My new feature documentary on spiritual activism, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, has been born!  We had our world premiere this month at the Vancouver International FIlm Festival.   It was a powerful, affirming screening, everything we had hoped for - a sold out audience that responded throughout the film, with laughter and with tears, rising to their feet with the closing credits for a long and sustained standing ovation.  700 people, cheering Fierce LIght out into the world.   We were thrilled.  It works!  Person after person came up to us to say how much the film moved them, inspired them, and imparted a sense of Fierce LIght, of soul force, that they can take home with them.  The film is a visceral, transformative experience, some said life changing - it is the film we set out to make, doing what it is supposed to be doing.  Yay!!!

We ended up winning two awards, an audience award, and a jury prize, which is great cause it means we were both popular with the peeps, and with the critics. 

Next stop: IDFA - The International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam.  

It's all very exciting!!!

 

 

 

 

one door closes

So many things....

Inside

My heart

 

Lies a heart

Of God

 

Inside Gods

Heart

I am held

I hold

 

Atoms

Burst asunder

And truth cracks the sky

 

Love fills

My veins

 

And possibility

Erupts

 

Filling the space

Between my thoughts

 

Hey!

I see you there too –

That’s you

Isn't that you...

God

 

Right there

Between

 

This

 

Thought

 

And

 

That….

 

 

Don’t think

You can hide from

Me

So easily!

 

Oh…

 

This game

Of hide

And seek

 

Just cracks

You up,

Doesn’t it?

 

Silly humans,

Looking here

Looking there

Under the sofa

Under the moon

 

Stop.

Take a breath.

 

She's here.

She can never

Be

Anywhere else but here…

 

Where did you think you’d find Her?

 

In a church?

In a bank?

In a brothel?

Certainly.

 

Stop.

Take a breath.

 

She’s right here, right now.

She’s You.

She will never be anywhere else,

But here, right now.

 

 

 

 

I would say that there are two graphs of change happening in the world - there is a downward graph of devolution, of destruction, of despair, and it is rapidly getting worse and worse....but at the same time there is this incredible upward sweep of change, transformation, evolution that is happening, partly in response to the great crisis we are facing. That in fact, the darkness is our great opportunity to grow, and evolve...and without it, perhaps we wouldn't...the crises we face are a call to rise to our highest selves...and we need to hold both the dark and the light together....at the same time....in order to be whole...a poem I blogged yesterday speaks to this...

In this moment

Well I've kinda been a hermit for the last little while, busy editing my new film, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action.   We're almost there!!!  In one week we'll do the sound mix, and then, starting in the fall, I'll be bringing this feature doc out into the world...

Todays blog posting is by Fierce Light crew member extraordinaire,
Sera Beak, who writes of our powerful empowering interview with
Joanna Macy, the grandmother of deep ecology.  It was clear that
Joanna is someone who sits in the lap of the God/ess and exhales the
sacred fire....


"Yesterday, filmmaker Velcrow Ripper and I had the honor of
interviewing Joanna Macy – eco philosopher, scholar of Buddhism, deep
ecology, and systems theory for Velcrow’s documentary film
FierceLight (coming to theaters Fall 2008). Filming Joanna amidst
fiery pink bouganvilla next to a beautiful stone icon of the Buddhist
goddess Kwan Yin, we definitely felt Gaia’s breath. Joanna spoke with
such elegance, simplicity and passion about our need to become active
and reconnect with the planet, each other, and life.

Joanna began by describing how our civilization, the industrial
growth society, is beginning to unravel - financially,
environmentally, politically, psychologically. She said that most
people are reacting to this destruction out of fear and obedience or
by going numb, but she believes the spiritual challenge is to be
present, to truly take in and see what is happening to our world,
allow ourselves to open up and feel the pain, mourn the dishonor and
destruction and loss, so we are then better able to take action based
on the natural compassion that arises in us when we tap into our
humanity and connection to the earth. She calls this time period, The
Great Turning.

There are 3 Dimensions of The Great Turning:
1. Actions to slow down the destruction being wrought by industrial
growth society. These actions are what we generally think of as
“activism”. This is a call to protect life and to save as much as you
can, but this alone, is not enough.
2. Planting the seeds for new structures after the old ones fall
away, such as alternative fuel, alternative ways of growing and
distributing food, alternative health, alternative currency. But,
this is also not enough.
3. A revolutionary shift in consciousness is needed. A sense of awe,
gratitude, wonder and devotion to this planet, life, and each other
needs to arise from the heart.

