Navigating the Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition, by Carolyn Baker is the book I have been waiting for. Having been peak-oil aware for a long time, I had many questions in my mind, such as:
* What might happen to women when the social order and societies disintegrate?
* How will we cope individually and collectively with the relentless socio-economic contraction?
* What does it mean to live a sustainable life?
* How are we able to help one another and find our "purpose" in this coming change in which the paradigm of "limitless growth" will have to surrender to the power of Mother Nature with really no easy way out?
Carolyn Baker tackles many questions with a holistic approach towards the possible scenarios. She invites us to use our heart and creative mind to open up to many challenges on all possible levels from the physical, to the mental, to the spiritual. She does that through engaging us to develop beauty, art, journaling and contemplating possible questions almost "Koan" style. At the end of each chapter there are many questions to help us to increase our sense of awareness towards the material covered. She also uses many wonderful poems from Robert Bly, Mary Oliver, Rumi, Hafiz, and Mirabai, the famous female Hindu poet-saint to get her points across. In many ways, this beautiful book is an inspiration to embrace impermanence, embrace all we are and all there is as it IS, leaving out NOTHING. After all, nobody ever won the fight against what IS. Carolyn tries to open the reader to explore basic meditation and teaches some grounding to help us be fully here and present to face the present and what we will have to face in the future.
Carolyn Baker does not always speak gently - even though the book is filled with compassionate moments - and even though the book is actually written with pure compassion and love. She calls the "collapse" of civilization a "collapse" and does not beautify the term to make it easier for the reader to handle. That to me is courageous. She does not speak according to our liking but according to her own truth. Hence it seems clear that she has at times invited reactivity and resistance towards her honest work simply because of the way she uses words. Carolyn Baker always remains true to her perceptions and observations. At one point she mentions, (I paraphrase with my own words) how a false sense of positivity and cheer-leading has become part of the American culture, especially the corporate culture, and that this false positivity contributed to the "blind spots" which many of us tend to brush under the rug and pretend are not there. This false positivity is not helpful in solving the global crisis we will face in near future.
This beautiful book is honest, courageous, and inspiring, and it asks the right questions to get the reader ready for whatever will come our way. I believe that this book may not only help us get ready but also may help some of us better adjust to the unrelenting downturn we may have to experience as individuals, cultures, and as a species. I am grateful for Carolyn Baker's effort to help us to find our own purpose in all of this. At one point she made it clear that the "collapse" is not about our own survival or even demise but about finding our purpose - like being of service to creation perhaps, which of course, depends on the individual's ability to allow self-discovery.
This review does not do justice to the greatness of this book. That is why I highly recommend reading it. Perhaps you too will find some guidance and basic ideas about what to say, what to do and how to cope. In addition, this book is a perfect guide for all those spiritually-minded teachers and coaches who want to use the material in retreat settings to create space for allowing people to face all they are and have become up to this moment. It became clear to me how much we need one another and our communities to create and adjust to our new reality and possibly harder-to-manage future.
May this book be of help for others to open up to their potential. May people feel the inspiration to explore their own visions, compassion and humanity so they can move towards a more activist and service-oriented lifestyle during these seemingly "dark times." The key is to find purpose beyond just mere survival.
Even while navigating the coming chaos, some of us may want to develop new visions for a new socio-economic and social/cultural order which has long outgrown the old dogma of unlimited growth. Even if we have to live with "less" we may sometimes internally "have more."
In summary, this book is an absolute must-read, and yes, let's have the courage to face all the issues at hand and name them accordingly.
