image by Caveman 92223

For 6 weeks a group of us here in Stockbridge, MA had worked to put on an event we called the Berkshire Extreme Green Expo and May 23rd was the big day. We were originally inspired by a vision for our county to be a net-zero energy community. The event consisted of several parts. First was a number of displays. One depicted the history of energy—from the big bang through to elemental energies of the earth, like vulcanoes and geysers, and yes, animals and humans too—to our county being one of the first in the US to have centralized electric power generation (hydro) towards future technological possibilities.

Another display showed examples of national and international pioneering projects: net-zero energy communities, like the city of Masdar that is being built near Abu Dhabi; projects like Teal Farm, which is a trail blazing experimental permaculture farm in Vermont; and passive houses in Europe, which do not need any external energy input.

We also showed short films, both about technological break-throughs as well as deeper philosophical context and background for being activists—Brian Swimme was represented, as was Duane Elgin and Mary Evelyn Tucker.

One of the most unexpected and mind-blowing parts was a children’s drawing project about What might be next? in communication, transport, energy production and housing. The ideas ranged from an animal translator to a flying highrise to a DNA transporter and an air-powered super-plane. Hopefully we will be able to scan them and put them online soon, they were so fantastic – a collection was displayed at MIT the following week, to inspire the inventors there!

As a culmination of the half day event, three of us wrote and performed a play, ‘Primal Energy’ about the human/ interior/ consciousness aspect of the change that needs to happen (as opposed to just changing technology). There was also a panel discussion with the topic ‘Creating a Manifesto for the future”. Apart from two members of our volunteer group, Ross Robertson from EnlightenNext magazine participated as well as Melissa Hoffman, owner of Teal Farm and member of the board of EnlightenNext.

You can watch the panel and the play on youtube: Enter Primal Energy in the search for the play and look up the panel here.

The turnout for the event was not as big as we had hoped, but the responses from those who came gave us a lot of confidence to keep thinking out of the box and share what it is we, as Andrew’s students, are in a prime position to give: The inexhaustible positivity of a worldview, in which human potential is as much part of a new energy discussion as is solar or wind, the larger evolutionary context which many ‘green’ thinkers are not familiar with yet, and the power of collectively going beyond what is known or comfortable.

We are very inspired to go further. On June 11 we have a follow up event to keep defining the Manifesto and to see how we can help to achieve the goal of a net-zero-energy Berkshires. We also want to develop the play, as this way of communication really seems to reach people. I will keep you all posted.

image by Roberto Garcia-S

Alright—so the biggest good news, affirmed again in an awesome talk I went to last night—is that evolution is real and happening. It is always good to think about this again.

The speaker was Michael Dowd, a self proclaimed “Evolutionary Evangelist.” He transformed from a fundamental Christian into a preacher of the awe-inspiring truth of evolution and the practical as well as spiritual significance of the knowledge of it. For example: We now know how our brains developed over millions of years, from the amphibian/limbic part, to the mammalian/emotional bonding section, to mind and interpretative capacities in the neo-cortex and finally to the anterior cortex, whose neurons light up when we make the effort to hold ourselves to a commitment—say, a marriage vow.

As we all find out on a daily basis, our center of gravity unfortunately is not yet located in this more evolved part of our brains, so even if we make decisions or commitments in one moment, we are thrown by uncertainty and desires, left, right and center in the next. But knowing about the differences in these parts of our brains we can interpret our own experience, of lust, say, or of our willingness to sacrifice our principles to get what we want in a very different context.

The most inspiring part of listening to Michael was to hear that his message of a synthesis of science and religion is finding a tremendous response both in absolutely staunch atheists and in church audiences of all denominations. It looks like he is on track to elevate a huge section of American society into a more deeply rational and open mindset, without sacrificing our need for the mystical dimension.

More about Michael and his highly acclaimed bestseller ‘Thank God for Evolution” here.

Today is Obama’s 100th day in office. This is just a symbol of course, but also, even though not everyone thinks he is doing everything right, a good moment to reflect on how much he has set in motion in this time. There is always the cynical monkey on my shoulder, waiting to be right about how things never turn out as well as we might hope. But now—it’s up to everyone to throw their own weight behind what needs to happen. Here is a comprehensive list of Obama’s actions concerning climate change on one of our favorite sites, Worldchanging.com (scroll down half a page or so…). There’s enough good news to inspire us for a whole month at least!

Check out the point about his high speed rail—if realized, we would actually end up with a public transport system like they are running in Europe and Japan, one that doesn’t require lengthy trips to airports, waiting times and enormous levels of pollution. If you have never experienced European trains—it’s a treat boarding the train from Hamburg to Basle, work on your laptop in a spacious seat, be able to walk around anytime and have a coffee at the kiosk or a nice meal at a proper table, and when you get there, you actually still feel like a human being. Maybe someone should try to convince the national airlines to begin investing in this and make themselves part of the future of rail!

On a more personal, close to home kind of note: The activist group that evolved out of the Obama campaign up here is planning an event in the town of Lenox on May 23rd. Our biggest goal is to get people interested and fired up about the possibility of having Berkshire County, MA become a net-zero energy community, meaning we will produce as much energy as we need. In a county that is fiercely trying to preserve its historical roots and houses and whose tourism depends on it, this is a big vision and ambitious goal.

Planning this event, wanting to make sure it is distinct from the hundreds happening all over at this time (a very, very good thing!), we are constantly faced with how challenging it is to lift our eyes to more than the daily little things we can do (instant gratification for the mammalian brain, see above) and keep them focused on a commitment to something that doesn’t exist yet – the frontal cortex, also mentioned above.

One thing keeps striking us: a lot of people are doing incredible things, but are finding it hard, if not impossible, to work together and cooperate—this goes all the way down from big initiatives trying to help in Africa to small scale inventors who have difficulty trusting anyone with their ideas. So our goal is to transmit a possibility of listening, not already knowing and allowing new solutions to emerge between us, rather than having to be the one, or the ones, who have all the answers. Wish us luck!

image by logan.fulcher

This is the second half of Uli’s piece on the Economy of Consciousness. Read Part 1.

Throughout the centuries, our self-awareness has grown increasingly subtle—when we weren’t sipping lattes made by robots but drinking from streams, we most likely experienced ourselves simply as bodies. We were living in hordes, communicating with each other in grunts and gestures without the slightest inclination that one day we would be talking about our feelings, much less discussing psychedelic drugs, philosophy, economic theory, or spiritual experiences. As we have conquered our inner reality, down to the processes in our brains, as well as the planet and space around us, we have also discovered our growing ability to choose— a partner, a profession, a country and our own identity—who we want to be.

There will always be more, not less. Further out and deeper in. The more we keep that more in mind as we look towards the future, the likelier our chance to discover and direct our most desirable destiny. A future, an economy, an environment built on a philosophy of less will never be able to satisfy us. This is where consciousness enters into the equation.

Consciousness has not been the subject of much discussion as we think about not just our survival but about a way for humans to keep thriving in this world. Usually we focus on technology, social structures and moral questions. But as we have seen, all of these are directly related to our level of consciousness. So it only makes sense to pay attention to the many outstanding individuals like the Buddha, Jesus, Meister Eckhart, Ralph Waldo Emerson, J. Krishnamurti or John Dewey, who have outlined profound and higher human potentials in this realm. In their unique voices but with encouraging congruence they describe terrains of consciousness and being that few of us have so far traveled in, but many have grown curious about. Andrew Cohen, a contemporary spiritual teacher and visionary explains that to be aware of God has traditionally meant that ‘one has awakened to timeless Being—to that unchanging dimension of reality that transcends the creative process. But there is also a new and emerging face of God—one that appears not through awakening to Being but through awakening to Becoming, through discovering the very energy and intelligence that initiated the creative process and that is driving it at all levels in each and every moment. When we become conscious of this evolutionary impulse, we are awakening directly to the new face of God. And this new emergence expresses itself through an awakened heart and mind that is choicelessly compelled to create the future.’

These are some of the ways people try to put words to the discovery of this part of themselves, whose existence and relevance is easily left out of the picture when we think about building a new world:
“An unlimited pool of energy, a space so vast, it is infinite.”
“Eternal silence and goodness, happiness without an opposite.”
“A place that knows no limits or limitations and seems to be the source of everything.”
“I felt like I was exploding, so much energy arising from no-where, just to be given, forever.”
“Discovering who I really am, a depthless source of energy and creativity like the big bang iself.”

As the Hubble telescope sends us its pictures from galaxies too far away to be imagined, this seems to be the deepest place we have discovered within ourselves so far. But we cannot know which other potentials are awaiting us as we keep pushing further and deeper. What we can see though is that those who have truly awoken to their passion for life are finding a seemingly unending source of energy, a drive that compels them to keep moving, to keep giving and to keep finding out more. And we resonate with the conviction, the lack of cynicism, and the energy of an Anita Roddick, a Nelson Mandela, a Jeffrey Sachs, and a Vimala Thakar.

So what if you couldn’t help but leap out of bed? Maybe you wouldn’t even need coffee? Or maybe you would. But you might find yourself increasingly propelled by care, concern and excitement to help build a beautiful, better world, one that reflects what you deeply know our true nature and potential to be. You might even come to know the rush of an expanding universe in your very own veins and although you know you could never get everything done that needs doing you know you are right where you belong, here, alive and there could not be a better place than that.

Wouldn’t it change our relationships, your work, your outlook? It would change everything.

This is the economy of consciousness: The discovery of limitlessness in a world defined by boundaries. Consciousness, the awareness of it, and its growth, has an inherently positive direction and trajectory. It is not limited to one person or one location. We are not just one human population on one planet, we are also one field of consciousness that is expanding and developing into more subtle, more inclusive and compassionate frequencies.

Would this point to a new set of values and possible new solutions for the troubles besetting our times? If we discovered ourselves to be part of a well of unlimited energy would we still be thinking in terms of debt and lack? Would we design systems—social, economic, environmental—that have as their basis the assumption of human limitation? Or would we, much like a peach tree blossoming with thousands more flowers than could ever hope to become trees themselves, spread ourselves to the world in endless bursts of generosity and creativity, not accepting the law of scarcity, but living by the knowledge that life is an endless unfolding of ever more and more?

An economy of consciousness functions by entirely different rules from the one we have known so far. More consciousness means more and speedier development. Consciousness can take leaps in several places at once and once it has, it can affect people who have no connection or recognition of what has occurred. An economy of consciousness is rooted in the discovery of more than enough—not just in nature around us, but in all of us. Activists burnout and postmodern cynicism end here.

So what do you think you would do, getting up on that bright morning in the future?

image by logan.fulcher

This is Part 1 of Uli’s piece on the Economy of Consciousness. Read Part 2.

What would you do? TNK, or as you might call her, Tinka, X9, your housekeeper robot just cooked the eggs and made the coffee for you. Until you have to start work—at home, at 5pm, for three hours, maybe four today—this day is yours.

