Insights from Van Jones and Lynne Twist | Earthx2024 - video Dailymotion

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EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/   CNN political contributor Van Jones and activist Lynne Twist discuss ancient ways and uncertainty in today's changing world.   EarthX  Love Our Planet.  The Official Network of Earth Day.    About Us:      At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.     EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.      EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/    Follow Us:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxmedia/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxmedia  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EarthXMedia/  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthxmedia  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthXMedia    How to watch:   United States:   - Spectrum  - AT&T U-verse (1267)  - DIRECTV (267)  - Philo  - FuboTV  - Plex  - Fire TV       #EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Eco-friendly #Conservation #EarthxTV #EarthX

Transcript

00:00I am here with my beloved Lynn Twist and my beloved Van Jones.

00:05We've been together for a long time.

00:07We got a lot we can talk about,

00:08but I think the first thing that we should do for EarthX TV is just

00:12establish who you are,

00:14who the Pachamama Alliance is,

00:16and what you've been doing,

00:17hanging out in these rainforests for the past 20 years.

00:2030.

00:21Past?

00:2230.

00:2330 years?

00:24Wow, that's crazy.

00:2529 and a half.

00:27Well, I was lucky enough to be called to the Achuar people 30 years ago

00:33through a whole series of mystical encounters and events.

00:38And once Bill, my husband Bill, as you know, and I were there,

00:43it became clear that there was something calling us that was deeper

00:48than the indigenous people, the Achuar.

00:51It was actually, they were the conduits for the forest, you could say,

00:55being called by the forest.

00:57And then the more we got involved with the Achuar and the forest,

01:01the more we saw we were being called by the spirit of life itself,

01:05through the forest, through the Achuar.

01:07And it's now 30 years ago, and we knew nothing about the rainforest.

01:13We knew nothing about the environment.

01:15I was working on Hunger and Poverty, as you know,

01:17and Bill was the business guy.

01:19It was so perfect because we had no agenda.

01:22We didn't think we knew what we were doing,

01:25and we were a blank slate for them to ride on.

01:28So as you know, they told us that if we were coming to help them,

01:34even though they invited us there, don't waste our time,

01:36but if we were coming because we knew somehow deep in our soul

01:40that our liberation was bound up with them, that we could work together.

01:44And that became so clear in that encounter.

01:49And so that partnership is not we're helping them

01:54because they're behind or backwards or anything like that,

01:59or they're helping us because we're so screwed up.

02:03Really, it's a collaboration with ancient ways and the modern world,

02:08which is critical for the world we're living in now.

02:12And the ancient wisdom that the indigenous people carry

02:15is not just wisdom.

02:17It's an actual way of being in the world

02:20that we all know deep in our souls is our own indigenous core,

02:28but we've lost touch with it.

02:30Very much.

02:31And being with indigenous people who don't fight for the earth,

02:34they're not trying to save the earth, they don't even think about that.

02:37They are of the earth. They are of the forest.

02:40So that's a very different way to work.

02:42And all these years I've learned that from them.

02:44It makes me cry because I was fighting for this and fighting for that.

02:49But not only is that exhausting, it's ultimately not that effective

02:56because what's happening now is the earth is communicating to us big time.

03:00I mean, this is feedback, the climate crisis.

03:03As Paul Hawken says, it's not happening to us, it's happening for us.

03:07And if we can hold it that way, we will receive the message and respond.

03:12We as a species, I would say.

03:14So Pachamama's been a real teacher for me, Pachamama Alliance,

03:18and I'll just stop there. There's plenty more to say.

03:22I was at the house with the new babies and Noemi,

03:30and we were clicking on the television,

03:34and Awaking the Dreamer series that you did in 2014 popped up.

03:41It did?

03:42Yeah, just like, I don't know, some kid, I don't know.

03:45You're kidding.

03:46I'm not joking.

03:47And I said, there's some very smart people in this one, honey.

03:49And did you watch it? Because you're in it.

03:51I'm in it, exactly. I'm a little dummy.

03:54So that was 10 years ago.

03:59And Obama gave the speech that made him famous at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

04:06That was 20 years ago.

