“It’s been said that crisis precipitates evolution. Judging by the current political climate, the chances of precipitation are 100%.” – Swami Beyondananda

More than 20 years ago, Bruce Lipton and I established a bond of friendship that led to a worldwide bestselling book, Spontaneous Evolution, now in more than 25 languages. That co-creation has informed my own work ever since.

Bruce’s latest book, Beyond Darwin: How Epigenetics, Quantum Science, and Cooperation Shape Humanity’s Future, coalesces a lifetime of leading edge work into a “unified theory of Conscious Evolution backed by hard science, offering evidence-based optimism precisely when we need it most.”

Bruce calls it Conscious Evolution …Glenn Aparicio Parry calls it Original Love … Richard Flyer calls it Symbiotic Culture … I call it the Great Upwising. We’re all talking about the same thing -- an intentional spiritual evolution to become conscious co-creators of heaven on earth. If that sounds “utopian,” Bruce Lipton tells us that the cells in our body would simply call it “health.”

If you’re looking to get a meta-view of our current world “shituation” and see things in a deeper, broader and higher context, please check out this encouraging and inspiring conversation.

In the now nearly seventeen years since Spontaneous Evolution, Bruce has continued to deepen and refine his understanding of biological science and quantum physics, that reaffirm our interconnectedness with everyone and everything. Einstein said that the field is the sole governing agency over the particle – and Bruce shows how “reductionist” medicine has us focusing on the visible particles instead of the invisible field that moves the particles around.

Like the experiment your sixth grade science teacher did where he or she spilled iron filings on a piece of paper. As soon as the teacher placed a magnet underneath the paper, the iron filings arranged themselves in the pattern of the magnet. Without understanding the invisible magnetic field, it would be easy to conclude, “Wow … those are some very intelligent iron filings!”

Bruce takes us beyond deterministic and reductionist scientific materialism to a more complete, holistic view of life and our place in it. In Spontaneous Evolution, we called the limiting beliefs we’ve been told to accept as reality, myth-perceptions. Below is a chart with the myths Bruce is seeking to replace.

Perhaps the most encouraging implication of Bruce’s work is that evolution isn’t something that merely happened to us in the past. It is happening through us now. If our perceptions and environment influence our biology, if cooperation is as fundamental to evolution as competition, and if we are participants in Nature rather than separate from it, then changing the story we live by can help change the world we create.

And that brings us back to the Great Upwising. The old story of separation has brought us to a place where doubling down on the same obsolete – and obsolethal -- battlefield only deepens the divide. The emerging story invites us onto a different playing field—one where our evolutionary advantage is not survival of the toughest, loudest, or most heavily armed, but our growing capacity to fit together, cooperate, and create mutual benefit.

Survival of the fittest got us where we are. Thrival of the fittingest may be what gets us where we need to go.

Check out Bruce’s new book here.

And if you’re in the Santa Cruz area this Saturday, August 22^nd, consider joining Bruce to celebrate the launch of his book – An Evening of Music, Hope, and Insight featuring bestselling author and renowned cell biologist Bruce Lipton, PhD, musician and healing arts educator, Lauren Monroe, legendary Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen, and an all-star ensemble including Joshua Ray Gooch, Carey Frank, Rachel Mazer, Dylan Rose, and Matthew Starr.

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All you need is love, right?

Yes … and according to author, ecopsychologist and explorer of indigenous wisdom Glenn Aparicio Parry, you also need respect, kinship and relationship, all of which make love tangible and present.

In his latest book, Original Love: The Timeless Source of Wholeness, Parry invites readers to rediscover love not as merely a personal emotion or romantic ideal, but as the timeless, foundational force of the cosmos—the original source of relationship, belonging, and life itself.

Love isn’t something we “do” or merely feel. It is a way of being. He tells us:

“The future is not about inventing a new wisdom. It is about retrieving the wisdom left by the side of the trail.”

That wisdom is indigenous wisdom, yes – and more deeply, as Glenn discovered, it is what he calls Original Feminine Wisdom. As Western civilization has “progressed” over the past five millennia—first emphasizing transcendence through a patriarchal image of God, and later embracing a scientific materialism where “only matter matters”—the relational, nurturing, and cooperative wisdom of the feminine has gradually been pushed to the margins.

Consider this …

What if your V8 engine was operating with just four cylinders?

What if you had just one eye …one lung …one kidney …one half of your brain …and could use just one side of your body?

Would you be operating at maximum capacity?

Welcome to Western Civilization.

From Politics to Love

Musings on contemporary events, nature writing, the true essence of love, and more.

By Glenn Aparicio Parry

Glenn Parry’s invitation is not to reject the masculine, but to recover the feminine wisdom that allows the whole human being—and perhaps the whole human family—to live, love and flourish at full capacity.

And hey, this is not about boys and girls, boys and girls.

It’s about the feminine principle—present in every one of us— that brings the wisdom of relationship, nurture, and cooperation.

Through relationship we see the Divine in one another and the blessings of our differences. It’s what allows unity without uniformity.

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As Bruce Lipton often points out, nurture is what distinguishes mammals from reptiles. It is the “mother principle”—the impulse to care, protect, and help life flourish.

Through cooperation we generate the coherence that allows us to achieve together what even the most well-intentioned individual cannot accomplish alone.

Original Love is what America’s Founders left out when they failed to adopt the Council of Grandmothers from the Iroquois Nation. It’s been the missing piece that has unraveled our civilization outside of the web of life, and the web of love.

The elements of relationship, nurture, and cooperation are the foundation of the coherence that is required to shift from the rule of gold to the Golden Rule. To reiterate what Riane Eisler says in the Partnership Society, this is not about reversing the paradigm so that women dominate men.

The problem isn’t men. It’s domination!

A persistent question among change-makers is, why given all our good intentions, do the dominators and extractors continue to dominate and extract?

Coherence.

Not coherence in the spiritual sense we’re describing here, but coherence in terms of organization. Those with too much money and too much power are way better organized.

The antidote is to bring that wisdom cast off by the side of the trail back into our individual and collective lives. We cannot “dominate” domination on the old battlefield. We need to cultivate and populate a new playing field where feminine wisdom is in play, where relationship, nurture, and cooperation become the organizing principles. Where silence speaks louder than words, where knowledge is guided by wisdom.

So many mind-based systems of change are seeking to innovate, to bring new ideas to bear when something new is definitely needed. And … what if that something new … is something old?

So here is the punchline of our conversation:

The future isn’t waiting to be invented. It’s waiting to be remembered.

And – to bring the Beatles into the conversation, in order fulfill the promise of “All You Need is Love” …we have to get back, get back, get back to where we once belonged.

Want to support the Great Upwising and become part of a thriving community of co-hearts? Join the Jolly Good Fellowship and feed two birds with one scone

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When Bruce Lipton and I set out to write our book twenty years ago, the original title was The American Evolution. We later switched to Spontaneous Evolution because we wanted the book to have universal international appeal, and we were right. The book has now been translated into more than 25 languages.

Our original impulse recognized a connection between America’s founding documents and the spiritual, psychological and political evolution of our species. Sadly, that connection has become frayed, thanks to the distorted narrative on one side that dismisses our Founding Fathers as “white male slaveholders,” and the countervailing distortion on the other side seeking to re-establish an archaic patriarchy.

All the more reason that we now come together above and beyond the bipolar insanity, to rediscover, reclaim and animate the true American Dream. I’m not talking about the all-consuming consumer culture that kept us distracted while the machinery of empire quietly re-created the very power our founders rebelled against.

The true American Dream has always been this:

Individual agency in service to mutual benefit.

Those who profit from keeping us divided would have us believe these two aspirations are mutually exclusive—locked in a perpetual tug-of-war.

Consequently, “freedom” has devolved to mean freedom for our side, and suppression of theirs. How else could you explain the “free speech President” working to quash dissent, and those who once imposed the “cancel culture” now invoking “free speech” as their rallying cry.

Talk about irony deficiency. No wonder the body politic is suffering from truth decay and electile dysfunction.

Each side has weaponized its narrative. The new American Evolution invites the 90% of us who are not sociopaths to gather around a sane and sacred center, end the tug-of-war, and begin a tug-of-peace where we pull together to create what we all want:

Individual agency and collective wellbeing.

These two healthy impulses need NOT be in opposition. When they become “dynamic duo dance partners,” the United States can once again become a beacon for human aspiration everywhere. We seem to forget that every “revolutionary” – including Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh – found inspiration in Thomas Jefferson and a declaration that boldly affirmed freedom from domination.

