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March Against Monsanto ... and Beyond - From Disconnecting the Bad to Connecting the Good

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"It's time to make Goliath go lieth down." -- Swami Beyondananda

This Saturday, May 25th is the worldwide March Against Monsanto.

When I think about "marching against" something, a part of me cringes. Yes, I marched in many peace marches back in the day, and even took part in a march to Donald Rumsfeld's house in Washington, D.C. with Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and other activists about seven years ago. There we were, marching up Connecticut Avenue, shouting slogans "and frankly it felt like we were repelling potential supporters rather than magnetizing them.

Maybe if we had a Dixieland band playing, "When The Saints Go Marching In," we could have put some spring in our step, gathered participants -- and made the 6 o'clock news.

Nonetheless, I WILL be in that number when millions gather this Saturday to STAND UP to Monsanto, and STAND FOR life, nature, and the heart and soul of who we are. To put it bluntly, Monsanto -- in its perverse desire to own and control all the seeds in the world -- is a true evil force that seeks to impose the heartless values of the machine on humanity and nature. See this, this, and most especially this compelling video with Vandana Shiva. If you do nothing else " watch this 5-minute message from a true spiritual activist and global luminary. It will put the issue in proper context.

A Hero's Journey -- With Our Entire Species In the Lead Role

In this "shrinking world that could use a good shrink" we now collectively -- as a species -- are in the "movie" that all great movies have pointed us toward. Only this time, Humanity itself is in the hero and heroine's role, up against the snideliest of Snidely Whiplashs -- Monsanto, and those who would impose food fascism on the world.

In this current not-so-mellow drama playing Now in Theaters Everywhere, it's the corporate state -- the power of privately-held corporations "owning" governments and governance -- that has humanity and nature itself "tied to the railroad track," until we acquiesce and give them the "deed to our ranch" (in this case, the ability to grow food locally without GMO contamination). And that makes you and me and anyone else ready to wake up, wise up and stand up " Dudley Do-Right.

And this adversary we are collectively facing " may be the best thing that ever happened to the body politic.

Huh? How is that?

Here's how. About 15 years ago when I lived in Texas, I spent a year doing an intensive chi kung practice that was more martial artsy than most. For several months, we practiced banging first a block of wood, then a brick against our solar plexus. Then we graduated to two-person practice where we hit one another full-force in the solar plexus (don't try this at home!) " and because we had built up the shield of "chi," the energy field actually protected us from injury.  

You can imagine the reluctance of folks -- many of them bigger than I am -- to hit other guys and women, many of them smaller. I remember how our instructor encouraged us. He said, "In striking someone in this way as part of this practice, you are 'lighting them up.' You are calling forth their energy shield, their 'chi.'"

Here's my point.

Like the reluctant hero or heroine in the classic tales, most of us would rather stay home and tend the farm (that was, as a matter of fact, George Washington's preference). However, there is a strong and worthy adversary now calling us forth. The "blows" we have been receiving -- to the ecosphere, the web of life, and to our own sensibilities of what it means to be human -- are making us stronger, and lighting us up.

Having to collectively face this adversary may even be enough for us to discard our differences and gather around the virtues and values 90% of us share in common. It may even call on us to declare not just what we are marching against, but what we are STANDING FOR.  

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Steve Bhaerman is a writer, humorist and uncommontator who's been posing as cosmic comic Swami Beyondananda for the past 20 years. He is the author of seven books including Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From (more...)
 

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