Osho Dynamic Meditation

Week 2 of Osho. The journey continues. We did a five day session two weeks ago and return again this week. Some phrases that describe the last journey: spiritual-emotional-physical release, clenching, pounding, shaking, mental-phyiscal challenge, euphoria, anger, fear, pain is sensation, clarity, exhaustion, flow, imagination, butterfly being, laughter, energetic vibration spewing from forearms and hands, unearthing the shadow self, accepting and letting go, playing.

Osho Dynamic Meditation
Dynamic Meditation lasts one hour and is in five stages. It can be done alone, and will be even more powerful if it is done with others. It is an individual experience so you should remain oblivious of others around you and keep your eyes closed throughout, preferably using a blindfold. It is best to have an empty stomach and wear loose, comfortable clothing. The music in each section carries the section and serves as a guide for the experience.

“This is a meditation in which you have to be continuously alert, conscious, aware, whatsoever you do. Remain a witness. Don’t get lost. While you are breathing you can forget. You can become one with the breathing so much that you can forget the witness. But then you miss the point.

“Breathe as fast as possible, as deep as possible; bring your total energy to it but still remain a witness. Observe what is happening as if you are just a spectator, as if the whole thing is happening to somebody else, as if the whole thing is happening in the body and the consciousness is just centered and looking.

“This witnessing has to be carried in all the three steps. And when everything stops, and in the fourth step you have become completely inactive, frozen, then this alertness will come to its

First Stage: 10 minutes

Breathe chaotically through the nose, concentrating always on exhalation. The body will take care of the inhalation. The breath should move deeply into the lungs. Be as fast as you can in your breathing, making sure the breathing stays deep. Do this as fast and as hard as you possibly can – and then a little harder, until you literally become the breathing. Use your natural body movements to help you to build up your energy. Feel it building up, but don’t let go during the first stage.

Second Stage: 10 minutes

Explode! Express everything that needs to be thrown out. Go totally mad. Scream, shout, cry, jump, shake, dance, sing, laugh; throw yourself around. Hold nothing back; keep your whole body moving. A little acting often helps to get you started. Never allow your mind to interfere with what is happening. Be total, be whole hearted.

Third Stage: 10 minutes
With raised arms, jump up and down shouting the mantra, “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” as deeply as possible. Each time you land, on the flats of your feet, let the sound hammer deep into the sex center. Give all you have; exhaust yourself totally.

Fourth Stage

Stop! Freeze wherever you are, in whatever position you find yourself. Don’t arrange the body in any way. A cough, a movement – anything will dissipate the energy flow and the effort will be lost. Be a witness to everything that is happening to you.

Fifth Stage: 15 minutes

Celebrate through dance, expressing your gratitude towards the whole. Carry your happiness with you throughout the day.

Climate Change Movie

Strategies for Motivating Transformation

I've checked into Alan Atkisson some more. Haven't yet read his book, although Sean has...here's a review
"Believing Cassandra is really interesting, clarifying and inspiring. Read it and you'll not only know how to think sustainability and do sustainability—you'll know how to dance, sing and laugh it as well. At the same time, the ideas are dead serious—and I mean dead. If we don't get it right, this sustainability thing, much will die in our clumsy human hands. Alan AtKisson gives us tools to understand where we are, where we're headed and how to change. What could be better—an important book that's a great read."
—Vicki Robin, co-author of Your Money or Your Life

In Believing Cassandra, titled after Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of Priam, the last king of Troy, Apollo gifted her the ability to see the future. When she refused his special favors, he cursed her gift, so no one would believe her prophecies. The Greek myth mirrors what environmentalists have been sadly up against since at least 1972, with Donella Meadow's book Beyond Limits, and the 30-year updated version Limits to Growth in which the authors poignantly explain, with a special equation, that its not feasibly possible to survive at this pace of consumption and we cannot continue using resources at the current rates. The premise, here, is believe Cassandra!
Well, now that we believe Cassandra-come on with The Great Global Warming Swindle people- Bleak, maybe. Choice, maybe not- might as well be on the party boat if you catch my drift. Get out there, and be a feverish force of change and positivity.