I’ve intentionally chosen the playful and provocative word upwising to describe what is now required of that slumbering giant, “We the People,” the true “sovereign” of the United States. We are called to awaken beyond woke and anti-woke, to “wise up” to the divide-and-conquer racket that has ruled us -- and ruined us -- and to finally speak in one coherent voice, not to dominate, but to liberate.

The new Declaration of Independence that will lead us out of the “bewilderness” begins by declaring our independence from polarizing narratives designed to magnify the sins of the “other side” while minimizing those of our own.

Perhaps the greatest act of patriotism today is not defending one side against the other, but defending our common future from the divisions that keep us from creating the America we all desire in our heart of hearts. If this vision of a new American Evolution resonates with you, I invite you to watch my recent conversation with Christopher Life about the Independent National Convention — one practical effort to restore government of, by, and for the people by reclaiming our independence from the politics of polarization.

Happy Independence Day ... and may we all continue to wake up, wise up, grow up, and show up.

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You can also check out Swami’s Precedential Campaign and Love and Laughter tour and become a founder, sponsor or supporter. Thank you for being a co-heart on the journey.

Shawna’s Go Fund Me Page.

To donate: https://venmo.com/shawnanewcomb1111

Shawna’s Website: https://www.shawnabluestar.com/

Email: info@shawnabluestar.com

You ever heard of the Doctrine of Discovery? In case you haven’t, it refers to the Papal Bulls of the 15^th century that gave the conquistadors the “right” to dominate and decimate non-Christian, non-white populations, and “discover” new lands pretty much the way Willie Sutton “discovered” banks.

My good friend and colleague Steven Newcomb literally “wrote the book” on the Doctrine of Discovery and the “domination code”, Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. His daughter, Shawna Bluestar Newcomb, has dedicated her work to presenting and animating the antidote to the “dominator code” – the “reverence code.”

In a world where well-meaning folks are encouraged to “resist” injustice – indeed, many find resistance “irresistible” – Shawna invites us to step off the battlefields of the past so we can build a new future together. And while our lively conversation helps identify and understand the enduring patterns of domination that have shaped much of human civilization, Shawna offers a new way rooted in reverence, kinship, healing, spiritual connection, and balance.

Yes, it’s important that we know about the Doctrine of Discovery, and even more important to recognize it as one expression of a much older and larger pattern. As Thom Hartmann observed in his 1998 article, The Lost People, even Europe’s own indigenous cultures were successively erased -- first by the Celts, then by the Roman Empire.

The contrast is striking. Few of us would consciously endorse the Doctrine of Domination. Yet its assumptions continue to shape our institutions, our relationships, and even our inner lives.

Shawna suggests that the reason is the ancestral suffering and woundedness we have inherited that perpetuate the vicious cycle of dominate or be dominated. So, she says, rather than taking the relatively easy path of “opposing domination,” let’s heal the mindset that continually recreates the pattern.

How do we heal those ancestral wounds instead of passing them along to the next generation? By the choices we make, moment to moment.

Make the conscious choice to shift from domination to relationship. Choose to empower love, instead of letting yourself be overpowered by fear. Notice when your “goat gets got,” and what pulls you back on to the battlefield. It’s not that injustices – let alone atrocities – are to be ignored. The “upwising” is about “wising above” the usual responses that keep re-creating the same battlefield, and animating a new playing field where solutions can emerge.

An aspect of the “grow up” portion of the program – i.e., leaving “addled-essence” and maturing as a species – is reintegrating the feminine wisdom that has been de-platformed for millennia. As Riane Eisler points out, the matriarchies of pre-civilization cultures were not “dominated” by women, but egalitarian, and based on kinship – not just with other humans, but with the natural world.

One sign of this awakening is that more and more people are “showing up” in every aspect of life—from personal relationships to community—ready to take the Golden Rule one step further by consciously creating mutual benefit in every interaction.

We aren’t yet seeing the dial move because we haven’t yet reached common accord. That’s exactly what visionary bridge-builders like Shawna Bluestar Newcomb are helping cultivate.

Enjoy the conversation—and may it encourage you, inspire you, and perhaps even invite you to become part of the Great Upwising.

P.S. I invite you to support my work and mission to break the trance of separation and create coherent, common accord. You can join for a year for $80 or $8 a month, and receive book installments and be part of a special monthly call. Subscribe or upgrade to paid.

Signs of the UpWising

To help humanity get off the old battlefield of domination and exploitation and on to a new playing field of collaboration and cooperation.

By Steve Bhaerman

You can also check out Swami’s Precedential Campaign and Love and Laughter tour and become a founder, sponsor or supporter. Thank you for being a co-heart on the journey.

The news cannot report it, because the news is beholden to narratives – and ultimately beholden to those who “be holdin’ the purse strings.” Yes, polarization sells, and fear and anger ensure engagement. But there’s a bigger story than that.

Beyond the decadent spectacle of turning the White House into the Thunderdome, beyond the No Kings protest on behalf of free speech by the same folks who invented the cancel culture, beyond the bipolar insanity that has debilitated the body politic with autoimmune disorder, there is a quieter truth.

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That quieter truth embraces the best of both progressivism and conservatism, reveals the deeper meaning behind “No Kings” and the broader promise of “Make America Healthy Again,” and offers a pathway for moving forward together.

And that means facing the elephant -- and donkey-- in the living room.

Neither political party is the “villain,” and neither is the “savior”. Neither by itself can change the system because it’s the “you’re either with us or against us” mentality that holds the system in place. It ensures that we keep our energy on the lose-lose battlefield, unable to unite to hold the system accountable. Each party’s first priority is self-preservation and we are the collateral damage.

That’s why long-time progressive strategist Eleanor LeCain declared a few years ago that left vs. right is the wrong battle on the wrong battlefield and that it is now “the oligarchs vs. the rest of us.” And this, by the way, is not some call for class warfare.

It is a call to do something that hasn’t happened in America since the New Deal – bring together populists and progressives in a unified movement to end corruption, and bring integrity, truth, and transparency to the endarkened corridors of power.

Such a movement will take “No Kings” out of its current partisan context, and make it the “kingpin” of the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. That document and the subsequent preamble to the Constitution declared that the true sovereign of this country is “we the people.”

Until now, this entity “we the people” has been unable to speak in one coherent voice. I’m not talking about uniformity of belief systems here; I’m talking about people despite varied and often opposing viewpoints uniting around higher purpose to face a common challenge together.

Consider that the Founders of this country included a wide political spectrum, ranging from Jefferson emphasizing individual freedom to Hamilton’s preference for a strong, central government. They shared a common desire to maximize individual sovereignty AND collective wellbeing. That is the TRUE American dream.

Now, two-and-a-half centuries later, we face a common existential threat that our Founders couldn’t imagine. Because of the interlocking authority of what we might call “the everything industrial complex” that combines unfathomable wealth, media control and military power – we are on the threshold of a totalitarianism so totalizing that individual sovereignty AND collective wellbeing are in danger of being “totaled.”

Divide-and-conquer is the “sociopathogens’” racket – unite and prevail is the remedy.

That’s why I’ve come up with the playful – yet utterly serious – idea of the Great Upwising, a fractal awakening and spiritual evolution that will finally allow us to claim the inheritance our Founders left to us.

Each of the four steps declares our independence from the mutually-destructive battlefield, so that we can build the mutually-beneficial playing field that is humanity’s destiny.

Wake Up … to the illusion of separation, to how we’ve been divided not just from one another but from Spirit and our own soul.

Wise Up … to the power of Loving Coherence, the untapped super-power based on the Golden Rule.

Grow Up … from children of God to adults of Good, beyond shaming and blaming to shared responsibility.

Show Up …on a new playing field ready to play a new game – thrival for each and all, intentional mutual benefit.

These may seem like catchy, playful terms but they represent a movement that as yet has no name, one that calls for deepening personal awareness and acting from that awareness. And the “upwising” suggests “wising up”, as in becoming more politically street-wise. It means that instead of reflexively defaulting to one side or another, we “wise above” the racket, and not get pulled on to the battlefield of futility.

I will “boldly” state my point:

The system remains in place because it keeps us divided.

The Great Upwising is the process by which enough of us awaken to our common interest and common humanity to move beyond that division.

Can that happen … really?

I want to share a story that offers us hope and a way forward in times of division and misunderstanding. Years ago, spiritual psychologist Patricia Sun encountered four fundamentalist Christians picketing a New Age bookstore where she was presenting. Ignoring warnings that “you can’t talk to those people,” she spent a few minutes speaking with them. Three of the four ended up hugging her and saying, “That’s just what Jesus taught.”

