Saturday, April 26, 2008

So far this year

Wow, since the beginning of the year so much has happened. In January, the school I was working for finished up its accreditation, of which I was the Chair. It went extremely well, with no stipulations or changes!

In February I got sent to Florida for a Resident Life Seminar that my job paid for, since I was going to write my dissertation on the life of the child, the interconnection of academic and artistic curriculum bound together by the resident life program.

I went back again in March for my brother's wedding. Then some changes: my boss, who had been so supportive of everything I did, resigned. There was some political maneuvering at the top levels and he was made a scapegoat. He wouldn't stand for it, so left. That left me "in charge" but I also had 2 PhD classes to go to the end of March and beginning of April.


One was in NY, the other in CA (saw redwoods for the first time, oh my!) The one in CA was about my dissertation. With all this commotion at work I had decided that I couldn't write it about school since the leadership style had changed from one of being inclusive to divided and competing for power, so I was going to just expand on my master's thesis.

I showed Jim Garrison, the President of Wisdom University, my thesis, and he said that it was a good first draft! Yeay, seems like half the work was already done. Then I went to the class and everything changed. The short story is that most everyone in the class spoke about finding themselves through finding their connection with the Divine (choose your own personal word for Him/Her/All/One) which led to finding their passion and how they could offer it/serve others.

What a wonderful theme binding us all together I thought, and with that I came up with my real dissertation proposal--to tell these people's stories as an example/model for this kind of alternative education that uses left and right brain, spiritual and physical, intellectual and emotional in order for the result to be something of value that can be offered to the world, and as an example of the emerging wisdom culture (as WU puts it, or as I wrote about, the new culture of heart) Tentative title: "Divine Sparks, Lighting the Fires Within: How Dissertation Words Derived from a Wisdom Culture Are Able to Create a New Paradigm and Light the Way into the Future" Pretty nifty huh?!

So, anyway, when I came back, work had decided that they didn't need me anymore, and I got laid off. That happened last week. Hmmm, interesting, after all that work I did for them. I was told I was too "aligned with my boss" (who was more than a month gone by this time) and that I was overqualified for the remaining position.

Now I find myself jobless again, but with loads of work to do. I've done 3 out of a required 12 classes. The next one is the beginning of June and I've got a 15 page post-paper, a 7 page pre-paper and 6 THICK books to read before then. Maybe it's a good idea that I don't have to work. Now about money . . .

Oh, and my daughter is graduating in May, getting married in August, and I'm moving my mom from Florida to Wisconsin the end of June. Besides all that I'm just moseying along, writing my posts, my papers, my column (religionandspirituality.com) and reading away. Wait . . . is that the grass calling to be mowed, and the hedges to be trimmed, the house to be cleaned and the laundry to be done? How did I do all these things before and work at the same time!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Imagining a Wisdom Culture

Sitting here in my study, I imagine what this wisdom culture would look like, and start thinking that there are things I’m doing right now that embody that culture. Every morning our family wakes to a day of development and compassion. Beginning with a practice—a time for learning and growing—whether it be reading from the Bible or a philosophy book, practicing Yoga or just exercising to music together—our family starts the day centering mind on the greater purpose and body on the individual intention. We even have a family pledge we declare that speaks in part of reconnecting to the land and living for a higher purpose.

Eating whole and healthy foods are an important part of starting our day. Some of them even come from our own garden in the backyard. Others come from the local farmer’s market, one of the many in one the fastest growing economies in America. Our daughter went to the neighborhood school that we helped start with a group of parents who were interested in fostering an education embracing a diverse background of cultures and religions, embodying a holistic form of education that includes mind, heart and body unity, not just the rote learning of the tradition school system.

My husband is from Norway. Even this fact, I believe speaks to the real beginnings of a wisdom culture where international and inter-racial unions are the norm and not the exception. He is an expert with working with his hands and can fix anything that can be taken apart and put back together again. His joy is to work in the building where he is building engineer designing and implementing green systems and recycling procedures.

At this point in my life I am working for a pre-professional ballet high school. Combining the academic and artistic fields the school embodies the paradigm of an alternative education system recognizing that intellect without emotion and will is deaf and blind. My current responsibility is to help develop a curriculum for the life of the child to embody a unity of these areas demonstrating the beauty of the human spirit through a unified mind and body reflected in the dance form of ballet.


Our daughter is about to graduate from college with a degree in biomedical engineering. Her first project was to solve the problem of one of the aging dams holding back the mighty Mississippi River. As other engineering students struggled with imagining ways to support and enforce the outdated structure, our daughter came up with an original solution. Gradually relocating businesses and families who lived in harm’s way, she let the structure wear away, for, as she said, “The River will eventually go where the river wants to go.”

