What I actually meant to search for was the Agora Report.
It turned out to be one of those happy accidents that changes how you think.
Because the ancient Greek word agora means far more than a marketplace.
The Agora was where commerce happened.
It was where ideas were exchanged.
Where citizens debated.
Where philosophy emerged.
Where democracy was practicedโnot merely through voting, but through conversation.
The Agora was where a society paid attention to itself.
Crisis of Consciousness
Over the past month I have read four very different reports. They came from different organizations, different disciplines, and different political perspectives. Yet they all seem to be describing the same crisis.
The report showing roughly $79 trillion transferred upward since 1975 is astonishing.
Democracy cannot flourish when economic power becomes radically concentrated.
People lose not only wages.
They lose agency.
The Agora report shows how fewer and fewer citizens possess real influence affecting the lives of millions while the RAND report documents how more and more individuals possess real power accumulates elsewhere by bypassing tax regulations and bribing politictians to pass policies favorable to them.
RAND shows how roughly $79 trillion transferred upward since 1975
III. Climate
Years ago, while writing Sapience, one of my characters reflected:
“Climate Change happened faster than anyone anticipated, even the most ardent climate scientist.“
Later she observes:
“Multis don’t suffer, and so they never learn.”
“In the end, people came to understand that it wasn’t the climate that needed changing, it was human consciousness.“
I wrote these words more than a decade ago. Now, as we enter the hottest summer yet recorded in human history, her reflections ring more true than fictional.
The Garden is an individual’s mind space and is where consciousness is cultivated. The Agora is where individual consciousness meet to create a shared reality.
Recent climate reports, including the landmark Global Tipping Points report and studies published in journals like One Earth, indicate we are rapidly crossing thresholds for irreversible ecosystem collapse. While some systemsโsuch as widespread coral reefsโhave passed a point of no return, scientists emphasize that every fraction of a degree matters to prevent cascading “hothouse Earth” scenarios.
Recent scientific reports and analyses highlight several critical factors regarding the “point of no return”:
The 1.5ยฐC Threshold: For the first time, a three-year period breached the critical 1.5-degree limit. Crossing this threshold is triggering cascading consequences that cannot be reversed on human timescales.
Ecosystem Collapse: Warm-water coral reefs are undergoing an almost unstoppable die-off, marking Earth’s first major climate tipping point. Additionally, systems like the Amazon rainforest and the West Antarctic ice sheets are at risk of irreversible changes if warming and deforestation continue.
Hothouse Earth Trajectory: A study published in One Earth highlighted that continued heating could trigger climate feedback loops, locking the planet into a “hothouse Earth” state. While this points to potentially irreversible transitions, scientists urge that immediate cuts to fossil fuel emissions are still vital to mitigate further damage.
Point of no return: a hellish โhothouse Earthโ getting closer, scientists say; Feb 11, 2026, The Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/11/point-of-no-return-hothouse-earth-global-heating-climate-tipping-points
Are We Approach the Point of No Return for Irreversible Climate Damage? April 2026, DailyMotion — https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa30p8s
Climate tipping points are being crossed, scientists warn ahead of COP30; by Alison Withers, Oct. 13, 2025, Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/climate-tipping-points-are-being-crossed-scientists-warn-ahead-cop30-2025-10-12/
A point of no return on climate,Rebecca Speare-Cole , 13th October 2025, The Ecologist — https://theecologist.org/2025/oct/13/point-no-return-climate
Overshoot: The World Is Hitting Point of No Return on Climate, Fred Pearce, Jan 28, 2026, YaleEnvironmant360 — https://e360.yale.edu/features/1.5-degrees-tipping-points
IV. Getting Rid of Democracy When It Interferes with Profits
The last report forms the last corner of the Public Square. It is the culmination of the three other reports that shows how the shared space of governance, justice, and reality can dissolve faster than it takes to build and maintain them. The report by More Perfect Union about Peter Thiel and other tech lords to circumvent traditional government systems and taxation so that they can mover faster, break things, and make more money.
Not because Peter Thiel is uniquely evil.
Rather because it illustrates a philosophical endpoint.
If democracy becomes inconvenient…
replace democracy.
Replace governments with investors.
Replace citizens with customers.
Replace constitutions with contracts.
Replace public accountability with shareholder returns.
That’s not merely an economic change.