The fourth resisted, and continued picketing.

The lesson? Most people are far more reachable than we’ve been led to believe. I’ve come to call this the Law of 75. Roughly three-quarters of humanity, regardless of ideology, can respond to love, respect, and genuine listening. A 2018 Pew survey found similarly that roughly 75% of Americans would cooperate in a crisis, even with people they didn’t fully trust.

The problem is, there has been no context for this kind of coherence – until now.

Through Signs of the Upwising, I am looking to highlight individuals and groups helping to bring about or nourish this fractal awakening. Each of the podcasts I’ve posted helps connect the dots …deepens understanding …offers tools for connection … or strategies for collaboration.

My first podcast, with Richard Flyer, author of Birthing the Symbiotic Age: Ancient Blueprint to Unite Humanity offers real world examples of spirit-based thriving communities. Watch video here.

Then, renowned journalist and propaganda expert Mark Crispin Miller helps us learn to discern the “likelier story” in a world of fake news and real lies. Watch video here.

Andrew Freeman presents a model for an online “non-school” that helps build functionality and community at home. Watch video here.

Laura George, founder of Founding Mothers, points us towards a partnership society where the “masculine” and “feminine” become dynamic duo dance partners. Watch video here.

Christopher Life, founder of United Independents, offers a practical strategy to create a coherent independent political center in our country – and an organization to help do so. Watch video here.

Consider each of these individuals resources – WE-sources, if you will – in what the Swami is calling the Great WE-Set …where we the people become coherent enough to set the standard for the institutions of society to follow.

Finally, here is something I referred to in an earlier post.

1965.

That was the year I was the first kid on my block to come out against the Vietnam War. It was not a popular position. My good friend in Army ROTC took exception to it. And yet, just two years later he joined me marching down Fifth Avenue to protest the war.

What happened?

Teach-ins. New information flooding the campuses that offered a deeper and broader perspective to help us “wise up” above the official narrative. We now have a similar window of opportunity to awaken a “critical mass of the heretofore uncritical masses” to step off the battlefield of mutually-assured destruction and on to a playing field of mutually-insured benefit.

I’m inviting you to “join the upwising.”

Share these posts with others. Support us if you can. Practice the four steps in your own life, and don’t forget the all-important fifth step – a vow of levity. Seriously. Laughter heals the heart and frees the mind, cultivates courage and compassion, and sets the stage for coherence.

As Swami says … Humorize …Humanize …Harmonize.

Bottom line is, we ARE all in the same boat. So, are we going to continue rearranging the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic – or worse yet, throwing them at one another?

Or will we build the Love Boat together?

It’s sink or swim. All hands on deck.

Immerse Yourself in Cosmic Comic Consciousness and Get Absurdified!

“With everything else in this country going south, why not go with the flow?” – Swami Beyondananda

Dear Friends:

You may have heard the rumor that Trudy and I abandoned California to ascend to a “higher state” – in this case, Oregon.

Well, the rumor is true. Like so many pioneers before us, we packed our immediate belongings into our Calistoga Wagon (SUV with sunroof) and headed for Ashland, where we heard the streets are paved with granola. We’ve so enjoyed being in a community of proximity, where everything is a short distance away and we run into friends at the co-op or the park.

And now that we’ve landed … we’re getting ready to take off again.

At a time when everything in this country seems to be going south, who are we to buck the trend? That’s why we’re heading south ourselves — back to California for two August appearances.

First, on Friday, August 14^th, we’ll be at the Sebastopol Grange. I wanted to call the event “OM On the Grange,” but the venue settled for Cosmic Comedy Night: Beyondananda and Beyond – Stand Up With Swami, Sit-Down with Steve.

Friday, August 14^th 7 pm

Beyondananda & Beyond
An Evening of Cosmic Comedy

Sebastopol Grange
6000 Sebastopol Ave
Sebastopol, CA
Tickets - $20 Advance, $25 Door
Click here for tickets

Then, on Saturday evening, August 22^nd we will venture even further south, to Santa Cruz (or as we call it “Sanity Cruise”) for another Beyondananda and Beyond event, this time at the Harmonizing Sanctuary – where we seek to harmonize by humorizing.

Saturday, August 22^nd 7 pm
Beyondananda & Beyond: An Evening of Cosmic Comedy

Harmonizing Sanctuary
2880 Soquel Ave #4
Santa Cruz, CA
Tickets - $30 Advance, $40 Door

Click here for tickets

We’re also looking to book other events on the west coast this fall, the Northwest in September, southern California and southwest in October and November. We’re calling it Seattle to Sedona – A Uni-Coastal Tour to End the Bipolar Insanity, and we’re looking for venues and sponsoring organizations. If you believe we need more love and laughter in these “serious” times, please help hook us up.

And for those who can’t get to any of these events …

NOW -- Swami In Your Living Room!

Have Pun, Will Travel – VIRTUALLY Anywhere

Travel is more expensive and stressful than ever. Fortunately, thanks to modern technology (and ancient cosmic powers), Swami can now appear virtually anywhere in the world.

Imagine inviting friends over for a comedy potluck, birthday celebration, community gathering, salon, or “Don’t Complain ... Come Play!” evening. The Swami appears live on your big screen, interacts with your guests in real time, and has a questionable answer for every answerable question.

What could be better than a laugh-fest with friends in a memorable, one-of-a-kind celebration?

We’re also available for “fun-raisers” to help worthy organizations feed two birds with one scone — raising funds while raising the laugh force at the same time.

Whether it’s your living room, community center, church, nonprofit, or special gathering, the Swami can now be there without airports, hotel rooms, rental cars, or jet lag.

Interested in hosting an event? Just reply to this email and we’ll explore the possibilities.

May you wake up laughing, and leave laughter in your wake,

Steve Bhaerman

When I met my first transpartisan mentor Joseph McCormick in 2008, I asked him bluntly, “What’s the purpose of your work? What do you seek to accomplish?”

His answer was straightforward. “I want to make We the People powerful enough to sit down at the table with the empire.”

He wasn’t just blowing smoke. For several years, he had been working behind the scenes to bring together leaders from both political sides to “rehumanize” one another, and find common ground to cooperate. One retreat included progressive MoveOn co-founder Joan Blades, and Christian Coalition Communications Director Michele Combs. The two were then mothers of young children, and became friends. Out of this unlikely alliance, the two organizations created a successful left-right campaign to preserve net neutrality.

The following year, Joseph convened another retreat, this time with Al Gore and Republican climate change skeptics, who he got into the room by telling them it was about “energy policy.” At the end of the weekend, there was a lot of crying and hugging as the participants recognized how much they all loved America.

So what happened?

Why haven’t we heard about any of this? Why didn’t this scale?

Well, short answer – people.

When participants from these retreats returned home, they had a hard time sharing their breakthrough with their “tribes,” who accused them of “consorting with the enemy.” And so the polarization tended to reinstate itself.

Joseph, himself a conservative, felt frustrated that his people were reluctant to engage in dialogue because they considered it too “touchy-feely,” and a progressive meme. He was equally frustrated with progressives, whose idea of “dialogue” was “once these conservatives learn the ‘facts’ they’ll come to their senses and agree with us.”

In 2015, Joseph made a profound life-change. Recognizing that his notion of a transpartisan movement to break the partisan trance had not yet “ripened,” he moved to China to take an engineering job. He met and married a woman who is a qigong master and OMD, and they have two young boys.

Meanwhile, back in the States, ever-increasing polarization — and growing frustration with that polarization — has made an independent movement beyond the current political “bipolar insanity” an idea whose time may finally have come.

A New Independence Movement – An Idea Whose Time Has Come

That brings us to our Signs of the Upwising interview with United Independents Founder and CEO Christopher Life. As we approach the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Christopher is promoting a new independence movement, where we the people choose to think independently, and declare our independence from the two political parties, and the corrupt system they keep in place.

He offers a startling statistic. Depending on the survey, roughly half of Americans now identify as independents ...while those who identify as Democrats or Republicans hover around 25% each. That means that “neither of the above” represents a majority! The problem is, there is no coherent idea, issue, or campaign they can unite around.

Until now.

While politics has tended to polarize on a horizontal left vs. right axis, Christopher and his team have identified a far more useful “vertical” one. At the bottom, there is “commonplace corruption.” At the top, “real representation.”

