activists who have worked tirelessly over the years fighting a corrupt nuclear industry that cares more about its proliferation than the health of the people who are affected.

Last week's vote against the relicensing of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power plant near Brattleboro is considered historic because it has allowed the voices of Vermont people to be heard through their elected leaders who voted against allowing Vermont Yankee to continue past its expected lifetime of 2012. It has allowed the people to say what Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have been doing: Allowing contamination of the air we breathe and the water we drink, and that is not acceptable. The NRC has never said no to the nuclear industry, and I feel that the NRC is corrupt and is in collusion with the industry, allowing aging nuclear power plants numerous license amendments and exemptions from safety testing over the years.

What specific research did you do on the medical dangers of Vermont Yankee? Tell us a bit about what you discovered.

 As a registered nurse and after many years of working in the medical profession, I am acutely aware of the health and environmental dangers that make people sick. Myself a breast cancer survivor, I have watched over the years as the incidence of breast cancer continues to increase with nobody asking the right questions. One out of 13 women got breast cancer when I was first diagnosed in 1984. Today the incidence is one woman out of eight. What is that about? Passionately wanting to protect my family and my community, I have committed myself to the crusade to stop the relicensing of what my research revealed: that thyroid cancer, a marker for radiation exposure was on the rise in women not only in Vermont but across the country.

Although I am only one of hundreds of Vermonters against Yankee I was irate when the Vermont Department of Public Health re-wrote Vermont's radiation protection regulations weakening the laws to allow Vermont Yankee an uprate in 2006 which also allowed greater amounts of radioactive contaminants to be emitted from the site. The ionizing radiation to which people are exposed as a result of Vermont Yankee's operations is a known human carcinogen. No dose is without risk, and the best science today tells us that even very low doses of radiation pose a risk over a person's lifetime.

The NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who are in charge of radiation protection are still using standards that do not take into account the differences in susceptibility to radiation-induced cancer, with women facing a risk about 50 percent higher than men while the risk for children is several times higher. What is happening to the health of women and children is not being captured in national or state health statistics because the data being publicized on men and women is condensed and aggregated over 5 years so that the public health significance is being lost. It is a national issue because the Center for Disease Control (CDC) does not have jurisdiction over the NRC. Nobody does. The NRC is charged with protecting the public, but all we see here in Vermont is the NRC protecting the industry that pays their salaries 

Tell us what else motivates you.

I have been an activist my whole life. My parents instilled in me that it was important to contribute to community life and work toward making this world a better place for the children and generations who come after us. Being political is one way but not the only way. Choices we make, where we live, what we buy, who we support, are all ways we can make a difference. You find your passion. What I am doing to expose the corruption of the NRC and the nuclear industry and its health effects on future generations is mine. 

What specific research did you do on Vermont Yankee? Tell us a bit about what you discovered.

In the United States, the NRC's technical and safety regulations governing nuclear power plants are developed by the private nuclear industry using voluntary consensus standards. The owners of the nuclear power plants, the suppliers and manufacturers who sell the nuclear fuel, as well as the builders of nuclear power plants, are providing the oversight on themselves--policing their own industry just like the banking and financial industry did before their massive taxpayer bailout. Most of those standards in use are outdated but are still in use by the nuclear industry. They would never pass muster today knowing what we know.

Of course, what we know today as far as the effect of radioactive contamination is being ignored. The NRC is allowing radioactive tritium contamination across the country. Tritium caused mutagic effects on DNA especially in the unborn, but the NRC thinks it's OK for the decrepit, aging plants to wash it away in our rivers. That's OK with them, but it's not to the kids or women drinking that water downstream. The NRC tells us it will not harm us and no one has the jurisdiction over them to dispute what they say or are allowed to do.

One of the arguments against voting down Yankee's relicensing was economic. Supporters of Yankee argued that closing the power plant would hurt Vermont economically and cause utility rate increases. Opponents of Yankee argued that closing Yankee would provide an excellent opportunity to enhance the state's economy by investing in renewables and making the state more self-sufficient. Tell us your thoughts on this issue.

Vermont needs jobs but not at the cost of the health of our women children and future generations. Besides, look at all the work they are doing there now digging wells to see if they can make the tritium disappear. Today it's reported that the cesium they found deep in the ground was from Chernobyl.  Believe that one. A nuclear accident from 1986 is still contaminating our soil in Vermont. That does not make me feel any safer. There will be plenty of jobs cleaning up the radioactive contamination at Vermont Yankee. However, the industry is not mandated to clean it up. Besides that, there is nowhere to ship the radioactive waste on site, so Vermont Yankee supporters can work there guarding it for infinity. Vermont wants the site returned to a green field. Let's see what the NRC does about that.

The industry's rhetoric about jobs and such is not trumped by the deceit and lies they have demonstrated, and I believe those are only the tip of the iceberg. It was recently revealed that Neil Sheehan, our NRC spokesman, did not think it was a public concern nor important enough to report to the public that over a million gallons of tritium- laced water was dumped into the Hudson river by Entergy's Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant--the drinking water supply of New York  City! We only find this out because of a whistleblower. If a whistleblower goes to the NRC with a complaint, the NRC does not have to report it to the public. In my opinion, the NRC is deeply corrupted.

I know that you and your family have made some personal changes in lifestyle in order to utilize renewable energy rather than rely on the conventional power grid in Vermont. Can you tell us about those?

Changing one's lifestyle is a personal process that is never finished as there is always more you can do. Reducing our carbon footprint one step at a time is the right choice for us. What we do is personal for us, and everyone needs to be thoughtful to make that commitment. Our biggest commitment is choosing to live in the city of Rutland and help the city survive rough times. We can walk or bike anywhere we need to go. 

I'm also aware that you are passionately committed to your local community of Rutland. You are involved in the local food coop there and in the arts in your town. Tell us more about what you're doing and why you feel it's so important.

Rutland is a city without an interstate so it is not easy to get here. We are surrounded by mountains and farmland, and some of us want to keep it that way. We don't have urban sprawl. We have no buses into the city but we do have Amtrak, and that needs to be seriously upgraded.  Vermont relies heavily on the economic engine of tourism. Many of us rely on the Killington Ski Area and tourism for work even though those are seasonal and minimal wage job opportunities for a relatively well educated population. It is a choice many are making, and we all come together as a community via the local food coop and a year-round farmer's market. Our family is promoting walking gently on the earth with the annual Rutland Long Trail festival coming into its fourth year, celebrated in August in the heart of Rutland. As the city goes, so does the rest of Rutland County, so what we do here is very important. We need to be vigilant in preserving and developing the assets we do enjoy.  

Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your journey of activism in the past couple of decades or that you'd like to add about Vermont's decision not to relicense Yankee?

This fight is far from over. The people of Vermont through this vote have flexed their muscle. The NRC is put on notice. They are not considered trustworthy. Will they mandate that Entergy clean up its mess and leave Vermont Yankee as a green field? The fight has only begun.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The February 24 decision by the Vermont Senate not to relicense Vermont Yankee was a stunning triumph of activism and local political action by citizens passionately committed to their place and its environment. When we juxtapose it with the paralysis of our pathetically corrupt federal system, it is all the more remarkable. It is testimony to the power of local communities cooperating to defend and protect the integrity of their place, their people, and their land base. I reiterate what I have stated repeatedly: All solutions are local, and if it's not local, it's not a solution.

Kathleen Krevetski lives with her husband Wayne in Rutland, Vermont, and they have come to think of themselves as urban homesteaders. Check our http://www.longtrailfestivalvt.com/ or visit the festival on August 7, 2010

As Rich Benjamin of Alternet notes, Joe Stack's "suicide screed chafes and exposes a raw wound this country does not know what to do with." Bingo.

In the same week as Stack's rampage, an Ohio man so enraged about his home being foreclosed upon, even though he owes far less on it than it's worth, bulldozed the house so that the bank would not be able to repossess it. Not unlike Stack, Terry Hoskins was trying to cope with business debts as well as a lawsuit, and vehemently demonstrated his rage toward banks for all the world to see.

It doesn't take Patrick Jane, "The Mentalist" or Allison DuBois, "The Medium", to grasp that these eruptions of vitriolic rage are most likely, previews of massive civil unrest worldwide, as individuals and families awaken to the current ghastly global transfer of wealth, so brilliantly exposed in David DeGraw's "The Economic Elite Have Engineered An Extraordinary Coup"-a wealth transfer of mindboggling proportions that has left the middle class impoverished and writhing in despair. But this particular side of the Toxic Triangle-economic meltdown, along with the other two sides, climate chaos, and planetary energy depletion, signals that the human species has entered, not a long and painful recession, but nothing less than a tipping point in its own evolutionary odyssey.

And now, millions of human beings who for at least a decade have been unwilling to look deeply at how their world works, find themselves depressed, enraged, paralyzed, and terrified at best and suicidal and homicidal at worst. Since before the turn of the 20^th century, many courageous researchers who were willing to look deeper gave us extraordinary "maps" of who was running the world and what the consequences of that reality would be-individuals like Mike Ruppert, Richard Heinberg, Dmitry Orlov, Peter Dale Scott, Colin Campbell, Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Cynthia McKinney, Sibel Edmonds, and many more. They produced volumes of research related to the Triple Crisis/Toxic Triangle which for the most part, fell on deaf ears.

The corporate capitalist system had forced on American families a lifestyle that left them too busy and too strapped with debt-and of course, too hypnotically entranced with the proverbial "American dream", to read the signals that were becoming more ominous by the day. Besides, in the pubescent ecstasy of the earning/spending/debt party, who wants to be annoyed with downers like becoming an adult and comprehending the facts and their consequences?

And so, those who were too busy, ambitious, hard-working, conscientious, dedicated, and of course, let us not forget, patriotic, have within the past two years been blindsided by that which they refused to acknowledge--and worse, they who have called the mapmakers and their supporters, such as myself, "whack jobs, wing nuts, conspiracy theorists, fearmongers, and pessimists" now find themselves bewildered, flabbergasted, dumbfounded, and horrified.

Tragically, it's the result of being uninformed and unprepared, and when the excrement hits the circular air mechanism, it results for the unprepared in becoming unplugged-like Joe Stack and Terry Hoskins.

But Terry and Joe are only two cases in point. Apparently, the United States government (not Patrick Jane or Allison DuBois) is anticipating many more such incidents. In December, 2008, the Phoenix Business Journal reported in a story entitled "Arizona Police Say They Are Prepared As War College Warns Military Must Prep For Unrest; IMF Warns of Economic Riots" that "a new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks." Concurrently, Military.Com cited another part of the report which stated that "Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities ... to defend basic domestic order and human security, likewise in the case of 'unforeseen economic collapse', 'pervasive public health emergencies,' and 'catastrophic natural and human disasters,' among other possible crises."

Fortunately, many individuals and families have awoken to the reality that what our species is confronting is nothing less than the total collapse of industrial civilization and the end of the world as we have known it. They are coming to understand that the collapse is a process, not an event, and that some aspects of it will be slow and grinding, while other aspects will be sudden, catastrophic, and traumatic. And very importantly, they are becoming prepared.

But how does one "prepare", and what is preparation anyway?

In my experience, there are three aspects. The first concerns individual and family self-sufficiency which relates to things like learning to grow one's own food, learning to store and preserve food, understanding and utilizing permaculture design principles in all aspects of life; deeply evaluating one's living situation and assessing where the most sustainable living venue might be; completely extricating oneself from the debt/credit system; learning natural, holistic healing techniques and wild, edible plant foraging skills. These are only a few of the most basic forms of logistical preparation.

And please note, this is not about becoming a camo-clad survivalist with years of food and water stored underground and protected by an arsenal of weapons. In fact, the reality of our predicament is that the lone survivalist/"apocalypse man" is precariously at risk because survival demands cooperation and coordination.

Therefore, the second aspect of preparation relates to neighborhood and community cooperation, and I believe that the Transition Handbook and Transition movement worldwide offer the most practical, sensible, and feasible model for creating local resilience and self-sufficiency. Those who are skeptical of community preparation often argue that a burgeoning police state will not allow such communities to exist let alone thrive. What they tend to overlook are the realities of energy depletion and economic unraveling which are likely to seriously curtail the functioning of all levels of law enforcement worldwide.

Finally, but in my opinion, most fundamental, is emotional and spiritual preparation for the unprecedented changes which have already begun and which will continue and intensify for many decades to come. It is perhaps the best hedge against becoming "unplugged" in the face of mindboggling chaos and transition. For this reason I published in 2009 Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse--a poetic manual of emotional and spiritual preparation for navigating the daunting challenges of our uncertain future.

Although I do not condone Joe Stack's violent attack on the Austin IRS office, I find that his articulate suicide letter contains many grains of truth, as well as a tragic exposé of his lack of comprehension of the larger transition that inundated his life with an overwhelming number of smaller ones. Myriad forms of preparation are no guarantee of survival or well being in the face of the end of the world as we have known it, but they may allow us unimaginable opportunities for personal and community transformation.

In addition to the Transition Handbook, I strongly recommend the Post-Peak Living website and its online "Uncrash Course", as well as my upcoming course in April, 2010 on "Navigating The Coming Chaos". For further information on the latter course, please contact me at [email protected]This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

No one needs to be either unprepared or unplugged. But the time to address both issues is now.

During the past year, Hollywood has brought forth an array of post-apocalyptic movies such as "2012" and "The Road", but "The Book of Eli" is unique in this genre by way of a message that supersedes a abject survivalism as the bottom line theme. The message was intentional for screenplay author, Gary Whitta, who comments that "faith and hope have as much value to humanity as sustenance and safety." In other words, "The Book of Eli" is about much more than first-chakra survival in a world where little else matters and where most people are fighting, moment to moment, to simply stay alive.

The story focuses on a man in the not-too-distant future who has become a warrior, not by choice but by necessity, 30 years after what is referred to as "the flash" and the subsequent war that left the earth a catastrophic wasteland. Few people are alive who remember what the world was like before those cataclysmic events, and the rest are illiterate with no sense of history or purpose beyond finding food, water, and shelter.

For three decades, Eli (Denzel Washington) has been walking and wandering in response to a voice that he says came from inside him to protect the book (a bible) that he found amid the rubble of cataclysm, and keep heading west. Along the way he witnesses myriad injustices and wrongs he could help right, but instead, he chooses to abide with his instructions and avoid such entanglements.

We wonder why a bible in such a world makes any difference, but we soon discover that the war may have erupted in part because of religion and the power and control some people usurped in its name. Almost all bibles were burned after the war, and we assume it was for this reason. One man besides Eli in the current intellectual wasteland understands the power of books and reading them, and especially the power of the bible as a tool of control. That man is Carnegie (Gary Oldman)-an ironic name given that the nineteenth-century steel tycoon, Andrew Carnegie, donated millions to the building and maintenance of libraries in the United States. After encountering Eli and learning that he has a bible, the Carnegie of Whitta's screenplay is relentless in his quest to obtain it and is willing to do whatever it takes to do so because he shamelessly declares that "if we have the book, we can control people". But from Eli's perspective, nothing and no one will stand in the way of fulfilling his mission and following the instructions to keep walking west.

Some reviewers have described the milieu of "The Book of Eli" as a "Mad Max" scenario, but it seems important to note that the latter movie was made in the 80s in the throes of Reagan's "morning in America" when consumerism on steroids and off-the-scale narcissism ruled. Thus, in those days, movie-goers could only find the world of Mad Max bizarre and purely mythical whereas today, as we find ourselves sinking deeper into the Second Great Depression, fraught with the ramifications of Peak Oil, climate change, and global economic devastation, that particular scenario feels increasingly more plausible.

In Eli's world of abject lawlessness, ruled by roving gangs and petty dictators like Carnegie, life is all about survival and the physical strength it takes to maintain it. What we consider today basic necessities of life, such as soap, toothpaste, and shampoo have disappeared, and most humans are creatures that can only be described as vile in their lack of hygiene as well as their lack of any moral compass.

For Eli, however, life is about so much more than food, water, and shelter, and that is precisely what makes his character and this particular movie unique. He is cherishing what seems to have eluded everyone else around him-a profound spiritual connection. Forget that it's a bible he's carrying. Forget that his spirituality has a distinctly Christian flavor. As anyone who sees the movie is likely to agree, he could have been carrying the I Ching or the Bhagavad Gita or the Koran. Please dear reader/moviegoer, do not get ensnared here by whatever axes you have to grind with religion. The point is that it was Eli's connection with the sacred that sustained him emotionally in a world of madness and mayhem.

And yes, a world of cannibalism where people who eat human flesh develop uncontrollable, chronic trembling, particularly of the hands, and those whose hands do not tremble are proud to be "not one of them". It's a world of ghastly abuse of women-gang rape and sexual slavery. In fact, as I witnessed the treatment of women in this film, I reflected on complaints I've heard from many of my female friends about the portrayal of women in James Howard Kunstler's novel A World Made By Hand. And while I agree that the portrayal in that novel was grim, what I also believe is that it was probably understated in terms of how life for women in a post-collapse, savage world is likely to become.

As a result, Eli holds values unknown to those around him. He's kind and caring, but he's not a pacifist; he kills to defend his life and protect the innocent. He feels and expresses gratitude before meals for the food he is privileged to have and for the mentoring friendship he develops with a young woman who insists on walking alongside him as he continues his journey. Her insistence is driven by her admiration of him as well as the misery of her life in the town controlled by Carnegie. She is Solara (Mila Kunis), and she has no concept of life before "the flash" and "the war"-a time when Eli says, "We had more than we ever needed, we didn't realize how precious it was, and we threw stuff away that people would kill for today." Sound familiar?

Eli further shows us how human he is as he cherishes a battered IPod he charges along the way from parts of an old car battery or wherever he can occasionally find electricity. Early in the movie he falls asleep to Al Green singing "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?" In fact, the lyrics are quite ironic given Eli's situation:

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart

And let me live again

I have stated repeatedly that I do not know how the collapse of industrial civilization will play out, and I have also stated in my book, Sacred Demise, and elsewhere, that without a profound spiritual connection-a solid sense of meaning and purpose for our existence, a collapsing, transitioning world will be untenable and unbearable. "The Book of Eli" portrays precisely why that is so. And like no other futuristic movie of our time, it depicts poignantly why and how the demise and its ensuing journey are sacred.

Curiously, this movie appears in our culture at the same time as James Cameron's latest blockbuster, "Avatar." Deeply embedded in many of Cameron's movies is a spiritual or archetypal theme, and "Avatar" is perhaps the most obvious example. Although it offers a much more pleasant viewing experience, it is profoundly connected with "The Book of Eli" on one level because if the lessons "Avatar" illustrates to the human race are not learned, the irrevocable result will be "The Book of Eli."

I could say much more about the movie depicting Gary Whitta's screenplay which I passionately urge you to see, but I really do not want to dilute its impact. While it is not all darkness and horror, it doesn't offer the traditional happy ending but rather one possibility of transition to a new paradigm of wisdom our species. "The Book of Eli" reveals where we are headed, but more importantly, the difference one human being's relationship with something greater makes for himself and for future generations.

Then along came Mr. Wonderful with his irresistible smile and infectious inspiration. He wooed you with his charm, that smile, and his engaging discourse-so articulate by comparison with the unintelligible babbling you had put up with for eight years. He cared about you and your children. No longer were you alone; like Martin Luther King, he had a dream-a dream congruent with yours, and the passion you both shared for the dream was hypnotic and felt deeply spiritual. You actually thought that he was a messenger sent from another world to rescue you and take you out of the nightmare. He used transcendent terms like "hope", "change", "yes we can." And not only were you totally surrendered to his embrace, but you begged everyone else to do the same. He's our only hope, you told them and yourself. You could scarcely contain your ecstasy when they all chose him in the last hours of the eight years you had all excruciatingly endured.

It was a new day, one year ago at this time. Your sighs of relief could not have been longer or deeper. You and your children were now safe at last.

But today, you ponder reflectively the past year, and what you have now come to understand is that the hero you married is a prisoner. You believed him when he told you he was free and at liberty to make the changes he proclaimed. You trusted him, committed yourself to him, and fought for him. And now you discover that he's betrayed you and that his actions really aren't that divergent from his predecessor's. In fact, he is a prisoner of the same forces that terrorized you for the previous eight years. Fooled again. Betrayed. You sink into despair and depression. You talk to your friends-the others who also believed in him. You feel those old and familiar emotions you felt from 2001-2008 that you thought you'd never have to feel again. "What can we do?" you ask. "What are our options?"

The affair is over, and you don't know whether to cry, rage, get drunk, stay stoned, or rethink leaving the country. You've married a prisoner; you've made another bad choice. You feel bitter and perhaps a little self-loathing. In fact, you want to take a shower because you feel dirty all over.

OK, I could be talking about a real love affair here between two people-one a professional con artist and the other, an enabler. Or I could be talking about a nation of hopeful citizens who wanted to believe so desperately that their new hero would reverse the course set forth by the sociopaths of the previous administration and lead them forward to a better, more humane life, a more bonded community, a saner world for themselves and their children.

What we all must ask ourselves at the end of a relationship that turned out badly-a relationship at the end of which we felt betrayed and disappointed is quite simply: What is my part? Why did I make this choice? What did I not wish to see? What were the red flags I chose to ignore?

This week, Michael Moore was interviewed by Democracy Now and confessed his sense of betrayal and disappointment with Obama's first year. What I heard from him and hear from almost every progressive liberal who expresses similar sentiments is a jaw-dropping naïveté regarding the nomination of candidate Obama and the system he represents. It is the epitome of the definition of insanity: repeating a behavior proven erroneous without exception, time after time, yet expecting that the next time, the result will be different.

Yet both sadly and fortunately, as is true whenever the betrayer shows his true colors, this is a teaching moment for the enablers. And this particular teaching moment is more important, more momentous than any in our national history. Why? Because of what is at stake in terms of the future of the planet, and that future is inextricably connected with a paradigm to which we have been "married" as a people since the birth of our nation.

Last week's Supreme Court ruling lifting limits on campaign financing by corporations was truly the last nail in the coffin of democracy and sealed the fundamental definition of fascism attributed to Mussolini which was simply, "the corporate state." Abramoff rules, and politicians no longer have any reason to function other than corporate whores. As a friend suggested to me a few days ago, members of Congress should now dress themselves in NASCAR uniforms indicating which corporations own them so that we don't need to bother researching the facts but can see them wearing the information on their bodies.

During the 2007-2008 hyperventilating euphoria of progressives regarding the candidacy of Obama, my website, Speaking Truth to Power, was exposing Obama's corporate connections and forecasting that little if anything would significantly change with his election. I was labeled Debbie Downer from Doom and Gloomville and called a conspiracy nut. And so here we are: Revelations from Matt Taibbi and others regarding Goldman Sachs as the largest contributor to Obama's election campaign, an escalation of war in Afghanistan above and beyond the proportions of Bush's war in Iraq, Obama's sanctioning of Bush's policies on torture, Obama's prone position in relation to Wall St. and his choice to surround himself with economic advisors who were directly responsible for creating economic collapse-I could continue ad nauseum. The similitude between the policies of Bush II and Obama are so glaring that last week, progressive journalist, Danny Schechter, asked, "Has Obama Become Bush II?" (I am particularly fond of the Photoshopped image attending the article-a picture worth more than a thousand words.)

In this teaching moment, those disappointed and despairing of their tryst with Obama have a golden opportunity to ask themselves what his betrayal of them reveals regarding the political and economic systems of America and the reality that no politician can even be nominated for the Presidency by the two-party monstrosity, let alone elected, unless that candidate is permanently dressed in his or her NASCAR uniform. If you do not ask this question, you will continue living out the definition of insanity with every national election because you refuse to look deeply at the fundamentals of how the corporate state functions. You will cover its rotting stench with come cloying cologne of "hope" and thereby not only enable your betrayers but waste precious time by not attending to life and death issues.

My 2006 book, U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You, endeavored first and foremost to leave the reader with an understanding of who owns and operates the American political system. Others have offered their brilliant analyses-Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine, Mike Ruppert in Crossing The Rubicon, and Kevin Phillips in Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Your failed love affair with Obama is now your teaching moment-a critical opportunity to research these four books above and buy out of the putrid, perfidious American political system and buy into making your local community resilient and self-sufficient.

I have long since rejected the American political system and have not voted in any national election since 2000, nor will I again in my lifetime. To do so is to buy into a system that has created what for years I have termed the Toxic Triangle of energy depletion, economic meltdown, and environmental devastation. Every drop of human energy I invest in that system is energy divested from working with my community, my neighborhood, and my loved ones to respond to the current and coming horrors that have been wrought by the three "E's": catastrophic climate chaos, multitudes of environmental refugees, impending global food shortages, the depletion of safe and clean drinking water worldwide, widespread droughts and environmental disasters, unprecedented energy depletion, environmental illnesses and pandemics, and global economic cataclysm.

Visionaries such as Buckminster Fuller, E.F. Schumacher, and Herman Daly have demonstrated that global challenges are most effectively addressed on the local level, where pragmatic responses and options can be created as an alternative to investment in the fantasy of global solutions. That is to say that in the 21^st century, "global" is synonymous with "corporate" and therefore guaranteed to exacerbate rather than grapple with the daunting issues confronting the earth community.

Some individuals argue that focusing on re-localization forces us to ignore the global corporatism of an international ruling elite. My response is to ask why we must do one or the other. It is crucial in my opinion to be aware of the powers that be and their machinations, but I must also ask, what realistically, any of us can do to alter or avert their agenda? The answer is nothing; however, there is much we can do to protect ourselves and our communities from it by becoming self-sufficient and resilient.

On Inauguration Day, 2009, I was intrigued as I watched the swearing in of Obama, by the presence of one man standing behind and to the right of Obama--none other than Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. I doubt that the positioning was intentional, but for me, it was symbolic. It forces me to ask, which interests, which ruling elite families are "standing behind and to the right" of Obama? To what extent is he their creation and theirs alone? For that reason, I chose a photo of that symbolic moment to accompany this article. Take a closer look and think about it deeply. On Inauguration Day, I scoured the internet to find a photo of Rockefeller standing behind Obama during the Oath of Office because I knew its symbolism would later be appreciated by many more Americans than just me. This moment is the moment I had in mind.

Some enablers are capable of changing their behavior and making saner choices. For example, those that have a magnetic attraction to prisoners might find themselves losing interest because they have discovered the deeper meaning of freedom-the ability to create with the support of others, authentic, meaningful responses that do not seduce one into the prison system itself.

This particular affair is over. The "hopium" has worn off. It's time to choose whether you will pursue another affair with another prisoner or walk away from all forms of incarceration, theirs and yours. This is your teaching moment.

This morning I browse the Internet and find this article: "America The Traumatized: How 13 Events of The Decade Made Us The PTSD Nation." I highly recommend reading it because it is the most complete assessment of our trauma from the beginning of this century until the present moment. It's only fault is that it does not address the extent to which the European settlers who founded this nation and their descendants have traumatized this continent's indigenous population and the rest of the world from the moment they set foot on North American shores.

Shock Doctrine

If you have not yet read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, you do not yet fully understand the trauma of the last decade nor its permanent effects in America and in the world. Klein's incisive analysis clarifies the extent to which the world has been traumatized far beyond the events of September 11 and reveals an economic policy of the last half of the twentieth century that, like the events of that particular day, will perpetuate an indefinite climate of terror throughout the twenty-first century.

The "holy wars" engendered by 9/11 in turn produced countless men and women emotionally and spiritually eviscerated by them, returning to their homelands to become the next generation of murderers, spouse-batterers, and child abusers. And simultaneously, the close of the decade brought forth an economic bloodbath which left masses of dispossessed human beings homeless, bankrupt, unemployed, without healthcare or retirement, and in myriad instances, depressed and suicidal. Moreover, this financial carnage was not merely a vast series of incidents of economic trauma, but implemented the permanent dismantling of the middle class--a sea change of calculated, systematic impoverishment.

A December 15 MSNBC story reported that: "Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities."

As Klein documents, some of this past decade's trauma was circumstantial; some, deliberate, but all has left an indelible, protracted mark on the human species which is likely to endure even beyond this century.

Hey, I'm Not Traumatized

Some readers may argue that this article, so far, is irrelevant to their circumstances. After all, you may argue, I haven't experienced any of the above-mentioned forms of adversity. Very well-yes, I really mean that. I'm happy that you have been fortunate enough to avoid them, but do not think, dear reader, that you have been able to avoid being traumatized. In fact, if you are alive on planet earth today, you are living and will live the rest of your life in a state of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While you may not have lived through a traumatic event, you cannot escape the effects of a plethora of traumatic events around you, and what is more, you will be reminded of those events on some level every day of your life.

Is it the foreclosure signs you see as you look out your front window? Is it the story about the Nigerian airline passenger this past weekend who allegedly intended to blow up a plane-a story that dominates airtime on cable news channels, internet sites, and newspapers? Maybe it's the homeless people you see on your city streets carrying signs begging for whatever change you can spare. Unless you're living in a hermetically sealed isolation tank, you know someone who has lost their house, job, healthcare, retirement benefits, a limb or a life in war. You're not an addict? Don't feel like self-medicating? Untold millions of people do. Why is that?

Perhaps you haven't had your "End of Suburbia" moment when you really get, down to your toenails what the end of cheap and abundant oil will mean for you and your loved ones. Maybe you can't wrap your mind around going to the grocery store only to find that there is no food there. Just can't grasp getting seriously injured and needing surgery, but no hospital, doctor, or nurse can be found-at least one with anesthesia? Oh, and did I mention that sometime this coming decade, it may become very difficult or impossible to find clean, safe drinking water? Now, do you feel traumatized?

You, yes you, are experiencing some form of PTSD, and that will become increasingly obvious to you as the collapse of the empire that engineered the pillage grows more insane, more desperate to survive, more threatened, and more willing to do whatever it takes to stay on life-support.

I haven't even mentioned here the reality of childhood trauma that many of us bring to the table in the traumatic decades of the twenty-first century. How this factors into the equation is unknown, but it does, and it will, and added to the reality that we live in a culture of competition, as opposed to cooperation, trauma-past and present, is an enormous contributor to our daunting difficulties in creating and maintaining supportive and harmonious living communities.

Wow, I'm Multi-Tasking!

For activists and those working for change, it is extremely important to understand the trauma of the people with whom and for whom you are working, as well as your own. It accounts for the inability of so many people to look at the realities of collapse and stop pretending that a "return to normal" is imminent. And even when folks are able to look, our multitudinous forms of PTSD may keep us from realizing how little time we have to prepare and stop us from allowing ourselves to be deeply penetrated by what is truly at stake.

In an article "In Terror's Grip: Healing The Ravages of Trauma", by Harvard Medical School's Bessel van der Kolk, he emphasizes that the difference between a normally stressful event and a trauma is the degree of helplessness one experiences in the face of it. Numbness, confusion, shock, withdrawal, denial, addictions, and many other behaviors are attempts to avoid the feeling of helplessness and the reliving, consciously or unconsciously, of the trauma. The result is often an attempt to avoid feelings that might evoke memories of the trauma or use the distractions of work, family, or other responsibilities to keep emotions and memories at bay. Thus the obsession with "staying happy" or "keeping things light" or "having a positive attitude."

I notice, for example, that it is much easier for activists to "lose themselves" in causes and projects than actually feel the feelings associated with these endeavors. This accounts for the ubiquitous question "What should we do?" that arises as people begin to awaken to the dire issues of Peak Oil (and every other resource), climate change, global economic catastrophe, species extinction, and population overshoot-to name only a few. If I'm busy "doing" and "solving", then I don't have to feel my feelings about something that may or may not have a solution. If I don't feel my feelings, however, I am likely to misdirect my energy and while being quite task-oriented, fail to be the person I need to be, for myself and for others, as the external situation further deteriorates.

The moment we feel our feelings, we are no longer in the land of logistical preparation where we can operate from the neck up and pretend that there is no force greater than the personal human ego operating within in us or outside of us. Once we feel, we are in the territory of soul-a domain that is irrational, non-linear, unpredictable, and beyond our control.

As Van Der Kolk and others emphasize, a sense of helplessness is what keeps us from exploring our feelings in relation to collapse more fully. Yet what is unavoidably true is that on many levels, we are helpless or at least feel helpless in the face of monumental challenges like Peak Oil and climate change.

The Mother Of All Fears

If I feel, I enter the domain of the heart and soul, and if I do that, I will invariably, sooner or later, confront my fear of death. But isn't that just another trauma? Well, it can be, but it doesn't have to be. A number of wise men and women have researched death extensively including Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, and the Dali Lama who claims to spend at least one hour a day contemplating his own death.

Isn't this just a lot of self-absorbed navel gazing? I think not. In fact, I believe it is very important in a culture that is based on invincible heroism, to contemplate our defeat and our demise regularly. Until we do so, death has unspeakable power over us-so much so that it prevents us from feeling our feelings and thus tapping into that "something greater" within us that can guide us to where we will be most useful to our loved ones and the rest of the community of life.

In fact, Van Der Kolk, the Harvard Medical School researcher, highly recommends feeling our feelings: "...effective treatment of PTSD", he writes, "must involve promoting awareness, rather than avoidance, of internal somatic states." He uses the term "mindfulness", a word often used by practitioners of meditation, stating that, "Mindfulness, awareness of one's inner experience, is necessary for a person to respond according to what is happening and is needed in the present, rather than reacting to certain somatic sensations as a return of the traumatic past. Such awareness will free people to introduce new options to solve problems and not merely to react reflexively."

What Does Your GPS Say?

Finally, says Van der Kolk, "Imagining new possibilities, not merely repetitively retelling the tragic past, is the essence of post-traumatic therapy." In this I hear the both-and that we must embrace as we navigate another decade of trauma and traumatic residue from the previous one. That is, we must be willing to feel our feelings and listen to their reverberations in the body, and at the same time, envision and imagine life lived in a new paradigm of cooperation, enoughness, service, respect, and deep listening and truth-speaking. In the coming decade of transition trauma, we must listen deeply not only to others but to the "something greater" within us-the internal GPS (not Global Positioning System but Greater Positioning System) that can center and ground us when all manner of terror confronts us and tempts us to resort to numbness, avoidance, panic, cynicism, or frenetic busy-ness.

I don't know how the next decade will end, but it is beginning with an insipid mediocrity that I find more ominous than blatant upheaval. Thus I cannot help but wonder to what extent a dramatic "event(s)" will be necessary to awaken more of our species or the level of catastrophe required for the awakening to occur. In other words, a significant portion of the human race may be incapable of mindfulness without the experience of more trauma of a more calamitous nature. I would very much like to be wrong about that, but we're out of time, and most of humanity is obsessed with a "return to normal."

This week's issue of Newsweek features an article on "Survivalism Lite" which highlights families around the nation who are preparing for the worst. Of course, it's all about amassing vast quantities of food, medical supplies, and ammunition. Nowhere in the piece is there one mention of how these people intend to cope emotionally and spiritually when all the cans of Chef Boyardee run out. What this movement portends is quite simply, a bunch of traumatized people preparing to inflict more trauma on themselves and others.

There is absolutely no place in the decade ahead for arrogance based on how much we know about collapse and how prepared we think we may be for it. Like veterans returning from combat, we are all the walking wounded, and our work is to hold onto each other and feel our own and the other's feelings, then join hands and transform our communities. The work to be done is daunting in quantity and scope; it is the work not only of preparation but also of healing-the work of looking inside ourselves and asking, "Who is preparing? Who is healing? Who do I want to be-who must I be in the 20-tens?"

This morning I also received this stunning poem by David Whyte which I invite us to take with us into the new decade:

MAMEEN (Conamara, Ireland)

Be infinitesimal under that sky, a creature
even the sailing hawk misses, a wraith
among the rocks where the mist parts slowly.
Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed
by circumstance, how great reputations
dissolve with infirmity and how you,
in particular, live a hairsbreadth from losing
everyone you hold dear.

Then, look back down the path as if seeing
your past and then south over the hazy blue
coast as if present to a wide future,
recall the way you are all possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons
whether you reach them or not,
admit that once you have got up
from your chair and opened the door,
once you have walked out into the clean air
toward that edge and taken the path up high
beyond the ordinary you have become
the privileged and the pilgrim
the one who will tell the story
and the one, coming back
from the mountain,
who helped to make it.

- David Whyte

Carolyn Baker is available for Transition coaching/counseling and spiritual direction. Please contact her at [email protected]

As institutions crumble and the global economic meltdown worsens and morphs into irreversible collapse, many people feel lost and disoriented, especially if they have lost jobs, health care, experienced foreclosure or bankruptcy, and of course, if they have lost the funds which they may have spent decades assuming would be there for them in retirement. The seemingly endless losses of collapse can be terrifying and paralyzing, and it is always easier to complain about the culture than to take action to empower oneself and serve the rest of the community of life on this planet. It may also be tempting to assume that since collapse is inevitable and now moving along unstoppably with a life of its own, there isn't any point in exerting any effort to alleviate the misery it is manifesting everywhere by compassionately serving others, even those who may know or care little about collapse. On one level, it is easier to just sit than to act.

One woman who does not embrace that perspective and who beautifully exemplifies empowerment and service is Kathleen Byrne, R.N., who works essentially two full-time jobs as a hospice nurse and as the proprietor of a cheery boarding house and hostel in rural Vermont. Despite numerous challenges in the past year, Kathleen has been able to thrive by working in two industries which not only pay the bills but feed her soul, namely, hospice care and hospitality. A former restaurant owner and gourmet chef, she offers housing but also serves up a sumptuous cuisine which enhances the feeling of home her guests already experience.

I can't help notice that the words hospitality and hospice come from the same root word having to do with kindness toward guests. For this reason, Kathleen's two jobs complement each other, and she is the perfect person to perform and embellish both tasks.

CB: Thank you Kathleen for your willingness to do this interview. Please tell our readers your thoughts on the current and worsening collapse of industrial civilization. How have you seen it playing out in the past two years, and where do you think it's going to go, particularly in terms of its effects on healthcare and housing?

KB: I saw "The End of Suburbia" and experienced the catastrophe of Katrina within weeks of each other in 2005 and knew then that the dark times were upon us. I have not watched tell-a-vision in over 15 years and so have been able to detox from the nightly news and American culture. Like a character in an apocalyptic novel, I gauge the level of collapse we are experiencing by the news that people bring me from away-such as Truth to Power's Daily News Digest.

This summer, two different sets of environmental refugees came to the Inn. Two Alabamans came to Vermont looking for property because "the summers are too hot in Alabama now." A couple with a two year-old child stayed with me for a few days while looking for property here, fearful over the water supply in Boulder, Colorado.

This week, I received a call from a mental health counselor who wanted help for his 56 year-old client. The man had long been cared for by his father who was now a resident in a nursing home. The placement the counselor had found for the man was no longer suitable, and the only other option was a hotel or homeless shelter.

I have patients who are faced with the option of buying food or medications. I don't need to tell you how this will all play out. We have all read Grapes of Wrath. Eventually, I will be inundated with the homeless and hungry.

CB: As you know, I live in Boulder, and what we know for sure is that there is plenty of water here-for now, but what is alarming is the misuse of it and the possibility of millions more people moving to Colorado. Nevertheless, there will be many communities across the nation and the world in which collapse will produce environmental refugees.

So my next question is: Why do you think it's important to take action in the world, even as everything around us seems to be collapsing?

KB: The answer to this question lies in my Catholic upbringing and the kindness of my mother. The dictates of those early years were to give back to those less fortunate since we had been given so much. I am grateful to my father who emphasized the importance of education, my mother who taught me to read before I started kindergarten and showed me by example to be kind and loving, and the many others I have met in countless books who have reinforced the values of hard work and purpose. My favorites are Howard Zinn, Pema Chodron, and Joseph Campbell. How could I not absorb all this and be grateful and lovingly give back?

A miracle occurred on December 17th, my 64th birthday to underscore this. I celebrated by listening to the Beatles famous song "When I'm 64" and was flooded with emotions as I remembered what life was like in the 60's in our country and for me as a young woman. Life seemed simple then, but I was unformed and unfulfilled and had not yet traveled the path to adulthood. Later in the dark of my birthday night, a former boarder came in out of the Vermont cold, a homeless 68 year-old with a limp and emotional problems. I asked no questions and welcomed him into the warmth of the inn, making sure he had eaten recently. Robert Frost said, "Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in." By trusting me and returning, this man gave me the birthday present that clarified my life's purpose. I am reminded of the stories of countless hobos on the byways during the (other) Great Depression who drew the smiling cat logo in chalk on the sidewalk of the house of the kind-hearted woman. I aspire to be her.

CB: Tell us about your work as a hospice care nurse. What makes it so enlivening and enriching for you personally? How do you feel you are making a difference in a collapsing world?

KB: In 1971, I was a VISTA Volunteer assigned to a Community Action Agency in Anadarko, Oklahoma . It was there that I saw an Indian child with fetal alcohol syndrome, a result of the rampant alcohol abuse among the Indian population. That one shocking moment directed my rather drifting 60's life to nursing school to "make a contribution to the world."

I had felt that this promise would never really come to fruition, but now, after 33 years in the profession, I have the job that allows me to fulfill this promise. I am a nurse for a home care-hospice agency in Vermont. I am privileged to care for people in their own homes with the mission of keeping them there safely. My life's purpose of being of service is fulfilled by every person I am privileged to care for: the Viet Nam Vet with PTSD and a recent amputation; the 75 year-old Vermont farm woman with ovarian cancer; the oxygen dependent woman in a trailer park that lost power after a high wind storm. One morning at 4 AM I drove over a daunting Vermont mountain to help an elderly man living alone in the house in which he was born. He was in pain and had no one to call for help but the home health nurses. The essence of nursing is to care for such an older man who is alone and in pain in the middle of the night. These older Vermonters are stoics who are used to adversity-- to the cold and snowy climate, rural isolation and the 40-mile trip for supplies. These people are my teachers, my sisters, my brothers, my mothers. And so, let me not sit lifeless and unfulfilled when there is so much work to do. Let me contribute to my community of patients bravely soldering on, teaching all of us so much.

CB: Now please tell us about your management of the hostel/boarding house you own. Has it been a profitable enterprise for you in the past year? How do you feel this work makes a difference? What has made it rewarding for you?

KB: The inn ! Oh, my! A huge blessing, great fun and a financial disaster all rolled into one! I think of Loreena McKennitt, the Canadian vocalist and composer, who said in a commencement address at Laurier College in 2002 , "No matter how much you think you know what you want, life sometimes takes you by the scruff of the neck and offers you surprises and changes, other possibilities and opportunities even in the heart of disappointments, and your talents and potential, your capacity to effect change may lie in completely different areas from where you thought they were and sometimes you need to go with this."

And so, the inn that I bought in 2008 with the hopes of it becoming an intentional community has become a boarding house and hostel where travelers and adventurers can find a good meal and a comfortable bed. The boarders get a furnished room and use of the kitchen and dining and living rooms. There have been 12 of them since March, some staying for two days and one for five months. There was a woman who left her husband and needed short-term, temporary shelter; a talented musician/botanist who works for the Forest Service; a writer/editor, and a student on his way to the Art Institute of Chicago. Sometimes there are even guests--like the two sisters cycling from California.

This 2.5 acres of permacultured land at the edge of the Green Mountains and populated by my 16 chickens, 8 cats and Rabbit is not Earth Haven. It is, however, community to the 10 of us who live here, and we have become a family who cares for each other. A baby will be born in March, and there is a beautiful, sweet 15 year-old who is home schooled. At a time in the history of the planet when we have peak oil, climate change, great unemployment and war, we have each other and gardens and the White River in our backyard and the beauty of the Green Mountain National Forest, the wilderness that is the "undiluted work of the Creator". These people and this place have pushed me far beyond my boundaries and are keeping me young....And I have found my community.

CB: You could be living a nice, quiet, isolated life in retirement, but you're obviously not. Tell us why.

KB: I always say with a smile that Goddess looks out for stupid women like me, and She has surely saved me from my father's retirement. My father retired financially secure to his bedroom where he sat for 25 years essentially going crazy from self-absorption. There I was, living in a house I had paid for with money in the bank collecting "social insecurity." The next thing I knew, my loneliness and fear over collapse had propelled me to Vermont. Who knew that I would find the light and the dark you talk about Carolyn - fun, tears, fulfillment , frustration - in other words, a great life.

As Pema Chodron says, "It's not about getting to a place that's really swell." So I have been saved from myself, the self that wanted safety and security where things were really swell. My path now is very different from any darn thing I could have imagined! Let my life continue to make a difference to others. Let me fulfill my purpose on this dark and scary planet. Thank you Carolyn for inviting me to talk with you.

Kathleen may be contacted at: [email protected]

This winter solstice is particularly dark. I watch the blood drain from the faces of my progressive friends, disillusioned by their "yeswecan" poster boy who has accomplished little in his first term but the escalation of a despicable war for oil and drugs, and with the stroke of a pen, opened the floodgates for troops and military contractors to rape and pillage yet another piece of the planet. "Welcome to the Golden Arches of Kabul. May I take your order?" The "Hopium" wears off, and we're reminded that it's still winter, and it's still very, very dark.

I contemplate the word "apocalypse" which originates from the Greek word that means "the unveiling". The poster child wins the peace prize, but just hours beforehand, he unleashes hell on earth. Did you see that? The veil was lifted for a few moments and we saw who really owns him.

Humanity is committing suicide in a thousand ways. This week, they all shook hands in Copenhagen and agreed to throw a bone to the climate change militants while genuflecting before corporate capitalism as the supreme deity on earth. The gods have been appeased, but the veil was lifted briefly. Oh my, did you see that? Corruption, scandal, and one climate scientist, Jim Hansen, not only boycotts the entire spectacle, but hopes it will fail because he was able to see through the chicanery even as it was being orchestrated.

A Congress of solidly owned legislators shakes hands and agrees that healthcare has nothing to do with health but only profit for big pharma and the insurance industry. It's all there if you just look. You don't even have to read about it on an alternative news website. Open your eyes because the veil has been torn off, and if you ever wanted to see naked people who can't even find their clothes-who aren't even trying, this is it. But beware because you are a walking pre-existing condition simply because you breathe air.

Over two decades ago as a psychotherapist in training, I worked in the back ward. I have the scars to prove it. I'm fortunate not to have been more severely injured, but more fortunate not to be living the hell I witnessed in the eyes of the patients inhabiting the so-called "mental health unit." Yet unlike the inmates who run the current asylum that is empire, those folks, in that ward, really knew they were crazy. They wanted so badly to die, and they told you that, straight up. They didn't make delusional statements like "this is a necessary war" or "this climate deal was a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" or "hold your nose and vote for it." What's really crazier than the insanity these statements blatantly reveal is the attempt to keep the veil in place. Let's all pretend that industrial civilization is temporarily limping along in some "rough patch" that will invariably, inevitably (because this is America) turn around and re-establish itself in the land of "normal." I'll take a flagrantly violent and suicidal psychotic any day of the week who is excruciatingly aware of their anguish and begs to be allowed to end their misery. Please, I implore you, give me the certifiable schizophrenic who "knows" he is Jesus and that killer ants are crawling all over his body.

No darkness is as dark as that perpetuated by people who insist they are living in the light.

So what's the real deal with the species that sits, as Tim Bennett suggests, like Thelma and Louise, at the edge of the cliff, about to punch the gas of the '66 T Bird into oblivion while taking everything and everyone else in sight with it? Is it really all about hating the culture and its vacuousness that much?

I keep coming back to the dark-and the light. I can't forget how they need each other-like the North and South poles-like every opposite we can possibly imagine that is only truly defined and appreciated by what it isn't. After all I've written here, how dare I talk about the light? Isn't that all just theory? Where's the experience?

Every once in awhile, one of those patients in that back ward would receive the kind of treatment that allowed him or her to walk out the front door with fear and trepidation, but nevertheless committed to staying alive and finding many reasons to contribute to the lives of others. And even more frequently these days, I find individuals and communities that are discovering a deeper meaning and purpose in their lives that they are holding alongside the horrors created by an inexorably suicidal human species. I encounter in the most unexpected places people who are not just sitting and waiting, but working-working hard to contribute to the well being of the community of life. They wish to minimize the suffering that the collapse of empire will entail, but even more importantly, they are doing their work just because-because it makes a difference to others, because it empowers themselves and all the lives they touch, because they can't not do the work, because in doing whatever work they feel called to do, they are finding and fulfilling their purpose in being on this dark and scary planet.

You see it isn't just about jumping off a cliff to end the anguish. It's about finding meaning, and even if we build communities that look like permaculture design on steroids, even if we return to steady-state economics and create burgeoning economies of scale based on cooperation, compassion, creativity-even if we fashion intentional communities that approximate heaven on earth, even if we were to forge a culture of nirvana, it is only by immersing ourselves in the inner transition process that brings emotional and spiritual transformation far beyond anything traditional psychotherapy has to offer-it is only there that we find the meaning and purpose that will move us through the evolutionary threshold on which we stand and make the current cultural nightmare a bit more bearable.

A new kind of human is possible, but it will be experienced only as the old paradigm definition of humanity breathes its last breath. The veils keep falling off the things they have been concealing for more than 5,000 years. Let's keep assisting the unveiling and call what's underneath exactly what it is.

One way to do this is to find and do the work we came here to do and which massive unemployment and underemployment, vs. greasing the wheels of empire, now gives us an excellent opportunity to discover.

Our second job is to become in the indigenous sense of the word, elders of the community. The elder is not necessarily the older. His or her job always was and will be not only the preparation of youth for initiation, but speaking truth and creating beauty. These may seem like contradictory tasks, but they are profoundly complementary. In indigenous cultures, elders are truth-tellers who are often disliked for their directness and candor. Yet they know that this is the job of the elder, and that to do anything less is to betray succeeding generations. At the same time, the elder knows that the horrible truths unveiled must be balanced by the creation of beauty-poems, songs, stories, works of art, and music. In earlier definitions of the word "prophet", it meant not someone who tells what will happen, but what is happening and what is about to happen. Thus the elder must be both a prophet and an artist, for one needs the other and cannot exist without it.

I'm reminded of scenes from the recent movie and novel "The Road" in which "the man" teaches "the boy" that some individuals "carry the fire", and others don't. As the ending reveals, this instruction, as much as the incessant heinous experiences they encountered, made a permanent impression on the boy, and we are led to believe, would be the litmus test on which he relied in a world which many found impossible to endure.

Another poet who was roughly a contemporary of T.S. Eliot was William Butler Yeats. Both lived the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries, and both witnessed the global cataclysm of World War I. Yeats in particular was deeply troubled about where industrial civilization was taking the planet, yet he never relinquished his conviction that its horrors would ultimately bring forth that new kind of human.

At this solstice/nativity moment, Yeats speaks to us of the light that attends the darkness and cannot be extinguished:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And so I ask, on this longest night and shortest day: What beauty did you create today?

And in this very dark moment, are you carrying the fire?

I was a psychotherapist in private practice for 17 years, and 12 years ago, I felt compelled to leave the profession. At the time, I wasn't clearly aware of why, but today, I realize that some part of me knew that not only was the profession about to disintegrate, but that my talents and skills could be more effectively engaged elsewhere.

I currently live in Boulder, Colorado where I am developing a Transition Counseling and Spiritual Direction practice to reach out to individuals who may be experiencing unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, loss of benefits, loss of retirement, and other crises resulting from the collapse of industrial civilization. I'm also exploring options for working with people by phone as well as in person. As I interact with people hurting from a variety of economic, emotional, physical, and spiritual devastations, I notice that few of them have to be reminded that something is horribly wrong with the culture in which they live. They feel unspeakably betrayed and shattered as a result of the faith they invested in the American dream, and they are now experiencing the nightmare it has become in their personal lives.

Up until perhaps 2008, it might have been useful to bemoan the culture in which we live in an effort to teach our fellow humans that it is killing them and all other earthlings. Today, I find that even if people maintain a persona that we're simply passing through a "rough patch" and that things will get back to normal because after all, this is America, and we will bounce back - just beneath the surface of that particular mask is a profoundly disturbing awareness that we are in dire and unprecedented territory and that a "return to normal" is a tragic chimera.

Because few people are solidly convinced of what this pathetic culture can actually deliver, I'm finding it unnecessary and even counterproductive to keep whining about that reality. What people want and need is a sense that they're not alone, that they're not crazy, that there are many things they can do to enhance their personal empowerment in the context of an unraveling civilization, and very importantly, that there is work for them to do in their neighborhood and community - that they can invest their life force energy there and work with others to prepare for a deepening collapse. Curiously, I'm finding that the latter option is perhaps the most important of all.

I am currently working with Transition Colorado and networking with other Transition groups around the nation and world, but Transition is only one of many venues for involvement with one's community in preparation for the Long Emergency. The opportunities for doing preparatory work with others locally are infinite.

While I believe it is crucial to understand how we have all incorporated the toxicity of the culture on myriad levels, and while it is equally important to buy out of the dominant system, it is extremely important to engage with other awake individuals in preparing for collapse by doing that work together. The time of focusing exclusively on individual childhood wounding, individualistic self-empowerment, coping skills, and personal self-esteem is over. I'm not dismissing these as irrelevant, but humanity has now reached an evolutionary threshold in which we must grow up and evolve together or become extinct.

Evolving together means working together. Incessant navel contemplation and "woundology" enhanced by sitting in groups and attempting to create intimacy is not only narcissistic, but is in some sense, a crime against the earth community because it compartmentalizes humans from their inherent membership in the human and more-than-human families. It fosters a sense of "us and them" and propagates an odious arrogance that "our little group" is better than, wiser than, more evolved than, and more likely to survive than those others hoodwinked by the dominant culture. I'm not sure that at this point in the collapse process that we can engage in this kind of work without inadvertently perpetuating the culture of empire that we proclaim to abhor.

Perhaps even more counterproductive is isolation and an abdication of our human responsibility to serve the earth community. While it may be useful to sit in conversation groups with likeminded folks, it is, in my opinion, our moral obligation to serve the world in which we live, and as stated above, the opportunities for doing so are endless. This is tricky because it means we must create and maintain good boundaries. It means serving but also keeping some distance from the prevailing paradigm. Engaging in service does not mean wallowing in the system, but it does mean affirming that we are part of the earth community, not better than - that we are equally vulnerable, equally fallible, and that by serving, we are joining with our fellow earth inhabitants to carry the vision of a new paradigm, whether that paradigm ever prevails or not.

In her recent blog post, "Lessons From The Edge", Sharon Astyk reminds us of why it's important to carry the vision:

...at the end of the night the sense is this - that though the odds are increasingly small and the abyss below us increasingly vast, what matters most is that we live our lives as though we can succeed, because every bit of harm we prevent and every blow softened matters, and in the end, how you lived matters as much as the winning. Most of what we do may not work, in the sense of preserving it all, but ought to preserve some -and some is a great deal when measured in human lives and happiness.

You see, it isn't about "preventing" collapse or the triumph of a new paradigm, but rather about minimizing the suffering.

Some individuals believe that the ideal model for transcending the culture of empire is the ecovillage or intentional community. There may be a time, in my opinion, when this option is truly viable, but at this stage of collapse, I think not. People who do live in intentional communities usually report that because of the emotional baggage people bring to the community, it is necessary to spend hours daily "processing" these issues in order to resolve conflicts. Generally, if this processing is not done, the community falls apart. That, from my perspective, is because for the most part, non-tribal people are not yet in a situation where they need to create tribes. When they need to do so, they probably will. Until then, we will have isolated ecovillages held together by incessant psychological processing, and how, I ask, is this different from living in a gated community in suburbia?

As Kathy McMahon notes:

Rather than learning to speak more honestly, (a skill I value, highly, by the way), I think that the true therapist encourages people to do more listening and do more real honest work with other people they live around. Meaningful work means local work that will heal and repair the world around you.

I believe that in addition to service, we must also address our own personal shadow. The shadow is a Jungian term that simply means all within us that we have disowned and said, "That's not me." It can be the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and everything in between. It is more than just taking responsibility for "my part" in an event or an interaction. It is the willingness to explore how something we despise or loathe may actually be a part of us which we project outward onto other individuals and on the culture itself. In other words, how do I act out empire on a daily basis? How do I abuse, exploit, plunder, pillage, manipulate, and use power and control to get what I think I need? How do I subtly or blatantly perpetuate Western civilization's curse of entitlement and "specialness"? Of course, I wouldn't do any of this consciously, because I'm too "enlightened", right? Wrong. That's why rigorous exploration of the shadow is so crucial.

Doing shadow work is very humbling and radically diminishes arrogance because it reveals our sameness and what we have in common with our fellow humans, as opposed to how we believe we are superior. And in fact, in the same way that within the dark recesses of the earth we sometimes find gold, within the most despised parts of ourselves, we find treasures that if "mined" and worked with, provide the compassion, creativity, patience, and humility that allow us to transform the "emperor within."

One piece I found implicit but not explicit in both Erickson's and McMahon's articles is the importance of connecting with something greater than ourselves and other humans. I have attempted in Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, to offer not only tools for emotional preparation for collapse, but options for enhancing our relationship with something greater. Some people abhor the word "spiritual", yet some of the most "spiritual" individuals I have ever met call themselves atheists and agnostics. Here again, the contamination of words with the semantics of empire challenges our definitions, but in my experience, I have met few people who aren't "spiritual" in the sense that they are able to stand in awe of forces greater than the personal ego, such as nature, love, beauty, joy, and sorrow - to name only a few. For me, "spiritual" means little more than having a heart and a gut, and where emotion ends and "spiritual" begins, who can say?

Here in Boulder, and in several places around the country, people have started Sacred Demise study groups which simply means they are using the book as a springboard for exploring many other topics. What I know of these groups is that they are not intended to be venues for ongoing inner work or the creation of intimacy, yet in the process of coming together to work with the book's contents, both seem to occur quite naturally. What I also notice is that folks in these groups are not isolated, but extensively involved in service in their neighborhoods and communities.

Much of the emotional work we may "think" we need to do at this stage of the transition - work that is still primarily optional, will pale by comparison to work that will need to be done as collapse accelerates. Some of the work we are doing now may seem almost irrelevant in the light of intensifying challenges down the road. But all of the work we do now or later will be informed and interpreted by the conditions around us and will only make sense in the light of them.

A very important question for those currently practicing psychotherapy is raised by McMahon:

When our neighborhoods are defined by the five-to-ten miles around our homes, we'll be forced to learn new skills, and being diplomatic will count a whole lot more than honesty all by itself. As therapists, we'd do well to encourage our clients to appreciate the qualities of human connections and interactions by doing thoughtful, tangible and useful things for others in our neighborhood, without an expectation of an immediate payoff. When we learn to be helpful and constructive to others, our oddness or emotional damage will become less important than the way we go about salvaging our humanity. We may well find ourselves in a time when it will be a rare person who has escaped true hardship. Right now, one of every six workers in the U.S. are unemployed or underemployed.

What will our job as psychotherapists be when that number grows to one in five or even one in three?

In the title of this article I have put the word "ends" in quotation marks because I do not believe that the world will end, but certainly the world as we have known it is ending. That includes the institution of psychotherapy which in its traditional form is collapsing as rapidly and as profoundly as every other institution of civilization. Two decades from now, it will bear little resemblance to its present form. One reality of that transition will be that if therapists expect to get paid for their work, they should plan to accept payment in vegetables or chickens because money as we know it, eventually won't exist. Regardless of what happens, however, it is only the work we do in the external world - in our particular places with real human beings, that gives meaning to the work we do in the inner world. If we can spend as much time in the community garden as we do on the couch, then perhaps it will serve us to have a shrink as the world ends. Or perhaps as awake individuals strive to maintain this balance, less therapy will be needed and our roles as therapists as we know them will become obsolete. We will then discover other gifts to offer our communities.

I have written much about initiation, more recently an article entitled "Humanity's Rite of Passage: A World Tended By Adults." The initiated woman or man knows that the world is not a perfect place and that if it were, he or she would probably not be here because his/her gifts would not be needed here. Contempt for the culture serves no one, nor does insistence that our roles in relation to a collapsing empire must function in traditional ways. Collapse will show us where we are most needed and how we can best serve, yes the operative word is serve, our fellow creatures.

Carolyn may be contacted at [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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If incessant adrenalin rushes enhanced by stupefying special effects are what you desire, seeing "Collapse" should be postponed until you are ready to hear, see, and feel how Director Chris Smith's uncanny discernment is brilliantly conveyed in one of the most poignant, but inspiring movies of this decade.

When was the last time you saw a movie that opened with a plea for revolution-no, not the kind with bullets and bombs, but the kind Thomas Jefferson said should happen every twenty years-a revolution in our thinking? In fact, the kind of revolution Mike Ruppert calls for in the opening scenes is one that takes place inside us. In fact, that kind of revolution is one he's lived since he was a political science major at UCLA in the seventies. Whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, you cannot argue that every word that comes out of his mouth in "Collapse", issues from bone-marrow experience-the kind none of us would ever welcome, the kind some of us would have long since committed suicide over, the kind most of us would gladly walk away from. Yet, Mike Ruppert is still alive, still speaking his truth, and amazingly, still able to laugh and play music.

From this point forward in this review, I will refer to Mike Ruppert as simply "Mike." That's because despite the fact that we've had our disagreements in the past and not a few "come to Jesus" moments, this guy named Mike--"Ruppert", "MCR", the LAPD narc, the investigative journalist, and "batshit insane conspiracy theorist" as he has been derisively labeled, is still my friend, and has been for almost a decade.

So what kind of movie opens with the main character coming in, sitting down, lighting a cigarette, and being asked, "So who are you?" Shortly, the viewer may be thinking, "Wish they hadn't asked that question because I really don't want to know." That means that by the time you've heard three minutes of Mike's personal story, you are already appalled and prepared to plug your ears and do anything but hear more. Your first response may be, "That can't be true", yet his story is fully documented in writing and by verified numerous eyewitnesses. In summary, his was no ordinary childhood and certainly no ordinary law enforcement career. All roads led to that career as a highly decorated Los Angeles Police Department detective, and everything after has been impacted by it. For as Mike very clearly states in the movie, that clean, dedicated, twenty-seven year-old cop is still alive in him and has always wanted some answers-and yes, some justice.

But to the same extent the conscientious cop lives within him, so does the cartographer, the map maker, whose life depended on finding out how the world really works as opposed to how we've been told it works. I would say that at least 80% of his work has evolved out of an attempt to save his own life. That brings it down from ivory tower speculation to a cellular, soul level.

PEAK OIL

So if you're still hanging out with doubts about the validity of Peak Oil, you won't be after you watch this movie's second segment. I've heard and read volumes on Peak Oil, but Mike's explanation always rings in my ears more loudly than that of any other because of its clarity and simplicity. However, he admittedly stands on the shoulders of numerous Peak Oil researching giants such as Dale Allen Pfeiffer and what he calls "The Three Wise Men": Colin Campbell, Matt Simmons, and Richard Heinberg.

Mike explains that it requires the mind of a cop to understand how Peak Oil fits into the rest of the map of events in terms of motive, means, and opportunity. It is now the fundamental underpinning of foreign policy-not only that of the United States, but of all industrial nations. Institutionalized denial of Peak Oil or the refusal by our government to tell the truth about it is nothing less than criminal, according to Mike, because it means that we are building our future as if Peak Oil doesn't exist-sacrificing the lives of future generations so that we can live comfortable lives based on a lie. As for "alternative energy options", I've yet to hear anyone surpass Mike's explanations of how futile and farcical this notion is in terms of sparing us from a global energy crisis. On a small, local scale, renewable energy is necessary and useful, but it is an untenable solution for the long-term, big picture reality of the end of the age of oil.

THE DEADLY ACCURATE MAP

About the same time that Mike's newsletter, From The Wilderness began publishing stories about Peak Oil, he started connecting the dots between a number of other issues, and several articles published on the website at that time by Catherine Austin Fitts and by Mike, revealed the likelihood of a massive housing and debt bubble that would inevitably burst and result in a global economic meltdown. In his numerous articles and lectures, Mike began admonishing people to get out of debt, buy gold, pay off credit cards, and learn to grow their own food. It is illumining to return to the From The Wilderness website from time to time and revisit the economic forecasts made there which predicted the current crisis superbly. Some aspects of timing and minor details may have fallen short of accuracy, but for the most part, the forecasts were spot-on in terms of the larger picture.

Others, including myself, read, wrote for, and published aspects of the From The Wilderness map which at the time resulted in being scorned and called crazy. Those years from 2001 to the beginning of the economic crash in September, 2008 were especially tough for many of us in terms of being labeled inveterate doom and gloomers. Some of my close friends who got it were calling me "Cassandra Baker" and with good reason.

But neither Mike nor I have broken out the champagne to celebrate how right on target we were during those years because the collapse of civilization and all of its attendant horrors is not something to celebrate. However, we are both buoyed by the number of people who paid attention and acted accordingly and are still doing so today. Likewise, we are inspired and encouraged by the people who have awakened more recently and all those who are just now connecting the dots and experiencing in their bones, the same revolution to which Mike refers in the opening moments of "Collapse."

Fiat Currency, Fractional Reserve Banking, and Compound Interest-these are the only three things you need to know, says Mike, about money. These three inherently comprise a pyramid scheme; in fact, the entire global economy is a pyramid scheme. It is based on the infinite growth paradigm which has now collided with something much more powerful. Our economy is collapsing, but many other countries in the world are collapsing much more rapidly. In summary, the people who have been running the planet are now losing control.

POPULATION

Anyone who has been researching the collapse of industrial civilization understands, as Mike clearly reminds us, that a global population explosion occurred almost simultaneously with the discovery of oil as the 19th century moved into the 20th . Population has steadily increased as the availability of oil has increased, and it is axiomatic that as access to oil decreases, so must the population.

A question that naturally arises from these disturbing realities is whether or not the human race can understand them and change its behavior in time to avert catastrophe. At this point, Mike reminds us of three types of responses to a Titanic-like situation. One is the deer-in-the-headlights response in which one is frozen with fear and surprise and begins to ask, "What does this mean? What do I do?" Another kind of response is, "We know this is happening, we know we're all going to die unless we build lifeboats, so let's get busy doing it." Another group says, "This is the Titanic; it's unsinkable."

Everything is going to break down differently in different places, according to Mike. Currently, we are seeing the bumpy plateau of energy prices which fluctuate wildly. The critical, lethal point of the plateau for the human race is when oil prices spike again, and no one can afford to buy the oil, at which point, everything will shut down.

THE TRANSITION PHASE

What is critical now is for us to begin to put new structures in place before the old infrastructure completely crumbles. That phase could last between 20 years (which would be incredibly fast) to 50 or 100 years. What is crucial is that we don't panic but rather analyze our own local situation to see what structures must be put in place there. Shortages will occur, but most likely, gradually as opposed to abruptly. Specific shortages will happen in specific places for a specific period. Thus, what is important is not to prepare for the end result of collapse, but to prepare for the transition.

When asked if a collapse be "prevented" by human ingenuity, Mike pensively responds with, "No amount of technology, no amount of human ingenuity can overturn the laws of physics and the laws of the universe." Humankind's greatest peril, he asserts, is to believe that it can overturn the law of the universe and "become God."

He very directly admonishes us to: Buy gold, insulate your house, restore the soil around you and grow food in the restored soil; get organic seeds and store them; get a land line and realize that your cell phone will not be available as the system's collapse exacerbates. Local food production is the most fundamental key to human survival in the collapse of industrial civilization.

For example, when the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea and Cuba were desperately dependent on Soviet oil. The two nations adapted to the loss differently. North Korea maintained its rigid communist system, and millions starved. The Cuban government, however, adapted by growing organic food almost everywhere, abandoning the agribusiness model. The idea was to grow food where people were going to eat food, and the result was remarkable resilience-and survival. The phenomenon to which Mike is referring in this section of "Collapse" is extremely well documented in the 2006 film, "The Power of Community". In summary, in the new human paradigm, everything will be local, and as all animals species know, survival must occur in community, not in isolation.

Director Chris Smith has succeeded in capturing the essence of Mike Ruppert, and one aspect of that essence is the monumental load of grief he carries regarding having spent three decades crying "from the wilderness" to humanity to awaken and embrace the new paradigm. Yet even as the grief is poignantly revealed to us through Mike's tears, so is the balance he maintains through savoring love, fun, play, and making people smile-all of which are very instructive to those of us who are consciously preparing for collapse.

Mike reminds us of Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief and comments that currently, our society appears to be caught in the Anger stage. Ironically, the day I began this review was the same day in which the Ft. Hood massacre occurred, followed by another terrifying shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida. The protracted debate on healthcare over the course of 2009 has been punctuated with numerous violent outbursts at town meetings and insane rages against "socialism" by thousands of hurting middle class Americans. Caustic vitriol pervades our crumbling culture, and that chilling reality is exacerbated by mainstream media's massive lies, distortions, and omissions. How we get through this phase, according to Mike, is critical, and unfortunately, we have little in the culture to assist us in moving through it. However, once we do, and once we begin experiencing acceptance, we are then able to discover like-minded "passengers" on the Titanic with whom we can ally to build lifeboats.

I was recently asked if I thought it was possible that I could be "wrong" about Peak Oil and climate change. My response is that it's possible to be wrong about anything. But as Mike so powerfully comments in "Collapse", there is no longer anything to debate. Engaging in debate on these issues is very much like debating whether the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Peak Oil and climate change are happening; what's to debate?

For those who expend energy with political solutions, Mike points out that capitalism, socialism, and communism are terms "that need to be put in the trash can immediately." The only thing the human race will be concerned with in the future is survival, and ideologies and political parties are showing us less than nothing about how to do this. Engaging in large-scale political processes is not only futile, but deprives us of the energy we need to be investing in survival. All these ideologies were created on the premise of infinite resources, and none offer a balance with the planet's resources and other species.

Yes, we have a sincere, likeable guy in the White House, but, says Mike: He's a prisoner-a prisoner of the government, of politics, of the Federal Reserve, of a system that's archaic. Don't make success or failure rest on his shoulders. The only thing any of us can possible change is our minds.

Stop running from your fear, Mike admonishes us, and starting moving toward embracing your fear because therein lies our ability to survive. This will be, he optimistically reminds us, the greatest evolution in human thinking our species has ever known. Do not run away from your fear, your love, or any emotion because that is the life experience. In those emotions we find the richness of art, music, poetry, and all human creations. Our greater work, he says, is to pull that richness out of the rubbish of civilization's paradigm--a comment which bears uncanny resemblance to what I have written in Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse.

Asked if he would ever "walk away" from three decades of work, Mike asks: If there was a German in 1932-33 who had the foresight to look ahead and see what the end result of the Third Reich would be, could they have in good conscience turned around and walked away? We are collectively as a species responsible for what may be the greatest holocaust in human history-our own suicide.

While I have no negative comments regarding "Collapse", I do have concerns about two issues which could be interpreted as contradictions. One is Mike's statement in the movie that during the Bush administration, he believes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were paying very close attention to his work. The viewer is left to wonder about his rationale for this bold statement, especially as he concludes the comment with, "that's all I care to say." Three decades of persecution by the powers that be does not, in itself, indicate that any two members of those powers were intensely interested in Mike and his work. So I'm left wondering what he knows that we don't.

Those of us who have been close associates of Mike in the past witnessed his dramatic exodus from Los Angeles to Ashland, Oregon in 2006, based as he said at the time on what a horrible place he believed L.A. would turn out to be in collapse. Yet it is precisely to that city that he returned in 2008. One may be tempted to accuse him of hypocrisy, but only if one does not understand that Mike spent most of his life in L.A., and it is for him "home" in every sense of the word. Some people preparing for collapse choose to relocate to exotic locations; some choose what is familiar and comforting.

The movie draws to a close with Mike's recounting in detail the Hundredth Monkey story. For all its poignancy and sad moments, "Collapse" leaves us with great optimism, joy, possibility, and inspiration. While the logistical focus of the movie is on Mike Ruppert, the ultimate focus is on each of us-on that part of us that knows in every cell of our bodies that we are now in the throes of collapse and that our survival and the meaning of our very existence lies in embracing and to some extent living the Michael C. Ruppert that abides in all of us.

I would say that the real crux of Time's Up is the challenge of how to keep the human race from continuing to commit suicide. The first 82 pages of the book are devoted to a painstaking explanation of the inextricable connection between humans and all other life forms. The fundamental reality of the connection is that "nothing is so dependent upon other forms of life as humans, the ultimate consumers." Likewise, "everything we do has the potential to disrupt something, knock if off balance as we negotiate the finest of lines; yet that line we are repeatedly stepping over."

