circuses, fire and love

It began for me when I received a phone call from Daring Donna a few weeks ago, inviting me to co-create an event for 45 people who were coming over to Waiheke for some team building. This was followed by a couple more phone conversations, then the "serious" fun meeting 10 days before the event was to happen, at a cafe in Auckland. That was when the six of us agreed on the basic format of helping them to create a circus, which they would then perform at a free-to-public event. As we sat around the table, I imagined helping support this team by bringing a web based project software (Basecamp) into the mix, and showing how it could be used by everyone involved.


As the days passed, through the weekend and the days leading up to the event, I began to see the project growing and taking form. You can browse through this and a range of other projects by clicking here and logging in with the name: ccguest, and password: ccguest. When you get in, check out the various tabs at the top of the page. The event was huge success, due to a lot of different factors.

I was particularly delighted, in seeing how this collaboration tool was supporting the project that itself was occurring in an environment of a high level of trust, clearly evident between the co-creators. I choose to see this as an example of how we can operate when we have turned from Empire to Earth Community. From the assumption that the world is a place of competition, domination, top down management and scarcity, to the world as a place of conscious individuals, acknowledging inter-dependence, love, caring, celebration of life.

As the urgency of our situation (dependence on a finite oil supply) becomes more apparent, a wide range of responses will manifest, from denial, to panic, self-protection, anger, and for some - acceptance. Those who accept the situation can then begin the process of building the new society.

I spoke with a friend, in Nelson, who has been studying Peak Oil for almost a decade now and who understands very well the implications of it. As we talked I sensed his deep and understandable frustration that people don't get it - that denial is still so prevalent. How to move things forward? A section from Michael Ruppert's film "Denial Stops Here" came to mind, in which he expresses that in his earlier career as a policeman he had been in situations where he had to choose who was going to live and who was going to die. Some people will remain in denial and that is just the way it is. We need to work with those who have accepted the situation. These people are ready to make changes and herein lies the opportunity.

Imagine regional networks of people all making creative local changes, then feeding ideas for what is working in their area into a "Things that work place" from where they can draw more good ideas from other regions. Like starting a campfire on a cold winters night, beginning with the small pieces of dry grass, and slowly adding a few twigs as the flames start to take hold. It's important to give people small projects to begin with, and not to smother the fire by loading up too much material until it takes hold.

Here on Waiheke we have had a food exchange stall at the Saturday market. It is a simple concept, easy to embrace, where people bring the excess produce (fruits, vegetables, preserves) from their gardens and share it with others. Sometime people make donations if they wish, but money is not a pre-requisite for receiving from the abundance. The stall is also supported by the community garden, which people put effort into and from which we draw excess. This is one simple idea, which can be initiated in any community, and it can become a focal point for conversation.


There are other initiatives which I can describe - but my point is the process by which these ideas can be shared across regions. If you would like to share ideas that have worked in your region add a comment to this post, with your email, and I can send you an invitation to participate in a Basecamp project where we can share these ideas across the country and beyond.

Each of these new expressions of a healthy, caring society can, like the sticks and finally the logs on the fire, generate the heat which consumes our denial and warms us with vision for a brighter future.

why I remain an optimist

This is one of seven reasons that Elisabet Sahtouris offers to explain why she remains an optimist. You can download a PDF of the entire document here. And a 60 minute power point presentation of her key and liberating ideas are part of the documentary collection that can be found here.

The various emphasis are mine...

Every culture has a creation story that gives meaning, purpose, and guidance to its people.

While priesthoods of one sort or another traditionally told these stories, an experiment with secular democratic states has been underway for the past few centuries. Making these secular states work has been an ongoing experiment not only in achieving democratic governance but also in the even more fundamental experiment of having science, rather than religion, provide the great story of how things work in our universe and on our planet to guide people’s lives. The scientific creation story we’ve known, at its simplest, has come from physics and biology. Physics gave us a nonliving, accidental, purposeless, and meaningless universe, running down to its death by entropy, and biology doomed us to endless struggle in scarcity as nature’s way of evolution—and thus our own human nature.

This soulless materialist science scenario must be the most depressing creation story ever told. Yet our culture has created our reality from it, practicing scientific opposition to religion, believing we must get what we can while we can (usually at someone else’s expense), building a now worldwide win/lose capitalist economy of cutthroat competition, and making material consumption the dominant lifestyle people have or aspire to have. What made us believe this story would lead to the glorious golden age envisioned by the founding fathers of science for more than a handful of people?

