The Phoenix Project

About the Phoenix Project

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:24:00 +0000

This project grew out of some discussions among a group of writers, activists, film makers, and others, all of whom are deeply concerned about the state of the world, and the prognosis for the future.
      The problems are obvious enough, but the movement toward useful solutions seems far, far below what is needed. Everywhere people are applying bandages to symptoms, or trying to, leaving untreated the systemic sources of the problems.
      We decided to join forces, as a loose-knit network of collaborators, to explore what we could do to spark new initiatives and new thinking…looking at our problems from a systemic perspective, and seeking systemic solutions.
      As our first initiative we oganized The Phoenix Gathering, in Vilcabamba, Ecuador, June 8-15, 2008. We brought together leading thinkers and visionaries to join us in this exploration, this search for new approaches to the crises that face humanity and the natural world. Information about the Gathering and its outcomes can be found via the panel to the right...
      The event was filmed, and we are in the process of creating video segments to share. Watch this site, or join our DialogForum to stay in touch.

The Gathering: a personal view

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:00:00 +0000

by Richard Moore

Twenty-five people from around the world gathered in Vilcabamba, Ecuador from June 8-15, 2008, to seek wise and intelligent responses to the crisis of civilization. Brian O’Leary and Meredith Miller hosted us in their beautiful home, Monteuseños. DeAnna Martin and Jean Rough facilitated the event using Dynamic Facilitation, and John Crosbie filmed the proceedings.

Vilcabamba, Ecuador
Many people contributed to the organization of the event, in particular Brian & Meredith, who between them participated in hundreds of email exchanges, made local travel arrangements, and renovated their lovely home to accommodate more-than-expected guests. Sergio Lub, Richard Moore, Carol Dunne, and Leonardo Wild all put in many hours sending out invitations, collaborating on arrangements, maintaining websites and mailing lists, etc. Leonardo also made arrangements for several of us to visit with Ecuadorian Government officials, which was of the highlight events of the week.
       Our vision for the Gathering was presented on our website, as an open invitation for anyone to ask to participate. If we had received a great many requests, we would have had to figure out some equitable way to select people, but as it turned out we got just enough takers to cover our budget.
       The budget, by the way, was minimal. We each paid a sum to our hosts, for which we got excellent food & lodging at cost, and we paid a bit extra to fly in our facilitators and to buy some film supplies. We were each responsible for these fees and for our travel, either out of our own pockets, or perhaps with a little help from our friends.
       See: The Inviation to see the whole invitation. It begins this way:

The purpose of this gathering is to bring together a microcosm of humanity – to explore together how we might most effectively respond to the crisis that faces us. Each of will be bringing our life experiences and wisdom to the group, and we will be including a very broad diversity of expertise and perspectives.

The invitation offered no preset agenda, and instead said that we would be engaging in facilitated dialog. One might wonder who would respond, or if anyone would respond, to such an unstructured proposition, way down in Ecuador, with no honorariums.
But people did respond; serious people, all of whom sensed that our problems as a civilization go deep – and that new approaches of one kind or another need to be explored. Everyone who came had positive suggestion to offer and valuable information to share. More than that, each of us, to one degree or another, has oriented our life activities around our concerns for humanity and our environment. See: Roster of Participants (with photos and bios).

The proceedings
In the general spirit of following the energy of the group, we engaged in a variety of processes during the week. Most of the time we met all together using Dynamic Facilitation, and we also met in breakout groups from time to time. For the first few days we were mainly getting to know one another and expressing our various concerns and perspectives. With so much diversity present, it seemed that we might never reach any kind of convergence in our thinking.
On Wednesday we went off individually and each created a statement of what we saw as the most important problem and what we saw as the solution (See: individual statements). We then each presented our statement to the whole group, and we found that the ideas clustered around these main themes:

• Biosphere
• Localization
• Governance
• Banking/Finance
• Free Energy/Innovation

We then engaged in breakout sessions on these topics, and each of the breakout groups, surprisingly for some of us, achieved a unanimous perspective on their topic. You can click on one of the topics to see what they came up with, and <back to story> will get you back here.
       Interestingly enough, these various perspectives, adopted by different groups, are quite a bit in harmony with one another. The Biosphere group presented the basic thesis that radical measures are necessary to save our environment, and believed that this would call for radical social transformations. The Localization group began by agreeing with these views, and argued for a particular social (and economic) transformation – communities moving toward local self-sufficiency and sustainability in their basic needs.
       The Governance group also focused on the local, the revitalization of community, from the perspective of achieving a more real kind of democracy. the Banking/Finance group did not mention community, or scale at all, but suggested sensible economic principles that could be applied in the context of revitalized communities (eg, community currencies), as well as in other contexts.
       The Free Energy/Innovation group pointed out that radical and open-minded approaches to science and technology should be pursued, as part of the solution to the energy and other crises we face. Perhaps revitalized communities, operating on a sensible economic basis, according to their emergent shared perspetives, could provide the kind of incubation nests needed for such approaches to flourish.
       These harmonious connections among the breakout groups are apparent now that we have nicely edited versions of the outcomes. At the Gathering itself, we also saw connections, but expressed them more in system terms...
       The Earth contains the biosphere, and the two affect one another. Humans are part of the biosphere and human activity impacts the biosphere. Hierarchical civilization constrains human activity and increases the impact of humanity on the biosphere. Changes in our systems of governance would change the nature of civilization, the role of individuals, and the impacts on the biosphere. Localization would move governance closer to the people, enable closer feedback loops between human activity and its effect on the environment, and generally shift the nature of education, innovation, and economics.
       These various connections were represented in a chart:

Report to the community
On Saturday afternoon, as the final part of the gathering, we invited people in from the local community and presented to them the reports from the breakout groups. They were very responsive to what we had done, and they shared with us their own activist endeavors, and their reasons for choosing to live in Vilcabamba. Rather than ‘us the experts’ reporting to ‘them the ordinary people’, it turned out that all of us in the room felt that we were on the same level, engaged in various ways in doing what we could to improve society and repair the biosphere.

Meeting with officials in Quito
On the Monday following the gathering, six of us met in Quito with Finance Minister Pedro Paez and 25 of his staff at the Ministry and the Bank of Ecuador. We summarized what had been discussed at the gathering, and Paez summarized some of the economic difficulties facing Ecuador and how the government was approaching these at both the national and regional levels. There was also discussion of the Yasuni project, which is an attempt to preserve the Yasuni rainforest from petroleum exploitation.

Unanimous outcomes of breakout groups

Biosphere
The Earth is a living biosphere whose natural ecosystems, diversity, and patterned interdependencies remain essential for the survival of all species. Humanity in its current state of industrial expansion and resource depletion is rapidly destroying the biosphere on which our own civilization depends. Mindless over-consumption, industrial degradation and uncontrolled procreation cascade in ever more destructive cycles whose certain outcome will be the end of civilization as we know it and accelerating the annihilation of many species including perhaps our own.
       Massive habitat destruction and cataclysmic climate change have already impacted thousands of species in a way not seen for eons. Our political leaders at all levels of government, the private sector, international collaborative bodies, and other social structures have either persistently ignored these real crises or, at best, failed to act in a timely way, appearing instead disorganized in their response or fixated by inertia. Half measures –essentially band-aid solutions- are promised as bromides to ease the growing concern of the public, but such empty promises are more designed to win votes than affect meaningful changes for how human beings interact with the interconnected species on this planet.
       Only radical social transformations within our civilization, arising from knowledge of the ongoing planetary changes and combined with a profound spiritual evolution, can prevent further destruction and reverse the downward spiral we face.
       Some say our time for action to save the biosphere is short; others say there is more time. By either measure, the stakes for our generation’s failure to act boldly and decisively may bequeath profound risks of ecological and social bankruptcies to future generations yet unborn.

<back to story>

Localization
The biosphere is made up of millions of local ecosystems, all under threat from the convergent global crises of climate change, per capita peak oil, and economic instability.
       Enticed by economic globalization, cities and local communities have surrendered their ability to meet their own essential needs (water, food, energy, manufacturing, health, transportation, and systems of care). Communities must now rebuild these capacities and develop resilience to the ongoing fluctuations in global/national economies, currencies and energy supplies through a process of “localization”. The process involves transforming existing communities into healthy self-reliant entities complete with localized supply chains for essential resources in order to safeguard the long-range safety of our families, our communities, and our city.
       Local communities, however, also exist in a wider context. While broad solutions to save the biosphere must arise first at local levels, essential issues involving water, food, transportation, biodiversity, and others must be extrapolated from local to global levels, if we hope to be part of the transformation of human civilization. Localization and self-reliance does not require regional walls on knowledge and sharable solutions. By way of example, health equity is a right of all peoples. If one city or region has found solutions by medicines, technique, or lifestyle to health conditions, the information exchange networks of local communities can be used to transmit and deliver such solutions more widely in an actively pursued process of mutual aid.

<back to story>

Governance
The group discussed the overriding notion of “emergent shared perspective” based on self-governance that begins at the lowest possible community level (“local inclusive democracy”). In turn this creates a culture of mutual problem solving that expands to larger levels of decision making, for example, delegations from several communities meeting to achieve emergent shared perspective. The process continues through as many levels as needed with the key principle being including all who have a stake in the eventual decision.

