What Are the Major Shifts of Our Time?

We live in exciting times. Fearful times for some. Angry times for others. Often sad times for sensitive people. Personally, I feel mainly the excitement of what will come. This energy of being curious is my choice. And please don’t think it came to me lightly. I had to learn, explore and experiment before it fully blossomed. It is my conscious choice to live a life of curiosity and wonder.

What is happening in this decade, you ask? I always explain it as the shift from the Anthropocene to the Syntropocene. And before you stop at the difficult words, let me explain. It is not difficult. It’s exciting. It’s the complexity of life and evolution. And we can navigate complexity with simplicity.

We know that our Planet exists for 4.6 billion years. We also know that 3.8 billion years ago life on our Planet started with one-celled organisms. Around 600 million years ago, animals started to appear. And only 300,000 years ago the homo sapiens, the human we know now, evolved.

We are toddlers on this Earth. And we are learning. So, what’s next?

In the past centuries, we have been trying to control the Earth and the humans on it. We have ‘discovered’ America. We have been colonizers. We have been building industrial wealth. We have created economies like pyramid schemes. We have built businesses with linear business models, disregarding responsibilities for pollution and waste. We have chosen leaders who lead with control and manipulation.

And all that is about to end.
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Overthinking

What will the new era be like? Well, first it is good to know that much of our societies, economies, and sciences are built upon the work of one French philosopher: René Descartes. His most famous quote, written down in 1637, is still ruling in our current humanity.

Cogito ergo sum. It’s Latin. It means: I think therefore I am.

We think. And what do we think? We think we can control Nature. We think some races are better and smarter than others. We think money is the only value in the world. We think we have built smart human systems. We think women are worse at rationality than men. We think children are born stupid and we have to teach them many things.

We think. We think. We think.

And all the while we blow up our egos, tell each other how to get rich quickly, complain about the weather, yell at our children en have huge amounts of stress over jobs that have to pay the bills of next month. Our leaders manipulate us with words and images, trying to sell us the next bit of left or right politics.

We think about safety. We think about comfort. We think about luxury.

But is that life? Is that our living? Can’t we do any better than that? I want to show you that we can indeed do better than that.
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Syntropocene

In the coming era, the Earth will take the control back from humans. All signs are there. And that’s not only scary. It’s also fitting. Hurricanes can be destructive for humans who do not build their human systems cleverly. But hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and forest fires are catalysts. They make space for new things to emerge.

In the last century, many discoveries have been done in science. We have proven many things quantitatively. And all these things have come into our consciousness. That’s a good thing. It’s part of evolution. And now there’s complexity science.

However, only money has been decisive in the industrial age. The business models have done the choosing of what to apply and what not. And the business models have been built on a flawed economic system. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the only Key Performance Indicator (KPI) sucks! Because the economy only grows when we pollute and create waste. We have forgotten how to grow our societies, economies, and personal lives with values of beauty, love, and community sense.

We have favored quantity over quality. Efficiency over effectivity. And we cry about the ugliness of it all.

In the coming age, we will find new ways. With complexity sciences. By connecting many dots. With new insights in mathematics and quantum physics. And with new understanding of everything the indigenous people knew long before us. We are part of Nature. We belong on this Planet as long as we can adapt our human beingness to Gaia’s universal rules.

Syntropy is an important word here. Syntropy is the moment that the chaos of vortexes becomes a flowing river in one direction. Syntropy is a law of Nature. It is how ribs are created in one direction. How do the cells know where to attach? Well, they do.
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Major Shifts

What are some of the shifts I see?

• From the Anthropocene to the Syntropocene
• From scarcity to abundance. We built our human systems on scarcity. That’s why it sucks. We can build them with abundance instead and create a good life for all humans and all species. Starting with living soil, living spirits, and navigating the paradoxes
• From dead, inhuman systems to living systems inspired by natural laws
• From industrial, big, and uniform to electronic, small, and connected
• From purely rational to combined intuitive, rational ways and a warm heart
• From inflated egos to smaller egos and servant leadership
• From only rational science to rediscovering the wisdom of indigenous people
• From domesticated to rewilding our environments and our souls
• From economies of scale to economies of scope
• From competition on price to unique, valuable niches based on intersections
• From complicated laws to simple laws as a minimal holon in which SMEs and citizens can create vibrant, bioregional economies
• From central banks to decentralized value distribution systems based on crypto
• From consumption (boredom) to creation with passion (excitement)
• From toxic chemistry to non-toxic, biodegradable biochemistry
• From mining to regenerative farming combined with nanotechnology
• From limited mathematics and geometry (Pythagoras) to bio-geometry and Vedic/sacred geometry
• From physics to quantum physics

Well, there are many more shifts happening now along the same lines. They have all been growing in the undercurrent and are now mature enough to merge and become a stream. A fast-flowing river.
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Active Hope

So, whenever you feel desperate about our times, the seeming chaos of COVID and climate change, don’t despair. We are on the verge of becoming that river. Together. And the horizon is a beautiful place to stream towards. Just find friends who understand the hope and are prepared to take action. Explore and experiment together for your own lives.

Seven generations from now, our descendants will be completely different humans. Who would have thought about gaming and avatars when my grandma was taking her first drive in a motorized car?

Consciousness plays a huge role in the Synropocene. If we think logically, we mainly use one brain half. But we have two. And the arational one is way better at handling complexity with creativity and intuition. Seeing through the mirage.

Nature’s information comes into our arational brain half via the air, micro-organisms, and conversations with other people. The information goes via our heart to our rational brain half where we make decisions for our lives. And, to be honest, many other body parts help in a healthy process.

The people who are seeing through the mirage right now are making many different new narratives. My narrative is about Nature and how she will give us all the answers on how and what to do next. I like collecting practical examples. My narrative is about my own transformational journey. And how curious energy has pulled me through whenever I felt stuck and desperate.

The Syntropocene has two main ingredients. Intuition and integration. It is about feminine ways of being, added to the good things of masculinity. About the power of softness, so Gaia can give us some insights.

About how to handle paradox and find the truth.

Also, about how to integrate this truth into our daily lives. We are pilgrims. And we take one step at a time. All steps will be different. Because your background and life is different than mine. But I hope you’ll find some snippets in my stories that will help you start exploring how it works for you.
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Curiosity and Wonder

And the curiosity? That’s what drives me. I’ve always wanted to know stuff. And now that I know where to look, in Nature, in science, in indigenous wisdom, it’s mesmerizing and exciting. Full of hope. Full of action.

This year, I decided together with my husband Mike to live a nomadic life for the coming years. Travel to the places where the shifts happen. And contribute for our own grandchildren and the many other children on this Earth. We are in Greece now. The Peloponnese. In an area where they are trying to revitalize 24 nearly deserted villages with nature-based solutions.

We just found an apartment one minute from the sea. With the mountains in our backs. We can connect to Nature every day. And we do. By breathing in clean air. By drinking our water with attention. By connecting to the wise local farmers, nurses, and creatives.

We live a simple life of complexity. I write explorational stories, fiction, and poetry. Always with Gaia in my mind, my heart, and my soul. And I love it!

And now, I’m really curious. Who are you? How much of this do you already see? What do you see that I don’t see (yet)? What is your way of handling the hard parts of life? Tell us and add to the emerging picture of this decade…