The presidential primaries are on in the U.S. and are making news. This has to be the longest presidential election cycle ever. I have a preference for who I’d like to see win the nominations, and I’m not going to tell you who.

What I’m going to do instead is ask a question.   Read more...

I had a very good experience this weekend. I went to a spiritual event where people drink Santo Daime and enjoy the inner journey together. Santo Daime is, as far as I know, a collective name for several plants/teas that have similar effects. They are all aimed at opening you up, letting your soul/cells talk to you and letting you know what you need to proceed in life. It isn’t meant as a party drug at all and is known not to work well in crowded and loud environments like raves.   Read more...

I believe that all the world’s religions can get behind peace on earth. It’s just that their scripture doesn’t always address it directly. Consider this quote from Confucius.

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.   Read more...

The older I become, the more amazed I am by life’s most natural processes. I think of my body, for example, the awesome vessel my soul inhabits, and am always speechless before its magnificent operations.

Take clotting, for example. It is humbling to think of that life-saving, highly structured, patterned energy that rushes to the fore, bringing a perfect ordering principle in the midst of chaos and disarray. That dark red center of coagulation is so hope filled. It is a perfect coming together of energy to promote the health and well being of the organism. And it carries dimensions of significance far beyond the healing of a wound. To me a clot is one of the body’s mandalas, or as Tagore might say, “a vast, radiant, petalled rose”. (1)   Read more...

I heard a nice story a few days back about a doctor turned entrepreneur in the North East of Brazil. This region is known for coconuts, great beaches, relaxed/lazy people and a lot of poverty. The doctor bought a small handicraft company with a social focus. The people who made the handicraft did so at home and got a decent salary for a day of work. They were making R$ 50,- a day, which is R$ 1000,- a month (500 USD). Minimum wage is R$ 400,- , which is by any standard a shitty salary. So the money that the women at this company were making was not so bad, but no luxury either. If they would be the only breadwinners in their households they would need to turn around every cent to get kids to school and food on the table. It’s not a salary that sustains a “western” lifestyle.   Read more...

Conscious creating has reached the mainstream. Use those two words in any group and it’s likely that there will be at the least recognition. I’ve been working with conscious creating for more than half my life. In that time, I’ve arrived at the same bottomline over and over again.

The subconscious mind.   Read more...

"I’M IN!!!" was the first thing Leonie said, when I told her about my idea about a music event for deaf people. Making the impossible possible was her drive, just as mine.

I met her at a party in the Summer of 2002, she was then 28 years old. We started creating this event and with vibrating floors, aroma’s, video projections, dancers, light effect, taste sensations and sign interpreters it was done! People came from everywhere around the world and they wanted more!   Read more...

When you hear “South Africa” what comes to mind?

Before coming here, my first thought would have been “Apartheid”. Now I think of other things—animals, gospel music, teenage pregnancy, the ANC, pap (maize meal porridge), Generations, public taxis...

I still think of Apartheid, but in a more tangible way. I think about the lack of employment—how strangers in taxis will ask me if I know someone who’s hiring. I think about the high rate of alcohol consumption—how I refrain from going to the local shop on weekends because of the drunken men I’ll encounter. And I think about the progress that’s being made despite the imbalance that still exists between white and black South Africans in many parts of the country. Recently I attended a wedding in the village where the bride’s white colleagues were also in attendance, including her boss and his wife, who had adopted a black child. Such situations are so rare and somehow simultaneously so natural that they challenge all the apprehension I have about this country and its future.   Read more...

Mysticism is an approach to life that fascinates, captivates many a spiritually focused soul. Unneeded in religions where body, mind and spirit were never painfully extricated from one another, mysticism serves as a unifying agent where the material and divine have seemingly parted ways. Among many other avenues, it is found in the complexity and ordering principles of the Jewish Kabala, the reverent graciousness of Christian mystics, and the exuberant delight of Islam’s Sufi Whirling Dervishes.

The total oneness of all existence as divine has been sung and celebrated by awakened beings for eons. Over the centuries and throughout the world the pattern of awakening to this reality remains surprisingly similar. We start out in ignorance, mystics claim. We are blind to the shining jewel of divinity within us. We are immersed in ignorance and treat others and ourselves accordingly. But with time, sometimes gradually, sometimes dramatically, the veil is lifted and we are flooded with the light of this jewel of pure awareness.   Read more...

I am currently preparing for an education programme on education for sustainable development that will start in 2 weeks.

I just finished reading the first chapter of a book series on spreading sustainability awareness in Germany. It was quite often quoted in the sustainability scene in Germany in 2007: http://www.forum-fuer-verantwortung.de/nachhaltigkeit_b_e.htm   Read more...

Tama J. Kieves, writing in the September 2007 Science of Mind magazine, completes her quote, “Peace is a better friend than excitement.”

As a younger person than I currently am, I lived for excitement. Life was either absolutely stupendous or absolutely the pits. In a way, I lived in fear of the grays. It was black or white for me all the way. The seasoning of time has grown different values in me, and I’m grateful for it.   Read more...

As I sorted my papers for my 2007 tax declaration, yesterday, I thought about writing this article to review the last year by looking at those little things each month that changed my world in 2007:

January
I read the bestseller “We call it work” (http://wirnennenesarbeit.de) about the digital Bohème in Berlin where I see a lot of similarities with the work style that I adapted after leaving Greenpeace International in October 2006. The authors organize a festival in Berlin later on in the summer that runs from 9pm to 5am (http://9to5.wirnennenesarbeit.de/?page_id=20).   Read more...

Joyce Lemke, a Positive Change Core member and a long time international consultant in Appreciative Inquiry sent out the following email announcement and a request:

"Sally Smith, a pioneer in strengths based learning for children, died early this month. Founder of the Lab School in Washington D.C. in 1967, Sally Smith developed curriculum which has had uncommon success with those who learn differently. Smith gave respect, hope and the tools to succeed to children beginning over 40 years ago. Smith asserted that " A child's failure to learn means that the teaching staff has not yet found a way to help him. It is up to the adults to seek out the routes by which each child learns, to discover his strengths and interests and to experiment until effective techniques are found."

Sally Smith created a learning environment that used the arts to shape the school, and believed that the arts could and should be used to teach all manner of things. I remember when I was doing my graduate thesis in the early 70's, looking for positive approaches to teaching and learning, how strikingly different Smith's pioneering approach seemed from other models at the time.

  Read more...

Mostly my venues are grocery stores. My target audiences are pre-verbal. I have more fun than they do. I am the world’s greatest peek-a-boo player.

It started almost twenty years ago when my own bundle of preverbal love decided to leave earth for greener pastures. To heal my broken mother heart, I began to connect with children sitting in grocery carts. I’d pick up whatever box or can was nearest and peek around it. They almost always respond, we have a little fun, and I go on my merry way.