Reflections on Evolutionary Activism

Table of Contents

 

 

Prologue 

        How I stumbled into my evolutionary epiphany............................  ix

 

Introduction..............................................................................................  1

        Poem:  Stardust settles on earth to learn........................................  8

 

 

I.  Reflections on Evolution and Creation ...................................  9

 

1.   Evolution 2.0:  A Big History that embraces

       all the sciences ...................................................................................... 11

            Poem:  Since the Big Bang never stopped  ............................... 28

 

2.  The Big CPU..........................................................................................  29

            Poem: The same golden force.....................................................  35

 

 

II.  Reflections on Evolutionary Activism .......................... 37

 

3.  What is the evolutionary activist worldview?..................................  39

            Poem: Showing up.......................................................................  42

 

4.  My evolution in to evolutionary activism.........................................  43

            Prayer: A prayer of evolutionary affirmation .....................  48

 

5.  What is evolutionary activism?........................................................... 49

            Poem: Riotous meadow people .................................................  54

 

6.   What makes evolutionary activism different

       from other forms of activism?.......................................................... 55

            Poem:  Star story children .......................................................  65

 

7.  Learning to be evolution....................................................................  66

            Poem:  Calling of Creation........................................................  82

 

8.  Becoming evolution's conscious weavers .......................................  83

            Poem:  First of all ........................................................................ 92

 

 

III.  Reflections on Strategy and Tactics...........................  95

 

9.   Learning from our evolutionary past into

       our evolutionary future ...................................................................  97

            Poem: That Great Evolving Power ......................................... 112

 

10.  A "Big Story" evolutionary fitness program.................................. 114

            Poem: A larger force works through us.................................. 121

 

11.   The strategic synergy of individual and

          collective ........................................................................................  122

            Poem:  Journey power story questions ................................. 128

 

12.  The evolutionary role of conversation............................................ 130

            Poem: The facilitator ................................................................ 144

 

13.  Transformational leverage.............................................................. 146

            Poem:  Life like spring.............................................................. 153

 

 

IV.   Reflections on Evolutionary Grace and

            Appreciation ........................................................ 155

 

14.   Goodness Gracious:   evolutionary integrity

         and our engagement with life.....................................................  157

            Poem:  A powerful Grace ........................................................ 162

 

15.  Active appreciation......................................................................... 164

            Poem:  The whole knows.......................................................... 170

 

 

V.  Reflections on Crises and Democracy........................ 173

 

16.  Six degrees of separation from reality ........................................ 175

            Poem:  Mother Earth's message............................................ 180

 

17.  Something bigger than Life is trying to work through us......... 184

            Prayer:  Prayer for conscious evolution .............................. 196

 

18.  Building wise democracy as crises emerge ...............................  197

            Poem:  We are on the edge....................................................  211

 

19.   Democracy and the evolution of societal

         intelligence ................................................................................... 213

            Poem:  Ultimately global catastrophe

                           is about life................................................................  221

 

 

VI.  Reflections on Systems  ........................................  225

 

20.   Caring and systemic awareness:  Does

         compassion itself need to evolve?............................................  227

            Poem:  What we long for .....................................................  238

 

21.  What makes a social system conscious? ..................................  239

            Poem:  You can't hide anymore .......................................... 248

 

 

VII.   Reflections on an Evolutionary Activist

            Movement......................................................... 249

 

22.   A rationale and guidance for nonviolence

         as a basis for conscious evolutionary activism...................... 251

            Poem:  Together at the leading edge ............................... 268

 

23.   Five areas to attend to when building an

         evolutionary activism movement  ......................................... 271

            Poem:  Sunshine being meditation .................................. 274

 

24.   Imagining an activist movement for the

         conscious evolution of social systems...................................  276

                  Poem: To Martin Luther King, Jr. ............................  282

 

25.   Some ways to engage in co-creating this

         movement ............................................................................... 284

                  Poem: Co-aliveness .....................................................  290

 

Appendices............................................................... 293

 

A.  An annotated informal glossary of basic terms ....................  295

 

B.   Evolutionary Life....................................................................... 301

 

C.  Models of transformational leverage......................................  303

 

 

Index ....................................................................... 315

 

About the author ....................................................  335

 

Acknowledgments  .................................................. 337

 

Praise for  Reflections on Evolutionary Activism ....... 341

 

            Poem:  Just a moment  .................................................... 344