THE DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE - Winner of the Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest 2009
Q. Outside of human ones, what is the single most important relationship of life?
A. The one with the Earth.
Q. What is, guaranteed, the longest relationship of your life, given at birth, ending at death?
A. The one with the Earth.
Q. Which is the least talked about relationship of all?
A. The one with the Earth.
The Declaration of Interdependence, the full Declaration of Interdependence is Earthbonding. Earthbonding is the personal realisation of this state of interdependence. It has as many forms and expressions as there are people alive on the planet.
No-one can escape Earthbonding - we are all tied to the planet in this down-to- earth way.
No-one talks about Earthbonding. That fact is a reflection of its taken-for-granted status, nothing more. Or perhaps there is something more. Perhaps Earthbonding was tabooed by society in general around the time of the outlawing of the earth-based religions. We see remnants of earth-connected spiritual practices today in indigenous populations worldwide.
Here is as good as any place to enter the Land of Taboos.
Never forget the unique status of things tabooed by a ruling hierarchy. The tabooed is the not-talked-about - as if it doesn't exist when it does. Psychological denial is an unhealthy state to live in, as we know. Backed up by intimidation - ranging from a parental cuff through ostracism to death threats - the taboo is internalised. Both outer and inner reality are brought into the accord of believing a total lie.
Taboos, for the child, are attractive. They bring up, not just another interesting unknown area of life, but one rich with secrets, mystery, intrigue, where things are kept in the dark, never seen in the light which reveals their real - and probably less exciting - I.D.
For adults, the effect of the taboo - especially a taboo inherited from childhood, - is different. That taboo is now part of their inner world - put behind a locked door in their minds so they never go there. Instead the adult colludes with the taboo - and encourages others not to go there either. Taboos are infectious, like a cold. Taboos make you fuzzy-headed, bunged up, restricted when you know the right mindstate to be in is free, clear and connected.
The Declaration of Interdependence is not just about biodiversity and ecosystems. Humans thrive on relationship and it is both restrictive and a complete nonsense to confine relationship to a select band and the blood-ties of our own species.
According to your situation, where you live, your lifestyle, so you earthbond. Within this wider more inclusive understanding and interpretation, - called omni-standing - you form relationships with everything physically close to you, everything you interact with and all things that enter your mind in the form of thoughts. Thoughts are invisible to anyone but you. Physically, thoughts are small amounts of energy - electricity. Thoughts have the same status as all personal mindstuff - invisibility. Only you know your gut reactions, and intuitive or instinctive responses that make up your PAN - Personal Associative Network, - total inner world. Only you know the state of this inner reality - how honest, integrated, well-healed it is.
Whatever its health, however it pleases or displeases you, it is part of an invisible thought-network. Internet-related but not internet-restricted, this collective thought network continually circles the world. It's all energy.
I believe that in the beginning was the Image, then came the Thought and that puts the Word in third place. Of course the Grunt preceded the Word and then Emotion comes on the scene, but don't let's get distracted here!
It's testimony to the power of the taboo that sometimes, the Image, irrespective of massive amounts of thought inputed by super intelligent minds with no political agendas and an honest open-hearted desire for truth, doesn't make it. Doesn't take the logical 1 - 2 - 3 route from Image, through Thought, to Word.
It just stays at the Image level; doesn't go dynamic, doesn't travel. We are still, standing alongside Neil Armstrong, on the moon, staring at the Earth; its obvious oneness, unity, beauty.
Everything on the Earth is bonded to it - that is our shared commonality. Divest the word globalisation of its politico-economic taint and you reach earthbonding - the Declaration of Interdependence.
But is globalisation, as a word, already too far gone, too agenda-ised, to be rescued. No matter! The Declaration of Interdependence will serve us well as a reinvention of a human spirit choosing to pioneer new mind ground and put heart and soul into Earthbonding.
To throw further light on this, let's take a modern interpretation of the original Declaration of Independence. It provides us with a measure of how we have moved on. Where attitudes, appreciations and cultural focus has changed.