04:09So we've been doing this for a while.

04:11Been doing this for a while.

04:13And what I would say is that there's two things that are happening at the same time.

04:24There's this indigenous wisdom that's trying to reassort itself.

04:29There's a turn toward Eastern spiritualities, psychedelics.

04:37There's a turn back toward wisdom.

04:41And yet there's an acceleration toward more and more data.

04:45And which of these two things is going to be the predominant?

04:51That's the question.

04:54You know, AI, quantum computing, biotech, these are other movements.

05:02All of them claiming they're going to be better for life, better for health, better for the Earth.

05:10There's a whole AI initiative for climate.

05:13But these seem to be very different energies.

05:16One very head, very masculine, very top-down.

05:21The other very heart, very embodied, very bottom-up, very feminine.

05:27I imagine we need each other.

05:29But I'm concerned that this is a weird date that may not work out well.

05:37How do you think about all this sort of technological stuff that's going on?

05:41Does that play a big role in your mind?

05:43Well, of course. Oh, my God.

05:45It's terrifying and inspiring.

05:48Everything is terrifying and inspiring.

05:51It depends on how you want to look at it.

05:53It's the frame you use.

05:54Everything can be used for incredible benefit or it can be used for terrible, tragic outcomes.

06:01But, you know, I like to look at the long view.

06:04That helps me because I worked with Bucky Fuller and Buckminster Fuller always took the long view.

06:09And that helps a lot when you're in the thick of it.

06:12And I like to, well, I'll use this one metaphor.

06:17There's a prophecy from the Baha'i people about the first century of the third millennium.

06:24So if you think about where we are, and it's not like jammed into the tomorrow and the next minute and the next minute and the next minute.

06:30If you think about where we are, we're only 23 and a half years into the third millennium.

06:38Okay?

06:40So if you think of it that way, we're just getting started.

06:45And there's a prophecy, several prophecies about the third millennium.

06:49And one of them refers to what you just talked about is a prophecy from the Baha'i people.

06:54And it's also the same prophecy comes from the Cherokee people.

06:58The Baha'i people and Cherokee people have never talked to each other about this.

07:01But the prophecy says that in the first century of the third millennium, the bird of humanity, which has two great wings, a male wing and a female wing.

07:14And the bird of humanity has been flying, they say, primarily with the male wing for hundreds and hundreds of years.

07:22And the male wing has been fully extended and fully expressed, while the female wing of the bird of humanity in all of us has been folded in and not yet fully expressed.

07:32And in the first century of the third millennium, the male wing of the bird of humanity will have become so strong, so overdeveloped, so muscular, that it will in fact become violent.

07:44And the bird of humanity will be flying in circles for hundreds of years as a result.

07:50But in the first century of the third millennium, the female wing of the bird of humanity will fully find its expression in all of us, in men and women.

07:59The male wing in all of us can relax a little bit, and the bird of humanity for the first time in hundreds of years will soar.

08:08So I love that prophecy, because it doesn't make the male wing wrong and the female ring right.

08:15It shows how out of whack we are, how yin-yang is who we are.

08:21So that's one metaphor for our time.

08:24And that's a real prophecy.

08:26I think that has some weight.

08:29Another metaphor that I really think is useful, the indigenous people during COVID said to us that humanity has been yearning and longing for something powerful and sacred enough to disrupt us.

08:50To disrupt the way we've been living, that we couldn't do ourselves, because we know we're off course.

08:56And so the mother, the earth, everything comes from the earth, including the virus, impacted only one species.

09:04Not any other species got sick, just one.

09:06Happens to be ours.

09:08And that disruption.

09:12COVID.

09:13Yeah, I'm talking about COVID, the virus.

09:16They call it an announcement, the indigenous people, an announcement.

09:20Accurate, powerful, blessed disruption.

09:24Helping us see that we needed to reinvent, re-see, re-create the way we're living.

09:30And I call COVID warning sickness for a pregnant species that doesn't know it's pregnant and thinks it's sick.

09:39Which is giving birth in a long, probably pregnancy.

09:44Pregnancy is hard.

09:46You know about that.