What this means is, as people de-identify and disconnect with the left-right polarities, they can unite around “real representation” to end the “commonplace corruption.” This, says Christopher — and I wholeheartedly agree — is the issue beyond all issues. Not left versus right, but wrong versus right. Not Democrat versus Republican, but corruption versus integrity.

It’s not about that old battlefield where sane and reverent people on both sides fight each other over identity issues, but where they unite around an IDENTICAL ISSUE.

The identical issue is simple:

Reclaiming a government that does the people’s bidding, not the bidding of the highest bidder.

Christopher’s vision is not merely an independent political movement. It is a movement for civic integrity — one that seeks to unite Americans around transparency, accountability and governance that truly serves the people.

United Independence has created two workable strategies to bring left and right front and center to face the music and dance together.

The first is Corruption-Free Certification.

Just as the USDA offers Organic certification or the building industry offers LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) as a green building certification, this would certify political candidates based on standards for accountability. This would turn “corruption” and “integrity” from abstract ideals to measurable practices, and candidates would be asked to sign a pledge to be held accountable to Corruption-Free standards. Those who choose not to sign – as voters become more aware of the standards – will be at a disadvantage.

The second is Independent Candidate Viability.

What is the biggest argument against independent candidates? In our current two-party configuration they are labeled as “spoilers” who can’t win. The public is sold this view as “reality” – but with more than half the population already identifying as independents, what if it is no longer true?

In the 2026 midterms, United Independents is supporting a slate of candidates in various state and national elections -- my podcast “podner” Michael Maxsenti being one of them. Some are Democrats, some are Republicans, some independents. All are committed to ending corruption and restoring the missing element in government by the people – the people.

Christopher likens the “can’t get elected” barrier to Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute mile some 70 years ago. Since that invisible psychological barrier was broken, some 2,300 other runners have done it. When an independent “runs” and wins, Christopher says, many others will make the run, and many will win.

There’s a lot more to be said …but I will let Christopher say it. I strongly urge you to watch, and share this heartening interview and if you are so moved, join him at the INC (Independent National Convention) in Washington, D.C., September 23-25^th.

Finally, I want to acknowledge Christopher Life and United Independents as perfectly pacing the “Great Upwising” – our four-step plan to heal the body politic and take us from the current political battlefield and uplift us on to a mutually-beneficial playing field.

He is effectively saying:

Wake Up

Recognize systemic corruption and capture.

Wise Up

See beyond left-versus-right narratives.

Grow Up

Take responsibility as citizens rather than spectators.

Show Up

Join a coherent movement.

The rest is up to us.

When a critical mass of the heretofore uncritical masses awakens from the partisan trance, we will finally be able to step off the old political battlefields and onto cooperative playing fields.

And may the best paradigm win.

When America’s founders adopted forms of governance like confederation and separation of powers from the Iroquois Nation, there was one institution that didn’t make the cut — the Council of Grandmothers.

In the Iroquois Confederacy, the elder women had the power to decide if the nation went to war, and could also impeach an unscrupulous or incompetent chief. Somehow the Founding Fathers couldn’t wrap their heads around Martha, Abigail, Dolley or Betsy having final say – let alone input – on any of these matters.

The result? A system born from the desire for individual sovereignty in the context of collective wellbeing has been operating with half its brain and less than half its heart. No wonder we seem to have woven ourselves outside both the web of life and the web of love, and now face a multiplicity of interlocking “wicked” crises.

Our guest this week on Signs of the Upwising, Laura George, has co-founded the Founding Mothers Movement to redress this imbalance, and move us from a dominator culture into a partnership society.

And …this conversation is not about boys and girls, boys and girls. It’s about domination, resistance to domination, and how we can get above the left-right battlefield onto a truly cooperative, generative, mutually-beneficial playing field. And though her organization would seem to be representing the women’s “side”, she offers a growing realization shared by millions across the political spectrum:

The sides are captured.

While ordinary people remain trapped in increasingly bitter culture wars and ideological division, concentrated power continues to profit from polarization, fear and fragmentation. The real question is no longer “Who’s right?” but whether we can create a culture grounded in partnership, peace and practical common sense — where the true promise of humankind is fulfilled through human kindness.

Rather than further entrenching around identity politics, Laura George calls for broad “big tent” coalitions capable of addressing the interconnected crises — political, cultural, technological, ecological and spiritual — now converging worldwide. She puts it bluntly: “Until we unify, we the people are going to keep getting screwed.”

In this lively “conversation for possibility” we explore how institutional betrayal has fractured public trust, and many citizens feel psychologically manipulated. We also cover why and how identity politics has widened our division, how this polarization is manipulated by oligarchic systems, and how the danger is amplified by technological dehumanization and AI without ethics.

The way forward involves awakening beyond “woke” and “anti-woke” to bring left and right front and center to face our burgeoning crises — and extraordinary opportunities — together. It means rediscovering authentic partnership between women and men, rebuilding heart-centered community, and cultivating the “sane and sacred center” needed to fill the spiritual vacuum in today’s public square. At its heart, this conversation is not about despair, but about the possibility that humanity can still wake up, wise up, grow up, and learn to work together for the wellbeing of the whole.

Find out more about The Founding Mothers Movement here.

Visionary philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller called our educational system a “de-geniusing” process that turns vibrant children with creative minds into “oughtistic” grown-ups – those who follow the herd and do what they “oughta” do.

That’s not just hyperbole.

According to a famous NASA longitudinal study beginning in 1968, children entered school scoring 98% in creativity. By the time school was “done with them” that creative genius stood at 2%.

Do the math. Do the aftermath.

Our Signs of the Upwising guest this week, Andrew Freeman, Founder of Coherence Education, has created what he calls “inside out” education —designed not to standardize children into obedient performers, but to help them discover and develop their innate creativity, curiosity, coherence, and authentic gifts. In other words, education not as programming, but as bringing forth.

Or, as I like to call it: re-geniusing humanity.

The system, in effect, “de-geniuses” children through conformity, competition, external validation, and standardized testing that narrows the mind while amplifying anxiety. That more and more parents are choosing “un-schooling” and coherence-based programs like Andrew’s is itself a “sign of the upwising.”

Humanity cannot create an awakened, wise civilization using educational systems designed for industrial-age obedience and social conformity. And besides, as Andrew points out, AI is rapidly making the old educational model obsolete. Students can no longer simply become “nouns” — lawyer, engineer, accountant. Increasingly, they must become “verbs”: active participants in shaping their own lives.

(In fact, Bucky himself wrote a book in 1970 called “I Seem to Be A Verb.”)

In the coherence model, children flourish through project-based mastery, emotional intelligence, creativity, immersion in nature, meditation, collaboration, and self-directed learning. Instead of competing for status and grades, they learn to cooperate while cultivating their own unique “genius zone.”

In short, this is education for the world we are actually entering. The one thing AI cannot replace is the spontaneity of human creativity. This is the quality that must be cultivated if we are to be masters of technology, rather than its servants.

If you want a heartening glimpse into “the future of children” – or looking for a learning environment where your children or grandchildren can experience self-mastery, connected community, and spirituality without dogma, please tune in for this enlightening and hopeful conversation.

Find out more about Coherence Education and Andrew Freeman here.

There’s a quote attributed to William Casey, CIA Director 1981-87: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

No one knows for certain if he really said it, but the fact that so many people believe he did tells us a lot.

Consider this.

In 1…

Read more

Dear Friends, Fans and Cosmic Comic Co-Hearts:

The Sunrise Center and I invite you to be part of a first-ever worldwide interactive broadcast event. On June 12th, the Swami will finally achieve his lifelong dream of ubiquity — appearing simultaneously on a giant screen in Marin County and on screens around the world.

Imagine …sitting in your living room and being part of a live, interactive comedy show!

You can even invite your friends to join you because when it comes to laughter, the more the merrier. AND you’ll be able to post your questions in the Chat, and a few lucky souls will be able to ask their questions, face-to-face, on screen. (Note: Those sitting at the Sunrise venue in Corte Madera watching on the big screen will have their questions answered first.)

Because seriously … these are serious times. Which is exactly why we need loving laughter, heart-opening humor, and a chance to come together in a field of levity so we can rise above the gravity. In this live interactive edition of Swami Wanted for Questioning, YOU bring the answerable questions, and the Swami provides the questionable answers — turning politics, spirituality, relationships, world events and the human condition into an improv cosmic comedy experience unlike anything you’ve seen before.

If we don’t laugh together, we will surely cry separately.

So don’t complain ... come play. Join us at the Sunrise Center and experience the energy in the room, or join us from wherever you are and become part of this grand experiment in planetary ubiquity, community, and cosmic comic relief.

