Broadening the Definition of Family

It's been quite a while since I wrote for this blog. Since that time my heart and soul have called me to change my life. I have closed my Pilates studio and sold my house. Over the next year I will embark on a journey to explore my own artists soul. In my heart I feel this  action is freeing myself from the oppression of the culture that I live in.

There are two themes that have become clear for me over the last year or so. The first is the need for the  development of a gift based society rather than one based on self-interest. The second theme is to begin changing our view of nature as separate from humanity. This blog will focus on the theme of our separaton from nature and imagining something different.

Our industrial technological society  separates us from our roots in the natural world.  With more and more technological gadgets and growing urbanization in our lives the pace of separation is increasing. Without an understanding  that this is happening it is very difficult to convey to individuals the serious nature of what is going on.  I realized what we might consider is an idea of the potential feeling we can have when we think of members of our family. What do you feel in your heart when you imagine a loved one being injured, is missing, has been abused or dies. Does it bring up difficult emotions or a reaction to not even go there because it is too upsetting. Why should we consider this difficult kind of imagining?

The natural world, the beautiful intricate ecosystems that form it both living and non living are the basis for all human life. All that we use to survive and thrive in one form or another comes from the natural world.  Yet we have developed a global economic system that is devouring and destroying the natural world in pursuit of profit. The market and corporations in particular have no heart, no conscience, no morality other than greed and money. Since most of the checks  against their rapaciousness have been removed there is little to stop the basis for all human life being turned into fodder for the maw of the  corporate machine.  It is souless and as such  is the antithesis of life, it is evil.

The very thing that breathes life into our bodies, our lives, is soul. It  also breathes life into the natural world and is called anima mundi, the soul of the world. We humans through corporate globalization are in the process of destroying the very soul of our world.

We are all complicit in this killing and this is why I bring up imagining  a loved family member being hurt . I am making the heart based case for considering that nature the very basis of human life is actually a member of each and everyone of our families.