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7 May 2002 @ 22:07, by ming. Alternative Money Systems
I was looking at a page about "Creative Resourcing" at the changemakers.net site. To answer the question "What is Creative Resourcing?" it says: "Creative Resourcing describes an ability to find new ways of engaging the resources in the local environment (i.e. funds, people, goods and services) to support an organization and make it self-sustaining". Which is a great thing, of course. And my first thought was: "Great, that's exactly what I'd like to have happen". But my second thought, after looking at the examples, was that what I'm really interested in is something more pervasive. More >
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7 May 2002 @ 15:09, by mmmark. Networking
Dear Barry and the Conscious Evolution Network < < <
You have written one of the most vital and essential communications I have seen come across the network in some time. It is thoughtful, brilliant and makes our challenge quite clear for those willing to pay attention. I would like to add some comments that may inspire us to move forward to achieving this very important objective to becoming connected.
"What would a Community look like if it acknowledged separation when it was occurring and was committed to a practice of reinforcing connection?" The answer appears simple to me. It would be a community that takes responsibility for itself and the well being of its constituents.
The second question indicates that we are relying on the ‘establishment’ to address our needs. I do not believe this will ever happen because it is not conceived or run with a responsible frame of objectives. We are our own salvation.
The "old-style" of thinking is a legacy that has conditioned us to think and act in ways that separate the relationship of all things Cosmic. From our education, specialized fields of study and the false concept of ownership, humanity has divided everything into categories without a unified field of understanding – the synergistic one – the interdependent one. Your call for Community Connection is related directly to the natural necessity for tolerant coexistence with all things, which we as a species must adopt or perish in a degenerating spiral of illness. Although we know what is basically loving and wholesome, we must overcome the barriers and stigma of the past to establish civilization.
Your "new-style" words move me deeply to that daily challenge, knowing that we cannot blow someone off for any reason without risking further divisions among people. Indeed, every time we make the selfish choice, it pretends to be an immediate solution, or an escape from the root cause of social disease in one form or another. I pray that this dialogue does not die and that we work diligently to grow this network of people and expand the technology for the purpose of connecting the community of cocreatives where ever they are found.
I live in Pasadena, California, a community far enough away from Santa Barbara, that it is not practical for me to participate physically in SB, so I have been hoping to form a web based connection that can monitor our activity and encourage participation on a larger scale. Perhaps some of you have read some of my messages about this subject. Obviously there are other groups online and in other places around the world. If we can join this resonance and abundance of benevolent intention, we will build a politically potent group to affect change outside the currently damaged systems which wage war and do not empower citizens to exercise their power responsibly. This goes beyond our personal challenge to live a loving path of connection and strives to correct the source of those problems that may cause us to slip off center.
This email connection came from the early efforts of an FCE member and remains a powerful tool, yet to be fully realized, yet to be improved from its humble beginning. In my contemplation of our dilemma, it seems intuitive that we need to adopt a unifying theme and exercise the community to grow togetherness. We do not have lots of wisdom, models, or technologies to assist us in the pursuit, but I see that we are fully capable of discovering how to evolve consciously.
I make myself available for employment, consultation, writing, brainstorming, graphic design, and any other creative activity that will bring us closer together. At the same time I am anxious to hear from others who are willing to bring their talents and resources to bear in constructing The Conscious Evolution Network.
Barry, thank you from the bottom of my heart… I am with you…
Namasté > > > Mark More >
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7 May 2002 @ 13:00, by sharie. Philosophy
Does Consciousness have a dark side?
If so, what is the Dark Side of Consciousness?
Anyone know?
To look deeper, I'm looking more closely at Consciousness:
" ... beneath all our scientific paradigms lies an even deeper and more pervasive assumption. It is the belief in the primacy of the material world...
When Newton proposed his laws of motion, he turned the problem of what made things move into the foundation stone of his new paradigm; objects continued to move unless acted upon by some external force....
