Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Suggested Books and DocumentariesTo Open Our Hearts

  
"We don’t set out to save the world; we set out 
to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect 
on how our actions affect other people’s hearts." 
— Pema Chödrön

Love. Truth. Compassion. I believe that these are essential qualities which our hearts, minds, and souls need to thrive and evolve into ever greater wholeness. To the degree that we are informed, nourished, and experience and embody truth, compassion, and love is the degree that our consciousness will inspire us to act in some way to alleviate the suffering in this beautiful hurting world that we share.

I am moved to give voice again and again to the great need for us to increasingly discern that which increases our growth and evolution into more deeply loving and kind human beings from that what depletes us. It's not easy being human. And it's not easy to take a good look at our blind spots and recognize the places where our professed values differ from our practiced ones. I believe that this journey requires courage, intention, support, and perserverence. At least this has certainly been true for me.

I say this with the awareness of being a white woman of privilege who's been engaged in a bumpy, challenging, painful, humbling, and amazing process for some years now of shedding many of my own layers of ignorance, indoctrination, and illusions.

As I witness and become more conscious of the many current and historical faces of violence and suffering within our families, communities, nation, and beyond, I am reminded of the words of Emma Goldman — "The most violent element in society is ignorance." It is, I believe, out of ignorance that we cause such great harm to ourselves and others, including those we love.

Cultivating understanding, compassion, consciousness, and love can act as the bridge, the antidote to separation and dehumanization, the clarity and inspiration to embrace our needed role in working together to create a more just nation and humane world.

* * * * *

"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." 
― Paulo Freire, From Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Over many years, I've added to my life a diverse range of many teachers, guides, wisdom-holders, truth-tellers, authors and activists, artists and poets, and visionaries and more. They embody different racial, religious, ethnic, gender, and experiential backgrounds. Over these decades of my gradual awakening, I've also shed some who I came to realize were not the embodiment of what was helpful rather than harmful. So many teachings day after day, year after year. Recognizing that no two people will be drawn to all the same people, this is simply a personal list and one which is also not meant to be comprehensive:

Pema Chödrön, Riane Eisler, Joanna Macy, Jane Goodall, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, Angeles Arrien, the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Rachel Carson, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Michelle Alexander, Jane Mayer, Frances Moore Lappé, Terry Tempest Williams, Margaret Mead, Christiana Figueres, Sir David Attenborough, Howard Zinn, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Cornel West, Bernie Sanders, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Henry Giroux, Jeremy Scahill, David Sirota, Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Parenti, Paulo Freire, Chalmers Johnson, Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley, Bill Moyers, Bill McKibben, Dahr Jamail, David Korten, Bryan Stevenson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Michael Meade, Carl Jung, Frank Ostaseski, Francis Weller, Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Dalai Lama, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Judith Duerk, Rachel Naomi Remen, Brené Brown, Charlotte Kasl, Mary Oliver, John O'Donohue, Rumi, Wendell Berry, Joy Harjo, Jack Kornfield, Matthew Fox, Robert Beatty, Doug Pullin, my three sons, my loving husband Ron Matela, many beloved and wise friends, the Earth, and the list goes on and on... 

Befriending ourselves and each other is made more possible as we expand beyond the familiar territory of our understanding and actively work to be more and more inclusive in who and what we include in our circle of caring. But first we must see each other and work to shed the obstacles that have perpetuated our separation and made us vulnerable to polarizing propaganda. This includes strengthening our capacity for discernment and who we can trust to nourish, connect, and strengthen us rather than divide, distract, disempower, and misinform.

"Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated." ― Martin Luther King, Jr.

 * * * * *

We are here to awaken from the illusion of separation. 
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

It is important to explore individually and together the roots of our separateness. Over the years of my personal deep dive into my own woundedness and the collective wounds that we share, I have discovered ideologies which have perpetrated profound harm on humans, other beings, and the planet. I have found that ― because of our deep interrelatedness ― no one is excluded from the impacts of:

  • Racism 
  • Imperialism
  • Colonialism 
  • Militarism
  • Nationalism
  • Neoliberal Predatory Capitalism
  • Facism
  • Patriarchy
  • Misogyny
  • White Supremacy
Consciousness of these deep roots of human and planetary violence and suffering empowers us to move beyond the simplicity and polarities of blaming Trump or one political party for the great injustices, multiple crises, and great threats which have been building for decades and centuries and which now imperil us all. There is a much, much larger picture. We need to know and understand this.
 
* * * * * 
 
"Spiritual practice involves, on the one hand, acting out 
of concern for others' well-being. On the other, 
it entails transforming ourselves so that we 
become more readily disposed to do so."  
― Dalai Lama 

Pictured above is a sampling of books that I have found helpful in transforming myself to be more "readily disposed" to acting out of concern for the well-being of others. I have allowed myself to be deeply impacted by what I have been learning. This includes my growing awareness of our warming planet, of the deep trauma of our Black brothers and sisters, of how dark money has infested our nation and beyond, of the vital systemic changes that are needed NOW, and so much more. My heart has been breaking open again and again. And with each heartbreak has come renewed commitment to speaking the truth and acting together out of loving and compassionate awareness to birth a radically different world ― one which increasingly care for all.

These are among my most recent books: 

In sharing these, I'm also fully aware and respectful that we each are responsible for drawing from those resources which call to each of us. The important thing is to feed ourselves with whatever it is that nourishes our growing consciousness and capacity to love and motivation to act out of our profound caring for all our human and non-human sisters and brothers and the Earth herself.

* * * * * 

“I don't think whole populations are villainous, but Americans are just extraordinarily unaware of all kinds of things. If you live in the middle of that vast continent, with apparently everything your heart could wish for just because you were born there, then why worry? ...If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they're going to mistreat it and will not ask their politicians to care for it.”
― David Attenborough

There are also several documentaries which I've found incredibly informative and important. These are among them:

  • David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet

  • 13th

  • The Social Dilemma
  • After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News
  •  The United States of Conspiracy

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This is but  glimpse into what I am aware of are countless other excellent resources. May we all pursue and find exactly that which we each need to empower us to stand shoulder to shoulder, united together in the great struggle to create a just, sustainable, compassionate, peaceful, and caring world.

Bless us all,
Molly
 
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