Newsletter - October 11th, 2015 - Volume 2, Issue 11
TSW Posts from the Past Week
The designer of Intel’s first microprocessor,
physicist Federico Faggin, who went to on to start a number of other pivotal companies including Zilog, Cygnet, Synaptics, and Foveon has now turned his prodigious technical talent to reconciling spirituality with science and answering the question – What is Consciousness? Faggin has created a non-profit foundation to drive scientific inquiry into the origins of consciousness and hopes to use his deep understanding of quantum science to more clearly understand the true nature of
reality.
Otto Scharmer of MIT over the last decade has created a model of how the 21st century organization and economic system will evolve from a hierarchical
command and control structure to one where cooperation, interconnectedness, and service to others are what drive success. His book Leading from the Emerging Future, co-written with Katrin Kaufer, provides a wonderful playbook for transforming ourselves, our organizations, and eventually society through understanding issues from a Systems Thinking perspective.
Links worth Investigating - The Next System Project: 'The Next System Project is an ambitious multi-year initiative aimed at thinking boldly about what is required to
deal with the systemic challenges the United States faces now and in coming decades. Responding to a real hunger for a new way forward, and building on innovative thinking and practical experience with new economic institutions and approaches being developed in communities across the country and around the world, the goal is to put the central idea of system change, and that there can be a “next system,” on the map." See their white paper that gives a good overview of the alternative political, economic, and social systems they are
studying.
- To deal with big social, economic and environmental challenges, we should start by fixing money - video: positivemoney.org
- Commons, an interview with David Bollier (video). "David Bollier is an American activist, writer, and policy strategist. He is co-founder of the Commons Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the
Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, and writes technology-related reports for the Aspen Institute. As we move to a more shared, integrated, and collaborative economic and social model." David Bollier is a key person to follow. His work on the “commons” - the importance of maintaining our shared public spaces, social and economic resources, and the environment overall is important to public discussion taking on urgency given the rapid pace of climate
change. See his website here.
- Great overview of the wisdom of Tao of Physics author Fritjof Capra. "Capra, a theoretical physicist and systems thinking specialist, has explored how the changed vision of nature emanating from the ‘new physics’ also changes the way we look at life, our psychology, society, politics, economics, and the environment. He identified the interconnectedness that theoretical physicists like David Bohm were talking about in such a powerfully poetic
language as having an impact on the way other disciplines viewed and approached their own subject matter. In general, a ‘paradigm shift’ has been happening, he claimed, from the Newtonian-Cartesian essentially mechanistic vision of the universe to a more holistic, interconnected, organic version."
- Lovingkindness meditation as the heart of mindfulness practice, by Buddhist teacher, Sharon Salzberg. “ In my experience, lovingkindness meditation really became about revitalizing my sense of inner wholeness, deeply caring about myself regardless of what I felt I might do well to change or alter. There is a quotation from Zen master Suzuki Roshi I really like: 'Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.' The goal of lovingkindness is not to think of self-love as a prerequisite for loving others, but to cultivate a sense of balance, resilience, spaciousness, and comfort in the idea of unity. Unsurprisingly, lovingkindness has been
scientifically-proven to put the brakes on self-criticism while at the same time increasing our capacity to empathize with others.” from OnBeing
Proactive Access to Knowledge and Wisdom - Why Sweden Is Shifting To A 6-Hour
Workday: "Be more focused, have fewer meetings—and then go home early. It sounds like a dream, but it can work." [and, as we wake up to the need to reduce our carbon output, working less and using less energy resources will become a necessity...]. Fast Company
- This Zero-Energy Home Is Run By Machines And Costs A Lot Less Than A Regular House: "A new startup wants to
make a house with no energy bills as cheap as buying a standard power-sucking McMansion. The Axiom House is ultra-efficient, runs on renewable power, and smart: Robots handle everything from lighting and security to mowing the lawn. While almost every other product has evolved, typical homes haven't changed much for generations, even though people have. At 2,600 square feet on average, they're usually oversized for modern families. Over 30 years—with the cost of utilities, interest, taxes,
and insurance—a $300,000 house ends up costing closer to a million dollars. Typical houses run on the equivalent of 11,000 pounds of coal." Fast Company
- Bill Moyers: The Ingenious Project to Save Our Climate Using an Ancient Legal Theory. "The new legal framework for this crusade against global warming is called atmospheric trust litigation. It takes the fate of the Earth into the courts, arguing that the planet’s atmosphere
– its air, water, land, plants and animals — are the responsibility of government, held in its trust to insure the survival of all generations to come."
