Social Networking generates brand awareness and income.

                Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks have changed the way we interact with each other and the world. Social networks are changing the face of commerce as well as consumers become the promoters of their favorite products and brands.  With over 900 million users, Facebook had changed the way we view the digital world. As more people are living in big urban cities rather than small towns, people are searching for ways to create community in their busy independent lives. And as more and more purchasing shifts to online sources, personal product reviews are becoming the way people determine what to buy.

               A new service is starting up soon that let's people's profit from their natural desire to share what they like with family, friends, and others. Wavup is a new service that lets people connect and share what they love. With a Facebook-like interface they can use at home or on their mobile devices, users can build teams of family, friends, and others to recommend products and earn cash as a result. Every time someone on your team purchases a product, you get rewarded.  Team members can build teams of their own and magnify the earnings of the person who invited them to join. Invitation based, Wavup also provides entrepreneurs a unique venue for building a brand or promoting a product.

Moving Forward!

The first go-around of my Kickstarter project did not get funded, but the book project continues! Thanks to all of you who made a pledge and who continue to read of my progress. I have over 500 "likes" on the book's Facebook page and the message is clear: folks do want to explore how to become more aligned with the processes that unfold all around us. We all want to understand how to claim more of our natural personal power and how to be patient with the organic unfolding of our passions, hopes, and dreams.

I will keep updating this blog and www.powerofprocess.org as the project develops.

Onward!

The universe is not a machine . . .

Our reliance on technological solutions produces another dilemma. Technology can provide only a partial solution to the complex environmental management issues before humans today, yet Western culture has attempted to convince the world that answers to our pressing concerns can come only from the world of “science.” Emphasis has been placed on building a better machine or passing a better law as the source for solutions.

 

Yet the thing we practice today known as “science and technology” was birthed during the Scientific Revolution and now has come to mean a perception that we are separate from the Earth. With this perception, the sacredness of the natural world and its intimate connection to each one of us, is eliminated and the “outside world” is relegated to the world of machines, everything moving and working like the mechanism of a finely tuned watch.

 

We are in dynamic interaction with the natural world every minute of every day and it is not a machine, but an organic, ever changing system. It will take more than machines and technology to solve our pressing crises.

The Miracle of Mindfulness

Students and nonstudents everywhere need help to awaken to what Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn calls “ the miracle of mindfulness.” We must awaken to the wonder, the beauty, the awe, and the suffering of the world around us.

When students get over the initial shock and fear of this reawakening, and it is frightening to awaken to what Thich Nhat Hahn calls “the sound of the Earth crying,“ once the suffering has been acknowledged and we have developed the compassion within us, a great inner peace is possible and a space is created to appreciate the awe of our universe.

To be mindful of our actions, our surroundings and ourselves, to reclassify the earth, the air, the water and all the planet’s contents as sacred, and to realize the importance of appreciation of the present moment will help reintegrate our lives with the universe around us. For the last five hundred years, our educational system has evolved into a mass producing, creativity stifling, awe-dampening process that educators must reform and restructure to bring the human (and nonhuman) spirit back for ourselves and our children.

Disconnection

Disconnection, separation, division, detachment, disassociation - these are all words that too often describe the way we view our world and ourselves. We are disconnected from the Earth herself, separated from the delicate web she has woven, divided from each other by arbitrary encumbrances, detached from the very meaning of our existence, and disassociated from the awe and mystery of the world and the universe.

Our daily lives are filled with more events than our elaborate datebooks can contain. We live by the litany, "oh, that there were only more hours in the day," and we bemoan our lot in life. We are scared to death of spiders and cockroaches, consider the natural world as wild, untamed and therefore dangerous, and resist awareness of the intricacies of our world for fear of having to take on one more responsibility. We in the western world have tried so hard for so long to disconnect from the Web of Life.

We can break the bonds of our cultural, intellectual, and emotional imprisonment. We can open our eyes to see our connections and realize our true place in nature, a place that is beside other species, not above them. We can do all these things, but we need help. The disassociation of the last few thousand years will not erode overnight. But by carefully teaching each other to re-member, re-integrate, and re-associate, the embrace of our Mother Earth can be felt again.

Right down the street from where we live is the wonderful Carkeek Park and Puget Sound. Beautiful sunsets. All the beauty emainates from a myriad of complex processes that surround the Earth and our lives every day.

Become a discriminating critical thinker . . .

We can become discriminating thinkers – and teach our children, family, and friends to become that way too. Here are some ideas how:

• Realize that you may not have been given the tools to successfully wade through all the complex, mumbo-jumbo out there. Seek help.

• Ask questions. Probe assumptions. This is probably the easiest thing to do immediately. Ask “why” and “how” and “where did you hear that” and “how do you know that?”

• Hold yourself strictly accountable for what you say. Don’t even tell a friend about something you heard about unless you know where you heard it. Don’t contribute to the growing mythology we all have about what is going on in the world, how the world works, and who is good and who is bad. Find out for sure. When you read something in the newspaper, realize that it is a very incomplete picture of what is really happening. When you talk about it, preface your statements with words like “well, I don’t know what is really happening, but I read in the Times that . . .” This is a very important step in keeping your mind and heart open. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

• Reject stereotypes. Watch your language. We reinforce our own flawed learning everyday when we are sloppy with our thinking and our language. Don’t participate in the assumptions of our culture that continue to isolate us from each other. Don’t say things like “women love to shop” or “men love sports.” Don’t accept any of the assumptions that are often made about Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Jews, or whoever. When you hear someone say “oh you know them, they are so lazy” when referring to some other culture, STOP THEM. Tell them that such a statement is inappropriate and unfounded. If you listen and laugh, you are participating.

• Don’t watch the television news AT ALL. There is nothing you can gain from it. Nothing.

• Seek alternative information sources. Seek out alternative bookstores in your community. Resist patronizing the large chain bookstores. Visit an alternative bookstore and then visit the superstore. Notice the difference in the type of books carried. Reflect on the affect that such selective book offerings in the superstores have on the public. What if everyone knew about alternative bookstores and their selections? Visit a women’s bookstore in your community. Look at the amazing titles they carry. Reflect upon how the world has been affected by the fact that our perception of the universe has been seen from almost exclusively a white class-privileged male perspective.

• Examine your spending habits. Think carefully about what you need versus what you think you want. Are you spending to fill an emotional need, because you’ve been denied something you thought you deserved at work or as a child, or because you are angry or sad? Think about this very carefully.

It is easy to get discouraged, to feel overwhelmed. But if you realize that the choices you make in what you buy and what you eat can have such a dramatic affect on the world, you can get quite a bit of power back. If you realize how easy it can be to smile at someone or to help someone in need, you will start to see that the answers to our dilemmas lie not just in legislation or politics, but in our hearts. Just figure out what you want to be remembered for and what is important to you. Then, do everything in your power to make those things come true.