We started The Sunny Way to ask questions about creating the future. What does it mean? What is possible? And, probably most importantly, how can it be done? We’ve covered a lot of ground in our exploration and what we’ve found—what I’ve found—is that our actions, our own growth and development, are the seeds from which larger creations spring. If we want change, we must change ourselves.

According to integral theorist Ken Wilber, one of the most powerful ways to prompt development within ourselves is meditation, and my experience over the past year has borne this out. Practicing meditation has caused me to grow in many ways, all in the direction of increasing confidence and strength.

Several people have asked me about my experiences with meditation—what it means, why I do it, and how it works—so today I’ll answer those questions to the best of my ability. I’m also writing for my own benefit—in 2009 my commitment is to meditate every single day, so all the good stuff I’m about to say about meditation is meant to remind me as much as anything else!

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Carrotmob is happening this Sunday! Consequently all of us on the team are busy getting the word out, coordinating with the Materials for the Arts (who will be accepting donations), and planning the energy audit of the hardware store by NYSERDA.

People seem to like the doing-it-ourselves ethic of Carrotmobbing, and we’re expecting a big crowd, though there’s really no way of telling how many people will show up. Half of me finds this exciting—we could end up with a line around the block!—and the other half is a little scared that there will be 10 of us standing around looking at each other. But either way Tarzian Hardware will get some funds to use to improve their facility and some guidance on how to spend it.

For my part, it’s been a great experience planning the event. I’ve learned a lot about how to work with people to get things done, how important it is to have a plan, and how willing we need to be to throw the plan out the window as things change. It’s been nice gettting to know the members of our team and some new people in my neighborhood, too, and in the community of folks who are also working on sustainabilty issues in New York.

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image from bobster1985

The other night I was at a discussion group for a challenging philosophy book, and the leaders suggested that we start out by getting clear on what the terms we were throwing around—words like “philosophy” and “materialism”—really mean, in a deep and concrete sense.

Doing this ended up providing most of the fodder for our discussion for the rest of the evening. In trying to fully define the words we were using, we ended up exploring and coming to a far more profound understanding of them.

Afterward, it occurred to me that “activism” is one of those seemingly simple terms that has a lot more meaning in it than what we usually think, and that we might gain a lot from looking at it more closely.

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Can we hang on to that new world smell?
(Image by pauladamsmith)

Has this ever happened to you?

Something exciting is calling you to action, and you hear the call. But in the gap between hearing it and doing something about it, you lose the thread. You might be unsure where to start, you might be unable to choose between several interests, or you maybe you just fall victim to inertia, and your enthusiasm wanes with each passing day.

Sooner or later, you’re back to where you started, far less excited and a little more cynical in what you think of the whole idea of “being called” anyway.

I know this has happened to me. I’ve had great experiences with gifted teachers and leaders, but what do those experiences mean if they don’t end up changing my life? If I don’t change in response to them?

The answer is: they become like pictures taken from a vacation, lovely memories wrapped in plastic in the archives.

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In this clip, Buckminster Fuller talks about his experiment in living: when he decided to put his faith in the “integrity of the regenerative universe itself” and commit himself to doing what nature seems to want to do—which is make human beings a success—without looking for personal gain, does he “seem to get on”?

His experience said yes. His commitment to doing what he saw that needed to be done helped him to “unwittingly come into knowledge that is incredibly important to the universe’s own problem-solving.” Amazing food for thought as we begin our Activism challenge. Commitment plus faith minus ego equals progress.

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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….

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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.

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image by oddsock and Magritte

In my meanderings around the blogosphere over the last several weeks, I came across a post wondering if post-Peak Oil culture may look like the Netherlands on steroids, where our every action is mediated by regulation and law, and questioning whether that is the kind of future we want.

When I was recently in San Francisco, I saw a tiny microcosm of the kind of thing this writer was describing. On each MUNI train I rode, there were at least 10 signs describing what we were compelled to do by law, including giving up our seats to elderly and disabled riders. I was a little put off by this, personally—how far must we have sunk as human beings if we have to be compelled by law to give up our seats to people who need them?

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Personal Development for Smart People

It’s great to achieve goals and and to see my abilities develop over time, but to me, growing for myself isn’t enough. I undertake the task of becoming a more powerful, truthful, and loving human being because that’s what I need to become in order to create the future I believe we can and should have.

The thing I love most about the framework for personal growth Steve Pavlina outlines in his new book, Personal Development for Smart People, is that this holistic context is built right in.

Throughout the book, he uses the metaphor of cells in a body. Each of us is a cell in the body of the universe, he says, with specialized functions to perform but also with undeniably strong connections to all the other cells. As he proceeds through the fundamental principles of personal development, he returns to this image again and again to underscore the idea that personal development is never really taken just for one’s own sake; that what benefits each cell also benefits the body as a whole; and that aligning our individual selves with the principles he describes pulls the entire body into closer alignment with them.

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A few weeks ago, Uli sent out this video by strength and wellness writer Shawn Phillips, in which he talks about how our focus on health, or the absence of problems, seems to keep us from pursuing strength, or the positive state of well-being. I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between health and strength, and sustainability and magnificence. Of course we all want to be free from disease and injury, just as we want a society that functions without causing huge environmental problems. But I agree with Shawn that pursuing abundance is far more inspiring than going after okayness.

This weekend, Uli will be riding a 100 mile bike race in Maine in order to raise money for the German-language edition of What Is Enlightenment magazine. I’ve been so impressed with and inspired by her drive to try something new and go beyond what she thought she could do. Uli’s pursuit of her goal—a 100 mile bike ride up a mountain!—is truly inspiring in terms of defining this new idea of health not being merely the absence of troubles, but bountiful good feelings of strength, well-being, and possibility.

Have a great weekend, everybody! And good luck, Uli! We look forward to hearing about your experience next week.

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image by soapbeard

Some of you may know that for the last 3 weeks, I have been laid up with a broken ankle. I have a cast from my toes almost to my knee, and I’m not to put any weight on my foot at all, so getting around is a matter of using crutches or rolling around in my office chair. Even hobbling to the corner is a major exertion and causes stress on my ankle, so my mobility is limited to my house and my back yard, for the most part.

In trying to make productive use of this extended period of time at home, I’ve noticed something—I dick around on the internet a lot. It’s a habit now: I go to my computer, check my message boards and RSS feeds, and next thing I know hours have passed without my actually having accomplished anything.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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Personal development is a topic tailor-made for the web. Alone in an office at a boring job, or in a quiet moment in an otherwise hectic day, reading practical tips on how to improve our lives is both a balm and a beacon—such stories make us believe that we can improve ourselves, or at least we can feel better by reading about how.

From increasing productivity to picking up more and hotter chicks, advice and how-tos abound, and there’s a lot of great stuff out there—I myself am particularly fond of Steve Pavlina’s experimental, experiential, sometimes esoteric take, and I’m supergeeked for his book to come out in the fall.

But for years I read these articles without my life ever dramatically changing. And, judging from forum postings and the continued popularity of PD material, I don’t think my experience is unique.

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