It’s a change in consciousness.
In Sapience: The Moment Is Now, massive Multinationals rule the world after it Falls over the Climate Cliff
More Perfect Union, a progressive nonprofit newsroom, actively reports on the expanding power of corporate monopolies, billionaire-backed “corporate cities” (like “network states” or “freedom cities”), and corporate land grabs. They investigate how massive tech companies and billionaires are attempting to bypass federal and local regulations to build their own corporate-governed enclaves.
Their reporting uncovers how these corporate states threaten traditional democratic governance, labor rights, and working-class communities.
Key Reporting Themes
“Freedom Cities” & Network States: They track how wealthy investors attempt to establish special development zones where corporations circumvent federal regulations (e.g., bypassing the FDA or EPA) to test unproven technologies.
Private Governance: Their investigations explore the threat of master-planned, privately governed corporate citiesโlike the billionaire-backed California Forever projectโand how they disenfranchise residents by placing civic infrastructure into private hands.
Corporate Dominance & Water Rights: Reporting covers how Big Tech data centers (e.g., Amazon, Google) drain local municipal resources, such as in Indiana and Virginia, while receiving massive tax subsidies.
Worker Exploitation: They highlight specific instances where companies construct massive, lightly regulated industrial zones without proper permits or environmental oversights, directly harming the health and living conditions of surrounding working-class neighborhoods.
Sources:
We Uncovered The Master Plan That Peter Thiel Doesn’t Want You To See; June 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iLf2h_fo-w&t=290s
I Live Next To Amazon’s Largest Data Center. They’re Stealing Our Water, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjkaYyysYhA
I Worked At A Google Data Center: What I Saw Will Shock You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLX_w0TtBpY
We Went to the Town Elon Musk Is Poisoning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJT2JeDCyw
This Is the First American City That Will Run Out of Water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QAARB4bNTE
More Perfect Union (media organization) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Perfect_Union_(media_organization)
A lobbying group in the US proposes the creation of corporate governed โfreedom citiesโ — https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1j9o9zc/a_lobbying_group_in_the_us_proposes_the_creation/
Bearing Witness
Sustain the Flame – Full (Best Version) Women’s March on Washington 2017
For years I thought I was documenting history.
But recently, I have come to realize that perhaps history was documenting me.
The thousands of hours spent livestreaming protests, interviewing strangers, watching movements rise and fallโthey were changing my own consciousness.
At the time, I thought the work itself was the destination.
Now I suspect it was the apprenticeship.
The streets of Washington became my classroom. I witnessed hope and fear, courage and anger, celebration and grief. I watched strangers embrace, strangers argue, and strangers discover common purpose. I learned that democracy is far more than elections or institutionsโit is a living relationship between people, sustained only when they continue showing up for one another.
Looking back, I realize I wasn’t simply collecting footage. I was learning to pay attention.
Not the kind of attention demanded by social media or the twenty-four-hour news cycle, where each day erases the one before it. I was learning a quieter form of attentionโone that searches for patterns instead of headlines, asks questions before reaching conclusions, and recognizes that every event is part of a much larger story.
That realization has also softened one of my disappointments. Recently, I found myself wishing that the years I spent documenting these moments had been more widely recognized. But recognition was never the true gift those years offered me. The gift was perspective. They prepared me to see connections that I could not have seen otherwise.
Today, as I read studies about democracy, economic inequality, climate disruption, and the growing influence of corporate power, I no longer see separate stories. I see a single tapestry woven from countless threads. Each report illuminates a different part of the same pattern.
Perhaps that is what the ancient Greeks understood when they gathered in the Agora. It was never merely a marketplace or a public square. It was a place where citizens learned to think togetherโto listen, to question, and to cultivate the quality of attention that democracy requires.
Our modern Agora may no longer be a stone courtyard in Athens. It is scattered across books, documentaries, research reports, conversations, podcasts, and yes, even the streets where ordinary people gather to make their voices heard.
The question is not whether the Agora still exists.
The question is whether we are willing to enter it with curiosity rather than certainty, understanding rather than performance, and wisdom rather than outrage.
Because democracies do not rise or fall solely in legislatures or courtrooms.
They rise or fall first in the quality of our collective consciousness.
Playlist of Bearing Witness to a Decade of Documenting Changes in America
Most people think they participate in democracy every few years.