Get your tickets here. Space at Sunrise is limited. Space on Zoom is virtually unlimited. Either way, reserve your place now, put it on your calendar, and begin laughing in anticipation.

Can’t make it, but still want to laugh, laugh, laugh till the sacred cows come home? No worries. The event will be recorded, and those who sign up for the event will receive a link to the replay.

And to further enhance the laugh force on the planet:

Try Swami’s Fool Enchilada Special, five hours of medicinal laughter …and more.

And … if you want to wake up laughing AND leave laughter in your wake, consider a self-paced immersion in cosmic comic consciousness.

May the FARCE be with you,

Steve Bhaerman

When America’s founders adopted forms of governance like confederation and separation of powers from the Iroquois Nation, there was one institution that didn’t make the cut — the Council of Grandmothers.

In the Iroquois Confederacy, the elder women had the power to decide if the nation went to war, and could also impeach an unscrupulous or incompetent chief. Somehow the Founding Fathers couldn’t wrap their heads around Martha, Abigail, Dolley or Betsy having final say – let alone input – on any of these matters.

The result? A system born from the desire for individual sovereignty in the context of collective wellbeing has been operating with half its brain and less than half its heart. No wonder we seem to have woven ourselves outside both the web of life and the web of love, and now face a multiplicity of interlocking “wicked” crises.

Our guest this week on Signs of the Upwising, Laura George, has co-founded the Founding Mothers Movement to redress this imbalance, and move us from a dominator culture into a partnership society.

And …this conversation is not about boys and girls, boys and girls. It’s about domination, resistance to domination, and how we can get above the left-right battlefield onto a truly cooperative, generative, mutually-beneficial playing field. And though her organization would seem to be representing the women’s “side”, she offers a growing realization shared by millions across the political spectrum:

The sides are captured.

While ordinary people remain trapped in increasingly bitter culture wars and ideological division, concentrated power continues to profit from polarization, fear and fragmentation. The real question is no longer “Who’s right?” but whether we can create a culture grounded in partnership, peace and practical common sense — where the true promise of humankind is fulfilled through human kindness.

Rather than further entrenching around identity politics, Laura George calls for broad “big tent” coalitions capable of addressing the interconnected crises — political, cultural, technological, ecological and spiritual — now converging worldwide. She puts it bluntly: “Until we unify, we the people are going to keep getting screwed.”

In this lively “conversation for possibility” we explore how institutional betrayal has fractured public trust, and many citizens feel psychologically manipulated. We also cover why and how identity politics has widened our division, how this polarization is manipulated by oligarchic systems, and how the danger is amplified by technological dehumanization and AI without ethics.

The way forward involves awakening beyond “woke” and “anti-woke” to bring left and right front and center to face our burgeoning crises — and extraordinary opportunities — together. It means rediscovering authentic partnership between women and men, rebuilding heart-centered community, and cultivating the “sane and sacred center” needed to fill the spiritual vacuum in today’s public square. At its heart, this conversation is not about despair, but about the possibility that humanity can still wake up, wise up, grow up, and learn to work together for the wellbeing of the whole.

Find out more about The Founding Mothers Movement here.

When Trudy and I landed in Ashland, Oregon last October to do a Sunday talk and performance at the Unity Center, we were thrilled to see Jean Houston there for the service. She stayed for the show, even offering a bit of wisdom during Swami’s Q-A session. We found out she’d been a regular there for two years, and was a cherished member of that community.

A couple of weeks later, Jean was the Sunday morning speaker, and she shared a story I hadn’t heard – how she and philosopher /priest /mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin shared a walk and talk friendship while she was a teenager in New York City. I already knew that as a precocious child in a school for gifted children, she got to meet Albert Einstein. This new story added to the tapestry of a life well-lived – and well-shared.

She had been scheduled to speak at the church a few months ago, and had to cancel on doctor’s orders. Up until about a month ago, she still attended via Zoom. When she passed a week ago, her caregivers said that even if she didn’t remember details in her head, until the very end she remembered the love in her heart.

I’ve known Jean since the mid-1980s. When I first began syndicating my Swami Beyondananda column in East West Journal in 1985, one of my first “fan letters” was from Jean Houston. I later discovered her father Jack Houston was a comedy writer for Bob Hope, George Burns, and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (and his dummy Charlie McCarthy). One of my favorite Jean Houston stories is about the time she accompanied her dad to Edgar Bergen’s house. She wandered into a room and there was Bergen engaged in a dialogue with his alter ego dummy, asking Charlie deep metaphysical questions – and Charlie answering!

Her dad was descended from Sam Houston. When Trudy and I visited Jean at her home some years ago, among her treasures was Sam Houston’s briefcase, with the fur still on the leather. On her mother’s side, Jean was 100% Sicilian, which might explain the “speecy, spicy” aspects of her nature that made her larger than life. The Swami quote above is something I used it to introduce her at an event in Santa Fe years ago, and it rings truer than ever.

Jean and I also shared an interest in politics. In 1994, she and I were both coaching our colleague Marilyn Ferguson, who was writing a sequel to her groundbreaking work, Aquarian Conspiracy. One day, I got a phone call from Jean. “You can’t tell anyone,” she began, “but I am in the White House now helping Hillary Clinton write her book.”

Swearing me to secrecy, she explained that she was helping Hillary engage in imaginary dialogues with Eleanor Roosevelt, a heroine of hers. Of course later that year, the stupid, stupid article came out in People Magazine about the “psychic in the White House” and the Clintons sent Jean packing. Even now, if you go to “Wicked-Pedia” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Houston) that “controversy” is given more space than her world-changing work over the past half century, weaving our inner worlds and outer culture.

If you read a bit deeper into her bio on that site, you’ll see that John Lennon called Mind Games, a book that she wrote with her late husband Robert Masters, “one of the two most important books of our time.”

So … she has been an influencer since before anyone used the term. As more and more remembrances are published, it becomes clear that her wisdom, her teachings, her exuberant presence has radiated and reverberated in all directions, and her work will endure for generations through those she has influenced.

A life well-lived compressed into “just” 89 years, and given generously to the world, at a time when awakened awareness is required for the survival of our species.

Well done, Dear Jean.

And blessings on your next adventure.

– Swami Beyondananda

Visionary philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller called our educational system a “de-geniusing” process that turns vibrant children with creative minds into “oughtistic” grown-ups – those who follow the herd and do what they “oughta” do.

That’s not just hyperbole.

According to a famous NASA longitudinal study beginning in 1968, children entered school scoring 98% in creativity. By the time school was “done with them” that creative genius stood at 2%.

Do the math. Do the aftermath.

Our Signs of the Upwising guest this week, Andrew Freeman, Founder of Coherence Education, has created what he calls “inside out” education —designed not to standardize children into obedient performers, but to help them discover and develop their innate creativity, curiosity, coherence, and authentic gifts. In other words, education not as programming, but as bringing forth.

Or, as I like to call it: re-geniusing humanity.

The system, in effect, “de-geniuses” children through conformity, competition, external validation, and standardized testing that narrows the mind while amplifying anxiety. That more and more parents are choosing “un-schooling” and coherence-based programs like Andrew’s is itself a “sign of the upwising.”

Humanity cannot create an awakened, wise civilization using educational systems designed for industrial-age obedience and social conformity. And besides, as Andrew points out, AI is rapidly making the old educational model obsolete. Students can no longer simply become “nouns” — lawyer, engineer, accountant. Increasingly, they must become “verbs”: active participants in shaping their own lives.

(In fact, Bucky himself wrote a book in 1970 called “I Seem to Be A Verb.”)

In the coherence model, children flourish through project-based mastery, emotional intelligence, creativity, immersion in nature, meditation, collaboration, and self-directed learning. Instead of competing for status and grades, they learn to cooperate while cultivating their own unique “genius zone.”

In short, this is education for the world we are actually entering. The one thing AI cannot replace is the spontaneity of human creativity. This is the quality that must be cultivated if we are to be masters of technology, rather than its servants.

If you want a heartening glimpse into “the future of children” – or looking for a learning environment where your children or grandchildren can experience self-mastery, connected community, and spirituality without dogma, please tune in for this enlightening and hopeful conversation.

Find out more about Coherence Education and Andrew Freeman here.

Dear Friends:

We are living in times of political “bi-polar insanity,” and the shituation is so serious – it’s just not funny.

But what if finding the funny -- and sharing it – is exactly the medicine we need?

