Barbara Marx Hubbard leads a group called the Foundation for Conscious Evolution in Santa Barbara. One of the terms that she underscores is "co-creation," which in my mind is a choice to align your sense of life purpose with others to bring about a better world.
She also speaks to something that has resonated deeply with me for a long time: we simply have too many people on the planet, so why have children? If you really want kids, adopt instead.
Last time I checked, if every human on the planet consumed as much as I do then we'd need almost 5 planets to provide the necessary resources. (If you want to learn more on the matter, read my blog entry about Redefining Progress).
We know that personal fulfillment does not necessarily lie in having our own children, yet, for many of my friends, the drive to bring more children is considered part of their lifeforce. Many people are conditioned to feel that without having children they are just not contributing to society.
Yes, creating a family is magnificent, yet some of my family and friends appear to be overlooking the role they play in the planet's overpopulation – by either contributing to it, or not.
Andrew Beath interviewed Barbara Marx Hubbard for his book "Consciousness in Action." In it, she states the following:
"When activism is motivated from the deepest level of consciousness, you are being activated at the soul level with a calling forth of your life purpose. This is your true vocation, your soul's code- that inner guiding genius that each one of us possesses. Its arousal is the next stage of your evolution as a person. If you are not activated to express that uniqueness through some form of ongoing service, then true fulfillment will elude you."
"And it is a very intimate relationship from a bio-evolutionary point of view, since only in the last couple of generations have people been told, 'Don't be fruitful and multiply.' There are already more people than the planet can readily support. So it seems that there is a spiritual hormone turning on. It is stimulating us toward the fulfillment of our unique life purpose, in concert with others. The drive toward self-reproduction is expanding into the desire for self-evolution, which occurs through the expression of life purpose. The urge to procreate is becoming the desire to co-create, to join our genius and give birth to our greater selves and our work in the world. Many of us are responding with the same drive we felt toward reproduction."
"Co-creation involves tapping into the universal creative life force that flows within us all and then joining one’s genius with that of others and learning the pathways of resonance together, loving the other as oneself, listening with compassion, learning how to speak the unspoken and not harboring hidden resentments."
For further reading, check out Barbara's interview about "Sex, Immortality and the Future of Women" in What is Enlightenment.
Image – painting by Mark Henson – "Riverine Reverie"
