An alternative view of current affairs by Marian Matthews

Reading some of the current views of the shameful things that are happening in the world today, cover ups, loss of privacy and sovereignty, wars over resources , environmental problems, multinational exploitation etc etc I cannot help but feel a great sense of deja vu. 

Thirty years ago, in my radical phase, (CND radical and Labour Party) we were fighting hard for very similar causes. People from all walks of life and all ages saw it as their battle too. We were idealistically trying to make society and the world a better place. I think we thought we had made progress. Things seemed to have at least become more open. The realistic amongst us though had begun to realise that central government was more constrained than was apparent. Big business, multinational and the banking system had actually most of the power. They were operating across borders to further their own interests which did not always take into account our individual or national interests. They were, on some level, unaccountable to anyone.

Time, of course, tamed us all. We moved on to different political parties or just real life. I was in local politics for many years myself. By then a Liberal, my thinking was, although a busy wife and mother, at least that way I could make some small differences for both individual and the greater good. The most distressing part of this was the apathy and almost wilful ignorance of what was going on, seen in the general public. We actually had more in common with our “enemies”, who actually cared, although we felt them to be wrong and vice versa, than with the people who, as long as they were O.K., did not look at the big picture or question what was being done in their name.

With the growing of the information age, I had hoped that with the greater openness via the internet and 24 hour news from different sources, that people would see more. Abuses would be stopped, and wrongs put right. Society, would no longer be able to cite ignorance as an excuse for lack of action. 

Yet, in some ways we seem to be back in the bad old days. Why is this so?

AS far as I can see there are several reasons for this.

Firstly, people always assume that government is always working to improve the greater good. Or solve problems to benefit of us all. There are individuals in all parties and in government who do try to do this. Many though are just trying to improve things for their own particular set. People should both vote and look behind the rhetoric and vote for people of honour and integrity rather than just those with the best sound bite. But please vote.

Secondly, the information age works both ways. With our information has come institutional observation of us all. With this comes the means of control. This is a battle that we fought hard 30 years ago , before most people realised it was a problem. Public apathy defeated us. It is now too late. All we can do about it is just be aware.

Thirdly, there are far too many people who believe that it is not their responsibility to solve society’s problems or their own. They think that someone else , or the government should do something about everything. We need all to take responsibility for our own actions and society’s. It must also be realised that we are one world. If we all did what we could, even on a very small scale, locally or globally, we could make a difference.

Fourthly, there is now no way to control these transnational empires, In some ways we rely on them. All we can do is keep on the ball and shame them where necessary to act for the greater good. The sooner we realise that it is everyone’s problem and not just someone else’s, the more we can mitigate this. So, put down your I pads, switch off your videogames, pick up the batons that we put down years ago. We need you more than ever.

P.S.  Our Toxic Press

Last but not least, when discussing the state of the world and how we are losing the battle for control, honesty and integrity we must never forget the role played in our societal downfall by our toxic media and press.

So much is happening in the world for good or bad that is shown to us in 24 hour media cover, but never forget that what is shown is only a snap shot, someone’s choice of many things that may be available. When something major happens it dominates our screens in blanket coverage at the cost all other sensible News that may be happening at the same time. A balanced view if often missing. Quantity is often mistaken for quality. Not only that but the topic is suddenly dropped ( Like Syria) although the problem is still ongoing. I used to be proud of our BBC but no more…apart from radio 4 that is. Too often the News agenda seems to have been set by people who have a narrow and limited view of what the public may be interested in. I am always particularly appalled when the death of a celeb is given more coverage than seemly, often at the cost of real news. Is the death of someone who is good at acting or singing, or just in some cases just being, worth more than a tragedy involving ordinary people?

The written media are sometimes even worse. I have had many a rant about the celebrity culture in magazines that gives young girls ( and boys ) false goals to aim for. Being happy is portrayed as being only a factor of being slim and being dressed in the latest “must have” fashions. Dating a footballer or celeb is seen as the pinnacle of what should be aspired to. The problem is in the air brushed beauty being the norm. People are made to feel inadequate if they do not begin to match up. The emphasis seems to be on dieting for vanity rather than healthy eating for long and healthy life. This is causing stress and depression among our young people.