The principles identified were:

• inclusivity of all
• mutual problem solving
• empowering individuals and communities through identifying and acting on emergent shared perspectives
• transparency of process
• feedback at all levels

This is already happening. Local communities can learn from examples being practiced, such as:

• Puerto Allegre’s “participatory budgeting” process that begins at the family/block level, working upwards to the level of the city itself.
• Wisdom Councils being implemented in places like Victoria, BC; Austria; and Oakland, CA.
• “Panchayat” - the system of decision making in Indian villages.
• Consensus decision making in the anti-globalization movement, amongst others.

Group members recognized that there was no distinct formula to achieve emergent shared perspectives, rather different communities, operating within their own traditions and existing conditions, would choose different paths to the same end state.

<back to story>

Banking/Finance
A primary disease impacting the sustainability of the Earth is the uncontrolled growth of an out-of-control consumer culture that demands limitless resources while producing endless waste. Economies that depend upon continued exponential exploitation of the Earth are inherently unsustainable.
        Future societies will be required to adopt steady state economies based on the concept of zero growth that redefine acts between buyer and seller, and supply greater information and incentives for all involved in the supply chains and product life cycle choices.
        Money increasingly obscures social and environmental values and the potential for human fairness. Money accumulating in the hands of a few subjugating more people each year, pushing many to the extremes of dire poverty. Money and the banking and financial systems must be radically transformed through transparency in order to provide positive the impacts both locally and globally.

<back to story>

Free Energy/Innovation

       “The resistance to a new idea increases as the square of its importance.”
       —Bertrand Russell

Creating a sustainable future requires radical and urgent technological and social innovation. Some of these innovations fall “outside the box” of accepted or understood knowledge. Current examples of sustainable breakthroughs include proofs-of-concept of clean new energy, water systems, educational models and economic solutions, healing and group intention experiments, some of which, if further developed, show great promise but they need to be protected from external pressures.
        We believe that the innovators should be supported in “incubation nests” housing research at selected locations throughout the world. Preconditions for innovation include:

• Choosing locations that attract scientists and people of great knowledge, wisdom and integrity
• Creating centers that are relaxing, ecologically and economically sustainable
• Finding supportive individuals and institutions
• Obtaining altruistic and unconditional financial support
• Forming repositories of knowledge and wisdom regardless of external conditions

<back to story>

Interviews with participants

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:07:00 +0000

The interviewer is Bob Banner, and he did a very good job by asking just the right question, to bring out the essence of each person's ideas.

Michael Brownlee: Relocalization

A very informative discussion of how our food systems work, and how relocalization can make our communities more reslient, and able to provide for their own most essential needs.

Part 1

Part 2

Richard Moore: Governance & localism

Richard talks about community-based democracy, dialog processes, and the thinking behind the Phoenix Project. He mentions a website, and gets it wrong. The actual URL is: http://www.governourselves.org/

Tanya Tuttle: Shamanism

Tanya talks from personal experience about traditional healing methods, sacred plants, personal transformation, and Shamanic practices in Ecuador.

Chris Shaw: The Work-Less Party

Chris talks about a new kind of radical politics in British Columbia.

Main themes discussed at the Gathering

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:55:00 +0000

• We are in partnership with the earth and all life.

• Our species' presence on the earth is hurting it, us, and all other life.

• There is great urgency to act and complex choices to be made if we are to survive as a species - we need both short-term and long-term strategies.

• The current system (economic, political, elite rule, education, food production, etc.) isn't working we need to totally change our infrastructure in terms of how we survive and thrive together.

• We can transform our current system from the grassroots up by localizing our communities and weaving them together in a global self-organized, decision-making network. This means things like:

- making our communities self-sufficient within the realities of our bioregion,
- innovating free energy solutions that make our communities independent from oil,
- getting together to work on community issues and resolving them at the local level, choosing our own forms of self-governance, and linking these forms of self-governance across regions to the global level
- re-designing our monetary/exchange mechanisms so they ensure sustainable resiliency
- acknowledging and connecting in community with each other, other life, and the biosphere.

• We've learned a lot from each other and we want to keep doing so, but we haven't figured out yet what form that should take.

• Another collective commitment that is emerging includes focusing on a location (or 2 or 3) and implementing a collaboration of the solutions we've talked about to see what works and make an impact.

Individual statements by participants

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:29:00 +0000

Each person came up with a statement(s) of what they see to be the 'main problem', and what kind of solutions they envision.

Andrea Salvador: Saving Yasuni Forests in Ecuado
Bob Banner: Relocalization
Brian O'Leary: Governance
Carol Dunne: Relocalization
Chris Shaw: Preventing Biosphere Collapse
Chuck Feil: Interconnecting local communities globally
Deanna Martin: How we talk & think together to make collective decisions
Jean Rough: Governance
Jim & Sherry Husfelt: Awakening humanity to a New Consciousness
Kathy Moore: Water Security, quantity and quality for all species
Kathy Moore: Over-population
Leonardo Wild: Respect "life processes"
Michael Brownlee: Relocalization
Miroslav Kolar: Governance Systems
Osvaldo Landeros: Local Sustainability can remake communities
Paulina: The transition of being, the disconnected urban person to start being part of nature
Pondo: Communicating limitless energy to the campus generation
Raju: Sorting out the conflicts in one's life
Richard Moore: Governance
Sergio Lub: Identifying & empowering good people
Sergio Lub: Monetizing social capital
Shrikumar Poddar: A World without War
Tania Duran: Education
Virginia Igonda: Pan American unified vision towards impending threats

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Andrea Salvador: Saving Yasuni Forests in Ecuador

Key Theme
Saving Yasuni Forests in Ecuador

My Concern
Time is running out! We have one year for the world to respond for the $350 million/year for 10 years.

My Solution
With the help and support of members of the Phoenix Gathering to make the approach to the government.

Bob Banner: Relocalization

Key Theme
Relocalization.

My Concern
With the converging of global crises, much of our needs will be focused on surviving and thriving locally.

My Solution
Creating interdependent resources of sustainable practices focusing on food, water, energy, shelter, and a local living economy.

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Brian O'Leary: Governance

Key Theme
Governance

We first need to write a declaration of independence to resist the tyranny that grips the world. We shold also draft a declaration of interdependence to address those issues that affect all of humanity and nature. From these "self-evident" truths will come those structures that will facilitate the needed transitions toward a truly sustainable world. Systems of governance need to be local and regional wherever possible, and global only insofar as the ruling elites are replaced by representatives dedicated to the rights of all living beings.

My Concern
We know what it means to be ecologically sustainable, but we must insist that this goal is achieved in the very near future.

My Solution
We must consider solutions that lie "outside of the box" of current discourse, such as clean breakthrough energy (e.g., vacuum energy, cold fusion and advanced hydrogen and water technologies), combined human intention. We must create nests, as a crucible for the needed changes here, in us and in Ecuador.

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Carol Dunne: Relocalization

Key Theme
Relocalization

My Concern
Possible collapse in infrastructure

My Solution
Create a community support network for education regarding rebuilding infrastructure

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Chris Shaw: Preventing Biosphere Collapse

Key Theme
Preventing biosphere collapse.

My Concern
The end of human civilization.

My Solution
Educate our fellow human beings to a revolutionary concept: the essential need to recapture the commons and our independence and freedom as human beings, and our interdependence with all species on the planet. Take back control of the Earth by whatever means necessary (nothing is off the table). Mission command concept.

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Chuck Feil: Interconnecting local communities globally

Key Theme
Interconnecting local communities globally.

My Concern
Without connecting cultures, language, and understanding of local issues in a global network...we are lost in having solutions in the time of crisis, whether political, economical, or environmental.

My Solution
Local ambassadors that would serve as emissaries to other local global networks...sharing solutions and resolutions on issues that affect the world community.

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Deanna Martin: How we talk & think together to make collective decisions

Key Theme
How we talk & think together to make collective decisions

My Concern
We've structured into place mechanistic system that permeate our political, economic and social structures.

My Solution
If we can ultimately become conscious of identity a "we" that can choose a different system, then we can emerge different structures that will work for all life. There are many dialogue processes, with the wisdom council as central, that can create a parallel conversation for a "we" to form and get empowered. This can happen at the local, regional, national and global level. Create our own governance system that things the current governance system so it begins to serve "we" rather than the other way around.

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Jean Rough: Governance

Key Theme
Governance

My Concern
The "System" and the lack of authentic conversations

My Solution
Ongoing wisdom councils locally and globally to ensure creative solutions that create a will and voice of the people through choice-creating conversations that are best for all.

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Jim & Sherry Husfelt: Awakening humanity to a New Consciousness

Key Theme
Awakening humanity to a New Consciousness

My Concern
People are spiritually bankrupt and malnourished due to the effects of greed and materialism. With the increasing collapse of the known structures of society (i.e., food, fuel, water, etc.), peoples' fears will increase and their attachments to what they have and are losing. This will invoke various mental, emotional and bodily responses (i.e., anger, violence, illness) which is a result of these external forces. This will create an unstable and chaotic society.

My Solution

• Education and awareness of a shift in thinking from an external view of separateness to an internal view of unity/oneness
• Awakening to the belief that we as humans and all things have the Divine Spark within
• Working as a global community valuing our individual intrinsic values

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Kathy Moore: Water Security, quantity and quality for all species

Key Theme
Water Security, quantity and quality for all species

My Concern
Decimation of all species and pristine lands and forests. Poor governance, greed & privatization. Impacts of pollution & climate change on water quality & quantity. Lack of comprehension of severity of issue - lack of urgency to act.

