How do we become sane in an insane human world - a world that is at war with its own home, that is burning down its own house, even as it barricades itself on the couch, watching television and eating chips from plastic bags that will not decompose, and so simply adding more fuel to the inferno already raging all around.Amazingly, in the context of a vision of humanity set within Nature, as one planetmate among all the others, and clearly having gone through a *devolution* from Nature, not an arrogant transcendence above Nature, allowing us *dominion* over it, we are seen to be quite insane. It is not that there is no basis for establishing what is sane. What is sanity then? Continuing from concepts first brought out in *Wounded Deer and Centaurs*, this work shows just what sanity looks like in our current situation. It requires we look at the deepest roots of our personality created out of the experiences we have in common during our womb and birth experiences - our prenatal and perinatal templates.Beyond that, the only sane response to an emergency is activism ... and the sanest response is heroism. Not sainthood. Not enlightenment. Not social status. Not corporate success. Not any kind of material achievement. No. the only sane response to a situation where we stand in front of a house on fire is to pick up a bucket. Anything else is numb, unfeeling, quite dissociated, and selfish. And when one is inside that house, the only response is to get out the fire extinguisher, seek to help the ones inside to get free from the flames, to minimize the suffering of others and to save others and oneself, regardless if one succeeds or not. The only sane response is thus heroism.
About the Author: Michael Adzema is an ecoactivist, philosopher, psychologist, former university instructor, and psychotherapist, now retired, who specialized in primal therapy, breathwork, and rebirthing. He is a pioneer in the field of pre- and perinatal psychology and was the editor of Primal Renaissance: The Journal of Primal Psychology - a professional journal of psychology. He was the first person in the United States to teach prenatal and perinatal psychology at the university level, which he did at Sonoma State University in the early Nineties; he was one of the first in the United States to receive a graduate degree in pre- and perinatal psychology. Michael also did doctoral work in psychological anthropology at the University of California, San Diego; elsewhere, he did graduate work in history, philosophy, Eastern philosophy, religious studies, and humanistic psychology. He served for years on the Board of the International Primal Association; he contributed by giving workshops and lectures at their conventions and conferences; and he was on the Board of Editors of the journals, Anthropology of Consciousness and Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal. In the early Eighties, working as an anti-nuke activist with Oregon Fair Share, he was one of a small group of people whose actions led to the lawsuit that put a stop to nuclear plant construction in the United States. His voice can be heard on Extinction Radio and other broadcasts, speaking on topics of activism, spirituality, ecopsychology, the environment, prenatal and perinatal psychology, metaphysics, politics, primal psychology, and philosophy. Over the last twenty years, Michael Adzema has managed and authored a number of popular websites and blogs - with posts numbering upward of five thousand. Currently, he publishes prolifically and often on his primary blog - titled Michael Adzema, Author - at sillymickel.blogspot.com. Additionally, he has produced quite a few videos of his work, which are available on his youtube channel under the name, sillymickel. Concerning Michael Adzema's life and work, the most recent and informative interview, available online, can be watched on youtube at "Michael Adzema talks to Michael Harrell Unfolding our Primal Gifts." Michael, now retired, is compiling and releasing the fruits of his forty-nine years of research in as timely a manner as possible, as he settles into his community activities and international efforts in his beloved city of Eugene, Oregon.