Tag Archive: history

January 4, 2012

Primordial Networking

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global brain

|Image by Dionne Hartnett|http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionnehartnett/6289336176|

I spent time over the break reading through Howard Bloom’s robust Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century.  Described as a “lusty tome” by evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, the book is an exploration of history through the lens of group rather than simply individual selection.  Bloom’s concept of collective information processing is eye-opening, provocative, and possibility-inspiring.  It is also very timely given the growing emphasis on networks and collective approaches to change.  Here is a taste, found in the opening pages: Read More

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April 20, 2011

The Distant Hill, Under Our Feet

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A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,

Going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

It has its inner light, even from a distance —

And changes us, even if we do not reach it,

Into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;

A gesture waves us on, answering our own wave . . .

But what we feel is the wind in our faces.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

The older I get, the more I think I understand these words by Rilke.  Read More

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