Das nachstehende Gedicht (siehe vorheriger Eintrag) habe ich geschrieben, weil ich, seit ich nach 12 Jahren allein, jetzt wieder in einer Beziehung bin und mir mit meinem Mann, einem Kanadier, jeden Tag auf's Neue auffaellt, wie sehr mir daran liegt, (alles) schon zu wissen. Nicht das ich intellektuell nicht laengst schon weiss (genau, das auch!!), dass wir Deutschen in diese Richtung tendieren. Aber es intellektuell begreifen und es hautnah immer wieder in mir selbst zu erleben sind ganz unterschiedliche Dinge und es ist letzteres, das mir sowohl einen Schrecken einjagt als auch mich neugierig macht auf etwas anderes. Mit Rod merke ich, dass ich alles schon geklaert habe, dass ich eigentlich nicht erwarte, dass er etwas sagen oder tun koennte, das mein Bild von ihm sprengt. Grausig. Und wie unwahr. Aber um das herauszufinden, muss ich erstmal willens sein, fuer ein paar Minuten , zum Beispiel, wirklich zuzuhoeren. Das ist anstrengender als ich dachte. Satz fuer Satz, der von ihm kommt prallt erstmal ab an meinem Bild, von ihm, von mir, von dem worueber wir sprechen. Es faellt mir auf, nur finde ich erst den inneren Fensterhebel nicht, um aufzumachen. Da. Jetzt geht es. Ich hoere ihm zu und siehe da, so wie er es sagt, habe ich die Dinge noch nie betrachtet. Erstaunlich. Wirklich eine ganz andere Art zu denken. Ich fuehle mich dumm, wenn ich eine Frage stelle oder von meiner eigenen Erfahrung spreche ohne im Vornhinein schon zu wissen, was das, was ich sage, bedeutet. Richtig dumm fuehle ich mich, manchmal kann ich kaum stillsitzen, so ruettelt die Ungewissheit an meinem Koerper. Ich bin es wirklich nicht gewohnt.

Ich weiss das schon
Ich kenne dich
Dein Vater, deine Mutter
Und dann du so.

Das dauert nicht lange
Zu durchschauen.
Alles klar.

Die Vergangenheit
Die Gegenwart
Die Zukunft
Aus einem Guss.

Oder?

Wenn du nicht Raum machst für das, was du nicht weisst, sagt er,
Kann nichts passieren.

Deshalb denke ich,
Nach vielen Jahren schliesslich, gut,
Ich probier’s mal
Lege den Mantel ab, und den Hut und
Zeige dir meine Weichstelle
Und zittere dabei.

Und siehe da,
in deinen Worten,
neigt sich mir entgegen,
Das Neue.

 

Ever since I first attended a local meeting of the Obama campaign I have been continually struck by what I encounter in this movement: For one, an intense focus - everyone, you can tell, is barely sleeping and overwhelmed by how much there is to do, but determined to use this opportunity for change. I wake up in the mornings with their tired faces in front of my eyes.....Seeing the people and the way this grassroots campaign is being run both up and down the hierarchical ladder I really get that Obama indeed does mean this: Change. Not just the word, but the thing itself.

When the man in charge of the campaign for Massachusetts introduced himself, he spoke respectfully and humbly about wanting to make the effort to infuse what he had observed in Obama on the trail with him - his clarity, openness and ability to listen and think in ways that do not divide - into his work with us, the volunteers.

It is striking that none of the organizers seem to be putting themselves into the picture. That edge of ego hankering for attention and the self-consciousness that comes with it just aren't there. The atmosphere is one of great respect and encouragement for what everyone had to offer in terms of time, ideas and feed-back. Here is a country-wide campaign run on community organization principles and it works unbelievably well, from what I can see. You feel like you are a small part of a rocket ship roaring through space on a very straight course.

I just have to help out. I have written letters, made calls to New Hampshire in our local call bank to locate Obama supporters, and went to NH to canvass. There too, the same focus, determination, lack of drama and division, care and urgency enabled a huge crowd of volunteers (I heard that 300 were expected for the day just in the town of Keene alone) to get the canvassing done in half a day. It was a great experience.

