In just a few weeks, Chris and Becca will be holding a special seminar for PeakProsperity.com readers called "Developing Your Emotional and Social Capital". It will be held at the Rowe Conference Center in Rowe, MA from November 9-12th.
Its focus: With the daily deluge of worrisome information -- species loss, financial fraud, resource depletion, warmongering, social injustice, etc -- how do you "be" in this world without getting overwhelmed, defeated and paralyzed by it all?
Chris and Becca -- having themselves grappled with the disturbing data for over a decade now -- will teach the skills, practices and techniques that they've found successful in enabling you to find strength, stability and inspiration to move forward with hope.
For Chris, the mission of the seminar is well-captured by this quote by an elder of the Hopi tribe:
"You have been telling the people that this is the 11th hour. Now you must go back and tell that people that this is the hour and there are things to be considered. Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth. Create your community. Be good to each other and do not look outside yourself for the leader.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
More about the upcoming seminar, including how to register for it, can be found by clicking here.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Becca Martenson (35m:23s).
For me, Becca telling the story of the great unraveling was very powerful. The telling of this great story found a way in to being during a time descent. Sorry to not be there this fall.
I was delighted to meet Quercus Bicolor and many others, too.
Wow, Becca and Chris. That was as real as it gets. I wish I could be there, because what you talk about is so much the direction I’ve been moving over the past year. But my daughter is counting on me that weekend to take her to an event that is very important to her. No worries, though. The work is unfolding in other ways and there’s always next year, at least if the big picture holds together enough between now in then.
Hi Chris and Becca – This is something I would love to attend next year. My request is that if you are planning on doing it again please announce dates as far out as you can. It would help so much to be able to set time aside months ahead. Unfortunately that is the way my life rolls right now. Love what you both are doing. I am a kindred spirit with you both.
Karen
Sometimes you are on a different wavelength, you talk things that go over my head. I’m smart enough to realize that you may be wiser, or more experienced than I. I listen and learn, and over the years I’ve changed who I am by listening to you. With regard to todays topic, I’m not there yet, where you are now, maybe in another five years, but then you may be five years ahead again.
What I’m trying to say is keep going, I’ll keep listening. Simple comments like the one about reaction and response are so obvious but it’s something I haven’t heard before.
Hi Chris and Becca
I would LOVE to be there! It won’t happen this time. Time, distance and money issues are just too much but maybe next time. Will you ever offer a weekend on the west coast?
For me, the most impactful missing resource in this whole 3-E story is human resource. By that I mean masses of people who do have the deep skill set required to be present with what is, and to choose action based on what is now rather than on familiar fantasies.
The huge body of knowledge about our current situation that you have made so accessible, Chris, is critical. The development of new life skills from getting healthy to providing habitat for pollinators to carbon sequestering agriculture, is critical. But I hold the power source, the understanding and the know-how needed to shift human civilization onto a sane trajectory, if that is still possible, lies in the realm of being.
For me, this realm is difficult to articulate. I profoundly appreciate that you two speak of it anyway. You make an already-sound website and online community that much more real and trustworthy by doing this work. There are obstacles (I’m a duel citizen relinquishing US citizenship - uneasy about crossing borders) but I’ll look for ways to be there doing it with you someday. Meanwhile, I do it here.
On what is:
Right beside the terror and grief of seeing what is dying before our eyes, and the queasy not-knowing if we or this exquisite, beloved biosphere have a future together, is the preciousness of what still is. To this, add the impeccable holding that all this beauty, all this functionality, this stunning mystery of a perfect blue planet has been to us for all of our lifetimes, and our ancestors’. The wealth of what we are, what we’ve had, and what we still have is astonishing.
