isolation is disease. the modern world suffers from deep uncompromising attachment to individualism.
village/community, real community, is panacea to isolation, individualism, depression, alienation, police, prisons, crime, disrespect, obesity, egocentrism, wanton consumerism, hospitals, garbage, species endagerment, nursing homes, failing schools, etc...
village to me is my parents, is what they carry and embody, is what is being extinguished like firehoses on marchers in civil rights protests in the 1960's, like the uzis on Shias and Sunnis in Iraq. grab your rifles soldeirs and shoot down everything that is in the way of me me me...get them out of the way. they are in the way of the corporate definition of democracy - individualism.
we are in an individualism so deep that bon iver, peter bjorn, and morrisey. a cry of alienation.
the new age responds by rewriting the ways, coming up with a spirituality to fit the surrender to capital system. this -ism works for those who are from or products of the taker culture, who have no traditions to uphold, and seem to chair themselves as heads of the department of what kind of spirituality the world needs.
new age-ism appeals to those who are up late night and need something more, know that there is something wrong with feeling this much alone. they search, and yet, at once are addicted to the privacy of unaccountability of do me.
the disaffected among the new-age wage critique new-ageism, in the way liberals hold crituqes of corporations. you hear it in their political campaigns on the big guy vs the suffering little guy, and yet, all their actions default on the big guy, support the big guy, empower, uphold, and necessitate the power of corporatocracy to charge forward un impeded (i.e. obama and his cohorts bailing out wallstreet to get the economy back running - what does this say about the kind of economy he is truly invested in).
i hear it all the time, how wishy-washy and piece-meal new-ageism is from my new age homies. and in the same breath they will regurgitate the party line on the pathology of islam to a t with the programming of media.
islam, like native american spirituality, is ancient mathematics, an insititutional continuum of the same university of sun moon and planets. this is a threat to the seeming alternatives of new-ageism/liberalism.
thus, a non-threatening freedom of speech is practiced, and the system remains unblemished in its abuses and the liberal voices feel pleased by their alleviation of conscience.
the new age holds up notions that something was wrong with the old, with ancestry, and it's time for something new. this appears convenient for the taker cultures to do. much of their (not restricted to a race) beliefs are based on maintaining and growing their privilege, complacency, capital....
ancient mathematics (which modern science struggles to catch up with), tells me that there is no begining and no end, that this manifestation of life is brief, that we are all part of a continuum and need each other not just as neighborhoods, or nations, or ethnicities, or humans, nor just inter species, but we need each other from the past to the future - across the span of lifetimes. we need to be in the mode of thinking and walking in sum total (ALLAH).
the continuum of traditon tells me that community is central to a meaningful life, that community will provide, as community is the micro of the macro of all. the earth does not run off course, do its own thing, on it's own eliptical machine at another solar system, when it feels like it no longer wants a membership here.
when perfection gets out of the way, when i stop trying to figure out just how to carry forth this tradition, community, the ummah, the heart of the revolution advanced by the enlightened one, the prophet muhammad (pbuh), is before me.
what will it take to build community? tradition tells me, start with the family. the prophet tells me, build with other families of believers, those who are also on the path of, surrendering to The Source of Peace, otherwise....
otherwise...default on the estrangement, on meetups and facebook groups, and dinners and luncheons, and iftars, and transient communities that are filled with great newness and rapid disassembling, disintegration, as they are made of the fabric of new age.
traditon of ummah is neither new nor old, just a continuum, with no stars to bake in the limelight of ego. community is essential to the health of the individual of our species, of all species, of our planet...
next step is to get out of my way, get the laboratory of love for the fam to springboard off of in the transitional period, to visit intentional communities, put a call out, build a fellowship with others on the path, and immaterialize the always...