The Declaration of Independence.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
The Declaration of Interdependence
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to finally dissolve the divides which separate them, and to thank and express gratitude to the powers of the Earth, that unique and extraordinary miracle to which they are privileged to be part, a decent respect requires they honour that relationship according to individual temperament, inclination, love and passion.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
That all peoplekind are created equal with the right to think and act independently or through networks. Peoplekind are endowed with limited and partial perceptions of reality which, as they evolve, reveals to them errors and misunderstandings at the same time as it widens, deepens and heightens their wonder at the miracle of the existence of the Earth and their personal life. To reflect this change in consciousness, governments, originally charged with the task of promoting national agendas, take on a new role; to implement a global consciousness working at a local level to effect safety and happiness. Denial of interconnectedness is no longer tenable; a shared fate is a reality the species homo sapiens now face for the continuance of life, liberty and happiness. Experience has shown that peoplekind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. In truth this was always so; when survival is in the frame, all other agendas disappear. Even his story and her story mesh and interweave; survival taking priority over sex and gender differences. Prudence, indeed, will dictate when survival is the issue. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, personal self-interest, evinces a design to promote them beyond sustainability, it is the right of the people, their duty, to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of our shared Earth, and such is now the necessity which constrains peoplekind to alter their former priorities of government as we give up an absolute tyranny of the Earth and come into EarthBonding relationships. To prove this, facts are given to a caring world.
The Declaration of Interdependence has great commonality with, and significant difference to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, when Thomas Jefferson's words, (only slightly changed by others with other agendas) were seeded in western consciousness and continued to grow, develop, and be taken out of context just ever so slightly to support an array of purposes outside the original thinking box. As I've done.
Interdependence, as any self-development guru knows, is one key step on from independence. Within the person/planet matrix, the parallel is exact. Now to prove it.
Here, we are not after tracing the history of words, their cultural impact over a few centuries or even opening that dubious debate about the power of the pen versus the power of the sword. Or computers versus Kalashnikovs as the most effective tool of communication or persuasion. Both have their adherents.
No, the invitation is to step into a wonderland, a land full of wonder and surprises, the world of P.A.N. - the Personal Associative Network. Never heard of P.A.N? It's a short form meaning the connections that make up a person's inner reality. All the inner triggers pressed at the mention of a word, subject, song or sight of a familiar face. That grand mix of experience and knowledge, events and information, that impact and make up one individual life. Design and forge a personality. The movers and shakers that form His Story or Her Story.
For everyone, at some level, the imperative is the same. To negotiate life, make sense of it on a day-to-day basis in order to survive and thrive - get by, get on, get up. Whether from a moral, immoral or amoral drive, compassionate or callous, caring or cruel. Or some unholy blend of them all dubbed human nature.
This is what we are all up to all the time - vaguely following the winding trail of what makes us happy, fulfilled or rich. More accurately, what we currently believe will make us happy, fulfilled or rich according to some early prioritising schemata inherited from interaction with our elders as we emerged into full consciousness.
It is the same for us all and this sameness I call commonality for it is the thing that unites us and allows us to understand one another. Locate a commonality and we bond. Temporarily only maybe, but the sense of communicating - meeting and engaging - is solid enough. There is nothing contradictory in saying we are all the same and we are all different. They are not mutually exclusive; they are compatible.
This is what happens when I free associate on PAN.
Pan pipes, J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan, Michael Jackson, the pots and pans of all kitchens, the tasty scrapings therein, panning for gold, and a god that's gone into decline in human consciousness. Pandemics, panoramas, pantechnicon, Pandora and her famous box, pandas and the logo of the World Wildlife Fund. All these inform my Personal Associative Network - my PAN of PAN, leaving trails of distinctive dynamic meaning which will be slightly different tomorrow to how they are today. That is, they show signs of growth and development. They are alive to me.
These free associations have commonalities of their own. They implicate, draw on and draw up a sense-based, (w)holistic, image-rich understanding of what P.A.N. is about.
Let's go a stage further now in this journey-quest to uncover and discover the full connected coherence within the seemingly fragmented, divergent and compartmentalised. If we are brave enough and patient enough, the Inner Web will reveal itself.
We have now reached an interesting point in this inner wonderland. It's the place of expansion, inner growth where, intellectually, rationally, logically, we can see, perhaps for the first time, that habitual categorisations are only for convenience in commonspeak. The categorisations of our Inner World are a different animal.
