Jason Martell is one of the world’s leading researchers specializing in ancient Sumerian advanced technology. His fifteen-year study is backed by supporting academic and mainstream scientific evidence, primarily from scholar Zecharia Sitchin, as well as Dr. Robert Harrington and other top NASA Scientists.

He has appeared on both the Discovery and History Channels, numerous radio and television talk shows, and is a regular speaker at conferences. As a result of his ongoing research and desire to share his findings he has developed a new service called “Ancient School”.  We contacted Jason to take from where we left off in our first interview and explore more about the evidence of ancient advanced visitations to our planet and some of the most convincing evidence there is of their interaction with humanity.

Super Consciousness:  In our first interview, we spoke about the Anunnaki and their involvement in the creation of the human species, titled the "Partitioned Human Brain. This time, I would like for us to focus on two other aspects related to the presence of advanced beings that at some point have come to earth. What are some of the most advanced technologies used by these beings and for which there is clear evidence?

JASON MARTELL: Essentially, the best evidence that I have seen for ancient advanced technology is in the form of something called vitrification. Vitrification is seen in stones that have had high amounts of heat applied to them. All around the planet we find, these megalithic sites with a building style that required no mortar. And what they've been able to do apparently is take the heart of stones on earth like granites, diorites, and melt them into a lava-like state. They were made in a putty form, which made it very easy to mold and push them together, like the walls we see at Machu Picchu.

There is no explanation as to how they are able to get these stones to fit so perfectly without them superheating the stones until they are at putty-like lava state and then they harden back into stone. In a lot of these sites, what we see is evidence of a glassing effect on the rocks, which is called vitrification. So that really raises the question as to how ancient man could have heated stones like granite and deerite to a lava-like state.

We have the ability today to molten metals and such. But back in 2500 to 4000 B.C., there isn't any evidence of tools or the ability for them to have been able of producing that level of a heat source.

That's definitely one of the most interesting pieces because it's ubiquitous around the planet. We see this same type of evidence at most of the megalithic sites with these tight-fitting stones.

SC: What about electricity? In the temple in Dendera, several dozens of kilometers north of Luxor, some experts found what is called “the light”. Did the ancient Egyptians use electricity?

JM: All over wall reliefs, crypts and hieroglyphics in Egyptian writing, there seems to be a reference to what appears to be an actual power source. It looks like a large vase. This could possibly be some type of ancient battery. And in one area specifically, called Dendera, which is known as the place of the light-giving source, is where they actually studied this knowledge of the light-giving source.

In one of the wall reliefs at Dendera, you can clearly see Egyptians holding up what appears to be a very large light bulb and it's literally even plugged in to some type of a transistor. So modern Egyptologists look at this depiction and say, "Well, this is just a lotus flower." And the filament, the glow you see coming out of the beams of the light is just the aroma of the lotus flower. Well, to me, and anyone who I think looks at this image of the Dendera wall relief can clearly see its similarity to a modern-day light bulb.

SC:   Was there any other use for electricity other than to create light?

JM: There were two other things that we know for sure that they were using an electrical current for. This was shared with ancient Iraq, as well as in Egyptian times, because in Iraq, we found something similar to a power source. It's called the Bagdad battery. And so one of the theories is that in ancient times, they were using a low electrical current for two other purposes.

One was to electroplate jewelry, so that you could heat up gold or silver and use it like a fine spray over, like a necklace, if you will, which is pretty interesting in and of itself.

The other idea was, because there were so many competing churches at the time; they wanted you to come into their church. One of the uses of electricity was to create a buildup of static charge inside a statute, so when you would walk into a certain church or a temple, you would stand next to this statue of a god and would notice that it would kind of hum. And if you touched the statue, you would get a zap of static electricity. That made people say "Oh, it's the power of the god."

SC:   Is there some relationship to what you're talking about and the Ark of the Covenant? Was it something similar? Or what do you know about the Ark of the Covenant?

