AS TEMPERATURES RISE: a new film from Storm Cloud Media (trailer below)

The Great Turning. The 6th Mass Extinction. The End of Ice. Deep Adaptation. By any other name, it’s game-change time on Planet Earth. We face an unprecedented global existential threat caused by non-linear feedback loops of biospheric degradation and social disruption. Our modern life-way of infinite growth and consumption (predicated on the philosophy of scientific materialism and a worldview of separation that together empower a paradigm of domination and “power over”) is coming to a prophetic end. The visible and felt pain points are many: soaring political polarization, toxic info wars, rising global temperatures, collapsing food harvests, escalating income inequality, increased natural disasters, xenophobia, epidemic mental health issues and suicide rates. The list goes on. And on.

Humanity faces an uncertain future while the machine of late-stage capitalism churns on, gutting the planet and eviscerating our souls in the same misguided reach to take more than we have given back, to deliver on promises that could ensure our eventual extinction. We’ve built “castles made of sand,” rendering us in a painful crisis of meaning and disconnect, the Rubicon of a de-sacralized world. The hallmarks of collapse are in the current headlines and our conscious involvement at this time matters dearly in terms of how collapse unfolds and what emerges alongside and in its wake.

The converging Troubles we face today are not only physical, economic, and social but they are deeply psychological, darkly soulful, and unavoidably spiritual. Not an ascendant, rise-above-into-the-fifth-dimension, aliens-are-going-to-save-us spiritual but a place-your-hand-on-the-ground and ask-the-questions-that-truly-matter spiritual.

How do we live fully as human beings on the planet in this challenging time? What does a meaningful life look like and feel like with the backdrop of collapsing natural and human-made systems? How do we truly show up and participate in deep response-ability? How do we grieve what is lost? What does it mean to be conscious of the values from which we’re making choices? Why is addressing collective trauma important in this time? How do we build an increased capacity to embrace change and let go of ways that no longer serve? What is the essence of resilience and how do we cultivate it within ourselves and our communities to navigate the uncertainty and meet the disruptions before us? How do we speak to the youth who are coming of age in this time of deep transition?

This transition will be messy BUT it can be beautiful and it must be in service of the good and it should be met as courageously as possible for the future generations of all life.

We can no longer wait for current governments, authorities, and top down systems in order to take action. And this action will be different for each of us, according to our true path and gifts. Getting to carbon neutral is necessary, but in and of itself not sufficient for the scale of transformation needed. Our mandate, as people of the Earth, is a wholesale shift in the paradigm that in-forms our structures, systems, policies, our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Our mandate is to experiment and evolve together, to discover our gifts and give back to Life in a devotional movement of love. We are awakened to this as agents of love for the future of Life, that will far out last our brief tenure of this one lifetime. The crisis of these times is calling us to this.

I am inviting you to make this project a part of your response too, in helping me make it possible. *Donations are tax-deductible.* It’s an outrageous time to be alive. Let’s live and grow into our better selves together and make this Earth moment as beautiful as we possibly can no matter the outcome, because – as temperatures rise – the crisis of these times is calling us to this.

Read more here: https://www.communitylearningnetwork.org/as-temperatures-rise.html

Community Learning Network is partnering with Storm Cloud Media to support the film. CLN is dedicated to "building stronger communities through real-life learning" and through the New Mexico TechWorks Project, we are working to expand Tech access and education and increase Tech enterprise and employment, especially for rural, underserved and underrepresented communities and community members.