It suggested exactly what we got: things running down, ravaged environments, failure to eliminate grinding poverty, the continued terror of warfare, and amazing technological things that blind most of us to this overall picture. Some of us, however, see the present situation as a huge opportunity, ripe for creating the future we truly desire, and our optimism comes from information that science itself has recently produced—information that is more compatible with the hopeful creation stories of other cultures, especially consciousness-based Eastern cosmologies.

This new story explains how the universe is not running down, because entropy is balanced by syntropy, and we point out that species can and do learn how inefficient and expensive competition is compared with the collaboration nature demonstrates in the abundance of unspoiled rainforests, prairies, and coral reefs.

Seen in retrospect, every crisis on our planet has created the stress that became an opportunity for further evolution. Whether a planetwide extinction, an ice age, or a locally destroyed ecosystem, disaster has always been followed by the sudden appearance of many new or previously suppressed species. Nature is conservative when things go well but radically creative when they don’t, and from my perspective, is far too intelligent to proceed by accident!

For my broader cosmic model, I begin with Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s definition of life as autopoietic (self-creating). By this definition, any entity continually creating and maintaining itself in relation to its environment is alive. The entire universe, from atoms to galaxies, is a self-creating living system by this definition, since all universal objects create and maintain themselves from the vacuum field, with planetary life the most complex result of this overall process.

There is no reason why the data of scientific research cannot be reinterpreted in this new framework composed of different assumptions about the basic nature of our universe. After all, the foundational assumptions of science that nature is nonliving, nonconscious, nonintelligent, thus purposeless and meaningless, are unprovable beliefs stemming from a particular historical context of reaction against religion, prior to which all nature had been seen as alive.

Changing these assumptions will enhance our understanding of scientific findings, as well as reduce the entirely unnecessary rift between science and spirituality. Moreover, it gives us the life-sustaining creation story we need—a story that inspires and encourages our rapid maturation, knowing that nature is on our side in this learning process.

Elisabet Sahtouris, PHD, is a member of the World Wisdom Council and a fellow of the World Business Academy. Her numerous venues include the World Bank, State of the World Forum, and the World Parliament. Her books include EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution, and her Web sites are www.sahtouris.com and www.ratical.org/lifeweb. She is currently at work on a book about global warming. You can watch video clips of her speaking to this subject here.

preparedness

My brother and I collaborated on a Preparedness Checklist over the weekend. We used a simple but very functional web tool called Writeboards, which are free and fun to use.

Then this morning, after a stormy night the power went out across Auckland. Some areas were out for a big chunk of the day. It was a reminder of how much we rely on electricity and a prompt to get a few things together to make life easier if the power goes out more often as we enter into a low-energy future.

I suspect the transition may not be smooth and graceful.

wise women

In this urgent time - when the elite are destroying the life-giving planet in their blind rush to aquire the planet's resources and secure their fortressed retreats, and when people at the grassroots are stepping out of their isolation shackles and coming together to engage the real work of creating a new and sustainable way of living - we can use a little inspiration and vision.

The video is a few minutes clipped from a presentation in which she describes the previous major revolutions - Agricultural, Industrial and now The Great Turning and how we can participate in it.

---0---

Joanna Macy: Each of us can develop our own list of attitudes and actions that help us take part in this revolution. Here are five that have helped me:

Personal Guidelines for the Great Turning

Come from Gratitude
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe--to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it--is a wonder beyond words. Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. Furthermore, it is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world.

Don't be Afraid of the Dark
This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don't be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, for these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. To suffer with is the literal meaning of compassion.

Dare to Vision
Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts..

Roll up your Sleeves
Many people don't get involved in the Great Turning because there are so many different issues, which seem to compete with each other. Shall I save the whales or help battered children? The truth is that all aspects of the current crisis reflect the same mistake, setting ourselves apart and using others for our gain. So to heal one aspect helps the others to heal as well. Just find what you love to work on and take joy in that. Never try to do it alone. Link up with others; you'll spark each others' ideas and sustain each others' energy..

Act your Age
Since every particle in your body goes back to the first flaring forth of space and time, you're really as old as the universe. So when you are lobbying at your congressperson's office, or visiting your local utility, or testifying at a hearing on nuclear waste, or standing up to protect an old grove of redwoods, you are doing that not out of some personal whim, but in the full authority of your 15 billions years.

from freedom to fascism

"FOUR STARS" (Highest Rating).The scariest goddamn film you'll see this year. It will leave you staggering out of the theatre, slack-jawed and trembling. Makes 'Fahrenheit 9/11' look like 'Bambi.' After watching this movie, your comfy, secure notions about America -- and about what it means to be an American -- will be forever shattered.

