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OPEN Summit US « Interaction Institute for Social Change Blog

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:22:23 -0400

OPEN Summit US « Interaction Institute for Social Change Blog

Here is the text message I received from Samantha this morning, we’ll all connect in...

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:21:34 -0400

Here is the text message I received from Samantha this morning, we’ll all connect in Asheville, NC tomorrow night, this is the sort of simple thing that can mean the world to me when I’m away doing what I was meant to do in this world:

“Safely at airport having fun w Darshan he is great…have a fantastic day… We love you and are SO proud of you!”

topherchris: Original here. A new day!

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:21:01 -0400

topherchris:

Original here.

A new day!

My brother’s work

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:13:35 -0400

My brother’s work

Journal Entry #4: Give It

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:25:00 -0400

I’ve been transparent about what I half-jokingly call “my existential crisis.” I’m in the throes of transition and I’m not exactly sure what I’m transitioning towards.

Looking at facebook I caught a sweet post that my cousin put up. I wasn’t so much into the source, “the secret daily teachings,” I have developed an aversion to the ideology of effortless wishful thinking. But here is what the post said:

“Whatever you want to bring into your life, you must GIVE it. Do you want love? Then give it. Do you want appreciation? Then give it. Do you want understanding? Then give it. Do you want joy and happiness? Then give it every single day.”

Such simple wisdom, a timeless truth; and I found it incredibly empowering. It delineates a clear course of action – even for someone in the middle of an existential crisis. I can love, I can appreciate, I can understand, I can give joy and happiness – it is in this giving that life that life becomes truly rich, truly fulfilled.

This morning I prostrated before the beloved and sought to hone my intention. I chose to open my heart and to bring a fullness of love to the retreat I’m about to facilitate. This quote is an affirmation of that choice.

staystrong-andjustkeepswimming: 🎶

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:21:21 -0400

staystrong-andjustkeepswimming:

🎶

"Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:29:19 -0400

“Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific.”

- Jonathan Franzen

Worth Considering

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:48:10 -0400

Worth Considering

Journal Entry #3: Right Size It

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:38:00 -0400

I am experiencing our collective yearning to reclaim our lives. The contradictions of life in the richest country in the world have become unbearable. The “more stuff” mantra isn’t cutting it anymore. Neither is the “more work” mantra.

I’m all for movement. I’m for focus, for devotion, for hard work and dedication – I’m for art. I’m for art in service of life. I’m not for life in service of work. This gets specially confusing when you get paid to try and heal the world.

The problem is in the pace, the scale and the abstraction of it all. I’m remembering a great little design documentary called Urbanized; it described Brasilia as the modernist dream. A rational city, a place built from the bird’s eye view, a place that was not built for people.

The same documentary talks about design with a human perspective, about spaces that meet our evolutionary shapes. We tend to look down more than up, we can see about 10 feet ahead of us, and our peripheral vision is about 10 feet in either direction. We don’t look down at cities from the skies. And we are certainly not rational. We live in the mix. Spaces that are designed with this in mind are the spaces that tend to thrive.

This is a big part of my inquiry. How do we organize our work, our communities, our economies and our political activities in ways that meet our evolutionary shape?

The Way It Is

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:12:22 -0400

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

~William Stafford

"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:03:53 -0400

“The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

- Carl Sagan (via sirmitchell)

Workshop

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:08:10 -0400

Workshop

Today is the last of 9 monthly sessions with the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health...

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:14:26 -0400

Today is the last of 9 monthly sessions with the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health Leadership and my colleague Andrea Nagel invited me to tell the MICHL fellows the story of my using the kaizen method to develop my yoga practice as they develop action steps towards actualizing their vision beyond the fellowship… it felt good to provide an embodied example

Wild Geese

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:28:12 -0400

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Home Page | MONEY & LIFE

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:22:20 -0400

Home Page | MONEY & LIFE:

My life might have changed tonight

"This is wealth: A just economy"

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:14:46 -0400

“This is wealth: A just economy”

- Orland Bishop

Lost

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:15:00 -0400

Stand still.

The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is called “here” and you must

treat it as a powerful stranger,

must ask permission to know it

and be known.

Listen.

the Forest breathes, it whispers,

I have made this place around you. If you leave it

you may come back again saying “here”.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree of branch does is lost on you

Then you are surely lost.

Stand still.

The Forest knows where you are.

You must let it find you.

~ David Wagoner ~

butdoesitfloat.com via ffffound.com

Sun, 12 May 2013 10:14:44 -0400

butdoesitfloat.com via ffffound.com

tinyvices.com via ffffound.com

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:39:07 -0400

tinyvices.com via ffffound.com

"I want to know if you can get up/after a night of grief and despair"

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:54:37 -0400

adriennemareebrown:

I want to know what you ache for

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love

for your dreams

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals

or have become shrivelled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your

fingers and toes

without cautioning us to

be careful

be realistic

to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand on the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after a night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the center of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.

-Oriah