When I look at a tree, light reflected from its leaves is focused onto cells in the retina of my eye, where it triggers a cascading chemical reaction releasing a flow of electrons. Neurons connected to the cells convey these electrical impulses to the brain’s visual cortex, where the raw data is processed and integrated. Then—in ways that are still a complete mystery—an image of the tree appears in my consciousness. It may seem that I am directly perceiving the tree in the physical world, but what I am actually experiencing is an image generated in my mind. The same is true of every other experience. All that I see, hear, taste, touch, smell and feel has been created from the data received by my sensory organs. All I ever know of the world around are the mental images constructed from that data. However real and external they may seem, they are all phenomena within my mind...
This simple fact is very hard to grasp; it goes against all our experience. If there is anything about which we feel sure, it is that the world we experience is real. We can see, touch and hear it. We can lift heavy and solid objects; hurt ourselves, if we're not careful, against their unyielding immobility. It seems undeniable that out there, around us, independent and apart from us, stands a physical world, utterly real, solid and tangible.
But the world of our experience is no more "out there" than are our dreams... But when we awaken we realize everything in the dream was actually a creation of our own mind...
This same process of reality generation occurs in waking consciousness. The difference is that now the reality that is created is based on sensory data and bears a closer relationship to what is taking place in the real world. Nevertheless, however real it may seem, it is not actually "the real world". It is still an image of that world created in the mind.
When, two centuries ago, Bishop Berkeley proposed that we know only what we perceive, his contemporaries debated whether or not a tree falling in a forest made a sound if no one was there to hear it. From what we now know of the psychophysiology of perception, we can say the answer is "No". Sound is not a quality of the underlying reality. There may be movements in the air, but the interpretation of those movements as sound is something that happens in the mind—whether it be the mind of a human being, a dog or a woodpecker.
Similarly with light. Whatever the tree is in physical reality, it is not green. Light of various frequencies is reflected from the tree to the retina of the eye, where cells respond to the amount of light in three frequency ranges (the three primary colors). But all that is passed back to the brain are electro-chemical impulses; there is no color here. The green I see is a quality created in consciousness. It exists only in the mind.
The same is true of our perception of distance. The pattern of light that falls on the retina creates a two-dimensional image of the world. The brain estimates distance by detecting slight differences between data from the left and right eyes, the focus of the eyes, relative movement, and past experience as to the likely size of a tree. From this data it calculates that the tree is fifty feet away. A three-dimensional image of the world is then created with the tree placed "out there" in that world, fifty feet away. Yet, however real it may seem, the quality of space and distance that we experience is created in the mind."
Could everything be here now in the hologram of the one mind
I am?
"It seems absolutely obvious to us that time and space are real and fundamental qualities of the physical world, entirely independent of my, or your, consciousness—as obvious as it seemed to people five hundred years ago that the sun moves round the earth. This, said Kant, is only because we cannot see the world any other way. The human mind is so constituted that it is forced to impose the framework of space and time on the raw sensory data in order to make any sense of it all."
But are perceptions created because we *cannot* see the world any other way, or because we *choose* to perceive time, space, dimension?
Clearly we are choosing to perceive everything we perceive.
Are there two people who completely agree on even one little detail?
"Space and time, and hence speed, are aspects of the phenomenal world; they have no meaning, it turns out, for light itself."
If space and time are aspects of the phenomenal world, and light is not subjected to the phenomenal world...
"To speak of light as pure action is both appropriate and strange..."
This is going to take some more looking into.
It's a continuation of my very first News Log Entry titled "What is Reality?"
