Welcome! – Alternate Futures Institute

Peace!

My planet–it apparently is not yours, or else you would be taking better care of it–is groaning in pain. Language is a virus, as Laurie Anderson sang. We are sick. We need to talk together in a tongue(s) of peace. Cooperating releases abundance–your sperm are not going to be active until you beat the guns into glitter!

Remember hearing about the soccer playing soldiers in WWI, of 2015, and others would quit fighting at Christmas? “The Christmas Truce of 1914 was not a unique occasion in military history. It is common in conflicts with close quarters and prolonged periods of fighting for informal truces and generous gestures to take place between enemies. Similar events have occurred in other conflicts throughout history–and they continue to occur.” https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/those-who-served/christmas-at-the-front/history/truce-1914

While Biden plays Tough Guy to Putin’s Mr. Macho, and Zelensky, not to be outdone, acts horrible like Netanyahu, there are yet other conflicts the U. S. is involved in, around the world. Our defense industry is the only thing that’s healthy these days. It has its pudgy fingers in many parts of our society–including child care. But that doesn’t make me love our country ‘s faults.

“This Declaration [of Universal Human Rights] is based upon the spiritual fact that [hu]man must have freedom in which to develop [his/her] full stature and through common effort to raise the level of human dignity,” spoke Eleanor Roosevelt in her United Nations speech in 1948, on page 129 of Great Speeches by American Women, 2008: Mineola, NY, Dover Publications, Edited by James Daley. Freedom, I say, is predicated on peaceful surroundings. All human accomplishment–from individual to planetary–needs time to be built, and its tools come from the labor of love. Eleanor quotes Gladstone Murray: “No man is by nature simply the servant of the state or of another man…the ideal and fact of freedom–and not technology–are the true distinguishing marks of our civilization,” (p. 129).

Roosevelt says, in topic relevant to today, on the Soviet proposed and rejected amendments by the UN, “We in the United States admire those who fight for their convictions, and the Soviet delegation has fought for their convictions. But in the older democracies we have learned that sometimes we bow to the will of the majority. In doing that, we do not give up our convictions. We continue sometimes to persuade, and eventually we may be successful. But we know that we have to work together and we have to progress. So, we believe that when we have made a good fight, and the majority is against us, it is perhaps better tactics to try to cooperate,” p. 127.

Always Below–song of Earth

(Response to USA’s Space Force song “Semper Supra”– “Always Above:”

Always Below—song of Earth

Here on Earth we never miss

Chances to love, times to kiss.

Moon shows path in days and nights,

Sunny jokes while Sexy lights.

Beneath our legs around, Earth goes.

Like snakes, our body wisdom knows.

Born from wombs of mammal dudes:

Mommies teach, dads drawing nudes,

All spinning stories for the bands,

Planet of sea and homes of lands.

Yay, when we look afar at us

Eyes are tearin,’ but no fuss.

Moving is our law down here:

Science says to us, don’t fear,

For, as genes said, we’ve felt the end:

Life and death will be our friend!

While below we care for others—

Elders, children, sisters, brothers.

Jumping high yet being held,

Gravity our futures meld.

Jeweled brooks will set the mood—

People feeling gratitude!

We can edit like a genie—

Need care, but not from a meannie.

My vision opened the letter–

Returns us to living better.

I see plain and I bee sky:

Queen of all, here! Have my eye!

Comfort abounds in this new song,

Play, feel the demise of wrong.

Earth’s provided for us—hear!

We find out who we are! Don’t leer

At our fine world, our flag unfurled.

Mark garden, creatures, in hope curled.

Change is upon us, jump for joy!

For each them, they, and girl, and boy!

Notes on Earth’s Future

Notes on Saving the Planet: How to Shape an Environmentally Sustainable Global Economy, by Lester R. Brown, Christopher Flavin, and Sandra Postel (The Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series, 1991) and the Earth Policy Institute website.

Saving the Planet: Foreword [Should read, Forward!]

p. 11: “Such an economy has a population that is stable and in balance with its natural support systems, an energy system that does not raise the level of greenhouse gases and disrupt [E]arth’s climate, and a level of material demand that neither exceeds the sustainable yield of forests, grasslands, or fisheries nor systematically destroys the other species with which we share the planet.”

Are we going to get anywhere (i. e., to tomorrow) when we talk in “yield” terms of our home: Earth? The Planet? We, us, the people, la gente, Earth’s children, her Sisters and Brothers? Offspring of our Mom? No, I do not want to rape my mother, friends and/or neighbors!

p. 12: “The next step is for the world community to articulate a vision of a sustainable society, and for each individual country to develop its own plans for a national economy that can endure…Finally, a series of concrete policies are needed…carbon taxes on fossil fuels, extensive family planning programs, incentives for reforestation, and the establishment of global environmental restoration funds.”

What is mental health on a global scale? Plans for future trade come from creative play! Nations are divisions and at the same time projections of hugeness that are not necessarily natural or fun; subdividing the globe into concrete abstractions makes for little play and little creativity—and thus an impoverished future.

“[T]axes”—always a “nasty” thing in the U. S. Yet look at Germany, where the high taxes actually serve people, not corruption.

“[P]rograms” for family planning? Where is the wonder, the magic, of life itself? How about some inspiration for controlling our own bodies with help from our elders and youngers with imagination? Many plant foods can discourage conception; we should learn about them (see “Conception,” in the Feminist section of this website).

[“R]eforestation” is natural and will happen without human intervention. Still, old growth forest, which traps lots of carbon dioxide, takes years to develop. Simple tree planting, especially of genetically similar plants, does not cut it—does not serve humans to the best of trees’ potential abilities! Deforesting is a crime against humanity, indeed—and against the future of the planet!

p. 12: “What is lacking in corridors of power is an ecologically defined vision at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at the World Bank in Washington, or in national capitals such as Mexico City or Tokyo.” [Boldtype mine.] “National governments and international development agencies still focus on the environmental assessment of projects rather than the formulation of strategies for thriving that will lead to environmentally sustainable economies.” [See “Thriving of HumanKind,”on this website.]

We will invent methods for enjoying and improving our spaces. We will find ways to share that do not hurt!

p. 13: “The real challenge is to go beyond viewing environmental issues as discrete problems, and begin moving to the basic economic and social reforms that are needed if we are to save this planet. And, indeed, to save ourselves!”

But new consciousness is needed—when we have that, reforms will follow–or we will not need them, because we will feel connected to ourselves and each other.

These results we want to see—for the future, for our dignity—depend on experiential phenomena which we cannot exactly predict but can energize, when we act creatively and with each other’s soulful participation.

p. 14: We want “the process of reform” to “become self-sustaining.” We choose to live. The beat goes on!

Saving the Planet: Chapter 9, “Better Indicators of Human Welfare”

One problem with the traditional measure of human welfare of the West—Gross National Product—is that it describes different economies, defined by nations. The world is, however, not made up of nations but people. Borders are not natural for animals like us. Neither is economy. Producing is something that gods do. Tending is something humans do. As the book says, making goods and services does not envision the maintenance needed for the “natural endowments” (p. 122) to continue endowing. “Natural wealth of all kinds is whittled away with no record of the loss appearing in the national accounts” (p. 122.) “As economist Robert Repetto of the World Resources Institute points out, this failure to distinguish between natural asset destruction and income generation makes the GNP ‘a false beacon, and can draw those who steer by it onto the rocks,’” p. 122.

It seems to me that presence, and gifts, are the economy we want to run in the future. Abstracted things and jobs of service tend to develop prices tags which can be adopted by the highest bidder; the buyer and seller may not know each other, so the good/service is less personal and, therefore, is not necessarily passed on with virtue. Likewise, the materials used or personal situations of the seller may lose their relationships to the buyer, thus failing to generate a full experience of value and appreciation in both parties. WE NEED SOMETHING: IT IS TO LIVE IN PEACE. I SEE THAT THIS CAN OCCUR!