My Solution

• Need strong pan-national organization, more clout than the UN for education, conservation, implementation & enforcement of water initiatives & regulations.
• Need worldwide local activism & community groups to take control of municipal & regional level of watersheds, water supplies & sources.
• Elect strong enviro candidates in municipal elections
• Promote education, conservation & protection strategies & efforts, community meetings, schools, sharing knowledge & expertise in & with broader area
• Establish local land trusts
• Preserve green space, contiguous corridors, etc.
• Enact effective legislation to protect watersheds ffrom surface & subsurface threats (local, provincial & national)
• Enact local legislation & initiatives such as green building standards, reduction of impermeable surfaces, daylighting weeks & restoring wetlands through community efforts
• Support new technology & innovation to purify & reclaim polluted water & water bodies - locally, regionally, nationally & internationally (including oceans)

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Kathy Moore: Over-population

Key Theme
Over-Population

My Concern
Ever increasing population has now exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth. Population reduction will occur cataclysmically through war, genocide, famine etc. without some intervention. Humane intervention is difficult (rights to procreation is sacred right). Too many people in competition for diminishing resources.

My Solution

• Requires international effort to reduce population, through education & contagion model (peer pressure, viral education)
• Draconian measures might include enforced rules, Chinese model
• Incentives for having less children
• Cap & trade system for reproductive rights

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Leonardo Wild: Respect "life processes"

Key Theme
Respect "life processes"

Under "life processes," I understand the process that occurs when living organisms interact with their environment, which is defined from within through a semipermeable membrane. Structurally, all living organisms have one thing in common: a chaordic interior, a semi-permeable membrane created from within by that "autopoietic interior," and an environment which, scale-wise (compared to the organism's interior) is chaotic. Unicellular microorganisms, bacteria, plants, animals, humans, "social organisms," all the way up to planetary Gaia, share this structure and the way of interacting with the surrounding universe.
The important thing to understand is that the decision making of what trespasses the membrane (the elements needed for the survival and growth of the organism), comes from within, not from without. It is the organism's inner structure that "knows" what is good for it, and what can be detrimental to its health. Thus, anything that "leaves" the organism (it's waste and/or excess production of the elements it does not need) will have an effect on the surrounding environment (which includes other organisms up to the scale of Gaia). Also, any behavior that disregards other organism's life processes will be a "lack of respect" to their inherent nature.

My Concern
The existing social structures are mostly disrespectful of life processes.
Most present-day social structures of economy, health, education, religion, politics, even those of change, are disrespectful of life processes. Economy is based on life-disruptive behavior through the monetization of all things, forcing exponential growth that is not sustainable even at the planetary scale. Structures of the "health practice and industry" disregard the way organisms interact with their environment. Education is designed to disrespect the most basic human biological, emotional and spiritual needs (as defined by their chaordic interior). Religions (as in "belief systems, on how we understand reality and existence") are inherently exclusive and have become institutional structures which, coupled with Politics, define the "proper, ethical and moral" behavior of individuals from "without."

My Solution
Create social structures that respect life processes, which automatically means that you can only do that yourself, in your immediate surrounding, showing others who are interested how you are doing it, and they can take from it what they are able to assimilate according their own inner nature.

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Michael Brownlee: Relocalization

Key Theme
Relocalization as a strategic approach to global challenges (climate changes, peak oil, economic instability) creating community resilience and self-reliance.

My Concern

• Time frame/urgency;
• Engaging whole communities in the process (scale);
• Security sufficient local funding to sustain effort;
• Short-term shortages, outages, emergencies;
• Linking local groups to global effort.

My Solution

• Develop replicable models
• effective and inclusive democratic processes and structures
• local currency system for resilience
• emergency preparedness task force
• Develop collaboration/sharing tools between communities to maximize learning, including media
• Build regional networks of learning and trade.

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Miroslav Kolar: Governance Systems

Key Theme
System of government.

My Concern
Citizens have today little say in decisions affecting their lives.
       Government secrecy and dismal performance of mainstream media keep people uninformed or ill-informed about important problems.
       The military-industrial complex takes huge resources that could be used instead for the solution of urgent environmental problems, education of the people, and for improving their living standards.
       Conflicts between nations and various ethnic groups are perpetuated by continuing to use military force instead of negotiations for their solutions.

My Solution
Abolish all secrecy, make all the information freely available to all.
Provide means (alternative information networks, alternative media if necessary) to make the information easily accessible to everyone. This should enable everyone to make or participate in making wise decisions about environment, economy, politics that should lead to sustainable society.
       Enable participation of all people in the government. All decisions concerning only a single community should be made only by the members of that community. Only matters concerning whole regions, states, or the whole Earth should be made by a meeting of representatives of the lower levels or by referenda held in the respective areas if important decisions are [to be] made.
       While local communities will be the centres of most activity, global planetary identity (global citizenship) must be cultivated. Exchanges of experience and information and personal visits between communities will be encouraged to avoid any potential for misunderstanding and possible conflicts between communities/regions/states.
       Armies should be abolished as fast as practicable.
       Non-interest monetary (or exchange) system has to be introduced.

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Osvaldo Landeros: Local Sustainability can remake communities

Key Theme
To stop consuming as we are doing and to change the paradigms of happiness. This is the moment of transcendence, recognizing that we forgot how we can focus on growing internally for the best evolution of the collective. To stop competing for having social status and incongruous commodities in our homes.

My Concern
Search and help the last people were living on concepts of easy sustainability, and work with them reorganizing these communities. They are also tied of hands as we are (Western lifestyle). The world conditions had obligated them to forget how to live in a sustainable way and their resources are very limited because the most part of them never had to live before on a world that depends of something called economy.
       They know how to made their own houses with the local resources, how to seed their own food and to made different articles as clothes, incenses, wood furniture, artisans, etc. The things these don't know are how to make a relation with our world, the one they are tied against not their voluntary. They wish to go back to their (rakes) but know they are disorganized and they don't know how to solve that because now everything costs dollars and they don't have the technical, social and economic resources to do it.
       We have to make a fusion with them and help together to give an example of sustainability to everybody in different ways than we already were planning together.

My Solution
       * Free energy
       * Agriculture
       * Education

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Paulina: The transition of being, the disconnected urban person to start being part of nature

Key Theme
The transition of being, the disconnected urban person to start being part of nature

My Concern
Even if we know that things are not going well, we don't have practical and simple solutions that can be reached for everyone how does that wants to change

My Solution
Create a semi-urban place (while living in a community) with practical solutions using permaculture systems (and others) and creating a space to share experiences in all quality of life themes solutions - local and worldwide. Offer a place to sell or exchange local and healthy products.

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Pondo: Communicating limitless energy to the campus generation

Key Theme
Communicating limitless energy to the campus generation

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Raju: Sorting out the conflicts in one's life

Key Theme
Discover the source of one's own life which creates conflicts which in turn contribute to broader conflicts through time and space disturbing peace and harmony in the environment.

My Concern
How to keep my sense of integrity and strength and use them in the service of others non-violently, lovingly rooted in truth.

My Solution
Work harmoniously in networks and groups to enhance the quality of living to all beings for peace, justice, and enlightenment.
We have to identify a field of action in our life and ask the question "how does it help for enlightened living".

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Richard Moore: Governance

Key Theme
What is the real problem?

My Concern
It is not true that the ecosystem cannot support humanity at current population levels. It is true that industrial methods of agriculture and market-based distribution systems are
(1) Destroying [the] ecosystem
(2) Selectively starving 80% of humanity

My Solution
Break away – declare independence from global economy: As localities and as nations seek local solutions to food production, economy, transport, etc.

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Sergio Lub: Identifying & empowering good people

Key Theme
Identifying & empowering good people

My Concern
How to empower "good people" so it "pays" to care for others and the commons.

In many areas, corruption is endemic. Criminals hide in anonymity and need secrecy. Financial credit systems cannot differentiate between the credit rating of a good person and of a criminal.

My Solution
A secure online referral system where those I interact with can post a referral on me, and can change it if they wish.
This system will allow people of goodwill to be welcome around the world. Not just in their immediate community. Similarly, as our credit rating works. If I do not pay my bills that becomes known everywhere now. Likewise, if I abuse others or if I help. Likewise, if I abuse others, or if help others, will become equally known to the world.
A prototype is being tested successfully. Since 1998 by Favors.org, and is available for implementation at a larger scale.

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Sergio Lub: Monetizing social capital

Key Theme
Monetizing social capital

My Concern
Quite often good people are broke while crooks live in affluence. How to improve the system so we grant credit according to a person's standing within the community

My Solution
To grant credit proportional to the number of positive referrals received. Thus, the most appreciated members of a community will have the most resources to work with.
A prototype exists and has been tested with Favors.org community and its ThankYou's system.

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Shrikumar Poddar: A World without War

Key Theme
A World without War

My Concern
How to free all to good. Learn and live simply with dignity.

My Solution
From self-transformation to global transformation.

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Tania Duran: Education

Key Theme
To educate, inform, promote & develop "free energy" to the Planet Earth starting at local, communal, national & global levels.

My Concern
How to motivate people to be responsible & ready to start taking actions. How to create funding for this vision such as alternative technology, renewable technologies, education.

My Solution

1. Develop renewable technology, "free energy" in different locations on the Planet Earth
2. Create an alternative educational process that includes training-trainers
3. Inform globally through Internet, movies, DVDs, music & theatre
4. Give special attention to educate children in this new paradigm through visiting schools, theatre, video games

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Virginia Igonda: Pan American unified vision towards impending threats

Key Theme
Pan American unified vision towards impending threats

My Concern
Not enough interest or knowledge of neighboring peoples and cultures

My Solution
Learning more about language and traditions to "communicate!"

