“We are all called to be warriors of love for transformation.” That’s how Billy Wimsatt closed the Transforming Race conference. “If we’re transforming race, gender, America, we’re doing it from the place of fiercest love.” This is a love for one’s community, oneself, one’s planet and all people that can’t stand idle while people are suffering. A love that won’t tolerate the exclusion or marginalization or degradation of others.
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Last weekend, while on school vacation with my family, my wife Emily and I went to hear Richard Louv speak at McKee Gardens in Vero Beach, Florida. If you don’t know him, Louv wrote the books The Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle and is a big advocate for getting kids and adults outdoors to overcome what we calls “nature deficit disorder.” I have heard him speak in the past, and very much appreciate his work. That said, I was a bit troubled by the public comment session and conversation after his talk. Read More
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Last weekend, while on school vacation with my family, my wife Emily and I went to hear Richard Louv speak at McKee Gardens in Vero Beach, Florida. If you don’t know him, Louv wrote the books The Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle and is a big advocate for getting kids and adults outdoors to overcome what we calls “nature deficit disorder.” I have heard him speak in the past, and very much appreciate his work. That said, I was a bit troubled by the public comment session and conversation after his talk. Read More
Leave a commentEco-philosopher Joanna Macy PhD, is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She is a respected voice in the movements for peace, justice, and ecology, and interweaves her scholarship with five decades of activism. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, she has created a ground-breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application. The Great Turning, to which she refers in this clip, is a name for the “adventure of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.”
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The issue of personal ecology is one of my biggest concerns in our ever accelerating world. It is the biggest pain point I find among leaders and organizations. It is a sense of being overwhelmed, of trying to do too much, of never having a break. And worst of all – it can be addictive.
Leave a commentIn 2010, IISC had the privilege of work with Raab Associates to facilitate the development of Boston’s Climate Action Plan. Boston Latin School’s Youth Climate Action Network figured prominently in the development of a very successful community engagement session for Boston’s young people. They continue to move forward. Check them out! Here’s an excerpt of their presentation…
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The following post is reblogged from Seth’s Blog. We hope that it will enrich your life and much as it has ours.
“We’re hoping to succeed; we’re okay with failure. We just don’t want to land in between.”
–David Chang
He’s serious. Lots of people say this, but few are willing to put themselves at risk, which destroys the likelihood of success and dramatically increases the chance of in between.
Leave a commentWhat am I missing because I’m not looking for it?
Leave a commentThe Black Mesa Water Coalition is an inspiring group of Navajo and Hopi young people who organized to protect the Navajo aquifer which was being depleted by coal production and transportation processes. They are a great example of people power, coming together and winning important gains for their community. And, they are an important reminder about the many ways in which Native people in the U.S. continue to face structural barriers to their own well-being. As we move the conversation about structural racism forward, I have to ask myself, as a black woman who grew up on land that was taken from the Wampanoag people, how can I be an effective ally?
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|Photo by lydiashiningbrightly|http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiashiningbrightly/3016016887|
One principle of living systems is that one person’s waste is someone else’s food. This is how nature works, which is wonderful, and . . . unfortunately many of us are eating our own unhealthy waste in the form of industrial chemicals and other toxins, precisely because we seem to lack an overview of the cyclical nature of things. On the upside, there are many ways that we could be much more efficient and even generate better health and greater wealth if we could think and act upon this notion of recycling and reusing waste.
This can include looking at how what is generally cast off as by-product might be used for creating additional value. Read More
Leave a comment“We can only have honest, effective hope if the frame through which we see is an accurate representation of how the world works.”
– Frances Moore Lappe
|Photo by Jim Bahn|http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcwest/6142854588|
With a warm welcome and opening offering of D.H. Lawrence’s poem “Escape,” Danny Martin and I launched into our session last week at the Bioneers by the Bay Conference entitled, “Belonging and Becoming: Practices for Regenerative Leadership.” The framing of our 90 minutes was the call to connect more deeply with the ways of complex living systems, to align ourselves more fully with life so that we might thrive as a human community.
During the first half of our session we took the poet’s suggestion to escape the “glass bottles of our egos” and access “unlying life” by engaging in some paired storytelling focused on the values that have guided us in our lives. This was our effort to cultivate a deeper sense of belonging in the room, and we were amazed to hear how much people took from listening to one another for even 10 minutes. Read More
Leave a commentA mentor of mine says that one of the most important disciplines we can individually and collectively engage in is to repeatedly ask and attempt to answer the question, “Where am I/we now?” This is something of a daunting task when it comes to our global climate, and yet embracing this current reality is key to creating the future we would want to see inherited by generations to come. In this spirit, we are all invited to join The Climate Reality Project to hear more of the truth about climate change from those who are experiencing its impacts around the world, and watch the live stream here starting at 7pm CT today (September 14).
Leave a commentMake Change Stick Beyond the Meeting
Turn ideas into agreements that stick, and keep change going after the meeting ends. Perfect for teams stuck in “great conversation, little action.”