Don’t miss Jim Channon’s bold visionary “Mission Paradise” video at the end!
For most of my adult life, I have been aware of something special about 2012, because I traveled in circles that talked about the Hopi, Mayan, Vedic and Aztecs prophesies. These ancient cultures studied what they called the World Ages that refer to the 25,625 year orbit of the Earth through the 12 constellations of the zodiac, divided into five Ages, each lasting about 5,125 years.
While specific details are different among these systems, they do have one aspect in common – they all point to the year 2012 as the end of the old cycle and the beginning of a new one. They also predicted a rare alignment of the solar system with the core of the Milky Way galaxy on December 21, 2012. The last time a similar event happened to earth was 26,000 years ago.
Greg Braden goes into a detailed explanation and analysis of these cycles in his book, Fractal Time. He says that the end of each world age is marked by an extinction of many species and dramatic shifts, similar to what we seeing today. Although he makes no concrete predictions about what 2012 will bring, he point to fact that the big potential lies in human being and their ability to change their perceptions of themselves and their relationship to the earth.
Predictions aside, 2012 is certainly a year of uncertainty. The future is uncertain… but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity. Ilya Prigogine (1917 – )
And new perceptions are emerging at a rapid pace. For example, the fact that every business, no matter what it’s product, needs to take something from the earth in order to produce that product. We have taken this for granted, not considering that this has a cost. A recent eye-opening Ted Talk by Pavan Sukhdev, “Put a value on nature!”, points out the economic invisibility of nature and actually puts a cost-lost figure on our use of Earth resources.
Newer thinking advises companies to consider the Earth as one of its stakeholders; one that both contributes to the company and needs something back from it. Carol Standford’s book Responsible Business (see key books) gives potent examples of those who pay attention to this aspect of their business. More advanced companies are finding ways to actually repay the earth by helping it to cope with climate changes, putting nutrients back into the soil and other ways of enhancing the earth’s capacity. Even today new understandings are exploding regarding taking both social and environmental practices into consideration.
All of this is indicating that the big evolutionary leap is about human awareness. So the arrival of 2012 has turned out to be quite special and has stimulated activities to celebrate this time instead of fearing it. The Shift Movement has a whole year of activities planned: the Winter of Wellness, the Spring of Sustainability, the Summer of Peace, the Autumn of Abundance and a planetary Birth Day event for a transformed humanity on the long anticipated date of December 21, 2012.
This time has also called forth visions! An amazing vision that came into my mail box this week, recommended by one of my Evolutionary Friends, the “Mission Paradise” project by Jim Channon. Jim is billed as America’s first “corporate shaman” but he’s also has the credentials to be taken very seriously, having worked as a consultant for ten of the world’s hundred largest companies and as lead futurist and educational technologist for the U.S. Army.
As any good vision this will stretch our minds, will perhaps seem impossible (like the vision of sending a man to the moon) and may mean moving beyond current mental and physical limits. We might even laugh at it (as was done at the Wright Brothers flying machines, or Franklin’s attempt to harness lightening). Or we may be inspired and amazed at the possibilities we never saw..
This video is full of fantasy, play and joy – no suits and ties, no analytical spread-sheets or stock returns. But it has a clear strategy and a detailed idea of an alternative future for us and our planet. And if we make this vision happen we will create Paradise on Earth!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsUKSBqYhg4&feature=share