In the phone bank we were trained to not engage in negativity - even if a fellow democrat wants to rant about Sarah Palin for example, we won't go there, as much as we might feel like it. It makes calling a very uplifting experience, especially in a group as we listen to each other's lines, enjoy each other's jokes, learn from each other's mistakes and commiserate when someone listed as a democrat, well, is going to vote republican L.....

 J.

As one co-canvasser said - it would be naïve to think that Obama is not a politician, that this isn't politics. But the flavor and conduct of this campaign truly gives hope - and always responsibility too - that the connotations of those words can change. That we could come to associate with them again the strength to stay steady and stand up for a bottom line, a leadership not for self-interest or aggrandizement but in the service of bringing out the best in people and a way of thinking that moves everyone forward, rather than push opponents out of the way.

The more I help, the more urgent I feel and if you haven't had a chance to jump in and help out, by all means do it now! There are a million calls to be made and thousands of houses to visit. It might get you even more excited than you already are!

 The Culture War - Inside and Out

Recently I have had some fiery discussions about the Culture War with friends as during these elections, Sarah Palin and all, it is highlighted even more. So I wanted to pick up the thread. In thinking about this article it soon became clear that it is impossible to cover the breadth of this topic in a single blog-length piece and how important it was to speak about this together. So this is a starting point for a discussion that will hopefully take us into new territory, beyond the current, frozen frontiers....

Riding through a peaceful New Hampshire afternoon I was turning the radio dial for a source of news. I came across a station where a man was taking questions about or contributions to his passionately voiced opinion that abortion, under any circumstances, was to be rejected. The afternoon didn't seem so peaceful anymore. My stomach in a knot, I still thought it could be good to find out how he was thinking about this - usually my response to ‘these kind of people' is just an inner snort of contempt. But being increasingly puzzled by the ongoing culture war I thought I needed to stretch. And so I stayed tuned, as a liberally minded caller and the Christian radio host exchanged arguments.

The listener was trying to make the point that the wellbeing of a mother, emotional, psychological and mental as well as physical should be considered. Of course I agreed with her point. But the listener was strikingly inarticulate, insecure.

Birth control and the right to abort are foundational achievements of the women's movement. This freedom has made it possible for women to redefine womanhood, to become socially and economically equal partners with men - at least to the degree they have so far. Ignoring the complexity of a woman's situation and taking away her right and ability to decide for her self whether or not she wants to bear a child is a step backwards into the slavery of our biology.

It bothered me that the woman on the phone was so meek - and I could relate to it. Why was that?

"Do you really think that a woman who has just been raped is able to make a clear, well thought out decision about her own life and that of her child?" the radio host asked.

 "I do", she replied, sounding very unsure. He didn't agree, and I didn't either.

Nor did it seem like quite the right question to ask.

The discussion went on....

"Would you kill a two year old baby then, because it was conceived in a rape?" the man pressed on.

" Of course not", the listener replied.

"How about a child that is two days old?"

 "No..."

 "And how about 5 months into the pregnancy?"

"Well, that is quite a long way in already", she replied, beginning to waver again.

 "At what point then does the child become worthy of protection - where would you draw the line? At what point does life start, do you think?"

Just as the listener I had no ready-made answer to this. Pursuing it further I found myself wondering about our fundamental relationship to life and particularly to consciousness, human, self-consciousness and the potential for it in each human embryo. I had never considered my own abortions in this light. I had them, because I did not want, or feel ready for having a child. I also did not let myself fully grapple with the shock and uncertainty that comes with the discovery of being pregnant, that suddenly, somebody else is there.... I really didn't want to deal with questions of life and death, such as this, and so an abortion was the obvious solution. In the German progressive environment I came of age in, there was no question about that being okay. None of my partners ever wanted a child either.

I can understand that such a simplistic license to end a life just looks immoral to the pro-life proponents. Rape, incest or danger to a mother's life are one thing, but for most of us the choice to have an abortion did not fall into that context. The freedom of self-determination that the women's movement fought so hard for, I took quite for granted without thinking deeply about the implications of this freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. I didn't know better then and so I made myself, and what I wanted, the ultimate standard.

