Well this is good. It's only 10:30 and I'm on to my end of day writing. I'm starting to get a healthy feeling of consistency to this. Right now I am noticing my tendency to try and do multiple things at once or do lots of things quickly. To jump around and think about other things and then come back to work on this. I want to cultivate monotasking in my life. Practice the art of focus, and of putting intention and dedication into any practice.
Other things that it feels important to write down.
Last night at the house reflection circle I was thinking about the other things that I want to cultivate in my life:
peace, spaciousness, patience, love, hosting, balance.
Some other things that struck me in the circle:
Enlargening our perception of the system so that things become clearer. This can also be 'tracking', 'awareness'.
The practice of staying present to your family, even while you're in the middle of those dynamics which always play out.
The concept of metaconnection. staying connected to someone on a higher level because of awareness of their patterns.
Non-transactional interactions.
Some questions I'm left with:
How is vulnerability not vulnerability?
How is sacrifice not sacrifice?
For any given coercive pattern, can we practice something to dismantle it?
What would an acceptance & desire meditation look like?
About Simon.
The more i have been reading about positive psychology, the more I have been talking with Jean, the more I have been thinking about it, the less positive it seems that Simon is on the medications right now. It's actually seriously concerning and when I think about it I get quite sad. I'm wanting to talk to mom and dad about reading this book Flourish by Martin Seligman which I am reading so that perhaps we could get on the same page and provide Simon with a consistent support system, one that was more likely to get him recovering than the road he's on right now. So I want to talk to them about that. Jean has been so helpful in her reaching out to him, especially in this time of high stress for her. I think I will read some more of Flourish tonight.
Oh yeah, I should let dad know about the next LRC intro.
The dates for the LRC learners is May 21, 22,23 Saturday-Monday because it's a long weekend. Tanya and I are meeting at 4 oclock tomorrow to talk about that.
What Went Well, May 3
Going to the library to do web design.
Playing ridiculous doodle games with Alex at Coffee Culture.
Tonight I was struggling with the concept of spending the evening alone and just coming up to my room to do something by myself, but when I finally let go of that and came up here to watch a TED talk and read Flourish, Tanya immediately came and knocked on my door, and decided to stay and watch that TED talk with me. It was the one by John Hunter about the World Peace Game. It was an affirmation that it is almost always 'letting go' that can lead to results you were desiring in the first place. Coming to my room early and sitting down to do this writing is really working well for me.
Showing posts with label LRC Weekend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LRC Weekend. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Updates
LRC alumni weekend confirmed for Saturday May 21, and Sunday 22 -- discuss with Tanya
Vote today. swapped my vote for a green vote out East to vote liberal here in Waterloo.
Website finally in usable form.
My Response-Ability video got second place in the Change The View 2011 contest. I'm going to Toronto on Friday to receive an award, to see my video shown, and to say a few words about my video.
Vote today. swapped my vote for a green vote out East to vote liberal here in Waterloo.
Website finally in usable form.
My Response-Ability video got second place in the Change The View 2011 contest. I'm going to Toronto on Friday to receive an award, to see my video shown, and to say a few words about my video.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
A Day in the Metasphere
What a day. I guess I'll just write the major takeaways here.
First of all, I'm simply always discovering how connected this network of individuals (collectiduals?) awakening consciousness is. I'm actually looking for a name to call us all. Creative change-makers, thinkerpoets, edgers
Main discoveries were George Por's 'community intelligence' site www.community-intelligence.com and Gavin Keech's www.metamaps.cc . Another connection to him, also working on Ubiquid.us, is Ishan Shapiro, who started a collective called NotThisBody. These individuals are very connected to George Por and Venessa Miemis. AND they're working with Brendan Howley who Emma is good friends with and might work as his personal assistant! It may not be long before we make contact with this whole crew and when we do I want to be ready. I'd like to start experimenting with creating graphics so that there are digital versions of the things we have in our house.
Gavin Keech, and Entanglement started following me on twitter today so I'd like to step it up even further about making my twitter feed a worthwhile place to watch.
