The Great Work of Our Time

Excerpts from “The Great Work of Our Time,” by John Liu, in Permaculture, Autumn 2015, pp.4-8…

“Right now, the funds needed to address climate change are swirling in a vortex of highly paid consultants who endlessly debate what to do.  This financial capital needs to flow to the individual and the collectivised farmers, gardeners, and landscape restorers who, through their efforts to increase soil carbon, increase the height of vegetative canopies and protect biodiversity, are leading our species’ efforts to mitigate and adapt to human induced climate change.  Imagine what we could do if we engaged people worldwide in restoring the Earth’s ecological function?”

“A significant and growing number of people are teaching themselves and others how to grow biologically healthy diverse soils rich in organic matter.  They are learning that increases in organic material and microbiologic communities in the soil also retain vastly more moisture, especially when constantly covered by perennial vegetative growth.  These same people are learning to grow closed canopy, multi-story polyculture food forests.  These perennial systems align human systems with nature and have an entirely different result than continuing to practice neolithic agriculture or our current toxic industrialised agricultural model.”

“We cannot erode the fertility and hydrological regulation, and kill the microbial communities that build the Earth’s living soils, and expect to have more productivity.  You may have short-term gains from artificial inputs, but over the long term you collapse the system and have nothing.”

“Acknowledging what is real also means turning our backs on what is false.  We are the end of an era that will be known mainly for its waste, pollution, materialism, wanton violence and foolish addiction to fossil fuels.  It can be frightening to change but, when you think about what we are leaving behind, change can be seen to be a very good thing.  We need to change so many things.  This is our chance.  Not only can we address climate change and make our food systems healthier and more resilient, we can and must remake human society and economy to be fair for everyone.  This is being recognised and this knowledge can empower people all over the world, engaging their creativity and giving their lives meaning.

“As the endgame of this unsustainable era plays out, many people are standing on the sidelines.  Their intelligence, imagination, energy and abilities are needed to move to the next level in human consciousness.”

Read the full article at…

http://www.exacteditions.com/read/permaculture/no-85-autumn-2015-44457/7/2/

Find more about Permaculture magazine at…

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/

Watch John’s films at…

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos/green-gold-how-can-we-regenerate-large-scale-damaged-ecosystems

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos/restoring-ecosystems-preventing-flooding-and-building-soil-john-liu

Watch more Permaculture videos at…

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos

We have five years and three months before the Robots begin to take over, and the Robots will be in the service of the Haves, not the Havenots.  Despite rumors of Harmony and Trust Abounding, Aquarius is an Air Sign – intellect.  It’s not about the Heart.  The Haves will continue to consolidate their Power and squeeze as much Life as they can out of the Havenots, and we will need to create our own alternative Life without the Master’s Money.  Another advantage of perennial canopy is that it hides a Food Forest from Google Earth and the Sheriff of Nottingham’s insatiable thirst for taxation.

The Digital Age replaces the Industrial Revolution wholesale beginning with the Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction of December 2020.  Meanwhile, the incipient Chiron-Neptune Fresh Violets in an Ancient Pottery Bowl and Uranus-Pluto Ouija Board Cycles continue to expand their domain, preparing a fallback for the Atlantean collapses of the Digital Age.

August-September III

“Coincidentally,” several posts by others have popped up that are oh-so relevant to our several Adventures here in August and merging into September…

We don’t usually speak in these terms, but I have no doubt that Ascension is also going on…

http://www.sandrawalter.com/unified-cosmic-trigger-higher-choices/

And Dr. Kim provides a broader Perspective, along with a great tool, for Clearing persistently troubling Emotions…

http://drkimderamo.com/are-you-energy-sensitive/

And here’s a great view of the current Descent of Inanna (Inferior Conjunction of Venus), post-2012…

https://heartshapedeyes.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/the-mouth-of-gaia/

And finally, a quiz to see if we’re doing our Identity homework…

https://soulspeak2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/at-the-table-filling-in-the-blanks/

  Θ    Θ    Θ    Θ    Θ 

Let’s finish up August, as I’m eager to write about some fairly remarkable events coming up in September.

Our Old Egos are due for a comeuppance at, around, and/or after the 29 August Full Moon. 

Most of us still have one foot in the Old Industrial-Era World of Exploitation, and a portion of our Identity likely remains wrapped up in that.  Whether the Old Order gives us Validity through our Achievements or through Socialization with our workmates, gives us Security through our income, gives us a sense of Value through our “contributions to society,” gives us Juice because of the Competition, or however it props up our Self-Worth, we could be due for a shock. 

