Year of Living the Community: Week 26

WHERE TO FROM HERE

blooming tumeric in the CCP HQ rooftop garden...we grow soil and occasionally harvest vegetables

It's goal setting time as we hit the 6 month mark in the experiment in Ecozoic Living: learning to be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.

Learning
The primary learning goal is to complete and publish the Certificate Course in Ecozoic Living. Draft scripts for sections one and two are complete; three is half-way done (the curriculum will follow the same structure as this post). 

Learning to be present
Reinstating the arts salons that the team has been known for in the past: celebrating present moment creativity and mindfulness. 

Learning to be present to the planet
Jana is enrolled in a forest therapy guide course in the second half of the year.  "The practice follows the general principle that it is beneficial to spend time bathing in the atmosphere of the forest." The hope is for Jana to become certified as a guide in order to share this practice of being present to the planet with the Community of the Cosmic Person. 

Learning to be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner
We plan to go for a second round of Adelaide City Council Green City Grants to add more green to the CCP HQ, and we're on the lookout for Earth advocacy opportunities. 

In addition to these specific developments, the team will continue to facilitate the website, Facebook page and conversation group, and the twitter feed. The intention is to inspire, connect, and equip others for Ecozoic Living. It's our effort to be the change we wish to see. 

 

Year of Living the Cosmic Community: Week 25

NEARING THE 6 MONTH MARK

from little things ... little things grow bravely

What can it possibly mean for one person, or even 3 people, to experiment with Ecozoic Living? What can it mean for the people involved; what can it mean for the planet? 

Next week marks the 6-month anniversary of the Year of Living the Community of the Cosmic Person in which shared householders Paul, Mandy, and Jana have given focus and attention to 'learning to be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner'. We'll think ahead to the next six months in the anniversary post, but for now a look back. 

Learning
The first movement of Ecozoic Living is learning. In these first six months, here is some of the learning we've been doing.

  • The CCP experiment community have been learning the Universe Story. We've watched Journey of the Universe a couple of times (once thanks to Cosmic Person John B). We've been reading, too:  The Universe is a Green Dragon, Journey of the Universe, The Universe Story, and Big History. It's been an immersion into the story of the unfolding universe as our story, as cosmic creation story, as mythic well of spiritual energy for fresh understanding of the role of the human species on the planet. 
     
  • Jana has completed and shared lots of learning from three of four courses in the specialisation 'Journey of the Universe: A Story for our Times' created and presented by Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grimm, and Brian Swimme, under the auspices of Yale University on Coursera. These courses offer various reflections on the universe story from the sciences and the humanities and provide opportunities for learners to discuss the meaning and potential of the story as a source of personal and communal empowerment in the face of the global environmental crisis. 

Learning to be Present
The second movement in Ecozoic Living is learning to be present. It's about exploring the human capacity for self-conscious awareness and seeking to put it to 'good use'. The team has been clarifying in conversation and writing what the principles and practices of developing conscious self-awareness means to each member and how we would like to support others in this discipline. We glean input regularly from sites like the Garrison Institute, Brainpickings, and the Foundation for a Mindful Society. 

Learning to be Present to the Planet
This third movement focuses human consciousness onto the planet. For the CCP experiment community, it's a matter of celebration and lament. Our commitment is to be present to the planet daily: Mandy's walks in the Adelaide Hills; all of us watching David Attenborough's Planet Earth II together; Paul going to the event Dangerous Song - Blue in the city centre last night; Jana finding a new spot of natural beauty every day for the Cosmic Quote video. It's riding our bikes to work, it's leaving the office to sit in the sun, it's sitting on the roof in silence under the stars. It's not turning away from tweets and articles that tell the stories of coral bleaching, pipeline access, coal mine expansions, scientists having to stockpile and secure critical data. The world is beautiful; aspects of the human presence in it are heartbreaking. We are learning to be present to these evocations and to let them shape and guide us.

