Re: Digest Number 30

What would bring YOU peace Colin?
How do YOU seek your life to be? (with and/or without a woman)
I believe that we are all coming from the same entity, and that we are therefore all linked together, just like the stars from a planet that just exploded. So we are all one.
Then there is NOTHING we've got to do, the only important thing is to be. So who do you want to be Colin?
What is your Grandest Version of the Greatest Vision you have of you and the world? 
Thoughts, Words, Actions is what creates Reality - what is your reality?
Be The Source – “Be the change you want to see in the world" 
And when confused about what you should do, ask yourself "What would love do now?"

Those are some principles of CWG - I find them particularly helpful - see if they could work for you too...

I am at a stage where I stop the self-betrayal and just be true to myself. 
I have little time or energy for anything else but me. In healing myself, I believe I am part of healing the world.
So I create who I seek to be! Who I would be proud to be, who I would love to be and that is my entire focus. 
In doing that, because of my questioning of Who Am I on a situation, then I can define it and it is actually including others. 
For example, when I see someone begging for money on the street, I ask myself, who I am in that particular situation. Am I a person who give money or not and if so, what are my motives?
If I give, I keep this person dependant on me and others to give - or if I don't give, I get this person to feel that I am a 'horrible' person - Who am I and how am I - this is up to me and if I don't like the outcome or the consequences, I change the action and see if the next result suits me better. 

So choose who you seek to be Colin and BE it!

Consider yourself hugged.

Sandrine


--------- Original Message ---------

DATE: 3 Jul 2003 08:01:59 -0000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: 

