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.

We have tried so hard for so long to disconnect . . .

We in the Western world have tried so hard for so long to disconnect from the Web of Life but try as we might, we have not and cannot succeed. The embrace of the Earth is too strong. We cannot walk away from the planet of our birth and even when we try to cut those bonds by traveling into space, our bones and bodies wither. Those few human beings who have walked on another world, who have come as close as anyone to breaking the bonds of our home planet (still embraced, however, by the long arms of its gravity), came back so changed, so transformed, that their lives were irrevocably altered. These astronaut/pilot/scientists all became teachers, artists, mystics, healers, farmers, or theologians (except one who became a beer distributor and another who became a defense consultant), but few may have reasoned why they were so transformed. (The Other Side of the Moon Video, Castle and Hendring, 1990)

We can learn so much from these men who tried to cut their bonds with Mother Earth and failed, who experienced its awesome power from 250,000 miles away in space, who felt the intense power of the place of our birth, who, while standing on an airless, lifeless Moon, felt the great gift of our existence. Yet they were so unprepared for the experience, so trained in the disconnected approach of Western science, so confused about their place in the universe, that the great gifts of awareness, awe, truth, and beauty that were revealed to them as they stood on the surface of the Moon and looked back at their home often turned to dysfunction, trauma, and fear. 

(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1871232052/power-of-process-its-ok-dreams-dont-come-true-over?ref=live)

How different would things be if . . .

How different would your relationships be if you never saw a movie where one minute a couple is arguing and one ends up walking out the door when the scene shifts and they wake up in bed together the next morning? It is the moments in betwe...en the start and the end of anything that matter, yet we have few opportunities to learn how to manage those moments in-between.

This book is about those moments in between and how to fully live them, how to embrace the process that is your life, how to be comfortable with uncertainty, with, as Gilda Rader called it, “delicious ambiguity,” and how to appreciate your life as a journey and not just as a series of destinations.

Overview of my project

Everybody’s got dreams and plans. How to make those dreams come true is the problem and the challenge. But few of us were ever taught in school about how to do that. Some people give up. Others, like me, turn to Kickstarter to connect us with like minded people. Some keep searching for the answer and never find it.

Everybody wants their dream to come true – and they want it NOW. Fast. Overnight would be great. And there’s lots of people out there – lots of self-help books and authors on DVDs –to give us THE WAY to do it.

The self help industry may not be helping, yet millions buy books and CDs and beat themselves up when they don't achieve success after following all the steps. Are we creating a subculture of defeated people, dependant on the words of moder...n day self-proclaimed prophets rather than self-reliant problem solvers, connected with themselves and the web of life, the cycles of Earth and the rhythms of the natural world?

I am writing a book about this and I need your help to flush it out and finish it. It’s called “The Power of Process - Why It’s OK That Things Don’t Happen Overnight.” I have written a couple of books about environmental issues, spent 20 years working in the space program, and currently work with Microsoft Research communicating future trends. But this problem has always nagged at me. It’s very important to me to figure this out and I think it could be important to you as well.

The most successful people in our culture, whether they be sellers of spiritual advice or makers of one widget or another, became successful because a complex array of forces came to bear on a particular moment in time.

They invented something, had an idea or voiced a concept that resonated with a significant number of people at that moment, a moment that was created because of a complex array of personal, societal, and social forces that cannot be recreated in just that way no matter how closely you follow the path of the successful individual. Their path was unique, special, specific to their journey and created in a synergistic partnership between their life and the universe.

This observation is not meant to suggest that you cannot yourself be successful or rich. But it does mean that who you choose to learn from and what you choose to learn is of critical importance and one thing always remains true: You cannot be happy following someone else’s dream, especially if the goal is the attainment of monetary wealth.

It just doesn’t work.

 My Kickstarter project to raise funds for this project is LIVE! Visit it at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1871232052/power-of-process-its-ok-dreams-dont-come-true-over?ref=live and please consider supporting!

That is what I am writing about. See www.powerofprocess.org for excerpts of what I have written so far and please consider supporting my KICKSTARTER PROJECT.

My KICKSTARTER project is underway!

It is exciting to have my KICKSTARTER project live! The idea of folks from all over the world getting the chance to see my work and support it is amazing. As a writer, it is easy to feel isolated and alone with one's thoughts and beliefs. Sure, lots of folks have read my work over the world as it is readily available on the web, but to have folks actually feel strongly enough to donate funds is a great honor.

So far I have 4 backers for my project and over 450 "likes" on my book project Facebook page. It iwll be most interesting to see where this goes!