Yes, and the process continues as well. Everything you have said is compatible with what I feel, and what I get from the books as well. It's strange, more and more I feel as if the books are like a portal to a telepathic dimension - the words are less and less relevant for me than the bundle of thoughts and feelings that are involved in the creation of the actual book itself.
I agree that no person can claim to have the absolute truth - it's precisely the agreement and commonality between all people that determines what is and isn't true. However, I like the aspiration towards it. By gathering and improving our knowledge about the universe, based on evidence, experience, consequences and proof, we can move incrementally towards a greater understanding of existence and the universe. Ultimately this can only be achieved by broad consensus among everyone. Therefore this kind of conversation is very important! I will never give up on this goal - unity among people, the feeling of working together on a common purpose, sharing an aspiration, and remaining in communication with one another.
It doesn't go against diversity. In fact this vision of equality and connectedness between people is the only way that diversity can thrive. Otherwise, groups end up fighting each other because they see world views as incompatible. Then inequality and oppression appear.
I'm perfectly happy for different groups to more or less do their own thing. Neither must we to talk much. These messages I'm delivering are a bit invasive and intrusive - same with Anastasia's. Vladimir almost killed himself after their interaction. Same with me after meeting and falling in love with my Russian-American ex-girlfriend top student in women and gender studies and anthropology, assistant to famous professors at Columbia and Berkeley, part of the founding lineage of feminism itself.
To me this reaching out, this publicity and marketing that I'm doing is because there is something extremely wrong with how things are going. Really, I would much prefer be able simply to enjoy life with my beloved family in nature among trusted friends who share similar aspirations. Unfortunately we live in a society where the dominant paradigm - both the mainstream and the undercurrent, the self and the other - are out of balance. Koyaanisqatsi.
I really like Anastasia's boldness in her claims, and especially her willingness to revise and contradict herself whenever she wants to correct a mistake. Then in the tenth book, her son and daughter come along and basically challenge the foundation of everything she's asserted - especially the moral fixation on "goodness" and "light". Anasta comes along as shows decisively the role of "darkness" in the Earthly experience and offers the idea of how both dark and light energies can be united and put to work together towards the ultimate permanent balance of our planet. It may be a reluctant alliance, but it's precisely the union of such diverse opposites that unlocks the most powerful effects.
Nevertheless, it all continues. Everything is revised, and we keep going. We fix things as we go. I find this confidence and panache very attractive, and exactly what the world needs more of in this day and age of widespread lethargy, apathy and incompetence.
Let's do something creative! Make an idea, share an idea, paint an idea, film an idea, create a piece of craft, write a song, make a garden, create something! It's all great! I love people's creativity. I love people! Every person has such beauty within them, and it can always express itself if they make even the smallest effort.
To make that easier, it might be useful to focus on providing the bare necessities of life to every person. And to create a production process for these goods where there is no pollution or exploitation - where everyone is equal, and our actions clean and improve the environment.
I take the effort to write out all these things to you because I care deeply about all the people in similar streams of thought to the one you're speaking from. I can tell that you and these others want the best for people and the planet, and you're kind, polite and quick-thinking. I hope that my experiences can help develop a more robust collective understanding of our existence here, and thereby help us design and implement a way of life where people are much more happy, where there is less pollution and more love.
***
I am with you it is very important to have an equal basis between opposites. Then the setting allows for the most magnificent event of all - the union of opposites. Many of these small words and concepts require updating and improvement. For example, I prefer the word "person" to refer to the broad idea of a person, rather than the more traditional academic "Man" that is used in this translation of the book 'Anastasia'. In Russian, the word is человек (chelovek), which means neither boy nor girl, but both and either.
First........ actually the crop does not become toxic if the subtle value systems are not understood. The crop (or at least a mixed meadow of herbs, grains, textiles and flowers) actually heals us completely and allows us to increase our knowledge and understanding of the world manyfold. All plants want to heal people, when the people approach them with love. We can't keep waiting for everything to get better inside the technological world of rent, employment, pollution, debt-slavery and military action. It's only once we get onto the Earth and among plants, and everything starts to change radically. First in our thoughts, then in our actions.
