The global movement that Barack Obama is not leading

[GliderGuider]

A lot of people look to Barack Obama as the enlightened leader, the psychopomp who will lead the world away from the brink of catastrophe and into a new era. I see him in a somewhat different light. I see his election as the American expression of a global shift in consciousness that is already underway. He may or may not be able to fulfill his promise in any specific area, but the fact of his election speaks to a dramatic sea-change in the global Zeitgeist.

An individual in crisis may experience a sudden transformation or awakening as a response to an intolerable situation. The current crisis of civilization is starting to impact hundreds millions of individuals around the globe, especially since the world was plunged into an economic crisis that is compounding our existing ecological, environmental, energy and social crises. The sense of imminence created by this convergence is causing people to wake up and wonder WTF has been going on while we dutifully lived out the consumerist dream. While we were sleeping that dream seems to have become a nightmare as the materialist utopia we were promised morphed into a cruel, life-destroying hoax .

This uncomfortable awakening is manifesting in a massive, unpredicted global change, as reported in Paul Hawken's seminal book "Blessed Unrest" and documented on WiserEarth.org. A spontaneous global movement consisting of two million or more small, independent, grass-roots groups, working on local environmental, social justice and spiritual issues of all kinds, is spreading like an Australian wildfire through every city in every country on the face of the planet. It is the largest, most diverse, most autonomous, most exuberant, most hopeful movement humanity has ever produced.

This enormous number of individual groups, each composed of a small number of individual people, is unconsciously shifting the consciousness of the entire human enterprise. As they do that they are also fulfilling three roles that are crucial to the short, medium and long term future of humanity:

• They act as "Gaia's antibodies" as they address and try to fix immediate local symptoms of the planet's dis-ease;
  
  
• They act as humanity's imaginal cells. These are the cells that accumulate in a caterpillar's body toward the end of its adolescence and catalyze its metamorphosis into a butterfly;
  
  
• They act as the seed stock for the sustainable values -- cooperation, consensus, nurturing, recognition of interdependence, acceptance of limits, universal justice and the respect for other life -- that will nurture the next cycle of civilization.

There is a global miracle taking place in front of our eyes, one in which we are all being called to participate.

[villager]

1. Great stuff. Yes!

Pleased to K&R....

[knowbody0]

2. one day reality will not suck!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. This has been happening, quietly, for years

There are enclaves throughout the world where people have been using alternative energy, economic cooperation, sensible ways of maintaining health, and sustainable agriculture. I'm glad I've lived in one of those enclaves for almost 20 years now.