Joanna told us there were 3 revolutions in human history:
1. Agricultural Revolution
2. Industrial Revolution
3. This one. While the first two did not require an immense amount of
consciousness and had the luxury of time, this Third revolution must
be conscious and is happening fast. (btw, the Redvolution is one of
millions of current revolutions that support, point to, and
illuminate this Third one. Wake up, turn red, and serve babee!
Alright, back to the mystic ecologist.)

In this new consciousness, there is no room for fear or self-
criticism. Joanna commented on how we’ve internalized the idea that
we’re somehow lacking or not good enough, that we need to buy more,
look better, work harder to compete with life. It’s a distraction and
false. And yes, sometimes, when we do begin to wake up, we get so
overwhelmed by the negative state of the world and how we’ve
dishonored this planet and each other that we want to run back to
Bloomingdales, our mac and cheese, and Desperate Housewives.

But Joanna says to just give up and feel powerless about the current
planetary situation is an easy out and a form of self-pity and shows
disrespect for the gift of life given to you. “If you have air to
breathe, there’s something you can do. You’re not powerless - you’re
sad, you’re appalled, you’re scared”. She also made an interesting
point that our grieving and depression that we might think is our
personal stuff, our own private unique craziness, is also coming from
this awareness of what is happening to the oceans, the lands, the
animals, the humans. When we can admit this, feel this, we are
capable of seeing our responses as forms of compassion. And we
realize that we’re not alone nor completely nutz.

Joanna reminds us that the power holders want us to feel alone and
isolated and numb, but a pain-free life is a kind of death. Feeling
brings us back to life and teaches us how to truly see each other and
this planet again. Joanna cautions us not to act alone. We need to
reach out to others. Get involved on our block, in our city, make
sure we create or find community. After all, we’re relational beings.
Then Joanna quoted the poem Rilke (oh yeah, along with changing the
world and making a mean ice tea, she also translates Rilke poems)

“We come towards each other to meet and be met and to make each other
real” - Rilke

Joanna truly believes that now is one of the greatest times to be
alive. It’s exciting, challenging, and has the potential for utter
greatness. There is a possibility that those 7 generations after us
will call this time period something special, like “The Great
Turning”, or “the time humans finally woke up, got off their asses,
and started to act like the beings they really are already”. That
would be my name for it…perhaps it would sound better as an acronym.

Joanna said the true meaning of apocalypse is not just disaster, but
revelation disclosed. There is something being revealed now about
life being lived and breathed through us. There are such great things
life can do if we let it pour through us, with gratitude. In fact,
she said gratitude is like oxygen. At one point during the interview
Joanna uttered “I never thought it could get this bad, and I never
thought it could be this good”. She asks us to dance the paradox – to
see both the promise of a new tomorrow and the possibility of no
tomorrow.

We need to give ourselves totally to the shift, without knowing how
it will turn out. After all, if we knew all things were going to be
fine and dandy with a cherry on top, we might not work so hard. If we
knew things were just gonna blow, we’d probably give up and dive into
a bottle of Gin. Giving ourselves totally without knowing is a
fundamental “spiritual” way to live life. It’s this time, more than
any other in history, that has the potential to break us open and
into our authentic divine natures. If we choose to become conscious.
If we choose to become free. And if we learn to have a good time
doing so.

Tallyho!"