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>------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>There is 1 message in this issue.
>
>Topics in this digest:
>
>      1. Future Thoughts / Vision
>           From: Colin Leath <[email protected]>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>Message: 1
>   Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 13:17:51 -0400 (EDT)
>   From: Colin Leath <[email protected]>
>Subject: Future Thoughts / Vision
>
>This is a cross post:
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/derrickjensen_discussion/
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ishmael-dc/
>http://yoism.org/pipermail/discussion/
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurCultureOurCapitol/
>
>Permaculture: I mention Toby Hemenway's book
>
>DerrickJensen: his work is strongly anti-civ and pointed me
>to John Zerzan (actually, it was Raphael of the
>EcovillageBelize group)
>
>Ishmael-DC: Yes I think my experience Sunday would have been
>different were I female.
>
>Yoism: lionizing Orion and Other Yos as leaders
>
>OurCultureOurCapitol: That's what this is about!
>
>-------
>
>I recently sent out an email about an encounter with the 12
>tribes:
>http://yoism.org/pipermail/discussion/2003-July/001079.html
>
>There was some discussion of it on the ISH-dc list and the
>yoism list.
>
>I've decided to share further some other related thoughts.
>
>My thinking is simple, and not necessarily logical, but I
>believe it leads somewhere helpful, otherwise I'd stay
>quiet.
>
>My interpretation of John Zerzan and other neo-primitive
>theorists is that they suggest that civilization, even
>language, ritual, dance, numbers, are symptoms of modern
>humans' disconnection from living close to nature, symptoms
>of our disconnection from the way humans used to live for
>hundreds of thousands of years.
>
>I've also interpreted neo-primitivism to suggest that if
>humans were to return to that way of life we would be more
>fully engaged in living and more content than we are now.
>
>For me personally, I've taken this to mean: yes, I can head
>to the woods or the rivers or oceans, and I can learn to
>live close to the land, and I will be much more fully
>engaged in living and more content and healthy than I am
>now. (To the extent I've begun to do this already, this
>hypothesis has been supported.)
>
>
>But I've also considered, "What about all the other people
>who like me will still be growing up in the suburbs,
>unhappy, having to overcome what I overcame (don't laugh too
>hard), while I'm out here in the forest living well and
>physically active off worms and squirrels and pawpaw fruit?
>Can I remain content out here aware of so much misery that I
>might be able to help alleviate?" Or to remember a quote I
>think I heard, "If you're not for others, then what are you
>for?"
>
>It has also occurred to me that my time in the wilderness
>would be helped by being around others with similar goals
>and skills I can learn from.
>
>There are, in fact, projects which appear to address both
>the desire to live primitively and the desire to work with
>and to help others.
>
>
>http://www.dreamwater.net/edu/desertpeople/ (or try the google cache)
>http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:v-9BpEnQ49MJ:www.dreamwater.net/edu/desertpeople/+desert+people+baja&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
>
>--
>
>Even as I think that though, It seems I may have benefitted
>a lot from the internet, and that perhaps there are benefits
>of civilization that I would miss (libraries, dance classes,
>learning about primitive skills I wouldn't otherwise know),
>simply because I am not someone who has grown up the way
>humans used to grow up for 1,000s of years. The natural
>world has not been drawing me as much as the internet has.
>In part that is because I haven't been listening...
>
>So I hedge my bets, putting my effort behind more civilized
>projects, like carfreecity.us: working to build a carfree
>city in US.
>
>I practice my web programming skills so that I can be
>helpful to others in ways besides squirrel skinning (but
>mostly, though, because I have ideas I want to communicate
>and realize and I want the capabilities to help me and
>others do that on the internet). But, am I spending more
>time at a sedentary activity causing others and my self to
>be more sedentary than we would be otherwise? Or is my work
>ultimately leading to, in myself and in others, action,
>change, and living a life closer to nature?
>
>here are some thoughts on the carfree city that came up
>recently:
>
>
>> I can imagine (don't know if it's possible) creating a broad
>> coalition of all sorts of groups (as I mentioned in one
>> early brain-storm to the BuildACarFreeCity list), from
>> Indian tribes to religious tribes (e.g.
>> http://twelvetribes.com ), to integral institutes
>> (http://integralinstitute.org)... well, the list goes on,
>> who all wish to have a site in the US carfree city. It could
>> potentially be the physical location of the next
>> renaissance.
>>
>> I wouldn't wish for one religious group to dominate, but
>> rather for there to be a diversity of groups...
>>
>> Of course, all that is even more pie-in-the-sky than a city
>> that simply has no cars. But, as I think I mentioned
>> earlier on the BACFC list, a city without cars that has the