Not just this day. Every day. It has been like this since the big crisis of 2009 rattled the world and humanity had no option but to rethink its ways: a financial system in ruin, a planet on the verge of becoming uninhabitable, and wars sparked by the grotesque disparities between the have-it-alls and the have-nothings. On its way to material prosperity for all, the world had grown out of unlimited growth. So what would your day look like?

Jump back through the looking glass and you are here, in 2009, on this side of the choices that brought about the above scenario. Every day you watch the news, the confusion grows more profound. What are you supposed to do? The mountain of problems seems so overwhelming that a part of you just wants to turn away—there are the grandchildren to hug, the dogs to walk, the next vacation. But you hook up with your local environmental group or food bank because you feel, think and know you just have to do something. Still, in your heart of hearts you wonder: “Can I really make a difference?” The wheels of the world turn so slowly and at this particular moment in our history, where the urgency seems greatest, they appear to be stuck in the mud of our past choices. Not much seems possible.

Since as early as the 1970s the lonely voices of some environmental scientists have been trying to rise over the roar and rush of a growing world economy to tell us that our current model of ever-increasing growth is not sustainable. At the time they were mostly decried as panicked doomsayers, evangelists of negativity.

Now, with the rise of economies like China, India and Brazil and the growing awareness of climate change, everyone can calculate online how many planets Earth it would take if we all were to enjoy the life-style we do in the First World—too many! And didn’t many of us have the niggling sense that an economy increasingly based on simply making money rather than making things would one day have to come crashing down? Trading ever more complicated financial products and shifting sums around that many knew existed only on paper couldn’t go on forever, could it? 

So what do we do? The range of possible solutions is as diverse as the people who propose them. Even if we disregard the most disturbing and outlandish scenarios, in which the poor world is left to vanish and rich folks find a way to make it through, the suggestions span widely different sets of visions and of values.

Maybe we will find ourselves in a world as envisioned by futurist Ray Kurzweil, in which we, part human, part machines enjoy an easy life spanning several centuries, while bio-engineered bacteria will have made our worries about the earth’s climate obsolete within 20 years. 

Or in one that science fiction writers like Howard Kunstler in his novel Made by Hand, consider the only possible option: a return to rough and simple, more dangerous times, a collapse of civilization, a humanity racked by infectious diseases and collapsed infrastructures. Many environmentally minded people tend to think in this direction: a life that, though a lot less comfortable and luxurious, will be manageable and known. We will ride horses, grow our own food again and talk with neighbors rather than twitter with people half a planet away.

And some might boldly—or naively—envision a future in which the best of all possibilities merge: new technologies will take care of much of the damage to the planet and will do the labor that is now keeping people too poor and too busy to enjoy a fulfilling life. We will have evolved into a species that puts the good of the whole before the satisfaction of the few. We could experiment with new ways of fostering in ourselves the highest level of creativity and zest for life to heal the planet and society.

So when you lie in bed, sipping that perfect cup of coffee and contemplating your day, what are your priorities? How do you decide what is important?

You might be thinking about calling up your friends for a game of basketball and then visiting the sauna in all that free time you have.

Or you may lie in bed worrying about your mortgage—yes, they still exist—and about how you could find a better paying job.

Or, you might feel a bit guilty, having such an easy life and decide to take on an extra job in order to support a family you heard about that just lost everything in an earthquake in Peru.

Or, once you feel the caffeine getting enough traction to mobilize your heavy eyelids, you might get up to go and meditate for 3 hours, as you do every day. And as you sit in the soft shade of your balcony’s fauna, its fragrant green cleaning and moistening the air, you may be sure that the only real answer can come from a place deep inside of you.

No matter what you do, your decision will be made on the basis of values, a certain understanding of the world and yourself, a specific consciousness. Usually, this is so close to us, or in fact, right under our skin that we do not even notice, let alone question it. We cannot imagine another way to see the world than how we do and if we do see it in others, we usually lack understanding:

• “I have my own problems to take care of before I can start worrying about everyone else.”
• “How can you be so selfish to stay in bed until noon and then just while your time away, when large parts of the world still need so much support?”
• “Why are you trying to change the endless problems of the world, when really the problem is in our minds, in our own way of thinking. We need to change that first.”

Does any of that sound familiar? We see the world in a particular way and rarely become conscious of that particular perspective’s limitations.

Nevertheless, through the millennia, human consciousness has evolved. Not that long ago, women all over the planet were regarded as property rather than individuals in their own right, just as children were not understood to be more than cattle to be used for labor. Once, we believed that nature spirits were in charge of our destiny then we discovered our mastery over nature and even learned to make rain. Human beings were sacrificed to the Gods to ensure favors for the people. Many years later a declaration of human rights was signed by the member countries of the global community.

We are ever more connected with each other as we are learning about and including more of the world we live in. With this learning, our understanding and interpretation of who we are and why we are here have changed and keep changing. Even the notion so popular today, that there is no reason for our being here, that we and everything else that exists are products of endless coincidences or physical processes, is a philosophical framework in which we look at ourselves at this very point in time. We cannot help but be self-aware.

image by Roberto Garcia-S

Yesterday I signed my business up for the Berkshares, meaning that my Pilates studio in Stockbridge, MA (in Berkshire County) will accept this local currency. It works just like a dollar, and because 100 US Dollars are worth 105 Berkshares, the customer receives a 5% discount simply by using them. Several hundred businesses participate in this scheme and millions of Berkshares have circulated through the local economy. And that is the point: to strengthen businesses and trade in this area.

Alternative currencies or trade systems have existed in a large number of places all over the world, ever since 1934, when the WIR Bank was founded in Switzerland. There are a lot of different approaches, some using actual currency, some, as time banks, crediting people for the hours they spend working for others that they can then trade in for services they need. One of the better known systems here is LETS, as well as the Ithaca Hour (worth 10 dollars) or the Toronto dollar. In economically tough times, these alternative methods of payments or barter systems make particular sense, connecting people without work but skills to offer and people without dollars but the need for help.

And as a sign of just how well accepted these concepts can become: Ithaca has the first credit union now accepting an alternative currency as mortgage payments!

Another example of people turning a crisis into an opportunity to re-structure their community: Two young men in Clinton, Ohio used the departure of transport giant DHL and the 10,000 jobs lost in its wake to mobilize their town and county to build a new economy. A quote from their website: “Instead of using a piece-meal strategy of small policy changes and isolated investments in Green infrastructure, we believe that a testing ground is needed to research and develop new technologies and strategies, and to build a critical mass of businesses and expertise that will spur Green development across the country. We propose that Wilmington be designated as the country’s first Green Enterprise Zone to serve as a model and incubator for businesses, technologies, and ideas: the mid-Western Silicon Valley of the Green economy.”

One of their initial steps is to apply for money from the federal stimulus plan in order to weatherize the town’s homes, thus putting people to work while helping them save money. In addition to helping their own area, the pair has come up with a step-by-step guide to helping others do the same.

While the verdict is still out on whether or not we already have the technologies we need to produce enough energy and goods worldwide in sustainable ways, some places are setting powerful examples, as described here in the Guardian UK: plans to make Scotland 50% reliant on renewable energy sources are ahead of schedule, new figures released by the Scottish Parliament today suggest. Current targets are to meet half the country’s electricity demand from renewables by 2020 with an interim target of 31% by 2011. “The government has determined 26 energy applications since May 2007, including consenting to 20 renewables projects, totalling more than 1.5 gigawatts,” said a spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond. “As a result, we are well ahead of schedule in meeting our renewables energy targets. The consented projects, as well as those already operating, represent some 35% of Scotland’s electricity needs. We are ahead of our targets on clean, green energy, which is great news for Scotland’s economy. And we are making a contribution to tackling global warming, which is great news for the environment.” One way to find out what is possible is by doing it!

Finally, a call to action: 1sky, a nationwide climate initiative out of Washington, DC is calling on people to visit their members of Congress, who will be home for a couple of weeks in April. This is a good moment to let them know how much you are behind bold and unapologetic climate legislation. It’s a powerful way of making an impact and get to know the person behind the name in the newspaper. And politicians know very well that each person who comes to see or writes to them stands for many more who didn’t speak up. 1Sky is making it easy. You find all the help you might need to set up an appointment, talking points etc. right here

Good luck and we would love to hear about what happened! Victoria and Megan participated in a similar campaign last summer as part of The Sunny Way’s Democracy Challenge and both really enjoyed the experience of getting up close and personal with how our government works.

image by luis de bethencourt

The election campaign last fall mobilized hundreds of thousands of people across the country that weren’t just going to go back to their private lives once Obama was elected into office. I knew I wasn’t, too, and it was the same for many of my friends. We all felt and still feel that some kind of window opened into a different possibility in politics and culture and that, if we weren’t making the biggest possible use of this moment to help make a difference in whatever way we could, we would always regret it.

A group of us kept meeting weekly, trying to figure out how we can best use our particular talents and training. As much as some of us wanted to just go ahead and do something, like collecting food for the increasing number of folks who are dependent on food banks right now, it also seemed important to take the time to think about what our mission and vision actually is. So while we have been collecting food, we have also thought a lot about the context and scope of change that Obama represents and that has triggered in us a passion and a call to respond.

We are now planning to hold a Memorial Day event here in Lenox, MA, in which we want to ignite and motivate grassroots support for Berkshire County becoming a zero net energy community. This means the county will locally and sustainably generate as much electricity as it uses. We think that in order to move this possibility forward it will take the larger public thinking about and being behind such a bold and ‘on the edge’ vision.

Our second track is supporting Obama in his vision for the future that is laid out in the priorities he has set for his budget: education, energy independence and healthcare. On Saturday, eight of us went canvassing, asking people to pledge their support for his plan, to call their representatives and help in whichever way possible to pass it through Congress.

A lot of people appreciated us doing this and were immediately willing to pledge their support. At the same time, the canvass also sparked a number of conversations, in which people expressed their disappointments or worries about the way things are still being run in Washington. No one seems to know what the right thing to do really is, and of course, none of us are experts either.

When we talked about this last night, some of our own questions and uncertainties came to the surface. Are we deluded, romantic, naïve about what is possible? Are we thinking we are doing something, when in reality bigger and maybe unseen powers are pulling the strings? How can we really be sure about what is going on? For a while there we were swimming in a current of doubt and fear.

But again and again we returned to this point: trustworthiness. At the core of the crisis is the, our, my, human condition. As we pursue what looks like the best path forward we need to include our own, inner change. Speaking about ‘them’ and ‘us’ will not get us where we need to be. Power and money are powerful forces that corrupt all but the rarest people.

The more we spoke about this and the more we pointed the finger at ourselves, the clearer our sense of the necessary change became. We are not just figures in someone else’s game. The bar is actually a lot higher than that. It is up to us to formulate a vision, to fight for it and to demonstrate it in the way we work together and with others. It’s ‘heavy duty’ as one of us said and it occurred to me that that actually is true about life as a whole. We are just not used to thinking about it this way.

image by zhushmanson

My friend Brad is 36, very smart, studying law, sitting a lot and had gained weight. When I saw him last New Years Eve, it was clear something had to be done. He asked me for help. I am a professional Pilates trainer, a fitness expert, but had my own troubles committing to regular work-outs and meaningful, measurable goals. If you are tall and naturally slim, you can get away with a lot.

