From the Trail...

Dear Friends

Greetings from the great northeast! Tonight I do a show in Erie, Pennsylvania -- industrial strength comedy, we're calling it -- then tomorrow an event for the Department of Peace Campaign in Kalamazoo, and Saturday with the transcendental meditators in Fairfield, Iowa.

Everywhere I've been so far, and with everyone I speak to about it, there is a strong sense of possibility and excitement about Heartland Security, and your own response and posted remarks have been heartening. I really appreciate your being a part of it at this early and all-important stage.

As more of us "take heart" -- and of course, "give heart" -- the heartening and the up-wising continues. In spite of the media distortions and "brainwashing machine stuck on spin" people are beginning to awaken from the Sarah Palin media trance, and are beginning to see her for who she is -- George W. Bush without the intellect. Meanwhile, even Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has expressed his misgivings about giving this miss the Vice Presidency, particularly with her being one 73-year-old heartbeat away from having her rapture-seeking finger on the button.

Of course, the evolutionary momentum is much more powerful than this election, and while I believe that an Obama Presidency would be an affirmation that the body politic is ready to take an evolutionary leap, it is much more up to us these days than it is to any leader. I will be making two announcements next week regarding two powerful partnerships we have made that will help bring our dreams closer to reality.

Meanwhile, please enjoy my mini e-book, A Course In Laughter. Laughter is one of the most heartening things we can do right now. I'd noticed in the past couple of weeks since the Republican convention that many of my readers were feeling a sense of frustration and despair about the temporary bounce McCain received after naming Palin. The tone of too many emails was fearful and cheerless. So ... we need to turn that around. Time to become cheerful and fearless!

Cheerful and fearless is what attracts people, and creates awakening and encouragement. We are facing a major evolutionary change. Everything that resists this change is up -- fear of the unknown, fear about our own ability to rise to the challenge, and of course all the doubt and fear that can be stirred by those who benefit from things staying as they are.

So ... here's a true story that I hope will set us on the right path, and with vigorous energy. Years ago, I was at an outdoor picnic. A group of us were enjoying a volleyball game. However, someone brought their Shelty -- a herding dog -- and this little dog was enjoying herding all the children on to our volleyball game. What was amusing the first couple of times soon became annoying. So, I got an idea. I told folks that the next time the dog chased the kids onto the court, we -- all of us volleyball players -- were to turn as one and chase the dog. That's exactly what we did. You should have seen that poor pup as the tables were turned big time. He kept looking back, as if to say, "Hey, wait a minute! This is wrong! I'm supposed to be chasing YOU!" But he got the message. Behavior extinguished.

That's where we -- those of us who are awakened to both the awful truth and the awesome opportunity -- are today. Our country has been overtaken by a toxic force. This is no time to resign ourselves in despair, but a time to step up, stand up, and speak up -- and as the REAL moral majority, chase these "bad dogs" back to the Dark Ages where they belong. And to those who despair that "everything is controlled by a small group of individuals" I say take that as great news. It means there's way, way more of us than there are of them.

Remember, cheerful and fearless -- it's contagious.

On with the up-wising, and may the unarmed forces be victorious.

Steve Bhaerman

Welcome to the Official Founding Day Celebration of the Department of Heartland Security!

HEARTLAND SECURITY

A Call for Political Climate Change

“The best antidote to global warming is global heartwarming.”

~ Swami Beyondananda

To paraphrase Tom Paine, these are soul-trying times. In this shrinking world that could use a good shrink, we see evidence daily that we’ve reached the limits of our current operating system. Whether we call this obsolete paradigm “lowest common dominator” or “might makes right” or “every cell for himself”, a critical mass of us are coming to realize that a new level of organization is called for. We also recognize that this new paradigm cannot be imposed from the top down, but must be realized and activated from the grassroots up.

Much of this growing awareness has been in recognizing the problems we face. This is good and necessary -- up to a point. My friend Kevin Danaher puts it this way. Imagine you are on the Titanic, and you’ve just hit the iceberg (not difficult to imagine in these times of global crisis). What do you do? Do you spend your time complaining to the captain and protesting that the iceberg has been hit? Do you pretend that all is well, and rearrange the proverbial deck chairs? Or ... as Kevin playfully suggests ... do you build a parallel “party lifeboat” and build a bridge for the other passengers to walk across to join the party?
Lifeboats, anyone?