Metamapping, memetic cartography. What they did at metamaps.cc is create a set of icons which can help blueprint basically anything. Here's an image.
Over the next few days, once I buy some ink for my printer, I'd like to experiment with printing these out and see what LRC might look like mapped out with these.
Now, on to some more personal matters. I got a good response back from Steve today saying that they would love to have my help and that there would be space in the community garden we create for me. I'm pretty excited about this and wanting to get started. I spent a lot of time on my own just thinking today and ended up getting fairly caught in my head, so it was helpful when I went to visit Simon tonight. He brought me back down to Earth and I followed up my visit with a peaceful walk through the cemetery. How nice to walk at 1 km an hour. It was a beautiful evening out.
Today I designed some social media icons for my website. I still have to fill in the Projects page, and both other pages could use work too. I even figured out how to make it so that my website is licensed under Creative Commons Canada, 2.5 licensing.
Today I talked with Tanya about the possible LRC alumni weekend and we discussed what it might look like and a date. The date's we discussed were May 21- 22 and June 11-12. Tanya spoke about actually keeping that time spent together open so that whatever wanted to happen could. That works for me, and then I can just bring my 'who are we as resources' question as what I'm bringing and hold it as a possibility for the 40 hours or whatever it is. We've had to cut it down from being an entire weekend due to time constraints that Tanya has. Whichever weekend we think will work for that, I think it may make sense to look at having the other weekend as an intro weekend. We have an accumulating group of people interested in an Intro.
Tomorrow I plan to do some thinking about Wendesday night and what that will look like. I also plan to do some work on Heather's website. I need to talk to Emma about the raised beds at the front of the house, and about what will happen with Thinkerpoet. I have been thinking about a proposal that would look something like this:
Whatever resources you have for this website, or that you think it is worth to you, pay me that. From there on, I'll work with you on creating the site and it doesn't matter how long.
Something that I've been thinking about doing in order to step up the interest in having Hometown Eatery hire me for their website is redesigning a page of their menu and then bringing it in. Rissky.
Ok. I think that's all.
Oh. I have been thinking about the kinds of thing that I have been writing for my blog here, and thinking that I may actually fill the blog up with two types of content. One is personal learning, and one is distributable pieces of writing that I work on over time of my original ideas and thinking. I can keep those pieces as drafts and just work on them ongoing until I feel ready to publish them. Yeah.
First of all, I'm simply always discovering how connected this network of individuals (collectiduals?) awakening consciousness is. I'm actually looking for a name to call us all. Creative change-makers, thinkerpoets, edgers
Main discoveries were George Por's 'community intelligence' site www.community-intelligence.com and Gavin Keech's www.metamaps.cc . Another connection to him, also working on Ubiquid.us, is Ishan Shapiro, who started a collective called NotThisBody. These individuals are very connected to George Por and Venessa Miemis. AND they're working with Brendan Howley who Emma is good friends with and might work as his personal assistant! It may not be long before we make contact with this whole crew and when we do I want to be ready. I'd like to start experimenting with creating graphics so that there are digital versions of the things we have in our house.
Gavin Keech, and Entanglement started following me on twitter today so I'd like to step it up even further about making my twitter feed a worthwhile place to watch.
Metamapping, memetic cartography. What they did at metamaps.cc is create a set of icons which can help blueprint basically anything. Here's an image.
Now, on to some more personal matters. I got a good response back from Steve today saying that they would love to have my help and that there would be space in the community garden we create for me. I'm pretty excited about this and wanting to get started. I spent a lot of time on my own just thinking today and ended up getting fairly caught in my head, so it was helpful when I went to visit Simon tonight. He brought me back down to Earth and I followed up my visit with a peaceful walk through the cemetery. How nice to walk at 1 km an hour. It was a beautiful evening out.
Today I designed some social media icons for my website. I still have to fill in the Projects page, and both other pages could use work too. I even figured out how to make it so that my website is licensed under Creative Commons Canada, 2.5 licensing.