We decided to draw up a contract. Brad knew just how to do that of course: Six hours of exercise a week each or send each other $50 to donate to a charity of their choice. You know what that New Years Spirit is like, and we both wanted to change our pattern. I could feel the pressure but had to go for it anyway.

A few days later I am on my way to Germany, walking up and down the airport terminal—half a mile, back and forth for a total of three, carrying two heavy bags. It won’t count unless I work up a sweat and increase my heart rate. There is no way to fill my quota for the week if I do nothing today. Then 20 minutes Chi Gong at the gate looking out at the tarmac—all towards building strength and physical resilience. Am thinking of Brad.

Next day arriving at my dad’s for a visit: running up and down the stairs in his condo before he wakes up from his nap, squeezing some Pilates sit ups in between the couch and the coffee table –everything helps. I would have never done it without the loss of $50 looming over my head, let alone my honor.

One week done, Brad writes triumphantly, he did it too! His housemates are very impressed and two of my clients made their own commitments for while I am away.

Week three: Still in Germany I get the flu, badly. I stay in bed and sleep for a solid two days. Sunday, our day of reckoning, Brad calls. “Uli, I saw in your e-mail that you were sick. I am sorry. But I think you should pay, since the contract doesn’t say that sickness is an exemption to working out.”
“What??? You got to be kidding. I didn’t even eat those two days!”

“Thing is,” Brad says, sternly now, ”unless it scares the shit out of us, the contract is worthless.”

“No way!” I am getting louder now. “I don’t want to scare the shit out of anybody. I believe in your intention, you are my friend, to hell with the contract, come on!!! I was sick!!!”

Eventually I get it: In order for this to work, we need to get our commitment out of our own inner, subjective, and often not very logical reference. That is what the contract is for. I should have called Brad, told him I was sick, been together in deciding that it was okay not to work out. So next time something unforeseen happens we will confer. Need to put that into the contract!

Week six, Brad writes: “Hi Uli, woke up with a bad cold, will skip workouts today and tomorrow, okay?”

My fingers fly on the keyboard: “Wait – sorry to hear you are sick, but why not take one day at a time? See how you feel tomorrow! And how sick are you? Wasn’t one of your goals to not get sick as much? Maybe you should do some gentle yoga and/or a walk in the sun. It might help?”

Brad calls, three hours later: ”Hi! I hated your mail. But I guess, that is what I signed the contract for. Just did a yoga class and some biking.” Victory! He sounds just a bit sniffly. We laugh.

The next day, a nurse friend of ours told him to stay in bed, and he called to discuss that. Okay!

Week eight: We have grown to 4 people—Megan and Victoria from the Sunny Way joined in! Everyone is setting their own goals, but if they don’t meet them, it’s pay time. This is the first week one of us had to pay up – just no time to work out. But – Brad has lost 12 pounds, Megan 20, I can feel and measure the difference in my aerobic capacity and the weights I can lift, and Victoria is running again. We feel great physically and very connected, busting the “Only I know what is good and right for me” paradigm, ready to pounce on the next excuse for each other!

Want to join? E-mail us, we will send you the contract!

image by Roberto Garcia-S

Inspiring news from across the fronts…

Medicine first…
The United States is just beginning to move ahead on stem-cell research while other countries, like India, are far ahead. A couple of winters ago I met Amanda, in Aspen, CO,  a passionate skier who had been a paraplegic for 15 years due to an accident on the mountain. She refused to be victimized by her disability and founded a charity that helps others with disabilities enjoy mountain-sports. For the past year and a half, she has been traveling to India to receive stem-cell treatments. The results are extraordinary – she is able to feel her legs again, can control her bladder and she began to walk assisted by braces and a walker. Here is a video of her tackling the streets of New Delhi.

While there are still a lot of open questions about stem-cell research and its safety, especially in the long term, it is hard not to marvel at the miracle of this technology…and Amanda’s guts to be a pioneer.

And politics….
If you have grown increasingly exasperated about the seemingly never ending conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, you might be glad to hear that there are new and creative approaches being worked on. One of them is based on the developmental map of Spiral Dynamics, something Megan has written about here on the Sunny Way before.

Dr. Elza Maalouf, CEO of the Center for Human Emergence in the Middle East, is pioneering a new way out of the gridlock by working with the actual level of cultural development and the real needs of the people of the West Bank (as opposed to the ones we might imagine they have), in order to support them in moving themselves forward. Here is the Palestine progress blog that describes what is happening there.

Spirituality/Consciousness
Every Thursday night, at 9pm EST about 120 people convene via phone lines and live webstream to listen to an on-the-edge exploration of spirituality for the 21st century. Jeff Carreira, director of education at EnlightenNext, and Dr. Elizabeth Debold, a developmental psychologist (both students of EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen) explore the next frontier in the evolution of consciousness and invite questions and comments from their listeners. The calls rarely fail to stretch your mind and heart beyond the familiar and comfortable, and introduce both through the host’s interactions and the topics they discuss a whole new way of looking at our species’ perennial quest for truth and meaning. For the dial-in and web information go to the EnlightenNext webcast page.

All things ‘green’
“Boy, what a time to be a part of auto industry. If you ever want to make a difference, it’s a fantastic industry and fantastic time to be a part.” Who could have possibly said that right now? It’s Nancy Gioia, an electrical engineer, now in charge of making Ford Motor Company the nation’s leader in energy efficient cars. Ford is the only automaker who has not asked for support from the federal government these past months and if Ms Gioia’s spirit is anything to go by, there will be more good news soon.

Maybe Ford is now going to take its exemplary promise and commitment all the way: In 1999, the company contracted Cradle to Cradle Architect and Industrial Designer William McDonough and partners for 2 billion dollars to completely transform their Rouge truck plant into a model of green design. I have always wondered why a company that would do such a fantastic thing still insisted on building energy wasting cars. Now it seems Ford is actually catching up to itself.

Activism
Since Barack Obama’s inauguration, Climate Activism has gotten feverishly busy—finally there is a chance for serious action! Still, most people agree—in order to have politics do what is necessary, it will take continued and strong grassroots efforts. To keep pushing the point several initiatives are looking for support this coming weekend. On March 2nd, you can join the crowds in a multi-generational act of civil disobedience eventat the Capitol Power Plant — the plant that powers Congress with coal energy. One of the most famous voices at this event is Dr. James Hansen, one of the top climate scientists and head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The organizers ask to make sure to dress in your Sunday best! (This isn’t the 70s anymore!)

Just preceding this event on February 27th will be PowerShift 09 – according to the organizers, the biggest climate conference and lobby day this country has ever seen. The smaller version of this I went to last year in Boston was more than worth the trip.

The Sunny Way’s own Sarah Moon will be there for both events—look for her first hand report in the coming weeks.

image by abraaten

We had another house meeting here in Stockbridge, MA last week. This one was organized by Obama’s administration to help people familiarize themselves with the economic stimulus package. Twenty people came. We watched a brief video by Governor Tim Kaine answering some questions submitted by e-mails about the plan and then went through a brief overview of the main parts/ largest items on it, which was a lot more informative.

I have to say, I was a bit cynical at first about what the purpose of this meeting could be and what difference it would make. But the experience taught me a lot about the power of community organizing. There was a strong sense of empowerment as people who otherwise do not know much about each other took the responsibility to inform themselves, to decipher what this Economic Recovery plan means, and how we can educate and stimulate ourselves to participate in a new order of community and business development.

President Obama is trying to create this sense of community and possibility in the nation and with politicians in Washington, and we discovered our own choice and power to use our resources, especially money, in ways that break the habit of contraction and fear in the face of this present crisis. We talked about simple things we can do to participate, like using the proposed tax savings to hire someone to work on a household project where otherwise, given this dire climate, we might be too worried and insecure to think about spending the money. Instead of complaining about the tax breaks that supposedly won’t help much, we realized that it was up to each of us to spend our tax savings with the biggest leverage we could think of—for example investing in greener technology or appliances that will help us save money in the future.

That way, we can even help shape tomorrow’s economy by supporting products and businesses that contribute the most to the whole and to the future. All it takes is doing it together.

We exchanged our stories and ideas to create and expand on how we can support other people’s livelihood and economic recovery: For example creating exchanges of labor (as in ‘time bank’) and promissory notes between customers and local businesses, to give the business some breathing room without incurring high interest loans or debt. 

Discussing the plan in this house meeting format also helped us to get more clear about the various streams of money and incentives this recovery package is funding and promoting, which we can plug into, as homeowners for example.

I think we all came away with the positive sense of how important it is to take responsibility for actively supporting President Obama and to support and engage with each other in order to forge this new way into the future, a new way for this country to function economically and socially, and to begin breaking the boundaries of habit and thought in order for new ideas and our collective vision to flourish.

image by Untitled blue

I just knew it – it had to happen sooner or later. My hero, B.O., just appointed Tom Vilsack—an outspoken proponent of big agro business and bio-engineering—to Secretary for Agriculture. Help! The lobbying in Washington to prevent him from getting into office is already under way, and 20,000 signatures have been sent directly to the transition team. Yet, in the midst of it all I can just recognize, in the more lucid neurons of my liberal environmentalist brain, the ‘us and them’ mentality we were all lamenting so much before and during the election creeping in again—the divided America.

And there is more. Another e-mail alarm reached my inbox: “The road-building lobby is trying to convince the incoming administration that building roads should be part of the stimulus package that gets the economy back on track”… So those guys are at it again as well……

Reading all this I feel like I am breathing again the acidic atmosphere of righteous activism versus the corrupt establishment while at the same time knowing perfectly well that there really are forces and powers out there whose only interest is to maintain just that, power.

So what were we—or was I—hearing and thinking when Obama spoke about moving forward as One Nation? One Nation. Does that mean everyone would think and do as I like it? Is Monsanto part of that nation? Are cloned cows and bio-engineered corn?

Then there was proposition 8—the Californian outcry about blacks and Hispanics who voted for Obama and at the same time, voted down gays’ right to marry. How could they? They of all people should know about discrimination, shouldn’t they? But history has hardly ever worked like that. And looking more closely, it actually makes sense that these groups, whose strongest support in building a decent life has been their belief in God and the community of the churches, would vote that way.

In one sense, there are just about as many perceptions of Obama as there are groups of voters who elected him. Yet, in another, the fundamental drive behind the election – the realization that government can and should be working in a wholesome way, that the country is founded on a constitution unrivaled in the world in the way it honors human being’s capacity to develop and flourish and the tremendous significance of it not just for the country, but for the world as a whole—was the same for all of us who celebrated Nov 4th as a new beginning.

Obama’s agenda was less about specific policies than it was about hope, and I am beginning to understand the significance of that more clearly. Because the hope is that we can come together to evolve, from exactly where we are, respecting our vastly different life circumstances.

This context of trust and renewal provides the enormous opportunity to learn that change means different things for different people, and that in order for the whole to move forward, not everything is going to go my way. It sounds simple, but it means a lot and unless we understand that point, we will dig our own grave in the morass of self-righteous frustration and indignation that is coloring some of the blogs these days. Everyone, truly everyone, has something to complain about.

