We have been hearing a lot about web-of-life threatening crises in recent times – there is the climate crisis … the pandemic … and of course, the ongoing loss of species in what is being called “the 6th great extinction”.
And …if we focus only on the tangible crises that threaten our physical existence, we are missing the true “life or death” choice that will impact the lives of our children, their children, and the future of humanity. That choice is, will technology be our servant, or become our master?
That is the bottom “bottom line.”
And, “life or death” is not hyperbolic. As the COVID epidemic has unfolded over the past two years, we have seen two trends in medicine. First, we have seen the de-platforming and censorship of natural treatments. Second, we have seen the medical monopoly and unelected global authority put all their eggs in the vaccine basket. And now, with these proving less effective than advertised, the official policy is – more shots. As for doing more of what isn't working – I defer to noted philosopher Rocket J. Squirrel , who has said more than once, “But that NEVER works, Bullwinkle!”
What does work is a multi-pronged approach to a crisis that involves numerous co-factors. Vaccines? A tool in the tool-kit. Could we have flattened the curve two years ago with early treatment – instead of telling those exhibiting the first symptoms to go home and wait until they were sick enough to go to the ER? Could people have been saved needless hospitalization and death? We might never know because testimony like this by Dr. Peter McCullough in front of the US Senate was completely blacked out by mainstream media.
At the outset of the pandemic, I was, like most of the folks I know, willing to socially distance and “flatten the curve.” I took some satisfaction in how the hiatus of human activity coaxed the natural world out of hiding. There was something about this “pause”, this “reset” that seemed necessary for nature to recover from an overdose of human activity. But in April 2020 something happened that shifted my perspective. I got a call from a long-time friend, a retired chiropractor. He told me of a colleague of his, another chiropractor, who had successfully treated – at that time, early in the pandemic – at least three dozen COVID cases with natural treatment. All recovered. No hospitalizations, no deaths, no long COVID. What was his treatment protocol? I don’t know. He could not share that information publicly, lest he be called out by the medical board for breaching medical protocols.
Now of course, those who worship the god of “science” would tell us these are purely anecdotal accounts. Well, I’ll tell you what. Each one of those “anecdotes” involves a real human, grateful for the natural intervention.
And …
This piece is not going to go down the vaxx vs. anti-vaxx rathole. Rather, I want to focus on two “meta-issues”. First, because we have devolved into the two sides lobbing grenades at one another, the “sane and sacred” folks on all sides have not been able to have a conversation about how to handle the crisis in a holistic (as opposed to “assaholistic”) way.
Secondly, we need to address two obsolete worldviews playing tug-of-war that have kept us on the current mutually-destructive battlefield – patriarchal social and religious systems that have perpetuated domination of one human over another, and the modern “religion” of scientific materialism that seeks dominion over nature.
We can all recognize how the dominator system has unhinged us from indigenous wisdom, and the feminine – and consequently disconnected us from the web of life, and the web of love. (To find out more about how loss of this connection has led to enduring trauma and societal dysfunction, see the “boil down” of the first seven Front and Center podcasts, at the bottom of this article.)
However, at this moment it is the “god” of technology, and infrastructure of technocracy that pose the pre-eminent threat to our humanity. Rather than liberate our species from scarcity and want, it threatens to take “domination” to a level so frightening, that most humans don’t even want to “go there.” Well, as the Swami has told us, “THERE has already come HERE.”
For just as human awareness has evolved, so have the mechanics of domination. When we think of domination, what first comes to mind is physical domination, strong over weak. In our Front and Center interview, author and radio show host Thom Hartmann reflects on an article he wrote called “The Lost People”, about how the indigenous cultures of Europe were decimated first by invading armies, then through witch-hunts and inquisitions. Domination then “evolved” to economic exploitation and extraction – you have only to read John Perkins’ book, Confessions of an Economic Hit-man to understand how this has played out in the third world over the past 75 years.
And now, in this “information age”, control through military might and economic pressure have been superseded by censorship and control of “truth” – “misinformation” has been redefined as anything, factual or not, that contradicts the Official Narrative. This narrative has been so seamlessly and smoothly executed, that most people don’t realize they are being brainwashed and mind-fogged. I have been shocked but not surprised at how many well-meaning, well-educated people have uttered the mantra, “Follow the science” without recognizing it as an updated version of, “How do I know? The Bible tells me so.”
Our civilization – particularly the “moderns” who’ve abandoned the idea of a “Higher Power” for the belief that physical existence is all there is – seems ready to give it all over to technology, as if somehow artificial intelligence is a substitute for real intelligence. And if we dismiss these concerns about “transhumanism” turning us all into automatons as the imaginings of “right-wing paranoids”, we will surely be betraying future generations, not to mention wise ancestors.
Do we devolve into machines or evolve as humans?
Do we use medical technology to better manage our health through all means available, or is it used as a form of social control?
To address those questions, we must face the “elephant and donkey” in the living room, our divide-and-conquer political system, where both parties ultimately are beholden to the rule of gold, instead of the Golden Rule. Our polarized political narratives have brought us to the point where the two sides are living in utterly different realities and actually consider those on the other side as demented, evil, or “mentally ill.”
Last fall, my friend and associate Michael Maxsenti and I, launched our Front and Center podcast to bring “left and right, front and center, to face the music and dance together”. Behind this jokey quip is a serious mission to call forth a “sane and sacred center” to bring awakening individuals on all sides together in common purpose. As we learned from Glenn Aparicio Parry, one of the first seven guests we interviewed (again, see below), America has a “sacred purpose” – unity and diversity. The seemingly paradoxical yet truly evolutionary purpose, expanding freedom in the context of beloved community, is the mission I am dedicating myself to in these times of great crisis and opportunity.
Through the podcast, through my “cosmic comic” mission as the Swami, and through a new blog on a new platform, Signs of the Upwising, I am looking to promote what my colleague Bruce Lipton calls conscious evolution – as an alternative to mass extinction and horrific dystopian devolution.
Like many of my colleagues who have become disgusted with censorship on media and social media platforms, I am working with a platform called Substack that allows those who want to support my work to do so and receive notices of my postings. (I will also continue to send them as well via my Signs of the Upwising newsletter, like the one you are seeing here.)
My mission is to use love and laughter to help us rise above – and “wise” above – the trauma and separation that has brought us to our current confluences of crises. I invite you – regardless of which “side” you are currently siding with – into this evolutionary conversation so that we can indeed write a new story for humanity.
Yours in evolutionary upwising,
Steve Bhaerman
Here is the Front and Center boil down:
