The Perfect World, Astronomy, and The Great Turning August 2, 2009

The Great Turning — written on August 2nd (but we went there much earlier!), by Nina Koevoets, 2009 mentee with Bay NVC.

It is an impossible task to write you about all the things I experience here, because I am simply too busy experiencing!

Now, the Fridays at Metta are always really interesting, but how to capture the last 4 weeks?! Last week we went to a ‘soup kitchen’ where poor people can get a meal for free. The people using this facility are immigrants, seniors, addicts, mentally sick people and veterans. Yes, veterans. We sat with one of them, who served in the Vietnam war. The other person next to us won the lottery and got addicted to drugs. We worked real hard and although most people appreciated that, but with some people you could see there difficult lives shining through. I really wanted to remember the talk we had in the morning, it was about affordable housing (1 bed with table for 600 dollar p/m!) and the stigmatization of poor people. How they are not treated with respect and this was therefore the key in interacting with the people. “You can make their day by just looking in their eyes and smiling!” said Fitz, who gave the introduction. “Something that seems trivial to us can mean a lot to another person.” I like to believe that! How will we not lose faith if we don’t believe that? We can’t assume that we are able as one single person to change the whole world big time. Maybe gradually and with help of lots of like minded people we can, but we should keep our goals attainable.

Anyway…. last Friday was a powerful day. We started off by imagining our perfect world. I was totally absorbed by my dream, no worries that this will never happen. I loovvee to dream! :-) Some people were worried by thoughts as ‘who am I to say what is a perfect world?’ or ‘this will never happen’, or ‘if the world would be perfect what would be my purpose in life?’ Well…. To answer I have: 1. My perfect world differs probably from yours, so in a perfect world everyone has their own surrounding that makes up their perfect world :-), 2. dream big and know what is within your possibilities, it is possible to change the world but not rapidly and not without the help of others, 3. My purpose would be to live in peace with others! As Pancho quoted “if we think the world is weak we want to help it, if we think the world is broken we want to fix it, if we see the world as whole we want to serve it.” So, let’s all serve! [my addition.]

Then Pancho gave us the most positive presentation ever! He started a PhD in astronomy and had a few messages for us, all explained by analogies to the universe. I’d like to share them: 1. always ask questions, nourish your curiosity; 2. remember your cosmic address: Berkeley, California, USA, America, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, solar system, Milky Way, universe; 3. discover what is your star, what makes you shine. To have more or to be more, that’s the question :-); 4. There is one Earth and humankind are its citizens (related to 2); 5. There is a revolution happening, the environmental revolution, or ‘the Great Turning’ 6. If you want to be a rebel, be kind (have respect for all human beings). He showed us this movie: http://www.theshiftmovie.com/ about the Great Turning. A women speaks about how we need 3 elements for change: Actions that slows down destructiveness, structures that differs from the ones we have, that educate us in a new way, and we need a shift in consciousness or values that is both scientific and spiritual. But all this makes more sense when you watch the movie.

Pancho also explained more on why we are at a turning point. Apparently people discovered planets that are twice as big as the Earth and have similar features, but gravity is twice as heavy for example.  What would the creatures that live there look like? Maybe we’ll never find out, the universe is so big! As Pancho told us, it would take us close to 100,000 years to reach the nearest star [Alpha Centauri] if we traveled with our more advanced space rockets that go 22 km in 2 seconds (or something close to this), while at the speed of light, 300,000 km/sec, it takes only 4 years! Can you imagine?

I stop here, because I have to leave to go to the farmers market, where we have a table with BayNVC (my organization), to spread NVC in this world :). (my personal view) ‘Officially’ we agreed that the goal is to provide info for people who want it, and offer listening and empathy for people who need that. We think there is a lack of listening in our society and want to fill the gap.

Hoping to have passed on a fragment of my inspiration!
Love, Nina