As the “irony curtain” lifts and reveals uncomfortable truths, we need a way to face what’s happening with love instead of contracting in fear. As I’ve learned over the past 40 years, heart-opening laughter and mind-expanding comedy can break the trance of separation. Put another way, levity helps us rise above the gravity of the situation and see from a higher view.

This is neither avoidance nor denial. It is radical acceptance.

And it’s not just about telling jokes.

It’s about learning to:

Wake Up — and see through the trance
Wise Up — and laugh lovingly in your own face
Grow Up — and find the hidden absurdity in rigid positions
Show Up — and commit random acts of comedy in a divided world

This is the heart of the Great Upwising — a shift from battlefield to playing field.

This Practical Program Is For You If:

• You want to use humor as a tool for transformation, not just entertainment

• You feel the weight of these times and want a way to enlighten your load and uplift others

• You’re curious how to see differently and respond creatively

• You’re ready to actually practice this—not just think about it

I’m aware of how “over-scheduled” so many people seem to be (If only they had listened to Swami years ago and gone on the 8-day week, we’d all have more time) and that’s why I have designed a self-paced “fool immersion” for anyone (even those who insist they are “not funny”) who wants to apply this powerful perspective in their lives and world.

Here’s what’s included:

√ A two-hour video webinar, total immersion in “cosmic comic consciousness” that you can watch at your own pace, over and over again.

√ An 85-page “Sillybus” with even more distinctions on the alchemy of humor …the architecture of a joke …the “fool’s journey” and more.

√ Audio Recordings and Interviews including six 75-minute audio tutorial sessions, and six 45-minute audio interviews with awakened funny people, and funny awakened people.

√ Zen Cohens of Harry Cohen Baba e-book featuring more than three dozen insightful (and sometimes inciteful) jokes and tips for how to tell them.

√ 3 Monthly Zoom Calls starting May 19^th so you can ask questions, share experiences, and get additional tips. (Can’t make it live? These calls will be recorded and sent to you.)

You’ll laugh while you learn, and learn while you laugh. More importantly, you’ll learn to see the gravity from the higher viewpoint of levity.

All this for “jest” $99. Click here.

And …you can add in a one-on-one cosmic comic consult with Steve Bhaerman for a total of $199. Click here.

If you’re ready to take humor seriously so you can take seriousness humorously…

Join us, and start leaving awakening laughter in your wake.

May the FARCE be with you,

Steve Bhaerman

Dear Friends:

I have a truly exciting announcement to make!

A song four years in the making — and the culmination of a 45-year friendship — has just been released.

(The Heart of the Matter Is) The Matter of the Heart is a catchy tune that just might re-hearten a disheartened heartland.

Written with my longtime friend, collaborator, and “Foreverly Brother” Matthew Alexander, the song is the pre-release single and title track from his upcoming ninth album. A key reviewer called it “an anthem for our time.”

You can listen here.

And read more about Matthew here.

If it touches your heart, please “like” it and help spread the word.

A Lifelong Friendship, a Timely Collaboration

Matthew and I have been “Foreverly Brothers” ever since we began singing, writing and playing music together in the late 1970s when he was a PhD student in psychology at the University of Michigan. He’s gone on to teach at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, and become a respected marriage and family therapist – and expert on using music and film in therapy. His other passion has been music, and has over the decades released eight previous albums / CDs.

He performed his original tunes “Love Is an Endless Road” and “Songs That Come From the Heart” at my wedding, and we wrote a novelty tune, “The Baseball Game of Love,” that won honorable mention at the Music City Songwriters Contest in Nashville. As that song would indicate, we are also both baseball fans, so he nicknamed me “the closer” back in the 1990s because I helped him “finish” songs that needed a little extra focus and polishing.

Now – like Beethoven – he’s offering up his ninth musical masterpiece. I am honored and humbled to have contributed to his work and career. He is such an excellent musician, guitar picker and “under-sung” singer songwriter. May this song and CD lead to the rediscovery of his other work.

Here is the write up from his website:

“The Matter of the Heart” is more than a song.

It’s a culmination of a 45-year friendship and collaboration between singer-songwriter-family therapist Matthew Alexander, and comedian and best-selling author Steve Bhaerman. From their early days in the practice rooms at the University of Michigan music school …to their novelty song collaboration, “The Baseball Game of Love” that actually won Honorable Mention in Nashville’s Music City Songwriter contest …to the Paul McCartney concert that inspired their highly-acclaimed tune, “Freedom Road” … to the week in early 2022 when Matthew threw COVID caution to the winds and spent a week with Steve and his wife Trudy in the Berkeley Hills to write songs …

A lifetime of heartful collaboration and friendship has led to what might be the anthem of our times. In this era of polarized political paralysis, “The Matter of the Heart” reminds us that it’s the heart that truly matters, and that if Jesus, Einstein and the Beatles agree that we are all connected through love, maybe it’s time for the rest of us to take a hint

Please check out the song and leave a comment!

Yours in love, laughter – and music,

Steve Bhaerman

This week, many in Hungary and around the world celebrated the defeat of Victor Orban’s corrupt autocratic regime masked as “populism.” It’s an encouraging sign indeed that even the most entrenched authority cannot withstand the will of the people, particularly in the light (dark) of what Orban’s rival, Peter Magyar had to overcome to win in a fixed game.

However, that isn’t the whole story. If we stop there, we remain trapped in the same mutually destructive game.

Though Magyar currently seems to be charting an independent course, he will no doubt be courted by another elite gang, wearing different colors, with its own albeit more subtle system of domination, exploitation and extraction. This gang promises a benevolent top-down “new world order” and proclaims, “you will own nothing and be happy.”

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That’s the promise – or threat, take your pick – that caused millions of otherwise sane and reverent Americans to cast their vote for a mentally ill megalomaniac. And while it may seem that the “other” side (whichever that is to you) is the problem, it’s the two-sided gang war itself that has set us one against the other in a deadly autoimmune disorder that is strangling democracy.

Using the “Worst Side Story” analogy, I term the two gangs as the Sharks and the Jets. The Sharks – well, we all know who the Sharks are. They are the ones who bare their teeth, who are the overt predators and don’t care who knows it. It’s easy for men who feel de-platformed in the modern world to fall for this one-dimensional expression of “masculinity.”

The Jets, meanwhile, have a far less meaner demeanor. They are the ones who “jet-set” around the world cloaked in benevolence, yet subtly reinforce the fundamentally predatory world economic system at the root of the problem. They represent the “nonprofits” who use a portion of their profits to mitigate problems that wouldn’t exist under a truly mutually-beneficial system. Yes, I voted for Obama in 2008, but my more blunt mouthpiece Swami Beyondananda had this to say: “Today, the empire has a new face. But it still has the same big fat ass.”

By 2010, the “hopium” high had worn off, as Obama bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street, and the neocon con emerged under “new management.” Just as the right appealed to the stereotypic masculine, the left laid claim to compassion, and the two essential virtues of the heart—courage and care—were set against one another.

The good news hidden in the picture is that there is a sane and sacred center emerging, that is struggling to find cohesion and coherence in a system that thrives on the battlefield. Perhaps Orban’s defeat is a sign of the upwising.

Meanwhile, here in the States, two damaging and incomplete worldviews—the Sharks and the Jets—continue duking it out, while we the people—the 90% of us who are not sociopaths—are forced to choose sides. This or that—our only sanctioned choice, and one offered just every two years. Yeah, we can go on social media and rail against the other side on a daily – even hourly – basis. But that doesn’t move the dial or change the conversation from destructive to constructive.

With Donald Trump as an ironic exception, we the people rarely get to choose our candidates; our choices are handed to us, and when we step outside the corral, the powers that be make sure we’re herded back in. We’ve only to look at Bernie Sanders and RFK, Jr. as recent examples. More than 25 years ago, former Texas Secretary of Agriculture Jim Hightower put it this way: “If the gods had meant us to vote they would have given us candidates.”

Or, as Swami put it more recently, “Daddy State or Mommy State, either way you end up with Big Brother.”

So … what do we do?

First step – regardless of which “side” we tend to side with – is to acknowledge the “shituation.” Under the current system where we the people have to choose one of the two gangs, we are forever disempowered. Like the original Sharks and Jets in West Side Story, people on both sides are trapped in a zero-sum rivalry that keeps us from seeing – and addressing – the larger forces shaping the conflict.

Hence, the Great Upwising, where a critical mass of the heretofore uncritical masses awaken beyond woke and anti-woke, to see we’ve been hoodwinked by rival bands of winking hoods into fighting the wrong battle on the wrong battlefield. Reminds me of the classic story where the Lone Ranger and Tonto are caught in an ambush.