Natural endowments employed to create the traded item or process cannot be known if the exchange of gift or present is abstract. Thus, I can’t summon up enthusiasm for using your river gently rather than abusing and polluting it if I’ve never seen it. National/worldly accounts of loss/damage to people and nature are needed–including personal situations. Of course, gift giving becomes beneficial for getting to know the world and its elements; presence is shared with a custom touch.

Yet if new human life is getting produced pell-mell, without villages/clans to breathe value into it, all will probably suffer. And older human, animal and plant resources are needed for education and introductions.

“What counts is not growth in output, but the quality of services rendered.” p. 124. The GNP “assigns a positive value to any economic activity, be it productive, unproductive or destructive,” as Frank Bracho of the South Commission Office in Venezuela is quoted as saying p. 122. “As ecologist and philosopher Garrett Hardin puts it, ‘For a statesman to try to maximize the GNP is about as sensible as for a composer to try to maximize the number of notes in a symphony.’” p. 124.

“By the same token, if deforestation rates, carbon emissions, illnesses and deaths from unclean drinking water, and other measures of well-being were reported more routinely, our ability to judge how well off we are would greatly improve.” p. 130.

Yes, and we need information that is positive to judge how well-off we are—like good news and shared hopes!

“Equally important, we would have the information needed to better set priorities for political action and social change,” p. 130.

We would be in the midst of social change for the better if we had access to each other and our hopes and projects; we would be building relationships based on care and friendliness—with talents applied to the future.

“The effort required to create a sustainable society is more like mobilizing for war than any other human experience.” p. 29.

Wow—couldn’t it be fun instead?

“Once the self-reinforcing trends of environmental degradation and deepening poverty are too deeply established, only a superhuman effort could break the cycle and reverse the trend.” pp. 29-30.

Yes! I am saying that we can all become superhuman—that is within our reach, and indeed is necessary to save the planet/ourselves. That is what I am saying, and it’s based on personal experience, insight, and study. Will you allow me to lead you into the future, where everyone becomes a leader (see Total Leadership by Stewart D. Friedman, 2014, Boston, Harvard)?

“Earth Policy Institute” online:

“EPI works at the global level simply because no country can fully implement a Plan B economy in isolation…

“EPI’s goals were (1) to provide a global plan (Plan B) for moving the world onto an environmentally and economically sustainable path, (2) to provide examples demonstrating how the plan would work, and (3) to keep the media, policymakers, academics, environmentalists, and other decision-makers focused on the process of building a Plan B economy.

“Activities[…]

“People change behavior either in response to new information or new experiences.

“Chris Hoffman of Whole Systems Consulting created an Earth-dashboard, showing the multiple indicators on how the planet is doing …The four Dashboard clusters—Stabilize Population, Stabilize Climate, Eradicate Poverty, and Restore Earth’s Support Systems—represent the four key goals of Plan B for saving civilization.”

But EPI didn’t provide appropriate examples or make effective plans because you can’t see exactly what global phenomena would look like, because part of them would be experiences that we have no way of knowing about. We can approach them creatively, but cannot claim certitude. They ask for our humble inspiration, and connection with others on a real, humane level.

Furthermore, keeping the “decision-makers”—to the exclusion of the rest of the world citizens—informed and focused on building a new world, and expecting that to work, is ridiculous. And do we really want to “sav[e] civilization”? Wouldn’t we rather start again, if possible, trying to create something that really is more to our liking—and better able to let us not just live but thrive?

Here are my reflections on each cluster of the Earth-dashboard.

1. Stabilize population. Now, people decide on pregnancy (or don’t decide) by themselves. Would this change? Who would be in control? If everyone’s mind changed, behavior could change…As EPI states, “People change behavior in response to new information or new experiences.” New consciousness is needed here!

These results we want to see—for the future, for our own dignity—depend on experiential phenomena which we can attempt to plan for: if we act creatively and with each other’s soulful participation! See my suggestions for the thriving of humanKind!

2. Stabilize climate: As we see, this is not yet happening—not on the level of change/stabilization that we need, which is global. For it to occur, we need cooperation; new experiences and new information or new phenomena of an interpersonal sort (like people sharing their ideas and talents, as well as genes, more artistically; art; etc.)—these will nourish us so we can better care for, tend, the globe and each other.

3. Eradicate poverty: This could be approached in an attack, employing morality. But the health of people’s minds/hearts, also, depends on each other’s wellbeing. And all people are necessary for creative works/plays. This means that we are all in the same boat, and it is not a cruise ship.

4. Restore Earth’s support systems: We can go green universally—this would entail becoming more perfectly human, more humane—thriving. Confusing? Unimaginable? Too hard? Take heart! Parts of humanity have lived or are already living in harmony with Earth’s support systems, but we need it on a different, new level now—a global reforestation of our hearts. Our hearts are affected by emotional experiences, as we’ll see when we allow our natures and Nature to breathe, by all holding hands together or some such inspirational act—maybe, rather, laughing at the same joke. Pope Francis quotes in his Querida Amazonia, or The Beloved Amazon, a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, “Only poetry, with its humble voice, will be able to save this world.” (Vinicius De Moreas, Para vivir un gran amor, 2013, Paragraph 46). And I say, “Peace doesn’t come from quietude, / From standing like a tree—/ Creation is its action mood, / So set the spirit free!”

Dalai Lama Peace

Notes on Ethics for the New Millennium, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 1999, Riverhead Books, NY.

Chapter 14, “Peace and Disarmament”

starts by quoting a guy: “Chairman Mao once said that political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” (p. 217) This is a very male idea. The chapter is rife with masculine urges—fully appropriate, written, as it is, by a man. Yet I think my feminine response and reflections on the topic here are important.

“A spirituality which forgets God as all-powerful and Creator is not acceptable. That is how we end up worshiping earthly powers, or ourselves usurping the place of God, even to the point of claiming an unlimited right to trample his creation underfoot.” (Paragraph 75) Pope Francis’s words express caring for our common home—profoundly, you see when you read Laudato Si.’ He quotes a writing of St. Francis of Assisi in the first paragraph of this encyclical letter, On Care for Our Common Home: Laudato Si’, 2015: Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. St. Francis said that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life: “Praise be to you, my Lord,” says the Pope, quoting Francis, “through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.” (Paragraph 1) Thinking of our planetary home like a sister retains the feminine aspect but leaves behind our strong resentments, if any, towards our feminine parent.

Later, however, Pope Francis asserts that “The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world.” (Paragraph 75) I disagree with the Pope. It is time for a Mother/Sister who shares the world! This daddy thing doesn’t work because it is part of mens’ chemical structure to find pleasure in the suffering of others—the experiments of Dr. Tania Singer, neuroscientist, on the Charter for Compassion website in a landmark paper in Science in 2004, are described by Dale Debakcsy in “Dr. Tania Singer and the Neuroscience of Empathy:” Singer reports on research she did regarding gender differences in empathy-related brain responses, finding that females were more empathic– when an unfair reward distributor felt pain –than males were. “Male participants, on the other hand, glowed with empathy whenever the Fair actor was [electrically, painfully] shocked, but registered no response at all when the Unfair actor was and, in fact, showed marked activation in their pleasure-associated [brain] reward centers when they knew that the guy behaving unfairly was getting a nasty jolt. It was a fascinating result that has since spawned a flood of interesting questions about when our Empathy Engines are engaged, and when they are left dormant, and evolutionary questions about why the difference between men and women in this and subsequent experiments is so substantial.” If it is true that women might make better decision-makers in tense situations than men, and might not act with revenge-motivation—why not hire us as world leaders, as some nations have done? Really, why not? Really?

Females are psychologically different because our sexuality isn’t hanging in front of us 24 hours a day. We can be just without proving anything!