>> cultural depth and diversity of Northern Virginia suburbia
>> (if that is possible), does not excite me, while a CFC that
>> has Buddhist Monks, Conservative Mennonites, Hasidic Jews,
>> Dancers, and some Hydrologists, does.
>>
>> That is off-topic (although, vision and P.R. will be
>> important), and I am enthusiastic to help even with
>> communities that have the cultural depth of Northern
>> Virginia (e.g., a factory town, where the product and
>> customer is federal government and another product is
>> adolescents who perkily say, "I'm a prep!"). The vision of a
>> city I might dream of for myself has a lot more than no
>> cars... Perhaps a city of ecovillages of different tribes- a
>> Disneyland Theme Park, but with authenticity, including a
>> section for the non-aligned (tribeless), where one day
>> people will go to revisit what this culture was like (except
>> without the cars).
>>
>
>Into that mix add my encounter with the 12 tribes last
>Sunday.
>
>Add also this article in the washington post about
>moveon.org
>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A14925-2003Jun4¬Found=true
>>
>> Wes Boyd disagreed. As a newcomer to politics, he doesn't
>> spend much time rehashing the internecine rivalries that
>> have anguished the Democratic Party since the rise of the
>> New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He believes that
>> grass-roots America is ready to support a liberal agenda if
>> only "someone will get out and lead." Boyd counsels
>> presidential candidates to spend less time in closed-door
>> meetings with major donors and more time in direct contact
>> with voters.
>
>Add also my (perhaps perverse) inability to get excited
>about a relationship with a woman where we spend a lot of
>time together, perhaps get an apartment together, eventually
>a house in the suburbs, maybe some children, and spend our
>days gardening and tending our house and our acre lot (and
>at work, making money) which we'll give up when we die or
>head to the old folks home, which we've saved up for all
>these years.
>
>(If you're not for others who are you for? If you're only
>for you & your significant other and kids and acre lot in
>the burbs, who are you for?)
>
>Reading books like "This Organic Life" (Joan Gussow) and
>"Maria Rodale's Organic Gardening" and "Gaia's garden" (Toby
>Hemenway), and "Coming Home To Eat" (Gary Nabhan) all of
>which I recommend, offer the best of the best possible
>single-family scenarios.
>
>But all of Hemenway's permaculture design, all Rodale's work
>on her garden, as with Gussow's and to some extent Nabhan's,
>stop where their property lines end, and end with their
>lives, unless subsequent proprietors care as they did.
>
>They are not the best examples of the point I'm trying to
>make: all are sharing by writing books, which live on, and
>most are involved in communitarian efforts, most obviously
>Gussow and Nabhan, but also Hemenway (editor of permaculture
>journal).... but I think my point is still there.
>
>I asked a question on the permaculture list: something along
>the lines of: what does permaculture say about human
>culture? Permaculture will not be permanent agriculture if
>the humans who do it cannot last!
>
>And I contrast the work on a suburban lot to the work that
>might occur on a monastery... Or as can still be found in
>California and Texas, an old Mission.
>
>(All of this is a departure from living in the woods or
>desert, which will leave few traces and involve little if
>any agriculture-like practices)
>
>Ok... So all that was in the back of my mind, and then I
>come across the 12 tribes!
>
>And here they are, these people with a male chauvinist
>leader, suspect ideology, and many other evil traits (child
>labor! Use of cane in child discipline!), are a successful
>(success=continued existence) and even growing community!
>
>And then I think back to that quote from the moveon article:
>If only someone will get out and lead, people are ready to
>support them!
>
>add to that also this letter from Jan Lundberg of
>culturechange:
>http://www.culturechange.org/e-letter-money_and_materialism.html
>
>---
>I think that is the body of my thought, but where does it lead?
>
>
>Clearly I'm leaning to living and working for a community.
>On the largest scale, this community is the community of all
>things, certainly not only humans.
>
>I can get excited about helping David Ceaser with
>http://carfreecity.us . I can get excited about helping
>Orion Kriegman (or whoever) with Yoism ( http://yoism.org )
>, and the urban ecovillage network (
>http://urban.ecovillage.org/ )
>
>When survival is easy, you become free.
>
>I don't wish to pay taxes to a government which acts
>contrary to my interests.
>
>I do not wish to have my life force contribute simply to the
>growth of a company... (a Quinn-esque pyramid)
>
>
>I imagine a future where once again, people grow up in, live
>in, and help, their tribes. But I imagine also that whatever
>benefits there might be from "civilization" can be
>integrated into this new tribal way... Anonymity and freedom
>and access to information may lead to greater creativity and
>range of possible behaviors of humans (is that good?)
>
>But first, let's stop paying rent. Let's stop paying taxes.
>Let's remind ourselves how capable we are of surviving in
>nature, rent, and tax-free... Then lets choose what our life
