A special, seasonal article with excerpts from Carolyn's forthcoming book The Spirituality Of Collapse: Restoring Life On A Dying Planet.

It's all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it is no longer effective....Our challenge is to create...a new sense of what it means to be human.

~Thomas Berry~

We Americans are a strange breed and have been since Europeans set foot on North American shores. With us we brought the Judeo-Christian tradition with its fundamental underpinnings of sin, salvation, and happily ever after. When our ancestors arrived they had an extraordinary opportunity, which they squandered miserably and tragically, to open themselves to the wisdom of native peoples who overwhelmingly welcomed them and taught them skills without which they could not have survived. Those acts of kindness and compassion were returned with obtuse arrogance, voracious conquest of native lands, and ultimately, the genociding of millions of native peoples and the decimation of their cultures. Our European ancestors could well have stepped into a new paradigm which could have resulted in an American history dramatically different from the one we know and may have ultimately altered the course of Western civilization. Their choice not to do so has been incalculably calamitous for their descendants and for the earth.

What the Europeans insisted on clutching to their bosoms was the Judeo-Christian notion of disconnection from the earth and its inhabitants-a tenacious adherence to the superiority of humans in relation to all other life forms. Fostering the human-centric perspective was the myth of the superiority of the Christian faith which in their eyes produced human invincibility and what became known as the Puritan Ethic-including the belief that not only are humans superior, but that Christian humans in particular are more favorable in the eyes of God. Since Christian humans are the "chosen" species, whatever they attempt to be, do, or have, they will accomplish. Hence, the notion of "happy endings" or "positive outcomes."

Had the first European Americans been willing to learn more than how to plant corn from their native mentors-had they been willing to open their hearts and minds to earth-centered spirituality, they would have learned that existence on this planet is extremely unpredictable and capricious, and is fraught with fear, loss, grief, sorrow, and disenchantment-the severity of which is greatly tempered by sacred ritual and the establishment of intimate human community. But the human ego does not go quietly into the night. It resists frantically and doggedly any possibility of diminishment.

I believe that the history of civilization has been the story of the human ego rising to its optimum usefulness, being offered numerous opportunities to relate to something larger than itself and thus share its proper place among the species, but incessantly opting for superiority. Because the ego is finite and limited, it can only experience the law of diminishing returns in relation to "something larger", and if it will not willingly surrender to that "something larger", then it will be forcefully reduced to a more balanced role in the realm of planetary functioning.

Just this week we learned that humans have been evolving at "breakneck" speed. But I must ask, what exactly has been the nature of that "evolution"? The use of "breakneck" is fascinating since we humans seem to be doing everything at a speed that breaks our necks and the necks of everything else on the planet with no willingness whatsoever to slow down, be present, and notice and feel the domain we inhabit. Should we really be impressed with the speed of our evolution when for the most part, humans have little sense not only of being part of "something larger" but of the earth itself? Let's ask the plankton, the drowning polar bears, and the disappearing Amazon rainforest how fast and how well humans are evolving. Do you suppose that CNN or BBC would report their answers if we did? When our willingness to fully inhabit our bodies and the earth and connect with the sacred within both of those catches up with other aspects of human evolution, then I'll be impressed with it.

Thomas Berry writes in The Dream Of The Earth that "Our best procedure might be to consider that we need not a human answer to an earth problem, but an earth answer to an earth problem. The earth will solve its problems, and possibly our own, if we will let the earth function in its own ways. We need only listen to what the earth is telling us."(35) And, Berry admonishes, "The time has now come...when we will listen or we will die."(xiv)

So here we stand at another crossroads in the history of our planet, but it does not appear that the American ego is any more prepared to be schooled by earth-centered spirituality than it was in 1607 when English settlers arrived in Jamestown. Unfortunately, an enormous piece of the devastating legacy that ego-run-rampant has left us is the belief in "happily ever after" and "if we just work hard enough, we can turn this thing around"-this despite damning evidence to the contrary, also revealed this week, that climate change on this planet has passed the point of no return. Don't get me wrong, I do understand "happily ever after". Ego just doesn't want to surrender to anything, especially the collapse of its crowning achievement-civilization!

But "happily ever after" is part of the despicably abusive story of civilization-the one that refuses to die, so maybe it has to be killed. Or perhaps another way of thinking about this is to notice that civilization is killing itself, as Jared Diamond argued in his 2006 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose To Succeed Or Fail. Collapse, it must be emphasized, is a protracted process punctuated by singular, momentous, tipping-points-events so significant that they can accelerate the rate of collapse exponentially.

