Defend the Sacred: A Power That Is Stronger Than All Violence
Dear friends around the world,
The fight for Standing Rock is over, at least for now. With the help of Donald Trump and the banks, the oil industry has imposed its agenda. The construction of the pipeline has been completed. Our prayers are with that handful of people who are still there, still standing their ground. Last year, thousands of people, from every culture and from all over the world, traveled great distances to come together on the land. They came, despite the freezing cold, to take part in the resistance. By now, nearly all of them are gone. Was this all just another passing phase, a brief episode in the imperial powers’ centuries-long war against life?
What would happen if all those different tribes and groups, having come together from every continent, had a shared goal for further collaboration: to concretely create a liberated post-capitalist world? The only way to overcome the existing structures in perpetuity is to hold a profound vision and conviction about what comes next. But what is it? What will come after?
Do we have a strategy for permanently overcoming the violence in today’s world – for overcoming the power of the banks, the oil companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the arms industry, and their servants in government? Such a strategy, if we can find it, would offer protection to all the Standing Rocks of the world, now and in the future. It has been clear for some time that the questions raised by Standing Rock are global issues. Is there a power that can make it possible for life – life lived in love and trust – to overcome the power of guns? This is the revolutionary and ethical question of our time. And here is our answer: yes, there is such a power.
In the shadow of every current catastrophe, forces of global renewal and the creation of a nonviolent planetary society are taking shape. We have a realistic chance to make this happen in the near future. Upon hearing this, the inner reaction is often, “I don’t believe it.” Yet, this is too quick. Who would have believed in self-driving cars just thirty years ago? Human beings are able to manifest whatever they believe in, whatever they can envision. This applies to every area of life, from extreme sports to research and technology, all the way to the possibility of global annihilation. Why not apply this power to global healing and global peace?
Around the world today, there is a suffering that compels us to rise to new standards of peacework. The inconceivable events in Aleppo and Mosul, in Somalia and South Sudan – in the home countries of the refugees – and also the disintegrating marriages in our own culture, the child pornography and sexual violence… all this demands a deeper view into the pernicious foundations of our current civilization, the nature of the human being, and the possibilities of overall global healing.
We live simultaneously in two realities: in the reality of global war, and in another higher system of reality, which we call the “sacred matrix.” “Defend the Sacred” was and remains the motto for the Sioux in the Dakotas. It is ours too. All life on Earth, all landscapes and waters, plants and animals, human beings and peoples are connected with one another in the higher order of the sacred matrix. This matrix contains the holy and healing powers of life. Transformation is what we call the transition from one reality to another. We are at the beginning of a planetary system change. The new culture of post-capitalist society develops on the fundament of the sacred matrix. This will also be the foundation for new communities worldwide. We started the global Healing Biotopes Project to make it possible for many such groups around the world to connect with one another on this basis.
What is the sacred matrix?
There is a video, The Man who Swims With Crocodiles, available on the internet. It shows the love between a man and a crocodile. The two are connected by such a tender intimacy that one can hardly imagine it existing between human beings. The man gives the fully-grown crocodile a kiss on its muzzle… It seems so otherworldly that it’s hard to believe until one sees it. But the story is not something from another world. It’s real, and exists here on Earth. It simply shows us something that contradicts all the beliefs and fear-projections we have been taught.
This story is not unique. Research with animals has revealed countless other examples. Part of the building plan of creation is the sacred alliance of all life, which also contains the deep love between humans and animals. We have had many similar experiences here in Tamera. Nine-year-old Simon met a wild boar with its little ones in the night, and he remained unafraid. He extended his hand to caress the wild boar (this scene was captured by chance.) When a classmate from the neighborhood asked him the next day why he had not been afraid, he answered, “The wild boar are just the same as us.” To this, the young neighbor said, “I want to take care of the wild boar in Tamera with you.” In another example, six-year-old Aaron tripped over a terrier on a leash, who then snapped at him. Aaron let out a short scream, but then said, “This dog isn’t mean. He was just shocked, the same as I was.” These experiences describe a possible world of contact with animals by which a new door opens for us.
All these real events show the (latent) existence of another reality in which there is neither fear nor hostility. They show what life itself can do when fear and violence do not interfere. It is the world of the sacred matrix that exists as a real possibility and waits for us to activate it. The world of the sacred matrix is the fundamental entelechial pattern of life, and is the goal of a new planetary civilization. The world could be a love affair. Love is the most valuable of humanity’s cultural assets – it is the sacred aspect of existence. It is our genetic foundation, written into the nuclei of our cells. It is the core information of all life, all striving towards unity. The Jesuit priest and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Through the power of love, the fragments of the world search for one another, so that the world may find perfection.”
Perhaps we cannot simply realize this world right away. We can, however, recognize the preconditions from which it would arise by itself. In the case of the crocodile, the story has a very simple beginning: the man found a small, injured crocodile on the banks of the river. For two years he nursed the crocodile back to health. He said, “It doesn’t only need to be fed – it also needs my love.” When it was healthy again, he wanted to release it back into the wild river. But it immediately swam back to him. From then on, they have been inseparable friends. Can we imagine that new communities might arise on Earth where people and animals, children and parents, grow up in this kind of friendship? Communities in which there is no fear and no hostility, neither among human beings, nor between humans and their fellow creatures? Can we imagine a world in which the concept of enmity has been made obsolete? Are we capable of acknowledging and realizing the necessary ethical, social, ecological, and spiritual conditions from which such a world can emerge in reality? Isn’t this an obvious thought to begin such an attempt?
A global network is arising on Earth with the goal of bringing these thoughts into reality. We call it Terra Nova. These thoughts are not bound to any particular group, but rather belong to the global information of the sacred matrix.
