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Strange Attractors
| Planet Waves, evening of Nov. 1

Nancy, my astrology client from earlier tonight, is a student of something called Systems Theory. As she uses the concept, this is an attitude toward learning or an approach to reality that applies a more complex understanding the situations we observe and experience in life -- including the life of the planet itself.

It is, kind of, the exact opposite to linear thought.

Astrology is an example of a complex systems approach to reality. While it's not always used this way, it is very easy to put it to work, generate a lot of data, and then take an approach to understanding reality that defies normal logic. Not logic, rather conventional logic. Even in the most basic astrology, the number of variables is astonishing, and then the whole thing is spun like ten or twenty roulette wheels within time, it all stops somewhere -- and then you have your chart.

In systems like Gaia (the Earth) or your chart, there is an intelligent but seemingly unintentional reality that emerges and takes on a life of its own. To grasp this, to take advantage of it and to see it working, we will need to go past Enlightenment ideas like empiricism (linear statistics). For example, the polls between Bush, Kerry, Nader and "other" are basically deadlocked at 49% to 49% to 1% to 1%. The polls may differ slightly and change over time, but they don't for example account for how many people change their mind on a given day. Two people switching sides would cancel one another out, but that data is valuable, and completely lost in the oversimplified results we get.

Switching topics a bit, in the Systems Theory of knowledge, there exists something called a Strange Attractor. Hopefully I'm not plastering the concept with mud in my ignorance, but as I understand it -- applied to social theory rather than pure physics -- it is first of all something that shows up. That something, which would normally be perceived as negative or disruptive, then takes on a life of its own, and everything goes in a whole new direction. Instead of seeing that something as an enemy, you can instead choose to see it as an opportunity; a choice point; an emergent. A big example is the Vietnam War becoming a power source for social progress, and sparking the environmental movement, and many other movements. I assure you that President Johnson didn't plan it that way.

Nancy called me back about an hour after our session with a little story. She had just returned from Democratic Headquarters in Carmel, California. Apparently, MoveOn.org had attempted to get 100 volunteers to canvass and watch the polls in Nevada, a deeply divided state -- more liberal in the cities (Vegas, Reno), conservative and often fundamentalist in the rural areas. (It''s also the home of Burning Man.)

Anyway, when the MoveOn organizers got to the meeting point in Nevada, 900 people had showed up to do the work.

There is a lot of energy being raised by the current events of the world, negative as those events are. True, it's all a bit sluggish. People are a little rusty coming out of their shells and looking at one another's faces, but they soon remember how it's done. Phenomenal moments of protest can be separated from one another by 18 months (the F-15 peace protests in 2003 and the massive rallies in Manhattan at the Republican National Convention).

But the energy is rising; awareness is rising; people are already voting by the millions; one of my best friends is among the thousands of attorneys going to the polls to keep an eye on things. I have never seen such good journalism in all my years in this field. People are getting involved with life. This is incredibly refreshing, a sign that the planet (and in particular American society) has a pulse.

Nancy's site is: http://livedlearning.net/