- Documentary:
Addicted to Plastic. Plastic refuse is choking our oceans, destroying the oceanic ecosystem, and winding its way back into our food and water systems. We all need to find ways to use less of it.
- VIDEO: Why We Must End ‘Upward
Pre-Distributions’ to the Rich - By Robert Reich — "You often hear that inequality has widened because globalization and technological change have made most people less competitive while making the best-educated more competitive. But this common explanation overlooks a critically important phenomenon." TruthDig
- Excellent Terence McNally podcast with futurist Jeremy Rifkin from 2010 on his book: The Empathic Civilization, The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Rifkin provides an in depth analysis on the current transition out of the fossil fuel
economy being driven by the emergence of a highly interconnected global consciousness.
- Suzuki Speaks video (Gaiam TV). "For more than 30
years, scientist, broadcaster and environmental activist David Suzuki has served as the host of The Nature of Things, a CBC program that is seen in more than forty nations. Suzuki Speaks is an hour of thought-provoking television. In this beautiful video, Suzuki examines the relationship between the four “sacred” elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and their influence on the “interconnectedness” we feel individually, with each other, and with the rest of the
world."
- 5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change. "If everyone got personal, practical, and political, then they just might have a big
effect."
- “We are at the very point in time when a 400-year old age is dying and another is struggling to be born - a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, creativity, liberty, community, and ethics such as
the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.” - Author Elaine Smitha
- "Recovery is reciprocal: heal yourself, heal the world; heal the world, heal yourself. Once you're dedicated to improving your own health and the health of the earth and all her creatures, the
Spirit world will rally behind you to support your commitment.” - Shaman and Healer, Alberto Villoldo
“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates the same people you do.” -Author Anne Lamott
“We cannot be risk averse when it comes to the things that really matter. The neuroscientist Jerry Levy suggest that more than anything what seems to be the decisive element in how we humans develop is our ability to rise to challenge. Cross the line from the safe encampment of your point of view and enter the unknown with someone of a very different point of view and you are likely to be surprised by your own creative power. Remember dialogue
is not about making false compromises to be nice to others. That’s just more stress avoidance. It is more about reaching understanding and respect than it is about reaching agreement. As such, it is the basis for peaceful planetary civilization. And if I have an inkling about anything, it is that evolution has been engendering the emergence of a dialogic human, capacitated to live into the creative stress of transcending the unnecessary and often brutal ruptures triggered by
our inability to dialogue about our differences.” - James O’Dea, the former Director of Amnesty International
This is why choice is of the utmost importance. Choice constantly extends your ability to experience truth. As you choose throughout your day, you extend your free-will outward. This free-will choice goes out and spirals, eventually bringing back to
you exactly what you sent out. If you send out a thought of malice, eventually a situation of malice comes back to show you the mirror of yourself. When you send out the choice of love and wisdom, eventually wise, loving opportunities to expand truth appear. Then you have yet again another opportunity to exercise responsible choice. This is a cycle of truth operating throughout your world.” - Frieda Probst, author of the Mother
Transcriptions
If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
Glad to be welcoming Autumn to the North East. This picture is from a trip to Vermont in October 2008.
Have a Great Week, Stay Positive, and Proactively Choose Your Thoughts to Create Your Desired Reality.
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