In my meanderings around the blogosphere over the last several weeks, I came across a post wondering if post-Peak Oil culture may look like the Netherlands on steroids, where our every action is mediated by regulation and law, and questioning whether that is the kind of future we want.
When I was recently in San Francisco, I saw a tiny microcosm of the kind of thing this writer was describing. On each MUNI train I rode, there were at least 10 signs describing what we were compelled to do by law, including giving up our seats to elderly and disabled riders. I was a little put off by this, personally—how far must we have sunk as human beings if we have to be compelled by law to give up our seats to people who need them?
It’s great to achieve goals and and to see my abilities develop over time, but to me, growing for myself isn’t enough. I undertake the task of becoming a more powerful, truthful, and loving human being because that’s what I need to become in order to create the future I believe we can and should have.
Throughout the book, he uses the metaphor of cells in a body. Each of us is a cell in the body of the universe, he says, with specialized functions to perform but also with undeniably strong connections to all the other cells. As he proceeds through the fundamental principles of personal development, he returns to this image again and again to underscore the idea that personal development is never really taken just for one’s own sake; that what benefits each cell also benefits the body as a whole; and that aligning our individual selves with the principles he describes pulls the entire body into closer alignment with them.
When I was thinking of topics to write about concerning frugality and environment the one thing that kept cropping up was community. I really think that one of my biggest assets in working to live a frugal, environmentally friendly life is my strong and helpful community.
It’s a hard one to quantify. I can’t look at my monthly expenses and easily say, “my community saved me $200 this month,” but they provide me with so many tangible and intangible benefits I can hardly count them all. It’s amazing to me what people accomplish when they pull together.
Posted by Jessica Roemischer Monday, October 06, 2008
(As Jessica encourages her students to trust and open up to new possibilities within themselves, so we at The Sunny Way hope to inspire you to think about the future in new ways, and act in new ways to create it. Enjoy this beautiful video! -ed)
Last fall, I began teaching piano at the Riverbrook Residence for women with developmental disabilities in Stockbridge, MA. Riverbrook is a rare and special place—the women there are supported in every dimension of life. I often remind myself of how new this phenomenon is. It has been only a few decades since ABC news reporter, Geraldo Rivera exposed the shockingly inhuman conditions at Willowbrook—an institution for those with mental retardation on Staten Island, NY. In doing so he helped bring this issue into our collective conscience. The care for those with developmental disabilities is, I believe, central to the evolution of humanity as a whole.
While things have generally improved since Rivera’s report in the early 1970’s, Riverbrook stands out as a remarkable place. Because of its uniquely supportive environment, the women trust me, and work closely with me. I, in turn, am discovering a new dimension in my own teaching as I witness them express, through our piano improvisations and group music activities, strikingly individual aesthetic sensibilities. This experience is proving to me that the Authentic Self—that part of us that is beautiful, natural and free—is, indeed, universal and unfettered by any limitation.
In this video, Tanny Labshere, whom I wrote about in my previous post, is playing an improvised duet with me. It will give you a first-hand experience of what I am describing.
A few weeks ago, Uli sent out this video by strength and wellness writer Shawn Phillips, in which he talks about how our focus on health, or the absence of problems, seems to keep us from pursuing strength, or the positive state of well-being. I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between health and strength, and sustainability and magnificence. Of course we all want to be free from disease and injury, just as we want a society that functions without causing huge environmental problems. But I agree with Shawn that pursuing abundance is far more inspiring than going after okayness.
This weekend, Uli will be riding a 100 mile bike race in Maine in order to raise money for the German-language edition of What Is Enlightenment magazine. I’ve been so impressed with and inspired by her drive to try something new and go beyond what she thought she could do. Uli’s pursuit of her goal—a 100 mile bike ride up a mountain!—is truly inspiring in terms of defining this new idea of health not being merely the absence of troubles, but bountiful good feelings of strength, well-being, and possibility.
Have a great weekend, everybody! And good luck, Uli! We look forward to hearing about your experience next week.
As I watched the Presidential debates the other night, my head spun. Seemed like every other thing out of the candidates’ mouths was a either very high number I couldn’t relate to, or some variation on, “That’s just not true, Senator!” And I’m sure there will be statements that inspire more head-scratching at tonight’s Vice Presidential debate.
