Cyprus Bail Out

‘If your bank deposits could be confiscated’
Money held in Bank deposits is like the stuff we store in the garage, or in those big warehouses that specialise in storing stuff you don’t immmediately need. If the storage unit burnt down we could still survive. We accumulate stuff like we accumulate money…. in case we might need it later. Our attachment to property or money is a substitute for community, it allows us to feel we can manage alone. It is a denial of our interdependence. If the financial system breaks down, as seems inevitable according to Paul Craig Roberts : http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Paul-Craig-Roberts-Transcr-by-Rob-Kall-130330-454.html
we need to turn to each other. All the signs are that we are in the middle of a system breakdown. No good trying to hold on to it or patch it up. It never really served us anyway. Young Kim is right. We need to find true value in community, in sharing. It is not going to be easy to shift from a competetive economy to a collaborative one, but we really have no choice.The hard bit is recognising that there is a real alternative, and that actually is what we have always wanted but never believed possible. ‘A civilization in which socially and environmentally friendly free association between autonomous producers and citizens becomes the norm’ – Michel Bauwens p2p-foundation.

Notes to a Collaborative Community

Community collaboration will need to involve unifying our inner selves, and visa versa. Positive social change includes the heart and compassionate union with the other, which implies a commitment to care for others and their vision of what they need.

This Easter I was present at my grand-daughter's primary school end of term assembly. The children portrayed in detail the trial of Jesus and his crucifixion, and the words they recited kept emphasising the role of the Jewish religious leaders in accusing Jesus. Then the vicar(?) joined in, got the children shouting 'crucify him', and emphasised again the role of the Jewish religious leaders. As he finished I asked to make a comment, and said we need to remember Jesus was Jewish, his mother was Jewish, and I am Jewish, and many Jewish people would not have wanted to crucify Jesus, that we have to be careful not to encourage anti-Semitism by the words we use. The headmistress and the vicar denied that was what they wanted to do. But several of the parents expressed their support for what I said. And later the assistant head said she would pursue this with the children to make sure they were clear, and it would be a good focus for discussion for the older children.

However, what I was aware of in myself was my antagonism towards the vicar. I would love to have offered what I said with love rather than antagonism. I wasn't angry, but I didn't, couldn't see him in a positive light. I disliked his face and his eyes seemed empty. I tried to imagine his dedication to god that took him to that position, and I couldn't feel it. I felt completely protected and I had no fear. But I couldn't feel him as a human being. Even now.

With the help of the NVC Social Change Telesummit   A Path with Heart   I am seeing that in order to get to that place of genuine joyful engagement, I need to be in touch with the deep grief and anger around injustice to nature and humanity, that results from realising that things are not the way I want them to be. These inner demands, judgements, can be an obstacle to getting in touch with the sadness and deep mourning, which is en route to allowing the fullness of life to flow in its vitality, bringing with it unimagined possibilities.

It is this inner divisiveness which separates us from each other. Martin Luther King -It's a good thing I don't have to like people in order to love them (paraphrase) 

Iceland Myths debunked

http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-on-in-iceland/

Yorkshire Retreat for Schumacher North

Dear All,

Yesterday I went to look at the venue for our weekend away June 14/15/16 – Currer Laithe. http://www.currerlaithe.co.uk/ 
 I was greeted by Jean (age 83) who runs the farm and holiday cottages with her sister (age 74). Neither of them is much above 5ft. The property was derelict when they moved in 50 years ago. Most of the renovation they did themselves, parquet floor, mullioned windows, etc. as well as providing breakfast and an evening meal for 20 guests for over 27 years, while running the farm, and rebuilding stone walls to bring it up to the standard required by the National Trust, so that the property could be covenanted. (Neither married, so there are no heirs, and they were anxious that what they started should be continued after their demise) Jean who was a local headmistress before she took over the farm full time when her dad died, has also found time to write 5 books charting the progress, and describing the sort of life they led, as well as their annual holidays taking the girl guides to the Hebrides. As I left she presented me with the first book of the series – 'We'll see the Cuckoo', which is full of the joy they both emanated at being given the opportunity to devote their lives to this work.