Today I talked with Tanya about the possible LRC alumni weekend and we discussed what it might look like and a date. The date's we discussed were May 21- 22 and June 11-12. Tanya spoke about actually keeping that time spent together open so that whatever wanted to happen could. That works for me, and then I can just bring my 'who are we as resources' question as what I'm bringing and hold it as a possibility for the 40 hours or whatever it is. We've had to cut it down from being an entire weekend due to time constraints that Tanya has. Whichever weekend we think will work for that, I think it may make sense to look at having the other weekend as an intro weekend. We have an accumulating group of people interested in an Intro.
Tomorrow I plan to do some thinking about Wendesday night and what that will look like. I also plan to do some work on Heather's website. I need to talk to Emma about the raised beds at the front of the house, and about what will happen with Thinkerpoet. I have been thinking about a proposal that would look something like this:
Whatever resources you have for this website, or that you think it is worth to you, pay me that. From there on, I'll work with you on creating the site and it doesn't matter how long.
Something that I've been thinking about doing in order to step up the interest in having Hometown Eatery hire me for their website is redesigning a page of their menu and then bringing it in. Rissky.
Ok. I think that's all.
Oh. I have been thinking about the kinds of thing that I have been writing for my blog here, and thinking that I may actually fill the blog up with two types of content. One is personal learning, and one is distributable pieces of writing that I work on over time of my original ideas and thinking. I can keep those pieces as drafts and just work on them ongoing until I feel ready to publish them. Yeah.
All Kinds Of Learning
I think I'm just going to leave all of these notes as rough stuff that I took away from conversations on Friday.
-my media skills being put to use creating visuals and artifacts
-Connor as digital curator & artifact creator for Living Room Context
-resource sharing weekend
-what resource am I to the community?
-the ways in which creating this space for people can be dangerous if the contact doesn't continue. because we don't have the capacity for hosting everyone that may need it, we need the community to happen all at once, explosively fast
- the abstraction hierarchy: how the working class gets cheated of higher abstraction thinking, while those at the top of the hierarchies have huge leverage. Leverage for learning is higher, the higher up the abstraction hierarchy you go,
- behaviourally, we've still been stuck in the middle ages, using psychological swords and shields in replace of physical ones
-switching from "holding all people as threats and dangers, while acknowledging they could be worthy and welcome" to "holding all people as worthy and welcome, and acknowledging the threats and dangers people pose"
-something has to be in alignment energetically for attraction between people, content is secondary (contact is king Rushkoff), and we have some level of control over that energy through our intentionality.
-my media skills being put to use creating visuals and artifacts
-Connor as digital curator & artifact creator for Living Room Context
-resource sharing weekend
-what resource am I to the community?
-the ways in which creating this space for people can be dangerous if the contact doesn't continue. because we don't have the capacity for hosting everyone that may need it, we need the community to happen all at once, explosively fast
- the abstraction hierarchy: how the working class gets cheated of higher abstraction thinking, while those at the top of the hierarchies have huge leverage. Leverage for learning is higher, the higher up the abstraction hierarchy you go,
- behaviourally, we've still been stuck in the middle ages, using psychological swords and shields in replace of physical ones
-switching from "holding all people as threats and dangers, while acknowledging they could be worthy and welcome" to "holding all people as worthy and welcome, and acknowledging the threats and dangers people pose"
-something has to be in alignment energetically for attraction between people, content is secondary (contact is king Rushkoff), and we have some level of control over that energy through our intentionality.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Connection
I always find it hard to believe that it's the same day that's ending as the one that I woke up to.
There's a couple of things that I want to touch on tonight. In part because of how many different people I saw today and played how many different roles.
Important Notes From Today:
At one point today Jean motioned that we make the multi-purpose room available to Simon anytime that he needed it. Of course this felt like an overwhelming prospect given the feelings of responsibility I have when he's here in such a sad state. Not to mention just the prospect of sharing this home with him. These feelings I think are mainly territorial feelings left over from childhood. However, I see how it makes sense to make that space available and of course I am first and foremost concerned with the well being of my brother (in tandem with my own) so I want that space to be available to him.