JM: Some of the latest research that I've been looking into involves the Ark of the Covenant, outside of the traditional Biblical story. It turns out that when we analyze the story of Moses taking the Israelites out of Egypt and the Ten Commandments being written down and stored in an Ark. Well, it turns out that we see a lot of similarities coming out of the Egyptian culture pre-dating this story.

Let me give you some examples. The whole idea of the Ten Commandments, each one of those commandments already exist in an earlier Egyptian script called either the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Book of the Dead, more specifically. It is a really good source where you see these same types of commandments that existed before the Biblical time in Egypt. Another caveat there is that possibly one of the ancient Pharaohs of Egypt, Akhenaten, was possibly also known as Moses. It's very possible that Moses was actually an ancient Pharaoh of Egypt named Akhenaten. When he left Egypt and took his people, he also took the Ark with him. Now, I say that because all over Egypt, we have evidence of an Ark. There are depictions and wall reliefs of a large, golden box with a pole on each side, being carried as a sacred device. And coincidentally, the Ark of the Covenant, based on the Biblical dimensions of the box, fits identically inside the King's chamber of the Great Pyramid.

It's very possible that the lost Ark of the Covenant is actually a large energy capacitor that powered the ancient Greek Pyramid of Giza. We now have a new context as to why the Pharaoh would have chased Akhenaten or Moses because it wasn’t just his people. He wanted his power source back, the lost Ark of the Covenant.

Even as Christopher Dunn stated in his book, "The Giza Power Plant," there are many different theories that look at the Giza Pyramid, and suggests that it was harnessing some type of large energy, and even possibly distributing it through the world energy grid. Most of the megalithic sites seem to be laid out at certain geodesic points where they have alignments with the other megalithic monuments around the world.

SC:  Moving on to another type of knowledge that was potentially left by these ancient beings, can you talk about astronomy and how advanced their astronomical knowledge was?

JM: What's really interesting about most of the megalithic sites around the world is that we see a commonality across them in that they are aligned to a star constellation. And that alignment repeats over thousands of years. The Giza Pyramid is the perfect example as how it aligns to the Orion Constellation. But that alignment took place in the past at 10500 B.C. So what we're seeing, is that most of the megalithic monuments all over the planet seem to have a correlation with very accurate astronomical observations of the planets and stars moving and hitting certain points in space.

Most of the ancient cultures seem to have been aware of a much larger cycle of time and used astronomical observations to track this large cycle. We might be familiar with two smaller cycles, but this third cycle is a much harder one to track because it lasts 24,000 years.

A 24,000-year cycle was talked about and known by all the ancient cultures. And we, today, are just re-learning this information. We have heard of things like the Dark Ages or the Golden Age. Well, this is all part of a cycle that happens here on earth. But time is not a linear progression. It's cyclical. Even Plato called it the great year. There is a reason why we seem to have a repeating 24,000-year cycle here on earth that does have effects on us, and it's based on astronomical movements, which we can discuss.

I want to point out one thing for better understanding of what we are talking about. There are a couple of known astronomical cycles that will make sense to anyone, because we experience them all the time. Cycle number one is; we're orbiting on our axis. Earth is spinning on its axis. And because of this astronomical movement, we have day and night. Cycle number two; we are orbiting the sun. And every time we orbit the sun, seasons change, animals migrate and temperatures change. This, again, is based on an astronomical movement. There is a third larger astronomical movement, which is called the precession of the equinox. Every 2,000 years, a new constellation aligns with our north pole, our view of the sky.

The ancients were very aware of a larger cycle of time and used ancient monuments and very accurate astronomical observations to track where exactly they were in this 24,000-year cycle.

SC: How did they become aware of the whole cycle, the 24,000-years if most of this civilizations existed for only a few thousand years at most, according to our known history?