They vote in an election, follow the news, argue with relatives over the holidays, and hope the people they elect will make good decisions.
But there is another voting booth we visit almost every day.
The grocery store.
The pharmacy.
The hardware store.
The department store.
The gas station.
The coffee shop.
Every purchase we make sends a signal into the economic ecosystem around us. Most of us don’t think about it because modern life is already exhausting enough. We have jobs to work, bills to pay, children to raise, meals to prepare, and endless responsibilities competing for our attention.
We are trying to survive.
Yet even while simply trying to survive, we are participating in a vast system of incentives, investments, and influence that extends far beyond the products we place in our shopping carts.
That realization became the inspiration for a new project I call The Civic Ledger.
The Hidden Vote & The Food We Eat
Beyond Products
When most people buy a loaf of bread or a package of coffee, they are not buying a political ideology.
They are buying lunch.
They are feeding their families.
They are solving an immediate problem.
Yet the companies that manufacture, distribute, and sell those products often take the profits generated from those purchases and reinvest them into a wide variety of activities:
lobbying efforts
political action committees
trade organizations
environmental initiatives
worker programs
shareholder dividends
community investments
civic advocacy
In other words, our purchases don’t stop at the cash register.
They continue their journey long after the receipt is thrown away.
The question becomes:
Where do they go?
Where Does the Money Go?
Antisocial Investments
The first branch of The Civic Ledger explores what I call Antisocial Investments.
These are organizations that have been connected through publicly documented lobbying, political spending, executive donations, or influence networks to activities that may undermine democratic institutions, labor protections, environmental stewardship, healthcare access, or economic fairness.
The purpose of this work is not to create villains.
Reality is rarely that simple.
The goal is awareness.
Many consumers know more about the ingredients in their breakfast cereal than they know about the political and economic systems their purchases help support.
The Antisocial Investments series attempts to make some of those hidden systems visible.
It functions less like a blacklist and more like a map.
A map of influence.
A map of power.
A map of where money flows after it leaves our hands.
A giant barcode city dominates the horizon.
Prosocial Investments
But maps should not only reveal dangers.
They should also reveal possibilities.
That realization led to the second branch of the project:
Prosocial Investments.
While researching corporate influence, I began discovering businesses that were experimenting with different ways of organizing economic life.
Some were cooperatives.
Some were employee-owned.
Some invested heavily in environmental stewardship.
Some prioritized worker well-being.
Some supported democratic participation.
Others remained politically neutral while focusing on strengthening local communities.
These organizations are not perfect.
No organization is.
But they represent something important:
Alternatives.
They remind us that businesses are not natural forces like hurricanes or earthquakes.
They are human creations.
And human creations can be designed differently.
The Turning Point
The Living Civic Garden
As the project evolved, I found myself moving away from thinking about corporations as isolated entities and toward thinking about them as participants in an ecosystem.
That led to a new image:
The Living Civic Garden.
In a healthy garden, many different plants contribute to the flourishing of the whole.
Some strengthen the soil.
Some attract pollinators.
Some provide shade.
Some nourish the community.
Likewise, healthy societies depend on many different forms of contribution.
Cooperatives distribute ownership.
Employee-owned businesses distribute wealth.
Independent enterprises strengthen local economies.
Community-focused organizations reinvest in neighborhoods.
Environmentally responsible companies help preserve the conditions necessary for future generations.
Each contributes something unique to the civic ecosystem.
The question is not whether any company is perfect.
The question is whether it helps cultivate healthier soil.
The Living Civic Garden
A New Symbol System
To help visualize these patterns, I developed a symbolic language for The Civic Ledger.
๐ฉ Democracy / Civic Engagement
๐ต Labor / Worker Well-Being
๐ Environmental Stewardship
โ๏ธ Civil Rights / Inclusion
๐ค Community Investment
๐ถ Employee Ownership
๐ฃ Cooperative Ownership
๐ก Independent Enterprise
โช Political Neutrality
๐จ Mixed Record
These symbols are not intended as moral absolutes.
They are guideposts.
A shorthand language for exploring how different organizations interact with society.
Together they create a civic map hidden within the marketplace.
Every Dollar Is a Seed | “Consumption is never entirely passive.”
Every Dollar Is a Seed
Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned while creating this project is that consumption is never entirely passive.
