fashionRIP: Self Image -the Acquired You

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Self Image -the Acquired You

shadows -reminders?

Dr Robert Holden (psychologist) has been on my mind since PBS aired the program -Shift Happens-yesterday at around 3 in the morning and again at 7 (A.M.)

This is an odd time to show what i believe to be a most significant challenge to the "normal state of static and stuff" that is bombarding western culture.

Dr Holden's story -a Tale of Two Teas- illustrates how what was once a simple choice between Assam (bold for morning) and Darjeling (afternoon pick me up ) tea and the simple yes or no answer has now become, "What do you have?"

With hundreds of tea varieties from which to choose, this nicety is now a more demanding and time robbing task for guest and host. Yet all this great variety has not added to human happiness. Researchers have found a happiness static point. More stuff isn't the answer.

Why? Because we are more than physical beings. I have heard it said that we are spritual beings having a human experience, this works- but i think there is a"more."(always!)

So, as we move through experience, our minds collect data and now we know that some of it is good but a lot is not to be trusted. Perhaps then our "hearts" are better aligned with our essence. Maybe our emotions are there to inform our more "rational" but very often deluded brains. What appears as reasonable and rarional is a limited vision and works only in that realm. Since we are taught to uphold that vision it appears to be "the real world" and a "true" belief as so many others adhere and uphold it.( Catch 22.)

"Joy is a guide" says Dr. Holden and this is so simple obvious and yet quite advanced. Scientists, until recently, thought happiness was nice but had no evolutionary relevancy. Happiness was dissed.

(Emotions have had a rough time of it since the Age of Reason which was a great leap back in the day but by no means the end of leaping!)

I believe we are finding our way to a new collective vision that is beyond group think, tribal loyalty, patriotism and beyond the fiercely independent, the competitor and all that scarcity, fear stuff that ispired the lot. (We have been creating what we fear by focusing on solving problems in a way that will create profits, and as scarcity begets more $, well and so on, why? because it is the "real world.").

We seem to be maturing as a species and waking to the abundance that is available in life, we are creative, curious sojourners, wired for a biological life and an imagining, spirt sensing, joy filled one as well.

I suspect we are here to explore the vast potential of who we truly are, in our unique selves, in relationships with other humans and animals, plants even -for we are beings connected to something wonderous and vast. We have a right to be here (Desiderata) We are a juxtapose, a unique i am and an integral part of something more, a whole of life, a living universe. How joyful is this!

Dr Holden furthers this idea via the Dysfunctional Independent Person (D.I.P.) and the Healthy Independent Person. (H.I.P.) If we are here to appreciate life and we have unique gifts to explore and share, then we need to be joyful givers and receivers. So receiving and asking for help when needed is a beautiful thing. It is the exchange, the sharing and the recipricocity that counts in ecosystems and human systems.

Thus, the journey continues, follow your joy it is trying to tell you something..

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Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.