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 7 May 2002 @ 01:22, by ashanti. Spirituality
I found this really thought-provoking statement the other day:
"As the most dramatic example of our times, the New Ager's frantic thirst for the 'Light' is INVARIABLY INVOKING DARKNESS. If the 'other side of the coin' is disregarded or pushed away, it will persist and it will be only a matter of time until this other side will manifest. Any society with a sufficient number of people that is 'blinded by the light' WILL self-destruct in time or invite its destruction by outer forces." More >
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6 May 2002 @ 23:59, by ming. Networking
A key purpose for the New Civilization Network was for me always that it would somehow be a connecting glue between many different groups, organizations, individuals, websites, etc. I.e. it wouldn't in itself be an organization or a hierarchy, but it would be a *network* - a self-organizing structure where many independent nodes can connect with each other in any way they choose, where any one of them can take a lead in some area, as they're inspired, but where there's no hierarchy of who's in charge.
It so far didn't entirely happen, as most people seem to identify NCN as a particular website, or a certain isolated group of people. And, for that matter, it is of no importance whether the network forms under the banner of NCN or under any other banner. The point is: how do we most effectively network all those diverse people who are working on pieces of the bigger puzzle, and how do we do it in a way that persists no matter whether any particular one group or websites persists or not.
Thinking about this, an obviously important factor is what exactly it is that holds such a network together. I.e. what is the one thing that people in NCN have in common, and what is the one thing they have in common with the people who make up many other communities, networks, websites, organizations, etc.? More >
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6 May 2002 @ 11:44, by sharie. Activism
There are alternatives to the mainstream way of life.
Many people are not enmeshed in the meanstream at all, and they live great lives.
They own houses and land, but work just a few hours a week, and they enjoy the work they do.
The rest of the time they do whatever they love to do, whether it's research or music or art or inventions or reading or gardening... or spending time having fun with their family and friends.
You don't have to work 40-50 hours to get ahead. I know plenty of people who don't.
I also know lots of people who are invested in the mainstream
... doctors and lawyers and others who are miserable. They hate their lives.
Yes, I know some doctors and lawyers are happy, I just don't know any of them.
I know the people who are in the meanstream and miserable, and I know people who are out of the meanstream and happy.
I know no one who is doing what's socially expected in terms of a *career* and pursuing money and/or prestige... who is also happy.
You might wonder how people can own homes and land, and only work a few hours a week.
All of them that I know did it by not paying any interest. They never took out a mortgage.
When you get a mortgage, about 2/3 of your payments go toward the interest, which goes straight to the bank. It's not for your property at all. Most of the mortgage money is for the Bank president, vice president, the loan officer, etc. so they can buy a nicer house than you.
Usually only about 1/3 of mortgage payments is for the cost of the property. About 2/3 is for bank interest.
So that's the first secret. Don't get any loans. And don't pay credit card interest. You can have a credit card, so long as you pay the bill in full each month, but it's better to have something like a Debit card where you don't get lured into buying things you don't have the money for, which usually means you'd have to pay interest on the purchase.
If you want a home, save up the money for a piece of land, and then pay it in cash. In many places you can build a home under 400 sq feet - four 10 x 10 rooms - without a building permit. If you're outside city limits, you can usually have a septic field, which costs much less than a $10,000 septic system. Save yourself the $10,000.
Three of my friends have bought small pieces of land - one of them has five acres - and each created their own utopia.
One put a small but beautiful and ingenious home on his property. It's classified as a vehicle (a Park Model) so rather than paying thousands of dollars in property tax every year, he only pays $50 vehicle registration. He built a beautiful full-length deck on the front, with a hot tub and hanging planters all around. It's beautiful. In the back he has a gazebo, and all around are fruit trees and an ornamental edible garden.
His monthly expenses including housing, utilities, and food are next to nothing.
Most people are suckered into paying thousands of dollars a YEAR for property tax, plus thousands of dollars a MONTH for their mortgage. Are they brainwashed into thinking a big house will prove how valuable they are?
Are they brainwashed into feeding the beast - the meanstream sewer - with their lives?
There's thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars every year you don't have to earn if you plan your life wisely.
You don't have to slave away for a system you don't believe in.
You don't have to invest your life into a system where your tax dollars are being used to bomb innocent people and murder babies and children.
