‘Blowing away the smoke, but never putting out the fire’-an interview of One Tiny Drop with David Baum

https://youtu.be/3ImWWa6mO94

Barny: Got it.

David: Hello everyone and welcome to collapse club, how are we to live in the time of collapse with me. Today is Barny Wong, my colleague from the Deep Adaptation forum in the old days. Hello, Barny.

Barny: Hi. How you doing, David?

David: Good, thank you. How are you?

Barny: Good

David: Where are you in the world?

Barny: I’m in Portland, Oregon, not Portland, Maine.

David: Just down the coast from me in Seattle.

Barny: Yeah yeah yeah that’s right

David: Well we’re here to talk we are here to talk philosophy and I think you have a very deep philosophy. Before we get into the depths of it though, let me ask you this simpler question: Why is it important to examine the human psyche in the context of collapse?

Barny: That’s an interesting question, David, why should we look at the human psyche and how is it connected to planetary collapse or the climate collapse. So much of my work looks at cause and effect. It looks at what is the most elegant place that contains both the original problem and also the most elegant solution. And if we did not have consciousness-if we were not aware of our surroundings, our behavior and of our interactions with our surroundings will be greatly… uh will be radically different. So that itself you know it’s an indication is that our ability to perceive, or inability to perceive reality, determined so much of uh what’s our inspiration and motivation in having this relationship with our reality.

David: Do you think there’s a problem with how we perceive reality? Is that right?

Barny: Yeah yeah. It’s a problem you know. You know in a nutshell…I just finished writing a trilogy on my working theory and the…what I’m proposing is that the coordinates for climate collapse have been…have already been written in stone by our inability to read reality. Continue reading “‘Blowing away the smoke, but never putting out the fire’-an interview of One Tiny Drop with David Baum”

Part 1: Why Climate Change is hiding a crisis of awakening

We can’t fix what we can’t see

The Kernel: the crisis of awakening that has led us to collapse will follow us into survival adaptation. We cannot make an effective leap from problem to solution if we don’t see the common liability to both stages of climate change.

As I am researching and building pieces for a workshop, I sometimes feel inundated by the plethora of how the mind is such an escape artist. It is almost like an octopus with infinite arms with infinite tools for self-preservation. And when one of the arms gets stuck, the octopus can lose it only to see a replacement grow from within.

What my research for this workshop is letting me see is that we are in this climate collapse principally because we are in a crisis of awakening. And this awakening is awakening to ourselves, specifically to our inability (largely avoidance) to see reality for what it is. One way we avert the annoyance of this inability is by flipping the script of us from simply being an organ in an organism called life into believing we are the organism. This flipping is unfortunately abetted heavily by the narratives of capitalism and its scarcity mongering. This results in a culturally and socially accepted reinforcement of an Ego-system vs. an Eco-system. And because of that, our perceptions–already subconsciously knowing it is top-able and fragile–compensates by seeking out a hyper-curated space where energy, calories, and self-esteem enhancements are extracted into. And as a way to maintain innocence to this one-sided arrangement, while we extract, we externalize harm outside of these curated spaces as a way to invisibilize harm. This way, we can tell ourselves our hands are clean in such a dirty process.
Continue reading “Part 1: Why Climate Change is hiding a crisis of awakening”

Vlog 12: The Climate Playbook, Episode Eleven: Veils, Habits (Symbolic), Part 4 of 4- Ontological Security

Composite Artwork by Gabriela Acosta
The Climate Playbook: Ontological Security Part 4 of 4

The Kernel: This video, Part 4 of Veils, Habit (Symbolic) introduces the Shadow side of Ontological Security that shares the same underpinnings as for Social/ Economic/ Ecological Injustices via the Construction of Self. Part 4 looks at Regression that makes up the shadow side of Ontological Security as we engage with the world and its disturbances in a way that leaves us intact.

Part 4 is the last part of a 4-part series of the symbolic aspect of our Veils required to bury the harm produced from pursuing our Calories and Energy so as to be Ontologically Secured. It specifically goes into Car-Use so as to see how we symbolically get attached to this habit as ways to ground ourselves in this world.

This video is part of The Climate Playbook series that is designed to reveal the hidden workings of Climate Inaction.

Continue reading “Vlog 12: The Climate Playbook, Episode Eleven: Veils, Habits (Symbolic), Part 4 of 4- Ontological Security”