By Steve Melville, Planet Project Staff
As you probably noticed, the Planet Project is all about shifts. This month, the project itself is shifting into a new phase. Until now, our focus has been on sharing information and galvanizing interest in the root cause of our global crises and the possibilities for global response – a macro-shift from Material Culture to Planetary Culture. We hope that you are finding our website, blogs and newsletters informative and inspiring.
But we recognize that for many of you, as for us, just passively receiving information is not enough. We yearn to take meaningful action, to make a difference.
In my case, witnessing Drew Dellinger recite his poem, Hieroglyphic Stairway, at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) conference in 2015 was a transformative moment. His deliberate, staccato delivery of the line “What did you do, once… you… knew?” pierced my heart. In that instant, finding my personal path to making a difference became my overriding focus. That question continues to haunt, guide, and inspire me to this day.
I know I’m not alone.
Those of us awakening to the breadth and depth of our crises and their underlying causes are struggling with the question of our own personal response. Each of us is seeking viable answers to the pressing (and very personal) question: “What can I do?”
This is why we are excited to announce the launch of the Planet Community – our free online community and social network. As we noted in our newsletter, its purpose is to bring together people who feel called to discover their highest-impact role within an inspiring global community so that we can co-create a world that works for all living beings. Together.
We know we have a long way to go before the community can fully deliver on this purpose. The launch is just the first step. But this first step is the most important one. Because with this launch, there is now a community that people can join and invite others to join. And it is through the help of community members that we can all get there together.
The Planet Community is a safe and nurturing online community where you can:
- Connect and engage in dialog with people who, like you, are committed to making a difference
- Share your vision and what you need to realize it
- Be inspired by the visions of other community members and offer your gifts to help them manifest them
- Suggest ways to make a difference and discover what actions others have tried.
- Discover and contribute to local and online action via the community’s shared events calendar.
- Organize campaigns and circles, both local and virtual
- Help us curate our databases of change agents and expressions of positive culture
- Invite others to join the movement
- Volunteer to help us grow the movement.
Membership is free. There are no ads to distract your attention.
We have seeded the Planet Community with an initial set of five topics intended to signal the types of conversations we are hoping to foster.
Community Topic: Personal Awakenings
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
-Albert Einstein
Culture reflects and manifests collective consciousness. To accomplish a fundamental shift in culture, there has to be a component of inner awakening – a shift in consciousness – that both presages and drives its outward manifestation in culture. It’s one thing to grasp concepts intellectually, but awakening is fundamentally about developing the intuitive faculty, the direct subjective experience of knowing.
Awakening includes the inner work of healing from individual and collective trauma that block our attempts at meaningful action in the world. The act of awakening can include mindfulness practices that promote a deep inner noticing of how memes of separation, win/lose, patriarchy, etc. still infect our inner dialogue. For example, they may help us notice the pervasive and subtle ways that “othering” arises in our consciousness. They can help us develop an awareness of a deeper self that remains unengaged beneath the incessant narrative of my egoic self.
Under this topic, we invite you to share your own personal experiences of awakening and be moved and inspired by the stories of others. Did you suddenly see deeply into the root causes of our crises? Were you blown away by possible solutions you hadn’t even considered? Have you had a direct experience of the underlying unity behind the veil of separateness?
Community Topic: Aligned Change Agents and Culture
As we have noted on our website and in various blogs, we believe addressing the root cause of our many faceted global crises requires cultural shift at planetary scale. We recognize, of course, that change of this magnitude is ridiculously hard. The good news is that, in evolutionary terms, severe crises create the conditions for transformative change. Every evolutionary quantum leap has been preceded by crises, chaos and breakdown. And in response to our current conditions, people and organizations aligned with the core vision, values and principles of the Planet Project are, in fact, spontaneously emerging. They are giving expression to a diverse cross-section of innovative ideas that represent a fundamental re-imagining of who we are and how we interact as people and as participants in the web of life. The Planet Movement is already in progress!
As part of our Planet Project strategy we seek to highlight, amplify, and help connect individuals and organizations at the forefront of the Planet Movement and to curate, create, and broadcast cultural expressions that support the Planetary worldview.
By joining the online Planet Community you can be an integral part of the process of growing our curated databases of aligned change agents and expressions of positive culture. We created the Aligned Change Agents and Culture topic to focus conversations about the people, organizations, books, podcasts, songs, videos, blogs, films, artwork, or other resources that reflect and serve to help create the world we envision. Use this topic to recommend change agents and cultural expressions you believe should be added to our curated databases. Engage in interactive dialog with other community members about these recommendations.
Community Topic: Actions for Shifting Culture
We believe there are many people who are concerned about where human civilization is headed, are motivated to do more and do better, but just don’t know where to start.
We created this topic to focus conversations aimed at helping these people discover ideas for culture-shifting actions and to contribute their own suggestions. Actions could be anything from simple changes in personal habits or attending shared events, to joining or organizing campaigns, bioregional communities, or virtual circles. Share stories of what you’ve tried. Swap ideas about what is working and what isn’t. Over time, we envision the conversations in this topic will become a rich source of inspiration, innovation that enables more and more people to take an active role in the Planet Movement.
Community Topic: Get Help
Have questions about the Planet Community? Check posts in this topic for responses to other member’s questions. If these don’t answer your question, use this topic to create a post with your question(s) and the Planet Staff will get back to you.
Community Topic: News from the Planet Topic
Stay abreast of the latest update and news from the Planet Project organization.
We hope you feel moved to help foster the growth of the Planet Movement by joining the Planet Community.