These very personal examples, I believe are the necessary foundation for and beginning evidence of the wisdom culture to come. Of course, I believe that on a larger level the whole energy consumption/production model will be revamped as we turn solar, wind and ocean current energy into usable form. In fact, much of the technological expertise and awareness is already in place just waiting for the right time for this to happen. A similar situation can be seen throughout the world in one city or another in the area of transforming cities, transportation and industry. Bill McKibben reports in his book, Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth of the dramatic changes even the poorest of cities have already provoked by thinking outside of the box, another sign of these emerging times. Changes in downtown areas, rapid transit, and creating a community that feels responsible for the public arena around which they live and earn their livelihood are also evidences of an emerging wisdom culture.

As for politics and religions, I can only imagine that the grassroots movements that have been the precursors of the social and political human rights movements that many of the “Cultural Creatives” belonged to and participated in, will continue to be relevant in developing “home churches” or small group encounters and action groups. These groups will be centers for discussing and practicing different forms of spirituality or involved in taking responsibility for various aspects of running an effective and prosperous community. This is when knowing our strengths and our passion is important, for each individual, no matter how insignificant, will be a unique and invaluable piece of the whole puzzle that makes up this emerging worldview.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Healing Words

Awaken, my love;
The time for sleeping has ended.
I am waiting for you at the door;
Just walk through . . .


With these words, I am asked to begin my healing path. I asked, “What do I have to offer?” I am given the answer, “Healing words. Words of comfort and acceptance.” Different cultures, different peoples all have distinctive words. However, healing words flow from a stream of consciousness that accepts all of humanity as brothers and sisters—all beings as family.

I asked, “What is the one Word that will speak volumes?” I was told, “Healing is reconnection.” Then I was told to go out and find a stick. Find a stick that will represent that verbal proclamation. I found a seedpod. I was in California, so it happened to be a very small cone on the end of a branch of a giant redwood tree.


That seedpod was the germ of an idea that can now be made manifest. As the facilitator of these exercises, Rev. Dr. Tg Belcheir, writes, “The more you speak the words with conviction, as if what they describe has already occurred, the likelier it will be that they will manifest.” Healing words will help us create a healed world.

Another stick I was to find represented me. “What would you wave into existence with this magic stick?” I was asked. I would make the energy between all of us, and all beings, visible so that we could see the effect we have on each other. Words between us have been a source of disconnection and harm. Remember, however, that healing is reconnection, as long as the energy that precipitates this reconnection is sparked by the Divine.

I asked, “Show me the degree of my passion.” I was shown a bird of light sweeping through the sky, getting closer and closer, initiating waves of light, wave upon wave, flooding the land. I was told, “What you are seeking is seeking you with the same passion.”

I asked, “How will this serve my highest good? How does this embrace my knowingness and truth? How does this reveal what is unique and original in me?” The journey into ourselves is also the Journey into the Other. Often, on this path we judge and receive ourselves by the reflections and responses we receive from others. As this is based on their own abilities and inabilities to give and receive, many times we get an invalid picture of ourselves.

We won’t see who we really are until we see ourselves reflected in the Heart of the Beloved. This initiates a new story. This journey parallels the new Cosmology that science is unveiling. As we uncover the story of Cosmogenesis we find we have a new way of understanding our own sense of self. Thomas Berry writes in “The Great Work”, “Each being in its subjective depths carries that numinous mystery whence the universe emerges into being. This we might identify as the sacred depth of the individual.”

As each individual discovers his or her own sacred depth they will find a new connection to the Divine creating new words of healing and restoration. Understanding the vastness of this creative act can be felt in the words of Howard Thurman, “The boundaries of self did not hold me.” These words of our own creativity needs must spread like a fire across the land, and are the beginning of the new culture of wisdom.

In this emerging wisdom culture, we are turning to new alternatives. An alternative education will contribute to this healing and oneness. In this room full of dissertation candidates, the common theme running through most of our works is the path of finding our passion and ourselves, and offering it to others. The interesting thing is that this course runs first through the Heart of the Beloved.

This journey toward the Other is what precipitated the journey inward—as well as outward—in the dissertation process. Repeatedly being deluded by our connection with others has kept us from discovering that core of our original being. The journey into the Other, however, is a true/authentic connection/reflection that allows us to discover who we really are and then return a purer reflection back to the world.

This fits perfectly with the notion that inner healing comes with the purpose of serving. The one supports the many becomes the One. The dissertation stories I heard this week are the beginning foundations for a common base of understanding and interaction as a healing energy begins to flow from these words creating a new world culture of heart.

Monday, April 7, 2008

When present and future collide

When we collide
A universe of stars fill our eyes
When we collide
Like heaven has exploded inside

--k.d. lang

The last day of my class on “The Emerging Wisdom Culture” found us participating in a modified Joanna Macy ritual. Creating an inner circle, seated and facing an outer circle, we began. Breathing is always a most important first step. Breathing in deeply and then out with the “ah” of Ya Hadi we created a sacred circle of sound that contained us within a web of safety.