 Then the radio host made another point. "How could the pain and wrongness of what happened in your own life, by being raped, say, be made right by killing another - that of your child conceived in the rape?"

Something in this argument struck me as deeply positive and hopeful. It was the conviction that no matter how bad things get, there was always the possibility of a positive outcome, a new beginning.

The notion I have held since being a teenager was that there are already too many people on the planet and that too many of them are living terrible lives. So it does not make sense to just add more bodies. And I understood my own occasional longing for being pregnant and having a child to be a hormonal trigger set in place by mother nature to make sure there were always plenty of humans to go around. But Life at this point seems to have a more significant agenda and need than simply creating more bodies. We are not just bodies. We need to become more conscious, understand ourselves better and create a world that not only protects and supports life in the womb, but once it is out!

We want to move on from simply being a more sophisticated kind of animal, concerned with survival, pro-creation and emotional and sensual fulfillment. But this is also where it gets tricky.

I think my rationality and somewhat enlightened view combined with a fundamentally selfish motivation in an unhealthy way. If logic is not supported by a real respect for the positivity and limitless possibilities of life we slide into dangerous territory. If there is a fundamental cynicism or casualness about Life, the sense of potential that comes with any new human being and ultimately the meaning of human life itself, is lost.

Maybe Pro-Lifers, even in their one-sided and very limited approach are responding so forcefully because of our postmodern lack of respect for much more than our desires of the moment, our unrestricted freedoms which value ourselves over everything.

 I had made it too easy for myself - meeting the arguments of that radio host in New Hampshire was important. The picture is a whole lot more complex than I had wanted to see. A new solution would have to be the result of discovering a new set of reference points, other than, as in my case, just wanting to do what I wanted, or, as in the Christian radio host's case the simplistic view that an embryo always comes first.

Somehow, pro-Life and pro-Choice cannot remain opposites. What I was left with is that having the right to chose must come with a real vision or purpose of what I am choosing for, and whether it is a new human being or not, it will have to be pro-Life and not just ‘pro-myself'. What that really means is something each of us has to find out.

I met Robert Bisson at the first Move On! event I ever went to. We were to gather in Hudson, NY on a steamy summer afternoon at a gas station to let voters know about the connections between John McCain and the big oil companies and the difference in the presidential candidates' energy policies. "Bring an umbrella," Robert had written to the participants, "it's likely we'll get a thunderstorm."

When I got there, this lively activist with the energy of a mischievous and optimistic ten year old was setting up signs. Only later, when contacting him for this article did I find out, that he is about to turn 78. 

Robert impressed me with his spirit, focus and passion. He was the one who kept leaping into the lanes and crossing the street to pass flyers through open car windows. He figured out which corner of the crossing was the busiest and worked it until rush hour was over. He didn't hang around chatting. He is a fighter who believes that he can make a difference in his part of the world and beyond, and in his presence it was clear that how we are as people while we do what we do is at least as important to how we are received than the facts on the flyers we distribute. A lot of people responded to Robert. His lack of cynicism and sheer positivity made me want to find out more about him for The Sunny Way. Here is what he said in our phone conversation:

I have been a concerned person for a long time, but I wasn't engaged. As an elementary teacher in Westchester, I retired in 1993, I was supporting the teacher's union. I have always been donating to a number of causes, but it wasn't until MoveOn.org provided the opportunities to organize and participate that I jumped at this new way of becoming active. That was two or three years ago. One has to be useful somehow, and I spend at least an hour a day writing to politicians, signing petitions, or making calls.

We are not going to change the world overnight, but we have to believe in humanity. I am a subscriber to the magazine YES! and that is my outlook - I am focusing on the positive side of things. Where all my energy comes from? I have always been physically active, but I work out 5 days a week, an hour each time - weekends are off.

I am an atheist, and I think us humans might always act in selfish ways, but I do believe we need to move away from our most immediate selfishness, and work for fairness and a greater inclusivity. We cannot be selfish to the exclusion of others. This kind of attitude only turns out to be destructive, not just to others but to the self. It's not possible to separate the two. We are in this world together, there isn't another one. I am interested in finding those areas in which we all can find a commonality.