Learning to be Present to the Planet in a Mutually Beneficial Manner
This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of Ecozoic Living: how to actually participate in the flourishing of life on Earth. The CCP experiment community is trying to be bi-focal about it: reflecting on our own actions and doing what we can to inspire, connect, and equip others for Ecozoic Living. How we live at CCP HQ, how we get ourselves around, our consumer choices in terms of food, entertainment, clothing ... it's all reflected upon and discussed through the lens of 'mutually beneficial manner.' We've highlighted some of our activities on these blogs, from clearing lantana to begin restoring a rain forest property, to installing a vertical garden that we'll share with the neighbourhood, to steeping ourselves in cultural and cosmic diversity. 

Obviously, this website, the resources available on it, and the Facebook Page and Conversation Group related to it are some of the initiatives we've taken up for supporting others in Ecozoic Living. In addition, each of us sees our work (Mandy as university professor; Paul as ordained minister; Jana as researcher in the philosophy of law) as the ways and means to support others in the Great Work.

Back to those initial questions -
What does it mean for us to learn to be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner?
It's the pleasure of a sense of purpose and participation in something intimately connected to self whilst also being infinitely beyond self.
What does it mean for the planet for 3 people to seek to embody the Ecozoic Era? 
Nothing in the grand scheme. Scale is a measure we understand, and by this measure our little experiment does not even register. But scale is not the only measure. What if meaning itself is the measure? 

Year of Living the Community: Week 24

Know Your Place

This week a video was making the SM rounds about new mapping of the universe with greater clarity about how superclusters of galaxies relate to one another. The Milky Way is located in a supercluster known as Laniakea ('immense heaven' in Hawaiian). 

“Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world. ”
— Emerson, 'Nature'

These supercluster structures are incredibly beautiful and in this new mapping they bear a striking resemblance to nerve clusters in the human body. At one point in the video, two superclusters next to each other look like human lungs. This 'cosmic mirroring' deepens the sense of place and belonging that arises from knowing the universe story.

Far from being 'just' a speck, each of us carries the structure and process of the universe in our being. 

Year of Living the Community: Week 23

DIVERSITY: A NECESSARY CONDITION

It’s a busy time in Adelaide, home of CCP HQ. March is festival season – the Adelaide Festival of the Arts complete with Fringe, WOMAdelaide music festival, Writers Week, and a car race…

The mixtures of people strolling the pedestrian mall in the CBD is more interesting than usual and more ‘clumped’ – you can tell which clusters of people are going to what events based on what they wear and carry and talk about and have on their heads (ball caps for the racers and boaters for the readers).

Last night in the midst of all this was the opening at the South Australian Museum of Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia. This exhibit about the iconic instrument that ‘speaks of the landscapes and cultures of Australia and its First People’ opened with a celebration featuring dancers from the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land in Northern Australia. Their dances are intense and abrupt and tell very specific stories of places and all that live within them. Watching these dancers embody their singular stories – a tiny island of aboriginal people performing in the midst of a sea of mostly non-aboriginal people – the world expands and contracts simultaneously: expands to its diverse and varied gloriousness and contracts to a relentless drive towards global monoculturalism that seems to have the world in its grip.

“Diversity is no longer something that we tolerate. It is something that we esteem as a necessary condition for a liveable universe.”
— Thomas Berry

Diversity is one of the creative forces of life on Earth. Choosing diversity is a cosmic commitment – empowering for people whose cultures are in danger of being subsumed or overwhelmed by dominant cultures and liberating for people of dominant cultures as they let go of the centrality of their own position.

Year of Living the Community: Week 22

YOU CAN'T ARREST A MOVEMENT

 
“Standing Rock Sioux member Chase Iron Eyes said closing the camp would not lessen the protesters’ determination. “You can’t arrest a movement. You can’t arrest a spiritual revolution,” he told reporters.”
— http://www.dw.com/en/standing-rock-nodapl-protest-camp-cleared-in-north-dakota/a-37688396

To be in solidarity with the Earth. To live as if Earth matters. This is Ecozoic Living. 

In the CCP experiment this week, things weren't so dramatic as in North Dakota but the Earth solidarity was equally undeterred. Solidarity with the Earth and learning to be present to the planet in a mutually enhancing way is required at every level and layer of human expression. In the story of 14.7 billion years of evolution, it's as if every second counts. In the story of billions of galaxies, each comprised of billions of stars and planets, it's as if every bit counts. 

