Humanize the Earth!

Book Blogging

Received The Perfect Gift in the mail the other day from Lenore. She’d suggested we group blog it (or parts of it). I started it but then got engrossed in Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million Are Changing the World. My thoughts aren’t clear enough on it to try to write about it yet, but I hope to soon.

Emptiness (it’s a good thing)

The last 24 hours have been a wild ride. Today when talking about the deep feelings that started last night and were slightly less all-consuming today, it was pointed out to me that I chose the word “aloneness” rather than lonliness. This is absolutely correct because with lonlineness, I can reach out to other people and the feeling can lessen. With aloneness, however, the number of true, deep, real connections I have does not matter one bit. This aloneness is the profound feeling that I will die all alone, inside my body. At the same time, this aloneness feels like a cleansing (thanks Ashley!) of the dependence on those external, provisional, apparent, ego-type connections. Without a real connection with myself, none of the rest of it matters. When I do feel that connection with myself, then “thus every particle dating back to that 1st star is interdependent with me.”

In any event, this process of the last 24 hours has shown me just how much I distract myself in daily life. It’s not as if this aloneness is just now showing itself for the first time. It’s always been there and I’ve always run away from it before. Now I welcome it. Thanks Universe!

Grassroots Soccer Zambia

Saw a request to help Ethan Zohn promote the Grassroots Soccer foundation in Zambia. I don’t watch TV much and have never seen Survivor, but I just did a google search for “Ethan From Survivor” and didn’t come up with a link to Grassroots Soccer on the first page. Doesn’t seem right. Also, I’m going to Zambia in October (I’ve been there quite a few times already) as a volunteer with the Humanist Movement.

Failure

Last night after receiving some meditative, healing work (part of my personal, internal work that I see as intertwined with my work in the world), I was overcome with the deepest, most profound feeling of failure and aloneness that I’ve ever felt. It is as if everything I’ve built up around me in life is simply a provisional meaning, where no matter what anyone says to me or does with me or how connected I might be outside myself, I will always be totally and utterly alone because I cannot feel that connection with myself. I felt lost.

I woke up today feeling the same, but not as acute, as if time and space had dulled the emotion, masking it, though it’s still there. Since I’m deep in the midst of these feelings, I’m not able to say how this type of “crisis” can be helpful in my life, but somewhere inside me I do have the feeling that this feeling of failure, of loneliness, of being lost, is essential for me to truly take responsibility for the life I’m building. I cannot look outside myself for my meaning as it has to come from inside.

11. The Principle of Denying Opposites

At tonight’s weekly meeting of the Humanist Movement at my house, we looked at one of the Principles of Valid Action:

“It does not matter in which faction events have placed you. What matters is for you to comprehend that you have not chosen any faction.”

This principle wasn’t so easy to get the mind around. After all, since I’m a human being, I make choices all the time about being accepting or prejudice or whatever. Plus, I’ve got good reasons for the positions I take on the issues and so what’s wrong with factions?

On the other hand, one of the participants in tonight’s meeting recognized that she and her dad think about things quite differently and that difference “makes her crazy.” This seemed to bring the principle into clarity. She and her dad have certainly made different choices, but they haven’t chosen to be in opposing factions. Perhaps she’ll find herself less crazy if she allows herself that comprehension.

What about you?

Statue of Liberty

Seen at the collective lounge Leon Khun from Rob the Rub’s website:

we all have something to give

One of the important ideas of the Humanist Movement (where we’re working on creating a world with the human being as the central value) is that each one of us has much to contribute to the rest of the world. Tom points out where others are thinking similarly and moving in that direction.

What we’re doing here is an experiment based on this simple belief. It is my hope that more and more people will discover their own power to make good things happen, and at the same time, discover what they have in common with others — namely, a shared belief in the value and potential contribution and impact of every individual; and a desire to help others discover that power.

Puja Party - Celebration of the Divine

TantraNova and Transitions Bookplace join in inviting you to this Puja Party. This event is an opportunity to come together for a joyous and fun evening to connect and learn more what TantraNova is all about. It is for singles and couples, for the novice to Tantra as well as the experienced practitioner. We will join in a Puja ritual (Puja means “celebration of the divine in you and me”), share aphrodisiac foods and enjoy music and dancing. Wear your most colorful and inspiring clothes.
September 11, 2004 7:30pm to 11:00pm Transitions Learning Center 1750 N Kingsbury Chicago, IL 60614

structure vs non-structure

Is that a real duality?

That question isn’t the point of my writing this post tonight. My point is to see if I can figure out a bit about when structure is important for an undertaking. Coming out of the Giving Conference in June, several of us started work on a commons that would be owned by it’s members (individuals and networks or institutions of various kinds) and would allow these members to collectively accomplish what they couldn’t do alone, all the while operating under their own individual names, not giving up identity to the commons.

Yesterday we had our 2nd conference call to see about moving forward and I’m so confused about what happened. What happened was (I think) that some people on the call were advocating for structure only when necessary to facilitate particular interactions between two or more members of the “giving community” which wouldn’t ever really define itself, but could losely be described as anyone at the giving conference or who joins the process now going forward at the conference website or at any of the various online (mailing lists, wikis, blogs, omidyar.net, etc) or fact to face spaces created for work of this kind.

In my mind that’s all fine and good as well, but totally misses the point of the conference call and what the convenors of that call are trying to do. What am I missing? Is there a defiition of a commons somewhere that I should’ve read before trying to figure this out? Someone, please help!

massage workshop

Took a 4 hour massage workshop today. Very cool way to learn by seeing, experiencing and also doing. Human touch is such a wonderful thing. I propose that anyone comfortable with giving or receiving just a bit more touch this week should find a willing collaborator and touch away!