Last night in Vancouver listening to Le Vent du Nord, a terrific traditional band from Quebec. They put on one of the best live shows I have seen in a long time with outstanding musicianship combined with incredible energy. Listening to them and watching people dancing I had a deep experience of why we humans need art. It brings us into a joyful relationship which each other that we seem built to need – a kind of belonging that transcends each of our individual reservations, a sort of shared ecstasy. The cynic might say that such an attitude is decadent …
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A review of things that caught my eye this week: In #Occupy news, three articles of note: The Good (an #Occupy Wall Street Open Space), The Bad (an #Occupy LA arrest and torture) and The Ugly (Republican messaging regarding #Occupy). And The Helpful. A story about the choices cities make in dealing with #Occupy camps And in related news, a beautiful story about Pancho Ramos Stierle and his commitment to generosity. Two fantastic TED talks: Louie Schwartzberg on Gratitude and Luis von Ahn on how to make good use of useless tasks. MIT reports that improvisation may be the key …
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Graphic from puramaryam.de Last night as part of a leadership retreat we are doing for the the Federation of Community Social Services of BC, we took a bus into Vancouver from Bowen Island to listen to Adam Kahane speak. He spoke last night on the ten laws of love and power (the essence of which you can see amongst these Google results). There are a couple of new insights from the talk he gave which I appreciate. Love and power as a complimentary system. Adam’s project is to recover useful definitions of love and power and to see them in …
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We have just been through a challenging municipal election here on Bowen Island. At issue was a referendum on whether we wanted to see a National Park established on the Crown Lands on our island. Also in the air was a level of distrust and animosity between some citizens and some of the candidates and the incumbent council. In the midst of things I made it a practice to see what it would be like to actively facilitate quality of conversation. This meant a number of things for me. It meant finding kindness for those who not only thought differently …
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Matt Taibbi gets it: There was a lot of snickering in media circles, even by me, when I heard the protesters talking about how Liberty Square was offering a model for a new society, with free food and health care and so on. Obviously, a bunch of kids taking donations and giving away free food is not a long-term model for a new economic system. But now, I get it. People want to go someplace for at least five minutes where no one is trying to bleed you or sell you something. It may not be a real model for …