In my attempts to make sense of it all, I started looking around online for answers, and I found a few great sites that help cut right through the rhetoric and spin.
Some of you may know that for the last 3 weeks, I have been laid up with a broken ankle. I have a cast from my toes almost to my knee, and I’m not to put any weight on my foot at all, so getting around is a matter of using crutches or rolling around in my office chair. Even hobbling to the corner is a major exertion and causes stress on my ankle, so my mobility is limited to my house and my back yard, for the most part.
In trying to make productive use of this extended period of time at home, I’ve noticed something—I dick around on the internet a lot. It’s a habit now: I go to my computer, check my message boards and RSS feeds, and next thing I know hours have passed without my actually having accomplished anything.
The Sunny Way is committed to envisioning and creating a magnificent future for all of us. Right now, this also means facing things head-on, even if they are very scary. History has shown that humans always rise to the challenge of developing, when the old options are running out. And in order to do that, to forge a different path in culture and our own way of looking at life, seeing things how they really are is everything.
So this week we heard that carbon emissions are still on the rise. While scientists are ringing alarm bells even louder, people are beginning or continuing to take things into their own hands.
Al Gore, for one thinks it’s time: “We have reached a point of Civil Disobedience,” he said in a Panel Discussion at Clinton’s Global Initiative in New York. In particular, he encouraged young people to prevent the construction of coal plants that do not have the technology to capture and sequester carbon.
For the next several weeks, we will be discussing Aldous Huxley’s Island. Click here for all the book club posts.
The other night I got together with a few friends to watch the first presidential debate, and I couldn’t get the Ken Wilber video posted last Friday out of my mind. In that video, Wilber says that the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals comes down to what they think causes human suffering.
Conservatives think suffering comes from within: a lack of willpower, the wrong values, or weakness. Liberals on the other hand think that suffering is caused by the way society shapes us: lack of opportunity, lack of support, or oppression.
Watching John McCain and Barack Obama debate, I saw this difference playing out before me clear as day. And I wondered, why does neither candidate seem to see that both points of view are valid?
This video comes via the Discovery Channel and the Honey Bee Network, an organization which travels throughout impoverished regions seeking and innovative designs to make life better, and connecting the dots between designers, entrepreneurs, and larger markets. From their website: “Honey Bee collects pollen without impoverishing the flowers and it connects flower to flower through pollination.”
Shown here are inventors of a tree climber to facilitate getting fruits down from high trees, a bicycle-powered washing machine, a scooter modified to be used by a little person, and my favorite, the amphibious bicycle, whose inventor created it because his love lived across the water, and he couldn’t wait for the boat. “My desperation made me an innovator,” says Md. Saidullah. “Even love needs help from technology.”
I love this video because it shows that, especially with limited resources, human ingenuity can work wonders. What small innovations can we make to improve our lives and the world at large?
As this weeks update for the fitness challenge, I am posting Victoria’s account of her training and running the Nike Human Race Run. Like with Rod, it is an inspiring story of going beyond where she thought she could—even going beyond past illnesses and limiting ideas. Congratulations, Victoria, you did this run on virtually no training too!
One of my goals this past summer was to focus on getting fit: making exercise a regular part of my life, eating more vegetables, and overall eating less. After nearly two months of going to a stretch/tone class roughly 3-4 times/week I’ve started feeling much stronger and loving the results—my clothes fit nicely with a little room, I have more physical energy, and my mental focus has improved, especially during my class as I focus on instructions in order to make the exercises as effective as possible.
So in Mid August, Uli mentioned that there was a worldwide race organized by Nike coming up called The Human Race. I wondered if it was a good idea to enter a race without much training beforehand, but being stronger from going to my stretch class regularly and seeing measured improvement in flexibility gave me the confidence to try running, so I signed up.
It sure has been a while, since my last Democracy update. At that time, I had a scheduled meeting with my Congressperson Carolyn McCarthy. I went to my meeting with her on Thurs Sept, 4th. Overall, it was a positive experience that I recommend to every Sunny Way reader out there. Each person I met at McCarthy’s office was polite, respectful and serious about the reason for my meeting.