JM: We really don't know, but what we can see is that in the most ancient texts coming from the Hindu Mahabharata and dated texts, there are ancient yogis and sages that were aware of this sacred information and have kept it for thousands of years in books like the Mahabharata. It's called the Yuga Cycle in India.  The Greeks, including Plato called it the Great Year. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, they called it the Twelve Houses of the Zodiac, which is the breakdown of the heavens into twelve constellations. Like the dial of a grand clock that tells us where we are. Right now, we're in the Age of Pisces, which is the symbol of a fish and also representing Jesus. Now, in about 150 years, we are going to move out of the Age of Pisces and into the Age of Aquarius. This is just simple observation of what constellations and era we are currently in.

SC:   So this whole idea that, we had entered the area of Aquarius is not correct according astronomical observations. We still have 150 years to go?

JM: That's correct. We're not quite yet in the Age of Aquarius. We're still in the Age of Pisces. And this can be observed by looking at the astronomical evidence.

SC:  In your Web site, one can find information about an artifact that was found by divers off the coast of Greece. It's called the Antikythera Mechanism. What is it?

JM: We have several pieces of ancient technology that have surfaced around the planet, and in 1901, some sponge divers off the coast of Antikythera, -which is an island near Greece-, found a device that has been dated to be around 2,000 years old. They simply called it the Antikythera Mechanism. It looks like some type of ancient computer. It's 2,000 years old and under radar, they have seen internally that it has somewhere between 35 to 70 little cogs and wheels all intricately connected. And they theorized the Antikythera Mechanism was used for two purposes. One was as an astronomical device. So someone like a ship captain could use the Antikythera Mechanism to plot his way through the ocean by tuning it to a certain star or constellation.The other way, was as an astrological device so that they could tell you, by looking at it, if you were born on March 3rd, then your planet sign is such-and-such, then these certain things are going to happen to you in your lifetime based on these alignments of the planets. So it was a pretty interesting device that was very complicated, comparable to a modern-day Swiss watch, but 2,000 years old.

SC: In regards to the Anunnaki and based on what you know about them, is there a predicted timeframe for when they might return?

JM: Answering the question of when the Anunnaki will return is rather complicated simply because what we see all-around the world, is that ancient man lived at a time when they interacted with their living gods. We no longer live in that epoch of time. The ancient gods that were visiting the Sumerians, the Egyptians and the Mayans, they don't seem to be around anymore.

I think there's a little bit more of a complicated answer as to why we're not seeing open visitation by the ancient gods. And the only thing I can think of is that Earth appears to be on quarantine. If there is a galactic federation of planets, other advanced cultures that exist within the universe, they look at us, and we're not even a type one civilization, based on Michio Kaku's civilization hierarchy. We are still burning fossil fuels, killing each other, and having differences amongst our races. So I don't think extraterrestrials are quite ready to dive back and interact with us openly. But that's not to say that we are not slowly being pushed in the right direction, through our media and the advances in science, to come to the realization that we do have an effect on the universe. But we need to play the game fairly by not introducing war and nuclear weapons beyond just earth and into space.

SC: The TV show that you are a part of, Ancient Aliens, -which I think is wonderful-, and has made a huge effort in raising the awareness about the existence of this evidence we have just talked about. From your experience what kind of impact are these shows having on people, do you perceive a change? Are people becoming more aware of all this information?

JM: People, all the time, find the ancient astronaut theory interesting, but they have a hard time re-communicating the facts and evidence to someone else. They find interest in the story but difficulty in explaining it thoroughly to someone else. So thankfully, the show like "Ancient Aliens" kind of opens up a mutual ground of discussion between believers and skeptics to now have evidence put forth that can at least provide an open debate over the topics.

What we are seeing is that most people agree that as our sciences are advancing, our ability to look into space and understand how the concepts of life started here on earth, more and more evidence is pointing to the fact that the solar system is rich with life. And that all the evidence to suggest we have been visited in the past by intelligent beings is more and more coming to light.

SC: You have developed a new service called “Ancient School”, can you tell us what this is?