So I need to do the unspeakable and make room for the possibility that we might make strides towards more bio-engineering. We have the technology, so we will do it. It always works this way—with the first aeroplane, the first vaccine, the first heart-transplant—this is humanity making sure it survives.

Maybe what is less important than the technology itself is the intention and moral maturity of the people who use it. Do we just have our own self-interest in mind or do we genuinely care about the greater good and the highest priority? And that question points the finger directly at myself, implicating me to undertake an inquiry that is more demanding, more painful and way more exciting than any particular piece of policy.

image by ladybugbkt

On the weekend of Sunday, December 14, the Obama transition team initiated over 4000 meetings all over the country for people to come together and think about how best to channel and direct the energy and intention generated during the campaign. In the preparatory phone call, the organizers had told us that according to the surveys filled out by volunteers and election campaign staff, 2/3 of the people involved want to keep volunteering—an impressive number. And they suggested that, instead of waiting for the inauguration, we should already commit to organizing a social service event locally on or before Martin Luther King Day to set a signal in our communities that change is indeed coming.

When I signed up to host the party, it took only two days for it to fill up, and on Sunday evening, 23 people from all kinds of backgrounds gathered in our living room. It was a buzz; everyone was bursting with energy. It didn’t even seem necessary to introduce ourselves—we were all there for one reason only and that was to keep moving forward on the wings of positivity and commitment that we had grown during the election campaign. We took a little while to establish our group’s priorities in relationship to policy we are particularly interested in—Climate Change/Energy Policy, Education, Healthcare and the Economy were the four major concerns, in this order. There was an extraordinary flow to the event—you might have expected all kinds of stumbling blocks speaking in a large group like this, but there weren’t any.

The most energy was in thinking about what we could do as a community service event on or before Martin Luther King Day. We were all impressed by the transition team’s thinking of ways to act right now. After some brainstorming, we decided on a food drive—the number of new people coming to food pantries in the Berkshires, a wealthy county in Massachusetts, was frightening. We will also hold a concert and auction of some extraordinary art from prisoners, who enthusiastically donated their best pieces when they heard about our efforts from their art teacher, a member of our group.

This is what is striking and the most important part of it all—the visible ripples this initiative is creating through all our networks and the recognition that no matter where we are and what our life circumstances, there is something to contribute. It gives the sense that in just about no time, just about everyone can be involved in working together.

On Thursday night, we had a follow-up meeting which again was seamless, carried by the common interest in getting things done and moving ahead. I cannot imagine a better spirit for heading into the New Year!

image by RBerteig

Maybe we are involved in the start of a whole new kind of democracy.

Obama has won the election using digital tools in the most extensive and brilliant way ever and almost overnight there is a new spirit of possibility—maybe a new way for the people to rule.

Change.gov is one of the ways in which the incoming administration wants to harness the uplifting, inspiring and empowering momentum generated in this campaign, a momentum that actually gets things done. Obama, that much is clear, will need a lot of support on all levels. On Change.gov, you can apply for a job in the government, vent your ideas, or signal your interest to volunteer in a range of areas from supporting schools to environmental work.

For a dyed-in-the-wool individualist, the thought of ‘what contribution can I make’ can easily be either overwhelming or demoralizing. We are used to having to locate ourselves and our own place in the bigger picture. And no doubt that is important. But thinking about this website it occurred to me that something altogether different might be beginning to manifest on a very large scale.

Years ago, in an issue of What is Enlightenment? (now EnlightenNEXT) magazine, I read an article by Craig Hamilton, in which he describes the increasingly common and increasingly intentionally directed experience of collective intelligence. One of the driving insights of this new way of working and thinking not just together, but almost as One, is the realization that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and that, given relatively few conditions and agreements, it is possible to access a level of intelligence, width of perspective, and most of all creativity, that exceeds that of the individuals involved.

These experiences have been unfolding in business (see consultant’s Peter Senge’s work or Brian Robertson’s Holacracy), spirituality (spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen and EnlightenNEXT), sports and metaphysics (The Intention Experiment). All over the cultural map little lights are beginning to blink, raising our view to a larger and very exciting picture. Increasingly, I am beginning to understand that whatever we do and wherever we do it, IS part of this bigger picture and larger unfolding, driven by humanity’s and maybe even the Universe’s need to evolve for the better.

Last week, at a MoveOn party here in Lenox, MA, close to forty people came together to speak about how they would like to ensure that the momentum built during Obama’s campaign continues. These people came from Lenox, Pittsfield and Lee, very tiny towns, but the thought of a thousand of these parties all over the country gave me goose bumps. Even if there were many differing opinions about which were the most important issues to pursue, the overarching sense was that of wanting to come together to help move things forward. Every single time a larger, more encompassing view was expressed by anyone in this group during our discussion, everyone went with it, away from smaller concerns. It seems that in our desperation for change, we are willing to put aside long held cynicism and attachment of what we think we know for sure.

As exciting as it is that Obama wants to keep using the internet and provide a structure for his supporters to get involved, it will be even more exciting to see how we will use the latest technologies to work with him, to make sure that government stays transparent, to make sure the most important things are being dealt with, and maybe to communicate with each other across the different reasons we voted him into office for, to evolve this country past division and fear.

And keep an eye on The Sunny Way—we will be launching our new activism stream soon!

image by Roberto Garcia-S

Good news stories on the environmental front were a little harder to come by this month but all that changed now, with the best news we could have been hoping for—Barack Obama winning the presidential election in a landslide. YES!!!! Like he said, this is our chance, and it really is OURS, to not just set things right, but begin building a new vision. He promised, in an e-mail to all those who gave time, money, talent etc. that he would soon be in touch about the next steps. I can’t think of anything more exciting!

In the mean time along comes a mail from a friend, telling me about a program called Lost Harvest (I wish they had called it Saved Harvest, because that is actually what they are doing), that uses donors’ dollars to transport truckloads—literally hundreds of thousands of pounds—of perfectly edible fresh produce to people in need. Much of this harvest would be wasted without the program, as it has become too expensive to ship due to the rise in fuel costs. Watching the video makes you feel a little crazy, but the good part is, something can be done about it.

Let’s also hope someone comes up with a brilliant idea to deal with this in a bigger, more systemic way!

Maybe with trucks running on air…. Why not.

Zero Pollution Motors, a company I have mentioned before, is taking another stab at the US market. In addition to the small range of personal transport options already offered, they are now developing the AirPod, a public transportation system based on their (almost) pollution free technology. So maybe air trucks too will one day become a reality?

For an example of how a lot can be done with relatively little: When emerging economies take environmental issues and climate change into their own hands, rather than just following in the footsteps of the developed world, exiting possibilities emerge. From ingenious water filters to slum-rebuilding projects that delight with their ascetic beauty and human-friendly design, this Indian company is forging the way into the future.

For another brave step into new territory right here in the United States we don’t have to look further than San Antonio, Texas. The city is pioneering the first utility system in the US that will convert the population’s annual 140.000 tons of biosolids—a fancy word for what is usually flushed down the toilet—into clear burning methane gas to be sold on the open market. The estimated revenue for the local sewage treatment plant is expected to be up to a quarter of a million dollars per year and the gas, which has up until now just been burnt off during the process of waste water treatment, can now be put to use in heating homes!

What else? Imagine the same incredible passion, organization and dedication that powered Obama’s campaign being poured into moving humanity and all life on Earth towards an abundant and wholesome future—combating climate change, saving our food supply, working for healthy people and a healthy planet, and consciously evolving ourselves. Last month, I just calculated, I donated $150 to Obama’s campaign—money I didn’t think I had. I spent hours on the phone calling voters and this is time I didn’t think I had either… The lesson is that we are all capable of doing much more than we think we can do! No slipping back now is the goal I am setting myself!

image by richelleantipolo

Uli’s piece on deepening her long-held beliefs around abortion is a powerful example of what we can discover about ourselves and about Life with a big L when we go beyond simple polarizations like left and right and really look deeply into our experiences and motivations. I believe this kind of self-evaluation and opening to opposite points of view is exactly what we need to do to move beyond the Culture War. Uli, thank you for bravely sharing your integral thoughts on this very divisive subject. -ed.

We have been contemplating the culture war here on The Sunny Way for a while now. During these elections, Sarah Palin and all, it is highlighted even more. So I wanted to pick up the thread.

In thinking about this article it soon became clear that it is impossible to cover the breadth of this topic in a single blog-length piece and how important it was to speak about this together. So this is a starting point for a discussion that will hopefully take us into new territory, beyond the current frozen frontiers….

Riding through a peaceful New Hampshire afternoon I was turning the radio dial for a source of news. I came across a station where a man was taking questions about or contributions to his passionately voiced opinion that abortion, under any circumstances, was to be rejected. The afternoon didn’t seem so peaceful anymore. My stomach in a knot, I still thought it could be good to find out how he was thinking about this – usually my response to ‘these kind of people’ is just an inner snort of contempt. But being increasingly puzzled by the ongoing culture war I thought I needed to stretch. And so I stayed tuned, as a liberally minded caller and the Christian radio host exchanged arguments.

The listener was trying to make the point that the wellbeing of a mother, emotional, psychological and mental as well as physical should be considered. Of course I agreed with her point. But the listener was strikingly inarticulate, insecure.

Birth control and the right to abort are foundational achievements of the women’s movement. This freedom has made it possible for women to redefine womanhood, to become socially and economically equal partners with men—at least to the degree we have so far. Ignoring the complexity of a woman’s situation and taking away her right and ability to decide for her self whether or not she wants to bear a child is a step backwards into the slavery of our biology.

It bothered me that the woman on the phone was so meek—and I could relate to it. Why was that?

“Do you really think that a woman who has just been raped is able to make a clear, well thought out decision about her own life and that of her child?” the radio host asked.

“I do,” she replied, sounding very unsure. He didn’t agree, and I didn’t either. Nor did it seem like quite the right question to ask.

The discussion continued. “Would you kill a two year old baby then, because it was conceived in a rape?” the man pressed on.

“Of course not,” the listener replied.

“How about a child that is two days old?”

“No…”

“And how about 5 months into the pregnancy?”

“Well, that is quite a long way in already,” she replied, beginning to waver again.

“At what point then does the child become worthy of protection? Where would you draw the line? At what point does life start, do you think?”

Just like the listener, I had no ready-made answer to this. Pursuing it further I found myself wondering about our fundamental relationship to life and particularly to human consciousness and the potential for it in each human embryo. I had never considered my own abortions in this light. I had them because I did not want or feel ready to have a child. I also did not let myself fully grapple with the shock and uncertainty that comes with the discovery of being pregnant, that suddenly, somebody else is there…. I really didn’t want to deal with these questions of life and death, and so an abortion was the obvious solution. In the German progressive environment I came of age in, there was no question about that being okay. None of my partners ever wanted a child either.