09:48You didn't have a baby, but you just had a baby.

09:50I saw it.

09:53When you're in labor, the more it hurts, the closer you are to having a child.

09:59And there's this phrase, pain pushes until vision pulls.

10:04And we're in pain.

10:06We're in pain.

10:07And the pain is pushing us.

10:09But we need a vision that pulls us through the pain.

10:11That's so strong, it pulls us through the pain.

10:13And when you're having a baby, you know that it hurts so much.

10:17But you know that the more it hurts, the closer you are to having a baby.

10:20So you can stand it.

10:22It's like we need a big, big, big vision now that we can align on.

10:26Because everybody wants the same thing.

10:28But we're so caught in the pain.

10:31So this birth process that I think we're in, that's messy and difficult and hurts.

10:38And if you didn't know you were having a baby, you'd think there was something horribly wrong with you.

10:42And if we can create a framework for what's happening now and know that there's some grand design.

10:48I think it's a spiritual crisis.

10:50I think that's right.

10:51And when we don't address it as a spiritual crisis, we miss the opportunity of what's being given to us right now.

10:57And it's a mess.

10:59But having a baby is really messy.

11:02Yeah, I noticed.

11:06So those are ways of looking at what's happening.

11:08I think it's helpful.

11:11We definitely are at the end of something.

11:14I just don't know what we're at the beginning of.

11:17And I get a chance because of my role at CNN.

11:23It's such a weird place to work because in the green room, everybody comes through.

11:31Republican governors, Democratic Congress people, police, the celebrity of the day.

11:39It's this weird little place where you get a chance to see everybody feeling a little bit vulnerable,

11:46a little bit scared, about to go on national television.

11:49They're getting their makeup on.

11:50They're looking at their notes.

11:52And it's very human.

11:53It's a very humanizing kind of process.

11:55And having been there for 12 years, it's been.

11:5812 years?

11:5912 years.

12:00You've been there for 12 years?

12:01I've been there 12 years.

12:03You're kidding.

12:04My God.

12:05Yeah, go ahead.

12:06I started December.

12:09I started for the 2012 election cycle when Obama was going up against Romney.

12:15That's when I started.

12:16And I've been sitting next to Anderson for 12 years now, election night after election night.

12:21But the crazy thing about it is you kind of get a chance to see people up close,

12:31get a chance to see how vulnerable they are.

12:33And I've watched the loss of confidence on the part of leaders up close.

12:42Wow.

12:44Everybody's afraid.

12:46Everybody is personally afraid, personally insecure,

12:51personally worried about getting canceled, about getting dragged on Twitter or X,

12:59getting primary, losing market share, getting hauled before Congress.

13:04And this is at the top, top levels.

13:07And then when I spend time in the housing projects and the prisons

13:10and the reservations in Appalachia, people are also very afraid, very insecure.

13:18And I don't think it's a political problem.

13:22I think it's a spiritual problem.

13:25It's a spiritual problem.

13:27There's a lack of faith and a displacement.

13:34I think this fight around climate, around ecological solutions,

13:41this fight, as you always say, for the children of all species.

13:44For all time.

13:45For all time.

13:47I think it should bring out the best in us.

13:50I think it's the framework, seven generations, whatever you want to call it,

13:56that framework I think puts people in the right frame of mind.

14:01We're only here for a short period of time.

14:04We're just passing on the torch.

14:07It really doesn't matter if you get blown up on Twitter this week

14:12or for the next half an hour.

14:15That wisdom, that's what I think is missing.

14:19And the wisdom traditions, the old monotheisms,

14:24in which I still participate as a Christian,

14:26they don't have the same power.

14:27They don't have the same oomph.

14:31The new or renewed indigenous and spiritual traditions,

14:37they still feel a little thin and a little hypocritical sometimes in the West.

14:44A little bit of play acting, a little bit.

14:46It doesn't really seem like it's a real thing.

14:49And so I think that we are on a quest together.

14:54And I think we have to reinvent and reimagine and recreate together.

14:59And I think that's why it's so important to me, as I said earlier,

15:02that we erase the chalkboard on who your friends and enemies are.