To return to the Dalai Lama’s chapter, he states that “The potential is there,” to create a “more compassionate world,” (p. 217). This is good news, but I would write, “The potential is here!” As the man asserts, people like peace, there is plenty of evidence for that (pp. 202, 208, 215); but people are enthralled by fancy weapons and military bands, too (p. 204). He suggests we “disarm ourselves internally” (p. 206): developing internal peace, we can create external peace (p. 206); and we must conceive of genuine, lasting world peace, a condition not just of cessation of fighting war (pp. 203, 206).

However, since people are not today capable of avoiding conflict—“there will have to be ways of dealing with miscreants” (p. 207)—the larger picture will include United Nations troops (p. 212) and, also, voluntary disarmament efforts, which the Dalai Lama suggests will be “gradual” (pp. 207, 212).

I have problems with this. If we learn to deal with conflict effectively, we will not resort to violence to resolve it, according to the work of Doug Noll. He has entered prisons and taught inmates to treat conflict with “emotional competency” and says that when given the choice—when educated—they choose his nonviolent techniques for conflictual situations (see yogabody.com, EP#488, “How to De-Escalate Conflicts with Doug Noll on the Lucas Rockwood Show”). The Dalai Lama fantasizes about a “‘smart’ gun with bullets that could custom-assassinate a particular person” (p. 205), this as “more fair;” but it seems to me that changing the substrate here is what is needed—so violence of ANY kind is not relied on. We cannot imagine a totally peaceful world, with residents who do not hurt others, but that does not mean that there could not be one! I am a fan of touching arts that do not hurt people much, such as sex, capoeira and judo, and involve interaction and sorting things out.

We be!

C. Jenny Walbridge

January 4, 2022

My Method

Mentally

Good Neighbor Posse

Clutterbusting Team

meets

Interior Decoration!

Meanwhile, This Wild, Sweet Person Loves Bees!

Bees, fruitful,

multiplied by

devoted framers,

constitutional

lawn-paintings of

swords into snowblowers!

Save Us—We Be!

Wee bees, needy sweeties

Love um

House em

Home um

Tree honey Forest money Selling candy Capitalist fantasy

Roamin’ buzzin’ flyin’ homin’

Insex: we love like em

Help! Care for our buddies, our workers, our Queens!

The future rides upon bees’ wings—Yikes!

The website leasehoney.com states: “Bees pollinate crops such as apples, cranberries, melons, almonds, and broccoli. Fruits like blueberries and cherries are 90% dependent on honey bee pollination, and during bloom time, almonds depend entirely on honey bees for pollination.

“The fruits and vegetables you eat on a daily basis are also made possibly by honey bee pollination, including but not limited to watermelons, pumpkins, squashes, zucchinis, lentils, tomatoes, strawberries, mangos, avocados, plums, peaches, apricots, pomegranates, pears, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, peanuts, macadamia nuts, mustard seeds, coconuts, soybeans, and coffee.”

treehugger.com states of bees that “Their work means that coffee plants produce 20-25 percent more fruit. That extra production can mean the difference between a small farmer making enough profit to support his family and his family not being able to eat. And because about 80 percent of the coffee we drink is grown by people running small coffee-growing businesses, keeping bee populations healthy matters to both producer and consumer.” This from “How Bees, Coffee and Climate Change Are Inextricably Linked,” by Starre Vartan.

This makes me think of a few things. Firstly, doesn’t the Bible have God giving Nature to humans to tend like a garden? To rape, plantation style, including slave labor? No, that’s not what it says.

I came from a place transitioning from rural to suburb—Libertyville, Illinois, an hour by train from Chicago. Our hundred acres were planted with various and sundry fruits, nuts, vegetables and crops. We had a large grass lawn, but there was a wild field (“the pig lot”) and there were wild spaces, nurturing rabbits, groundhogs, opossums, raccoons, the crayfish that lived in the basement, etc. I only got stung once by a bee or a wasp—I had put my hand into a pile of cut grass, its temporary home, so was not resentful.

Point being, I know how rich complexity can be, and how much work it is to tend a garden. But I also feel how deadly an environment can be when reduced to simplicity; just like racial composition for humans, communities need to be integrated. A natural environment is often composed of many families (insect and human; dandelion and oak; bird of many feathers, including raptors, and small mammals—overlapping in their life cycles), but when reduced to the simplicity of one species caring so much to win against nature that it will poison its own countrymen, the pickers of the food crops, with insecticides, even—get this—as it relies on insects to pollinate it, I worry. I feel in myself the sentiment that American poet Robert Frost relates in “Mending Wall,” “Something there is that does not love a wall.”( https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall )

My last name is Walbridge, and I hope I can live up to it! A fellow “Jen” of mine, Gen. Hiram Walbridge of New York, a congressman, in January 1865 gave a speech to his colleagues regarding slavery, and why it should be stopped—it was “on the proposed amendment to the federal Constitution forever prohibiting slavery in the United States: delivered before the Committee on Federal Relations, in the Assembly Chamber of New York”. He suggested that, odious as slavery has been perceived by Europeans, if the North of the USA didn’t get rid of it, maybe the South would first. It would be in their interest to then make commercial trading deals with other countries.

I don’t know about you, but I am an ape. I like to say that I’m a great ape, ha ha ha, and am similar to a bonobo. My friends, the African great apes—chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos—are under attack by this world, and this concerns me. “In recent history,” according to treehugger.com, “Can We Save Africa’s Great Apes?” by Mary JoDiLonardo, “we have seen significant declines in all great ape populations and their natural habitat…Habitat loss is caused by the extraction of natural resources through commercial logging, mining, conversion of forests to make way for large-scale agricultural plantations or other human development activities like roads and infrastructure, all of which encroach on great ape habitat.” The great apes are extremely cute when they are youngsters. Bonobos have amazing behavior patterns, see below. Plus, they have hair on their heads that is parted in the middle, like me. This is the amazing thing: when they are stressed out, they have sex. God made them! Do you think we should be learning here?

To the College Class of ’21!

To the College Class of ’21:

From C. Jenny Walbridge

Peace doesn’t come from quietude,

From standing like a tree.

Creation is its action mood,

So set the spirit free!

Your lives may well create the first experience of all humans aware of each other at the same time. Nobody knows what this will exactly mean; nobody can see it. But the future must be incredibly beautiful and emotionally moving, this creation of yours. I can hear it echo in the heart songs of all of us Earthlings today. Writer Pearl S. Buck said, “All things are possible until they are proved impossible and even the impossible may only be so, as of now” (in A Bridge for Passing).

I have some suggestions for you guys, based on my experiences as artist, mentally ill person, feminist, anthropologist, music lover, American and Earthling for 55 years. Basically, I want you to “Pump up the volume! Put the needle on the record and dance! Dance!” as artist M/A/R/R/S urged. Let Earth evolve in new ways that we can’t necessarily view right now; let these ways be directed by your creative selves becoming healthy. Art is part of Earth, right?!

My study—I got a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology degree—of other cultures has led me to some of what I think of as useful ideas—the groundwork for happy planetary sharing. I urge you to learn about the peoples of our planet as quickly as you can, helping folks younger than you to do this, too! The statements in this speech were largely stimulated by my openness to the other folks of Earth, and their ways. For example, the Asian belief in harmony of opposites makes sense to me: where “yin” equals feminine, dark and passive and “yang” stands for masculine, light and active; and everything is more or less either one or the other. In other words, harmony among opposites is different from unity, or sameness all around. I see that the “world unity” concept that the Baha’i religion believers love to champion as the prerequisite for achieving world peace may be unconsciously challenging to some people: we don’t want part of our identity to be denied, and it seems like some think that “unity,” rather than “harmony,” might hurt us.

Even in your mind there must be a balance. My mental illness started when I wasn’t able to embrace the male or yang part of the world because early on, passivity was drilled into me by an intrusive, obsessive-compulsive parent. I was not able to grow my psychological self, normally, either, because my other parent also made mistakes in raising me. Talk therapy for thirty years with the same person saved the day, but what a huge investment! I had to literally learn, as an adult, how to be a member of my society and crazy world. Resetting my yin and yang balance by learning to embrace the part of the world energy I had unconsciously rejected was necessary for my psychic recovery; this kind of phenomenon will also be a part of the recovery of the rest of the world, I think.

