THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION PROJECT
The Global Village
The Unity Tarot
Painting Paradise
This project centres on two paintings (consisting of 5 panels each) of the Global Village:
THE WORLD REALITY
A five-part painting exploring Freedom, Responsibility, Spirituality, Expression and Unity
Acrylics, 5 metres x 1,20 metres
Rosie Jackson, 2007
THE WORLD VISION
A five-part painting demonstrating Freedom, Responsibility, Spirituality, Expression and Unity
Acrylics, 5 metres x 1,20 metres
Rosie Jackson, 2009
The Global Village
The 5 metre long acrylic painting, The World Reality, portrays the Global Village as presented in the text If the world were a village of 100 people (Donella Meadows). This text contains many statistics of which we are largely unaware, for example: 500 million people are experiencing war, imprisonment or hunger. 75% of the world's population live in poverty, 60% are Asian, 3% are children with deformities resulting from undernourishment, 11% have access to the internet, 15% are Hindus, etc. (see long list below)
The 100 people in this painting have been created according to these statistics, for example: Global Villager 29 is a 28 year old Indian woman from Uttar Pradesh. She is a Muslim, lives off 2 dollars a day, is undernourished, illiterate and heterosexual. The painting is accompanied by written biographies of the 100 Global Villagers which describe their lives, situations, feelings and problems, but which also point towards possible solutions.
These are not political, military or financial solutions; change is possible through a willingness to develop personal and global awareness, to be led by the heart, to enter new spiritual realms, and to fully embrace the “We are all One” principle. How does this concern you? Even as you read these lines, the statistics are changing because someone, somewhere, has made another decision. You are someone. What is your decision? How will you personally improve conditions in the Global Village? Or have you decided not to make a decision?
The Unity Tarot
Each visitor to the painting is invited to select a number between 1 and 100. Each number corresponds to a specific Global Villager. After reading the accompanying biographical text, the visitor is asked to contemplate in which way he or she is associated with the villager concerned and the situation, problem or behavioural structure presented.
At the end of the text are questions which enable you to ponder the relevance of this experience in your own life. Thus every visitor is given an indication of how they can create their own transformation.
Painting Paradise
What will change when everyone is willing to go through the process of self-development and awareness, resulting in a worldwide shift in consciousness? A Spiritual Revolution will end racism, enemy images, environmental harm, human rights abuses, sexual exploitation and the threat of nuclear self-annihilation. If we respond to this “wake up” call, and are continuously aware of our thoughts and actions, we can personally participate in the positive development of world history.
Painting is a way of concretely representing our visions a profound step towards making them reality. The second painting, The World - Vision, depicts the 100 Global Villagers following their transformation, living in the paradise which they have created.
Statistics
The 100 people depicted in the painting THE WORLD REALITY have been invented by Rosie Jackson to reflect the following statistics:
Imagine a tiny village of 100 people, where the demographics of the village mirror the demographics of the world's global population. This is what the village would look like:
- 60 Asians
- 12 Europeans
- 14 Americans (North and South)
- 13 Africans
- 1 Oceanian
- 70 Non-white
- 30 White
- 34 Christian
- 22 Muslims
- 15 Hindus
- 14 Non-religious
- 6 Buddhists
- 4 believe in traditional Chinese religions
- 5 believe in other religions
- 51 Women
- 49 Men
- 50 are over 26 years old
- 50 are under 26 years old
- 89 Heterosexuals
- 11 Homosexuals
- 50 live off 2 dollars a day
- 25 live off 1 dollar a day
- 18 are overweight
- 3 have diabetes
- 1 has AIDS
- 50 are undernourished
- 3 children are deformed due to malnourishment
- 17 have unsafe drinking water
- 16 of the 51 women and girls have been sexually abused or beaten
- 20 smoke
- 10 drink
- 6 own 59 % of the world's entire wealth
- 80 do not have adequate housing
- 1 is a refugee
- 21 are illiterate
- 1 has a university degree
- 1 woman is a teacher
- 0,5 men are in prison
- 0,5 men are soldiers
- 1 will soon die
- 2 will soon be born
- 14 speak Mandarin
- 6 speak Hindi
- 6 speak Spanish
- 6 speak English
- 3 speak Bengali
- 3 speak Portuguese
- 3 speak Russian
- 2 speak Japanese
- 2 speak German
* Selected statistics presented by Brian Skinner, 2003, some of which have been updated in 2007. As statistics are always changing, this only represents one stage in “reality”. We ourselves cause them to change through each and every decision we make, and through decisions not to make a decision. The original concept of the Global Village must be attributed to Donella Meadows who wrote her State of the Village Report (concerning 1,000 Global Villagers) in 1990. Copyright Donella Meadows Archive in the Sustainability Institute, 3 Linden Road, Hartland, VT 05048, USA (802) 436-1277. Contact, Diana Wright.