Daily log of Phoenix discussions

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:01:00 +0000

Waking-the-Phoenix Gathering
Summary of Process & Content
Montesuenos | Vilcabamba, Ecuador
June 8 - 14, 2008
Prepared by DeAnna Martin and Jean Rough, our facilitators

Sunday
26 participants and 2 facilitators gathered in the afternoon to begin our week together. Richard and Brian welcomed people to the gathering, then we held an opening circle. Participants were asked to introduce themselves - to share their personal story. As the circle progressed, it was clear that people's work was not separate from who they are and their personal stories. We finished the circle in time for dinner and an unscheduled evening that followed.

Monday
In the morning, participants gathered as a large group. We experienced an indigenous ritual that helped signify our beginning led by participant, Tania. We introduced the process of Dynamic Facilitation, then facilitated a session on people's desired outcomes for the gathering. The content of the session is captured in the following summary reflected to the group after returning back together after lunch to resume the conversation.

Problem Statement:
How can we address the world situation?

Solution Strategies:

• Create a plan/manifesto/MOU
• Provide support and continuity for each other
• Leverage change already happening for the best use ("sleep with the enemy")
• Act and think locally and globally

Shift to new Problem Statements:

• How much time do we really have?
• Who is this "we"?
• What needs to be "fixed"?

Data Points:

• The earth will take care of itself
• The "we" is all life - as partners
• Language matters
• Requires a willingness to go out of the box and embrace solutions not thought of before

Solution Strategies:

• Explore our assumptions
• Plan and language needs to be something "we" all can say "yes" to
• Break down the "secret society" and create something new that works for and empowers all
• Learn from past and current situation - what we create new needs to not replicate the same problems
• Connect with the ancestors and nature... Maybe do a field trip while we're here
• Explore fear
• We need a collective truth telling, then a reconciliation

New Data Points:

• Takes courage and risk to do what we are doing
• Fear is powerful
• We are what we eat
• Pain is the issue not poverty

After lunch the group identified three breakout groups to divide into. They were: free energy, sustainability, and fear. The free energy and sustainability groups met with a facilitator. The fear group dialogued on their own. We gathered before dinner to hear reports from each group. We had time to hear from the free energy and sustainability groups, but waited to hear from the fear group until after dinner. When we reassembled, the fear group presented and we had a chance to reflect on their sharing in the large group until we closed the session late in the evening.

The following reflect the reports from the breakout groups:

• Free Energy
Media, government, education, environmentalists, and corporations suppress the existence and possibilities of free energy.

The Situation:

• Many advocates have suffered, been abused, or murdered for speaking out
• Free energy has been demonstrated successfully
• Mostly individuals working on it

We are ready:

• We have the technology
• Books have been written
• Free energy can run a city, cars, etc.

Possibilities:

• Transform a community with free energy
• Involve indigenous peoples as support
• Develop a strong support group
• Have ongoing gatherings (like this one)
• Develop and distribute history of free energy
• Bring more information into the world about connection of spirituality and free energy
• Create a plan for implementation of free energy

• Sustainability
Issues that need to be addressed to live sustainably:

• Food - localize food production, ending unsustainable agriculture
• Energy - figure out where it should come from and make changes
• Transportation
• Organizations of Society - governance and education
• Shelter
• Water & Sanitation
• Ecological System Services
• Transparent Banking/Monetary System - sustainable finance
• Public Health

We began by wanting to talk about each issue separately, but as the conversation continued it was clear they were connected. The problem statements reflect how our view of the issue evolved through the conversation.

Problem Statements:

1. What are the changes necessary to be sustainable?
2. How would the new society operate?
3. How do we match food need with food production?
4. How to produce food/increase capacity in places where it's difficult to produce food?
5. What does it take to be sustainable?
6. How do we change the way we interact with each other?
7. How to design a monetary system that enhances the local and is regional and global?
8. How do we structure the way we exchange things to work for all?
9. How to assure/nourish our capacity to create?
10. How to balance the "number" of us/humans with what the earth can sustain?

Our collective insights and places of resonance looked something like this...

Shared Insights:

• We want humans to be around
• We support the creation of a feedback mechanism with alga rhythms that include ecological health and human health. This feedback mechanism would provide a barometer for us.
• A map of the complexity of our situation - the structures of social cohesion, continuity and change; economy, health, and education; politics, religion/belief systems, economics

Envisioning what we want:

• Better use the land and resources we have
• Localized communities: local production and living within what the bioregion can support
• Economy that keeps value local and a monetary system that links globally
• To educate differently
• No oil for energy

• Fear
What are we afraid of?

• Dying
• Insecurity - resulting from separation
• Founded and unfounded fear
• No control over money or resources
• Change
• Feeling helpless
• The unknown
• Lacking what we have
• Unpreparedness
• Losing attachments
• Freedom? Mobs?
• Systems collapse
• Basic needs not met/starvation

Solutions to overcome our fear:

• Love as unity
• Less separation
• Survival skills - knowledge and preparedness
• Cooperation
• Community
• Self responsibility
• Adaptability
• We should include in our manifesto or create a manual something on "how to thrive in uncertain times?"

Tuesday
We began the morning hearing from anyone who wanted to check in or share dreams or insights they'd had overnight. Some expressed concern that the fear breakout group had a lot of time for sharing and discussion, but the large group hadn't had a chance to respond to the other two group's reports. We heard from each of those groups again with a chance to respond to each. After brief presentations by both, the response was facilitated. Below is a reflection of the large group conversation that followed from the breakout group reports:

What is our ideal outcome for this gathering?
... A document we can take back to our communities, implement locally and bring others in, with support from one another

In relation to:

Free Energy

• We need a plan to bring this into the world
• Safe havens where research and development can happen
• Figure out how to fund it... capitalist transformation, other?
• Parallel importance of getting rid of the elite - to do this requires localized efforts; ground-up transformation; bioregional/global connection to address global issues; an information technology connection
• Moving to some new model/paradigm - what to call it and how to get there?
• Learn from other models... India, Leon Dormido, sustainable resiliency

Sustainable Future

What to change?
See notes from above...

Fear

• We need to acknowledge, accept, and anticipate fear and what we are afraid of
• We can help each other through it
• Fear can empower /motivate us to take action
• Information is required to overcome ignorance - we can provide that information for us and others
• We need to have fun, too!
• This is all important to getting people on board

Tuesday after lunch participants were put in groups of three at random and asked to do a listening exercise. In each group, there were three roles: the speaker, the listener, and the observer. Each speaker had 10 minutes to share his or her answer to the question, "What can we create together that we cannot create alone?" The listener was asked to do one of the following: reflect back what they heard the speaker saying, be silent, and/or the only question they were allowed to say was, "Tell me more..." Then the group would rotate roles so that each person had the chance to be a speaker, listener, and observer.

When the triads returned to the large group later in the afternoon, participants shared how the experience was for them in each of the roles. Some people chose not to participate in the process. A few expressed they were annoyed by it at first, but, then, when they were in the process, it really came together for them. Others felt like it was a turning point in their experience of the week thus far.

We continued until dinner in a dynamically facilitated large group gathering. The following summarizes three key themes that came out of this conversation:1. We want to continue as a group... could mean meeting again, supporting one another on different projects, and ongoing communication - website, email, knowledge-base of some sort. Unresolved solution strategies were the idea of expanding the group and the possibility of forming an organization of some kind.
2. We want to create a product - a "Declaration of Interdependence" or manifesto, or memo of understanding... something in writing and a DVD.
3. We have to know what the "egg" is before we can make the "omelet." Someone suggested using a paragraph writing process to discover what the egg is for this group.

Tuesday night was spent hearing from local Ecuadorians about local issues. Two residents of Vilcabamba came to talk about how they are trying to preserve public water rights for townspeople. Three of our local participants shared a bit about Ecuador's political history and what's happening at the national level regarding the re-writing of the country's constitution and the Yasuni rainforest preservation project.

Wednesday
Wednesday found the two facilitators very sick. Richard proposed following a process suggestion a participant had a day earlier. Participants spent time by themselves in the morning writing their own one-paragraph statements about what the problem is as they see it and what their solution(s) are. Then, each participant shared his or her statement in front of the group. Richard took notes in the background to capture their main concerns and ideas so that when they were done hearing from everyone, we could begin to group around shared concerns and solutions. Individual sharing took the morning and some of the afternoon. Then, Richard had them form into groups of three again to dialogue about how their individual passions relate to one another. This took most of the afternoon. Just before dinner, each group of three reported to the large group what had come up in their dialogue. Notes were captured, but are not reproduced here.

Thursday
The facilitators began the morning by reflecting back some of the "of courses" that had emerged thus far. These were based on patterns that had emerged in what people had been saying and the energy of where the group was. The "of courses" follow:

Some of our thoughts about the Phoenix Gathering

1. This Phoenix Gathering is important for us and for ALL.
2. We want to continue with ongoing Phoenix Gatherings.
3. The Phoenix Gathering can serve as a network for our individual work and our group work.
4. The Phoenix Gathering can serve as a gathering of information through a website and database, and "hold" ongoing activities.
5. The Phoenix Gathering can serve as a link for funding sources for future innovations.
6. A network website that could help us is www.friendlyfavors.org.

Making Connections

1. We gained a deeper understanding and awareness of the crisis, our situation and the numerous workable solutions.
2. We broadened our individual perspectives and gained respect and interest in learning and listening to others.
3. We discovered and experienced a sense of "we" and that each of our contributions and experiences weave together within our shared themes.
4. Our experience here will expand to others as we return to our individual work.

