Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard’s view of humanity’s future extends way beyond December 21, 2012, the reported end of the Mayan calendar, which doom-and-gloom merchants are using to scare us into believing the world is going to end. What’s ending, Hubbard says, is business as usual.
“This great time is an unprecedented opportunity to collectively make a planetary shift and step forward and give our greatest gifts to the emergence of a new co-creative human society,” she says. “If we do that, together we can ignite a new way of being that endures for decades to come.”
The public is invited to join an international celebration of a new era of human potentiality. With open hearts, participants will laugh, pray, sing and joyously and gently shift into higher consciousness. Welcome to our birth! The Twin Cities gathering of Birth 2012 will be at 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 22, at Lake Harriet Spiritual Community, 4401 Upton Ave. S., Minneapolis. For more information, visit Birth2012twincities.com or email [email protected]. The gathering is free, but donations offered in love are welcome.
In her new book, Birth 2012 and Beyond, Hubbard has put forth a hopeful vision, declaring this time in history as a symbolic marker of what is actually being born within us that is new, that is good, creative and loving. December 22, 2012, has been selected as “Day One” of the next era of life on this planet, shifting toward sustainability, peace building and innovative solutions in every field and function.
We are facing an historic turning point. We are evolving from unconscious chance to conscious choice. We are entering what Hubbard calls the first age of conscious evolution. Why? Because we know we can affect our own evolution by all the choices we make — from the food we eat, the number of babies we have, the cars we drive, and the weapons we build.
We are facing the possibility of the collapse of our life support system, or what Hubbard believes is the emergence of something new, something better than we have ever known before.
Hubbard has partnered with The Shift Network [theshiftnetwork.com] to launch a global initiative, the Birth 2012 Campaign, that is culminating in a Planetary Birth Day Celebration on December 22. This initiative includes an “Agents of Conscious Evolution” training, for those who feel called to be global leaders and catalysts in the movement for a positive future.
Hubbard, who has been called “the voice for conscious evolution of our time” by Deepak Chopra and is the subject of Neale Donald Walsch’s new book, The Mother of Invention, is a world-renowned visionary futurist, evolutionary educator and inspiring speaker, and author of seven acclaimed books that communicate the new worldview of conscious evolution, a term that she coined.
She spoke with The Edge about her new book and the evolution of human consciousness.
What have you observed during the past dozen years that confirms this creative process is underway? When you look out your window, do you see universal humans out there doing their work and their play?
Barbara Marx Hubbard: I see more people all the time feeling something growing from within them to more fully realize their heart’s desire, their desire to give more, to be more, to do more. Almost everybody, whether it be people in Unity Church or people in the emerging Catholic world, or people who are dealing with crises problems around the world, wherever they may be, they know that they can’t resolve these problems by more of the same.
What that’s doing, without it even being idealistic or anything, is saying, “Well, something new must be happening. What is it? How can I participate in it? And how can I be part of it?” The crisis is driving people to want to be more. Those of us who are tuning in to deeper life purpose, deeper commitment to evolutionary action, are becoming more universal, because we see ourselves connected to the whole. We feel part of the planetary body; we have a more cosmic consciousness.
I say the answer is this: Mother Earth is giving birth to a co-creative humanity. There’s not a majority anywhere, but it’s cropping up everywhere, because old leadership does not have the authority to guide us.
They don’t have the answers.
BMH: They don’t — whether it is the head of the Catholic Church, the Vatican, or whether it is the Republican or Democratic Party, whether it is the global corporations, or the universities that still have to teach everything in separate disciplines. The further up you go, the more specialized you are.
What’s happening is that evolutionary intuition is rising up. I feel there’s a global community arising, one that it is still very new. It’s not even a mass movement yet. Things that start are never mass movements.
Yes, they’re usually small grassroots efforts meant to solve a local problem.
BMH: To solve a local problem, they are looking for new responses. You know, it’s not like everything is failing. There is a new book by Peter Diamandis called, Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think. There’s another book about Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker, which is saying that even for all the terrible things we’ve done, violence has declined. Even though it may not look that way, because we’re very sensitive to the breakdowns and the threats, and rightly so, there are breakthroughs in innovation and in consciousness, in creativity, in technology. If you connect these breakthroughs, it really leads to a new world.
And yet, in chapter one of your new book, you write an urgent letter to the reader saying that the time is now.
BMH: That is what I’m saying. The time is now for everyone, for more and more of us to come together, to recognize and act on this. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what my work is about now.
From your perspective, what kind of predicament are we in, globally?
BMH: I think we’re in a global crisis of unprecedented scale, with global warming and climate change, and we don’t have the solution using any of the separated structures that are attempting to solve these issues, whether it be the United Nations, or the global corporations. So that has led to an uprising of concern for people who have been struggling within the system. Will it rise fast enough to actually affect the behavior quickly enough? I don’t think anybody knows.
What was the main message you wanted to give people about Birth 2012?
BMH: The main message is that if we can connect that which is loving, creative, and innovative in an expression of global coherence of the heart and of our creativity, we can effect the tipping point. With enough of us connecting heart with heart, center with center, innovation with innovation, prayer with prayer, through the internet and the noosphere, we can have a major impact on a more gentle transition toward the next stage of evolution.
Are you encouraged by the growing social media movement?
BMH: Very much so. I really think that the planet is growing a new nervous system. I mean, when you think of Facebook as the third largest nation in the world, that’s so unprecedented, so amazing. Think of how many people are texting and twittering. The planet has created a nervous system for massive, rapid connectivity.