I say that a large part of being with what is, is becoming able to perceive the wealth of Earth life. Our culture does not tell us that we have a powerful primary relationship of human being to planet. Our culture only seems to notice people, sort of. Our culture is missing a few pieces. Anyway, beside grieving, beside grounding in the face of fear and uncertainty, is joy. To be here, embodied, with eyes that see in color, with in-breath and out-breath all our lives, with ancient waters flowing through every living cell, with superpowers like music and language, with a vast tribe of green beings who can make an entire biosphere out of rock, water and sunlight - there is a richness here that can hardly be borne in an ordinary state of mind. Can we become able to recognize and celebrate, to cooperate, even, with this giant free lunch?
Fully having grief, fear, uncertainty, anger etc. as they come up day by day is a requirement to being with what is. Without that processing going on, there isn’t much beingness available. Fully having joy and celebration is also a requirement. I can’t look the hard things in the face without first dropping into this wellspring of wild grateful love.
Have I overshared yet? Oh well. You are all used to that by now!
Cheers
Susan
Fully having grief, fear, uncertainty, anger etc. as they come up day by day is a requirement to being with what is.
Wisely stated Susan, but at odds with what those who seek to control/manipulate us want. They would much rather have us reach out for a pill, drink or opioid that will numb the grief, fear, uncertainty and anger, reducing our abilities to question the status quo - and therefore our participation in their agendas. We can have the reactions of all those emotions, but we can, as Chris said, choose how we respond.
This is a seminar that would be valuable to me at this stage in life however not in the cards for me at this time. As with many others, a west coast seminar would provide a better chance of participating.
The things spoken of in this article are key to our survival I think. If we are not able to 'be in the present', warts and all, we will not be able to effect the transitions to a new way of life that need to be made. The first part of change being acceptance of what is, right? And just being with what is, without emotion (easier said than done), mulling it over, trying to understand it further, is tough. But we need to do it for that is the only way we can see what, if anything, we can do in response. I cannot do anything about what has happened on a global scale - the disappearance of insects being one example. But I can create a personal space where I live that will be beneficial to pollinators. I can choose to do that, and further choose to try to get others near me to do the same. We can have a bad reaction to the negative news, but we can also choose a good response to convert it to feel good, positive news. Imagine if the next headline were "1 million new pollinator gardens started in Germany this past summer" That really turns it around for our mindsets, doesn't it! Reaction and Response. We hold the key.
'Just being' is not something we are raised or train to do in our culture. We do not have the indigenous appreciation of the natural world. It is the opposite in fact. Our mindset has been ingrained in us all of our lives via stealth marketing plans that have been so successful, we basically are nothing more than corporate test dummies who have forgotten what is important in this life. We have been trained to react in the ways they want us to - cause and effect. For those of us who do not subscribe to the mainstream bullshit, we are branded contrarians or the tin foil hat crowd. I must say, I wear my hat proudly
I hope your weekend is a success for everyone - that we will have more people walk away knowing with a certainty the path and direction they must head in, and more than anything, the will and courage to take it, as well as to help others see the light.
Jan
Right beside the terror and grief of seeing what is dying before our eyes, and the queasy not-knowing if we or this exquisite, beloved biosphere have a future together, is the preciousness of what still is. To this, add the impeccable holding that all this beauty, all this functionality, this stunning mystery of a perfect blue planet has been to us for all of our lifetimes, and our ancestors'. The wealth of what we are, what we've had, and what we still have is astonishing.
I say that a large part of being with what is, is becoming able to perceive the wealth of Earth life. Our culture does not tell us that we have a powerful primary relationship of human being to planet. Our culture only seems to notice people, sort of. Our culture is missing a few pieces. Anyway, beside grieving, beside grounding in the face of fear and uncertainty, is joy. To be here, embodied, with eyes that see in color, with in-breath and out-breath all our lives, with ancient waters flowing through every living cell, with superpowers like music and language, with a vast tribe of green beings who can make an entire biosphere out of rock, water and sunlight - there is a richness here that can hardly be borne in an ordinary state of mind. Can we become able to recognize and celebrate, to cooperate, even, with this giant free lunch?
