Vision - We Must Disenthrall Ourselves

As always, my talk last night with EMU colleague, dear friend, fellow rabble rouser and West Virginia attorney Brenda Waugh was challenging, amusing, eye-opening, shocking... we spoke of this undeniable feeling, more than a feeling, actually - this undeniable tidal wave of realization around what we are doing in our vocation, how we are approaching our lives and our challenges. It feels we are keying in to a global conciousness. Something is bubbling up here. And I wonder what they will call this later when they look back at 2009 and saw that there was a movement emerging - a movement that rejected the boxes... that rejected the words and the lists and the sorting and the cages and the constricted way of thinking.

The NY Times Maira Kalman is part of that movement. She uses her gorgeous and playful illustrations to explore intuitively historic, cultural, economic, political from deep inside. From her perspective - the only way, really that these things CAN be examined, if we are to be honest with ourselves. Her latest work of genius taught me more about Abraham Lincoln than I probably learned in four years of high school:  

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/

Brenda is making art to examine conflict theory. At the end of her course, she'll have the class put the art together "like dominoes". It will be up to each person to decide what pieces match - which again, is such a metaphor for conflict. Conflict will always look different, dynamic, like works of art... what we must do is allow ourselves to be centered enough, intuitive enough, creative enough to grasp the enormity of what is in front of us and piece the solutions together. That is what the learnin' needs to be.

http://theoryofconflict.blogspot.com/2009/02/peaks-swamps-and-reflections.html

I realize that what I am doing here in Geneva... and what I've been up to for the past several years... is simply becoming more human - in the most primitive definition of that term. We have had our intuition and creativity beat out of us by those who wish to quantify, by those who need to see everyone as predictable, boxable, controllable. I spend my time in yoga, listening to my body, not pushing the river, but navigating. I read an article yesterday that said the only being on earth that does not know how to eat properly is an adult human. Even 5 year old children, when given full access to all different kinds of food will in very little time begin to eat only when hungry - and will eat the food that their body truly needs. How did we lose this basic instinct?? - We don't know what to eat, when or how much and it is killing us.

What else have we forgotten? To breathe, certainly.

We humans are in an emergency. The planet is committing genocide, we are a world of refugees. We have lost our web, we have lost the concept that we are all connected. Wall Streetoise and their numbers are exposed... these guys were all just riding on greed and a whim. The politicians keep talking even though they know their words are empty. But our mighty... mighty... mighty instincts are rising up. Everywhere - I see unlocking, people coming out into the fresh air, awakening. We are beginning to see that we need metaphor, myth, magic... we need these things because they are able to hold the multiple layers of meaning of this big, big world in ways that words and charts and boxes never can.

Maira Kalman says she is in love with Abraham Lincoln, she visited his museum and pondered how someone who had one year of school could have been such a genius, have had such insight. Intuition, vision, connection, power. A person who fought desperately for his home. And this person continues to capture our imaginaton.

Here is the quote she embroidered - which made me cry just now...

"The occasion is piled high with difficulty. As our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

A. Lincoln
1862