As a dancer and beginning martial artist—plus a fan of two movement techniques, Alexander and Feldenkrais, as well as soccer—I see that movement is extremely important. Our Western world is built around sitting—bad deal! Instead of sitting and driving all the time, then walking with a steady, boring gait, in a straight line, we could use kneeling chairs and have treadmill desks—and dance from here to there! Can alternatives to Chicago’s deadening public bus and train seats be found? What about futons, instead of seats, in airplanes? Skateboarding is a great use of your body—much better than driving; let’s think along these lines, and move from thinking into action, if we want to see scooters and electric bikes for transport, which pollute less, too. (The latest body technique I know about is Yamuna Zake’s The Foot Fix, which works from the ground up to help us be stable.)

This could be a start to restructuring the globe: each region gets its own Ministers of Movement to help people on the job take care of themselves while working—and to learn to move more joyfully. Read entertainment of real life, a great reality show for the actors and the watchers and learners (put it on video). To do these things we must be happy and inspired—possible in a peaceful world.

Learning how your body likes to interact with your environment gives meaning to life and provides fulfillment when you express yourself. Doing these movements makes you glad! Look at other cultures, who use the world in manners different from ours, yet, legitimately, effectively. China, for example, used to encourage its citizens to exercise together, doing ta’i chi, in the parks, before work. For them, the individual can have less importance than the group; is this necessarily bad, all the time, just because our nation isn’t that way? Asking questions like that is what the future needs, as the world becomes smaller and we get to know our neighbors (all other peoples).

I agree with the Baha’is when they hold that humans have been unready for world peace until today—that we’ve been in a mental stage of adolescence, and are just now becoming adult. Doesn’t it seem that one reason for this could be that now we have a lot of people living here, so we can communicate more easily? Additionally, we have technology that we lacked before. Most important, though, I think we’re mentally ready to grow up.

Natural symbolism can be learned and employed to get control of life, your own included! Your body remembers what you do with those fingers and where your toes take you. So maturing means your mental focus goes through several equations. The first is 1×1=1, the nursing experience, where you are, mentally, part of the breast, to 1+1=2 and 2+2=4, where you start to appreciate another person. Then, when it’s time to mate, you get into 2×2=4. When you grow, your two sides and your sets of five fingers and toes have a lot of experiences, and therefore become more important in your mind. The next equation you unconsciously think of is 5+5=10.

Because ten uses a one and zero, it reminds computer programmers of the ones and zeros they play with. Drumming with your hands also makes your body engage in rhythm production. There are two kinds of beats: one, like a zero, quiet, and the other, like a one, accented. We want to get out of the fascination with doubling that is stuck in our mind, so we can pass on and get out of our stuckness in the metaphorical metafourical metapausal stage in which we are looking at ourselves, not the world; we can cause our minds to mature. (We should be eager to get away from the metaphors that are ruining our lives—i. e., “food”; “healthcare”; “school;” “work.” The fact that these are comparisons, not the real things, is shocking! But we do need to figure out, as a species, what is really healthy food for us, and the same with health care, education, and productive but fun work!)

We can mature our psychological stage by using our bodies! We can do this by drumming; playing piano and other instruments, singing, skipping, jumping rope and cartwheeling; shaking hands. Many other activities can help us ascend, growing into a healthier, saner, more excellent world!

The next human stage is like a woman’s post-menopausal time of life, when she is done cycling and her period of fertility is completed. For humans as a group, I call it post-metapausal, because “meta” means “to refer to itself.” In the post-metapausal stage, the population is coming out of its cocoon and starting to fly around like butterflies. This can be pictured as the sphere of our planet with erratic lines coming out of it. The Ages of Humanity

My previous expression, of the fourth age, is a globe with arrows pointed into the center of the planet. Before that, the third age of language and writing dominance can be illustrated by the circle with arrows curved around it, pointing up and around and then down; this refers to the way language abstracts one’s mind, with rules and loss of freedom; any language except a world language would do this, I would guess. (The world language could utilize stuff from each current tongue, especially funny expressions and noises.)

Increasingly faster in our history, this abstraction is being overcome as symbols of harmony are becoming integrated in world citizens’ minds. I would say that the U. S. is the world site of mental maturing—we speak English, one of the three most-used languages in the world, in talking and writing, research, art, fashion, and advertising, which reach into the minds of many people because of our country’s vast communication resources. Plus, we are the most immature people in the world, perhaps, or, at least, the most ready to indulge in group growing up, healing from Western cultural injuries. We have a duty to help the rest of the planet so all can ascend, remembering that every person’s voice is necessary in the playing of “To get her”–the game or song that shows Earth that we understand!

The second age–one of balanced yin/yang-driven evolution–can be shown by a world with continents on it, and an animal which evolved early in the history of the world—a pterodactyl, signifying that the state of yin and yang—their interacting—their balance—has defined our past. Our recent human adjustment—so painful and ugly, in some places, some ways—has been necessary, like growing pains, but can become a better situation for all beings on the planet. This will occur naturally when humans quit acting like other people and species cannot be trusted.

And the first stage of humanity, paralleling the life of a single human female, is the birth or Big Bang. I express it as a circle with arrows pointing away from the center. In the drawing above it even has a symbol of growth in the middle, signifying life expanding.

There is a stage after the fifth, the post-metapausal or Quintessence stage. This is old age, when we return to the Second Age rhythm to stay in this balanced pattern forever. I drew this by putting the Earth with a rabbit on it (symbolizing animal life of our time) next to the planet with the pterodactyl. The crisis of human invention—the need for identities of complex technology to be defined, and people, too, to be known as yin or yang—will end, for good. This situation will never occur again, in the history of the universe. We’ll just go on rhythmically, with the humans and other species evolving, until the Sun explodes, and the music of the spheres will be soulful forever, assuming all people embrace their soulfulness today.

Be ready for radical change. By radical, I mean sudden, just, beautiful, and lovingly-oriented. You students obviously have the capacity to be inspired! There is work that needs to be done to save your planet, yet it is play, the best method of fostering creativity, that will get done what needs to be accomplished. Your mission is to manage the Earth, along with the other humans, using play. My motto, “If not fun, why done?” refers not to selfishness and greed, but to self-growth, communing and progress.

I want you to get that there are a lot of poor people in the world. But in many cases, that’s their only problem. Here in the U. S. A., we have a bunch of psychological issues too, so it’s not exactly like we’re doing that great. But I don’t want you to be planning a way to get yourself well-off at the expense of the environment and other people. (And figuring out a scheme to make sure you’re “comfortable” in a grating and numbing day is not the way to contribute to a happening world!)

Your duty is to listen, be aware of yourself—you awesome hue-min, be-ing! Other species, along with us, your olders, who have experience on this globe, will help you. My neuroscientist sister, Julia Mossbridge, has written the book The Calling to guide you. I can see that the rest, of the planet, is not far away. Your lives and mine, and our very home, are waiting, hoping you will see the light so we can admit that we now do, too.

That’s right, today we are sick. I talk to my therapist two or three times a week, and have done this practically my whole adult life; it’s extremely helpful, and I recommend that we Americans train talk, dance, art and physical therapists big time to help us recover from our lack of feminine leadership; poverty; and general malaise.

So we can take the responsibility to save ourselves, each other, and our home. We can be in charge. Or, we can leave it to our “God,” wimp out, and continue ignoring our duty to care for “His Garden.”

Why not act like we are in love with the world, our home? You can figure out celebrations for the planet. Think big! Don’t let yourself be held back by imitating the Baby Boomers’ generation’s negativity! Many people would say, you were put on this Earth for a reason; look at Greta Thunberg, the well-known 18-year-old from Sweden who speaks for climate control on a planet with a future, or our own Amanda Gorman, poet extraordinaire, telling it the way it is—with grace and power.