Every purchase helps reinforce a system.
Every purchase strengthens incentives.
Every purchase contributes, however slightly, to the world that emerges tomorrow.
This does not mean we should obsess over every transaction.
Nor does it mean that ordinary people bear sole responsibility for systemic problems.
The systems we inhabit are often stacked against us in ways we neither created nor control.
But awareness matters.
Awareness creates choice.
And choice creates possibility.
A dollar is never just a dollar.
It is a signal.
It is a vote.
It is a seed.
The question is not whether we are planting seeds.
The question is:
What kind of garden are we helping grow?
What Kind of Garden Are We Helping Grow? “Every dollar is a signal. A vote. A seed.”
Seven Years Later, my understanding of Indra’s Net has grown; however, one thing remains the same: we are all Jewels of Indra’s Net. We always have been & we always will be.
I wrote the following as a reflection from a series of conversations people from around the world had to discuss the climate crisis. As I looked through the materialsย considered and assembledย by the Conference Weaving Now What? Deep Dives that I had participated in, Iย wasย dazzled by the jewels in theย Now What?! Consciousness Deep Dive Conversation Harvest. Immediately, I thought of Indraโs Net. Before telling you why, it is important to understand what this net is. To find out more about their work, visit: Now What?!The art of being fully human in a time of crisisโ
What Is Indra’s Net
According to Wikipedia: Indra’s net is a metaphor used to illustrate three essential concepts:
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
ลลซnyatฤ (emptiness) โ This is a Buddhist concept that has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. It is either an ontological feature of reality, a meditative state, or a phenomenological analysis of experience. [I believe for something new to emerge there must be space for it, thus this feature of reality both outer and inner is essential to all who seek to bring into the world a kinder, gentler, restorative reality.]
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
Pratฤซtyasamutpฤda (dependent origination) โ This concept โis commonly translated as dependent origination, or dependent arising, is a key principle in Buddhist teachings,[note 1] which states that all dharmas (“phenomena”) arise in dependence upon other dharmas: “if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist”. [I cannot think of a more essential concept to consider as we engage together in these sessions and others along with the weaving done afterwards. I always need to be reminded what dharma means. There is no single English translation for this word. Essentially it is the behaviors that make life in the universe possible. I think fits beautifully with us joining together in conversations that seek to understand and uplift behaviors that sustain life on our planet. If we donโt understand each other, we are indeed stuck.]
Jewels of Indra’s Net:Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
Interpenetration (coalescence) โ This concept developed from the Huayan school. It holds all phenomena (dharmas) are deeply interconnected, mutually arising, and every phenomenon contains all other phenomena. Various metaphors and images are used to illustrate this idea. The first is known as Indra’s net. The net is set with jewels which have the extraordinary property that they reflect all of the other jewels, while the reflections also contain every other reflection, ad infinitum. The second image is that of the world text. This image portrays the world as consisting of an enormous text which is as large as the universe itself. The words of the text are composed of the phenomena that make up the world. However, every atom of the world contains the whole text within it. It is the work of a Buddha to let out the text so that beings can be liberated from suffering. [So, there you go. Perhaps this is why Indraโs Net popped into my mind as I read through the jewels, which is only a tiny piece of the harvest and this is even a tiny part of what is happening when we connect with each other and seek mutual understanding. We are indeed reflected in each other. We are the jewels in the Indra Net enveloping Earth.]
How I Imagine Indra’s Net Acting in My Life& with Others
I imagine two wonderous Indraโs Net. One net holds our universe. It is woven by time and space that create the matrix holding everything we see in our universe. The second Indraโs Net is like the first, but this one wraps around our beautiful Earth. All life on Earth create the threads that are woven together to create this web. Humans have taken on an exaggerated importance in this web because of the level of consciousness we have attained. I am not going to delve into my thinking on this nowโฆperhaps laterโฆ but suffice it to say we have changed the matrix from which we were born, and now we have a Herculean Task upon our shoulders to repair what has been damaged by us so life may continue to exist on this precious jewel in the larger Indra NetโEarth.
I think when we come together and listen to each other, we repair Earthโs net. Each of us has a special place and unique abilities that are needed to sustain Earthโs Indraโs Net. Each human being is informed by individual passions, interests, experiences, and failures. Some of us are really good at speaking, others are really good at organizing, still others are healers, and others bring visions. Each human being weaves part of this wondrous web enveloping Earth. To heal and repair our net, Earthneeds all our insights, energies, passions, and gifts.