JM: Many people ask me where they can hear more about these topics like the ancient astronaut theory and possibly explore them on their own time. People struggle with being able to communicate these topics to other people without having the ability to research the information on their own. So I launched a service recently called, Ancient School, where people can get expert lessons from top people in the field delivered directly to their inbox each week. I actually have a bonus for your readers, if people go to ancientbonus.com, they can get a free video lesson from Ancient School as well as download a copy of my book, "Ancient Alien Artifacts".

When you become a member of Ancient School, each week, you will be e-mailed a video lesson, a link to your video lesson, that's taught by a top expert within the ancient astronaut field. So just by simply becoming a member, you will have a video lesson delivered directly to you each week. And once a month, you'll have the ability to join a live video chat with a top expert and ask your questions directly.

 

Navigating Our Future

Thoughts From The Wisdom Keepers To Help You Minimize

Obstacles & Maximize Opportunities In This Brave New World

Author: George Cappannelli

SuperConsciousness  

Those of us who weren't born yesterday and haven't been hanging out with Rip Van Winkle in Sleepy Hollow, know we are in a time unlike any before it. In addition to the many challenges we face - climate change, energy, education, healthcare, immigration, wealth inequality, gender and minority inequality to name a few -- we are also in a demographic revolution that will, over the next several decades, result in 50% of our population here in the U.S and Canda and in every industrialized country in the world being over 50 for the first time in history. Increasing longevity, decreasing birth rates and shrinking tax base are just a few of the startling and relatively immediate implications this demographic revolution will have for those of us who are older GenXers, Boomers and Elders here in North America and billions more around the world.

Of course, having failed to do a stellar job addressing other critical challenges, it is not surprising that many in our governments, institutions, businesses and many of us in the general public are behind the curve on this issue as well. We are, in fact, uninformed on and unprepared for the consequences and opportunities that lie ahead.

To be fair part of the problem lies in the fact that as a species we've never been in this situation before. We have no blueprint or script that describes what billions of us are supposed to do with this additional time we are inheriting. Surely there must be some purpose in the grand design -- other than some outmoded belief in retirement - something of genuine consequence that capitalizes on our wisdom and experience and requires the presence of such an inordinately large number of elders on the planet at this time.

Whatever that reason, one thing is clear. Those of us who are 50 and older have come to the end of the territory described in Acts One (Youth) and Two (Maturity) of the Human Drama and must now address the question of how to write a new Third Age (Aging).

This question prompted me to reach out to several colleagues who are among the leading women authors and experts of our time and who are also members of AgeNation' World Council of Wisdom Keepers. I invited them to share some thoughts and recommendations that can help us all to begin to write this new Third Act, and in the process, better navigate the future. Here's some of what they had to say:

Joan Borysenko, Best Selling Author and Expert on Spirituality and Health

"Well, here's the thing. The world has bottomed out. The statistics are dreary. Some of our best scientists are feeling we don't have time to save ourselves. However, there's the alternate point of view. Unusual things happen all the time. The Berlin Wall fell. Smoking has diminished significantly in a relatively short period of time our country. We've made major gains in gender equality and, in some areas of human rights. We're more aware of the need to protect our habitat and to lead lives that are healthier and more conscious.

Still it's clear we are at a crisis points, but it's also a turning point. And if I can take a page from my own book: It's Not The End of The World, although some may think we're at the end, when people of good hearts get together and support one another, what can happen is a rite of passage. And what happens in a rite of passage is that in the space between where the world breaks down and reforms itself, between no longer and not yet, a whole new way can emerge. In this space we can get out of the rut of the habitual and make room for miracles to happen.

The Buddhists and the Hindus have a word for getting stuck in ruts- they call these sanskaras. They're like habit patterns of thought formed by repetition in the same way that troughs are created when water runs down hill in the same pathways. Knowing about brain plasticity and knowing that we can make new neural connections, I believe those of us who want to better navigate the future can get out of the ruts by changing our attitudes.. We can also remember that major growth often occurs during times of unwanted changes so if we are willing to finally say: 'I've seen enough of the inside of this box. Maybe it's time to flow in a different way, to look for and find new meaning, to make - as Viktor Fankl advised us in Search For Meaning - new meaning out of suffering and challenge. So I don't think it's the end of the world. I think it's a whole new age!"