Very sadly, characters in soap operas, who often live horrendous and amoral lives, are treated as real people. I have seen magazine headlines with news of the character’s (not the actual actors) doings as if it had really happened. This again gives false norms to people. Not even our more heavy weight papers are always much better. I did see an edition of- I think it was- the Times that gave nearly equal weight on the front page to someone famous’ wonderful waist size and the problems in the Crimea. Come on media stop poisoning the lives of the young with this junk. Real happiness is in living well balanced and thoughtful lives. Where are the inspirational stories? Where are our role models? Where is the crusading zeal that encourages people to take control of their own lives and work for the common good rather than blame everyone else for the mess we are in? A decent media would help us with our fight for a better society, not chase flashy headlines. We need better stories and both sides of each dispute to be properly given, not just in sound bites for entertainment. The press should be our bulwark between us and the often dreadful things done in our name.


There are exceptions, of course, but generally our media seems to have become a branch of the entertainment industry. Come on media, written and visual, raise your game we need you to do the right thing. Who knows, if people start believing in you again together we may actually be able to improve things. Newspapers might even be able to sell more copies again!

Collaborative Dream Activism

What's so amazing about Dream Activism?

Anyone can do it

Has powerful impact

Practical application generates an unconventional activism

 

You may have heard people like Dr. Bruce Lipton say "Heal yourself heal the planet." Let’s face it healing ourselves is a gargantuan task! Humans may have advanced like gangbusters on the science and technological front, yet on the emotional and spiritual growth fronts, we find ourselves sitting squarely at the early adolescent phase. Healing and growth is definitely in order – but how?
Here’s what I believe: working with your dreams is one of the most basic, personal, inexpensive, powerful types of activism you can engage in. Dreams reveal all manner of unknown-knowing, emotions, perceptions, attitudes and patterns of behavior that need our conscious attention. Working with our dreams heals us at the personal level.
Now here’s the key. Each of our efforts to heal ourselves at our individual level is something ONLY the individual can do. I can’t do it for you and you can’t do it for me, yet it has to be done to heal the planet. When we heal ourselves, we powerfully change the initiating fractal of EVERYTHING in our world.
Let me go one step further tell you what else I believe: dream activism can lead us to discern practical actions that will facilitate the healing of relationships with people, land, money, the past, the future, the good, the bad, AND the ugly. But to do all that we first must begin to learn the language our dreams speak and get the conversation underway between ourselves and whatever you call the Universe or Source.
I’ll tell you how I know all this. Well that and how I came to work on a Facebook page with a wonderful tribe of people we call Collaborative Dream Activists, and why I invite you to get acquainted, maybe even come work with us. But first, let me share a dream I had this week.   

I’m somewhere that I have figured out that global warming has caused all the ice to melt in the world’s oceans. Where the surface of the ice used to reflect the heat back out into the atmosphere, now the water is absorbing that heat, causing climate change that threatens the entire Earth and her inhabitants.

Suddenly I have this awareness that if I tie a solar panel reflector to my back, I can reflect a tiny bit of the sun’s light back out into the atmosphere. Further, if all of us tie a solar panel to our back, we collectively will reflect out the heat that is endangering us all. 

The dream seems to end where I see an infinite winding path packed with humans carrying these solar reflectors on their backs. Together we are leveraging the very thing that factored greatly into getting us into this mess – ourselves - to individually do the very work the ice can no longer do for us. As the line extends beyond my vision, I can see that our efforts are effective. In the process of individually addressing the challenge, we save ourselves and the planet.

This dream segment is one of many I am guided to working with as I heal a major theme of fear and helplessness I feel when projecting what humanity’s future looks like without major changes now. The dream shows me making progress as I address the powerlessness I wrestle with in waking life to impact, my individual as well as humanity’s collective, sustainability.
My own exploration of the power of dreaming with intention began in the mid-2000’s. Back then I was battling a pervading sense of powerlessness as I surveyed the potential individual and collective landscapes rolling out in front of me, I was. Personally my economic, marriage, and health landscapes were looking frightfully unsustainable. At the collective level phrases like "corporate social responsibility" and "prioritize people, planet, profit" were well ensconced in the public relations arena, even as government and corporate interests actively undermined all sustainability efforts rumored to stand in the way of the almighty revenue stream.

During that time I had an unexpected business development opportunity fall in my lap. I was to meet with Director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy at a United States ivy league institution’s graduate school of business. The economy had tanked, and I was in dire need of new clients. This providential opportunity seemed like an invitation to solidify a powerful new connection and bring in new clients. My personal economic sustainability could be restored if I could just impress the gentleman I was set to meet eight weeks hence. Voila!