When, after two hours of handing out flyers in the humid Hudson heat that day, we ran out of pamphlets and decided to call it a day, Robert was pleased with the event. He had probably distributed 50% of all the flyers in our group of seven. He walked away, holding the hand of his lady to help her across the street, seven signs under his arm.

On Saturday my collaborators on thesunnyway.com, a website dedicated to pioneering a new view on life, human beings and environmentalism met in order to take our project, only 2 months young, to the next level. The initiator, Megan, had come to a point where she was feeling she was chasing a lot of people, all volunteers, and having to remind them to stick to their commitments in order to be able to get content for the site in time. Things were becoming personal and complicated. In order to sail around this cliff in our passion and work for this project, Megan and I had talked about introducing the practise of holacracy. We had a little plan, who would say and do what before we headed into teh meeting. Five of the six most committed people on the site gathered in her sunny, leafy Brooklyn backyard and took a step back - where we all clear on what our mission actually was? No, wrong start.... What the sunny way's mission was? This is one of the main characteristics in holacracy - rather than primarily looking at the people or positions involved, the focus is on the organization itself. We are trying to figure out what it needs, where it wants to go. There is a listening involved that goes beyond the personal sphere. It might have needs, a vision and a path, that has nothing to do with what the individuals are thinking about it. And this became beatifully clear during this meeting. There was no need to use a formal meeting structure, which holacracy provides. The meeting was a real flow. As we spoke about the vision, written out on a piece of paper in the middle of our circle we kept becoming aware of this truly not being about any of us personally. Each of us can fulfill a role, each of us was of use, to the sunnyway itself. What we needed first of all was two things - to keep our focus on the development and needs of the site, and to establish a system of transparency - a google group, where everyone would post their weekly projects and commitments every Monday, visible to all, and where, if they were unable to meet them they would state so, so that everyone was on the same (web)page :-)

In the process of meeting, we also came up with a creative way to address writer's block and the 'problem' of having more ideas than we can individually follow up on.

A couple of days later, on a follow up phone call, it is already becoming clear that we will split up some of the responsibilities, Megan is now carrying alone in the near future.

We were prepared to use the meeting structure of holacracy in order to assist ourselves in not getting caught up in personal issues. Thanks to the clarity, openness and willingness of the participants to take responsibility, this wasn't necessary. In a parodoxical way, the most holacratic thing to do was to can those plans, to be present and respond to what was arising in front of us. This way of working together, we came to see, is a part of the site as important and inspiring as the content itself. It is a thrilling way to learn and to work.

A couple of friends and I have begun to develop our own consulting business - practising holacray (see blog below - A new Way of working together) amongst ourselves in order to help each other to develop our own businesses and/or carry it into those we are employed in. Next week is a big one, when Sandra is going to introduce the system in her workplace. I keep trying to articulate why I find this so exciting. I think it is the very practical and down-to-earth orientation away from individuals and towards a different kind of fluid and human order, towards transparency and the development of something bigger than all of us combined (the organization, the business, the goal). Much of its philosophy is approaches aspects of  Andrew Cohen's teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment. In Holacracy, the focus isn't on directly developing consciousness itself, but on developing a system, an organization, that, hopefully, would be an expression of a higher consciousness. Meeting together to make this happen takes presence, discipline and a lot of renunciation of personal responses (there is no cross talk, joking etc) and the sense of satisfaction, clarity, dignity and purpose makes it actually addictive. So much energy is usually wasted in worrying about our, my place/ role/ contribution/ image. The practise of holacracy doesn't leave room for this except for in your own head and after a while it seems pointless to keep it even there. It is so much more satisfying to lean into what needs to happen, into developing towards our goal. We don't have pratical metrics to prove any of this yet ourselves, but hopefully it won't be long until we can report those too!

Second try: A creative collective writing experiment

With life and the world around us changing faster and faster, something is stirring, in us individually and in the collective, conscious and unconscious. The very planet we are living on and the things we are inventing on it are changing rapidly and might do so beyond recognition. It is challenging to get one's head around that much complexity, uncertainty and potential change.

This in an invitation to invent our future in writing, to participate in creating a vision, through a story, together. To let ourselves go and go for it. Stories are powerful, and often reality will arise out of our imagination as much as reality is shaping it, and if those stories arise out of a collective, they will carry even more power and conviction.