 

Connie Buffalo, President of Renaissance International, Member of The Chippewa Tribe

"As with many cultural beliefs, there is a marked difference between the identity of an elder in my own Chippewa tradition and that of the elder of the western world.

From earliest childhood, the Chippewa learn that the elders are those we are most grateful to and deserving of the deepest respect. All around us are the elders who enchant our imagination; the stars that shine in the black velvet sky, the towering trees, rocking in the wind, the oceans who carry the songs of the many who walk on, and the grandmothers and grandfathers who are first to be served and honored in the tribe.

The elder is the one who gathers the gifts of a lifetime and takes care of us even as we take care of him or her. Once a person crosses 50, he or she no longer lives in and for the present moment and its gratification, but lives for the next generation. To be an elder is a great accomplishment with the significant role of preparing a good world for the children of tomorrow.

Passing on wisdom and insights then is part of the responsibility of the elder, but certainly not all of it. It also includes knowing that one is a sacred being living in a sacred, precious world. Quite different from the Western concept of "retiring," this awareness invites the experience of the elder to be respected and put into action for as long as possible.

Instead of hoping that others recognize their ongoing value, elders in my tradition, honor their own potency, sacredness, rights and responsibilities. In this way, elders use this understanding to become a humble light that shines his or her brilliance across the ages. For the Chippewa, who we believe ourselves to be influences how we expect others to treat us and our relationship to the world around us."

Sedena Cappannelli, Author, Co Founder of AgeNation and of the World Council of Wisdom Keepers

"In our new book, Do Not Go Quietly, George and I speak to the issue of living consciously and aging wisely because we believe both are essential keys to learning how to better navigate these challenging times and to better prepare for the remarkable new world that lies ahead. Yes, even with all that is going on in our topsy-turvy world today, in fact because of it, this is a time for tremendous optimism because our challenges give us a clear sign that the old and the no-longer-valuable are breaking down to make way for the new.

Here are a few of the things I believe each of us can do to live lives of greater stability as this falling away occurs.

• Remember to be true to our dreams, the dreams each of us has come here to manifest.

• Continue to be open to learning from our stumbles and celebrating our breakthroughs.

• Commit to a deeper level of healing in all areas of our lives-- physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

• Step more fully into our daily lives with genuine compassion for ourselves and others.

• Look beyond physical accomplishments, possessions or wealth as the measure of our success, and instead to the quality of our character, our experience and discernment and turn them into the gold of wisdom.

To be successful in these efforts, let us also remember to be guided as much by our hearts as by our heads so that we might better align our thoughts, words and actions with a more elevated consciousness."

Barbara Marx Hubbard, Author, Visionary, Social Innovator and The Voice of Conscious Evolution

"We are now going through a phase of evolutionary metamorphosis on planet Earth. Our past life is not sustainable. The planetary timing is moving toward the next phase of evolution, devolution or even extinction.

Millions of us are attempting to evolve ourselves and our culture toward a still amorphous undefined society. And none of us has seen this form of society. We might call it a Co-creative Society in which each person is free to be and do his or her best within the evolving whole.

It is my experience that during this process many of us are naturally gaining access to higher frequencies of consciousness which need to be integrated with all levels of our self. And one of the primary keys to success in this integration involves putting purpose first. The key is to yearn with all the passion of your being for your own evolution, beyond the separated state. This does not mean that there is nothing else in your life or that you become a hermit in isolation from others. No, it means you keep your attention on the highest frequency of your being and, to whatever degree possible, bring your Whole Being into harmony with that frequency. A second key is to be compassionate with yourself. You are taking a monumental leap here and helping evolving our species."