After resonating with these statements, several participants offered some next steps for the group's process. They suggested the group continued from where they had left off the day before by grouping individual contributions around shared themes, then meeting in those groups to see what convergence they could come up with around that topic. The group chose to pursue this approach. A participant, who had volunteered to type up everyone's personal statement, handed back to each person his or her one page summary. Richard had come up with several themes based on what each individual had shared, which he had written on separate flipchart pages. The group made some edits, but basically accepted the following themes in no order of importance:

• Biosphere/Spirituality
• Free Energy/Innovation
• Governance
• Education
• Banking/Finance
• Localization

For much of the afternoon people met in these groups according to their self-identified interests. (The conclusions of these breakout groups can be found in the story of the gathering.) Then, the large group reassembled to report out the convergences they arrived at. A dynamically facilitated conversation followed, two main results were the insight by one participant how these themes could be mapped together and the chartering of a sub-team of participants to draft a statement that would reflect this map and the convergences each small group had come up with.

The map is pictured here:

The group determined that each theme team would have the homework assignment of drafting a one-page or shorter, typed statement about what they had come up with. The sub-team of writers would take these pages and put them together in a statement for the whole group to review and endorse.

Friday
Theme teams spent the first part of the morning finishing their statements and getting them to the writers. Then, while the writers worked, the rest of the group met in a dynamically facilitated conversation about how to take things forward.

The outcomes of this conversation were:

• A clarity about what is okay to share with the public about the Phoenix Gathering and what is not okay to share - our co-created statement is okay to share; create a specific "not to share" list; the creation of any Phoenix Gathering "products," such as a DVD, must be approved by all before going public and any profit generated from these things will go to fund future Phoenix Gatherings; we may need further guidelines about all this developed as the group expands.
• Individual commitments - Bob, Leonardo, Pondo, and others shared their personal list of commitments they plan to take forward from the gathering.
• Energy and commitment to create a process beyond the gathering to surface our needs and have them supported by the group - might lead to collaboration, funding, bartering/exchanges.
• Energy around picking a location(s) to support localization/self-governance and innovation with our collective skills to see what works. For example, focus our collaboration in Boulder, CO and somewhere in Ecuador.
• We need to outreach to other people, groups, networks, movements, and the media. We're not quite sure what this looks like yet.
• We have an intention to create something together. This is still in an incubation stage. We will not use the Phoenix Gathering name or backing for our individual efforts that might bring risk to each other. We will use our own names to publicize our linkages, not Phoenix Gathering.

At lunch, one of the participants left abruptly. When the large group reconvened a note was shared and we spent some time processing people's reactions. One participant felt moved to go find this participant so two people left to do so. We attempted to keep going with the "what's next" and beginning to bring closure conversation, but people's energy was diffused with a mixture of emotions from the loss of a fellow participant. The group elected to hear some presentations by people who had offered to give them for the remainder of the afternoon. The writers resumed their activities away from the group so they could present something for all to see later than night. Brief presentations were made about the Wisdom Council process, Trusteeship and the Global Freedom Movement, and presenting and talking about movies in our local communities.

The writers worked late into the evening during which time the participant who had gone to find the other participant who had left returned. Around 9:30 PM a draft statement was printed and distributed for all to review overnight and during breakfast.

Saturday
We spent the morning in a dynamically facilitated conversation aimed at bringing closure and preparing for a presentation to the local community planned for after lunch. The day before, the group had imagined they would make a few edits and work out any major issues with the document, finish it up, then have the presentation include a signing of it by all participants at the afternoon presentation. However, it was clear as the conversation began that many were not feeling content with the statement and one person expressed that he never had any intention of signing a document. There were concerns with some of language, e.g. use of the word Gaia to refer to the biosphere; things that were included that some didn't feel comfortable with; and things that people really wanted included that weren't there.
As concerns were voiced, a shift began to occur. The group discovered that the spirit of the document, the reason for doing the document in the first place, was to invite people into this work that had just begun. While the specific action plan hadn't emerged yet, the experience of exploring together had revealed a framework for that action. There was dissatisfaction with the idea that this document would be just another manifesto out there, one among many, but not having any meaning to those who read it. It became clear that the story of the participant's coming to be together and what happened when they met, would be a powerful invitation to continue the work. The major outcome of the morning was piecing together the contents of the story, which were:

• Richard's website introduction of P.G. - intention, who, what, where, when
• Chart - in new form, reflecting different language and structure that everyone was supportive of
• The different themes and the unanimous conclusions each group came to (statement sheets)
• The "Of Courses"
• Summary pages from the charts - look at and draw story from
• Commitments - individual and collective
• Richard will draft this story in written form and circulate it for us to affirm and share in our own communities.

There was still a strong desire to address the issue of commitments and the identity of the Phoenix Gathering group for the purpose of figuring out how and in what form to move forward, but time did not permit working these issues through to closure. The story, above, became the outline for a presentation made to the community in the afternoon. Finally, the group met in a closing circle to share closing thoughts. We ended by experiencing an indigenous ritual, delivered by Tania again, that allowed us to celebrate and honor each other's presence.

Main Conclusions

• We are in partnership with the earth and all life.
• Our species' presence on the earth is hurting it, us, and all other life.
• There is great urgency to act and complex choices to be made if we are to survive as a species - we need both short-term and long-term strategies.
• The current system (economic, political, elite rule, education, food production, etc.) isn't working we need to totally change our infrastructure in terms of how we survive and thrive together.
• We can transform our current system from the grassroots up by localizing our communities and weaving them together in a global self-organized, decision-making network. This means things like:
- making our communities self-sufficient within the realities of our bioregion,
- innovating free energy solutions that make our communities independent from oil,
- getting together to work on community issues and resolving them at the local level, choosing our own forms of self-governance, and linking these forms of self-governance across regions to the global level
- re-designing our monetary/exchange mechanisms so they ensure sustainable resiliency
- acknowledging and connecting in community with each other, other life, and the biosphere.
• We've learned a lot from each other and we want to keep doing so, but we haven't figured out yet what form that should take.
• Another collective commitment that is emerging includes focusing on a location (or 2 or 3) and implementing a collaboration of the solutions we've talked about to see what works and make an impact.

NOTE: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings were spent in "open space" sessions. Participants offered their own presentations, shared movies, went to town, etc. Details from these sessions are not included here.

Contributions

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:22:00 +0000

This space is reserved for essays and other writings by those who attended the Phoenix Gathering. The contributions are stored as files on MediaFire. Click here to access the whole library:
Contributions by participants

Brian O'Leary is our first contributor. Click below to access Brian's folder directly:

Roster of Participants

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:43:00 +0000

Bob Banner – San Luis Obispo, California
Michael Brownlee – Boulder, Colorado
Carol Dunne – San Francisco, California – organizer
Chuck Feil – Bisbee, Arizona
Andrea Fernandez-Salvador – Guayaquil, Ecuador
Jim & Sherry Husfelt – Seattle, Washington
Virginia Igonda – Lafayette, California
Miroslav Kolar – Nanaimo, BC, Canada
Keith Lampe – Vilcabamba, Ecuador
Sergio Lub – Walnut Creek & Napa Valley, California – networker
DeAnna Martin – Seattle, Washington – facilitator, organizer
Meredith Miller – Vilcabamba, Ecuador – illustrator
Kathy Moore - Rossland, British Columbia, Canada
Richard Moore – Wexford, Ireland – organizer
Dr. Brian O'Leary - Vilcabamba, Ecuador
Osvaldo Osornio - Puerto Escondido, Mexico
Shrikumar Poddar - Okemos, Michigan
K S Sripada Raju - Okemos, Michigan
Jean Rough – Port Townsend, Washington – facilitator
Chris Shaw – British Columbia, Canada
Tania Duran Tuttle – Ruta del Sol, Ecuador
Leonardo Wild – Quito, Ecuador

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Bob Banner - San Luis Obispo, California

Bob Banner has been the publisher and editor of HopeDance: Radical Solutions Inspiring Hope (www.hopedance.org) for 11 years (as well as creating other publications for 35+ years). HopeDance has studied numerous problems (peak oil, transportation, over consumption, dumbing down, Food, 911, Globalization, et al) and has been exploring solutions with or without government involvement, to empower individuals and organizations... to promote organizations that focus on social justice, sustainability and sacredness. He has pooled freelancers and writers to contribute material to this evocative bimonthly publication in the hopes that certain messages of sustained and genuine hope enter into the psyche of the mainstream, rather than nihilism or sentimental hope. He is also instrumental in using FILM (and facilitated discussions after the films) as a way to educate people about various issues, both in discovering the challenges facing us as well as the solutions. He has written a booklet entitled "Becoming The Media: How to Screen Films in Your Local Community" to instruct others as to HOW they can do the same. Hes been screening films in many cities on a regular basis. He started a rental library system of 500+ progressive documentaries for the community as well as the nation... and recently edited the 438 page anthology of the best of HopeDance titled SUSTAINABILITY: Radical Solutions Inspiring Hope. The website is receiving 200,000 hits a month. He is currently working on a collection of personal essays tentatively titled ENJOYING OURSELVES WHILE CHANGING THE WORLD. He is keenly interested in Sacred Activism and how vital group solutions can emerge through a truly democratic facilitated process. He is also keenly interested in the Relocalization movement as a major player in moving toward a more sustainable future. He is also very open to what new steps may be necessary to liberate people as well as designing new social structures for that liberation to be birthed more rapidly.

