The Beginning of A Deeper Democracy: Human Photosynthesis

Brad Blanton, Ph.D.

Humankind has to grow up and get smarter quickly now or perish. We may be too late already. We don't know if getting more conscious can happen fast enough for us to be able to survive the traditional ignorance of civilization. But it is the only gig in town, so we are wailing away at it. We need fundamental answers to fundamental questions, like how to solve global warming, end the corporate destruction of people and planet, and curb or stop a number of other dumb things we humans do when we act as blind believers, rather than intelligent, loving co-creators.

Our greatest hope is that using the proven new technologies of dialogue and deliberation, like jazz musicians taking a ride on each other's themes, when we care about, listen to, and play with each other, a powerful collective genius emerges. From this mutual brilliance, conscious creative solutions show up and actions occur in the world that none of us could have come up with alone and the co-intelligence of the whole is greater than the sum of its partners. How quickly we humans learn to pay attention to the real world and cooperate with each other in this co-hearted, co-intelligent manner is vital to our future.

For example: Participants in last year's Radical Honesty World Cafe at the No Mind Festival in Sweden, attempted to come up with co-intelligent solutions to the problem of Global Warming, after watching Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. The question was, "How do we contribute to the solution, rather than the problem, of our human impact on the world?" We found that we had to transcend nationalism to solve the problems. From the ideas that emerged I wrote a new anthem to substitute for, and replace, the old dysfunctional national anthems of the world. This is a Transnational Anthem. In fact, it is a Trans-Species Anthem-maybe the world's first!

We called this "everyone wins, co-hearted, co-intelligent, co-ordinated creative method of life problem solving" Human Photosynthesis. So that's the title of our new trans-species anthem! We were lovin' life when we came up with this! And it turned out that lovin' life, and lovin' each other lovin life was the answer! It's a ballad (of course!).

Human Photosynthesis

In greed and blindness training school
Humankind has been a fool
In ocean, desert, mind and heart
We stood alone and we fell apart

We locked up food to control our neighbor
And gave it back in exchange for labor
Victor and victim, John and whore
Invented the store, and therefor war

Though what we do makes no damned sense
(to burn up the planet for the sake of Defense)
the secrets and lies and all the expense-
can be changed by us- with some common sense!

CHORUS:
"Fat chance!" you say, and I agree
Except for one thing about you and me
Sometimes in blindness we learn to see...
that 'love is in us, am in I, are in we.'" (e.e. cummings)

If we access all our hearts and brains,
face our weaknesses and pains,
undo earth's costly human stains
We could turn those losses into gains!

Honest talk when care is ruling
comes from heart-filled minds all pooling
wisdom from our earth's great schooling-
could turn global warming into global cooling!

If we include all species in the golden rule
when humanity's about to lose it's cool,
As our love emerges from the fog
We could turn this Prince into a frog!

So put this in parenthesis
(It's human photosynthesis!)
To copy all the trees and grasses
Is the only way to save our asses!

(REPEAT CHORUS)

And as that transformation's done
Love is the atmosphere and sun!
A change of state and change of nation
That humans learned from vegetation!

So how do humans become wise
And learn to photosynthesize?
We need just love and honesty
And to honor our bigger family!

To save all life and tame the weather,
all humankind must pull together
When we all get that we all care...
We could end needless killing everywhere

(REPEAT CHORUS)

So one more time for emphasis
It's human photosynthesis!
time is up and it's last call
If we stand together we may not fall
(Spoken) If we stand together we may not fall.