By Tom Braford
As I write this article on the 15th of February a day after Valentine’s Day and a month before the Ides are upon us, the world awaits with baited breath to see what a modern-day dictator in Russia will do and to see what will become of our side-lined would-be dictator. Now, as in days of yore, a handful of senators may have a role to play.
But what if all the fabricated anxiety created around this is just distracting us from the herd of elephants in the room? What if the fate of civilization and the planet is not even in the hands of those at the top of the heap, but instead is patiently biding its time just below a fleeting blanket of snow?
What if it is up to those of us who inhabit that tangle of grassroots that has always held together what is worth preserving to quietly emerge into the light and warmth of another year to demonstrate the resiliency that comes from an anchoring in community?
So even if the senators do not take the right actions soon enough, Ukraine is compromised for a while, one dictator continues and others rise, the elephants of global warming, poverty, hunger, economic disparity and uncertainty will still be in the room until we join together to rise up.
The Ides of March has always symbolized fresh starts, so let’s have 2022 be a fresh start for a scalable way that grassroots people like you and I can cut the gap in half by 2030 and end global warming and lots of other seemingly endemic challenges, like racism and economic uncertainty, by 2050.
Just before Covid, the National Academy of Sciences’ white paper, Social Tipping Dynamics for Stabilizing Earth’s Climate by 2050, ironically demonstrated that we can use the power of social contagion and social tipping dynamics, like networks of Ecovillages, to launch pandemics of plenty from anywhere. So, why not St. Louis?
Are you ready to be an Intrepid Pioneer of the Eco-Justice Frontier by harnessing your power of contagion and that of your neighbors in exceedingly positive ways that could end the fatal distancing of our hearts and minds for all time? Come join us!
Contact: braford@sbcglobal.net
www.ArizmendiEcovillage.com