I prepared myself by reading the 1sky platform of three imperatives: no more coal-fired plants, 5 million new green jobs, and emissions reductions of 20% of 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050. I also looked at my congressperson’s website to find out her voting history for renewable energy projects. After introductions I told her the reasons why I came: to present the 1sky policy platform and to discuss the environmental issues on Long Island, as well as the future for a more sustainable Long Island. I gave her a folder which included the 1sky platform, a list of organizations who have already signed on in support of the 1sky solutions, and the abstract page from a document on barriers to the renewable energy industry.
I first came across the term ecotism in a blog by a tea connossieur talking about an eco-friendly ice cream shop in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. “Blue Marble is a ‘green’ ice-cream company, and not shy about touting that,” she writes. “While I agree with those principles, the overall feel of the shop and its customers are almost unbearably ecotistical.”
Now, I haven’t been to the ice cream shop in question, but I did check out their website, and while it seems to me that the shop is proud of the sustainability of its products, it doesn’t strike me as overly smug. I wondered, what exactly about this ice cream shop got under the blogger’s skin?
Is it the price of the organic, locally produced ice cream ($3.50 for one scoop)? Is she such a cynical New Yorker that she figures any ‘green’ marketing must be BS? Or does she just not like people tooting their own horns in any fashion?
For the next several weeks, we will be discussing Aldous Huxley’s Island. Click here for all the book club posts.
As Will Farnaby gets to know more and more about his Palanese hosts and the culture that shaped them, so do we. One of the children who finds him injured in the jungle after his shipwreck, Mary Sarojini, asks him what happened to him. He is too horrified to tell her, so she sensibly tells him to think back to when he was a child. “What did your mother do when you hurt yourself?”
His response—she said, “My poor baby, my poor little baby”—horrifies Mary in turn. “But that’s awful!” she replies, shocked. “That’s the way to rub it in! It must have gone on hurting for hours. And you’d never forget it.” She then insists that he tell the story over and over again until he sees that it’s in the past and can no longer hurt him in the present.
Having been recently injured myself—I broke my ankle on the last day of my vacation 2 weeks ago—I can vouch that the “poor baby” treatment doesn’t help at all. “Poor baby” inevitably leads to “why me?” and that is a question with no satisfactory answer. Why not me? Why not any of us? Suffering comes into every life and it seems far more sensible to learn how to handle it rather than wallow in it.
This talk by Ken Wilber on Integral Politics gets really good starting at about minute 16, when he starts talking about America’s 2-party system as a developmental problem. According to Wilber, we have 4 parties in America today, not just 2. There are the traditional Republicans, the neo-con capitalist Republicans, the moderate Democrats, and the liberal Democrats. So far, he says, Republicans have had more success in uniting their 2 major factions than the Democrats.
The colors he talks about refer to the theory of Spiral Dynamics, which puts forth the notion that human nature is not fixed, but develops over time as external conditions dictate. Blue or amber = traditional values (fundamentalist religion); orange = modernist values (money, power, science); green = postmodernist values (multiculturalism, anti-oppression, anti-corporate). The Republican factions are amber/blue and orange while the Democratic factions are orange and green.
The Democrats in particular have a problem because green hates orange—green is anti-capitalist and awfully critical of everything that came before it. And consequently, orange hates green in return. Wilber says this is the reason that Republicans keep winning elections.
He describes the major difference between left and right as where each thinks that human suffering comes from. The right tends to think that human suffering comes from within: a lack of work ethic, no values, no sense of responsibility. The left thinks that human suffering comes from society: oppression, lack of opportunity.
A truly integral politics has to learn to work with all the different value systems, but how? Tricky stuff. Wilber exhorts us to become more than merely Democrat or Republican, but instead to look for the “Third Way” that balances left with right, looking to both interior responsibility with external opportunity. Bill Clinton started looking for this “Third Way,” but that quest was ended with a cigar ...
There’s a slightly older and also very interesting Wilber talk on politics, and how Buddha was both a liberal and a conservative, after the jump. The second video goes into more depth on the splits in American politics.
The Sunny Way is here to bring the possibility of a magnificent future alive in ourselves and our readers, and awaken responsibility for creating it. Join us!
For the next several weeks, we will be discussing Aldous Huxley’s 