The idea of "purity" is certainly left up to us to interpret. Anastasia and Vladimir have given it their best shot, to demonstrate a way of live which is viable for all people, which creates zero pollution and removes many of the distractions that prevent the energy of love from growing. They have a real clean, innocent intention here to make life better for people on the Earth.
The series calls for us to think faster about how we are meant to be living here, where value is held, which things we would like to diminish and which things we would like to expand. The first half of the series is mostly a conversation between Vladimir and Anastasia. She tends to make bold statements, knowing that Vladimir is alone in the forest, relying on her to survive, and is very attracted to her. He tends not to believe these claims, then reflects on them, does his own research, and comes to the conclusion that they may well be true after all. Finally, he asks us to check for ourselves and think about this properly.
The second half of the series is more fantastic, made up of imaginary vignettes depicting a possible future for our civilisation on the planet Earth. This is really my favourite part, because it's the most attractive possible future I've ever encountered. It's what makes me confident that this is a winning idea, because there is simply no other option.
There is simply no other plan existing anywhere on the planet that provides a viable future for all the Earth's people in all their diversity. If there is, then let's hear it. Obviously I will support and enhance the best idea that exists. If there is a better one, I definitely want to know about it.
Unfortunately, solar panels as a passion does not let us all survive. Electric cars do not let us all survive either. Similarly, non-violent communication does not let us all survive. None of them are big enough ideas.
We model our live on one of these systems of thought, but the technocratic life full of factories, machinery, exploited workers, debt slavery, deforestation and mining continues. We talk all we like about who does and doesn't feel included by Anastasia's comments, and meanwhile the factory stacks keep burning, the topsoil keeps eroding, the N.S.W. government is building another prison, the city keeps sprawling, the air gets smoggier. At a certain point, we must act - and I see great value in encouraging those who do have the courage to act positively, sensitively in a world as cruel and cut-throat as this one.
The "Ringing Cedars of Russia" provides the idea which lets us all live here on the planet Earth, which avoids the otherwise inevitable catastrophe that comes from a geometrically increasing population in an increasingly fragile urban technological society. The approach is certainly universal - our aspiration is to operate on the common threads that connect all people, and to weave them together into a planetary civilisation where every person is important, every person is equal, and every person takes part. It absolutely and utterly about respect, diversity and free will. Every person and every community has the opportunity to be themselves, with equal dignity, and with their own choice about their actions and decisions. Unity does not mean uniformity.
There is a subtext of violence in practically everything here. It's been ever-present in human history for the last age, and continues today. Two examples which affect me deeply are child cotton slavery in Uzbekistan and child prostitution in South-East Asia. I'm unhappy that the quickest possible idea to end these abhorrent phenomena should be dismissed because it clashes with feminist mentors. I wonder, do these rather lofty academics even know about cotton slavery and child prostitution? Do they much care, or is their priority instead to maintain a following of students and university tenure?
Like all of my questions here, it's not a "rhetorical question". I would accept a genuine answer to that question, and a demonstration of how and to what extent their thoughts and actions contribute directly to the elimination of cotton slavery and child prostitution.
Practically every factory-made item has actual, real, daily violence imbued into it. It also has abstract, imaginary violence about people's feelings. But it has actual, every single day physical coercion, beating, cramped and painful physical violence that we need to stop really urgently.
I agree that feeling nice is really important, but what is one to do when horrendous things are ignored in favour of esoteric arguments about political correctness? Do these people enjoying tenure at fancy universities and telling young people how to think understand the rental scam that has led to the highest indigenous youth suicide ever?
