A couple of nights ago, Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute (http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid23.php)  gave a talk close by, in North Adams. It was entitled ‚Winning the Oil End-Game', as is a book he co-authored. (free for download: http://www.oilendgame.com/) I wasn't sure what to expect other than hearing some kind of icon of innovative and environmental thinking (I am probably a dinosaur to not have heard of him before. And just in case you are too :-) , here is more about the evening). Within an hour and a half, he laid out a plan for the US to leave behind it's addiction to oil - quickly, easily and in the process creating a cleaner environment and very healthy economic growth. What was most astounding was that this wasn't a great plan of possibility - he had figures and proven technologies to back it all up, and in fact is already working with the Pentagon and Walmart and whoever else is willing to embrace his solutions. (Here I swallowed hard at first, more about that further down). "I don't deal in problems, I deal in solutions", is one of his favorite mottos, and it wasn't until after the talk that I realized how very profound and still relatively rare this attitude is in circles concerned with the restructuring of our economy or climate change. Especially for this attitude to not just be positive words, but it being founded in perfectly documented ways of action. He presented so many of these, and so many figures, that I won't even try to repeat them here. You can see a very condensed and quite overwhelming 19 minute clip here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/51

What was most amazing to me though was walking out of this talk and realizing, how deeply, consciously and unconsciously, thinking about the future of the planet is rooted in dread and fear, and the sense that there is a very big problem (with us humans anyways) All that actually evaporated listening to him. And that is quite outrageous. He seemed to embody the best of the bright green movement (www.worldchanging.com)

Of course what he is proposing is not going to be perfect and no doubt will create its own problems in time as development always does, but it sure looks like a brilliant, do-able and all around uplifting avenue of action. His ending quote ( I forgot by who) was this: Small secrets need protection, big secrets are protected by the public's incredulity.

As far as the Pentagon even sponsoring his book - it certainly rubbed up against my own ideas of who and what is good and who and what is (very) bad. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me that traditional values like those held in the military, combined with holistic forward thinking as done by the Rocky Mountain Institute, could be just the recipe to get things done. As Spiral Dynamic Wizzard  Don Beck said, when he spoke about the paralysis in our postmodern, pluralistic and individualistic (green meme) culture - if green doesn't want to change, (the) blue and yellow (meme) will get together, and form a new green! 
 

And this sense of real potential and progress didn't at all have the effect of breathing a sigh of relief and wanting to lay back. Rather it made you ask - what's next and wanting to engage much more.

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!

 

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

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.........