Producer/director Aaron Russo and the folks at Cinema Libre Studio deserve to be heralded as heroes of a post-modern New American Revolution. This is shocking stuff. You'll be angry, you'll be disgusted, but you may actually break out in a cold sweat and feel a sickness deep in your gut."

--- Todd David Schwartz, CBS

rabbit mountain

I was thrilled to see this initiative! It speaks volumes to me, of the potential of human societies to meet our needs in a mutually supportive and creatives ways, that minimise our impact on this fragile planet'’s resources.

The Rabbit Mountain Relocalization Map is an experiment designed to support relocalization efforts by mapping local, sustainable business and organizations in Europe and North America (other regions are still under development). It is used by adding markers for farmerÂ’s markets, CSAs, organic farms, community banks, and other sustainable local businesses in your area, no matter where you live.

If you want to see a couple of examples from Waiheke Island (NZ), go to the locations tab, choose the "“collapse all" option, then drill down under New Zealand. Once you click on the organisation you want it will centre itself on the map. Once there you can move the slider to zoom in and change from Satelite to Map to let you view the streets. Simply click and drag on the map itself to move it around for a better view.

I originally stumbled across this concept on Paula'’s Blog.

By all accounts it was not a huge job to put this together. Paula has done most of the work herself, and there was minimal cost involved. It'’s a great use of technology. It could be helpful in finding our needs closer to home - something we'’ll be doing more of in the coming years.

---0---

Helen Dew (Living Economies NZ), sent me this news today.

The info stall at the Green Party AGM was very successful. I sold quite a few books and gave out lots of info. I was delighted to hear Russell Norman say in his speech that the party needs to promote green economics!

This was also echoed by the leader of the Young Greens. The level of interest in our books and message was significantly higher this year than it had been at 2004 AGM, when very few attended our power-point presentation or showed interest in our wares. This year lots of people stopped to talk and I returned home with 2 1/2 pages of contacts to follow up.

More evidence of The Great Turning!

Helen

global warming a big hit

The big production film on Global Warming, An Inconvenient Truth, is racing up the charts!

If you compare other films and how many theatres each film is screening in, this is quite remarkable. In only its second week of release, and playing in only a miserable 77 theatres, it has managed to climb to 9th position - based on last week's gross box office takings! Let's see how many cinemas try and grab for this one next week!

Update 23 June: It's at 12 place and now in 404 cinemas.

I'm betting the Waiheke Community Cinema will be getting this one as soon as it becomes available.

my world for a garden

It turns out that having asked for permission from their US captives to have a food garden and having been refused, a group of prisoners have made their own garden, within the camp.

cracks in the cultural trance

In the prologue of David Kortens' new book he writes:

...the power of the institutions of economic and political domination depends on their ability to perpetuate a falsified and inauthentic cultural trance based on beliefs and values at odds with reality. Break the trance, replace the values of an inauthentic culture with values of an authentic culture grounded in a love of life rather than a love of money, and the people will realign their life energy and bring forth the life-serving institutions of a new era. The key is to change the stories by which we define ourselves.

This is the same trance that Richard Moore so eloquently detailed in his "Escaping the Matrix" that I reviewed back in February.

This week's NZ Herald World section offered a headline: "Coming Next: Fake news from the USA" - a wonderful expose of the Video News Clips being produced by government and big business which is being passed off as official news. See Orwell Rolls in His Grave for George Orwell's insight into this process.

In the same paper was a funny-if-it-wasn't-so-sad description of a new marketing tool being used to sell homes in America. The vendors employ actors to play out the perfect suburban husband wife and two kids scenario that some prospective buyers, while knowing it is an illusion, are so moved they want to buy the home - buy the illusion!

The illusion is delicious, consoling, comforting, and beguiling, but it keeps us in a trance. Let's learn the truth and then we can tell each other a different story - one about a culture with a different set of values. Values of love, nurturing, support, the arts, creativity, sharing, partnership. This is a culture that existed before, and which we must surely return to if we are to enjoy a future on this fragile planet we call earth.

great nz telecom spoof

In case you read the NZ Herald this morning, here is a funny and rather hard hitting video which starts by quoting some outrageous but true words of the CEO (new Chairperson?) of this foreign owned company, which is stealing the countries money.

More interesting if you watch NZ TV (I don't) and are familiar with the original ad that this has been taken from.