Proving this is extraordinarily easy, once you trawl wide enough. While in restricted Left Brain mode - the dominant mindstate of 80% of people living in western civilisation - all this stays hidden, unavailable. Like a sign goes up in your mind that reads 'No Access'.
No Access to fun, Inner Child, imagination or vision. These are any child's playmates, and we remember them well.
PAN is the Personal Associative Network. Coloured and enriched by the sensed-based, image-based right brain world with its hotline to emotion. Any idea expands, grows and develops through PAN and by using PAN.
It's a template, a thinking frame that, once it finds a home in the natural human mind, simultaneously finds one in the natural outer world. As within, so without. We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are... The Talmud.
But of course, the natural world offers many models, compassionate and caring, cruel and callous. Choice is forever on the menu.
You can P.A.N. any word but stay balanced. Don't take emotional depth-dives or if you do, come up regularly for air. Otherwise you'll get the mental bends.
What's the bonus, the pay-off ?
Greater inner reliance (less vulnerability to passing outer distractions, being swayed off-centre).
Greater inner clarity, direction, focus.
You get to know your Inner Guide as reliable, trustworthy. A quieter being altogether than the outer personality - whatever it's reinvented I.D. of the current moment. The Inner Guide is quite invisible of course, but being aware of its presence and presents on a daily basis grows deep roots... it's psychologically strengthening.
Go there often and you gain a new appreciation - and perhaps even delight - at the integrated webbing of your own mind. It makes sense - total sense. Do it many times - use it as a working method - and you will be astounded by what you learn about your mind's hidden, till now, reservoirs of intuitive flow. You have now taken a breakthrough step. Accessed the interconnected interdependent state in the most meaningful place of all - your own mind. It's the basis of personal reality, and enables you to make a personalised Declaration of Interdependence.
Use P.A.N. to draw up a range of personally meaningful associations. Build connective tissue that links it all up. Use Jefferson's ringing phrases – to key into the commonality. Ideas are mind-seeds. They want to grow. To do so they need a nurturing environment, warmth, light, love, a space. This basic condition for growth – real growth, evolution - is as true of the human mind as for any lifeform existent on the planet. It is a defining growth pattern.
Copyright. Header photo NASA. Text Gaia Dance 2009
Q. Outside of human ones, what is the single most important relationship of life?
A. The one with the Earth.
Q. What is, guaranteed, the longest relationship of your life, given at birth, ending at death?
A. The one with the Earth.
Q. Which is the least talked about relationship of all?
A. The one with the Earth.
The Declaration of Interdependence, the full Declaration of Interdependence is Earthbonding. Earthbonding is the personal realisation of this state of interdependence. It has as many forms and expressions as there are people alive on the planet.
No-one can escape Earthbonding - we are all tied to the planet in this down-to- earth way.
No-one talks about Earthbonding. That fact is a reflection of its taken-for-granted status, nothing more. Or perhaps there is something more. Perhaps Earthbonding was tabooed by society in general around the time of the outlawing of the earth-based religions. We see remnants of earth-connected spiritual practices today in indigenous populations worldwide.
Here is as good as any place to enter the Land of Taboos.
Never forget the unique status of things tabooed by a ruling hierarchy. The tabooed is the not-talked-about - as if it doesn't exist when it does. Psychological denial is an unhealthy state to live in, as we know. Backed up by intimidation - ranging from a parental cuff through ostracism to death threats - the taboo is internalised. Both outer and inner reality are brought into the accord of believing a total lie.
Taboos, for the child, are attractive. They bring up, not just another interesting unknown area of life, but one rich with secrets, mystery, intrigue, where things are kept in the dark, never seen in the light which reveals their real - and probably less exciting - I.D.
For adults, the effect of the taboo - especially a taboo inherited from childhood, - is different. That taboo is now part of their inner world - put behind a locked door in their minds so they never go there. Instead the adult colludes with the taboo - and encourages others not to go there either. Taboos are infectious, like a cold. Taboos make you fuzzy-headed, bunged up, restricted when you know the right mindstate to be in is free, clear and connected.
The Declaration of Interdependence is not just about biodiversity and ecosystems. Humans thrive on relationship and it is both restrictive and a complete nonsense to confine relationship to a select band and the blood-ties of our own species.