On another note, Dad has been here the past couple days too and I have been trying to gauge his interaction here. What does it mean to him to be here? What does it mean to me? It was nice to see that Dad felt safe enough sometimes here to go into a vulnerable state of emotion, even if it was only ever so brief. I imagine that he must have a lot, but it's hard for me to touch into it with him. I think that he most often went into that place talking to Jean. For me, I realized as Dad was leaving today that I found his visit a bit challenging. Mainly because for the most part I sensed that he was here to see Simon and be with him. And that makes sense. I do feel though, that there is some part of me that is starving for attention from my parents, as much as I don't tend to reach out for that contact.
Regarding KISS and setting ourselves up for next year, Devin and I did some great brainstorming and planning today. Primarily, we set ourselves up on bettermeans.com to see if that will be a helpfull management tool for the exec. I'm really excited about modelling a flat governance system on this scale in KISS and knowing that Devin is stoked about that too will be a big part in making it happen. I'm still contemplating the question: How can I be a facilitator of communication, rather than a director.
~House Reflection Circle~
It was a very interesting night in the Household. With an initial group of Jean, Tanya, Emma, Todd, Adam, and I we listened to Jean talk for a while about Resilient Waterloo and how it connects to the Household. Once receiving some feedback about that Jean had to leave to complete more resilience work. I think we were all aware of the significance of Jean's non-presence, but throughout the opening round people just spoke to where they were at. The general trend being "at-capacity". Noticing the Household moving extraordinarily quickly and in a way that doesn't always reflect flow, or at least feel like that as a subjective experience (Adam's). Most importantly, we examined our relationships without Jean in the room. Somehow forcing us to connect more directly with the group. The conversation spiraled into meaning as we got talking about vulnerability and abandoning our tendencies to try and do things on our own. We increase the capacity of everyone when we're connected. Interesting how, while talking about that connection, our connection was actually growing. There's something about self-organization and self-governance that really stood out tonight. Without Jean there, at first I think we all felt ever so slightly lost. But it was so gratifying to find ourselves getting to the same kind of meaningful place (one that wouldn't have happened in Jean's presence). At one point in the meeting, I touched into emotion that reflected a deepening connection with Adam, one that arose out of a conversation + dancing that Adam and we had done the night before. When he finally got to respond, I sensed a few things in him reflecting on my sharing. I got the feeling that what I had said had shocked him and that the connection I felt was not necessarily the same one he felt because he has done a lot to tighten and close himself off from deep connection. Trying to make himself invulnerable. And while he recognized that this was sometimes useful and necessary, now is a time that he is willing and open to exploring deeper relationships with the Household. I felt affirmed about the ways in which opening ourselves up to others provides opportunities and excitement that wouldn't be there without. Adam commented on how he was genuinely smiling and finding humour in tonight's interactions in way that he hasn't in a few weeks.
In regards to process I had one thing come up tonight after I had shared with Adam. Todd began to speak and I immediately got very upset. Apparently Todd was aware and he asked about continuing, to which I agreed, and he decided to carry on with what he was saying. I don't think it's particularly important now, although it has left me with a bit of strange feeling toward him. I think I'll just hold onto that feeling and try to stay connected as a challenge to myself.
The other big thing for me was directed at me by Emma in the closing round. She spoke about my reaching out to engage with her and how she has been in a habit of turning that away. She spoke about how some part of her perceives that if I'm reaching out to her, it's because I need something from her. This makes a lot of sense to me, because last semester when I was dealing with Andrea, Emma was my real place of solace. She was my primary support. I have been trying to think back about my reaching out to her to figure out how accurate her perception is. I think that sometimes it's true that I reach out to her for support, and it's totally understandable that she wouldn't feel able to respond. Other times, and I think the majority now, I am not particularly needing anything, just desiring connection. It's incredible how her speaking about this to me took a lot of pressure out of my head that was starting to develop thoughts like "oh don't bother asking her, you won't get to engage." I'm excited about the possibilities that it opens up for us. A curious thing about tonight's meeting was how we discussed slowing down. I then proceeded to leave in somewhat of a rush and just disappear as soon as the meeting was over. This wasn't an optimal situation and I didn't really want to leave, but I did really want to see Geoff one more time before he left for Vietnam. It's just curious how we can talk about slowing down, but then go and do the opposite right after.