Here's how we aimed to make our bit count this week: 

  • Jana was encouraged by a brief email exchange with Mary Evelyn Tucker about this project, which resulted in a New and Improved "People" page of this website. It's pretty great to be able to reach out to one of the thought leaders of the Great Work of our time and get a quick and encouraging reply. We are trying to create an access point to thinking that transforms our relationship with the planet and our participation in the flourishing of the whole community of life on Earth. 
     

  • The vertical garden at CCP HQ continues to develop, with this week seeing the addition of planters underneath the system to catch water run-off and increase food production. A neighbour saw us at the Adelaide Central Market, where she was buying tomatoes to go with basil picked from our community offered garden. It isn't world-changing or ground-breaking; it's just good. Another bruschetta made with low food miles...
     

  • The team watched part 2 of Planet Earth II; this episode was on mountains. It's possible that Sir David Attenborough has done more than any other person alive today to evoke wonder and awe at the diversity of life on this planet. Watching snow leopards in the Himalayasnever filmed before, filming themselves basically with remote motion-triggered cameras, has made us all look at the musk lorikeets taking a bath in the gutter of a city street with that much more wonder. We are only one part of this world...

 

 

 

Year of Living the Community: Week 21

Place as Storyteller

this place is a CCP storyteller: where the experiment team shares life and work (as often as we can) with others in a property collective 

Dr. Romaine Moreton: professor, filmmaker, poet, artist

Last night in Adelaide, Romaine Moreton was talking at a conference about her transmedia production "One Billion Beats." The name is a reference to the number of heartbeats the 100,000 year history of human community on the Australian continent represents. The project tells the story of the portrayal of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in film, and how the artist and her collaborative team understand these portrayals to have shaped not only non-aboriginal culture's perception of aboriginal people in Australia, but also the self-perception of aboriginal people. It's a stunning work that presents challenging metaphors about the effects of colonisation, like the butcher shop. Here's an article from the SMH about the inaugural run of the show; Moreton said last night that she hopes it will tour in 2018.   

At one point in the Q&A, Moreton said, "The place becomes the storyteller." And later, "You belong to the story." 

What places tell your story? 

To which stories do you belong? 

Romaine Moreton in a scene from "One Billion Beats" photograph by Heidrun Lohr

Year of Living the Community: Week 20

Putting in Hard Yards for Mutual Benefit

Three of the Core Team for CCP are in rural mid-north coastal New South Wales this week working on a shared property owned with friends. The approximately 50 acres used to be an organic banana farm. It slopes up a not-too-narrow, not-too-wide valley about 5 kms from the little town of Bowraville. The old packing shed was converted to a rough-and-ready house a couple of decades ago, which acts as home base for the CCP crew and friends. 

Paul clearing lantana in the gully 

There are always lots of land-based jobs to be done on a working bee visit like this. This trip's focus has been around the old corrugated iron shed up in the nook end of the valley, above the dam. Three years ago, CCP convener Jana took a real shine to this old shed and spent a couple of weeks on the original working bee cleaning it out. Back then it was filled to the rafters with rotten junk of every description, all on top of a floor covered in 6-12 inches of hard-packed dirt from a mudslide some time before. Shoveling that earth pack out was hard yakker as is said in these parts. Overall, it was back-breaking work and there was no time to clear out the area behind the shed, also full of old furniture, food wrappers, children's toys, and bottles...tons of bottles...

In the intervening time since the original working bee, one of the collective fulfilled his life's dream of purchasing a Bobcat. On this trip we were able to clear out all the trash, load it onto his other amazing toy, a tipper truck, and dispose of it responsibly at the local tip. Although there is no actual "away" when it comes to trash, it is away from here and that is enabling us to work on regeneration of this land.

the Bobcat and tipper truck combo - works a treat! 

Except for what the Bobcat can clear in great fell swoops, the sheer scale and scope of the lantana work is overwhelming. It is everywhere and it clings to earth and trees with an unrivalled fierceness.