Friends of mine built beautiful outdoor decks (which are not taxed) and they built beautiful ponds and gardens. It's wonderful to go to their homes. And they are wonderful people to be with. It's so wonderful to be with someone who know's they are free to do what they want, when they want.
They live in mild climates, although it does snow some in the winter.
They pay about $20 a month for electricity, about $20 a month for property tax, and then their monthly groceries, which is usually about $100 per person - but they enjoy gardening - so their grocery bill is about half what most people pay. So they have to come up with less than $100 a month instead of coming up with thousands and thousands of dollars just to pay the banker, the tax collector, and the credit card company month after month... like the miserable, angry, frustrated people in the mainstream do.
Plus they have so many talents, and so many people wanting them to work with them, so they always have money for whatever they need.
One of them goes out camping about every weekend... just for fun. He's going to Mexico this month and Russia this summer. And he only works a few hours a week and thoroughly enjoys his life.
I have a lot more stories I could tell you about a lot of other wonderful, brilliant people who live enviable lives, but I think you get the idea.
I know two women who bought over 60 acres on different mountains - paid for them in cash - in order to free other people from having to slave away for the bank president for 30 years of their life.
There are lots of options to us all.
There's the Intentional Communities website, with all different kinds of community life. Some of the communities are very much invested in the meanstream - the homes cost hundreds of thousands - but others, especially communities in Hawaii, are creating a very different world for themselves.
Their website is at [link]
For anyone searching the ic.org site, be clear on what you want first, and use discretion. There's so much to choose from that it's easy to get caught up in the maze.
If you have any questions, feel free write to me.
Love to you all.
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5 May 2002 @ 22:34, by invictus. Ideas, Creativity
That’s right, I had a thought today. Go figure, a birthday and a thought on the same day. Usual disclaimer… this is not directed at anyone in particular. It is directed at everyone and at no one, and to the republic for which it stands; any resemblance between this rant and reality is purely coincidental. So don’t feel attacked; it is to my interactions with all of you that I owe such bottomless insights ;). If you can’t stand a bit of forceful language, then you may want to cover your eyes. Now, without further ado, the long awaited thought:
Don’t tell me that if I meditate twice a day and go hang out with my buddies for a few hours it will make my life here tolerable. In fact, I beg you not to make any suggestions as to how I might make this tolerable. I don’t want this illusion to be tolerable. I want to make it so painful that it burns my feet. I want it to burn through all the poisoned conditioning that my parents and schools and TV have put into my head. I want it to be so unbelievably intolerable that I have no choice but to jump out of it. Don’t you dare try to justify all this pointlessness and suffering to me, either. I refuse to resign to it like that. Don’t tell me that’s the way the world is. It is NOT justified. It is not even remotely acceptable, and I won’t tolerate my existence sucking this much. It’ll only be a matter of time.
And another thing… I’ve been told to stay in school as long as possible. Supposedly, it all goes downhill from here. Ok, here’s the thing. If you can honestly convince me that *this* is the top of the hill, and that the only direction to go from here is down, I’m leaving this whole damn plane of existence right now. I’ll tell you how I see it; most people do go down from here, but this is most certainly not the top of the hill. This is like standing on the ocean floor; that’s how low it is. From where I’m standing, I see the Mariana trench of the 40-50 hour work week gaping down, so I can see how it is generally downhill from here. It’s always possible to go lower, it seems. Most people just fall into the trench, even deeper in the sea of illusionary shit. However, there is soooo much above this… there has to be more to the world than this. Not just in terms of me sitting in a corner and contemplating my naval, convincing myself that somehow all this nothing is something and any something that bothers me is actually nothing and that the benevolent energy goddess of Candyland loves me anyway, so why worry when I can be happy about blissful nothingness. Give me a break!!!! There has got to be a real world, tangible and alive, up there somewhere. If there isn’t then Mr(s). Existence and I really need to have a nice, long talk.