Jean Houston, Author, Scholar, Philosopher, Teacher, Visionary Leader

"We are living in the most unique time in human history. Other times in history thought they were unique. They were wrong. This is it. Often our everyday, local experience is not sufficient for the enormity of the challenges that are laid upon in this most remarkable of times. Many people have lost their belief in our economic system, our health care system or our educational system. The old ways of doing things are no longer working. We are now seeking the emergence of the deeper story. We are seeking our mythic lives.

Do you feel the passion within, urging you to live the greater story of your life? Myth is always about the making of the soul. It is the journey of the heroic soul as you travel from an outmoded existence to an amplified life. In times of breakdown and breakthrough - which we're in right now - myths arise telling us of the new heroes, new heroines, and of the noble journey we must take in search of the Possible Human both within ourselves and in others.

How do we evoke this emergence? How do we inspire this possible, passionate human so that we may not just survive our time, but thrive, leaving a legacy of a new way of being for our children, our grandchildren and the future? It is only when we have discovered this possibility that we go beyond our pessimism and create a world in which we make a difference. It is in working with myth in a creative manner that we can gain fresh perspectives on our life journey. Myth can take us beyond our ordinary, habitual ways of being to the essence of what we really are or can be."

Very sound advice and some common themes present in their words of these wise woman. The reminder that crisis always provides opportunity and the prompt that if we are wise we will remember that the only thing that has ever created substantive change is the exercise of the Power of One.

How? When we do our part to heal wounds from the past, complete some of the incompletes that dog our footsteps, forgive those who may have injured us and ourselves for our actions, and live in true gratitude for all that we have--both the gifts and the challenges.

We are also advised to turn down the outside noise and turn instead to that place of silence within us from which real wisdom flows. So at home, at school, at work, in our churches, clubs and community organizations, we have the opportunity to raise the level of the game and navigate the future with greater levels of consciousness and love.

George Cappannelli is the author of the award-winning and bestselling book Do Not Go Quietly, and co- founder of AgeNation and The World Council of Wisdom Keepers <http://agenation.com/home/>  He is leading AgeNation's six transformational Navigating Your Future Weekend Journeys at The Awaken Whole Life Center at Unity Village.. Visit www.navigatingyourfutureconferences.com <http://navigatingyourfutureconferences.com/6-remarkable-transformative-weekend-journeys/> .

 

Real Wealth

   Interview with Riane Eisler

Author: Heidi Smith

SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS

APRIL 2009

“Macrohistorian” is a term used to describe thinkers whose study encompasses the totality of human events, from our earliest beginnings to modern times, in search of patterns and laws of social change. Riane Eisler is such a thinker, one whose ideas have the potential to both transform public policy and alter individual consciousness. She is the only woman and the only living member among twenty great thinkers including Hegel, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Arnold Toynbee, featured in Macrohistory and Macrohistorians as a result of her lasting impact as a cultural historian and evolutionary theorist.

Anthropologist Ashley Montagu referred to Eisler’s 1987 international bestseller The Chalice and the Blade as the most important book since Darwin’s Origin of the Species. In her latest work, The Real Wealth of Nations, Eisler examines the fundamental assumptions underlying our economic systems and the potential of a future based on partnership rather than domination. As a lawyer specializing in Constitutional law, a sociologist and a systems theorist, Eisler brings a formidable set of skills to her research, which supports the idea that placing equal value on work traditionally associated with women is ultimately economically beneficial for everyone.

In addition to running the Center for Partnership Studies in Pacific Grove, California, Eisler is also the co-founder of the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence along with Nobel Laureate Betty Williams. A vocal advocate for women’s rights globally, she is the author of more than two hundred papers and journal articles. Eisler is a founding member of the General Evolution Research Group a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and World Business Academy, and a commissioner of the World Commision on Global Consciousness and Spirituality, along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. She spoke with SuperConsciousness about partnership, economics, and the future.