So far, it's not clear that they do. I'm a bit baffled by the energy behind those words, "Universalist" and "Essentialist". I'm baffled because they are defined as "bad" things, with the judgement already intact. I think it's more polite to use words that other people understand easily, rather than obscure, strange words that only exist within the context of a tiny minority of individuals. I think it's quite a drawback of academia that these schools of philosophy are used like that without being very inclusive to the huge majority of people.
Anyway, when referencing people as authorities, I'm more interested to know what they have done to improve the quality of life on the planet Earth. That's a real question - I'm not assuming any answer. I think it's a much more useful way to reference people. Rather than quoting criticism, let's celebrate each other's positive actions.
For example, my approach to the cotton situation is that I own no cotton - neither clothes nor bedding. I make linen clothes from cooperative farms that I visited in Lithuania, and hand-woven hemp from a small family settlement in the Ukraine. I am doing my best to provide these clothes to my friends as well, to share and demonstrate the superiority of ethically sourced materials and increase the value of our items so they are not so easily discarded. Here I am happy to share and celebrate this positive action I have made to improve the environment. My evaluation of these actions is based in actual observations and rationally clear consequences - less consumption of cotton products leads to less demand for cotton, which leads to less profitable production, and therefore less incentive for Uzbeki politicians to enslave their population.
My approach to the prostitution situation is that I practice and advocate that the supreme purpose of boys and girls joining together is to extend the ageless energy of life, the line of birth, the power of the creators themselves. I do not engage or support lustful sexual interaction, or the promotion of sexual imagery which enflames and incites people to pursue sexual activities. I decry this regardless of who is engaging in sexual activity, and so does Anastasia.
It is clearly not my place to tell anyone how they should or should not feel understood by the framework of the "Ringing Cedars of Russia". Was that a trick question?
Nobody here is telling anyone else what to do or imposing restrictions on what is allowed. There are no rules. Or if there is a rule, it is very simple - "share". Stay connected, maintain the interaction. In this movement, nothing is forced upon anyone nor punished with violence. We're not perfect yet, and mistakes are forgiven when they're innocently corrected. God knows and you know that I have lapses and make mistakes, I don't really hide it. But it's important to me to maintain a steady aspiration towards perfect balance, health and, yes, purity. Whatever you say (or someone says), it's OK. This movement is led by nobody, with no centre of power. It's inspired by people's desire to create nice things... things that make ourselves and others happy.
The thing is, you've got to get involved in creating imagery to be included. We're standing around a circle, creating the future we'd like to see in the world. It's really dangerous to fall into the old system, where one person has all the ideas, and the other people respond to them positively or negatively. This thing will only work when many people have the ability to have ideas and describe plans of action about the future.
So if you have a different idea about purity, then share!! Say it! If it's a nice idea, then it will stay in the circle, and keep going around. If not such a nice idea, then it will just fade away, that's OK, too. It's how all of this works. It's allowed to say something, then another thing the next day and another thing the next.
The floor is open for better ideas about how to develop sustainably, how to heal trauma, how to implement a world where everyone is equal, there is no centre of power, and opposites are united in perfect balance.
Anastasia's plan of action about creating a hectare of paradise, raising children in safe, loving and pleasant surrounds, greening the cities, and cleaning up all the pollution is practical, rational, scientifically verifiable, and demonstrably effective in several hundred real-world living examples.
So far, the "Ringing Cedars of Russia" series contains the best ideas I've encountered, in the most concise way I've every seen. It's likely in the future there will be something better, but for now, it's really the touchstone of the most beautiful, balanced sustainability movement I've seen.
It's kind of crazy - even a lot of Russian people, even people living on the RCR settlements don't quite believe me when I say this. I wish I could explain myself better... All I know is this - I've read a loooooot of criticism about the "Ringing Cedars of Russia", but somehow I've never seen anything that wasn't predicted and explained in the series itself. It's like they foresaw all the criticism and already countered it before it even happened. I wish I could explain it better. I've done the best that my energy allows. I'm reading everything you write, I really am. I care about it, I appreciate it, I want to contribute to a model which everyone is happy with.