Industrial civilization is one story in the human experience. Meanwhile, there are other stories that cry out to be written. I believe that until we change the stories, we can't change the paradigm. So let's talk about stories and notice what a couple of Jungian-based writers say about them.

Stories set the inner life into motion....Story greases the hoists and pulleys, it causes adrenaline to surge, shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, openings that lead to the dreamland, that lead to love and learning, that lead us back to our own real lives....

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With The Wolves~

Myth gives a person the sense of living in a meaningful story, the feeling that one's life makes sense and has value, and these sensations are the basis for self-confidence and stability, purpose and poise. Without myth, life has to be proven valuable every day and is lived from profound anxiety; but with the awareness that one's life is grounded in eternal stories and motifs, one's own personal story begins to feel enchanted, and this feeling gives rise to a love of one's own life that is the cure for narcissism, insecurity, and self-doubt.

~Thomas Moore, author of The Re-Enchantment Of Everyday Life~

For more than a decade I have been a professor of history. It is no secret to anyone who knows me or who has read my book, U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You that I strongly object to the manner in which history is taught in most colleges and secondary schools-if it is taught at all. As I listen to my students who share their experiences of taking history classes in high school, I have been appalled at the dearth of real history teaching that occurs in public schools. Students consistently report that they were bored to tears during high school history, sometimes to such an extent that they cannot even recall having a history course in high school!

I have also discovered that most human beings love to hear stories, and I believe that the capacity to hear and resonate with story is part of our DNA and our ancient memory. I've conducted my own experiment around this in the classroom. When I present a lecture on some aspect of history, I can count on some of my students losing interest and in some cases, falling asleep. However, when I cease lecturing and begin telling a story, they come back to life. Eyes stop drooping, heads stop nodding, and suddenly, they are with me. For this reason, I prefer teaching "his-tory" or "her-story" by simply telling the story.

Stories shape our lives from the moment we are born. Some may argue that an infant cannot comprehend a story, but I must ask, what does it mean to "comprehend"? On some level of cellular, ancient memory the infant "hears" and "comprehends" the story. As she matures she hears it in a different way, on a different level.

Cultural ecologist and author, David Abrams in his article "Earth Stories", reminds us that the unique linguistic and intellectual capacity of humans did not evolve through computers or even the written word, but in relation to orally-told stories which were being communicated long before words were written down. Abrams emphasizes that:

Spoken stories were the living encyclopedias of our oral ancestors, dynamic and lyrical compendia of practical knowledge. Oral tales told on special occasions carried the secrets of how to orient in the local cosmos. Hidden in the magic adventures of their characters was precise information regarding which plants were good to eat and which were poisonous, and how to prepare certain herbs to heal cramps, or sleeplessness, or a fever. The stories carried instructions about how to construct a winter shelter, and what to do during a drought, and - more generally - how to live well in this land without destroying the land's wild vitality.

Because of our innate capacity to hear and resonate with stories, we absorb them like a sponge, and therefore, the kinds of stories we hear profoundly influence our thoughts, feelings, and values. In the culture of civilization we hear hundreds of stories before we enter kindergarten, and those stories inculcate civilization's paradigm. We hear stories that teach us that we are separate from nature and the non-human world, that humans are superior to animals, that humans are innately flawed or that humans are sinful, that the United States is the greatest country on earth, that heterosexual orientation is preferable to a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered orientation. We are told subtly or blatantly that white is the most desirable skin color and that making money is the most valid motivation for living our lives on planet earth. Boys hear stories of heroes and conquest; girls hear stories of beautiful women and girls who are nice "like sugar and spice."

But the hubris of humanity has led us to believe that stories have only been created and told by people whereas in the words of Abrams, "The stories themselves were carried by the surrounding earth. The local landscape was alive with stories! Traveling through the terrain, one felt teachings and tellings sprouting from every nook and knoll, lurking under the rocks and waiting to swoop down from the trees."

One story which begs to be retold in our time relates to the mythology of the ancient Mayan people. According to their cosmology the winter solstice in the year 2012 will bring a rare astronomical alignment of the sun with the center of our galaxy-an alignment that only happens once very 26,000 years.  The Mayans believed this event would mark the end of a cycle, but it is important not to literalize the story of this event and miss the symbolism of it which the Mayans held would be far more momentous than the event itself. A fascinating 2007 documentary "2012: The Odyssey", focuses on the Mayan calendar and interviews a number of researchers who elucidate its spiritual and cosmological implications.

