The present convergence of crises - in money, energy, education, health, water, soil, climate, politics, the environment, and more - is a birth crisis, expelling us from the old world into a new.

Even if I had money to invest I wouldn't invest it in oil companies - - or their bankers, suppliers, customers ... really that means the whole stock market. I'm not opposed to divestment, but I think by itself it won't get very far. The demand is still there, the fossil fuel infrastructure is still there. Where I would like to see our political energy go is to stop ecocide on a local and bioregional level. Each new energy project involves horrible abuse of mountaintops, groundwater, forests, etc., because all the easy resources have already been extracted.

The present convergence of crises - in money, energy, education, health, water, soil, climate, politics, the environment, and more - is a birth crisis, expelling us from the old world into a new.

True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary.

The word "spiritual" normally means something that's distinct from the fleshly or the material. It's not of the world. But that version of spirituality is bankrupt today. It had its use when the program of science divested matter from the spiritual qualities - - the qualities of a self, or of a being. When science divested the world of those qualities and made it into just a thing, rather than a self, it gave us license to treat it as just a thing, and not as something sacred, conscious, alive, intelligent. So this is tied into the whole trajectory of our civilization.

Ultimately, work on self is inseperable from work in the world. Each mirrors the other; each is a vehicle for the other. When we change ourselves, our values and actions change as well. When we do work in the world, internal issues arise that we must face or be rendered ineffective.

We are all here to contribute our gifts toward something greater than ourselves, and will never be content unless we are.