From My Blog
I'm running a blog on pyschjourney . I encourage you to click on that link to view my entire blog. I post here an entry from Dec 21, 2009, that outlines the basic message of my book and my book tour. I'll be updating the blog as the tour develops and I head out on the road.
December 21, 2009
Fernie, British Columbia
It’s the solstice and The Raven’s Gift will be released in one month. Time to reflect, get organized, and ski a few more turns before I get too busy.
Earnest Hemingway famously said that the writers most "indispensible tool" is his "fraud detector". I don’t want to argue with the master, but in this day and age I don’t think that you need a very highly tuned fraud detector to see the major problems that we face.
When the banks and financiers jump-started a global recession about a year ago, those of us in the United States and Canada took it on the chin. Small investors lost bundles in the stock market or their home valuation. Officially 10%, but more accurately 20% of Americans are unemployed or underemployed. But North America is the most opulent society the world has ever known. For most of us, there are enough safety nets so we have enough to eat and a roof over our heads.
Not everyone is so fortunate, or powerful.
When I was in the Solomon Islands a few months ago, Malaysian logging companies were clear-cutting tropical hardwoods and shipping the raw logs out on big ships. A local timber cutter, running a heavy modern chainsaw in the jungle, earns about as much in a year as a good West Coast Canadian sawyer earns in a day. These people eat white rice and tea when they come home from work. Their families aren't acutely starving, but it's pretty darn close. This near-starvation puts more money in the pockets of the rich Malaysian corporations.
You don't need a very highly tuned fraud detector to see that something is wrong with this picture.
The writer’s task, then, is offer visions for a way out of this mess. Armed rebellion? Anarchy? No, no, a thousand times, NO. "They" have all the guns -- and that’s not the solution anyway. I disagree with our Nobel Peace Prize winning president who just sent 30,000 additional troops to fight what he calls a "just war." It seems pretty obvious that you can't promote peace and harmony by killing.
At least part of the solution is to preserve the cultures, human rights, and wisdoms of indigenous societies. To listen to and learn from two million years of accumulated wisdom -- an overriding and overwhelming ethic of connecting with nature. Seeking ecstasy. Realizing that the Real World and the Dream World are one. Creating and living within supportive local communities. Communicating with animals, plants, and landscapes. Living sustainably on our planet.
I’ll be on the road in a little over a month. Speaking. Driving. Speaking. Helping, in my own small way.
