Recently, a student asked this question, clearly in reference to the many reports we hear these days of horrid things happening to people in the world today.  I've wrestled with this for a long time, and found myself going beyond my usual answer, so I thought I'd share here what came out of my mouth in response :)

I grew up being told and believing that to be compassionate was: "Oh, those poor people, how horrible for them!" That, however, was  actually a form of pity. It placed me outside and above the experience of others, and made me quite uncomfortable.

As I became an adult, I realized that pity is useless. In the world of Buddhists, Christian ministers, and social workers that I was working in, compassion became a sense of "there but for Grace go I" combined with a call to action: see someone suffering; do what you can to fix it. 

That form of compassion, though, required barriers and boundaries. I was no longer outside the situation and I couldn't actually "suffer with" (the literal meaning of com - from the Latin cum, with - and passion  - from the Latin passio, endure/suffer) if I was going to fix the problem. I didn't have the kind of boundaries that would let me deal with people in great distress without becoming distressed with them, which, as I told my student, was why I chose not to work in "Skid Row" when I was doing community development.

As I sat there saying these things, the following words happened:
 "Compassion is dropping the barriers we've built against others so we see them as they truly are, regardless of the circumstances they are in, and  as we do so, seeing the circumstances replaced with what the person is ready to experience."

Effectively, then, the highest form of compassion is to engage in a Spiritual Mind Treatment, as outlined in this slide from last night's presentation:

Last night, August 16, I did a slide presentation for an IONS community group, designed to help them make sense of what is happening in the world today, and what we can do to move through it - individually and collectively.  Below are some key slides... the YouTube link .... and CLICK HERE for a pdf file

Resources from the presentation:

• https://ourworldindata.org/
• Beyond the Limits - Donella Meadows, et al
• Power vs. Force - David Hawkins
• Space Time & Beyond - Fred Alan wolf and Bob Toben
• Sustainable Development Goals Report, 2024 - United Nations
• Unitarian Universalist Association - 7 Principles
• How to Use the Science of Mind - Ernest Holmes

Resources beyond the presentation

• Institute for Global Transformation (theglobaltransformation.org)
• Planetary Transformation (lightomega.org)
• My book Earth Can Still be HOME: guidelines for a sustainable future (Portal Center Press, etc.)
• Elaine Cornick’s ebook, blog, and website: The Cultural Butterfly Project
• New Thought centers: Unity, Divine Science, Centers for Spiritual Living (ask for “prayer” for an easy shift into Heaven on Earth for all)
• To keep centered in Spirit: my Spiritual Success provides guidelines
• To understand more about culture and what forms are emerging, check out my Gaia Living Systems Institute webinar: "Journey Into Awareness"

I delivered a talk at the Florence Unitarian Universalist Fellowship that I hope will help people have less anxiety as we move through this transition period for all of humanity. CLICK on  the image below for a link to a pdf of the slides i used.  I included a short video of Donald Hoffman's explanation of how what we perceive is not real; CLICK HERE for a link to the full lecture.

I received an email the other day from yet another person really concerned about the polarization that's happening, not just in our politics (globally as well as nationally) but in our social interactions. 
The issue that triggered the email was the wide variation in what people consider facts, these days:
"... the problem with the rampant ignorance portraying itself as knowledge is that it can not be corrected, in any way that I can see. It serves itself entirely, like Frank Herbert (or was it Robert Heinlein) said of the Angry Mind, exists only for itself. These proclamations of absurd and impossible things are very disturbing more for that reason than for what they actually say. Data without any possible corrective feedback."

My response to this email, which is one of many expressing concerns about the issue was:

So... how about this: the world of negative/distressing polarity is pulling further and further away from the world of positive/loving polarity, and you're just observing it. How's that for an explanation? No need to try to change it, simply to hold to the love and trust that most of the folk who can feel it will come along, while those who can't will move in into their very different world. 
Like the cover of the original Make the World Go Away:

I got to go to New Zealand! It was an unexpected, but totally amazing experience: 2+ weeks in New Zealand in August! Click on the links below to see my travel journal...

• ARRIVING: PART ONE
• PART TWO: NORTH ISLAND (including glow-worm cave and Hobbiton!)
• PART THREE: SOUTH ISLAND (including Mt. Cook / Aoraki)

It was an amazing, totally unexpected experience, and I so appreciate all the folks who made it possible!

Over a 2-week period a couple students and I had the good fortune to be able to visit a number of cities and rural areas around the United Kingdom. The links below lead to the different chapters in my journey...

If you'd like to be on list to receive things like this in your emails, CLICK HERE and let me know. Thanks!

​May Travels 1 - Arriving in Portland Oregon & On to London

May Travels 2 - Essential London & the British Museum

May Travels 3 -Oxford & Brighton

May Travels 4 - Great & Small in Scotland

May Travels 5 - Following the Saints in Ireland

What we saw on January 6 is not who we are - but it does show us that something is really off-balance in our nation, our world, our communities - and our selves.
I've been traveling and listening and learning more and more about what's happening, which I'll be sharing in my new online class: Understanding Values & Viewpoints in American Politics.

That new class begins with this:

There's lots more to it, and you can sign up for it by CLICKING HERE.

You may also be interested in the talk I taped on Friday the 8th:

​Recently, a copy of the famous Chief Seattle speech, "How Can You Buy or Sell the Earth?" was put in front of me. Although I've seen it many times, this time I was able to explain how it is that Americans have come to think we can buy land.
 