We older people know that there can be lovely experiences here, and we want to secure them for you and the future; we have dignity—we want to feel good about the world we bequeath to you. How about a new relationship to authority—being it? Who will act as the superheroes of your age? How about—every person alive? You right now should be asking us Generation Xers and Baby Boomers to share with you, for everyone’s benefit. Instead of chanting “All we are saying is give peace a chance,” not that I disagree with that, but it could be replaced by you singing to everyone, “We are demanding, Get up and dance!”

To the Class of ’21

To the High School Class of ’21,

from C. Jenny Walbridge

I wrote this speech with my “Judgement Free Zone” pen.

It’s from some planet fitness thing. Now’s when

I’m comin’ from the future, makin’ a stand

Talkin’ of art and healthy in this land,

And sea emocean true. I notice that you grew

Now, we be needin’ your peace signs, too!

My love life, ‘cause I have dignity,

Depends on you having fun. Here, see,

This state, this world, where we be living,

You and me. I’m okay giving,

Though I need you motivated

To pay attention: you’re not dated.

We can care likewise for Earth

While I’m alive, and give you birth.

Lemme just share a couple things

I found out—they might give you wings!

From an artist these words coming,

Who studied peoples, not be dumbing,

Learning all about the others

In the world, our sisters, brothers.

My life is performance art…

Is yours, too? That’s a good start!

Using all the rainbow hues—

Love is wise—that’s my good news.

You can make your body wild

Just like when you were a child

But document your progress, so

You can see just how you grow.

A skateboard sticker I have goes,

“GREEN IS GOoD.” (Seedless should know.)

Not cash green! I now suggest

We give our nature here a rest:

Each day, dance for all and me—

Surprise us—creativity!

No one needs to waste away.

‘If not fun, why done?’ I say.

Science tells us the best way

Most inventive, now, is play!

Sitting versus dancing, here—

Make the world reject fear!

Our planet wants to be known

As a kind place, be a safe home

To stay and dine, without rapine—

(Grabbing others, saying ‘They’re mine.’)

A-R-T ’s in Earth—so, get it?

Grow up, go save your life with it!

Make some noise with pots and pans—

You can grow some grown-up plans!

Makin’ music—olders like it—

Givin’ hope—don’t drive but bike it.

Get tattoos if you need ‘em, whitey,

Browns, you, too, can be delightey.

What’s the rhythm of the game?

Lust is love, they are the same.

Appreciation, courtesy,

Are cool—they make humans to be

Friendly, optimistic, free

To help each other up. You see?

Coming of Age

Coming of Age*

Dedicated to Sister Earth and Her Method: Bare Feet.

*An echo of Baha’u’llah’s wisdom (he was a Baha’i prophet), including poem title

Here we are in Middle Ages,

Bodies bent from mankind’s stages

Ready to move on together,

Weathering the blue world’s tether…

The Planet Earth is art for all,

HumanKind’s task to manage, call

In virtue, create future’s rope

To catch peace with. Work too much? Nope!

“Don’t insult me,” says our big rock.

“I give you pears, not just one sock!

All about meals and safety, I’m

A pleasant place to stay and dine.

“My humans will learn from their try

To interact with a clear eye,

Active from passive, zero/one—

Learning the difference, they’ll have fun.

“God, Goddess created the folks

Living here—some like eggs, some yolks.

Transcending their differences

They’ll work together, the fences

“Only scalable when they play,

However! A conundrum, hey!

Being authority: people

Above the dome, mosque and steeple.

“And, also, starvation just ain’t

Right—I prefer a brighter paint,

And in my world there should be no

Rapine—things seized—to spoil the show.”

Metaphorically, we’re teething:

Virus-tainted, share our breathing;

We’re babies, just learning to stand

Can’t walk, too, in many a land.

Return us to a time when just

All things were dark or light, we’d trust.

Technology, blended gender

Are ours now—but don’t surrender!

I see a pathway in the wood,

A method for ascending—good!

‘Cause progress still sounds great, I know;

All little youngsters want to grow.

I hold that there are stages, too,

Of human psyche—this girl knew,

Could perceive a form, full throttle,

Based upon a female model.

An age of adolescence, true

We can’t do peace, not me and you!*

Immature, we’re not prospering.

How to change the clothes we’re wearing?

Do we need some tool, like a knife

Just for to pass along in life?

I’m almost post-metapausal

Can all, too, is it unlawful?

Menopause means ceasing cycling

(Ask yourself: you’re done, so why cling?)

Ready to look around, see out—

Try to get connected—and shout!

“Meta” is self-referential,

“Pause it” seems to have potential.

After that stage, in the “post-“,

What can we do to heal the most?

I cannot be fully evolved,

Until my friends and family—y’all—

Are with me on this journey here—

To coming of age, with no fear.

As a group we’ve never acted.

All connected, too, contacted

Each at once—experiment—

Who knows? There could be angels sent!

Post-menopause has for myself

Been Heaven—take play off the shelf

And worry not about babies;

Delightful partner who to tease.

We’ve been through Big Bang, from the womb.

Evolved in Second Age, not soon

Enough, and then learned writing down—

Third Age detoured us with its sound;

We spoke tomorrow, and had kids.

Third Age—Trinity—forbids

Contraception. World revolved,

Communication lots. Got solved

Problems of all sorts. But today,

Metaphors are holding sway:

“Health care;” “food;” “school;” and “work,” too.

Not what they were. What can we do?

The peopling of the world has proved

That Earth’s creatures can be quite moved,

So out of Metafour let’s grow—

Or do we want to stay here? No!

Fake realities—us poor.

“Forth” Age a pun, let’s use that door.

“Metapausal” sees folks suffer;

Would “post-“, in Fifth Age, be tougher?

How can we procure some fine balm

For the confused threatening of calm?

I suggest we reset at “ten”

With five and two sides, shake—amen!

You know, digital uses all

Ones and zeros. We could not fall

In days of yore, when we grew up:

All things like either plate or cup.

A shoe was maybe black, or white—

Easy to lace up for flight.

Inventions, now—even new folks—

Are more complex—we need new jokes!

See, we got stuck in Three and Four—

The language thing. Not any more.

The human species needs to fly

Out of its cocoons—we can try!

It’s shaking hands, athletics, too—

The medicine for this big zoo.

Using features, growth continues;

Your hands and feet show what’s within yous.

The goal’s not just to find one dear—

One heart to break, with to drink beer.

It’s better! Now we live so long—

Sing one, plus at least one more song!

Men and gals, there’s more to do here

Not only making homes, a mere

And cruel prospect for those lots

Whose dalmation dogs have no spots.

People have come far—we know it.

An Age for every finger—show it!

Walking, typing sums, ovations,

We’ve got the chance: of art creations.

For future, body symbols use.

Let’s do it—simple, not a ruse.

Let’s let those ones and zeros speak

Quintessence, for both strong and meek!

We’ll make some prints of our fine hands—

Feet, too, on Moon and other lands!

First, we start with decorations—

That’s the way to greet the nations.

Then, to get inspired, we must

Continue with “In fun, we trust!”

Use mental math: from two times two,

Go on to one and oh—each shoe

Houses a five, the number of

Quintessence, the Fifth Age, of Love!

With computer numbers, we’ll know—

How to knit world peace—be it! Sew!

In our heads we clearly can hold

An Earth Who Is Alive—be bold,

Inspiring in planning events—

Celebrations of what?—Good sense!

Some ways to play we can invent!

Around the globe, we’ll have a tent

For learning self-growth tools like craft,

And performance—to let us laugh.

Each color is necessary

To sound a rainbow, you will see.

All people—one voice can’t be gone—

Can play “To-get-her”—that’s our song!

Recall Grauman’s Chinese Theatre,

Prints of hands, and some feet, there were.

Why not do this on all streets, roads,

Cement and brick, green, for the toads?

To waste our folks, and starve our land,

Well, I ask, Why? That’s where I stand.

