I recently attended an enriching, informative and timely symposium sponsored by The Pachamama Alliance. They are committed to tackling the biggest problems of our times — environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment. Wow, and you thought you had a lot on your to-do list.
The symposium was exquisitely designed around 4 poignant questions that can be used to gain insight into most areas of your life. Companies looking at their cultures certainly can use them.
- Where are we?
- How did we get here?
- What is possible now?
- Where do we go from here?
In asking these questions, Pachamama believes that we must begin with an acknowledgement of what already is. In the case of taking on the earth’s biggest issues, that means we must look at the sobering statistics of what our behaviors have wrought. We are all responsible for a long list of ugly truths, such as the oceans having no more large fish, the fact that only 22,000 lions remain on the African continent, the undeniable climate change the carbon emissions are causing, and on and on.
A metaphor they shared that really hit home states that our modern society has exceeded the credit limit. We have charged more resources than the earth is able to generate so we are living in a sort of credit card debt beyond our means that we can never ever recover from. Ecology is a subset of economy; it is what underlies Wall Street. We cannot end the economic crisis until we learn to live within our ecological means.
Pachamama works closely with indigenous people of the rain forest. They believe that people that live in the modern world are in a trance. They feel that they are not bad, just misinformed. Living in this trance, or what they call a state of entrancement, creates behaviors that are inconsistent with our humanity. The trance is held together by unexamined and unconscious assumptions. The Alliance is committed to waking people up from this state.
In indigenous cultures, when people take more than they need they are considered insane and taken to the shaman for help. OMG, all I have to do is look into one of my 6 closets to know I need the shaman immediately.
There are millions of organizations throughout the world, Pachamama being one of them, that are coming together to help break the trance. If all these groups were listed and strung together in a video that was shown 24 hrs a day, it would take two months to get through them all. That is hopeful. They summed up the day by saying every problem stems from the notion that we are separate.
I experienced a profound AHA moment when environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill asked us all, “Where is away?” as in “I am going to throw something away.” AHA! There is no such place as away.
Visit www.uptous.org and see what you can do.