Anyone who argues that humans have nothing to do with climate change needs to read these 82 pages because they unequivocally silence that illusion.

Central to Farnish's book is the premise that everything hinges on connection--the human species' connection with everything else. Unfortunately, it is something we must be taught--something that must be explained in words, but something that indigenous peoples know instinctively and need not spend years thinking about.

"It is nothing great and mysterious", says Farnish, "it is simply the necessary instinct that ensures we do not damage the ability of the natural environment to keep us alive. Failure to connect is the reason humanity is pulling the plug on its life-support machine."

Unlike the indigenous person, "the majority of people in the industrial West who identify most strongly with a hyper-consuming way of life, learning how to reconnect out of necessity is a struggle: most of us have never experienced anything but the disconnected lives we inhabit." However, Farnish reassures us, "we have always been connected, we just need to recognize how natural and comfortable it is to be this way."

Farnish reassuringly holds our hand while he helps us take baby steps toward understanding the essence of connection. He leads us into some very personal experiential, contemplative exercises that engage the right brain and allow us to feel connection rather than simply thinking about it.

Civilization, Farnish says, has put us in a "constant state of sensory deprivation; kept in that state in order that we can be willing participants of Industrial Civilization. If we connect with the real world permanently, then the spell will be broken: we will no longer be 'viewers', 'customers', 'consumers', 'voters', 'citizens'; we will just be us."

The author reminds us that:

"We are in the terminal stages of the greatest addiction humanity has ever seen. We live in a constant disconnected haze; drip-fed a cocktail of proto-choice, dreams, lies, fear, abuse, and hope. We are users of this culture, and it feels good--until we need another dose."

Unique to Farnish's analysis is a list of The Tools of Disconnection, that is, ten techniques for keeping us disconnected from each other and the earth, which of course, keeps us disconnected from ourselves:

• Reward us for being good consumers, store managers, marketing executives, investment bankers
• Make us feel good for doing trivial things--local politicians, writers, therapists
• Give us selected freedom--national politicians, judges, dictators
• Pretend we have a choice--vehicle salespeople, travel agents
• Sell us a dream--advertisers, educators, missionaries
• Exploit our trust--scientists, military officers, office managers
• Lie to us--economists, government ministers, public relations officers
• Scare us--journalists, broadcasters, customs officers
• Abuse us--soldiers, police officers, property developers
• Give us hope--religious and spiritual leaders, environmentalists

Whether or not you agree with the occupations Farnish has grouped with these tools of disconnection, the tools themselves make perfect sense. They have been and continue to be remarkably successful in achieving their intent: to keep us in the disconnection addiction.

So what about the "uncivilized solution" contained in the subtitle of Time's Up? First, the author insists, we must face a very difficult reality: Each of us is the system. "You are part of the system; you have to take responsibility for your part of the problem: how does that feel?" The good news, however, is that each of us is far more important than the people higher up in the web because we are "the engine, the energy source, the reason for its continuation." Without our cooperation, our faith, the system would have no energy and then it would cease to exist.

Farnish is adamant that Western civilization is in the process of collapsing, as is the ecosystem. However, each of us can help the process along and thereby minimize the damage by initiating collapse within an economy. This collapse, of course, is already happening because the public is losing confidence in the economy. "The need for confidence is a psychological feature of Industrial Civilization...." The system is extremely fragile because it is desperately dependent on faith in itself.

Two things we must do: Concentrate on the Tools of Disconnection--notice them, avoid them, and live our lives in a manner that abdicates them. Equally important, we must "ensure that useful information stays out there--in the minds of as many people as possible." Beware of the seductions of corporations, especially the oxymoron of the "green corporation."

Farnish states that "It is possible to create a situation where civilization is left to crumble gradually, reducing the impact on humanity, and the sooner this is done, the less the global environment will be harmed. He makes three stellar points that must not be missed:

1. Reconnect with the real world, so that we can understand our close relationship with it in everything we do. The more you connect, the more you will realize how unreal civilization is.
2. Live in such a way that we do not contribute to the expansion of the global economy, reducing our impact on the natural environment in the process. Be aware that authority figures within the system, such as political leaders and corporations, will attempt to provide you with 'green' advice: this advice is designed to ensure that civilization continues, and should be ignored.
3. Create the conditions so that others may also change through education and, even more importantly, undermining the tools that civilization uses to keep us part of the machine. Don't waste time protesting; this changes nothing--that is why it is legal.

A future outside civilization is a better life; one in which we can actually decide for ourselves how we are going to live.

Farnish provides a clearly organized list of "Key Skills For Going Beyond Civilization" in the short-term, in the long-term, and in the medium-term. He emphasizes that "We need people to discuss plans and ideas with, to help us get things off our chests, to laugh and enjoy things together, to just be there when we are feeling low."

I'm thrilled that Farnish perceives civilization through the lens of addiction and consistently coaches us to enrich and enlarge our deeper humanity. However, I fear that he has nearly written off the spiritual dimension of our being as hopelessly contaminated with religion, faith, and submission to authority. With this I must take issue because the very connectedness he counsels us to develop is in itself, in my opinion, the fundamental nutrient of the human soul and is nothing less than a spiritual practice. Navigating collapse and creating a species that is intimately connected with all others, is absolutely contingent on inner, as well as outer, transformation which has nothing to do with swallowing "faith as fact". It is rather about applying the connectedness principle internally as well as externally and experiencing in every cell of the body that there is something greater than the human ego. Unless we become deeply intimate with that "something", we are doomed to create nothing more than a pathetic sequel to the nightmare that Western civilization has become.

In the end, Time's Up leaves us with a momentous choice:

"We can look at the results of the experiment called civilization and feel helpless, or we can look at what we have in ourselves, and what remains undamaged on the Earth and think, 'We can do better.' The future is still ours if we have the determination to survive it and, whether you like it or not, the future will be determined by the decisions you make."

In the current moment it is nearly impossible to trust many of the voices in our world that issue from the field of economics. It is safe to say that none of the most esteemed in the field has the slightest idea how to address the global economic crisis. So when I picked up Duane Elgin's book The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?, I was a bit wary when I read about his MBA from Wharton Business School - that is, until I realized that he is also the author of Voluntary Simplicity: Toward A Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich. Even more reassuring is Elgin's work as a social research scientist at SRI International and his work with Joseph Campbell alongside his lifelong commitment to integrate science, economics, and the world's greatest wisdom traditions.

Elgin asserts that on the other side of our growing systems crisis, the world will be a decidedly different place depending on our actions now. We will either have an Earth ruined through conflict or an Earth restored through cooperation. Echoing the perspective of geologian and eco-scholar, Thomas Berry, Elgin states that:

The universe is deeply alive as an evolving and learning system and we humans are on a journey of discovery within it. We are learning to live within a living universe. If we lose sight of where we are (living in a living universe) we profoundly diminish our understanding of who we are...and where we are going....

The book is divided into the three categories above, with a final section on "Actions For The Journey Ahead." Realizing that many readers may not espouse the living universe perspective, Elgin goes to great lengths in the book to establish a rational foundation for his assertion, skillfully marrying the principles of modern science with ancient wisdom. Although I read the entire book, I found the first two sections onerous since I needed little persuasion regarding the scientific basis for arguing the case of a living universe. However, for those who do, Elgin's arguments are intellectually sound and powerfully compelling.

My interest in the book lies in the third section: Where are we going? Elgin wastes no time telling us that we are hanging from the edge of the cliff, but he does not leave us there because he reminds us that at this pregnant time in human history, we are each called to help birth a larger vision of the human journey. The author underscores what I have been asserting for many years and what I reiterated throughout my book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, namely, that more than just a successful response to climate disruption and the dwindling supply of cheap oil, we need a compelling story about the human journey that enables us to look beyond looming conflicts over scarce resources. As citizens of the earth, every person has the right and responsibility to contribute to the collective visioning of our journey.

Essential Excerpts from The Living Universe

While it's tempting to get ahead of ourselves, we are at a dangerous time in the transition from separation to communion. We are between two major stages and moving rapidly into a time of planetary initiation. Entering as we are a world system crisis, we must choose whether we will pull together in creative cooperation or pull apart in profound conflict. According to Elgin, the coming decades will reveal the soul of our species and provide the opportunity for a rite of passage from one great trajectory of learning development to another.

A critical step in this supercharged setting is to imagine together the world of our vision. All current signs point to a future of catastrophe and ruin, and it is easy to envision many such scenarios but much harder to visualize a future of opportunity and renewal. The latter is still a vague and unformed possibility in our collective imagination. The bigger the challenges, Elgin implies, the larger the vision required to transform conflict into cooperation and thereby facilitate a more promising future. Not only must we hold an expansive vision, but that vision must be informed by a commitment to a larger story of humanity than civilization has provided.

Some may question the need for understanding the reality of a "living universe", but Elgin argues that it is necessary because understanding it allows us to discover our inextricable place in the fabric of life and expands our empathy as we come to see ourselves as beings of cosmic dimension and participation. Such compassion then becomes the basis for a higher unity that transcends our great diversity--racial, ethnic, sexual, generational, religious, political, economic, and more.

A world divided at the same time that it is facing enormous challenges, attended by the presence of weapons of mass destruction, is a recipe for catastrophe. Thus, unprecedented initiatives for global reflection, reconciliation, and the healing of past wounds are crucial as we endeavor to achieve a sustainable and meaningful future. Whatever our differences of gender, race, class, wealth, religion, or political orientation, we all participate in the deep ecology of consciousness which provides a common ground for meeting, understanding and reconciliation. In fact, if the human community is to live sustainably on the Earth, deep wounds of the human psyche and soul will need to be healed.

The first step in being healed is being heard. Despite a communications revolution which is still accelerating exponentially, humans are just beginning to experience an explosion of conversation. Concurrently, there must be a revolution in fairness, for without it, the world is destined to sink into endless conflict over scarce resources. Elgin reminds us that it was communication that enabled humans to evolve from early hunter-gatherers to the verge of planetary civilization, and it will be communication that enables us to become a bonded human family committed to the well-being of all.

But individual healing is only one aspect of the transformation, rebuilding our cities and neighborhoods into islands of relative self-sufficiency - reducing dependency on distant sources of food, energy, and other material needs - will become the basis for a global economic revolution. The hallmark of this revolution will be simplicity which is simultaneously a personal choice, a civilizational choice, and a species choice. According to Elgin, we will make that choice for a sustainable future with much greater enthusiasm when we recognize that it is a necessary part of a future path that calls forth our species potentials and leads us into ever-greater communion with the living universe.

The alienation of today's massive cities could be replaced with a social and physical architecture sensitive to the psychology of modern tribes and a flowering of diverse communities--most created through retrofitting. One current manifestation of this is the eco-village.

Despite the appeal of eco-villages as a design for sustainable living, there is not time to retrofit and rebuild our existing urban infrastructure before we hit an evolutionary wall. Climate disruption, energy shortages, and other critical trends will overtake us long before we have the opportunity to make a sweeping overhaul in the design and function of our cities and towns; therefore, it is important to turn from the experiments in eco-villages and co-housing and to adapt their designs and principles for successful living to existing urban settings. Without the time to retrofit into well-designed green villages, we must make the most of the existing urban infrastructure and creatively adapt ourselves within it. Global challenges will produce a wave of green innovations for local living--technical, ecological, economic, social, architectural, and more. Lessons learned in eco-villages and co-housing will be important sources of invention and inspiration for a new village movement as existing urban architecture is transformed into human-scale designs for sustainable living.

Grasping the deeper significance of "the living universe" allows us to see ourselves as citizens of the cosmos who are actively engaged in a heroic journey of awakening, and we will then tend to fulfill that self-image. Because the mass media are so powerful in presenting and reinforcing our self-image as a species, it is critical that we use this storytelling machine of mass culture to tell ourselves bigger stories about where we are, who we are, and where we are going. Humanity is growing up and growing into the reality that we are beings of both biological and cosmic dimension.

Thus it is vital that we begin conversations about sustainability at a scale that matches the actual scope of the challenges we face. This is a time for rapid learning and experimentation locally, all the while being mindful of how we connect globally. In order to build a positive future, we must first collectively imagine it. This comes about through conversation, and with local to global communication, we can mobilize ourselves purposefully, and each can contribute their unique talents to the creation of a life-affirming future.

What is the Life Stage of Humanity?

Elgin emphasizes that there are no right answers but that there is a high level of agreement that surprises everyone. With audiences he begins by asking people to discuss the life stage of our species as reflected in our collective behavior. "After five to ten minutes," he says, "I ask them to come up with a 'social average' and choose among these four stages for the species: toddler, teenager, adult, and elder. An overwhelming majority of the groups vote that humanity is in its adolescence. Interestingly, the reasons given are much the same around the world. Then I ask them to consider a second question: What was most important for you in making the journey from adolescence to adulthood?--the premise being that what was important for you at a personal level is probably going to be relevant to the human family at a global level. This conversation reveals that, as important as, for example, a new energy policy may be for humanity's future, even more important are efforts to awaken a new level of collective maturity that includes a more conscious relationship with the living universe.

Curiously, Elgin's book came into my life just days after I wrote "Humanity's Rite of Passage: A World Tended By Adults". It validated my belief that regardless of the strides our species makes in energy policy, carbon reduction, or creating economies of scale, if we do not mature emotionally and spiritually into adult human beings, we will have succeeded only in replicating the current predicament of a world replete with dazzling technological innovation, commandeered by children

At the same time, however, the majority of citizens, greatly enabled by mainstream media, remain clueless about what is happening around them, or even adversely in their personal lives. Marinated in denial and entitlement, they naively await a "return to normal" and persist in doing more of everything that hasn't worked, isn't working, and never will. So I must ask, how is that humankind, supposedly "the measure of all things" can behave with such recalcitrance and oblivousness to reality?

For the past two decades, alongside engaging in exhaustive research on empire and all that has brought us to civilization's collapse, I have been a student of myth and archetypal psychology, as well as indigenous traditions. The fact that for the most part, these topics are foreign to our culture as a result of Western civilization's inculcation, speaks volumes about our behavior toward ourselves, other humans, and the earth community. So-called "civilized" humanity has been exiled from its rootedness in nature and the organic process of human development so conscientiously observed and nurtured by indigenous peoples. Consequently, the culture of modernity is not only disconnected from the earth, but in a large sense "developmentally disabled". An integral aspect of the disability is modern humanity's disavowal of the initiatory process in the care and training of children.

As I have explained in my book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, most indigenous cultures have elaborate initiation procedures for their young people during the age of puberty; however, in the modern world, one does not have to be a member of an indigenous community to experience initiation. In fact, Carl Jung asserted that initiation is an archetype or fundamental motif inherent in the human psyche. That is to say that something in us wants and expects engagement in the initiatory process, not only at the age of puberty, but throughout our human experience. The process is so fundamental, Jung believed, that even if we do not participate in a formal rite of passage ceremony as we transition from youth to adulthood, our human journey will provide us with initiatory events for the purpose of deepening our humanity and our connection with the cosmos and something greater than the human ego.

Examples of initiatory events which humans frequently encounter are loss of meaningful work, loss of livelihood, loss of home, loss of health, loss of relationship, loss of future security, loss of life, or loss of place. I have intentionally reiterated the word "loss" because loss is the hallmark of modernity. The irony is that civilization has promised us inestimable gain but fundamentally delivered infinite loss at every turn of our path toward embracing its demands.

In tribal cultures where formal rites of passage are practiced, it is understood that life on earth is fraught with loss-that in fact, loss is the hallmark of human experience but that the bone-marrow ordeal of the initiatory process grounds the young person moving toward adulthood, by way of loss, into his or her permanent place in the community. Thus, regardless of what losses one may endure, for the initiated man or woman, one's connection with community and with the sacred are constant. As a result, one is equipped to face and navigate loss with remarkable fortitude and grace, not alone, but supported by elders and peers in the process.

I do not wish to idealize tribal cultures or imply that they are without challenges or devoid of dysfunction. Indeed, the more they are encroached upon by civilization, the more dysfunctional they become. My intention is not to focus on indigenous peoples per se, but on the archetype of initiation that I believe inhabits the human psyche. If my premise is correct, then much of how we as a species have arrived at the current predicament of committing planetary suicide makes perfect sense.

Moreover, if the reality of initiation is deeply embedded in our humanity, it is likely that survival and navigation of the collapse of civilization will be enhanced by our perception and response to collapse as an initiatory process.

Furthermore, in our fundamental human origins, we are all indigenous people. Whether or not we claim our indigenous roots, "white roots" do not exist. We are either actively acknowledging our indigenous roots, or we are ignoring them, but in fact, all of humanity has been colonized by civilization, the collapse of which offers us the opportunity to reclaim our heritage and liberate ourselves from conquest.

This then leads to the question: How does an uninitiated species respond to the predicament it has created, and conversely, what is the initiated response to the collapse of civilization?

Capitalism: A Children's Story

The capitalism to which I refer is not that of the small business enterprise which began flourishing in the Middle Ages, but rather corporate capitalism, which is synonymous with the proliferation of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of an elite oligarchy. It is rooted in a world view antithetical to the common good in which certain individuals, by virtue of privilege and a sense of specialness and entitlement, exert influence on neighboring entities and institutions in order to deploy myriad varieties of economic and social control. It is the apotheosis of uninitiated, puerile engagement with the world.

Unfortunately, our awareness of corporate capitalism's treachery and even our contempt for it, does not exclude us from its seductive manipulation, for its roots penetrate our psyches deeply and insidiously. We have been conditioned by industrial civilization far more profoundly than we may ever be able to consciously discern, by a legacy that extends far back in time through innumerable generations. Thus, if we are to astutely prepare for the demise of civilization, we must critically ponder the myriad ways in which we have internalized its fundamental world view and attendant values. Detached as we may be from the day to day trappings of civilization, even as we rail against the evils of corporate capitalism, it behooves us to notice our physical and emotional responses to the topic of the collapse of the systems we proclaim to disavow. Understanding that no sane human being welcomes suffering, death, and untold misery, our emotional responses and ensuing attitudes to the unraveling of civilization may reveal our level of awareness regarding the initiatory process and our participation in it.

What Developmental Disability Looks Like

Around us and even within ourselves, we notice a host of responses to the current predicament. Some of those might be:

**Entitlement: This should not be happening to me. I have worked very hard in my life and deserve to be gainfully employed doing meaningful work. I grew up in a poor or struggling middle-class family, and my parents worked hard to make life better for me. I've paid my dues. I shouldn't have to rent or shop in thrift stores or tighten my belt. After all, this is America, and I deserve to enjoy the American Dream.

**Positive attitude: You can wallow in gloom and doom if you want, but I'm going to maintain a positive outlook. If I look at the negative things that are happening, I'll get stuck in negativity and won't be able to come up with creative solutions. Besides that, I'm afraid I'll get depressed and won't be able to dig myself out of an emotional dungeon.

**There are solutions to these problems: Somehow, someone is going to come up with solutions. Technology and human ingenuity will lead the way. If we just work hard enough, we can create a mass movement that will transform consciousness and the systems that created these problems.

**Sustainability will save the day: If enough people recycle, cut carbon emissions, buy green products, and use renewable energy, we can prevent the collapse of civilization.

**I deal with problems when they happen instead of obsessing about them ahead of time: I don't want to spend my energy worrying about these things now. I'll take action when I need to, and I'm sure that when I need to, I'll make the right decisions.

**I want to enjoy life; I don't want to spend all my time thinking about the future: It's important to live in the here and now, and right now, my family and I are OK. It's mentally unhealthy to be thinking and talking about the collapse of civilization.

**The love/fear polarization: I want to take action, but I don't want to do so out of fear. Fear is not a good motivator. I prefer to focus on love and compassion.

Unfortunately, these attitudes are not only denials of reality, placing their adherents in abject danger, they are self-betrayals. Within each one we hear the echo of the fundamental tenet of civilization: It's all about me and mine. No mention here of future generations; no cognizance of an earth community and the urgent need for working together to care for one another, the planet, or our descendants. Ironically, the self-absorption inherent in these responses is a ghastly form of self-destruction that colludes with civilization in committing planetary suicide. Let us remember that the word "collusion" simply means "the sharing of an illusion"-as in, "recovery is right around the corner; everything is getting better; just hang in there."

What Does Developmental Durability Look Like?

Conversely, what some responses to collapse from the initiated perspective?

**Non-special engagement with humanity: Yes, I've worked hard in my life. From that experience I have gathered many skills which will be useful to me as the earth community undergoes enormous shifts. Because I am not separate from that community and because we are all deeply connected, I am being called, along with all other beings who inhabit the planet, to not only experience these momentous changes, but to contribute my talents and skills to enhancing our common well being in this process.

**A willingness to confront what is, not how I'd like it to be: I do not enjoy looking at unpleasant realities, but if I don't look, then I cannot see, and if I cannot see, I am not serving myself or anyone else. I will look, and I will feel the feelings that surface as I do so. I will remember that within the word "emotion" is the word "motion" which means that feelings are fluid and shift and change like the flow of water. Feeling sad today does not guarantee that I will feel sad tomorrow or that I will become frozen in any one emotion. I will ask my community to look with me, and we will support one another as we do so.

**There may be no solutions to the issues created by humanity's greed, self-absorption, and cruelty. We may be encountering a predicament that cannot be solved but only responded to. How can I and my loved ones and community best respond to these daunting challenges? How can we work together to minimize loss of life and care for each other? If there are no "solutions", then what does this mean? What is the message in this unprecedented reality?

**The crisis the planet now faces is far more immense than responding with mere sustainability. Sustainability means that something lasts, and living sustainably is a natural and inevitable response to living in connection with the earth community. Living in this way at this late hour is unlikely to prevent the collapse of civilization. I will not feed the puerile paradigm of civilization for the sake of supporting green products because it's "the right thing to do" or because it makes me feel good. I want to live sustainably not because it will "save" the earth but because my connection with the earth community compels me to do so.

**I am willing to deal with both the present and the future. It is foolish to only live in the present moment. Time is a tapestry of past, present, and future, and I need to prepare for the future as well as enjoy the present moment. Because I am an adult, I need to be mindful of the well being of myself, my loved ones, and my community, as well as generations that will succeed me, and therefore, I cannot afford to live exclusively in the present.

**Ironically, the more I consider the likely consequences of the future, the more I appreciate the here and now. Each moment, each meal, the reality of having food, shelter, health, friends, and my faculties I savor more intensely because I am aware of the likelihood that in the future, these gifts will be much harder to acquire than they are now. In fact, humans have the capacity to read the indicators of how the future might be based on compelling evidence; not to do so or having done so, then choosing not to prepare would be mentally, physically, and emotionally unhealthy.

**I will not polarize the emotions of love and fear. Fear in humans serves an evolutionary function-to warn of impending danger so that one may take action to prevent harm. From the initiatory perspective, love and fear are complementary, not conflicting, emotions. Through fear, humans often tap into layers of courage that were previously unknown and unused. The word "courage" has its roots in the French word la coeur which means heart. To have courage is to have heart and to be motivated by love and compassion.

In a recent interview with author, Barbara Ehrenreich, she asserts that "positive thinking is permeating our society, from medicine to business, and is even contributing to our financial crisis." Although she does not frame her objections to positive thinking in terms of an uninitiated perspective, her description of positive thinking and its impact on modern civilization accurately describes a world view devoid of initiation. While I do not wish to champion cynicism or clinical depression, the positive thinking craze, which in this country grew out of the Victorian transcendentalist movement, is a hallmark of privilege and has been utilized by the entitled ruling elite to pacify and manipulate the remainder of society.

In indigenous traditions, positive thinking is held differently than in modernity because from the initiated perspective life is a holistic mix of positive, negative, and everything in between. In fact, in its purest application of the indigenous perspective, experiences are what they are, and humans are not wise enough to determine at the outset whether an experience is "good" or "bad." Only from hindsight can we begin to evaluate them. The qualities of joy and celebration are fostered in indigenous traditions, particularly as antidotes to human suffering, but not as positive thinking per se. Rather, one looks squarely at the challenges confronting oneself and the tribe, but a cornucopia of emotions are allowed in the process.

I'm reminded of repeated scenes in the movie "Dances With Wolves" in which medicine man, Kicking Bird, asks his white ally, John Dunbar, how many more white people will be arriving on Lakota land and when. The medicine man's question is typical of what Native Americans in those days who were aware of the burgeoning presence of the white man were asking. While some nineteenth-century Indian people may have turned to alcohol to help them forget the conquest, many did not and wanted to know the specifics of the very bad news of European invasion. Had Dunbar given Kicking Bird anything but the honest answer of, "there will be as many as the stars" or encouraged him to "think positively", the Lakota holy man would have at least lost trust in Dunbar, or worse, decided that he was completely crazy.

The initiatory process of indigenous peoples has developed organically throughout their history as a result of their intimate connection with nature. Anyone closely observing nature comprehends its capriciousness, volatility, uncertainty, and inherent inequities. One species painstakingly nurtures its young only to have a significant number of its offspring annihilated by another species. From the human perspective, nature is extraordinarily cruel. Initiation evolved in part as an attempt by humans to make sense of nature's uncertainties and serves to teach the initiate that life is a series of challenges which evoke all manner of emotions and opportunities for finding meaning in multifarious, bewildering adversity. Thus the initiated person views all harsh conditions as part of the initiatory process-even the conquest and ultimate extinction of his or her tribe.

But initiation in indigenous cultures have served an even more momentous purpose than any of those mentioned above. It was a necessary and pivotal preparation for elderhood, which had little to do with age and everything to do with wisdom. Male and female elders were the overseeing parents of the tribe-guardians of the community's purpose and destiny. All initiatory roads led to becoming an elder whose fundamental function was to mentor new initiates and keep the process of birth, initiation, elderhood, and death intact, for the benefit of present generations and those yet unborn.

American Date Rape

To be uninitiated, psycho-spiritually, is to remain an emotional adolescent in the modern world. Civilization perpetuates the anti-initiation process which fixates human beings on the world of puerile pursuits and guarantees that civilization's mission and values will never be closely examined. Consumerism and fostering the identity of the citizen as consumer, attended by the mandate of positive thinking, delivers the end-product of the eternally adolescent adult who is literally, putty in the hands of the corporate capitalist rapist.

Ehrenreich notes in her interview, as does Michael Moore in "Capitalism: A Love Story", that the interminable, tantalizing carrot held out to the middle and working classes by corporate capitalism has been the hope that "you too can be rich someday" alongside the Horatio Alger "anything is possible in America" delusion. The fantasy has been brilliantly wielded to evoke envy and unfounded admiration for the titans of affluence, holding at bay bone-marrow resentment against the ruling elite for fear that exposing their insidious machinations might permanently preclude the lowly worker from joining their exclusive club. In other words, maybe if I don't criticize the filthy rich, I'll have a better chance of being one of them some day. Or in the words of Barbara Ehrenreich:

I'm saying this is an ideology that takes away all the indignation there might be about extreme economic polarization.

If you think you're going to be rich someday, why would you be resentful of million-dollar bonuses or $10 million CEO salaries, you know? You're going to be there, so it would be against your own self-interest to stand up for your class interests.

Hence, the perpetually adolescent citizen in awe of the wealthy, with internally blathering litanies of positive thinking a la Oprah, Suze Orman, or The Secret reverberating in the mind, is fundamentally incapable of discerning the lethal essence of corporate capitalism or penetrating its odious marketing skullduggery. Thus when the rapist slipped the ruffies of "riches in real estate" or "turn your home into an ATM machine" into the middle class American lexicon, the result was collusion: the sharing of a catastrophic illusion that resulted in colossal financial plunder, leaving the adolescent victims battered, burglarized, and bewildered to awaken and discover that they had participated in the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the human race-at their own expense.

At this point, two things should be self-evident: It is time for the human species to grow up, and it is time for us to frame our experiences of humanity's converging crises through the lens of planetary initiation.

Tribal initiations always involve some type of ordeal in which there is no guarantee that the initiate will physically survive. It is, in fact, an intentional brush with death. In some instances, the initiate has a choice about when to engage in the ritual and always has the choice not to participate at all. However, most choose to participate as a result of a lifetime of preparation for it by the community. And while a young man or woman may have fear or dread of the experience, he or she is well aware by the age of initiation of the personal and community consequences of opting out of the ritual.

In no way am I suggesting that individuals not raised in tribal cultures should participate in literal initiation rituals, but I am proposing that perceiving the collapse of civilization as an initiatory experience is a meaningful, salutary, appropriate, and empowering response to it.

While on the one hand I agree that everyone is at a different level of awareness regarding the demise of Western civilization, I also believe that this should not excuse us from incrementally educating our minds and cultivating emotional resilience in order to navigate future crises. Not all children at the age of five may be ready for kindergarten, but a ten year-old who has never begun a grammar school education is a walking tragedy.

Although many of us speak freely of living in a post-peak or post-industrial or post-petroleum world, we have no clear picture of what that world will look like. What we do know, however, is that navigating the transition to that world and surviving in it is not for the faint of heart. To accomplish either or both will require something beyond a five years' supply of food. In fact, it will demand that we perceive the crisis as an evolutionary threshold-a crossroads in the odyssey of our species that I believe is most accurately understood as an initiation.

Only collapse as initiation can illumine, at the deepest levels of our being, the choices we make as we attempt to transform a devastated civilization. The transition is utterly dependent on inner transformation. Otherwise, we are unlikely to create anything but a mirror image of industrial civilization.

So what might a world forged by initiated adults look like?

Surely it will be a world in which every aspect of human functioning will be carefully designed and lived in intimate connection with the non-human world. (A specific design system, permaculture, is ideal, and it behooves anyone contemplating life after civilization to become familiar with its principles.) It will be a society in which relationships have been transformed and honed by collective suffering and mutual support. The most anxiety-producing events will not be about being stuck in traffic gridlock, being forced to change one's weekly hair styling appointment, or discovering that one's internet server is down. Rather, world views and values will be dictated by having or not having food, water, shelter, personal safety, clothing, physical health, and supportive friends and neighbors.

The world to which I am alluding is a world in which every moment, every encounter, every experience is an initiatory exercise challenging its inhabitants to practice gratitude, compassion, kindness, alertness, discernment, and be present in the body and emotions. These realities will be doorways, not merely to a new society, but most importantly, to a new strain of humanity-a planet protected and nurtured by initiated elders.

No one needs to wait for the dire repercussions of collapse in order to begin the initiatory journey. One need only open the eyes and heart to a deeper level of perception so that "a thousand explanations" will not be necessary.

n this interview she talks about the collapse of industrial civilization - what it may look like, reasons for its occurrence, the effects of collapse and, how to relocalize and create sustainable communities in the throes of collapse. Through the lenses of psychology, spiritualism, and history Carolyn explicates that collapse is a dynamic affair, not sudden, but a drawn out process of erosion that will test our subjective relations and our consciousness, while shaking off old paradigms, and what we can do to maintain a sense of peace, pragmatism, and community.

Frank Joseph Smecker: You maintain that the collapse of industrial civilization is occurring now ; can you define collapse? And explain why industrial civilization is eroding at its very foundations?

Carolyn Baker: First of all, I'm talking about a process that is slow - not like falling off of a cliff but more like rolling down a bumpy hill. Most of us know what collapse is beginning to look like. It begins to look like massive departures from organized religions alongside Catholic diocese child-sex scandals. It begins to look like rising unemployment and a growing gap between classes. Wouldn't you agree that an educational system that can only produce standardized children by forcing them to take standardized tests five hours a day, four days a week, is functioning in a state of abject disintegration? Or what about the health care system that is so broken and unequal? Collapse is primarily the demise of the chief institutions such as education, health care, political, financial -

FJS: Collapse can also be recognized on account of its effects upon the ecological balance of the planet such as a burgeoning endangered species list, climate change and melting glaciers - the desiccation of arctic permafrost, the acceleration of droughts and desertification... the list is damn long...

CB: Absolutely - everyday the endangerment or imminent extinction of a species, if not several, is announced. We are reminded of the melting polar ice caps, the plummeting of giant ice shelves into the sea; fires raging in places they seldom had in the past. Yes, the list is sadly long. Aside from the effects and appearance, collapse is mainly the demise of a paradigm of growth, expansion - of domination and control, of separateness. This paradigm is vanishing and it will have to be replaced. My work not only points this out, but is also a tool to educate about inclusion, local community-geared organization, and small-scale production versus pyramidal hierarchy - which clearly doesn't work. It's apparent that the large institutions don't work: federal and state governments are rapidly going bankrupt. Solutions will have to come from relocalized communities. In terms of energy, it's pretty clear now that we've passed 'peak' regarding oil production. This is crucial because we've relied so long on cheap and abundant fossil fuels. No longer is production easy and cheap; we are now moving away from affordable hydrocarbon energy. And the truth is, the whole hierarchy-from-the-top-down approach is no longer working. The big secret (which is really no secret at all) is that the institutions themselves are collapsing and, you can't have a recovery without access to energy and you can't access energy without money - it's a catch twenty-two! We're printing more money to access more energy, which is becoming harder and more expensive to access and produce and, in turn, we are going further into debt thence more bankruptcy. We have come to the end of large bureaucratic government institutions.

FJS: You assert that there is nothing government can do to stop collapse - that there is no large-scale political change that will mitigate collapse, not even major reformation like replacing capitalism with socialism will stop the dominant culture from destroying the planet and marching toward collapse. How so?

CB: Let's face it, a presidential candidate cannot even receive substantial votes, let alone be elected, unless he is solidly in the pocket of the corporate interests of the US - the same corporate interests that rely on unsustainable growth and exploitation of the natural world. Besides, no one candidate is remotely capable of executing a fundamental paradigm shift within the span of four to eight years. As for our 'democratic' process, during the initial stages of the economic meltdown many players in Congress looked the other way - there may be no more than six people in congress I can say I absolutely trust; it truly is the fox guarding the chicken house! Anyway, as I stated earlier, collapse is occurring as a result of specific paradigms that have been held for centuries that are resulting in the destruction of the human and non-human realms. Merely replacing capitalism with socialism will not work. Changing systems is ineffectual not only because an opposite system is still a system but also, most importantly, only the political and economic structures are altered, while the fundamental paradigm - one of control and domination, remains intact. Father Thomas Berry wrote in The Dream Of The Earth , "both liberal capitalism and Marxist socialism committed themselves totally to the vision of industrial progress which more than any other single cause has brought about the disintegration that is taking place throughout the entire planet."

FJS: Apparently, the collapse of industrial civilization is the inevitable outcome of a contrived system inherently intent on growing exponentially in a finite world with set - i.e. invariable - limits. Do you believe that the purpose of "limitless growth" is designated for the notion of progress, a philosophical idea that was latent in the "Christian notion of self-perfection for divine ends," an end in which the future is static and "Heavenly?"

CB: Since the Enlightenment, it has all been about reaching a static age of perfection - which goes against all indigenous wisdom. The first thing that was done to the indigenous by Westerners after colonization was the taking away of indigenous rituals because they were seen as impediments to 'progress.'

FJS: So the whole proselytizing thing can also be seen as a swapping of religions, so to speak - supplanting an indigenous worldview with a 'civilized' worldview that worships production and progress?

CB: To call it a 'swap' is an understatement. To shift indigenous religions with Christianity is a rape - a violation that has led us to where we are now. And if we don't stop to recognize this and don't understand why we are where we are, there is no chance of a new paradigm. I wrote a book a while back called U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You . It's basically a history of the US from 1865 to now, and can be a useful read to know how we got from even there to here, and it is available at my website or at Amazon.

FJS: In your recent book, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path Of Industrial Civilization's Collapse , you have written that "the more we honor and celebrate our inherent animal nature, the more likely we are to effortlessly honor our limits." Would you agree that civilization's transgressions of natural limits is linked to the suppression of our inherent, intuitive animal instincts?

CB: Absolutely. Derrick Jensen wrote in Endgame, Volume I, that: "The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of any economic system." And that, "Any economic system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and really stupid." We're the only species, that I'm aware of, that doesn't honor limits. One of the deeper layers explaining our disconnect from nature is our "fear and loathing of the body," of our instinctual wildness and, our vulnerability to death. This all causes us to distance ourselves from the reality that we are indeed animals. And also, native peoples, as a result of their intimate connection with nature, are glaring reminders of our animal-ness. To be 'civilized' is synonymous with being domesticated, restrained, and repressed, and if we are to participate in instinctual behavior, let's use sex as an example, we are encouraged to do it in a controlled, sanitized, or even surreptitious fashion. I think it's pretty important we all begin to realize that it isn't wild animals that are soiling their nests and desecrating their habitat, but rather humans. I'm sitting here right now looking out at beautiful rolling green hills. I often see deer grazing along the hillside, and you know what? They don't ever come to my house because they have limits! Animals live within the limits of their environment because their lives depend on doing so. In the new paradigm, other animals and creatures will be the elders; they will be the wise ones who will help us remember our animal origins and animal destiny. Animals already teach us surrender, acceptance, and limits. There's a great quote by Eckhart Tolle in which he states: "No other life-form on the planet knows negativity, only humans, just as no other life-form violates and poisons the earth that sustains it...Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now. I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them cats.

FJS: Why do you suppose so many people reject the truth, or at the very least, the notion of, collapse and refuse to ask these necessary questions?

CB: Collapse is terrifying; we're not going to bounce back. Besides, many people are still entrenched in the 'Myth of America' - that anyone, or the US as a whole, can be triumphant. Plus, people who are hurting from bankruptcy, foreclosure, unemployment - it's hard for these folks to accept that this is permanent: it's not going away.

FJS: Decades ago, psychiatrist R.D. Laing developed three rules by which he believed a pathological family (one suffering from abuse, alcoholism, etc.) can keep its pathology hidden from even its own family members. Adherence to these three rules allows perpetrators, victims, and observers to maintain the fantasy that they are all one big, happy family. The rules are: Rule A: Don't [talk about the problems and abject conditions]; Rule A1: Rule A does not exist; Rule A2: Do not discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A1, and/or A2. These rules aren't exclusive to nuclear families but also apply to larger cultures, especially cultures that are violently abusive to its own people and the land, lest the people recognized the flaws of such abject behavior. Would you agree that these rules are adhered to within the dominant culture, heightening collective denial and silence in the wake of collapse?

CB: Exactly - without question. The American culture can be compared to one large dysfunctional family, and it can also be compared to an addiction model. By maintaining denial we enter a very dangerous realm. As Carl Jung emphasized, whatever we deny or pretend to ignore does not go away, but only becomes larger in its power and influence, not only within the psyche, but throughout our external world too. And anything we do to resist or postpone the collapse will only make it worse. In 2007, the Pentagon announced that it is conducting simulation exercises in specific US cities in preparation for possible chaotic scenarios resulting from climate change, a nuclear attack, pandemics, or natural disasters. Clearly, law enforcement and the military are anticipating the possibility of dealing with an unruly citizenry. The possibilities of martial law, suspension of the Constitution, and immediate imprisonment for dissenters or generally unruly individuals are daunting - it's no wonder we don't want to think about the reality of collapse and the full extent of its consequences. But again, whatever we deny or ignore only becomes a larger threat. If we don't attend to the reality of collapse that is happening now, we risk not only encountering it without a lack of pragmatic preparation, but we're very likely to deprive the deeper, eternal layers of ourselves, obviating any effective community building.

FJS: Would you agree that hope, righteousness, and 'keeping a positive outlook' also keeps the truth at bay while galvanizing complacency?

CB: Ah yes, hopium .

(There's a brief pause as we both chuckle)

CB: The longer we dwell on false hopes - which I would define a false hope as an external hope: that something out there will fix this, that technology will save us, or that a newly elected president will bring change - the longer we persist in this the harder the collapse will be. Hope must come from within, from inside you, and really, I don't like to use the word 'hope', I don't like it - I prefer 'inspiration.' And let's be honest, calling someone 'doomerish' or 'keeping a positive attitude' that doesn't honestly address today's daunting conditions doesn't change the fact that we are witnessing the unprecedented extinction of 200 species per day; it won't reverse peak-oil or stop famine or resource wars. I believe that new solutions come from holding the dark reality alongside one's vision - what many indigenous called 'holding the tension of opposites.' I say down with hope, up with holding the tension of opposites! As for righteousness, I wrote in Sacred Demise that a righteous attitude often leads to detachment from reality: it bypasses any emotional response one may have to the desperate situation we and all other life are in on this planet - it makes the state of the planet someone else's problem, not ' my ' problem. It implies that one is above emotions and doesn't want to soil his/her 'sanitized' psyche with them. And as for the addiction to a 'positive attitude,' well, upholding the latter in the face of the end of the world as we have known it is beyond irrational - it's a humancentric obsession, as if the only thing that matters as the world burns is to feel good about oneself. And to add to your previous mentioning of R.D. Laing's three rules for a pathological family - anyone who keeps a positive attitude in this culture - the culture of civilization that is killing the planet - killing all of the people and species we all love - that person is not only irrational and deeply afflicted with denial, but is exactly like a member of an abusive family system in which physical and sexual assault are occurring in the home on a daily basis, but that family member insists on 'thinking good thoughts' and resents anyone and everyone who says what is so about the abusive system.

FJS: You also wrote in Sacred Demise that collapse can be seen as a metaphor for growth. For starters, what is the connection, if any, between the dominant culture's fear of death and the ubiquitous fear to confront the reality of collapse? And moreso, can you discuss how growth cannot be attained without requisite loss?

CB: The bottom line of confronting collapse is facing our own mortality. If we refuse to do this, collapse will be horrifying. We need to be more of a culture of adults then of children. We need to accept that there is an end - there is an end to this 'party' we've been having for the last two hundred years or so, as there's an end to each and every one of our individual lives. An integral part of restoring life is the willingness to be present with death. Acknowledging this will help us weather the collapse. The indigenous have known for thousands of years that life is comprised of loss - their traditions, rituals, and ceremonies help deal with loss: they devote a great deal of time and energy into preparation for life's losses and, their traditions teach that loss is an enormous and necessary part of the human experience. Part of becoming a mature, initiated adult is to learn and grow from loss. We just can't grow without it, and, despite the pain, it is food for growth. A huge point in Sacred Demise is my view on the collapse process as comparable to the indigenous view of the cycle of life. First the child is born into life, then later on there is the puberty-initiation process - which is far greater than just a rite of passage - it is a brush with death, a connection with loss, and an emergence into adulthood. What we're experiencing globally with collapse is a global initiation into new growth and true adulthood, elderhood - not age per se - it has more to do with wisdom than age.

FJS: In your introduction to Sacred Demise you write that the collapse of industrial civilization is a "necessary evolutionary trauma in the odyssey of planet earth." Can you explain what you mean by this?

CB: Collapse is undeniably going to be painful. But it will also be an enormous precedent for the transformation of the human consciousness. Again, with loss comes growth - or at the very least, the conditions for growth. We can embrace collapse and accomplish small tribal living and local problem solving - this is really a tremendous opportunity to organize locally. It's very important to hold the visions and potentialities of transitioning in the wake of collapse. One initiative I have become a part of is Transition Town ; this is not a magic, silver bullet but it is a viable option and vision, and much better to hold onto than only the dark realities. Remember the tension of opposites.

FJS: Can you talk a little about Transition Town ?

CB: Absolutely. Basically, Transition Town is a worldwide network organizing around energy breakdown, but is also a community response to climate change, economic meltdown, and even the possibility of the complete evaporation of the dollar; some Transition Towns are working on creating local currencies. The Transition Town group in Montpelier , Vermont (Transition Town Montpelier) is currently holding a nine-day Village-Building Convergence to educate the local communities regarding the exigencies of collapse such as emergency response and feeding communities. This is a prime example of embracing collapse in order to strengthen community relations and redefine social arrangements so as to be sustainable and non-hierarchical.

FJS: You write that one can find beauty in collapse; what role does beauty play in the throes of collapse?

CB: We must find beauty in everything we do. Part of the reason we're in the paradigm we're in now is that many people lost a sense of, and connection to, beauty in life, in nature on earth. As for collapse, there can be tremendous beauty in preparation for collapse and community organizing. In a section in his book, A World Made By Hand , James Howard Kunstler writes about homemade musical instruments, for example. Combined with dance, voice and music can solidify the community in sacred ritual, merriment, and conviviality as they have for thousands of years among our ancestors. This to me is beautiful. Poetry, too, is so important. Music, art, story telling, and ritual - all of this we must express and enjoy. We have the opportunity to relearn the language of soul. The language of industrial civilization is so linear - the soul wants us to learn a new language. Beauty is that magnificent and mysterious bridge to nature, to ourselves, and to the sacred. If our work is to further open our hearts, allow our egos to die, and fully surrender to the greater self, then beauty is the consummate facilitator of that process.

FJS: There is a poem written by Clarissa Pinkola Estes that you share with your readers in Sacred Demise -

CB: Yes, it's titled Father Earth .

FJS: Yeah, that's the one - it's a very beautiful poem.

There's a two million year-old man no one knows.

And the soil beneath her is fertile and black with her tears.

RR: I grew up in Los Angeles very close to LAX.  I am an only child of middle class parents raised in other places, so I had very little family around me as a kid.  Summers on Cape Cod with my mom's sister were my escape.  My father, who grew up on a farm in a very small town, really influenced my love of nature and orientation towards living in balance.

I loved school all the way through.  I majored in chemistry in college and graduate school, although my passion was psychology.  I spent the first fifteen years of my adult life working for small startups in the biotechnology industry in Silicon Valley first as a scientist and then learning everything I could about the operational administrative side of running a small biotech company.  I managed just about every administrative part at one time or another and I especially enjoyed construction management and information technology.  My science background enabled me to translate scientists' needs into words the non-scientist could understand, so I enjoyed bridging the two worlds.

CB: When was the very first incident or event or experience that started you thinking about the current transition for which you are preparing? Please elaborate on that.

RR: Initially, I thought I had the perfect career.  I believed in the pharmaceutical industry and the good I thought it was doing.  Then, four years into my career at my first job, the biotech startup I worked at was swallowed by a huge pharmaceutical company.  I began interacting with this large company and quickly realized how naïve I had been.  That was the first clue that I needed to make a change because my career lacked meaning for me as I was supporting an industry focused on making money.  Six years later I was totally burned out, so I quit work and traveled for 15 months.  Extended travel had been an unfulfilled dream of mine.  I left the country with the idea that I might live somewhere else completely.  While I was traveling, someone told me about a documentary they had seen on CNN about the possibility of the world running out of oil.  I remember feeling frightened.  It was 2000 and I was three months into my journey, and I decided I had better keep on traveling because it seemed likely that the ability to travel would become impossible in the future.  Eventually, I went back to work because I still had a large mortgage, but I was still really unhappy.

CB: And then what happened? What led to the next thing and the next, and so on? What books or documentaries influenced you? Which people influenced you?

RR: A few years later I met a man who was really educated about Peak Oil.  He insisted that I read Richard Heinberg's "Power Down," Jim Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" and Matt Savinar's "The Oil Age Is Over."  I was so terrified by Matt's book that I could only read it at lunch time or I couldn't sleep.  I knew intuitively that all three authors were correct about the big picture of what they predicted, and I became very motivated to make big life changes.  Talk about taking the red pill.  I realized that as a middle manager in the biotech industry I had absolutely no practical skills and I really wanted to help people directly.  I also knew that Silicon Valley would be an undesirable place to live during energy descent, so I decided to move.  First, I moved to a small, rural community in Northern California.  Although I learned a lot about homesteading and living off the grid (20 minutes from town, two and half miles up a dirt road), it was simply too remote for me.  After a year I moved to a larger, progressive, semi-rural community that is less remote.  I have been there for two years now and I love it.  Many people in town are aware of what is happening, so I can talk about peak oil without getting a blank look in return.

As part of the transition I decided to become a clinical herbalist and a Somatic Experiencing practitioner (Peter Levine's work).  I am finally doing something that I love.  All of the changes I have made fall under Pat Meadows' "The Theory of Anyway" as explored by Sharon Astyk: http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/search?q=do+the+right+thing.  The changes I made are all changes that deeply feed me and are changes I would make even if collapse were not imminent.

While I have been studying Peak Oil closely for over four years now, recently Chris Martenson's "Crash Course" helped me understand our financial system more deeply and see how it relates to energy usage.  The "Crash Course" also gives me a tool to help educate friends and family in a way that is more palatable than even Richard Heinberg's writings.

CB: As you were finding yourself on this journey, did you sometimes kind of look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What on earth am I doing?" Did you ever wonder if you had lost it or taken leave of your senses?

RR: On a deep level I always knew I was doing the right thing.  It is simply logical that a natural resource like petroleum is finite and that spewing toxins into the environment would eventually cause us problems.  I had to titrate the changes and make them a little bit at a time.  Otherwise, I would get really overwhelmed and doubt myself because I was going against everything I had been taught.  I also had to continue immersing myself in information related to Peak Oil because life is still very comfortable and our mainstream lifestyle is still very seductive.  Every once in awhile I still momentarily get caught in it with my few friends that are materialists.  Sometimes I just pause and look around at life as we know it and notice that it all feels really surreal in the face of energy descent.  How long will my cell phone continue to work?  How long will I be able to get information from the internet?  How long will I be able to visit my parents in L.A.?

CB: How have your family members responded to the changes you've made? Have you had conflicts with them around your changes and if so, how have you dealt with that?

RR: My parents don't understand at all.  They think I am nuts, and they won't even talk with me about it.  They can't understand why I left what to them was a really great career in order to transition to a lifestyle that makes no sense to them.  I have gone from owning a 2000 square foot house with a mortgage to living in a trailer on someone else's land that is mortgage free.  I am off the grid, and I have a beautiful, large garden.  I am no longer bombarded by the neighbors' wireless networks or traffic noise, and I can see lots of stars at night.  I feel much more in touch with nature's rhythms. 

If something significant happens in the world related to Peak Oil and the financial collapse, then I use it to raise my concerns with my parents.  Otherwise, we don't talk about it.  I have had to make peace with the fact that they will never leave Los Angeles. They both survived significant world events as young people and I really pray they don't have to suffer through the collapse.

CB: What kinds of emotions have you experienced on this journey? As you are doing what I call "staring collapse in the face", what kinds of feelings emerge? How do you manage those feelings?

RR: I have been through several cycles of utter despair, hopelessness and anger since I began immersing myself in this information.  Those cycles continue.  It is essential that I face them, ride them like a wave and learn from them.  I always seem to emerge more committed to living a simpler lifestyle.  Also, sometimes I will take an information break for a week or so.  I find that break helps me keep things in perspective.

As part of staring in the face of collapse, I have had to face my own death because in spite of all of the physical preparations I have made, I am as unlikely to survive this transition as the next person.  Rather than giving up, my life now is about how I can best serve in the moment and this has been a huge transition from making life decisions based on logic.  I believe that death is a going home as Charles Eisenstein says.

In this moment I am reflecting on a line from Charles Eisenstein's recent piece called "In The Miracle."  He says "If you find a strong underlying fear, respect it as your protector, a guardian that keeps you from leaving your world before it is time."  I have always struggled with fear more than any other emotion and Eisenstein's statement helps me put my fear in perspective as a guardian so that I honor it and still move forward.

CB: I'm wondering what the role of community is in your life. It's a lonely, if not hostile, world out there if one is talking to most people about collapse. Where do you get support?

RR: This is where I feel most vulnerable.  I am single and have very little immediate family with whom I am close or can count on when things get really awful.  I am slowly building community where I live now, and it simply takes time.  I just have not lived here long enough.  I get support from a small, close circle of friends who also see what is happening.  What is the most difficult for me is that most of my friends who understand what is happening cognitively have not been willing to make big life changes in response.  I know they have to titrate their experience of what is happening in order to take care of themselves, and it is very frustrating because in my opinion we are quickly running out of time to make significant changes.  I crave like-minded community with whom I can live in a more balanced way.

CB: Not everyone would say that they have a spiritual path or perhaps any interest in spirituality at all. Do you have a connection with something greater, and if so, how has it informed your life and the changes you've made?  As you know I've just published a book on this topic, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse because it became so clear to me that just as collapse has enormous energy, food, climate change, healthcare, and other implications, it is the consummate spiritual phenomenon of the twenty-first century. I also wrote the book to provide a roadmap for preparing emotionally and spiritually for collapse.

RR: I believe emotional preparation is the most important kind of preparation we can undertake.  At the end of the day the only resource we can actually count on when something happens is ourselves.  I have been enormously diligent in facing my own demons in addition to making physical preparations.  Spirituality as it relates to nature is a large part of my life.  I find great solace in nurturing the plants in my garden and spending deep time in nature.  I do believe in a higher power and I do trust the greater wisdom of what is happening even though I wish it did not include the suffering of many, many people.  I find myself turning to indigenous spirituality as a way of connecting with nature and our place in nature.  I have been deeply influenced by both Martin Prechtel's books, and I appreciate Sacred Demise as a workbook for facing our own edges.

CB: What is your passion these days? What gets you up in the morning and gives meaning to your life?

RR: My passion is helping others clear their emotional hurdles.  I have an eclectic combination of skillsets I can draw from, and I love that.  I love being able to provide alternatives to our mainstream healthcare system.  I also enjoy using little pieces of my toolbox when I talk to the clerk in the grocery store.  I really want to be a light in all of this, recognizing that just listening to someone can make a huge difference in their life.

CB: I have just one last question for you. I'm wondering if you can comment for our readers on life purpose. That is, what have you come to understand as your purpose in life at the present time? What did you come here to do?

RR: My life purpose is to invite movement wherever I go using whatever combination of my skills are necessary.  If I can help people face collapse with greater ease and an ability to find joy in the moment, then I am doing what I came here to do.

CB: Please add anything else at this point that you'd like to say that i may not have thought to ask you about.

I want to emphasize that I have zero hope that our culture will survive this transition.  We will be forced to simplify how we inhabit this planet.   I am glad about that because I believe abundant energy has allowed the human species to have too great of an impact on the earth and on other species that live here too. 

I wrote a poem a few weeks ago that feels very relevant to our times.  Here it is:

Remember.

There is no such thing as death.

Just a departure from this body.

I am Energy in motion

Life energy

Passionate, essential energy

It's time for courage.

CB: I really, really want to thank you for taking the time to do this interview, and I wish you well in every aspect of your life. You are a powerful role model for our readers and for the world, and may you live and work and be well; may you flourish and continue fulfilling your purpose as so many of the barriers to our doing so unravel, and in many ways, offer us a level of freedom we could not have known as solid citizens of empire.

Compared to life today our lives were simple. We were allowed to roam about the area as far as our legs or our bikes could take us. There were two neighborhood drug stores in walking distance, as was the school. After Brown vs Board of Education brought integration of the public schools, though I had no problem with that personally, racial conflict became rampant in the school and walking to and from or holding school social events was no longer safe. There was chronic fighting, some shootings and knifings, so my parents moved our family to the suburbs. That was a very, very traumatic experience, as there was literally no where to walk to and no place to play outdoors. My brother and I rode the bus to school each morning in the dark and home in the afternoon right after school was out. In a year or so my parents got me a car so I could get to high school and visit friends.

For the past 25 years my husband Paul and I have been co-writing, consulting and training on how to create balanced lives by living and working from home. That was quite novel at the time we started doing it ourselves in Kansas City, Missouri. After graduating from college and working for the regional Office of Economic Opportunity under Sargent Shriver, I got my Masters in Social Work and opened a private psychotherapy practice in my home. Soon after, Paul brought his public affairs consulting services home too.

Eventually we moved to Los Angeles, then Santa Monica, where I also had a practice and where we managed an outpatient treatment center, did in-house communication training, then began writing full time. Ten years ago my husband Paul and I moved to a small mountain community in the Los Padres National Forest, a nearby faraway place about an hour and forty minutes north of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara. Currently I am a PhD Ecopsychologist and the Co-Director of Let's Live Local, a non-profit Transition Initiative. I'm also a US Transition Trainer and my husband is a US Transition Consultant. Our website is Pathways to Transition. I offer online continuing education courses for professionals seeking to understand the emotional aspects of collapse through the Pine Mountain Institute and have a local private practice doing trauma, grief, and loss counseling.

CB: When was the very first incident or event or experience that started you thinking about collapse? Please elaborate on that.

SE: In 2004 Paul and I attended a day-long conference on Peak Oil in Santa Barbara where they aired The End of Suburbia and Richard Heinberg was the keynote speaker. That day was like a bucket of cold water in the face, a whack on the side of the head, and a big wake up turning point for us both. On the way home we both agreed this experience meant our lives would never be the same. It sparked years of still-on-going changes in our home, our work, our view of the world.

CB: And then what happened? What led to the next thing and the next, and so on? What books or documentaries influenced you? Which people influenced you? 

In addition to avidly reading books by authors like Heinberg, Orlov, and Kunstler, we began showing End of Suburbia and other documentaries like Everything's Cool and What a Way to Go in our home to get our friends and neighbors on board with what would be happening in our lives. This led to the formation of Let's Live Local (LLL) in 2005 and we became one of the early Post-Carbon Outposts. We are now a non-profit and the 11th official Transition Initiative. We have many projects going and have started many local services that didn't exist before. There is a summary that needs some updating at http://www.letslivelocal.org/. Our newest is a beef co-op we just started with a local rancher who came to us after reading about LLL in the local paper and deciding he doesn't want to ship his small herd of 18 cows to the big slaughter houses any more. He wants to sell his cows locally and rely on a small house that slaughters in a way he believes is more humane, where only one animal is slaughtered at a time, without stress on the cows. We're excited about this even though we don't eat beef ourselves. I think we have to take whatever steps forward people are willing to take and just keep walking.  

In our personal lives we had to do something about our large, energy inefficient home. At first we wanted to downsize to a smaller, energy-efficient home. We thought of finding a more sustainable community to move to, visited a wide variety of locales, and put our home on the market three different times. But it did sell. Meanwhile we began making both our home and our lives more energy efficient. Everything cost far more and took far longer than we would ever have expected. But here's a list of the kind of things what we've done over the past four years. We still have so far to go. 

Auto:

Bought a Prius, which has cut our gas usage in more than half and we may get an electric scooter to do local errands 

Electricity: 

Installed Energy Smart Power Planners on appliances that use significant amounts of electricity such as the refrigerator, freezer, and other appliances.

Switched to the fluorescent bulbs

Have motion detectors both inside and outside to reduce the number of lights we need to turn on

Unplugged most appliances that use energy when off. 

Food:

Buying frequently used grains like spelt and steel-cut oats in bulk.

Compost kitchen waste and use the compost to fertilize the variety of fruit trees and berry bushes we have planted.

Share -shopping with friends to cut down on our all making separate trips in town.

In process of building a cold frame with our neighbors to grow produce next Spring.

Heat:

Sealed air leaks, using caulking, weather stripping, expanding foam, and insulating foam gaskets behind outlets and switch plates on exterior walls.

To keep heat from escaping from through our windows, we have had an e-coating film applied to our windows.

When our propane bills got over $400 a month, we installed a pellet stove to heat our 1st floor. We had a pocket door installed at the top of our 1st floor stairs so heat from the stove will not go upstairs (unless we have guests) and we no longer heat two rooms on the 1st floor and two rooms on the lower level. One of first floor rooms is now our "cold room" where we store fruit, vegetables, wine in the summer, and most of our pellets. 

When our propane bill climbed over $800 a month, we installed a second pellet stove that heats our office on our lower level as well as our first floor, particularly since we cut an opening in our master bedroom floor and now have a radiator grill that allows the pellet heat from below to directly heat our master bedroom.  The combination of the two pellet stoves now gives us an alternative heating system, allowing us to eliminate use of our propane-driven, radiant heat furnace except on the very coldest of winter nights.

Some would say that little things like this don't make enough difference to matter. But the savings alone do matter to us and, though possibly it's too late for such things to prevent a collapse, they can slow it and give us all more time to make the still larger changes we need to make. A recent article in the LA Times, "Los Angeles Residents Reducing Power and water Use," shows just what a difference such little things can make. 

You, Richard Heinberg, Dmitri Orlov, Kathy McMahon, Sharon Astyk, the Peak Moment TV's Yuba City Girls, Janaia and Robyn, Linda Buzzell, Rob Hopkins, Allison and Dave Ewoldt, and always Nature, and Connect founder, Dr. Michael Cohen, have all influenced me on this journey.

CB: As you were finding yourself on this journey, did you sometimes kind of look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What on earth am I doing?" Did you ever wonder if you had lost it or taken leave of your senses?

SE: I have often felt like I'm living in two worlds. One where everyone seems to think everything is just fine and I have to operate in that world because it is still much of the daily world I live and work in. Then there's the other world that's always sitting on my shoulder, a world in which I know everything is already different and will be getting a lot more different, totally different, sometime in the future. It is such an odd feeling. I always get this feeling when I read the newspaper. In one section of the page there may be a major story about severe climate change and in the next an article on alfresco kitchens and multi-room patios which are now in vogue for outdoor entertaining. So to me it seems that it's a whole lot of other people who have lost their senses. 

CB: How have your family members responded to the changes you've made? Have you had conflicts with them around your changes and if so, how have you dealt with that? 

SE: Gratefully my husband and I are on the same page. We are supportive of each other and working together to make changes our own lives and in the community. Each of our families is small and all are far away. Our son lives in Northern California and has as growing awareness of what we're facing. My mother is 91 so I really don't want to concern her with collapse. But she is a historian and fully aware of the economic side of what's happening. She talks to me about it often as paralleling the path of ancient Rome. She hopes she will die before things get too difficult. I understand this because I know she lived through the Depression as a child and then through WWII as a young parent. The stock market collapse has already made life harder for her as she living on a shrinking fixed income.

I have attempted to talk to other family members via e-mail and on occasion when I visit in person. But they are not interested in or aware of collapse issues. Once when I broached the subject, one of my in-laws asked me, "Is this a California thing?" They have made it clear they do not want me to send any more articles or web links on such topics. So I don't.

I fear a couple of my close friends think I've gone off the deep end. Even some who were interested and involved at the early stages when we began showing the documentaries. About half of my friends who were involved early dropped out once we began discussing what this all might mean for us here in our community and what we could do. Two seem to be on the verge of coming back, though. I have other friends who think I'm too negative and snap at me when I bring up any collapse-related topics. They believe talking about such negative things will contribute to bringing them into the world.

Fortunately, though, I have a wonderful circle of friends both online and here in Let's Live Local who are very aware and supportive of each other.

CB: What kinds of emotions have you experienced on this journey? As you are doing what I call "staring collapse in the face", what kinds of feelings emerge? How do you manage those feelings?

SE: Oh, my. Now here is a question! Every emotion in the book. I get angry that our leaders can be so blind and allow themselves to be controlled by those who can only continue to benefit if we stay on the suicidal path we're on. I get sad about things that I know are not important in the larger scheme of life, but that I will miss in a nostalgic way. The myths we've all lived in. The myths I grew up with. The kind of frivolous, carefree, and naive fun we once had. The myths I even helped to perpetuate in my work in years past. Every so often I am gripped with a gut wrenching fear of having to leave our home and mountain community, not having a place to live, and probably most of all, not being able to get the medications that keep me well. This usually passes now though because I think of my age. I realize that in the larger scheme of things, I and the things I think I need, are not all that important and that's OK, because this is the consequence of our collective history. I work to focus on gratitude for I am very grateful this very day and every day for the many blessings in my life of friends and meaningful work, a wonderful love and  partnership with my husband, and a beautiful home in the most beautiful of forests.

At other times when I see us making progress here in our community like with our pellet and organic produce co-ops, I feel elated and excited and motivated. At other times I feel discouraged because people have to put so many other things in their lives ahead of making the desparately needed changes we need to make in our lives and in our community. Some of the things that come first seem frivolous to me and I wonder, don't they get it? But usually their priorities are understandable.  Some people are really struggling to keep afloat. Nearly everyone is working long hours, often into the night to keep the roofs over their heads. Many retirees who once had time for community involvement lost money in the stock market and have had to go back to work full or part time. Others are losing their homes. People get ill, have accidents, have to devote time to older parents and children ... and worst of all, some have to move away because they can't find work or afford to keep their homes. When lots of such things converge at once I feel very alone, like it is all on me to somehow keep all our efforts going, but fortunately before long someone will call or e-mail me about an extra effort they are doing or an idea they want to work on, or a breakthrough they've had and I feel grateful again. I'm amazed really, that our work here has a life of its own. It just happened today. Someone wrote to say they have donated the cost of the park rental for our October 24th 350 event! 

CB: I'm wondering what the role of community is in your life. It's a lonely, if not hostile, world out there if one is talking to most people about collapse. Where do you get support?

I already mentioned the extensive support structure I have here in our community and in my online communities - ecopsychology boards, the other ecopsychologists who I work with as faculty in our online Ph.D. program, other eco-nomic practitioners, and colleagues like yourself.

Having always lived in cities where I never had a sense of community (except perhaps in high school) until I moved here, I was astonished to discover what it means to live in a real community - both the good and the bad, the ease and challenge of it. At the same time, to some degree I think our community, perhaps like others, is more split now than at other times. I find there are those who still have a lot of money and have no clue about what's going on. They keep raising assessments for more golf carts and hosting fancy social events. Then there are those who are awake and busy changing how they live, sometimes hindered by local rules and regulations. There are those who are severely challenged because of the economy and don't have time for anything else but to keep their heads above water. Those who are new-agers. Those who are fundamentalist Christians. All with their own views of life that are more front and center now because of the sense of impending crises that looms over us all. 

I believe that in this period of time the challenges of the collapse are accentuating our differences and further separating us. Things we once could cover over lightly and be one community with greater ease have grown into wide fissures that make bridging differences harder. I first began to notice this after the 2000 election. Suddenly people who had socialized easily together before, no longer could or would. And it's become still more pronounced since. I often say to those who get frustrated at times trying get beyond all these differences that we have to focus on tolerance and have very long arms to reach around and embrace everyone.

On the other hand, the transition programs we've started here are bringing people together across all these divides, sharing in activities where none of these concerns are relevant or discussed, i.e. the many wood pellet co-op subscribers and the organic produce co-op subscribers come from all groups and all views, but we don't really know how our views are alike or different because we just want to enjoy these new aspects of our community. 

CB: Not everyone would say that they have a spiritual path or perhaps any interest in spirituality at all. Do you have a connection with something greater, and if so, how has it informed your life and the changes you've made?  As you know, because you wrote the foreword for it, I've just published a book on this topic, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse because it became so clear to me that just as collapse has enormous energy, food, climate change, healthcare, and other implications, it is the consummate spiritual phenomenon of the twenty-first century. I also wrote the book to provide a roadmap for preparing emotionally and spiritually for collapse.

SE: As you know, I love your book. I have a very deep nature-based faith. It definitely has shaped my willingness to see and accept what is actually happening and has given me tools to use in my personal and professional life. Nature spirituality and philosophy is truly a godsend because it enables me to make sense of a nonsensical world. I understand that everything that's happening is a natural result of our unnatural way of life. Gratefully it also enables me to have a concept of what a different kind of life we could create if we followed the principles of nature. They guide me in doing what I can in my life and in helping our local community to create such a way of life. I have daily nature practices I draw on.

CB: What is your passion these days? What gets you up in the morning and gives meaning to your life?

SE: What gets me up in the morning and gives meaning to my life is both the exciting projects we keep working on and the forward progress we're making on the one hand and on the other hand the unending beauty of the forest, and life with my husband, our dog and my friends.

CB: I have just one last question for you. I'm wondering if you can comment for our readers on life purpose. That is, what have you come to understand as your purpose in life at the present time? What did you come here to do?

SE: I just had an extended conversation about life purpose on an ecopsych board I belong to. It's a wonderful topic to reflect upon at this time. I believe I am here to continue finding my purpose day to day. I do not believe I have "a" purpose that was set sometime in the past or sealed in stone somewhere. I believe, as Viktor Frankl pointed out to me rather sharply when I couldn't quite grasp it, we have to "find"(to use his words) our purpose as it unfolds moment by moment, seek it out in the ever-evolving, intelligent self-generating web of life of which we are part (not his words).  

CB: PLEASE ADD ANYTHING ELSE AT THIS POINT THAT YOU'D LIKE TO SAY THAT I MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT TO ASK YOU ABOUT.

SE: Just to thank you, Carolyn, for inviting me to reflect on these questions. I have enjoyed articulating and sharing them and find value of doing so.

CB: Tell us a little about your background, where you grew up, your family, and the work you've been doing in recent years.

Freeacre: I was born in Portland, Oregon, but after my parents divorced, I was raised in Michigan. I would have graduated from high school in 1967 and probably become a journalist, as I was granted a full scholarship to Michigan State University's School of Journalism. But, instead, I eloped with a draft resister and left for Canada. So, I guess you could say that I have always taken politics personally. I was divorced by the time I was 21. Back in the States, I worked for Robert Kennedy until he was killed and later became a political activist against the Vietnam War. After that, I earned an associates degree and got into mental health and was a trainer of empathy and values clarification at a crisis intervention center. Then, I became a counselor for emotionally disturbed adolescents in Michigan, Oregon, and California over the next 16 years. In 1978, I returned to Oregon, married a man with three children, and had one of our own. We lived in Portland until the recession in 1984 brought us to Jamaica for two years (with Project HOPE), then Napa, California for six, and eventually, we moved to South Lake Tahoe. I began to sell advertising space in the local newspaper, which led to being an outdoors columnist and also a special sections editor. I worked at the Tribune nine years. My husband died of cancer after 25 years of marriage, and I put a new life together with an old friend from Michigan. Murph and I have been together since 2002. For the last five years, we have been retired and living in a forty year-old single wide mobile home on a paid for acre of land in Central Oregon, attempting to create a "lifeboat" for ourselves and family. I guess you could say that we are militantly working class and committed to the concepts of freedom and localizing food production. Murph can tell you about his history.

MURPH'S STORY
I was brought up in a pretty conventional Midwestern family in Michigan. My father was a frustrated city boy who wanted to be a farmer and got an agriculture degree from Purdue but was never able to actually do the farming trip. Both parents were college grads. So through out my childhood I usually had all kinds of animals around, and I learned a lot about husbandry from my dad and worked summer jobs on a variety of farms. When I graduated from high school in 1959, I immediately entered college.

Both of my parents held education, not job training, high on the list of priorities for their kid's futures. I sort of adopted a curiosity about nearly everything and my college background showed that; 320 hours in a huge variety of areas. I didn't actually graduate until I went back to school in the 90's, and then qualified for three degrees.

I was never able to do a sufficient amount of compromising to utilize my education to make money, and so I migrated from one kind of job to another, preferring, generally, to work with my hands. I spent 4 years in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, taught for about 3 years, and finally ended up training as a tool and die machinist in the 80's and 90's until I retired from "Working on Maggie's Farm". (A reference to one of Bob Dylan's songs)

CB: When was the very first incident or event or experience that started you thinking about collapse? Please elaborate on that.

Freeacre here. I'm trying to remember my first inkling of the collapse. I think it was around 1998 that I was asked to attend a conference on Sustainability as a press person on the college campus in Tahoe City. I had never heard of the term "sustainability" before. But, a bunch of really fascinating scientists and specialists were there, and they blew me away with concepts of resource depletion, etc. I am pretty sure that Richard Heinberg was there, but I am not certain, as my notes have been lost. Anyway, I was hooked. A year or so later, I got connected to the internet for the first time. I must have looked up "sustainability" and come across Mike Ruppert's "From the Wilderness" website around 2003. I took that very personally as well. That is also when I first became aware of you, Carolyn, on Ruppert's site.

HOW MURPH BEGAN THINKING ABOUT COLLAPSE

I really didn't get much involved in politics until the 70's when I had my own business as a guitar maker, a family, and started to get really nervous concerning the economic and political shenanigans going on at the time. My parents were also very concerned, and we felt that there was a high probability of economic and social collapse back then. My parents bought a quite remote 100 acre plot of ground in the middle of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, to which I moved to in 1980. That collapse didn't happen even though the nation came close, and my family and I stuck it out in Arkansas for 10 years, at which point I moved back to Michigan after a divorce in 1990.

That is when I really got interested in politics. Needing a job, I finally moved to Iowa in the middle of a corn field and worked for an outfit as a machinist in training. Got a computer and started reading a lot more on the subject of politics and economics, tried a bit of investing in the stock market until I figured out that was a racket with few winners. Then Freeacre and myself got together, and I moved to California. The intensity of political and economic investigation started to increase 100 fold. Ruppert's book, "Crossing The Rubicon" and web site looked pretty authentic to me, and we began making plans to divorce ourselves from the greater society.

CB: And then what happened? What lead to the next things, what books, documentaries, and people influenced you?

