FY2023

On 31st March PET ends it’s financial year FY2022. Thereupon a third New Year begins, close on the heals of the Western and Chinese ones! Once again we’re offered the opportunity to redirect energetic effort towards, in Findhorn terms, bringing Heaven to Earth*, consciously developing our relational beliefs, thoughts and words in action.

For two decades now I’ve been learning to consciously manifest this core truth*.[mfn]Humility demands that I admit to only having had a little success…[/mfn] Most believe that there’s (a) what people want to hear, (b) what people want to believe, (c) everything else, and THEN there’s (d) the truth! The difference between these two pov’s lies in the fact that thinking, speaking and acting on truth leads inexorably to a life of simplicity[mfn](1) Do not confound stasis with peace.

(2) We are often tempted to be Distracted from distraction by distraction / Filled with fancies and empty of meaning. — T.S. Eliot)[/mfn] and accepting personal responsibility for all our results… Many today avoid the former, dread the latter, and prefer trying to maximise ‘likes!’ Yet I’ve understood that it’s only our authentic interior spirit in action that breathes divine life into all the externalised systems&structures we have to operate in. Freedom… To most, it is an idea. An abstract thought that pertains to control.[mfn]Control refers to a missing thing — a tension, a conflict to be resolved only with ‘violence.'[/mfn] That’s not freedom. That’s independence. Freedom is riding wild over untamed land with no notion any moment exists beyond the one you are living. – Taylor Sheridan, “1883”

We’re tempted by our modern upbringing to design our interactions within personal, familial, team, organisational, &c. frameworks in order to produce only desired outcomes. In practice our designs tend to underproduce those fruits because our operating environments keep on evolving, we self-limit by ignoring Imagination, Intuition, Inspiration and Intention, and just intellectually focus on our own needs and wants. So when we aim to creatively update our ‘control mechanisms’ we’re really trading in one set of design problems for the next![mfn]This is a consultant’s dream and also for Pharma companies; but a nightmare for NHSplanners and repeated headbutts for common sense! Two decades ago I chose to finally interrupt that ineffective spiral in my own life and to stand up simply and responsibly in truth for better or worse… It’s been a scary&tough but healthy experience nonetheless.[/mfn]

Through the lens of not-always-comfortable ‘Truth’ and embracing the risks of developing our true authenticity, let’s immerse ourselves in some of today’s hot topics:[vertical-spacer]

Gandhi’s philosophy in practice

Click here for a short overview of his revolutionary thinking, especially under the heading: “5. Gandhi on Sarvodaya” on page 6. [vertical-spacer]

Design for living

It is my growing opinion that life is a development game that rewards patience and (interior) balance: a person must think like a person of action and act like a person of thought. And continuous honing/(re-)design is not so much about making things as about how to make things that fit gracefully over long periods of time in a particular ecological, social, and cultural context. — David W. Orr

whole FEC purpose 2019

Dr. Daniel C. Wahl has written about how such design could best be manifested today:[mfn]contemporary design is actually a rediscovery of ancient wisdom, only it is now available in unadulterated form for mass dissemination via mass education. Imparting this simple wisdom is up to us adults — our wise parental votes, not those manipulated by&for business+political agendas.

Although the richer countries have long since reached virtually universal enrollment, the fervour for education in poorer countries is even stronger. Mass education is clearly no longer the prerogative of boys: the World Bank reports that elementary enrollment ratios for girls are as high as those for boys in developed countries, and they are only slightly lower than the ratios for boys in developing countries. In both rich and poor countries, secondary education has expanded to the point where it can be considered a mass form of education as well. Amazing, huh! The day is not far off when at least some type of secondary schooling will be widely available in countries where it was completely absent a four decades ago…[/mfn] Important lessons about environmental ethics can be learned from the world’s traditional/indigenous cultures. Many of them managed to create regenerative systems that allowed them to live in a particular place for millennia. In Western culture, it was the conservation ecologist Aldo Leopold who provided the first modern formulation of an ecological and environmental ethic. He proposed that “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community; it is wrong when it does otherwise.” Leopold emphasized that ethics is not only a philosophical and social but also an ecological ‘process’. Ethics ultimately concerns the relationship between the individual and the collective, aiming to define and guide appropriate participation in our immediate community, the human family.

Of course it can only be said to be visionary,…vibrant when we put our own highest PHILOSOPHIES in action: not structurally (which only emphasises yet more linear guidelines/action plans) but rather, culturally which requires a vital, more intelligent, holistic change of heart&behaviours (based on values/essences {∆}) to be implemented in truth/honestly in our every field of endeavour. A bioregion anchors humans within living systems through shared space and resources. It acknowledges that human habitats are more than skyscrapers and boulevards. They are extensions of watersheds, food-sheds, fiber-sheds, and food systems. Living beings are what forge relationships between the city and natural systems, and are integral parts of a bioregion. To restructure our cities as ecologically responsive centers, multidisciplinary perspectives must come together to address the holistic needs of the community and bioregion. –David Hodgson[vertical-spacer]

Reinventing Cultures

Click here for a quick PowerPoint overview of Frederic Laloux’s seminal work which is changing the face of work-for-a-living. And, if that’s too complex, you could just practice philosopher Anthony deMello’s advice:

{∆} click to expand image

Faith

is Universal Wisdom’s answer to the lack of a visionary, vital, vibrant and viable culture, which results in short-term societal goals, overregulation through fear, and tired ineffective but possibly well-meaning leaders. What really does need developing is our own individual, personal Faith[mfn]We often try too hard to be spiritual, to discover, draw upon, and express our own inner nature. We can forget that we have help around us if we will access it. As part of our incarnational practice, we need to relax and allow the Light to bear us up and unfold the qualities we seek. In this, it is as if we are a seed embedded in the Life and Light of Gaia. The seed’s job is to know what it is. The soil’s job is to hold the seed and nurture it, bringing it what it needs to enable its identity to unfold and flourish. In this relationship, the seed doesn’t struggle to bring forth its nature. It opens to the soil to empower it to do what it needs to be to unfold itself. As a seed, our primary job is to know who we are–the kind of seed we are–and to be in touch with our individuality, our Sovereignty. The soil’s job–Gaia’s job–is to be a source of energy, empowering and aiding the unfoldment of our sacred nature. –David Spangler[/mfn] in doing what’s really important for those entrusted to our own CARE in action, i.e. developing the quality of relationship with our neighbours. As Henryk Sienkiewicz clarified in his Quo Vadis: “People thus far did not know a God[or a Spirit, or a Universal Providence, Gaia, First Cause, or any cause greater than themselves alone; pick your preferred descriptor…] whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love. Neither lawgivers nor philosophers taught this truth…” When we start acting out this great truth,[mfn]the “Golden Rule“[/mfn] I’m convinced that we can (re-)experience brilli ncy in abundance within our lives.

p.s. You can’t recover from anything until you know ‘what^#‘ you’re recovering from. That’s the first important work to be done. Then comes not getting comfortable with just searching, because we can only find that ‘what^#‘ by beginning our individual recovery by excluding every unprofitable input. Remember how the pandemic’s ‘isolation’ made the real you feel? Remember how you feel (holistically) after doing a health-promoting fast?…

p.p.s Every 20 March we remember Peter Caddy’ s birthday. As one of the Findhorn Community Founders he believed in every real WORK in action being about manifesting our personal LOVE for something bigger than just our-small-‘s’-self. The Golden Rule is a start on our journey to rediscover our authenticity.

FY2023

Regeneration Vs Sustainability

Circularity Vs Linear thinking

Small is beautiful

Gandhi’s philosophy in practice

Design for living

Reinventing Cultures

Faith