Benign, not be competitive,

Unless you play repetitive

Games that enrich and grow our world—

To nutrify, just use this pearl!

For globally we need to be,

Without destroying them—us—me.

We’ll dance the universal tune

On Earth, and maybe on the Moon,

Yang and yin in lovely rhythm,

In harmony—all drum with ‘em.

Our body does include our brain,

So penalty we’ll get for plain

Ignorance of the presence of

Earth’s power—to manifest love!

Thriving of HumanKind

inspired by the Baha’i Prosperity of Humankind, by the Universal House of Justice, 1995, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, The Association for Baha’i Studies

by C. Jenny Walbridge, 2021-23

“Thriving” is better than being “prosperous”—the metaphor is more biologically alive. And let’s see if we can make ourselves “humanKind” instead of just humankind! Celebrating the Earth is our future direction: along lines that serve nature & humanKind’s real needs—liveliness and joy!

We are developing in our collective mind, based on the stages of growth of a single human woman. Right now, we are in stage 4, Metapause, and we need to get to stage 5, Quintessence, for best health. (*see “The Ages of Humanity and Our Future,” Matriotic section of this website)

a) peaceful human interaction is not yet the norm

b) when we get to the next, fully globalized stage, that will take care of the future— 1) all will have learned how to have a really good time, including me!

2. Note: the following is tricky. I wrote it several years ago, but have changed my mind about it. I now think there are lessons learned from patience; forbearance; acceptance; courage; endurance; faith; fortitude; gratitude; hope; modesty; self-discipline; and tolerance, but not suffering. Suffering is not one of the Virtues Project Virtues Cards 100 featured virtues. I originally said, “There will be lessons learned from suffering, which will have its place in our experience of life (like Springtime hunger, injuries, and learning– also a great delight).” Now, I think learning is important, and can happen without suffering. Injuries, I now also suggest, must bring healing or are not fortunate. Yet hunger which is satiated is a profound natural tool.

talk therapy and other therapy will be available for all—and possibly practiced by all
education will be free and pervasive; we will figure out how to let all teach what they can (“Teach and learn diversity at Sidewalk University!”)

How do we get there?

Move the people emotionally and physically using more mature body symbolism*—drumming, other (dance; exercise; work; stretching) movements and rhythms, such as capoeira
advancing being civil, “work as a form of prayer” (as the Baha’i prophet Baha’u’llah said) and play, too!

However, regarding prayer, I use the spiritual that goes, “Climbing up the mountain, children, /You know I did not come here for to stay/If I never more meet you again, I shall see you at the judgement day!” I alter it to say, “You know I did not come here just to pray…”

The arts! In the artistic opportunities afforded by this process of change will global re-embracing find its purpose: to discover and dig out channels for creative streams and rivers of heart and mind that will revitalize the minds and hearts of humanKind, so our virtues can flow unimpeded and the future projects of people and planet can be illuminated.

4. Minister(s) of Movement will help folks from all cultures live longer and shape up, through tv and in person! The Ministers’ tv shows will record and catalog their collaboration with workers of today, in order to modify their movements necessary for getting work done, turning it into play. Robots could be used to take on numbing, bodily-destructive jobs. Instead, people could work at more creative pursuits discovered and invented through the processes of examining current work movements in current landscapes and systems; jobs will emerge through positive modifications suggested by workers themselves and architects, artists, filmmakers, etc., in order to meet the increased and full potentials of citizens as we are connected to the whole world’s population in powerful but gentle manners —becoming more civil-eyed, advancing civilization in inspiring ways. The Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais can be utilized to bring more healthy movement to citizens; one result of this would be to prevent obesity and other health problems. These efforts would foster healthier, happier, more productive workers, as labor and global/community strategies would be redesigned to the ends of joy, pleasure and aliveness!

Play is how we do the work we need to do—

“Victoria Concordia Crescit” (victory through harmony, Arsenal English League soccer team’s motto),
1) not conflict, but concord
2) still interacting, though—yin and yang, differing kinds of power
Playing builds health, such as physical development—strength, flexibility, fitness, and
it grows psychological virtues, too!
such as a sense of self-worth, and inner strength, flexibility—for now & for the future, plus
it builds relationships, and
heals!

Fair play is pleasurable—as the biological being naturally strives to thrive—or bloom —in the many ways that help her or him to become more alive. “If not fun, why done?” I ask. We just need to play “together!” whatever that may be or sound like; I posit that that signifies we work/play “to get Her”—to understand who? Our planet? Just guessing.

The projects that need to be done for us to live in the next stage of maturity need the full rainbow of available bodies and minds to complete—think of playing music—every note is necessary for the full power of the piece to be heard; all people need to play their “instrument.”

We must find ways to hear the smaller cultures, as Pope Francis suggests in Querida Amazonia, and the poor, in Laudato Si’. Baha’u’llah suggests a process of “consultation” be used for universal decision-making. It does not include debate; I have a problem with the no-debate part. Yet the Baha’i idea that the product of consultation will not belong to any one entity, but the whole group, is worth asserting (Peace, p. 19).

Instead of habits or mindsets being updated, they can be completely shared or surrendered through the process of playing and communicating with others from around the world, i. e. while not sitting around in chairs!

people will learn to live in the present when we all are connected in step with world communicating. Today, all cultures have some abstraction that prevents fullness of life. Our minds will change in a healthy way, and life will be more fun, as the weaknesses (or non-living-in-the-present aspects) of everyone’s differently-undeveloped minds are sloughed off. Then we can let the Holy Ghost tell us what to say in every moment, (Bible, Luke 12:11-12) engaging in movement instead of non-living in the death-state of stasis (The Mystic Spiral, Journey of the Soul, Jill Purce, 1974, NY, NY: Thames and Hudson, p. 21).
Let’s try a world language, using funny and interesting expressions from different peoples, and
How about an Earth flag, on the moon and our planet!?!

Unity (so important to Baha’u’llah and the Baha’is) will be exhibited by the human species. This will prove satisfying (fun!), growth-inducing (exciting!) and the most creative (stimulating!) path for all concerned (all humanKind). But unity, being a symptom, not a solution in itself, is a manner, not a goal. Unity is formed of diversity—the active harmony of opposites (see 3b, 3c, above). I think this is what the Baha’i “unity in diversity” concept (Prosperity of Humankind, paragraph 14) refers to. Imagining events for celebrating, encouraging self- and world-improvement, is appropriate for all human beings, now!

using drumming with the hands, handshakes, handprints, etc;
utilizing footprints; healthy shoes; foot massages; back rubs, etc: ways to touch each other, emotionally and, perhaps, physically (see my Synchronicities section, “The Two Meanings of ‘Moving'”)

Good neighborliness on a cosmic level!

a) The Library of HumanKind, a video recording of each person alive—starting with the eldest and most compromised in health (like we did with the vaccines).

b) More photos of embryos—especially human ones (women will be in full control of their wombs, of course!) and other inspiring images, including

c) photographic Earth globes could be in public places such as schools, government buildings—athletic facilities—and libraries.

d) English speakers can use the Virtues Reflection Cards, a presentation of 100 different virtues, by the Virtues Project International.

The nitty and gritty that I see may make some wince at first—it is really new! We can imagine, however, for example, what feelings we will develop by working and playing, utilizing our full potential, with other people, not just going to some job each day and stagnating in traffic there and back. What about having a new relationship with authority—being it?