There are many science fiction or future stories that take a fairly easy route - follow the known ways and often worst of human nature and take it to the next level of technological and cultural change. This story is meant to be something else. It's an experiment in stretching towards a new and deeper view and understanding of who and what we can be.

The way it could work is like this (always open for suggestions): I have started a story on a buzzword document, a software that allows people to work on a single document together. Any participant can change anything or ad comments. Buzzword will record those changes and again, make them visible to the group. Here on gaia, you will always find the latest updated version of the story to read.....

If you would like to participate in writing itself, please e-mail me through gaia and I will send you the password to access the document on buzzword. 

Outline (we have to start somewhere):
– these are suggested ’sign-posts’ for the start of the story
– They all can be changed at any time. For further info about that, if you want to participate as a writer, please e-mail me.

The year is 2030-2040

A group of scientists are touring the earth in order to investigate what seems to be a surge in possible extraterrestrial encounters in different cultures.

There are 6 people.

A brilliant specialist in aero- and space-technology from India, Addhi, he is in his late twenties, a nerdy type who is more at home with technological gadgets and discussions than real human exchange.

A couple ( Kera and Rico, both Brazilian physicists) who got together only a year ago and are struggling to keep their romance seperate from business.

An 85 year old retired remote viewer and psychic: Jack, who used to work for the CIA, before the collapse of the American empire, now serves the World Government by predicting natural disasters and other potentially destructive events.

A female expert on consciousness development and author, Gemma from Britain, who developed a highly respected theory that ufo’s and extraterrestrials are phenomena of consciousness rather than physics.

Senjo, a doctor from Japan who is also the clone of a famous biologist.

Through their travels we are getting to know life in different parts of the world.

The world is ruled by the ’World Council’, a chamber of elected leaders, representative of nations of every level of culture, social and economic development: Tribal, Feudal, Traditional, Modern, Postmodern and Integral.......

Sightings of the future:

„Okay,young man, Aikido lessons will be very good. You will have the best teacher in town and he will set you up with a routine that we can practice – how do you say – en route.“
Senjo smiled encouragingly at the lanky young man sitting across from him in the circle. “You will learn faster than you think and you will know you have a body!“ The others laughed. “And what it’s like to tackle actual people!“ Jack added. Addhi, hunched over and frowning, squinted at his colleagues, still not entirely sure what they were talking about. But, and this was the big change in this, their fifth team meeting on the trip, he was willing to give it a go. “Okay,“ he said, nodding his head sideways as only Indians can do.

„We’ve got it,“ Gemma slapped Addhi on the shoulder, almost making him topple over and leaned back to stretched her legs. She was much stronger than her slight built and delicate features might suggest. “Kera, you want to read out the notes to us, so we know we are on the same page?“

Kera nodded and sat up straight.
“Here goes: 1 – Senjo and Gemma will visit the young man Gemma just met, whose grandfather was a monk a long time ago and seems to know people who claim they had actual contact with Aliens. Due: tomorrow.
2 – Kera is going to write the report to the department head about the trip so far. Due: Tomorrow
3 – Kera and Riko are going to stick to general conversation or mission related talk only between themselves during the hours of 8am and 8pm every day.
4 – Addhi is going to take Aikido lessons while we are here in Kobe... in order to balance his brilliant mind“, she sent one of her georgeous Brazilian-beauty-queen-smiles to Addhi, “with physical and social development.
Any more comments?“ she glanced around the circle.
People shook their heads.
“Great.“ Gemma lept to her feet and pulled Jack up to standing. “Let’s go dance.“

The throbbing music in Kobe’s most popular night club had accompanied their meeting on it’s rooftop terrace on the 99th floor. Around them, behind large potted bamboos and flowering dogwood trees couples were audibly savouring the sexual revolution that had gripped Japan with a vengeance.
“I am ready,“ Riko put one arm around Kera and looked at her with the same fascination and disbelief he had been feeling ever since they met on a conference on extraterrestrial studies in Boston, a year ago.........