If this occurs, Acknowledge and Witness any Fear or Anger or Grief that arises, and be Loving and Gentle with it.  Review your understanding of Ego Death (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/identity/ego-death/ ), so you can respond positively to the signs after you acknowledge their Veracity.

Your other foot is already in the New post-Apocalypse World of Collaboration and Cooperation.  You may be growing some of your own food, establishing neighborhood tool-sharing, kickstarting or funding new ventures, playing with 3-D printers and milling machines at your local Makerspace, downsizing your use of resources, promoting Equality, or any number of other Activities oriented toward a Sustainable and Regenerative World.  Once you’ve Embraced your Emotions about whatever nicked your Old-World Identity, redouble your Efforts toward your New-World Identity.  If there’s a Leap of Faith involved, go for it.

While the Jupiter-Neptune Opposition isn’t Exact until 16 September, the Full Moon sits across it.  On the same September day Makemake (Creative Manifestation, and it’s no accident that Makemake shares a name with the Maker Movement) Initiates the North Node (our Mission).  This Opposition is a blooming of the Jupiter-Neptune Cycle that began in late May 2009, at 27 Aquarius.  Long-time readers may recognize that as having occurred within a few days of the Chiron-Jupiter Initiation in the same Degree, and within a few months of the Neptune-Chiron Initiation, also in the same Degree, “Fresh Violets in an ancient pottery bowl.”  This is the “New Paradigm” we’ve written much about, and which we regard as the major correlate with the Wall Street Crash of 2007-8.  If you aren’t a long-time reader, look up “Chiron-Neptune” in the Categories list at right (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/cycles/chiron-neptune/).

Meanwhile, the Full Moon very closely T-Squares the asteroid Hybris, a “misspelling” of hubris.

Jupiter is now past its Waning Square to Saturn, which means we’re dropping into the Void with regard to Social and Economic Activities, so we’re overdue for a review of the Jupiter-Saturn Cycles.  Saturn-Jupiter Initiations occur in the same Element (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) for two Centuries, then they switch, with a stutter between Elements.  The Industrial Revolution and it’s Wage-Slave consequences spanned the last two Centuries of Earth-Sign Initiations.  Then, almost exactly coincident with the introduction of the mass-compatible (IBM-Microsoft) personal computer, the 1980 Initiation occurred in an Air Sign.  The final Earth-Sign Initiation that followed, in 2000, coincided almost to the day with the “Dot-Com Crash,” initiating twenty years where we’re reviewing the Industrial Revolution to see what elements of it we want to keep as we move into the Digital Age.

The next Saturn-Jupiter Initiation in 2020 will be again in an Air-Sign, as will the following seven Initiations, till our first Water-Sign Initiation in 2160.  While we think of the Age of Aquarius as being about Harmony and Understanding, Sympathy and Trust abounding, Aquarius is also an Air Sign, and Air Signs are about mindstuff and Duality.  So while the advances in Scienterrific Knowledge and Technological Gadgetry will be phenomenal, the Digital-Age potential to Create Sustainability and Regeneration will depend on a lot more than thinking.  Aquarians will need to do a lot more than sitting in the pub arguing about which Political system makes them happiest.  Hence the importance of what we’ve been calling the New Paradigm and its implications for greater Equality.

Meanwhile, we’re in the last quarter of the last Earth-Sign Jupiter-Saturn Cycle, and the last quarter of a Cycle is about “Descending” into chaos (Disorder, not the dwarf planet).  Interesting that many folks are focused on Ascension while our Social and Economic Order is Descending.  We need to look for a moment through Rudolph Steiner’s eyes – while Ascension is about Matter merging into Spirit, Descension is about Spirit merging into Matter, one being no less Sacred than the other.

What normally occurs during the last quarter of a Cycle, is that the proponents of the Old Order redouble their Efforts to propagandize everyone into believing that the Status Quo is alive, well, and will Live on forever, while scrambling to keep their cheeks covered.  In the interim, everyone else is focused on their struggle to keep it together.  If we take a hint from the dwarf planet Chaos, though, and see the Trend for what it is – deconstruction of the Old to make Space for the unlimited potential of the New – and we avoid trying to pin down the New before the next Cycle starts, as that would simply perpetuate the Old – then we can Cooperate in destructuring our Old Patterns and making Empty Space for New Patterns to evolve into.

Two days after the Full Moon – a sufficiently short time that these two events will be closely intertwined – we enter a new province in our Relationship Dramas.  Since this applies more than anything to our Inner Female and Inner Male, it’s impact will be wide-ranging.  If you aren’t familiar with John Gray’s amazing work, this would be an excellent time to introduce yourself to it…

http://www.marsvenus.com/

The new Cycle will be quite complex, so we’ll save it for when we continue…