15:08I've been so disappointed by people I thought were my friends

15:15and so shocked and delighted by people I thought were my enemies.

15:19And it's happened so many times

15:22that I'm beginning to think that I've got the wrong mental map of reality.

15:27That I thought the world worked a certain way,

15:32but I can't support a death cult terror group

15:39running a nightmare next to Israel.

15:43I'm not, that's not, I want Palestinians to be free.

15:47I want Israelis to be free.

15:49But when you have a country that has to live under an iron dome in peacetime,

15:56it's peaceful and you've got rockets falling on your head.

15:59That doesn't seem right to me.

16:01And so people are surprised when I say that.

16:04It's not that my heart's not breaking for the Palestinians.

16:06I just don't think that it's as easy.

16:09It's not as reductionist.

16:11The truth is always messy.

16:14The messy truth.

16:17That was my TV show, The Messy Truth, because the truth is always messy.

16:20If it's too clean, it's false.

16:23If it's too easy, if the white people are always good,

16:26or the white people are always bad, either way, it's not true.

16:30The truth is always messy and contradictory and weird and surprising,

16:35like the rainforest.

16:38If it's that clean, it's a plastic plant in a plastic container.

16:46So I've been open for new friends.

16:54My heart is open for new friends.

16:57I want to keep as many of my old friends as I can.

17:00But my heart's open for new friends.

17:02I don't know enough.

17:05I don't think our political parties are fit for purpose.

17:09There was a time when there were no political parties.

17:13There was?

17:14There was a time when that was an invention.

17:16People came up with that.

17:18George Washington said he didn't want any of them.

17:20He said, no, thank you.

17:22There was a time when there were no 501C3s.

17:25There was a time when there were no think tanks.

17:27There was a time when none of the stuff that we have existed.

17:29Somebody thought it up.

17:31There was a time when there was no money.

17:32There was a time when there was no money.

17:33That was a good time.

17:34That was probably a good time.

17:38So what I would say is that what do we have to invent together that we don't have?

17:46There was a time when there was no religion.

17:49What do we have to invent together that we don't have?

17:52And I think the main thing we have to invent together are better stories.

17:56Better stories.

17:57The earth is made of stone, but the world is made of stories.

18:02If you want to change the world, change the stories.

18:04When I was younger, my hero was Malcolm X.

18:09Today, my hero is Mr. Rogers.

18:12Mr. Rogers.

18:13That's my hero.

18:14Can we be nice?

18:15Can we love each other?

18:17Can we get along?

18:18Can we be kind?

18:19Can we be kind?

18:20I miss Jim Henson.

18:21Kids on Sesame Street.

18:23And I think that we have to be like that.

18:25We have to be innocent.

18:26We have to be open.

18:27We have to be loving.

18:28We have to be children.

18:29We have to be children.

18:31Everybody is getting a Ph.D. in something really, really complicated

18:35and failing kindergarten in how we deal with each other.

18:38We've got to get back to passing kindergarten again.

18:41Can we share?

18:42Can we be kind?

18:43Can we listen?

18:45Can we wait our turn?

18:47We're so off on trying to get to Mars

18:52and trying to get robots that are smarter than people

18:55and trying to reprogram the human genome,

18:58and we're failing kindergarten.

19:00That's what I'm more and more convinced we've got to focus on that.

19:04That's why you had more children, so you can learn from them.

19:06Hey, listen.

19:07It's amazing.

19:08These little people.

19:09They're so amazing.

19:11And it's so funny, too, because people ask me at such a late age.

19:16I'm in my mid-late 50s.

19:18Why would you have kids again?

19:20And honestly, I didn't think about it that way.

19:23I really didn't think about it that way.

19:25I'm so glad I have them.

19:28Bucky Fuller was one of my great teachers,

19:31and one time he came for dinner at our house,

19:34and my kids were little.

19:35They were 4, 6, and 8.

19:38And my daughter, Summer, who's in the middle,

19:42we were sitting at a kitchen table, a round table in the kitchen.

19:46He wanted to eat in the kitchen.

19:47He wanted to eat with the kids.

19:49And he was in his 80s.