So, this is the idea that struck me as I read the harvest material from the conferences, deep dives, and other conversations. It seems to me every human being is a jewel in Earthโs Indraโs Net. Through us the energy needed to repair, strengthen, and heal this netis made visible. We are essentially portals of transformation, and it is going to take as many ofus pulling in the same direction as possible to change our collective fate.
I have not had much time to read everything, nor did I have participate in the Deep Dives, but what I have seen is beautiful pieces of wisdom being pulled up from depths inside ourselves. Wisdom that has become submerged and lost due to current ways of thinking and living in our world. Let me stress the weaving being done through our collective action is utterly essential for the moment we are in now.
Given limits on my time at this moment, I am onlyย ableย to highlight a few of the jewels that caught my attention as I looked through theย excellent excel chart being created to preserve some of the harvest from this collective work.ย There are also notes and videos of Deep Dives and from parts of the conferences taking place around the world. My selection of a few of the jewelsย in no way diminishes any of the other jewels.I amย aย simple andย small portal of consciousness informed by my individual experiences, passions, dreams, and failures. All thisย naturally limits what I can see and how I see it. But, then thisis the beauty of Indraโs Net. Each jewel is unique and reflects every other jewel in the net.ย I suspect there are as many jewelsย in Earthโs Indraโs Netย as there human beings alive on the planet, and the energy coursing through the webbing of this net is the wonderous life alive on Earth right now.
Jewels of Indra’s Net
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
The first jewel I want to highlight is one that I saw reflected in several discussions. This is theย jewel of sacred ceremony. We need to remember our thoughts are powerful. They are able to collapse the infinite sea of possibilities in which we all swim into a single thread of reality. We do this by thinking, choosing, and acting (or not acting). Moment by moment we contribute our strand of reality to all the other strands being created by every living being on the planet. As the strands interweave, this becomes our shared reality. Humans have become particularly powerful in sculpting our shared reality by using our minds gifted with consciousness (or cursed โย as many world myths account this moment as manโs great fall). I write about this in other places, so I will not delve into my meaning here, but only say humans emerged from a more primordial state of consciousness into the state we understand it as today. This singular accomplishment allowed humans to not only perceive the world, but to apperceive it. I will talk more about this ability to apperceive our world later, but for now, I will simply provide you with a definition of it:ย
Meaning in psychology โ In psychology, apperception is “the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole.”[2]ย In short, it is to perceive new experience in relation to past experience. The term is found in the early psychologies of Herbert Spencer, Hermann Lotze, and Wilhelm Wundt. It originally means passing the threshold into consciousness, i.e., to perceive. But the percept is changed when reaching consciousness due to the contextual presence of the other stuff already there, thus it is not perceived but apperceived.
Apperception is thus a general term for all mental processes in which a presentation is brought into connection with an already existent and systematized mental conception, and thereby is classified, explained or, in a word, understood; e.g. a new scientific phenomenon is explained in the light of phenomena alreadyย analyzed and classified. The whole intelligent life of man is, consciously or unconsciously, a process of apperception, in as much as every act of attention involves the appercipient process.[1]— from Wiki
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
Theย second jewel is theย significant of language inย constructing our realities. Here again our ability of apperception is powerful for we have civilized and cultivated most of the world simply by seeing possibilities different from what nature originally provided for life to exist. And, so here we stand at the edge of every moment with this power to apperceive infinite possibilities, and language is the tool we use to share our visions of what is possible. So, yes, it is a commanding tool in constructing our shared realities because it allows us to cooperate in collective action.ย
It also comes with peril, as this group of jewels point out, for we can misunderstand each other if we do not take care in truly understanding how words are being used and what is truly being said. Our ability for language is an ability that we have perhaps grown too accustom to wielding. I really like the idea of reconnecting with other cultures and languages. This is a beautiful way to understand how utterly diverse our ability to communicate with each other isโฆ and through communication, our ability to co-create. Human cultures and civilizations have unfolded in so many incredible and diverse ways across space and through time. So, getting stuck in our head with words that have become too small for our current reality is a trap, and it is good to learn how to get out of our self-created thought traps. Gaining perspective of different languages, different cultures, and even different ways of communication (e.g., dance, visual art, dreamtime, empathy), helps us re-appreciate our ability to communicate with each other in so many different ways. This I believe helps us to perceive nuances better for every word is really a universe. Here is one of my favorite shorts by Dr. Maya Angelou – Power Of Words.