For hundreds of thousands of years, people have wandered around large areas of land, finding food as they could, often not even aware there were other people on the planet. They relied on observation and intuition to guide them from place to place, food source to food source. Anyone who could intuitively access information about what they needed was elevated in stature, as were those who could carry large loads or accurately use a spear or stone knife.
 
As climates changed, people were pushed into smaller and smaller habitable areas and had to find new ways to live. They began to nourish certain "wild" supplies of food and manage forests and range lands, and they learned to rely on a new kind of guidance in the process - one which understood what a plant or tree needed in order to flourish, and how to maintain balance among a group of people living in close proximity.
 
Early villages grew out of this process. Located along waterways, they were fixed and stable. Houses and gardens were built and animals were brought in to the village rather than hunted in the wilderness. Now decisions had to be made about who would live and work where - and a new kind of guidance was needed to make it work for everyone for the long term. Wise men and women were honored who could access that wisdom and persuade others to follow it. Older women, especially, who had seen life, had learned to read people's hearts, how to nourish plants and babies, and how the climate shifted and changed over the years, were honored and appreciated - as the Neolithic "Venus" figurines attest.
 
The village gardening life thrived with few hardships and virtually no violence for several thousand years, until a new climate shift caused mass migrations into the river valleys.
 
Apparently an asteroid hit the planet and caused much desertification. The great plains of northern Africa became the Sahara desert. Much of Central Asia dried up, and areas of the Caucasus became uninhabitable. Many people moved into the river valleys.
 
Bringing more people into the villages was difficult, but doable, with the existing processes and systems. The land was reapportioned, forests were cut down, reeds planted to replace the fuel, food, and fiber that the trees had provided, and new villages were built where the forests had been.
 
But along the Tigris and Euphrates and their tributaries, things happened very differently. Large blonde men, riding horses and herding large numbers of cattle, moved down from the Caucasus seeking new pastures. They had little use for gardens and let their herds trample them. In some cases, whole villages were demolished, flattened. These men had no respect for women, seeing them as a bull sees cows, and used them roughly - often stealing them and hiding them so no one could steal them back. And they were rougher, faster, and stronger than most of the valley men they encountered.
 
By 3200 b.c.e., enough waves of Caucasians had moved into many river valleys that they had changed the culture. From the Indus to the Nile the city-state was now established. Civilization (also known as urbanization) had begun. The foundation for a new kind of culture, based on taking and expanding, was laid.
 
Under this regime, the land belonged to the emperor-king, who, using the basic idea from the old gardening culture, that the land was sacred to the divine Power, claimed it by divine right: the Divinity (God or Goddess) had given him all the land as long as he could control it. Therefore anyone else could only use it with his permission. If he liked someone or they had done a great service for him, he would give them the right to use the land - either for their lifetime or for some or all succeeding generations.
 
Up 'til this moment in time, no one had ever thought of "owning" a piece of land. But a mindset that says "I want it and I shall have it" was built into this new kind of leader. Taking over what others are using is normal to that way of thinking - and converting men into herds to trample over other lands (and people) was the way to do that. So armies were born, and the idea of battle.
 
Taking control of the rich proceeds of new land was the great hunger of this new, Empire culture. From father to son the ambition was passed down: grow! expand! acquire more!
 
This was the way of Empire culture for over four thousand years: choose a piece of land, take an army there to take it over, and then take as much of the proceeds as possible home, handing out rights to use the land to a few, select individuals. Even through the 1500s and into the 1600s European empires continued to grow by treating the whole world this way. Chinese, Russian, and Islamic empires fought back and forth across Asia, as well.
 
But then, something new began. The emperors were actually losing wealth by fighting these battles. More and more, the proceeds from the lands were barely enough to cover the cost of acquiring them. Large armies needed supplies. Navies needed to be built and maintained. And even with all the gold and riches of Africa and the Americas, the emperors were falling behind.
 
This was when the idea of selling land came into the picture. First, emperors sold the right to occupy land to individuals for a period of time: a “leasehold” for a period of years. Soon, in desperation, they actually sold their rights to own and occupy certain pieces of land to individuals. Land grants became a sort of payment for services – especially land in far-away places like the Americas - during those years. 
 
The next step was to grant (or sell) lands to companies. And it was this that made it possible for many to settle North America. The Puritans, for example, contracted with a company to get them to North America based on a promise that they would send back part of their produce in return for the right to live on that land. 
 
Sadly it became clear that people who haven't grown up sharing things in common don't know how to maintain commons or use only their share. The American colonists were not rural villagers with such a history, so they found another way: buy the company's interest in the land and then sell it to the individual residents for their own use.
 
And so it was that the American Way was established: gather (earn, borrow, inherit, or steal) enough funds to buy enough land for your own home and garden and live the good life for evermore. No divine Power to seek guidance from, no other person;s needs to be bothered by, just me and "my land" to do with as I wish.
 
So, "how can we buy or sell the Earth?" We do it by ignoring what Chief Seattle pointed out, that what we are buying is part of an interconnected web that we all share in common. We do it by convincing ourselves that, even though we pay the city and county a fee for the right to occupy the piece of land we have title to, and even though we may have one or two mortgages on it that say the lender gets that title as soon as we miss a few payments, and even though someone else owns the rights to any minerals (or in some places, water) that are buried under the surface, somehow we, like the emperors of old, "own" this piece of earth and are entitled to all the produce thereof.
 
I wonder how long we can maintain that fiction?