[Announce] Movie 2012: how to respond

[The Interhelp Network]

Dear Interhelpers and friends,

Having seen the previews to the upcoming film 2012, I think this
message from our Interhelp colleague Sarah Pirtle is wise and
important.

Thanks for your attention.
Paula Hendrick

A movie called 2012 is about to send unhelpful images and predictions.
It's a different level of disaster movie because it's about a time
period just two years away. As we move toward the actual year of 2012,
it matters how we hold our visions and how we build our local
communities.

  That movie could add to numbness and hopelessness, and we don't need
more of it, but if we get other conversations going, we can hear many
voices of possibilities to bring us together and suggest how to move
forward. People are already painfully aware of social and ecological
breakdown. Strong media images can spread the destabilizing virus of
fear. That's a virus we can do something about.

In the early 1980's a movie about the aftermath of nuclear war called
"The Day After" was shown on TV. Knowing that this movie virus was on
its way, local meetings were organized in advance around the country
called "The Day Before" so that people could connect and change the
kind of grim isolation the movie depicted.

Weekly, here in western MA, a group of people gather to talk about
2012 as a time that is pregnant with possibility. The suggestion is,
wherever we are, that we stir up conversations about 2012, surface our
hopes and fears, and discuss the kind of 2012 we want to be part of
creating.

This is a time period when we need encouragement. I heard voices like
this in our discussion and want to pass them along.

* What if 2012 is an opening?

* What if you focus your attention on your intention to be part of a
positive force?

* What is one action that you can do right now that lines up with your
visions for making  things better?

* What kind of community future do you want to be part of?

* How can you visualize the people all over the world who send you
encouragement?

* How can we make room inside ourselves for more consciousness and new energy?

* What if there was a door that you could open at any time that gave
you daily help in living from the values you cherish most?

  Let's offer each other empowering questions and messages of grounded
hope and spread them like flower seeds.

When a seed is starting out, it doesn't need a rock placed on top of
it. Disaster predictions are like that rock. Our lives have meaning
when we are able to plant ourselves in a larger story. What story do
we want to have holding us?