Climate change as well as the diminishing of freedoms entices and horrifies the awakened Psyche of today. It also entices the Soul into action. Where does your Psyche or Soul stand?

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Pamela Boyce Simms click here Transition Town was first developed in Totnes, England in 2006. Within a short period of time, Transition initiatives sprang up throughout the world. The reader can determine if there is an initiative close to her via this url: http://www.transitionus.org/transition-towns

The following youtube video will provide a great introduction to the movement (8 minutes long). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuYSDUflfts

Transition projects utilize the following seven principles:

Seven Principles of Transition

1. Positive Visioning

Transition Initiatives are based on a dedication to the creation of tangible, clearly expressed and practical visions of the community in question beyond its present-day dependence on fossil fuel.

2. Help People Access Good Information & Trust Them to Make Good Decisions

Transition Initiatives dedicate themselves, through all aspects of their work, to raising awareness of peak oil, climate change and economic instability. Transition Initiatives focus on telling people the closest version of the truth that we know in times when the information is deeply contradictory.

3. Inclusion and Openness

Successful Transition Initiatives need an unprecedented coming together of the broad diversity of society. They dedicate themselves to ensuring that their decision-making processes and their working groups embody principles of openness and inclusion. (Similar to Rob Kall's notion of "bottom-up" governance).

This principle also refers to the ideal of each initiative reaching the community in its entirety, and endeavoring, from an early stage to engage their local business community, the diversity of community groups and local government authorities. It makes explicit the principle that there is no room for "them and us" thinking in the challenge of energy descent planning.

4. Enable Sharing and Networking

Transition Initiatives dedicate themselves to sharing their successes, failures, insights and connections at various scales across the Transition network, so as to more widely build up a collective body of experience.

5. Build Resilience

Building resilience is the capacity for our businesses, communities and settlements to withstand shock. Transition initiatives commit to building resilience across a wide range of areas (food, economics, energy, etc.) and also on a range of scales (from the local to the national) as seem appropriate -- and to setting them within an overall context of the need to do everything we can to ensure environmental resilience.

6. Inner and Outer Transition

The challenges we face are not just caused by a misuse of technology, but are a direct result of our worldview and belief system. The impact of the information about the state of our planet can generate fear and grief -- which may underlie the state of denial in which many people are caught.

7. Subsidiarity: Self-organization at the Appropriate Level

The intention of the Transition model is not to centralize or control decision making, but rather to work with everyone so that it is practiced at the most appropriate, practical and empowering level, and in such a way that it models the ability of natural systems to self organize. (Similar to Rob Kall's "Bottom Up" governance).

Lets focus on a living Transition example, the Mid Atlantic Transition Hub -- MATH. This organization covers a huge area of the Eastern United States encompassing some of the biggest cities in the world (e.g., New York, Philadelphia).

Facilitating the organization is Pamela Boyce Simms. Pamela is a Leadership Coach and Consultant who convenes MATH, a six-state network of environmental activists working throughout the Mid-Atlantic coastal megacity corridor. https://midatlantictransition.org/math-initiatives.

Pamela works with clients spanning a variety of fields. Within these fields, she cultivates strong relationships that sustain thriving organizations and businesses by cultivating clear communication.

In a Truthout article, Pamela writes:

Imagine a respite from the relentless torrent of bad news! Both The Transition Towns (Transition) and Intentional Communities movements facilitate secession, to varying degrees, from the exploitive culture that surrounds us, and build alternatives that are supported by broad networks. Now the two movements have joined together to share lessons learned about egalitarian community building. http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/34078-for-a-resilient-future-put-community-first

Pamela is a seasoned social change agent offering teams and organizations an experiential understanding of how groups can work as regenerative "human ecosystems". Pamela is a keynote speaker and facilitator of conversations that unleash visionary leadership at work, at home and in the community. Her priority is to foster authentic relationship building in eliciting healthy and positive results. Pamela further assists environmental initiatives, organizations and businesses with group dynamics, change and stress management, conflict resolution, organizational development, and governance challenges.

Pamela is a neuro-linguistics master-practitioner. In this work, she challenges clients to hone in and focus on the infinite power of mind while refining emotional intelligence, and tapping into "heart-mind" (Skr. Bodhicitta). What beauty! What power! Self-Power, your power.

Pamela is an Eco-Buddhist, a UN ECOSOC Representative of the national Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) organization, and convenes the Earthcare Working Group of New York's statewide network of Quaker congregations. Pamela furthermore advocates work that transforms anger and despair into compassion toward neighbors, communities and the environment.

Pamela seeks to cultivate a sense of interconnectedness that can see communities through the climactic, social, and economic challenges ahead. Her intent is to affirm how working with the pain of the world can be a vehicle for self and community transformation.

This reminds me of a Gestalt teacher I had in college who often spoke of "going into the pain." Her idea was that if we did not meet the psychological pain head on, it would resist going away. As a psychology professor once said, "if you do not go through the pain, you remain stuck in it." We can't negate ourselves, or the world. We have to look at our state and the state of the planet with open eyes. We can no longer remain in hiding. Indeed, the polluted state of our minds reflects the pollution of the planet. What's within is without. The outer mess reflects our inner mess.

Transition Town is the step you will wish to take after going through the pain of your mess while realizing you are living on a planet housing sociopathic authorities who are destroying our world. Yet, it is not the authorities that we need to change. We need to change. Transition Town fosters change within communities and within our self. We can make the Koch Brothers, Rothchilds and Trumps things of the past.

Wake up from the nightmare and transition into a bountiful and beautiful world. That world begins in you. When you realize your power, bounty and beauty within, the world will blossom once more.

A video of Pamela's beautiful discussion regarding Transition is at; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVQJN8HVKI

Authors Bio:
Burl Hall is a retired counselor who is living in a Senior Citizen Housing apartment. Burl has one book to his credit, titled "Sophia's Web: A Passionate Call to Heal our Wounded Nature." For more information, search the book on Amazon.

Burl's philosophy entails the idea that "everything effects and causes everything thing else." His spirituality of Sophia i.e., Wisdom is universal as well as within each of us. He also sees the idea of Chaos as not being "all over the place" but as infinite relationships.

The question I present in my articles speak not so much towards the politicians, but how WE the people can empower ourselves within a planet that is healthy, wealthy and wise.