I can understand that such a simplistic license to end a life just looks immoral to the pro-life proponents. Rape, incest or danger to a mother’s life are one thing, but for most of us the choice to have an abortion did not fall into that context. The freedom of self-determination that the women’s movement fought so hard for, I took quite for granted without thinking deeply about the implications of this freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. I didn’t know better then and so I made myself, and what I wanted, the ultimate standard.

Then the radio host made another point. “How could the pain and wrongness of what happened in your own life, by being raped, say, be made right by killing another—that of your child conceived in the rape?”

Something in this argument struck me as deeply positive and hopeful. It was the conviction that no matter how bad things get, there was always the possibility of a positive outcome, a new beginning.

The notion I have held since being a teenager was that there are already too many people on the planet and that too many of them are living terrible lives. So it does not make sense to just add more bodies. And I understood my own occasional longing for being pregnant and having a child to be a hormonal trigger set in place by mother nature to make sure there were always plenty of humans to go around. But Life at this point seems to have a more significant agenda and need than simply creating more bodies. We are not just bodies. We need to become more conscious, understand ourselves better and create a world that protects and supports life not only in the womb, but also once it is out!

We need to move on from simply being a more sophisticated kind of animal, concerned with survival, pro-creation and emotional and sensual fulfillment. But this is also where it gets tricky.

I think my rationality and somewhat enlightened view combined with a fundamentally selfish motivation in an unhealthy way. If our logic is not supported by a real respect for the positivity and limitless possibilities of life we slide into dangerous territory. If there is a fundamental cynicism or casualness about Life, the sense of potential that comes with any new human being and ultimately the meaning of human life itself, is lost.

Maybe pro-lifers, even in their one-sided and very limited approach are responding so forcefully because of our postmodern lack of respect for much more than our desires of the moment, our unrestricted freedoms which value ourselves over everything.

Listening to the radio host that day in New Hampshire, I realized that I had made it too easy for myself. Having thoughtful, respectful answers to the questions he was asking is important. The picture is a whole lot more complex than I had wanted to see.

A new solution will have to be the result of discovering a new set of reference points, beyond either point of view. It’s not enough to just want to do what I want to do unencumbered by unwanted pregancies. But it’s also not enough to assert that the rights of the embryo must always come first. Somehow, pro-life and pro-choice cannot remain opposites.

What I am left with is that having the right to choose must come with a real vision or purpose of what I am choosing for. Whether the choice I make is for a new human being or not, it will have to be pro-Life and not just pro-myself. What that really means is something each of us has to find out.

Image by Chad Davis

Ever since I first attended a local meeting of the Obama campaign I have been continually struck by what I encounter in this movement: For one, an intense focus - everyone, you can tell, is barely sleeping and overwhelmed by how much there is to do, but determined to use this opportunity for change. I wake up in the mornings with their tired faces in front of my eyes. Seeing the people and the way this grassroots campaign is being run both up and down the hierarchical ladder I really get that Obama indeed does mean this: Change. Not just the word, but the thing itself.

When the man in charge of the campaign for Massachusetts introduced himself at that meeting he spoke respectfully and humbly about wanting to make the effort to infuse what he had observed in Obama on the trail with him—his clarity, openness and ability to listen and think in ways that do not divide—into his work with us, the volunteers.

It is striking that none of the organizers seem to be putting themselves into the picture. That edge of ego hankering for attention and the self-consciousness that comes with it just aren’t there. The atmosphere is one of great respect and encouragement for what everyone has to offer in terms of time, ideas and feed-back. Here is a country-wide campaign run on community organization principles and it works unbelievably well, from what I can see. You feel like you are a small part of a rocket ship roaring through space on a very straight course.

I just had to help out. I have written letters, made calls to New Hampshire in our local call bank to locate Obama supporters, and went to NH to canvass. There too, the same focus, determination, care, urgency, and lack of drama and division enabled a huge crowd of volunteers (I heard that 300 were expected for the day just in the town of Keene alone) to get the canvassing done in half a day. It was a great experience.

In the phone bank we were explicitly trained to not engage in negativity—even if a fellow democrat wants to rant about Sarah Palin for example, we won’t go there, as much as we might feel like it. It makes calling a very uplifting experience, especially in a group, as we listen to each other’s lines, enjoy each other’s jokes, learn from each other’s mistakes and commiserate when someone listed as a democrat, well, is going to vote republican. :)

As one co-canvasser said, it would be naïve to think that Obama is not a politician, that this isn’t politics. But the flavor and conduct of this campaign truly give hope—and always responsibility too—that the connotations of these words can change. That we could come to associate with them again the strength to stay steady and stand up for a bottom line, a leadership not for self-interest or aggrandizement but in the service of bringing out the best in people, and a way of thinking that moves everyone forward, rather than push opponents out of the way.

The more I help, the more urgent I feel and if you haven’t had a chance to jump in and help out, by all means do it now! There are millions of calls waiting to be made and thousands of houses to visit. It might get you even more excited than you already are!

Starting the ride!

Actually, I don’t want to really wrap up this challenge. But yes……the 100 mile bike ride is done!!!

October 5th was a perfect fall day in Arcadia National Park, ME—no strong winds, bright blue sky, crisp air, and a great spirit amongst 250 riders of all levels.

During my sleep the night before I kept feeling I had already done the ride. Then, waking up and getting ready, I was nervous. 100 miles was just more than I could get my head around. Even though I had done 90 miles before, I had ridden them with some long breaks and I wasn’t going to take any this time.

Once on the road though, nature’s beauty, the other riders around me, and my own determination carried me to ride at record speed until, on a steep hill at mile 22, my gear system broke. And from then on it was up and down, on and off the bike to keep putting back the chain that kept derailing when I changed gears. It wasn’t what I had anticipated, to put it mildly, but there was no question about giving up.

The only real temptation to stop short of my goal came at mile 90, facing the 3 mile climb up Cadillac Mountain. “Is it crazy to go up there without a working transmission?” My friend Eva, who supported us with fuel and cheers during the ride, said nothing but I knew I just had to go. Ultimately it was not a problem—on one low gear, in a steady pace and with the big-hearted encouragement of a co-rider.

Afterwards I felt I didn’t really know who had done that ride. My body was shaking and I was so tired I could have dropped face down into my Chinese soup. But it was thrilling to have discovered a level of determination beyond the flailing physical energy and the frantic racing of the mind. Onepointedness. In this simple physical endeavor I could steer the course.

After the ride

I am very glad I did this ride. It was a victory over fear, doubt, inertia and stomach cramps. In all of my 48 years I have never felt stronger, but most importantly the ride punched a hole into the veil of the nagging sense of self-limitation that so often shrouds our hearts. I want to keep pushing myself, not just in physical ways, and I will keep riding—I plan do a century (100 miles) every other month or so, to find out how big my lungs and how strong my heart and muscles can get, and also to pay tribute with my own body to the extraordinary life-energy we have been given.

On the long ride back home in the car the following day I felt like a vegetable until I remembered my other commitment for this month—Chi Gong. At a gas station, under a wind bent tree surrounded by trailer trucks, I just did 5 minutes of it, and felt 500% better immediately—alert and energetic. It is another powerful way to connect with the life-force we are a part of. So I will definitely keep practicing Chi Gong as well.

I am looking forward to hearing how your fitness challenge went!

image by Roberto Garcia-S

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.

Maybe Gore was inspired by the six Greenpeace activists who had painted English Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s name on the chimney of a coal-fired power plant in Kingsnorth, GB. Amazingly, the group was given a not-guilty verdict. The jurors agreed with the defense’s argument that their actions constituted a so-called ‘lawful excuse’—damaging the plant (it took ₤35,000 to clean up the chimney) was seen as a justified measure to prevent even greater damage—climate change—and should thus be tolerated.

Arnold Schwarzenegger too has enough of the lack of meaningful US leadership in climate concerns. In November, right before new international climate talks are to begin in Poland, he is planning to hold a meeting of international leaders in L.A. with the goal of forging a more efficient alliance on the community and regional level.

Another example of taking things into our own hands: Friends have started a calling center in a shop front here in Lenox, MA, donated rent free for this purpose. We are helping the Obama campaign by making calls to identify Obama supporters in swing states. The response from the community is absolutely enthusiastic, especially when people hear that their job is not to convert a fervent John Mc Cain supporter in New Hampshire, but simply to locate those who favor Obama and make sure they vote. Anywhere between 8 and 25 people are on phones at any one time, and the excitement and willingness to participate blasts to shreds any cynicism or inertia that was still lurking in the back of my mind in relationship to politics.

And if you would like to get involved right at your desk, I want to make a pitch for Avaaz.org, an international movement working with similar tools as MoveOn.org does nationally. Whether it is about Zimbabwe, Georgia, Tibet or China, the Avaaz team keeps coming up with very creative ways to respond to things that just have to change. In just over 18 months, the Avaaz community has grown to almost 3.4 million people from every country of the world, an average growth of over 40,000 people per week! Working in 13 languages, Avaaz members have taken nearly 8 million actions, donated over 2.5 million Euro ($3.5 million), and told over 30 million friends about Avaaz campaigns. A wonderful new source of global community and democracy is being created, and they have started to win real victories to close the gap between the world we have and the world we want—on human rights, environmental protection, poverty, global justice and more.

So, in the spirit of The Sunny Way motto: Eyes clear, minds open and hands (very much) on!

image by Letting Go of Control

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.

Up until now, I thought running wouldn’t be a good sport for me because of childhood asthma and an assumption that I have weak knees. But walkers were welcome, so I decided to train as much as I could and then walk/run the race.

Having a goal to prepare for pushed me to train for it. Had I not registered, I’m pretty sure I would not have started running at all. And I’m so glad I did, because I found out that I like running, and want to do more of it. Had I not signed up, I would be less apt to run at all—putting it off by saying, “I would like to start running, yadda, yadda, yadda.” I’m beginning to see that if I want to become stronger physically and push myself past assumed limitations I will have to do things that scare me at first.  Having a date set, this past August 31st, pushed me to start running.

So I trained 1 week in all—not very long, I know. The Thursday before the race, I had a great training day and pushed myself beyond what I imagined I could handle. It was the first time that running actually felt good physically as my breathing regulated and I had a near experience of flying. I was completely surprised. The after-effects of focus, confidence, happiness, and freedom were so powerful. The next day, my right knee hurt, but I iced it and was fine for the race. 

Traveling to the race was exciting as I blended in with an ever increasing number of people wearing the official red race shirts. I waited for nearly an hour to get on the express bus to Randall’s Island, standing in line with hundreds on 125th Street in Harlem. Participating in a huge public event is pretty inspiring—it brings out the best in humanity, as all of us were there for the same reason: to push our bodies, and show collective support for 3 global organizations that are improving our world: the UN Refugee Agency, World Wildlife Fund, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The race shines as a model of how those of us who lead stable, healthy lives can combine our resources and intent to fund organizations that are helping individuals who are less fortunate. 