Information is one of the world’s basic raw materials. Everything is guided by information. How far this can go is demonstrated by the strange success of Silicon Valley’s digital companies. It seems to be a voyage without limits. The same applies to our lives when we allow them to be guided by the information of the sacred matrix. Here too is a voyage without limits – but in another direction. Whether there will be war or peace on Earth, whether we will be sick or healthy, whether we will experience jealousy or solidarity in our relationships depends on the fundamental information steering our lives. A civilization that has made war for millennia carries the information of mistrust and war deep in its cellular memory. Such a civilization will respond to the information of the sacred matrix with defense, derision, and violence. But this defense leads to humanity’s self-destruction. Even the modern high-tech industries will not be able to endure if they continue to work as they have until now, without reevaluating their basic ethical principles. In the system that has lead to millennia of war, the dominant information arises from traumas in the collective unconscious of all humanity, and in the private lives of each individual, including the deep unrevealed aspects of our love relationships. Also, in our private lives, everything depends on which side we choose, and which information we follow. The system of violence obtains its power from a collective substratum of fear. We must recognize and dissolve it.
Our higher souls can do anything if our higher will is present. Whether a lasting love relationship arises or not depends on which information we allow to enter us and guide our on-board computers. The same applies to the collective organism of humanity as a whole – which path humanity will take depends on which information we enter into its information body. The love story between man and crocodile reveals something that is relevant for the whole planet. It goes so very deep. Within the vision of the sacred matrix is a possibility of salvation, which we have to get used to, at first. It is so otherworldly and yet so real, like the love between human and crocodile. And yet we have a deep sense that it is true – that the possibility of such a planetary love affair exists. We feel that such a world could exist, and that we could manifest it, if we agree together to do so. If this succeeds in one place, it will succeed in many places. The sacred alliance of life includes all beings – all are connected to this basic pattern, all carry this vision in their souls like an ancient memory. It is built into humanity’s entelechial program. When a group of people build a new structure for life based on the sacred matrix, this will activate a vision of life, latent in every other living being. As soon as this vision is put into practice in real life, it will be possible to receive it everywhere, because the collective consciousness of humanity is in an “excited state.” Everywhere, there are sensors that will record the image – everywhere, there are powers that will manifest it. Because the vision will be understood and loved, on a cellular level, everywhere. This is the secret of how healing works: healing through contact with the healing power of life. A sick child can become healthy, just because a little dog lays beside her.
We see an entirely different logic at work, wherever trust, love, and care – not hostility and fear – reign among human beings and all their fellow creatures. It is an entirely different concept for life – a different concept for love, for its healing, and for what love can do. Indeed, it is the concept of the sacred matrix. This concept is the basis for paradise, a new Earth. It is the concrete utopia of a human race that has finally left the old fields of hostility and violence behind. Again and again we must question the facts, and test this reality, until we see that this utopia is not a dream and not an illusion. Rather, it is a message about a different global culture written into the genome of every living thing.
We’re talking about planetary system-change – in every community and in every individual. No more, “What do I get?” but rather, “How can I support?” A shift from egocentrism to participation. It is a shift on many levels – from the hologram of fear to the hologram of love. In this context, the subject of Eros is central, for here the traumatic wound is the deepest. The subjects of sex, love, partnership and community take on new meaning when they are reconnected with the sacred. Through trust-building work in community, love and sexuality must be freed from all the old degradation, hypocrisy, and lies. In an erotic culture without fear or lies, patriarchy will collapse. A new culture will take root in a new relationship between the genders. Eros too – inclusive even of its animalistic aspects – is part of the sacred. The goddess also reveals herself in the wallowing pig.
What is sacred? A world where people practice solidarity and care for one another, even in times of need: this is part of the sacred. A world where children can completely trust their parents, and indeed all adults: this is part of the sacred. A world where the sexual interest of one person in another does not create fear, jealousy, or hate in a third: this is a part of the sacred. A world in which animals come closer to humans, because we welcome them, and they do not have to fear us anymore: this is part of the sacred. A world in which we see and care for earth and water as living organisms: this is a part of the sacred. When a rescuer reaches out a hand to a drowning refugee, this is part of the sacred. And when people pray for someone who is terminally ill, and this person becomes healthy again, the sacred has achieved another of its countless miracles. We do not necessarily have to call it “God,” because the sacred does not need a name. It is the inner power that brings us all together, and connects us eternally with all our fellow creatures.
When we understand this, we are faced with an absolute imperative: to shift to the other system of reality that we call the sacred matrix. This shift is the goal of the global Healing Biotopes Project, that we have been working on for so long in Tamera. Healing Biotopes are communities of human beings and nature in which all participants – including the animals – are connected on a foundation of trust. Every rural commune, and many urban neighborhoods, could transform themselves into Healing Biotopes. The planetary community of the future will develop out of a complex network of autonomous communities, built on the basis of the sacred matrix. Could this be a solution?
We are standing today at a turning point in history. The awakened part of humanity knows that we will not have a future worth living, and no continuous community or planetary liberation, if we do not connect with this higher order. It is a very slow start, with single groups and newly developing global networks, but the process accelerates as more people on Earth recognize and realize this process. From a certain point, which we cannot yet define, it will be very fast. Then, this may be repeated thousands of times until all people are connected to this immense power of transformation through their own higher nature. Then, there will no longer be the slaughter of sixty million pigs per year in Germany and Israel-Palestine could really transform almost overnight into a Holy Land. The miracle of liberation will no longer be a dream but a morphogenetic wave which will wash across the Earth.
In the name of love for all creatures,
Dieter Duhm