>force will go to help create. There's nothing wrong with
>lingering in the forest, but if you wish to help others...
>
>We can use the 12 tribes as an example. Not to follow
>exactly what they've done, but that radical change within
>our lifetime is possible.
>
>They and most new movements feed off two things:
>dissatisfaction with the way things are, and a belief that
>an alternate course of action is better.
>
>In all likelihood, as long as there are people, there will
>always be a little of all that is out there right
>now...(actually some behaviors and cultural practices do go
>extinct). But what will change are the relative
>distributions of behaviors. 10 years ago, fewer people were
>studying yoga than are studying yoga now (perhaps).  (and so
>on, with whatever behavior might be your interest).
>
>
>When I'm not in the woods, I'll be working to increase the
>behavior-share within the US (unless I bail on the US) of
>carfreeness, people growing their own food, and people
>choosing not to reproduce. (Note the low birthrate in Europe
>combined with a failure to allow immigration is already
>showing the hazards of a non-tribal, constant economic
>growth system: many people over 50 having no money and no
>place to go, because no one is paying taxes for them to
>live off of!)
>
>Maybe I'll follow Orion's example, and help start an urban
>ecovillage in San Diego. Or maybe the US Carfree City will
>succeed, and I'll work on projects there.
>
>
>Everyone, if the Twelve Tribes can have over 20 communities
>around the world and 3,000 members, and get themselves a
>block on the Washington DC Mall during the Smithsonian
>Folklife Festival, we, given some people who go out there
>and lead can do all that and a whole lot more.
>
>I've mentioned a few of the leaders I'm aware of in this
>email. Are we dreaming big enough? Could we dream bigger if
>we knew more people were there who support us? How can we be
>most effective?
>
>How, if we are leading, can we remind ourselves that we
>could stop now and go into the forest? (remember:"Road to
>heaven: encounters with Chinese hermits" - some, when
>begged, came down from the hills to help lead.) How can we
>avoid rebuilding the same systems that we wish to change
>now?
>
>Here's a try: by teaching, learning, and maintaining
>survival and wilderness living skills first, as well as good
>places to do them, "civilization" can always (more or less)
>be kept in its place-- It is an option we can choose a
>degree of, but we can leave it if we wish, and tell stories
>about it around our camp-fire (though those stories, in that
>case, will probably be of the least interest).
>
>Here's another try: Just as the primitive skills movement
>has been revitalized by the internet (more information about
>more skills available in more places)... Maybe, somehow,
>technology can be made to be something we no longer have to
>fear and defend ourselves from: nuclear weapons, genetic
>engineering, nanotechnology, CARS.
>
>I think I'm done, and wrote as I've been moved to write in
>the vast silent meeting of the Internet.
>
>Where our collective attention is focused is the essence of
>our humanity: whether it is on Britney Spears' navel (where
>has she been?), the politicians on the front page of the
>paper, or on learning the local edible plants of our
>region...
>
>To adapt a new-age saying of one of my friends (Sandrine!):
>by choosing where our attention (and time, effort, and
>money) goes, we are creating (some of) our reality and
>creating a bit of the environment of those around us.
>
>
>Since anyone who has read this far is possibly a member of
>"our culture," I'd like to conclude with a self-serving
>health notice:
>
>(1) Do weights! http://joycevedral.com (and other weight
>bearing exercises, as well as flexibility and high-intensity
>aerobic daily)
>
>(2) Beware of raw food vegan diets! They seem to work well
>for some, but I find many who've switched back. Including
>notable carfree people Jan Lundberg and Martin Kreig (
>http://www.bikeroute.com/S2KNewsletter/S2k-2Food.html
>username: nbg passord: transam). Of course, Ofek has not (
>http://economads.com/index.php ) nor apparently has Doug
>Graham ( http://doctorgraham.cc/ ).
>http://www.beyondveg.com/cat/psych/ and
>http://www.westonaprice.org/myths_truths/myths_truths_vegetarianism.html
>. Both Maria Rodale, Jean Gussow, and Gary Nabhan, seem to
>offer sane dietary advice. Of course, I just read in the
>paper about scientists recommending people to eat less
>animal fat due to dioxin content... but-
>
>(3) Dance intensely if you can... And practice something
>mind challenging.
>
>Why self-serving? Most likely you'll be a part of my
>community when I get older, and I'll be more likely to take
>care of myself physically if I'm around a bunch of people
>who look and act like Frank Zane
>http://www.frankzane.com/images/frankdbsm.jpg or Joyce
>Vedral , or one of my former dance instructors (Phoebe) in
>their 60s as opposed to , well, just about anyone else you
>can think of. Believe me, I can use a lot of help!
>
>
>---
>
>But then- I see why change won't happen, and why leaders
>won't step forward: a lot of us are reasonably happy with
>the way things are, including myself, some of the time.
>
>
>Colin
>http://carfreeuniverse.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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