I want to observe that serving is Godliness in many religions. Baha’u’llah said that working is a form of prayer. Could we consider sex as a form of prayer? Pope Francis says, “Give Us This Day Our Daily Love” (the title of his book)—what is he talking about? In On Care for Our Common Home, he praises loving gestures. Could the Pope not be appreciating sexuality?
Pregnancy encourages the concept of mates. Yet if it is desired to be avoided and can be (see my website in the Feminist section—“Conception” for a mention of pregnancy alternatives), the beauty of God’s gift to us of one night stands could perhaps be indulged in. I remember reading in The Clan of the Cave Bear, by Jean Auel, a fictional custom of prehistoric folks of having the young tribe members have an initiation sexual encounter so that they would learn the sexual ways from an older tribe member. That sounds like a wise idea to me. Also, see Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season, poem “Lovers Apart,” pp. 50-51.
There might be other healing purposes for sexuality, too: it can be a form of massage, after all!
In a globalizing world, with images shared on screens, and words able to be exchanged, could humans be insensitive to the soulful beauty of other people? Using loving gestures, if we got to meet them, would God, speaking of God, be angry if we refused to appreciate them?
And would our mates want to deny us fulfillment if we would do the same for them?
Coupling becomes immature if it prevents people from expressing their adoration, living joyfully—in many ways—I think. One woman, for example, has been married to a second spouse for years; they’ve been a couple for three decades. It is a gay coupling, in which she says, “I married a person, not a gender.” I feel that in the world of today, any love is good love. My poem, “The Third Sex,” presents the gender of “God” in a way that enlightened me when I wrote it.

The Third Sex

Calculate the appearance—colored clothes and something hair—

Strike up a conversation if you want to take a dare.
Your instinct’s right, because you can’t just look inside the pants—

Your body wants to party, not analyze the dance!

It’s dark and light in stripes in division on a horse—
Picture the zebra now—it’s an animal, of course.
Each one is different—you can see, they really are unique.

Straight markings are impossible—stripes show in curves, go peek!

All in order, some of them are sexy in one way,
Others in another. God makes them—it’s okay.
Humans have fingerprints and some realistic gripes
But when the zebra moves, you don’t think about its pipes.

Are there only two sexes? Well, ask a doctor—“No.”

How about three then, if there’s hermaphroditic flow?
I say we have some billions, and every person’s great.
Each of us is unique. Some will, maybe, mate;
Some of us have babies; some just clearly can’t.Sexual organs differ, like the leg that wears the pant.

Don’t cop out, friend, be truthful to your feelings for
A person, not a gender, ‘cause in bed there’s always more 5
And trans folks can be amazing, just like the others can—
Please remember the zebras before you make a ban,

‘Cause God creates with panache, sometimes in black and white, Somewhat he and somewhat she but always in the right.
If He makes us in His image, well, that means He’s more complex—He is also She and More—that’s how They stack the decks.

Each person gets a special mix of dark and then of light—
The feminine, the masculine—everybody’s right!
Wise one, know that we can live in peace together—
But we must be creative, like God Itself, no tether.
Open doors but also, sweetheart, look within, I say—
I’m ready for more tenderness, now and here, today!

On Some Baha’i Ideas: the written To the Peoples of the World, A Baha’i Statement on Peace, by the Universal House of Justice, 1986: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, The Association for Baha’i Studies; and Prosperity of Humankind, by the Universal House of Justice, 1995.

What is the role of general humanity in planning Earth’s future? What will true prosperity of humankind look like? Will peace only come as a last result? These are questions the Baha’is ask in two documents (listed above), both written by the Universal House of Justice.

Humanity, they report, is thought by many to be “quarrelsome” (Peace, p.10). However, as they also suggest, around the world, people and groups are promoting change for a healthier tomorrow (P of H, paragraph 11). Now is the spiritual springtime of the human species, they state, offering their ideas for the future. (Peace, p. 23). The House of Justice suggests that humankind is coming of age: our psychological state is progressing from adolescence to maturity, and with this aging comes greater ability for cooperation, harmony and mutuality (Peace, page x).

I concur, adding that since Baha’u’llah—the prophet of the Baha’is—began his contributions (1817-1892 was his lifespan), the female individual to which humankind can be compared is now in a metapausal state: she is finally halting her inward focus. She is starting to look around, having peopled the planet (and subdued it, if you are a Bible reader), and is reaching for world connection. I also agree with the Baha’is that peace has not been possible until now; we humans were not ready for it (Peace, p. x). Yet I additionally agree that it is inevitable (Peace, p. x); people can only turn towards each other and complete the work discussed in the Baha’i documents, as modified and added to by my ideas. My point is that it will be work—but it will be fun, as play, and, like Pope Francis says, we can sing as we go along (On Care for Our Common Home, encyclical letter, 2015, Washington, DC, United Conference of Catholic Bishops, paragraph 244).

No one knows how it will look for all people to be using our full potential, but both the Baha’is and I see that this is what the future will bring (P of H, paragraph 44). My perspective on mind may differ from that of the Baha’is in the eighties and nineties, when the documents I discuss here were written.

The Baha’is and I concur that our materialistic focus of today should change (P of H, paragraph 45). It has landed us with vicious circles and metaphorical systems (poverty, employment, sexism, racism, police brutality, healthcare, education). Meanwhile, we are plagued by a planetary pandemic and climate change, if we were doubtful that the world was interconnected!

Materialistic thought is also problematic in science. Failing to embrace the new worldview suggested by quantum mechanics—that time is navigable, and reality different from what we were taught it was, last century—means not discovering our full potential, as individuals and as a species. Embracing it will be change, which can threaten. Yet the Baha’is have attempted future imaginings, and so will I. “Only if humanity’s collective childhood has indeed come to an end and the age of its adulthood is dawning does such a prospect [(the task of creating a global development strategy that will accelerate humanity’s coming of age)] represent more than another utopian mirage. To imagine that an effort of the magnitude envisioned here can be summoned up by despondent and mutually antagonistic peoples and nations runs counter to the whole of received wisdom,” (P of H., paragraph 62). However, the enlightened of peoples around the globe (not necessarily the rich folks) have tried and planted the seeds of future tall trees of peace bearing luscious fruit that will sustain us!

Whereas the Baha’is suggest that it will be slow (P of H, paragraph 3), global connection could just as easily arrive all at once. When people like me–artistic and female—are heard, change may well come instantaneously. The Baha’is assert that since individuals are reciprocal to global structures, transformation will occur at both levels together (P of H, paragraph 16). Also, they compare people to cells in one body—they cannot live without the larger, and the collection of them all—cells, or people—brings transcendental consciousness (P of H, paragraph 14). This is why, I reflect, we cannot know what true global connection will look or feel like; it will be an experience.

My personal understanding of humanity, from artist’s and anthropologist’s perspective, suggests that it will not necessitate building a “framework” (Peace, p. 10) for humanity’s development, erecting a “world super-state” (Peace, p. 18) with elected members (as the Baha’is have posited, P of H., paragraph 58) in order to proceed healthfully into the future. Instead, it will be a way for all citizens to participate on a creative level—to not work but play “together,” whatever that tune, or game, will turn out to be! The Baha’i prophet, Baha’u’llah, said that work is a form of prayer to God (P of H, paragraph 48). What is play? A prayer to the Goddess, to get her attention?

Aggression, the Baha’is say, will be replaced with love (if they are not on the same continuum, i. e., lust, as Konrad Lorenz, the ethologist, apparently suggested [Peace, p. 39]). Also, self-centeredness will morph into serving of others (practicing charity stimulates our brains’ pleasure centers, we now know), while from competition will emerge cooperation, and war will become peace. We may have needed to fight—especially to fight back—in the past. Look at martial arts, in which each combatant expresses him/herself in movement and both enjoy it, surviving to move another day, perhaps taking pleasure in fighting again—cooperating in the dance. (The Brazilian martial art of capoeira was permitted the slaves who invented it to be practiced, because it seemed like dancing, not fighting!) Yet the future will, I reassert, along with the Baha’is, bring peace: with its attendant sports and games that we create and play in order to move around, enjoying our shared world and each other.

Resistance is human: rather than saying “I can’t,” more benign is “I won’t,” according to Pete Shabad, Ph. D., in psychoanalysis. Play can create healing and growth, Donald Winnicott and others have said; I experience this with my talk therapist. As Jan Panskeep said, there are seven emotions of all animals—play is one (he tickles rats and hears them laugh!). These are relatively recent contributions to psychology that point to profound changes in Western thought; other cultures may have already integrated these ideas, but Westerners have been behind in certain ways. But knowledge is everyone’s birthright; now that we have pervasive communication for the planet, we can take the Baha’is and my advice and educate our peoples: the Baha’is call for universal education and I concur.