Freeacre again. When I think about it, I realize that Mike Ruppert's brilliant messages about Peak Oil and the impending economic collapse fell on fertile ground. My plans for life had already been destroyed several times. I was not under any illusions that "things will be okay" or "it can't happen to me." My step-son had gotten a particularly virulent form of cancer when he was thirteen. He underwent 22 months of chemotherapy and a lifetime dose of radiation which left him scarred for life and left us bankrupt. We stupidly filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which left us with forty percent of the medical bill of $200,000. We lost our house and our car. It took us five additional years working three jobs between us while raising our baby and 3 teenagers, one with cancer, to pay off the debt. Years later, after leaving a lucrative job with Project HOPE, we were more or less homeless for a year, You see, after leaving Project HOPE as a trainer for biomedical engineering and looking for suitable employment, my husband lost the caps on his front teeth. Have you ever attempted to get a job with no front teeth? How about trying to get a dentist to do the work when you don't have a job? Forget it. Welcome to my working class world. We were poverty stricken for years. I was a counselor in a very good residential treatment center with years of experience. But the state of California put a $7.25 cent an hour cap on wages for psychiatric child care workers. It took us forever to claw our way out of debt and buy a home in Tahoe. A week after signing the papers on the house, Ralph was diagnosed with fourth stage lung cancer. Nine months later, my husband was dead. I was 50, and my world had already collapsed at least three times. By the time Murph and I got together three years later, and we began to read "From the Wilderness," we realized how vulnerable we were and began to make what Howard Kunstler calls, "alternative arrangements."

I don't think I was reading much else about peak oil and financial collapse. Instead, I was reading metaphysical books, Daniel Quinn, and searching for the feminine face of God. We re-financed the home, paid off our credit cards and the automobile. Then, we took the rest of the money and fixed up the dwelling. We knew that we only had two years before the mortgage re-set. So, we had to get it sold by then. Happily, for us, real estate prices were sky-rocketing. We sold it and had enough money to purchase the cheapest listing in the poorest county in central Oregon with cash. We put in a new well and septic and fenced the property. Then we began composting and building up the soil. We've been doing that for almost five years now. Except for several months where I was the ad director for our tiny community newspaper, I have lived off my savings because I developed a debilitating case of fibro-myalgia in Tahoe and was, of course, turned down for disability payments. We made the savings last until the Social Security kicked in. Today, I am in pain most of the time.

But, I am not alone. Have you ever wondered where all the people go that fall by the wayside in this ruthless climb to the top that we are supposedly all on? Little, backwater small towns would be my answer. About a quarter of the people walking around in the grocery store here look like they could have been the Unibomber. We are fat. We are crippled up. We wheeze when we take a deep breath. We may be left with one breast from a mastectomy or have a stent in the heart. We don't look at all like the folks in the magazines and on T.V.

But, to me, it feels like Murph and I have found our perfect place. I love it here, and I love the people here more and more every day. They are amazing and from all walks of life. Retired from all sorts of lines of work from rocket scientists to loggers - these people may walk in slow motion, but they are the friendliest and most knowledgeable and skilled people as a whole that I have ever known.

When we first arrived here we began to collect a whole library of books and documentaries with which to attempt to educate the locals. We have them all - Kunstler, Heinberg, Baker, Astyk, Jensen, Greer, and Ruppert, along with all the documentaries on Peak Oil and "What a Way to Go". But, we got very few takers. I'll tell you what has worked better for us later.

CB: As you were finding yourself on the journey, did you sometimes kind of look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What on earth am I doing?" Did you ever wonder if you had lost it or taken leave of our senses?"

Ha! Only almost every day - especially when for so long the dire economic forecasts of collapse seemed to not happen and all is denied in the mainstream media, and the television programming reinforces a reality that doesn't match up at all to ours. We read LATOC, peak resource, alternative news and financial sites every day. We are baking all our own bread, cooking everything from scratch, raising a garden in the high desert and gathering eggs and have disconnected the satellite TV, while our friends are buying RV's and going on trips to see friends and relatives as if everything is just hunky-dory. We often turn to each other and ask, "Are we fucking nuts, or what?"

CB: How have your family members responded to the changes you've made? Have you had conflicts with them around your changes and if so, how have you dealt with that?

For years, pretty much everyone thought we were depressing and didn't want to hear what we had to say. After awhile, they'd just say, "Well, you are probably right, but we don't want to hear it. It's too depressing." After sharing that I am not planning to live much beyond 2012. For instance, I was accused of trying to make my sister-in-law an "emotional hostage." I guess I didn't realize how painful that concept is for her and others. So, I've shut up about that now. I have more compassion for those in denial than I used to. I realize that there are some things that are too horrifying for them to deal with. I think it starts very early. Like, "No, Daddy doesn't really love you," or "No, this isn't the greatest, most free place to live." We live in a matrix of lies, and the truth, let's face it, it is very painful. Now that our emphasis is on living this very healthy lifestyle and we are enjoying ourselves and our little "free acre" so much, friends and family are beginning to take much more of an interest and trying some of the things that we have been doing. I think fun and pleasure are more potent agents for change than fear or guilt. That would be my contribution to the movement, I guess. Once people see that you've filled your chest freezer with produce from the garden, they taste your excellent free range eggs, eat some of your yummy fresh bread and rabbit jerky, and learn that you are living on just your Social Security, they want to know your secrets. You don't have to convince them of peak oil or the doom-o-sphere.

CB: What kinds of emotions have you experienced on this journey? As you are doing what I call "staring collapse in the face," what kinds of feeling emerge? How do you manage those feelings?

For several years, we were appalled and very angry at the information we were learning about resource depletion, the destruction of the environment, the corruption of the corporations, the complicity of the government, the profiteering, the loss of liberties, the wars, the torture, etc, etc. We began to participate in blogging on a site that bemoaned all these things with wonderful, tension-relieving rants. This evolved into our own site, http://www.troutclancampfire.blogspot.com/.

We still get angry, depressed, appalled, and fearful. But, it seems just the right people have shown up at the cyber campfire and in our physical lives to form a supportive community that is very helpful.

CB: I'm wondering what the role of community is in your life. It's a lonely, if not hostile, world out there if one is talking to most people about collapse. Where do you get support?

We are very active members of a local Community Action Group that was formed to thwart the county's efforts to bring in millions of federal dollars in grants and collect substantial fees for individual and unaffordable nitrogen reducing septic systems. The county seems to want to encourage resort development and displace the poorer people who live here, so we fight them tooth and nail. We have also joined the local Grange, which supports community agriculture. In connecting with all these people, we find a lot of common ground despite huge differences in politics and religions. One learns to speak many languages, depending on differing frames of reference. For instance, one can look at the malfeasance of the powers that be and conclude that Satan is in charge, or Reptilians, or that sociopathic scum rises to the top. Whatever... no matter what you call it, they still suck and must be defeated.

We started out just bringing muffins or extra eggs to neighbors. This has mushroomed into so much back and forth bartering, gifting and trading that it is just mind-boggling! It seems the closer we get to collapse, the more food, supplies, tools, and tips are shared. The more we give away, the more shows up, despite the fact that we are pagan anarchists and most of our neighbors are Christian fundamentalists. Who woulda thunk it?

CB: Not everyone would say that they have a spiritual path or perhaps any interest in spirituality at all. Do you have a connection with something greater, and if so, how has it informed your life and the changes you've made? As you know, I've just published a book on this topic, Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse because it become so clear to me that just as collapse has enormous energy, food, climate change, health care, and other implications, it is the consummate spiritual phenomenon of the twenty-first century. I also wrote the book to provide a roadmap for preparing emotionally and spiritually for the collapse.

It's ironic, but I was a licensed Practitioner in the Church of Religious Science for twelve years. But, I could not reconcile the church's teaching on abundance with my visions of collapse. I became critical of the expensive workshops and the seemingly unconscious enthusiasm for consumer goods that seemed to have no connection to resources or what poor wage slave was producing all this stuff. So, when we moved, I did not join another church.

But, now, more and more, I find my spirituality strengthened. Without my even realizing it, my dreams have come true. I have a wonderful relationship, a paid for piece of land. We grow our own food and have great friends. Even the fibro can be interpreted as a sort of gift that has opened my heart to the suffering of others. I have come to know the powerful process of the drumming circle and the cyber tribe. I feel a part of something greater than myself. Most of the metaphysical training that I had has been validated for me.

CB: What is your passion these days? What gets you up in the morning and gives meaning to your life?

Freedom. We feel free. I know that on the macro level, our freedom is being diminished by the day. Many of our Constitutional rights are being compromised or denied altogether. As a people, our financial freedoms are disappearing as well. You name it, we are losing it. But, because we came here five years ago and declared ourselves "free", we have made it so for us. For five years we have gotten up when we wanted to, decided what we wanted to do that day, and pretty much done it. They can't take that away from us. We have imperatives like feeding the animals and watering the garden and going to meetings. But, those are all obligations that we have taken of our own choice. We find the experience of freedom to be thrilling.

CB: I have just one last question for you. I'm wondering if you can comment for our readers on life purpose. That is, what have you come to understand as your purpose in life at the present time? What did you come here to do?

Well, this must sound totally grandiose, coming from a couple of old fuckers living in a forty year old trailer in the high desert of nowheresville, but I have a feeling that we are two souls who came here to help out with the transition that is happening. Call it "The Age of Aquarius." Call it whatever the Mayans called it. Maybe we are those that the Cherokees foretold would come back as Whites with Indian souls. I don't know. But, both of us seem to have been dissatisfied from day one with the culture that we found ourselves in. Murph is more of a warrior. I am more of a healer. But, between the two of us, we are a pretty good team. In terms of the Collapse, when it gets scary and overwhelming, I like to think that, "We were born for this!"

CB: Please add anything else at this point that you'd like to say that I may not have thought of to ask you about.

Well, Carolyn, your book is still coming in the mail, so I have not read it. But, I think that Sacred Demise is a good title. I have been thinking a lot about my demise and coming to terms with it. My goal is to get my mind around the concept of "enough." In our type of sick capitalism, there is no such thing as "enough." Never. Not for a minute. We need more just to break even.

This seems to have spread out into everything else as well. Not enough money or stuff or time. We seem to have lost a sense of enough or plenty. And, until we do cultivate a sense of plenty, I believe that we will always be impoverished and we will continue to deplete the resources of the planet and kill life on earth.

I want to have a sacred demise. I want to be able to live and die with confidence, with strength, gratitude and grace. And, I don't think I can do that without cultivating a sense of "enough."

Aho. That means, "I have spoken." The talking stick is passed.

You may contact Freeacre and Murph at: [email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

READ PART TWO OF THIS SERIES

READ PART ONE

In his famous work "The Waking." Michigan poet, Theodore Roethke, offered sage advice for navigating unprecedented transitions and cultivating resilience. Wisely, the Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins establishes three domains for people who are awake to these transitions as they endeavor to journey through them into a post-industrial world. Those domains are simply head, hand, and heart, and they refer to-learning: the facts regarding the challenges of Peak Oil and climate change, the mastery of skills necessary for survival in a post-petroleum world, and nurturance the nurturing of that which gives meaning and purpose to our lives in the Long Emergency . A preponderance of the literature addressing transition issues provides information for the head and hand, yet there is a dearth of illumination for the heart-support and validation for our trembling souls as we consciously maneuver our lives and communities into a world humans have never before known.

While millions of our species have experienced the collapse of their civilizations, none before this generation has transitioned from an industrial to a post-industrial lifestyle. None has experienced resource depletion, energy decline, climate change, overpopulation, or broken economic systems in the same manner as that with which we are currently faced. Whether it occurs rapidly or slowly, the collapse of a civilization is always traumatic. Wherever we might be in the process, it is tempting to become pre-occupied with logistical preparation only, i.e., relocating to a sustainable area of the world, learning skills, acquiring tools, storing food, and much more. Yet if one does not address the interior world as well as the exterior, the journey may be immensely daunting, even overwhelming.

What Is Resilience?

For this reason, we must ponder the issue of internal resilience deeply and consciously cultivate it as diligently as we attend to matters of head and hand. Two possible definitions of resilience are:

**the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.

**ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.

In fact, resilience cannot remain simply a theory; it becomes very personal, very quickly.

Resiliency researcher, Albert Siebert, author of The Resiliency Advantage and The Survivor Personality, comments on has this to say about internal psychological resilience:

Resilience is the process of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences. Resilient people overcome adversity, bounce back from setbacks, and can thrive under extreme, on-going pressure without acting in dysfunctional or harmful ways. The most resilient people recover from traumatic experiences stronger, better, and wiser.[1]

Seibert posits five levels of internal resiliency:

*Maintaining one's emotional stability, health, and well being

*Focusing outward and developing good problem-solving skills. (research indicates that problem-focused coping leads to resiliency better than emotion-focused coping).

*Focusing inward and developing strong inner "selfs" such as self-esteem, self-confidence, and a positive self-concept.

*Developing resiliency skills

*Developing the talent for serendipity, -the ability to convert misfortune into good fortune.[2]

I highly recommend Siebert's article on "How To Develop Resiliency Strengths" which offers additional tools for cultivating this crucial psychological skill.[3]

Cognitive Dissonance And Resilience

It is important, I believe, in developing resilience, to understand that like any other skill, it is built up over time and through myriad experiences that test us on a variety of levels. As individuals begin to awaken to the realities of collapse, they almost immediately confront their own cognitive dissonance regarding the cultural milieu in which they live and the facts of industrial civilization's demise.

In the 1950s, social psychologist, Leon Festinger's research on cognitive dissonance revealed that "inconsistency among beliefs or behaviors will cause an uncomfortable psychological tension. This will lead people to change their beliefs to fit their actual behavior, rather than the other way around, as popular wisdom may suggest."[4] Such a response to cognitive dissonance is invariably linked with the defense mechanism of denial. For example, if I do not want to change my behavior in relation to the environment or fossil fuel consumption, I am likely to discount hard evidence regarding climate change and Peak Oil. If I rationally ponder such evidence, however, I may choose to change my behavior, or I may embark on a nihilistic path of "Eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow, we're all going to die."

Festinger's research concluded that to release the tension created by cognitive dissonance, we tend to do one of three things:

*Change our behavior.

*Justify our behavior by changing the conflicting cognition.

*Justify our behavior by adding new cognitions.[5]

I hasten to add that the process of confronting and dealing with our cognitive dissonance does not occur exclusively in the mind. Cognitive dissonance and our response to it is almost always emotionally charged and has everything to do with the emotional issues we bring to the dilemma. This is exceedingly important because these very issues may undermine our capacity for resilience.

Choosing to confront the reality of collapse and change our behavior catapults us immediately into a profound sense of loss, and the natural human response to loss is grief. During the 1960s, Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who pioneered modern research on death and dying, wrote extensively about the stages of grief encountered by humans as a result of loss. Kubler-Ross emphasizes that the stages do not necessarily unfold in a linear fashion but that we may experience two or more simultaneously or within hours or moments of each other.

The first stage, denial, is when we refuse to accept that loss is occurring. In the case of the collapse of civilization, we've all heard the litanies of denial and probably have a few of our own: Natural phenomena are causing climate change, not humans; there's plenty of oil-all we have to do is drill for it in the United States; the economy is in really bad shape now, but it always bounces back eventually; technology will find a way to fix this-the list is endless.

From denial we then move to anger, although frequently, the anger is veiled or misdirected. We may feel angry at our jobs or spouses or children, not fully aware that it is civilization itself with which we feel enraged for its multitudinous violations of our humanity. Or we may feel anger toward the messenger-the doomer/dystopic/downer who announces and articulates collapse in all its fullness. If we are fortunate, we begin to recognize that our anger is at civilization, with very good reason, and we focus our anger there, and stop blaming extraneous people and things.

As the reality of collapse bears down upon us, we may then begin bargaining with collapse or life or a higher power. With one foot still in the domain of denial, we think to ourselves, "If I drive a hybrid car, maybe I can continue living the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed; if I turn out all the lights in rooms I'm not using, maybe I can postpone the consequences of Peak Oil." We may resort to an endless cache of bargaining chips in order to avoid feeling the full emotional impact of collapse which resides in the next stage.

We can stay stuck in any one of the stages of loss, but genuine healing and empowerment are only possible when we fully open to grief-the one emotion that our denial, anger, and bargaining have been defending against. The most compelling and human response to the rape, pillage, and plunder of our planet is deep grief, and the beginning of healing occurs when we consciously open to it.

When we allow ourselves to grieve the innumerable losses which civilization has wrought, our bodies and psyches are freed to move through the grief to a place of acceptance and re-investment. As with the other stages, the last is a process, not an event-a process very different from "worry" because what we accept is not only the inevitability of collapse, but our powerlessness to stop it, as well as our limitations in avoiding its daunting repercussions. We accept that there are no guarantees, and as with any terminal illness, we have the opportunity to look fully into the face of our own mortality and beyond. Only then can we wisely re-invest in living our lives, regardless of outcome, which profoundly facilitates responding to collapse with grounded, prudent preparation.

To allow oneself to experience the various stages of grief is the first step in building resilience because it is a step in the direction of emotional maturity. Richard Heinberg has spoken and written on many occasions about the infantalization that pervades the culture of civilization which prevents us from coming to terms with negative events and emotions. As a result, the majority of humans behave like two year-olds who cannot accept limits in relation to economics, energy, or the environment.

In the documentary "The Great Squeeze"[6], James Howard Kunstler notes that Americans have lost a tragic sense of life. He explains that this does not mean a sense that everything is horrible, but rather, that we seem to have no sense of a beginning, a middle, and an end to our life experiences-as if we are entitled to endless quantities of money, energy, land, or whatever resources or things we desire.

From Infantalization to Initiation

We have the choice of waiting until that to which we feel we are entitled is ripped away from us gradually or suddenly, or adopting the attitudes of indigenous people who throughout human history have been intimately connected with the earth and therefore keenly aware of humanity's limits. In traditional cultures children are consciously launched into adulthood with carefully structured ceremonies of initiation which mark the end of childhood and the beginning of maturity. Throughout his or her adult life, the indigenous person deepens their connection with the land, with the tribe, and with traditions of ritual and celebration which give meaning and purpose to their human existence.

It is also understood in indigenous traditions that if an individual does not experience a conscious initiation structured and supported by the tribal community, he or she will nevertheless be initiated-by life, and in ways that may be much harsher and more alienating. I believe that the current collapse of industrial civilization is precisely such an initiation for all of our species.

What's Age Got To Do With It?

As the indigenous person ripens into old age, she or he prepares for elderhood which has little to do with age but everything to do with wisdom. In the culture of civilization one encounters elderly persons who are anything but elders due to their lack of wisdom and at the same time, very young persons who because of their depth of wisdom might aptly be called "elders." We could say that elderhood is about sagacity, not longevity.

A hallmark of indigenous wisdom lingering from our ancient hunter-gatherer roots is the quality of resilience. Our ancestors understood that it was necessary for their survival to be able to change course and adapt accordingly. Therefore, it may be that resilience is in our DNA and can be tuned into as well as cultivated.

In addition to the suggestions offered by Siebert above, I would like to add my own. First, I adamantly believe that just as we must prepare ourselves physically for collapse by eating healthy foods and getting in shape, we must also cultivate emotional depth and discernment. In my opinion, this does not mean "resolving all of our issues". At this writing, we are witnessing the collapse of a healthcare system in the United States that is now being held together by a few frayed threads. In a post-industrial world there will be no formal healthcare, nor will there be psychotherapy as we know it today. Anything we can do now to attend to our physical and emotional wellbeing-any tools we can bring with us into collapse to enhance that wellbeing are absolutely crucial.

Some of the tools we might consider are first of all, personal journaling as a means of becoming still and present each day to our experience. It is an efficient and illuminating tool for attending to the inner world.

Many individuals have also discovered the rewards of joining a Non-Violent Communication[7] group as a means of deepening their sense of community as well as their personal emotional well being. For those involved with Transition Towns, Non-Violent Communication groups are natural, and perhaps inevitable, corridors of connection among citizens of a particular place.

Similarly, Heart Circles[8] as developed by founder, Tej Steiner, offer deeply rewarding venues for connecting with oneself, one's community, and the earth. Heart Circles are not therapy process groups and should not be conducted as such, but rather offer opportunities within families, businesses, and local communities to support awakening, resilience, and social change.

Very important for our emotional wellbeing is our capacity to hold alongside current dark realities, a vision of how we would like to structure our lives and communities in a post-carbon world, even if our vision never comes to fruition. Peter Senge[9], scientist and organizational development wizard, teaches the urgency of holding our vision alongside an accurate picture of current reality for the purpose of generating the creative tension necessary for arriving at new and perhaps previously unimagined options. Just as it is perilous to hold only an optimistic vision of the future without considering the dire implications of collapse, it does not serve us or our fellow humans to focus on calamity to the exclusion of possibility. Both are essential nutrients in harvesting the innovation and resourcefulness required to meet the exigencies of the Long Emergency and transform the paradigm that brought us to the present predicament.

As we cultivate head awareness through information, and cultivate hand awareness through re-skilling, the challenges of collapse require that we also cultivate the heart awareness that nurtures resilience for the daunting transitions ahead. "Great Nature has another thing to do to you and me", says Roethke, and by fine-tuning our resilience, we may "learn by going where go."

[1]resiliencycenter.com/articles/5levels.shtml

[2]Ibid.

[3]resiliencycenter.com/articles/survresiliency.shtml

[4]wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger

[5]changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_dissonance.htm

[6]thegreatsqueeze.com/index.html

[7]cnvc.org/

[8]heartcircle.com/

[9]infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm

CB: Tell us a little about your background, where you grew up, your family, and the work you've been doing in recent years. I know that question is really a three-part question, so take plenty of time to answer those parts.

JOHN: Nancy Mae grew up in a small town in Southern Kansas. Her family raised horses; she did barrel racing. In a town where everyone listened to Country & Western, she was heavily into Blues. After working for years as a radiology tech in a large Wichita hospital, she went to Dental School. It didn't take her too long to wake up to the fact that amalgam fillings were the worst kind of poison. She loved her patients and learned all she needed to in order to take perfect care of them.

I (John) was born in Chicago and raised in L.A. After a Chiropractor saved my life, I figured out that might be a good thing to do. Within six months of starting my practice, I became dedicated to doing discovery-based clinical research (which is still a compulsion at this time). Years later, I met this wild and wonderful hot-headed, red-headed DDS. I was hooked. In Kansas City, we built an amazing Sand-Box . . . a fun place to play and work. We hung the best art on the walls and had a state of the art high-end audio system - after all, we needed great music so we could boogie on the dance floor (until exhaustion would set in). Together, we took our healing art and our love to the highest levels imaginable. It was a party.

CB: When was the very first incident or event or experience that started you thinking about collapse? Please elaborate on that.

JOHN: Nancy and I share an interest in the study of time and space. We study history to learn about the past. We study ourselves deeply in order to learn about the 'Now'. We study prophecy and astrology to learn about the future. Because light bends, time becomes space. If timing is everything, then one should really be in the right place in order for the proper reality to manifest.

A great many years ago, while studying many lines of prophecy all at once, I got a glimpse of the future. That picture set itself in place like a tattoo on the inside of my frontal bone. I had a sense of the ordering of things. From that point forward, for me, life has been a lot like running a gauntlet......working hard to stay ahead of the '8-ball', as it were. There were many events that signaled the passage of time - the clock ticking down the minutes until 'midnight'. That sense of urgency caused us to travel extensively.

One day, two lines of force came together at the same time. So, we sat down and had a family meeting, Nancy Mae and me. I made the point that we were working our selves to death - and - that the sand was running out of the hour glass . . . that the powers that be (TPTB) had their train very much on the tracks, and the end was in sight (somewhat at a distance). I suggested that if we wanted to stay alive and survive all our wonderful patients that it was time to turn the key in the lock and walk off into the sunset (holding hands, of course). At first she argued: "But we just got to the top of the mountain - now is no time to quit." I replied: There is never a good time to quit.

CB: And then what happened? What led to the next thing and the next, and so on? What books or documentaries influenced you? Which people influenced you?

JOHN: After a week or two of discussion, we agree that it was probably the right time to do something. Previously, we discussed how sad it was that so few folks in the USA had come awake to the coming onset, the promised difficulty. Not being martyrs, we decided that meant we could not stay and fight. Reality required our going into exile, finding a foreign land we could call home. We'd traveled a lot. But, we had not found THE place. I'd always had a nagging feeling to check out Chile. We talked about it. On the spur of the moment, I got onto a plane and flew to Chile to check it out. In four days, I had found a city, an apartment, a proper (English speaking) law firm, and a relocation agent to assist us in our move.

Upon arriving back in Kansas City, I discovered that Nancy Mae was stunned with my suggesting "the time was now, and Chile was the place."

We listed the clinic and the house with Realtors, and ordered a dumpster and a container to be parked in front of our house. With her mouth, Nancy Mae said yes, let's do this. However, with her body she was saying something else. She treated patients up until the day before we got onto the plane to depart the USA.

In retrospect, considering all the books read, movies seen, lectures attended, it was the study of history that most gave its influence. That old saying comes to mind about those failing to study history being doomed to repeat it. And . . . if history does not repeat, then it at least rhymes.

CB: As you were finding yourself on this journey, did you sometimes kind of look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What on earth am I doing?" Did you ever wonder if you had lost it or taken leave of your senses?

JOHN: Yes, over the first six months, Nancy was really not sure if we had done the right thing - and of course we were really missing friends and family. Yet, as these first two years have passed, we've found that almost everything about our lives is better here than it was in the USA. We've purchased a small organic farm - along with some adjacent property - and are building a new house. Our social life is richer here. We are loving Chile.

CB: How have your family members responded to the changes you've made? Have you had conflicts with them around your changes and if so, how have you dealt with that?

JOHN: Our family members have had some mixed feelings about our big move. Our son left the USA before we did. Our two daughters have not been so fast to come awake to the present danger - they may be Egyptians, swimming in the river of De-Nile. Yet, as they are seeing the USA headed for the dumpster, they are talking about joining us here.

CB: What kinds of emotions have you experienced on this journey? As you are doing what I call "staring collapse in the face", what kinds of feelings emerge? How do you manage those feelings?

JOHN: Surely, it was the awareness of the coming collapse that got us off our butts and moved to Chile. Going into exile is a gut wrenching experience. Going somewhere where you do not know anyone and do not speak the language is a scary thing at best. I think it safe to say that we probably experienced just about the full gamut of available emotions. Yet, we have an abiding awareness that Almighty Nature - or Universe, if you prefer - has everything under control, and it is just our small selves that have some crazy need to worry about things that we know deeply inside will be more than all right in the end.

CB: I'm wondering what the role of community is in your life. It's a lonely, if not hostile, world out there if one is talking to most people about collapse. Where do you get support?

JOHN: This is the wildest part of it all - - where we bought our farm, there is a 'coming together' of some of very fun and interesting people from all over this 3rd rock from the Sun......totally unexpected. A community is forming here and we had nothing to do with it, other than to come. The future is so bright we may need to buy new sunglasses.

CB: Not everyone would say that they have a spiritual path or perhaps any interest in spirituality at all. Do you have a connection with something greater, and if so, how has it informed your life and the changes you've made? As you know I've just published a book on this topic, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse because it became so clear to me that just as collapse has enormous energy, food, climate change, healthcare, and other implications, it is the consummate spiritual phenomenon of the twenty-first century. I also wrote the book to provide a roadmap for preparing emotionally and spiritually for collapse.

JOHN: We love your book - thanks tons for writing it. The world needed this book at this time.

We are very blessed to have a rich inner life. The universal law of 3-in-1 is manifest in our relationship. We have our love and our partnership with each other and with the Very Divine. We have both always felt guided and taken care of, to say the least.

CB: What is your passion these days? What gets you up in the morning and gives meaning to your life?

JOHN: Life is a banquet, a veritable feast. We are living our Chilean Adventure. It continues. It is rich; it is full; it is amazing. We are so very grateful to the Chilean people for allowing us to be guests in their country. As soon as things slow down, we must ask ourselves the question: What can we do for Chile?

CB: I have just one last question for you. I'm wondering if you can comment for our readers on life purpose. That is, what have you come to understand as your purpose in life at the present time? What did you come here to do?

JOHN: Wow . . . that is such a big question. The answer lives on so many different levels. Maybe we can speak to a few of those levels.

Two thousand years ago the instruction was given: "Love ye one another." Nancy and I are still working on that one. We mostly love everyone . . . but some folks come into to our lives to help us realize that our love has yet to become perfect. I guess God is not done with us, yet. We are still a work in progress.

Way back when, Nancy and I got cheated out of a major part of a life together. Now we get to have that time together.

We think that all things must grow. We are still working on our personal growth and development.

We have found that the final frontier is the human psychophysiology. So we spend a lot of time working on our healing. We were stunned to find some very high quality healers nearby to assist us in this most important process.

Our farm has become a vortex. We are called to attend to the growth and maintenance of this awesome force. Nancy has taken the lead here. This land, as with all land, is sacred.

Our children, grand children, and great grand child require our attention, from time to time. We think that is important.

My research into the digital switch in the human nervous system is not yet done, nor is the protocol-set I work with clinically . . . this continues.

Carolyn, thanks for this opportunity to reflect back on these past two years.

The Andres may be contacted in Chile at: [email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or Skype: DrJDAndre
TrulyMail: DrJDAndre

Welcome to empire Charlie. You remind me of Lili Tomlin when someone asked her when she left her birthplace city of Detroit, and her response was, "When I realized where I was." Good for you Charlie, you're not totally psychically numb. Now the next question is, where will you go from here?

Charlie could not be more dead-on about society. Its fabric is completely unraveling, and that epic saga is just getting warmed up. I reacted like you, Charlie, when I discovered things like Peak Oil and the hard evidence of human species-created climate change. What you're witnessing is the mind-numbing ineptness of your government, or anyone else's, to deal with the unraveling, for governments, with their perverse corporate liaisons, after all, are the lifeblood of the empire that is disintegrating. Hence, they are the last entities capable of offering sane responses to the unraveling.

But I would caution you not to spiral down into terminal cynicism, like most of your mainstream media associates. The word cynicism, after all, is related to an ancient Greek term synonymous with the word "dog", and some say it referred specifically to a dog chewing a bone endlessly, even after the marrow was gone.

So what's a person with their hair on fire who's finally come to terms with the collapse of Western civilization to do? First, since you're in the UK, you may want to check out the blog of a fellow Brit named Rob Hopkins, who founded the Transition Town network in Totnes. In fact, you may want to interview him and have a long conversation about his take on all of this. I wouldn't tell you that the Transition model is a magic bullet which will prevent the unraveling because the unraveling now has life of its own. What I will tell you is that it's likely to inspire you to reframe collapse not as a disaster, but as an opportunity on myriad levels. This is not to say that it does not entail pain and suffering for the human and all other species; rather, I'm suggesting that it is both the pain and the opportunities within them that offer us nothing less than an evolutionary threshold. We have in front of us the possibility of reweaving from the threads of the unraveling, a new fabric that we can believe in.

An American president recently ran his campaign using the slogan "change we can believe in." Presently, however, I don't see a lot of Americans or the world holding its breath. As you've pointed out: There hasn't been much change, and there certainly is little in the political arena to inspire our belief because as you've noted, "even language itself seems unreliable."

Your article underscores the vacuousness of governments and the political process. Even before the French Revolution, people seeking change in the Western world have petitioned their governments for it. The unraveling, however, has rendered that approach essentially meaningless. What it has necessitated is a change in personal and community behavior and the creation of vibrant, local economies of scale in which people no longer wait for empire to give what it cannot give, but pick up the threads of an unraveled civilization and weave it themselves according to what their unique place and population require.

Some folks, myself among them, would offer the possibility that the unraveling serves a deeper, metaphysical purpose having to do with a shift in human consciousness. To that end, I have written Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse which suggests an emotional and spiritual roadmap for navigating the unprecedented changes ahead.

Thank you for your incisive, courageous piece which verbalizes what so many are only thinking or perhaps haven't yet consciously registered. I don't believe that as you suggest, we can weave new structures quickly, and I certainly hope that what we weave are not "institutions", but I do believe that many of us are weaving a new paradigm for our species which may allow us to discover the true depths of our humanity.

CB: Tell us a little about your background, where you grew up, your family, and the work you've been doing in recent years. I know that question is really a three-part question, so take plenty of time to answer those parts.

SB: My name is Susan and I am a feminist, mother, educator and soul-mate and wife to a wonderful man, Jerry! I was brought up with Midwestern values in a hard working and caring family. I would term our economic status as lower middle class with a lovely grandmother who took care of our family when needed. "When needed" is defined as when my dad was either laid off from the water heater factory or there was a monumental factory strike.

Childhood was extremely pleasant! I learned to garden, sew, make bread and can from my wonderful Grandma! I spent much beloved time with my Grandma through my early adolescence. These times with my Grandma were carefree and always great fun.

I became a first generational college graduate due to the fact my Uncle George was a member of the La Porte, Indiana School Board and preached the value of education. It was tough for my family to send me to Purdue University, but with college loans and a mother who worked a menial job for eight years to get both myself and my brother through college, I graduated.

In college, I was a full-fledged hippie and have to this day believed in non-violence and the integrity and value of the human spirit. Another belief is that smaller is almost always better. We believe it is better to have people collectively work together instead of someone dictating what one should believe and should buy and should think. I can honestly say that I live my life with Jerry just that way!

Belief that we, as humans, are lifelong learners, created the motivation to earn a Master's degree and a Doctorate. Today, I feel very differently about earning degrees because the value of mastering skill sets like water harvesting, gardening, canning, off-the-grid building construction, candle-making, soap-making seem like far greater accomplishments than a higher education diploma or two. These skill sets have fallen away in our current society. I believe the value of these skills and abilities will be exceptionally sought after as we experience the end of civilization as we know it today.

The professional work I have been doing has involved the areas of education, program development, advocacy, leadership and fundraising. Jerry and I have worked extensively in the non-profit sector with a mission-based focus of serving people with disabilities. Most recently, I have managed a college teacher certification program. Currently, I manage a program funded through the US Department of Education called Educational Opportunities Center. The intent of the program is to assist persons in completing their GED, or enroll in a trade and technical school or assist people in entering higher education. Many of the environments we serve include prisons, drug courts, workforce centers, foster care, trade and technical centers, homeless youth shelters, and community probation.

CB: When was the very first incident or event or experience that started you thinking about collapse? Please elaborate on that.

SB: Two events occurred almost simultaneously for Jerry and me. We read Richard Heinberg's book, Power Down, and we experienced Hurricane Rita while living in Houston, Texas.

Power Down really scared us because we had never thought or spoken of a life without oil and electricity. We immediately denied the book, but something made us read more and become intelligent on the topic. As the truth began to sink in, we began to grieve things we still had in everyday life like air conditioning and water and the ability to move from one place to another in a car or plane. We got depressed and still get depressed from time to time, but today there is more moment-forward in our thinking and through our actions.

(As a sidebar to answering this question, my father took many opportunities, usually over suppertime meals, to start conversations that had a common theme: one day civilization would be out of useable oil. Although my father never attended college he was self-educated and well read on the topic of oil depletion. That very theme rang very true for me, as Jerry and I did our own research and began contemplating our reality.)

The second experience that really propelled us was Hurricane Rita. Jerry and I were thoroughly unprepared for Hurricane Rita. Looking back on the lack of preparation, we were idiots without supplies!

Our story began by naively leaving north out of Houston at 5:00 AM the day the hurricane was to come inland in one of the largest mass movements of people in history (3 million people using three different highway systems in 24 hours). There was with no thought of using contra flow traffic to maximize the lanes exiting the city. With a disabled father-in-law, a cat, a dog and a second car with a daughter and her cat we traveled 14 hours and accomplished only 55 miles! Almost out of gas for both vehicles, we decided to turn around. Miraculously, we found gas for both cars and made our 40 minute trip back to Houston.

We returned to our home in Houston that night and almost immediately lost power after the storm began around 11:00 PM. Following the storm that lasted many hours, the intense heat and humidity with no cross ventilation, was barely manageable. In the early days, we never lost heart because every neighbor was saying the power will be right back on. Wrong. It was over two weeks later that power did return. When the water pressure failed, we both knew we were in trouble.

Jerry and I both had a personal incident caused by the intense heat and humidity that was unrelenting. Both incidents occurred at different times. Each of us got overwhelmed and fearful and hopeless. In each case, the other person was able to comfort and talk through their fears and hopelessness that we were both strongly experiencing.

Have I mentioned caring for a man with advanced dementia during this period? We tried to keep up the semblance of calm and routine. When we still had water pressure, showers kept DA (our name for this gentle man who we cared for 7.5 years) cool but the early darkness, worry, and not knowing came to be our pervasive thought patterns. Not healthy.

Thankfully, we came up with an idea to use a rental car (filled with gas) and venture north to stay with a daughter and her family six hours away. We stayed with Stacey for a week until we heard the power was back on in our neighborhood.

Both Power Down and living through the hurricane and its aftermath resounded that we must get prepared! We had just embarked on the journey of our lives!

CB: And then what happened? What led to the next thing and the next, and so on? What books or documentaries influenced you? Which people influenced you?

Jerry and I found the Titanic Lifeboat Academy in Astoria, Oregon. Caren Black and Christopher Paddon have been incredibly helpful and "real" with Jerry and me. I remember bursting into tears after our first telephone conversation with Caren and Christopher. We had found people that felt the same way we did! We were not alone. They assumed nothing and never judged Jerry and me. Their message was simple: "Sell your home, get out of debt, relocate to a more accepting environment and develop an action plan".

We have used their guidance and coaching to keep us moving forward. We have followed their advice and believe today, we have taken mostly the right steps. We have also talked with them about the sensitive topics of choosing to have guns and which guns and for what reasons.

We were able to sell our huge house in one weekend. We have dramatically downsized two times and both times the process has been freeing because it was our choice. We have voluntarily lived in much smaller rental homes for the last three years choosing to save the money instead. We do not feel we are uncomfortable and, in fact, do not even use one of the bedrooms in our current rental home.

Getting out of debt took a while longer, but we accomplished the task of being debt-free. Have I mentioned that we looked for the perfect property in seven states that took 2.5 years? Early in 2008 we found the perfect property in Northeast Oklahoma. We have 27 acres of mostly hard wooded land that has lake access to the second-largest lake in Oklahoma. The property has a creek and two Indian springs. At this point, our property is mostly paid off!

Jerry and I also went from two cars to one luxury vehicle to one car that gets 40 miles to the gallon. When we made the voluntary change from the luxury car to the small car, I had people at the community college I worked at ask if, "We were all right".

I would be remiss not to mention the importance of preparing spiritually for the end of civilization as we know it. Most of the resources noted above deal with strategies for preparedness and things to acquire, NOT the looking inside to see if we are prepared. Carolyn Baker's finest gift (so far) has been her book, Sacred Demise. Simply, read this book!

The book takes you from where you are, as you are reading, and opens up the possibilities and promise for a new civilization transformed from empire, climate change, loss of life, and the defeat of globalization. The book does not sugar-coat. You do not need to believe in a certain religion; only believe in a higher power like the power of nature. Strategies are thoughtfully presented and the reader is never lost. This must read resource is a gift that gently guides the reader how to get in touch with their feminine side so that the reader can prepare their spiritual side. This book gives a perspective that is extremely timely and a breath of fresh air.

Truth to Power has been our beacon. Other people we have read include Matthew Simmons, Richard Heinberg, Sharon Astyk , Julian Darley, James Howard Kunstler, Caren Black and Christopher Paddon from the Titanic Lifeboat Academy, Michael Byron, Steve Solomon, Derrick Jensen, Joel Skousen, Eckhart Tolle, Louise Hay, David Hawkins, Gary Craig, Naomi Klein, Masanobu Fukuoka and Dave Jacke.

CB: As you were finding yourself on this journey, did you sometimes kind of look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What on earth am I doing?" Did you ever wonder if you had lost it or taken leave of your senses?

SB: Jerry and I have come to think of our "knowing" of the end of civilization as a true gift. I do not know exactly why we know but "knowing" gives us another gift, time. There will never be enough time. The precious time we do have is for preparation including helping people to come to terms with their fears, denial, losses and living changes.

CB: How have your family members responded to the changes you've made? Have you had conflicts with them around your changes and if so, how have you dealt with that?

SB: Our family members are still in denial. From time to time someone will ask us what we think will happen. Jerry and I will never give up and we will be ready to answer their questions and quiet their many fears when empire cannot support the lies (OR people will finally get it when people are lined up for food at the grocery store).

We have lovingly given our family key books to read and DVDs to watch to move them from denial. Unfortunately, the blinders are on, and the empire program is still running.

CB: What kinds of emotions have you experienced on this journey? As you are doing what I call "staring collapse in the face", what kinds of feelings emerge? How do you manage those feelings?

SB: As explained in Sacred Demise, the stages of death, dying and loss written so eloquently by Steven Levine and Elizabeth Kubler Ross fit our emotional ups, downs, and plateaus perfectly. Just because you have grieved, does not mean you will not feel this emotion again. Jerry and I often are saddened by the special aspects of life we will one day say goodbye to like taking a warm shower, seeing a special exhibit at a museum, hearing a symphony orchestra or enjoying the bliss of a sushi meal.

Frank discussion has immensely helped Jerry and me when the raw emotions come flooding back. Time and checking your perspective and good conversation are great healers. About two years ago one of my faculty members, Karen, woke up after watching "What A WayTo Go". Karen was experiencing panic and fear. Jerry and I had her over to dinner and talked with her and shared our thoughts and feelings. We did mostly active listening, validating Karen's fears and started a conversation that continues today but over the internet, since we have moved from Texas to Oklahoma.

One other thing I have done along my personal journey is to post pertinent articles outside my office at the university. The articles range from climate change to pandemics to sustainability to gardening, to overpopulation, to transition communities, to peak everything, and food shortage. People often comment. I take their first comment or question to start asking them what their thoughts are on whatever topic they bring up. The interest is always sincere and often mixed with some anxious humor. I then ask if they would like to receive newsworthy and pertinent articles. Currently, I have 40 people (referred to as Friends and Family) that I send out articles to via the internet. And, I'd have to confess many of the articles come right from Carolyn's site, Truth to Power.

In this small group of Friends and Family, I can honestly begin to see a few waking up based simply on their responses and questions. I am a hopeful individual, maybe even a Pollyanna of sorts because I will never give up on the hopefulness of mankind. I do not believe a magic red pill will save civilization. I believe that mankind will accept and transition into a very different civilization like the very difficult yet rewarding one described by James Howard Kunstler in his novel, A World Made By Hand.

CB: I'm wondering what the role of community is in your life. It's a lonely, if not hostile, world out there if one is talking to most people about collapse. Where do you get support?
SB: It has just occurred to me that the forty people just referred to as Friends and Family is an example of a community of sorts!

Community is the one area where we have the most unsettled plans and, consequently, fears about what our community will look like and who will become its settlers. This is a work in progress!

I can tell you that Jerry and I have each other, two dogs and one cat. We moved from Houston, Texas to Northeast Oklahoma in mid-December 2008. The temperature was in the 80's and very humid as we said our goodbyes to Houston. Ten hours later we experienced a blustery chill factor of 9 degrees in Northeast Oklahoma. Our animals thought we were totally crazy!

Let me describe a little more our situation and plan to transition. Jerry and I both have full-time jobs. We are living in a community 65 miles from our homestead property. Although this is not an ideal situation for developing community, we have taken many steps to introduce and familiarize ourselves with neighbors and the nearby town. We have found the people of Oklahoma sincerely friendly and helpful.

Our goal is to have our yurt sitting on our deck by late summer 2009. One of the scenarios we have accepted is that our yurt could provide the housing we need if things crater by early fall 2009. The transition to the yurt would be difficult but, we believe, realistically possible.

Currently, we are building a thirty-by-thirty-foot deck that will support our first building, a yurt. The yurt is twenty-eight feet in diameter and is being built in Virginia by the Buffalo Mountain Yurt Company. The people building our yurt will be delivering the yurt once the deck is finished and assisting Jerry and me in the "yurt raising." This will be accomplished by late summer 2009.

The yurt will provide temporary housing while we build our first Earth Ship! Several years ago, Jerry and I attended a week long workshop on Earth ship building in Taos, New Mexico. We stayed in an Earth Ship and were fascinated by the design allowing for the structure to be fully off-the-grid in any climate. The temperature outside in Taos was 120 degrees and the inside of our Earth Ship was a constant 72 degrees! The founder, Michael Reynolds, has spent his lifetime fine tuning the design of these unique living structures. (I strongly recommend seeing the site.)

To read the remainder of this article, you must be a Truth to Power subscriber.

Susan Bedwell may be contacted at [email protected]

[In the next few months, Truth to Power will be featuring interviews with individuals who are consciously transitioning to a post-carbon lifestyle. In spite of the volumes being written about preparation for collapse, we rarely have the opportunity to hear real people discuss at length the process they have gone through and continue to navigate in their unique journeys through the Long Emergency. Some articles in the series will be published free in their entirety, and some will be partially published, requiring a subscription to Truth to Power in order to read the full article.

Everyone's story of preparation is different; there is no one-size-fits-all model. This series of interviews with real people preparing for collapse will honor the uniqueness of those individuals and the methods of preparation that serve them in their particular situations.--CB]

A Wall St. Journal article, July 1 entitled, "A bank run teaches the ‘plain people' about the risks of modernity", by Douglas Belkin, reports the challenges the Amish have confronted in the past decade, specifically those having to do with economic collapse. In 1993, Northern Indiana Amish established the Tri-County Land Trust, not unlike lending arrangements set up in many other Amish communities. Not insured by FDIC and based on its own bylaws, the trust now has about $40 million in assets. Until November, 2008, the land trust offered low-interest loans and provided other financial support for Amish homeowners and proprietors of small businesses. However, it suspended lending and has not yet resumed. Add to this the fact that, this past spring, the Land Trust literally had a bank run because the Amish began to experience the same consequences of economic collapse as the rest of the nation did. According to the Wall St. journal story, "...the Amish in northern Indiana edged into the conventional economy, lured by high wages of the recreational vehicle and modular home industries. And they wound up experiencing the same economic whiplash millions of other Americans did."

As almost everyone knows, it is exceedingly challenging to sustain privately-owned family farms. The Amish did it for centuries until the latter part of the twentieth century when they began taking jobs off the farm where they made good money, but many also became seduced by consumerism. They gradually spent more money, allowed themselves some of the conveniences previously shunned in order to live more simply, and found themselves caught up in spending more money and buying things they didn't need-things like bigger weddings, vacation homes in other states, model train and truck hobbies, and even hiring taxis to go on extended shopping trips.

You may wonder if I'm really talking about the Amish. Indeed I am.

This story hits close to home for me because my grandmother was Amish as a young child until her parents left the sect to become Mennonites. I have a number of Amish relatives and had the opportunity to visit a few last summer. In fact, I wrote an article subsequently entitled "North America's Amish Community: Least Likely To Be Devastated By Collapse." What I did not see at the time, certainly not among the families I visited, was the extent to which some members of the community had become seduced by the capitalist economic system.

The Tri-County Land Trust is minutes from where I grew up in Northern Indiana and very close to my home town of Elkhart which earlier this year had the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Unfortunately, that city had based its entire economy on the RV, modular home industry where it employed hundreds of Amish workers, most of whom have since been laid off. Perhaps the most noticeable difference between the Amish who lost jobs and the unemployed of the non-Amish community is that among the Amish, there is much more mutual support and a sense of caring for each other in tough economic times.

The good news in the Northern Indiana Amish community this summer is that a new back-to-basics movement appears to be flourishing. The Amish are increasing and expanding their gardens and eating less in restaurants than previously. Similarly, many Amish men have started new home businesses selling products locally and from home.

Why is any of this important? Simply because of how easy it is to become deluded by and entrapped in the values of empire. Whereas in many cases, it has been essential for Amish men or women to work outside the home in order to survive, in many cases it wasn't-at least not if those families are committed to the values that underpin every aspect of their culture. Thus, if a culture with values of radical simplicity can be seduced by the economics of civilization, how much easier it may be for those of us who purport to deplore those economics to find ourselves repeatedly ensnared by them.

I could not help connect Belkin's Wall St. Journal article with Nicholas Kristof's latest New York Times article "When Our Brains Short-Circuit" which sheds even more light on this issue by noticing the extent to which the human brain "misjudges certain kinds of risks." It appears that evolution has wired us to be alert to immediate survival risks such as snakes and nasty looking people with clubs, "but we aren't well prepared to respond to dangers that require forethought."

I believe that this may be a fundamental reason why we are so pathetically slow as a species to respond to the terrible consequences of Peak Oil and climate change-and, why we are so easily enticed into civilization's consensus trance.

Kristof suggests that even as we acknowledge our "neurological shortcomings", we can compensate by strengthening our rational analysis, that is to say, critical thinking or "the head" in the Transition Town model of head, heart, and hands. In addition, I would argue that a shift in human consciousness (heart) is likely to be one of the most profound results of civilization's collapse, and may, in fact, engender a quantum leap in the evolution of the human brain. Likewise, the challenges of reskilling or learning new/old skills (hands), rather than moving us backward in the evolutionary process, are likely to enhance the development of both reason and consciousness.

Indeed the Amish have a treasure trove of values and skills to teach us, as well as the reality of our common humanity and how an economy based on cheap fossil fuel, rampant technology, debt, speed, consumerism, and so-called "progress" damages and deceives us into betraying our essential nature. Or as one Amish man comments on the need to return to basics: "We were all going way too fast. This has made everybody stop and realize we're just pilgrims here..."

Similarly, with the publication and review of my recent book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, some very juicy and intriguing debate has emerged regarding whether it is better to approach the unprecedented transitions we are facing by "staring down collapse", a term used in the book and elsewhere, motivated by the dire nature of our predicament, or conversely, to engage in "the great turning" out of inspiration and elation motivated by a vision of the possible. This quandary reminds me of what Joanna Macy refers to as the "boring old question" of whether or not people should just work on the inner world of their own psyches or the outer world in which they live and breathe. Of course, she insists, we must do both.

Before reiterating my own notions about the "preferred perspectives" on collapse, I'd like to examine the question itself because it seems to me that it is indicative of the dualism inherent in civilization. In fact, civilization could not have arisen without it because dualism is one of its fundamental underpinnings spawned by a profound sense of separation and either/or, rather than both/and thinking.

It is inevitable that as children of civilization, even as we grapple with creating a new paradigm, we will lapse into dualism along the way and shoot ourselves in the foot with inappropriate questions which preclude our being able to even approach appropriate answers. Such is the question about how best to approach collapse.

I have gone to great pains in Sacred Demise, and in my other writings, to emphasize how important it is that we hold a positive vision alongside the dark reality of collapse. In my review of William Kotke's The Final Empire, I began the article with "My intention in reviewing this stunning book is to share how it has illumined my understanding that collapse and vision are not separate, but that in fact, they travel together and need each other. That is to say that collapse makes vision possible, and vision makes collapse the most desirable option of all as we confront the earth community's current dilemma." In the Introduction of Sacred Demise and in subsequent chapters, I quote Peter Senge, scientist and organizational development wizard, who teaches the urgency of holding vision alongside an accurate picture of current reality for the purpose of generating the creative tension necessary for arriving at new and perhaps previously unimagined options.

More recently, I posted an article on the Truth to Power website entitled "When Facing Reality Is Not Negative Thinking" in which I reiterated the necessity of holding within ourselves both positive vision and dark reality in order to prepare for and bring to current and future transitions the holistic perspective required for manifesting the most creative responses.

I do not apologize for the fact that Sacred Demise is hard-hitting. Like collapse itself, it isn't for sissies, and throughout the book, I periodically salute the reader for persisting rather than tossing the book aside. The very act of finishing the book, in my opinion, demonstrates remarkable courage.

Like any author I could have written the book differently, but I chose the style used for myriad reasons, not the least of which is personal experience with other human beings, including myself. Everyone comes to terms with collapse or vigorously avoids the topic for countless reasons and in a plethora of ways. Authors write books or produce documentaries on the topic in their own inimitable styles based on who they are and the experiences they bring to the table.

My experience with myself as a child of empire and most of my siblings in that milieu is that we love to feel good, make nice, look on the bright side, accentuate the positive, and consciously or unconsciously tout our American ingenuity and exceptionalism. Because empire has taught us that people won't like us or pay attention to us if we say unpleasant things, we often feel that we must express our truth in the most palatable manner and in a style that will lend itself to mass consumption.

However, the collapse of empire dictates for me that I must write and live and think and feel in a manner radically different from all that it has inculcated within me. I am also aware that just as collapse is a process, so is my or anyone else's attempts to navigate it.

I am frequently asked how the awakening happened for me, and I am insatiably curious about how it happens for others. For some, it begins with curiosity about what's behind those rising gas prices or one's desire to simplify one's life. For others, it is engendered by a crisis or some wrenching loss. But however it happens, every person honestly investigating collapse will do so in stages. Initially, one must decide whether to take "the red pill or the blue pill", and at every turn, one must decide whether to keep descending further into the rabbit hole to discover how deep it goes-or not. But eventually, if one chooses to continue exploring, the calamitous nature of the topic will become palpable, and in my opinion, this is both necessary and desirable.

When an individual is journeying, no matter where or how, a certain degree of attention is required in order to arrive safely. If one is piloting a plane or scuba or sky diving or bicycling, one must pay very close attention to the task at hand, in order to avoid a fatal outcome. The journey of consciously navigating collapse is no less daunting, and enormous awareness of what is at stake is required in order to maximize the likelihood of survival and evoke the creativity necessary for manifesting and sustaining a new paradigm. My experience with human beings is that the desire to do or feel good is not sufficient to carry us through the darkest hours of the journey.

A personal experience may serve to make my point. When I was growing up, like most children, I was constantly reminded to look both ways before crossing the street. This was easy while holding the hand of my mother as she was telling me to do so, but less easy to do on my own. Although I had been told a thousand times, one day, I forgot to look both ways. On my first day of grade school, upon returning back to my home, I descended the steps of the school bus, the lights of which were flashing and the stop sign of which was engaged. I had to walk in front of the bus and cross the street to get to my house, but I didn't look both ways, and in an instant, a car, ignoring the stop sign and flashing lights, sped by me and nearly hit me. In fact, it was a frighteningly close call. I was terrified as was my mother watching from across the street and the bus driver. But never again, did I fail to look both ways when crossing the street.

What makes collapse so difficult to come to terms with is that if we choose to fully absorb its implications, it leaves us with a sense of having a brush with death, the consequences of which are at the very least uncertainty and at the very worst, a sense of being overwhelmed.

Again, the words of Joanna Macy come to mind as she repeatedly counsels readers and audiences not to be afraid of the darkness and to allow ourselves to feel the pain and loss visited upon us by civilization. If we're afraid of feeling the pain, she notes, we will lack the compassion necessary for responding creatively to collapse. Quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, she emphasizes that what we need most is "to hear within ourselves the sound of the earth crying."

I suspect that most people begin their conscious collapse journey out of some combination of fear, anger, and grief. If they persevere, they are likely to feel each or all of these with varying degrees of intensity at different intervals along the way. And from time to time, moments of vision and optimism may punctuate more unpleasant feelings until they discover themselves experiencing myriad emotions daily or hourly. However, I seriously question whether any individual can sustain serious preparation for the transitions that attend collapse by focusing only on the positive. In fact, Joanna Macy asserts that opening to the darkness is like mulch for the soil of our psyches as we navigate transition. I would further suggest that receptivity to darkness frequently provides the essential cultivated ground out of which may grow vibrant and hardy crops of creativity so necessary for all that we must be and do in the face of the ubiquitous unraveling.

Wherever we are in contemplating collapse, there is no "correct" way to journey through it. Each of us begins the process and navigates it in our own way, in our own time, feeling and doing what we can to prepare and thrive. The famous psychologist, Fritz Perls, was fond of saying that "all roads lead to where you're at, and everything leads to everything else." Much of the intention of Sacred Demise is to offer pieces of wisdom and beauty that may help us persevere when so much of us would like not to. So much is uncertain, but what is not uncertain, in the words of the farmer/poet, Wendell Berry, is that once the journey has begun, there is no going back.

There Is No Going Back

No, no, there is no going back. Less and less you are

That possibility you were.

More and more you have become

Those lives and deaths

That have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

Containing much that was

And is no more in time, beloved

Then, now, and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

Standing over a grave.

Now more than ever you can be

Generous toward each day

That comes, young, to disappear

Forever, and yet remain

Unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

Not to give yourself away

~Wendell Berry~

Indeed Memorial Day has been designated as a time to remember those men and women who paid the supreme sacrifice, ostensibly for "freedom" and pay them tribute. However, as any reader of this article knows, the memory of an adolescent culture is extremely selective. Americans love pleasant memories and the myths they can make around their heroes-Washington crossing the Delaware, Lee surrendering to Grant, MacArthur's "Old Soldiers" speech, the Iwo Jima Monument, pilots with the "right stuff", Stormin' Norman Swartzkopf, and of course, the magical, mythical Colin Powell.

Conversely, they have little interest in the real truth of the American Empire's conquests from the arrival of Columbus to the present moment. The realities of Native American genocide, nearly three centuries of slavery in North America, all of the unanswered questions surrounding the sinking of the Battleship Maine which touched off the Spanish American War, the evidence pointing to foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attacks, the Pentagon Papers, the My Lai massacre (in which Colin Powell was deeply involved), and of course, the empire's diabolical role in 9/11, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars-all of those are relegated to that which we have "put behind" us. We will not remember those on Memorial Day because that day is reserved for the preservation of the myths and fantasies we choose to enshrine in abhorrence of the full, unmitigated veracity of our history.

What we have created in the form of Memorial Day is nothing more than a sentimentality fest-that is, a hypocritical pseudo-ritual, a pretense of remembering. Orgies of parades and flag-flying spare us from facing the truth that when our military veterans who are fortunate enough to return to us from combat and do so with devastated minds and bodies, we have colluded with our government in abandoning them. We have done so first, by allowing the madness of imperial wars to continue and then by turning our heads-as does our government, from the treatment they so desperately need to become something approximating whole human beings. We have demanded the supreme sacrifice from countless men and women of color and from the working class, but we have refused to atone for that evil by ending the carnage and doing whatever it takes to mend their obliterated bodies and minds.

But while I do not wish to join the American consensus in ignoring its deeper history, I would like to broaden our perspective in this moment of the irrefutable, irrevocable collapse of empire. In fact, collapse dictates that we must remember many things besides all of that which got us to this juncture in history. In a time of unprecedented economic unraveling, it may serve us well to remember happier moments in our lives when we experienced invaluable treasures at little or no cost.

For example, I recall childhood memories of picking fruit with my grandmother and finding refuge from the world on top of my parents' garage which was covered and held with thick branches of surrounding maple trees. I used to lie there for hours listening to the wind rustle through the leaves, ensconsed in the solitude and safety of the natural world around me. Baseball games and kick-the-can extravaganzas with neighborhood playmates on summer days that we thought would never end remain in my memory as some of the most magical moments of childhood. None of these adventures required spending any money, but all of them I revere today as priceless.

Additionally, there were the stories in my youth told to me by elders-stories of their own lives and of those of their neighbors and friends. And of course, there were countless stories of the Great Depression and the lives I saw my ancestors living as a result of it. There were always huge gardens in the summer, endless quantities of fresh food, the canning and preserving of food at harvest time, and diligent, unremitting thrift and conservation of everything in their lives. How I wish I had paid more attention-how I wish I had not merely passively watched their activities but asked to be taught their skills. They did not invite me to do so not only because I had no interest, but because everyone around me assumed that I'd never need to know. Naturally, there would never be another Great Depression. It was the fifties, and gas was 25 cents a gallon. Because I was a budding boomer, everyone knew that when I grew up, I'd have no need to grow a garden or can fruits and vegetables. I'd always have what I needed, when I needed it, particularly after I got some dream job which a college degree would most certainly guarantee me.

And so on this day of remembering, I recall my heritage and the parts of it I need to remember that can serve me well as collapse unfolds.

As readers of Truth to Power's Daily News Digest know from this morning's emailing, today is the 100th birthday of one of Vermont's most cherished citizens, Marion Leonard, whom I interviewed for the website in 2007. On this weekend, I remember the life of Marion and what she has given everyone who has been touched by her life. She's fond of reminding folks that she's a friend of geologian, Thomas Berry, and even fonder of reminding us that she's five years older than he is. Repeatedly, she refers to his book The Great Work, and emphasizes that the Great Work is her life's purpose and mission and that whatever else we feel called to do in our lives, we must share a similar vision if we and the earth are to survive and thrive.

You may wonder what a "geologian" is. Berry, who has been a priest all of his adult life, defines it as someone who studies and appreciates the expression of the divine in the earth community. He reminds us in all of his writings that we are the earth, and the earth is us.

As I contemplate the deeper meaning of a day of remembrance on this Memorial Day weekend, nothing for me is more important to remember than this reality. That we are the earth, and the earth is us, is the consummate, primal truth that has been forgotten by the human species. We have absolutely no possibility of tempering or minimizing the devastation of civilization's collapse if we do not regain this memory and live it every day for the rest of our lives.

I invite you to take a few moments to deeply engage with Thomas Berry's words on this video clip "Thomas Berry And The Earth Community". Please turn up your speakers and perhaps grab some tissue. This is powerful, poignant, and oh so beautiful. Please join me in savoring it.

It's time to remember, dear reader-time to remember who we are and why, despite all we have been told to the contrary, why we are here. If we remember and live every day as if we do, we have the opportunity to extract from the sea change of collapse, every drop of meaning it holds for us, and what now appears as endless loss could ultimately result in inestimable reward. Just who is it you want to be in the face of civilization's collapse?

Some people tell me that the notion of living simply became increasingly appealing as they found themselves suffocating in possessions, consumerism, and the overall busy-ness of advancing their careers, parenting children, maintaining properties, and living the conventional middle class lifestyle. In fact, for some, the burden became so unbearable that life seemed scarcely worth living, and as they felt progressively more devoured by the complexity of their lives, questions of meaning could no longer be ignored or swept under the rug.

For others, it was those nagging questions like "What is this all for anyway?" that surfaced first, leading them to investigate Peak Oil, climate change, and other thorny topics of transition. Perhaps marriages ended, careers crashed, financial devastation erupted, or other losses invaded their lives like emotional Katrinas, engulfing people, activities, accomplishments, or possessions that had previously offered a sense of purpose.

Whatever the scenarios that have led people to collapse awareness, the complexity that attends their awakening is never far from the simplicity they have chosen to embrace. One of my favorite writers, psychotherapist Thomas Moore, notes in his book Original Self:Living With Pardox and Originality, that "Simplifying the externals allows us to cultivate a rich inner and outer life. A cluttered existence may keep us busy, but busyness doesn't mean that we are fully engaged in what we are doing." In fact, the busy-ness serves to prevent us from being present to ourselves, our work, and those we love. Remove it, and we are confronted with deeper levels of our relationship with everything and everyone.

Something calls or compels us to live more simply, we choose to do so, and almost immediately, our inner world begins stirring. Sometimes the movement is subtle, sometimes dramatic, but merely the decision to simplify communicates to the psyche that we are giving it more space-more space to revive itself, to launch emotions, daydreams, night dreams, or creative impulses that could not be consciously appreciated by us as were engulfed by the trappings of civilization. And before we know it, a "life of simplicity" on one level becomes anything but simple on a much deeper level.

One reason I wrote Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, was my fascination with the inner transformations that precede and accompany an individual's journey into the collapse process. Almost without exception, everything written about collapse addresses the cerebral and logistical aspects of it. A rich panoply of stories abounds of how people embarked on the journey and what they've done since then, but much less attention is paid to the machinations of the inner world that opened the door to the path and that continue to percolate as their odyssey and the collapse process deepen.

I have been and continue to be intrigued by the kind of material that surfaces from the psyche in these extraordinary transitions and what individuals do with the material. I celebrate with individuals who ecstatically report that they have completed the installation of a wind turbine or a solar hot water heater or have stored enough food to last for two years. My heart swells; you are all my heroes! And at the same time, I wonder what tears, what rage, what terror, what compassion, what wounding, and what triumphs brought you to this way of life and continue to reverberate off the walls and doors of the new home of "simplicity" you thought you were settling into.

In his wonderful article "The Gathering of The Tribe" by Charles Eisenstein, published on the Truth to Power website today and sent to all subscribers, he states: "...to fully step into one's mission here on earth, one must experience an inner shift that cannot be merely willed upon oneself. It does not normally happen through the gathering or receiving of information, but through various kinds of experiences that reach deep into our unconscious minds." What Eisenstein is talking about here is the complexity of the inner world that permits, engenders, attends, and supports collapse awareness and preparation. No amount of book reading, documentary viewing, or logistical readiness can begin or end the shift to which he's alluding. Nor once set in motion, can it be tamed. It appears to have a life of its own-and a wisdom far superior to that of the rational, linear mind.

Many writers aware of the triple crisis of energy depletion, climate change, and economic meltdown forecast massive social unrest and upheaval as collapse intensifies. While I concur with that probability, I also believe that collective rage will not be the only outcome of masses of individuals unemployed, bankrupt, foreclosed upon, and bereft of healthcare. The same complicated internal phenomenon that has brought many readers of these words to where they are today may well awaken in some of those individuals newly dispossessed, profound gratitude for the loss of civilization's trappings and the quiet zone enabled by that loss which permits them to hear the music of their own inner world. I wonder what kind of voluntary simplicity they will embrace as a result of forced downsizing, and as a result, what they will create, who they will become, and what wisdom they will have to offer those of us who have been on this journey much longer.

As I reflect on myself and our world one year ago at this time, I recall that the consensus in the moment was that oil prices were skyrocketing and the economy was going through a "rough patch", in the words of Alan Greenspan, but that by fall, everything would be back to normal. We all remember what September, 2008 brought forth-hardly the "back to normal" of consensus fantasy. One year ago today, talking about collapse was risky business because the show was still being kept sufficiently on the road so that such talk got one labeled wacko. While the consensus trance, as Jim Kunstler calls it, maintains that there's some sort of normal to get back to, most beings with rational minds and beating hearts sense somewhere in the depths of their psyches that civilization is over and that a point of no return has been crossed.

As an historian and a former psychotherapist, I have always noticed the kinship between history and psychology. History is the study of human behavior throughout time, and psychology is the study of the dynamics of that behavior. I've always been fascinated by history books, but I've always wanted to know more than simply what a particular historical figure did or didn't do. What motivated her? What was he feeling at the time? What were the emotional and spiritual consequences as well as the social and political ones? Sometimes we have primary sources that fully or partially answer those questions; sometimes, we simply have to infer the answers to our questions.

Today in the throes of collapse, encouraging stories abound: People learning to live with less, fewer miles being driven, more staycations, more shopping at thrift stores, drastically reduced consumption, more leisure time. Good news indeed, and yet fraught with countless emotions, family conflicts, depression, and stress. Thus, things become really simplified-and yes, at the same time, really, really complicated.

First, let me begin by assuring the reader that I do not recommend staring down collapse 24-7. Initially, admitting the reality of collapse is frightening and disheartening. People at first tend to become overwhelmed with fear or hopelessness or both. At that point, we can do one of two things: We can back off and process the facts in bits and pieces, interspersing doing so with living our everyday lives, doing things we enjoy with people we love, and savoring everything in life that nourishes us. Or, we can immediately engage one or more defense mechanisms in order to assuage our fear and cognitive dissonance. The defense mechanism most frequently employed is denial, and unfortunately, some forms of spirituality are particularly useful in fostering denial because inherent in them is the assumption that accepting the demise of industrial civilization will drag one down into permanent depression, anger, hopelessness, or despair. While it is true that when first acknowledging collapse, one might experience such feelings, this does not guarantee that one must choose to take up residence in dark feelings, redecorate, change one's address, and permanently reside there.

I wrote Sacred Demise from the perspective of exactly the opposite experience. Did I feel negative feelings when first learning about collapse and its implications? Of course. Do I still have moments when negative feelings return and cloud what was an-otherwise normal day? Absolutely. But for me, acknowledging and preparing for collapse has been a sea-change in every aspect of my life which includes a full palette of emotional and spiritual colors and hues. It has indeed made me more fully human and alive.

Rather than dragging me down into depression and despair, my acceptance of what is, has liberated me both emotionally and spiritually. As I have released false hopes of "fixing" civilization cosmetically or creating a mass consciousness change that might engender mass movements, I have gained much more energy for my work and for preparation for the daunting days ahead. In other words, I have gained a visceral understanding of "crisis as opportunity"-a cliché which I bandied about earlier in my life could not fully appreciate until I allowed myself to deeply understand collapse and its ramifications.

Last month, Oregon Peak Oil researcher and blogger, Jan Lundberg, put out a call to his readers to respond on three questions regarding collapse:

• What we are acting toward? What main outcome might we be looking forward to?


• What do we relish leaving behind, as collapse begins or as it will be intensified?


• What do we not want to leave behind unresolved; or, what needs to be done before it's too late to accomplish it?

•· I look forward to the world breaking up "into small colonies of the saved" (Robert Bly). I look forward to a simpler, less neurotic life for me and my children. I would like to think that my children, while their chances of survival may be lower, their chances of happiness will be higher.

•· The central change I would like to see is abandonment of the addictive, frenzied, exploitative American way of life in favor of a tribal, cooperative, relaxed way of life that puts responsibility toward other species and the Earth, as well as other human beings, first.

•· An authentic life that is centered around people and not things. Revival of things spiritual and not material.

•· Learning how to live with each other and within the larger community of our bioregions and ecosystems in a way that is intimate, honest, humble, and humanly and ecologically sustainable. That includes restoring viable community life, economic and ecological relationships and systems - living systems.

While none of us knows exactly how the collapse of civilization will unfold and while it is a process--sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant whose beginning, middle, and end are and will be difficult to discern, the responses to Lundberg's questions are encouraging. First, they let me know that I'm not alone and that there are many more individuals than I could have imagined who are looking at collapse with the same optimism-and fear-that I feel when I contemplate it. Moreover, what I hear in these responses is not "negativity" but a deep longing for the possibility of living lives in harmony with all of the earth community and thereby experiencing the fullness of our humanity.

In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Sigmund Freud cultivated a very dark perception of humanity as he assessed the baser instincts largely repressed in the human unconscious. His pupil who became the famous Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, acknowledged the dark side of humanity which drove Freud to utter despair but unlike Freud, Jung came to believe that the dark side was a necessary ally in transforming human consciousness. He spent decades studying myriad spiritual teachers, mythologies, and archetypes of the unconscious, and championed the sacred in nature and in the human psyche; however, Jung insisted that, "We must beware of thinking of good and evil as absolute opposites. The criterion of ethical action can no longer consist in the simple view that good has the force of a categorical imperative, while so-called evil can resolutely be shunned. Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole."

In other words, according to Jung, what we call "good" and "evil" need each other and in our binary thinking are opposite poles which in reality comprise the whole of the human experience; one needs the other for completion, and particularly for the transformation of consciousness. This is why Jung adamantly declared that "Mental illness is the avoidance of suffering." He was not referring to meaningless anguish but suffering which we endeavor to make sense of so that our genuine human purpose may be revealed to us.

In Sacred Demise, I repeatedly return to the question: Who do we want to be in the face of collapse? My friend Joanna Gabriel in a wonderful 2007 interview with Peak Moment TV beautifully articulates the question "Who Am I In A Post-Petroleum World". We both concur that these are the ultimate questions that collapse is inviting us to address in our individual lives and in our communities. I believe that it is futile to attempt to do so unless we are willing to struggle with all of the human emotions that emerge as we choose to stop avoiding the issue of collapse and with the support of trusted others, look at it honestly, welcoming it as a wise teacher and ally.

Sacred Demise painstakingly guides the reader in opening to the process of initiation that collapse is foisting upon us. The ancients and all traditional peoples know that without initiations, humans will not develop into mature, whole beings. In such cultures, it would be almost unheard of for anyone to speak of "wanting to avoid negativity" because all experiences and feelings are honored as necessary aspects of the human condition, without which humans cannot become fully conscious.

Among other things, collapse is asking us to grow up, to become initiated elders and thereby guide humanity in a revolutionary new direction. Near the end of Sacred Demise, I include an excerpt from a comment a reader of my website, Truth to Power, emailed me last year. He wrote:

I, for one, would find much more meaning from putting food on the table that is truly needed and sustaining rather than taken for granted. Food that I raised or killed myself, or we ourselves, or my neighbor did, and I bartered with him for it. Much more so than the meaning Empire tells me what I am supposed to get from sitting here in my cubicle (my penultimate day today!) rearranging little electronic blips in exchange for money, which I am then supposed to exchange not only for my sustenance, but also for all sorts of diversions, to make me forget how meaningless it all is.

