Posted in Inspiration

October 17, 2012

The Butterfly Story

butterfly story

|Image from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center|http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/3903384725|

At the closing of last week’s Vermont Farm to Plate Network Gathering, my colleague and friend, Beth Tener of New Directions Collaborative, shared the following beautiful story and metaphor from the evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris.  In it is the invitation that we both feel net work offers – to not simply engage in new superficial ways of working, but to let it take hold of us in shaping a new “genome” for human awareness of and interaction with living systems . . .

A caterpillar can eat up to three hundred times its own weight in a day, devastating many plants in the process, continuing to eat until it’s so bloated that it hangs itself up and goes to sleep, its skin hardening into a chrysalis. Then, within the chrysalis, within the body of the dormant caterpillar, a new and very different kind of creature, the butterfly, starts to form. This confused biologists for a long time. How could a different genome plan exist within the caterpillar to form a different creature? Read More

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October 12, 2012

Do the (extra) work

The following post is reblogged from Seth’s Blog. Short and simple , yet full of wisdom.  We hope that it will enrich your life and much as it has ours.

Do the extra work not because you have to but because it’s a privilege.

Get in early.

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October 8, 2012

We are in the Process

If you are a regular reader of our blog you have been part of our ongoing conversations on evolution.  I like to remind my clients that the big bang is not a one time event, that the bang is still happening, and that we are actually in it!

Yes, we are in the process of becoming.  Aligning ourselves with this idea can ground our efforts in a process that began 14 billion years ago.  Talk about a change in perspective!  Our own becoming conscious is integral to this evolutionary process.  So what will we do with this consciousness?  It’s a powerful way to think of movement, of progress, of development.  I loved this video, because it literally helps us to SEE it… with our own eyes, and on any given night.

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October 4, 2012

What is Your Thread?

thread

|Image by Joey Lin| http://www.flickr.com/photos/limjoeypics/4307737993|

I’ve found myself gravitating more and more to this poem, sharing it with others often in the context of system change work.  In these times of flux on so many fronts, the good news from my perspective, is that we are being asked to loosen our grasp on the myths of fixity and solidity that no longer serve us.  On the other hand, letting go can be very disorienting.  With so much changing, what can we count on?  What guides us through?  What is the thread that you follow? Read More

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October 1, 2012

Finish Each Day

Years ago, Bob Moses of the Algebra Project gave me some feedback I response to my request. He said “You have to make peace with the fact that there’s more to do than you can get done.” I’ve been trying to make that peace ever since!

What helps you to “finish each day and be done with it?” What gets in the way?

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September 21, 2012

Playing it Safe

The following is a letter by Akaya Windwood, President of the Rockwood Leadership Institute and member of the IISC Board of Directors.

About a week ago I was in my car on my way home, and traveling toward me on the busy sidewalk was a young man (20-ish) on a skateboard. It took a moment for me to register that he had a toddler-aged girl on his shoulders. Neither of them had helmets or shin pads or any protection whatsoever.

My first thought was “Stop! Get that child off his shoulders — they could both be killed if he hits a rock! This is child endangerment!!!” All my alarms started clanging, and I was on HIGH alert.

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September 13, 2012

New Beginnings

beginnings

|Photo by Janet Ramsden|http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramsd/5364325861|

During Monday’s IISC staff meeting I read the following poem.  It speaks to where many of us may find ourselves in this new season.  And it encourages some resolve as we embark upon new directions, approaches, configurations, partnerships, breadths and depths with our social change work in these uncertain and pregnant times . . .

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge. Read More

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September 12, 2012

The Growing Edge

“Look well to the growing edge.  All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born . . . “

Howard Thurman

growing edge

|Photo by Aldo Cauchi Savona|http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheekyneedle/60462071|

The following are some notes I jotted down as I got myself ready to facilitate IISC’s first staff meeting of the new season, and in full swing of our new President, Ceasar McDowell’s, tenure.  The overall theme was one of new beginnings . . . 

In preparing for today’s meeting I was thinking a lot about how I can often take for granted development, growth . . . evolution!  In one moment I may be struggling with a challenge, straining with the growing pains and demands of a given situation and then a few moments (or hours or days or weeks) later I’m skating with relative ease to the rhythm of  life and not even appreciative of that fact.  I have simply moved on.  But of course it wasn’t so simple – in many ways it was and is remarkable. Read More

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August 22, 2012

The Honey Bee Network

Anil Gupta created the Honey Bee Network to support grassroots innovators who are rich in knowledge, but not in resources.  His aim is to help them and other grassroots entrepreneurs gain the recognition they deserve.

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