Attending my stretch/tone class gave me the idea to start doing another form of exercise, and one that I initiate and which depends on me, without the external encouragement that I tend to look for in an instructor. There is something empowering to taking on an exercise routine alone. I set an intention to do it and whether I push myself or not all depends on me going for it. Of course I decide how far I will push myself in a class too, but, with running, I initiate the exercise rather than depending on an instructor to set a time. I am finding that in many ways it’s the hardest yet most rewarding form of exercise to do. Running is an opportunity for me to observe my body—how do I run? Do I superpronate? What does it feel like? How’s my breathing? And, oh my, that pounding is MY heart!

During the race, I alternated running and walking. The first half of the 6 mile race went well, then I started getting tired at 3.5 miles. I started noticing the particular way that I was running. At around 4.5 miles, I was landing harder on my right leg than on my left. When I stopped to walk, I was coming down harder on my right leg; this is what probably led to my knee injury a few days before. 

Since the race I went to Jackrabbit Sports and got fitted for a pair of running shoes. I watched the way I run through having my gait analyzed. A gait analysisconsists of running on a tread mill in the store which is hooked up to a computer that slows down the running motion step by step. I learned that I actually overpronate on my left leg, meaning that I come down harder on my right leg, which is why it hurt during the race.  I got fitted for a comfy pair of Asics to help correct the problem.

I noticed that there were too many products from sponsors, water, Gatorade, energy bars littering the course and the area by the finish line. It looked as though a fraction of the drinks and freebees were consumed. In future events, Nike could definitely scale back on the amount of free promotional items from sponsors. 

It was awesome to finish the race, which I did in 1 hour 25 minutes. OK, that works out to 14 minute miles, a pretty slow speed, but I finished it, which is the most important part. It felt great to sweat profusely and taste dried salt on my face, getting in a deep stretch of my legs afterwards and feeling the euphoric runner’s high. I met a great woman, Jennifer, whom I started the race with. She’s been running for a year and we spoke about running shoes, training schedules, and the newness of beginning a sport in adulthood. I am looking forward to steadily increasing my running distance.

Did you run the Human Race?  It would be inspiring to hear stories from runners in any of the participating cities or if you did the race with a small self-organized group, please share with us in the comments.

image by Gutter

Ten minutes a day surely shouldn’t be hard—it wouldn’t if there wasn’t the mind and the endless distractions it comes up with. But I have stuck with my plan—ten minutes Chi Gong a day, even if, on the occasional night, I totally forgot or procrastinated too long and had to make up for it in the morning! And it is beginning to work—the practice is powerful and 10 minutes are beginning to fly by!

As an update to the fitness challenge I would like to post two pieces by friends who have taken that challenge and run with it. This week’s contribution is from my friend and biking-partner Rod, who just turned 60 and uses this time in his life to give himself a big push forward physically. Here is his experience:

Given the bigger issues looming before us—global warming, the economy, the war in Iraq, the erosion of values and other such critical global and personal crossroads, doing a physical workout program didn’t at first seem to be an important step to take. But what came out of a discussion I had with a close friend and trainer was that by doing a program that really works, we are getting in touch with and experiencing a kind of liberation that is defying a sometimes subtle, other times gross affliction to the process of aging and the ways we / I interpret what’s possible and what my mind and societal environment interpret as inevitable.

In my own case, the result of our talk was that I rattled off a couple of physical issues that years ago I thought would be chronic and systemic for the rest of my life: a meniscus that was always going to flare up under pressure and sciatica from a ruptured lower disc. I figured, for quite a while, that I was just going to have to live with the intermittent pain, discomfort and limitations and I found that I was constructing a path to compensate and move within these limitations. “That’s the way it is going to be, and besides, you are getting old, so naturally you are going to have to adjust.”  The adjustments, even though subtle and justifiable, were forming structural pathways in which to view and experience my life. It’s more obvious now, looking back that there is a lot more going on then just my physical prowess or the inevitable sunset of the body. I was giving in, or up. And that was helping to define who I was, what I was capable of and what to expect.

I just turned 60.  In some ways it’s a pivotal benchmark. A lot of people at this age are seriously planning for and talking about retirement. I can’t really relate. It’s partly denial, no doubt, but the healthy side of a nagging conscience that wonders at the world says that you can always be prepared to be part of it.  I think this is what stirred me, through my friend and coach Laurie Carroll, to find out about Beachbody and P90X in order to begin conquering the subtler and grosser aspects of what could be called “the ageless inertia”.

I have been doing these workouts for about 5 months now, and the results are not always those that would be so demonstrable or explicit. Yes, I’ve lost a few pounds (I have never had a weight problem), there is a perceptible shape and contour to the more overt muscles, and my abs are showing some development. But the chronic ailments that I had been negotiating and beginning to accommodate had receded so much into the background that they were no longer an inhibiting factor, in my work, in my play or in my workout routines.

The further I pushed myself – and these workouts can take you from A to Z every time in terms of where you are at and where you can go – the less I experienced the threshold of any previous injury. And the more I just ignored the excuses, the less I experienced my mind working its incessant mechanisms for inherent and habitual limitation.

Lately I have begun riding my bike.  This is something that has been in the closet forever.  I have never been an avid rider, but I committed to ride a 100 mile race in early October to help raise money for an important and inspired magazine publication. My longest ride was 113 miles the other day, through the hills of western Massachusetts and Connecticut.  My goal is to do this race on the coast of Maine in 6 ½ hours.

When I hear what other people are doing and the remarkable feats of endurance and strength, especially in old age, I am humbled.  There is so much opportunity out there, and in here, for growth and goals at any age.  What I appreciate about Beachbody and P90X is they take you through barriers and dimensions of yourself that, in some ways, move you to a physical well-being and joyous rejuvenation that leaves you wondering how that might have happened.

If you want to contact me to find out more about the program, or talk about what you are doing or want to do, write on this blog.  The power of the collective to push limits is an awesome and ever-surprising tool.

image by LeeBrimelow

If our task is to create the future, then we need to be strong and energetic to accomplish it. For that reason, this month’s challenge is about fitness.

The fitness challenge follows up from our democracy and food challenges previously. It also connects to Megan’s piece, “What are we developing for?”

There certainly is no shortage on advice about how to be fit: TV and magazines are full of it. There is also still the fact that far too many of us are in less than optimal shape, and the consequences can be seen in a sadly wrong-headed healthcare system, our kids’ growing levels of obesity, the world’s food crisis, and our own loss of connection to the life energy.

Most of us don’t feel responsible for the body we have. For example, I have always been thin and I always loved exercise. On top of it, I teach exercise as a profession. But none of that means I was ever a) consistent, b) deliberate or c) committed. In fact it had to be pointed out to me that if I was to be a good Pilates instructor, I should at least be practicing the art seriously myself!

This past May, when I decided to train for a century bike ride (100 miles) to raise money for EnlightenNext magazine, it was the first time in my 48 years that I set myself a measurable goal to be pushed for in a certain amount of time. At this point, I have another four weeks to get myself up to speed, literally, to do the Cadillac Mountain Challenge Century in Maine on October 5.

It’s been an exhilarating effort so far, as I have extended my limit from 15 miles of hilly Berkshire terrain that literally made me think I was going to have a heart attack, to 90 miles this past weekend, getting faster and stronger all the time. Those hills I walked the bike up in the beginning are now manageable. My experience made me want to lead this challenge as I realized I had so many ideas about what fitness is, what I can and cannot do, and what it takes to get there.

The trick I found, is taking the time to build up the body’s craving for fitness – getting to the point of where doing the right thing becomes more desirable and enjoyable than doing the wrong thing, little by little. If we can get addicted to sodas and KitKats, so we can to fresh juices and almonds.

Having made a commitment to my friends and to the magazine fund-raising department has made all the difference. In fact, that collective aspect must be the key to WeightWatchers’s success and to all achievement – you won’t do it just for yourself. But if it is about your kids, your community of friends or even all of society, it’s a different picture.

Looking at fitness outside of a merely personal context is both the key to success and the place where I still have to face down the devil of inertia that keeps rearing its head every day to say “I don’t care, not right now.” When that happens, I think of my friend Laurie, who ran – yes ran – a full 100 miles a couple of years ago, for his 50th birthday!

Doing something that really challenges my body, my mind, and my attitude has alerted me to more subtle aspects of fitness as well. The most obvious benefit is the muscular strength that develops with consistency. Feeling strong gives me confidence and energy and is in itself plenty of reward for the effort.

Other benefits are noticeable on a deeper, more subtle level—the level of inner health and energy—which can come from practicing things like Chi Gong or Tai Chi. To me, the most inspiring fitness is one in which those levels come together, as in some martial arts, or as one of my fitness gurus, Shawn Phillips, teaches it.

And there is, maybe most important, the question of attitude—(maybe) I can versus I (probably) can’t!

I have discovered that the body seems happiest, at its most energetic, with 2-3 hours of exercise a day! That isn’t what the doctor will tell you, and seems impossible to do – but… if we want to create a new world, why not envision one in which there is time and space for that kind of possibility as well?

So here is my challenge: Apart from continuing the training rides which I supplement with Pilates and some very cool P90X, my personal challenge will be to do 10 minutes of Chi Gong every night. It helps me access a deeper power on those never ending hills and also helps with the various aches and pains that come with training intensively and doing new things.

Those 10 minutes of Chi Gong at night are my commitment and I trust that by the end of the month, they will have become my new addiction! Let me know about your personal fitness challenge and let’s keep each other going!

Our newsreel focuses on news about progress and possibility – and it is in that spirit that this one also includes a call to action - incidentally right in line with our democracy challenge this month!

The U.S. Congress left the legislative session without extending important tax credits due to expire in December which enable companies to reliably plan the construction and development of solar and wind energy projects. This lack of action has far-reaching results.

And it is not too late to voice our concern and put some pressure on Washington! It would be good if our representatives heard from us during their break, and writing a letter to the editor too can help make clear, that this topic won’t just slip under the table. Can you do that? There are tools to help you with both actions here.

Inspite of federal politics still being slow off the mark, science is forging ahead full steam—a new power storing device developed by MIT will make it possible for solar energy to be stored and used at night, a development hailed as a major discovery (right up there with the taming of fire for some). It is the first step in being able to make use of solar power even while the sun doesn’t shine – a very big leap forward.

Just when you thought that nobody notices when you hop on the bike instead of taking the car to get the milk: Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in the same period last year. For the period between November and June, the figure is over 56 billion miles…. This number is mind boggling to contemplate, let alone the amounts of miles we did drive.

The promise of recovery from fossil fuel addiction is edging ever closer to reality. Among a number of electric or hybrid vehicles announced to come out over the next few years, this one is particularly exciting. How does it sound to go from LA to NYC on a single tank of gas, starting in 2010? There have been a number of hiccups, vanished websites and other delays, but now it looks more likely than ever that the Air Car will finally be available. My name is on the waiting list!

And here is to the new economy: Wall Street Journal identified the first official solar billionaire as Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech Power in China. Since then, at least two other solar entrepreneurs have joined the club: Frank Asbeck, who founded Germany’s Solar World, and Xiao Peng, head of LDK Solar in China.