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Michael Brownlee – Boulder, Colorado
Michael is co-founder of Boulder Valley Relocalization (www.boulderrelocalization.org), a citizens group committed to increasing public awareness of the challenges and opportunities of 'The Long Emergency' (converging global crises of peak oil, global warming and economic chaos), and catalyst for Boulder County Going Local, Inc., a social venture conducting a county-wide campaign (www.bouldergoinglocal.com) to rebuild community and strengthen the local economy, beginning a ten-year transition to an energy-constrained future. He is a writer and independent journalist whose research into the evolution/transformation of human consciousness was interrupted by dawning awareness of converging crises that jeopardize the future of human freedom, unexpectedly compelling him to an urgent level of advocacy and activism. He sees the regeneration of community as essential to the survival of the human species.

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Carol Dunne – San Francisco California – organizer

Film Maker: Skid Row Documentary - English & Drama
Teacher - From Dublin, Ireland - Solutions to Homelesness in Los Angeles.
Carol first came up with the idea of arranging a conference, and that idea evolved into our Phoenix Gathering. Thank you Carol!

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Chuck Feil – Bisbee, Arizona
Publisher, Photographer, Author, Gallery Owner.
Charles Feil is an international photographer whose professional career began in 1966. He counts among his many credits work on the Jane Goodall World of Wildlife television series. His work has been sought after by major network TV, numerous magazines, corporations and private collectors of fine photography.
In 1992 an entirely new aspect of his art opened up when he began flying. The gyroplane Feil built in 1997 allowed him to capture photographs from even more appealing perspectives. In the year 2000, Chuck became the first Gyroplane pilot to touchdown in all 48 States without ground support. During his stops rallies were held by the State hosts to encourage young people to follow their dreams. To learn more about this historic event log onto www.say2000.org

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Andrea Fernandez-Salvador – Guayaquil, Ecuador
I was born in Quito, Ecuador, August 3rd, 1955. My father, Andres Fernandez Savador Zaldumbide, is Ecuadorian and my mother Maryan,is American. As a child , I was exposed to the magic of this country and it's people. I lived through my father's search for Atahualpa's treasure, hearing stories of our Inca civilization, their wisdom, and courage. I developed such respect for our indigenous people and their environment, I suffered when I saw injustice commited against them.
      At age 10, in 1965, I moved to New York City, to live with my mother and attended Marymount School in Manhattan. There, I saw the other side of the coin.
      I returned when I finished my schooling, at age 17. My adventurous streak was on a roll, and Ecuador was just the right place for it. Later on, in 1993, I felt the Amazon was one of the most fascinating regions of Ecuador. I acquired land in the Upper Amazon Basin, to protect it, and the 65 Quichua families that lived on it.
      The environmental problems were enminent , as the oil companies were destroying the indigenous people's land and confusing them with their greed. I worked closely with the women and children, reminding them of the importance to maintain their ways.
      In 2006, I travelled to New York with a group of Hoaoranis, and attended the 6th Permamnent Forum for Indigenous People at the United Nations.Our proposition to the world was that Ecuador is willing to sacrifice the oil of the Yasuni, save that lung provider of oxigen,and ask the world to help Ecuador in the return of half the money that would have been made if that oil was extracted. We owe this unique proposal to our president Correa.
      I am presently living in Guayaquil, still assisting my father in what may be some of his last expeditions into the LLanganatis in search of the Inca treasure. It's all about the search.
      I have 4 children, Nicolas 32, Ignacio, 22, Corina 19, and Sofia 15.

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Jim & Sherry Husfelt - Seattle, Washington
Since 1981 JC and Sherry, married for over 40 years, have journeyed the world seeking the foundational healing and spiritual knowledge of indigenous cultures. They have been honored by initiation and the transference of spiritual lineages. One of these came through the providence of Vince and Mom Stogan of the Coast Salish of Vancouver, B.C. Vince was a modern day John the Baptist who along with his wife, Mom Stogan, passed on their traditions to JC and Sherry.
      JC and Sherry, along with their two adult children, Jamie and Jess, bring the message of Divine Humanity to the peoples of the earth. It is a ‘green’ religion—an ecological religion and a religion of egalitarianism.
      We believe that a religion that represents all people needs to embody social and economic concerns. To this end we offer new social and economic paradigms in the form of Intrinsic Egalitarianism and True Democracy as alternatives to Capitalism and Capocracy (Capitalistic Democracy).
      JC, a heretic and revolutionary at heart, is the author of I Am A Sun Of God And So Are You and The Return of the Feathered Serpent. He is presently completing his latest book The Greatest Lie Ever Told—A Manifesto for a New Consciousness.
      JC, philosopher, visionary, calligrapher and martial artist for over forty years, was at one time a teacher and wellness consultant for various corporations and governmental agencies such as L.L. Bean, NCR, United States Senate and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport.
      Sherry is a counselor, empath, spiritual life coach and co-director of the Morning Star Institute. Her passion is helping and witnessing others to heal their woundings and to find their core truth and direction in life. She believes all we need to know to be happy and healthy is reflected and taught to us by the natural world.

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Virginia Igonda – Lafayette, California
Virgina Apolonia Igonda was born in 1935 in Mendoza, Argentina in a family of scholars where she often heard over a dozen languages being spoken at home on the same day.
      After living in Caracas, Venezuela and in New York City, in the 1970's Virginia chose to settle in Del Mar, California where she raised her two children: architect Alejandra Cisneros - now living in Bali, Indonesia - and lawyer Gabriel Cisneros - now living in Barcelona, Spain.
      In 1975 Virginia founded Ocean Song Gallery Musica Del Mar, where she hosted lectures by local and international authors, poets, philosophers, religious scholars, scientists, movie stars and shamans. Her gallery often doubled as an informal place for artists to perform, from classic piano to Indian sitar players, from Russian violinists to Argentinean tango dancers.
      Virginia is a gifted networker that befriended and connected renowned personalities such as Jonas Salk, J. Bronowski, James Hubbell, John Lilly and countless others. Her gallery became so popular that in 1983 the mayor of San Diego named her Woman of the Year in spite of being located many miles outside the city limits. In 2002 - after 27 years of cultural events - the Mayor of Del Mar honored Virginia with a special dedication for her contribution to the culture of the town of Del Mar.
      Since her retirement in 2002 Virginia has been acting as a cultural ambassador, dividing her time between Italy, California and Buenos Aires. She is very interested in all matters concerning the environment and to work with a group of like minded people fostering its preservation.

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Miroslav Kolar – Nanaimo, BC, Canada
PHP Programmer; Webmaster: world-wide-democracy.net.

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Keith Lampe – Vilcabamba, Ecuador
American organizer in exile.

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Sergio Lub – Walnut Creek & Napa Valley, California – networker
Sergio Lub is a true renaissance man…an architect, inventor, jewelry designer (www.SergioLub.com), and — above all — social networker par excellence. He's always had a passion for interconnecting visionary people, and in 1995, more than a decade before Web 2.0, he helped design the community building freeware Friendly Favors (www.Favors.org/FF) and the Living Directory Network (www.LivingDirectory.net), which in early 2008 is being used collaboratively by over 100 organizations and is interconnecting 50,000+ people in 150+ countries.
      Besides virtual social networking Sergio also organizes physical gatherings several times a month, mostly around the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1997 he has hosted over 500 events, and at Favors.org -> Events you can see who attended, access their current profile, and connect via blind email.
      Another passion of Sergio's is developing alternatives to one of our most powerful social inventions: Money. He has been working closely on this subject since 1995, along with Thomas Greco, Bernard Lietaer, and others. Friendly Favors has since 1999 a community currency component called Thankyou's, which has saved and recorded the equivalent of over US$1 million in discounts and favors to its participants in a mutual credit frame making it the first LETS on the web.
      Favors.org most promising feature is perhaps its social reputation rating fed by the confirmed identity of its participants, its chain of trust and its referral system. Having their social reputation online is already allowing visionaries and people of goodwill to be recognized and supported worldwide.

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DeAnna Martin – Seattle, Washington – facilitator, organizer
DeAnna is the Executive Director of the Center for Wise Democracy. She is a highly experienced facilitator and works closely with Jim Rough in promoting Wisdom Councils and democratic awakening.

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Meredith Miller – Vilcabamba, Ecuador - illustrator - www.meredithmillerart.com
Meredith Miller paints dreams. Her heart emanates an energy unlike any other, and this energy is made visual and felt through her paintings. One of the great visionary artists, Meredith brings a beautiful message in a troubled world. One of peace, sustainability…and hope.
Raised in the mountain wilderness of Oregon with no neighbors or electricity, the primary forest became her playground. As a young child, Meredith embarked on her own private journey, putting to color the wonderment of her very own enchanted world. With paper, paints and bits of nature, she began creating images full of texture and light at an early age.
Meredith has made her living as a full-time artist for more than forty years. She has won several awards such as first prize in the Coconut Grove Art Show in Florida. Her paintings hang in thousands of places throughout the world. She has done covers for and illustrated several books, including her husband Brian O’Leary’s Miracle in the Void, featuring her masterpiece The Last Supper of Gaia, depicting in great detail the anguish and hope for the Earth. For the past three years Meredith's main canvas has been three-dimensional: the co-creation with her husband Brian of the Montesueños retreat center and botanical gardens.