“Well, Tonto, we’re surrounded by Indians. Looks like we’re done for.”

“What you mean WE, Kemosabe?”

So, that’s the first step. Recognizing that WE are not represented by either party, or by the system they keep in place. The second step is even more important – realizing we don’t NEED either of these parties, who seem more committed to controlling us than representing us.

Thirdly, we need to open ourselves up to new ideas and technologies that empower a wise, coherent and independent body politic. In future posts, I will highlight the emerging elements of a truly transformational “politics as unusual.” This “newer world order” includes organizations like Braver Angels and Living Room Conversations, who have been convening locally and nationally to rehumanize all sides. It includes the lifetime work of unsung geniuses like Tom Atlee and Jim Rough, who have already developed techniques to glean the extraordinary wisdom of ordinary people – what Swami calls “A commonly-sensed, uncommonly sensible, commonsense consensus.”

And it includes the work of Richard Lang, whose soon-to-be-updated book Virtual Country offers an independent, transparent technological platform for the body politic to speak in one coherent voice.

Naturally – well, actually, unnaturally – the misleadership of both political parties dread the prospect of an independent American public taking matters into its own hearts, minds and hands. Both the Sharks and the Jets are addicted to this gang war – it’s how they gain support, revenues, and stay in power. To paraphrase (and clean up) George Carlin’s rant, they don’t care about you. They really don’t.

Now it’s time for us – we the people – to face our own addiction: to the rightness of “our side” … to the fear that has been implanted about “the other” …and to the overarching and underlying fear that we collectively are incapable of self-governance.

Again, what we need is not an uprising but an “upwising” where we get hip to the divide-and-conquer game, and withdraw our support for it – energetically and financially. Whatever political evil we are focused on can only be successfully addressed through a “sane and sacred center” off the lose-lose gang war battlefield, and onto a playing field where anyone who plays the game for mutual benefit can win.

As I will show in subsequent posts, that playing field is being readied for us. Now it’s our choice to occupy and populate it. Amidst the noise of our current bipolar political insanity that has taken us to the edge of civil war, let’s remember the Swami’s quiet mantra: “There are no sides only angles, and when we see it from the right angle, we’re all on the same side.”

That is how we will turn the Worst Side story tragedy, into a true musical comedy, Best Side Story, by showing and investing in our “best side” together.

Become an early wiser in the Swami for Precedent Campaign, and support the campaign here.

I had no idea how much I would dislike it.

Why did I not love it?

Let me count the ways.

1. Perverse mixture of violence and sex on the part of the “heroes / sheroes” – sexual humiliation supposedly OK because perpetrated by Perfidia, a woman of color.

2. The absurd notion that a ragtag group of “revolutionaries” could pull off the kinds of attacks they did, seemingly “justified” because they are the “good guys.”

3. The reverse-racist theme – all the bad guys are white guys, all the good folks are brown folks.

4. The statement slipped in – I believe by the DiCaprio character – that “Benjamin Franklin was a slaveholder” was an egregious distortion. A slave-owner in his early years, he became an outspoken abolitionist. Read more here.

5. At the end, Willa – daughter of Perfidia and the suitably-named white racist Steven Lockjaw – decides to become a “revolutionary” like her mom.

6. Bottom line: The film reinforces an exercise in futility — that fighting on the same battlefield can somehow lead to a different outcome.

Yes, I know. This was supposed to be a fantasy, a dark comedy. Why get worked up? Because as my recent interview guest Mark Crispin Miller pointed out, the most effective propaganda often comes in an innocent disguise, to make sure it lands undetected.

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Like most propaganda, there is always some truth behind it, otherwise it would have no credibility whatsoever. To offer Swami’s military analogy: “There is a Colonel of truth, outranked by General Bullshit and outflanked by Major Distortion.”

So, let’s take the “colonel of truth” behind the white vs. brown theme of the movie. Are racism and “white supremacy” for real? Hey, is the Pope a White Sox fan?

Several years ago, my good friend and colleague, Steven Newcomb a Native-American attorney and Latin scholar, introduced me to “the doctrine of discovery.” These were the Papal Bulls issued in the late 1400s that essentially gave white explorers carte blanche to conquer, dominate, subjugate, and exploit any non-Christians they found in the New World. This dictum (hmmm …an apt term, if you know what I mean) has been cited by the Supreme Court as recently as 2005.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Europeans decimated the Native population, de-platformed and destroyed its culture, including the mass killing of millions of buffalo to eliminate a key food source.

And …to understand why this pattern keeps repeating, we need to look deeper — beneath politics, beneath race — into what some have called a psychological or spiritual virus.

That brings us to a book written by another Native American scholar, Jack Forbes, in 1978, Columbus And Other Cannibals. As the title suggests, Forbes identified Columbus and subsequent colonizers as “cannibals” – i.e., having an insatiable appetite, devouring everything in sight. In doing so, he introduced an Algonquin word into our culture – Wetiko, meaning one who devours others to survive.

This term has been further developed and popularized by Jungian writer Paul Levy, in his books, most notably Dispelling Wetiko.

Levy calls Wetiko a “mind-virus” of selfishness and greed. Now here’s an interesting point. While this term was specifically applied to European colonizers, the archetype obviously was already in existence, otherwise why would there have been a word to describe it?

Another book, Unholy Hungers: Encountering the Psychic Vampire in Ourselves and Others, written by Jungian therapist Barbara Hort clarifies even further. What Levy calls Wetiko and the Swami calls “sociopathogens” she refers to as the vampire archetype, something she says is present across EVERY human culture.

Hort makes another point, key to understanding how Wetiko influences the “non-cannibals” among us. She says this archetype exists in all of us as a “low grade infection” that can be activated under certain circumstances, during times of war, crisis, and polarizing narratives.

So what is my point, and what does it have to do with the movie I disliked so much?

I’m getting there.

Here’s another clarifying article by friend and colleague Thom Hartmann, written in the late 1990s. It’s called the Lost People and it refers to his own indigenous European ancestors, whose culture was decimated and lost to us forever, because of this same mind-virus dating back 3,000 years.

And that brings us around to “One Battle After Another” which is stuck on the very one-against-the-other battlefield where Wetiko flourishes. By using evocative stereotypes, the film makes this all about race and gender, rather than focusing on the over-arching toxic “energy field” that is the fundamental cause of mischief and grief.

The same thing that happened to Africans kidnapped into slavery, and Native peoples robbed of the land, their culture, and their lives, happened to Europeans millennia ago – and if we look to Ukraine for example, is still happening now.

Not to discount or diminish the very real corruption and perversity at the top — can you say Epstein Files? — but we cannot address this problem on the same battlefield that created it.

And that’s why “One Battle After Another” is so insidious.

It’s the wrong battle on the wrong battlefield that perpetuates the one-against-the-other mentality that keeps the field of Wetiko alive and well. Even worse, it perpetuates the myth that violent revolution changes things. Wetiko OWNS that battlefield. Revolution is staying inside the same paradigm, a revolving-door of regimes that promise a great future, but devolve into another form of domination.

Did communism, for example, create a “worker’s paradise?” Put another way, how many West Berliners sought to escape to East Germany? Where are the hordes of refugees landing on Cuba’s shore?

To quote the Who, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The cast of characters and slogans change, but the underlying pattern of domination persists.

Nine years ago, in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, I was in search of answers. How could such a blatant “sociopathogen” be elected President? It was then I came upon a truly enlightening article, The Progressive / Liberal Mind: Lost, Confused and a Strategic Failure by Andrew Markell.

I strongly urge you to read this long article in order to gain perspective on the “role” of liberalism and progressivism in keeping our current system in operation, and largely unaccountable. This article is not a slam at progressives, but rather a meta view of how the system stays in place.

Writes Markell about the progressives’ role:

“Their job is to move all the energy and resources for change into a diverse swath of discoordinated efforts loosely bundled around a strategy of resistance. And they have been carefully programmed for this job by the very Extractors they believe, in their hearts and minds, they are fighting against.”

This “consoling illusion” as he calls it, insures that progressives will continue operating on that old battlefield, guaranteed to lose. And that brings us to the most disturbing aspect of that movie. At the end, it enrolls young folks – brainwashed by “flattened” history – to make themselves martyrs on someone else’s battlefield by becoming “revolutionaries.”

Revolution is a lose-lose proposition. Evolution is the only winning strategy.