I, for one, will find consolation in knowing my neighbors - and in knowing that they are there for me as I am for them, rather than living amidst strangers, as most all of us do now. I will find consolation in knowing that my ecological footprint does not extend beyond my gaze. That the things I consume do not cause death and destruction beyond my ability to see and internalize, rather than out of sight and mind as now, and so much larger than any being could ever have a 'right' to.

I, for one, will find purpose in working closely and cooperatively and communally with those around me to provide our own sustenance, comforts such as they may be, and entertainments as time allows.

I have no illusions that life post-collapse will be idyllic, nor that the transition will be anything but ugly. But neither shall I miss that which is dying - the dizzying complexity of our oil-drenched lifestyles, a thousand channels of nothing worth watching, mega-malls, motor sports (how many kinds of insane are those!?!), celebrities, glitter, growth, more, faster, bigger, keep up with the Joneses but ignore the sweatshops and the dying ecosystems, consume, medicate, live large... then die. Where is one to find a sense of purpose in all of that?

Whether one considers oneself "spiritual", atheist, agnostic, religious, or eternally skeptical, the task of accepting collapse and seizing the myriad opportunities it presents, is sacred work. As for me, nothing in my life has proven more positive or powerful.

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., is the author of Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse (2009 IUniverse). She manages the Truth to Power website at and has also authored U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You.

Order Sacred Demise here. Read book foreword at http://www.carolynbaker.net/.

This is probably the most important book review I've ever written because A Presidential Energy Policy is unquestionably the most crucial book for anyone aware of the collapse of civilization, which is well underway, to read and understand. It is second only to Mike's first masterpiece, Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of The American Empire at The End of The Age of Oil (2004).

I could have said, "Ruppert's first masterpiece", but Mike is my friend, yet that does not in any way deter my objectivity when assessing the inestimable value of what this book offers the world.

I do have a small quibble with one concept near the book's end on which I will comment later, but first, we need to acknowledge what Mike establishes in the first pages: "...oil price spikes in June and July of 2008 broke the backs of over-extended consumers who could no longer meet their (sub-prime) mortgage payments and that this-and this alone-triggered the great economic crash which began in September and October. Energy and money are inextricably connected in very profound ways...." Furthermore he notes, "The current economic implosion will and can only result in the greatest-and longest lasting-economic depression in human history-a new Dark Age, especially if some fundamental sea changes are not made immediately."

LEADERSHIP

In the first chapter, the connection between money and energy is solidly established, but more importantly, the need for leadership and the reality that the plan to deal with the problem has been kept secret from us largely, as Mike documented in Crossing The Rubicon, by the National Energy Policy Development Group of 2001, chaired by Dick Cheney. Presumably, one of the first steps in providing leadership to address the inevitable catastrophic consequences of Peak Oil would be to uncover the truth about oil supply and what contingency plans were formulated by Cheney's group.

Mike asserts that his status as a non-partisan expert on energy depletion with lifelong experience with government, frees him from having to "play nice" with political groups and parties. Consequently, the contents of this book and his expertise offer the leadership desperately needed to authentically address the crisis. Fundamental to doing so, he says, is the need to abandon arguments about offshore drilling and face head-on the reality that the current economic crisis "is a global economic meltdown. No nation gets out unscathed. Nothing can grow forever."

Not willing to ever consider himself a candidate for any elected office, Mike states unequivocally that A Presidential Energy Policy has been written for Barack Obama and will be successful even if it does nothing more than open the door to genuine dialog on energy and money; "one cannot be discussed without the other."

Nor does this book adhere to the agenda of any political party. As with nearly all of Mike's writing over the years, some parts are resoundingly liberal and resemble FDR's New Deal, and some parts echo a conservative Republican or Libertarian approach simply because Mike's overarching concern has always been to "implement policies that will keep the nation functioning and that will protect the American people and the world as a whole." Having said this, he asserts that no president can protect corporations and banks with taxpayer money and at the same time allow the nation and its working and middle class citizens to fail. Unfortunately, that is currently what Barack Obama, despite political rhetoric to the contrary, appears to be doing.

POPULATION

Concluding Chapter One is the familiar hockey stick diagram depicting population growth which of course correlates exactly with the dawn of the age of oil. While the reader may be tempted to overlook this important diagram, Mike returns to the population issue later in the book, and no reader should take the correlation lightly. The fact remains that human population has grown to its present level precisely because of cheap and abundant petroleum, and when that form of energy is no longer available to our species, the consequences in terms of how many of our numbers endure is obvious-a reality reiterated many times in A Presidential Energy Policy. It is therefore crucial that human beings begin to openly and honestly discuss the issue of population and commit to reducing it through means that are as humane as possible lest through our resistance to doing so, nature takes the matter into its hands and reduces population in ways that are horrific and unimaginable.

In this book Mike is thinking like a president and asks the reader to do the same. He also asks us to abandon all of the hype about alternative energies, green technology, and magic bullet solutions to the realities of Peak Oil and boldly confront the fact that "It is not possible to use enormous amounts of resources to address a resource shortage." While Obama and subsequent presidents will be faced with unprecedented energy crises, Mike reminds us that this is not just an American crisis and that the ramifications of burgeoning population growth alongside a decline in cheap fossil fuel energy spells nothing but doom for the human race unless it begins immediately to intelligently and humanely navigate what Mike calls two sides of a giant claw tightening its grip around all of us.

Therefore, the energy policy of the United States cannot be created in a vacuum. All countries, not just our own, depend on petroleum from other countries, and any president must thoughtfully ponder this fact and detach from wishful thinking about so-called energy breakthroughs, especially since the United States represents 5% of the world's population but uses 25% of its energy. He or she must also understand that oil depletion is happening far too rapidly to naively believe that switching to some attractive alternative is even possible.

SIAMESE TWINS, CHICKENS, AND EGGS

In this book Mike is thinking like a president and asks the reader to do the same. He also asks us to abandon all of the hype about alternative energies, green technology, and magic bullet solutions to the realities of Peak Oil and boldly confront the fact that "It is not possible to use enormous amounts of resources to address a resource shortage."

In the "End of Suburbia", Richard Heinberg states unambiguously that Peak Oil will bring about a recession that never ends. In A Presidential Energy Policy, Mike Ruppert points out that:

All the new money being printed out of thin air is going to service a $700 trillion derivatives bubble to keep banks and lending institutions afloat. All that money is doing is enabling the financials to try and make their minimum monthly payments on a credit bubble they created.

In numerous places, including "The End of Suburbia", Mike has reminded us that the books on oil have been as cooked as the books on Enron, but it is now time for every country to know with certainty how much oil it has left. A key player in the ongoing mystery of how much oil remains on earth has been Saudi Arabia, and there is abundant evidence that that nation's oil supply has peaked, thanks to the brilliant research of Matt Simons, chairman of the world's largest energy investment bank and author of Twilight In The Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and The World Economy.

But not only must a president know how much oil his/her country has, that chief executive must carefully assess the limitations and disrepair of America's energy grid. While much of the nation's infrastructure has been and is being privatized, this does not mean that grid efficiency can be achieved within the next few decades, especially when skyrocketing energy prices will exclude many citizens from being able to afford the delivery of that energy at all. For as Mike notes, "A spike, even back to $3 a gallon will cause more hardship in 2009 than $4 gasoline did in 2008." Additionally, when assessing infrastructure, a president must include the costs of asphalt (highly petroleum intensive) and the loss of land which is very likely going to be needed for growing food. When infrastructure isn't rebuilt because of "lack of money or materiel, civilization starts to break down."

GEOPOLITICS, FOOD, CLIMATE CHANGE

Lest the reader infer that A Presidential Energy Policy deals only with domestic energy issues, Mike has included a chapter on Iraq and on Saudi Arabia, a separate chapter on foreign policy, and numerous articles by Mike regarding energy and geopolitics written in recent years are archived at the From The Wilderness website. In fact, he may know more about pipelines throughout the world and the geopolitical implications of them than anyone.

I must also mention that for me, no discussion of the collapse of industrial civilization, energy depletion, or economic meltdown can be complete without a discussion of climate change. In this book, Mike integrates the relevance of climate change in both his consideration of Peak Oil and the current economic depression. In this way, he offers a holistic assessment of what I have been calling for years the Toxic Triangle of collapse and what others have been labeling the "Triple Crisis": energy, economics, and the environment.

And on the topic of environment, Mike says that "if there is anything that must be understood with regard to energy it is its relationship to food." Additionally, "If there is any issue which will reveal whether an American president is serving corporations or the people, it is food." Included in his chapter on food, are articles on the use of ethanol as an energy source, as well as one of the most important articles ever published by From The Wilderness, "Eating Fossil Fuels", by Dale Allen Pfeiffer. Connecting the disastrous use of ethanol with population dieoff, Pfeiffer presents us with three choices regarding population, that is: Facing and acting on our dilemma and consciously, voluntarily limiting population growth; allowing the government to regulate population growth; or allowing nature to perform unspeakable acts of suffering and death.

Having adamantly warned us for years not to be seduced by promises of alternative energies which they are incapable of delivering, Mike reiterates his cautionary assessment of them. As he has stated many times,"...there is no alternative energy or combination of alternative energies, that will permit current consumption and lifestyle to continue-let alone provide for the compound growth we are wedded to in the current economic paradigm." The supreme reality of Peak Oil is that we will be downsized, whether we intend to be or not. To deny this fact is tantamount to assuming that Disneyworld can be run on a handful of flashlight batteries.

But Mike doesn't present these facts without also clarifying specific criteria for choosing energy options. Carefully contemplating them is beyond sobering; in fact, it is chilling, especially when one considers the touting of so-called solutions like shale and the electric car-both large consumers of water, which like every other resource on earth has also dramatically peaked. Should anyone doubt this, I suggest the films "Thirst" and "Flow" which unequivocally document the decline of water worldwide. The last thing our species and the earth community needs is another form of energy usage that further depletes any of myriad disappearing resources on this planet.

LOCALIZATION

If the rest of A Presidential Energy Policy were not so incredibly juicy, Mike's laundry list of so-called energy alternatives alone, and his analysis of them would be worth the read. But he doesn't leave us there because he takes us into what I believe is the absolute crux of the book, namely, localization as "the alternative to the alternatives." As I write that, I'm reminded of some local farmer friends of mine who are off the grid raising three children and who do all their farming with draft animals. They're fond of pointing out that what we have become accustomed to calling "alternative energy", namely solar and wind, is the only tangible energy there is and that all other forms are, in fact, alternative. They do not, however, proclaim solar and wind to be the magic bullets that many others do. What they do proclaim and live, is the localization of all resource options.

In the Localization chapter, Mike advises the president to understand that:

...your first awareness is that the federal government cannot and will not take on the role of solving problems in cities and townships. That would be inefficient and inappropriate on every conceivable level. Only the people in each locality know and can decide what they need most. Each location has different needs. Your second awareness is that if localities fail at the bottom, the nation will fail at the top.

Moreover, says Mike, all local responses to a tightening of oil supply will be dictated by the degree of self-sufficiency to which each community has liberated itself from dependence on anything from outside. Dear reader, please take the time to read that sentence again. The implications of this are jaw-dropping-and-absolutely necessary for us to wrap our minds around and implement, now. One implication is that globalization is dead. How well I remember Mike's statement in "End of Suburbia" that Peak Oil would absolutely reverse globalization. So hello human race, here we are with those giant parking lot gluts of cars all over the Los Angeles area, not to mention the Port of Long Beach, that no one will buy. For the same reason, when I enter a J.C. Penny's store, the walls and doors are covered with "70% Off" signs. Globalization, R.I.P.

As Mike points out, many individuals and families have relocated to areas where they can make themselves less dependent on fossil fuels and the goods and services of civilization. What is also true is that while we have organizations like Community Solutions and the Transition Town movement with which I am deeply involved in my community, those endeavors are still largely educational and have not been fully implemented. One stellar exception to this is Willits, California which has had a head start on localization for some time.

However, Mike adds a caveat with which I could not agree more, namely, that "There is no hope for any of us outside of a community." Here, it is important to broaden our definition of community because it does not necessarily mean a living community but rather, a group of folks in our local venues who are collapse-aware, who are working to gain self-sufficiency, and to do what is necessary to support each other in the face of collapse.

Hence, at this point I must raise the only quibble I have with A Presidential Energy Policy. In this must-read articulation of everything a president, and a nation's citizens must understand about energy, Mike has left us with what I consider a scenario that is less than feasible:

Whether as a result of the collapse of industrial civilization, the total insolvency of the United States government, the economic crash that is just beginning, or climate change (or all of the above), the effects on the United States government are going to be profound. Services are going to be cut. Bureaucracies are going to remain that may not be needed any longer, while some that may be desperately needed will not exist. At some point it will become necessary to put everything on the table and reorganize the government entirely. The imperative first-place-to-begin is the Executive Branch, which should be created anew from a blank sheet of paper.

In a subsequent paragraph, Mike states we may need to design and build a new Executive Branch of government that reflects the new paradigm being born and that for this, we will need new Jeffersons and Madisons-new founding fathers and mothers. While I do not rule out the possibility of this eventuality, I certainly do not believe it is probable. The very sea change that Mike has been brilliantly describing throughout the book dictates that we are now and will be in the days ahead, traversing territory that is absolutely unprecedented in modern history. For example, if we holistically consider the Triple Crisis, Toxic Triangle, or whatever we choose to call it-energy depletion, economic meltdown, and global climate change, then we must consider that any or all of those could radically alter not only the existence of a federal government but the very geography of the continent itself.

Last year I relocated from the Southwestern United States to Vermont. My reasons for doing so are legion, and I discussed some of them in my June, 2008 article "Location, Location, Re-location." Famous for its intense winters and high unemployment even in good times, Vermont is not for the faint of heart, and I do not recommend it unless one has job security and the ability to navigate a treacherous winter.

That said, one attraction to this sparsely populated state with its abundance of water and arable land is that it has always been a bastion of independent thinking and has today one of the strongest movements for secession in the nation. No, I'm not referring to some Rick Perry quip like "Texas might secede", but rather I'm referring to a group of thoughtful individuals who have been observing and preparing for collapse for several years. I happen to serve on the editorial board of their outstanding newspaper, Vermont Commons, the only statewide independent newspaper in Vermont.

While I am not personally a rabid secessionist, I have come to believe that preparation for the radical alteration of geography as a result of the Triple Crisis is essential for everyone who wishes to be self-sufficient. In this state, as in I would imagine all others, there are pockets which might be completely cut off from other areas as a result of natural disasters or collapsed bridges or other infrastructure which cannot be repaired-eventualities to which Mike referred in his wonderful book. I believe that not only is such fragmentation likely, but that those disconnections might become so severe that a federal government would become completely irrelevant to and out of reach for the citizens in those areas who might be cut off from the rest of the state and nation by circumstances which we cannot now fully imagine. In other words, "secession" may not the only means by which a community becomes radically self-sufficient. In my opinion, therefore, it behooves us, if we are truly committed to localization, to focus our energies accordingly, rather than on the remapping of the Executive Branch of the federal government. It is also entirely possible that no either/or will occur and that both scenarios will deserve our attention.

What Mike has emphasized repeatedly throughout the book is an urgent transformation of our thinking-a mentality that has left miles of unsold new cars sitting in lots all over Los Angeles-cars with seven gallons of oil in each tire. Only a profound soul sickness could create and maintain a civilization that is destroying everything in its path with little thought to the suicidal trajectory into which it has become locked.

I ask you to read A Presidential Energy Policy as soon as possible and share it with your friends and family. Share it with your elected officials and your neighbors and begin now to educate your community in preparation for the inevitable consequences of the Triple Crisis. Unquestionably, we are entering a new Dark Age, but the information Mike has offered, if heeded, could punctuate the darkness with a thousand points of light.

In such a family there may be an uncle, we'll call him Dick, who loudly proclaims that torture is highly successful in keeping the family safe from enemies. One sibling, we'll call him Georgie, agrees with Uncle Dick and believes that the fastest way to fame and fortune is to carry out Uncle Dick's wishes. Another sibling, we'll call her Conde, adamantly asserts that her family does not torture but goes about ordering torture and expecting everyone else in the family to do the same. Also, in this family there might be a father, we'll call him Poppy, who has been involved all his life with a governmental agency that specializes in torture, so consequently, he's quite pleased that Georgie and Uncle Dick did such a fine job of keeping the nation "safe" by way of torture for eight years.

What is more, all of these family members, we'll call them "the cowboys" of new wealth who exult a blatantly bullying approach to torture, differ greatly in their style from an earlier, more sophisticated, East Coast wing of the family, issuing from dynasties of longer duration whom we might call the "the tycoons". The latter do not like to talk about torture at all and certainly attempt to avoid practicing it blatantly. This branch of the family tree prefers to utilize philanthropy and quiet, steady methods of privatization over torture, as they silently subsume endless populations and infrastructures. They came into their own following the Civil War and ascended to primacy through the petroleum, rail, and banking industries of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It should be noted, however, that both branches of the family tree are like warring gangs who seem to take turns in their leadership of the family from time to time, ostensibly altering its course, yet achieving similar results.

Currently, the tycoons have control of the family and younger sibling, Barky, is in charge. He doesn't want to get "bogged down" in prosecuting cowboy tactics because his job is to serve the tycoons; however, some of the folks from his own political party who don't understand the cowboy/tycoon power struggle, we'll call them Child Protective Services (CPS), want to permanently disable the opposite party, as if somehow, this would eradicate torture in the family forever.

What other family members outside the cowboy/tycoon competition do not grasp is that torture is inherent in the family system. In fact, Western civilization could never have triumphed without it. Certainly, the United States could never have been established as a nation without the massive genociding of millions of the continent's native population and the transporting of millions of African slaves to its shores. When one fully grasps the historical realities of the torture of these populations as fundamental in America's founding, one can only conclude that torture is a crucial underpinning of the nation's existence.

The progressive wing (CPS) of the Democratic Party is often unwilling to confront the extent to which its own party has been engaged in torture for decades. It was their Madeline Albright who shamelessly stated that killing a half-million Arab children as a result of the sanctions on Iraq was "worth the price". Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had Albright's Secretary of State job many years earlier, argues that training the Afghan Mujahadeen to ward off Soviet intervention was worth the price of creating a new generation of Islamic terrorists. "What is most important to the history of the world?" asks Brzezinski, "the Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"

Fortunately, this week, Salon Magazine published "Democratic Complicity In Bush's Torture Regimen" by Glenn Greenwald which illumined the complicity of tycoon child, Jay Rockefeller, along with Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman in Bush's torture policy. In addition to exposing Democratic collusion, Greenwald's piece demonstrates that not all progressives buy into the CPS agenda.

Those who wish to eradicate America's participation in torture do not grasp the larger picture-the picture that is even broader than the nation's history of torture. I'm speaking of civilization itself which leads to empire which leads to every form of abuse imaginable.

When a heinous crime occurs in an abusive family system, such as the murder of a child, the system is in chaos and collapse. It hits bottom, and the reality of what it has actually become is unequivocally and irreversibly exposed. Only then can members of the system be treated for their illness. Only then do they have the option of reconstructing new lives based on a different kind of system. Until empire is recognized for what it is, the antics of cowboys, tycoons, and other symptomatic machinations persist.

America is torture, and torture is America. What makes the system pathological is the rationale of civilization itself. The paradigm has not only outlived its usefulness but has turned upon itself and the entire earth community.

I choose not to perpetuate the family system by figuring out who's torturing whom, but rather reject the paradigm of civilization which was designed to serve and protect the wealthy and therefore, can only function abusively. All families have their stories, and a few aspects of this family system's story have been useful and enriching, so I will carry those with me to assist me in writing a new story. I have a garden to plant, and I'm deeply engaged in figuring out how to live without the fossil fuels both the tycoons and the cowboys have told me would be there forever but which grow increasingly difficult and expensive to access. And of course, an integral part of healing from the wounds of a toxic family is creating another family and learning how to write the new story with them.

The abusive system of torture prevails in the history and corridors of power of the United States. For me, navigating that system and attempting to bring the cowboys to "justice" serves only to perpetuate the old story and keep me away of the garden I should be diligently tending, the new family I should be writing a new story with, the new skills I should be learning, and the new paradigm by which I should be living and thriving. While that may sound like I don't want to get "bogged down", I know that abusive families will always do what they do best; I have something else to do, and perhaps you do too.

What if it's true; what if this isn't, as Richard Heinberg says, "a recession that never ends"? Do I enjoy seeing throngs of homeless people gather in tent cities, live out of their cars, or simply roam the streets and back alleys of America in search of whatever crumbs of sustenance they can obtain? Do I take some sick pleasure in skyrocketing unemployment rates or burgeoning bankruptcy filings? What if, once again, empire triumphs over adversity and reclaims the level of prosperity its citizens enjoyed in the nineties? What if the likes of Nouriel Roubini, Gerald Celente, and Peter Schiff are proven to be paranoid nut jobs who really need to be on antidepressants? How much egg will I end up having on my face, and will that actually confirm that Peak Oil and climate change are bogus theories that have nothing to do with economic well being?

I give little thought these days to whether I am "right" or "wrong." I stopped playing King on the Mountain in the sixth grade. I don't even like board and card games; they're too competitive for me. My resistance to the prognostication of Pollyanna economists isn't about their winning and my losing. Rather, something more fundamental-yes, cellular, occurs in my anatomy when I hear that the last two years of economic agony was merely a blip on the radar screen of the capitalist business cycle-yet another momentary whack from Adam Smith's "invisible hand".

I cringe when I hear the words "back to normal" because of what that means to me. "Normal" means hordes of Walmart shoppers stuffing cars and SUV's full of plastics from China and driving off to their suburban homes to devour or display them until the current fix wears off and their shallow, meaningless lifestyles demand yet another "mall injection". Normal means homeowners wearing several tons of house on their backs as they travel by car to jobs they despise to maintain mortgage, taxes, insurance, and upkeep. Normal means total oblivion to the polar bear whose heart exploded during the last half-mile of his frantic swim in search of any tiny chunk of ice on which he could rest in order to regain his strength and continue his quest for food. Normal means infinite patches of sickened brown trees devastated by the mountain pine beetle in an otherwise green Colorado forest. Normal means NASCAR and another nuclear power plant coming online and oceanic dead zones the size of countries. Did you hear? We're going back to normal-to parents working 80 hours a week while their kids become junkies, bulimic, or pregnant. Normal means slamming down more McDonalds Happy Meals chased with Red Bull and Prozac. Normal means that I have nothing to do with nature, and it has nothing to do with me, and furthermore, if I have anything to do with it, I'll do with it whatever the hell I like. Normal means that my reason for being is to consume, stuff my face, watch reality TV, obsess over celebrity gossip, chatter around the water cooler about pirates and tea parties, and grab a couple of hours of Ambien-induced sleep at the end of the day if I'm lucky.

Yes, something happened on the way to the Second Great Depression that I've grown fond of. A host of books and documentaries proliferated across the world informing earthlings of their plight, and millions of them chose to awaken rather than continuing to muddle through their so-called consumer-intoxicated lives. Even in the still-good times of 2005-2006, a project called Transition Towns was born in the heart of a young man from Kinsale, Ireland which spread to Totnes in England and then virally around the world. Blindsided by skyrocketing oil and food prices, unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and loss of healthcare, masses of middle and working class people stopped spending money, moved in with each other, discovered in the new segments of free time that opened to them new hobbies, vocations, friends, and pastimes. Others began growing gardens in their front yards and were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to raise chickens in their back yards. Yes, there were increased suicides and inexplicable outbursts of violence. Addicts and alcoholics drank and used more, and meth labs mushroomed across the heartland along with more individuals using food stamps than ever in the nation's history. Homelessness increased, leaving blight and boarded houses in its wake. Animals were abandoned, abused, and left to starve, and humans in droves postponed healthcare and surgeries they desperately needed to attend to.

I do not mean to minimize the human and ecological tragedy of the collapse of civilization, but for every reason the talking heads of CNBC argue that returning to normal is necessary and desirable, I would argue that many species, including some members of our own, are breathing easier because maniacal growth and plunder have been curtailed or permanently arrested. Nor do I mean to romanticize the adversity resulting from economic meltdown. A depression is just that-on many levels including emotional and spiritual. Moreover, whatever hardships the earth community is now enduring, all are likely to intensify in the years ahead. In fact, the current milieu is probably a cake walk compared to what the future may hold.

Yet within the present angst one finds in countless instances across America, some individuals are beginning to ask the deeper questions. No, I'm not holding my breath for any viral spread of higher consciousness, but not a few economically and emotionally battered souls are beginning to question the stories of the culture with which they have been programmed. Hence the rage that has begun to erupt as their experiences grow increasingly incongruous with those myths. Or as John Michael Greer writes, "Failure is a gift because it offers the opportunity for learning, but if the gift is too emotionally difficult to accept, the easy way out is to take refuge in rage." If the rage remains random and results in nothing more meaningful than catharsis, a worsening economic landscape may produce a thoroughly frightening society. However, if enough openness to learning is present, a significant portion of the despair could be channeled into preparation for both further deterioration of society and the creation of vibrant local economies that offer their members the opportunity to discover their deeper humanity.

Fortunately, a growing number of folks feeling brutal repercussions from economic collapse are discovering the link between inner contentment and living with less as Zachary Shahan argues in his blog post "Personal Happiness And The Economy":

The important link is that as long as we are discontent inside, we will look outside to sooth our discontentment, and as long as we are looking outside in discontentment, we will always find and produce more discontentment.

Therefore, if we are naturally discontent, as human beings, and no matter what external coverings we put on to cover our internal calling, we cannot find that peace we are missing, then there is another purpose/reason to this life.

Certainly I'm not wildly optimistic but embrace what Shaun Chamberlain, author of "The Transition Timeline", calls dark optimism, that is, being "unashamedly positive about what kind of a world humanity could create, and unashamedly realistic about how far we are from creating it today."

Swelling my dark optimism are countless relocalization movements around the world in which the Transition Town model or similar concepts are being implemented-communities where food security, energy descent action plans, healthcare, land use, permaculture design, community currency, and myriad models of self-sufficient sustainability are supplanting the destructive models of industrial civilization. In these venues, steady state economics is replacing the rationale of voracious expansion which has been synonymous with "progress" for at least three centuries. Some may argue that whether or not civilization collapses, these stellar projects of sustainability will endure, and so it may be. But illusions of a "return to normal" will unequivocally decelerate the rate at which they become implemented as the urgency for doing so is surpassed by addiction to the familiar.

In the recent documentary "The Great Squeeze", James Howard Kunstler speaks of Americans not having a sense of the tragic. By tragic he does not mean that everything is or should be horrible, but rather that we tend to have little sense of things having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Such is the emotional state of an infantilized society in which happiness and the good life are assumed to be permanent states of being based on the most superficial definitions of those terms. So trite as the adage may have become, it seems to keep coming back to: Evolve or die; grow up or perish.

But maturation cannot occur as long as infantilization persists. Thus, when I hear the inveterate infantilizers reporting that Americans will soon be able to have their cookies and milk again, I feel sorrow, and yes, fear-fear that the initiatory experiences that allow all of us to ripen toward wisdom and compassion will be lost in frantic regression to the madness of civilization. Fundamentally, I understand that I have little to fear because collapse is both well underway and irreversible. Yet, another adage reverberates in my brain-the one about a crisis being a terrible thing to waste. If you're reading these words, you probably know what that means, and like me, you've probably worked far too hard, with far too much resolve to suck the marrow out of all the converging crises at hand which makes it impossible to stomach anything resembling a "return to normal." But for me, while such banter stirs a bit of fear, it also allows me to deeply appreciate the path of transition and transformation to which I've committed myself. That path, sooner or later, no matter how manipulated are the markets, no matter how many soporifics of "hope" are fed to the masses or how many world summits or world currencies emerge-that path will nourish and sustain the earth community when "normal" lies at the bottom of the dustbin of history.

First, I believe we need to deeply discern what is actually happening psychologically. The current outbreaks of violence are about more than unemployment and financial stressors. Yes, job loss, bankruptcy, foreclosure, homelessness, and loss of health care are breaking people and communities in pieces. Yet something even more fundamental is seething beneath the surface--something of which these losses are symptomatic.

Underlying the chaos is the reality of civilization's dissolution. But what does that actually mean?

For one thing, it means that civilization has been inherently infantilizing. It teaches its members that their reason for existing on earth is to consume-that they have absolutely no other meaning or purpose but to produce money in order to spend it and thereby incessantly oil the machinery of maniacal, unrestrained growth. A world view of this kind can only result in a culture that has virtually no inner life-a culture in which one's reason for being lies entirely outside of oneself. We're not talking compassion or altruism here as in mindfulness of the well being of others. That results only from a highly developed inner life that understands that consuming is a miniscule aspect of life based on fundamental survival needs and that is willing to put even survival needs on the back burner in order to support other members of the earth community.

Empire, which I use synonymously with civilization, is all about keeping the focus external to oneself for the purpose of enhancing the well being of a few dominant individuals in a strictly prescribed hierarchical system which encompasses all of the culture's institutions. From birth, citizens of empire are taught to serve that system by way of education, career choices, work, marriage, family, home ownership, political participation, and religion. When citizens reach a certain age, they are thrown away by the culture because they no longer have value in perpetuating the system but now require service from the system. Until that time, throughout adult life, one's primary identity is that of a producer who willingly focuses above all else on working, consuming, and paying taxes. Any other role the producer has-parent, spouse, volunteer-must be secondary to the role of worker/consumer/taxpayer. Naturally, to maintain the level of growth the ruling elite of the culture believe is necessary, a certain level of production/consumption is required. I hasten to add that as I use the word "producer", I'm not referring to producing anything sustainable, but rather the production of whatever is of value to the system which that system compensates in the form of money which then, by way of the system, becomes debt.

Citizens of empire are taught that the total abdication of inner life on behalf of decades of servitude to the needs of the external hierarchical machine is not only normal and natural, but their fundamental duty as human beings. In other words, traversing any other path than this one is synonymous with "failure", "ingratitude", "slothfulness", even "treason." Nowhere is this more exquisitely depicted, in my opinion, than in the recent film "Revolutionary Road" by actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo De Caprio.

Moreover, citizens are constantly rewarded for refusing to question these assumptions. To question would be to demonstrate disturbing symptoms of adulthood. Empire needs infantile servility in order to perpetuate itself indefinitely.

The psyches, then, of empire's citizens are ill-equipped to deal with variation from the system's proscribed roles or functions. Empire, like a "good" parent, gives one everything one "needs" in return for production-until it doesn't, and when it doesn't, the citizen has no recourse emotionally because he/she has lived in psychological symbiosis with empire since birth. Does this sound like the relationship between an abuse victim and the abuser?

"I've been used!", cries the abused, having believed that to keep quiet and play by the rules would be better than breaking silence. But we have only to ask the currently unemployed, homeless, foreclosed upon, and bankrupt how well credit scores and paying their bills on time served them.

So now it becomes clearer to us what is happening in the psyches of millions of individuals who are losing their roles in the imperial system-and in the psyches of those who are not. The entire culture is under unprecedented stress, except perhaps for those old enough to have lived through the Great Depression. On some level, many of them "grew up" and stopped being infants during their ordeal. The 1930s in America was an enormous initiation which they moved through and became wiser and more authentically adult for having done so. This is not to say that every person now alive who lived through the Great Depression is a paragon of wizened maturity, but rather to notice that their survival of it has informed their behavior and attitudes since and actually equipped many of them to face the current crisis more skillfully than younger generations.

As for those in the present moment who have jobs, homes, and healthcare, they realize on some level how precarious their position is. They have these things now, but it's only a matter of time until they may not. And consciously or unconsciously, this is creating gargantuan levels of stress among "more fortunate" Americans.

But none of this is likely to be new information for those reading this article, and you may be wondering much more about the second half of the title than the first. Before addressing that, however, I believe that it's important to understand that the current epidemic of violence is likely to become far more severe and widespread. Understanding why it's happening is crucial, but if you have a beating heart, you have to be concerned about when and where it's going to erupt next. You also need to understand that as the violence exacerbates, more individuals and groups will be perceived as scapegoats. Currently, in France, CEO's are being taken hostage as they are experienced as the primary culprits of that nation's economic crisis. In the United States, we are likely to see as we did in Binghamton, New York this past week, the targeting of immigrant groups-even by other immigrants, or just intensifying family or random violence.

Some collapse-aware individuals have chosen to purchase weapons for protection. In a culture gone mad, it's debatable how much protection firearms can actually offer, but if it feels right to do so, in my opinion, one should respect that and act accordingly.

Dialog at this point is still an enormously important option, especially as we interact with folks who've been telling us for years that we are lunatics for preparing for collapse. In fact, the timing couldn't be better for these kinds of conversations, but we need to maintain an innocent, open attitude, not one of "I told you so", as much as some part of us might wish project it.

Equally vital and life-supporting is our involvement in community efforts such as Transition Town and relocalization groups which offer us the opportunity to take local action, develop deep connections, and delight in the healing energy of validation and support from our peers. I believe that as cultural violence spreads in reaction to the trauma of collapse, these groups will be forced to strategize methods for looking out for each other's well being. Dmitry Orlov has a great deal to say about this in Re-Inventing Collapse which I highly recommend reading.

Shamelessly, I must recommend my book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse which is not primarily a book of information, but contains at the end of nearly every chapter, experiential exercises that both individuals and groups can engage in and which could be very useful in alleviating stress and promoting understanding.

I wrote Sacred Demise specifically to offer the kind of introspection in the face of collapse that is going to be crucial for all of us in order to navigate it emotionally and spiritually. Empire has stolen so much of the inner world from us, and in order to make sense of the turbulent unraveling, we must reclaim our interiority. John Michael Greer brilliantly titled his recent review of my book, "Facing Decline, Facing Ourselves." In truth, we cannot face one without facing the other, for only both in tandem will allow us to navigate the madness.

The challenge is to make it through the transition. If we don't plan for it and engage ourselves with it and look at our way of life and begin to change it in meaningful ways, then nature is going to change it for us in ways that we probably won't like very much. ~Richard Heinberg, author of "Peak Everything" speaking in "The Great Squeeze"~

Always eager to preview Long Emergency, end-of-civilization-oriented documentaries, I recently found myself in a rather blessed quandary. I received review copies of "Blind Spot" from Director Adolfo Doring and Producer Amanda Zakem and "The Great Squeeze" by Director/Producer Christoph Fauchere and Co-Producer, Joyce Johnson, but as I watched both several times, I found it almost impossible to decide which one I preferred. Both are extraordinarily well crafted and feature stellar voices on the topics of Peak Oil, climate change, and population overshoot. Both directly or indirectly address the current global economic catastrophe and clarify the interrelatedness of all of the issues brought forth in the films.

Whereas "Great Squeeze" features more women than does "Blind Spot" the music of the latter is incessantly, hauntingly beautiful. Extraordinary cinematography graces both films, and both are approximately the same in length. But don't make me choose one over the other! I mean just when I was feeling dazzled with Doring's interviews of the likes of Derrick Jensen, Albert Bartlett, Joseph Tainter, and Max Fradd Wolf, along comes Fauchere with James Howard Kunstler, Lester Brown, David Korten, and Randy Udall. I ask you, what's doomer to do?

Well, what I did was simply watch both and appreciate their artistic excellence without deciding which is "better"-a relative term that must be qualified by the question "better than what?" Ubiquitous in both films is Richard Heinberg whose grounded realism, gently and tactfully delivered is always comforting to me. His style is warm, cheerful, and caring, but he never strays into misleading his audience with "ten easy things you can do" nor any misplaced activist cheerleading. No Kunstleresque wise cracks from Heinberg about obese Americans who eat cheese doodles and drive clown cars-just stark, unvarnished reality delivered by a really nice guy.

As for the endings which I won't divulge, both left me stunned with their harshness. By harsh I do not mean that I wanted someone to tell me that everything is going to be OK but rather, neither film brought their issues home to the viewer's inner life. Neither addressed the larger perspective of meaning and purpose or how one might make sense emotionally and spiritually of the dire contents presented in each documentary. In this respect, the two films felt vacuous and left me longing for Tim Bennett's "What A Way To Go", Thomas Berry's "The Great Story", or Joanna Macy's "The Work That Reconnects". The last scene of "Blind Spot" slowly telescopes onto the body of a dead bird lying on top an oil pipeline--a carcass symbolic of the civilization that annihilated it with little vision or inspiration.

Being as done as I am with saving the world or civilization, particularly in the face of all of the glaring evidence delivered in "The Great Squeeze", I found its statements by Lester Brown about how we must do so, unconvincing and almost ludicrous in the light of the testimony of the majority of the film's experts. Enter Heinberg again: What's really important, he says, is how we navigate the transition from the current way of life to the one that is being imposed upon us-Heinberg always holding as he does, the cold facts alongside the myriad possibilities.

Every viewer of every film comes to it with a different background which informs what aspects of the piece she/he might be drawn to. While many viewers would be fascinated with the scientific research of the films, I was fascinated with their psychology, that is, questions of how it is that humanity has arrived at this place in its history.

One reason, of course, has to do with the title of one of the films-the blind spot. Elke Weber, Professor of Psychology and Management at Columbia University's School of Business states that a blind spot is something to which we don't pay attention because it's removed from us in time or space and doesn't threaten us in any immediate way-until it hits us, so to speak, between the eyes.

But particularly fascinating to me in "Blind Spot" were a series of comments by Jason Bradford, biologist and member of Willits, California's localization movement, regarding the cultural constraint against change. When that's challenged, he says, it confronts generations of assumptions which puts the challenger outside the culture. As many readers of this review already know, that becomes very difficult to handle emotionally because one is constantly looking at the culture and rediscovering the insanity which created our predicament even as that culture is judging anyone who challenges it as insane. One then has to question how one knows what one knows. As one assimilates the rational evidence pointing to the collapse of civilization, enormous cognitive dissonance arises which forces one to either live one's life differently as a result of the evidence, or select from a cornucopia of defense mechanisms how one will assuage the dissonance.

"The Great Squeeze" offers a bonus chapter which traces the transformation of Greensburg, Kansas, devastated by a tornado in 2007, in choosing to rebuild its community with sustainable design and reliance on renewable energy. As a result of a sudden crisis that erased its infrastructure, Greensburg in a sense became a Transition Town almost overnight. A great deal of community organizing and the willingness of its citizens to incorporate the sustainable practices of their ancestors, manifested a rebirth most could not have imagined only a few years prior.

Perhaps the Greensburg scenario portends the destinies of countless towns around the world that will opt, over night or over decades, to create regions that work with, rather than against, the earth community. For me, it's no longer about "saving the planet" but rather, as Richard Heinberg emphasizes, cooperating with the changes the planet is forcing upon us.

As for "Blind Spot" or "Getting Squeezed", I couldn't possibly choose one over the other. Both films are spectacular and should be viewed by anyone concerned about humanity's current trajectory of self-and planetary destruction. Meanwhile, we must be about the business of creating as many Greensburgs as humanly possible in order to cooperate with the unprecedented, unstoppable changes about which we have little choice except to adopt an attitude of resiliency.

We've heard of the economist, Nouriel Roubini, aka "Dr. Doom", and readers of Truth to Power are quite familiar with James Howard Kunstler and Dmitry Orlov, but Michael Panzner serves up a recipe that contains the carefully blended ingredients of all three. In fact, we might call his latest masterpiece, When Giants Fall, "Dr. Doom meets 'World Made By Hand' and 'Re-Inventing Collapse' with 'Long Emergency'(Kunstler) and 'Long Descent' (John Michael Greer) waiting in the wings." I have remained a fan of his website, Financial Armageddon, and his book by the same title since the publication of it in 2008, but since that time, in following Panzner's writings, I've observed a fine-tuned incisiveness and a deepened resolve to deliver to his readers the harsh realities of the collapse of empire and the economic ramifications of that. While he does not leave us without options in the face of the decline, he sugar-coats nothing and just this past week carried on his site a number of chilling scenes of collapse in recent photos taken across the country.

While the styles of collapse-aware writers such as Kunstler, Orlov, Greer, Astyk, Heinberg, and myself are perhaps more socio-cultural, Panzner writes in economic terms that economists or those versed in the discipline can readily appreciate. If we had any doubt about the fiscal statistics on which our forecasts are based, Panzner puts them to rest with his carefully-researched data.

He begins "Giants" with the reality that has become ubiquitous in the current economic collapse: Financial nirvana is now history. "Spend. Borrow. Repeat" is over because as a result of the "mistakes and excesses of the past" the financial chickens are coming home to roost with the disappearance of fuel, food, water, and all the other lubricants of the machinery of empire. The author emphasizes that these are not merely creating little bumps in the road for the titans of globalization but that "taken together, these various developments constitute a clear and present danger to the economic well being of every American, especially those who have been conditioned to believe that life can only get better in the future." (xxi)

While briefly tracing the economic history of how we arrived where we are, he examines the myriad hostilities that are likely to erupt in a resource-depleted, economically scaled-down world, China and Russia being two 800-pound gorillas, along with less obvious hot spot nations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. What is fundamental, he drives home to us, is the waning influence and eventual irrelevance of the United States in the global economic landscape. He points to our disastrous campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, our ghastly dependence on the kindness of foreigners to purchase our debt, and the near total reversal of globalization now in process in the current economic meltdown. Crime, politics, and economics intersect to undermine the stability of international relations everywhere.

So what does it actually mean that the U.S. no longer "rules the global roost"? It means that eventually China and other American rivals could someday use their vast holdings of U.S. debt "as a geopolitical weapon, despite the great harm that would also cause to the attacker's own economy." (68) It also means, as Panzner points out, that "...oil and gas-producing companies, international commodity traders, and emerging-nation governments...dictate the rules of the game in global energy markets." Simply put, "what takes place on a day-to-day basis [in the United States] is increasingly in others' hands." (69)

And the ultimate consequences?

...with myriad imbalances already starting to unwind and economic conditions likely to be further undermined by geopolitical uncertainty, resource constraints, and the specter of growing divisiveness, the groundwork seems laid for a broad move away from American-style free-market capitalism. (71)

If there was any doubt about this, the global credit meltdown beginning in 2007, now having snowballed into global economic cataclysm, has put that doubt to rest and turned yet another prophet, namely Michael Panzner, into a historian.

One issue I wish the author had expanded upon is climate change and its inevitable ramifications in terms of climate refugees. The issue of tighter borders and the control of the flow of people and goods is frequently mentioned, but in the light of those realities, one wonders how nations will address the mass migrations of populations as a result of climate-induced droughts, famine, pandemics, and natural disasters. If as he states, and I agree, "Immigrants and foreigners will become scapegoats for domestic ills", we could legitimately infer an increase in violence issuing from mass shifts in population around the world.

In a chapter entitled "Local Is The New Global," the author argues, with solid evidence, the reversal of globalization and why issues must now be addressed "with a shift toward regionalization and localization of economic activity and investment flows." This may evolve quite naturally as myriad divisions globally erupt and reinforce the return to what is local and familiar.

Related to this trend, Panzner mentions a couple of secessionist movements in the United States but opines that "To be sure, many of these efforts will fizzle out or remain firmly on the fringe." To this I must respond: Don't be too certain about that. A strong secessionist movement abounds here in the state of Vermont, viewed by some as a conscious step that Vermonters must take to extricate themselves from the federal government, but viewed by other Vermonters as wise preparation for the very divisiveness explained by Panzner or simply imposed on the region by climate chaos, natural disasters, or dramatic changes in geography engendered by either of those.

In the spirit of the Transition Town movement and other voices of the Long Emergency, the author underscores the opportunity that is inherent for citizens, businesses, and communities in the collapse of empire. What will be required for the success of those opportunities, however, is the capacity to think outside the box. Whereas there are areas of the world that might actually offer the promise of investment opportunities-countries such as Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, Thailand, and Vietnam, investment for the average American is more likely to be a local affair as local economies are born and struggle to survive. Although Panzer does not dwell on the alternative or underground economy, there is likely to be plenty of opportunity to invest in it in ever-ingenious and unconventional ways.

In any event, Panzner argues that where one actually chooses to live is crucial, and in the last chapter of When Giants Fall, he discusses the probable demographics of collapse, that is, the likelihood that smaller cities, especially those situated by rails or rivers, will offer better opportunities for jobs and income, but that those places might become socio-culturally intolerable for all the reasons the author has outlined earlier in the book, as stress, paranoia, and societal breakdown exacerbate. The employment landscape of a Long Emergency world is almost certain to be one of many part-time, as opposed to full-time, jobs--a world of getting one's hands dirty, going into business making and selling necessary items, and drastic lifestyle changes.

Budgets of state and local governments will evaporate in some cases almost overnight, and safety nets and what people have assumed are "essential" services will disappear. Family, social, and community relationships will become far more important, and much of this may be based on the need for safety and security.

The last chapters of "Giants" reads like "World Made By Hand" or Richard Heinberg's "Letter from the Future". I must say that little in its contents is actually new to me. What makes the book remarkably arresting is that a twenty-five year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets-a faculty member at the New York Institute of Finance, is forecasting the collapse of empire and the daunting challenges, not exclusively economic, of a post-industrial world. In this moment, we are witnessing the rapid decline of that world in the form of an unprecedented global financial meltdown, and in his conclusion, Panzner quotes from Barton Biggs who aptly names it an "episode of great wealth destruction."

When Giants Fall analyzes the collapse of empire from the economist's perspective and offers a crucial complement to future scenarios presented by experts on energy depletion and climate change. Your Long Emergency library will not be complete without it, particularly as you encounter those influenced by the Pollyanna economists who assure us that in a few years, "everything will return to normal". Like other analysts of collapse, Panzner argues that "normal" is the worst thing to which we could return and that every aspect of our thinking and behavior in relation to the earth community must be radically transformed.

Taken together with the words of NASA climate scientist, Jim Hansen, who tells us that "the onset of severe impacts from climate change is now inevitable, even if there is a huge worldwide effort at mitigation", David Holmgren's words above cause me to pause and on some level stand in awe of the current global economic meltdown. I notice, first of all, that climate change now probably has a life of its own and has permanently escaped the influence of the human species. I also notice that economic collapse, while having unfolded rapidly within the past two years, has not done so in a falling-off-the-cliff scenario and may be slowing down the collapse of the ecosystem.

In Future Scenarios, (Chelsea Green, 2009) David Holmgren, the author of Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability offers four possible sketches of transition from industrial civilization to a post-petroleum world. The characteristics and likely outcomes of them compel us to view them more closely.

Physically, this paperback book is quite reader-friendly, embellished with colorful illustrations and beautiful photos and fits snugly into pocket or purse for effortless transport.

The first scenario Holmgren names the Brown Tech, Top-Down Construction in which energy descent is slow, and climate change is fast. Brown Tech is essentially the corporatist system that has dominated the United States for the past sixty years, reaching its zenith during the George W. Bush administration. It is "top-down" in the sense that "national power constricts consumption and focuses resources to maintain the nation-state in the face of deteriorating climate and reduced energy and food supply." (68) Brown Tech is characterized by centralized systems, high-density systems, national banks and currencies, a nationalist/fascist bias, male domination, and culturally speaking, a super-rationalist/fundamentalist dichotomy.

Conversely, the Green-Tech scenario is characterized by slow energy-decline rates and mild climate change symptoms. The sense of chaos and crisis "is more muted without major economic collapse or conflict." (68) This scenario is the one embraced by those well-meaning progressives who may believe that we have enough time for strategically transitioning to a post-petroleum, downscaled world. In Green Tech there is good conservation, a great deal of renewable energy use, compact towns and small cities, regional currencies, the gender status is balanced and blended, and the philosophical orientation is essentially humanist and eco-rationalist. What makes Green Tech unrealistic and somewhat utopian, in my opinion, is the speed with which climate change is actually occurring. For Green Tech to be fully implemented, climate change must be slow. "The relatively benign climate allows a resurgence of rural and regional economies on the back of sustained and growing prices for all natural commodities including feedstock for biofuels." (69)

The third scenario, and the one which Holmgren clearly prefers, is the Earth-Steward: Bottom-Up Rebuild in which energy use declines rapidly, and climate change symptoms remain mild. Shocks to the world's financial system in this scenario result in severe depressions and intense resource wars. Electronic grids become nonfunctional, and mass mobility of people and goods is curtailed. Cities become hollowed out as larger businesses collapse, and large numbers of former city-dwellers form a new underclass and provide basic labor in exchange for food and living space.

The biggest difference, according to Holmgren, between the green-and brown-tech scenarios is that "the rebuilding and stabilization is no longer based on dreams of sustainability or restoring the old system. Instead, people accept that each generation will have to face the challenges of further ongoing simplification and localization of society as the fossil-resource base continues to decline. This simplification in the material domain is seen as the opportunity for growth in the spiritual domain. (81) In other words, "while the impacts on people and local environments...are severe, there is also a cultural and spiritual revolution as people are released from the rat race of addictive behaviors." In the Earth-Steward model, local currency and barter are the principal forms of exchange, gender-wise, females dominate, and earth spirituality prevails as the dominant cultural and spiritual force.

The last scenario is the Lifeboat Civilization Triage of rapid energy decline rates and severe climate change symptoms-in other words, a fast crash. Most forms of economic and social organization collapse, and local wars, including the use of nuclear weapons, exacerbate the collapse in some areas. Waves of famine and disease decimate social and economic capacity "on a scale larger than the Black Death in medieval Europe, leading to a halving of the global population in a few decades." (82)

In a Lifeboat Civilization, collapse has occurred so quickly that little planning can be done for a smoother transition, and the survivalist mentality generally prevails. Hence, one finds hamlets and gated communities and a quasi-feudal system which is predominantly patriarchal. The cultural and spiritual orientation is warrior-like in response to the trauma of a rapid collapse, thus the word "triage" to describe its fundamental modus operandi.

What Holmgren wants the reader to understand, however, is that the four scenarios are not linear; he imagines them as "one nested within the other." This suggests, he says, "that the four organizational levels represented by the scenarios from the household to the national level will all be transformed as global systems weaken and contract, but none will fail completely." (101) Not unlike the scenarios of collapse Dmitry Orlov relates regarding the former Soviet Union, Holmgren's four-nested schema suggests that in the Earth-Steward and Lifeboat scenarios, there could still be a government issuing edicts, but no one, outside that nation's capital, would take notice.

One unmistakable conclusion Future Scenarios draws is that the more slowly the decline unfolds, the more opportunity for planning and mobilizing for the demise; the more rapidly events occur, the more traumatic the unraveling will be because of the inability to put new systems in place which may allow it to be more navigable.

As noted above, economic collapse is impeding rampant growth and in that sense, despite the pain it is creating for millions of humans, may be allowing the earth community to breathe a bit easier for a bit longer. Or as Holmgren says, "The economic hard-liners could be right: There is no way to stop the train of global industrial capitalism (other than by crashing)."

Future Scenarios offers fascinating and fertile challenges for engaging Peak Oil and climate change and confronts us with the question that will not die: Will our journey to a post-petroleum world be a transition or a trauma? The longer we wait to make the profoundly radical choices necessary at this juncture of history, the greater the certainty that choices we would not prefer will be made for us.

If you're reading this book you already know we're living in perilous times. By now most people are waking up to that fact. Even President Obama has warned us that difficult times lie ahead. Just days before taking office when asked if sacrifice will be required of everyone, Obama told the nation, "Everyone is going to have to give. Everybody's going to have to have some skin in the game."

But even recognizing that times are tough, chances are reading this book will feel overwhelming and unsettling at times. I know it has been for me and I've been studying, writing, and teaching about the implications of such threats as peak oil, climate change, and economic collapse over half a decade. But I'd like to suggest that we welcome whatever feelings of overwhelm or disquiet this book may stir in us, because like the medicine our mothers gave us as children, they will make us better.

I say this because Carolyn is not one to beat around the bush. Her focus is not on statistics, charts, and data demonstrating the factual realities of our eco-nomic situation. There are ample books with such information. Most of them touch lightly on the focus of this book, firmly acknowledging its importance, but skittering on to the facts.

In Peak Everything, for example, Richard Heinberg emphasizes that "Much of the human impact (of peak oil and climate change) will be measurable in economic terms; however, individual and collective psychological effects will perhaps be of equal and often greater significance." Having observed the effects economic collapse of the USSR in the 1990's, Dmitry Orlov agrees. In Reinventing Collapse, he writes, "Economic collapse is about the worst time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens."

Fact is, the future is going to be hard to swallow, not only presenting practical day-to-day challenges but deeply impacting our emotional and spiritual lives. In Sacred Demise Carolyn doesn't just touch on this fact. She dares to make it the sole focus of our attention, reaching far beneath the statistic, charts, and generalizations about their implications and delving deeply into the heart and soul of the inner traumas and turmoil we will most likely encounter. She zeroes right in on the very places we want to run away from, ignore, and rationalize, including the profound loss we will feel.

This naked honesty about such matters is only the context of the book, not its purpose. This is not a doom and gloom book. It's about looking squarely at the reality of our circumstances, as incomprehensible and uncomfortable as they may be, and exploring the potential for personal growth, transformation, and resurrection.

By openly sharing her personal experiences and the wisdom, poetry, questions, and activities included in the book, she draws upon herself to understand and grow from our circumstances by infusing them with compassion. Carolyn makes us feel safe venturing into the tender, vulnerable places.

She says let's look straight on at what we're facing and allow it to be a grand teaching to deepen our understanding of life and our place in it. While the reality of what we are dealing with may be overwhelming when seen with such stark honesty, isn't that what we yearn for? Isn't the failure to talk together in this way what unsettles us most? Like the young child whose parents won't talk about a life-threatening illness that's befallen their household or the child who on the way to the dentist is told "It won't hurt at bit," we don't want to be blindsided by realities that could be opportunities instead to prepare ourselves and make ourselves strong and capable.

After all, what is being overwhelmed but a just fast flowing river of experience we need to catch our breath for; a rug pulled out from beneath our feet to get up from, an unexpected encounter we can surprise ourselves with by responding to aptly? Chances are as you read on page-by-page you will begin to feel oddly relieved. You'll be getting your bearings in a reality that at first seems foreign and frightening but gradually reveals itself as a truth you have long known already.

Certainly that has been true for me. From the time I was a small child I sensed there was something very wrong with how things work in our human-made world. I spent many hours out of doors where everything seemed to make sense, but as I matured I concluded there must be some flaw within myself that was preventing me from understanding what everyone else seemed to grasped so easily, that our culture works to our best interest even if it appears otherwise. With that mind I undertook the arduous task of molding myself into what was expected of me hoping at some point everything would fall into place as promised.

It was not until I entered the ecopsychology PhD program that I came to see how terribly disconnected, distorted, and dysfunctional our human world has become; how tragically separated we've become from the natural world we are innately part of. As I began to learn from nature how naturally other life forms function, I was heartened by my four years in which I had the pleasure of experiencing how naturally and organically life could unfold. Oh, surely not without challenge or discomfort, but like riding down that fast-flowing river. At times it's surging furiously; at other times it's bubbling along gently. But it's always ever- changing and engaging, always keeping me on my toes, yet something perfectly natural I could navigate as long as I paid attention.

"Ah, ha!" I concluded, at last I will know how to live in our world! When I complete the program I will return to the "normal world" and just continue living in accord with nature's ways. But that was not to be. Returning to the "normal world" was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. My short-lived, free-flowing journey through life ran smack dab into a massive cultural dam of expectations and limitations as difficult for us to escape from as it is for any river to circumvent the manmade dams we've constructed to divert and contain.

This is when I realized fully how virtually impossible it is to function naturally and healthfully within the demands of our growth-oriented, consumer-driven, materialistic, and hierarchical culture. But that's the world that's crumbling now. While we may enjoy many of its conveniences and comforts, or at least have the promise of enjoying them, we also know the price we pay to pursue and maintain them is high. The stress, the long hours, the fast pace, the pressure, the fatigue, and the demands on our time by tasks far different from those we'd prefer. Our way of life is not only wearing down the natural world, it's also wearing down our psychic and our physical well-being. No matter how many possessions we garner or how much money we make, there is never enough to quell our yearning for a greater sense of peace, potency, normalcy, and well-being.

Granted, the difficulties we're facing will not bring us this kind of well-being anytime soon. Probably anything but, at first, because few of us are prepared mentally or spiritually for the onslaught of feelings, the tide of emotions, the rush of the unexpected that is engulfing us. After all, the world that anchors our daily lives now is collapsing right along with the dam upon which our current way of life in built. We don't know if we'll make it to the bottom of the spillway as the dam cracks and breaks away. Assuredly some of us won't. Even if we do, there is no guaranteed, made-to-order world awaiting us on the river once it has burst forth from the dam. For sure there will be no welcoming "comfort inns" along the shore. We're uncertain what the unleashed river of our life will look like or if we will have the knowledge, skills, and acumen to survive in it.

But life, death, mystery, uncertainty, paradox, and danger are all part of the natural world we inhabit. As Henry David Thoreau discovered and expressed so aptly after abandoning his attempt to climb Maine's Mt. Ktaadn, there is in nature "a force not bound to be kind to man, an awesome, primal force of evolving matter-in-motion," a force, I might add, that has proven to be beyond our control to manipulate and mould to our desire. This simple insight is not easily accepted in our culture where we learn that anything we believe, we can achieve, and it is something Carolyn invites us to address before it's too late.

Sacred Demise is an opportunity to do the emotional and spiritual preparation we need to be present, awake, and responsive in awesome circumstances we can't control or prevent. Each chapter invites us to delve deeper into ourselves, deeper into who we are and how we fit into the natural world outside our roles in a crumbling system. From that blatantly honest, deep place of our hearts and souls we can begin to find our way to a more natural way of life and glimpse how the grand unleashing of the waters constrained behind our current way of life could bring us the peace, potency, normalcy, and well-being we yearn for.

The operative word in this possibility is find. Throughout Sacred Demise, Carolyn refers to many insights from Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who wrote in Man's Search for Meaning of his experiences in the Nazi death camps. Some years ago I had the honor and pleasure of interviewing Frankl. His rather stern rebuke of a question I raised left me with an enigma I spent many years wondering about. Not until midway through my ecopsychology program and many learning experiences in nature did I finally understand what Frankl was getting at and why he correctly me so sharply. I had made an innocent error common to our culture, an error we all need to correct to be prepared mentally and emotionally for the years ahead.

As I began to ask how we create meaning in our lives, Frankl interrupted me abruptly, "Not create meaning, find meaning." And so it is in the adventure Carolyn invites us to undertake in Sacred Demise. The pages that follow are an invitation to find meaning in a time of collapse so that when our preconceived and manufactured dreams for how we'd like things will often no longer be relevant, it needn't be also the end of joy and value. This is a worthy task because only from a place of such personal meaning can we build new lives along life's free-flowing river, if not for ourselves then at least for those who come after us.

Sarah Anne Edwards, LCSW, PhD Ecopsychologist, provides continuing education courses for helping professionals through the Pine Mountain Institute and directs Let's Live Local, a non-profit organization working to build local resilience. She's the co-author of Middle-Class Lifeboat, and a trainer for the US Transition Initiatives Network.

While this book at first glance may resemble something of a 21^st century Whole Earth Catalog, it is so much more. Whereas that classic of some three decades ago served as a primer for individuals and groups seeking to live simply and sustainably, primarily because it felt good and seemed like the right thing to do, When Technology Fails, feels as if it has erupted out of the urgent necessity of this moment. Its intention is unmistakable: to offer a "bible for emergency preparation and survival" as well as green and healthy living. However, one should not assume that this book is a "survivalist" manual. It isn't about grabbing your bug-out bag with a few cans of beans in it and running into the woods dressed in camo. It is a book about surviving but also about living well in harmony with the earth community while using methods that allow one's lifestyle to endure and flourish.

The book begins by noting that technologies frequently fail and that the greater the number of earth's population and the more is consumed by it, the more the likelihood of irreversible failure of many aspects of technology. "Emergency preparedness," Stein says, "is cheap disaster and terrorism insurance." After offering a number of resources to introduce the reader to self-sufficiency, the book offers an explanation of the various threats now facing humankind: eco-threats, Peak Oil, bio and terror threats, and of course, natural disasters. As if to underscore humanity's intuitive sense of what lies ahead, Stein references the plethora of prophecies that have been around for millennia, originating primarily from indigenous peoples, and pointing to a culmination of catastrophes.

From here Stein launches into a chapter on short and long-term preparation-survival kits, first aid kits, and of course, food storage-recommending if possible, a cache of one year's supply. In the following chapter on "Emergency Measures for Survival", he includes not only the proper equipment and how to use it, but a remarkable section on developing a survivor personality and the importance of paying attention to one's intuition. Because some individuals may feel "intuition challenged"-as if they can't quite access it when they need it, Stein offers a "Testing Your Intuition" exercise which facilitates the process. Concluding this chapter and indeed all chapters in the book, are abundant references to books, websites, DVD's and other resources related to the topics at hand.

An extensive chapter on water discusses acquisition, how to disinfect, treat, and preserve it. In the face of energy depletion, one must assume that clean water may be available in the ground but power losses may make it inaccessible. Therefore, the use of hand pumps is suggested and a number of sources for purchasing them provided at the conclusion of the chapter.

A lengthy chapter on food growing, foraging, hunting, and storage includes basic principles of permaculture planting, pest control, a brief guide to wild edibles, methods of storing, drying, smoking, and preserving food, basic principles of hunting and trapping, fishing-all followed by a host of references to resources on each topic.

Trained as an engineer at MIT, Stein has produced an extensive chapter on "Shelter and Buildings" that leaves little to be desired. Anyone considering building a structure from scratch or remodeling parts of an existing structure should study this chapter which I would describe as thorough yet not technologically overwhelming.

One of the most daunting challenges of a post-industrial world will be what has been known in the age of oil as "health care." As all institutions collapse, we will be on our own entirely in terms of healing our bodies and minds. Stein offers us the best information I personally have ever seen on first aid, as well as a chapter on life after high-tech medicine. As well as a fascinating chart that illustrates the herbal medicinal counterparts to specific modern pharmaceuticals, Stein includes a section on colloidal and ionic silver, making one's own colloidal silver generator; recipes for colon, kidney, liver and parasite cleanses; homeopathy, electromagnetic fields, and various energy healing techniques. This chapter is so thorough and fascinating that I can only wish that it were required reading for 21^st century medical students.

One of Richard Heinberg's favorite questions when discussing collapse preparation is: Do you know how to make shoes? While I don't know if Stein has ever heard Heinberg ask that question, his chapter on "Clothing and Textiles" would no doubt delight Heinberg or anyone who has given thought to the lack of access to new clothing in a post-industrial world. Here one finds a wealth of information on spinning, weaving, tanning, and footware.

Stein, the engineer, excels in his chapter on "Energy, Heat and Power" as well as the chapters on "Metalworking", "Utensils and Storage", and "Engineering, Machines and Materials." Equally fascinating is the chapter on "Better Living Through Not-So Modern Chemistry" in which he explains soap and candle making and the manufacturing of alcohol as a biofuel. Additionally, he discusses the making of vinegar, glue, and vegetable oils.

So is there any point on which I disagree with Stein? Yes indeed. Whereas he states his intention to prevent the collapse of civilization, from my perspective, collapse is well underway and has been for some time; our challenge at this point in history is not to prevent it, but to consciously open to it with honesty and logistical and emotional preparation. In the final chapter of When Technology Fails "Making The Shift to Sustainability" Stein addresses the attitude we must hold as we witness the dizzying changes around us and the dissolution of a global economy engendered and fueled by mindless, rampant consumerism. Here, Stein offers suggestions for collective action as well as how we can live our own "great turning."

In a recent communication with Mat Stein we observed that When Technology Fails and my forthcoming book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse are natural companion pieces-one offering extraordinary training in logistical preparation for a post-industrial world, and the other offering an emotional and spiritual roadmap for navigating what will invariably be a daunting-sometimes protracted, sometimes sudden-transition.

I cannot recommend highly enough When Technology Fails for everyone who takes the "long emergency" even a little bit seriously. For as the ancient Chinese proverb states, "Is it not already too late if one waits until one is thirsty to begin digging a well?"

The only other "dystopian" female referred to in the piece is Chellis Glendinning, psychologist and author from New Mexico and renowned speaker at the November, 2008 Vermont Independence Convention. Additionally, Sharon Astyk, who resides not far from Kunstler, author of Depletion and Abundance and her forthcoming A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil, and who was recently interviewed in the New York Times, as well as Kathy McMahon, psychotherapist and manager of Peak Oil Blues, were ignored in McGrath's piece.

My complaint is not about some notion of "equal time" but rather the consequences of omitting a uniquely female perspective from the discourse about collapse and the construction of a new paradigm of life on the planet. Despite my caveat, I know I will be accused of proclaiming the superiority of the female gender, but that is absolutely not my intent. In fact, quite the opposite. The conversation requires the distinct characteristics of both genders, and without it, only half the landscape of collapse can be viewed.

First, the very word "dystopian" is inaccurate. The dictionary describes "dystopian" as "a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding." I do not limit the collapse of civilization to this particular scenario. "Dystopian" also suggests the opposite of "utopia" which is an ideal place or state that is a vision of social perfection. What McGrath fails to fulfill in his report is a thoughtful exploration of the very nature of collapse-its origins, its essence, and its possible outcomes. Instead, the focus is on an implied eccentric Orlov who lives on a boat and Kunstler's quirky ways with other human beings. "Dystopian" is indeed a characteristically male term, assuming an either/or, polarizing approach, rather than a more inclusive outlook.

Many years ago I embraced the sensible and insightful gender perspective of the psychologist, Carl Jung, who argued that both genders contain qualities of the opposite gender, and that those qualities have both life-supporting and life-destroying aspects. Therefore, in Jungian fashion, collapse must be understood and explored from the perspectives of both genders. The typically male perspective would in the case of Peak Oil, emphasize things like facts, statistics, pipelines, percentage of supply, demand, and long-term consequences. It would instruct us, warn us, and suggest various courses of action.

From the female perspective, these concerns are in no way irrelevant or unimportant, but may motivate us to embrace an even larger perspective. By "larger" I do not mean more global but rather, a perspective that includes the body and emotions as well as the intellect. It isn't just about having a womb and the capacity to give birth. However, a woman's fundamental, bone-marrow connection to life and generativity is uniquely female. Perhaps this is the reason that in many indigenous societies, including the Iroquois Confederacy, the clan mothers' authority superseded that of the warriors who could not go to war without their permission.

What this is about is the pivotal aspect of the female psyche that is relational rather than combative or problem-solving. The feminine principle in both women and men asks: How can we connect with each other in a manner that supports survival and enhances our lives as we navigate the destructive aspects of collapse? How can we build alliances, join with neighbors and villages to sustain our families and communities? From the feminine perspective, the egos of certain "key players" matter much less than the collective lessons that the unprecedented phenomenon of collapse may be inviting us to learn.

The feminine principle always compels us to go deeper and rather than asking "if" the world as we have known it is really ending, asking instead: What is the essence of the project of civilization? What makes its continuance axiomatic? What compelling signals invite us to callit into question? Tom Petruno's January 24, Los Angeles Times article, "Economy In Shock: It's Failure Overload" opines that our problem is "failure", assuming that the success of civilization is the most desirable option, without of course, asking the more profound questions about the nature and consequences of civilization or whether or not its continuance is preferable to the alternative.

An empire constructed on conquest, hierarchy, and competition is inherently heroic and deems any opposite an abject failure. In its stultifying, constricted, superficial world view, there is no space or depth which might expand the conversation and eliminate the need for polarization. Characteristic of life-destroying male rigidity, civilization marginalizes those who question it without examining its own raison d'être, and of course, because it cannot include, only dominate, the feminine perspective is not part of the conversation. This is not to say that any particular reporter embodies "life-destroying male rigidity". Journalists in corporate media are parts of systems of empire whose interests lie in selling newspapers, magazines, and books which have never been about asking the deeper questions but rather perpetuating the fantasy that there is nothing more glorious and propitious than empire.

Chellis Glendinning, who makes a brief appearance in McGrath's article as I do, has written two glaringly relevant books regarding collapse: My Name Is Chellis and I'm Recovering From Western Civilization and Off The Map: An Expedition Deep Into Imperialism, The Global Economy, and Other Earthly Whereabouts. Her powerful address to the Vermont Independence Convention at the Statehouse is a must-watch.

In a 2007 interview, "Technology and Its Discontents", Chellis states, "This idea of 'turning back the clock' expresses the basic assumption of mass technological society, which is that going forward is the deal. We always want to be going forward. It's scary to go back. But that assumption needs to be challenged. It doesn't matter what expression we use, whether we talk about going back, going sideways, going up or down. The important thing is to go back to wholeness. It's time for human beings to come into a sustainable world."

What leaps out at me here is that word so supremely characteristic of the feminine principle, wholeness. While males preparing for collapse are certainly supportive of wholeness, the feminine experience is in itself, one of wholeness. The female psyche is wholeness, containing the capacity to include, embrace, and hold a variety of opposites in our bodies and souls. In a collapsing world, is it not crucial to understand how this outlook is embodied and expressed in contrast with how males might respond to the unraveling? Is not the notion of sustainability itself a concept engendered by the principle of wholeness?

I cannot help but notice that in an article called "The Dystopians" which implies that people talking about and preparing for collapse are "doom and gloomers", the one and only quote from me referred to the exciting aspects of collapse which have to do with breaking down barriers and getting beyond labels. This is particularly ironic since I'm often perceived as a doomer, but perhaps there's something about a female voice in the discourse that could soften, expand, and temper the sense of despair which supposedly characterizes the dystopians.

Yet another aspect of the feminine principle, resilience, is now widely embraced by individuals and communities consciously preparing for collapse on a variety of levels. One man who exemplifies integration of the feminine principle alongside the masculine in terms of wholeness, sustainability, resilience, and interdependence is Rob Hopkins, author of The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependence to Local Resilience. From the experiment of Hopkins and numerous fellow citizens in a small UK community was birthed this extraordinary handbook for strategizing how individuals and villages can wisely prepare for powering down and living sustainably in a post-petroleum world. Curiously, the New Yorker article contained nothing about the Transition Town movement which is now sweeping the globe. As I stated in a recent review of the book, I do not believe that the Transition Town movement is a magic bullet, nor do I believe that its success is guaranteed. However, I do believe that it is planting seeds, some of which will invariably come to fruition at some point during the collapse process. Moreover, speaking for myself, regardless of the degree of success of the movement, it is, in the moment, an excellent place to direct one's time and energy constructively in preparing physically, emotionally, and spiritually for collapse.

My forthcoming book Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Civilization's Collapse, will explore in depth the psychology of transition--the emotional and spiritual aspects of collapse from the vantage point of the feminine principle while honoring and cherishing the deep, life-supporting masculine energies that must comprise the new paradigm that is now erupting out of the ashes of empire. Please stay tuned to the Truth to Power website for further details.

Quotes from David Rockefeller's Memoirs (Random House, New York, 2002) Chapter 27, pages 404 and 405

In early December, 2008 I drove to the home of Charlotte Dennett in rural Vermont to speak with her not only about her recent run for Attorney General of the State of Vermont, but also about Thy Will Be Done, a book she and her husband, Gerard Colby, had published in 1995-a book extremely relevant to the most recent, and in fact all, recent American presidential elections. I wanted to find out what motivated her to run for Attorney General of Vermont with the promise that if she were elected, she would appoint Vince Bugliosi, author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder, as special prosecutor to charge the lame duck President with murder, and also, to learn more about her and Colby's research and how they became involved in the project.

I discovered that Charlotte Dennett was born into an intelligence family, but that her father was killed when she was 15. He was stationed in Beirut where Charlotte was born, and his last mission was to Saudi Arabia where he was sent to figure out the trans-Arabian oil pipeline that was going to carry a fantastic amount of oil from Saudi Arabia to an undetermined point on the Mediterranean. It was either going to be in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, or Syria. He got on a plane to Ethiopia on the way back to Beirut, and the plane crashed with several other intelligence individuals on board, and all were killed. Following the tragedy, Charlotte's mother returned to the states where Charlotte grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts. She believes there was definitely foul play in relation to her father's death, and her forthcoming book is an expose of the events surrounding it.

