Advice from Leonardo Da Vinci, elucidating one of the reasons I keep this blog as a learning tool to support my professional practice: OF THE MISTAKES MADE BY THOSE WHO PRACTISE WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE. Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.”
A declaration of interdependance from Future Positive: “Stop reading! Take a few moment to examine the contents of your pockets or purse …… Can you find any item there, that you obtained without the help of someone else? Look around you. What do you see? Did you make the clothes you wear? Did you grow the food you eat or the tools you use. Look around your home or workplace. Can you find anything that you made. Do you know the names of those who did make all these things? Do you ever know upon whom you depend. Can you …
Otto Scharmer: Presencing is the ability to act in such a way that the actions we perform originate in the coming-into-presence of the future. When acting on this level, we let go of our �small selves� and turn into vehicles for the coming-into-being of a deep evolutionary stream. How do we do this? By carrying out a certain inner work, an inner work that is related to a threefold reversal process: turning one�s thinking away from judging to exploring; the reversal of feeling away from emotional reaction to appreciation and seeing with the heart; and a reshaping of the will …
Phil Cubeta at Gifthub points to the Fetzer Institute “Projects in integral practice include mapping and gathering information about the spiritual practice movement in America; increasing public awareness of the broad range of practices available; supporting deeper levels of collaboration among individuals and organizations; and engaging in research and evaluation to understand the impact of integral practice on human transformation.” These guys are involved in funding an organization that has grabbed my attention recently, the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Living in truth, emergence and giving I want to pick up on this idea that living in truth is about looking around you and doing what needs to be done. It sounds so simple because it is democracy at a human scale, and yet it can initiate profound shifts in a society because human societies, even within totalitarian systems, are emergent. When something sounds simple and yet seems to work in every case, it puts me in mind of Open Space Technology. My friend Harrison Owen, the man who created OST says that the essence of empowerment is figuring out …