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Kathy Moore - Rossland, British Columbia, Canada
Kathy Moore of Rossland, BC Canada is a community activist in her small mountain town. As a founding member of the Citizens for Responsible Development (www.rosslandbc.org) she advocates for sustainable and sensible development as Rossland meets the challenges of rapid growth. In her role as the Rossland lead coordinator for Greener Footprints (www.greenerfootprints.com) she works to reduce waste, one bag at a time. She is proud of the success of the Greener Footprints campaign to eliminate plastic bags in Rossland and is working towards a province wide reduction of plastic waste. She actively participated in Visions to Action, a year long community planning process, which has created the town’s Strategic Sustainability Plan. This experience has enticed her to run for city council in the fall; the implementation process for the SSP is critical to the health and wellbeing of this community and its inhabitants (all species included). As a dual citizen she is interested and active in politics on both sides of the border. Always eager to hear new ideas, she is looking forward to participating in Waking thePhoenix.

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Richard Moore – Wexford, Ireland – organizer
Richard Moore graduated from Stanford University in mathematics and then spent 30 years working in the software R&D industry in Silicon Valley. He left the industry in 1994 and moved to Ireland to pursue independent research and writing. Since then he has published numerous articles and a book, Escaping the Matrix. He also publishes a regular commentary on the Internet and moderates several online discussion Forums.
For the past five years Moore’s research has focused on empowerment processes – forms of dialog that can enable communities and groups to overcome their differences, discover their common purpose, tap into their collective wisdom, and find ways to work together creatively to achieve their shared objectives. See his latest blog, How We the People can change the world.
Moore has been working with our facilitators, DeAnna and Jean, in setting up the process for the Gathering, with the aim of making the event as productive as possible. The gathering will be intense and focused, it will bring together a microcosm of humanity’s wisdom and knowledge, and it will be empowered by effective dialog processes. Altogether, these elements add up to a critical mass of creative potential, and Moore anticipates some breakthrough outcomes to be achieved.

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Dr. Brian O'Leary - Vilcabamba, Ecuador - www.brianoleary.com
Over the past twenty years, Dr. O'Leary has researched, lectured and written extensively about new paradigms of science and global transformation. His most recent book Re-Inheriting the Earth describes how we can lift ourselves out of our current path of global destruction. Much of his work is based on extensive international travels to some of the best and brightest researchers of new science, new medicine and "free" energy.
Dr. O'Leary has published internationally ten trade books on the frontiers of science, space, energy and culture, with sales averaging over 10,000 copies per book. He was a NASA scientist-astronaut, assistant professor of astronomy at Cornell University alongside Carl Sagan, and has also taught Physics for Poets and Princeton University and technology assessment at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and Hampshire College. He has published over 100 technical papers in the peer reviewed scientific literature and another 100 popular magazine and Op-Ed pieces worldwide. He has appeared frequently on American national television and radio, including the Today Show, Larry King Live, the Donahue Show, Fox Television and the Art Bell Show.
A passionate environmentalist open to innovative solutions, Dr. O'Leary was special consultant to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, wrote speeches and was senior advisor to environmental presidential candidate Morris Udall. He also helped presidential candidates George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Jesse Jackson on economic policies to convert from polluting and military activities to green initiatives. With his wife Meredith, Brian created Montesueños, a retreat center in the Ecuadorian Andes dedicated to peace, sustainability, the arts and new science.

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Osvaldo Osornio - Puerto Escondido, Mexico
I'm a 26 years old Mexican citizen. Since I was very young I have been involved with subjects related with raising human consciousness. I feel a very deep connection with my essence. I live in a continuous process of knowing myself and breaking paradigms that prevent me from experiencing oneness.
      I work in insurance, one of the biggest businesses in our materialistic world. I decided to work on this because my family has been in this industry since the 50s and I know how quickly somebody can have success on it if you do the right steps. I like to serve and to provide the best protection for my clients. I really like to meet different kind of people and to help them.
      The idea of quickly becoming a successful business man is because I always felt I had something big to do with my life. In some way I knew that my real mission was going to be based on truth and it was going to be revealed to me after I learned to master the Western way of living. After having that experience I could use my resources for breaking away and to change the things in my society I do not agree with, for example to stop buying unnecessary stuff.
      After 6 years being an insurer, I can say I am ready now to start to do my real mission. I may not be yet the most successful insurance agent in Mexico but I am the youngest one.
      As a bird knows when to migrate when the winter comes, suddenly I felt the deep need to make big changes on my life. Before now it was important to become rich, now I am concerned about finding a natural way of living, focusing in my interior being and in growing in community with conscious people. I want to help make an ecovillage, and to make it quickly since "winter" is coming.
      In different ways life said to me that I have to find a natural way of living focus on my interior well being. So I decided, without having experience nor knowing examples, to jump head on into building an ecovillage.
      So this is my intention. I believe that the universe probably planed this even before I was born. I know this is the right moment to do it and to grow as humanity.
      I also have taken numerological studies and I'm planning to continue preparing myself on this field. I also believe that the worldwide insurance business is going to fail soon. This is going to happen because they are invested in the old paradigm and are projecting that our present way of life will continue as is when it is increasingly clear that is unsustainable.
      I shared above a deep part of me as a way to start a sincere dialog in our encounter.

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Shrikumar Poddar – Okemos, Michigan
Shrikumar Poddar was born in Calcutta, India on September 11, 1940 and studied at one of the early Theosophist school in Rajghat, Varanasi. After completing two years of Intermediate Science College he migrated to United States to complete his education.
       From Michigan State University in East Lansing he received his bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1964, another bachelor’s degree in economics, political science and philosophy in 1966 and received MBA degree in marketing in 1968.
       He joined Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s Presidential Campaign in March 1968 to stop the US war in Vietnam. He was direct mail fundraising advisor of McGovern for President Campaign in 1971 to April 1972.
       Sen. Eugene McCarthy named him his National Finance Chair for his Independent Candidacy for the President of the United States in 1976.
       This campaign successfully challenged the election laws of 30 states of the US as unconstitutional in denying the indepents the right to run for President of the USA.However half of the decisions came after the November 1976 election.
       He formed Americans for Peace for an innovative campaign to use Radio Spots announcements to oppose the war in Vietnam during 1969 to 1970. This campaign gave one fact at time against the Vietnam war and asked the listeners to send $ 1 or more to help sustain the effort.
       Emergency Relief Fund for providing the ten million citizens of East Pakistan now Bangladesh was launched in 1971 by him and his anti-war friends.
       Business Executives Move For Peace in Vietnam asked him to make their free newsletter a subscription newsletter to continue the work of stopping the war. He became the publisher of Washington Watch in 1971 and served until 1979 in this capacity.
       When Mrs. Indira Gandhi declared a state of National Emergency in June 1975 in India, he formed Indians for Democracy remove her from power with the help of a newly launched Total Revolution Movement launched by students under the leadership of Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan a Gandhian. Mrs. Gandhi impounded his Indian Passport in July 1976 for this opposition.
       On January 2, 1992 78 participants from nine countries meeting at the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust in India formed Self Transformation Network For A Just World and he went around the world to promote this network.
       By 1997 the concept of self-reliance was added to this network and a new network was launched New Global Freedom Movement also known as Nayi Azadi Abhiyan. The main mantra of this movement is “From Self Transformation to Global Transformation”.
       He resides in Okemos, Michigan and He is actively associated with the Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, International Service society, and Seva International – a publishing house based on Gandhian Trusteeship principles.

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K S Sripada Raju – Okemos, Michigan
Dr. Raju was born in India in 1929 and got his MA degree in Economics from University of Mysore in 1955. Later he worked for Govt of India Census Department as an Economic Investigator.
       He worked at the Indian Institute of Economics, Hyderabad as a research fellow in the early 60’s.
       During the 1960s he attended Michigan State University in East Lansing and received his doctorate degree in communication.. After graduation he worked as research associate at the Institute of Social Research at Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
       In the 70s he joined the East-West Center, Honolulu as a Senior Fellow. Upon returning to Michigan in early 80s he joined Educational Subscription Service to help in its efforts to transform the profit making company in to a Gandhian Trusteeship firm.
       In 1980s he joined as a trustee of the International Service Society, a humanitarian organization responding to natural and man-made disasters as well as developing new strategies of social reorganization.
       These efforts led him to attending a 17 day Global meeting held in India to create a Self Transformation Network For A Just World by 78 participants from nine countries on January 2, 1992.
       Later he joined a new network called The New Global Freedom Movement known as Nayi Azadi Abhiyan in India which added the concept of Self Reliance and placed a greater emphasis on Spirituality than the earlier network.
       The main mantra of this movement is “From Self Transformation to Global Transformation”.
       At the present time he resides in Okemos, Michigan and conducts classes for adults and young people based on Vedantic teachings and other Hindu scriptures such as Bhagwad Gita.
       He is popularly known as the Guru of Greater Lansing Area in Michigan.
       He was actively associated in the formation of several organizations such as India Development Society, Indians for Democracy (in opposition to the state of emergency in India from 1975-77), Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, Ganga Kaveri Bhaghirathi Trust (for efficient water management in India).
       His interests are in Spirituality, Gandhi-Vinoba-Jayaprakash Narayan’s thoughts and activism to support global sustainable development as well as Peace and Justice in the world.

