The few of you who may know one of the secrets of my past will understand the significance of the expression “entering into the promised land”.
That past is long behind me, I now have the freedom to claim an alternative meaning to the expression. This land into which I have entered was never promised to me as such, yet I receive it with gratitude as if it had been promised to me. It is gratitude in the most spacious sense, toward no named benefactor, an exception made for my deceased parents. They would have been worried but also pleased about this promised land. In passing away, they left their worries at the door and freed up the way for ambitions that were perhaps beyond their beliefs.
This “promised land”, that I have long sought and now found, has become mine only in a legal sense. Since when does the Earth or any part of it truly belong to anyone? Such a perpetual claim is nothing more than an ongoing illusion. Most “native” peoples at least had the sense to understand that.
This “promised land” that, by convention, I now call my own is not that which has been promised to me; it is one for which I promise. And this is my promise: to align my own life and my own resources with my vision of a world transformed.
Given our world’s dire trajectory, I often think that if we could just give our children just a fighting chance, it would already be a success enough. But no half-hearted commitment will allow the required sweeping change to occur. Will they occur? It's a gamble.
In our uncertainty, I believe we must pursue with all our heart a beautiful world that our hearts know is possible*. Once our heart begins to inhabit that land, it is already a half-reality.
Now, after so many years of thoughts and words, the time for manifestation has arrived. I have seized my chance to settle a new land, and institute a form of sovereignty. In THIS land, no harm will come if I have anything to do with it. I now have 50 acres of stone, earth, wood, and water. That should be enough land to make a statement greater than any words. Those who know me also know the extent to which “in words I trust”. But does anyone really read them besides you?
So now I’m staking it all. I’m going out on a limb. I don’t want your attention on me. I want your attention on what matters now in life…for us all.
In this world, there are Russians and Republicans, Chinese and Capitalists, Marxists and Muslims, Social Democrats and Serbs, Israelis and Irish, Catholics and Calvinists. Each category contains its microcosm of humanity, from the best to the worst. All of these groups hold dear such notions as liberty and justice, peace and prosperity, yet all of them are divided over these very same notions. All of this fussing will soon become irrelevant without a joint effort to preserve the planet. The planet will get along just fine without humans, but not the inverse.
We all believe that governments SHOULD be doing this or that, in particular democratic governments and wealthy nations. Many are exasperated by the lack of government action and discouraged at our sense of not being able to do anything. The transformational point of this discouragement is to realize that necessarily change will only come from small-scale initiatives that multiply, beyond the control of any government. It is difficult to believe that such initiatives will spread widely enough, but that is precisely the miracle. It’s not exactly a miracle, but rather a spontaneous phenomenon that cannot be predicted. It is out of control, and precisely because of this, it may work.
This is why I have founded Cantobria: to declare with more than words where I stand. My stance is no longer for/against communists or capitalists, conspirators or conspiracists, this or that. My stance is for LIFE in the broadest sense, a sense which can only unite. There is a level of consciousness on which humans can unite. They unite because they simply realize that separation is only an illusion. This consciousness must dawn on each of us, then draw us together in special places, then multiply to other such places, until the face of humanity begins to visibly change.
Cantobria is my “promised land”, and it is my promise to welcome those who feel its calling.
See more photos of my promised land via this link.
This post is a sequel of sorts to a previous one entitled "My Thanksgiving Dream"
* "A more beautiful world our hearts know is possible" is taken from Charles Eisenstein's book by that title.