Those seated in the outside circle were representing the present; those seated in the inner circle portrayed humanity one hundred years in the future. I was one of the ones representing the future. “This is the question those in the future are asking you who are in the present. It is one of three. The future cannot speak; only listen to your ancestors’ remarks,” our guide said.

“What was it like back then, in the midst of climate change and war? What were you feeling when you saw people fighting each other, not appreciating their environment, not getting along with other cultures and peoples?” The woman sitting opposite me had bright blue eyes. She was so sincere and intense. “We had hard times, but we also had hope,” she began.

“There was a hope that a higher consciousness was within our reach. Within us was a belief that shone through, here and there throughout the world, always expanding, that a divinity was being expressed and amplified. The more people got together, the more they noticed that this was a time of transition. We weren’t satisfied with the way things were. We were looking for something that would bring us together on a planetary level, that would benefit all peoples, all beings.”

“The outer circle will now rotate to the right.” A brown-eyed Hawaiian was now sitting opposite me. My tongue seemed glued to my mouth, unable, and unwilling to speak within the intense atmosphere that had been created by the sincerity and earnestness of the participants. “Your descendants ask, ‘what kind of things gave you joy at this time? Where did you find your inspiration and hope?’ ”

The answer came quickly. “Our joy was real because of you. You, the children of the future, were our hope and our motivation. We never gave up thinking that you deserved the best we could offer. Whenever we thought of giving up, knowing that you were a reality made it possible to keep moving, to keep sacrificing.

“We had pain too, but our grief became a point of unity. We would rally around our mutual suffering finding new and deeper sources of compassion and inspiration, knowing that the one thing we didn’t want was for others to suffer, for our world to suffer. We wanted to create something better for you.”

I was in tears by the time an older woman sat across from me and took my hands. Granddaughter, she called me. A sob escaped my lips. I was the future, looking at my ancestors with so much love and appreciation for the difficulties they endured in order to bring me into existence in a world that lived and thrived. The question asked this time was, “What did you do during this time to help change things?”

“I often felt that I didn’t do enough,” the woman who portrayed my grandmother said. “That is until I realized that even the smallest things were sacred and could be offered for the sake of the future. I would find myself cutting carrots and thinking of you, knowing that my efforts to appreciate this food and prepare it with love for someone I loved, added to the foundation of love I was building for the future.”

I could feel this grandmother palpably swelling with the love for her partner, her children, grandchildren—and me. As she grew larger before my eyes, I saw in her the hope for the future. We don’t have to be the wisest, or the most powerful. We don’t have to be in positions of influence or control. We just need to let our own light shine, so that one by one, that brilliance will turn into a raging fire lighting the way into the future.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Wisdom or Folly?

Paul Ray, author of The Cultural Creatives, put together a set of 15 criteria that can help us determine how cultures describe their actions to themselves. The same style of practical action can be applied to a group or organization as well. Today the task we were given was to perceive and evaluate how wisdom and folly actually operate in a group that we are involved in. I'll just mention a few of those points here.

Often we agree that a wise course of action might be best in some situations, but more often we will rationalize why we act from our own individual needs and points of view instead. Take, for example, the big picture: Do we take the long-term view, thinking not just of our generation, but preparing for our children and grandchildren? "Ah, but I'm a specialist in this area; I need to focus and get this job done now. That's what is important for me to accomplish at this time."

How about using many ways of knowing: Are we combining our intellectual knowledge with our love of something, or how it makes us feel? Are we recognizing our limitations and asking others their opinion? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "I'm willing to fight for what I believe" are two explanations that work well. Meanwhile we ignore things like carpal tunnel syndrome, bad eyesight and increased headaches, not to mention discovering new ways to change and grow.

Authenticity seems to be an up-and-coming watchword for this generation. We are interested in a name brand because it is real and lives up to the hype; therefore it is trustworthy and has integrity. We are looking for that in people as well. "I've got to get the job done though, whether I like it or not. That may mean pretending interest, or concealing the truth, but sometimes that's necessary in order to succeed."

And how about leadership? What do we value in a leader? Can our leaders have the quality to inspire ideas and cooperation among the group so that the individuals feel empowered and have a sense of ownership? Or are we still looking for that hero who will do it all for us? After all, we do need heroes in our society, someone to look up to. ("We've just got to make sure that people always see him or her as right and good.")

We all want the best for ourselves and our children. But experience tells us that cultures maintain themselves for a long time before behavior changes. We want to help, as long as the change won't impact our current lifestyle, especially in the direction of our pocketbook. We often get locked in to a way of life, a course of action and don't see the habit to break until someone points it out to us.

That's why it's a good idea to get outside every once in a while. Creation is longing to show us the value of diversity, cooperation, mutual respect and long-term commitment — not to mention unconditional love, patience and forgiveness. As the ones who "know," Homo sapiens have still got a long way to go before we are truly "wise."