Organizing Dialogue, Experience and Knowledge for Complex Problem-Solving

We Are Water: Walking the Howsatunnuck for the 7th Generation

by • May 30th, 2018

Grandmother Carole Bubar-Blodgett, explaining aspects of the 220-mile Prayer Walk of the Howsatunnuck River (Housatonic).

Just another crazy old lady, Carole Bubar-Blodgett talks a lot. Her stories are personal, about the lessons, teachings, and experiences she’s had walking the Good Red Road. Emotion runs through her, especially gratitude. Grandmother Carole was at Standing Rock, where she gifted an Eagle Staff to the youth of the Seventh Generation. “It was always […]

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Climate change is happening within us [book review]

by • December 4th, 2015

Kelly, an acupuncturist and Taichi student, draws on cases from his clinical practice in Chinese medicine and a solid comprehension of key scientific findings about anthropomorphic global warming to come to a diagnosis of climate change as a symptom of Yin-deficient heat.

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Social Polyculture at PV2

by • April 2nd, 2015

One Day You Will Turn To Sustainability

Learning, the Permaculture Way was a pre-conference workshop by David Eggleton and me at the 2nd Permaculture Voices conference (PV2) in San Diego. Our session drew about 50 participants, some of whom continued a dialogue that seemed—on the surface—to have a narrow focus but, over the five days of PV2, grew wider, broader and was deepened […]

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Learning, the Permaculture Way

by • January 24th, 2015

permacultureVOICES2015-01-24 at 8.24.56 PM

This workshop at the 2nd Permaculture Voices conference in San Diego will help you plan how to maximize your PV2 conference experience by applying a tool for lifelong learning. Learning throughout your life involves steady investments of attention, time and energy. In this session, you will acquire and work with a set of considerations that […]

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Imitation: Not only a game

by • January 4th, 2015

The race of Ultra vs Enigma in The Imitation Game prefigures Edward Snowden, #Anonymous, and the Lizard Squad.

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Can Permaculture Voices guide us through climate change?

by • March 19th, 2014

  Dominic reminded me that the way we talk needs revision. There is no “solution” to climate change; nothing to stop the forces already in motion. “We have to go through it.” What there are, instead, are ways of living during the escalation of natural disasters. Perhaps, against the odds, if enough of us change fast […]

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Creatives versus Doomers: WE Are the Planet

by • October 13th, 2013

Twiliocon-developer renaissance 2013-09-19 at 7.41.52 PM

Neal Stephenson has said that he is interested in “the attention span of our society” and comments that we have “350 years of perspective” on the scientific process. In the face of climate disruption, can Cultural Creatives prove the Doomers and Deniers wrong? This week, a symposium at UMass Amherst aims to “Harvest Hope.”

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The ANSWER . . . is DIRT (the question is irrelevant)

by • July 6th, 2013

cows save the planet

One of the challenges of inspiring people to care about transforming land to better grow food is making the lifestyle appealing. So far, no go! The aesthetic is monotone: white people playing folk music. This is seriously problematic! Forging alliances is not easy work, but it is meaningful labor.

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Monks and Nuns (“Adam had them”)

by • January 29th, 2013

"...to live in the company of wise people..." (from the Buddha's "Discourse on Happiness")

“It’s gonna be fast, it’s gonna be hectic!” Which pretty much summed up the party. The early round of appetizers and aperitifs accompanied spirited conversation on topics which ranged from climate shift (if you happened to talk with me) to whatever everybody else (the ‘normal’ people?) talked about. Bringing joy in the now is a skill at which my closest friends excel. But the now is always in flux . . . What storyline are we actually living? What function does a spiritualist approach to the now contribute in the aggregate history humanity is producing?

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Mudfire! May the World Be Good to You

by • January 22nd, 2013

Borrowed on a whim from the household library . . .

When the early crowd at Pat and Carol’s New Year’s Day Open House invited me to blog about the event, I was thinking of the kind of entries that are tagged “group dynamics” – most of them are pure fun, although they can include a serious subtext which was sometimes made overt and other times left […]

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