According to your situation, where you live, your lifestyle, so you earthbond. Within this wider more inclusive understanding and interpretation, - called omni-standing - you form relationships with everything physically close to you, everything you interact with and all things that enter your mind in the form of thoughts. Thoughts are invisible to anyone but you. Physically, thoughts are small amounts of energy - electricity. Thoughts have the same status as all personal mindstuff - invisibility. Only you know your gut reactions, and intuitive or instinctive responses that make up your PAN - Personal Associative Network, - total inner world. Only you know the state of this inner reality - how honest, integrated, well-healed it is.
Whatever its health, however it pleases or displeases you, it is part of an invisible thought-network. Internet-related but not internet-restricted, this collective thought network continually circles the world. It's all energy.
I believe that in the beginning was the Image, then came the Thought and that puts the Word in third place. Of course the Grunt preceded the Word and then Emotion comes on the scene, but don't let's get distracted here!
It's testimony to the power of the taboo that sometimes, the Image, irrespective of massive amounts of thought inputed by super intelligent minds with no political agendas and an honest open-hearted desire for truth, doesn't make it. Doesn't take the logical 1 - 2 - 3 route from Image, through Thought, to Word.
It just stays at the Image level; doesn't go dynamic, doesn't travel. We are still, standing alongside Neil Armstrong, on the moon, staring at the Earth; its obvious oneness, unity, beauty.
Everything on the Earth is bonded to it - that is our shared commonality. Divest the word globalisation of its politico-economic taint and you reach earthbonding - the Declaration of Interdependence.
But is globalisation, as a word, already too far gone, too agenda-ised, to be rescued. No matter! The Declaration of Interdependence will serve us well as a reinvention of a human spirit choosing to pioneer new mind ground and put heart and soul into Earthbonding.
To throw further light on this, let's take a modern interpretation of the original Declaration of Independence. It provides us with a measure of how we have moved on. Where attitudes, appreciations and cultural focus has changed.
The Declaration of Independence.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
The Declaration of Interdependence
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to finally dissolve the divides which separate them, and to thank and express gratitude to the powers of the Earth, that unique and extraordinary miracle to which they are privileged to be part, a decent respect requires they honour that relationship according to individual temperament, inclination, love and passion.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
That all peoplekind are created equal with the right to think and act independently or through networks. Peoplekind are endowed with limited and partial perceptions of reality which, as they evolve, reveals to them errors and misunderstandings at the same time as it widens, deepens and heightens their wonder at the miracle of the existence of the Earth and their personal life. To reflect this change in consciousness, governments, originally charged with the task of promoting national agendas, take on a new role; to implement a global consciousness working at a local level to effect safety and happiness. Denial of interconnectedness is no longer tenable; a shared fate is a reality the species homo sapiens now face for the continuance of life, liberty and happiness. Experience has shown that peoplekind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. In truth this was always so; when survival is in the frame, all other agendas disappear. Even his story and her story mesh and interweave; survival taking priority over sex and gender differences. Prudence, indeed, will dictate when survival is the issue. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, personal self-interest, evinces a design to promote them beyond sustainability, it is the right of the people, their duty, to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of our shared Earth, and such is now the necessity which constrains peoplekind to alter their former priorities of government as we give up an absolute tyranny of the Earth and come into EarthBonding relationships. To prove this, facts are given to a caring world.
The Declaration of Interdependence has great commonality with, and significant difference to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, when Thomas Jefferson's words, (only slightly changed by others with other agendas) were seeded in western consciousness and continued to grow, develop, and be taken out of context just ever so slightly to support an array of purposes outside the original thinking box. As I've done.
Interdependence, as any self-development guru knows, is one key step on from independence. Within the person/planet matrix, the parallel is exact. Now to prove it.
Here, we are not after tracing the history of words, their cultural impact over a few centuries or even opening that dubious debate about the power of the pen versus the power of the sword. Or computers versus Kalashnikovs as the most effective tool of communication or persuasion. Both have their adherents.
No, the invitation is to step into a wonderland, a land full of wonder and surprises, the world of P.A.N. - the Personal Associative Network. Never heard of P.A.N? It's a short form meaning the connections that make up a person's inner reality. All the inner triggers pressed at the mention of a word, subject, song or sight of a familiar face. That grand mix of experience and knowledge, events and information, that impact and make up one individual life. Design and forge a personality. The movers and shakers that form His Story or Her Story.