Both sisters were highly critical of a government that does not acknowledge the value of farmers, and the work they do to protect our heritage. They were interested in the theme of our weekend. They bemoaned the loss of birds since their childhood, the inactivity of children who spend their time in front of a screen, and even the lack of spiders in the house. We agreed that to turn this trend around is not going to be easy. Nevertheless there was no thought of giving up. This attitude, I think, provides a good backdrop for our discussions. ( Unfortunately they will be away that weekend in their beloved Hebrides)

The house itself has a 'homespun' feel. It is a working farm, so at the moment the smells and mud of the cattle tend to predominate. Calves are reared and they keep a few donkeys and goats. By June they will be out in the fields. This is not the open country of the Dales. The built up areas of Keighley are clearly seen across the valley. But the house is surrounded by the farm's 200 acres, and inside the house feels quiet and remote.

We are being offered an extended weekend, from Friday afternoon through to Monday morning, so we will have 2 full days. (Jean said “People don't seem to want to leave on Sunday”) Most rooms are twin, with bathrooms and toilets close to each room. It would be helpful if you would let me know if there is someone you would prefer to share with. Also if there are any special dietary requirements.

If you can offer to cook a meal or a dessert, either beforehand, or on-site, that would be splendid. (We can provide money for ingredients) Since there will be 8 meals including breakfasts, you should reckon to be washing up or helping to prepare a meal at least once during our stay. (Nearer the time a rota may be helpful).

In general this is a do-it yourself retreat, so please feel free to volunteer or make suggestions to add anything you would like to see. There are 2 sitting rooms, allowing for a variety of activities. An upright piano in one, suggests a musical evening so other musical instruments will be welcome.

Cost : Between £50 - £80

A £10 deposit will secure your place. Maximum of 16 places.

If you can afford to pay the higher amount it will allow others with less funds to be included.

I look forward to communing with you all.

The Twelve Principles of Spiritual Leadership

Adapted from a presentation at Schumacher College, Totnes, England July 1997 by Will Keepin of the Satyana Institute, Boulder Colorado 

 

In the course of working with social change advocates and ecological activists, we have developed a provisional set of "principles of spiritual leadership." These are neither definitive nor authoritative, but rather the beginning of a collective inquiry into how we can apply spiritual teachings in social change work. These principles are summarised below as a means for continuing the dialogue. Feedback and comments are welcome.

First: The first principle is that the motivation underlying our activism for social change must be transformed from anger and despair to compassion and love. This is a major challenge for the environmental movement, for example. It is not to deny the legitimacy of noble anger or outrage at injustice of any kind. Rather, we seek to work for love, rather than against evil. We need to adopt compassion and love as our foundational intention, and do whatever inner work is required to implement this intention. Even if our outward actions remain the same, there is a major difference in results if our underlying intention supports love rather than defeating evil. The Dalai Lama says, "A positive future can never emerge from the mind of anger and despair."

Second: The second principle is a classical spiritual tenet, though challenging to practice. It is the principle of non-attachment to outcome. To the extent that we are attached to the results of our work, we rise and fall with our success and failures, which is a path to burnout. Failures are inevitable, and successes are not the deepest purpose of our work. This requires a deepening of faith in the intrinsic value of our work-beyond the concrete results. To the extent that our actions are rooted in pure intention, they have a reverberation far beyond the concrete results of the actions themselves. As Gandhi emphasized, "The victory is in the doing," not the outcome. In our workshops, we have had several environmental leaders react strongly to this principle. As one lawyer put it, "How can I possibly go into court and not be attached to the outcome? You bet I care who wins and who loses! If I am not attached to the outcome, I'll just get bulldozed!" His words underscore the poignant challenge of implementing these principles in practice. Yet he keeps coming back to our retreats, and he actively seeks ways to love his adversaries. He acknowledged that, although it is difficult to love some of his adversaries, one way he can do it is to love them for creating the opportunity for him to become a strong voice for truth and protection of the natural environment.

Third: The third principle is that your integrity is your protection. The idea here is that if your work has integrity that will tend to protect you from negative circumstances. For example, there are practices for making yourself invisible to the negative energy that comes toward you in adversarial situations. It's a kind of psychic aikido, where you internally step out of the way of negative energy, and you make yourself energetically transparent so it passes right through you.But this only works if your work is rooted in integrity.