I am really quite fond of this Geoffrey chap though. He just seems to be an all around legitimate guy. I think somehow he played a significant role in this year for me. Anyways he got me to thinking back about this year and reminded me of the first evening that we ever hung out and how it was editing the KISS Intel with Steve Cuddler. I enjoyed how we didn't have to be all upbeat and ridiculous this evening at the Fox and Fiddle we just sat around and talked about the things we usually talk about. And that was just fine. I look forward to collaborating with Geoff on creative projects this summer and ongoing into the future.
Living Room Context:
There have been a number of things growing in my mind about how to move forward with the LRC. The first thing that I am wanting to do is host LRC Discussions on Wednesday night's here at the house. The second thing that I am wanting to do is plan a LRC non-intro Weekend with Tanya. Finally, I want to do some serious work on the LRC website, as well as send out the invite to the LRC Learning Community socialgo. I'd like to think about how these things could all together be sent out in one email to update all those introduced to the Living Room.
As for the Wednesday discussions. I'd like to make them available to anyone who's been introduced. Like to keep a really strong focus on the LRC, self-educating, and community support. Send out the email tomorrow regardless if the rest happens.
LRC Weekend ideas:
The LRC site and the LRCLC site are both semi Jean dependent for now.
Tomorrow: make the ChangingTheView2011 video.
There's a couple of things that I want to touch on tonight. In part because of how many different people I saw today and played how many different roles.
- Dad and Simon were both here.
- I worked on Heathercain.ca for a fair while.
- I met with Devin Howard about KISS. (He might be interested in an intro weekend)
- I developed the beginning of a plan for Wednesday night LRC meetings.
- I met the Household as we always do on Monday.
- I went out for a drink with Geoffrey at the Fox and Fiddle to say farewell.
Important Notes From Today:
At one point today Jean motioned that we make the multi-purpose room available to Simon anytime that he needed it. Of course this felt like an overwhelming prospect given the feelings of responsibility I have when he's here in such a sad state. Not to mention just the prospect of sharing this home with him. These feelings I think are mainly territorial feelings left over from childhood. However, I see how it makes sense to make that space available and of course I am first and foremost concerned with the well being of my brother (in tandem with my own) so I want that space to be available to him.
On another note, Dad has been here the past couple days too and I have been trying to gauge his interaction here. What does it mean to him to be here? What does it mean to me? It was nice to see that Dad felt safe enough sometimes here to go into a vulnerable state of emotion, even if it was only ever so brief. I imagine that he must have a lot, but it's hard for me to touch into it with him. I think that he most often went into that place talking to Jean. For me, I realized as Dad was leaving today that I found his visit a bit challenging. Mainly because for the most part I sensed that he was here to see Simon and be with him. And that makes sense. I do feel though, that there is some part of me that is starving for attention from my parents, as much as I don't tend to reach out for that contact.
Regarding KISS and setting ourselves up for next year, Devin and I did some great brainstorming and planning today. Primarily, we set ourselves up on bettermeans.com to see if that will be a helpfull management tool for the exec. I'm really excited about modelling a flat governance system on this scale in KISS and knowing that Devin is stoked about that too will be a big part in making it happen. I'm still contemplating the question: How can I be a facilitator of communication, rather than a director.