In her junior year of high school, Charlotte returned to Beirut with her mother and finished high school there. In the process, she became thoroughly immersed in Middle Eastern politics. In Beirut she had access to books and other information about the Middle East which most Americans do not have, and as a result, developed a more balanced view of it-a view that has affected her all of her life.

She returned to the U.S. to attend a small college in Massachusetts where she majored in art history then completed her Masters in Italy. Yet despite her passion for the arts and travel abroad, Charlotte has never stopped being interested in politics and wrote her Masters thesis on Cosimo de Medici, the great Florentine politician of the Renaissance.

Returning again to Beirut, Charlotte became a correspondent for a Middle East magazine which sent her all over the region, including Iran, during the reign of the Shah. In 1975 she was in Europe when a bus load of Palestinians was blown up, and at that point, she realized the extent to which the Middle East was going to erupt and chose to return to the U.S. in order to avoid the chaos.

In New York she met Gerard Colby when both were doing beats at the United Nations. At this point Charlotte and Gerry became interested in developments in South America where missionaries were working for the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) which was increasingly suspected of being linked to the CIA. The Institute's technology was extremely sophisticated-so much so that it seemed highly unlikely that it could have been financed from church donations. Obvious questions emerged: What were missionaries doing out in extremely remote areas? What exactly was SIL? Why had hundreds of thousands of Indians died or disappeared? At this point, Gerry was collecting research for what would become his 1984 tome Dupont: Behind The Nylon Curtain.

In 1995, Charlotte and Gerry published Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon, an absolute must-read expose of the manipulation of missionary efforts in South America by the Rockefeller family to lay the groundwork for the economic domination of the Amazon region by Rockefeller corporate interests. They embarked on this project because they wanted to know why American fundamentalist Christian missionaries were turning a blind eye to the genocide of Indians in Latin America. Some of the very tribes they were working with were disappearing, according to photojournalists in the area. Further investigation by Dennett and Colby revealed that there was literally genocide happening throughout the Amazon-that up to 100,000 indigenous people in the region had died or disappeared in the 1960s and 70s. Dennett says that "We felt that if our government was in any way involved, it behooved us as American to find out."

What they finally discovered after 10 years of research and a total of 18 years to complete the book, were incredibly strong links, documented in the book, between the missionaries and the CIA. What had them mystified, however, was why. As they dug deeper, they discovered a man named Adolf Berle who had been the U.S. ambassador to Brazil who had also been a member of Franklin Roosevelt's "brain trust." When they visited the FDR Library, they discovered that one of Berle's diaries had been de-classified. Dennett asserts that if you want to understand power in America, you must read Berle's diaries-diaries which reveal his intimate professional connection with Nelson Rockefeller who was at that time Governor of New York but who also had fervent interest in Latin America.

Subsequently, Nelson's papers were de-classified, and Dennett and Colby began researching them. That's when they discovered that Nelson Rockefeller was the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs during the Roosevelt administration as it was entering World War II. This was a cabinet-level position, and his job was to win over Latin America from German and Japanese, known during World War II as Axis influence, which at that time was considerable. Thy Will Be Done documents how Rockefeller made frequent visits to Latin America and had talked with major businessmen there and was photographed with the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. He also spent time dialoging with heads of the Brazilian military-all of this for the purpose of removing the influence of the Axis powers, but in fact, his real job was to replace it with American influence.

Along the way, Dennett and Colby discovered one author who compared Brazil in the 1940s with the early American West, and indeed, the conquest of the West included some of the same dynamics, dynasties, and methods of conquest as did the conquest of Latin America. Similar to Rockefeller's strategy in the Amazon region, missionaries in the West were used to go forth, pacify the native peoples, and the corporations would come in and extract the resources. Not unlike the conquest of the American West, if Brazilian natives could not be pacified, they were killed. Meanwhile, the people responsible, the people who gave the orders were sitting in their board rooms far away. "They didn't have to know the details; the details were carried out on the ground," says Dennett.

Because of Rockefeller's enormous influence in Latin America, under President Truman and later Eisenhower, he became deeply involved in intelligence and became a sort of Cold War guru and was fully briefed on covert operations at the very time when the various Latin American dictators were installed by the CIA.

Why is this relevant today? Because today people are getting nervous about the extent to which Obama has surrounded himself with architects of the Clinton administration-globalists, who are deeply linked to the Rockefellers, the still pre-eminent powerful family who are largely invisible. Americans tend to have absolutely no understanding of this because they associate the Rockefellers with altruism and the Rockefellers' formation of countless schools. It's very difficult to have any kind of critical examination of them because they are literally, everywhere. Others, such as academics, for example, tend to steer clear of any close examination of them because of the threat of losing funding.

Dennett believes that Obama is surrounding himself with Rockefeller interests which she argues is far better than the interests surrounding Bush because the Bush regime did not understand the complexity that the Rockefellers have had over the centuries to refine their methods. She explains that within the ruling elite there are "warring gangs", so to speak, jockeying for power. For the past eight years, the Bush gang has prevailed, and undoubtedly, the Rockefellers have been extremely upset with their methods. Currently, everything about the way Obama is proceeding, in Dennett's opinion, has all the earmarks of enlightened Rockefeller rule by an articulate, charismatic, polished Chief Executive. "Enlightened rule", however, does not mean that there is never violent, ruthless repression, such as the Rockefellers have sometimes orchestrated in Latin America, but it is a last resort, not their preferred strategy.

The research of Dennett and Colby confirm the existence and pre-eminence of a ruling class or ruling elite-words which Dennett says "one does not use in polite society", as well as the political and economic assets of two Rockefeller-created and dominated organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, along with the Bilderberg Group, which have consistently groomed and produced presidential candidates. As I have resolutely argued for years, these organizations are multi-dimensional rather than monolithic in terms of their membership's roles. On the periphery one finds varying degrees of interests, aspirations, and power dynamics, whereas a distinct and unwavering coalescence of all of these categories appears to comprise the nucleus.

According to Dennett, "If you want to be President of the United States, don't think you're even going to get close unless you've been groomed. One of the great grooming institutions is the Trilateral Commission which was set up by David Rockefeller in the early seventies, and the Council on Foreign Relations, formerly chaired by David Rockefeller, is another. When you go through that process, you know just how far you can go."

One of Dennett's passions is tracing the paths of Presidents-elect who believe they have just received the mantle of the most powerful position on earth, only to discover that they are inexorably limited by the forces and interests that have groomed them for power. Extremely well documented in Thy Will Be Done are the paths of the two Presidents who went too far: JFK and Abraham Lincoln. Page 338 contains a chart of foreign policy and national security officials around JFK, all of whom were directly connected with the Rockefeller dynasty. Dennett and Colby have documented in their book that John Kennedy greatly curtailed a Rockefeller development plan in Latin America and wanted to curtail private bank loans to Latin America, a plan profoundly upsetting to Chase Manhattan with its ties to the Rockefeller family. In other words, Kennedy was putting the brakes on the development of the Amazon. He was killed in November, 1963, and four months later, President Goulart of Brazil, also opposed to corporate intrusion in that nation, was overthrown in a coup in March, 1964.

Dennett asserts that she and Colby have shown the patterns, and now it's up to other researchers to go into greater detail. In this vein, she highly recommends Russ Baker's newly released Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America.

Carmelo Ruiz has written a fabulous review of the book entitled "Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism In The Age of Oil". In my opinion, Thy Will Be Done is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of how one dynasty can skillfully imbed itself in the milieu of a developing nation, facilitated by the Central Intelligence Agency and a host of clerical minions. I cannot recommend this superbly documented book highly enough which is one of many reasons I chose to visit with Charlotte Dennett.

After the publication of Thy Will Be Done and after moving to Vermont, Gerry continued to write, and Charlotte was working as a paralegal in a law firm. She decided to apprentice in the firm for four years with the intention of qualifying to take the bar exam without attending law school-an arrangement available in only four states. In 1997 she passed the bar and got her license to practice law in Vermont.

I wanted to listen forever to Dennett's accounts of the research she and Colby had done for their book, but I also realized that I was sitting with the woman who had just lost her bid for Attorney General of Vermont for the Progressive Party and who, unlike any other candidate in America, had sworn to prosecute an outgoing President for murder. I was curious about how this happened.

Charlotte Dennett had been involved in the leadership of the Progressive Party for years. In 2007, gubernatorial candidate, Anthony Pollina, had chosen to run as an Independent, and more Progressive and Independent candidates were needed to run for other offices in Vermont. With a great deal of energy going into working on another book, she at first reluctantly decided to run for Attorney General, then later realized the fantastic opportunity in front of her. Thus, she decided not only to run, but to run as "the people's attorney."

About two weeks after she agreed to run, a good friend gave her Vincent Bugliosi's book The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder. She was extremely impressed with Bugliosi's meticulous establishment of evidence, and when she got to the legal argument, she discovered that any Attorney General of any state could commence the prosecution, but the obvious question was: Who's going to dare to do it?

Running as a Progressive, however, Dennett would be free to move forward toward prosecution and not be pressured by Democrats to capitulate. About the same time, a close friend from New Jersey, a journalist who had authored a book with the same publisher as Bugliosi's, assisted Dennett in making the connection with him. In the course of their dialog, Dennett and Bugliosi discovered that they needed each other. Dennett needed someone to appoint as special prosecutor, and Bugliosi needed a test case because up to that point, his argument was only theoretical.

Coincidentally, Bugliosi was coming east for a conference in Andover, Massachusetts on prosecuting high government officials for war and other crimes. Dennett and her journalist friend attended the conference and discovered that there were other attorneys behind the prosecution of Bush. But most importantly, she and Bugliosi met and had an immediate meeting of the minds with each other. He then accompanied her to Vermont and was with her when she announced her candidacy at a press conference, along with her intent to prosecute Bush.

Whereas some people accused Dennett of reaching for something very "far-fetched" for Vermonters, she argued that a gutsy little Vermont town like Brattleboro had already passed a resolution that if Bush or Cheney were ever to set foot in their town, they would be arrested. Also, over 30 other Vermont towns had passed impeachment resolutions in their town meetings, and an impeachment resolution was almost passed in the Vermont House until it was effectively killed by Democrat, Gaye Symington. So Dennett believed that if there were any state where prosecution of Bush would fly, it would be Vermont.

When I asked Dennett what other issues should be priorities for Vermont, she immediately answered that the shutting down of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant should be at the top of the list. Yankee's relicensing comes up for debate in the Vermont legislature in February, and there is a strong movement in the state to prohibit relicensing due to the age of the plant, the numerous accidents which have occurred there, and the enormous danger to public health that it poses.

Low-level radiation, Dennett argues can be more dangerous and insidious than massive eruptions like the one at Three-Mile Island or Chernobyl. Moreover, strong evidence of collusion between the Vermont Health Department and the nuclear power plant not only exists but also suggests that the Attorney General's office may have been involved in the collusion. Many people may be aware of the collusion but may be afraid to come forward because, sadly, Vermont is 50th in the nation for providing legal protection for whistleblowers, and Dennett was committed in her campaign for the office of Attorney General to working vigorously to secure this protection for all whistleblowers. Additionally, Dennett feels that the Attorney General should investigate predatory lending in Vermont and gas price gouging.

Although not totally on board with the Peak Oil concept, she is intrigued by the work of Richard Heinberg and agrees with him that energy companies will not be easily tanked and that therefore, we must buy, live, and focus locally. Her biggest concern is that the corporate giants will not stand idly by and allow local movements to succeed. On the other hand, Dennett emphasizes that the ruling elite are always worried about unrest, and they may be willing to do whatever it takes to ameliorate it.

Above all, she says, we must study history, and we must understand how power in America works, and if we do we'll be in much better shape.

As a result of Charlotte Dennett's campaign, the Progressive Party is on the wavelength of states all over the country. She's pleased that in Vermont, we've elected some Progressive candidates to the House but not pleased that by and large, the Democratic Party is in control and is not changing. Therefore, if she were to run again for any office, it could not be on a Democratic ticket which she feels would compromise her values.

Her next book is in part an investigation of her father's plane crash, and its tentative title is Searching For Caret: A Spy's Daughter's Questions and the Untapped Secrets of the Middle East. "Caret", she notes, was her father's intelligence code name. Harper Collins, publisher of Thy Will Be Done, and the publisher to whom Dennett has submitted the manuscript for her forthcoming book, killed the book for so-called "late delivery", so she is currently seeking another publisher. She's determined to get the book out there because she believes that people need to know the "great game for oil"-that is, the extent to which U.S. foreign policy has been driven by the relentless search for oil since the turn of the last century.

My conversation with Charlotte Dennett occurred during the transition from the disastrous reign of George W. Bush to the Obama administration-during what I believe is the end of the age of oil, an unequivocal global economic meltdown, calamitous and apparently out of control climate change, and the continued occupation of Iraq alongside the certainty of an escalating presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan and Eurasia. With the United States government clearly insolvent and empire collapsing at every turn, it will be interesting, as Dennett notes, to see how Obama uses power and even more curious to see how his Rockefeller handlers will respond to a nation of hungry, unemployed, homeless people without access to healthcare.

It was an honor and privilege to interview Vermont's own Charlotte Dennett whose research and policies offer information and inspiration desperately needed by everyone who desires to remain awake in the daunting days that lie ahead of us. Vermont is extremely fortunate to have her leadership and political savvy, as will be any local community in our state where a collapsing empire cries out for unprecedented discernment among its citizens.

I will begin this book "review" by telling you that I find nothing-absolutely nothing wrong with The Transition Handbook. If that then makes this article into a commercial for the book instead of a review, so be it.

For nearly a year I have been emphasizing in my writing that a positive vision must be held in consciousness alongside all of the abysmal events unfolding around us. Even as I have been insistent on staring down the collapse of civilization, I have embraced at the same time, what could be and have held in my mind and heart the threads of the new paradigm that so many of us are working to create.

Thus it has been with great pleasure and relief that I have looked deeply into the Transition Town movement and found it to exemplify everything that I believe comprises effective relocalization and the shaping of alternative economies and vibrant communities. Not only am I in awe of what the people of Totnes, the first Transition Town in the U.K., have accomplished, but more so, that the Transition Town model has become contagious and is spreading to a variety of places throughout the world, in the United States, and closer to my own local community here in Vermont. I'm additionally pleased that the Transition Handbook is now being distributed here in the U.S. by a Vermont publisher, Chelsea Green.

The Transition Town movement is all about preparing for energy descent and climate change and addressing the relationship between the two by essentially viewing them as two different aspects of the same problem. James Howard of Powerswitch in the U.K. states:

Peak Oil and Climate Change are a bigger threat together than either are alone. Our biggest hope is to similarly converge our understanding of them, and how to deal with the problems they present. Peak Oil and Climate Change must be fused as issues-an approach is needed to deal with them as a package. If we are looking for answers, the environmental movement has pushed suitable ones for a long time. Peak Oil presents a tremendous chance to push those solutions ahead; failure to incorporate a full understanding of Peak Oil into the solutions argument for Climate Change would be an abject failure.(38)

Fundamental to the Transition Town movement is the notion of resilience. It is defined in the Transition Handbook as "the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks." (54) In other words, resilience does not mean putting a fence around one's community, refusing to allow anything in or out. It means "being more prepared for a leaner future, more self-reliant, and prioritizing the local over the imported." (55)

Three requirements for a resilient system are: Diversity, Modularity, and Tightness of Feedbacks. Diversity simply refers to the number of elements in the system-people, species, businesses, institutions, and sources of food. What matters is not so much the number of any of these entities but the connections between them and the diversity of responses to challenges, the diversity of land use, and the diversity between systems. Not only does an analysis of the diversity of the place make top-down approaches redundant, but it reinforces the wisdom of "working on small changes to lots of niches in the place, making lots of small interventions rather than a few large ones." (55)

Modularity of a structure refers to the parts of the system that can re-organize in the event of a shock. It is a key facet of designing an energy-descent plan because the more modularity, the less vulnerability to disruptions in wider networks. As the Transition Handbook states: Local food systems, local investment models, and so on, all add to this modularity, meaning that we engage with the wider world but from an ethic of networking and information sharing rather than of mutual dependence." (56)

Tightness of feedbacks analyzes how quickly and strongly one part of the system can respond to changes in another part. Globalization and national systems can weaken feedbacks, whereas in localized systems, the results of our actions are more obvious and allow the community to bring the consequences of its actions closer to home. (56)

In summary, it is possible that a future with less oil could be more positive than the current addiction to fossil fuels, but only, says the Transition Handbook, "if we engage in designing this transition with sufficient creativity and imagination" which is indeed what the handbook is all about.

The format of this mini-workbook sized manual is extremely appealing. It is printed on heavy recycled paper, designed with simple, natural color tones, and is chock-full of exceedingly practical group exercises for clarifying and practicing its principles.

To its credit, this book does not sugar-coat the daunting reality of Peak Oil and Climate Change, but rather, offers a positive vision of preparation and myriad practical steps for manifesting it. An entire chapter is devoted to the somewhat paralyzing terror of everyone's "End of Suburbia" moment and the resulting "post-petroleum stress disorder", but also emphasizes that alongside that epiphany, we must cherish not only a positive vision, but one that we can realistically and pragmatically implement.

A fabulous chapter in the middle of the book on the "Psychology of Change" underscores how change happens and how we tend to proceed through it emotionally, emphasizing that "change doesn't happen all at once. Rather it occurs in increments or stages." (85) The various stages of change are explored, with emphasis on their characteristics and what may be helpful to move people on to the next stage of the process. Some aspects of addiction diagnosis and treatment are utilized in order to address the depths to which most people in the developed world are addicted to the fossil fuel/consumption-based lifestyle. Fundamental to this addiction, as with all others, is the belief that change isn't really possible. With remarkable skill, the Transition Town movement utilizes a number of effective strategies for assisting people who are stuck in abject pessimism by helping them envision the possibility of change and the certainty that it can be made.

At the core of the Transition Town movement is the Transition Initiative which is an "emerging and evolving approach to community-level sustainability", and many of these initiatives are appearing not only in the U.K. but in the U.S. They are based on four key assumptions:

•1. That life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it's better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.

•2. That our settlements and communities presently lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany Peak Oil

•3. That we have to act collectively, and we have to act now

•4. That by unleashing the collective genius of those around us to creatively and proactively design our energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognize the biological limits of our planet. (134)

An entire chapter is devoted to how to start a Transition initiative, and although not directly related to the addiction to a fossil fuel lifestyle, Twelve Steps of Transition are offered. The most impressive of these for me is the first one: "Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset." What a relief! No chance of this group becoming an entrenched, hierarchical, power-driven monster; no chance of success unless the entire community is engaged and becomes more effective in bringing about transition than is the steering group; no need for one or two individuals alone to try to save the world.

The last half of the book is primarily devoted to an analysis of the first year of transition in Totnes and some of the practical manifestations of transition there. And finally, the book concludes with the "viral spread" of the Transition Town concept throughout the world. An extensive appendix includes a generous offering of further exercises, forms, questionnaires, and an energy descent action plan.

How does a Transition Town know if it has become resilient? What is the measure of viable transition? Here are a few resilience indicators:

* The percentage of local trade carried out in local currency * The percentage of food consumed locally that was produced within a given radius * The ratio of car parking space to productive land use * Degree of engagement in practical transition work by the local community * Amount of traffic on local roads * Number of businesses owned by local people * Proportion of the community employed locally * Percentage of essential goods manufactured within a given radius * Percentage of local building materials used in new housing development * Percentage of energy consumed in the town * Amount of sixteen year-olds able to grow 10 different varieties of vegetables to a given degree of competency * Percentage of medicines prescribed locally that have been produced within a given radius.

Are these not the most axiomatic of preparations for Peak Oil and Climate Change? The Transition Handbook offers both stunning inspiration and an assortment of ingenious, yet commonsensical tools, for actualizing the concept of relocalization.

The Handbook concludes with these remarkably uplifting words:

While Peak Oil and Climate Change are understandably profoundly challenging, also inherent within them is the potential for an economic, cultural, and social renaissance the likes of which we have never seen. We will see a flourishing of local businesses, local skills and solutions, and a flowering of ingenuity and creativity. It is a Transition in which we will inevitably grow, and in which our evolution is a precondition for progress. Emerging at the other end, we will not be the same as we were: we will have become more humble, more connected to the natural world, fitter, leaner, more skilled, and ultimately, wiser.

With all my heart, I want to support Transition Towns in my community and around the world with the hope that their implementations are not too little, too late. Yet, even if they are, I cannot think of a better place to direct one's energy, time, and passion--regardless of outcome, as we navigate with realism and resilience, the collapse of civilization.

The story, relayed by psychiatrist Timothy Fong at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital, is an example of the rash behaviors exhibited by more Americans as a recession undermines a lifestyle built on spending."

In the coming months, the story continues, "mental health experts expect a rise in theft, depression, drug use, anxiety and even violence as consumers confront a harsh new reality and must live within diminished means."

In yet another story, The Great Accumulation Hits The Wall, the Wall Street Journal reported that:

On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the first official day of the holiday shopping season, 31-year-old confessed shopaholic Nikki Ebben was holed up in her bedroom in Appleton, Wis., while her husband went to Wal-Mart to snag a $500 flat-screen TV. Ms. Ebben, who has maxed out 15 credit cards and racked up more than $80,000 in debt, says she vowed to stay away from stores. Still, she couldn't resist the temptation of e-commerce, particularly the appeal of 30% off and free shipping. While her husband was gone, she spent $400 at Toysrus.com and Target.com, using money from the couple's joint bank account.

I went crazy, admits Ms. Ebben, whose mother stopped speaking to her for a time because she owed her parents so much money.

Both the Reuters and Wall Street Journal stories conclude that buying and consuming have become part of the national culture and offer people an identity-the identity of a consumer, which many will now be forced to abandon. Additionally, shopping has become a way for countless individuals to cope with their emotions. Not only do the things we buy allow us to feel good momentarily, but the disease of consumerism has become so pathological that in many instances, people have come to believe that they are what they buy, and the more expensive and coveted brand or product makes a statement about who one is. This is enormously significant because there's obviously more than "survival panic" going on here.

I believe that it's not a stretch to conclude that for some, the inability to consume may be creating a fundamental existential crisis in terms of losing one's identity. This would certainly explain the bizarre violence that occurred at the Long Island Walmart on Black Friday a few weeks ago where an employee was trampled to death. If consumption "rewards" human beings with a positive identity as well as the sense of financial security, then it is nothing less than an extremely powerful addiction. Withdraw the addictive substance or activity-or put it on sale at 70% off, and many people will behave like the street junkie who will do whatever it takes to score his next fix.

I hasten to add that short of living on air, none of us can totally cease consuming. The issue, of course, is not consumption itself, but consumption that isn't about buying or bartering for what we truly need-consumption based on fear, insecurity, alienation, all of which are rooted in the human ego, as opposed to the human soul.

While we may want to shake our heads when hearing reports like the ones above, I consider them very positive aspects of economic collapse. Yes, these desperate individuals are suffering a plethora of emotions as they are forced into withdrawal from their drug of choice, shopping, but in my opinion, this is the upside of the unraveling. There are no guarantees that any of them will experience a personal psychological or spiritual epiphany regarding the meaning of life, but as with any addiction, when the drug of choice is no longer available, an opening exists for the addict to make a different choice which may not have been possible without forced withdrawal. Welcome to cultural rehab in the throes of the collapse of Western civilization!

In addition to their profound connection with the earth community, which dramatically informs their desires, indigenous cultures have in place a tradition, namely initiation, for planting and harvesting in their young, a foundational sense of identity. This tradition is not simply a "rite of passage" but rather a series of ordeals, almost always occurring in a natural setting, through which the youth must pass that allow him/her to discover and utilize a deeper self. In fact, the ordeals are often constructed in such a manner that unless the youth can access that self, he/she may not physically survive. Any woman or man who has passed through such an experience will almost always attribute his/her survival to the support of the tribe, one's own connection with nature, and the opportunity to discover a previously unknown reservoir of courage, enabled by trust in oneself and other members of the community.

In a culture where tribal community, intimate connection with nature, and concomitant initiatory rites are absent, then the human psyche, which appears to inherently requires these for optimum functioning, will consciously or unconsciously devise its own rituals for constructing an identity. If this is so, then we may conclude two things: that initiation makes mindless consumption unnecessary, and that mindless consumption in search of identity is a substitute for initiation.

In indigenous/traditional cultures, even when entire nations or villages are steeped in poverty, there is almost always a curious sense of "enough." In fact, one usually finds there, more generosity, magnanimity, and compassion than anywhere in industrial civilization. One reason for this may be that beyond a sense of "I have enough because the tribe shares with me and I with them" is a more fundamental sense of "I am enough because I know who I am."

In the Native American tradition, the four directions are guideposts for living and relating as we journey through the seasons of the year. I am fascinated by the dramatic discrepancy between what Winter symbolizes in the that tradition and what the culture of empire demonstrates at this time of year. On the Native American medicine wheel, we find four directions, each representing a season of the year as well as a totem animal. Winter is the season of the North which contains the energy of the buffalo who has the courage and stamina to face the cold winds of the North. It also holds the energy of the tribal elder who has journeyed many times around the wheel and now looks back on her journey with seasoned wisdom and gratitude. The word "elder", of course, has little to do with age and everything to do with allowing oneself to be wizened as one traverses the wheel of experience and learning.

The North is also symbolic of warrior medicine-the definition of warrior being profoundly larger than someone engaged in combat. Much more than a mere fighter, the warrior is one who takes a stand for all that is harmonious with nature and all that supports the well being of the earth and tribal community.

Derrick Jensen frequently tells the story of the Cheyenne dog warriors who in battle would tie a rope around their waists to which was attached a picket pin. Driving the picket pin into the earth, they would remain in place until the battle was over, or another warrior relieved them, or until they died. In this way, the warrior committed to taking a stand and omitting any possibility of capitulation. The moral of the story, Derrick emphasizes, is the opportunity it presents for us to contemplate where in the culture of empire we will drive in our picket pin and not be moved. Specifically, I would ask all of us, what are we willing to not consume? Where are we willing to take our stand, at the risk of losing life itself, on behalf of the earth community?

An antidote to the frantic, voracious consumerism of modernity's holiday season might be quiet contemplation of the place of the North and its "medicine" as described above. I write this on the eve of Winter Solstice in this dark time of year-a time in which, complementing the sun's journey, we are invited to focus within and commune with buffalo and the elders, a practice even more essential if we ourselves have entered elderhood.

Although spring will come, and beyond it, summer, we are certain to face energetically the cold winds of economic collapse from now on, indefinitely. Now, more than ever, we need buffalo medicine, strength, courage, wisdom, gratitude, and the perspective of the elder who holds a deep conviction that regardless of what we will be forced to endure, the medicine of the North, and the medicine of the other sacred directions, is at our disposal.

We are not consumers; we are the medicine of the North, South, East and West. Certainly, this is one of countless lessons that collapse has come to teach us. What would happen if we fully inhabited and savored the North and discovered that we are absolutely, unequivocally, enough? What would happen if each of us drives in our picket pin and refuses to be moved?

Several weeks ago I attended a meeting in Montpelier, capital of Vermont, in which that city's Mayor, Mary Hooper, and Vermont State Representative, Patricia McDonald (R-Berlin) outlined detailed preparations being made by concerned citizens in Montpelier and Berlin to assist the most vulnerable folks in their towns with surviving the cold winter. While this kind of effort may be popular at the neighborhood, city, or town level across America, it is rare that a state representative signs on to it as passionately as McDonald has.

I chose to conduct an interview with McDonald and now publish it far and wide because as the various levels of American society continue to collapse in the wake of economic meltdown, most of the services to which people in need might turn in an emergency will not be there. It is very likely that the only lifeline for millions of people may be with caring neighbors or other community volunteers.

My hope is that featuring Patricia McDonald's vision on the Truth To Power website and circulating this interview may inspire other legislators and citizens in the United States to implement similar programs to monitor the most vulnerable in their communities as individuals and families attempt to navigate unemployment, foreclosure, hunger, lack of heat, illness, and a host of daunting challenges that are now rampant in many parts of the nation.

I sat down in the Statehouse cafeteria with Patricia McDonald, newly re-elected to the Vermont legislature, and who has been very generous with her time, and I asked her some specific questions about neighbors helping neighbors.

CB: So Representative McDonald, before I ask you to explain these initiatives to Truth To Power readers, I'd like to know more about how you became interested in this particular issue since you've been a Vermont State Representative and have worked in state government for a number of years. Why this issue of neighbors helping neighbors among so many others?

PM: I have only recently served in the legislature, but I have served seven appointed positions in state government. When I campaigned the first time, I went door to door and was pretty surprised by what I saw and the discussions I had with people about these struggles. You certainly can't tell by the house that someone is living in what their situation actually is. I also had two very interesting experiences while I was campaigning. One was attending a hunger banquet, and it was such a visual display of what poor and middle class really is. They separate you into these three different economic status groups, and even though we knew we were kind of "play-acting" our status, we still really lived as if we were in those groups. The "upper class" didn't talk to the "middle class", and the "middle class" didn't talk to the "poor class", and the dynamics between the "poor class" were very similar apparently, to what happens in real life. What really got to me was the quantity of food that we were talking about.

And then I've had someone in my own family who ran into a real problem, and was caught up in a layoff. They owned a home but had no money. They, of course, had our support, and others in the family, but it was amazing to me what we expect people to live on and what we think is "making too much money" to qualify for some of these programs.

I've always been involved in the municipal end of government because I've been on the Select Board of my town, but once I started knocking on doors and being involved in real life situations, my eyes were opened. And also, just before I left state government, I was the Commissioner of Labor, looking at some of the programs for trying to get people trained and stable enough to train in terms of housing, daycare, and transportation. It's been a couple of years of eye-opening experiences for me, very humbling actually, which gave me a very different perspective on life.

CB: Can you explain to our readers what a Select Board is?

PM: It's really the governing body of a municipal town or city. Most cities have councils. In our town [and mostly throughout Vermont] it's a Select Board.

CB: I'm registered in Vermont as an Independent, but you are a Republican, and stereotypically, Republicans don't focus this much on issues like neighbors helping neighbors, so I was curious about what drew you into all this.

PM: I just think experience. I think many Republicans approach these problems a little bit differently than Democrats do. I don't think it's that we're not interested, but that we have a different solution. We would look to the employer to create jobs, and so on, but you have to have folks ready to even take that step.

CB: OK, so having clarified that, please explain some of the most important aspects of the food, fuel, and transportation details of preparing for this winter in your community in Vermont.

PM: What we're trying to do is first of all, get the word out to make sure people know what services are available. These efforts are happening on the state, regional, and town levels, but we want to make sure people know that help is there. I think we're looking at a different group than we've normally served in the past-a group that hasn't had to deal with these struggles before. They're going to be making some very tough choices probably for the first time. They've been hanging on just barely. Some have just recently lost their jobs, some are widows or widowers, and things are more expensive now. They've been hanging on with their incomes, and now they're having to make different decisions than they've made before, and we're very concerned about them because they don't know who to ask, and they don't want to ask. In New England we're a stubborn lot, and we want to be self-reliant.

We want people to know that they're not alone, and that it's OK to ask for help. What we've done in my town of Berlin is to say, "Well, if we can help you in terms of food, fuel, or transportation, perhaps in turn, you can help us by being part of the process." It's more of a barter/trade process. Maybe if you've got transportation, you can transport someone else to go get food or medication. In Berlin, we want to make sure that we have a team in place, so that when we do have an issue, we can respond accordingly.

We're also trying to get volunteers to participate. We put together a Wood Warm project which unfortunately started too late so that the wood isn't quite seasoned yet, but we're asking for volunteers who already have cut wood if they'd be willing to set aside some wood on their property, and then we're asking volunteers to go get that wood and match it up with the individual needs of people who don't have fuel.

In terms of food we just started something new. Our elementary school has left-over food. They've been freezing if for us, and community action volunteers have created a schedule to go pick up that food so that we can distribute it. We want to get other institutions involved besides schools.

Also, the State Agricultural Department is out doing canning workshops. I went to one of them, and it was standing room only. People were very interested. I think people are really understanding the benefits of buying and producing locally. There's also a program being promoted in Vermont called "Grow An Extra Row" so that when you plant in the spring, you plant an extra row for the food banks and shelters just to share.

Another reason I got involved in food is that I'm a two-time breast cancer survivor, so for me, I just constantly think about nutrition and food safety. So I'm really focused on buying fresh, organic, local food.

CB: That just brought to mind a different question I'd like to ask. How much of the food in Vermont schools is raised locally?

PM: I can't tell you the percentage, but there is a very big effort right now to make sure that we have local food. A couple of bills have recently been passed in the legislature that support the farm to school efforts. Even here in the Statehouse cafeteria, if you'll notice, there's a real push to make sure that we have locally-produced food. There are a lot of signs around about where foods come from. Our milk refrigerator here is stocked with Vermont milk.

CB: If we can go back to that meeting where I met you in Montpelier, it was being conducted by folks who have been organizing Button Up workshops here in Vermont. Can you tell our readers a bit about those workshops and how they were created?

PM: We have put together these Button Up workshops which are really weatherization workshops, and they have been very successful. A hundred of them were planned around the state. Ours in Berlin was particularly successful because we had a spaghetti dinner before. The focus of the workshop is to look at all the things you can do in your house, without spending lots of money, to make sure that your home is really weatherized for the winter. I think people were really surprised about things they thought they should be doing but turn out not to be the best return on investment. Now, what we want to do in Berlin is a hands-on workshop. One of our local lumber supply businesses is going to provide someone for us to actually demonstrate how to do these things-particularly for women and others who live by themselves and may not have the ability themselves and may have to have a neighbor or friend do it for them.

The other day I got a phone call from a woman who said that all she needed was her front door fixed because there was such a gap in it, and all the heat was just pouring out the front door. So through this system we have developed, we were able to get her some assistance, and somebody just volunteered their time, and went over and fixed it for her. It was very rewarding-you just make a couple of phone calls, people get on it, and get it done.

CB: Transportation is an issue you've worked with for a long time, and it's a huge issue here in Vermont where driving is required to get just about anywhere, and we have very little in the way of a passenger rail system. What do you feel must be done to provide Vermonters with other options besides driving?

PM: I am very supportive of public transit. And we do have several really excellent public transit systems, but they're very localized. What we do have to do is make sure that they are not operating in isolation. I think we have to take a look at that and make some investments over time. People in Vermont have to drive everywhere to go to work, and it's a mindset. People need to understand the benefits of public transit. When gas was in the $5 range, many more people were taking public transit, but now that the price has come down, they're back to driving.

CB: Didn't Vermont have more train routes than we do now?

PM: When I was Secretary of Transportation we looked into this, and train travel in Vermont, what little there is, is very slow because we have not put in the investments. Also, the mindset of the car has kept ridership from being high enough to make the investment. In Burlington there is an emergency system where if you need to get somewhere quickly, you can call a number and get transport, but that's very hard to do statewide. Because we don't have the volume of travelers, it would be hard to get rail transportation to a place where it's really viable, but I do support it.

CB: We're currently in a very deep recession nationally, and most economic experts forecast that it is going to worsen in the next couple of years. How is the recession affecting Vermont right now, and what repercussions do you anticipate for our state over the next few years? More importantly, what do you feel we must do to navigate these hard times for the benefit of all Vermonters?

PM: The winter preparedness programs really go back to neighbors helping neighbors. We're a small state, but things cost the same for us as elsewhere. We're in for some very tough decisions this legislative session and beyond. We need to set some priorities. I think we'll need to have even more emphasis on neighbors watching out for each other than we have in the past. People are now very willing to sit down and figure out the solutions. We can't study anymore. I've been instrumental in putting language into legislation that emphasizes government accountability, efficiency, and the streamlining of our services so that we work together as one organization. To me, the most important thing is to get as much of the money and resources as possible to the people that we're serving and not to have it absorbed in an inefficient system. That's really where my interest lies.

CB: In your opinion, what more do we need to do in Vermont to vastly increase our use of renewable energy?

PM: I'm very supportive of trying to figure out how to make it easier for people individually and families to use renewable energy. There's got to be incentives, but not just incentives, but to make the process a whole lot easier so that you're not spending maybe half a year dealing with permits. But I also think that moving toward the green economy and helping businesses become more efficient in that way-I think there's a place for all forms of alternative fuel.

I'd like to make it a lot easier for individual projects. I have a friend who's completely off the grid, and we have quite a few people in Vermont who are off the grid. For those who can be and are interested in it, I think we should help them. Based on my discussion with this friend, I'm introducing a bill that will give more incentives to individuals who want to get off the grid.

I'm not sure how much can get done this year because we have to find $64 million for our tiny state to continue operating. Like every other state we're hurting, but the smallness of our state makes this even more challenging.

Summary: In the short time during which Representative McDonald and I met, we could have discussed food security, health care, education, and myriad other issues which will become more formidable as the current economic crisis deepens. What I already knew about neighbors helping neighbors was greatly reinforced by my conversation with Patricia McDonald, and I'm hopeful that state, regional, and local officials everywhere in America will adopt a similar vision, namely, that this crisis can only be navigated by people committed to developing solid lifelines of compassionate, systematic preparation and cooperation.

Some would argue that the United States government is somewhat like a sophisticated 747 airliner, the controls of which cannot simply be turned over to individuals who have no knowledge of flying but must be steered by experts who have only earned such a title by way of their expertise as former airline pilots. Thus, the argument goes, we should not criticize Obama for his appointments, particularly before he even takes office and concretely demonstrates his commitment to the perpetuation of the status quo. I will return to this notion below, but first, a look at what I consider one of the most stunning pieces of research so far in the twenty-first century, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I cannot recommend Shock Doctrine highly enough for a multi-layered understanding of the origin, evolution, and likely outcome of disaster capitalism.

Disaster Capitalism-Microcosm and Macrocosm

Disaster capitalism is according to Klein "...orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities." (6) It has its origins in the "Chicago School" of economics made famous and perpetuated for decades by University of Chicago economics professor, Milton Friedman, who actually coined the phrase "shock treatment" to describe the psychological pummeling of societies and individuals who might stand in the way of or could be made more useful to the advancement of corporate goals. One recent example was the dramatic use of shock and awe, including using those very words to describe it, against the nation of Iraq during the invasion by the U.S. in 2003. A more recent example to which Klein devotes a great deal of attention is the devastation of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.

The endgame of disaster capitalism is the total privatization of what have throughout American history been state services. Not surprisingly, the ultimate outcome of unbridled disaster capitalism will be the supplanting of government by corporations.

While these are examples of societal decimation, the book's first chapter focuses on the origins of the current forms of torture used by the U.S. in the incipient, CIA-funded experiments of Ewen Cameron, a Canadian psychiatrist who "believed that by inflicting an array of [electrical] shocks to the human brain, he could unmake and erase faulty minds, then rebuild new personalities" on what he believed would be a "clean slate." (29) I was quite familiar with Cameron as a result of a History Channel documentary called "Mind Control: America's Secret War" which I frequently show in my classes, but for the most part, progressives have been loath to discuss many of the CIA's early torture escapades and have minimized them as perhaps "borderline conspiratorial"-until Klein published Shock Doctrine. As a result, her research is now currently quite fashionable in progressive circles, but ten years ago, it was a bit "fringy" for the left-liberal establishment as many of us were exposing the MK Ultra mind control agenda of the CIA, only to be labeled "whacky."

The grotesque details of Cameron's electroshock experiments are a matter of public record and gave birth to many strategic forms of torture subsequently used and sanctioned by the U.S. government. Klein specifically cites the CIA's Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation manual authored by those who were profoundly impressed with Cameron and his focus on psychological regression. The principle idea was to deprive people of "their sense of who they are and where they are in time and space" and by so doing, converting them "into dependent children whose minds are a blank slate of suggestibility." (40) One desired outcome of this psychological battering was the manipulation of the subject in their regressed state to believe that someone or something (the torturers, the government) were in fact father figures who would eventually save them from further harm. In other words, the uncanny and diabolical intent was to cause the victim to unequivocally bond with his/her tormenters and experience them as saviors.

Disaster Capitalism Globalized

Those at the highest levels of government theorized that in the same way that Cameron achieved these objectives with countless individual patients, a similar result could be achieved with entire societies. Thus, writes Klein:

The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was a different kind of shock from the ones imagined in the pages of the Kubark manual, but its effects were remarkably similar: profound disorientation, extreme fear and anxiety, and collective regression. Like the Kubark interrogator posing as a 'father figure', the Bush administration promptly used that fear to play the role of the all-protective parent, ready to defend 'the homeland' and its vulnerable people by any means necessary. (42)

Klein goes on to point out that just as Ewen Cameron had a dream of taking people back to a state of "natural" health before human interactions created distorting patterns, that is to a "blank slate" status, Milton Friedman dreamed of de-patterning societies and returning them to a state of pure capitalism. Like Cameron, Friedman believed that in order to achieve this end, the deliberate inflicting of painful shocks (Friedman's words) in the form of economic adversity or natural disaster would provide the "bitter medicine" necessary to remove barriers to the desired result. (50)

Klein proceeds in Chapters 3-13 to explain how the shock doctrine was applied by the U.S. government around the world, but in Chapter 14, "Shock Therapy In The USA", she returns to 9/11 where she astutely notes that:

What happened in the period of mass disorientation after the attacks was in retrospect, a domestic form of economic shock therapy. The Bush team, Friedmanite to the core, quickly moved to exploit the shock that gripped the nation to push through its radical vision of a hollow government in which everything from war fighting to disaster response was a for-profit venture. (298)

Creating a whole new framework for its actions, "the Bush team used the omnipresent sense of peril after 9/11 to increase dramatically the policing, surveillance, detention, and war-waging powers of the executive branch which some have called a 'rolling coup'." (298)

Klein demonstrates that 9/11 resulted not only in the shredding of the U.S. Constitution and the launching of a permanent state of war that would reap unprecedented profits for the military industrial complex, not to mention the perpetual pursuit of fossil fuels, but also the creation of two burgeoning new industries, the security industry and the disaster industry, both of which have become as large and lucrative as the dot com phenomenon. Thus Klein documents and brilliantly defines corporatism as "big business and big government contributing their formidable powers to regulate and control the citizenry." (307) All of this, she argues, is a result of 9/11.

Throughout the book she posits that whether it is through the application of electroshock "therapy", military campaigns of shock and awe, or the pseudo-management of natural disasters such as Katrina to dramatically enhance corporate profits, individuals and populations are traumatized and manipulated to achieve the ends of disaster capitalism.

Conspiracy On Steroids

By the time one arrives at Page 300 of the book, one is riveted by the array of conspiracies-and I use that word intentionally, that Klein lays out. The genesis and evolution of disaster capitalism from her perspective are anything but coincidental. They are intentional, well-orchestrated, and brilliantly executed. It's almost like watching the 2001 film "Conspiracy" a dramatic recreation of the Wannsee Conference where the Nazi Final Solution phase of the Holocaust was devised. Nothing is spontaneous, accidental, or left to chance. Consequently, disaster capitalism's escapades constitute, in terms of lives lost and suffering perpetrated on humanity, the most horrific holocaust in human history.

Klein has put disaster capitalism under the microscope as no one else ever has, but she isn't quite ready to acknowledge it is the mechanism for achieving the consummate agenda of organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission, namely the dissolution of nation states which will ultimately be replaced by global corporatocracy. For most progressive intellectuals, the mere mention of these organizations suggests "conspiracy theory" since progressives tend to minimize the role of elite organizations in international and domestic affairs. And yet, what Klein has given us in Shock Doctrine is conspiracy fact on steroids! Moreover, a number of left-liberal poster children are members of one or more of the ruling elite groups mentioned above-an inconvenient truth, so to speak, for true believers tethered to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in search of salvation from all things Republican.

So What Does It Matter If Progressives Can't Go There?

It matters because not being able to go there fosters endless displays of the definition of insanity-doing the same thing that doesn't work, over and over again, each time expecting a different result. As David Kendall writes in his December 1 article, "Surprise!":

Every single election -- every four years (or however frequently people participate in this fiasco) -- everybody seems "SURPRISED" by the inevitable outcome. Candidate promises "change" -- candidate gets elected -- campaign promises are discarded -- nothing changes for the better -- so the electorate writes nasty editorials in his general direction for the next four to eight years.

What KIND of "change" are hungry "Americans" looking for?

"Gee, I'm tired of getting screwed-over. Seems like it's time for a CHANGE"?

The liberal left perpetuates not only everyone else's denial but the false hopes and pseudo-solutions of the American political chimera, the corruption of which is consummate and which serves no other purpose than choreographing a caricature of democracy and ensuring massive social control.

Chris Floyd in a post-election article "What If Bush Did It?". exposes the crux of left-liberal insanity:

WIBDI: What If Bush Did It?

This user-friendly analytical tool provides a quick and easy way of determining the value of any given policy while correcting one's perception for partisan bias. Simply take a particular action or proposal and submit it to the WIBDI test: If Bush did this, would you think it was OK? Or would you condemn it as the act of a warmonger, or a tyrant, or a corrupt corporate tool, etc.? The just-concluded campaign has already shown us how our hordes of our quondam dissidents have signally failed this test, excusing, countenancing, defending or even embracing the actions and positions enumerated below by Chris Hedges:

"Sen. Barack Obama's vote to renew the Patriot Act, his votes to continue to fund the Iraq war, his backing of the FISA Reform Act, his craven courting of the Israeli lobby, his support of the death penalty, his refusal to champion universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans, his call to increase troop levels and expand the war in Afghanistan, his failure to call for a reduction in the bloated and wasteful defense spending and his lobbying for the huge taxpayer swindle known as the bailout..."

Post-Election Comments By Naomi Klein

Appearing on Democracy Now on November 25, Klein wasted no time taking to task Larry Summers, former Clinton Secretary of the Treasury, whom Obama has just appointed Director of the White House National Economic Council. According to Klein, Summers has embraced "the three 'ations', and those were privatization, stabilization, and liberalization. So he has been preaching the [shock] doctrine. He is by no means an innocent bystander. He is a dyed-in-the-wool privatizer and free trader."

Klein has also spoken out loudly about Obama's new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner and Robert Rubin who, although not appointed to a cabinet post in the Obama administration will continue as an economic advisor. We shall consider the backgrounds of Geithner and Rubin below, but first, a troubling statement by Klein in the Democracy Now interview regarding the role of Clinton administration Democrats in the origins of the current economic collapse:

Part of what causes the situation that seems to be very disappointing appointments is the fact we of not been honest about the legacy of the Clinton years. So much misinformation was spread during the election campaign, because it was a nice message to present the nineties as these wonder years in contrast to the Bush years. That is exactly what created the situation where you could have Summers being presented as the wise man instead of going down with Alan Greenspan. When Alan Greenspan's reputation was raked over the coals, it should have Rubin and Summers along side him.

In an October 16 interview, Klein exposes the role of Robert Rubin standing beside Alan Greenspan in promoting the de-regulation that helped create financial meltdown. In fact, summarizing her rant, Klein blatantly states, "I want him thrown under the bus."

And so once again we must ask: What if Bush did it? And like Chris Floyd, Klein has had the courage to ask the question, albeit using different language.

University of Ottawa Economics Professor, Michel Chossudovsky's November 9 article asks "Who Are The Architects of Economic Collapse" and offers a litany similar to Klein's of the key players in Obama's economic entourage. Chossudovsky notes that:

Timothy Geithner is CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is the most powerful private financial institution in America. He was also a former Clinton administration Treasury official. He has worked for Kissinger Associates and has also held a senior position at the IMF. The FRBNY plays a behind the scenes role in shaping financial policy. Geithner acts on behalf of powerful financiers, who are behind the FRBNY. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Of Paul Volcker, now heading Obama's economic team, Chossudovsky states:

Paul Volker was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the l980s during the Reagan era. He played a central role in implementing the first stage of financial deregulation, which was conducive to mass bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, leading up to the 1987 financial crisis.

Another significant player in the Obama economic team is Jon Corzine, current governor of New Jersey and former CEO of Goldman Sachs.

In summary, Chossudovsky asks:

Where are Obama's "Main Street appointees"? Namely individuals who respond to the interests of people across America. There are no labor or community leaders on Obama's list for key positions.

The President-elect is appointing the architects of financial deregulation.

Meaningful financial reform cannot be adopted by officials appointed by Wall Street and who act on behalf of Wall Street.

Those who set the financial system ablaze in 1999, have been called back to turn out the fire.

The proposed "solution" to the crisis under the "bailout" is the cause of further economic collapse.

There are no policy solutions on the horizon.

What we are witnessing is continuity.

We should not take Obama's appointments to task? We should wait until the actions of his administration demonstrate a commitment to the status quo? Such reasoning, I believe, is not only counter-intuitive but an insult to any intelligent mind. What ever happened to "if it slithers, hisses, and strikes like a snake, it probably is"?

Meanwhile, back at the 747 airliner mentioned above and the argument that only insiders know how to fly it-an absolutely valid assertion, if one is unwilling to consider alternatives to the 747 as a means of transportation. However, if one understands that the 747 has been designed to destroy everything in its path and blow up everyone on board, it is not difficult to pursue other options. Or as Richard Moore states in "Obama: Beware of Elites Bearing Gifts",

Humanity is the patient, and capitalism (ie, rule by capitalist elites) is the disease. The agenda of our leaders, and Obama will be no exception, is to sacrifice the patient so that the disease may survive. The agenda will include an expansion of genocide in the third world, assisted by the biofuel market and runaway food prices, and it will most likely include a nuclear confrontation with Russia and perhaps China. As Kissinger says, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Final consolidation of global power is an omelette worth many a sacrifice, particularly if you get to eat the omelette and aren't the one making the sacrifices....

James Howard Kunstler puts it another way:

My own starting point for this is the belief that in the years just ahead any sociopolitical entity organized at the giant scale will flounder -- this includes everything from the federal government to global corporations to factory farms to centralized high schools to national retail chains. So even expecting Mr. Obama's government to act effectively may be asking too much in a situation that will require mostly local action.

What Kunstler is talking about is the collapse, not only of corporate capitalism, but of industrial civilization itself. Anyone who seriously "hopes" that Barack Obama and a cadre of recycled Clinton administration insiders can affect anything remotely resembling significant change does not understand civilization's collapse. That collapse by definition means the end of centralized, large-scale systems based on unlimited economic growth. It also means that increasingly, as those systems collapse, individuals must organize locally to supply all of their own needs, or their needs will not be met.

Most likely, dear reader, you are asking: What can we do? It's really quite simple, and so very, very challenging: Withdraw your time and effort from the larger, centralized system, and invest it in your local economy in the areas of food security, energy, alternative healthcare, education, the arts, and other vital aspects of your local infrastructure. You want leadership? Then lead by joining with others who share your concerns?

None of this will change anything in the macrcosm-it will not bring forth a mass consciousness change or avert the collapse of civilization. It will, however, plant the seeds of a new paradigm of life lived for and with the earth community. Now that's change I can believe in!

A few months ago I was introduced to Stuart and Margaret Osha of Turkey Hill Farms here in Central Vermont. I originally contacted them because people around me were raving about the taste and health benefits of raw milk. In fact, a couple of Truth To Power subscribers who live in the area were thrilled to have attended a workshop with the Osha's on "The Family Cow", and they wanted me to check out Turkey Hill Farms.

I'll never forget the day I met the Osha's and the feeling I had when I left there driving off into the lush, rolling hills with a couple of quarts of raw milk, home made granola, eggs, and vegetables-all produced at Turkey Hill. For the first time in my life I had purchased my food directly from local farmers-not at a farmer's market, but directly from the farmer at the farm, and the feeling of satisfaction and a sense of rightness about it brought tears to my eyes. This was, after all, what I had been promoting for years, and finally, I had the opportunity to practice what I had been writing about.

But Vermont is not the only place where people can and should get to know their local farmer. Opportunities to do so exist almost everywhere in North America. As I have learned more about organic farming, and particularly as I have consumed vast quantities of raw milk and gotten to know the people who produce it, I'm deeply motivated to invite Truth To Power readers to create similar opportunities in their local communities.

I cannot stress the urgency of this. The U.S. financial system is in collapse, and energy costs are likely to come back again next spring and summer with a vengeance that we can't imagine. This will make the price of food, already off the scale, skyrocket even further. We must all get to know our local farmers, or better yet, become them. In the moment, we have the "luxury" of low energy prices, and it is during this time that we should be making food security our top priority.

To that end, I thought that sitting down with the Osha's and allowing them to share their experiences with local farming would be especially useful. They graciously took time from their many chores to speak with me.

CB: Stuart, you were an organic dairy farmer before you moved to this property in Central Vermont. At that time, you wrote a book, Loving A Dying Way of Life, so can you tell our readers a little bit about what inspired you to write the book?

SO: Margaret and I were living on her family farm, and I was doing a lot of writing, and emotions were just coming out about a time in my life that was so dear and precious to me-childhood memories and a sense of community back in the 1940's and 50's. I began to realize that this life as I remembered it, was dying. That's really what inspired it. Margaret and I were farming at the time, and it took a tremendous amount for us to be doing it because there wasn't as much organic dairy farming going on at that time. I think maybe there were thirty-some organic dairy farms in Vermont that were NOFA-qualified.

CB: Can you explain what NOFA is?

SO: NOFA is the Northeast Organic Farming Association, and they do a number of things, but their main focus is certifying farms as organic, and they offer a number of workshops and have an annual conference. They have been the torch carriers for the organic movement here in Vermont and the Northeast.

CB: So there wasn't much support for what you were doing, and you had been talking about The Dying Way of Life. Please feel free to continue with that.

SO: Yes, in the ten years or so since I wrote that book, I could say the dying way of life is coming back. I see it everywhere. And it's so exhilarating to both Margaret and I to see this, and our communities are going to be depending on us once again for this way of life. So at that time in the mid to late-nineties, I really thought that it was dying, and in just ten years, it's started to come back. We notice every year that more and more people are interested in what we do, and more and more people are buying our products. We started out with just having a milk cow, and it's really grown into something tremendously inspiring.

CB: Right now we're finding ourselves in a very painful recession that by all accounts is going to become much more severe. Some very astute economists are calling this what it is, the collapse of the global economic system. An overwhelming majority of our readers eat organic or natural foods and are strongly committed to their local economies and local solutions. What is your sense of the role of local economies and family farms in providing an alternative to the global economy?

SO: Back when 9/11 happened I remember distinctly thinking that it would be good for small farmers because if you want food security you need lots of small farms. Well, obviously it wasn't, and we continued to go in the direction we were already going.

Food security is now a huge issue. When you find out that China's putting chemicals in the milk, that ought to wake up most people-that you need to be buying local, and you need to know the people that you're buying your products from. So I think this has been coming, but the present economic situation is creating an awareness in people that local is better, and they should know their producer.

Everyone is on hold with the oil situation because prices are down now, and people have put that on the back burner because they're worrying more about their mortgages. But in reality, the oil situation will be back, and when it comes back, it will come back with a vengeance, and we're not prepared to face it. The point here is that the prices of food produced locally have always been higher than food from the grocery store, but really not when you consider how much of the grocery store price includes the price of transport.

As we go forward and as we face the economic crisis, the oil crisis, and climate change, locally is going to be the only way to get your food, and it's also going to be a more economical way to get your food.

Also, the development of local communities where people work together and share together-this combination is going to be our road to survival.

CB: In this article we're going to be linking to your Turkey Hill Farm website, and of course, one of your specialties here at Turkey Hill is raw or real milk. You've certainly researched a great deal and have found some very interesting things about raw milk. Please tell us what you know.

SO: I can tell you what I know, and I'm pretty sure Margaret can tell you more. Raw milk gets a bad rap-everywhere-the medical profession, agricultural departments all over the country, and I believe probably there's a lot of politics here as there always is. But the fact of the matter is that raw milk is good for you. It contains enzymes and vitamins that are not depleted through the pasteurization process. It boosts the immune system too. In Vermont, we're very fortunate to be in a state where we can advertise it. We have a naturopath physician who is one of our raw milk customers and sends people here to get it because he wants people to have it as part of their diet.

Vermont law states that you have to go buy raw milk at the farm where it's produced. I think that's a good idea because you should be able to see the cleanliness, milking practices, cows, how the milk is handled and make your own decision as to whether you want to buy it. What we can't legally do yet is advertise products related to the raw milk such as butter and cheese, and that would be a big help if we could.

We've been absolutely amazed. We started out with one cow and a few milk customers. We now have two cows and over 30 customers getting milk from us.

CB: I remember one time you and I were talking about raw milk, and you said "Cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness is the motto." How do you do that?

SO: In any food preparation it's fundamental. It starts with the barn, keeping everything cleaned up every day, the cows, the milking equipment, the udders, how the milk is handled once they have dumped it into the pail, through the strainer, to where it's bottled-everything has to be cleaned very well every day, and attention to detail is crucial. If you don't do that, then you're probably risking some bacteria.

CB: Margaret, do you have anything to add about the raw milk?

MO: Well, I've just been reading The Untold Story of Milk. There's a lot of history in that book. Back in the early 1900's a lot of people were getting sick from city dairies in New York and Boston, and the cows were actually eating swill from liquor making. It was a very unnatural diet for them, yet they produced a tremendous amount of milk. Also the cows weren't housed properly, facilities weren't clean, the swill wasn't that digestible for the cows, and a lot of problems came about from that. It was that poor quality milk that led to the pasteurization process. Yes, there have been cases off and on where raw milk can cause problems, but they stem from doing something unnatural for the cow.

CB: You know, I have to say that my own experience with drinking raw milk has been amazing. I feel so much better, and people have commented that my skin looks better too. For me, it's like medicine.

SO: I've received the same comments, and Margaret has become a chapter leader for the Weston Price Foundation, and we're pretty much following that diet. It's very much about eating whatever you like and not avoiding fat. We've been doing that, and I feel like I've responded tremendously. Of course, we're talking about fats that come from natural, not processed, foods.

CB: This is very much the philosophy of Michael Pollan who wrote Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. It's about eating whatever you like as long as it's natural and not avoiding certain food groups simply because someone says they're not good for you.

Stuart, I'd like to get back to you and your health. A couple of years ago you were diagnosed with cancer and went on a journey that many of us who are cancer survivors are quite familiar with. How did that journey change you?

SO: Well, it did. I looked at life quite a bit differently afterward. My oncologist told me that my chances of not having a recurrence were much better if I were to have chemotherapy. So I did, but it nearly killed me. Actually, I didn't get through it all because of that. At that time I had a business, and I said, "We're getting out; I'm going to sell the business, and we're going to do what we want to do." We weren't sure what we were going to do, but we started to evolve back into a farming situation. Since we have started doing what we're doing now, life has become so sustaining and so inspiring, especially all the people we meet. The illness really changed my thought process.

CB: More recently you've had a spike not only in your raw milk business but with an increase in customers who want to buy organic eggs, butter, cream, organic meat, and vegetables. What do you make of this surge in people who want to buy these products?

SO: I think sometimes that's easy to analyze, but on the other hand it isn't. A big thing for us is being able to advertise the raw milk. Also, if you look at the demographics, many of these people are folks who have moved here from other places. And we are more left of center than some states, although I myself came from a family that was pretty far on the right. These folks have moved here, and they have an appreciation for our quality of life, and they're probably more educated and informed, and they know that food is extremely important.

The difference in the quality of the food from a farm where it's been raised naturally and what you buy in the store-there's no comparison in the flavor.

MO: We've had several people say that they used to be vegetarians, but since they know where the meat is raised and how it's being raised, they're eating meat now.

CB: And so you sell meat?

SO: Yes we sell chicken and pork. We may have some veal to sell by February.

CB: Margaret, I wanted to ask you about the workshops you've been conducting. Why are you presenting these workshops? What has been the response?

MO: We've mostly done a series on raw milk, and most of that has been cheese making. There again we did a workshop this summer through NOFA, and it was called "Family Cow". We were amazed at the amount of interest that generated-probably 30 people from all over the state. The interest in cheese and butter-making has been huge. There are lots of things to do with raw milk besides drink it, and we wanted to demonstrate that. We want to have seasonal workshops with another one coming up in January, probably focusing again on cheese-making. We also want to share some knowledge about broth-making and some of the old time farmer kitchen things that people just don't do so much of anymore. There's an art to doing it well.

I'm just so interested in local food and food that's been raised in a thoughtful, healthy manner. I'm interested in peoples' health, and I feel badly for people who just go to the store and buy prepared food and don't know the joy of cooking-the joy of eating very simply and nutritiously.

CB: You've also become a chapter representative for the Weston Price Foundation. Please tell us what the Weston Price Foundation is, and then tell us what you'll be doing for the foundation.

MO: The Weston A. Price Foundation's president, Sally Fallon, has a wonderful cookbook called Nourishing Traditions. This is all based on the experiences of Weston Price who was a dentist who saw in his practice a generation of people who had very healthy teeth and pallets, and then he started seeing in their children and their children's children that something was changing, and the teeth were becoming crooked with many more cavities, so he decided to travel the world and research diets. He traveled to many different places where people hadn't been exposed to industrialized food, and he found that what people were eating made a huge difference in their dental health. Although the diets of these people varied, they were generally diets of natural foods and were high in fats. The foundation is very much about bringing back traditional ways of raising and cooking food.

As a chapter leader I'll be trying to organize a group of people in the area to help create a resource list of organic farms, holistic practitioners, and others who support natural eating and food production.

CB: In one of our conversations recently you commented that you're both at an age where people should be slowing down, taking it easy, traveling, and not working so hard, but you find yourselves doing just the opposite. Would you comment on this?

SO: Well, I just couldn't slow down. I want to slow down naturally. An old farmer I used to know said, "You can tell when you're getting older when you have to go back out after lunch to finish morning chores." So we slow down naturally, but it's hard to imagine not doing the type of work that we're doing. I would not be happy traveling, camping-a lot of the things that people enjoy in retirement. Actually, this is my retirement. Life doesn't get any better; these are the best years right now as far as I'm concerned-doing good things for the land and for people.

We're part of nature; we're part of the land, and when you have that feeling, it doesn't get any better. That's not to say it doesn't get discouraging sometimes.

MO: Agriculture is in one's blood.

CB: I'm asking this question of both of you now: What is your passion? What excites you and keeps you doing what you're doing? And if I may ask, what is calling you right now?

SO: Farming is my calling. I'm not a social person. I can stay right here for days, but it's so wonderful having people come, coming to get something they want, and the conversation is wonderful. This life that I'm living motivates me and brings me meaning. It's also a very spiritual feeling. I feel close to the land. I love the woods; I love cutting firewood; I love sugaring-I just love it in the woods. Sometimes when I'm having a hard time about whatever, I have to go to the woods.

MO: I have really found meaning and purpose in what we're doing. I love food and everything about it. I love food that I grow; I love preparing food-in fact, I almost have to have a relationship with food, and if I can give that love to somebody else, that really makes me feel good. It feels so good to get back to raising all of our own stuff and being self-sufficient. It has a wonderful purpose for me these days that it didn't have twenty years ago. I feel really blessed to have had all the experiences I've had with cooking, baking, gardening, and farming. I also feel really grateful to be living in Vermont and for all that's happening here.

Summary: As I left Turkey Hill Farms after this interview, I felt what I always feel when I leave there-so blessed and fortunate to know the Osha's and so filled with awe for the work they are doing. My wish for everyone reading this conversation between them and me is that you will be inspired by it to create similar networks in your local community that sustain the land and animals and people around you. My challenge to you-to all of us, is to continue nurturing the "dying" way of life by fortifying your own food security and that of your local place.

Please visit the home page of Turkey Hill Farms where you can purchase Loving A Dying Way of Life. Stuart and Margaret Osha may be contacted at: [email protected]

I'm somewhat sheltered; I admit it. I inhabit the halls of academia, but I also manage a website where up to the minute news is gathered and reported, and I visit stores for necessary items, buy gas, and make medical and dental appointments, so I'm not living a hermetically sealed lifestyle. I may live in a state not yet as hammered by the Second Great Depression as others, but I feel and sense its reverberations everywhere.

About five years ago, even before Truth To Power was born, I was reporting stories forecasting the coming global economic meltdown. I have never been nor will be an economist, but I vowed that I would learn some basic economic concepts in order to grasp what some were calling at that time a "housing bubble." I was assiduously reading and researching the dot connections between 9/11, Peak Oil, economic meltdown, empire, and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. People whose research I respected were warning of an economic collapse, an energy crash, and the catastrophic effects of global warming-none of which, it appeared, would become an imminent threat for at least another decade.

Suddenly, somewhere in 2006 it became apparent to me that the convergence of calamity would occur sooner, rather than later, and I realized that the fabric of empire was unraveling much faster than I had anticipated. I do not wish to re-state the obvious nor attempt to trace the unfolding of events in the past two years and beyond. What I argue, rather, is that the collapse of Western civilization is well underway-and that my work is not to impede but to assist that monumental, mythical, and momentous phenomenon.

Apocalypse
In recent conversation with a friend I reiterated the essence of the preceding sentence to which my friend replied, "That sounds so endtimes." I knew what she meant-rapture, Book of Revelation, Jesus on a white horse attended by thousands of avenging angels hellbent on destroying the earth. I abhor the Christian notion of endtimes with its bloodthirsty white, male, punitive god and would go to any lengths to distance myself from it. Yet the conversation with my friend later set me pondering the grain of truth in her comment. What she had introduced into the conversation was the "A" word: apocalypse.

Throughout the major spiritual traditions on earth one finds what Jung called the archetype, theme, motif of apocalypse. We are all too familiar with the fundamentalist Christian notion of rapture, tribulation, and new millennium now popularized in Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series. Yet Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and myriad indigenous traditions include, for different purposes and with their own unique embellishments, concepts of apocalypse. It appears that apocalypse is a mythic, archetypal phenomenon deeply embedded in the human psyche. Without exception, apocalypse, which actually means "unveiling" or "revealing", is perceived universally as a process in which that which is hidden will be revealed, resulting in some sort of purification. A Hopi prophecy says that "When the Blue Star Kachina makes its appearance in the heavens, the Fifth World will emerge. This will be the Day of Purification." Hopi elders believe that we are now transitioning from the Fourth to the Fifth World and that purification is the purpose of the current upheaval.

I believe that because apocalypse is a fundamental archetype, something in us knows that that is precisely what we are experiencing in the final days of 2008 and are likely to continue experiencing for years to come. Whether we admit it or not, the archetype of apocalypse is percolating in our psyches. Economists and politicians in denial or simply wishing to keep their jobs insist that good times will come again-that everything will bounce back to "normal" in a couple of years. "A long, and deep recession" they continue to parrot, even as beads of sweat gather on their foreheads-a stunning example of fighting for the familiar. We're just sailing through some rough waters, they insist, unable to grasp that what began as a few choppy waves has now become a sea change.

What it is difficult for humans to wrap their minds around is the unprecedented nature of the current moment. We grasp for whatever straws of evidence we can produce that might prove that there's nothing really idiosyncratic about it. Species have come and gone before; the earth itself has been decimated and then restored more than once, we protest. Yet such statements, while accurate, miss the staggering reality that never in human history has our species devoured in a mere two or three centuries nearly all of the hydrocarbon energy painstakingly produced by the planet over the span of millennia; never have so many humans inhabited the earth at one time, nor fouled the earth's surface and atmosphere to the extent of the current blight. And what is even more astounding is the fact that never before in human history have all of these factors occurred simultaneously with the others. So argue as we may for continuity, the current moment is dramatically unique.

Moreover, if apocalypse is an unveiling, what is it that might be revealing itself in the current predicament? Is it the looting of billions, perhaps trillions by the federal government and corporate capitalism? Is it the impotence of presidents and politicians to reverse the unraveling? Is it the reality that they actually orchestrated financial collapse and will profit handsomely from it? Will the "revelation" be the public validation of whistleblowing economic investigators like Chris Martenson, Catherine Austin Fitts, Pam Martens, and Nomi Prins?

I for one wish that those realities were actually being revealed in the waning weeks of 2008, but it may be years or decades before the extent of the plunder becomes fully transparent. However, economic meltdown is not a cause of the collapse, but rather a glaring symptom of it. What is being revealed, I believe, is the profligate, soul-murdering toxicity of Western civilization and all of the assumptions from which it has emerged. As Derrick Jensen notes, "We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means - all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity." From civilization, the values and behaviors that have engendered Peak Oil, climate change, species extinction, and population overshoot were birthed. In essence, civilization is ego and humancentric, refusing to recognize any limitations of its agenda, and deems itself entitled to extract, conquer, own, dominate, and destroy whatever might impede that agenda.

Has civilization also brought us unprecedented opportunities? Indeed it has, but quite often at the expense of our own wellbeing and that of the earth community. And while the majority of inhabitants of civilization are honorable and decent human beings, they have overwhelmingly been deeply wounded, if not driven mad, by it.

All traditions that include an apocalyptic aspect juxtapose an old paradigm with a new one and invite adherents to allow the unveiling of the old to purify consciousness so that they might step into the new. Without exception, according to these traditions, the transition is painful and demanding and necessarily imposes circumstances in which the world as one has known it ends.

Sadly, most individuals being devastated by the current apocalypse, reel with anguish as their homes and livelihoods vanish; as their bodies break down for lack of healthcare; as depression, violence, and suicide reverberate across this nation-yet all the while they question few of the assumptions of civilization on which their lives have been constructed from birth. They wish only to return to the comfort and familiarity of the old paradigm. Hence the delusion of magic bullet "solutions" that will painlessly allow the human race to continue its resource-devouring lifestyle. I have written and continue to believe that it will take massive individual and collective suffering before most Americans will be capable of questioning those assumptions and discerning the difference between the old paradigm and the new. Quite frankly, it is unlikely that most will.

I Told You So
Some individuals who have been forecasting longer than I have the events now unfolding are justifiably saddened, if not enraged, by the obtuseness and denial of other human beings to take seriously their persistent caveats. I share their frustration, and at the same time, I realize that none of this is about me or them or any of our prophetic research. In fact, to continue chanting the "I told you so, I warned you" mantra is to become further mired in the old paradigm. Civilization, after all, is nothing if not hierarchical, competitive, and arrogant.

Apocalypse is demanding the diminution of human ego, in which case, the appropriate response to the masses who didn't listen is not "I told you so," but rather, deep compassion and deep grief. The inability of our species to read the writing on the wall is another chilling testimony to the power of civilization to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually incapacitate its inhabitants. There but for fortune go any of us.

In her article "Are Human Beings Hard Wired To Ignore the Catastrophic Threat Of Climate Change?" Lisa Bennett reveals evidence that suggests that civilization has so damaged human beings that we have been virtually unable to take action to stop climate change which due to our inaction, may now be unstoppable.

I would be the first to admit that I do not have infinite wisdom or impeccable acumen with which to discern all aspects of the current unveiling. I find little pleasure in forecasting what will happen next since apocalypse now has a life of its own. It is by definition mysterious and uncertain. What I do know is that things aren't going to "bounce back" because the "normal" and "familiar" have faded into history. We're in uncharted, unprecedented, and untested waters. How desperately we demand the familiar, but in spite of our flailing, life as we have known it is over. Perhaps the best description of our plight was offered by the late Susan Sontag, not in the words "apocalypse now" but rather, "apocalypse from now on."

Politicians, regardless of how charismatic, brilliant, and astute they may be have little to offer us because their agenda is one of expanding, perpetuating, preserving, and protecting civilization and its values at all costs. While they may be able to ameliorate short-term pain with placebos and band aids, both the overwhelming magnitude of collapse and their commitment to civilization preclude the dawning of insights that might assist them in facilitating their constituents in making a conscious transition to a new paradigm. In fact, as Gerald Celente notes, Obama's "Yes We Can" is a delusion that obscures the harsh reality that "No, we can't" because:

Going to Summers, Rubin, Reich, Tyson, Volker and the rest of them to fix the economy is like fighting the War on Crime by bringing in Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seagal, and Machine Gun Kelly.

'Yes, we can,' sounds good but it is a delusion, 'No, we can't.' Nobody can, given the current socio-political and philosophical make-up of the nation. And, unfortunately, Obama's promise of 'change' is already revealed as a fraud. That won't change either.

Re-Thinking "Gloom and Doom" Definitions
None of this is pleasant to think or talk about, but today it occurred to me that the time for choosing what we get to talk about and how good or bad it makes us feel is over. We no longer have the luxury. We either deal with what's in front of us, or we actively choose suicide.

Whereas some folks who have been forecasting collapse take it personally when others don't pay heed, I tend to take personally the label of "doomer." Those applying the label would not do so if they understood things like apocalypse, civilization, and new paradigm. What I endeavor to do in my writing is clarify those concepts so that my readers can grasp that what we're living through is so much larger, grander, more compelling, momentous, and mysterious than mere "gloom and doom."