Fourth: The fourth principle is related to the third: the need for unified integrity in both means and ends. Integrity in means cultivates integrity in the fruit of one's work; you cannot achieve a noble goal using ignoble means. Some participants in our workshops engage regularly in political debates, testimony, and hearings. We have them experimenting with consciousness techniques for transmuting challenging energy into compassion and love-right there in the hearing room. Early indications are that this is helpful in defusing charged psychological situations, and reducing tension in heated debates.

Fifth: The fifth principle is don't demonize your adversaries. People respond to arrogance with their own arrogance, which leads to polarization. The ideal is to constantly entertain alternative points of view so that you move from arrogance to inquiry, and you then have no need to demonize your opponents. This is hard to do, as we often feel very certain about what we think we know, and the injustices we see. As John Stuart Mill said, "In all forms of human debate, both parties tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny." Going into an adversarial situation, we can be aware of the correctness of what we are affirming, but there is usually a kernel of truth-however small-in what is being affirmed by our opponent. We need to be especially mindful about what we deny, because this is often where our blind spots will be.

Sixth: The sixth principle is to love thy enemy. Or if you can't do that, at least have compassion for them. This means moving from an
"us-them" consciousness to a "we" consciousness. It means recognizing that I am the logger: when I write these principles of spiritual activism and publish them in this newsletter, I give the command to the logger to fell the trees, to produce the pulp, to produce this paper so that I can publish these spiritual principles about how best to save the trees. It is seeing the full circle of our interconnected complicity, and discovering all the problems of humanity in our own hearts and our own lives. We are not exempt and we are not different. The "them" that we speak of is also us. The practice of loving our adversaries is obviously challenging in situations with people whose views and methodologies are radically opposed to ours, but that is where the real growth occurs.

Seventh: The seventh and eighth principles are a bit contradictory. The seventh is that your work is for the world rather than for you. We serve on behalf of others and not for our own satisfaction or benefit. We're sowing seeds for a cherished vision to become a future reality, and our fulfillment comes from the privilege of being able to do this work. This is the traditional understanding of selfless service.

Eighth: But then the eighth principle is that selfless service is a myth. Because in truly serving others, we are also served. In giving we receive. This is important to recognize as well, so we don't fall into the trap of pretentious service to others' needs and develop a false sense of selflessness or martyrdom.

Ninth: The ninth principle is: do not insulate yourself from the pain of the world. We must allow our hearts to be broken-broken open-by the pain of the world. As that happens, as we let that pain in, we become the vehicles for transformation. If we block the pain, we are actually preventing our own participation in the world's attempt to heal itself. As we allow our hearts to break open, the pain that comes is the medicine by which the Earth heals itself, and we become the agents of that healing. This is a vital principle that is quite alien to our usual Western ways of thinking.

Tenth: The tenth principle is: what you attend to, you become. If you constantly attend to battles, you become embattled. On the other hand, if you constantly give love, you become loving. We must choose wisely what we attend to, because it shapes and defines us deeply.

Eleventh: The eleventh principle is to rely on faith. This is not some Pollyannaish naiveté, as many "realists" would interpret it. Rather it entails cultivating a deep trust in the unknown, recognizing the presence of "higher" or "divine" forces at work that we can trust completely without knowing their precise agendas or workings. It means invoking something beyond the traditional scientific worldview. It implies that there are invisible forces that we can draw upon and engage, firstly by knowing they are there; secondly, by asking or yearning for them to support us-or more precisely, asking them to allow us to serve on their behalf. Faith is understood not as blind adherence to any set of beliefs, but as a knowing from experience and intuition about intrinsic universal principles beyond our direct observation, and relying upon these principles, whatever they are, to support us in creating what we aspire to create. This actually brings great relief when we realize it really isn't up to us to figure out all the steps to manifest our unfolding vision, because we are participants in a larger cosmic will. Nevertheless, it is our job to discover what our unique gift is- our unique role-and for each person to give their gift as skillfully and generously as possible, while trusting that the rest will all work itself out.

Twelfth: Finally, the twelfth principle is that love creates the form. As Stephen Levine says, "The heart crosses the abyss that the mind creates." It is the mind that gives rise to the apparent fragmentation of the world, while the heart can operate at depths unknown to the mind. So, if we begin imagining with our hearts, and work from a place of yearning as well as thinking, then we develop an unprecedented effectiveness that is beyond our normal ways of understanding because it doesn't have to do with thinking. When we bring the fullness of our humanity to our leadership, we can be far more effective in creating the future we want.