What’s good is that there are no gatekeepers. There is danger of it being stopped, certainly in totalitarian countries. In China, the state power is trying to stop it, but it seems that, without a catastrophe, it won’t be stopped.
In your book, you cite as a personal goal to connect innovations and innovators who are contributing toward a more synergistic and functioning society. Can you give us an example of some of those innovators right now and how they’re contributing to healing the world?
BMH: Yes. I would say one of the most famous of all is the Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus and microcredit loans. That is definitely a way. I think the rise of alternative healing, a personal responsibility for health, of the understanding of food as a key factor in illness and health, the attention to obesity. I think the rise of permaculture. The rise of local communities. The rise of socially responsible investment. All of these things are movements that have projects involved in them that could actually lead to an emerging world.
You refer to evolutionary shift circles. Can you explain a little bit about what those are all about?
BMH: Whenever a few people are gathered with a spiritual impulse to connect, to resonate through the heart, to make a shift from their own ego to their essence, and then to connect to do whatever work in the world they are called to do, that’s an evolutionary circle. What we’re saying is, let’s all join together on December 22 to celebrate what’s being born. Evolutionary circles are one of the key social forms in which people are connecting and can connect to make a difference throughout the world.
You mention December of this year, which a lot of people tie to the Mayan calendar.
BMH: I’m not an expert on this, but the Mayans were not talking about the end of civilization. They were talking about a phase change. I do not expect less. It does not mean the end of the world. It is the end of a cycle, in the sense that we really can’t continue to grow more and more as we have been doing in a finite womb of Earth. We can’t grow one more generation of population pollution and species extinction, so we have a built-in time factor.
Yet, at the same time we exist in a culture where some Christians are looking at this as the End Times and seem to have an apocalyptic view of what’s taking place.
BMH: Right. It’s interesting, because I see the meaning of apocalypse as an unveiling of our deeper self. Apocalypse can mean the unveiling of the deeper self of humanity. People throughout history who thought the end of the world was coming have never been right, and I don’t think they will be this time.
I think what they may be feeling is some kind of very deep fear — almost longing — because they don’t feel that they can participate in what’s emerging.
What difference can one person make in this process? I personally think it’s more than we think.
BMH: We know in history that great individuals have totally changed everything, whether it be Jesus Christ or Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill or Albert Einstein. I actually think every person can make a difference. Every single human being has within the impulse to express more of who they truly are. When anybody gets the idea that that’s what they can do, we each get turned on to do more. I think it’s innate in human nature to want to make a difference, to make your life meaningful.
In your book you’ve mentioned depression and the role it plays in our lives. Could you share a little bit about that, because there’s probably quite a few people who are experiencing that right now.
BMH: Yes. I feel so often that depression is a signal of more that wants to be expressed within you. There is an innate impulse in everyone to express more of who they truly are, and you get depressed when you don’t feel you’re able to do that. The solution to depression, among other things, is to go within and see if you can tune into more of what might want to come forth out of you. Then take action to follow the path of what attracts you. Reach out, read a book, call a friend, join an organization. Go toward that which attracts you.
What do you have planned for December 22?
BMH: We’re calling that Day One, to celebrate the next era of the evolution. It will be a time to celebrate what is being born through people, what’s creative, what’s loving. It will involve OMing and songs and meditations and prayers and expressions of oneness and wholeness. For many, it will be a multimedia experience. Many local hubs already are forming, not just for one day, but for an ongoing process of self and social evolution.
People can go to Birth2012.com and form a hub of four people or more. If they want to do an event, they can place themselves on the map and find others, and we hope they will do that.
What questions should we be asking ourselves at this time?
BMH: I think the biggest question for all of us right now is, “What do I want to create? What do I need to create it better? And what do I want to give to others freely?”
In Thomas Jefferson’s words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All people are born creative.” We have been the most creative species that you have ever seen on this Earth. Back 50,000 years ago, we were in caves, and now we are ready to have a crisis of birth — or devolution and destruction — by our own power. All people are part of this. All people are born creative. And there’s nobody who’s helpless, nobody.
Where are you at in your process of evolution? Are you facilitating groups and speaking about the urgency of this call?
BMH: The main thing I’m doing right now is teaching Agents of Conscious Evolution on The Shift Network. I would like people to know if they feel they want to be more of an agent of their own evolution, and the evolution of our world. At Birth2012.com, you can learn more about ACE, Agents of Conscious Evolution, and we invite people to enroll.
What do you anticipate that 2013 will look like?
BMH: Well, if the people like me have anything to do about it, there will be a new story that shows the possibility of co-creating a new and better world. There will be a change in worldview from materialism and failure to conscious evolution. And everyone’s potential to participate!
When you get a new worldview you get a new world. It’s like the shift from medieval Christianity to the Renaissance and enlightenment. I think that worldview failed in some respects after the two world wars and the atomic bomb. It was hard to believe in process through knowledge, and we went through a period of a loss of vision.
But now there’s a new vision and a new story emerging, the story of the sacred story of evolution seen as an expression of a deep inner order or Divine process or universal intelligence or consciousness force. The sacred story of evolution, and seeing ourselves as part of that story, empowers us to co-create. So another image of the universal human is the co-creator.
For more information on Barbara Marx Hubbard, visit the Foundation for Conscious Evolution at Barbaramarxhubbard.com or Facebook.com/barbaramarxhubbard.