One of these is John Major Jenkins, author of Maya Cosmogenesis and Journey To The Mayan Underworld, who explains that for the Mayans, the 2012 solstice symbolizes the death of humanity's out-of-control ego and the return of humanity's ego to the divine, eternal self. Not only is the alignment symbolic in terms of the ego and the sacred self but with respect to masculine and feminine energies. The Mayans believed that the Milky Way is the Great Mother, and her alignment with Father Sun on December 21, 2012 symbolizes unprecedented integration and balancing of feminine and masculine energies within humans.

Numerous other myths relevant to this time period have endured throughout human history. In fact, almost all spiritual traditions include some sort of endtime prophecy. This is particularly significant in our time as fundamentalist Christianity endeavors to convince the world that its notions of the endtime are unique. So-called "prophecy experts" such as Hal Lindsey in his Late Great Planet Earth and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins in the their Left Behind series have transmitted fear and awe into the hearts of millions of readers and no doubt amassed millions of dollars from book sales and speaking engagements, yet thousands of years before Christ, ancient peoples were delivering endtime prophecies.

Centuries before fundamentalist Christians began prognosticating their version of the endtime, Native American elders were teaching their children about a collapsing world. A number of North American tribes remind us of their ancient prophecies such as this one from the Iroquois:

It's prophesied in our Instructions that the end of the world will be near when the trees start dying from the tops down. That's what the maples are doing today. Our Instructions say the time will come when there will be no corn, when nothing will grow in the garden, when water will be filthy and unfit to drink.

Then a great monster will rise up from the water and destroy mankind. One of the names of that monster is "the sickness that eats you up inside" like diabetes or cancer or AIDS. Maybe AIDS is the monster. It's coming. It's already here.

Our prophet Handsome Lake told of it in the 1700s. He saw Four Beings, like four angels, coming from the Four Directions. They told him what would happen, how there would be diseases we'd never heard of before. You will see many tears in this country. Then a great wind will come, a wind that will make a hurricane seem like a whisper. It will cleanse the earth and return it to its original state. That will be the punishment for what we've done to the Creation.

One notable story which integrates Christian and pagan mythology is the Cross of Hendaye in France containing a number of symbols found on the Mayan calendar. The cross was built by alchemists who were essentially European shamans of the Middle Ages because although they were officially Christian, they studied and utilized pagan mythology and symbolism. Jay Weidner, featured in "2012: The Odyssey" and author of  The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye emphasizes that as we analyze the symbolism of the Hendaye cross, we see that it points to an upheaval or collapse which will occur for the purpose of transforming human consciousness. Weidner emphasizes that those who open to the transformation will have an easier time than those who resist.

Moira Timms in "2012: The Odyssey" an Egyptologist and author of Beyond Prophecies and Predictions:  Everyone's Guided to the Coming Changes notes that at the end of cycles, everything comes together-the good, the bad, and everything in between because it is a period of great sorting out-a global initiation that will bring out the best in us as well as the worst. The initiatory process typically involves a shamanic dismemberment in which the ego is shattered, deluged, and shaken to its core, so that, as stated above by John Major Jenkins, the ego can return to the divine, eternal self.

With respect to the Mayan myth of alignment in 2012, it is crucial that we not assume that an apocalyptic event will happen on the solstice of that year. What all of the above researchers emphasize is that literally speaking, December 21, 2012 will be a non-event because the deeper story of alignment has already begun and is happening now.

I hasten to add that although the documentary "2012: The Odyssey" offers a plethora of possibilities for transformation with respect to civilization's collapse, it does not promise deliverance from the painful consequences of it. In fact, its participants present dire warnings regarding the extinction of the human race and the entire planet.

For example, New Mexico author and researcher, Gregg Braden, emphasizes that we have a probable future, but also a possible future and that the choice will always be ours to intervene in the probable with what is possible.

Psychologist and medical anthropologist, Alberto Villoldo echoing Thomas Berry, states in the documentary that we must break free of our collective, cultural trance.  We live on a planet that can support one billion people riding bicycles, not six billion people who each want three cars, and we will eventually be forced to come to grips with not only our own limits and mortality, but the extinction of the human race. Villoldo states that the "global currency" is earth, wind, fire, and air, and that because we are using up that currency on a "planetary credit card", the bills are coming due. We have been "buying now", but we will inevitably "pay later."