That's all I have for now....... quite a jumble, sorry about that.
I agree that no person can claim to have the absolute truth - it's precisely the agreement and commonality between all people that determines what is and isn't true. However, I like the aspiration towards it. By gathering and improving our knowledge about the universe, based on evidence, experience, consequences and proof, we can move incrementally towards a greater understanding of existence and the universe. Ultimately this can only be achieved by broad consensus among everyone. Therefore this kind of conversation is very important! I will never give up on this goal - unity among people, the feeling of working together on a common purpose, sharing an aspiration, and remaining in communication with one another.
It doesn't go against diversity. In fact this vision of equality and connectedness between people is the only way that diversity can thrive. Otherwise, groups end up fighting each other because they see world views as incompatible. Then inequality and oppression appear.
I'm perfectly happy for different groups to more or less do their own thing. Neither must we to talk much. These messages I'm delivering are a bit invasive and intrusive - same with Anastasia's. Vladimir almost killed himself after their interaction. Same with me after meeting and falling in love with my Russian-American ex-girlfriend top student in women and gender studies and anthropology, assistant to famous professors at Columbia and Berkeley, part of the founding lineage of feminism itself.
To me this reaching out, this publicity and marketing that I'm doing is because there is something extremely wrong with how things are going. Really, I would much prefer be able simply to enjoy life with my beloved family in nature among trusted friends who share similar aspirations. Unfortunately we live in a society where the dominant paradigm - both the mainstream and the undercurrent, the self and the other - are out of balance. Koyaanisqatsi.
I really like Anastasia's boldness in her claims, and especially her willingness to revise and contradict herself whenever she wants to correct a mistake. Then in the tenth book, her son and daughter come along and basically challenge the foundation of everything she's asserted - especially the moral fixation on "goodness" and "light". Anasta comes along as shows decisively the role of "darkness" in the Earthly experience and offers the idea of how both dark and light energies can be united and put to work together towards the ultimate permanent balance of our planet. It may be a reluctant alliance, but it's precisely the union of such diverse opposites that unlocks the most powerful effects.
Nevertheless, it all continues. Everything is revised, and we keep going. We fix things as we go. I find this confidence and panache very attractive, and exactly what the world needs more of in this day and age of widespread lethargy, apathy and incompetence.
Let's do something creative! Make an idea, share an idea, paint an idea, film an idea, create a piece of craft, write a song, make a garden, create something! It's all great! I love people's creativity. I love people! Every person has such beauty within them, and it can always express itself if they make even the smallest effort.
To make that easier, it might be useful to focus on providing the bare necessities of life to every person. And to create a production process for these goods where there is no pollution or exploitation - where everyone is equal, and our actions clean and improve the environment.
I take the effort to write out all these things to you because I care deeply about all the people in similar streams of thought to the one you're speaking from. I can tell that you and these others want the best for people and the planet, and you're kind, polite and quick-thinking. I hope that my experiences can help develop a more robust collective understanding of our existence here, and thereby help us design and implement a way of life where people are much more happy, where there is less pollution and more love.
***
I am with you it is very important to have an equal basis between opposites. Then the setting allows for the most magnificent event of all - the union of opposites. Many of these small words and concepts require updating and improvement. For example, I prefer the word "person" to refer to the broad idea of a person, rather than the more traditional academic "Man" that is used in this translation of the book 'Anastasia'. In Russian, the word is человек (chelovek), which means neither boy nor girl, but both and either.
First........ actually the crop does not become toxic if the subtle value systems are not understood. The crop (or at least a mixed meadow of herbs, grains, textiles and flowers) actually heals us completely and allows us to increase our knowledge and understanding of the world manyfold. All plants want to heal people, when the people approach them with love. We can't keep waiting for everything to get better inside the technological world of rent, employment, pollution, debt-slavery and military action. It's only once we get onto the Earth and among plants, and everything starts to change radically. First in our thoughts, then in our actions.