The team soon realised that it is best approached as a project of Rain Forest Tree Liberation. One tree at a time. Bush cutters, whipper snippers, and secateurs are the tools of the Tree Liberation trade.

In the middle of a heat wave, it's slow going but satisfying work. Once the pile of choking vines is transferred by a mighty tug of war out of the tree and onto the ground (to be mulched with the slashing attachment of the Bobcat), and the base of the vine painted with very localised herbicide, it's possible to feel a real sense of accomplishment and a sense of learning to be present to the planet - this little patch of it at least - in a mutually beneficial manner. Is this the hard-won heart of Ecozoic Living?

Cosmic member of the Tree Liberation Front, Jana discovers a sapling under the lantana

So now the land stands bare again, but only for as long as it takes to develop and implement a variety of regeneration plans. Trees, native grasses, permaculture food gardens, and an Ecozoic dwelling are all more possible now that the area is ready to be engaged with an eye towards mutual enhancement of land and the people who belong to it. 

Mandy and Gai removing old fence droppers

clearing the way for Ecozoic Living 

Year of Living the Community: Week 19

Anyway and Despite

As the CCP Experiment crew put finishing touches on the green wall this week, neighbours stopped by to say nice things about it. Instant community! When we said that the herbs were for everyone, feel free to pick as/when you need something, the woman from across the street said, "You've got to try my tomatoes!" and went and picked a bag for us. 

There was another woman from down the street a little ways who could only say, "You know some of those plants will die." 

Well, yes. We do know that. But we've planted them anyway and despite that very real possibility. Hopefully one day she'll pop round for a wee bit of basil...

What LTBP (learning to be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner) undertaking did you do anyway and despite this week? It's all we've got, all we've ever had, and it is probably just enough. 

BTW - some very engaging conversations are springing up on the new Facebook Group page. Have a look and join in. 

thanks, Adelaide City Council, for the green grant that's helped make this possible at CCP HQ

Year of Living the Community: Week 18

Spiral Expansion

installing the green wall frame at CCP HQ

installing the green wall frame at CCP HQ

This week has been about expanding outwards from the centre circle to take the new form of a spiral. Expanding outwards with the beginnings of the Green Wall at CCP HQ, sponsored in part by a Green Grant from the Adelaide City Council. Expanding outwards from communication to conversation and community. We are thinking about how to convene some face-to-face community here in Adelaide as well as more conversational community online - something like a FB group, for example, where people can be more interactive. 

Jana's been involved in an interesting online community: this week was the start of the symposium Educating in the Ecozoic.

It's like a conference: you choose which presentations you want to "attend", read the materials presented, and then participate in the conversation prompted by the presenter. Jana especially enjoyed a presentation called "Dancing with Systems" by Kathryn Ross focused on the work of Donella Meadows. The main text is a PDF called The Dance. Donella Meadows has been part of the pantheon of the CCP since being introduced to her work two years ago (thanks, John!)

What's the dance of spiral expansion for CCP at this juncture? Here are the steps...

1. Get the beat.
2. Listen to the wisdom of the system.
3. Expose your mental models to the open air.
4. Stay humble. Stay a learner.
5. Honor and protect information.
6. Locate responsibility in the system.
7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
8. Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable. 9. Go for the good of the whole.
10. Expand time horizons.
11. Expand thought horizons.
12. Expand the boundary of caring.
13. Celebrate complexity.
14. Hold fast to the goal of goodness. 

Year of Living the Community: Week 17

Is it Mourning or Morning?

This post's title is borrowed from a very thoughtful email editorial by Herman Greene at the Center for Ecozoic Studies on the occasion of the inauguration. 

"Ecozoans who consider themselves progressives have a special responsibility. No political party had a plan for how to live within planetary boundaries." Another way to put the question of Ecozoic Living: how to live within planetary boundaries.

Here is Greene's CES Musings on the topic as we enter together into this new day in our brave new world.*

Today, the unthinkable happens. Donald J. Trump will become (or if you are reading this later in the day, has become) the President of the United States. Is this a day of mourning, or is it the hopeful dawning of a new day?