_____________________________

For more info on Joanna Macy go to:  www.joannamacy.met

For more on Sera Beak go to:  www.serabeak.com

www.spiritualcowgirl.com

This week was a journey through the history of the American Civil Rights movement, a story we've all heard of time and time again.  I thought I knew the story myself, but it was not until I actually set foot in the historic heart land of the movement - the front line cities of Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama, and spoke to some of the surviving footsoldiers of the movement, that the true depths and power of this story really sunk home.   What struck me most, was that this was movement rooted solidly in love.  Not the hallmark love that we have come identify with the word, but a fierce love, a love of unrelenting compassion, of unwavering nonviolence.  A love that faces the bigotry and hatred of the Klu Lux Klan, of the police with their dogs trained on black dummies to attack wildly at the sight of black skin,  of the average white citizens of the south who spit and taunted the protestors as they were beaten bloody for simply trying to sit a lunch counter or ride a bus or cross a bridge, and dared to see the divine spark within each and every one of those human beings.   That recognizes that behind their hatred, is hurt.  Behind their anger, their prejudice, is fear.   Behind their violence, behind that testosterone fueled male agression of the hooded Klansman, is a sad little boy, who didn't get enough love.  The people of the movement were fueled by faith, and though I'm not a christian, and like many in this era of fundamentalism, have grown weary and wary of christian rhetoric, I have developed a profound respect for the way Christianity informed the movement.  It was sheltered in the churches, the one place they could safely meet free from interference in a segregated land.  Although one of the Churches we visited, the 16th St. Baptist Church, was firebombed by the KKK, resulted in the deaths of four young girls.   This tragic act became one of the sparks that set off the irrepressible fire of the movement.  The power of Faith, and Christ's original teachings on justice, and peace, gave great strength to the people as they surged forward in the face of out and out assault.  
Reverend Calvin Woods, one of the 'footsoldiers' of the movement, told me that non-violence was not just a tactic of the movement, it was a lived truth.  They worked to not only stop themselves from striking back at the enemy, but learned to remove even the desire to strike back from their hearts.   Rev. Mel White, who founded the movement 'Soul Force', talks of the love that Martin Luther King calls "Agape" and Gandhi called "Ahimsa."  It is a deep, great love that embraces all beings,  sees all as a reflection of the divine, and that is profoundly non-violent.  Non-violent not just in deed, but in thought.      Speech itself can be violent.   Ask yourself before you speak or write a violent phrase - is this love speaking?  Are you a force of positivity in the world, or a force of negativity?  Are you promoting biophilia, the love of life, or necrophelia, the love of death, the cyncism and hatred that is at the root of the destruction of this planet?   Do you think you can create peace in the world through hatred?  As Martin Luther King said, hatred does not create love, only love can do that.  Darkness cannot create light, only light can do that.  ?Although there are a number of severe limitations to the popular book and documentary "The Secret" (in particular the fact that is very ego based and stuff based), there is a fundamental truth to this fact:  your thoughts and words draw to you the energy you put out.   How do you want to live your life?  

Today Sera and I drove to Kentucky, to interview bell hooks, the brilliant spiritual activist and visionary. She wrote a must read book for anyone who cares about Love, called "All About Love."

We pulled up through the quiet green streets of Berea, Kentucky, a progressive oasis in this Southern State, past a perma culture village, past the college, (tuition charged on an ability to pay basis), to the small brownstone home of bell hooks. She was in her front yard, putting dirt into potted plants. She waved as we pulled up and called out, "welcome!"

We sat down at her kitchen table, in large airy living room decorated with sacred art. She had a warm, glowing presence, a being infused with love.

I told her how much her book had meant to me, in my personal journey to understanding love, and how important love was to everything - to spirituality, to politics, to life on earth and beyond. Her definition of true love is the commitment to enhance your own or anothers spiritual growth. For her, love is at the core of everything. It is the meaning of life. Love and domination cannot coexist. An abusive relationship and a loving relationship cannot coexist, though sometimes people trick themselves into believing that is possible. She explained that since she had left New York City and returned to her roots in Kentucky, she’d been doing a lot of gardening, working in the land. And she was coming to see love like the way one tends a plant – watering just the right amount, not too much, not too little, giving what is needed. But not forcing the buds to open. Allowing for the autonomy of the plants own process. Autonomy does not mean seperation or the rampant individualism of post-modern narcissitic society. It means the freedom to truly be yourself, and that can happen in relation to others, fully. Freedom and commitment can co-exist.

Bell began her work on love after teaching children, and discovering that for many of them, the concept of love was foreign, a joke even. To encounter cynicism amongst these tender souls was heartbreaking to bell, and she became determined to work to address this grave issue, the issue of the lovelessness of western society.

Love is about joining in community, about connection, and this is very threatening to dominator culture, which has an investment in maintaining our disconnection. The creation of love allows justice to prevail. Love says there is nothing that can’t be healed.

Love allows us to move beyond fear. We need to respect our fear, bow to the dragon that is fear, and recognize that we will never be completely free from fear. But we can proceed with life, despite our fear, realize that the fear is not us.

Fierce Light for her, is awareness, fierce compassion, fierce love, opening to that which is, fully. The sacred is to be found in every moment, not in an isolated context, not in some distant enlightenment. It is in the flash of a red cardinal across the sky, in the new blooms of a lily in her garden.


_______________________


Velcrow Ripper