The holiday season, with its special stresses and joys, is kicking into high gear,  and yet the bad news keeps coming.  Health, politics, economy, the food supply, the deteriorating environment: we are barraged with seemingly disparate challenges that are really interrelated. Our reaction to these pressures  can be paralysis; but it can also be hope and determination. An organization called Global Oneness Project is gathering and disseminating (free of charge) inspirational and empowering videos with the goal of "exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world."

When I feel my energy flagging, I visit the Global Oneness Project's website, and am refreshed by videos of thinkers from across cultures, from gardeners to scientists to health workers to community organizers, doing their great work around the world.

"What a time to be alive!" exclaims eco-philosopher Joanna Macy. In this brief two and a half minutes, Macy places this moment, our moment, into its unique context, and celebrates our ability to choose how to respond to the challenges of our time, which she likens to a Third Revolution, as big as the Agricultural and Industrial.  Macy celebrates our gift of self-reflexive consciousness, a fancy way of saying we have choices. We can choose to let negative forces go unchecked, or take part in an adventure that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. Click here to watch Joanna speak.

The videos at Global Oneness are not just about problems. Each speaker reflects on progress made by conscious living and awareness of our interconnectedness with human society and with the natural world.

As we in the U.S. pause for Thanksgiving, I hope we can take a moment of rest and reflection, and then dive back into the real work to be done: the work of living every day as if our actions matter.