The Shift looks at Colonization of Mind

Throwing Off Mass Media/Corporate Brainwashing

Come join us in a candid conversation about what’s really going on! Why is it that we are all working harder and longer hours, but we keep getting ever-diminishing returns for our efforts? Why is it that we are told that this country is a participative democracy but the will of the people now means next to nothing? We can step outside the current “American myth” (in which we have been taught we are free, but are actually enslaved). We’ll discuss how our minds have been colonized through excessive competition, consumerism, economic incentives, mind control, fear-based propaganda, and unnecessary survival struggle. Together we can move beyond our colonized disempowerment to a place of reclaiming our creative power, to telling the plain truth, and to conscious choice.
Program Overview: Come join us in a candid conversation about what’s really going on! Why is it that we are all working harder and longer hours, but we keep getting ever-diminishing returns for our efforts? Why is it that we are told that this country is a participative democracy but the will of the people now means next to nothing? We can step outside the current “American myth” (in which we have been taught we are free, but are actually enslaved). We’ll discuss how our minds have been colonized through excessive competition, consumerism, economic incentives, mind control, fear-based propaganda, and unnecessary survival struggle. Together we can move beyond our colonized disempowerment to a place of reclaiming our creative power, to telling the plain truth, and to conscious choice.

Speakers/Facilitators: Three presenters will get the discussion going by offering some brief remarks, but a large part of the evening will be an open discussion where those attending will be invited to jointly explore the best ways to emancipate both ourselves and our community.

Charles Cresson Wood is a local organizer for Mendocino Coast Transition Towns, a writer, and a law school student. He is the author of a meditation book entitled “Opening to Abundance” (on Amazon.com) and a new write-in-your-journal book entitled “Rapid Crisis Resolution” (completed, but not yet published). He will talk about developing a personal practice of thinking “outside the box,” and ways to escape from the economic and cultural matrix that enslaves us.

Scott Menzies is a Tai Chi teacher and the owner of a local Tai Chi studio. He studied Taijiquan (T’ai Chi Ch’uan), Qigong (Ch’i Kung) and Push Hands in both China and Taiwan. He teaches classes on the way of the nonviolent yet not pacifist warrior, and how the discipline of personal practice can generate greater health and wellness physically, mentally, and socially. He will talk about his understanding of nonviolence, from both a Buddhist and Daoist perspective, and how it applies in community organizing, activism, and life in general.
Geri Ann Morisky was a University of California Berkeley activist in the late 60’s, but realized true activism was becoming an inner warrior. She chose “the road less traveled,” but raised a family, worked for a Korean ambassador as well as conscious CEO’s at three major corporations, while also working to conserve wild places, serve on public health programs, and stop GMO’s and fracking. She has lived in India, studied restorative yoga, and trained in Grof music and breath work. She’ll share her spiritual journey with her dying father, and how surrender leads us to a larger sense of self and purpose.