Standing in Paradox | Grief and Action
April 24, 2018 Kosmos Community News
One of the great joys at Kosmos is the opportunity for deep connection with passionate, engaged lightworkers, those in service to a more-loving world. A question we sometimes ask is, ‘where is the edge for you in your practice at this moment?’ And that edge, it seems, is often somewhere on the border between clear-eyed awareness of the magnitude of converging crises we face, and an almost mystical awakening to equally potent energies arising for collective action and transformation. How do we stand in the paradox of these two realities – one foot in the mud and one hand on the lotus?
For insight, we have been looking to youth leaders. In recent time, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, and survivors of the Marjory Stoneman shooting have schooled us all in bravery, resilience and civic engagement in the face of crushing grief. An essay by Michael Tallon titled These Magic Kids, struck a nerve for me.
“They are looking square into a future denuded of the possibilities we older folks took for granted. They can see, quite clearly, that like plagues of locust, our grown-up generations have stripped the (world’s) resources…like we had a spare planet tucked in the garage under a tarp …Their tribe is different than mine or yours. For now, they’re young, but for all the rest of their time on this planet, they will be multiracial, non-binary, non-dogmatic, digitally native, omnivorously curious, and significantly bigger than either the surviving Boomers or the aging Gen-Xers…They’ve seen us run in pointless ruts, like cattle through an abattoir, and they’ve decided that’s not for them….”
We humans have been telling ourselves many broken stories about young people, competition, activism, and ‘success’. Kosmos strives to offer fresh illuminating stories and models that help us find new ways forward, together.
In a new Kosmos video, Joe Brewer explains that the collapse of empires is inevitable and that our modern industrial civilization may already be in the process of collapse. However, there is a silver lining: the opportunity to build anew. Activists must learn to be in that paradox.
Joe is a complexity researcher and evangelist for the field of culture design.
(image) Ulysses “Butch” Slaughter is a social entrepreneur, author, activist and filmmaker. A recipient of The 2013 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award in Philadelphia, his expertise in difficult family reconciliations is the subject of the transformative documentary series “Reconciled” which piloted on The Oprah Winfrey Network in November 2012.
At the fragile age of 12, Ulysses listened as his mother Clarice was shot to death by his father. Emerging from his bedroom on June 25, 1978, he watched as his mother took some of the last breaths of her life. “Stepping over my mother’s fallen body that day was the first, most important act in my amazing odyssey toward forgiveness”.
Ulysses served as a journalist in The United States Navy and holds a Master’s Degree from Lincoln University. He is Founder of I Forgive University (IFU) an emerging human transformation project advocating forgiving as “The Ultimate Practice.” He recently completed his third book Forgive: the new mantra and practice for Black Men.
His new initiative is Maximizing Leadership Knowledge, (MXLK), a leadership development project established to facilitate trainings, lectures and high-impact experiences that promote leadership proficiency, effective networking, community transparency and sustainable socio-economic solutions in Chester, PA. MXLK serves as a powerful community classroom where local leaders, visitors and students can synthesize diverse ideas into an interdependent community apparatus.
Ulysses is also a member of our Editorial Circle, an intentional group of authors, artists, and culture hackers who have come together for 100 days of reflection and conscious conversation to midwife the inaugural edition of Kosmos Quarterly, arriving June 15.
Youth Activists Who Are Changing the World
by Julia Pimentel, via complex.com
All it takes is one idea and the right mix of determination and willpower to effect change at the local level. Start with one thing you’re passionate about, and find small, local ways to organize and find solutions to the problem. That’s what these activists did – but the catch is that some of them started as early as six years old.
Kosmos Classic | Towards a New Activism to Effectively Support a Transition to a Post-Growth Economy
By Micha Narberhaus
Kosmos Journal, Fall | Winter 2014
The Broken Stories of Mainstream Activism
To this day, few civil society organisations are promoting the much-needed transition to a new economic system based on the principles of ecological limits, solidarity, human well-being, and intergenerational justice, nor are many organisations embracing the complexity of systemic change in their strategies, campaigns, and projects.
