not so grounded

Conscious Planning a Thousand Years Out

It didn't take long for the guy next to me on the train to ask if I was pretty liberal.  He was merely confirming the obvious, as we amicably disagreed on several current lightning rods: health care reform, sustainable energy and the growing practice of natural gas hydrofracking, which, it turns out, was also his profession.  He didn't dismiss the environmental hazards -- most notably permanently poisoning millions of gallons of water -- but instead emphasized the vast potential yield, that fracking can satisfy our energy needs for many many years to come.

But not 200 years or 300 or 1000 ...

I suddenly realized how infrequently we plan for centuries.  18 months, maybe 24, a large corporation may vision 10-20 years perhaps, or too often we plan just 'till the next election ...

But our future scope is frighteningly narrow. 

We revere history.  We are fully engaged in protecting a ruin, holding sacred a ceremony, honoring the dead, studying the past ... we explore our ancestry, re-enact past battles ... we celebrate foundings, anniversaries, ancient texts, long-standing beliefs ... We insist our children learn vast swaths of history, and our daily media stream the past and present with mind-numbing force.

I'm not suggesting that's wrong.  But why not the future in equal measure?  How come our future is relegated to video games and sci-fi or to those we sequester in ivory towers?  We're closer to 2200 than 1776, so how come our kids aren't exploring that with as much vigor?  Imagine a bunch of 2nd graders spending half their school day envisioning 2492.  Then imagine them over the course of their education honing those visions, creating new inventions & skills, defining their world 800 years from now.  What if communities routinely came together not to fight over a shrinking economic pie but to explore what commerce and exchange might look like in 2500?  What if we were consciously planning our way-out future?

Instead of justifying (and having to earn a living justifying) a practice that may momentarily keep our lights on but will, as the nice guy on the train admitted, permanently destroy our water tables, what if he could describe how his multinational was thinking energy in 500 years?

Salmon Khan - Flipping the Paradigm

 

Besides the obvious personal implications for Alden and his fellow middle schoolers, my mind is popping with all sorts of other contexts ... for my therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist colleagues:  similar self-paced, interactive video, private & blissfully personal learning for those elements of recovery, wellness, illness management, psycho-ed, family supports, healthy relationships.  And then saving precious face-to-face time for deeper applications -- wrangling troublespots, making it real with loved ones & groups, finding tailored sweetspots unique for a person or relationship.

Certainly has relevance for all my trainings.  We're so locked into an expert training or facilitating a group of participants through content and exercises, whether live or tech-fancy remote.  And sure we have eLearning, but imagine tossing those boundaries.  Offering spaces of time, with instructions like "go watch these videos and then these times we'll play together with the concepts."

People want engagement, conversation, discussion, "relationshiping" over getting expert content poured into their heads, now more than ever.  TED itself has proven the utter bliss that can be offered in 20-minutes (honestly, the limits to my attention span anyway). The Kahn Academy just propels it to so many cool new horizons.

John Lee's Art Show

John's Art Show Friday Night:  In a turn of unexpected, divinely-inspired (and less than a week) events, Renee Furman, brand new owner of Boone's Gladiola Girls (as in today is her 2nd day), is proud to be hosting the first show in umpteen years of brand new, original artwork by John Lee. 

For real.  And it's beautiful, even if I am wildly biased.

This Friday, Gladiola Girls, as part of Downtown Boone's Art Walk, 5:00 - 8:00.  Renee's hosting the party so you KNOW it will be fabulous.

Woo Hoo!!!!

Jo Ann Fleischhauer

My cousin's newest masterpiece ... this is SO cool.

Save the Seed Bank

I'm shell-shocked that we have to sign a petition to preserve the world's first & most precious seed bank, but ...

Causal Celebration

Apparently I've been really pissed off on the causal plane. 

Went to see Joanne Williams, my dear powerful energy healer, to clear up a curious fact that my financial shape stagnates despite increased earnings.  John came, too, figuring they're family finances, plus we thought a joint session would be fun.  I laid on the mattress in Joanne's Spartan living room as she pressed a sore spot on the upper left part of my chest. And Voila, she found an image of me, standing alone in the causal plane.  Really pissed.

According to Joanne, the causal plane is where manifestation begins.  Desires, intentions, ideas, passion, purpose ... they all happen elsewhere, but once coalesced, they actually leap into reality from the causal ledge.  

And evidently my leap has been stalled, and I'm none too happy about it.  I'm a Fixer, wildly enthusiastic (and pretty damn competent) at cleaning up the aftermath, helping to envision and fuel a brand new life.  But we're dallying too much, wallowing in our broken existence instead of letting it go to start fresh.  There isn't a shred of credible evidence that says oil, coal, and "natural" gas extraction and use will sustain us ad infinitem.  Yet we stay dependent, in our daily habits, our political choices, and even our anger when inevitable disasters strike.  We haven't had a "productive" war in 65 years, either (or in millenia, depending on the definition of "productive"), yet we continue to invest the majority of our financial, intellectual, cultural, and emotional capital in our war zeitgeist.  Americans have some of the worst health care outcomes and highest costs when compared to our global peers, yet we ignore simple and effective alternatives.  We enjoy less and work & dread financial peril more than almost everyone on the planet, yet collectively we don't walk away from a bankrupt system of credit, finance  "investment," employment and productivity. 

I came here to support wind farm cooperatives and wide-scale solar energy legislation.  I have been waiting eons to help build monument upon monument honoring peace, tranquility and beauty, creating eternal flames of compassion where those war statues once stood.  I was born to facilitate universal systems of universal health, uniting doctors, hospital administrators, patients, therapists, and "althernative" folks in new paradigms of well-being.  And I know with every breath that we are supposed to find joy each and every day, laughing with our kids, roaring at a soccer victory, painting a canvas, hiking a trail, curing a disease, building a home, sharing a meal ...

Instead, I was languishing on the causal plane, awaiting an unrealized reality, and furious with the delay. (We all laughed pretty hard when John suggested my angry impatience might have leaked some into this plane, too.)

So Joanne cleared away the pissed part, said Good never comes from the vibration of anger.  And reminded me that reality and action emanate from our internal selves, not necessarily from external circumstances.  I feel subtly lighter, my surprising new patience oddly blended with self-permission just to go ahead and do what I came here to do. 

Which I've decided starts with a really great party on that causal plane.