Well it's been an exciting time in Fierce Light land.  Just got back from the Amsterdam International Film Festival, where we had a phenomenal sold out screening.  Our International premiere! We also just found out about two new festivals Fierce Light will be screening at - in January, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which is a very important fest for the Academy - the people who will decide if Fierce Light gets an Oscar nomination or not, one of our big dreams!  So that is very very good news. And just an hour ago, we found out that we have been accepted into the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, another of the worlds most important documentary film festivals.  yay!!! Right now I'm in Whistler, at the Whistler film festival.  Fierce Light will screen on Saturday night. Yesterday I delivered the Keynote Address for the festival.  I was asked to do it on Tuesday, as the orginal presenter got sick.  That meant I only had one day back on Toronto Island from Europe, before hopping on a plane, and then a three hour bus ride, up to the little ski resort town of Whistler. But the talk went great!  I tied in Obama's campaign and participatory democracry and web 2.0 and spirituality and documentary filmmaking, and finished by reading out the opening paragraphs of my new book I'm writing, BYOBama: Be Your Own Obama.   The previous blog post (Imagine a WOrld), is actually the opening of the book. Although I was a little nervous about talking spirituality with an film industry crowd, it went over great!  Phew! 

“Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk.  

Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run.

Obama ran so we could fly.” – JayZ

BE YOUR OWN OBAMA!

As we move closer to the date when Barack Obama steps into power, there is an enormous sense of anticipation.  There are those who are floating on cloud nine, and there are those who are down in the basement of cyncism.   Somewhere in the middle lies a place of hope, possibility, and realism.   Right in the midst, in that liminal zone between rose coloured glasses and dung coloured glasses is a pair of clear lenses that can help us stay the course.

Yes we can!  And yes we will.  It's up to us, not anyone else, not Obama, not your mama, not santa claus.  Change begins first and foremost in your own heart.   This is one of the central principles of Spiritual Activism - one by one, drop by drop, we fill the bucket of change, with our sense of personal responsibility,of heart felt compassion, the kind that comes from a deep authentic impulse.   This means we don't change because we feel we ought to, because our mother told us so, because it will impress someone (even ourselves), etc.  That kind of transformation is short lived and brittle.

The kind of change that I call "Fierce Light"  comes from getting in touch with who you really are.  This takes some work, cause a lot of what we think we are,  is coming from the outside, from culture, from our history, from our fears and desires.   When you strip all that away, who are you really?

"All of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obligation to shout from the heart-perhaps quietly and gently, with tears of reluctance; perhaps with fierce fire and angry wisdom; perhaps with slow and careful analysis; perhaps by unshakable public example-but authenticity always and absolutely carries a demand and duty: you must speak out, to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you." - Ken Wilber