What exactly does doom mean? That depends on one's perspective. If you mean that since the earth was built to sustain 2.5 billion people riding bicycles, not 6.5 people all wanting to live in 6000-square-foot homes and that the earth must shed at least 4-5 billion people in order to sustain itself-from that perspective, collapse is synonymous with doom. The current extinction of 200 species on earth per day, and the possibility of the entire human race becoming extinct within a few generations is certainly not a cheerful topic of conversation. But if I seriously believed that these sorts of realities are the only ones to consider in conversations about collapse, then I would deserve to be labeled a "doomer." They aren't, and I don't.

If we can allow it, collapse may take us into mythic territory-to the place within us that civilization was designed to destroy but hasn't-and cannot, to the unveiling of a "new" paradigm that isn't "new" at all because something in us remembers that it is how we were meant to live with ourselves and the earth community.

Civilization does not have to die in order for any of us to experience the unveiling, but there is no question that to do so would be easier if civilization were a faint memory in our minds. I for one am not willing to save it, preserve it, prop it up, put it on life support, or apply salves of salvation. What I am willing to engage in is a vigil-a death watch for civilization while it breathes its last breath and celebrate what is revealed in the process.

Unquestionably, collapse entails suffering, and there are no guarantees that any of us will survive. Many innocent members of the human and other species will perish. Wise people from the great traditions tell us that the transition cannot be made painlessly. What is also true is that it offers something extraordinary-something like what I see in small communities where people are already creating local currencies, becoming first responders for crisis situations, organizing neighborhood watches to provide food and heat for the vulnerable, maintaining winter farmers markets, celebrating the holidays in unique ways that do not focus on consumption but rather, on cooperation. At the same time that I feel pervasive despair nationally, I see unexpected people in unexpected places seizing unexpected opportunities. Who knows if they will survive? Who knows if anyone reading this article will survive? Who knows if I will survive?

But if mere physical survival is all it's about, then we are left with nothing but doom and gloom. If, however, things like cooperation, compassion, building authentic community, and living from a new paradigm, even if only for a brief period of time, occur, then civilization will have been transcended and dealt a significant death blow. Humans who participate in those ventures will have tasted something far more momentous than mere physical survival-something civilization can only obliterate, not sustain: the opportunity to savor one's inextricable connection with all aspects of the earth community. Or as Richard Heinberg reminds us, "Growth is dead. Let's make the most of it. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

Juan Santos, whose articles are frequently featured on the Truth to Power website says it eloquently and succinctly:

...the key tasks before us lie not in saving the global economy, not in creating a "green" economy, not in inventing new ways to exploit new energies in order to continue to mine the life of the Earth, nor in any other activity that would seek to preserve this system in any form whatsoever.

The key tasks before conscious people today are the forging of a profound understanding of what has gone wrong - a sweeping and utter re-evaluation of all values that will be tantamount to a new renaissance, a conscious re-creation and co-creation of culture. Much of that work began to be undertaken in the 1960s, and has borne important fruit, like William Kotke's work, The Final Empire. It is ours to forge an authentically sustainable culture, even in the midst of this civilization's fast approaching end - by relying on and integrating the deepest, clearest and most coherent teachings of traditional indigenous cultures, of students of the ecology, and of the multivalent healing practices of both indigenous cultures and of the new therapies that have arisen in the last 50 years. Such a movement - one that is intent on restoring the Earth and fostering social justice and renewing our cultures by incorporating the values and vision of indigenous peoples - is already underway on a global scale. Paul Hawkens, in his important book Blessed Unrest, calls it an "unstoppable movement to re-imagine our relationship to the environment and one another." His research shows that it is the largest movement in human history, involving some 2-3 million organizations worldwide and some 200 - 300 million people whose cultural, ethical, political and ecological creativity are already impacting billions. That the processes of renewal - of healing, rectifying and relearning - will best be fostered among those in living in direct contact with, and in a caretaking relationship with the Earth and other, non- human living beings should, I hope, be self evident.

As I ponder the quote by Derrick Jensen at the beginning of this article, I notice an extraordinary paradox: If I reject collapse, I reject life, not death. Civilization kills all that it touches. Could it be that the more I facilitate its demise, the more alive I become?

Such is the perspective of John Michael Greer in The Long Descent: A User's Guide To The End Of The Industrial Age (New Society, 2008). Greer provides an excellent read and argues astutely for his theory of catabolic collapse which he describes as "the declining arc of industrial civilization's trajectory through time. Like the vanished civilizations of the past, ours will likely face a gradual decline, punctuated by sudden crises and periods of partial recovery. The fall of a civilization is like tumbling down a slope, not like falling off a cliff." (32)

While Greer gives the intellect a robust workout, there is much in the Long Descent that must be rigorously questioned because of what is not addressed and because of the dangers I perceive are implicit in Greer's resolute, and I believe short-sighted, argument.

First, Greer devotes merely a handful of sentences to the climate change phenomenon which starkly omits a conversation about the interplay of Peak Oil and climate chaos. He does mention the climate nightmare inherent in increased coal burning globally, but absent from a defense of the long descent theory is an analysis of the interplay of the two phenomena. In an excellent 2004 article "Global Climate Change and Peak Oil," geologist and Peak Oil researcher, Dale Allen Pfeiffer explains among other things, "how will Peak Oil and the North American natural gas cliff affect global climate change."

But even without a consideration of the myriad ways in which energy depletion and climate change influence one another, how can one address the issue of collapse without an in-depth exploration of climate change? Professor James Lovelock's most recent research reveals the jaw-dropping speed with which climate change is unfolding. The Guardian reported in late 2007 that Lovelock "claims that even the most pessimistic outcomes predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fail to recognize the speed with which global warming will progress." The most recent research indicates that "global warming is accelerating at a faster rate than climate change experts had previously predicted...."

Additionally perplexing in The Long Descent is little mention of species extinction or population overshoot. I found the scant attention paid to these issues by Greer astonishing and somewhat frightening. As is often the case in the Peak Oil research community, the energy depletion issue in The Long Descent appears to trump other collapse-exacerbating factors. Without a deeper exploration of them, one cannot feasibly argue for a strictly protracted collapse and assert unequivocally that "Nobody now alive will see the end of the process that is now underway." (34)

Clearly, Greer is put off by the apocalyptic, drive-off-the-cliff perspective that postulates a rapid descent. In fact, his revulsion pervades the book. While I share the author's frustration, it inhibits the embrace of a perspective that could be more holistic. By that I do not mean Greer's assertion that the long descent will be protracted but also punctuated by sea-change points of not return. Rather, I mean that arguing for either apocalyptic demise or long-term dissolution eliminates the possibility of holding a both/and perspective.

Why is this important? Because if one allows for the totality of consequences of Peak Oil, climate change, species extinction, and population overshoot, it is highly plausible, perhaps even likely, that a college student reading Greer's book in 2008 could witness or be a casualty of the completion of the collapse process.

Notice my use of the word could. I'm not saying will or won't but could. I believe that the only viable perspective for facing collapse is one of openness to what could or might happen. To argue for either a fast or slow collapse, in my opinion, consumes precious psychic energy that could best be utilized to prepare and to be willing to err on the side of caution. The fact of the matter is that we are currently in the throes of collapse, and many of us have gardens to plant, food to store, skills to learn, and necessary items to make or buy. Horrific aspects of collapse may erupt in the next three years or the next thirty. My work, I believe, is to hold in my mind and body the eventualities of both, not only for intensely practical reasons, but as a mental and spiritual exercise which may well nurture incalculable resilience in the face of adversity.

Moreover, if one considers the impact of the above three factors in addition to the consequences of Peak Oil, it becomes highly debatable that "If we accept that the Long Descent is inevitable and try to make it in a controlled manner...the way is open not only for bare survival, but for surviving in a humane and creative fashion while preserving as much of value as possible for the future." (131) This statement appears after Greer's consideration of three different ways of responding to collapse: political action, survivalism, or building lifeboat communities. The fundamental reason that political action untenable has to do with the central role of cheap and abundant energy in all modern political systems. Survivalism, says Greer, is not a viable option because one's prognosis for surviving alone in the woods is uncertain at best. On the other hand, he argues, building lifeboat communities may be risky in that they are likely to resemble, in his opinion, communes of the sixties and seventies comprised of spoiled young whites who had no concept of the physical rigor such endeavors would require. Therefore, Greer devotes a sizeable section to "Coping With Catabolic Collapse".

In order to understand his guidelines for coping, it is first necessary to define catabolic collapse. According to Greer, "In a growing or stable society, the resource base is abundant enough that production can stay ahead of the maintenance costs of society's capital, that is, the physical structures, trained people, information, and organizational systems that constitute the society. Capital used up in production or turned into waste can easily be replaced." (79)

Conversely, in a society in catabolic collapse, "resources have become so depleted that not enough is available for production to meet the maintenance costs of capital. As production falters, more and more of society's capital becomes waste, or is turned into raw material for production via salvage....if resource depletion continues, the catabolic process continues until all capital becomes waste." (79)

Among the many suggestions Greer offers for navigating the descent are: drastic reduction of energy, choosing a viable profession, learning skills that will be in demand in a post-industrial age, and taking charge of one's own health. I believe that these are vital steps to take whether one adheres to a fast collapse, a protracted collapse, or what I have continually promoted, the holding of both opposites in one's consciousness without adherence to one scenario or the other.

What I most appreciate from Greer's work is the distinction he makes between "problems" and "predicaments". A problem, he says, calls for a solution which once employed eliminates the problem. A predicament, however, has no solution. Faced with predicaments, people come up with responses which may fail, succeed, or fall in between, but none of them eliminates the predicament. The industrial era (or empire) has reframed many predicaments as problems that can be solved. For example, this culture's mythology of progress assumes that the goal of civilization is to eliminate poverty, illness, death, and other aspects of the human condition, which it believes can be eliminated with technology. On this Greer notes that:

The difficulty with all this is that predicaments don't stop being predicaments just because we decide to treat them as problems. There are still plenty of challenges we can't solve and be done with; we have to respond to them and live with them. (23)

As Greer states, civilization has repeatedly tried to turn all predicaments into problems to be solved. Three decades ago, energy, climate, population, and species extinctions were problems or potential problems that were ignored and eventually became predicaments.

Greer's distinction of the two underscores the absurdity of questions like "How do we solve Peak Oil?" or "What can we do about climate change?" While there are absolutely no "solutions" to these predicaments, there are clearly responses that humans can make which is why for years I have been talking about "options" rather than "solutions."

What is not only unsettling but downright disturbing about The Long Descent is the response to it that I have heard recently from folks who have read it. Comments such as "Well it sounds like collapse is going to take longer than we thought, so I'm feeling more relaxed about it and don't have a sense of urgency like I did before." I find this conclusion, strongly suggested by the books thesis, unequivocally frightening. Given the other key factors rapidly accelerating collapse that were not given sufficient attention in The Long Descent, this is an untenable response to the demise of civilization and demonstrates how seductively the book's fundamental premise can assuage humanity's intricately constructed denial system.

I find this particularly disturbing at this juncture of the unraveling as the United States and other nations revel in the giddy inebriation of the messiah archetype which has captured collective consciousness with the election of Barack Obama. Surely now, everything will be different; our savior will deliver us. We can relax about collapse-in fact, we can go back to sleep.

The Long Descent is very worth reading, but if you come away from it with some sense that a weight has been lifted, you have overlooked its rather startling omissions and would benefit from simply savoring its splendid literary qualities and then allowing it to find its rightful place among an assortment of outstanding works on collapse.

My endorsement of The Long Descent is included among other endorsements in the book's first two pages, and I stand by it. At the same time, having given it another read and now hearing collective sighs of "relief" regarding the speed of collapse, I feel compelled to contribute this caveat.

I invite you to read it carefully and critically yet not miss the brilliance of John Michael Greer and his research.

I consider the above quote by Sharon Astyk the absolute crux of her extraordinary book. Having read every book I've been able to get my hands on regarding collapse preparation, I was at first uncertain about what Sharon might have to offer us that would be new and refreshing. However, that concern was quickly assuaged when I opened Depletion and Abundance.

Sharon is a former academic, but while crisp, clear, and concise, the style of her writing is not so much scholarly as it is incisive and compassionate. Sharon is the mother of four children and a devoted partner of her academic husband, to whom she dedicates her book, and how she keeps just those plates spinning, in addition to writing a book and maintaining a blog eludes me. But as she tells us in the book, the lifestyle and collapse preparation choices she's been making in recent years have significantly simplified the lives of her family and allowed her to both care for them and manifest her literary prowess.

Sharon's introduction is priceless in its succinct, dead-on analysis of collapse, and is reason enough to buy and send this book to everyone you know who is partially or completely clueless about where we're headed. Noting that what is unfolding in the United States is nothing less than a national Katrina, she states that "Unless we get to work both protecting our families and building existing mitigating structures, most of us may face lives that will make those of Katrina victims look rich and pleasant." (5) We can't simply go on trusting that rich and important people will fix things for us because, of course, they won't. (6)

Depletion and Abundance is not grandiose in assuming that somehow, if we follow ten easy steps, we can protect ourselves from the vicissitudes of collapse, but rather that "...if enough of us can focus our eyes on the future, we can at least mediate some of the worst coming harm for our own families and for others...."

Protection is a lovely idea, but Sharon continues throughout the book to reiterate the reality that protection equals preparation which equals devoting a significant amount of our time and energy to lifestyle changes and conscious, arduous work as well as the expenditure of some money. It means devoting time and energy to gardening, cooking from scratch, insulating one's home, recycling, consuming far less than we do now, buying used items when possible, heating and cooking with renewable energy sources, and so much more. Quoting Samuel Johnson who said, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Sharon adds that "there is nothing more likely to change our lives than knowing that our kids and grandkids might go hungry, that we might die in middle age because we can't afford basic medication, that people we love-or even total strangers-might suffer horribly because of our actions. We need to concentrate our minds and our lives on this-it is the greatest challenge in history." (17)

Sharon is greatly concerned that in this, the crisis of all crises, we may revert to what is easy-focusing on demonstrating, voting, and writing political leaders, but not integrating our activism with our daily lives and values. Moreover, the days ahead, she says, will compel us to unify-within ourselves and with each other. Gone are the days when we can dis-identify with and feel superior to the most victimized members of our society-the poor, the disabled, and the elderly because we may soon be them.

Sharon is not preachy, although sometimes, I am. She does not tell us directly that we need to put our activism to the acid test of action, but certainly, all of her work communicates it. I certainly believe that while one's activist efforts may be unequivocally noble, the real question is: Are you planting a garden? Are you storing food? Are you preparing your family for a world where necessities cannot be obtained in stores and where unless you're making, growing, or storing them, you won't have them?

Isolation and rugged individualism will get us nowhere except dead. We need to begin deciding right now how our neighborhoods will get water, how we will check on the elderly and disabled, and communities need to decide where and how kids will get an education when the buses stop running. Community gardens and group carpool excursions to what stores may still exist in a few years will be imperative.

Two themes permeate Depletion and Abundance: The necessity of having "a viable backup plan for a crisis in the near future" and the reality that making preparations for collapse is fundamentally good for us in other ways besides planning for the future. What could be more enriching for our lives than eating better food, lowering our energy consumption, getting more exercise, and spending more time with our loved ones? And of course, some of our choices will be easier than others. For example, it's not as challenging to put up rain barrels or grow a garden as it is to pick up and move to another part of the country that may be safer and more sustainable on many levels which, needless to say, is an enormous decision. I should know; I've just done it. Perhaps most emotionally demanding is the reality of living in two worlds at the same time-looking to the future while staying focused in the present.

Early on, the book distinguishes between the "formal" economy-you know, the official one that this culture tells us is the only one that matters (55) and the real economy which includes all the work done by everyone. The informal economy is the one in which transactions happen "under the table" or certainly out of the mainstream of the formal economy, and it is into this informal economy that we must increasingly move in order to survive. Sharon is not suggesting that we engage in a criminal economy, but I'm sure she would agree that in times of abject collapse, such as those described by Dmitry Orlov in Reinventing Collapse, the lines between the two economies may become blurred.

In terms of the informal economy, we won't be renting office space to carry on our business, but will need to do so at home. Many people are likely to be living in the same house in order to make ends meet. If we have jobs, the question of how to get to work will be primary. If we choose to own a home, we will have to decide how to maintain it without allowing it to consume most of our resources. The meaning of home, says Sharon, is about to change. "We're heading back to a culture of permanence, so the very first question is not, 'Where do I go?' but 'Where do I stop and stay?'" Not only is massive mobility over as a result of energy depletion, but it isn't at all conducive to staying put and making preparations with our families and community. Boiling it down to just five words, Sharon says: "Go home and stay there." (151)

What has always drawn me to Sharon Astyk's writing, besides her inveterate, irreverent humor, is her ability to concretize her theories in the most specific and ordinary manner. So after 172 pages of theory interspersed with practical suggestions, she offers us a vignette-a day in the life of Sharon and her family. These pages gave me more insight into how she navigates maintaining a family and her work at the same time, and while I must confess that it left me feeling empathically fatigued, I also realized that for the most part, everyone in Sharon's family works hard together to do what must be done.

Two hard-hitting chapters toward the end of the book left me squirming-"The Hand That Stirs The Pot, Rules The World" and the chapter on health care. Both Sharon and Michael Pollan have exhaustively explored the politics of food, but of course, Sharon has done so from the perspective of a mother. Repeatedly, she admonishes us to be deeply involved with our food which forces us to be involved with seasonality and our food supply's link with nature. Additionally, she tells us that growing and preserving our food is everyday work. If we intend to eat, we must constantly be involved with these two tasks.

If one is not engaged in these tasks and is still dependent on others for obtaining ones' food supply, one will always be at the mercy of the power of corporations which care nothing about nutrition or food security. The challenges Depletion and Abundance toss in our laps are daunting: "Food preservation and food production are keys to democracy....As long as we depend on large corporations to meet our basic needs, we'll never be able to judge them fairly or eliminate their power in our society. That is, we cannot simultaneously call for an end to multinational monoliths and also pay them to do something as basic as feed us.....We should not owe our lives to entities we deplore." (206)

Ouch!!

That "ouch", however, isn't as painful as the chapter on health care. I've heard many ideas about health care from experts consciously preparing for the complete collapse of that system, and I haven't heard any options for home-based healthcare that don't leave me shaking in my boots. Although I hoped not to mention it in this review, the paltry options that will exist when the system doesn't are grim reminders that many people will not survive collapse for any number of reasons. This is the elephant in the room that we tend to avoid when discussing collapse.

However, nothing could be more real or more poignant. And if the planet, according to many experts, needs to shed 4 or 5 billion people in order to survive, then survival may be the exception, rather than the rule. When we finally recognize this reality, then we are immediately in the territory of something greater and more momentous than our physical existence, namely issues of meaning, purpose, and mystery. Depletion and Abundance does not address these topics, but I do in my forthcoming online book, The Spirituality Of Collapse.

Depletion and Abundance is not a feel-good book, but it is intensely human, compassionate, supportive, practical, alarming, enlivening, and astonishingly accurate. Whatever emotions may surface as you read it, Sharon reminds us that "The only antidote to fear I know is good work...the way out of this current crisis is through it, to go forward from where we are, with what we have and who we are. It isn't required that we not be afraid or that we don't spend a lot of time grumpily wishing that someone else would do the work and leave us alone with our book. But it is required that while we curse fate, previous generations, the current administration, G-d and the Federal Reserve, we get to work."

Sharon and I have sometimes been thought of as "doomer girls", but for all our insistence that our readers face reality, we both endeavor to empower them with opportunities, not for saving a world which may now be un-saveable, but for protecting and preparing on a variety of levels-and finding meaning in doing so.

I've personally bought and sent Depletion and Abundance to several friends, suggesting that we all do the work that is in front of us in order to protect ourselves and those we love and trust. It is my pleasure to recommend the same to you, dear reader, and to encourage you to run, not walk, to read this book and circulate it far and wide.

CLICK HERE to visit Sharon Astyk's blog

CB: It seems like as you're talking, the Gathering Inn would be a wonderful place for couples or individuals or families to come for the weekend and rest and sort of have a vacation with people who are on the same page and therefore not feel so isolated as they do in the real world they live in day after day.

TB: A friend recently suggested that it would be a good place for people to come where they could let out that part of themselves that always has to keep their awareness to themselves.

CB: I notice that the sub-phrase on your logo is "a next-paradigm inn." Can you say more about that?

TB: I notice that everyone talks about the next paradigm, but nobody does anything about it. It became really clear on our screening tours that we have to move beyond talking about that different level of awareness that Einstein pointed to, taking some steps and kind of feeling our way into what that might be by planting some seeds. Future generations will certainly have more to say about it than we will, but we can plant those seeds and start some movement in that direction. So we're trying to do that.

We're trying to ask: How does it feel to move beyond control and hierarchy and domination from a culture that is essentially a huge, dysfunctional ego structure to find some other way of being that isn't about domination and control? How do you get along with your partners? How do you make decisions? How do you conduct yourself in the world? How do you relate to the land and the larger community? We're feeling our way through that, and we stop and ask ourselves, for example: What would be a new way to think about money? What would be a new way to think about the energy exchange of a tribal member or how we're going to relate with other local folks.

SE: Tim mentioned that we might be a resource to individuals, couples, and families, and one of the things we've run across a lot is that often people who become aware of Peak Oil and other issues, often their spouse is hesitant to look deeply on the issues, and it's putting a lot of stress on couples. At the inn, we call ourselves the "inn-mates", and two of the "inn-mates" are psychotherapists, and we can see that the Inn is a place where we could do a couples' retreat or a couple could come for a weekend and do some intensive work around that.

One of the things that people who work with couples know is that it's very common for couples' to become polarized on issues, whether it's how clean or messy the house is going to be, how are we going to do money, or some other issue. One person in the couple will spend hours and hours diving into the information on the state of the world, glued to the computer screen to get alternative news, while the other member of the couple is completely blocking that out, and neither couple is living a very healthy life, and there may be a huge breach between them. So we may be in a unique position to offer some real compassion and a resting place for families and couples that are in that situation where both spouses could be deeply seen and heard, and the strength of each of those positions be seen and heard. Then they can stop polarizing and start to come back together again. It's another example of being of service to a rather unique group of people-people who are waking up to how incredibly serious and impending the current ecological, environmental, and economic situations are.

CB: I wanted to ask both of you if either of you has a spiritual practice and if so, how that's impacting your lives now.

TB: It feels like at this point, my whole life is a spiritual practice, and it's almost hard for me to think how it could be otherwise. My whole life is kind of revolving around getting clear about what is so-about myself, about my ego, about the world situation and relating to what's so as clearly as I can which feels like sanity to me. As I look at the world situation and how dire it is, I realize that if nothing else, I get to live as a sane human being in the face of this for as long as I get to be here.

Daniel Quinn said that the world is a sacred place and a sacred process and that we're part of that. It feels truer now than ever. The only game that's worth playing is the spiritual game where we face into the fatal diagnosis and burn away the stuff that doesn't matter and see what's left. We step fully into the questions of meaning and purpose and why we came here and what we came here to do-who we're working for and what our marching orders are-and living from those as powerfully as we can in every moment and cutting aside the crap.

SE: I used to say that I had three aspects to my spiritual practice: my psychotherapy practice which gave me the opportunity to come fully into the present in order to deeply hear my clients; the second being my morning journaling practice which allows me to come fully into the present of whatever is going on inside me and go deeper with that; and third, sitting in council or circle with other people in order to surface my assumptions on every level and question those and notice where my ego is identified with a position and let go of that and find something deeper.

Because I've just moved to Vermont I haven't had time to establish a private practice, so mostly my spiritual practice is the time I spend journaling or sitting in circle with the residents of the inn. The effect is tremendous. I feel like as hard as that work is, I'm watching all of us shedding layers of ego. I'm watching Tim, who has a large intellect and a large heart, hauling trash and doing rather mundane things, doing them with a great deal of peace. He's very much put himself into this new place of confronting ego. We've been listening to and reading Eckhart Tolle's material, and it's been extremely helpful. We've been engaging in the ongoing practice of noticing ego identification and bringing oneself back to the present moment that Tolle talks about.

Life, as dire as the daily news is, has become more simple and immediate and in that way, very fulfilling.

CB: I'm noticing that we're doing this interview on September 11, and I'm wondering how the current news is hitting both of you.

TB: I'm not hugely plugged into the current news because so much of it is re-runs, but there are new things too. What I mainly think about it is, this is what collapse looks like. It's exactly what we would expect collapse to look like and what it was predicted collapse would look like. I feel like I was born into a civilization that was in the beginning stages of collapse-it's been going on a long time and spiraling to the point now where it's huge and fast and noticeable to more and more people.

I get confused by the debate over "fast collapse" or "slow collapse". I don't understand the need to come to some sort of decision about what it's going to look like. It seems to me that we have the potential to have the collapse of civilization take place over a long time, and it also seems that there's huge potential for things to happen very quickly. For me, the task is to hold both at the same time, all the time. That's a hard thing to do, but to me it's the only thing that makes sense. So every day we have to live knowing that we live in the dominant culture, and we have to play the rules of that game-making plans, having dreams and visions for the inn, for our lives, for what we'd like to create, and we have to do that every day knowing that it could all change very quickly, and knowing that it may not. So I expect long periods of slow decline that are hardly noticeable punctuated with quick periods of very noticeable things on a smaller regional scale. Hurricanes may cause damage to major cities that doesn't ever get cleaned up because the money and energy that are needed to rebuild aren't there.

A couple of months ago we had a huge flood in Hancock. It washed out roads, and we don't know if they'll get repaired before winter. The continuing spiraling out of control of the banking system and all of that-the military and political bluster that's going on; the insanity which is the election in the mainstream culture-all of that is what collapse looks like.

SE: The current news hits me in really human ways. I get terrified sometimes; I get incredibly sad; the climate situation, by all accounts is a done deal. There's so much evidence that there's likely nothing that can be done at this point, which is a really unpopular thing to talk about. I get really sad because it looks like the extinction of much of the diversity of life, including the possibility of the extinction of all the large mammals, including humans, is in front of us and likely. That's where the spiritual practice comes into play because, as Tim said earlier, spiritual practice is about being with things exactly as they are and being in the present moment. Things exactly as they are means that because of technology I have access to knowing all over the planet as well as experiencing the daily moments of sweetness in my own life. To be only focused on one or the other, is not to be fully aware and awake.

And so the news of the day hits me as a deeper call to separate out ego from the essential life force that I happen to get to experience right now. Even my ego identification as the "special species" of human being, I get to let go of that and say, "Maybe human beings aren't so special after all. Maybe there's a much larger story that will unfold as a result of this." But to be fully human means to embrace the tragedy of what is happening right now. To feel it, and grieve it and at the same time, to enjoy the unbelievable feel of the fall air here in Vermont as the sun beats down on me here on your deck and to not miss that. So the news of the day hits me as another opportunity to wake up.

TB: Two weeks ago another report came out regarding new evidence for the frozen methane hydrates in the ocean and vast plumes of methane bubbling up as a result of ocean warming. My overall response to that is that it calmed me down and centered me which is why over and over I open my inbox in the first place and look at what's going on in the world. That's part of my spiritual practice-relating to that level of what's so in the world. And for me, it's like a really strong fan-it just blows the crap away. I could get really lost in the to-do list at the inn and the fact that guests are coming and what do we prepare? But when vast plumes of methane are bubbling up from the ocean, it becomes really clear, really quickly that most of that daily minutiae doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm alive and living right now with people who love me and whom I love. I'm on a beautiful piece of land that I'm learning to love. I have this moment, this time, and the honor of being able to do what work I can in the world for the planet and the community of life. That's one of the things that news of the world does for me. It makes me very clear what I'm here for and what's important.

CB: I really love something you said about your spiritual practice at that level-that it's your obligation in your spiritual practice to let in the realities of what is so. I think a lot of times, people have a different idea of what a spiritual practice is. They often assume that they can't have a satisfying spiritual practice unless they tune that stuff out.

TB: That's something I've been very confused about in my life. "Spiritual" is a bad word in scientific, materialist culture. It gets conflated with belief and religious systems. For years, I didn't know what it meant. I used to ask Sally what "spiritual" is, and she answered, "It's being related to what's so." When I thought about it and let that in, I realized, "Oh, well then I'm spiritual!" That seems to be my work in the world-to challenge taboos, to look at what's under the official story, and question assumptions. It's wonderful, and it's hugely important. Anything less than that, for me, feels insane.

SE: One of my favorite texts has been "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" by Chogyam Trungpa in which he says so clearly that how much of what is considered spirituality is just fancy materialism-a dressing up as if spirituality is sitting on a cushion thinking nice thoughts or trying to visualize what you really want. To me, so much of that is the trappings of ego. Rather than asking "What do I want?" or trying to attain some state of bliss, it seems to me, "What is being called for from me?" Sometimes that has moments of bliss to it; very often it's not blissful. It's mundane or simple or sad. That brand of spirituality that is trying to achieve something other than being related to the totality to me is just kind of a fancy dressing up of denial and ego identification.

TB: It's like the big three questions for me right now are: How do I take this huge, dysfunctional, insane, hyperindividualized ego that I have and fit it back into a tribe? How then do I take this tribe of egos and fit it back into the community of life? And then how do we all together face into the insoluble problem? Because there's no way in the dominant world view, there's no solution for this problem. Those, for me, are all deeply spiritual questions. It's the only work that I can see doing right now.

SE: And I think it's really important to point out that those are deeply spiritual questions, AND there aren't any definitive answers to them. What one person is called to do may look very different from what someone else is called to do. And I think that's a place where it's really easy to get judgmental. Some people want to start blowing up dams and taking down cell phone towers. Other people want to go sit on a mountain top and chant until things shift, and it may be that all of those heartfelt expressions of love and concern for the planet will be necessary. And it may be that all of those will be completely useless in the end. One thing I'm pretty convinced of is that if they're coming from ego, they won't be very useful. But if they're coming from a deeper place of connectedness to that which is greater than the human ego, they're more likely to be effective. For me, those actions that come from those deeper places are definitely more fulfilling.

TB: We can't know ultimately the usefulness or uselessness of it regardless of where this is heading. That's another thing the news of the day continually causes me to face: I have no idea what's going to happen or how it's going to play out. I can look at trends and make guesses, but ultimately, I don't know. It could be that there will be some mass consciousness change or some effective resistance or some way in which the earth itself steps in and stops this. Actually, it looks to me as if that's what the earth is doing right now.

Ultimately, even if it fails on the material plane and this mass extinction plays itself out the way it looks like it's going to, we can't really know what's going into the "morphic field" or the "mind of God" or the "quantum soup" or whatever metaphor you want to use to describe the reality of the universe which we barely comprehend. We don't know, and so that's really another question we are constantly in: How do you get up in the morning and do what you're called to do, knowing that it may not work on the material level?

SE: The ego really, really hates that. It hates not knowing, not being in control, the uncertainty of it all. The ego always wants things nailed down and defined so that it can be identified with it. So the challenge it seems to me is to simply do the best one can do and hold that we don't know. And there's a real liveliness that happens in my experience when I'm able to do that.

CB: I want to ask you one more question, and it's about an image you used frequently in the documentary. At the end of "What A Way To Go", you talk about building boats, and I'm just wondering, is the inn your lifeboat?

TB: I always squirm a little bit at the idea of a lifeboat, and even though I used the image at the end of the documentary, it also spoke of three kinds of boats: lifeboats, arks, and pirate ships. There's a way in which people grasp on to this idea of the lifeboat, and it's very humancentric. It's kind of like human beings jumping into the lifeboat to save themselves from a civilization that's sinking. It's the humancentricity that makes me squirm. I don't feel at this point that I'm really working for the human race except insofar as working for the human race is working for the whole community of life. It feels to me like the planet, the community of life is my boss. That's the highest good to be served here-the worlds of life and spirit and not just human needs. So I do have hesitancy about speaking about lifeboats because I think it fosters that kind of thinking-saving our own butts.

At the same time if this human experiment is going to be redeemed, if the choice is to evolve or die, if we are going to evolve, it's going to take some of us living into the future to do so. And so I find it worth my energy to do what I can in the world to create a place or sanctuary for myself, my tribe, my kids, my family to have a chance to navigate the collapse as well. So I don't want to take myself out of the community of life; I want to include myself as worthy of going forward, and we'll see what happens.

SE: I wish I could say that the inn and the 2.5 acres that we're fortunate enough to be situated on is an ark and that it's going to really preserve a large diversity of life. I don't know how much we'll be able to do that, but I do like the image of the ark better than the image of the lifeboat because as Tim said, it's not so humancentric-it's about a larger community of life.

I hadn't really thought about it until Tim said it, but it also could be seen as a pirate ship because what we're doing is trying to take as many of the resources that have been ripped out of the planet that are already there-the paint that's stored in the basement, for example, and utilize them for something greater. I like that image of being on the high seas in a great adventure and taking what we can out of the culture and putting it to a higher use. So while the grid is up, let's make the best use of it, and when it's gone, let's be done with it.

TB: One thing that's clear to me is that part of what I need to be doing right now is finding my place in an ecosystem. Moving to Vermont was instrumental in that-to get back north, to get to a place that looked and smelled like home and to land in a place that I have a real opportunity to fall in love with.

As Derrick Jensen points out, if the land was our beloved we would be protecting and guarding it and not allowing it to be destroyed in the way it is, so to me, our little 2.5 acres in Central Vermont is a place I've moved to in order to let it work on me, to become my beloved and a place where I can be a guardian.

CB: So my last question to you is: What is your vision for the inn?

TB: Our vision for the Gathering Inn is slowly clarifying. Beyond serving as a Bed and Breakfast for weary travelers, we see ourselves as being of particular service to people who are looking at the world situation and wanting some opportunity to reflect on that, or even just to have a place where they can hang out and not feel like they have to watch what they say, which is often the message we get from the mainstream world, we who are looking at and talking about peak oil and climate and economic meltdown and dying oceans. We can do that with more conscious conversations and locally grown foods at mealtimes, but also with workshops and trainings and circles and retreats--workshops on everything from alternative building and permaculture to community building and activism and the spiritual response to the present predicament. And we can do that by actually, as much as is possible, and more and more every day, stepping not only into a lifestyle that gives back more than it takes, but into a mind-set, a world-view, a way of being and thinking and feeling, that steps away from the dominant paradigm of control and domination and hierarchy, and into some next paradigm. We're feeling our way into something new, not only on the ground but in our hearts and minds, burning away our dysfunctional ego structures and our unquestioned assumptions and planting the seeds for what's next, not only in our greenhouses and gardens but in our human tribe.

If you're watching the state of the world and are up to speed on the collapse of civilization, and if you want to take a vacation or just get away for the weekend, where do you go? Do you want to hang out with folks who haven't noticed that "normal" is over and that a new paradigm is foisting itself upon us whether we welcome it or not? If that's you're only option when planning your getaway, you may lose your motivation to pursue it-unless you could escape to a place where you'd be surrounded by people who know what you know and are willing to talk about it with you.

Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson, creators of the powerful documentary "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire", now own and operate the Gathering Inn in Hancock, Vermont-a lovely bed and breakfast on 2.5 acres of gorgeous land between two stately mountains on the southern portal of the Mad River Valley of Central Vermont. In addition to a lovely setting and lots of TLC, the Gathering Inn's cook, Kathleen Byrne, creates a variety of scrumptious palette-pleasers for guests, seasoned with love and many years of culinary expertise.

Fall is has arrived in Vermont, and soon the brilliant colors of foliage season will grace our hills and valleys. It's a short season, but a perfect time for a weekend escape to the crisp, clean air and the magical, serene beauty of the Green Mountains in autumn.

I caught up with Tim and Sally a few days ago and had the privilege of spending a couple of hours asking them questions about their new venture, and a lengthy dialog ensued. It became so extensive and rich that I felt we needed to present it in two segments.

CB: What are you guys up to these days?

SE: We've done this really "crazy" thing-we've gone into debt buying an inn in Vermont in the midst of a resource crisis that will never end at a time when tourism and the hospitality business are likely to take a huge dive as we stumble over the threshold of a Second Great Depression.

CB: Well, I'm laughing at this somewhat black humor, but I'm also wondering how do you feel about that.

SE: I feel alternately really grateful and excited, and occasionally kind of terrified. We had gotten ourselves debt-free, and it was a big thing to step back into a mortgage.

CB: Well, tell me how all this came about. This is a pretty gutsy thing to do in these times. But why don't you first tell me how you ended up in Vermont?

TB: Vermont has been on our radar for years now as we started hearing about the Vermont secessionist movement and the Vermont Manifesto by Thomas Naylor. That was intriguing, and having lived for a couple of decades in the South and never having felt at home there, it was time for me to get back to the North where I was born. So as we went on our screening tours last summer and fall, we had our eyes wide open, and we spent some time in Vermont and compiled a long list of reasons why it made sense to move here. Actually, there's a way in which it felt as if Vermont decided that we had to move there, and we had to obey that. We received "marching orders" to move to Vermont, and we did, and we had to get our rational minds on board, and that's what the process has been about the last few years.

SE: When we heard about the secessionist movement in Vermont, it wasn't so much that we thought it was viable, but rather, what was impressive was the high level of discourse-that it would even be talked about and talked about with incredible thoughtfulness. For a long time I had been thinking about the scale of things-that it had gotten so huge in the United States that there was no way for any participatory democracy to happen. When the scale of things gets so big, it just invites corruption and disconnection so that people can engage in all kinds of crazy, psychopathic behavior and never be detected because the layers of government and power are so hidden that we don't even see what's going on. So the fact that Vermont was having this conversation about things like human scale just felt really inspiring and inviting.

TB: It also told us that there were people here that are involved in questioning basic assumptions, and that's what we feel like we are about most of the time-questioning the assumptions at every level of our lives in this culture. We wanted to come and do that here where other people seem to be doing that.

SE: So there were all kinds of rational reasons, but I think it just felt like an extremely good fit. There were other places in the country that we traveled to. For example, there's lots of consciousness and awareness on the West Coast and in the Southwest, but we both have families-grown children on the East Coast, and with times being as tumultuous as they are, I couldn't bring myself to consider living as far away as the West Coast and being that far away from my adult offspring.

CB: So you're living in Hancock in Central Vermont, and I'm wondering exactly how that happened. How did you end up living in an inn?

TB: While we were traveling back from Michigan in June where we had gone to Traverse City to do a screening at Michael Moore's theater, we got an email from a realtor, whom we had met last August, saying that she had found the perfect place for us which had just gotten listed. Within a couple of days of returning from Michigan, we went and checked out the inn.

SE: It was another one of those kinds of things where it just felt right-like it fit, just as Vermont felt like it fit in terms of scale. The little town of Hancock which is right next to the small town of Rochester and not far from the small towns of Warren and Waitsfield and the whole Mad River Valley-it all just felt like it fit in terms of scale. For one thing, we want to know our neighbors.

TB: It came to make sense to us to put ourselves on the edge of a village. The phrase "be on the edge of a village" kept coming to us. When we looked at more rural places far off the main road, it just didn't feel right-they felt too remote and isolated. The inn is right on the edge of a little village and right on a main state highway. There's something about that that feels really good in terms of going into the future. It's a place where life is happening on human scale and where we can join in that.

SE: And as for "why an inn?" we had the option of just getting a little house on a small piece of land, but there was something that didn't feel big enough about that. It's like the movie "What A Way To Go" and having a conversation at the end of a screening-people can wake up and have breakfast with us, and if they want, they can continue the conversation with us. But we want to go into the conversation in deep and profound ways. To just have a house that didn't have any sense of a public place or purpose or interface--that didn't feel big enough. So when we walked into the inn it felt like "this fits; this is right." It was really very intuitive, and we realized that this was a way that we could open ourselves up to continuing the conversation but on a very intimate and local scale, both with our local community and with people who come to stay at the inn. The first thing in the morning, a person can have coffee with us, and we can talk about the state of the world in quiet, thoughtful ways. Something really felt right about that.

TB: One of the best things about the inn is that it only comes with 2.5 acres of property. So we will never be tempted to do the "do it yourself" survivalist thing because there's not enough land. We are forced by that structure and by being on the edge of the village to develop relationships with everyone else in the valley to get what we need and to provide them with what they need. So it will naturally compel us to create not only our little community at the inn but to find ourselves in this larger community. An inn by its very nature is a place of outreach, as Sally was just talking about, so we can end up becoming in Richard Heinberg's terms, more of a preservationist community than a survivalist community. We can become a place that reaches out, makes itself useful in the wider community, and in doing so find whatever security is available to have in these days.

CB: So it doesn't sound to me like it's going to be the traditional "eco-village" establishment.

SE: No, as Tim said, it's too small to begin with although we did have Chuck Marsh, a permaculturist, come and stay with us for a week to help us put a lot of thought into how to make the 2.5 acres provide some of our food, how we can incorporate sheep, chickens, and maybe rabbits to give back to the earth and improve the soil.

One of the things we said in our mission statement was that we're striving to follow the most basic of ecological principles which is that you give back more than you take. Anything that is going to sustain itself over the long term has to give back more than it takes. If that's possible, we want to do that. So while we're not going to be an ecovillage, we want to align with ecological principles.

TB: We've also both been involved with intentional communities for a couple of decades and have founded and lived in them and have learned a great deal in terms of what works and what doesn't work and what things are vitally important to the community. One thing we've learned is that bigger is not better when it comes to creating an intimate community of people making decisions and living together. So right now, we're starting very small and moving very slowly, and we expect that "small" and "slow" will be bywords as we continue. But that small unit has to build a set of relationships with the larger community.

SE: Another focus we've taken is supporting the localvore movement that's happening not only in our valley but in Vermont as a whole. We've already established relationships with a couple of local providers of food, and if we're going to be an ecovillage, it's going to be an ecovillage of the whole valley, not just of our property. That all fits in with the idea of scale-small but not too small, small but embedded in a larger community which is embedded in a 100-mile radius which perhaps could meet most of our needs.

TB: The fact that I'm buying and running an inn comes as a complete surprise to me. I didn't see that one coming. It's a huge amount of work, and there's a huge amount of stress related to doing something new and hard, but there's so many ways in which it's perfect. We can take this place, and we can run it both as a bed and breakfast, but also it becomes a place where we can hold workshops and retreats and dialog circles and all sorts of things. That's what I'm most excited about.

CB: I'd like to ask you a little bit more about the dialog circles and community building. Can you explain what happens in those groups?

SE: We're proceeding in developing the dialog work from a not very popular notion which is that intrinsic to most human beings is the ability to communicate which means to both speak and listen in such a way that a rather formless group can actually tap into a deeper intelligence.

Our experience of most workshops and trainings is that there's a lot of structure and an identified teacher or leader, and while there's absolutely benefit that happens from those structured trainings, we're challenging the basic structure of hierarchy that the culture of empire is based on by convening groups that empower the group as a whole to step into leadership rather than having an identified teacher or leader. So while we start out a workshop or circle with Tim and I as identified facilitators, mostly the facilitator's job is pointing to a map that says this is what groups do if they're allowed to and empowered to.

Groups will go through a series of stages, and it's predictable and happens consistently, and so long as the group hangs with it with good intent long enough, by the end, people have the experience of having tapped into something deeper than simply the individual ego. And it seems to us that if we are, in fact, to embrace the notion that Einstein talked about that the only way of solving a problem is to come at it from a different level of consciousness from which it was initiated, people need to learn how to do that. The culture of empire is rampant with the individual ego and the dominance of it, and dialog seems to take the best of what was probably tribal consciousness, as well as the highly individuated direction that our culture has taken, and kind of integrate the two so the individual is not lost, but yet it can find a deep connection with the group as a whole and then a deeper source of wisdom through that connection.

STAY TUNED TO PART TWO OF TRUTH TO POWER'S INTERVIEW OF TIM BENNETT AND SALLY ERICKSON AS THEY DISCUSS LIFE IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT AT THE GATHERING INN.

Yet as we know, reality in the human story is usually complex and multi-faceted. While it is true that none of us on a fundamental spiritual level is separate from anyone else, it is also true that in order to function harmoniously and equitably in our day-to-day existence, human beings require the establishment and maintenance of limits. One of the most obvious tragedies we must recognize when confronting the collapse of civilization, is that we have arrived at this juncture in human history precisely because we have failed to honor limits.

In thinking about this, I invite you to bear with me beyond what may at first sound like psychobabble because the reasoning process I'm laying out is meant to supersede the unavoidable jargon which I believe is both necessary and useful.

Human development begins with a state of absolutely no limits as an infant symbiotically bonds with its mother and is incapable of distinguishing itself from its caretaker. This glorious union is unequivocally crucial for the ultimate physical and emotional wellbeing of the infant. If the boundary-less bond does not occur or becomes dysfunctional, painful emotional wounding results which may set the stage for a lifetime of anguish.

Somewhere around the first year-and-a-half of life, the infant begins to experience himself as separate from his caretakers. Gradually, and then with great gusto, he differentiates his identity by pushing against his parents (both literally and symbolically), testing the limits in order to discover that he is himself and not them. However, if there are no limits against which to push and test, the differentiation process is impaired which can also result in severe psychological wounding and agonizing identity issues later in life. Since testing the limits always involves some anger, subsequent anger management or non-management may be shaped by how freely the child can push against the limits and how adequately his caretakers respond to his testing.

In a reasonably functional parenting process, early emotional bonding occurs followed by the toddler/"Terrible Two's"/ limit-testing/differentiation stage. If all goes well, a stable three or four year-old emerges who feels secure and confident and plays and works, for the most part, harmoniously with her peers.

When we think of empires and cultures of empires, we tend to picture them as rigid and tyrannical, and indeed they may be. In some imperial cultures childhood is short, and the urgency of working hard to become a model citizen of the state is inculcated early on with abject severity. But the opposite may also characterize the culture of empire, especially in a society marinated in affluence, consumerism, and indulgence.

One hallmark of such a society is its inability to tolerate and work through conflict. Conflict, after all, implies that all is not well and that there may be trouble in paradise. Whether in parenting or at the office or at school, it's much easier to go along to get along-and get ahead. Conflict, after all, draws attention to oneself which is anathema in a culture where the machinery to keep it running smoothly is greased with anonymity and conformity. Those recalcitrant minds who have refused to succumb to imperial inculcation from Henry David Thoreau to Allen Ginsberg to Cindy Sheehan have always risked ostracism and banishment from the capitalist feeding trough.

But at this momentous hour in history we find ourselves swirling in the waters of the collapse of empire, and we flail and struggle to both ride the waves and swim upstream but above all, just live our lives from moment to moment navigating the torrent of changes with which we are daily deluged. In the madness we are delighted to occasionally discover others who share our perspective, who don't call us insane when we firmly state that the river is propelling us toward some bottomless waterfall over which we have little control. We grasp each others' hands and sigh, "My people, my tribe!" and often see only our sameness because we can't bear to consider our differences. We fear that were we to see them and name our diversity, we may all perish. It's so hard to be alone with all we've learned about collapse; we feel so isolated and alienated, cherishing so much the few people with whom we can talk about it that we dare not contemplate conflict with them.

And yet it is crucial to remember that for the most part, all human connections tend to follow the path of our own individual development-that is, bonding, followed by differentiation, followed by autonomous interactivity which means engaging, disengaging, then re-engaging, ad infinitum. Conflict, we soon discover, is a fundamental underpinning of autonomous interaction. But occasionally, we go our separate ways, and re-engagement does not happen. At that point, we have choices about what we tell ourselves about why it didn't.

What is it in the culture of empire that causes us to be so pitifully inept at navigating conflict? Our indigenous brothers and sisters seem immersed in it as their tribes and clans argue and negotiate and fiercely celebrate their differences. What is our problem? I believe it originates, in part, with "Whatever" parenting.

Parenting in a consumeristic society is inherently devoid of limits. The intention is to satisfy the child's every need with "things" and experiences that make the child feel good about him/herself. The assumption is that the child "shouldn't have to" endure even brief amounts of emotional pain. To have to do so would mean that parents have "failed". Therefore, the criterion for "good" parenting is how much stuff one can provide for the child and how positively one can make the child feel about self, others, and the world.

Consequently, conflict is to be avoided at all costs because it might evoke emotion in both the child and the parent. Instead, the parent simply capitulates to the child's wishes or pays him/her not to resist. For example, the parent may refuse a 16 year-old's request for a car by purchasing some other thing or experience for him until he turns 17 or 18. There may be little discussion of why the request cannot be fulfilled in current time such as insurance rates, gas prices, family finances, driving lessons, emotional maturity, or other issues that affect the parent's decision to grant the request or not. There may be a great deal of argument or what looks like conflict around the request, but genuine conflict doesn't actually occur.

Clean, authentic conflict is about dialog and reasoning. Individuals discuss their differing viewpoints and negotiate or compromise based on in-depth conversation about the issues involved. For example, when a child makes a request, the parent has three options. She can immediately refuse the request and become rigid, adopting an authoritarian position of "Don't argue with me. I'm the parent, and I said 'no'." She can be cajoled or manipulated into granting the request, or she can engage with the child in a dialog process that invites critical thinking and mature reasoning in the child and in herself. The latter requires time and effort, and is usually very hard work for both the parent and child. To expend the effort, however, can be invaluable for both parties. In addition to engaging in reasoning, the child has the opportunity to think for himself, make choices, become accountable for his choices, experience the frustration of having his request denied or the joy of having it granted or the "aha!" of a third option that neither the parent or child had previously considered but which may open up new opportunities for both of them. Ultimately, the most profound rewards are the strengthening of trust and intimacy between the parent and child, not to mention the cultivation of a sense of responsibility for personal choices.

Twenty-first century parenting in the culture of empire which endeavors to avoid emotional intimacy, deflect conflict, make the child feel good about him/herself, and circumvent dialog with buying the child things or experiences creates a generation of human beings whose watchword is "whatever." If you spend five minutes with any adolescent or college-age individual these days, you'll probably hear "whatever" in their vocabulary sooner rather than later, especially if the conversation moves toward controversy or differences of opinion.

"Whatever" means that I don't have to think; I don't have to be accountable; it isn't my problem; one option is as valid as any other because no one has pointed out to me that there are many options and that some are much more useful/safe/viable/substantial than others. "Whatever" belies abandonment in the context of parenting devoid of authentic conflict which engages the hearts and minds of children and adults. "Whatever" means no limits or perhaps not even knowing what limits are, let alone why they might be useful. Because a child grows up in the land of "whatever" she may come to believe that people who set limits and maintain boundaries are mean, cruel, rude, heartless, and lack compassion. After all, "whatever" means that we include everyone and everything because-well, "whatever."

Lack of limits creates nothing if not entitlement. If I'm not responsible and I've never experienced the rewards of navigating with a parent or wise, caring elder the turbulent waters of meaningful, conflict-resolving conversation, then I can only conclude that life "should be" easy and that if it's not, it's someone else's fault.

As I converse with individuals from all parts of this nation who at one time or other have endeavored to live in community with others, I hear endless litanies of painful partings and profound hopelessness around the possibility that conflicts can actually be worked through. One theme I consistently hear is that communities have often failed because they are doggedly committed to inclusivity-the notion that sameness should be emphasized, differences minimized, and that conflict should be downplayed. Even more so, in short-term living situations such as workshops or retreats, the notion of inclusivity may be pervasive and may forbid excluding anyone lest we prove ourselves to be callous creatures with ice water in our veins.

In thinking about and preparing our families and communities for the severities of societal unraveling, the image of the lifeboat is frequently used, and many individuals speak openly of who they want in their lifeboat. I believe the lifeboat is a useful image for many reasons, not the least of which is that a lifeboat has limits. Not everyone can jump in and occupy it. As with a calamity at sea, anyone fortunate enough to inhabit a lifeboat must make agonizing decisions about who is invited into the boat and who isn't. Otherwise, the lifeboat becomes a death chamber rather than an instrument of survival.

So then the question becomes: How do we make these decisions? Do we exclude as well as include, and what are our criteria? Lifeboat communities may be forced to make life and death decisions about who will share their space and their implements of survival. What horrifying scenarios come to mind as we contemplate building lifeboats and inviting others to join us-or not? In a completely unraveled society where violence, upheaval, famine, thirst, war, homelessness, pandemics, and climate chaos have created cultural mayhem, what limits must we set and how and with whom?

It is impossible to construct rigid "lifeboat policies" in current time and nothing less than absurd to imagine that every exigency of collapse can be planned beforehand. What we can ponder, however, are principles which do not originate in the culture of "whatever" but have guided indigenous peoples for millennia. Many of those cultures have been grounded in the motif of the warrior/elder which provides compassionate leadership with limits. I hasten to add that warrior energy is not about combat but about taking a stand on behalf of the tribe which often includes "doing battle" with agendas that advance individual egos rather than the wellbeing of the community. Frequently in indigenous cultures a council of elders exists for this purpose, and while it is understood that each member is human and therefore fallible, each has earned his/her place on the council as a result of the depth of wisdom demonstrated and how skillfully he/she has preserved and protected the integrity of the community.

A seasoned elder understands, as she takes in hand the youth of her tribe, that they must be guided, taught, reasoned with, and invited into conscious dialog so that ultimately that young person can mature into elderhood and carry on the wisdom tradition of the tribe. He or she is instructed in the art of setting limits for him/herself and for the community and is schooled in the fundamental realities of human existence, not by avoiding, but by taking on the messiness of conflict. Above all, the elder emphasizes that the young person's life journey is not about being happy, but about becoming conscious.

As the collapse of civilization exacerbates and intensifies, the most well-intentioned and open-hearted human beings will make many mistakes. And at the same time, it is possible to become adept and wizened by warrior/elder principles that skillfully set limits and to adhere to them when it would be much easier to garner kudos from self and others for indiscriminate inclusivity. It is a delicate and daunting dance-sometimes ecstatic, sometimes excruciating. But regardless of its outcome, its pathway traverses nowhere near the land of "Whatever".

I continue receiving emails from former students and former readers of Truth To Power which essentially state, "We thought you were a raving lunatic when you were telling us this stuff five years ago, but everything you said would happen is happening." Included in these comments are reports of foreclosures, bankruptcies, lost jobs, loss of student loan funding, medical bills that can never be paid off, applying for food stamps, regular trips to food banks, illnesses that cannot be treated because of lack of insurance or funds, depression, rage, profound ennui, and a sense of meaninglessness.

My reaction to this feedback is not "See, I told you so, stupid!" but rather deep feelings of compassion and sorrow. I've been a fringe person for most of my adult life, thinking outside the box, and generally living ahead of the curve. I don't say that arrogantly because there's always been a price to pay for living on the edge. Yes, I've been a prophet but a prophet among many other prophets who began their journey long before I did and learned a lot more, a lot faster.

It's easy to point fingers at the perpetrators-and fingers definitely must be pointed, but then get lost in raging against "the New World Order" that orchestrated this nightmare. It's easy to get caught up in egoic "I told you so's"; it's much harder to breathe deeply many times a day and take into the cells of one's body the reality of what's happening and how quickly. It's more challenging to allow oneself to feel the pain of other humans, animals, and the ecosystem itself. For me, it very quickly becomes overwhelming, and I have to step back, breathe again, and think about what more I can do to help alleviate the suffering we've all participated in creating. Yes, we've all participated-we've all colluded. The word collusion simply means "co-illusion", that is, the sharing of an illusion.

As soon as I stop raging and making this entirely the fault of someone else outside of me-as soon as I feel my feelings about what's happening, then I must act to support others who are just now waking up and finding themselves terrified and unprepared. Here in Vermont, most people are thinking about the winter ahead. Some aren't, either because they have lost themselves in the glories of a beautiful summer or because they want to believe it won't get that bad. What I know is that many people in the Northeast are going to have a ghastly winter, and many are likely to die. My work, along with other folks in my community, will be to help keep each other warm and fed. It won't be easy, and everything Dmitry Orlov has already said and written about the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russian winters bounces around in my head as I prepare for one ahead in New England.

Several internet sites this week have carried Barbara Ehrenreich's article "Suicide Spreads As One Solution To The Debt Crisis", and on my site I've stated that I believe this is just the beginning of people killing themselves and going crazy as collapse intensifies. One feels the desperation and madness when visiting places in America's heartland where meth labs are well-stocked and the shelves of food banks echo abject emptiness. Listen to almost any middle or working class parent talk about getting their kids ready to go back to school-no money for school clothes and supplies even as school districts are already pleading for parents to kick in contributions for things the districts can't afford. Ask that wait person or barista serving you lunch or a now-very-occasional latte if she/he is making ends meet with paying rent, student loan debt, credit card payments, and buying food. Then don't ask if he/she has health insurance because you already know the answer.

And yet, this is only the beginning. If you want the full flavor of the psychological devastations of collapse and the emotional wreckage amid the shambles of a former first-world society, read Jim Kuntler's World Made By Hand. Click on this hyperlink and watch the trailer for the novel, listen to the music, feel the plaintive sounds of the mandolin strings, the loss, the total absence of a world of shopping malls, fast food grease pits, NASCAR, or plasma TV's. But also feel that these characters are in the process of discovering something they could never have known in an American Idol existence. They are discovering the land, where their food and everything they consume comes from; they are discovering each other, and probably for the very first time, the deepest layers of themselves.

Who knows if any of these characters saw collapse coming long before it did? Who knows if they were mindlessly chanting "it's going to get better" when they lost everything they had? Those individuals who are willing to learn about collapse, open to the reality of it, and prepare for it are much more likely to fare better than whose who don't. But even those who don't may survive those who do. If ever there were a time of no guarantees, it would be now.

You see, that's the kicker about denial-cover your eyes and plug your ears now, and in a few years (or less?), you'll wish you hadn't because if you had only been willing to let the truth in, it could have prepared you to navigate the unthinkable. Unfortunately, many people will have to discover those tragic consequences for themselves; others already know that the only promise denial has ever kept is extinction, and they will not cover their eyes or plug their ears anymore.

Many Truth To Power readers regularly email me with stories of how their families and friends have written them off as nut jobs, doomers, paranoids, hysterical, dramatic, negative, catastrophizing, and let's not forget, lunatics, for taking collapse seriously and preparing for it. For all of you, I recommend another wonderful site, Kathy McMahon's Peak Oil Blues which is invaluable for reality checking and providing emotional support for thinking, talking, and taking action around collapse. Likewise, Sharon Astyk's Casaubon's Book site is both supportive and very practical in terms of no nonsense preparation.

The human ego loves to be "right", and some people prefer to watch the world burn with great glee and vitriol. But this is not the time for ego my friends; ego is what got us here. We have been called "lunatics", and now we are being called wise women and men, but it isn't about labels. It's about moving into the next phases of collapse with sensitivity, compassion, and humility, realizing that when people take their own lives in the throes of their own private and our collective collapse, there but for the grace of Something Greater goes any of us. Perhaps if they had been willing to look at the truth, they might have been able to hang around a little longer-or not. Nevertheless, our work is to continue waking ourselves and others up, which may be easier than it was five years ago, and meet everyone with kindness and empathy. It was very painful, yet sometimes a little bit fun to be called a lunatic, but now, the lunatics rest their case.

Not only had I closely followed "The Tillman Files" but many interviews of Mary earlier in the past year, most notably in my opinion, the ones by Emily Wilson of Alternetinterview which I had watched on March 28, 2007. Now holding Mary's book in my hand, I thought there might not be much more to say about it, so I contacted her to see if I might interview her not specifically about the book but about how she's coping these days and the awarenesses she's come to.

True to the mother's loyalty that exudes from every paragraph of her book, Mary Tillman does not want the focus to be on her. She's tired of being in the media limelight and simply wants the world to know Pat's story-who he was and how he and his family were betrayed. So after completing Mary's book, I was drawn to focus on her process of discovering the truth about Pat's death and the meaning of her discovery for all of us.

Mary Tillman was a school teacher at the time of Pat's death, and like most working Americans, she was very busy and had little time to research the dark side of the United States government. Nor was she inclined to do so with two sons enlisting in the Army shortly after 9/11. As is the case with many individuals who begin digging deeper, it wasn't until a tragedy erupted in her life that she embarked on her personal mission to examine the innumerable layers of the system in which she grew up and in which she previously took pride.

Boots On The Ground By Dusk is the saga of Mary's journey to the truth-an account of the glaring inconsistencies presented to the Tillman family about Pat's death in tandem with the endless changing of stories and cover-your-ass behavior exhibited by the Army. No intelligent human being could blithely accept such discrepancies, and Mary Tillman is nothing if not intelligent. She has refined the process of researching, questioning, fact-checking, and cross-referencing to an art form. She had to-for her own sanity and to honor her two soldier sons. All of the facts are there in her book, as they are in detail in "The Tillman Files." A litany of "why" questions occupies Pages 227-229 of the book and reveals Mary's thought process as she grapples with glaring government contradictions. As I read it I kept mentally shouting, "Keep digging Mary, keep digging!" And so she did.

At one point she has a conversation with Dr. Justin Frank, author of Bush On The Couch, a brilliant psychological analysis of George Bush, Jr.:

"Hello, Dr. Frank. I'm Mary Tillman. I don't want to waste your time. I'm calling to ask you a question. Do you think it's possible that this administration orchestrated my son's death?"

"Sad to say, yes.">/blockquote>

Mary states,

"I'm positively stunned by his response. I thought he would gently tell me that he doesn't believe the administration is very honorable, but it would never do something so heinous as to have a soldier killed."

"You believe they killed him?" Mary numbly asks.

"I think it's possible. Mrs. Tillman, I'm a psychiatrist. It would be unethical and irresponsible of me to tell a grieving mother to pursue such a thing if I didn't think it was possible."

Mary has come to believe that Pat's death was orchestrated as a public relations strategy to gain support for the Iraq War in 2004 around the time of the Fallujah carnage and as the war was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States. Shortly after Pat had enlisted, he received a letter from Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, thanking him for enlisting and leaving the NFL to serve his country. Moreover, Mary cites a memo from Rumsfeld, to then-Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, "indicating that Pat was a very special young man. The language Rumsfeld used was that Pat was 'world class' and that they should keep an eye on him." Mary states, "I'm not sure what that meant, but writing something like that, writing a letter to Pat, obviously he's going to be concerned when he's killed. He's going to want to know what happened." Thus Rumsfeld's denial of a coverup of Pat's death is, to say the least, extremely suspicious.

Dazzling headlines like "Football superstar makes the supreme sacrifice for his country" could only bolster the Pentagon's cause. Might it not make the war more palatable? Might it not inspire more young people to enlist?

At the time of her conversation with Justin Frank, Mary's focus is entirely on the death of her son, but not being Mary and not having lost a son to a government public relations campaign myself, I'm well aware that as heinous as it is to "have a soldier killed", it is even more heinous to have 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001, and that is exactly what happened, at New Pearl Harbor

As is always the case when people begin digging more deeply for the truth, Mary discovered an epidemic of anomalies among other military families who related their stories to her-stories of lies, coverups, and ghastly betrayal. Standing beside the Tillman family was Stan Goff, co-author of "The Tillman Files", not merely motivated by the desire to complete his investigative report, but by his own history as a Vietnam warrior and long-time outspoken critic of American imperialism. Stan, whose son is serving in Iraq, has worked tirelessly to support other military families and

Earlier this month (July 15), the Associated Press released "Probe Of Tillman Misinformation Goes Nowhere" which stated that "A 'striking lack of recollection' by White House and military officials has prevented congressional investigators from determining who was responsible for misinformation spread after the friendly-fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in 2004, a House committee said Monday." In her book, Mary Tillman recounts in detail Congressman Henry Waxman's probe of Pat's death, but this most recent AP story relates that "The panel has failed....It received a flurry of White House e-mails but no documents about friendly fire. It interviewed several top White House officials: 'Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response'."

The silence remains unbroken.

Mary Tillman isn't following the sales of her book on a regular basis. That isn't why she wrote it. She simply wanted to get her message out into the world-the message of a grief-stricken mother whose pain and rage drove her to relentlessly pursue the truth about her son's death. Most reviews of the book have been positive. That the New York Times review of Boots On The Ground called it "clumsily written" reveals nothing in my opinion but the reviewer's inability to grapple with the deeply disturbing realities Mary Tillman and "The Tillman Files" have uncovered.

Boots On The Ground By Dusk and the investigative reporting of Stan Goff and Mike Ruppert are the only in-depth accounts we are likely to have for a very long time, if ever, regarding the murder of Pat Tillman which was one of myriad tragic facets of the U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both Mike and Stan in their individual writings have comprehensively documented the motivation behind these wars and the reality that both of them will be prolonged, pointless projects that will grind on for many years. Stan has written extensively about the use of asymmetric warfareFrom The Wilderness

Unflinchingly, Mary, Mike, and Stan have revealed to the world a war machine without conscience that has devastated individuals, cultures, nations, and land with no regard for anything except the profits of war and America's insatiable thirst for oil. After reading their exposes, the mind reels with imagining how many more lies have been told to military families about the deaths of their sons and daughters. It is axiomatic that empires, without exception, decline and fall, and it is equally true that as they do so, courageous individuals who refuse to be pawned or conned come forth to expose the empire's nakedness. Mary Tillman has proven that one need not be a professional journalist or a decorated warrior in order to do so but merely a mother who will settle for nothing less than total transparency about the death of her son.

It is precisely the lack of conscience, mentioned above, which makes incidents like the Tillman murder and coverup not only possible but routine. Truth To Power has published numerous stories and articles on political ponerology Collapse

And so I went to what is traditionally the largest and most popular Fourth of July parade in the state, the one in Warren. I got up very early in order to get there in time to find a parking place which I was warned would be daunting. Like most rural Vermont towns, Warren resembles a small New England village during the days of the Revolutionary War with its white wooden-frame town hall, a narrow main street alongside a tiny, gurgling stream, and a few small shops of colonial architecture.

The Warren parade is traditionally quite political, especially this year as presidential, gubernatorial, legislative, and Congressional seats will be hotly contested in November. But what most impressed me was not the content of the parade, but the mood of the people participating and watching. Yes, I proudly marched in the parade with the Vermont Independence folks and handed out copies of their first-rate, newspaper, Vermont Commons, the style of which is not unlike those early colonial newspapers that served up an intellectual feast rather than the vending machine, mindless junk food of today's corporate tabloids.

In the throes of bands playing, crowds cheering, and walking alongside a man dressed as Ethan Allen, for a moment I was transported to 1776. In some towns throughout the colonies, little attention was paid to independence and the writings of Thomas Paine, but in Vermont, independence, not only from England but from other colonies, was always a front-burner issue. Hence this state's tradition of independent, sometimes iconoclastic, thinking.

Just the night before I had sat in a meadow between two mountains in Southern Vermont listening to the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the grand finale of the concert being Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" complete with some of the most spectacular fireworks I've ever witnessed. As the blasts echoed against the mountains and reverberated in my body, I suddenly realized that this cacophony was what the Revolutionary War sounded like, ricocheting across the hills and valleys of New England. Although I abhor war, it's obvious that on numerous occasions in human history, oppressed peoples haven't been able to reclaim their independence without it. And so it was in this part of the world in 1776. Yet one cannot reflect on the independence gained by the thirteen original colonies without immediately noticing how it did not apply to people of color or women and how quickly westward expansion violated the spirit of the Constitution crafted by the Founders and ratified by the patriots.

The European culture which decimated the New World on every level was founded on the principles of an unfinished Enlightenment that touted individual human rights but only for the privileged few. Estranged as it was from its ancient indigenous roots, it had no tribal template in which elders initiated the young and schooled them from birth to be part of, not inimical to, the earth community. While the Pilgrims lived harmoniously with Native Americans for a short while in Massachusetts, they soon began mimicking their Puritan brethren by rejecting Native values of sharing, cooperation, and the sacredness of the land on which they settled.

Thus, individuals like Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Patrick Henry served as the only "elders" the colonists had. How different the history of United States may have been had these elders been initiated human beings with the capacity to open to, rather than resist, the wisdom of their indigenous neighbors. Franklin did spend time living with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, one of the world's oldest democracies. However, despite his and his peer's admiration for the confederacy and their implementation of many of its political concepts in the Constitution, none were able to empathize with it on an emotional or spiritual level. Had they been able to do so, they may have intentionally incorporated indigenous values into American society which might have preserved the republic and circumvented empire, not to mention rabid consumerism, maniacal resource plunder, and the abject rape of the ecosystem.

Nevertheless, back here in the twenty-first century on July 4, 2008, the values of independence and cooperation that motivated for example, Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty and that permeate the writings of Thomas Paine, surged through my body while hearing fireworks rebound off New England mountains and while marching in a Vermont Independence Day parade. Incomplete as the Enlightenment was, it visited me in a brief but extraordinary epiphany this past week. Call me hopelessly romantic and idealistic, but the presence of Tom Paine and the patriots is palpable in Warren, Vermont's annual Independence Day festivities, and I feel fortunate to have experienced it.

And now call me pessimistic because even as I tasted the spirit of liberty on July 4, 2008, I could not help but ask myself what the people who sat in the meadow listening to the symphony while drinking their wine and eating their picnic snacks will be doing a year from now. How many will be able to drive to such an event or afford a ticket? Will the symphony itself be able to travel throughout the state presenting summer concerts? Likewise, how well attended will Independence Day parades be next year? Between now and then, might there be frantic attempts by the hungry, the homeless, the foreclosed, the bankrupt, the unemployed to craft a new American revolution? How much famine, starvation, violence, and chaos will this nation see in the next twelve months? How much backlash from empire will there be? FEMA camps in place by July 4, 2009? Will the U.S. government be involved in expanded oil wars in even more parts of the world? How many American institutions will have totally collapsed by then? How many airlines will be in business? How many people will be driving? How many trucks will be delivering food to grocery stores? If the State of Utah is now shifting to a four-day work week in order to save money and energy, what will education, healthcare, government, transportation, and other aspects of American society look like a year from now?

I'm not psychic, nor do I have a crystal ball, but everything I'm witnessing in current events tells me that on July 4, 2009, we may look back on July, 2008 as "the good ole days." I have to wonder how much "independence" we'll think we have at that point. Words like "martial law" and "Blackwater" continue to haunt my imagination.

Although I support the efforts of the Vermont Independence movement, I am well aware that dramatic earth changes and the collapse of a rotting U.S. infrastructure in a plethora of locations may well result in numerous, small, unintended, unimagined sovereignties throughout the North American continent. How will those communities live? How will they share, cooperate, function in harmony with each other and the earth community-or will they?

Thomas Paine's Common Sense was one of the most powerful instruments in forging the struggle for independence. The writings of one man, a "nobody" by today's standards and those of his day, transformed the thinking of the New World and motivated thousands to look deeply within themselves to assess what really mattered to them. Soul searching was Paine's forte, and his writings inspired the masses to do likewise and to weigh heavily the struggle they were contemplating. Doubtless, he's spinning in his grave as a result of the fascist empire that the republic has become, but I'm compelled to believe that his spirit lives on in the hearts and minds of individuals and communities who are preparing for the collapse of the empire he would give his life to defeat were he living today.

I see groups and individuals who are highly conscious of collapse and its ramifications-citizens like those struggling for Vermont Independence, countless communities across this nation who are strategizing to create food security, safeguard clean and accessible water supplies, power down their communities and implement renewable energy technologies, home school their children or create alternative schools, and implement affordable healthcare for everyone. Whether or not their efforts will prevail or be quashed by empire remains to be seen. Undoubtedly, some of those communities will survive collapse and live to tell their children about it. As a result, they will discover firsthand as Thomas Paine said, that "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." I know not who will survive collapse or how, but I'm quite certain that if they are capable of doing so, they will know in every cell of their bodies that they "have it in their power to begin the world over again."

I have written extensively about the futility of voting in the 2008 presidential election, and I will continue to do so, but I have also encouraged readers to vote in state and local elections. I will enthusiastically do the same in the fall in my now-home state of Vermont. Thus I leave you with a video clip of my taking the Vermont voter's oath on July 4, 2008. And perhaps, if you look closely, you might see Tom Paine somewhere over my shoulder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x9Uw2avj1E

References on the internet to George Carlin since his death earlier this week are ubiquitous. All the photos and video clips have taken me back to the early seventies when I first discovered him as "the hippie-dippie mailman with your hippie-dippie mail--Man." More recently he gave us priceless routines such as "The American Dream" and "7 Words You Can't Say On Television". Like all skillful court jesters, George made us take a second look at the insanity of our world and our government, put it in perspective, and see it for what it is-unequivocally absurd. Of course, that does not erase the lethality and horror of it, but it offers another way of looking at and living with it. Humor has always empowered the victims of oppression, even as they know that it cannot make it go away. Not a few holocaust concentration camp inmates were able to maintain some sense of humor, however faint, amid the horrors of their daily lives. Sanity and human dignity are always augmented when brutalized people are able to laugh at their torturers.