What do you think. Too far? I'm pushing the limits of non-self-censoring, so it could very well be. I seriously considered not putting this up. In any case, I’ve got plenty more where this came from.
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3 May 2002 @ 16:56, by sharie. Spirituality
Nothing compares with knowing you self as the Earth and Sky, knowing your self as the Ocean and the Stars, knowing your self as the Singer of the Uni*Verse...
When we feel our whole self, we know the food we eat, and the habitat we live in influences what we think, what we choose to do with our lives, and our overall sense of well-being... all the world is us.
Eating nutritious food (rather than polluting our bodies), drinking pure *alive* water (rather than city water) and feeling the life force flow through us in our Homes... we come to know Architecture is more powerful and influential than we'd ever imagined.
Most of us have a sense of how music impacts our lives, and what our clothing does for us, but do you think about what Architecture does - or doesn't do - for you? Are you aware of how your home invites and welcomes those you love? Or is you home accomodating something else altogether?
By using Architecture, Engineering, and Natural Building Materials to nurture a healthy way of life, they become vital to creating a New Civilization, re-inforcing our music and our art, and other guiding forces of our social community and our way of life.
A New Civilization needs a new way of thinking, a new way of interacting, a new way of *doing* ...
A New Civilization needs new architecture, new music, new social policies, a new scientific paradigm, a new economy, a new psychology, and new supports for living healthy and maintaining peace within and peace worldwide.
Everyone needs food and shelter, and fresh water to survive. And everyone needs to feel they belong. They need to feel valued and treasured. This would contribute to world peace.
So simple, low-cost, Earth-friendly, energy-efficient, sustainable housing is vital to a sustainable new civilization.
I've designed Kits that can be custom-ordered to comfortably accomodate families and individuals in their natural Living Environment.
Each Kit contains the building materials for constructing a highly functional, inspirational home that each family or individual can piece together in less than a week. These home designs are for vegetarian lifestyles... the home designs help you to grow your own fruits and vegetables. This is because we (Americans) feed 80% of our grain to cows and pigs, while 80% of the world lives in poverty with inadequate nutrition. So these home are designed to help world peace. They're designed to free the homeowner to have more time to care for the health and well-being of themselves and those they love, to free them from the drudgery and slavery to a *job* they don't like, to free them to develop their own potentials, their talents, gifts, and spiritual life.
I see no way we can feed 80% of America's grains to cows and pigs while thousands of human beings are starving to death every year. That will not bring us world peace.
When these new Architectural designs began evolving, over a year ago, we decided to lay out the designs on webpages, and make them available for free online. We felt this would make the transition go faster than if we tried to control, own, and promote the designs under a copyright or patent.
The designs have continued to evolve since then, providing more and more options that will accomodate a variety of lifestyles. The furniture and home appliances are as innovative as the architectural designs. It's the making of a whole new world.
I hope to have my music online free in a few months too, and we're starting music videos that promote a whole new world. We're open to suggestions if anyone has constructive comments for creating a healthy, sustainable new way of life. Those of us working on these projects have invested our entire lives, working ourselves to the brink of collapse and exhaustion, because we want a world worthy of the children of God. We want heaven on earth, we've set our sights on it, and we see heaven on earth is us.
Thank you all for your kind words and loving support.
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2 May 2002 @ 01:09, by ming. Peace
This is an e-mail from today, from a friend of a friend who's with "Doctors Beyond Borders", who just spent 5 days in the West Bank in Palestine. A stream of consciousness letter about his experience. Very powerful stuff. There's still hope when there are people like that. More >
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 30 Apr 2002 @ 19:32, by ming. Activism
Another scheme cooked up by the greedy recording industry is threatening to shut down Internet radio, by charging totally unrealistic fees for the right to transmit music over the net. 14 cents per song per listener. It is a U.S. copyright initiative known as CARP which is in danger of going into force on May 21st. Read about it here: [link] and if you're an American citizen, contact your elected representatives, if you think that Internet radio should keep existing. More >
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