In this episode, Susan and Micah discuss power and systems. As they converse, they talk about the fact that humans are a young species. Dominant cosmologies put us in the center. With a view that everything is for us, we relate to the world from a competitive fear of scarcity and fear of what other humans might do to us. Our view of power - a force for moving things with - is rooted in this fear. What if we could practice holding power collectively? What if power could be loving?
It's hard for fear and love to occupy the same space. Dominant fear-based systems make all the gifts freely given us by the earth, everything we need for life, into commodities we buy and sell. Much of what we call work is focused on things we don’t need - manufacturing things we don't need, selling things we don't need, indoctrinating us into a system of things we don't need, or helping us heal from living in a system of things we don't need. These systems of exchange and work were not designed to benefit the whole. They create the world we live in, a world of suffering and harm where we don’t align on basics like the idea that every human should have food to eat and a place to live. The promises of these systems we rely on keep us caught in a chain of harming ourselves and each other.
Systems that stem from fear and that emerge from abuse of power are breaking down. For a more just world to become possible, these systems must perish. The pain of breakdown is part of what’s needed for transformative change, as we reach a level of discomfort that leads us to co-create systems that are more caring and loving for more people and the living world. The ripe potential of breakdown includes the opportunity to learn how to rely on each other. In all our relationships - with humans and non-humans - everyday we can practice with loving power, how it lives in and is enacted through us. New systems rely on us not only doing different things, but also practicing being different, practicing centering love over fear in our relationships.