And so as we approach No Kings weekend, where millions are expected to show up to protest and resist, please keep this in mind. Stand up, step out, yes -- but have no illusions. As long as this is perceived as a Democrat / liberal / progressive / leftwing movement, it will not move the dial one iota.

Remember, Wetiko itself – in all its forms – is the true adversary. It’s bigger than this side or that side. It’s what keeps the sides battling one another.

What’s most important in shifting the locus of power from the rule of gold to the Golden Rule is engaging the MAHA and MAGA folks who are “falling off the wagon” recognizing they’ve been had. This doesn’t mean “converting” them to progressivism, but instead finding a new way together.

Because the victory we all seek will not come from winning the battle – but from leaving the battlefield.

“The truth shall upset you free.” – Swami Beyondananda

There’s a quote attributed to William Casey, CIA Director 1981-87: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

No one knows for certain if he really said it, but the fact that so many people believe he did tells us a lot.

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Consider this.

In 1958, when the Pew Foundation began doing its polling on the topic, 73 percent of Americans polled trusted their government. During the early days of the Kennedy Administration, that figure had spiked to nearly 80 percent. Today? The latest Pew poll reports that just 17 percent say they trust the government.

And this.

When Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in the 1970s, between 68% and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in reporting.

When Walter Cronkite – the last individual to tell the American people “how it is” and have them believe it – made his final broadcast in 1981, trust in media was still in the 65% range.

Now it is somewhere around 28%.

Is it any wonder that the body politic is dazed and confused, susceptible to fake news and real lies?

How did we get here? What has been hidden from us? How do we seek –and find-- the whole truth together?

To address these questions – and provide context for the “American Devolution” we’ve witnessed over the past decades – I spoke with someone whose personal story mirrors our descent from “one nation under God” to “one nation under guard.”

Mark Crispin Miller is a long-time professor of Media Studies at NYU and is recognized as a worldwide expert on propaganda. In fact, he wrote the introduction to the 2005 edition of Edward Bernays’ classic book of the same name. In the early 2000s, he appeared on NPR, PBS, CNN and MSNBC, and wrote op eds for the New York Times.

That all changed in 2005 when he published Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform, a well-researched book on manipulation of voting machines in the 2004 election. His book was ghosted by mainstream media, and -- to his shock and surprise – he was excoriated by the “progressive” press as a “conspiracy theorist.”

I met him shortly after that when he came to Santa Rosa on his book tour. I could see he was still in that transitional phase from acceptable gadfly to pariah. As you will discover in the interview, his being labeled a “conspiracy theorist” compelled him to track the term to its origins – a term the CIA “weaponized” in the 1960s to discourage those questioning the Warren Report on the JFK assassination.

Speaking of JFK, when I was a youngster and he was running for President, I read his book “Profiles In Courage,” about political figures in American history who took courageous risks. There have been precious few of those over the course of my own lifetime – Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden and Muhammad Ali come to mind – but in my book, Mark Crispin Miller fits the bill.

His life and work are a true profile in courage, in contrast to so many of his media colleagues who stayed safely inside the narrative corral—sacrificing truth on the altar of ambition. When I found out Mark’s wife Amy Smiley was making a movie about his life and work, I took the opportunity to have them both on the show.

Not only does Mark help us identify the key markers of propaganda (“propaganda works best when it is invisible” he says), but he provides a rare and penetrating “meta-view” of politics above and beyond the partisan battlefield.

In the course of our interview, Amy pointed something out, and I reiterate it here. Mark’s depth and breadth of knowledge are extraordinary, and I’m sure we could have continued for hours, and every moment would be radically informative. That’s why I strongly suggest you take this full hour with Mark and Amy, and see what he sees that the partisan narratives are dodging. And if you are so moved, support their crowd-funding campaign for their movie, Reading the World: The Life and Times of Mark Crispin Miller.

I’ve said this many times, and because it is such a timely and powerful reframe, it bears repeating. As my colleague Eleanor LeCain put it: it’s no longer left vs. right—it’s the oligarchs vs. all of us. This is what the Great Upwising is all about -- bringing left and right front and center to face the music and dance together so we can create the political coherence to hold the system accountable.

A key to this “Great Upwising” is to seek the whole truth together and create a sane and sacred center where we can metabolize the “awful truth” and step into the “awesome opportunity” to collaborate for mutual benefit. This means “wising” above the divisive and distorted narratives that keep us on the battlefield, and seeing that the body politic has been weakened by an “autoimmune disorder” that have “healthy cells” on each side locked in a mutually-destructive battle.

And …there are forces that benefit from this battle.

If the body politic were a living organism, we might say it has been overrun by sociopathogens — opportunistic forces that feed on division, fear, and manipulation. Like parasites, they thrive in a weakened system, devouring trust, truth, and common sense.

We the people – operating in coherent accord, centered on the virtues and values that the 90% of us who are not sociopaths share – are the “immune system.”

Deeper knowledge and higher truth strengthen this immune system. Mark Crispin Miller is truly a “voice in the bewilderness” on a mission to create a more “street smart” and wiser body politic. Nearly 60 years ago, university “teach-ins” educated the public and radically shifted public opinion around about the Vietnam War.

Today, the “teach-ins” designed to liberate us from the “divide-and-conquer” racket that has debilitated the body politic are happening through the work of truly independent journalists like Mark Crispin Miller – and podcasts like these.

The rest is up to us.

Will we the people “wise” to the occasion? As baseball great Willie Mays said when commentator Howard Cosell asked him if the Giants were going to win the pennant, “I dunno, Howard. That’s what we’re going to play the season to find out.”

Let’s take the field.

Support Mark and Amy’s movie here.

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So … what about the rest of us? What are we to do? How are we to be?

Welcome to the “Great Upwising.”

That’s what I am calling the great awakening where humans – like it or not – must evolve from children of God to Adults of Good. Or else. As Swami puts it, either we will have an awakening or there will be a wake

Our species – and certainly our society – is at that awkward “addled-essence” stage where our essence has been addled by obsolete – and obsolethal (outdated AND deadly) beliefs that have outlived their uselessness. War is one of them. Another is the divide-and-conquer racket that insists we support our side’s “lesser evil,” keeping us from seeking the greater good together.

As my colleague Richard Flyer points out in his book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age: Ancient Blueprint to Unite Humanity, the 90% of humans who are not sociopaths are “islands of coherence” who have yet to connect into a coherent movement -- that could become unstoppable.” According to Richard – and I wholeheartedly agree – the secret sauce is the Sacred Source – the power of loving coherence that infuses every religious, spiritual and secular ethical path, and yet is bigger than any and all of them.

This is not an abstract, but a tangible reality wherever it has been tried – from early Christian communities, to Gandhi’s movement, to Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, the Parallel Polis in the Czech Republic during totalitarian Soviet rule, and Richard’s own experience in mainstream, middle-class Reno, Nevada.

This is a fractal evolution, that radiates outward from each of us, and upward from the grassroots. It’s a movement without a name that cannot be branded, thank God. It is radically-inclusive of all who seek to reactivate the Golden Rule through intentional mutual benefit.

So back to the opening questions … what can one person do, and what can we all do together?

I’ll begin with me.

At this juncture I am taking the humorous work I have done as the Swami and serious work like my book with Bruce Lipton, Spontaneous Evolution and woven these into one package I call the Great Upwising, and it’s playful outreach, Swami for Precedent. If you click on the link, you’ll read about Swami’s mission to bring about “political climate change” (warmer hearts and cooler heads), the 4-Step Great Upwising program (a serious practice cloaked in humor) and you can become one of Swami’s “running mates.”

And … if you are tired of the battlefield where the vast majority of us are losers, and want a map to a truly NEW win-win playing field, you can buy Richard’s Flyer’s book here. This book is about what we can ALL DO TOGETHER.

Lastly but not leastly, if you want to help Swami bring love and laughter to a world in great need of both, here’s what else you can do:

√ Bring Swami to your community, either live or via Zoom (respond to this email with “Swami show”)

√ If you know of any podcast where the Swami or I can appear, make the connection.

√ Join the Upwising and become a “running mate” and support Swami’s campaign

√ Become a master of “cosmic comic consciousness” and bring heart-opening laughter and mind-expanding comedy to the world at large and the world at small.

In these apocalyptic (not to mention apoplectic) times when awful truths are being revealed, we have a chance to metabolize these toxins and empower an awesome opportunity instead – our true heart’s desire for a loving, healthy and functional world.

Thank you for being a co-heart on the journey.

Yours in evolutionary upwising,

Steve Bhaerman