A summery Friday here at the Lot. Here’s what tickled my eyes this week:
- El Cameron, my favourite flamenco singer. Full of duende this night.
- A brilliantly rendered story of the four quadrants of integral theory. This map is just so helpful in looking at so many sitautions. This particular presentation is a lovely use of web technology as well.
- So you want to speak Danish? Who wouldn’t… The first place to start is by mastering this phrase: rødgrød med fløde. If you can’t get it on the first or second (or 27th) try, have a look at this detailed pronunciation guide which tells how to make the porridge AND the phrase. When you’re done there, watch this incredible documentary about the demise of Danish. This note is required reading for anyone in the Art of Hosting community by the way!
- Boeing launches its new plane, the 787, this weekend: 07/08/07. Check it out now or watch it live on Sunday.
“We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy and the one facing what we do to the enemy.”
–Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road, p. 301
Three Day Road is about two Oji-Cree soldiers who fight for Canada in the first world war. They survive the fight with the enemy on the battlefield, but they lose the war to the other enemy, the one that lurks on the inner front.
It is only *I* that holds others as “enemies.” No one is born into this world as my enemy. I create that story. My prejudices are my own, whether they appear to be generated by others or not. How do I know this is true? Because not everyone treats everyone else the same way.
In my martial arts training, we speak of our “enemies” as opponents. We offer respect to our opponents by bowing to them because having an opponent helps us to discern our real enemies – our thinking. It is very difficult to best an opponent if you think of that person as an enemy. To fight and survive you must be clear. You must be engaged with what is happening, not your story of what is happening. The moment you forget this is the moment you stop fighting your opponent and start fighting your enemy and is the moment your opponent has beaten you. Truly, you have beaten yourself. A bout with an opponent, whether it is in dialogue or in the dojang, should lead us back to confronting our enemies and they, as Pogo said, are us.
There is no relationship between winning or losing on the mat and in the mind. You can lose a bout on the mat but overcome one more prejudice in the mind. And, like Boyden’s characters, you can win on the mat but what is unconfronted in the mind will destroy you. For me, peace is the when I eliminate my true enemies – the thinking that imprisons me. And so, I bow to my opponents for their helping me discover what it is I need to confront in myself.
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Quite a collection of songs with midi files and some guitar tabs.
Notes collected this week:
- Here is a link to a story of a most remarkable wedding between two lovely women who met on LiveJournal, found help through Craigslist and had it all documented on Blogger, Blogware and YouTube. And what is so remarkable about this story is that it is a story of how these technologies helped people find warmth and kindness and love in a company of strangers. The new world is blossoming, and we are finding one another, and discovering that we are highly pre-disposed to friendship and connection. del.icio.us!
- If, like me, you are addicted to TED talks, then you might also develop a craving for Scitalks, Humtalks and Busitalks.
- You know all those stats about “X is incresing at so much per day”? Here’s what it looks like all toted up. Interesting to see how bicycle production outpaces car production and how abortions run at about 60% of births. That helps to explain why this CBC poll was hacked this month.
Today is the national First Nations day of action, and there is certainly lots going on. Much of what makes the news will be the more dramatic events, blockades and protests. But here are some things friends of mine are up to that tells the story of what is happening away from the headlines across Aboriginal Canada:
- On the northern tip of Vancouver Island, the Gwa’Sala-Nakwaxda’xw communities are doing some cool stuff to record their history with the help of their kids.
- Elsewhere on Vancouver Island, if you didn’t yet see the video from VIATT’s celebration on June 8, you can view it here. You can also view a video of VIATT’s reason for being.
- CBC has a new look and they have an Aboriginal news portal which is pretty cool.
- Meanwhile, my friend Kim Baird is hoping her community, the Tsawwassen First Nation will become the first to sign a treaty this summer in the BC treaty process..