My worst fears have not been realized since Trump was elected. I do not yet see signs that the United States is moving into a period of tyranny, one of despotic control. If Trump’s nominees are rich, and perhaps out of touch with the common person and the needs of this world, they are also very capable and are proving to be independent. 

The Democratic Party appears to be moving capably into its role of watchdog. Important questions are being raised in the Congressional hearings on the president’s cabinet nominees, and blind resistance to climate change by some Republicans is not the case with Trump’s nominees. They have left positions of power, wealth, and privilege, and seem earnest in educating themselves on the roles of their respective departments and positions. I have not seen the narcissism in the nominees that is so evident in Trump. I have, however, seen rudeness in some of the Republican members of Congress as they relish the opportunity to push through a flood of conservative legislation.

Trump himself is troubling to me. He worries me greatly. The power of the President is not unlimited as Obama learned, yet in some areas it is nearly so. Trump’s power, given that he will be supported by a Republican Congress and probably a conservative Supreme Court, is likely to be greater than Obama’s.

I once heard someone give this explanation of the difference between a liberal and a conservative. 

    A liberal is someone who, when divorce rates are rising, puts together classes for divorcées on how to adapt to their new lives.

    A conservative is one who, in this situation, arranges classes for married people on how to stay married.

In other words a liberal works to adapt to the new even if the new seems undesirable. A conservative works to preserve stability and resist harmful change.

At this time it could, however, be that it is the self-identified liberals who are resisting change, and the self-identified conservatives are those who are adapting to it. The tides we are seeing in the United States did not originate here. They are evident in what is loosely called the “global populist wave.” The strains in the European Union did not originate with Trump. To be sure, in my opinion, Trump does seem to be exacerbating them without a clear idea of the consequences of his actions. The strains of racism and the realities of immigration and the global issues connected with migrations did not originate with Trump. Though Trump, so far, on these issues seems to be the one resisting change rather than adapting to it with understanding and foresight.

This is a time to watch and pray. I watched a four-hour special on “The Divided States of America,” by Frontline on PBS. You may stream it at this link http://www.pbssocal.org/programs/frontline/ and I highly recommend it.  Progressives have limited ability to persuade conservatives that either the positions of Hillary or Bernie were right. So, along with resisting, it’s time for progressives to take stock. As the old joke goes, it’s not time for ready, fire, aim. It’s time to get ready first, and this begins with awareness. What has changed? What did we not see? Where are we holding on to that which we need to let go of? What goals of ours were unrealistic or limited? Then aim: engage in a conversation on what to do next. Plan carefully. 

Watch and pray.

Then fire: take action.

Ecozoans who consider themselves progressives have a special responsibility. No political party had a plan for how to live within planetary boundaries. Some of us ecozoans thought we could model this in ecovillages or other enclaves of like-minded people. This is very important, but insufficient in itself. The world is complex and it won’t stop to meet our expectations. Technology, globalization, civilizational disruption rush on without our permission. 

CES will be a forum for a long conversation on how to apply the principles of Thomas Berry to the global realities we are facing so that humans and nature may truly have a viable future, one of living within planetary boundaries, sufficiency for all, justice and equity for all, especially the poor, and peace. 

I can’t help remembering hymns that I grew up with. The hymn I remember at this moment says “teach us how to watch and pray,” and then it continues, “and live rejoicing every day.”

Rejoice, it’s a new day.

Herman

Margaret Wheatley writes about the emergence of the global reality: "The global culture, with all its tragedies and injustices, is an emergent phenomenon. We have to accept this terrifying fact. It came to be from the convergence of many forces and now possesses characteristics that weren't there until it emerged." And about our part in this emergent reality: "We will not change what has emerged. We are starting over, basing our work on values and practices that are distinctively countercultural, so outside the norm that most people can't understand what we're doing. We need to continue to persevere in our radical work, experimenting with how we can work and live together to evoke human creativity and caring. Only time will tell whether our efforts contribute to a better future. We can't know this, and we can't base our work or find motivation from expecting to change the world." (So Far From Home: Lost and Found in our Brave New World, p 34)

the community of the cosmic person
nourishing the flourishing of people, place, and planet ... together