For everyone, at some level, the imperative is the same. To negotiate life, make sense of it on a day-to-day basis in order to survive and thrive - get by, get on, get up. Whether from a moral, immoral or amoral drive, compassionate or callous, caring or cruel. Or some unholy blend of them all dubbed human nature.
This is what we are all up to all the time - vaguely following the winding trail of what makes us happy, fulfilled or rich. More accurately, what we currently believe will make us happy, fulfilled or rich according to some early prioritising schemata inherited from interaction with our elders as we emerged into full consciousness.
It is the same for us all and this sameness I call commonality for it is the thing that unites us and allows us to understand one another. Locate a commonality and we bond. Temporarily only maybe, but the sense of communicating - meeting and engaging - is solid enough. There is nothing contradictory in saying we are all the same and we are all different. They are not mutually exclusive; they are compatible.
This is what happens when I free associate on PAN.
Pan pipes, J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan, Michael Jackson, the pots and pans of all kitchens, the tasty scrapings therein, panning for gold, and a god that's gone into decline in human consciousness. Pandemics, panoramas, pantechnicon, Pandora and her famous box, pandas and the logo of the World Wildlife Fund. All these inform my Personal Associative Network - my PAN of PAN, leaving trails of distinctive dynamic meaning which will be slightly different tomorrow to how they are today. That is, they show signs of growth and development. They are alive to me.
These free associations have commonalities of their own. They implicate, draw on and draw up a sense-based, (w)holistic, image-rich understanding of what P.A.N. is about.
Let's go a stage further now in this journey-quest to uncover and discover the full connected coherence within the seemingly fragmented, divergent and compartmentalised. If we are brave enough and patient enough, the Inner Web will reveal itself.
We have now reached an interesting point in this inner wonderland. It's the place of expansion, inner growth where, intellectually, rationally, logically, we can see, perhaps for the first time, that habitual categorisations are only for convenience in commonspeak. The categorisations of our Inner World are a different animal.
Proving this is extraordinarily easy, once you trawl wide enough. While in restricted Left Brain mode - the dominant mindstate of 80% of people living in western civilisation - all this stays hidden, unavailable. Like a sign goes up in your mind that reads 'No Access'.
No Access to fun, Inner Child, imagination or vision. These are any child's playmates, and we remember them well.
PAN is the Personal Associative Network. Coloured and enriched by the sensed-based, image-based right brain world with its hotline to emotion. Any idea expands, grows and develops through PAN and by using PAN.
It's a template, a thinking frame that, once it finds a home in the natural human mind, simultaneously finds one in the natural outer world. As within, so without. We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are... The Talmud.
But of course, the natural world offers many models, compassionate and caring, cruel and callous. Choice is forever on the menu.
You can P.A.N. any word but stay balanced. Don't take emotional depth-dives or if you do, come up regularly for air. Otherwise you'll get the mental bends.
What's the bonus, the pay-off ?
Greater inner reliance (less vulnerability to passing outer distractions, being swayed off-centre).
Greater inner clarity, direction, focus.
You get to know your Inner Guide as reliable, trustworthy. A quieter being altogether than the outer personality - whatever it's reinvented I.D. of the current moment. The Inner Guide is quite invisible of course, but being aware of its presence and presents on a daily basis grows deep roots... it's psychologically strengthening.
Go there often and you gain a new appreciation - and perhaps even delight - at the integrated webbing of your own mind. It makes sense - total sense. Do it many times - use it as a working method - and you will be astounded by what you learn about your mind's hidden, till now, reservoirs of intuitive flow. You have now taken a breakthrough step. Accessed the interconnected interdependent state in the most meaningful place of all - your own mind. It's the basis of personal reality, and enables you to make a personalised Declaration of Interdependence.
Use P.A.N. to draw up a range of personally meaningful associations. Build connective tissue that links it all up. Use Jefferson's ringing phrases – to key into the commonality. Ideas are mind-seeds. They want to grow. To do so they need a nurturing environment, warmth, light, love, a space. This basic condition for growth – real growth, evolution - is as true of the human mind as for any lifeform existent on the planet. It is a defining growth pattern.
Copyright. Header photo NASA. Text Gaia Dance 2009
