erry Patten’s book, A New Republic of the Heart, an ethos for revolutionaries,
is a magnum opus of such awesome significance at this time on the planet,
I’m still processing the ideas within. Fundamentally, it is a call to action, for,
as Terry says, “We are alive at game time.” We are at a tipping point that it is imploring
us to write a new agreement. As I was reading the book, I kept underlining every
second sentence, ear-tagging every page and then putting it down just to absorb
a chapter before continuing. Then I came to a sentence that has stayed with me
in equally disturbing and inspiring ways ever since: “If it is too late, we can at least
write the end of the human story well.” I had not, until reading that sentence, ever
truthfully considered the possibility that all endeavour to save, support, sustain, pivot
and change the world may come to nought anyway. That it was not actually the goal
of change which was the point in the first place. That how we live, the quality of our
contribution to this period of history, matters most. It is, in fact, all we have. The book
distils this idea further: “No matter what lies ahead, it is tremendously important that
we participate in ways that express our highest character and values.”
Terry is a philosopher, author, activist, teacher and entrepreneur who has dedicated
his life to healing our global ecological and sociocultural crises through higher
consciousness and activism. He has spent large periods of time in intensive spiritual
practice and emerged as a leading voice for integrating inner work with outer action
and restoring wholeness to our systems. When I met him, I was surprised by his
humanness. His ideas are so big and so whole-heartedly expressed I imagined an
otherworldly figure. It wasn’t the case. I had prepared questions for our conversation
but where we went was so vast and unexpected I didn’t follow any of them. Once
immersed in a dialogue with someone like Terry, you really just have to go with what
happens in the moment. I leaned back into it and let it take me to new places in my
mind. This work is the deepest end of the pool.
“Every one of us can find ways to magnify love and sanity and beauty and truth and
human connection,” Terry writes. That’s what we can do about the times we live in.
It’s an enormous commitment. It presumes responsibility for the predicament we find
ourselves in. Can I find in myself a no-matter-what commitment? This proposition
messed me up for days. In my haste to fix or solve or save, I had run anxious circles
around myself, desperate to carve out a certainty. So much accumulated trauma and
suffering had landed my generation and those to come in a wicked predicament with
no reliable outcome. We have plundered the planet for so long, we have to reverse
engineer ourselves out of this mess. We need big-hearted thinkers to help us find our
ways to the biggest questions and the deepest healing.
T
