This is a perfect moment.

It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially
because you and I are waking up from our sleepwalking
thumbsucking dumbclucking collusion with the masters
of illusion and destruction.Thanks to them, from whom
the painful blessings flow, we are waking up.

Their wars and tortures,
their crimes against nature,
extinctions of species
and brand new diseases.

Their spying and lying
in the name of the father,
sterilizing seeds and
trademarking water.

Molestations of god,
celebrations of shame,
stealing our dreams and
changing our names.

Their ingenious commercials
and bloodsucking hustles,
their endless rehearsals
for the end of the world.

Thanks to them, from whom the painful blessings flow,
we are waking up.

Their painful blessings are cracking open more and
more gashes in the shrunken and crippled mass
hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality."
And through the fractures, ripe eternity is flooding
in; news of the soul's true home is pouring in;
our allies from the other side of the veil are swarming in:
inspiring us to become smarter and wilder and kinder and
trickier.

We are waking up.

As heaven and earth come together, as the dreamtime
and daytime merge, we register the shockingly
exhilarating fact that we are in charge-- you and I
are in charge--of creating a brand new world.
Not in some distant time or faraway place, but
right here and right now.

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As we stand on this brink, as we dance on this verge,
we can't let the ruling fools of the dying world
sustain their curses. We have to rise up and fight
their insane logic; defy, resist, and prevent their
tragic magic;
unleash our sacred rage and supercharge it.

But overthrowing the living dead is not enough.

Protesting the well- dressed monsters is not enough.

We can't afford to be consumed with our anger;
can't be obsessed and possessed with their danger.
Our sweet animal bodies need love and fertility.
Our maginations crave tastes of infinity.

In the New World that we are creating, we've got to
be steeped in lusty compassion and ecstatic duty,
ingenious love and insurrectionary beauty.

We need radical curiosity and reverent pranks,
voracious listening and ferocious thanks.

*

So I'm curious, my fellow creators. Since you and I
are in charge of making a brand New World, where do
we begin? What wild truths do we want at the heart of
our transformations? What fresh codes and stories will
be our oracles? What crafty questions and uplifting
desires will be our inspirations?

Here's where I want to begin: with pronoia. Pronoia
is the opposite of paranoia--the *antidote* for
paranoia.

Pronoia is the true theory that all of creation is
conspiring to shower you with blessings.

Pronoia is the guarantee that life always gives you
exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

Pronoia says that everything alive is working very
hard to liberate you from ignorance and transform you
into the gift of love you were born to be.

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I am allergic to dogma. I thrive on questions, and
don't trust any idea that tempts me to believe in it
absolutely. There are very few perceptions or theories
about which I am totally certain.

But I am absolutely certain that pronoia describes
the way the world actually is. Pronoia is wetter than
water, truer than the facts, and stronger than death.
It smells like cedar smoke in early spring rain, and
if you close your eyes right now, you can feel it
shimmering like the aurora borealis in your soft, warm
animal body.

Some Buddhists say the inherent nature of existence
is suffering; they long to escape into Nirvana. Many
Catholics say the inherent nature of life is sinful;
they long for the purified peace of heaven. But
pronoia assures us that the inherent nature of life is to
liberate us.

Being born on the earth is the highest honor and
greatest privilege.
To be alive as human beings gives us the chance to
pull off exquisite and Herculean feats of magic that
are not possible in nirvana or heaven or any other
so-called paradise, higher dimension, or better place.

I'm not exaggerating or indulging in poetic metaphor
when I say this. Visualize it if you dare.

The sweet stuff that quenches all of our longing is
not far away in some other time and place. It's right
here and right now.

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew, "Earth is crammed
with heaven."

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