The idea of "purity" is certainly left up to us to interpret. Anastasia and Vladimir have given it their best shot, to demonstrate a way of live which is viable for all people, which creates zero pollution and removes many of the distractions that prevent the energy of love from growing. They have a real clean, innocent intention here to make life better for people on the Earth.
The series calls for us to think faster about how we are meant to be living here, where value is held, which things we would like to diminish and which things we would like to expand. The first half of the series is mostly a conversation between Vladimir and Anastasia. She tends to make bold statements, knowing that Vladimir is alone in the forest, relying on her to survive, and is very attracted to her. He tends not to believe these claims, then reflects on them, does his own research, and comes to the conclusion that they may well be true after all. Finally, he asks us to check for ourselves and think about this properly.
The second half of the series is more fantastic, made up of imaginary vignettes depicting a possible future for our civilisation on the planet Earth. This is really my favourite part, because it's the most attractive possible future I've ever encountered. It's what makes me confident that this is a winning idea, because there is simply no other option.
There is simply no other plan existing anywhere on the planet that provides a viable future for all the Earth's people in all their diversity. If there is, then let's hear it. Obviously I will support and enhance the best idea that exists. If there is a better one, I definitely want to know about it.
Unfortunately, solar panels as a passion does not let us all survive. Electric cars do not let us all survive either. Similarly, non-violent communication does not let us all survive. None of them are big enough ideas.
We model our live on one of these systems of thought, but the technocratic life full of factories, machinery, exploited workers, debt slavery, deforestation and mining continues. We talk all we like about who does and doesn't feel included by Anastasia's comments, and meanwhile the factory stacks keep burning, the topsoil keeps eroding, the N.S.W. government is building another prison, the city keeps sprawling, the air gets smoggier. At a certain point, we must act - and I see great value in encouraging those who do have the courage to act positively, sensitively in a world as cruel and cut-throat as this one.
The "Ringing Cedars of Russia" provides the idea which lets us all live here on the planet Earth, which avoids the otherwise inevitable catastrophe that comes from a geometrically increasing population in an increasingly fragile urban technological society. The approach is certainly universal - our aspiration is to operate on the common threads that connect all people, and to weave them together into a planetary civilisation where every person is important, every person is equal, and every person takes part. It absolutely and utterly about respect, diversity and free will. Every person and every community has the opportunity to be themselves, with equal dignity, and with their own choice about their actions and decisions. Unity does not mean uniformity.
There is a subtext of violence in practically everything here. It's been ever-present in human history for the last age, and continues today. Two examples which affect me deeply are child cotton slavery in Uzbekistan and child prostitution in South-East Asia. I'm unhappy that the quickest possible idea to end these abhorrent phenomena should be dismissed because it clashes with feminist mentors. I wonder, do these rather lofty academics even know about cotton slavery and child prostitution? Do they much care, or is their priority instead to maintain a following of students and university tenure?
Like all of my questions here, it's not a "rhetorical question". I would accept a genuine answer to that question, and a demonstration of how and to what extent their thoughts and actions contribute directly to the elimination of cotton slavery and child prostitution.
Practically every factory-made item has actual, real, daily violence imbued into it. It also has abstract, imaginary violence about people's feelings. But it has actual, every single day physical coercion, beating, cramped and painful physical violence that we need to stop really urgently.
I agree that feeling nice is really important, but what is one to do when horrendous things are ignored in favour of esoteric arguments about political correctness? Do these people enjoying tenure at fancy universities and telling young people how to think understand the rental scam that has led to the highest indigenous youth suicide ever?
So far, it's not clear that they do. I'm a bit baffled by the energy behind those words, "Universalist" and "Essentialist". I'm baffled because they are defined as "bad" things, with the judgement already intact. I think it's more polite to use words that other people understand easily, rather than obscure, strange words that only exist within the context of a tiny minority of individuals. I think it's quite a drawback of academia that these schools of philosophy are used like that without being very inclusive to the huge majority of people.