But a new story is waiting to be written, and it goes something like this:

Once upon a time in a time before time, in the timeless now and approaching a timeless future, humans awakened to feel in the cells of their bodies that within those cells were the elements of the earth. Feeling the soil, the rivers, the breeze, and the sunlight in their veins, they realized that they had been dreaming; in fact, for several billion years, they had been dreaming a very bad dream-you could even call it a nightmare. They dreamed that they were separate from the earth, superior to it, commanding and dominating it. Soil, rivers, breezes and sunlight were "things" to be managed and allocated, not to feel and savor.

As they awakened, they tasted, smelled, looked upon, listened to, and bathed in the soil until they felt themselves at one with it-until their skin, eyes, hands, and tongues became the soil itself. They remembered that the word "human" comes from the Latin word "humus" or earth. No longer did they experience their bodies as comprised of billions of cells but rather as a collection of billions of grains of soil.

And because they felt, smelled, tasted, sounded, and looked like the earth, they felt in every grain of soil/every cell of the body, their union with every living thing on the earth. They did not remain walking upright only, but sometimes crawled on their bellies on the earth, sometimes sat in trees, sometimes writhed in rivers, sometimes held conversations with deer, and all the while, delighted in every breath of air that passed in and out of their lungs.

No longer did they desire superiority over other creatures, nor did they any longer even comprehend what that meant. How could they dominate that which they are, that from which they have never been disconnected? Nor did they feel it necessary to compete with other humans, for they knew that there was enough of everything for everyone, and they especially knew that there was enough love, enough time, enough food, enough beauty, enough joy, enough of everything they could possibly need. And so in the same way that they felt the grains of soil as their cells, they felt the cells of other humans as their own.

For this reason, it was no longer necessary to compete, to acquire more of anything, for they realized there was nothing they needed that was not already theirs. Thus the notions of "growth", "expansion", and "conquest" felt superfluous, and absurd to them.

Instead of being motivated by getting, grasping, and hoarding as they had been in their former nightmare, they were now motivated by giving. They desired only to give to other creatures, to care for plants, animals, and other humans as if they were caring for their own bodies because, in fact, as they cared for all other life forms, they were caring for their own bodies.

Humans now wanted not to take from their children but to give them more than they could ever use for themselves. Thus, when they thought about harm coming to a tree, the air, the water, the land, the animals, the birds, or to any child, they felt excruciating pain in their own bodies, just as if someone had harmed them because their cells were the cells of all other life forms. There was no longer an "us" or a "them" or even a "we". There was only "I am."

Indeed this story feels good to hear and resonates, I believe, with the mysterious "something larger" at our core, but as Thomas Berry points out, we have become enchanted with the story of industrial civilization for at least the past five hundred years. Like addicts entranced with a favorite substance or behavior, in order to transform the addiction, we must pass as Berry says, through the "agonies of withdrawal" and become entranced by a different myth which he describes as "a taste for existence within the functioning of the natural world."

Authentic recovery for the addict is not about making a rational decision to simply stop ingesting or behaving addictively. As long as the addiction works, addictive behavior will persist, and only when it no longer works, will recovery be possible. At that point, the addict may choose to "manage" the addiction cerebrally through white-knuckled withdrawal, which may eliminate the symptom but does not address the illness. Likewise, a culture entranced by the myth of industrial civilization can modify behavior-solarize, hybridize, and downsize, but until the spell of industrial civilization is broken and it falls in love with a different myth, a paradigm shift cannot occur. And unfortunately, as with addiction, the breaking of the spell cannot, I repeat, cannot happen painlessly. In fact, few individuals ever enter the recovery process absent from anguish.

I believe that in the "recovery process" of industrial civilization, a cataclysmic "bottoming out" will be absolutely necessary to break the spell which prevents the members of that civilization from becoming entranced with the new story of intimacy with the earth or in Berry's words, "the mystique of the land".

If you are reading these words and are well aware of collapse and preparing for it logistically, emotionally, and spiritually, then the spell for you has already been broken, no doubt as a result of experiencing a variety of "collapses" in the microcosm of your own life. In your surrender to it is your liberation and a certain magnanimity and grace as you notice its acceleration.

