World Famous Comics: Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love
Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love
By: Anodea Judith Publisher: Elite Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Elite Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 400 Publication Date: June 30, 2006
Product Description: Will we survive into the next age? If so, what will it look like and what will it take for us to get there? For the first time since the planet cooled 5 billion years ago, humanity is capable of influencing - for better or worse - the trajectory of evolution. This requires a tremendous responsibility and maturity of the heart. Only through a rite of passage will humanity shift from the love of power to the power of love. No mere sentimentality, this initiation is an urgent and wrenching shift that will uproot and transform every aspect of human civilisation. This paradigm saves energy, reduces disease, is ecologically sustainable, and spiritually uplifting. It focuses on networks rather than markets, favours co-operation over competition, sustainability over exploitation, co-creation of our future over procreation.
Choice is ours Reviewed by Juanita Watson for Reader Views (11/08)
This book may be one of the most critical books of our time, and was undoubtedly the most powerful book I've read in years. Within the pages of "Waking the Global Heart," Anodea Judith masterfully blends history, mythology, and psychology to explain exactly why we are seeing the grand breakdown of nearly every old system in our world, and what it all means for us individually and collectively. I was a follower of Judith's earlier books, "Wheels of Life" and "Eastern Body-Western Mind," which are now considered core texts in the arena of chakra studies, but I believe the past 20 years of her work have been in preparation for this book, and the message it carries.
We are going through a deep initiatory experience according to Judith, that is guiding us to a maturity and heart space to which most of us have no direct reference point. As a society we have been locked in a power paradigm, I-ME adolescence, with very little accountability to our outer world. As modern-day technologies have opened up global communications, it has made it impossible to hide the evidence of our disconnectedness, power/submission paradigms, competitiveness, and our widespread disregard for the environment.
Through the rebirth that is now well underway, we are passing through (very dramatically!) our rite of passage to co-create a new story for humanity. A heart-based paradigm shaped by a partnership of both masculine and feminine principles, where love is the sustainable value - the new organizing principle.
This truly is a global shift, and none of us will be left out. At this point, we all feel it, and as with awareness (or coming out of denial), action is the next step. With greater understanding, and a guiding vision as this modern-day visionary suggests, we can all be hero's returning home - a return to Earth, to self, to community, and to love.
In "Waking the Global Heart," Anodea Judith says it is the choice of each and every one of us to take part in the promise of a new world. What will we do? What will YOU do?
Should Be a School Textbook Feeling a little down on our times? Can't seem to see the forest for all the little trees picking at your brain? Well I'd suggest you pick up this book and make your month. It is a broad look at the sweep of history from many angles, and they all fit together in surprising ways. Using the ancient chakra system for context, Ms Judith helps us to understand our evolution on a personal, social and planetary level. As we can all see around us the birth of a new age may be painful at times. Thankfully life moves inevitably forward. Our current self-destructive systems rooted in the past are no longer serving us. They will eventually collapse. The good news is that new life-affirming systems are all ready forming and beginning to propel us toward a braver and more human world. This book is a bold and positive vision for the future. We could use more of those.
new age twaddle I read some of this book, a real study in wishful thinking. One of the reviewers mentioned that the book is 'not new age'. Hmm ... begs the question, what his new age, considering the first page starts off with:
"The great unveiling is approaching, a time when the power structures of the world begin to crumble and people of the heart sing out a new truth. .... [E]ach of you plays a part in bringing forth the new dawn."
If it reads like new age, smells like new age and dances like new age --- it IS new age. In this case, Christian new age.
There is no compelling empirical evidence to suggest that human or global history is on the brink of any significant cultural or biological watershed. If anything it looks like humanity is poised for extinction. And that's not a bad thing.
I really do not understand this desperate urge to save the human race, which has arguably caused more damage to the planet than any other species ever has or ever could. If you want to save the planet, let the human race die off. If you want to save humans and the planet, you have your work cut out for you and even if hundreds of thousands of new-agers contemplate a better future, it is highly unlikely to change the course the human race has set for itself over the last century.
A Really Nice Surprise I began reading this book expecting to find another goddess spirituality book telling us about how we need to go back to the "good old days" when women ruled the world, when we were one with nature in idyllic Roussean bliss, and how the presence of male energy on the planet should be eradicated so that women can create a perfect paradise - just like they once used to.
What I found was something else altogether - a detailed and balanced account of the historical, cultural and philosophical development leading to our current culture. While she uses the metaphor of the chakra system to trace this development, it is perfectly syncronous with Spiral Dynamics and other sophisticated models of human development. In other words, there is a total absence of magical, New Age superstition and a great presence of balance, perspective and wisdom.
The book is a clarion call to action, to understand the context of our emergence, appreciate the gravity of our current situation and take total responsibility for it on the level of our personal lives. This is all done without guilt tripping or demonizing any aspect of our development, while not denying much of its brutality.
Having studied both Ken Wilber's and Don Beck's work, I find this book in perfect alignment and the author another in a growing chorus of voices urging us to evolve at the level of consciousness in service of the entire race.
Elegantly written, full of heart and perspective, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand why we're where we're at and what the next step must be.
An Invitation to Kindom. Waking the Global Heart creates an understandable picture of cultural evolution. More importantly it creates a hope for what humanity can yet become, if we can begin to awaken to what is possible instead of living with what we have come to accept. As a United Methodist pastor, I found Judith's anaylsis of Christian history to be especially helpful for revealing the process of adjusting Christianity to fit political purposes of the Roman Empire. While Judith's summary of this history could not possibly cover all the nuances of that history, her approach reminds us that the heart message Jesus proclaimed and lived was co-opted by the love of power that dominated that time and this. From the perspective of Jesus message of the heart (the power of love), I have long struggled with the use of the word "kingdom"of God to describe Jesus' goal. While Jesus' call is clearly to create a world based on God's love, "kingdom" carries too much of the "love of power" model. I especially appreciated Judith's coining of the word, "kindom" to describe the goal of social evolution. Waking the Global Heart gives us an excellent model as to what the world can be, if we can move past doctrine to discover unity of spirit in the image of the heart chakra. Dana Wimmer
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