EXCEPT, the drawback was I had not graduated high school, much less college. My fear of being perceived as "unqualified" weighed heavy.  The full story is in the audio interview at this link http://bridge2vision.com/library.html  but suffice to say, this was when I was desperate enough to try something unconventional. A series of synchronicities led me to prepare for my meeting (a practical action) using my dreams, seeded each night by the question "What should I do tomorrow to prepare for this meeting?"

The next eight weeks I began to learn my own language with Source, actively, intentionally tapping into my own unknown-knowing through my dreams. This effort yielded all kinds of "right-brained" data in the form of symbols, synchronicities, and leads that I doggedly followed. 

The talent I had brought to the corporate world was an ability to listen, gather individual awareness and insight, and weave it together into a "sum" that was greater than the parts – the end products would then be used for training, calibrating, communicating, etc. 

About five weeks into my eight week process I had a dream that indicated I was to apply the same approach I used in my corporate work to mindmap, then generate a collective knowing summary. Using all my own dream and synchronicity data bits (ideas, interviews, books, impromptu speaking engagements etc.), I wove together the resulting theory, and prepared a presentation that would show the gentleman I was to meet how I gathered data from disparate sources and generated an end product that communicated a collective understanding.

I traveled to my meeting armed with an example of my work as well as the theory that this process had taught me. It wasn’t a rocket science theory, some people already understood my new awareness, I just now knew it for myself, having learned it in this unconventional way.

 My dream-generated theory articulated I am/you are the basic building block to global sustainability - ergo global sustainability begins with discovering our own personal sustainability. Like they say, heal yourself, heal the planet. 

My theory also gave me some strong awareness around how to recover personal sustainability.

In a nutshell working with my dreams showed me the path to our personal sustainability picks up the pace when an individual hits a rubber-meets-the-road experience that takes us lower than we have ever been and from which we have no idea how to recover. In desperation we finally abandon familiar patterns that no longer work and try something unconventional, like using dreams and synchronicity, to reveal practical action that will help recover our personal sustainability. 

Following the dream data I learned the "unconventional" approach involves turning to our right brain, intuition, Spirit or Source, or the Divine, whatever you call it, to tap into the infinite creative source. It is there we discover infinite love, healing and ultimately articulate our soul’s purpose to ourselves. Whatever right brain way you do it, painting, music, dancing, stand-up comedy, dreaming, environmental restoration projects, needlepoint, writing, etc. - the collaboration with creative source will heal you, provide insight, and allow you to trust that within the vast creative source you will always find answers you need to sustain whatever part of yourself is endangered. 

From personal experience, I know this process reveals time and again that each of us has access to a bandwidth of wisdom and creativity that awaits our engagement.

Others have said this before me, but now I KNOW from personal experience: to heal the planet, first we have to heal individually, then heal each other, then in our healed, loving and expansive state we will collectively create and innovate our way through the challenge of healing the planet - otherwise known as global sustainability.

All of which brings me back to the Collaborative Dream Activist group. In the way I used right-brained activities like dreaming and synchronicity to tap my own unknown–knowing, this group does the same. Then we collaborate using the power of our combined left-brains to discern the practical action our "right-brain data" infers.



There are a few differences of course: The first is the intention statement we go to sleep with: 

"I am grateful to be living in a Multiverse filled with peace, harmony, and balance for all sentient beings" 

Secondly, moving out of isolation, we work collaboratively to strengthen our personal understanding of our individual language with the Universe. As individuals are inspired to post a dream they had, members consider the imagery represented and if inspired, share what the imagery means to them, what questions it calls for them to answer. Eventually we weave it all together and discern what practical action could be taken. The more we engage in this conversation with the Universe, the more we understand our personal language, and now in this group – our "tribe’s language accent." From there we generate an understanding of the practical action the Universe is calling for us to do in support of the group’s stated intention.

Unconventional? Yes. 
Results Oriented? Yes. 


Open to anyone inspired to hold our intention, dream, and collaborate from anywhere in the world? Yes.
This tribe has been convening for just a few short months, but the insight and synchronicities between us is nothing we could have strategized. Inspired to come check it out? Get your Unconventional Activist self over to Facebook and search on Collaborative Dream Activists. Join. Activate your contribution to healing the planet.