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
The thirdย jewelย isย learning to let go of the story. Here the question was asked:ย What are the actions I might take now that allow me to fully offer my gifts in service to what is needed in response to the possibility that everything is going to work our just fine or it is not going to work out? I think this is wonderful because it helps one to understand they can take an active role in telling the story unfolding right now about Earth and her fate (or a passive role). I think most of us began to believe (for me it was around the 6thgrade) that our voice does not matter, that our thinking will never be good enough, and that our internal knowledge is wrong and has no place in the world of educated men (I do use men here purposively).ย
How Indra’s Net Teaches Us How to Let Go
To survive in our modern civilization, we learn how to bend ourselves and squeeze into the tiny boxes of perception and apperception that are allowed by the systems dictated to us by our modern, civilized world. Most of these systems come out of Western Civilization for this civilization has had a huge propensity to colonize the world with its particular brand of thinking and mindset. For humans living in modern Western systems, there are patterns for how to make money, where to live, how much free time to spend with friends, family, or anything else that is important, even how to think and use our minds. Since so many human beings are born into this system, we do not even realize how much control of our shared narrative we have given up by making ourselves fit into this story being told mostly by powerful ones inside of Western Civilization.
Most of us do not realize how shallow the conscious waters have become inside of this great narrative. But, we have been told we must swim only in these designated watersโconscious waters that are too shallow to sustain us much longer. I think other cultures and civilizations have not taught this out of their people. This is why we need our indigenous brothers and sisters, but we do not need to misuse their precious knowledge (as another Jewel cautions), rather this knowledge is inside every person trapped inside Western thinking, we need to marshal our courage and venture back into the deep end of our conscious capacities. This is where our indigenous brothers and sisters can be guides, but we must do the work. And, help each other to take a more active role in telling our personal story that becomes part of the collective storyโฆthis is so important. Active storytelling is a precious jewelโindeed, it is a super ability.
Indra’s Net Helps Us with Endings, So We Are Ready for New Beginnings
Another really critical element in this list of jewels is letting go of the ending of the story. When we let go of what we hope or want the ending to be, we put ourselves squarely in the present moment. This is where our power is. It is not in the past (weโve already been there). It is not in the future (we are notย thereย yet and thus our choices are only future possibilities). It is NOWโthis is where we choose our thread of shared reality. This is where our voice can help guide the flow of the collective storyย being toldย about Earth and its inhabitants. By letting go of our attachment to what the ending needs to be or should be, suddenly all possibilities open up again.ย
In this moment of infinite possibilities, we can get about doing what we are so good at doing. In fact, we have evolved as human beings to not only perceive the beautiful world around us, but to appercept it. I am using apperception in the psychological meaning of this word, as defined earlier: “the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole.โ With this ability, we become transformers. It is what we do better than any other species on the planet, and that is to take our individualized toolbox (the mind) equipped with individualized knowledge, experience, and hopefully wisdom and create something new. Even when we donโt employ our wisdom, when we choose from the infinite number of possibilities swirling around us every momentof every dayand act on one, we collapse the infinite stream of possibilities into one possibility. This becomes our thread of reality.
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewels — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
Indra’s Net Shows Us the Power of Interconnectiveness
So you see, we are more powerful than we thinkโฆ and yet, just like the Buddhist concept of Pratฤซtyasamutpฤda, we are completely dependent on each other making the best choices possible to survive within our shared realityโthe web we weave together. What a dilemma!
The world cannot be saved by one human being, not even by the most powerful and rich 1 percent of human beings. I donโt know how many it is going to take to save Earthfrom the looming climate crisiswe have woven into the story, but it is probably going to take asmany of us as possible who are awakening to our new role as narrators in this collective story. So, releasing the ending you want is essential because to be a powerful narrator, it is essential to see the present moment for what it is and tell this story as accurately as you canโฆ how you avoided the rocks or boulders in the stream, how you saw and out smarted the poisonous snake laying wait in the rocks, how you navigate the stream of possibilities.
