The Great Change, Phase One

I have edited this excerpt from The Herbst Newsletter, July 2009, titled "Prescient Visions, Unreal Expectations," that gives astrological-cultural-spiritual-political views & opinions. You can read the whole thing at http://www.billherbst.com. I share this because, though I feel extremely positive about what's coming in the new Intuition Age, I also like to be aware of other people's points of view about how things may realistically come about.

Bill Herbst says, "This month’s commentary is about the obvious disconnect between reality and dreaming. Though the Great Change has begun, in this early stage we are not yet connected. In 2009, during these early years of the breakdown of unsustainable institutions — which might be considered Phase One of the collective challenge — many individual voices are crying out for a practical reorganization to begin now, while we still have viable options and before our backs are to the wall. These voices of pragmatism are routinely ignored by the powers-that-be and will remain mostly unheard until after the critical mass year of 2012. In the meantime, others who wield the power of collective decision-making are doing precisely what we would expect them to do: following the wishes of the ruling elites, whose sole interest is to protect the authority and wealth they have so carefully amassed from the base of the pyramid below.

In the meantime, those of us who consciously anticipate The Big Change prepare as best we can, but mostly we wait, watch, listen, read, and talk to each other. Below is an abbreviated list of some of the individuals I read with admiration and agreement. Rather than try to encapsulate a profile of each author’s cultural niche, I’ve listed at least one of his or her books. All these people are well worth reading.

Sharon Astyk, Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front
Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus
Carolyn Baker, Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse
Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail
Riane Eisler, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics
Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
Catherine Austin Fitts, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (co-author Michael C. Ruppert)
Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over and Power Down
David Korten, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
Derrick Jensen, End Game: The Problem of Civilization
William Kotke, The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future
James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
Bill McKibben, The End of Nature and Deep Economy
Arundhati Roy, Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers
Matt Savinar, Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash
Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis
William Strauss/Neil Howe, Generations and The Fourth Turning
Gore Vidal, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

That nothing is changing yet even though everything is going to hell in a hand basket is the bad news. The good news is that this too shall pass. Substantive reform of our financial system will come eventually, but it’s still probably five to six years away. But the loss of what may have always been false or illusory security will soon touch everyone, not just us doddering old farts. Never again in our lifetimes will Americans of any age enjoy the sense of triumphal, confident safety that characterized middle-class life in this country for so long. New and darker clouds of uncertainty are rolling in, cutting across all generational cohorts, leaving us to grapple with our mortality. In the decades ahead, (however), we will regain much of what was lost.