 

Last weekend, I attented a workshop on Holacracy given by Brian Robertson and Tom Thomison in New York. Holacracy is a radically new way for people in any kind of organization to work together. In my mind, it is the cutting edge of organizational structure and development. It transcends and includes the most common hierarchical structure of companies, which tends to stifle individual initiative, creativity and accountability and oftentimes works on the basis of fear. And at the same time it goes far beyond the democratic or consensus driven model that an increasing number of organizations are trying to work with, which usually ends up being ineffective and frustrating in its focus on each individual involved rather than the goal of the organization they are involved in.

Holacracy is about getting things done, faster and more effective than any other system I am familiar with. In that, every person involved not only has a voice, but is called on to participate in full transparency, accountability and capacity towards the goal and vision of the organization .

The brainchild of Brian Robertson, who founded his own company Ternary Software in Philadelphia in 2001 for the sole purpose of finding a better way for people to work together, Holacracy has now been brought to a point where it can be taught and used as a generally applicable system and is so far being promoted around the US, Australia and Europe.

Obviously there is a lot more to holacracy than can be learned in a weekend. But through a lot of practical exercises and a very clear structure, Tom and Brian managed to convey a good deal of the context and application of this practice.

As they took us through the material, many sacred cows of business wisdom got pushed off their pedestals and one aha experience followed another. In a certain kind of way, Holacracy follows a very human, almost intuitive logic. As Brian put it - it makes the implicit explicit, and in doing so frees up a lot of attention and energy.

One of the most striking aspects to me was how this system of governance does not allow anyone to be special in it, be they the lowest or the highest ranking member of the organizational hierarchy. It is so structured, the meetings and decision making processes we simulated are so clearly defined, that the only way forward was into a very objective, impersonal space from which the next workable steps for the organization could emerge.

For anyone used to endless discussions in order to find a perfect or best solution, in which everyone has to put in their two cents worth, worried about their job or their image, it was a real breath of fresh air. I could see the potential particularly for non-profits, where good intentions and real care can get completely bogged down by (inter)-personal struggles for influence and control.

Through years of experimentation, trials and errors, Brian seems to have come up with a governance and operational system that really does keep the ego, the constant personal ambitions and fears, in a cage, as long as we stick to it. The result is an organizational practice that allows for swift and creative responses even for large organizatons in a world that is constantly changing faster.

Holacracy does demand a lot of those practising it and, if Ternary Software's story is anything to go by, also produces extraordinary results.

For more information visit www.holacracy.org

I was curious when I came across the link to a beautifully made site by Bon Appetit Management Company
http://www.eatlowcarbon.org/Carbon-Calculator.html, which allows you to calculate the carbon footprint of your diet. (If you really want to know!!) I couldn't resist and... the further I went with it.....inspite of the very attractive design and all, I got increasingly depressed. BAMCO is trying to get people to eat locally on quite a large scale and their menus sound delicious. But as I did the calculator I couldn't help thinking that it isn't going to work this way, going back to local and less. Maybe it was because my vegan meal choices of nuts and some tropical fruit made the thermometer jump right into the red, but I began to fantasize: of large solar powered greenhouses, maybe even on top of a highrise, in which all kinds of plants can grow without toxic pesticides and petroleum based fertilizers, no matter where you live, and yes, including butterflies and bees. Cheap and abundant energy, produced in our own backyard (or in the walls of our houses)  that will allow us to shape a world we have never even imagined. I was thinking that setting my sights that high, rather than on a small, local solution is way more challenging, but also more exciting. I cannot imagine that for example China or India would not jump to the opportunity to take over large global systems should the West miss the boat to do that in its guilt and despair about the last 150 years and instead try to move somewhat back to simpler, local structures. I could be really off the mark, I would be curious what others think about this. Any experts on the end of fossil fuels?

And I had another, more esoteric thought - could the development of psychology in the late 19th and 20th century - digging deep into our past, unearthing the archetypes etc., relate to the energy we have been using - from deep within the earth, havig developed over millenia? And now we are beginning to choose as our energy the sun, just as evolutionary spirituality (www.enlightennext.org) and cosmic evolution teachers (Ken Wilber, Michael Dowd, Brian Swimme etc.) are gaining momentum - it might not relate at all, but I found it fascinating!