Indra’s Net Grounds Us in the Present So We Can Grow Consciously
These are power stories. They have always been power stories from timeimmemorial. Now we must learn how to tell these powerful stories about ourselves again against the backdrop of our modern age with all its distractions, pain, and fear thatcreates chaos meant to keep us docile and frozen in non-action. Or at least trap us in polarized action. Such action simply gets cancelled out by its equal and opposite action by others trapped on the other side of a false divide. It is a trick of the powerful narrators of our time who currently control most of our collective narrative. Too many of ushave fallenintotheir trap, makingus desperately grasp at things beyond our reach. This especially happens whenwe lose the firm ground of our inner reality; then, we are especially at the mercy of nefarious forces trying to control the collective story through fearmongering and other dramatic techniques.
We must grow stronger consciously. This is how we strengthen Indraโs Net because each one of us is a jewel in this beautiful net. We can help each other by giving freely our time and attention to lift each other when we falter or fall. We donโt have to leave anyone behind. When we stand on the plain of our present moment and really see what is in front of us, we are powerful beings. This is a link to some of my early writing and visual storytelling about these ideas. This began to emerge inside of me more than two years ago: Consciousness Waves.
Jewels of Indra’s Net:Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
Fourthย jewel isย pain. Here another critical question is asked:ย How do we create a space for pain? So much of Western Civilization is focused on avoiding pain at all costs. I donโt know about you, but I grew up feeling it was not OK to admit to feeling pain. Physical pain was fine to admit. Everyone can clearly see if you have a scraped knee or broken arm. But, emotional or spiritual painโฆthis was scary. Often it is assumed you did not follow the prescribed rules you were taught, and thus you are the cause of your own pain and deserve to suffer. No one deserves to suffer. Hardly any of us has such control over all the things that impact us, it is ridiculous to blame a person in pain for their pain. But, so often this is what we do. I have been going through a year of pretty intense pain, I can tell you one thing:ย Pain focuses ones attention and time like no other stimuli. Pain tells us something is wrong, and it prods us to seek solutions. When we are in pain, trivial matters, mindless distractions, the things that use to fill our time fade away and the mind focuses on finding solutions. [I captured this idea in a fantastical little story about my trials inย The Divine Dodo โ Hanga Dyra Mingja.]
Jewels of Indra’s Net: The Divine Dodo โ Hanga Dรฝra Mingja — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
So, yes, make space for pain. Do not be afraid of the power pain offers. Perhaps this is what victim blamers are really afraid ofโฆ the person experiencing pain finding their power making them no longer so easy to control. Finding solutions to things causing pain is absolutely critical.
Indra’s Net Is Musical
In this collection of jewels, there is also discussion about the power of music. I write about the power of music in another story I am writing, so I will not wax on about it here. I will simply say our ancestors understood the power of music and how it can inspire action in the minds of individuals and groups. We have forgotten the power that music and dance give us. We have let them become co-opted into the realm of entertainment and money-making. It is so much more than this. It is part of our internal guidance system. Find your song. Find your dance. This is how the universe moves and expresses itself through us. Our magical powers to transform reality rises from inside of us and through usโฆ and it is through our collective action that what rises from inside our minds is made visible through our collective action in the worldโthis is our shared reality.
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Indra’s Jewel — Art by Bรฉbรฉ
Fifthย jewel closely connected toย pain isย grief. Indeed, grief as this group discusses, breaks open the heart. The group also shares a beautiful poem expressing grief exquisitely. Grief connects us to our empathy. Our empathic powers are needed now more than any other time in human history. To me empathy is not just understanding that someone else is in pain or is grieving, but it is the capacity to stand beside the person who is suffering, to bear witness to their pain knowing we cannot take their pain from them, but perhaps we can help them hold it for a timeโฆ maybe help the person endure it, however long it takes.ย
What Indraโs Net Taught Me About Grief
I think really powerful empaths can absorb into their own bodies other peopleโs pain, anger, grief, and the unbearable emotions. I think our ancestors and indigenous people understand how this works and know how to help transmute these powerful emotional states. But, this takes time and skill to understand and most of us in Western Civilization have lost this ability. However, Medicine men and women around the world still possess it, and known how not helping people navigate these difficult parts of the journey can impact the health not only of the individual suffering but of the entire group. In most modern cultures, we have lost the rituals of transformation that can transmute and balance these negative and destructive energies with their equal and opposite energies. It is here where we have our power as individuals and as groups in helping each other find and maintain balance so that wisdom can rise and shine brightly.
