12 May 2017 ~ 1 Dec 2018
Updated: Friday, October 28, 2022 (this page not reviewed)
Jonathan Cloud & Victoria Zelin-Cloud*
In a sense, one could argue that the idea for this book began at the Big Bang (14.7 billion years ago, which we currently take to be the beginning of everything); or of the Earth (4.5 billion years ago); or of our species (arguably, between 200,000 and 2.5 million years ago, depending on who you count as part of our “species”). That it is now coming into being is just a function of the unfolding of the Universe, which will of course go on unfolding after it is written. When it is complete, it will represent another small step in that unfolding, which for better or worse will help to shape the future of life as we know it.
If any of us “creates” something, the reality is that we didn’t create it by ourselves, on our own. Everything we do is part of a larger reality, to which everyone and everything is contributing all the time. We just happened to have an idea, which came to us in the midst of our experiences, and as a result of all of our experiences, and is really not just “our idea,” but is something that actually belongs to everyone. We’re part of that same whole, which we can think of as The Big Story, and specifically of the history of human thought, which is actually a part of that big story also.
“A Possible Planet” is our way of thinking about the world that we would want to give birth to, the world I would create if it were up to me. Rudolf Steiner once said the he offered observations that were neither prescriptive nor Utopian, but rather “how people would arrange things for themselves” if they were given the freedom to do so. Freed from distortions imposed by outmoded political, economic and religious structures, Steiner wrote,
- every individual would freely express and live by his religious and spiritual beliefs – and would confer that right on every other individual (Cultural Life);
- every individual would enjoy equal political rights – and would honor every other individual’s political rights (Rights Life); and
- every individual’s economic life would be based on the recognition of our universal interdependence with other people for all our material needs (Economic Life).1
To which we would add that every individual would experience his kinship with all of Nature and of physical existence, and would naturally take care of the biosphere, and work to enrich it for the benefit of all. This is, in Charles Eisenstein’s terms, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.” It’s Bucky Fuller’s idea of a world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out.
Now you can say that this is pure idealism, and in some respects this is true. The world we live in works poorly for most, and the vast majority of us are “left out.” But the ideal serves as a standard of what ought to be possible, given that we can conceive of it, and of how to achieve it.
The “possible planet” we’re talking about, then, is one that works at least moderately well for all of life; and ideally one is prosperous, sustainable, and regenerative for everyone. “A world that works for everyone, with no-one and nothing left out.” Evidently this is not probable, but it is useful to consider what this might mean. A world that works for everyone is a world that works for you and me, as well as for everyone else. And nothing in your life is ever “left out.” If we experience it, it’s real, i.e., it’s a real experience of whatever it is that we’re experiencing.
There is a philosophy which holds that all of what we call “reality” is a sort of illusion: it’s being created in each moment out of quarks that can be both there and not there. But we’re also the ones creating it. Much of the world we believe is there, like “money” or “government” or “philosophy,” is there because we believe it, and it has no other reality. Each of these is in reality a body of thought, not of things. But there are also real things, things we taste and drive around in and bump into — like the Earth, and its atmosphere, and its habitability for human and other life-forms. We need to take it all in, and imagine it working to benefit everyone, or at least a majority of the Earth’s citizens, rather than simply a select few.
That this is even worth saying is because of what Eisenstein calls the Story of Separation that humans have accepted over thousands of years, but that is now increasingly revealed as a dangerous illusion.
* While I, Jonathan, am the sole writer—and will from time to time lapse into speaking only for myself—the ideas in this book are the creation of both of us. Both practically and intellectually we have been inseparable for thirty-five years. Perhaps what we enjoy most these days is sitting on our top-story deck, looking out thirty miles south down Washington Valley, [having a joint or two] and allowing ourselves to explore together the many worlds we find ourselves in. Perhaps we are watching a slow-motion global train wreck from our perch near the summit of the Lower Watching Mountains. Perhaps we need to relay the alarm we are hearing from colleagues and friends across the globe. But since the crisis isn’t yet upon us, we have both the luxury and the responsibility to reflect on what is happening, and on what we and the rest of humanity can and ought to be doing about it.
1 Source: http://www.threefold.org/about_us/page1.aspx