Joining them are two American tycoons who have decided that while their past was in oil, their future, as well as America’s, will be found in renewable energy. Everyone has heard about T. Boone Pickens and his commitment to building a giant wind farm in Texas. Less well known is Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, who is developing a 2,000-megawatt wind project in Wyoming and has acquired rights to build a $3 billion, 900-mile transmission line to move his wind power from Wyoming to California, Las Vegas and Phoenix. (from Climate Progress)

Last week I took a bikeride up to Jiminy peak near Williamstown, MA, a ski resort featuring the first wind turbine in Berkshire County. High above the treetops the blades were slowly turning in the steady breeze and I couldn’t help it—I had to holler!

What a difference it makes—technology that uses the free (in both senses of the word) and infinite energy of the wind and sun! It looked down on the valley like a messenger from a different era, in which humans are turning to the light and the air for their sustenance, rather than relying on finite sources dredged up from the insides of the earth. I couldn’t help thinking that there is more than just technological significance to this change of orientation.

Mass PowerShift lobbied in the Statehouse in Boston (see previous article) to encourage lawmakers to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act before the end of the legislative period. And they did!

A few days ago, right before the summer break, Massachusetts committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by the year 2020 and 80% by 2050. It is a good first step, a statement of intent that allows investors, industry, government, scientists and all citizens to focus their efforts towards a carbon free economy and can make Massachusetts, with its overflow of brainpower and technological capabilities, one of the leaders of new development in the country.

The past few months have seen a veritable rush of legislation here. Governeur Deval Patrick has launched the Commonwealth Solar Rebate program, which, in combination with the Green Communities Act, also signed in July is a much needed boost for, among other things, the advancement of third party ownership/power purchase agreements for solar energy.

This is exciting: it means that it is getting easier to have a solar system built by an investor, on your property and pay them for using the electricity. The investor benefits from rebates, tax incentives, and the profit of selling surplus energy to the grid…..this is a big help for non-profits or municipalities, who could never afford setting up their own PV system.

New tax-exemptions for non-food based bio-fuels, the Cape Wind Project, which got moved along another step, and a Conservation Bill were also on the MA governments tick-list. It is a real buzz. Now we have to make sure the whole country catches it!

(image by Bree Bailey via flickr)

I met Robert Bisson at the first Move On! event I ever went to. We were to gather in Hudson, NY on a steamy summer afternoon at a gas station to let voters know about the connections between John McCain and the big oil companies and the difference in the presidential candidates’ energy policies. “Bring an umbrella,” Robert had written to the participants, “it’s likely we’ll get a thunderstorm.”

When I got there, this lively activist with the energy of a mischievous and optimistic ten year old was setting up signs. Only later, when contacting him for this article did I find out, that he is about to turn 78.

Robert impressed me with his spirit, focus and passion. He was the one who kept leaping into the lanes and crossing the street to pass flyers through open car windows. He figured out which corner of the crossing was the busiest and worked it until rush hour was over. He didn’t hang around chatting. He is a fighter who believes that he can make a difference in his part of the world and beyond, and in his presence it was clear that how we are as people while we do what we do is at least as important to how we are received than the facts on the flyers we distribute. A lot of people responded to Robert. His lack of cynicism and sheer positivity made me want to find out more about him for The Sunny Way. Here is what he said in our phone conversation:

I have been a concerned person for a long time, but I wasn’t engaged. As an elementary teacher in Westchester, I retired in 1993, I was supporting the teacher’s union. I have always been donating to a number of causes, but it wasn’t until MoveOn.org provided the opportunities to organize and participate that I jumped at this new way of becoming active. That was two or three years ago. One has to be useful somehow, and I spend at least an hour a day writing to politicians, signing petitions, or making calls.

I am an atheist, and I think us humans might always act in selfish ways, but I do believe we need to move away from our most immediate selfishness, and work for fairness and a greater inclusivity. We cannot be selfish to the exclusion of others. This kind of attitude only turns out to be destructive, not just to others but to the self. It’s not possible to separate the two. We are in this world together, there isn’t another one. I am interested in finding those areas in which we all can find a commonality.

When, after two hours of handing out flyers in the humid Hudson heat that day, we ran out of pamphlets and decided to call it a day, Robert was pleased with the event. He had probably distributed 50% of all the flyers in our group of seven. He walked away, holding the hand of his lady to help her across the street, seven signs under his arm.

(image by funkybug via flickr)

With oil prices on everyone’s mind it feels a bit like the future we were all wondering about is actually here – no doubt things will not stay the same. Here are a few news items of projects, people and events who are ahead of the curve, climbing the next mountain.

If you have seen pictures of mountain top mining in Appalachia, you know what distressing sight this is, let alone the enormous costs to wildlife, rivers and humans this brutal method of coal mining occurs.

Enter John Todd, research professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. His plan for the renewal and restoration of the region has just won the first Buckminster Fuller Award. This $100,000 prize is awarded annually to “comprehensive solutions that radically advance human well-being and ecosystem health.” Watch their more than inspiring video clip. There are a number of very inspiring projects to be found there. Todd’s proposal is a beautiful example of the possibility to reverse even some of the most atrocious environmental mistakes.

From my home country… a world wide first! The city of Marburg in Germany has passed into law obligatory installations of solar panels on all houses. Ignoring the law will incur a hefty 1000 Euro fine!

And – from villages to individual families, people in Germany are pooling resources (and getting their local banks involved) to fund their own local wind turbines and solar power systems. By feeding the surplus of created energy into the grid a good number of them are actually making money in the process, earning a healthy return on their investment. In Germany, companies are forced to accept this feeding into the grid at a preset rate.

Next time you are in Florida, take an excursion into the future. Visit the Venus Project, in Venus, FL and be inspired by the incredible Jacque Fresco, who developed his passion for invention as an adolescent during the Great Depression and has been thinking about humanity’s future ever since. His designs might be slightly outdated, but his spirit, sheer energy and breadth of thinking are amazing.

A DVD set, Future by Design by William Gazeki, was just released, featuring a thorough overview of his inventions that span buildings, transportation and whole city designs all the way down to the bathroom of the future. And what is most impressive about this modern day Da Vinci is that he does not simply think about design and technology in isolation – his inquiry reaches deep into human nature and the human mind.

Friends just told me about an interesting workshop they went to here in MA, where Governor Deval Patrick is pushing for big increases in the use of solar power. If you followed this issue for the past few years, you really get the sense we are almost at a point where it will be downhill from here. One of the latest growth industries is Third Party Ownership of solar energy installations – meaning, a company will set up your solar system at no cost to you and you will sign a contract, agreeing to buy your power from this system at a set price. Any surplus belongs to the owner of the installtion and can be sold to the general electricity company – really smart!

With life and the world around us changing faster and faster, something is stirring in us individually and in the collective, both conscious and unconscious. The very planet we are living on and the things we are inventing on it are changing rapidly and might do so beyond recognition. There isn’t a lot we can or have to take for granted. It is challenging to get one’s head around that, to make room for that much complexity, uncertainty and change.

This in an invitation to invent our future in writing, to participate in creating a vision, through a story, together. To let ourselves go and go for it. Stories are powerful, and often reality will arise out of our imagination as much as reality is shaping it, and if those stories arise out of a collective, they will carry even more power and conviction.

There are many science fiction or future stories that take a fairly easy route – they follow the known ways and often worst aspects of human nature and take it to the next level of technological and cultural change. This story is meant to be something else. It’s an experiment in stretching towards a new and deeper view and understanding of who and what we can be.

The way it could work is like this: I have started a story on Buzzword, a web-based word processor that allows people to work on a single document together. Any participant can change anything or add comments. Buzzword will record those changes, keep old versions available and make it all visible to the group.

What follows is an outline of the story’s main facets and characters, as we have to start somewhere. These are suggested sign-posts for the start of the story which all can be changed at any time. For further info about that, if you want to participate as a writer, please e-mail me at ulinagel at gmail dot com.

The year is 2030-2040. A group of scientists are touring the earth in order to investigate a seemingly obscure and mysteries surge in reported sightings of UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters in different cultures. There are 6 people:

• Addhi, a brilliant specialist in aero- and space-technology from India. He is in his late twenties, a nerdy type who is more at home with technological gadgets and discussions than real human exchange.
• Kera and Rico, a couple, both Brazilian physicists, who got together only a year ago and are struggling to keep their romance seperate from business.
• Jack, an 85 year old retired remote viewer and psychic, who used to work for the CIA before the collapse of the American empire. He now serves the World Government by predicting natural disasters and other potentially destructive events.
• Gemma, a British author and expert on consciousness development and author, who has developed a highly respected theory that UFOs and extraterrestrials are phenomena of consciousness rather than physics.
• Senjo, a doctor from Japan who is also the clone of a famous biologist.

Through their travels we are getting to know life in different parts of the world.

The world is ruled by the World Council, a chamber of elected leaders, representative of nations of every level of culture, social and economic development: Tribal, Feudal, Traditional, Modern, Postmodern and Integral.

To read the story where it’s at now, click here…

If you would like to participate in writing it, please e-mail me (ulinagel at gmail dot com) and we will invite you to access the document on Buzzword.

(image by L.E. Spry via flickr.)

I never considered myself to be a fan of science fiction. But the more I thought about writing this piece, the more I realized that that isn’t exactly true. Ever since I remember one of my eyes was firmly on the future. Watching those first episodes of Star Trek on the hand-me down black and white television with my brother and sister in Germany had a very different effect and importance than watching, say, Heidi or Flipper. There was something in those movies that I was looking to for clues about what was possible, about who we are, and about where we were going as human beings.

And it wasn’t just me. We, humans, as I came to understand, seem to be creatures of the future. As much as we are shaped by the past we are always planning, hoping for, looking forward to, dreading or dreaming the future.

As a teenager, I read 1984, of course, and profoundly internalized its terrible vision. I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey and Soylent Green, another classic I could never ever forget. Inspite of the extraordinary creativity, resources, and depth of probing and thinking that went into the creation of these stories, what remained was a disheartening sense that the future we were thinking of in most cases seemed to be an unbroken continuation of the worst or most primitive of human tendencies. Greed, cruelty, selfishness, and domination were extrapolated, magnified, and given weight by the very fact that they were being acted out in the future—sometimes by humans, sometimes by aliens or even robots. In many ways, the best we could hope for seemed to be the survival of simple human values like romantic love, family bonds, or friendship in a vast context of threat. The future did not look like something to look forward to.

And yet, human evolution has been about the victory of cognition, rationality and consciousness over the limitations of earthly matter and unconsciousness. Of higher aspirations and an increasingly subtle and more inclusive morality. Like Bill Moyers said, “Civilization did not just happen.” Whether it is the mastery of fire, of language, electricity, motherhood, genetics, or space travel, we are working our way beyond the limitations of the physical world, both inside of us and outside, at ever faster speed, in ever more far reaching and deeper ways.

Sci-fi stories are one way of reaching into what might be our destiny. Deep inside the DNA of both our collective unconscious and our consciousness seems to be anchored a certain directionality. With more of us no longer busy with just trying to survive, we are freer than ever to actually think about where it is we want to go.