3 Strategies for motivating transformation
Promote the new, critique the old, and facilitate the switch
1. Promote the new: Brainstorm the percieved value of the new way. Explicitly. Blog it, mindmap it, list it, write a song, draw it. whatever you're into. Perceived here means what is meaningful to you, not what you're supposed to feel or supposed to appreciate. It may look like a systems map where the effects ripple throughout other parts of your life. Another lens to run the new idea, or change you want to make through is Max-Neef's 9 Basic Needs. They are protection, subsistence, identity, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creativity, and freedom per Max Neef. How well does is satisfy these? My friend Georges Dyer expliains it a bit more here- 9 Universal Needs.
2. critique the old: Then you do the same for the 'perceived' value of the old way.
3. perceived cost of the change: List, mindmap - dig down and pull out what makes us squirm, emotionally, financially...At what espense is it to you to change?
4. Substract the value of the old way from the value of the new way and hopefully its greater than the perceived cost of change. Its not so much about hard numbers, rather if you believe in the benefit.
5. facilitate the switch and make it easy to change the behavior, so you lower the perceived cost to zero and if you're crafty the costs removed- free up space for other satisfiers, clean out the closets so to speak. Open up to opportunity.

Five filters to run the idea or innovation through:
1. Relative advantage- How do the benefits weigh agaist the costs?
2. Complexity- How difficult is the concept to understand
3. Trialabiliy- Can it be tried, scrutinized, and then returned, or droppped?
4. Observability- Are the results observable? Is there appropriate feedback? or lots of delay?
5. Compatibility-is it compatible with your values and your vision of a successful future?

This method can apply to something small, like shifting to organics- something personal, like wanting to run more, or to a big innovation or decision, like changing a job...any level. I'll let you know how it goes.

Shashuka Dinner

Sunday Dinner at Dan Hendry's Mihal and Yali shared a a traditional Israeli dish, eggs, peppers, onions, garlic, homemade pita, tahini & eggplant dip

In Lund for Yali's art opening 'Neglect'

Yali presented his photogrpahic work entitled Neglect in Lund. The pictures were taken in Israel, Yali's homeland, and were representative of the spirit that endures in neglect.

Vegan Chocolate Cake will make you happy fast

The digits: 5 minutes to prepare, 25 to bake. 375F. Now go. like the wind.
Buy organic, fairtrade and local if possible...and run over to the neighbors house for whatever you're missing. Good cake makes good neighbors. This is a Moosewood Restaurant recipe.
1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar (raw or sucanet preferred)
1/2 cup vegetable oil*
1 cup cold water or brewed coffee
2 tsps pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp vinegar (Yes, vinegar)
Be creative: subsitute honey for sugar, baking poweder for soda, butter for oil...whatever
1. Sift together the dry goods right in the pan (non-greased) you'll bake in. less dishes.
2. In a bowl, add the water (or coffee), and vanilla. Slowly now, pour the liquid ingredients into the baking pan and mix the batter
3. When the batter is smooth, add the vinegar and stir quickly. There will be pale swirls (and some bubbling) in the batter where the baking soda and vinegar are reacting. Stir just until the vinegar is evenly distributed throughout the batter (the color becomes more consistent throughout). Get 'er in the oven now. Check in 20 minues. knife test. it. Add frosting. I sprinked cinnamon and sugar on some yogurt.

The NEWS

World Changing: Another world is here
This is my goto site at the moment.
Grist
Grist feels more mainstream and throws in the satire

Alan Atkisson: change agent

Alan Atkisson's sustainability service, from what I can gather thus far, incorporates SSD, some of what The Natural Step promotes..and focuses on process and organizational learning. He seems to provide lots of good process tools, found in the Accelerator toolkit. My housemate, Sean met him last week at a conference in Spain on sustainability and just finished his book, Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World. I'm interested to explore his methods more.

Facilitating Emergence

Chris Corrigan
This is a link to his website.

Back in the beginning of the year we practiced open space technology and I blogged it. Chris Corrigan is a dialogue/ co-creation facilatator. He practices the art of rock balancing and there's 40 ways to mediatate on his blog. He got Thoreau in there too and all these links about unschooling. good stuff. These are seeds for my present and future...

Chris says..
"I am a facilitator of conversation in the service of emergence. My business is supporting invitation: the invitation to collaborate, to organize, to find one another and make a difference in our communities, organizations and lives. In a changing and complex world, there are no answers, there is no certainty. Leadership and questions are everywhere. We are called to be in active engagement with the world around us, to make sense of things we are seeing and to act on our visions and ideas for the good and benefit of all."

How to Disappear and get your community off the radar

Pass this around. Its good ol' fashioned pen and ink.

by Pete Leki
HOW TO DISAPPEAR

Especially fun for Walmart neysayers
and you cats that have faith in a sustainable future