Often, the first advice in setting up businesses (or men's circles, for that matter) is avoid politics! As an entrepreneur you want to be open to everyone - and in men's circles the focus is more on what unites us, while politics tend to divide.
But in this post, I'm not going to beat around the bush - I'm diving straight through it. As a side effect, I will have to face my own shadow: a part of me I'd rather not look at.
The costs of traveling the world to facilitate stuff
I would like to address the impact I'm having on the world through their ecological footprint. If everyone on earth would live like I do, we would need 3.3 earths to fulfill everyone's needs. That figure would be halved if I didn't take travel so much by plane, which I do a few times per year to facilitate men's work in far away locations.
I feel I have to address this matter, especially because in Wild and Sacred Men, there is a big focus on the connection with and love for Earth. And my assumption is that on an individual level getting into an airplane is the worst thing you can do to the earth, even worse than eating meat.
Now, I feel this topic loaded, because on the one hand there are ultra virtuous people condescending all others, while on the other hand there are those who believe this whole climate narrative is one big hoax meant to centralise power and give "them" control over everyone's life.
My own shifting perspectives on the matter
I myself have been familiar with both perspectives. A few years before anyone knew about climate change, I had been reading deeply into the matter, which led to sleepless nights. I was worried sick about the fate of our planet, stopped eating meat, picked fights with my ever traveling wife. And took a rather activist stance in general, because I felt the only way to possibly avert the colossal global disaster that was already taking place in super slow motion, was for humanity to change its ways. For that awareness was required.

Over time, I grew less fanatic and more nuanced, especially after I read the article Conscious consumerism is a lie, which points out that blaming climate change on individuals' choices, gets the real offenders (big corporations) off the hook.
After the COVID times hit, I lost a big deal of trust in the integrity of institutions. So many lies had been told and the scientific method had been warped to facilitate a consolidation of central power, while critical journalism was generally rejected at the same time. Today, I am honestly still not sure whether this happened because people were genuinely scared out of their wits, or that these social mechanics had been orchestrated, as many conspiracy theorists claim they are. And consequently, for a while I had been wondering if the same might be the case for climate change?

As of now, I'm not completely sure what to think. On the one hand, my faith in many institutions that hold influence has not yet been restored. On the other hand, in the last months I have spent a good amount of hours studying astronomy. In observing other planet's atmospheres, I got convinced that even a very small change in the composition of any atmosphere will have a great effect on the conditions on that planet. Yes, our atmosphere is massive, but I do believe the amount of carbondioxide humanity is producing is not to be neglected, even on this scale.
Now that is not even only one problem. There's more, like the countless tons of plastics that are produces and dumped in nature every day - or that on average every day 150 species go extinct. And then I'm not even talking of all the injustice humans are inflicting upon one another.
Healing the world
Alright, that's more than enough troublesome stuff that is outside of my sphere of influence anyway.
I do believe that it is possible to fix everything. I remember that once a Christian missionary of sorts approached me on the street. He asked me whether I believed that God one day would turn earth into paradise once more. I laughed. I told him I believed we were already living on a paradise planet. Look at the beauty of it! If we humans wanted it, it would be as perfect as it can be, starting tomorrow!
The main problem, I suppose, it that humans do need more time to evolve. Whether it is from the territorial, begrudging, short-term visioned monkeys we might have been, and/or to the majestic beings we can become.
I believe it starts with connection. Once someone feels connected to self, others, life or Earth, they will start caring for it.
And that is what I do it for. This whole desire to contribute to connection and consequently the healing of the world is my mission.
Aye, on the one hand flying a hundred people over to Ibiza from all over the place doesn't seem to be healing mother Earth at all. But then again, when these people step up to work on themselves, to heal individual and collective wounds, to grow, to evolve and to connect in a sacred sense to the world around them; then I think on the grand scale of things it might actually be very beneficial. I hope and believe their healing will ripple out through all of humanity. Eventually also to the ones who are in positions to make a big difference. Like the ones who will install efficient and affordable alternatives for aviation. Or the ones who will decide their multinational will stop exploiting life and start contributing to it instead. Because they start to care. Because they remember their connection.

Okay, but why does it have to be in far away places then? Is there anything wrong with my own country? No definitely not. I love the land I live in and I offer a lot of work here. But like every different person, every different land offers its own medicine. Some lands call out, whether it is they are inhibited by different sorts of spirit or a different distribution of elements is present, I don't really know. Or with my work in Greece: there are very little facilitators for men's work, and I'll be training men to set om men's circles.
Sometimes the work just has to be somewhere else.
Ethical dilemma
So yeah, that is how I regard the matter of flying from the perspective of traveling for healing purposes. Still, I feel there is so much more to address. Like how the knight in me still frowns upon my personal part, asking whether this story isn't just whitewashing and denying responsibility and asking whether I'm acting out of integrity as I also fly for leisure every few years... While at the same time the warrior in me tries to shake off all sorts of shame and guilt that are being imposed on me as a means to manipulate me; as long as individual consumers take the blame, the big companies get away with their massive part.
And I could go on and on. Is traveling unnecessary luxury or is it required to understand and be connected to a globalised world? Is there an ethical measure to answer this matter? Is the CO2-story true, and if so, what kind of world will I leave my children?
I will leave it here for now. I have tried answering a question that has been haunting me for a while, I've tried to be accountable for decisions many people, myself included, do question and I've explicated my considerations in the dilemma between the environmental costs of my work and the healing it also yields.
One time, as a teenager, I knelt down and touched the Earth. "Mother, I will protect you", I vowed. And I am trying, though sometimes I am unsure about what the best way is.
Comentarios