The best sci-fi stories are those that not only explore new and outrageous technical possibilities, but also dare to imagine new ways of being, new dimensions of being human. These are much more rare. One of the most powerful examples of trying to venture into new territory I have come across is Ender Wiggins, in Ender’s Game. Another is the book Herland. There is lots of room for many more. The integral philosopher Ken Wilber, the grapevine says, is working on a sci-fi book. According to Wired magazine, the “serious” literary community, which has often ignored or scoffed at its futuristic grandchild, is now discovering the power of the genre.

Thinking about the future is thinking about who we will be and there might be no better way to do it than throwing off the limitations of the world as we know it and let our imagination and deepest aspirations run wild. In all directions ... just as Da Vinci did when he sketched that first Flying Machine.

(image by tohoscope via flickr.)

This is a bit of a newsreel about things I have come across in my part of the universe just this past week in relationship to climate change. There is so much information out there—both scary and encourging. I am actually beginning to wonder what our view and sense of the world would be, if those good, inspiring bits of news were put together in the same way and given the same weight as the frightening ones are. What IS the real picture???

There is an incredible amount of innovation and research going on, and much of it right here, in my own (Massachusetts) backyard:

... From a young friend studying Chemical Engineering at U Amherst, I heard about her team’s efforts to turn forestry and agricultural waste into biofuel.

... Also here in Massachusetts there are wind turbines being tested by a company called Flodesign. They resemble jet-engines in their design and are three to four times as efficient, especially in lower wind, and significantly cheaper to build than the traditional wind turbines. The company just won two prizes (from MIT and from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative) for their development.

... Jim Hansen, the NASA scientist and one of the most outspoken voices for urgent climate action, came to give a talk up the road in Lexington. The material he presented wasn’t new, but what an opportunity to ask questions of one of the most knowledgeable people on this subject in the world—there were many more than he could get around to answering. (Strangely, there were very few young people in the audience of about 700 people.)

... Have you heard about the Automotive X-Prize? In a 2009 competition, the X Foundation will award 10 million dollars to the builders of a fully marketable car, built to all relevant standards, that gets 100 mpg. Lots of information about this online: Progressive is keeping a blog about the contest, and Popular Mechanics has done a thorough analysis of the early contenders. 

... This is fake news, but still good for inspiration: Google News the way we want it to be! Via Worldchanging.

... And finally, the other day, while chatting with a woman who runs a community garden here in Pittsfield (manosunidas), we discovered that both of us had spent time in Bogota, Columbia—I worked there in 1983. “It’s changed so much since then,” she said. I was bracing myself for some bad news, but she didn’t have any. In fact, Bogota, the city of thugs and drugs has started to become, over the past decade, a model green city that many look to as an example. They actually have the longest single purpose bicycle lane system in….the world! 

Yes, biking! My car is getting more and more breaks and so is my wallet and my stomach since I am not following every whimsical thought and desire to drive to the store, 3 miles down the road! Thanks for the article, Megan, about the relationship between individual action and systemic change! And maybe here is something for the city dwellers among you!

(image by Roberto Garcia-S via flickr)

Last weekend, I attented a workshop on Holacracy given by Brian Robertson and Tom Thomison in New York. Holacracy is a radically new way for people in any kind of organization to work together. In my mind, it is the cutting edge of organizational structure and development. It transcends and includes the most common hierarchical structure of companies, which tends to stifle individual initiative, creativity and accountability and oftentimes works on the basis of fear. And at the same time it goes far beyond the democratic or consensus-driven model that an increasing number of organizations are trying to work with, which usually ends up being ineffective and frustrating in its focus on each individual involved rather than the goal of the organization they are involved in.

Holacracy is about getting things done faster and more effectively. Every person involved not only has a voice, but is called on to participate in full transparency, accountability and capacity towards the goal and vision of the organization.

The brainchild of Brian Robertson, who founded Ternary Software in Philadelphia in 2001 for the sole purpose of finding a better way for people to work together, Holacracy has now been brought to a point where it can be taught and used as a generally applicable system and is so far being promoted around the US, Australia and Europe.

Obviously there is a lot more to holacracy than can be learned in a weekend. But through a lot of practical exercises and a very clear structure, Tom and Brian managed to convey a good deal of the context and application of this practice.

As they took us through the material, many sacred cows of business wisdom got pushed off their pedestals and one aha experience followed another. In a certain kind of way, Holacracy follows a very human, almost intuitive logic. As Brian put it, it makes the implicit explicit, and in doing so frees up a lot of attention and energy.

Teams are organized into circles, each of which is a self-organizing unit pursuing its own goals, which are provided from higher-level teams. Circles include members from whatever parts of the organization can provide information relevant to the issues at hand. In this way, decisions are made with multiple perspectives in mind, from big-picture to detailed.

When these circles get together to tackle their goals, two major tenets are kept in mind:

1. The goal is a workable decision, not the best decision.
2. Any issue can be revisited at any time.

Together, these two ideas remove fear, allowing circles to proceed both logically and quickly, knowing that they can adjust course as needed. 

One of the most striking aspects to me was how this system of governance does not allow anyone to be special in it, be they the lowest or the highest ranking member of the organization. The methodology is so structured, the meetings and decision making processes so clearly defined, that the only way forward is into a very objective, impersonal space from which the next workable steps for the organization could emerge. It’s a way for people to get out of the way and allow the organization’s intent to come through.

For anyone used to endless discussions in order to find a perfect or best solution, in which everyone has to put in their two cents worth, worried about their job or their image, it was a real breath of fresh air. I could see the potential particularly for non-profits, where good intentions and real care can get completely bogged down by (inter)-personal struggles for influence and control.

Through years of experimentation, trials and errors, Brian seems to have come up with a governance and operational system that really does keep our egos, personal ambitions, and fears in a cage, as long as we stick to it. The result is an organizational practice that allows for swift and creative responses even for large organizatons in a world that is constantly changing faster.

Holacracy does demand a lot of those practising it and, if Ternary Software’s story is anything to go by, also produces extraordinary results.

(image by tanakawho via flickr)

A couple of nights ago, Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute gave a talk close by in North Adams, Mass. It was entitled “Winning the Oil End-Game,” as is a book he co-authored which is available free for download.

I wasn’t sure what to expect other than hearing some kind of icon of innovative environmental thinking. I am probably a dinosaur to not have heard of him before, but I was astounded by what he shared in his talk. Within the space of an hour and a half, he laid out a comprehensive plan for the US to leave behind its addiction to oil quickly and easily and, in the process, create a cleaner environment and very healthy economic growth.

What was most astounding was that this wasn’t a great plan of possibility—he had figures and proven technologies to back it all up, and in fact is already working with the Pentagon and Walmart and whoever else is willing to embrace his solutions. (Here I swallowed hard at first, more about that further down). “I don’t deal in problems, I deal in solutions,” is one of his favorite mottos, and it wasn’t until after the talk that I realized how very profound and still relatively rare this attitude is in circles concerned with the restructuring of our economy or climate change. Especially for this attitude to not just be positive words, but in perfectly documented ways of action. He presented so many of these, and so many figures, that I won’t even try to repeat them here. You can see a very condensed and quite overwhelming 19 minute clip here.

Walking out of this talk, I realized how deeply (both consciously and unconsciously) our thinking about the future of the planet is rooted in dread and fear, and the sense that there is a very big problem (with us humans anyways). All that actually evaporated listening to him. And that is quite outrageous. He seemed to embody the best of the bright green movement.

Of course what he is proposing is not going to be perfect and no doubt will create its own problems in time as development always does, but it sure looks like a brilliant, do-able and all around uplifting avenue of action. His ending quote (by Marshall McLuhan) was this: Only small secrets need protection; big secrets are protected by the public’s incredulity.

As far as the Pentagon sponsoring his book—it certainly rubbed up against my own ideas of who and what is good and who and what is (very) bad. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me that traditional values like those held in the military, combined with holistic forward thinking as done by the Rocky Mountain Institute, could be just the recipe to get things done. As Spiral Dynamics Wizard Don Beck said when he spoke about the paralysis in our postmodern, pluralistic and individualistic (green meme) culture – if green doesn’t want to change, blue (authoritarian) and yellow (integral thinking) will get together, and form a new green!

And this sense of real potential and progress didn’t at all have the effect of breathing a sigh of relief and wanting to lay back. Rather it made me ask What’s next? and left me wanting to engage much more.

(Uli’s story of communicating with the elected politicians in her state has totally inspired me to reach out to mine. Maybe a future challenge could be participating in democracy? Image by dbking via flickr. -ed)

Mass Power Shift was a climate change conference in Boston last weekend put on by a number of mainly student organizations. They did an impressive job pulling together a logistically very complex event in only four months.

The weekend was packed—with lots of Speakers (John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz-Kerry were the most famous, but the whole line up was very diverse and impressive: Miss Rhode Island, Claire Allen, State Senator Marc Pachico and on and on); about 30 workshops on different aspects of Global Warming and Activism, from networking on the web to green roofs to spiral dynamics, you name it; panel discussions; regional community break-out sessions; entertainment; a march and fair; and, as the culmination and maybe most important part—lobbying in the State House for the State Congress to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) on Monday morning.

This legislation has already passed the Senate in MA, and our goal was to urge as many of the representatives as possible in person, to pass it in this legislative session. We were aiming for a firm commitment to do whatever they could to make this happen, and there is a follow up plan in place. The GWSA demands a reduction of greenhouse emissions of 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Now that seems not even going to be enough according to the latest science, but—one step at a time.

It was all new to me, as well as most of the other 50 or so ‘lobbyists,’ but we practised our meetings with experts in advance. In the first real meeting, I was nervous never the less. We worked in small groups or pairs and I think we all felt strengthened by this. The first reperesentative we met, Antonio Cabral, had agreed to a set appointment, asked us into his meeting room and said “Okay, talk to me!” He has already proposed a rail system around Boston funded by a pollution tax on cars. Another, Anthony Verga, came from a background of fishery and appreciated the sentiment that environmentalism has so far been a white middle class affair and the move out of that bubble.

It is good to get to get to know the people in the legislature. As much as they might be just a small part of the picture, they do hold power, and to speak with them about their own concerns about this issue is both humanizing and enlightening. One very impressive, absolutely non-pretentious and deeply caring man was Senator Pachico—he spent a lot of time with the participants of the conference. First and foremost was the “human connection”! Almost everyone, aides and representatives alike, was incredibly gracious and interested and some said that this kind of event carries a lot of weight in their mind. Meeting real people with real stories makes them feel supported, too, as they are up against a multitude of interests.

It was a powerful opportunity to begin to build relationships with people we have so many ideas about.

And then we will see—let’s hope the act will get passed and MA will emerge as a leader in Climate Action as it could and should be. Mass Power shift and the organisations involved in this event are definitely not going to stop. If you want to take more action right now, you can go for it here:

http://www.350.org/4/

http://www.1sky.org

http://www.itsgettinghotinhere.org

From her home in Lenox, Massachusetts, Uli writes “These are powerful times to be alive and, as scary as much of it is, I am thrilled by what humanity can become in this shift to another society. Already integral thinking is poking its head out of the ground like spring flowers after the winter!”