 Like a lot of people, I've been really deeply affected by what's happening in the Amazon here in August 2019 as deforestation has reached double the rate of last year as the red line of logging and fires, many of them set deliberately to clear land for soybean plantations and cattle plantations and sugar cane or whatever else, as that red line encroaches deeper and deeper into what should be the heart of the Amazon rainforest, as indigenous people are getting suppressed, as protected lands even are getting logged and destroyed, I mean it's just horrifying and I feel sometimes these waves of helplessness and it's like the grief is so strong, what do I do with that energy? I've noticed a kind of a trap, like a diversion that says take that energy and hate somebody with it, blame somebody with it, divert it into rage. I'm not saying don't be angry, but what I'm saying now and what I'm recognizing in myself is that that detour actually makes me less capable and less powerful and less active actually in doing anything about the situation, because the solutions that the hate invites are essentially to fight somebody, to find an enemy and engage in a war with them and if you win the war then the problem is solved, Bolsonaro or the illegal loggers or the ranchers or whoever it is or the consumers who are consuming these products, but when you follow, so okay, this blame and hate, the real problem with it isn't so much that it's okay, I mean it is one problem, a diversion away from the grief that really keeps me honest in the world. Another problem with it is that it diverts attention away from the set of conditions that's actually generating the problem, the set of conditions that gave rise to a Bolsonaro, the set of conditions that's motivating, that's incentivizing the clear cutting of land, and that set of conditions includes so much, it includes economic conditions, the global debt regime that forces countries all over the world to liquidate their natural resources to generate foreign exchange to make their debt payments, it includes the psychic climate, the ideological climate that holds earth as not alive and not conscious and not sacred but is merely a thing or a collection of resources. If those things don't change then even if we take down Bolsonaro, there's going to be another Bolsonaro, there's going to be other people responding to this systemic pressure to find something to convert into money and why not the earth when it's just a thing. So as a response, when I understand the deeper conditions I'm not limited to fighting somebody, to engaging in a war which is actually hopeless because it's a war against the military industrial, agricultural, pharmaceutical, NGO, educational, prison industrial complex, I mean it's the entire system and they're much better at fighting than I am, they have the power, they have the guns, they have the money, I'm not going to win that war. The plan rather than winning a war is to change the conditions and everybody can be part of that because when the conditions are everything then any act of healing will ultimately affect the Amazon rainforest too. Sometimes maybe you are blessed with the opportunity to do something directly to help the Amazon. More often if you're living in the United States or Germany or England or India the opportunities at hand may not be to help stop the logging in the Amazon. The opportunity might be on a much deeper level, not a better level but a deeper level to contribute to a shift of consciousness to perform acts of care and ecological healing or social healing, I mean it's all part of the same project, the healing of this earth but it could be ecological healing where you are that affirm that you care about life on earth that invite the planet to stay alive. Imagine you're on your sick bed and you're really suffering and you don't know Do I really want to live? Do I want to stay here? What gives you the will to live? It's if people love you, if people need you, if you're valued, if you have a community, if you're not alone. Here we have earth on a sick bed, therefore everything that you do that affirms that you want a living earth not a dead earth, everything that you do that is in service to life, everything that you do that comes from love of a place or of even a person, a community, all of that is a prayer and a message to Gaia saying we love you, we want you, we need you You are not alone. How are these remote actions going to actually help the dire situation on the ground in Brazil? I don't know but I trust the principle of morphic resonance that says a change that happens anywhere creates a field of change so that the same change begins happening everywhere else. The change that I'm talking about on the deepest level is a change of heart, it's a change of perception. It's a change in our story of the world that orients us toward what to do, what's valuable, what's important. If we can create a morphic field for that, imagine what Brazil will be like when millions of people there have a change of heart too. So we can join in a global change of heart and a global change of our story. That's my plan. I don't know how specifically it's going to change the situation in Brazil. But I do know that I've learned to trust, let me put it that way, or I'm learning to trust this causal principle. I'm learning of morphic resonance. I'm learning to trust that intuition where I would say that innate knowledge, that every act has cosmic significance, that no act is wasted. Are we ready to live by that? Because that is such a different mindset than the mindset that has destroyed this earth and the mindset that generates despair. The mindset that has destroyed the earth and the mindset that generates despair is really the same mindset. The separate self and a world of other interacting by force to make change happen in a mechanical dead universe where nothing I do could possibly be enough. What if the universe doesn't work like that? What if everything is interconnected? What if self and other are interwoven intimately? And there's a mysterious connection between what happens inside and what happens outside? What if we are part of a living universe? In that case, the despair is illogical. And that's why I think it really is time to step into that new and ancient story of who we are and what the world is. And that doesn't mean that we magically all of a sudden have a plan to stop deforestation in the Amazon. But what it does mean is that we know the next step, or that we are able to see the next step when it is offered to us, because that's a heart function. When the mind has no idea how to get from point A to point B, ironically I'm waiting for an airplane to pass by. When the mind has no understanding of how to get from point A to point B, at least we can recognize the next step. Toward a destination that the heart knows exists. I call it the more beautiful world, our heart knows as possible. It's irrational because the mind is like, how could we ever get there? Look at all of the obstacles. Look at the powers arrayed against us. And that's simply because the mind has been, if you grew up in modern society, the mind has been immersed in a logic of separation. Not that the mind is useless, it just needs to be re-aligned to the logic of interconnection, interbeing, morphic resonance. Then the mind and the heart can be allies again. So basically what I'm saying is, please do not take the bait offered that comes along with this knowledge of what's happening in the Amazon, the bait of diverting onto hatred, onto the blame of people that are of actors that are actually just symptoms. Don't get caught up in that. And don't get caught up in the despair. Those are all lies that short circuit are full creative power as change agents. Stay in what you know, recognize your step toward the service of life, the service of healing, find your willingness and readiness to take that step. You might even feel it right now. And that confidence, that almost naive confidence that you will have the awareness and the courage to take that step as it presents itself. And that that will be enough, that that is your job. And that there is a larger intelligence operating on this planet that's not external to it. That's woven into this planet, a larger intelligence that knows where to put you in its healing. This is not a spiritual bypass from what's happening in Brazil. It's not a substitute for action. It is a principle, an orientation underneath any action that we might take and just see how it lands in you. By their fruits, you shall know them. Does it make you more passive to think in this way or less? Does it make you paralyzed? Or does it make you energized, willing? I hope that a lot of people listening to this really do take that step into trust and into the action that comes from the trust. Because you're creating a morphic field that helps me do that too. I'm not immune to the despair or the rage. I just recognize it as not very useful. Thank you.