It is impossible to listen to Carlin routines without sensing the rage behind the humor. In fact, humor and anger are inextricably connected, and in some situations, the only means of expressing anger is through humor. One may not be able to obliterate one's oppressor, but one can laugh at him, find him absurd or stupid and thereby exonerate one's resistance to political and cultural tyranny. Moreover, in many instances, the comedian, more than the writer, activist, or visual artist, is able to facilitate cultural awakening through incisive humor.

Over the course of three decades, George placed American capitalist, consumeristic, imperialist culture under the microscope of humor and dismembered its façade. We thought we had it bad during those years, but little did we know what the twenty-first century would bring us. Or maybe we did-maybe somewhere inside of us we knew what the culture wouldn't let us know: that voracious consumption, endless warmongering, and American entitlement would only consign us to the fate of all the empires that existed before ours. Maybe George knew that better than we did. As with so many funny men and women, maybe his heart was breaking, and maybe it could no longer endure. I'm only speculating here; I'm neither a psychic nor a medical intuitive.

What I do know is that while apocalypse will not allow us to laugh our way through it, we need all the humor we can get and create as we navigate the increasingly daunting days ahead. I now live in the Northeastern U.S. as opposed to the Southwest where I spent the last decade. I'm well aware that a lot of people are going to die here this winter because they will not be able to afford home heating or electricity. As I said, I'm not psychic, nor does one need to be. It only takes two or three brain cells to rub together to make sense of the brutal and very "cold", if you will, reality of Northeastern winters without heat. There's nothing inherently funny about that at all, but George with his anger/humor would have probably created an entire stand up routine around it had he remained with us.

So an Associated Press story from June 22 asks "Is Everything Spinning Out Of Control?" with a sub headline: the can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. I for one am thrilled to see such an AP story disseminated far and wide. This obsessive, myopic, control-freak culture is reeling, and American individualism is out of steam. That lets me know that collapse is more underway than I had even imagined and that the first steps of transformation of human consciousness have begun-even if I don't live to see it-even if it doesn't come to fruition for centuries.

Readers of Truth To Power aren't surprised because they've been paying attention for a long time or they wouldn't be reading this website. Most of you already know that it's going to get much worse, and that in the not too distant future, many of these blindsided kings and queens of denial will be wistfully longing for the good ole' days of June, 2008. But that doesn't mean the rest of us won't be hurting too. It just means that we'll know why and how it all got to be so terribly ugly.

As I've said so many times before, if we don't balance our logistical preparation with emotional fortification, it won't sustain us for long. Our psychological well being must include humor, even in the darkest days of the end of the world as we have known it. We may not be able to just click on You Tube whenever we want and let George put us in stitches. There may be no internet or nothing to power our computers with. Even if he were here, he might be inaccessible.

So we all have to become our own "Georges" and open the channels of our individual irreverent and iconoclastic humor and let it pour forth. In her book Dancing In The Streets, Barbara Ehrenreich explains how empire has robbed us of our collective joy and how we can begin to reclaim it: "People who are working for change need to think about how to make their events draw on the solidarity and creativity of lots of people together. That's been happening ... but it's something we need to address. Bringing art and culture into politics is a way to express what we are seeking, what our vision of the world is."

Ultimately, one of the gifts of collapse will be the demise of empire's barriers to fun, joy, play, comedy, art, dance, music, and unimaginable human creativity. But in order to navigate collapse and hasten the dissolution of those barriers, we must keep George's outrageous humor alive within ourselves and our communities. As he said, the only way you can believe the American Dream is to be asleep. George knew, as we must, that laughing at the emperor's absence of clothes will indeed help keep us awake.

The price was a major stretch at $747,500. But as a couple, they had owned two other homes. One they had sold after they bought their last home. They tried to be landlords and found the experience frustrating. They rented their first home, but it was in a neighborhood where keeping tenants was extremely challenging. They sold the home for a small gain, but the cost of maintaining the rental was becoming a burden.

So it was that the Taylors moved from a gang-infested area in hopes of getting into an area where there was less violence and a better school district for the children. They moved into a nicer home knowing that while it was not perfect, they might eventually move into another someday.

Over the course of 12 years, they had adopted three children who were siblings and in the need of a home. In fact the children were all related to their family, and the decision was made that the children needed a stable family where they could be loved and cared for. The Taylors then refinanced their home to help cover large adoption expenses and other household repairs. The home became too small for their growing family, and they began to look at the possibility of adding on or moving to a larger home

For two years they worked with several real estate people looking for a new home that was single-level and a bit larger to accommodate their family. However, when they did find a home, they were often out-bid, and usually the home was worth what a buyer was willing to pay. The homes seemed out of their reach; it was a seller's market for sure. Eventually, they gave up and decided that when the children finished grammar school and the youngest was about to enter kindergarten, they would look in a state less expensive than California for a home they wanted and could afford.

Not long after, their loan officer called and informed them that the home next door to her was for sale and had fallen out of escrow twice. This was presented as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The loan officer was sure that if they jumped on it right away, they would have a chance to purchase it. Based on what was explained to them, they believed they could do it, and the loan officer would set up the loan. The Taylors were perfect for the loan, the home was amazing, and they would be able to invest in their children's future.

Together, the Taylor family convened a meeting with their two older children around the kitchen table to hash out the differences between the two homes. The girls wanted to have their own room, and although they were siblings, both had very different experiences of being adopted. Having their own space appeared important and necessary. The baby had turned two and was ready to move into his own bedroom. The Taylors wanted to be homeowners again, and to rent the home they lived in to ensure they would not be bypassed due to having a contingency sale. They thought it was worth the risk to move even if it meant changing some things in their budget and assuming the additional expenses of the new home. However, the loan officer presented a new program in which the cost of both homes was going to be basically the same.

The Taylors agreed to pay $100,000 dollars down on the new home and financed $647,500, and after refinancing their other home they owed $488,000. The loan officer and the real estate company said they could easily rent the old home for what the new payment would be. The Taylors asked a lot of questions about the new loan product since they had always gone with a 30-year fixed rate loan. The rates were quite low, but the loan officer assured them that this was the best move and a financially sound one. The decision appeared to be a fine one with little risk. Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, and many others supported the American people to invest their money into the real estate market, arguing that it was a sound investment. The biggest risk appeared to be that the market might slow down, but since it was rising so high, there seemed to be little danger.

The Taylors moved into their new home and began to settle in. The first mortgage bill came in, and it suddenly appeared to be very different from what they had understood it to be. What was this negative amortization piece that exempted them from the first year? The family was told they were exempt from paying for it, but there it was on the statement. The family wanted to refinance the loan, but the loan officer said it was foolish not to see that the home's value would far exceed any negative amortization the Taylors were incurring. The loan officer told the family that they were over-reacting. Later, they learned that they would need to wait a year to refinance the homes, but during that time the home's value fell so low that refinancing was no longer an option. The Taylors agonized over this for months and went to their loan officer several times as the market began to slip. They now realized they should sell the home and cut their losses, but they were simply laughed at. The loan officer became frustrated at one point, stating that the Taylors were lucky to have gotten into that home--and that the loan officer who normally processed home loans had recommended against their buying the home. It was then stated that the Taylors knew they paid too much for the home and knew what the risks were. However, as the story unfolded the Taylors realized when they found the original notes presented before they signed the loan, that they had been lied to. Furthermore, the loan officer had also chosen an appraiser that would support the loan officer's price of the home. They were shocked and disappointed because they considered their loan officer to be a friend, and they had made a mistake that could possibly cost them their financial security with little recourse but to educate themselves and wait.

They were told that they were young, inexperienced, and failed to understand the fluctuations of markets. Hadn't the stock market made a dive and come back? The clear message was: relax. The family tried to do so as they watched one house lose the value of the $100,000 down and the equity in both their homes evaporate. Soon they had lost all the equity.

They consulted another loan officer and spoke to banks and other programs in hopes of correcting the loan problems they were in. All stated that the family had great credit scores, good income and long-term employment histories, and should never have been placed in the home loans they were given. They were told to wait because the market would stop falling, and real estate was a long-term investment. It was, wasn't it? Besides, they had to live some place, and they were doing better financially compared to many others because of their jobs. They were advised to borrow money wherever they could and hold on because this could not last forever. So repeatedly, they were told to wait, and then they watched their neighbors, one after another, let their homes go into foreclosure. Soon many people were trying to short-sale their homes. A short-sale is when a lender agrees to accept less than the balance due.

For example, says Melissa Taylor, "Our neighbors had sold their old home, having put almost $200,000 down on their home, and as the market fell, they lost all their equity, and the home was 'upside down' to the tune of $75,000." Upside down means that a borrower owes more on the home than the home is worth.

Their neighbors had their home on the market for eight months, and finally a couple put in an offer that the bank took three months to accept. In the end, the family was asked to assume a $75,000 unsecured loan to cover the deal. They counter-offered, but the bank refused to accept anything less than was owed to them. The home has foreclosed, and the grass has since dried up, but two neighbors share the duty of caring for the grass to maintain their own home values. Recently, after a year, the bank called the family and asked them to try to short-sale the home. It was too late, and the home was more than $150,000 upside down. The family took the hit on their credit and moved on. So it appears that despite all the news that short-sales or loan modifications are available, they are hard to navigate and only a small portion actually become finalized.

The Taylor family and their neighbors all had the same exotic Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) loans and were trying to get out of them. The exotic loan that they were told was "hard to get" was suddenly all over the daily news. We now know that the loans were sold in the hedge fund markets around the world, and the borrowers' losses affected the economy globally while brokers were given large bonuses to promote these loans and made huge profits off of exotic loans versus conventional loans. The Taylors realized they were in trouble, lots of trouble.

They were like many people who jumped into the rising housing market in recent years, except that they had a decent down payment, long-term employment, excellent credit, and what appeared to be enough money to cover both homes monthly if they lost their rental tenant. They had no debt except a student loan. They chose a loan that would hold their monthly payments down for the first year, then "reset" at a rate of 7 percent per year, but there was never an intention to keep the loan longer than one year. Their mortgage loan officer assured them that they would be able to refinance in a year to keep their payments affordable. Again they were told that they just needed to enjoy their new home and stop worrying.

They were caught up in the "American dream" along with millions of other families around the country. They were experienced homeowners. They earned over $ 70,000 a year each and had equity in their home.

Basically, the Taylors had a disaster on their hands. They had good jobs, health insurance and had relatively good health. However, over the course of five years, both partners at different times had major surgeries. The youngest child was finishing up pre-school, and the two eldest were going to be entering middle school. The Taylors were hoping to be able to cut down on some after-school care, but when returning to work, one of the parents was put into a job without any flexibility, followed by a course of consequences for inconveniencing the employer by being allowed to claim disability. That partner was a union member, but the union's advice was that although the treatment was unfair most people who have been disabled suffered the same treatment. Their advice was simple: Lay low and appear content, and hopefully the administration would shift their focus elsewhere. The employer stated that there was always the choice of moving on (that is, leaving one's job) if it wasn't working, as some others had chosen to do in the past.

The medical doctors were concerned that their recommendation for the employee returning to their regular job duties was being ignored, and as a result, modifications were necessary. The primary doctor, stated, "It just takes one person to alter the course of events." Although, frustrated and concerned, the medical doctor signed a release for the employee to return to work because the company continued to be unresponsive to the recommendations. However, given the current housing trend one could see that there was little room to move jobs, especially one that paid well and had medical benefits. Since this financial mess could not be easily remedied, the employee (one of the Taylor parents) decided to keep the paycheck coming in and lay low as instructed by the union. While there is always the option of using the union to grieve the employer's treatment, there are complicated consequences for this unless one is able to take years to fight in out in court. Historically, a few had been successful, but the cost emotionally and financially was huge. To make matters more challenging, the insurance provider for the employer often did not approve claims for up to two months. The Taylors simply had run out of options, money, and credit.

After a long series of calls to the banks asking for a refinance, loan modification, or any other help available, requests were refused despite the fact that the Taylors qualified based on all of the reasons for loan modification. Nevertheless, the banks would not respond until the loan was in default. The media kept promising federal help, but there was none. The housing market kept slipping, the bills kept growing, and the household bills have increased substantially. Every time a plan to hang on was put in place, something else would happen. The energy bill would double, gas would rise above $4 dollars a gallon, the value of the dollar fell, and working overtime was not cutting it. Neither was reducing household costs, and the budget continues to be forever changing.

The Taylors met with bankruptcy attorneys, loan officers and many, many real estate people. Everyone had a different opinion. Media stories are filled with one failure after another, yet the conventional opinion is, "Just hang on; things will get better."

Although they have not fallen behind on payments the Taylors will in the next few months to come. The injury mentioned above involved a hip replacement and work time which forced the Taylors to use credit cards to pay off household, childcare, and medical bills. The Taylors have tried everything possible to avoid foreclosure and bankruptcy, but every step has been met with resistance by financial institutions. In fact, the process of exploring other options has become a full-time job for the family.

The family stress is off the scale. There are many difficult decisions to make. Do the Taylor's walk away or try and hold on? When they called their real estate officer just yesterday, she said that banks are giving lower rate loans, but the neighborhood has so many foreclosures that short-selling the home will be very difficult, if not impossible. They were also told to check into tax penalties for foreclosure. Once again, the family mustered the courage to move forward and again were told no.

The Taylors are downsizing everything, clearing things out, and selling whatever is not needed. Now the family is left trying to sort through their belongings, unsure if they will keep one home or live in a rental-- something they are told might be hard to come by. They are trying to acquire the things they need such as a home, good schools for their kids, food, and healthcare. All of this as they try to explain to their kids why this home is no longer theirs and that the children are in no way responsible for the economic meltdown because it has now become global. Curiously, they seem to be able to accept it better than the adults around them.

The family once thought they were living the American dream by owning a home. Now the American dream has shifted to be nothing more than a place where the Taylors can at least raise the kids and buy food and gasoline. What the Taylors have come to understand through much pain and suffering is that the American dream never existed; it is now no more than a nightmare.

The Taylors are not alone. Just last month hundreds of families in Sonoma County found themselves either in, or near foreclosure. 65 percent of the homes in the San Francisco Bay area purchased since 2005 are upside down. It seems that subprime borrowers were scapegoated, but what is America going to say when the exotic ARM home loan bloodbath surpasses the number of foreclosures? Who will they blame then?

What Heinberg states here is exactly what many other collapse watchers have been up to for the past several years. We look at the truth, we feel it, we act. As we take action, we do not do so naively believing that any particular action or several actions taken even by masses of individuals will prevent collapse, but we do it because it's the right thing to do-that is, acting according to what Sharon Astyk calls "The Theory Of Anyway."

I keep coming back to that fundamental underpinning in collapse-that thing called "death" and notice that no matter how you spin the unraveling, it keeps coming back to the two most unpleasant realities: the death of the planet and of one's individual egoic existence. I notice what a Herculean task it is for any of us to thoughtfully ponder our own demise, but I cannot escape or deny the fact that that is exactly what collapse is putting in our faces whether we like it or not. If you've read this far, and if you've been consciously watching and preparing for collapse, then to a large extent, you are already confronting your own death, but I believe it's important to consider the many layers of death that are in front of us. Of course, there's the possibility of the end of our own physical bodies, but more importantly, in my opinion, is the diminution and transformation of the ego with which we identify.

Civilization and all of its discontents has been gestated and birthed in ego as if domination and control of the earth, its inhabitants, and even oneself is the raison d'etre-the meaning of life. Civilization and the empires it has endlessly created have been constructed on the illusion that we are what we possess, what we control, what we achieve. All of the great spiritual teachers have told us otherwise and have reminded us incessantly that behind that tapestry of egoic productivity is who we really are-a more profound spiritual essence-a light that shines from behind and through the tapestry. Some people call it "god", some call it "nature", some call it "faith in the human spirit", others call it the Self.

What collapse is demanding from us is not the destruction of ego but the diminishing of it so that the Self can flourish and expand. Otherwise, how would it be possible to build anything, if anything is to be built, on the ashes of what has collapsed? When Sharon Astyk asks us to "do it anyway" because it's the right thing, she's really suggesting, whether intentionally or not, that we allow the Self to act and ego to take a back seat. Likewise, when Heinberg says that if we concentrate on what makes our species worth saving we win no matter what, he's alluding to, intentionally or not, the light behind the tapestry on which we must now focus at the expense of the ego's fear, frustration, rage, and sorrow in the face of collapse.

In this sense then, collapse forces us to march in a funeral procession toward the end of life as we have known it-and the end of ourselves as we have known them. And who, I ask, would willingly sign up for this? I'm no longer mystified by the masses of Americans who refuse to look at collapse because I know exactly why they won't-not now, and maybe ever. I myself am only beginning to grasp what it takes to look into the face of collapse, unstintingly take in its ramifications, and not run to assume the fetal possession under many layers of blankets. It's really bloody hard, I mean really, really hard!

But just as we don't get to avoid our physical death, we don't get to avoid the death of ego-somehow, somewhere, sometime. So if we've awakened to collapse, we're part of a funeral procession, and we're marching toward the end of who we thought we were so that who we really are can be revealed. For me, that's something to be celebrated, even as I know that millions of people and other life forms are going to die in the process of collapse including possibly myself. The ability to confront contradiction, or paradox, is inherent in human consciousness and is one factor among many that distinguishes us from other species.

Therefore, on another level, when I witness the rapid unfolding of collapse, when I witness people abandoning their cars because they can't afford to put gas in them, when I see banks failing, bankruptcy and foreclosure statistics going off the charts, schools closing, healthcare collapsing, oil prices skyrocketing and impacting everything else, and when a plethora of other evidence that collapse is well underway is ubiquitous, I weep-yes sincerely weep, and but yet another part of me says, "It's party time!"

If that takes you aback, then you haven't yet grasped that only as a result of the total unraveling and the end of life as we've known it, can this planet and the insanity that created its demise be transformed. I'm not guaranteeing that it will be transformed, but I know unequivocally that there isn't the slightest possibility of its transformation without collapse.

For this among many other reasons, I refuse to participate in the national election charade that "just might make things better." When I reflect on this perspective, I'm reminded of my grandmother who died of breast cancer at the age of 77 in the late 1960s. Tragically, my grandmother was not allowed to just die. For seven years before her passing she was pumped up with experimental cancer drugs that prolonged her life--and her horrifying misery. No doubt the "research" performed on her resulted in significant advances in cancer treatment, yet truth be told, today's treatment of cancer leaves more than a little to be desired. All my grandmother really wanted to do was get on with her evolution and simply die, yet the empire-based "disease conquest" model insisted that she live-and live in abject agony.

I must confess that sometimes when I hear the hopeful hype of progressive Democrats who argue that Obama can save us, I think of my grandmother. Some things, people, institutions, and empires just need to die (literally or symbollically), and until they do, we will all be subjected to prolonged anguish. So yes, I'm marching in a funeral procession called the death of civilization, and there will be and are tears along the way, but there is as much to celebrate as there is to mourn.

Today's news reports that localvore movements are now becoming mainstream; more people are using public transportatin and staying at home rather than traveling or commuting; recycling and shopping at auctions and thrift stores is becoming the norm; Hummers are heading for the dustbin of mechanical history, and consumers are rejecting SUV's en masse; increasingly people are being forced to live within their means and either voluntarily reject indebtedness or drown in it which compels them to make purchases only when they have the money to do so. Please understand that I do not perceive these new developments as signals that collapse can be averted but rather that collapse is compelling human beings to live differently. This new behavior will neither save the earth nor the human species, but it is very likely to implement over time a foundation for a new way of being, thinking, and living post-collapse that will be a mixture of grueling and gratifying.

It is now obvious that collapse has a life of its own; it, not we, are in charge. There is much we can do in response to it, but nothing we can do to prevent it. Each day that I report the daily news to readers and subscribers, I grieve a bit more than the day before, and at the same time, the sigh of relief from my body grows longer and larger. So many tragic endings making possible so many new beginnings. The funeral has begun, AND it's party time.

At the completion of this transition, I feel compelled to clarify a number of issues around my relocation and relocation in general. Obviously, for the past two years on this website I have been talking about relocation as one piece in the complex tapestry of collapse preparation. Therefore, I feel that I owe it to regular readers and subscribers of Truth To Power to let you know that I've taken this enormous step since many of you have relocated long before I did, and many more of you are contemplating doing so. I believe that where we choose to stay or move to is monumentally important in terms of how we prepare or do not prepare for collapse. I do not believe that everyone should relocate, and I certainly do not believe that everyone should relocate in Vermont since relocation is a highly individual decision encompassing myriad factors, and one size definitely does not fit all.

I hasten to add that I just arrived in Vermont a few days ago and that I do not have elaborate plans for making a seamless transition into some groovy ecovillage where I intend to live happily ever after in harmonious community with other collapse watchers. I'm taking this process one step at a time and may be settling in at some point in shared living space with friends where a process will be implemented for addressing conflict and the logistics of inhabiting our common dwelling places together. Should such a group coalesce, there will be formidable challenges and hopefully, extraordinary moments of celebration as people come together and confront the demons we have all introjected from empire, not to mention the fundamentals of survival. As a seasoned Buddhist might say, I have a plan, but plans from moment to moment must be open to change. Relocation and living in community as collapse exacerbates will be a long, demanding, arduous process, but I have taken the first step, as have many of you.

Relocation involves much more than logically choosing a geographical area inside or outside the U.S., taking into consideration the climate, access to arable land, water, wood, and other resources for living sustainably-a decision requiring most individuals to carefully weigh the assets and liabilities of any given place and then acquiring the financial resources necessary to make the transition. Just deciding where one wants to live is challenging enough; equally stressful for most people is finding the means to relocate, and as the price of gas and just about everything else soars, it feels as if the sands of time are running out and against those who have not yet made their move.

What seems to get less attention when the topic of relocation is discussed is the emotional factor-that is, the goodbyes, the myriad feelings that surface as one leaves a place and people-perhaps even immediate family members, in order to relocate in an unfamiliar venue. What is already an emotionally challenging experience may become more agonizing as family and friends living in denial of collapse perceive one's decision to relocate as extreme, bizarre, or dangerous. But the emotions associated with leaving are usually rivaled by those one experiences when arriving at the new destination-feelings of unfamiliarity, disorientation, ungroundedness, anxiety, paranoia, and disconnection. None of us is an expert in relocation even if we have moved many times in our lives. After all, relocation engendered by one's awareness of collapse is not the same as simply moving to another state or country under pre-collapse circumstances.

In other words, other relocations in one's life may have been motivated by job change, the end or beginning of a relationship, the desire to be closer to family, or a hundred other conventional reasons. In those instances, moving is less emotionally complicated. One simply takes care of the business of moving, experiences the typical emotions around saying goodbyes, and then moves on. Relocation needs to happen, so we relocate. Done.

Because the prime motivating factor for many individuals in current time is preparation for the demise of empire, one is almost certain to feel passionate about the decision, but the quality of feeling about relocating will be experienced differently than with respect to prior moves. Typically, when people relocate in anticipation of collapse, many second thoughts and pejorative inner voices, as well as some skeptical external voices from well-meaning friends or family, are likely to scream things like: "What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy? Don't you think this is a little extreme? What if you're wrong, and after a few years of crisis, the world just goes on as it was? Won't you regret your move?"

After relocating, even if the new setting is structured and one's living arrangements are already well in place, a plethora of other thoughts and feelings may surface-as stated above: a sense of disorientation, ungroundedness, fear, anxiety, ambivalence. These emotions will vary in intensity and frequency depending on how different the new setting is from the old, but because the intention of relocation is to settle into a very different milieu, they are likely to be ubiquitous. What will invariably come to the forefront of consciousness is the need to trust oneself and one's decision about relocating. It will be important to mentally return to the months or years of preparation one has put into the relocation and remind oneself of all the reasons for making the transition-and reach out to fellow relocaters and friends who support ones' decision.

At this point, relocation becomes a highly emotional and, dare I say, spiritual issue. Any time I am faced with trusting myself or others, I'm in the territory of mystery, and mystery is about something greater than my own human ego. The more experience one has in consciously living beyond the parameters of one's ego and intentionally inhabiting the domain of one's life purpose, the less stressful the transition is apt to be because the "muscles" of trust have been sufficiently exercised in the context of other issues. Relocation is never easy, but it can be made easier by trusting the process that brought one to make the decision, trusting allies who have already earned one's trust, taking action, and finally waking up in the new location with all the attendant emotions and challenges and feeling, not denying them.

Having allies and a structure in place in the new setting is important, but in any event, unforeseen challenges will arise. Such is the nature of the journey of relocation. The toxicity of the culture of empire is a prime motivator for most of us as we relocate, and one aspect of that toxicity is the need for certainty and predictability. When we step out of empire and into our journey, into a new way of thinking and living, we invariably sign up for uncertainty and anxiety and guarantee that our survival and well being depend on trust as much as strategy.

For me, collapse is about far more than survival. In fact, survival may be the least important issue. What matters much more for me is the possibility of creating a new way of being in the world that rejects empire and its values and offers the opportunity for creating and maintaining community based on serving the earth community.

Well, if you're now thinking, "All right, already, enough of the spiritual babble, what about the logistics?" I will tell you why I chose Vermont as my destination; my understanding of the state based on my research suggests the following*: First, Vermont is sparsely populated with about 630,000 residents. It has abundant water and arable land with ample access to firewood which of course will be critical for woodstove and pellet stove heating as home heating oil, the predominant means of heating in the Northeast, becomes increasingly unaffordable. The state has no billboards, and residents must pay for any trash they do not recycle. In addition, Vermont is currently fine-tuning its own state healthcare system, Catamount, which provides reimbursement for anyone making less than $2600 a month. Residents can also buy health insurance through Catamount on a sliding scale. Just this past week, Vermont was rated second only to Iowa in the quality of its healthcare for children. The state also has an abundance of small farms, a thriving organic dairy industry, and a strong emphasis on eating and buying local. Most notably, Vermont is an incredibly rural state with only three towns of 15,000 or more: Burlington, Rutland, and the state's capital, Montpelier. When traveling throughout the state one has the feeling that one has left the U.S. and is inhabiting some other country because rural Vermont bears little resemblance to "McAmerica". Furthermore, Vermont is third in the nation for the amount of money it spends per capita on education, and small private and state-funded colleges are ubiquitous. Also, an Amtrak line runs from Montreal to New York City, and trains can be boarded daily from Rutland to the Big Apple.

Perhaps most enticing about Vermont is the remarkable environmental consciousness of the majority of its citizens and the sense of community and mutual support they demonstrate. In fact, I have never known a state, and I have lived in many, where cooperation is as valued as it is in Vermont. A great deal of focus is now being placed by Vermonters on renewable energy with widespread Peak Oil awareness and preparation. As for the arts, Vermont is an oasis of music and visual arts, and some have said that one cannot throw a stone in Vermont without hitting a writer.

Politically, the state tends to balance conservatism-that is fiscal restraint, balanced budgets and a "live and let live" sensibility and neighbor helping neighbor, with a long history of support for progressive causes-from support for abolition in the 19th century to support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered persons in the 21st. Seen from opposite ends of the political spectrum, Vermont is the most radical state in the nation-the only state where one does not need a permit to carry a handgun and at the same time, a state where LGBT individuals feel safely able to become an integral part of community life. Vermont has a rich history of supporting human rights and was the first state to outlaw slavery.

In addition, a strong movement for Vermont independence, yes secession, is the passion of a significant number of Vermonters. Familiarity with Vermont's history reveals a long-standing tradition of independence modeled on the democratic republic template of the Founders of the United States. In-depth information about the "once and future Republic of Vermont" can be obtained at the Vermont Commons website where Truth To Power has a regular blogspot and where authors promoting independence offer a treasure-trove of information and support for their cause. Many supporters of Vermont independence believe that it will become an increasingly viable option as the collapse of empire intensifies and globalization is supplanted by localization.

However, as with any venue, Vermont has daunting challenges, not the least of which is its winters. Home heating oil costs this coming winter will be astronomical, and renewable energy for heating will be a critical necessity. Because of its long winters, newcomers quickly discover that they must participate in seasonal outdoor activities such as downhill or cross country skiing or snow shoeing in order to prevent "cabin fever" and to assist them in emotionally adapting to the season's length. The pay-off for those long winters, however, is lush summers and resplendent autumn foliage that bolster the state's tourism and fine arts enterprises. Because of Vermont's low population and its de-emphasis on growth, finding gainful employment is challenging. Public transportation is still inadequate in Vermont as it is in most regions of the nation which means that unless Vermonters work at home, they are required to drive fairly long distances to their jobs. At this writing, a few stores are selling gas at $3.89 in Vermont, but most Vermonters anticipate rising gas prices very soon. Culturally, Vermont is mono, rather than multi-cultural, the predominant ethnicity being Anglo-American. In addition, LGBT individuals in the state are working hard to get legislation passed that would make civil marriages legal.

As for my own rationale for leaving the Southwestern U.S., I have been researching the issue for several years, and in the light of what are certain to be lethal water shortages and climate changes that are likely to make that region uninhabitable, especially as energy blackouts become more frequent, I felt compelled to move north. Through a series of connections with friends in the Northeast, I chose Vermont for many of the reasons stated above, but also because it felt like the best option for me. I have also carefully considered relocating outside the U.S., but as the Terminal Triangle that I have written about so often-Peak Oil, climate change, and global economic meltdown exacerbate and engulf the entire planet, the assertion that leaving the U.S. is absolutely necessary for one's survival has felt increasingly spurious to me.

If you feel motivated to relocate, be advised: the sooner the better. Time is running out. Also, it is important to understand that no place is perfectly safe, no place offers one all of the attributes that make for sustainable living, and certainly no place is without challenges. Most importantly, the emotional and spiritual aspects of collapse must be attended to with as much ardor as the logistical aspects because they loom at least as large, if not larger, than the fundamental process of continuing to breathe air, eat food, drink water, and maintain one's basic creature comforts.

During my transition to Vermont I was able to offer more postings on the site than I had anticipated. I suppose I expected more disruption of daily postings than actually occurred, and for the fact that I was able to continue postings most days during the transition, I'm grateful. Truth To Power now has a new home as well as many subscribers in the Green Mountain State. I look forward to posting news regarding local political and sustainability projects in Vermont which may be useful to all Truth To Power readers everywhere, and I support all of you who are considering relocation. Choose the place that is best for you, and go there soon.

*With special thanks to Rob Williams, Professor of History at Champlain College and Editor of VT Commons, for fact-checking information about Vermont in this article

In my travels I've seen exactly one RV on the road, a few SUV's and vans, a number of small cars and motorcycles, and lots of eighteen-wheelers going 55 MPH. Motels have a record low number of guests, and few people are eating in restaurants. I thought about writing an article entitled "Ghost Town USA: Echo Across America", but that was before oil reached a new record of $135 yesterday. The speed of collapse is taking even a seasoned collapse-watcher like me by somewhat of a surprise, and I feel compelled to talk about it as it unfolds in this moment.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of what we are witnessing-and there are oh so many, is the ubiquitousness of blame. Attending almost every report on skyrocketing gas prices is the question: "So whose fault is it?" I certainly am not surprised by this, but I find it unsettling to say the least. Because Americans in particular have been absolutely recalcitrant and incapable of looking at collapse, they are being and will continue to be increasingly blindsided by it. Sadly, when humans are traumatized, their functioning becomes progressively more primal and animal-like, and their capacity for taking in and assimilating new information is markedly reduced.

When Peak Oil experts first began sharing their research, they told us that food, perhaps more than any aspect of our lives, would be impacted by it, and so it is. The double-barreled trauma now hitting Americans which is putting both gasoline and food out of their reach, is certain to result in reactive, vindictive behavior that will irrationally target a plethora of scapegoats. Add to this a foreclosure or two, a bankruptcy, car repossession, job loss or loss of health insurance and you have a recipe for mayhem. Such behavior, understandable as it may be, is adolescent in nature and therefore, untempered and unwizened, making acting-out individuals exceedingly dangerous to themselves and others.

Like me, you are probably witnessing the barrage of blame in your community and nationally if you are paying attention to mainstream news. Dmitry Orlov has given us a treasure-trove of information about human behavior in the throes of collapse chaos. What is and will be different from the collapse of the Soviet Union for Americans, however, is the level of violence that is likely to proliferate as collapse accelerates. Russians were never intoxicated with affluence and entitlement as Americans are. Their history has been replete with suffering; ours marinated in privilege reinforced by gun culture and firearm fetishes.

What those of us who comprehend collapse must understand as we navigate the daunting days ahead is that what is happening to America and the human species is an initiatory experience similar to those which have been structured and honored by indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The very best explanation I have read of this process is Nature And The Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness And Community In A Fragmented World, an extraordinary book by psychologist Bill Plotkin in which he illuminates the stages of human development and emphasizes how they have been skewed by a capitalistic, consumer-driven culture-and how each stage might be lived in fulfillment in the context of a holistic community. The current planetary initiation differs from the traditional, tribal initiation in that the former is involuntary and unwanted, whereas the latter is perceived as essential for the well being of the initiate and the tribe.

In tribal cultures young people have the opportunity to experience ritual rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood, that is, an initiation, which involves some type of ordeal created and supported by the tribe's elders. Ordeals may include rugged endurance challenges in the wilderness, treacherous hunting experiences, or isolation for a period of time in nature. In all instances, the experience is one of discomfort and danger and literally sets up a brush with death for the initiate. Many traditional societies, and some psychologists such as Carl Jung, believe that the human psyche requires initiatory experiences in order to develop in a functional manner and that without them, one's emotional and spiritual development is impaired.

Since cultures are comprised of individuals, it follows that when the individuals of the culture have not been initiated, the culture itself is likely to remain in an adolescent state. Many cultures that have experienced collective suffering such as protracted wars, famines, and disease have in the process, experienced a collective initiation which may produce some of the results of an individual initiation. This may be the reason that some European countries that endured two world wars appear to have a more mature relationship with the earth community. For example, many of those countries are far more aware of environmental issues and have taken more profound steps to live consciously in harmony with the ecosystem as noted in a recent National Geographic survey which ranks the U.S. last in environmentally conscious behavior.

I believe that the collapse of civilization, now accelerating at dizzying speed, is indeed a collective, planetary initiation of the human species. It involves all of us, not just those "clueless Americans out there", and it will deliver to each of us countless unwanted ordeals on every level-physical, emotional, financial, social, and spiritual. What traditional cultures which practice ritual initiation understand about it is that what matters most in the initiatory process is not whether the initiate survives physically, but that that person's consciousness is transformed-for her own enhancement and for that of the tribe.

What I want to reinforce for all of us is how imperative it is in the days ahead for us to walk consciously, cautiously, and compassionately through the fires of this long, protracted initiation. Beyond our physical, financial, and logistic preparations, we must continuously work-and it will be work-to open our hearts and minds to the larger purpose behind the ordeals. We must ask ourselves what each particular experience wants to reveal to us, how it comes to us to open our eyes and cleanse the doors of our perception. We will be incessantly reminded that civilization has come to all this-depletion and exhaustion of the earth community and all of the suffering that attends that. In a sense, I believe, we are fortunate to be living in this time and on this planet because something greater than our finite human egos is delivering a message with unmistakable clarity: Living estranged from the earth community as if we are the only and the most important species on earth does not work, and collapse wishes to make certain that we understand unequivocally and irrevocably that our only survival and our only serenity will be found in living as if we and the earth are one.

Moreover, because we and the earth community are one, it is imperative that we reach out to our neighbors and community members. Their awareness may range from totally clueless to that of fellow collapse watcher, but bonds must be made and trust built-for our well being and for theirs. In the days ahead, we will need them, and they will need us. The more familiar we are with each other, the less likely that any of us is scapegoated or victimized by panicked, hungry people who feel victimized and powerless to cope with what they perceive they have been dealt.

The time for a sense of entitlement is over. We are not entitled to anything; I repeat: We are not entitled to anything. Each day, each moment, each breath, each bite of food and drop of water, each smile or warm hand on our shoulder, if we are fortunate enough to have them, are precious gifts to be savored, treasured, and given thanks for.

As I have been writing in recent months, I hold a vision of possibility-the potential for small pockets of survivors to create local outposts of conscious community in which individuals can live compassionately, practicing out of necessity and choice, those behaviors that sustain themselves and the earth. Those who have already begun this process may have an advantage, but none of us will be immune-nor should we be, in my opinion. It appears that this momentous initiation is the only way in which humans can fully and finally comprehend the toxicity of civilization.

Many citizens of the former Soviet Union discovered through the experience of collapse what ultimately mattered most. Yes, there was violence, crime, paranoia, hunger, thirst, deprivation, and astounding loss, but unprecedented compassion, trust, bonding, cooperation, and support flourished in the midst of total societal disintegration. For me, collapse is the opportunity for an outpouring of the latter qualities that causes me to at least partially welcome the demise of all that has prevented us from living and sharing them. Perhaps finally, amid a frightening unraveling, we will grow up-becoming mature human beings who ultimately find it impossible to tolerate anything remotely resembling industrial civilization because we will at last have become adults.

With the image of the 12 Steps in mind, I decided to look more closely at them in relation to the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) and notice how they might in fact be useful not only for recovering from addiction, but for navigating Armageddon. At first I felt shy about applying the Steps to the collapse of civilization, thinking that my readers would think I had seriously gone around the bend, but then someone sent me the "12 Steps Of Peak Oil" from a Vancouver newspaper. At that point, I realized how relevant the Steps might be not only to Peak Oil, but to Peak Civilization itself. Seasoned 12 Steppers argue that despite their 1930s origin, the Steps are applicable to any situation-no matter how monumental, and the collapse of civilization is about as big as it gets. So let's take a closer look.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 1 requires that I admit my powerlessness over the situation with which I'm confronted. Maybe you're thinking, "Well hey, that's no problem-did I ask for this debacle? All those years that I was an upstanding citizen and voted in elections and had faith in the American dream? What was that for? I did all the right things and now we're looking at Armageddon. Of course, I know that I'm powerless."

But that's not exactly what I mean by admitting that one is powerless. Many of us are stockpiling food, learning skills, busily relocating to other parts of the country or world, investing in precious metals, and so much more, but let's not forget that no matter how much we prepare, we're ultimately powerless over the outcome. While we may know that intellectually, letting it sink into the gut is a whole different story.

Powerless means that we don't know the outcome and can't control it, and that's really scary. I mean what it really all comes down to is the "D" word, you know: Death. And even if we end up celebrating a 100^th birthday eating soy cupcakes with our friends in some groovy ecovillage, collapse means that we'll be encountering many more endings than we can now imagine, beginning with the end of our current way of life no matter how small our footprint may be.

Control freaks won't do well with TEOTWAWKI; flexibility, on the other hand, is an essential attribute for survival. No matter how "manageable" our lives might be in the current moment, the collapse of empire is certain to challenge that and will compel us to align with others, give and receive support, trust our intuition as well as our intellect, and be willing to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. As a 12 Stepper might say, true empowerment lies in admitting one's powerlessness.

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

People entering recovery often have a terrible time with this one. First of all, they feel they might have to buy into all that God stuff, but worse, they feel as if in order to recover, they have to admit that they are insane.

Let me hasten to emphasize that I too recoil at the use of the word "God" and wish to define "power greater than ourselves" as broadly as possible. Over the decades, countless atheists have benefited from using the 12 Steps for addiction recovery precisely because they were able to do the same. Atheists, agnostics, and feminists will have a much easier time with the Steps if they widen their concept of Higher Power to something non-theistic and gender-neutral.

"Insanity" as the Steps define it simply means that one does not recognize anything larger or more significant than one's own ego. Simply put, "something greater" could be one's concept of nature or one's confidence in the human spirit or anything else that one considers more benevolently powerful than oneself.

The 12 Steps inherently fly in the face of the ethics of civilization, based as those values are on the supremacy of the human ego-a pre-eminence that consciously or unconsciously deifies itself and whatever material gain it can amass unto itself at the expense of everyone and everything else. Now what could be more insane than that, and isn't everyone reading these words interested in transforming that paradigm into something more compassionate and sustainable? 12 Step programs further define insanity as doing the same thing that doesn't work over and over again, each time expecting different results. I can think of myriad examples of this in the culture of empire, starting with, "Maybe this time, if we just elect the right candidate for president then...."

12 Stepping into Armageddon begins with thoroughly examining how the culture of empire has inculcated us on every level and in every aspect of our lives. It means understanding how empire has programmed us to believe that we are all-powerful and that if we just do all the right things, we will succeed because our ego needs are the raison d'etre for our existence. When we are unable to recognize our powerlessness and resist acknowledging something greater than ourselves, we also rebel against the limits that life on this planet demand of us. We walk around as little "gods" and "goddesses" believing that we can consume whatever we like whenever we like at the expense of all other species as well as our own.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to that power.

OK, breathe. Remember-you don't have to use the word "God", and this Higher Power thing is gender-neutral.

This Step is particularly challenging because it requires action. Steps 1 and 2 just require me to admit something, but Step 3 asks me to DO something-something repugnant to the children of empire. It means I have to surrender my will to that "something greater". Eeeeeeew!

Step 3 is where the rubber meets the road-or not. In order to continue with the rest of the Steps, and therefore recovery, if that's what I'm using them for, or navigating collapse, as the case may be, I have to defer to a greater wisdom. What's even more distasteful is that I'm asked to surrender not only my will but my life.

Well, here we are again back to the dreaded "D" word. Anyone who has been researching and preparing for collapse knows the precarious position of the planet and the human race. If 200 species per day are going extinct, then the bottom line is that we are all staring our own mortality in the face as never before in human history. Collapse is, above all, forcing us to confront our personal mortality and that of our loved ones which is the principal reason so few are willing to deal with it. Who would sign up to feel that vulnerable? However, if we can allow that particular emotion, it becomes more possible to surrender our will and our life because what else do we have to lose?

The logical progression of the Steps is simply that since I'm powerless over the outcome, and there is something greater than my human ego and my five physical senses, it behooves me to consider abdicating my attempt to control what my finite humanity cannot. For this reason, I find that Step 3 relinquishes me from having "hope" because hope is ultimately another attempt to control what I cannot.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

So now that I know that my ego can't manage my life, and I'm willing to surrender the outcome of my life and the world as I have known it to a power greater than myself, I have to look more deeply within. If we are using the Steps in relation to TEOTWAWKI, then a moral inventory could be a somewhat different experience than if we're applying the steps in relation to an addiction. Nevertheless, TEOTWAWKI is not unrelated to the addiction issue. In fact, humanity's addiction to material gain and economic growth has resulted in a delusional disregard for the earth's limits. An expression often heard among 12 Steppers is "self-will run riot" which pretty much summarizes humankind's obliviousness and even contempt toward the earth community.

But let's define our terms. Inventory simply means taking stock of what we have and don't have-what we may need more of or less of. The collapse of empire forces all of us, whether we consciously intend to or not, to consider our values and priorities. People losing houses, jobs, having to relocate out of necessity or by choice, finding that their pensions have suddenly evaporated or who have lost health insurance are forced to make tough decision about priorities.

Those of us who have been aware of collapse for some time and have been preparing for it are faced not only with making decisions such as the ones mentioned above, but are also compelled to look more deeply within to notice what qualities we need to develop in the face of collapse and which ones we may need to minimize. For example, I grew up as an only child and have lived an extremely independent life as an adult. I currently find myself working on reaching out to trusted others, making plans to live in community, and although fiercely committed to personal space and daily periods of solitude, consciously forsaking a life that is all about just me and my needs.

In so doing, I am taken to deeper layers of Step 4 as I contemplate my own part in the collapse of civilization. Although I have left a very small footprint on the earth for most of my life, I must own responsibility for the ways, no matter how small, in which I've polluted the ecosystem, my disconnection from the earth community, aspects of personal independence that have manifested in dysfunction, isolation, arrogance, and rationalization about my need for interdependent connection. In other words, although I'm not on the board of Monsanto, I have played a role in violating the human and more than human worlds.

5. Admitted the exact nature of our wrongs.

Taking a searching and fearless moral inventory compels us to admit our errors to ourselves, to something greater, and to someone else. I begin this process by verbalizing these errors to the power greater than me and then to whomever or whatever I have harmed.

With respect to TEOTWAWKI, I must apologize to generations younger than mine for the failure of my generation to preserve and protect the earth. For example, when teaching college students about the collapse of civilization and its repercussions, I'm often confronted with, "Yeah, and it's your fault and the fault of your generation." Without the slightest hesitation, I wholeheartedly agree, and I tell them that I am genuinely sorry. I also point out that collapse has built up over a period of centuries and that inherent within the values of civilization were the seeds of its own demise. Nevertheless, I have made choices in my lifetime that reinforced those values.

6. Were entirely ready to have all these defects of character removed.

Defects of character? What is this?

It's easy to become defensive around this Step unless one takes it to the next level. I define "defects of character" as those aspects of my personality that have resulted from the programming of empire, or my wounds, if you will. These are the qualities that I have taken on while growing up in empire culture which mitigate against the earth community and my connection with it. I'm very ready to have those removed, but I'm also aware that that means I may need to change my lifestyle, perhaps in drastic ways. Speaking only for myself, I need to look at my appetite for meat (which I've almost extinguished); my tendency to think of my own needs first even when I know I shouldn't; my workaholism, which although greatly diminished in recent years is not entirely absent; my tendency to isolate; my quickness to judge others-the list goes on and on. None of these qualities will be useful as collapse accelerates, and I am working to transform their presence in my life which the next Step facilitates.

7. Humbly asked for the shortcomings to be removed

Now I'm back to Step 3 and my relationship with "something greater". Because I've surrendered the outcome to it, I can also surrender my character defects and ask them to be transformed-a word that I personally prefer over "removed" since I have come to believe that no part of me can ever be totally removed. Like energy, parts of myself can be transformed but never made to disappear.

8. Made a list of all we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

While Steps 4 through 7 are about oneself, Steps 8, 9, and 10 are relational. Step 8 asks me to notice carefully who has been harmed by my empire-inflicted wounds. This definitely does not apply exclusively to people. Without meaning to, I've harmed animals, birds, trees, soil, water, air-myriad members of the earth community, and I need to reflect on that. In fact, even after learning about collapse and how I need to live differently, I have not changed my behavior to the extent that I want and need to. Step 8 is about willingness and paying attention.

9. Made direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

So now that I'm willing to make amends, I must do so. Certainly I must make amends to the people in my life that I've harmed, but just as important are those members of the more than human world that I've overlooked, minimized, disregarded, or just simply didn't notice. Just as a 9^th Step may require me to sit down with another human whom I've harmed and make amends, it may also require me to spend a day in the forest, or somewhere else in nature, expressing my regrets to trees, insects, streams, birds, or other non-humans for my obliviousness to them and the countless services they perform in the ecosytem from which I benefit.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

So Steps 6-9 are not one-shot deals. I am asked to practice them repeatedly. Inventory-taking is forever because what I have or don't have constantly changes, and it's important that I use both the "glass half empty" and "glass half full" approaches to my evolution. Just as I cannot successfully navigate collapse by myself, neither can I practice the Steps in isolation. I need the entire earth community in order to utilize them effectively.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with something greater

Some readers may recoil at the words "prayer" and "meditation", but I remind all of us of one of the key slogans of 12 Step programs which is: "Take what you like and leave the rest." If you find yourself reacting to "prayer" and "meditation", don't worry about it. The point of this Step is to improve conscious contact with something greater, and how we choose to do that is far less important than that we do it. Armageddon will not be easy to navigate, but it will be impossible without a conscious, working connection with a power greater than oneself.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Virtually every person preparing for collapse has had at least one, if not countless experiences, of attempting to share research, options, and the realities of collapse with others, only to find oneself blown off by the other person. Not unlike the individual addict who must be ready for recovery before fully applying the Steps, the people with whom we share information about TEOTWAWKI will either be ready to learn more or they will resist and maintain their head-in-the-sand posture. So we must be discreet and respectful, remembering that walking our talk (practicing these principles in all our affairs) is the most important message we can carry.

Waking up is an extraordinarily mixed blessing. With it comes tremendous clarity and joy, as well as sometimes excruciating sorrow as one witnesses more clearly civilization's trajectory of self-and-other destruction. Just as addicts in recovery frequently experience the tragic deaths of other addicts in their lives who will not engage in the recovery process, individuals preparing for collapse invariably encounter numerous loved ones about whom they care deeply who prefer to remain asleep. I feel sorrow daily for those I know who will probably never open their eyes. But I have opened mine, and I imagine that most people reading these words have as well. I carry that and these incredibly practical Steps with me, alongside a plethora of emotions and wonderfully awake allies, as each day we journey more deeply into Armageddon.

While I do not feel optimistic about survival in the abyss into which we appear to be descending, I believe that the principles inherent in the Steps can facilitate our planting seeds that may ultimately germinate and flourish as a new paradigm lived out by some of us and our descendents who are committed to creating lifeboats of localized, sustainable living that serve the entire earth community.

As daunting as that challenge may seem, consider that individuals in isolation will have a hard, lonely, and extreme challenge if they try to survive the world that will remain when systems collapse with ever-increasing rapidity and intensity. Humans are hard-wired as social beings. Absent the distractions of media and entertainment we will find that we need each other. At the same time, we will discover how emotionally and spiritually wounded we've become as members of the largely bankrupt, and often abusive, culture that empire has created.

Sadly, peoples' experiences of community end all too often in pain and disappointment. Such experiences range from attempts to live in intentional communities to the struggles of serving on church committees or being part of activist organizations. As a whole we are ill-equipped to create cohesive and cooperative groups and then to resolve ongoing issues and conflicts that naturally arise. People often express cynicism, despair and helplessness around the possibility of successfully creating and maintaining a sense of working community within a culture of empire. Clearly, it is critical to acknowledge the need for a sense of real connection, for the ability to work through conflict, and to cooperate in effective and joyful ways with others. Once we have come to terms with the need to do so we can begin to find others who have identified the same need and are ready for the task.

Let's first identify what we are talking about when we talk about community. In this context community does not refer only to individuals or families who own land together or who happen to live in proximity to one another, although proximity will more and more be the rule as fuel becomes scarce and travel is limited. We define community, in this context, to be a congregation of people who have, by the commitment and skills they possess, learned to establish relationships characterized by trust, understanding, mutual respect, and bonding that transcends personality and allows and even embraces differences of background or ideology. Such a group is able to think together effectively and to tap into deep wisdom about challenging issues. They can do this because they trust each other enough to question and suspend the assumptions and core beliefs that limit their insights as individuals. Such a group does not come together, as a therapy group does, for the purpose of healing per se, although insight and healing of isolation, unresolved past conflict, fears, and insecurities often occurs. The purpose of the kind of community we are speaking of is to come together to glean wisdom from listening and speaking with one another and to offer connection, support, comfort, and mutual respect. Such a group of people learns together to find better solutions, wiser actions and more joy together than is possible for them to do as isolated individuals, couples or families.

When defined in this way, the idea of community appeals to most people, even when they doubt their ability to find or create such an experience. But the times demand that we do what we've not believed we are equipped to do. It helps to remember that humans are indeed "hard-wired" for this. Indigenous peoples overall have felt the benefits of inclusion in close-knit social units. It is the wounding of the current culture that has disrupted that hard-wiring, often for many generations, and certainly most seriously in current times. But deep trust and connection is something we need in order to feel fulfilled and secure. Once accepted, the need to build community is simply another task to attend to as the current system unravels.

As tempting as it is to focus only on the logistics of living arrangements, how resources and tasks can be shared, preparation for crisis conditions, and other issues, it is equally important to develop skills to create and maintain authentic connection and to work through conflict. When groups fall apart it is almost always as a result of emotionally charged issues. It is important that people make a commitment to find ways to work with people's emotions, to communicate fully, and to bond. Groups will do well to cultivate skills in listening and truth-telling, because when emotional issues are not consciously addressed and worked through, they often sabotage a community's very existence. At the very least unresolved conflict makes life miserable and drains huge amounts of energy that would better be utilized attending to other needs. Much talk of ecovillages and intentional communities abounds among collapse watchers. Evidence that dealing with relationships is essential is the fact that most of these situations devote a significant amount of time to building a workable sense of community.

Conflict is inevitable. A community must develop skills to effectively resolve conflict so that people feel cared-for and respected. Its apparent absence is a red flag signaling the likelihood of dysfunction, of unspoken feelings and truths that need to be told, or of a strict authoritarian hierarchy that keeps conflict as well as individual creativity submerged. Indigenous cultures at their high points skillfully navigated conflict, and in fact probably welcomed it. They evolved creative skills for addressing it compassionately and assertively, with elders, both men and women, who carried those skills and wisdom down through generations. Those of us reared in the hierarchies of empire are not so lucky. Most people don't feel fully adult much less secure enough to be considered real elders. We are having to glean the best we can from older cultures and learn from the most innovative practices that have come from psychology and organizational development to find our way in to creative, cooperative relationship.

Here are some insights that may be useful:

People who have had opportunities to sit in listening/ truth-telling circles often at first feel overwhelmed with the amount of emotional work that needs to be done in order for group members to bond and build trust with each other. This has certainly been our experience. But when people make the commitment and see the process through the difficult stages, they find new optimism. Groups that break through to what Scott Peck called "true community," experience what human beings are capable of. Regular people, with the garden-variety neuroses and the wounding that is typical of most of us educated in public schools and reared in the typically dysfunctional families of empire are surprised at the connection possible. What we realize is that community members are able to consistently do this work together, and that when we do, we successfully dissolve internalized patterns that have been inculcated by empire. What we experience in the place of those old patterns is the joyful connectedness that empire had rendered utterly impossible.

Those who have participated in community-building workshops and other kinds of training in dialogue and human interaction find this is a repeatable experience. People find they are able in this work to include and allow for differences. This experience is akin to the profound, intimate joining that indigenous people experience and sustain, which has allowed them to survive and thrive. Such experiences of mutual respect, understanding and bonding are likely to support individuals and groups in critical ways during time of societal upheaval. There are principles that underlie effective group interaction. It helps immeasurably to have one or two strong facilitators present who are familiar with the inner terrain a group must travel to develop trust and to transcend differences. The process is rarely smooth. Facilitators are different from what we generally think of as leaders. Facilitators help the group, as a whole, move into shared wisdom. This is very different from a group that accepts and follows the wisdom or philosophy of a charismatic leader or the dictates of an authoritarian leader. Rather, this kind of community may be said to be "a group of leaders." Each person is regarded as someone who brings a unique set of gifts, experiences, skills, and insights. Strong facilitators help empower individuals to share those individual qualities for the greater good of the group.

Key to building this kind of community experience is the practice of compassionate listening and truth-telling. When one person speaks, the rest of the group listens attentively and stays present with both heart and mind. Speakers "speak from the heart" and speak when truly moved to speak rather than compulsively or in reaction. Another key is that each person learns to take responsibility for his/her part in whatever concerns or complaints he/she identifies. This requires each individual to examine his/her own assumptions and core beliefs and patterns, and to risk sharing those with the group so that they can be examined and understood.

What follows are some "Principles Of Dialogue" that Sally Erickson has synthesized from group development theory, Scott Peck's model of community building and David Bohm's explorations of formal dialogue practice.

Principles of Dialogue

1) We agree to identify and suspend assumptions and core beliefs. Suspending doesn't mean eliminating. It means holding them aside so as to be able to listen more deeply to another's experience, knowledge, insight. It means being willing to allow beliefs and assumptions to shift as the conversation reveals greater insight and understanding.

• 2) Examples of three kinds of assumptions/core beliefs:

**Factual: I assume energy can/cannot be created by hydrogen.

**Personal: I assume I am/am not personallyresponsible for saving the world. I assume I am/am not valued by those around me.

** Spiritual/philosophical: I assume that the material world as mapped by Newtonian physics, chemistry, biology, is/isn't all there is to reality. I assume human beings are/are not the pinnacle of evolution. I assumed there is/is not a power greater than the human ego.

What happens when we suspend our assumptions and question core beliefs? We are likely to experience initial anxiety. As we sit through that anxiety, habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and being soften and we find new possibilities. For example, if we usually talk a lot in a group, we begin to listen more. If we usually don't talk, we find the courage to speak when moved to do so. If we tend to stay in our intellect, we notice and identify our feelings and are more aware of our bodies. If we tend to be largely in our feelings and body, we begin to use the mind and insight more. Long-held beliefs and assumptions are revised or abandoned in the light of new information and insight. Group wisdom emerges that is greater than the sum of the collected individual's knowledge.

3) We agree to come together as colleagues. While individuals are not necessarily equal in specific knowledge or skills it is important to regard ourselves and each other as equal in value. Each person possesses unique abilities in a variety of arenas that are important to the community: insight, ability to listen and be present, intuitive gifts, dreams, clarity, connection to the natural world, as well as factual knowledge, skills, etc. When we come together as colleagues we make a commitment to notice the tendency to regard ourselves, and others, as either higher or lower. And we agree that when we notice that tendency we will work to open to find the unique value of others and ourselves in cooperation.

** We agree to confidentiality. To increase a sense of safety, it is important that members who come together to do this kind of work commit to maintaining confidentiality. We agree that what is shared in the circle will not be shared outside of this circle in any way that would violate the confidentiality of the members of the circle. One's own experience can be shared outside, but names, other's personal stories or what actually occurs during the circle will not be shared or gossiped about.

**We agree to show up and be present. This commitment helps members feel some degree of emotional safety. Having been raised in empire we almost all have felt abandoned when we expressed vulnerability and were trying to be genuine and honest. When everyone agrees to stay in the circle and not flee in the face of conflict or discomfort, "the space is held." As vulnerability surfaces and conflicts are confronted, the result is that everyone feels safer and more willing to risk telling their truth. Trust is built incrementally but undeniably when people "hang in there" for the long haul.

**We agree to take the time that is necessary to do the work. It has been the experience of many groups that it takes a minimum of two full days, or 16 hours of interaction, for a group to begin to establish the kind of trust and openness that yields the fruit of real dialogue and bonding. It is generally wise to schedule more than that number of hours in order for a group to really coalesce and begin to learn to work well together. It is important that all participants agree to be present for all sessions. Occasionally exceptions can be made, but generally people who miss out on the work the group does together will not develop the same level of trust.

This is a critical point to note. All too often, just as a group is about to break through into a new and more profound level of functioning, interactions will get very challenging. People will get discouraged and want to quit or take a break to do something else. This is the part of the process Scott Peck called "emptiness," and it IS challenging to get through. It is at this point that a strong facilitator can be especially helpful in giving the group confidence, in "holding the space." By his or her presence the group will find the courage to keep working rather than to flee into some other activity.

**We agree that no one is required to speak, only to work to be fully present. Since many people feel intimidated about speaking in large groups this agreement encourages people to be involved who might not otherwise participate. Often the attentive presence of very quiet people will add immeasurably to the experience. And often their verbal contributions will be spot-on when they are made. Because of the nature of the work and the need to be mentally clear and emotionally available to the experience, participants agree not to use mood altering substances including alcohol for the duration of the days that the group is engaged in the work.

**We agree to be mindful and to resist "sub-grouping." There is a natural temptation to talk in pairs or in small groups during meals and breaks about charged feelings that arise as a result of the work of the circle. It is very important to bring those expressions of feelings into the "container" of the group or there may be a tendency for factions to develop. While the tendency to "process" outside of the group is understandable if feelings and insights and challenges are not shared within the group, its power is diluted, and the process of building trust will be prolonged. Withholding unresolved feelings and conflict and factioning as a result can ultimately sabotage the work.

Interventions In The Process:

Since the facilitator is there largely as a guide and elder, but not as a sole leader, others are encouraged to intervene in the process when they begin to feel stuck or frustrated with the way things are going. Participants are encouraged to put words to their feelings of frustration and then to request that the group consider reflecting on the process and work to shift it. Anyone can make the following requests to help the group work more effectively.

1) Ask for a minute of silence.

2) Ask for people to identify, talk about, and suspend their assumptions around an issue.

3) Ask for each person to hold the question: "What is it in me that is keeping us from going deeper?"

4) Ask the group to try to "speak from the heart."

5) Ask for each person to question: "Am I taking full responsibility for MY part in whatever is going on right now?"

6) Ask the question: "Is frustration present and if so what is the nature of the frustration?"

7) Ask the question: "Is there something we are not talking about and if so what are the assumptions we hold that keep us from talking about it?"

A William Stafford poem "A Ritual To Be Read To Each Other" illumines the subject at hand:

If you don't know the kind of person I am?

and I don't know the kind of person you are?

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world?

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,?

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break?

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood?

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,?

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,?

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty?

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,?

a remote important region in all who talk:?

though we could fool each other, we should consider-lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-?should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

The rewards of investing our time and vital energy into our community are infinite and succinctly captured in the words of author and psychotherapist, Thomas Moore in The Re-Enchantment Of Everyday Life: When we all, leaders and participants in community, discover the sheer joy of creating a way of life that serves families, ennobles work, and fosters genuine communal spirit, then we will begin to touch upon the sacredness that lies in the simple word polis, which is not just a city defined in square miles, income, or population, but a spirit that arises when people live together creatively.

A combination of modalities may be useful, but what is just as important as the method is the community's commitment to the process of healing the wounds of empire both internally and as they manifest in our relationships with each other. As we move out of the disintegrated structures of the culture of empire there is a tremendous opportunity to move into integrated and joy filled structures of relationship, inner and outer, with ourselves, one another and the whole community of life. Relationships that bring comfort and joy will be a mainstay as we sail through these most difficult times ahead. In addition, dialog circle work can facilitate our finding a greater group wisdom about how to navigate these times than we can find on our own.

Sally Erickson is the producer of the independent documentary What A Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire. She has also been the founding member of an intentional community and a psychotherapist, counselor and mentor for over twenty years.

For more information on dialogue circle training and facilitator training, you can contact Sally Erickson and Tim Bennett by emailing requests for information to [email protected]

For countless Americans across the nation, this winter has brought with it something far more distressing than brutal, bone-chilling temperatures-horrific, traumatic revelations that the American dream, neatly packaged and sold for decades, has become their worst possible nightmare. Should they happen to see on TV the guy from the Countrywide commercial greeting them with "Homeowners...", they are probably wondering why he hasn't been assassinated and at the very least wondering why Countrywide is still in business.

Something is festering in the psyches of the formerly middle class of this nation-something far more ominous than burgeoning public assistance and food stamp applications or mushrooming meth labs. If the subprime mortgage massacre had occurred in a vacuum, the dirty little secret might have been kept a bit longer, but juxtaposing it with Peak Oil, skyrocketing food prices, wacky weather and debilitating droughts, not to mention proliferating pink slips, it daily becomes embarrassingly obvious that Jim Kunstler was spot-on when he uttered his infamous declaration in the documentary, "The End Of Suburbia" that "the entire suburban project is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

And yet during this "winter of disconnect" we have heard delusional economists and the President himself describe the current horrors in terms of "a soft patch" or the need to "ride this one out until things bounce back." And overall, the human race is virtually ignoring climate change and perseverating in the madness of the ethanol panacea.

And speaking of insanity, Europe is rapidly returning to coal-fired power plants, while in China, coal "remains the major source of fuel for two billion people"-nightmare scenarios with respect to global warming and climate change. Meanwhile, Monsanto and other genocidal monsters of food and population control, tout ethanol as an energy panacea--the only tangible result of their hype being mass starvation and astronomical food prices. Or as a friend recently commented: Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

The Four Seasons Of Civilization

Duane Elgin, author of numerous books including Voluntary Simplicity, postulated fifteen years ago that civilizations evolve through specific stages which ironically follow the shape of a bell curve, similar to the Peak Oil curve, in their development and to which Elgin refers as the "four seasons" of growth. This was long before the bell curve of Peak Oil was familiar to many other individuals besides M. King Hubbert, father of the Peak Oil theory, who died four years before Elgin's book was published.

According to Elgin, Stage I of the development of a civilization, "Springtime" is characterized by high growth and an era of faith in future potential. During springtime, there is little bureaucratic complexity, and activities are largely self-regulating. Stage II or "Summer", is an era of reason where social consensus begins to weaken and bureaucratic complexity increases with less self-regulation and more external regulation. "Autumn" follows, ushering in an era of cynicism where consensus weakens considerably, special interest groups surpass the power of a shared social purpose, and bureaucratic complexity mounts faster than the ability to effectively regulate. An era of despair characterizes Stage IV, "Winter", and the collapse of consensus is supplanted by conflicting social purposes. Bureaucratic mechanisms and their complexity become overwhelming, and society begins to break down.

Elgin believes that three possible outcomes are likely to emerge from the breakdown of the system. One outcome is collapse as the biosphere is pushed beyond its limits and can no longer support the burden of humanity. Stagnation is another option, in which members of the system expend energy on simply maintaining the status quo. Revitalization is the most desirable option which results from a "period of intense communication and reconciliation that builds a working consensus around a sustainable pathway into the future."

The author notes that we get collapse by "perpetuating the status quo and running the biosphere into ruin. We get stagnation when citizens are passive and rely on remote bureaucracies and technological solutions to handle a deteriorating local-to-global situation. We get revitalization only when we directly engage our predicament as individuals, families, communities, and nations."

Although Elgin has presented the three options in this particular order, it is clear to me that the current civilization has long since passed through stagnation and is rapidly collapsing. In my opinion, while revitalization may have been possible decades ago when society's elite first learned of Peak Oil, climate change, and numerous renewable energy options, it is now possible only as a consequence of collapse for the simple reason that the progression of collapse has rendered voluntary revitalization extraordinarily problematic, if not impossible.

Richard Heinberg's Peak Everything reveals unequivocally that virtually every resource on earth has reached or passed its peak of availability to the human race. Elgin's 1993 theory, however, offers a larger picture in which the likelihood that civilization itself has peaked and is on the downward side of the bell curve is logically plausible.

The immediate "winter of our disconnect" (and discontent), described above, has been characterized by an astonishingly rapid unraveling of civilization which appears to accelerate with every passing day. The larger winter is not about specific events such as foreclosures, bankruptcies, food rationing in America, or melting glaciers, but rather the final evolutionary stage of civilization and its eventualities in which we now find ourselves embroiled. In other words, particular occurrences of unraveling indicate irrefutably that we have entered Peak Civilization.

It is crucial, in my opinion, to comprehend Peak Civilization so that just as we understand that all of earth's resources have peaked which would prevent us from embracing the chimera of a "return to normalcy", we more astutely grasp the progression of human evolution and its implications in the macrocosm. That is to say that a clear understanding of Peak Oil prevents any rational human being from assuming that a return to cheap and abundant energy is feasible in his/her lifetime. Likewise, recognizing that civilization is in an irreversible trajectory of descent may assist us in conserving our valuable mental, emotional, and spiritual energy so that we do not expend it on phantoms of long-term revitalization.

Past-Peak Elections-You Have No Government

At this point it becomes necessary to distinguish between long-term and short-term revitalization. From my perspective, as stated above, collapse must occur in order for long-term revitalization to become possible, so attempting to prevent collapse also prevents one from honoring the current stage of civilization now unfolding. One example of understanding civilization's "winter" is to grasp that the only thing more futile than addressing energy depletion with ethanol use is the delusion that legitimate presidential elections actually occur in America offering valid choices between two genuinely opposing candidates who represent two distinct political parties and who are beyond domination, contamination, or exploitation by the transnational corporations that in fact manage the United States.

Furthermore, to fully understand Peak Civilization is to understand that the federal government per se does not exist, but rather an elite corporate cartel engaged in the management of citizens-citizens who are now completely on their own in terms of their survival as the pseudo-government continues to implode. Moreover, the cartel's direct intent is the cessation of nation states to be supplanted by corporations and their subsidiaries.

Therefore, the task before us is not to perpetuate the status quo by participating in the ersatz federal election debacle, but to, in the words of John Michael Greer "transition to a Third World lifestyle." I believe that any politician who suggests that we can do otherwise and survive as individuals or as a nation, may be committing a crime against humanity. Politicians and centralized systems are incapable of effecting meaningful change. Or as Greer states, "...getting the Federal government to do something constructive about the situation, for instance - a waste of time. That sort of change isn't going to happen. It's not simply a matter of who's currently in power, although admittedly that doesn't help. The core of the problem is that even proposing changes on a scale that would do any good would be political suicide."

Although nothing could be more unpalatable for the American public, transitioning to a Third-World lifestyle is precisely what it is being forced to do. And as Greer comments:

There's no way to sugar-coat that very unpalatable reality. Fossil fuels made it possible for most people in the industrial world to have a lifestyle that doesn't depend on hard physical labor, and to wallow in a flood of mostly unnecessary consumer goods and services. As fossil fuels deplete, all that will inevitably go away. How many people would be willing to listen to such a suggestion? More to the point, how many people would vote for a politician or a party who proposed to bring on these changes deliberately, now, in order to prevent total disaster later on?

What Peak Civilization Really Looks Like

Peak Civilization by definition means the disappearance of public education, healthcare, government-issued currency, commercial food production, public access to regional water supplies, interstate commerce, the North American energy grid, and the very infrastructure of the United States. Yet one need not succumb to fatalism. While long-term revitalization cannot be realized now, its seeds can be and are being planted by the proliferation of vibrant relocalization movements erupting and evolving around the world, many of which have been spotlighted at the Truth To Power website. As Duane Elgin emphasizes: "A revitalizing society is a decentralizing society, with grassroots organizations that are numerous enough, have arisen soon enough, and are effective enough to provide a genuine alternative to more centralized bureaucracies."

The first headlines of food rationing in America are buzzing across the internet as I write this article. They underscore the unequivocal reality that collapse is going to compel us to feed ourselves or quite simply, we will perish. I believe that food security is the most urgent, the most immediate issue to which we must attend at this moment of Peak Civilization. For months, this website has been informing readers about food storage and preservation and other aspects of preparedness. It is now time, if you have not already done so, to organize groups of citizens in your neighborhood, schools, churches, and community centers to plant and maintain gardens. In addition, collapse is compelling us to rapidly mobilize our neighborhoods and communities to not only accumulate our own supply of stored water but to organize citizens to work with local public water utilities to ensure that they remain public and are not privatized.

Health care professionals reading these words need to consider offering local workshops on a regular basis teaching citizens how to treat injuries and illnesses in the absence of a viable healthcare system. Doctors, nurses, dentists, and all manner of medical personnel are likely to be overwhelmed with patients during and after the full-scale breakdown of the system when hospitals and clinics have closed and almost no one can afford health insurance. A recent CBS News video link emailed to subscribers recently by Truth To Power confirms the imminent, total collapse of America's healthcare system and reveals the extent to which anyone with the slightest bit of training in the field is likely to find her/himself inundated with throngs of sick people desperately seeking care.

Seeds Of Revitalization

Greer emphatically stresses that "The key to making sense of constructive action in a situation of impending industrial collapse is to look at the community, rather than the individual or society as a whole, as the basic unit." Those familiar with Greer's article, "The Coming Deindustrial Society", recall his three requirements for community: A community must have some degree of local organization; it must have a core of people who know how to live without fossil fuels; and it must have food and a production and distribution system for it.

In a future article, Truth To Power will add another requirement, namely, the ability to communicate clearly and compassionately with other community members.

Our challenge at this moment in history is to recognize and intentionally connect with the evolutionary season of winter in which Peak Civilization finds itself because as Duane Elgin admonishes us: "It is time to begin the next stage of our human journey." As I witness most of humanity's current "solutions" to its climate-energy-food-water-population-economic dilemmas, I see only myopic, psychotic strategies, and I have to ask myself whether or not it will be necessary for us to annihilate ourselves and the planet in order to transition into a more advanced evolutionary paradigm that will not permit the human race to ever again engage in anything like the current madness. Tragically, I see almost nothing that suggests otherwise.

It is crucial that we comprehend that not only have we entered winter, but that that particular season is going to last a long time. As we navigate that winter, we are allowed our discontent, but we dare not permit ourselves to disconnect from current reality. Simultaneously, it is imperative that we hold a vision of revitalization and plant its seeds everywhere at the same time that we honor more the changing of the seasons than our addiction to springtime.

No one walking away from a foreclosed home, no one declaring bankruptcy, no uninsured person staring in the face tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills needs a maestro or any other member of the ruling elite to tell them that not only are we in a recession, but we are on a fast-track to a depression that is going to make 1929 look like living in the lap of luxury. It's called the collapse of Western civilization, and it is well underway.

