Image: elitedaily.com

Question: Do we need to leave the U.S. in order to avoid “what’s coming down”?

I’m betting that we don’t. But we DO need to begin pulling up the stakes we’ve consciously and unconsciously pounded into the invisible nodes of the matrix illusion. Not an easy task. But very, very freeing.

Start as slowly as you need to without panic. And if you do panic, then breathe your way through. Don’t worry, each time it wells up, that panic will also subside — IF you consciously notice it, honor it, and allow it to release.

And P.S, Let’s do it BEFORE full-on system collapse; let us participate with neighbors and friends via a slow, sure descent into a much more simple and satisfying life and thus, bypass catastrophe!

But of course, that may be wishful thinking. We cannot choose what the rest of this seemingly crazed, numbed out, dumbed down so-called civilization will do, nor can we control the parameters within our own lives in the event of sudden whooshing financial and/or geopolitical and/or climactic collapse. And because of the utter certainty of that uncertainty, as Joanna Macy points out, the most important shift is not external but internal. We must prepare ourselves internally for WHATEVER comes next.

Via Keith.

Pulling the Plug: Part 1

and

Pulling the Plug: Part 2

Excerpt:
When the Czechs and Slovaks withdrew from public life into private and family affairs after the 1968 Soviet invasion, I was grievously disappointed. I envied the Poles their active and celebrated opposition. Now I see it as the sanest response they could have mounted. They withdrew from the system. They laughed at it in a million clever jokes. They worked as little as possible, they taught their own kids to look under the surface and see the lies, they believed nothing official but found their own sources of news, they created connected networks of craftspeople and others with useful skills to trade and get things done privately. And they put most of their energy into living. The system weakened; how could it not? The power structure, artificially propped up by Moscow, collapsed overnight when the Soviets could no longer ride in with the big stick. My old countrymen and women paddled with the current, while the power elites struggled against it, trying hard to control the situation. To no avail. It is a lot easier to harass a few dissidents than to go after millions of people who are most notable by… doing as little for the system as they can get away with, just minding their everyday lives, and not believing anything you say.