What are you doing this summer to inspire new changes for next year?
The Great Turning...coming to a classroom near you!
This summer, I have been spending a lot of time educating myself about the concept of "The Great Turning". It is an idea that has taken many names by many authors, activists, academics, scientists, and cultures. Essentially, it speaks to this point that we are at in human and environmental existence where almost all of our major systems are in decline. It poses the decision that we must make to either let things decline as they have been, to serve as "death bed assistance" (as author-activist Joanna Macy calls it) slowing down these detrimental processes without truly disturbing the status quo, or choosing to act as "midwives" birthing into life a new consciousness, a new way of relating to each other and the environment. Three major sources for this research have included the work of David Korten (who wrote the book, "The Great Turning"), Joanna Macy (and her workshop series and subsequent articles on "The Work that Reconnects"), and a wonderful organization called "Generation Waking Up" who use the concept in their interactive, multimedia, youth activist workshops.
All three of these sources work together and off of each other. All three describe this point in time as both a crisis and an opportunity, but most importantly as a decision that each of us must make between choosing apathy or putting our hearts and energy towards creating a shift in culture, politics, and economics. David Korten describes the shift as moving from a culture of "Empire to Earth Community". Joanna Macy speaks about a transition from "the industrial growth society to a life sustaining society." To me, it is about changing our present actions and worldviews from living seperate disconnected lives to an understanding of the deep and sacred interconnections between all living beings and therefore all problems and all solutions.
As the Global Issues teacher (education for global citizenship), a constant challenge is for me to simultaneously raise awareness of the devastating effects of our current systems without overwhelming and disempowering my intensely compassionate students. I am incredibly excited to bring the concept of "The Great Turning" into my classroom as a source of hope, that although things look bad, there are an enormous amount of people working across borders and through barriers to take us to a more just and sutainable future.
To learn more:
David Korten and The Great Turning: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/5000-years-of-empire/the-great-turning-from-empire-to-earth-community-1
Generation Waking Up: www.generationwakingup.org/
Joanna Macy and The Great Turning: http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/great-turning
Responses
The very element of our even considering to protect our world, the world that gives us everything, shows us that people are waking up to knowing something different needs to take place to restore balance to the world that allows us to be on it and use it as we wish. Morals and ethics on how we use this world, given freely to us, are vital for improvements. Looking at the world as "alive" as we, our body's are "alive" could change the way we look at it, and how we take care of it. Politics, laws, greed, and money serve only themselves. Caring, love, sharing, assisting one another in our communities to find what we all require to participate in "life" on this planet, are formost in my opinion, since the planet, mother Earth (Pachamama) is here to teach us the mothers' ways, if we listen. Thank goodness we still can plant our own seeds to grow our own veggies; if we all could do that, we wouldn't need the big farm corporations for veggies would we. Keep up the great work!
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