Caldera Creations

Tuesday, 9 June 2009

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

The Great Turning

Joanna Macy from Chris Landry on Vimeo.

Jon Young on Mentoring from Chris Landry on Vimeo.

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Seeds of Change

"In the Heart of a Seed

Lies the Creation

of a Thousand Forests"

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"It's common to say that trees come from seeds. But how can a tiny seed create a huge tree? Seeds do not contain the resources need to grow a tree. These must come from the medium or environment within which the tree grows. But the seed does provide something that is crucial : a place where the whole of the tree starts to form. As resources such as water and nutrients are drawn in, the seed organizes the process that generates growth. In a sense, the seed is a gateway through which the future possibility of the living tree emerges."

Firmly establish your intention to live your life for the healing of the world. Be conscious of it, honour it, nurture it every day.

Be fully present in our time. Find the courage to breathe in the suffering of the world. Allow peace and healing to breathe out through you in return.

Do not meet power on its own terms. See through to its real nature - mind and heart made. Lead your response from that level.

Simplify. Clear away the dead wood in your life. Look for the heartwood and give it the first call on your time, the best of your energy.

Put down the leaden burden of saving the world alone. Join with others of like mind. Align yourself with the forces of resolution.

Hold in a single vision, in the same thought, the transformation of yourself and the transformation of the world. Live your life around that edge, always keeping it in sight.

As a bird flies on two wings, balance outer activity with inner sustenance.

Following your heart, realise your gifts. Cultivate them with diligence to offer knowledge and skill to the world.

Train in non-violence of body, speech and mind. With great patience to yourself, learn to make beautiful each action, word and thought.

In the crucible of meditation, bring forth day by day into your own heart the treasury of compassion, wisdom and courage for which the world longs.

Sit with hatred until you feel the fear beneath it.

Sit with fear until you feel the compassion beneath that.

Do not set your heart on particular results.

Enjoy positive action for its own sake and rest confident that it will bear fruit.

When you see violence, greed and narrow-mindedness in the fullness of its power, walk straight into the heart of it, remaining open to the sky and in touch with the earth.

Staying open, staying grounded, remember that you are the inheritor of the strengths of thousands of generations of life.

Staying open, staying grounded, recall that the thankful prayers of future generations are silently with you.

Staying open, staying grounded, be confident in the magic and power that arise when people come together in a great cause.

Staying open, staying grounded, know that the deep forces of Nature will emerge to the aid of those who defend the Earth.

Staying open, staying grounded, have faith that the higher forces of wisdom and compassion will manifest through our actions for the healing of the world.

When you see weapons of hate, disarm them with love.

When you see armies of greed, meet them in the spirit of sharing.

When you see fortresses of narrow-mindedness, breach them with truth.

When you find yourself enshrouded in dark clouds of dread, dispel them with fearlessness.

When forces of power seek to isolate us from each other, reach out with joy.

In it all and through it all, holding to your intention, let go into the music of life.

Dance!

THE SHAMBHALA WARRIOR MIND-TRAINING

John Wigham / Akuppa akuppa@mac.com

Sustainable Communities by Fritjof Capra

Five principles of organization that are connected to the basic principles of ecology and can be used as guidelines to build sustainable human communities.

The five principles are:

Interdependence, Recycling, Partnership, Flexibility, Diversity

Interdependence: In ecology, interdependence is the mutual dependence of all life processes on one another. The behaviour of every living member of the ecosystem depends on the behavior of many others. In human systems, the success of the whole community depends on the success of its individual members, while the success of each member depends on the success of the community as a whole. A sustainable community is the multiple relationships among its members. Nourishing the community means nourishing those relationships. This aware of principle emphasizes turning our attention from parts to the whole.

Recycling: The cyclical nature of ecological processes is an important principle of ecology. What is waste for one species is food for another. A major clash between economics and ecology derives

from the fact that nature is cyclical whereas our industrial systems are linear. Our businesses take resources, transform them into products plus waste, sell the products to consumers, who discard more waste once they have consumed the product. Sustainable communities need to achieve sustainable patterns in consumption and production to mirror the cyclical processes in nature.

Partnership: The cyclical exchange of energy and resources in an ecosystem is sustained by pervasive cooperation and partnership. Partnership - the tendency to associate, establish links, live inside one another, and cooperate - is one of the hallmarks of life. In human communities, partnership means democracy and personal empowerment, because each member of the community plays an important role. As a partnership proceeds, each partner better understands the needs of the other. Both partners learn and change and co‑evolve.

Flexibility: The flexibility of an ecosystem is a consequence of its multiple feedback loops, which tend to bring the system back into balance if there is a deviation from the norm due to changing environmental conditions. In human communities, flexibility means finding the optimal performance level rather than maximizing performance. Stress in a system is caused when one variable is pushed to the extreme (maximized). Flexibility also means finding the dynamic balance between stability and change, order and freedom, tradition and innovation.

Diversity: A diverse ecosystem is more resilient to change because it contains many different species with overlapping functions that can partially replace one another if something goes wrong in one part of the system. In human communities, ethnic and cultural diversity enable many different relationships and many different approaches to exist. In a diverse community, information and ideas flow freely through the entire network, and the diversity of interpretations and learning styles ‑ even the diversity of mistakes ‑ will enrich the entire community.

Quotes

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."

- Nelson Henderson

Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.

- Chief Seattle, 1855

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the universe," a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few people nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

-Albert Einstein

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache forand if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow. if you have been opened by life’s betrayalsor have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade itor fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own. If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to 'be careful' to 'be realistic' to 'remember the limitations of being human.'

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.If you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lakeand shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes!.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the boneand do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will standin the centre of the fire with meand not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

© Mountaindreaming, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 All rights reserved Written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.