Anyway, when referencing people as authorities, I'm more interested to know what they have done to improve the quality of life on the planet Earth. That's a real question - I'm not assuming any answer. I think it's a much more useful way to reference people. Rather than quoting criticism, let's celebrate each other's positive actions.
For example, my approach to the cotton situation is that I own no cotton - neither clothes nor bedding. I make linen clothes from cooperative farms that I visited in Lithuania, and hand-woven hemp from a small family settlement in the Ukraine. I am doing my best to provide these clothes to my friends as well, to share and demonstrate the superiority of ethically sourced materials and increase the value of our items so they are not so easily discarded. Here I am happy to share and celebrate this positive action I have made to improve the environment. My evaluation of these actions is based in actual observations and rationally clear consequences - less consumption of cotton products leads to less demand for cotton, which leads to less profitable production, and therefore less incentive for Uzbeki politicians to enslave their population.
My approach to the prostitution situation is that I practice and advocate that the supreme purpose of boys and girls joining together is to extend the ageless energy of life, the line of birth, the power of the creators themselves. I do not engage or support lustful sexual interaction, or the promotion of sexual imagery which enflames and incites people to pursue sexual activities. I decry this regardless of who is engaging in sexual activity, and so does Anastasia.
It is clearly not my place to tell anyone how they should or should not feel understood by the framework of the "Ringing Cedars of Russia". Was that a trick question?
Nobody here is telling anyone else what to do or imposing restrictions on what is allowed. There are no rules. Or if there is a rule, it is very simple - "share". Stay connected, maintain the interaction. In this movement, nothing is forced upon anyone nor punished with violence. We're not perfect yet, and mistakes are forgiven when they're innocently corrected. God knows and you know that I have lapses and make mistakes, I don't really hide it. But it's important to me to maintain a steady aspiration towards perfect balance, health and, yes, purity. Whatever you say (or someone says), it's OK. This movement is led by nobody, with no centre of power. It's inspired by people's desire to create nice things... things that make ourselves and others happy.
The thing is, you've got to get involved in creating imagery to be included. We're standing around a circle, creating the future we'd like to see in the world. It's really dangerous to fall into the old system, where one person has all the ideas, and the other people respond to them positively or negatively. This thing will only work when many people have the ability to have ideas and describe plans of action about the future.
So if you have a different idea about purity, then share!! Say it! If it's a nice idea, then it will stay in the circle, and keep going around. If not such a nice idea, then it will just fade away, that's OK, too. It's how all of this works. It's allowed to say something, then another thing the next day and another thing the next.
The floor is open for better ideas about how to develop sustainably, how to heal trauma, how to implement a world where everyone is equal, there is no centre of power, and opposites are united in perfect balance.
Anastasia's plan of action about creating a hectare of paradise, raising children in safe, loving and pleasant surrounds, greening the cities, and cleaning up all the pollution is practical, rational, scientifically verifiable, and demonstrably effective in several hundred real-world living examples.
So far, the "Ringing Cedars of Russia" series contains the best ideas I've encountered, in the most concise way I've every seen. It's likely in the future there will be something better, but for now, it's really the touchstone of the most beautiful, balanced sustainability movement I've seen.
It's kind of crazy - even a lot of Russian people, even people living on the RCR settlements don't quite believe me when I say this. I wish I could explain myself better... All I know is this - I've read a loooooot of criticism about the "Ringing Cedars of Russia", but somehow I've never seen anything that wasn't predicted and explained in the series itself. It's like they foresaw all the criticism and already countered it before it even happened. I wish I could explain it better. I've done the best that my energy allows. I'm reading everything you write, I really am. I care about it, I appreciate it, I want to contribute to a model which everyone is happy with.
That's all I have for now....... quite a jumble, sorry about that.