Concluding Thoughts on Indra’s Net
This is all I have time to reflect on right now. I wish I could do more, and I am sure my thinking and efforts to communicate are inadequate for the rich reservoir of ideas, thinking, collaborative efforts transpiring through this collective work (collective action of transformation) unfolding right here and right now. I can only encourage each person who has participated in the dialogues or who is just discovering these resources to use your own unique toolbox of thought, perception, experience, ideas to continue strengthening this net we are repairing together. We do this by providing our time and attention in whatever capacity we feel called to do and with whatever time we have available to do so. Time and attention are the most valuable resources in the universe. It really is all we need to be powerful narrators of our personal stories, which of course become a part of the collective story of Earth.
After writing this, I came upon readings and conversations about the importance of emptiness. I quite frankly did not understand how absolutely essential emptiness is when I wrote the above. I intend to write more about it when I have time, but for now I must devote most of my attention to finishing editing the story I began 7 years ago (almost to this day for I remember first finding the thread to the story I have been writing ever since late one September afternoon–this story is Sapience). And so I leave you only with a quote from Carl Jung whom I was reading and finally understood the power and importance of emptiness. He said:
“The archetype corresponding to the situation is activated, and as a result this explosive and dangerous forces hidden in the archetype come into action, frequently with unpredictable consequences. There is no lunacy people under the domination of an archetype will not fall a prey too. “
“If 30 years ago anyone had dared to predict that our psychological development was tending towards a revival of the medieval persecutions of the Jews, that Europe would again tremble before the Roman fasces and the tramp of legions, that people would once more give the Roman salute, as two thousand years ago, and that instead of the Christian Cross an archaic swastika would lure onward millions of warriors ready for death–why, that man would have been hooted at as a mystical fool. And today? Surprising as it may seem, all this absurdity is a horrible reality. Private life, private aetiologies, and private neuroses have become almost a fiction in the world of today. The man of the past who lived in a world of archaic ‘representations collectives’ had risen again into very visible and painfully real life, and this not only in a few unbalanced individuals but in many millions of people”
“There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not in the form of images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action. When a situation occurs which corresponds to a given archetype, that archetype becomes activated and a compulsiveness appears, which, like an instinctual drive, gains its way against all reason and will, or else produces a conflict of pathological dimensions, that is to say, a neurosis.”
— The Portable Jung, The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, p. 66-67
Continue the Journey into Discovery of the Jewels of Indra’s Net
Part mythic handbook, part political manifesto, part psychological field guideโthis 62-page survival document is a razor-sharp reckoning with the world as it isโฆ and a rally cry for what it could be.Wanderlust: A recovered travel journal that begins in a quiet monastery and unfolds into a mysterious journey through light, hidden gardens, and a city that hums with forgotten knowledge.Girl With Dragon is a quiet visual story told through luminous imagery and symbolic design. Centered around a jewel-toned stained-glass dragon set against deep green marbled textures, the book unfolds like a small gallery of myth and memory.The Colosseum of Power is a visual exploration of the forces shaping modern democracy. Through symbolic imagery and stark political allegory, it maps the powerful figures and systems influencing our era. Media empires, tech titans, and political spectacle gather in the arena while the public carries the weight below. A compact illustrated reflection on power, wealth, and the fragile architecture of democracy.Divine Dodo pendant necklace
FAQ Section
Frequently Asked Questions About Indraโs Net and what is in this blog.
Jewels of Indra’s Net: Reflections of Life Now
What Is Indra’s Net
How I Imagine Indra’s Net Acting in My Life& with Others
Jewels of Indra’s Net
How Indra’s Net Teaches Us How to Let Go
Indra’s Net Helps Us with Endings, So We Are Ready for New Beginnings
Indra’s Net Shows Us the Power of Interconnectivenes
Indra’s Net Grounds Us in the Present So We Can Grow Consciously
More Jewels of Indra’s Net
Indra’s Net Is Musical
What Indraโs Net Taught Me About Grief
Concluding Thoughts on Indra’s Net
Postscript to Jewels of Indra’s Net
Continue the Journey into Discovery of the Jewels of Indra’s Net