Oh, you don't like my use of the word "collapse"? Then please listen up.

One of the most inspiring but also heart-wrenching stories I've seen this past week when Truth To Power was in the midst of its spring fundraiser and was not reporting much news was the CBS report on Tennessee-based Remote Area Medical's efforts to bring health and dental care to the uninsured or underinsured not only throughout the world, but now more than ever, in the U.S. As I watched this must-see video clip, my heart soared, even as I wept. What was confirmed in every cell of my body was that the American healthcare system has already collapsed, and that every other institution in this nation is rapidly succumbing to the domino effect of empire's unequivocal unraveling. Watch the CBS report for yourself, and I'm certain you will agree.

In looking honestly at these realities, it is impossible not to feel fearful, and some may once again accuse me of fear-mongering. However, I argue that fear is not necessarily a negative emotion or an unproductive waste of energy. I'm not talking about fear for the sake of fear, but rather, fear as a motivator-fear as a force that compels us to act.

Gavin De Becker's 1997 book The Gift Of Fear was written to assist readers in detecting violent behavior in the workplace, in the street, or in the home, for the purpose of protecting themselves. In contemplating collapse we are not dealing up close and personal with violence-at least not in this stage of collapse, as much as we are attempting to read the signals it is sending so that we may wisely prepare ourselves for navigating it. Among the author's suggestions are:

• Recognizing the survival signals that warn us of impending danger


• Relying on our intuition


• Separating real from imagined danger


• Moving beyond denial so that one can tune in to one's intuition

As we witness collapse and experience its impact on our lives, the fundamental concept of De Becker's book may serve us well. He argues that fear is an evolutionary gift imbedded in our DNA for the purpose of assisting our survival. Becoming overwhelmed with it or wallowing in it is indeed not useful, but neither is attempting to hermetically seal ourselves off from it. In fact, as De Becker argues, fear helps us move out of denial so that we can really tune into our intuition which facilitates our becoming proactive on our own behalf. What we need is not exemption from fear but a way of integrating it into our current reality in balance with other emotions.

What I want the reader to understand is that collapse is already happening. Your resentment of the word doesn't change the fact that it is occurring. Like Greenspan and Paulson, we all have the option of masking the realities of meltdown and continuing to wait for someone or something to "prove" to us that the world as we have known it is over.

Is talking about collapse scary? You bet. Does that mean we should avoid the word or "re-frame" it into something more "acceptable." Only if we insist on living in denial. If we feel fear about collapse, does that mean that we are "living in fear"? Only if we feel nothing else about it except fear and allow the fear to paralyze us.

OK, so collapse is happening, it's real, and it's going to get worse. So now what? How can I utilize that fear to take action? Keeping in mind that this is all scary to talk about, let's feel the fear and keep talking.

The first step, in my opinion, is to take a long, hard look at what action, in the face of the collapse of Western civilization, is realistic and truly useful. I believe we must approach this on two levels. First, what will actually make a difference in the world at large? Will using cloth shopping bags, changing my light bulbs, or shopping locally make a difference in the macrocosm? Quite frankly, probably not, although these may facilitate one's adaptation to a drastically new way of life and make that transition less traumatic. But then I must ask myself what my intention is. Am I trying to prevent the collapse that is already in progress? Am I trying to make it less severe than if I did nothing? Do I think I have some control over the collapse missile now that it has been launched and probably has a life of its own? If I don't have control-if control of the macrocosmic outcome isn't even possible, how does that feel? Even more scary? OK, so let's step back from the macrocosm for a moment and make this more personal.

Let's address the second level, my personal and immediate milieu. Who and what is in my personal world? Who do I love and trust and want to share my life with? What fears come up as I think about this? Fear that I can't talk to them about collapse? Fear that I will lose them, and they will lose me? Fear of separation from loved ones? Fear of making major changes like relocation, scaling down, bankruptcy, losing insurance, quitting a job or losing it?

Ooops, I think we've hit the big one: Fear of death-well, maybe not literal death, maybe not the "big one" but fear of the "little deaths" of loss which may feel like the "big death" of our own extinction. OK, time to take several deep breaths.

As we hit this rock-bottom fear, we must now ask ourselves if our ultimate objective in facing, talking about, and preparing for collapse is pure survival, or if it's larger than that. You see, this is the part that many people who are talking about "collapse preparation" fail to discuss. It's much easier to talk about stockpiling food and water or where one is going to invest one's money or how one is going to purchase precious metals or what skills one needs to learn for survival. It is far more risky and scary to talk about emotional and spiritual preparation for collapse. All of the other preparations are pretty much about making rational decisions based on adequate information. But when we begin preparing our souls for collapse, we're in a completely different dimension, and I argue, the most frightening as well as the most replete with potential. Potential for what?

The moment we begin discussing collapse and the notion of preparing for or surviving it, we enter the territory of meaning and purpose. Like someone stranded on a desert island or trapped in a downed airplane miles from nowhere, we are faced with those troubling "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" questions that civilization has so masterfully assisted us in escaping. It is because humans have evaded and avoided dealing with those questions that we have created cesspools of government and financial corruption, the depletion of virtually all of earth's resources, the extinction of 200 species per day, oceanic dead zones the size of some states, the horror of genetically modified foods, and the destruction of our own and the earth's immune systems.

In a recent teleseminar offered by Life After The Oil Crash, Dmitry Orlov, author of the forthcoming Re-Inventing Collapse and a series of articles highlighting the similarities between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the U.S., stated that more important than figuring out where we're going to put our money or deciding where we might relocate is our psychological preparation for collapse. If we are not working on that aspect of preparation, then we are likely to discover that other forms of preparation do not fortify us in the ways we had hoped.

If we continue to avoid dealing with the reality of collapse, we get to escape those troubling "Who am I and why am I here?" questions a little longer and thereby perpetuate the underlying cause of the nightmares we have created for ourselves and for succeeding generations. On the other hand, if we are willing to talk about collapse, live and work with it alongside all of the other aspects of our lives that bring us joy and meaning, we open ourselves to a stunning opportunity that we may never have discovered were it not for the end of the world as we have known it.

There is very little we can do about collapse, but there is much that we can do with it. That does not necessarily mean that we can create a clean, compassionate, just, humane planet in our lifetime. I believe that to presume we can do so without the demise of Western civilization is an illusion. Unfortunately, empire has set the earth community up for dissolution, and collapse will bring forth the "great sorting out" but hardly in ways we'd prefer.

Bearing in mind the poet's political incorrectness around gender and possibly the reader's sensitivity to the "G" (God) word, I offer the words of Rilke:

At once the winged energy of delight

Carried you over childhood's dark abysses,

Now beyond your own life build the great

Arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed

In passing through the harshest danger;

But only in a bright and purely granted

Achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable

Relationship is not too hard for us;

The pattern grows more intricate and subtle.

And being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

Until they span the chasm between the two

Contradictions...For the god

Wants to know himself in you.

The world we wanted to have is not within our reach; the world we deeply dread is upon us. Meanwhile, the world we have known, ugly as it may be but nevertheless familiar, is vanishing before our eyes. Herein lies an opportunity to experience deeper layers of who we really are and what we are really made of. Collapse is compelling us to confront these issues, whether we want to or feel ready to do so or not. While I do not welcome the suffering this will entail, I do welcome the transformation of human consciousness and thus the evolutionary quantum leap it may offer us. For a deeper understanding of this metamorphosis, I highly recommend an article that Truth To Power sent to subscribers earlier this week by Sarah Edwards and Linda Buzell entitled, "The Waking Up Synrdome." It confirms that instead of being the enemy, fear may be a powerful ally. If we can face the fear and take action, we may be able to "build the great arch of unimagined bridges."

This dialog between the main character of World Made By Hand, Robert, and his housemate-become-lover, Britney, offers a glimpse into the anguish of those few survivors of collapse living in the small village of Union Grove, New York in a post-petroleum world.

As I sit down to write this review, I've just finished lunch-a generous bowl of organic broccoli slaw mixed with garbanzo beans, tomatoes, diced turkey breast, and Caesar dressing. For dessert, a bit of Hagen Dazs coconut sorbet chased with my twice-daily regimen of vitamins and supplements. In a "world made by hand" I would have none of this unless I were able to grow or raise it myself or trade something for these items, assuming that they were even available. I would be forced to rely on my friends and neighbors in close proximity, and they on me, for life's fundamental necessities.

I was riveted to this stunning novel by James Howard Kunstler even as my heart was laden with sorrow while turning every compelling page. Like nothing I've ever read or imagined, the book takes the reader into the smells, tastes, textures, sounds, and emotions of a post-petroleum world devoid of electricity, media, sophisticated technology, and a plethora of conveniences and distractions that are ubiquitous in twenty-first century Western civilization.

Robert is a former corporate executive who has adapted reasonably well, or so it seems, to a post-collapse world where "It was chilling to reflect on how well the world used to work and how much we'd lost." (4) In this world there are no cars, no rubber tires, no shopping malls, big box stores, healthcare systems, radio, television, or paper money. However, "Farming was back," and that was the only way people got food. Travel in this world is about walking, riding horses, or hitching horses to wagons with wooden wheels, and people make do by stripping everything in sight-houses, stores, cars-anything that will provide materials for survival. The residents of Union Grove and the surrounding area have survived horrible pandemics and were fortunate enough not to be living near Los Angeles or Washington, D.C. when nuclear bombs went off, apparently dealing the final blow to a tanking economy. Robert lost his wife to the flu epidemic and a son who took off with a friend's son to "see the world", and while Robert knows his wife is dead, he has no idea where or how his son might be.

Union Grove is fortunate to have a doctor of sorts-Jerry, who completed part of an internship but never received a license to practice medicine. Much of his equipment was stripped from nearby hospitals, but his inventory of medicine, anesthesia, and medical supplies is dicey at best and sometimes non-existent. As with the local dentist who holds similar credentials, opium is the substance of choice for numbing pain, and the patient is never certain how comfortable or how agonizing a visit to the doctor or dentist in Union Grove may prove to be, but at least the village has one of each.

The national political system has collapsed with some figurehead "president" ostensibly running the country from somewhere in Minnesota and an "acting" governor of New York maintaining a lone office in the dilapidated shell of what used to be the state capitol in Albany. All commerce and social organization is intensely local, and almost nothing is known of life outside Union Grove.

As I mentioned, no food is available in Union Grove unless one grows it oneself; however, some crops, such as wheat are especially challenging to grow due to "a persistent wheat rust in the soil that returned no matter how you rested a field."(16) In some instances, certain fruits and vegetables are luscious and abundant, and in other situations, people make do with whatever is available at the time. Hints of global warming abound amid a record-breaking summer heat wave, and we can only speculate the degree to which climate change may be affecting the soil.

Most people have little access to electricity and generally leave their radios on constantly just so they might know when the power is on and when it isn't. News from electronic media is almost non-existent as are newspapers. In fact, about the only thing that a listener might hear on the radio is the ranting of fundamentalist Christian preachers. One or two members of the community appear to have powerful generators that offer a minimal and unreliable power source, but refrigeration to prevent the spoilage of food or the decomposition of dead bodies is unavailable.

In the summertime people fish rivers and streams that are less polluted now that industrial society had collapsed. But no longer is fishing a partially recreational pursuit but rather an absolute necessity. Nor can individuals obtain new books with which to distract themselves; old ones have to do. Likewise, "diversions like television or recreational shopping" are no longer available. As is often the case when societies collapse, Robert is now freer to pursue his hobbies, and he has created a woodworking workshop on his front porch and has greatly improved his musical skills with daily practice of the fiddle. Moreover, Union Grove survivors are forced to live physically active lives which involves intense gardening and walking. Theirs is not a world of couch potatoes and the sedentarily obese.

Early on in the novel Kunstler sets up a dichotomy between a large group of newcomers of a religious sect, the New Faith group, and the mostly non-religious residents of Union Grove. Eccentric, austere, and proselytizing, the New Faithers at first appear to be adversarial newcomers but over time prove to be invaluable allies of the community. In the absence of an official justice system, the values and survival skills of the group are useful to Robert, who eventually becomes mayor, in containing the barbaric lawlessness and sadistic violence of a local pot dealer who could only be described as a quasi-Hells Angels, trailer trash outlaw.

At one point Robert and a half-dozen other Union Grove residents journey by horseback to Albany to retrieve a boat and crew who had disappeared after sailing down the Hudson from their village. There, they discover incomprehensible corruption and violence so egregious that shots are exchanged, and Robert is forced defend his life by shooting someone who had fired at him. Hardly the utopia hailed by some proponents of ecovillage living, Kunstler's post-petroleum world is volatile and often savage. It clearly behooves anyone who wishes to protect herself and loved ones to own and sometimes carry a weapon.

While Union Grove is a village in which people still know how to party, make music, and dance long after the world around them has collapsed, and although they are incredibly resourceful in distilling mood-altering beverages and cooking up scrumptious, festive dishes, one cannot read Kunstler's exquisite description of them without feeling the gray pallor of sorrow that pervades their community. More than once while riveted to the saga I could not put down, my throat constricted, and my eyes moistened.

Not infrequently in and around Union Grove, insanity and suicide prevail. "Depression" was a word the residents of Union Grove had dropped, according to Robert, because "despair was a spiritual condition that was as real to us as the practical difficulties we struggled with in everyday life." (17) And on another occasion he states, "I tried to avoid nostalgia because it could destroy you. I was alone now."

In terms of an immediate family, Robert was alone, but in ways that were both poignant and lovely, he was held in a community of survivors and friends who assisted each other with dogged loyalty and a quality of compassion that neither cynicism nor despondency could erode. The spirit of cooperation demonstrated by the Union Grove survivors was stunning-so much so that the reader must acknowledge it as one of the most desirable byproducts of collapse.

I didn't need to begin the first chapter of World Made By Hand to be moved to tears. That began when I opened the book to a quote by my favorite poet, Rilke, immediately following the dedication:

Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely,

Your path struggles on through incomprehensible

Mankind. All the more futile perhaps

For keeping its own direction,

Keeping on toward the future,

Toward what has been lost.

Every time that I have allowed myself to deeply and graphically imagine, without restraint or rationalization, a post-collapse world, I experience a bone-marrow sorrow and a palpable sense of loss that defy words. Jim Kunstler has captured those emotions masterfully in World Made By Hand. In fact, this novel provides extraordinary reinforcement for an ongoing theme to which I've devoted a great deal of writing in the past year, namely, how can we possibly expect to prepare ourselves to live in a post-petroleum, post-collapse world by attending only to the stockpiling of food, water, land, and skills without emotional and spiritual preparation? How can we not acquire the tools necessary for navigating the emotions of sorrow, despair, overwhelm, grief, rage, terror, and yes, clinical as it may sound, depression? What will give us meaning? What will console us? What will allow us to keep going when any sense of purpose has eluded us? And perhaps most importantly, how will we communicate with each other? How will we skillfully and compassionately speak our truth and listen deeply to each other? What specific skills in these areas do we need to learn and practice right now? Personally, I find it difficult to believe that the residents of Union Grove, or any other post-collapse community, could function as harmoniously as they do in the novel without transforming the interpersonal land mines all of us have incorporated from living in the soul-murdering milieu of industrial civilization.

These questions are not addressed in World Made By Hand or any of the few fiction and non-fiction works so far published on collapse, each one of them underscoring the urgency of my own forthcoming book The Spirituality Of Collapse: Restoring Life On A Dying Planet. So I thank Jim Kunstler for his extraordinary novel, not only because he is bolstering my commitment to my own work, but because he has provided us with an incredibly well-written depiction of the demise of civilization and what that has already begun to mean and will mean for all of us and for future generations. At the same time, World Made By Hand offers a desperately needed dose of reality and an exhilarating reverence for the kind of world that human beings were meant to create and cherish. After all, light follows darkness.

Marion was born in 1909 and grew up on Long Island as the daughter of a physician. She attended Pembroke College which later became Brown University and there met her husband, Warren. She and Warren first visited Vermont in 1932, and they both fell in love with the state. He was a teacher-a profession highly in demand during the Great Depression, but Marion did not become a teacher; instead, she became a librarian at the Putney School. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, she and her husband worked in various schools throughout Vermont and then spent eight years living in Rome.

In the eighties Marion and Warren lived back on Long Island in Sag Harbor where she worked ardently as an environmental activist with friends there who founded "Save The World", an anti-nuclear power movement. Later they returned to Vermont and settled in Rochester where they were very drawn to a shared housing facility for the elderly where Marion still lives subsequent to her husband's passing in 2005.

When I asked Marion how she became an activist she told me that her father modeled for her his connection with the earth, even though he didn't speak about it in those terms. He told his children that heaven is here, not somewhere else, and that their duty was to make the earth the paradise it was meant to be.

In those days, people did not speak of "environmental activism" because at that point, the planet was not yet in crisis as it is today. Nevertheless, Marion grew up with and retained a lifelong emotional and spiritual connection with the earth that some members of younger generations have only recently developed as a result of educating themselves about the crisis.

Marion repeatedly states, "We're part of the earth," and I asked her to explain to me what that means to her. "What I mean," she responded, "is that we are the earth thinking about itself. We are the global brain, as Peter Russell names it-the only species that we know of that can think about its own situation." If we are aware of that concept, she believes, then we are more likely to make the right choices that will benefit ourselves and the earth.

Marion attributes her understanding of this concept to her dialogs with Dominican sister, Miriam McGillis, when Marion had just turned 80. She says she was profoundly influenced by McGillis's perspective which made more sense to her than anything she had ever heard.

Marion repeatedly uses the phrase "the Great Work", and I asked her what she meant by it. It is a phrase used by McGillis but also by the historian, author, and geologian, Thomas Berry who authored the book The Great Work. Although she had been a librarian for many years, she had never heard of Berry or his books, but in recent years, Marion has met Berry, whom she affectionately calls "Tom" and emphasizes that he's five years younger than she is.

For Marion, "the Great Work" is one's understanding that one is the global brain and that all beings of the earth-animal, plant, mineral, and the elements of earth-are part of the earth family or community. It also means for Marion an understanding that nature never gives up and that the "blessed unrest" to which Paul Hawken repeatedly refers and which is also the title of one of his books, refuses to be crushed. The Great Work means understanding that we are not separate from, but are part of, the earth community and that nothing is more important than cherishing, protecting, and preserving it. In other words, we are the earth-not some disconnected entity-- endeavoring to sustain itself.

One of the most important aspects of the Great Work, according to Marion, is local action. She's very concerned about the effects of global warming on her own community in Central Vermont through which the White River flows. She's thrilled with the proliferation of small farms and local farmers markets in the state; in fact, she says there are too many for her to keep track up of. Right now, she's working with other residents in her living community and with other citizens in the Rochester area, to plant and maintain a four-season garden. She frequently attends meetings for environmental causes outside of Rochester and has been active in the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) for a number of years.

When I asked Marion to tell me about the most rewarding aspect of her efforts she said that it has to be watching young people awaken to the Great Work. She knows she's made a difference in many lives but never expected to live as long as she has or have the influence she's had.

When meeting Marion I was taken aback with her altertness, mental acuity, and vitality. She wore no glasses or hearing aids and never had to ask me to repeat myself. She apologizes for her occasional rambling, but more often than not, I found it relevant, on some level, to our conversation. Marion is nothing less than radiant with joy, her remarks punctuated with lighthearted laughter. She takes a walk every day to the Rochester post office to pick up her mail, and she remains as physically and mentally active as possible.

When I asked her to what she attributes her excellent physical and mental state, she replied that much of it has to do with the nutritious foods she eats. She also acknowledges that to some extent she's led a modest, privileged life, having been able to avoid some of the hardships others have been forced to endure.

But Marion also attributes her good health to the Great Work to which she has devoted so many decades of her life, and she is a testament to the reality that poor mental and physical health among the elderly is often related to depression, purposelessness, and inactivity. From her perspective, none of this is necessary if an aging individual can remain committed to a cause and invest his/her energy in struggling on behalf of it.

When one enters Marion's room it's impossible to miss her refrigerator, covered with activist bumper stickers and her two file drawers labeled "Earth" and "Vermont." They leave no doubt that she will lovingly and enthusiastically attend to her passion for the earth and her beloved Green Mountain State until her last breath.

I remain in regular contact with Marion by phone, and she's reminded me several times that she'll be 99 on May 24. I don't know if I'll be able to attend her party, but I savor every moment of our conversations and will be forever grateful for what she has taught me and so many others about the Great Work.

Marion Leonard may be contacted at P.O. Box 437, Rochester, VT 05767.

I can't remember exactly how I met Mike Byron, but we encountered each other online a few years ago and immediately sensed that we were intellectual and political allies. Mike generously wrote an endorsement for the back of my book U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You, and shortly thereafter, he sent me a copy of his first book, Infinity's Rainbow. After finishing it, as I recommended it and attempted to describe it, I found that I could best do so by calling it a catalog of the planetary emergency in which the earth community finds itself. Then Mike requested an endorsement from me for his next book, The Path Through Infinity's Rainbow which I was delighted to provide because it takes Infinity's Rainbow many steps further and offers options for individuals and communities in the wake of civilization's collapse.

Lest the reader erroneously infer from the words "infinity's rainbow" that either of these books are pieces of abstract, airy-fairy fluff, I hasten to assure you that they are not. Mike Byron is a professor of political science and history and in my opinion, has critically analyzed the complex relationships between the monumental issues of our time: Peak Oil, climate chaos, and the economic sea changes that "a world gone mad" is forcing us to address. In his words, The Path Through Infinity's Rainbow offers a guide to: "Navigating the coming years of crisis; surviving and transforming our world; and participating in the creation of a new, sustainable economy."

In this review, I'd like to share how the book skillfully does this along with my experience of immersing myself in the pages of its sobering information and compassionate wisdom. Dedicated to his wife and partner, Ramona, her presence enhances the book with several stories which provide a delightful right-brain complement to Mike's analytical research and commentary.

The Path Through Infinity's Rainbow is a blending of reality and vision. While it's true that the first page of the introduction states that "...the patient effort of five hundred human generations and the struggles of ten momentous millennia are in the process of being obliterated forever, as though they never occurred," it is also true that the very first paragraph states:

This book is intended to empower you to navigate through the coming years of crisis, to survive and transform, and to participate in the creation of a new and sustainable political economy. It is a guide for thoughtful, knowledge-based action. (xiii)

Fortunately, Mike doesn't convey any feel-good "hopeful, happy endings" but rather encourages the reader to seize her own opportunities for empowerment in the face of what some like Bill McKibben have called "the end of nature".

In Chapter 2, Byron states that "While learning is always continuing on an incremental basis, it is existential crisis alone that actually compels fundamental change if collapse is to be avoided." (20) I would argue, as does Byron in a later chapter, that collapse cannot be avoided because it is well underway, and I would also argue that collapse itself will produce monumental existential crises that will manifest the "memes" or "fundamental units of information that are linked schematically in an associative manner." (21) The example the author gives of a meme is the sight or thought of a rose leading to recalling by association "the scent of the flower, romantic occasions, walking hand-in-hand on a beach".

Memes lead to a common view of reality that results in a common culture. Thus, it seems to me that one of the basic causes of the collapse of Western civilization lies in the commonly accepted memes which have engendered stories that have brought us to where we are: that humans are superior to the other-than human world; that our survival depends on unrestricted, indiscriminate growth; that profit is more important than people and the earth community; that nature's abundance-which we have come to call "resources" are infinite and that humans have a fundamental right to privatize, use, control, and squander them. Collapse will unequivocally alter these assumptions and cause humans to create very different stories from the ones that have formed the underpinnings of empire.

But not only must the stories be changed, according to Byron, so must how we do things, and most importantly, "we must also fundamentally change ourselves." (23) Out of the ashes, he believes, could rise a sustainable civilization. While I agree, I also cannot imagine this happening in the short span of a few decades but rather requiring at least centuries. Humans are now visiting ecological trauma on planet earth that will take millennia, if not millions of years to eradicate.

Those who appreciate systems theory may revel in Chapter 2, "Concepts." As one whose eyes begin to glaze when delving too deeply into these principles, the most meaty portion of the chapter was the last page in which Byron combines both harsh reality with the promise of transformation.

"It is now far too late," he says, "to prevent our looming petro-collapse and all of its environmental consequences. Like the Titanic approaching the iceberg, collision with our attractor is now both inevitable and imminent. The difference is that, unlike the Titanic, we are actually speeding up as we approach our 'iceberg'." (34)

This paragraph is so momentous, so poignant that the reader must ponder it carefully. Please let it sink in: We cannot prevent catastrophe, and the pace with which we are plummeting toward it is accelerating. When the impact of these two statements sinks in, how can anyone reading these words assume that his/her own or the planet's "business as usual" can continue?

But the author does not leave us there because he quickly adds:

However, it is possible for many of us to survive the catastrophe and to sow the seeds for civilization to be renewed with all of the learning of past ages relatively intact. This is because at the very center of it all are the ordered patterns of memes from which our minds emerge and interact with the minds of others. We can ensure that the lessons learned from this impending collapse are firmly incorporated into the minds and culture of our successor civilization's citizens and into their institutions and laws. (34)

At the risk of sounding nit-picky, I must add that I personally do not want civilization to be renewed. I want it to be eradicated and relegated to the dustbin of human history as quickly as possible. I do have a vision, as I have written about repeatedly on this website, of what humans might create as an alternative to civilization, and I believe that this is also Byron's intention in writing this paragraph. No doubt this is a semantic issue, but I need to emphasize my repudiation of civilization and my commitment to the development of localized niches of eco-centric habitation and functioning which will do whatever it takes to ensure that civilization does not re-emerge on planet earth.

In Chapters 3 through 5, Byron takes us on a sobering journey through current reality, and I suppose that since I am already so familiar with its content, I most appreciated the opening quote of Chapter 3 by A.H. Almaas: If you haven't struggled with a question, you cannot digest the answer even if it is handed to you.

Each time I'm asked "so what do we do about collapse and its attendant catastrophes?" the essence of the Almaas quote leaps to mind. The current presidential election charade is nothing if not the antithesis of what these words assert. The culture of empire is one in which individuals refuse to think or feel deeply about anything unpleasant or that challenges them to venture beyond the bounds of narcissistic consumerism. Thus, the intolerance of the overwhelming majority of Americans for being present with the dilemma without immediately jettisoning into "solutions." And as my friend, Tim Bennett, writer of "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire", says, when people ask for "solutions", they fundamentally don't want an answer because an honest answer will require them to change everything about their lives down to their toenails. What the citizens of civilization desire instead, is some soporific, like a political candidate or a mass movement that will allow them to continue to live their lives exactly as they have been living them with the exception of perhaps a few minor changes that cause minimal discomfort.

I was relieved when I discovered that Byron ends his three-chapter analysis with a repudiation of national electoral politics by asserting that they "cannot be an effective means for regaining control over our corporate hijacked civilization." Here, I would want of Byron only one thing more--to lose the word "civilization" and perhaps replace it with "planet" because I believe that the fundamental assumptions and constructs of civilization must be questioned and eradicated. In fact, "industrial civilization" is itself a corporate hijack, and on one level or another, it always has been, even before the corporation existed.

I define civilization as Derrick Jensen does, "stories, institutions, and artifacts-that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities." Industrial civilization has exploited and defiled the earth for the past 6000 years and is inherently based on hierarchy, inequality, environmental and human degradation, and as a result of a fundamental split between humans and nature in the European psyche, skillfully analyzed by psychologist and author Ralph Metzner, has developed a "use" relationship with the more-than-human world.

With this in mind it was reassuring to read Byron's unequivocal emphasis on the pivotal issue of values:

I can't stress this point enough: the ultimate source of civilization's crises arises from our own deepest values. If these are not changed-if we do not change-then no technology can do any more than briefly delay civilizational Collapse-at the cost of making the Collapse of even greater magnitude than would otherwise have been the case. (131)

From Chapter 8 ("Strategies For Survival") onward until the book's end, Byron offers options for those who are willing to stare down collapse and allow it to transform every aspect of their lives. Consistent with the above quote regarding values, Chapter 8 begins with a section on knowing oneself and the assertion that individual survival first begins with critical thinking. "Clear critical-thinking abilities," Byron says, "in conjunction with physical health and robustness are the two fundamental essentials for individual and family survival. Hard times require sound minds and healthy bodies." (140)

But it is not enough to merely think; one must become an agent of change. Byron opens this section with a personal admission that he has reluctantly come to the conclusion that political change is not an effective means for bringing about the radical alteration of civilization's trajectory-this from a former Democratic candidate for Congress in 2004! In fact, he states that change at the top could only be brought about by revolution and that the only meaningful change that can occur must happen in local communities. Following his outline of Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals," Byron emphasizes that revolution must begin within the existing political system, by which he means a local political system and that people must be willing to give up the existing system "before they will become receptive to fundamental change." (144)

As I ponder the last sentence, I feel nothing but pessimism about the facility with which the ruling elite has manipulated the masses into the national election chimera. In my opinion, until Americans have bought out of that delusion, it will be impossible for them to give up on the existing system and therefore comprehend that all solutions are local, and that if the "solution" isn't local, it isn't a solution. In fact, Byron states in a later chapter that "Simply engaging in politics as usual is an almost certain recipe for death during the Collapse-or, at the very least, impoverishment and curtailed freedom or outright serfdom for most of us." (179)

Consistent with similar advice offered by Dmitry Orlov in his new book Re-Inventing Collapse, recently reviewed by me at this site, Byron suggests residing in an intermediate-sized community that has adequate resources for food and water and that is detached from large urban centers. Although extreme isolation in a rural area may at first feel safer, both Byron and Orlov note the "safety in numbers" factor of which those attempting to navigate collapse must be aware.

A fabulous "Be Prepared" section (149-151) offers specific advice for survival and sustainability in real time, life-threatening situations. This section is a no-nonsense regimen that would make any seasoned Boy Scout proud and that one would want to post on one's refrigerator prior to collapse and carry in one's pocket afterward. Subsequent sections of the chapter include planting a victory garden, studying and implementing permaculture techniques, and familiarizing oneself with When Technology Fails: A Manual For Self-Reliance And Planetary Survival.

In Byron's "World Reborn" chapter, he states that he has come to believe that the universe is not without purpose and that civilization's collapse and renewal have great meaning. What I'd like to have read here, and I hope Mike will consider writing it, is an entire book that elucidates his sense of that meaning. My forthcoming book, The Spirituality Of Collapse: Restoring Life On A Dying Planet, attempts to do just that, but because Mike and I have similar, yet differing perspectives on this, I'm exceedingly curious to hear the details of his. In his "Letter From The Future" he summarizes the planetary initiation that collapse will provide which will transform the human species and allow it to realize its fullest potential, including the likelihood that the evolutionary leap produced over time by collapse will qualify earthlings to join the cosmic community of highly organized, vast intelligences-a community which pre-collapse earthlings are not yet equipped intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually to encounter.

In the book's final chapter "A New Direction", Byron envisions "a very quiet secession from a political economy that is dying, in conjunction with simultaneous alliance to another that is being born"-a process which he calls "the Renewal." In the section "Shackled Feet Can't Jump: The Human Rights of Women Are Essential", Mike emphasizes that the Collapse will eradicate the last vestiges of patriarchal oppression of both genders so that all human beings can make the greatest possible contributions to the Renewal. In this section I was humbled and honored to find a segment of my 2006 article "Post-Petroleum Woman" quoted in which I added from my perspective what may be a more gender-balanced approach to the Peak Oil issue than is generally offered by the preponderance of male researchers who overwhelmingly inform the conversation about that issue. To this I must also add an excellent blog post by Sally Erickson, producer of "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire" in which she takes to task the white male "man-date" of fixing the world in order to avoid collapse. The words of her very latest post "Orlov And The Wonderful, Terrible, Radical Simplification", resonate with Byron's with respect to the "meaning" inherent in the Collapse:

I see the collapse as a piece of the story of the human, a real live myth, a very big and very profound story. I see this time and these events in ways that I imagine Gaia or Mother Earth may see them. What all of this represents is a vitally necessary process of cleansing and balancing. At its best, what we are involved in, and witness to, is a spiritual initiation rite of the highest order for an adolescent species in sore need of such an initiation.

Borrowing from Timothy Leary, Byron offers a twenty-first century maxim, asking us to tune in to ourselves, turn on or against corporate deceptivists, and drop out and create a new reality. In this section he speaks of "quiet defections" from the dying milieu, but I have to wonder if in the throes of the most chaotic stages of collapse, "quiet defections" or "quiet secessions" will be tolerated. I suppose this depends on how much petroleum and other resources the regime will have at its disposal to track dissenters and round them up. My guess is that the sooner one begins the defection process, the better for him/herself and the sooner the Collapse/Renewal that is trying to unfold can do so. It is important to add, I believe, that even now, we are seeing signs of the complete collapse of state and local governments as the global economic meltdown that is well underway is already imperiling the financial resources necessary to maintain and develop local infrastructures and essential services. Thus, as Byron emphasizes, it will be essential to be "prepared to spring into action at the local level as that happens." (189)

In his "Letter From The Future", mentioned above, Byron offered a sketch of what a post-Collapse government might look like-a subsidarity, as he names it, which would function at the level closest to the people affected, meaning that countless subsidarities might evolve. For these, Byron offers five indispensable principles for just and humane government founded on two underlying principles: "A transcendent belief in cooperative interdependence and an all-encompassing structure that spreads this belief: the Renewal."(195) The so-called transcendent belief simply means taking responsibility to leave the world livable for one's children, reusing and renewing everything, and living our lives according to the principle of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. (196)

This then, is the "path through Infinity's Rainbow", and it's a path with which I feel delightfully familiar. It's also a path about which I am quite certain Mike Byron will elaborate in future volumes of what he calls the Infinity's Rainbow series. As the unraveling continues, those of us who have been tracking it for months and years will benefit from reading The Path Through Infinity's Rainbow, and we will undoubtedly await Byron's forthcoming insights as we journey up and down, in and out of our personal and collective rainbows of Collapse and Renewal.

Mike Byron, Ph.D., is a professor of political science in the San Diego area and has published and presented many papers on politics and computer simulation. He was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in California's 49th Congressional District in 2004. Visit his website.

I'm very fortunate. My wife and I live on three acres with a vernal creek in a semi-rural neighborhood on the edge of Eugene. Over the last five years, we've worked steadily on the little things to build more self-reliance into our land, centered on a very productive, nearly year-around, organic garden and a collection of fruit trees. With canning, a root cellar, and plans for grain storage in the winter to come, we're aimed at the possibility of feeding ourselves through a year, but we are certainly not there yet.

Food self-reliance is a tenuous thing. Alone, as a couple both nearly sixty years old, my wife and I would struggle through any kind of crisis. Make no mistake about that! The next level of security is provided by our relationship with our neighbors. Little by little, a consensus is building in our small valley neighborhood that when things get tight, we must work together. This is a work in progress that I apply myself to on a regular basis. For example, I will be showing What a Way to Go to a neighborhood gathering this week to prompt discussion and connection. To me this is an important aspect of facing any crisis, financial or otherwise; it's more feasible to build a lifeboat out of the neighborhood I currently live in than trying to move off the grid to build a lifeboat from the ground up.

CB: When our readers visit the Truth To Power website, they are likely to see a banner ad for your book, "Prairie Fire", at the top of the site. What is the book about? What inspired you to write it? What has been the response to the book?

DA: Prairie Fire is essentially a game plan for American family farmers as they confront Peak Oil and climate change. It's a "what if" story of an agricultural revolution in the United States told like a Tom Clancy thriller-in this case, however, global tensions arise from grain shortages, not from weapons of mass destruction.

Imagine if the drought that took place in Australia this past year and caused wheat prices to break ten dollars a bushel had occurred in China, the world's largest grain producer. And what if someone knew there would be a grain shortage two months before it happened and bought heavily in wheat and corn futures? This is the backdrop of Prairie Fire, a financial market pump and dump scheme applied to the commodities market.

Two things inspired the novel. The first was my concern that environmental non-fiction spoke only to the choir. If you read enough environmental books, they become repetitive and a little dry. I wanted to write an environmental book that was dramatically engaging and in that way might reach an audience that was more than those already aware of environmental problems. That is, use all the hooks of an ordinary novel, adventure, romance, and personal conflict, to tell the story of the American family farmer and the literal and figurative erosion of America's Heartland.

The second source of inspiration was a little book written in 1995 by Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute Who Will Feed China? In his book, Brown suggests that the weakest point in the world food supply system is China's grain harvest. Near the end of the book, he hypothesizes that we are but one catastrophic weather event, one major drought in China away from a worldwide grain crisis. This is the premise of Prairie Fire. A seemingly harmless warm winter in South East Asia diminishes the Himalayan snowpack by thirty percent. A dry spring follows. Water shortages cut China's grain harvest by a quarter. Grain prices around the world triple. Prairie Fire addresses what these dynamics could mean to family farmers in the United States and commodities markets around the world.

The response to the book has been very strong. Because I'm a self-published writer with no source of advertising other than my website and my website networking (thank you, Carolyn!), selling the book has been slow. I sell at book fairs, over the internet, and in two local book stores. I have heard from about 30 enthusiastic readers, and as the reviews at Amazon.com. Prairie Fire tells an engaging, relevant, and thought provoking story. The book does contain some scenes of sex and violence (I rate it R), and three readers (one of whom was 98 years old and enjoyed the book) have said it is too racy for a book with an environmental message. In response to this, I would say that as a novel, Prairie Fire mirrors life. What we see in life-in all its diversity, good and bad, beautiful and ugly-should be reflected in a novel.

CB: When you observe what's happening now with incredible upheaval and transition occurring in our world, what kinds of emotions are evoked for you? What feels most important-top priority, for you personally in these daunting times? What kinds of changes within yourself and your immediate circle of connections have you experienced?

DA: As stated earlier, I became aware of global warming 37 years ago. At that time, it seemed like science fiction, and I wondered if I would live long enough to see the climate actually change. I have, and in a much more rapid manner than I could ever have guessed in 1971. Throw in Peak Oil and the manipulation of the financial markets, and I'm overcome with sadness and a disappointment for who and what we are. Why must we humans, with all our knowledge, technology, and potential for good, be so incapable of managing our planet home? Why must our capacity for greed so dominate our capacity for intelligence and altruism? I feel as though we are a sadly flawed species living out a Greek tragedy, the unfinished parable of planet earth.

In a sense, the human species has always lived on the edge. As H.G. Wells once wrote, "history is a race between education and catastrophe." Whether the fascist war machine of Adolph Hitler, the threat of nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, or the vast and complex implications of climate change, humans seem bent on courting crisis. What's different about today's situation is the speed at which the drama now takes place and the size of the crisis we face. We've been accelerated through time and space by the power of our technology, a critical piece of which is the worldwide web you are using now. The threat of collapse or mass destruction has not really changed in any basic way as a human tension; it has simply become sharper and more visible with each passing day because we have more ways to measure and chart it. In effect, the same choices that have always existed for humans confront us now but with more on the line. We either learn to live together or we live amid deepening crisis. We either live as an implicate part in the entire web of life on this planet, or we try to continue to live in denial of this overwhelming truth. One way is sustainable; one is not.

It's my sense that it's as difficult to anticipate and fully prepare for catastrophic change as it is to prepare for one's death. Abstract intellectual ratiocination and common sense material preparation for the end is never more than a dress rehearsal-until that moment when the store shelves are empty or the hurricane has leveled your home. That said as a qualifier, I still believe all begins with self awareness.

My top priority is to keep my mind open. And not to lose my sense of humor-in the grand sense. Our number one responsibility, I believe, is to come to grips with our psychological self, to take a good long look inside and find out who we really are, learn how to rid ourselves of greed, learn to how bridle ego and petty desire, learn how to share and to give and to live with less and more simply. At bottom, we must learn how to cooperate. To be member of a group or a team with no motivation other than enabling the whole. This is good advice regardless of the global situation.

Should the economy collapse or a catastrophic weather event decimate the region where you live, the coming out of it will occur through the spontaneous forming of community, either as an emergency enterprise or a long-term way of living. And this is best done when an individual has given up selfishness, shed vain materialism, and embraced the interconnectedness of all life and each other. I work on my attitude and humor more than anything else because it is my being and my mental health that will make me the most helpful to others if conditions are reduced to basic survival. In this, I am no better than a work in progress.

The most important change in my life is that I have become active in the Eugene community. I am not fond of speaking in public. I have never been an activist except during my time in college. I am not outgoing at all. But I am out there now. And though real relocalization at the city-wide level often seems unlikely or impossible without the impetus of immediate emergency, personal action is empowering.

Among my friends, even those engaged in community action, with some exceptions, I still see either unchanged cynicism, denial, or a paralysis caused by the day to day squirrel cage demands of a stressful and pressure filled life. I am not sure how to answer to this. I write to help inform.

CB: What is your vision of the kind of world we might create before, during, and after the collapse of empire?

In general, I see many possible scenarios for the future. Some are bad, some are difficult. In any case, culture change is inevitable. For me, with the single caveat that global warming has the potential to make everything else moot; the most likely short-term scenario is a steady and heavy crush upon the poor and the middle class of this nation. The rising price of petroleum alone virtually guarantees some kind of extended economic recession or depression. As most of this interview suggests, I believe a relocalized society and economy is a pragmatic way to prepare for, to survive from, or to rebuild after whatever comes down. Relocalization is not religion. It's a management plan designed to counteract the rising price of energy and to help diminish carbon emissions. It will not stop what is already unfolding, but it may alleviate the worst of it-again with the caveat that climate change could be full of unwelcome and unanswerable surprises.

I am part of what I will tentatively call a sustainable development think tank here in Eugene. We are working on what we call "a blueprint for a sustainable south Willamette Valley." One of the members of the group, Ravi Logan, is the Associate Director of the Global PROUT Institute Network. PROUT or the Progressive Utilization Theory is post-capitalist economic paradigm, created by the now deceased Indian Philosopher P. R. Sarkar, based on a cooperative-based, decentralized socio-economic model, a kind of relocalized, bottom up alternative to the systems of capitalism and communism.

Ravi Logan was invited to the Russian province of Khabarovski Krai in 1992, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, to teach and assist in the implementation of the PROUT economic model as a substitute for the communist command economy and an alternative to market capitalism and the incursion of economic globalism. Though this effort was eventually undermined, Ravi Logan is a wise and intelligent man who has first-hand experience in post-collapse rebuilding.

While I am not a PROUTist, the PROUT model is a useful one, and I have had many long and rich conversations with Ravi about what we might anticipate in a collapse and what we might create out of it. A significant part of our discussion has been the role played by cooperatives in rebuilding. When we are left with the shell of a society, we can not rebuild alone. We will have to come together to form and create all the basic elements of society again, beginning with food, water, and energy systems. Essential to doing this is learning how to work together and share the results. This is the basic premise of a cooperative.

If I were to envision something to replace the capitalist megalith, it would begin with a decentralized economy with many parallels to the PROUT economic system. It would be a localized society that emphasized balance, diversity, and the interconnectedness of all life. The basic working element would not be corporations or other large profit motivated entities; it would be a mix of small entrepreneurial businesses to stimulate creativity and non-government owned, cooperatives to ensure social stability, all guided by the principles of sustainability, equality, and individual self-realization.

CB: What suggestions would you give our readers regarding relocalization and collapse preparation?

First, know who you are. Know your strengths, know your weakness. Verify your real needs and adjust your mind and your emotions to embrace change. If peak oil or financial crisis will do anything good, it will be teaching Americans to live with less and to waste nothing. Learn to welcome this like a drink of cool spring water.

Then take a good long look at where you live. Does the bioregion you live in have the capacity to feed itself? Does it have a secure water system? Is there a high potential for drought? What will it look like if civil order is lost? These are basics. Figure them out.

If you are satisfied with where you live, work on personal and community self-reliance. If there is a crash of any kind and you have three months worth of food and water, you will not have to take part in the first stages of crisis and the violence of cleaning out food stores shelves. Know your neighbors. Be prepared to rebuild with the people that live around you. Prepare to work cooperatively. Even plan large cooperative neighborhood meals to practice working together.

Should the global economy collapse and business as usual come to stop, the hard shell of infrastructure will remain. In a way, much like William H. Kötke describes in his article The Revolution that is Arising from the Earth, workers from closed manufacturing plants can return without management and form a work cooperative to get the up plant producing again. This is what we'll need once the smoke has cleared: cooperation.

CB: Please add anything else you'd like to talk about, expound upon, or any rants that occur to you. Feel free to put yourself in the shoes of our readers and just let your thoughts and feelings flow.

Life, it seems, is at least psychological. We have consciousness and we have the abstract tools to understand that consciousness. Awareness for our psychological being is where everything starts. Be here now, as Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass, might say. This is sound advice. Be fully mindful of the moment. The realization of community on this planet, either as a whole or in localized parts, begins with clear-seeing individuals.

DAN ARMSTRONG is the editor and owner of Mud City Press, a small publishing company and online magazine operating out of Eugene, Oregon. He has written extensively in both fiction and non-fiction. For access to his books and short stories, political commentary, humor, and environmental studies CLICK HERE. To order his novel "Prairie Fire", click on the banner at the top of this site.

These words from Pages 125 and 126 of Dmitry Orlov's Re-Inventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects leapt out at me as perhaps the most definitive in his marvelous new book in which Dmitry illumines the collapse of the American empire, now well underway, with his insights from living through the collapse of the Soviet Union.

By way of background, I will be using his first name throughout this review because although I've only met him once, he feels like an old friend. I first heard of Dmitry several years ago when I became a subscriber to From The Wilderness where I was captivated by his article series "Post-Soviet Lessons For A Post-American Century." Later in 2007, Dmitry wrote an exclusive article for my website entitled "Collapse And Its Discontent." I was then honored and humbled by his request for an endorsement of Re-Inventing Collapse and immediately requested a review copy from his publisher, New Society.

Opening the book with a "recipe" for collapse soup and noticing that the United States has combined all of the ingredients, Dmitry states that economic collapse, particularly in the throes of Peak Oil, is an enormous red flag signaling that the collapse of the American empire is underway. Additionally, he emphasizes that "when faced with a collapsing economy, one should stop thinking of wealth in terms of money." Physical resources and assets, as well as relationships and connections are worth their weight in gold and quickly become more valuable than cash. (11) Specifically, he states:

I therefore take as my premise that at some point during the coming years, due to an array of factors, with energy scarcity foremost among them, the economic system of the United States will teeter and fall, to be replaced by something that most people can scarcely guess at, and that even those who see it coming prefer not to think about. (15)

A key psychological factor in the individualization of oppression, deeply embedded in the American psyche, is the notion that in the face of utter powerlessness, blaming oneself provides the last semblance of empowerment, i.e., "It's my fault; I caused it; if only I hadn't...." This is not unlike the internal psychological mechanisms that engage within a child during and after abuse in which the child unconsciously blames him/herself for the abuse because not to do so confronts the child with an intolerable, overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

Noting that Americans find it difficult to imagine failure collectively in terms of the nation itself and prefer to insist that all failure is individual in nature, Dmitry concedes that collapse will be different for each person, but that one way to bridge the gap between "individual" and "collective" might be to notice the pre- and post-collapse conditions of the Soviet Union and compare them hypothetically with those of the United States. The ultimate intention here is to invite the reader to ask him/herself to what extent each important thing in one's life is "collapse-proof" and then after several pages of deepening and refining many of the concepts of his "Post-Soviet Lessons" series, Dmitry makes a stunning request: to consider how to make that "important thing" collapse-proof, or come to terms with how to live without it. (17)

In his marvelous chapter on "Superpower Similarities" Dmitry offers a conclusion, certainly not new to me, but one which begs to be pondered: "Rather than one giant explosion, this is more likely to be death by a thousand cuts." (35) After each cut, he states, Americans are likely to fantasize a technological remedy, but increasingly their fantasy will be proven to be just that, and those who offer such false hopes will become, "progressively lest trustworthy." (35) At the same time that he emphasizes the protracted nature of collapse, he notes the power of tipping points, like Chernobyl in the Soviet Union and Katrina in the U.S., to exacerbate the velocity of collapse.

During this hour of national election mania in the United States, I cannot resist Dmitry's sardonic observation that "The two capitalist parties offer a choice between two placebos," (55) later noting that "...all successful adaptations to the new circumstances will have to be made at the local level, and will have to rely on existing infrastructure, inventory and locally available talents and skills." (61) In pondering his analysis of collapse-how it manifested in the S.U. (Soviet Union) and is now manifesting in the U.S., one is dumfounded with the utter vacuousness of all American political party platforms in the face of a crumbling empire. The Soviet experience confirms that when societies collapse, all issues become acutely and intensely local, and communities and neighborhoods-or large numbers of the dispossessed in a particular venue--must address them.

Whereas some may feel guilty about political apathy or their unwillingness to participate in the national election charade, Dmitry argues that "Although people often bemoan political apathy as if it were a grave social ill, it seems to me that this is just as it should be. Why should essentially powerless people want to engage in a humiliating farce designed to demonstrate the legitimacy of those who wield the power?" (114) Thank you Dmitry; you've just described how I've felt after departing a voting booth every four years for the past three decades.

In his chapter on "Collapse Mitigation" Dmitry names his major concerns regarding the nature of the catastrophe that lies ahead. He notes that "there is no one who will undertake an organized effort to make the collapse survivable", but this is indeed a circular dilemma. A society that cannot and will not even consider the possibility of collapse is incapable of organizing to survive it. And so it is that we have many radioactive toxic installations, stockpiles, and dumps lying around. Many nuclear power plants have been built near coastlines, which does not bode well for surrounding communities in the face of rising sea levels resulting from global warming. (111) As a result of collapse, soldiers may become stranded overseas, along with private contractors.

As prison systems become increasingly costly and unmanageable due to the diminishment of resources, what will happen to those populations that can no longer be maintained and managed? Will they be released, setting off "a crime wave of staggering proportions"? (112) Even more frightening is the collection of non-collateralized debt, such as credit card debt, which is "secured by threat of force" and which Dmitry suggests may result in massive indentured debt servitude.

In a wonderful section called "Do It Yourself", Dmitry states:

Any behavior that might result in continued economic growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yourself incredibly busy and suddenly have nothing to do, then you will really be in rough shape.... (122) If the economy, and your place within it, are really important to you, you will really be hurt when they go away.(123) It takes a lot of creativity and effort to put together a fulfilling existence on the margins of society. After the collapse, these margins may turn out to be some of the best places to live. (123)

Where to ensconce and secrete our precious selves, there to sit out the gathering storm? In a nation of nomads, who think nothing of growing up in one state, going to school in another and settling down in a third, it is surprising to see that so many people come to think that, during the most unsettled of times, some special place will sustain them perpetually. More likely than not, they will be forced to stay on the move. (139)

What he does recommend is a small village where an acre of farmland for every 30 people or so is available and where people know each other and are willing to help each other. However, given the uncertainties and unpredictability of life during and after collapse, one may be forced to stay on the move. "Having a permanent base of operations is certainly a good thing, but if so, then having two or three is even better." (141) Remaining somewhat nomadic allows one the necessary detachment to avoid getting caught in "deteriorating circumstances" and flee so as to avoid them. Thus, a "winter camp" and a "summer camp" are recommended. Again, like maintaining one's inner world while presenting a divergent exterior, Dmitry suggests not letting on that one doesn't have a permanent home since "communities are always suspicious of nomads", but at the same time remaining aware that "To seek out that sympathy of strangers, you need to have a place you call home, even if that place only exists in your imagination...."(142)

In this final chapter, Dmity speaks honestly about the alternative economies that flourished in the Soviet Union and that are typical of decaying societies. "Asset stripping" or pulling the copper out of the wires of abandoned homes, carrying off the vinyl siding and the fiberglass insulation could provide a treasure trove of "currency" and bargaining chips for future transactions on which life depends such as food, water, or medicines. Black market pharmaceuticals will be indispensable, and of course, in a world in which people have collapsed emotionally as well as financially, drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes will have inestimable value. Authentic doctors and nurses will be sorely needed, but black market medical practices are likely to abound as well.

As for transportation Dmitry opines that there will soon be only two viable options: bicycling and sailing. A proud proponent of sailboating as the most reliable form of transportation during and after collapse, Dmitry emphasizes that sailboats are not actually luxury items. He suggests checking the foreclosure lists and states that "a few months' rent will buy you a new, floating, rent-free home. If the cost is still too much, all you have to do is wait; the sailboat market is going from bad to worse."(154)

Dmitry leaves us with an exceedingly important piece of advice. Noting the vast numbers of people who have asked him what he plans to do to prepare for collapse, he emphasizes that preparation should include more than one option because there is no "one plan." In Re-Inventing Collapse, he offers no crystal ball and humbly admits that he does not know how collapse will unfold, only that he has lived through one collapse in his life and wishes to utilize that experience to shed light on the next one that has already begun.

I have no negative criticism of the book, but I must add that I wanted to hear more about psychological and attitudinal preparation-for two reasons, one being that my own forthcoming book explores them deeply, but also because I long to hear more personally from Dmitry how he has been impacted by the demise of the S.U. even as he navigates the downward spiraling of the U.S. Nevertheless, everyone who has forsaken denial about collapse and is serious about preparation must read Re-Inventing Collapse.

Check out Dmitry's blog at CLUB ORLOV

DA: My background is that of a middle-class suburbanite baby boomer. My father was an officer in the Navy (as was my grandfather) and as a youth, I lived either in a suburb near a Navy base on the east or west coast or within a short-commute to the Pentagon.

I grew up in the belly of the beast.

I entered Princeton University as a freshman in 1968 to study Aerospace Engineering, headed to a career in the defense industry. As a junior in 1971, I did an independent research project on the effects of greenhouse gases. To my surprise, I found that we were already well into a positive feedback loop of warming. This project, along with my involvement in student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, began what would be a lifelong questioning of the American way of life. Instead of taking a job in the weapons industry, I went to graduate school at the University of Oregon in Eugene to study journalism and the theory of mass communication. Street life in Eugene in the early 1970s, however, proved far more interesting and meaningful to me at age twenty-three than graduate school, and before the year was out I'd said good-bye to the establishment and hello to counterculture. By 1974, I was nothing more or less than a Eugene hippie trying to live the simplest life I could. The beast had burped me up and spit me out.

As part of a counterculture lifestyle, I sought self-realization through art. I wrote fiction and did sculpture, working part-time as a house painter or construction worker to make ends meet. I have continued in this manner all of my life, though I have added editing to my resume.

My passion for writing is intimately connected to my state of mind. For me, writing is therapy, a kind of intellectual yoga. It's a way of ordering my ideas, stretching my imagination, and bringing peace to my inner being. After writing for forty years with only the slightest financial return, it's clear to me that I write because I have to.

CB: So tell us, what does "relocalization" mean to you? How and why did you become interested in it? How important is relocalization to you personally?

Despite being a fiction writer who gives in fully to the extravagance of fantasies and humors of all kinds, I ground myself in simplicity and common sense. Relocalization, to me, is a common sense response to all the challenges we face today. Peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, food concerns, financial instability, political corruption, and the negatives of globalization are all soothed by condensing the way we live, compacting our circle of activity, and connecting with local environs, local politics, and the immediate community.

My personal attraction to relocalization stems from two things, Peak Oil awareness and my loss of faith in the national government. As the price of gasoline climbs, it simply makes dollars and cents to create a way of life that involves less driving, both for the individual and in the design of a community. As we are all too aware, our national government has been bought and sold. It responds to the leverage of huge sums of money and is something individuals can affect only indirectly-if at all, but we can directly impact and take part in local government. At the very least, we can sit in on the city council and make public comment. If you apply energy to local politics, whether in the city council or at neighborhood meetings, you have some modest chance of effecting change. Add that Peak Oil is a market issue and is changing the economic gradient of everything in the direction of relocalization. And as time goes on, the strategy of relocalization will be an easier and easier design concept to get city managers to listen to.

CB: You are involved with relocalization efforts in the Eugene, Oregon area. Please tell us about Eugene's relocalization programs. I'm sure our readers would welcome details.

DA: Eugene, Oregon makes an interesting case-study of a mid-sized city confronting the triple threat of Peak Oil, climate change, and financial meltdown. A smaller city like Willits, California with a population of about 13,500 is one thing, but a community like Eugene and sister city Springfield with a surrounding population of about a quarter million is an entirely different animal. What is going on here in Eugene merits a few words, both positive and negative.

On one hand, the Eugene area (which means Lane County or the southern end of the Willamette Valley) seems the perfect fit for relocalization. Eugene has been a countercultural haven for more than forty years. The population is a nearly even mix of rural Oregonians, longtime hippies, and middle-class baby boomers. Clearly this is an over simplification, but the point is, a significant portion of the community has been anticipating and participating in culture change for quite a long time. The city is designed around bike paths. Vegetarian and organic lifestyles are commonplace. Community gardens and home gardens are everywhere you look. The city is surrounded by extensive and fertile farmland. Wildlife is prevalent. Water is aplenty, and the entire valley is insulated from the outside by large mountain ranges. In a sense, it is a secluded piece of paradise.

The Eugene populace and the newspaper, The Register Guard, are decidedly liberal. Climate change and Peak Oil are topics that do appear in the Op-ed columns. The mayor, Kitty Piercy, regularly talks about sustainability, relocalization, and climate change. With her efforts and the efforts of others, a Sustainable Business Initiative passed through the city council in 2005, and just last fall a Eugene Sustainability Commission was formed. In other words, Eugene accepts that our future is challenged.

On the other hand, as local activists have discovered, there is a wide gap between adding buzz words to the city manager's lexicon and actually changing business as usual. In Eugene, as in any American city, money and big business leaders make things happen, and regardless of how they wear their hats, profit and growth is really what they want. That said, my experience during last year in Eugene is revealing in what we can expect and what we can't expect regarding large-scale community relocalization.

Last fall, I organized a film screening of What a Way to Go: Life At The End Of Empire with four other activists in Eugene. I tend toward a quiet home life instead of participating in social gatherings, and though I did speak to the city council on Peak Oil and relocalization on one occasion, putting together the documentary screening was the first time that I had made an effort to spread "crisis" awareness through any means other than my Mud City Press website. Sally Erickson and Tim Bennett came to Eugene for that screening, and the event was a huge success for all involved, but particularly inspiring for me. This first dip into pro-active community engagement prompted me to kick myself in the butt and get involved with the activist community of Eugene. Like many out there, I was a concerned but isolated citizen, and the decision to activate involved pushing myself through a kind of invisible psychological barrier. It wasn't easy, but it became a very empowering decision.

After the showing of What A Way to Go that night in late October, about 50 people in the crowd of 200 stayed to talk and pass the talking stick with Sally and Tim. I had never done this before and found it a powerful experience. A woman, Pam Driscoll, a well-known Eugene activist, took the opportunity to announce that there would be a meeting of all the action groups in Eugene to form a Peak Oil and Climate Change Coalition. Though I was not a member of an organization at that time, I attended the meeting and was thrilled by the turn-out. Some 40 organizations were represented-spanning interests from anti-war to peal oil to permaculture.

Over the next three monthly meetings, the coalition battled to find its identity, settle internal differences, and finally determine that relocalization was a strategy we could all agree on and use as a central theme for our activity. During those three months, there were several community presentations and demonstrations on forest management practices, climate change, and Peak Oil. I attended nearly every one. At first, the coalition's formation seemed to prompt higher turn outs for these kinds of political activities in the city. But as time went on, the audiences diminished, and gradually the audience returned to being only those in the choir. From my point of view, the energy was here in Eugene to be tapped, but it was still sadly unfocused.

During this period, however, the Peak Oil and Climate Change Coalition did enable a lot of networking among like-minded organizations. This has proven to be the coalition's most powerful asset and facilitated my meeting several people involved in Lane County food security organizations, including the Helios Resource Network, Food for Lane County, and the Lane County Food Policy Council. Because I'd studied global agriculture for many years, written several articles on global food supplies and based the novel Prairie Fire on this topic, I decided it made sense to concentrate my efforts on food security. I turned my focus from speculative global scenarios to the local food system.

The food networks in Eugene, and probably most cities, have several things going for them. Most have existed for many years for the sake of the poor or homeless and often have city or county affiliation and/or modest funding. Because of the practical nature of food security, food issues attract people across political lines, meaning it is not a particularly polarizing topic. Everyone can understand an empty plate or the returns of a home garden. When I attended meetings or presentations devoted to food security, not only was the audience full, but it contained farmers, restaurant owners, market owners, political activists, permaculturalists, and more likely than not a neighbor. And should there be any kind of crisis, if you have food, you can get along without oil and your food stores can work as currency. For my two cents, food security is a very smart place to begin relocalization.

The word relocalization suggests that what was once local is no longer and that it should be. Nothing could be more apt than applying this concept to food sources in Eugene-or pretty much anywhere in the U.S. Regarding food sales and production, the net effect of globalization in the last thirty years has been to take the local out of what we eat. Give or take a percent or two, only about five percent of what we eat today-wherever you live in the United States-comes from within 100 miles-or by definition is locally grown-meaning ninety-five percent of what we eat must be shipped in from long distances.

American farmers, and really all farmers in the world, tend to follow market lines. In the globalized economy, this means moving away from diversify and catering to specialized markets. In Iowa, for example, where there is the potential to grow all kinds of food products, corn and pork production dominates the large and mid-size farms and very little of what they produce stays home for Iowans. This may be the best way to chase profit, but it tends away from local economic balance and, in a world where the price of fuel will only increase, away from economic stability-and local food security. In any kind of big picture perspective, this is nonsense if not suicide.

Even in a place like Oregon's Willamette Valley where there are more than a million acres of rich and fertile cropland, where more than 250 different edible plants can be grown and propagated, this imbalance exists. Fifty years ago, the Willamette Valley provided its inhabitants with more than half of what they ate, growing a wide variety of food crops in significant quantities, including close to three hundred thousand acres of wheat. But now, because large food conglomerates dominate the food industry and almost everything we eat comes from more than a thousand miles away, farmers in the Willamette Valley sell, as mentioned before, only about five percent to local buyers, whether individuals, food markets, or restaurants. Sixty percent of what was grown in the Willamette Valley in 2006 was grass for grass seed, which is shipped all over the world for suburban lawns and golf courses. Grass seed is our cash crop. The Willamette Valley is hailed as the grass seed capital of the world. At the same time, less than fifty thousand acres of wheat were planted in the valley in 2006. In other words, prime Oregon farmland is being used primarily to grow a non-edible luxury item instead of food. Globalization enables specialized and long distant markets while at the same time diminishing crop diversity at home.

This is not news. Organizations in Eugene like the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition and Helios Resource Network have been pushing local food buying for many years with just this intention-reversing the effects of globalization and bringing more stability to the local agricultural economy. It just makes good sense. Unfortunately, because products grown in countries where labor costs are significantly less than in the United States, a strawberry grown in Peru can be cheaper to Oregonians than one grown in the Willamette Valley-even with freight costs added in. This makes progress in establishing local food markets extremely difficult. In the last year or so, however, concerns for Peak Oil have added fuel to the relocalization fire. More than just smart thinking for a balanced and diverse agricultural economy, as the price of petroleum fuels climbs, the labor cost advantage of food producers in distance countries will be lost to freight costs. The buy local movement can now gradually gather market force behind it instead of against it.

This is a start.

In addition to lost agriculture diversity in the Willamette Valley, there has also been a gradual loss of food system infrastructure. Because we are receiving ninety-five percent of our food from distant places and because much of it already packaged, grain millers, food processors, and local farm produce distribution hubs are also disappearing from the Willamette Valley, meaning not only don't we grow our own food, but we also don't have the capacity to process or distribute what we do grow. We have erased such large portions of the Willamette Valley food system that this very fertile region can no longer feed itself. Again, this is nonsense if not suicide.

The situation reveals itself in three parts for the Willamette Valley. Less than twenty percent of what is grown here is food; food system infrastructure is declining, and the markets for selling local food are few and far between. This was not the case fifty years ago. Thus the solution, and the target of relocalization efforts regarding food security in Eugene, is changing what farmers grow, rebuilding food industry infrastructure, and creating more markets to link buyers, growers, and distributors. And this is what we are focusing our energy on in Eugene. These same targets are probably applicable in almost any city or region in the United States-except those without any cropland at all.

So exactly what are we doing to encourage these kinds of changes in Eugene?

Everything begins with the market. If we can increase demand for local produce and grain, we can change what the farmers grow and verify the need for rebuilding the food system infrastructure.

At the first level, this means getting people to buy locally grown food. The Helios Resource Network and the Willamette Food and Farm Coalition have promoted local food buying awareness, including a farmers market and Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions, in Eugene for several years by publishing a local food register called Locally Grown and by sponsoring regular "Eat Here Now" pot luck dinners.

The local food register is an essential hard copy networking device and works as a yellow pages devoted to local growers and buyers. As Lynn Fessenden, the Executive Director of the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition, told me two weeks ago, this is Eugene's most powerful tool for stimulating local food buying.

The pot luck dinners are social events that stir the human energy stew. These large gatherings are usually held at churches or schools and enable people to share dishes they have prepared from local produce. This is always a fun community activity, invariably includes music and sometimes dancing, and in the last year attendance has steadily increased. There is evidence of a surge in local food buying here in Eugene.

At the second level, the local food networks sponsor presentations and lectures about local food buying and its potentials. These presentations are aimed at local farmers, local restaurants, and local food markets with the idea that connecting farmers and large buyers can stimulate buying. Again these activities are centered around a meal made from local products. There was one such presentation that I attended two weeks ago at the local community college. The keynote speaker was David Yudkin of Hot Lips Pizza in Portland, Oregon. Curiously enough, he began his talk with an overview of Peak Oil and how rising fuel prices would gradually increase demand for food grown closer to home. I found this significant; the often controversial Peak Oil message was being given not to the choir but to a collection of farmers and restaurant owners. They didn't bat an eye. The reality of rising petroleum prices is here and now. Tell farmers how they can save a dime, and they will.

Yudkin then went on to describe how he sought out local farmers to grow all the ingredients he uses to his make his pizzas, telling the audience that items like olives and pineapples just simply weren't available fresh in the Northwest. So instead of shipping them in, he found viable substitutes. In the case of pineapples, he has substituted pears. Not the same, but this is what you do. Regarding olives, he has struggled to find a substitute, but, as it turned out there was a Willamette Valley farmer experimenting with growing olives attending the presentation and Yudkin was able to make this important connection that day! Again, that was the purpose of the gathering.

Yudkin also said that by buying locally he actually knew the people who supplied him with his needs. He knew how they grew their food, how they treated their employees, and was able to talk to them face to face at their farms if necessary when problems arose. He did say this was not the easiest way to run a pizza parlor, but that it was personally rewarding for him because he had created a community of people that he worked with and knew as friends. After a slow start and much investment of time and money, Hot Lips Pizza now has a large following in Portland and is very successful.

At a third level, it's necessary to introduce farmers to the food processors. A month ago, the Lane County Food Policy Council had a gathering where a grain mill operator, a natural food store distributor, and an organic farmer addressed an audience of farmers and food network organizers. Again, amazingly enough, the presentation began with Peak Oil and the logistics of transportation and included a locally grown meal. The organic farmer, Harry MacCormack of Sunbow Farm was at the center of this presentation, telling the audience how he has gone to other farmers he knows and spoken to them directly about growing organic wheat instead of grass seed-one of the central issues for Willamette Valley food security. Five years ago this would have been an impossible sell, but with the price of wheat rising just as fast as that of petroleum, he is now making some headway. In the end, if the grain mill and the food distributor can promise to buy the wheat or other local food products, even offer advance contracts, farmers can have a measure of security that what they grow can be sold. That the food processor is close to home is just more good (meaning fuel saving) news. This connection between farmers and local infrastructure is effectively a form of community supported agriculture (CSA), but on a larger scale.

At a fourth level, the idea that a diversified agricultural economy with a strong local food systems infrastructure makes good common sense, especially as we face Peak Oil, must be directed to the city management. This takes individuals to either write Op-ed pieces or go to the city council and make public statements. This is where I made my contribution as a researcher/writer. And the truth is, once the facts are laid out, it's not a hard sell.

In terms of results, Eugene has begun to take real steps forward. A local grain miller, the only one in the Willamette Valley, and a local natural food distributor, the only one in Eugene, wanted to move to larger sites-both closer to the farmland for improved logistics and fuel savings. Unfortunately, the sites that they hoped to move to were constrained by zoning codes. The grain miller said he would have to consider leaving the state if the site weren't available to him, and the food distributor said the inefficiencies of his current smaller site would incur wasteful costs and safety issues. Fortunately public action and comment about food security reached city officials. The distributor was granted a zoning waiver and a tax break, and the grain miller nears a similar decision. In other words, something has happened-two important pieces of our food system infrastructure will be preserved-and at the same, as it became a front page newspaper story, the importance of these ideas reached the general public.

So what can I say? I've seen positive changes in the last half year. Not regarding less car use, not regarding a moratorium on building new highways, not regarding legislation to expand mass transit, not regarding a change of business as usual-all of which is frustrating, but in the actual connection of farmers, markets, and food system infrastructure. A full and meaningful transition, however, will take time. An individual buyer makes the decision to support this transition every time he or she buys food. Farmers make this decision each growing season as they buy their seeds for either food products or lawn products. And the infrastructure can take anywhere from one to five years to rebuild.

All in all, as a point of emphasis, what really advances the discussion of food security is organizing presentations and meetings around a meal. This breaks down the wall between the audience and the presenters and gives everyone the opportunity to talk casually, to get to know each other, and to begin linking the threads of community. Nowhere else in all my involvement have I felt or seen the kind of community building that I've seen in the food relocalization movement. While emotional Peak Oil or climate change presentations, sadly, have done little to change business as usual, food discussions do. If you want to get involved, I suggest food security as a good place to start, not because it will change the world today, not because it will bring salvation, but because you can see incremental positive response. And if you're fighting your state of mind, this helps.

DAN ARMSTRONG is the editor and owner of Mud City Press, a small publishing company and online magazine operating out of Eugene, Oregon. He has written extensively in both fiction and non-fiction. For access to his books and short stories, political commentary, humor, and environmental studies CLICK HERE. To order his novel "Prairie Fire", click on the banner at the top of this site.

In Part One of this review, I focused on the author's stunning explanation of collapse as a kind of time bomb imbedded in civilization. What I failed to mention is that Kotke wrote this book in 1993 which makes its contents all the more momentous. Likewise, his vision of alternative communities based on the principles of natural culture was ahead of its time in terms of defining how humans need to live in relationship with the more-than-human world.

At this point, I'd like to share how The Final Empire and the timing of its appearance in my life, in synchronicity with other concepts and events, informed my vision of possibilities.

On a chilly morning in Boulder, Colorado I sat in a circle with about 34 other individuals as we concluded a weekend of deep talking, deep listening, and deep feeling regarding the topic of collapse and the end of the world as we have known it. People began to cry and allow words and sounds of grief to pour forth, and not only grief, but fear and rage. My body softened, and tears flowed. Piles of used Kleenex accumulated under my chair, and I felt the deepest connection I had ever experienced with a group of human beings in my life, many of whom had been total strangers only 48 hours before. For several moments I knew as clearly as I knew that I was sitting in a chair in a room in Boulder that these fellow humans were my unequivocal allies and that in a world of famine or thirst, I would never allow them to perish, nor would they allow me to perish.

But not only did I feel a warm, intimate connection with the other individuals in the room, but in the pit of my stomach I experienced a sensation of being profoundly and palpably connected with the earth. For a moment I flashed on an experience I had over a decade ago in Yosemite National Park when a friend and I spent a morning in silence in a secluded meadow. We wandered about, sometimes in close proximity, but most of the time hundreds of feet apart, feeling ourselves joined to the grass, the trees, the birds, a quietly bubbling stream, the sky. While those hours yielded the most intimate connection I had ever experienced with the earth until that time, I felt something far more momentous occurring in my body while sitting in the circle. For the first time in my life I experienced the earth as my family-its other-than-human members as my siblings, parents, and children. Savoring viscerally my relatedness to my family, the awareness that my family is dying because members of my species are killing it, surged through my cells and opened a floodgate of yet more grief.

But grief was not the endpoint-not the final destination of this unprecedented experience. In fact, what I noticed is that my tears had literally cleansed the doors of perception so that I began to notice and nurture a vision of the kind of world humans are capable of creating before, during, and after the collapse of civilization. It did not come from my head or intellectualizing about what would be politically or environmentally correct. It was unequivocally natural, pristine, innocent, and real.