By Geoffrey Holland.

Gylany is a new word.  It was first proposed by the social scientist Riane Eisler in her culturally transformative book The Chalice and the Blade, published in 1988. In her book, Eisler defines gylany as ‘the linking of both halves of humanity’. It’s women and men standing together as equals, sharing power.

Sharing power is certainly a new idea. For thousands of years, the human culture has been shaped by ranking and hierarchy, with men at the top and women at the bottom, powerless, oppressed, and marginalized.

Since the stone age, men have been in charge. Men have made the rules.  The history we know is a litany of conflict and violence, with men dominating women and exploiting nature without any concern for consequence.

We have come to a point of reckoning with our own worst instincts.  There is no mystery about this.  Our cultural overreach is visible for all to see, and it’s getting ever worse by the day.

 

*****

This notion that man can, and should, have absolute dominion over the “chaotic” powers of nature and woman…is what ultimately lies behind man’s famous “conquest of nature” – a conquest that is today puncturing holes in the earth’s ozone layer, destroying our forests, polluting our air and water, and increasingly threatening the welfare, and even survival, of thousands of living species, including our own.

~ Riane Eisler, Author,  Champion of Gylany

*****

 

The course humans have been on for thousands of years is based on the assumption that we are above and superior to nature. That assumption is entirely wrong. We are not superior. The evidence is abundantly clear.  We are in fact a part of nature. We are dependent on nature.  We must come to terms with that reality.

Gylany is a word that reflects a gender-equal partnership way of living. I would call gylany the end game. It’s the only worthy course humanity can take to build a new cultural paradigm that assures gender equality, dignity for all, and a commitment to responsible planetary stewardship.

Getting to gylany is easiest when one accepts that our reality may not be what we were raised to believe it is.  Some scientists are now postulating that what we see, think, and feel are not real, but in fact that we are very likely immersed in a colossally advanced simulation game. In other words, our reality is all in our heads.  Everything we experience is part of a simulation functioning in a dimension that we can imagine but never know. In fact, actual scientific evidence fits a simulation model very nicely.

 

 

I am a believer in the idea that our reality is a grand illusion; that the life we know and experience is a simulation.  It’s an idea I find very appealing. If it is true, then it seems we are all players in this illusion that we know as our reality.  I also have to assume the awesome life force behind our reality knows right from wrong. That leads me to conclude that winning the simulation is about overcoming all challenges from the dark side.

What does winning mean?  It means each of us, when we see that human civilization is moving in a deadly ominous direction, is obligated to step up and be the best version, the planetary citizen version of themselves. The best version of ourselves recognizes that we humans are the problem.  We are the ones defying nature’s design. We must do better.

 

*****

Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.

~ Carl Sagan, Astro-physicist, Son of the Cosmos 

*****

 

We start by getting past our own worst instincts. We sweep aside the tribalism, the misogyny, the extreme exploitation of nature; the stuff that defines our current reality. We get past our dysfunctional ways by choosing a new course, a transcendent course; a course defined by gylany.

A future shaped by gylany is entirely worthy of our planet’s most self-aware species. A gender-equal gylany world with women having equal access to power at all levels is a world in which every human is committed to ‘Dignity for All’ and ‘Responsible Planetary Stewardship’. In that kind of world, every human recognizes gylany as our best chance of turning the tide in a positive direction. If we are in fact immersed in a fantastic reality simulation, gylany is our best chance of winning the game.

*****

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

~ Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion Designer, Architect

*****

Whatever you believe about the nature of our human reality, when it comes to human values, speaking gylany means you are on the same life-affirming path that so many good humans are now embracing as part of an emerging collective planetary consciousness.

A planetary consciousness, because it includes all humans of all genders and enthicities, must be gylany by design.  That’s a reason to be hopeful.

*****

 For the first time in human history, the internet and social media enables us to exchange information, ideas, solutions, views and values around an entire Planet, at lightspeed. It is the first, tentative, step in our learning to think together and to solve our problems at supra-human level, by consensus instead of argument or war.

~ Julian Cribb, Author, Survival in the 21^st Century

*****

 

Geoffrey Holland is an award-winning Writer/Producer of long and short form video. He is also currently Coordinator of Dialogues for the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.