SC: You suggest that our historical model of economics is based on a system of domination. How does that system work?

RE: We have inherited a system in which basically, those at top are privileged and those at the bottom get the droppings from the table. It doesn’t have to be that way. There’s an alternative, what I call a partnership system, and historically, that has ample precedent. As a matter of fact, there is a very strong trend in that direction. That system is not only more effective in human terms and environmental terms, but in economic terms.

SC: An underlying assumption you talked about in your book is the belief that placing an economic value on caregiving is an impediment to productivity. What have you found in your research?

RE: That it’s just the opposite, of course. But let’s come back to that assumption, because it’s very important to put it on the table and look at it. It’s very interesting that we in the market economy pay professions that don’t involve caring and caregiving work, like plumbing and engineering, much more than those that entail, in the work itself, caring and caregiving.

The most obvious example is childcare, but also elementary school teaching. In this country people think nothing of paying a plumber fifty to one hundred dollars an hour, but according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the childcare worker, the person to whom we entrust our children, gets only an average of ten dollars an hour, with no benefits. And of course people insist that the plumber be trained; how could we entrust our pipes to someone that isn’t? But we don’t insist that all childcare workers be trained. Obviously, this isn’t logical. It’s pathological, but it’s built into the really invisible system that I call gendered values, in which anything that is stereotypically associated with women or the feminine, whether it’s in a woman or a man, is devalued.

Economists will say that the market determines value, but the underlying and largely invisible cultural values are much more powerful. So we’ve got that assumption and it is very strong, but in reality, investing in caring and caregiving is much more effective, never mind in human or environmental terms, but in simple dollars and cents.

In the market economy, studies show that companies that appear on the Fortune 500 lists and Working Mothers lists of the best companies to work for have a higher return on investment. These are caring companies. One study that I particularly like to cite was of four companies that invested in child care. People say, “We can’t afford that, and anyway, it’s sort of a frill.” Within four years these companies had a five hundred return on investment.

There was less absenteeism, more retention, less turnover, people are present, but above all people work harder because they want the company that is caring of them and their families to succeed.

SC: One of the most appalling charts in your book was related to spending. It was a pie chart that showed the 2005 budget, and the percentage of military spending relative to education, health care, early childhood development. There’s this argument that, “Oh, well, obviously we can’t afford that,” yet clearly we can afford more weapons.

RE: It’s so fascinating, because we’re told that big government and huge deficits are just fine when it comes to wars, to weapons, to prisons, but somehow we can’t afford it for childcare, for healthcare. Again, this is not logical, it is really pathological. So the first thing is becoming aware, but then we have to do something about it.

Poverty is intractable as long as you ignore the data. At the Center for Partnership Studies, we did a study comparing data from eighty-nine nations of the status of women and the general quality of life and even there we found a strong correlation. Really, what’s good for women is good for everybody.

If you create training for caring jobs, training for childcare, education for parenting, you are going to put a huge dent in poverty, which is what the Scandinavian nations have done, using precisely that approach of really subsidizing childcare, of very generous paid parental leave, of stipends for families that take care of children. In Norway, you get social security credit for the first seven years of caring for a child. Yet here in the United States, women over the age of sixty five are twice as likely to be poor as men over the age of sixty-five, and obviously many of them were or are caregivers. It doesn’t have to be that way.

SC: Some people in the United States would have a knee jerk response that that sounds like socialism. You’ve said that what you’re talking about is transcendent of both socialism and capitalism. How is it different?

RE: It’s different because, first of all, these nations are not socialist. They are a mix of free market enterprise and central planning. So the issue isn’t really socialism, and these nations don’t call themselves socialist. They very often use the term “caring societies.” That’s what we need, to use the partnership elements in both capitalism and socialism, leave the domination elements behind, and move to what I call partnerism.

SC: You have a six-part model of economics where there traditionally seems to be three pieces. What’s included in your model that’s missing from the domination system?

