We are in uncharted territory. This is like no time in our civilization’s history - global food shortages, climate crisis, unending war and violence, corporate domination, rampant systemic corruption, government collusion with corporations, abject poverty and homelessness, mass extinctions - it’s a long list barely begun here. It’s enough to leave one feeling hopeless in the face of such onslaughts. And yet there is hope.

The Occupy Movement is inspiring to many of us who have long awaited a new dynamic into our dysfunctional political system. It is a powerful cultural force, engaging citizen activists to promote substantive change to an unfair system. It has already reshaped political conversations with its focus on the corporate elitism and government collusion that has led to a system that profits the 1%. The Occupy Movement has also shown us that we don’t need to be perfectly organized or to have perfect messaging to have an effect.

We Americans are not the best at history. Because of the spin of corporate-controlled media, we are not reminded of the consistent pattern of deception exhibited by our government when the ‘power behind the wheel’ wants a new conflict. Nor are we reminded of the tremendous profitability of war for the corporations who count on such conflicts to inflate their bottom line. It’s a disturbing and disgusting business.

As the corruption in our system continues unabated and the interminable Republican Primary Season continues its buffoonery of ‘solutions’ for our failing state, there is some highly unusual behavior taking place independent of either. It’s the behavior of the weather for most of the country, an unprecedented string of warm days even before Spring officially began.

We Americans are prone to allowing our view of reality to be fed to us by mainstream [corporate-owned] media. We are quickly entranced by the talking heads who tell us what is going well and what is going poorly in our world, with the emphasis on what is going poorly. Yet there is no honest effort to get to the real reasons why things are going so poorly. That would be educational. Our lamestream media has no interest in educating us.

There’s a lot of energy in the air these days surrounding hemp, and with good reason. Hemp was removed from our culture back in the early 20th Century when a number of laws were established that demonized hemp and marijuana. Now, as we’re learning that so much once held as true is false, it should come as no surprise that our illusions about hemp are crumbling as well.

Hemp is the common name for cannabis, the first plant cultivated by humanity as we crept from being Neolithic to becoming Agrarian. Likely this was due to a few reasons. First, hemp is an extremely versatile plant, with leaves, seeds and stalks all capable of creating useful products. Second, it’s particularly easy to grow, needing little in the way of fertilizer or pest control.

This notion of the diminishing power of money is powerful in itself, reversing a pattern that has been in effect for thousands of years. Especially with globalization, it’s difficult to live without the ‘almighty dollar.’ There are a number of lenses which can be invoked, but let’s start with the current election cycle.

The Winter Solstice of this year, 12.21.12, is the most auspicious occasion in modern memory. No other date resonates with such ancient warnings and curious attention. No other date has offered so much speculation. And our actual science-based information on this topic is close to nil. Wow.