In closing, as we enter the third millennium, we are urgently called to action in two distinct capacities: to serve as hospice workers to a dying culture, and to serve as midwives to an emerging culture. These two tasks are required simultaneously; they call upon us to move through the world with an open heart-meaning we are present for the grief and the pain-as we experiment with new visions and forms for the future. Both are needed. The key is to root our actions in both intelligence and compassion-a balance of head and heart that combines the finest human qualities in our leadership for cultural transformation.

How do we bring about Social Change?

Direct Action Campaigns focus on achieving a particular goal. When that is achieved they have 'won'.  Other groups focus on self development as the key - 'Be the change you want to see in the world'. While one focusses on lack, and the feelings of scarcity and fear that arise from that, the other focusses on abundance, and the feelings of generosity and love that arise from that.

These two are not opposed to each other, they can be complimentary, and co-exist in the same group or individual, but groups and individuals tend to emphasise one to the exclusion of the other. Holding both together requires a consciousness which does not refrain from taking sides, but recognises that every side is only a partial expression of the truth. For example, it is easy to see that 'scarcity' is a manufactured condition without which capitalism could not function. Zaman  But it is also a reality with which people have to contend, albeit relative to the social standards within the society where they are living. Blaming the system rather than individual greed for society's ills, may be a way of exonerating individuals, as pressured to act in a certain way within a certain context; whereas acknowledging individuals as having choice for which they are always responsible, sees them as creators of the system, not just cogs in a wheel. Both are true in a limited way.

These different interpretations will engender different approaches to trying to bring about social change. When the paradox of these two is held, and we come into the NOW, a place where conceptual reality loses its grasp, we can tune in to a harmony with what is which releases its dynamic potential for change in line with its evolutionary growth. Trusting this potential does not imply non-action, but a deep acceptance of what is, which sees the change already implicit in what exists. This change is not inevitable. It relies on our efforts as the agents of that evolutionary potential to bring it about.

The realm of consciousness is the place where these potentialities meet with the innovative technologies and the personal aspirations which have the power to motivate change. In that realm differences of opinion and identifications which divide people and groups and prevent them from taking united action, can be seen as the paradox of different perspectives which have limited truth. Any description in words will inevitably be limited and partial since reality resides in the experience which cannot be fully transcribed. Words are like a signpost directing towards the experience. Truth itself exists in the moment of reality we call Now, which requires letting go of the concepts with which we understand and encapsulate reality. The experience of that moment brings with it a feeling of well-being which overrides any circumstantial pain, and contributes to healing. The Hindi saying about enlightenment 'Truth is the Consciousness of Bliss' expresses this. This may take years of practice and a lifetime of devotion, or can happen as a sudden awakening.

I believe that the role of this other dimension (spiritual?) in bringing about social change needs to be fully recognised in order to realise the power of r)evolutionary change as our power. Praying to god for help is akin to making demands from government. In both we are victims of powers that are beyond us. In the experience of that consciousness we can find the freedom to co-create a human society in harmony with the natural world, with its ability to provide abundance for all.

AFRICA a story of cooperation

David Attenborough's beautiful recent series on Africa is marred by constantly referring to the competition between species. The same situation could equally be described in terms of cooperation. Indeed the whole environment is a study of how species not just co-exist but work together to make a thriving community. His constant reference to violence and struggle is countered by huge flocks of birds and animals that manage their needs without decimating their surroundings. But what David constantly emphasises is the fights between males for females, and between species for space and food, a reflection of his orientation towards an interpretation of widespread agression in the natural world. He presents this interpretation as fact which is misleading for someone who is seen as an authority. What a pity he cannot express the incredible communal togetherness of these interdependent societies.

In Tough Times, It's in Our Nature to Cooperate

Peter Kropotkin was a zoologist, geographer, and activist in pre-revolutionary Russia.  When he was posted to remote government jobs in Siberia and Manchuria, he spent three years observing and writing about human and animal communities. Cooperation, he found, was more important for survival than competition, especially under harsh conditions. Kropotkin watched pelicans paddle in a narrowing circle to herd fish, chamois adopt orphaned young, and captive Molucca crabs spend hours trying to right a flipped comrade.  “Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle,” he wrote in his 1902 book, Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution.