Barry's Sharebook 

I have come up with ideas, which I believe are really coming to me as an inspired revelatory vision from God (or from a compassionate Force that seeks to preserve, care for, and honor the whole sacred web of life), to develop, or to encourage other people to develop, a special global initiative called "The Oasis Project." One of the major tasks of the Oasis Project would be to develop clean, renewable, sources of water for humans and animals to drink, as well as to utilize for agriculture, sanitation, and industry. Without clean, renewable, water sources, deserts increase, and farmland decreases; hunger, thirst, uncleanness, and human suffering increases, and human survival and happiness decreases. Institutions of higher academic education should set up study and research programs to understand how to protect and expand existing farmland by protecting existing water sources, and develop new ones, in various ways, such as, by digging wells to access underground aquifers, doing geological surveys to find sources of water hidden deep underground that were not previously known, digging irrigation canals to move water from aquifers, rivers, lakes, to farmland, laying long pipelines to transmit water from lush to arid regions of the world (e.g., transmitting water from lush Northeastern States to arid Southwestern States of the USA), making containers to collect rain water for use in farming or drinking, as well as desalization. Another related idea is developing refrigeration technology to cool the temperature of sources of water in regions of the world that have hot climates so that the water is not lost because of the process of evaporation. Around ten years ago, I had a neighbor from Saudi Arabia who was studying refrigeration technology so that fresh water imported from other nations to Saudi Arabia would not evaporate because of the hot climate. Perhaps frozen water in the form of ice could be melted from mountaintops, as well as from the Arctic and Anarctic Polar regions of the earth, and then transmitted to arid areas or to deserts via/through large canals, railroads, trucks, or ships. I am thinking that these kinds of technologies, as well as other kinds of technologies, could not only preserve existing farmland, but, also, provide water to geographical areas that are currently arid, or even deserts, so that they have more water for drinking, agriculture, and supporting beautiful vegetation to nourish people's souls, as well as nourishing their bodies with food and water. Other related priorities include, for example, preventing global warming from evaporating water sources, preventing discharge of polluting substances into bodies of fresh water and cleaning up currently polluted bodies of water, as well as planting trees or other vegetation to prevent soil erosion and desertification.  Academic research should devise new, more effective, ways, to dissolve all kinds of manmade toxic waste so that it is not discharged into and pollutes bodies of water, as well as cultivating benign microbes that can consume or break down toxic substances that are currently contaminating bodies of water. I understand that many of these ideas are already being studied and put into practice, but I would like to see more intensified, coordinated, and urgent, attempts to preserve and expand clean fresh water resources on a worldwide basis.

In addition to developing physical oases or sustainable life-supporting habitat by providing land areas with greater water resources, I think that God also wants us to develop projects/initiatives to use the term "Oasis" in a more metaphorical way, in addition to the literal way described above. This would involve presenting ideas for people whose hearts and souls have become inwardly dry or arid because of lack of love to have opportunities to water or “irrigate” their inner being with the refreshing, pure, clean, waters of life and love by receiving love, caring, and help, from others, when needed, as well as giving love, caring, and help, to others, when needed. For this reason, I recommend that Christian Churches, Islamic Mosques, Jewish Synagogues, as well as houses of worship of other religions, develop circles of loving friends who become like a tribe or extended family to one another, helping, encouraging, and comforting one another in times of difficulty, unburdening their hearts by sharing their pain, suffering, and joy with one another, listening with true caring to one another's stories and feelings, as well as joyfully celebrating life together through rhythmic, self-expressive, creative, dynamic, kinetic, activities such as, singing, music, dancing, holding hands in a sacred circle of loving connection, as well as artwork, crafts work, volunteer work, community improvement projects, and so on. I have viewed some YouTube videos that discuss the traditional African concept of Ubuntu, or "community spirit", compassionately caring for one's neighbors because one recognizes an inner spiritual connection or sense of existential relatedness to other human beings, as well as to animals, plants, and the land that we all live upon and share together. Many indigenous tribal peoples of the world are very talented in expressing themselves in rhythmic ways, through singing, music (especially drumming), dancing, as well as in various other ways. I believe that rhythmic energy expressions can help groups of people become united together in the same spiritual heartbeat of life and love, so that God's spirit of love can flow between them and do great miracles for them, as well as do great miracles for others through them, thereby transforming this world for the better, from the inside, when people join together in spiritual love-blessing circles, connected through a shared vibratory rhythmic heartbeat or pulse of life and love. I believe that music, as well as other forms of rhythmic energy vibration, can help people become healed of various forms of physical illness, as well as healed of various kinds of interrelated psychological, dyadic, and societal disorders. For example, this could involve being healed of addiction to toxic, unnatural, unclean, substances such as, alcohol, cigarettes, illegal drugs, loud vulgar music, etc, which provide an artificial sense of enhanced life energy arousal, like a false heartbeat pulsation. Writing and reading inspirational poetry, stories, or essays, that come from a rhythmic energy vibration or heartbeat pulsation of spiritual love, goodness, and pure life energy, can also function as a kind of inner "Oasis Project", to bring the fresh waters of real love and real life energy to oneself and to other people, and to eliminate the dry deserts and false oases of unhealthy/unclean addictions and attachments to various other toxic habits and lifestyles. I intuitively believe that various kinds of rhythmic vibratory energy can contribution to many different kinds of holistic healing and transformation of the individual human being, dyadic relationships, and society, by attuning individuals to a regenerative vibratory "pulse” or flow of energy, and undoing various kinds of degenerative, toxic, energy patterns. I believe that God (or the Source of natural sustainability) wants people to experiment with new ways of developing an inner and outer oasis by cooperatively working together for the greater common good of everyone, by developing new sources of water and new material resources to improve people's outer physical lives, as well as develop new forms of creative expression to refresh or bring fresh “waters of life” into people's inner life, at the level of their inner being, their heart and soul. I invite anyone who wishes to dialogue with me about this “Oasis Project” idea to contact me at email: mhbj8@hotmail.com

I find that the best kind of creative inspiration, in any field of endeavor, comes from communing deeply with other life presences, in heartfelt, open-minded, empathic attunement with them. The more deeply we invest our heart, mind, and senses, in communion with other life presences, experiences, and activities, in the world, the more does the co-creative heart core of our own being become stirred, and reveal greater gifts of creative inspiration and meaningful insight, as the source of great artistic expression, heart-full living, and enhanced performance in any area of endeavor. When individual hearts resonate in deeply invested attunement with each other, they energize each other, like magnets, releasing the co-creative process of synergy, like electricity flowing only when an electrical plug and socket, or positive and negative electrical poles, are connected to one another.

However, as long as the heart remains egocentrically, narcissistically, selfishly, self-absorbed, or self-possessed, we will be able to make only rather shallow contact with others, with only the superficial levels of our awareness. Without heartfelt communion, the mind and senses, by themselves alone, can contact, understand, and appreciate, only rather superficial aspects of reality, and provide only a relatively shallow, mechanical, level of creative artistic functioning. That is why I agree with what St. Exupery wrote, in his book, "The Little Prince", "It is only with the eyes of the heart that one can see what is most essential in life....Only the heart sees clearly, because what is essential is not visible to the eyes". I might add, what is essential in life is also not available to the analytical intellect, functioning independently of the deeper, relational, insight of the heart, because the analytical mind tends to be self-absorbed in its own thought, rather than making direct contact with other life presences, experiences, and activities, in the world.