The Baha’is find it very important that in the future, science should partner with spirituality (P of H, paragraph 43). Pope Francis wants science to partner with religion, too, as he states in his On Care for Our Common Home, paragraph 199. In the last century, science was utilized for selfish gain (P of H, paragraph 37), while spirituality has been viewed as somewhat irrelevant in the world (Peace, p. 7). However, religion, as the Baha’is point out, is a part of cultural identity for many (P of H, paragraph 40). To involve the world spiritually, we must, as they assert, work (play, I say) with folks who are religious; the religions are not in conflict, but are complementary, they assert (Peace, p. 67). The ideas from the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences’s Manifesto may help us unite science and religion, and deal with our future.

In the Manifesto of the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences, they discuss the mind’s new territory. They state that “the nearly absolute dominance of materialism in the academic world has seriously constricted the sciences and hampered the development of the scientific study of mind and spirituality. Faith in this ideology, as an exclusive explanatory framework for reality, has compelled scientists to neglect the subjective dimension of human experience. This has led to a severely distorted and impoverished understanding of ourselves and our place in nature.” Please continue at https://www.aapsglobal.com/manifesto/

The Baha’i say that our purpose is to serve humankind. I suggest that our purpose should be to manage Earth–working/playing with all species, for tomorrow and today.

Sexy!

Our place in the world is erotic:

no control over the weather.

No control over the stock market—

No control over our feelings, our finances, our dinner’s quality

because it comes from polluted fields—they may be polluted, we don’t know,

just like we don’t know how our lover will respond from day to day.

Nature is sexy. We are part of nature.

But does our history from now on have to be so hurtful, just because we are trying to live the fact that the world is sexy? that we are not in control, that peoples get hurt because forces are so powerful, like sex?

Or, we prove that we can synthesize things; even though we are part of nature, we “are above it”—an abstraction good for who?

Make love, not war!

Growing Up

Growing Up: Maturation for a Nation and a Planet

by C. Jenny Walbridge

In my post-menopausal years, I am understanding what I see to be the psychological stages of humans. We need to move into a more mature phase to globalize better—to meet our future head-on. The popular American ideas that a) people must all be entrepreneurs b) all people must move to a city to live c) any people should not be paid a decent wage or d) people should not receive healthcare are immature and nonsensical. Plus, people should stop being fearful of others or other groups getting more, benefiting—why not instead be happy about it? And what happened to the values of honor and shame in the U. S? Meanwhile, Chinese and Japanese have that capability of working together as one—“wa.” Maybe we could use that here. Also, folks should quit being fearful of change, myself included. My website subtitle, foolsfortheydonottakethelongview…, is evidence of my silly self, who realizes that it makes me, in the long run, a fool too because I’m insulting people! Sorry, other fools!

There are some interesting issues with which the U. S. needs to deal now: can public officials lie? is one. Then there is, what is our attitude towards international engagement?—is it supposed to help our country or theirs, or what? For example, why not intercede with Afghanistan to enlarge their market for pine nuts, a nutritional powerhouse they can grow more of there, instead of poppies for drugmaking? Or, take a look at Guatemala: its biggest asset in my opinion being the textiles its women were producing until gangs took over running things—but the world needs its high-quality, colorful handmade clothes! Likewise, the woolen products of Ecuadorian and Peruvian people, and the cotton ones of the Mexicans, are world treasures that I want to be around!

Now, defense money should be put to better use, while the USA maintains our ideals and acts, humbly but enthusiastically, like a decent neighbor with a good conscience and optimism for all other countries, which are drawn together, as never before—by climate change. There is work/play we have to do to progress (see Matriotic/Patriotic sections–“The Ages of Humanity and Our Future”). I have here some guidelines, projects I’ve thought up over the years to get us in the right frame of mind for the future, my own “united therapeutics:”

For USA:

Environmental concerns:

If I were President, air pollution would be my first concern—how can air and water pollution exist in our advanced nation? And yet they do, at this time—scandalous!
Creative ways to mitigate the harmful effects of people on nature, our home. For example, plant trees and bushes that absorb pollutants!
More non-car travel spaces to shift away from carbon-based travel options
Etc.

Educational concerns:

Education for police (required) and neighbors on being a good neighbor, including de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques, broadcast on internet and free TV, for everyone to see and take part in.
Ministers of Movement to increase joy for workers by analyzing movements required for jobs and educating/ cooperating to make them healthier, to see on internet & free TV
Seyed’s idea: government gives cars to all high school graduates so they can get jobs, or $10,000 vouchers. The cars are American, built here and are specially designed by U. S.makers to be highly gas efficient; i. e. updated Mustangs or Jeeps; they will compete with Japanese cars.
Childcare by parents and/or workers subsidized by workplace, leave for new babies as generous as Iran’s (one year, with ability to get job back after leave)
Education free for all
Rehauling of prison system to decrease prisoner population, provide real rehabilitation

Health concerns:

No wars—they are too expensive, especially when veterans get the care they need, which they should
Cheap produce (fresh fruits and veggies) for the poor, to fight malnutrition and create security from within, along with more nutrition research by the National Institutes of Health, including on natural medicines like herbs, and vitamin and minerals
More focus on regenerative farming to preserve soil vitamin and mineral content, with an eye to future citizens of the world
Repurposing underutilized housing stock for homes for people, building little homes
My 66 Following Directions paintings of my psychological problems and those common to humanity for viewing, and my journey in talk therapy shared through writing & speaking, to inspire others to engage in talk therapy; also, to push for art therapy as a bigger part of communications and education

General concerns and procedures:

Voting using ranking system so that folks’ votes count, even if their first choice doesn’t win
Medicine Wheel Collection of American traveling songs for Native American reparation
World (photographic, changing) flag created, my flag poems (see Patriotic, Verse sections of my website) shared, world flag on Moon in 2024, see below
More towns named Libertyville
Microloans and support for small capitalism (entrepreneurial efforts), like in Iran where one can make a living selling snacks by the road

For Earth: The USA will work with you if you will play, too!:

Proposal for Teamwork: Team Worldwide (see Welcome! section of site)
In addition to STEAM jobs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math), CLIMB employment values: Comedy, Love, Imagination, Movement, Balance
Salary of the same amount for all world citizens
Sea Emocean World Ocean Year, including Library of HumanKind (see Sea Emocean section of website)
Benign birth control for women and men (see “Conception” in Feminist section of my website)
Photographic globes distributed all over world
Use of foot and hand symbolism in art- and music-making international efforts to celebrate the Earth and humans, evolving us into the next psychological stage of humanity
Mate-finding prioritized—mass training of matchmakers, all citizens getting access to the inspirational
Therapeutic aid prioritized: physical, talk, dance and art therapists; all kinds of healers; social workers—all trained & working en masse, reporting to governments on the problems on the society and planetary level that need to be solved for happiness of citizens
An American Recovery Team—using an Ecological Muse—for an International Synthesis (ARTEMIS), American-led compilation of healing experience, including prevention
Value the work of the United Nations (but end veto power), protect endangered cultures
Engage youth and adults in learning about Earth’s peoples; value the learning of languages
World language (starting with the funniest expressions of each culture)

The first woman will land on the moon in 2024, if the Artemis mission goes as planned—hopefully bearing an Earth flag with her, and reading aloud my “Poem to New Glory”! A world flag, produced by the U. S. acting in concert with the U. N., to be maintained on Earth and the Moon, would offer the U. S. a chance to formally lead the world in acting less rudely on the planetary stage, and more justly, getting back to our roots and our decent values. We could focus on the pursuit of collective happiness, not just individual growth, acting sustainably for the good of all!

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united planet of Earth—the lands and the seas, zany and fun, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all!