Well, here is your chance to build the new ark, because we’re in for a spell of “weather.” To actually build this new ship, we must build a new “relation-ship” with all our relations. That means, before we can deal with planetary climate change, we need to create political climate change -- what Swami calls “global heartwarming.”

Welcome to the Department of Heartland Security.....While the name is an obvious play on the more ominous “homeland security”, it is a reminder that we find true security in the land of the heart. Meaning -- we’ve been inundated with enough beliefs and ideologies to make our heads spin. Indeed, much of what we think is true is merely distorted interpretations of age-old fears. It’s as if we’re being operated by remote by dead people. The good news is, when we descend from these thought-forms that separate us, and find communion in the land of the heart, we access a much, much larger truth. This is the truth that shall set us free.

The Law of 75

Now you may be thinking, well this is a splendid ideal, but what about the nitty-gritty real deal? Love is a great sentiment, but in practical reality how can it work? Here’s an example that led me to devise what I call “The Law of 75.”

Years ago, my friend Patricia Sun was giving a talk at a new age bookstore. Outside were four fundamentalist Christians picketing the store. “I’m going to go out and talk with them,” Patricia told the store owner.

“No, you can’t reason with those people,” the store owner told her. “Don’t waste your time.”

But Patricia went and did it anyway. Within minutes, three of the four had put down their picket signs and hugged her. “You’re saying just what Jesus said,” said one. The fourth protester, however, kept his vigil.

From there, I made up the Law of 75. Given the presence of authentic love, three quarters of us are susceptible. Isn’t it interesting that to modify the U.S. Constitution, the amendment must be approved by 3/4 of the states? There’s something about 75% consensus that goes way beyond a mere majority imposing their will on everyone else. It brings us closer to a foundational “agreement” about reality.

At a time when the dueling dualities of materialistic science and fundamentalist religion are engaged in a duel to the death, maybe there is a third and more functional way that can unite us around what is perhaps the most underutilized tool in our human tool chest -- the power of love. Again, this power is tangible and measurable. The folks at the HeartMath Institute have shown that our hearts tend to entrain with one another, just the way pendulums do. Dr. Leonard Laskow,

author of Healing With Love, has demonstrated that the feelings of love and acceptance can actually shrink cancer cells.

At this time of crisis, we have very little to lose and a world to gain. Think of it this way. Science tells us that we only use a very, very small percentage of our brains. Makes you wonder, what percentage of the love in our hearts do we use?

It’s Time to Declare a State of Emerge ‘n See

We have purposely chosen the date “9/11” for our pre-launch of Heartland Security so that we offer a powerful re-frame of the fear we’ve allowed to take hold and manipulate us over the past seven years. It’s not that there are no dangers in the world. Quite the opposite. However, the most effective way to face those dangers is the way our bodies’ own immune system does it -- by surrounding and isolating the “sociopathogens” and destroying as few healthy cells as possible.

Four months from today, on January 11, 2009, we are declaring a new day that will transform the state of emergency to a state of emerge ‘n see. On the date that represents our Oneness -- One One One -- we will declare our “interdependence.” We will take a cue from the highly-successful and highly-functional community of 50 trillion cells under our skin, emerge from fear and separation and see we are each and all cells in the body of humanity.

Unlike some totalitarian “new world order,” this interdependence is the key to our next level of freedom -- the freedom from individual and collective limiting programming, and the freedom for each of us to express fully what only each of us uniquely can. I am happy that Heartland Security will be teaming with the Interdependent Project to celebrate the first Interdependence Day.

On that day, Heartland Security will launch its full website -- designed to weave together this new and functional impulse towards spiritual coherence, sustainable economics, and human relations based on mutual respect. We will also be publishing the Heartland Security multimedia e-book to open a new conversation that will hopefully lead to a new operating system. The e-book will contain enlightening, inspiring and informative audio interviews with some of the leading luminaries in spiritual, economic, psychological and political thought.

Above all, Heartland Security is a community, and we invite you to join. Imagine ... a place where we can explore solutions that are working together, and then work together to implement these solutions, locally and globally. Between now and our launch date, we will offer weekly updates, polls, and an opportunity for you, your organization, your business to become a sponsor of Heartland Security. For a limited time, we are offering a special certificate for founding subscribers. And the cost of subscribing is -- zero. No cost.

If you’re ready to live into the future you’ve only dreamed about, and if you’re ready to weave your dream with the loving and functional dream being dreamed worldwide, here is your chance...

The evolution begins here and now.