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Jean Rough – Port Townsend, Washington – facilitator
Jean Rough is a dynamic facilitator, trainer and psychotherapist. After earning an MA in psychology, she founded and directed Bergita House, a nonprofit organization facilitating children and parents to trust and respect themselves. Currently she is involved with Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Councils with her husband Jim Rough. She is a co-founder and board member of the nonprofit Center for Wise Democracy www.WiseDemocracy.org and a partner with Jim Rough & Assoc., Inc. www.DynamicFacilitation.com. Jean dynamically facilitates communities, organizations and families to elevate their quality of thinking, address important issues, and build trust and respect with one another.

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Chris Shaw – British Columbia, Canada
I am a professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia) and author and co-author of over 120 research papers and 4 edited books on various topics in the field. My research is primarily concerned with understanding the origins and timelines of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS. Most such diseases appear to arise from environmental toxins that interact in still known ways with various “susceptibility” genes. A recently completed book on these topics, Stealing the Mind: The Hidden History of Neurological Disease, awaits a publisher willing to accept controversy and my attempt to shift the dominant paradigms in the field.
As a social activist, I have just completed a book about the modern Olympics, including Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Games (Five Ring Circus, New Society Press), which exposes the corporate culture behind the Games (real estate and privatization for local developers; television broadcast rights for the IOC). I am also the media liaison and policy advisor for the Work Less Party, a political grouping organized at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels to promote the notion of zero growth and the direct involvement of people in all levels of decision making. Our secret weapon is that our political advocacy is designed to free ourselves from the corporate-dominated political reality and create our own system of mutual aid based on community, creativity, and grassroots democracy; in this regard, we don’t really care if we “win” elections, rather our focus is on shifting the frame of the debate to help others escape the “matrix reality”.

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Tania Duran Tuttle – Ruta del Sol, Ecuador
Tania Duran is from Cuenca, Ecuador.
      She is a Journalist, an Environmentalist and an artist.
      As a free lance Journalist she has focus on environment, feminism and cultural issues.
      As a social communicator, Tania has worked with the Indian and rural communities, supporting their training in alternative communication and education.
      As an Environmentalist she participate in “Hanan Urin”, an environmentalist group that in the 80’s, created (Among other groups) “La Campaign Amazonia por la Vida” and support other environmentalist projects in the Ecuadorian Austro Region (Azuay, Canar , Loja)
      As an artist she was involve in the “Bienal International de Pintura” Cuenca. (1987 – 1990)
      Also, She has studied for 14 years with Ecuadorian Shamans: "The Bird People" from the Andes Mountains and the Ayahuasqueros and Tabaqueros" from the Amazon Rainforest.
      For the past 10 years she has been practicing Feng Shui with the teachings of Professor Lin Yun and the Black Sect Tantric Buddhism.
      At the present moment she lives in San Jose, Provincia de Santa Elena – Ecuador (Ruta del Sol), where along with her husband Ed and doughtier Josephine run Samai Center "SPA Hotel" a place located in the Cordillera Chongon Colonche, in which they offer a new concept of Healthy Traveling Services, alternative healing, SPA, Eco-tourism activities & cultural exchange. Samai = Spirit (Quichua)

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Leonardo Wild – Quito, Ecuador
Writer (9 published books in Spanish and German and over 200 articles), screenwriter, film director, sailor, founder and president of Biocentric Soluciones Sinergéticas, Leonardo Wild has traveled extensively and worked at many different jobs always searching for new ways "to do things." Member of the Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi, which for 28 years ran the Pestalozzi School near Quito. He's designed, engineered and built various of the foundation buildings using Buckminster Fuller concepts. Among many and varied projects, he is currently co-operating with the Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi's "eco-village" León Dormido, is developing a chaordic-fractal non-linear system of analysis, is writing various books, is in the midst of pre-production of a film based on his latest novel, Cotopaxi Alerta Roja, and is studying ways to bridge the gap to new ways of living. The company he founded (Biocentric) is talking with various oil companies in Ecuador (including PetroEcuador) to supply them with cutting-edge products to help solve their ecological and production problems, while preparing the ground to keep the government from being forced to exploit the ITT Yasuní ecological reserve's heavy crude oil. He's given over 150 conferences in various European countries, participated in paradigm-shift congresses in Mexico, Japan and Indonesia, the topics ranging from "new paradigms of science in education" to the "structural fallacies of market economy." He currently lives near Quito with his Scottish wife and three young children, who attend the CEPA (Center for Autonomous Activities) project of the Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi at the León Dormido.

The original invitation to the Phoenix Gathering:

noreply@blogger.com (rkm) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Montesueños, Vilcabamba, Ecuador – June 8-15, 2008

seeking wise and intelligent responses to the crisis of civilization

The purpose of this gathering is to bring together a microcosm of humanity – to explore together how we might most effectively respond to the crisis that faces us. Each of will be bringing our life experiences and wisdom to the group, and we will be including a very broad diversity of expertise and perspectives.

A civilization heedless of its own impending doom
Ever since civilization began, some 6,000 years ago, it has been based on the paradigms of growth and the exploitation of Earth’s resources. Over the past two centuries of industrialization, the appetite of civilization has grown exponentially – putting our life support systems under increasing stress. As our consumption of resources continues to accelerate upwards, the capacity of the Earth to produce resources is declining evermore downwards. Global warming and peak oil are only early symptoms of the inevitable total collapse that awaits us – if we continue as we have for the past six millennia.
       As a civilization we are in denial of the fact that the Earth is finite. It may have seemed infinite to us when we first left the Garden of Eden, going forth to take dominion over all things, but we should know better by now. Nonetheless, governments all over the world show no signs whatever of responding to this imminent crisis. The fixation on growth and the denial of finiteness are so deeply embedded in how our societies operate, that governments cannot conceive of any other way to proceed. Asking them to change how our society does things – due to environmental concerns – is like asking a pilot to turn off his engines in mid flight because they are too noisy.
       People at the grassroots level, however, are generally not in denial. All over the world people are recycling, changing their light bulbs, installing solar cells, turning their heat down, bicycling, car-pooling, using public transport, and in general trying to adjust their lifestyles in order to use resources more wisely. Unfortunately, these kinds of life-style changes – even if everyone joined in and did their best – can make very little difference. Most of civilization’s waste is built into the infrastructures: the production, processing, distribution, and transportation systems. It is the very systems we depend on to live that are the problem.

Our challenge: to identify wise and intelligent responses
If humanity is to survive, we must somehow begin transforming our societies so that they operate sustainably. In order to understand how that might happen, there are three major problem areas to be faced, three questions to be explored.
       First of all, we need to understand what we are aiming for: What would a modern sustainable society look like, and how would it operate? What kinds of infrastructures? What energy sources? What agricultural methods? Would cities shrink as rural areas are rejuvenated? Would we become less globalized and more localized?
       Second, we need to get a handle on a transition strategy: What would be a good conversion approach, technically speaking, to begin moving toward sustainable systems? Which projects would it make sense to undertake first? Which yield the greatest resource savings the soonest? What is the scope of the conversion project?
       Finally comes the most difficult question: What would it take to make a beginning on the conversion project? Is there some form of political organizing that might wake up our governments? Do we need a rejuvenated Green Party or environmental movement? Would some kind of public education program help? We do know that there is massive grassroots energy in support of sustainability, as evidenced by the efforts millions of people are making at a personal level. If governments are unmovable, would it make sense to explore a grassroots strategy for moving toward sustainability? Could people organize at the local level and begin transforming their infrastructures from the bottom up? Is the localization movement, for example, on the right track, with their agenda of ‘produce locally for local consumption’?
       These are all challenging questions, but there is no reason why we cannot make a good start on seeking answers to them. And we will by no means be starting from scratch. Many of us who will be in the gathering have been thinking about various of these questions for years, and have published books and given lectures presenting our vision and analysis of how the problems might be addressed. A wide spectrum of expertise and perspectives will be in residence, so that wherever our discussions may roam, our dialog will be well informed by the ‘latest good thinking’. Those of us who think we have all the answers will find out that we have only a piece of the answer, but an all-important piece. Each of our perspectives will be broadened in the course of our dialog. We will begin to identify synergies among our visions, and I fully expect us to come up with breakthrough outcomes that surprise us all.

The nature of the gathering
Our gathering will be more like a workshop than a conference. We won’t be sitting around listening to talks, rather we’ll be engaging in dialog and we’ll be solving problems together. Sometimes we’ll all be together, and sometimes we’ll split into teams to explore specific issues – whatever best supports our progress.
       One of the most important aspects of the event will be the process support that will be available. There will be a skilled team of facilitators on hand, and their job is to help us achieve our maximum potential as a group. The value of appropriate process cannot be over-emphasized. A group of people can spend an afternoon in debate and ‘interesting conversation’, coming up with no concrete results, or the same group can spend the same afternoon getting productive work done.
       If you’ve never participated in facilitated dialog, you’ll be amazed at what a difference it can make. Particularly in the early part of the week, when there’s likely to be considerable disagreement about what we should be focusing on, appropriate facilitation can help us sort through our differences and move into a space where fruitful collaboration becomes possible.
       The gathering will last a full week, with people arriving on a Sunday and leaving the following Monday. It will be essential that people agree to be there for the full time, no dropping in and out, no arriving late or leaving early. It will be an intense affair, and continuity is important.

Sharing our results
Our goal for the week is to come up with new breakthrough ideas – new initiatives of one kind or another – that show promise of beginning a transition toward sustainability. I have every confidence we will succeed in achieving our goal. We will be doing important work on behalf of humanity, and it is essential that what we come up with gets 'out there' into the real world.
       For that reason, we’ll be capturing the event on film and producing DVDs and online film clips for various audiences. We'll also be organizing a larger follow-on conference with more of an activist focus.