RE: If you look at both capitalist and socialist theory, those models came out of times when, first of all, they were totally in the industrial society and economy, and also times that were oriented much more to the domination system, centuries ago. Nothing about the natural economy, nothing about the household economy, nothing about the volunteer community economy. These are the life sustaining sectors, without which there would be no workforce – frankly without which none of us would be here. I propose what I call a full spectrum economics that no longer fails to include these basic components of a wellfunctioning economy that have been so ignored and hence so neglected.

SC: What are some things that are happening right now that are moving us into a partnership model?

RE: We’ve been moving in that direction for several centuries. If you look at the European Middle Ages, with the Inquisition, the Crusades, witch burnings, women had no rights, children were brutalized, it looked a lot like the Taliban. The good news is that this shift didn’t happen by itself. It was accelerated by the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy. But it was people, people’s changes in awareness and their actions, that made it happen.

The problem is that one of the core elements of the domination system is this gendered system of values. Unfortunately, we still see it in the job creation plan. President Obama wants to invest mainly in jobs to build bridges and roads, and invest in the green economy. All of this is very good – the material infrastructure and the natural infrastructure, but we need much more focus on the human infrastructure. The jobs for investing in the human sector are to a very large extent the early childhood jobs, the primary teaching, the hands on healthcare, where women live. That needs to be a much larger part of the job-creation program, especially since women and children as a group are the mass of the poor.

SC: What would life look like under a partnership system?

RE: It looks very different. The first thing we would see is far, far more investment in caring for people starting in early childhood. That is really essential, along with sound family planning. Notice that the Nordic nations have invested in this. That’s one of the reasons that although they were very poor at the start of the century, today they’re very prosperous. It has to go along with family planning, and that in turn goes along with raising the status of women with more equality. Women in the Nordic world are about forty percent of the national legislature.

It’s a society where women and men share more. So both women and men are more able to realize their full potentials in both the household economy and the market economy, but there’s much more investment in the front end rather than the back end.

SC: How would this affect our relationship with nature?

RE: Completely. Today, the thinking is that we can mess up nature and somebody is going to come and pick up the pieces. It’s ridiculous. Remember, we now have economic thinking that is full spectrum, that includes the natural economy, the household economy and the volunteer economy and they’re all included in measures of what is productive.

SC: You mentioned that legislating changes in the nature of corporations could possibly offset a lot of the damage that’s being done.

RE: Absolutely. The corporation doesn’t have to be irresponsible and uncaring if we have the right rules. The argument is that we can’t regulate because it will inhibit innovation. Look at these “innovative” credit swaps, not to mention outright stealing, very “innovatively.” It doesn’t work that way. You either have caring values, and then innovation becomes creativity, and beneficial and exciting or you have uncaring values. As long as caring and caregiving are devalued, it’s not realistic to expect more caring policies and practices. We’re talking about systems dynamics, about connecting the dots, and that’s what my work’s about.

SC: What can we as individuals do?

RE: The first thing is changing consciousness. If we begin to understand some of what we’ve been talking about, we can act on it. One of the main devices for doing this is changing the conversation, not only the internal conversation, but the conversation we have about economics with our friends, with our colleagues, with our policy makers. Start talking about caring economics, about the real wealth of nations being the contributions of people and our natural environment. Therefore we need what we haven’t had, investment in caring for people starting in early childhood and caring for nature. This is more effective.

Lobby for better childcare. Talk to your PTA people and see how they can really influence the government to change its priorities so that they don’t cut the important things. Also, state grants are really needed right now from the federal government out of this job creation program to raise the pay of childcare workers, to educate people for elder care. One of the first acts of the new President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, when she took office was stipends and training for poor caregivers. It can all be done.

You asked me what it would look like. It looks healthy, it looks fulfilled, it looks meaningful, it looks exciting, it looks creative. It looks adventurous in the sense of exploring new horizons for us as human beings and actualizing our enormous capacities for caring, for creativity and for consciousness.