Manifesto # 5 / Preamble to a Cultural and Social Renaissance
On the far shore of somewhere new
We the People of the United States of Somewhere New, are now getting back to the business and pleasure of forming a more perfect union, all the while realizing we’re perfectly imperfect beings having a human experience, just as the Cosmos, Nature, and the Muses of Creativity intended.
Whatever else may happen, it’s time to create a cultural and social renaissance, based on love and communication and taking care of each other, by making art, music, writing—while adding empathy and intuition and loving kindness into the mix. Moving it all ahead on sidewalks, and freeways, in loft spaces, and along wooded paths. With understanding, respect, and open-hearted wonder, our world can be remade.
In our less-than-tranquil times, where invisible threats and societal strife and fear abounds, we’ll carve out the means to be less mean and making what matters, in every way possible.
We want new stories full of infinite surprise, and music full of heart-centered joy. We want to feel release and relief, and to laugh up at the stars. Whether it’s making a living, or making music, or making art, or making love, or making movies, or making a point—doing it with open hearts leads to a higher level of doing it.
Creation comes in many forms, and it likes it like that. On the far shore of Somewhere New, we’ve got to get things going again, as we’ve always done before. Before this moment. Here in the New Now.
Where do we go from here? True to form, new forms made out of truth and clarity are established every time something false and wrong is normalized in a culture. As it was before, it will be again. The pendulum is swinging back toward the light. We’re turning away from lies, disinformation, and darkness. Our current cultural forms need reinventing and expanding upon. By whom? All those who said no to doing nothing, and yes to creating. How about changing the future? How about transforming a neighborhood garden? How about building a house of clouds from the ground up?
Nature has surprised us, and thrown us to the ground in a way we’ve never experienced before. And now we must rediscover new ways of being. Some of these were buried by cultural conditioning. Some have been forgotten for centuries. Some never were before. Personal and cultural reinventions are as real as sunlight, ideas, and empathy. Yes is often the answer. Other answers include Breathe, Release, Healing, Clarity, Touching, Laughter, Connectivity, Drawing, Humor, Speaking, Rebirth, Waves, Heartbeats, Eyeballs, Wildness, Massage, Voices, Touch, Boldness, Wonder, Gestures, Music, Willingly, Tree, Waves, Silence, Courage, Words, Gratitude, Pictures, Air, Walking, Adventure, Fondness, Gardens, Silliness, Awakening, Muses, Serendipity, Beaches, Asking, Being, Life, Sensuality, Memory, Freedom.
Who are we? Who have we become? Who do we want to be? How do we want to feel? Where do we want to go—while breath is flowing through our bodies? Lives across our land are crying out for the best impulses inside our beating hearts to return, and to help create a new beginning. How did we wind up there? How do we return to who we can become? Create your own list of what matters to you. Make it a hastily jotted down list of a few bold feelings, or take weeks and months to compose your list. Let it be a never-ending list. What’s the best each of us can imagine for each other?
Making it happen day by day makes sense, since that’s how a life gets lived. Following where creativity leads, and living and connecting in open and deep ways is what matters. Open up to the creative flow state, and connect with this world in a state of wonder.
Connections matter, living here in the New Now. Connect more with who you are, and who you want to become. Connect more with those around you. Because here we are. We live in a world of strained eyes continually staring down into small screens. Finally, we’ve seen beyond the screen and into each other’s minds. We’re becoming more than we dreamed possible. We’re an evolved version of who we were months ago. We live in an uneasy and distracted time in history where, pre-pandemic, information overdose had already disrupted our minds. We don’t need more reasons not to be present. We need to learn how to unlearn, and to ask better questions. Now, many of us are deeply connected to the flowing feelings of everyone everywhere flooding our nervous systems. Yet here we are. In a New Now. It’s time to connect to our deepest core. Unbury the self who we long ago shoved aside, and see life with new eyes.
In the beginning, we understood starting each day with a song in our heart was in our best interest. Waking, touching, loving, laughing, wandering, being interested in the wonder of who we happen to be every day. In the end, life happens in more varied and wonderful ways, or at least that’s how it used to be. And should be again. We must become who we were meant to be. We are all responsible for creating the next culture in the United US Wakes-Up-Finally, and unleashes the possibility of it all.
How we remain loving and creative in the face of brutal senseless wars, hinged and unhinged cultural transitions, global pandemics, mass confusion, propaganda, upheavals, despair, denials, distraction, and disengagement—is the big question worth facing.
Creativity compels change. It makes what was once lived in the imagination a tangible reality. Creativity waits for no one, but works through everyone. Creativity is in our lifeblood, as it always has been. The world is waiting, and our culture is exhausted but ready to rise up and explore the inexhaustible possibilities that are waiting backstage at the opening night of the new cultural renaissance building up and forming finally around us.
Let’s be grateful that we live in this constantly changing now, and do our part to transform it for the better in each waking moment we inhabit.
Excellent. Inspiring, as always, Russell.