~House Reflection Circle~
It was a very interesting night in the Household. With an initial group of Jean, Tanya, Emma, Todd, Adam, and I we listened to Jean talk for a while about Resilient Waterloo and how it connects to the Household. Once receiving some feedback about that Jean had to leave to complete more resilience work. I think we were all aware of the significance of Jean's non-presence, but throughout the opening round people just spoke to where they were at. The general trend being "at-capacity". Noticing the Household moving extraordinarily quickly and in a way that doesn't always reflect flow, or at least feel like that as a subjective experience (Adam's). Most importantly, we examined our relationships without Jean in the room. Somehow forcing us to connect more directly with the group. The conversation spiraled into meaning as we got talking about vulnerability and abandoning our tendencies to try and do things on our own. We increase the capacity of everyone when we're connected. Interesting how, while talking about that connection, our connection was actually growing. There's something about self-organization and self-governance that really stood out tonight. Without Jean there, at first I think we all felt ever so slightly lost. But it was so gratifying to find ourselves getting to the same kind of meaningful place (one that wouldn't have happened in Jean's presence). At one point in the meeting, I touched into emotion that reflected a deepening connection with Adam, one that arose out of a conversation + dancing that Adam and we had done the night before. When he finally got to respond, I sensed a few things in him reflecting on my sharing. I got the feeling that what I had said had shocked him and that the connection I felt was not necessarily the same one he felt because he has done a lot to tighten and close himself off from deep connection. Trying to make himself invulnerable. And while he recognized that this was sometimes useful and necessary, now is a time that he is willing and open to exploring deeper relationships with the Household. I felt affirmed about the ways in which opening ourselves up to others provides opportunities and excitement that wouldn't be there without. Adam commented on how he was genuinely smiling and finding humour in tonight's interactions in way that he hasn't in a few weeks.
In regards to process I had one thing come up tonight after I had shared with Adam. Todd began to speak and I immediately got very upset. Apparently Todd was aware and he asked about continuing, to which I agreed, and he decided to carry on with what he was saying. I don't think it's particularly important now, although it has left me with a bit of strange feeling toward him. I think I'll just hold onto that feeling and try to stay connected as a challenge to myself.
The other big thing for me was directed at me by Emma in the closing round. She spoke about my reaching out to engage with her and how she has been in a habit of turning that away. She spoke about how some part of her perceives that if I'm reaching out to her, it's because I need something from her. This makes a lot of sense to me, because last semester when I was dealing with Andrea, Emma was my real place of solace. She was my primary support. I have been trying to think back about my reaching out to her to figure out how accurate her perception is. I think that sometimes it's true that I reach out to her for support, and it's totally understandable that she wouldn't feel able to respond. Other times, and I think the majority now, I am not particularly needing anything, just desiring connection. It's incredible how her speaking about this to me took a lot of pressure out of my head that was starting to develop thoughts like "oh don't bother asking her, you won't get to engage." I'm excited about the possibilities that it opens up for us. A curious thing about tonight's meeting was how we discussed slowing down. I then proceeded to leave in somewhat of a rush and just disappear as soon as the meeting was over. This wasn't an optimal situation and I didn't really want to leave, but I did really want to see Geoff one more time before he left for Vietnam. It's just curious how we can talk about slowing down, but then go and do the opposite right after.
I am really quite fond of this Geoffrey chap though. He just seems to be an all around legitimate guy. I think somehow he played a significant role in this year for me. Anyways he got me to thinking back about this year and reminded me of the first evening that we ever hung out and how it was editing the KISS Intel with Steve Cuddler. I enjoyed how we didn't have to be all upbeat and ridiculous this evening at the Fox and Fiddle we just sat around and talked about the things we usually talk about. And that was just fine. I look forward to collaborating with Geoff on creative projects this summer and ongoing into the future.
Living Room Context:
There have been a number of things growing in my mind about how to move forward with the LRC. The first thing that I am wanting to do is host LRC Discussions on Wednesday night's here at the house. The second thing that I am wanting to do is plan a LRC non-intro Weekend with Tanya. Finally, I want to do some serious work on the LRC website, as well as send out the invite to the LRC Learning Community socialgo. I'd like to think about how these things could all together be sent out in one email to update all those introduced to the Living Room.
As for the Wednesday discussions. I'd like to make them available to anyone who's been introduced. Like to keep a really strong focus on the LRC, self-educating, and community support. Send out the email tomorrow regardless if the rest happens.
LRC Weekend ideas:
- web design weekend
- connect with the garden weekend
- retreat to the farm weekend, barefoot running
- go without vision weekend
- art attack
- resource sharing & organizing weekend **
The LRC site and the LRCLC site are both semi Jean dependent for now.
Tomorrow: make the ChangingTheView2011 video.
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