If on the other hand you are resisting the collapse of civilization, insisting that it isn't happening, doesn't need to happen, won't happen for decades or centuries, or that human consciousness will transform sufficiently in time to avoid it, I would gently invite you to question what part of you needs to resist the bottoming out of industrial civilization and the breaking of your entrancement with it. What part of you is still "under the spell"? Most importantly, I would suggest deep exploration of your fears around collapse. They can be, if we allow them to be, powerful and empowering teachers for all of us.

In this moment we are together writing the story of the Mayan endtime prophecy. Its conclusion is in our hands. What is certain in that story is collapse; what is yet uncertain is the extent to which collapse and global initiation will bring forth the transformation of human consciousness.

Our strongest ally in writing the new story is the earth. Or in the words of David Abrams, "To live in a storied world is to know that intelligence is not an exclusively human faculty located somewhere inside our skulls, but is rather a power of the animate Earth itself, in which we humans, along with the hawks and the thrumming frogs all participate."

It's time to say goodbye to "happily ever after" and the human-centric, ego-obsessed estrangement from the earth that has held the modern world by the throat for millennia. It's time to recognize, as our tribal ancestors did and still do that there are no guarantees-not even that humans will survive the collapse which is now unfolding. However, we can step into a new paradigm that creates a new story and that invites us into a relationship with "something larger."

We can deny the reality of collapse, but that will not prevent it from happening. We can continue to live the nightmare of civilization, clinging to the old paradigm, allowing the old stories to shape our lives. Or, we can choose to live the new story-the story of the life/death/life cycle, the story of collapse, community, and commutation. This is the story we were meant to live-the one the soul has been whispering in our ears since we were born but was silenced by the cacophony of empire. For all the uncertainty and angst evoked by collapse, its unsurpassable gift may be the opportunity to live and tell that story.

Solstice season is not only the darkest time of the year, but the time in which light begins returning and days very gradually become longer. It is a time for introspection and reflection. It calls us to the exact opposite that the culture of consumerism, and its hectic Christmas celebrations, are all about.

My wish for everyone reading this article is that you spend quality time this solstice season pondering its contents. Here are some exercises for reflection that may be useful. I strongly suggest writing, journaling, or depicting visual images artistically to assist you:

REFLECTION

**What was your experience of hearing the "new story" above? What would you like to add to it? In other words, what is the "new story" you would like to live?

**What is your favorite story or fairy tale from the past? Why do you resonate with this story? How is it similar or different from the "new story" you want to live?

** A time-consuming but extremely powerful and often healing exercise is the writing of one's own story. It need not be a formal autobiography, and it need not be detailed. Consider taking the time and energy to write your story over a period of days or weeks. Notice the feelings that emerge as you do this. As you reflect on your own story, ask yourself: Where in the story was I "dismembered"? Where in the story was I "re-stored" or made whole? (The word "restore" is connected with "hearing a new story", that is "re-storying", which of course, can be "restorative.")

**What are your greatest fears about collapse?

**What are some opportunities that collapse might offer?

**Thomas Berry says that what needs to be explained is our entrancement with an industrially driven consumer society. "Until we have explained this to ourselves," he says, "we will never break the spell that has seized us. We will continue to be subject to this fatal attraction." How have you been entranced with, and how are you still entranced, with industrial civilization? What have been the outcomes of your enchantment, both positive and negative?

**Take some time to reflect on the following poem by William Stafford:

A Message From The Wanderer

Today outside your prison I stand
and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;
you have relatives outside. And there are
thousands of ways to escape.

Years ago I bent my skill to keep my
cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,
and shouted my plans to jailers;
but always new plans occurred to me,
or the new heavy locks bent hinges off,
or some stupid jailer would forget
and leave the keys.

Inside, I dreamed of constellations-
those feeding creatures outlined by the stars,
their skeletons a darkness between jewels,
heroes that exist only where they are not.

Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,
just as-often, in light, on the open hills-
you can pass an antelope and not know
and look back, and then-even before you see-
there is something wrong about the grass.
And then you see.

That's the way everything in the world is waiting.

Now-these few more words, and then I'm
gone: Tell everyone just to remember
their names, and remind others, later, when we
find each other. Tell the little ones
to cry and then go to sleep, curled up
where they can. And if any of us get lost,
if any of us cannot come all the way-
remember: there will come a time when
all we have said and all we have hoped
will be all right.

There will be that form in the grass.