19:50He just loved kids.

19:52And my daughter said something profound, like kids do.

19:56And I can't remember what it was, but Bucky turned to my husband and I,

20:00and he said,

20:01Never forget your children are your elders in universe time.

20:06Wow.

20:08They've come into a more complete, more evolved universe

20:12than you can ever understand except through their eyes.

20:15And that rearranged my experience of being a parent, being a mother.

20:25My granddaughter was born in 1999.

20:29Her father is white, my son.

20:33Her mother is black, Halima, you know.

20:36And they're Muslim.

20:38So here she's born in 1999.

20:42I looked at her.

20:43She's mixed race.

20:44She's mixed ethnic, everything.

20:46And I can tell she's going to live probably,

20:50she's going to experience three centuries.

20:52Wow.

20:53The 20th century.

20:54She'll probably make it all the way through the 21st and the 22nd

20:57because she's a female.

20:58Yeah, sure.

20:59She'll probably live to 102 or something.

21:00Sure, sure.

21:01What she will see in her lifetime, I can't even fathom.

21:05I mean, I couldn't even imagine an iPhone when I was in college.

21:09No.

21:11So this thing about our children are our elders in universe time

21:15is a really awesome way to look at what's happening, what's being born,

21:21what's showing up.

21:25I'll tell you two things and then we'll go.

21:27The best advice I got for my kids was cut a deal with them when they're born

21:33that you're going to teach them as best you can everything that you know

21:38and let them teach you everything you forgot.

21:43Let them teach you everything you forgot.

21:45Because it's amazing how much fun a paper bag is.

21:50A paper bag is like a whole afternoon of stuff.

21:56I forgot.

21:57I forgot.

21:58Zen teaching me that stuff.

21:59But as long as we're trading stories, the last two cities ago,

22:07somebody was asking me, what's going to happen?

22:11Very worried about the election, very worried about the geopolitical situation,

22:17very worried about the ecological situation, very worried about AI.

22:20This person was worried.

22:23I think a lot of people are worried.

22:28I said, I'm going to answer your question about what's going to happen

22:32like a black preacher.

22:35I grew up in a black church, as you know, in the rural south.

22:38They would always tell a story to us as kids about the old wise man

22:44and the young rebellious boy.

22:48So this old wise man in the village and this young rebellious boy

22:53was just really wanting to show this old wise man to be a fool.

22:57And he spent the whole summer thinking,

22:59how am I going to prove that this old man is not as smart as everybody thinks he is?

23:04And he came up with the perfect plan.

23:07And he got all his little friends around him.

23:08He said, I'm going to go.

23:10I'm going to show you this old so-called wise man is a fool.

23:14And he gets all his friends.

23:15He goes to the elder.

23:17And he holds his hand out.

23:20And he grabbed a bird, a little bird along the way.

23:23He holds his hands out.

23:24And he says, I've got a bird in my hand.

23:29And if you're so wise, tell me, is this bird alive or is it dead?

23:38And the old man says, what?

23:39He goes, I've got a bird in my hand.

23:42You tell me, is the bird alive or if it's dead?

23:46Now the elder immediately knew this was a trick.

23:49If he says the bird is dead, the boy is going to open his hands.

23:52It's going to fly away.

23:54If he says the bird is alive, he's going to crush the bird

23:57and then show a dead bird.

24:00So this is a very clever little boy.

24:03This is a very wise man.

24:05He looks at the little boy.

24:08He looks at his friends.

24:10He looks at the little boy and he says, young man, I don't know for sure,

24:15but I know one thing.

24:17It's in your hands.

24:18Ah, that's good.

24:20It's in your hands.

24:21That's good.

24:22So I don't know for sure.

24:24Right.

24:25We could fix the whole ecology thing.

24:27We could save democracy.

24:29We could have the robots be our friends.

24:31I don't know for sure.

24:33But I know it's in our hands.

24:34Yeah.

24:35And I'm glad to be in this fight with you.

24:36I'm glad to be in this fight with you.

24:38I appreciate you.

24:39All right.

24:41That's good.

Insights from Van Jones and Lynne Twist | Earthx2024

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