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Archive for Community

A Blessing

Looking for “inspiration” – a juicy tidbit to post this morning – I came across this blessing from someone who has inspired me deeply for many years, someone I (like so many others) hold dear to my heart; the late great John O’Donohue.

Here’s John’s blessing, taken from Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong:

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be large enough for the dreams of your soul.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing

whispering in your heart that something good is going to happen to you.

May you find a harmony between your soul and your life.

May the mansion of your soul never become a haunted place.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment, and despair.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.

May it be so, and to John’s beautiful blessing I add the collective prayer that we all “arise each day with a voice of blessing”, and recognize each other and all that lives as part of our sacred circle of belonging.

Pothole Gardening

Steve-WheenCheck out this article about a young man from Australia who plants miniature gardens in potholes all across Europe!

 

 

Gathering 2.0

Wisdom2pt0
Does anyone out there remember PlaNetwork? It was a fabulously geeky conference that had a good run back a few years ago now. I loved its combination of high geekery and values-based idealism. I remember meeting someone through pre-event communications that I collaborated with to build a beautiful altar/centerpiece in the middle of the conference room, and dancing afterwards to music I'd never heard before under a projected screen of Electric Sheep images. It was that kind of "happening". Definitely a bit "hippie" and not slick by any means, but deeply sophisticated on many levels, not least technologically, and extremely satsifying.

There's another event that has sprung up in the San Francisco bay area in the last couple of years called Wisdom 2.0, and I've been watching it with great anticipation.

Given the fabulously descriptive name, I imagined Wisdom2.0 would be something related to my own passion for a conscious use of the internet but I have been a little dissapointed to see it turn out what appears to be a fairly standard conference format in its first two years of existence, albeit with a rather wonderful mix of spiritual and technology gurus.

The disappointing thing is that these leading lights seem to be giving siloed talks (nothing about how spirituality might inform technology, or the two might be employed together, for example) in the same old way (talking heads on a stage – nice heads and some nice talks, but still up there on a stage with a passive audience, just listening).

Those of you who know me, know I've been Director of Communications for the World Café for the last seven years, which has been the "go to" model for transformative conferences with real engagement; where the wisdom in the room is revealed among us. I even started weDialogue, my virtual events hosting business (for webinars, conferences, conversations) using the World Café model. So you can imagine why I have been alert, waiting for them to "get it" (they did support a "unconference " at last year's event where World Café was used, and from all reports it was well received, so I'm hopeful).

In fact, feedback from the 2012 event seems to have shaken things up a bit, and it appears we're in for something different this year. The guiding question they're promoting for 2013 is "How do we live with greater presence, meaning, and purpose in the age of technology?", which is a big step closer to something I'm really interested in. I understand they're also piloting space for interactive breakout sessions based on shared interests (birds-of-a-feather groups), and creating cohort groups for attendees to work within throughout the conference. Maybe not quite as elegant as World Cafe, but definitely movement in the right direction.

So I've bought my ticket, and am feeling excited – the anticipation is definitely back and I'm optimistic. Is anyone else going? I would love to meet up and see you there. And if you were there in 2011 or 2012, I'd be curious to hear about your experience. What was it like? Have I missed the point? What did you find most valuable? 

Church Street Mural

Walking along Church Street in San Francisco with a friend the other day, I saw this lovely, vibrant mural that covered a concrete wall framing almost an entire block…

Mural-leaves

The artwork was so lovely and fine, and I admired it so much that I tracked down the artist. Her name is Mona Caron – and I was charmed to read this on her website:

"Looking at nature closely, one may notice the intricacy and beauty of even the most "valueless" and unseeming little plants, regardless of their color or drabness, their perceived value or usefulness, or stage in life.

These heroic-scale portraits of the seldom noticed and literally downtrodden, are my tribute to the resiliance of all those renegade life forms that may or may not fit within the designs of our society, but keep growing nonetheless. They are also an homage to beauty that is free and available to all, if we can claim the time to pay attention to it."

Here's to eveyday beauty; to how lovely and extraordinary it truly is, and to those who champion it! How they enrich all whose lives they touch!

Here are more images from the mural, a project sponsored in part by a grant from San Francisco Beautiful.

Mural-bee
Mural-fleur-buds

Mural-fleurs
Mural-stem2