Assessing Neighbourhood Health with Quantum Biofeedback

We are very pleased to have Lina Razgaitis, a pain and stress specialist, as our speaker at the next gathering.

Quantum Biofeedback: Advanced Scientific Methods to Manage Pain and Stress

Scans on the Indigo quantum biofeedback units look at reactions to over 11,000 stress related factors.  whatreallyworksforstress.com.

Lina will share with us how she produces 32-page reports on the current health of Earth's biology or a neighbourhood.  

For us to look at any claims about quantum physics (that may otherwise boggle the mind or make eyes roll), biophysicist, Dr John Stewart has agreed to be present in a support role for the group.  He is an expert on the physics of biological organisms.

Date and time:  Wednesday January 27, 2016 from 7 to 9pm. 

Location: Columbus Centre, Toronto's Italian community's cultural centre, 901 Lawrence Ave West, two buildings west of Dufferin.  

Columbus Centre is conveniently located near Highway 401, and the Spadina subway (a 10 minute walk or short bus ride from Lawrence West subway station).

View Map to Location

We like to break-out into small groups of 3 or 4 people to discuss and help digest what we heard, and what this means to us individually.  We will also use groups to assess whether use of Quantum Biofeedback is advantageous for the health of neighbourhoods and how we go about setting up programs. 
 
This free event is held in conjunction with Universe City of Toronto.  We will look at expanding Universe City as a place you go to get the skills and experience you need for today's economy of creativity, sustainable development and learning.  Check out the section called 'Courses'.

Universe City is organized in seven movements.  One movement is about Health Promotion in neighbourhoods.

We are looking forward to getting together with like-hearted individuals.
Let Nick D'Aleandro or I know if you plan to attend.  Bring a friend.

Send us your email if you want to know about our events.

Organizing for Understanding Freedom and Sustainability

We had a spirited session at the Intro Evening on Tuesday, October 29, 2013. 
 
Thanks to those of you who came to one or both meetings in October, and for your interest.

We have since launched a website for an agency where members of our association will represent us and our projects.  Our sponsored ad for the Intro Evenings ran in the first issue of Rapture - a newspaper dedicated to bridging spirituality, science and art.

Starting on November 11 at noon we will have the first Interim Meeting at the same location, (25 Sandale Gardens in Toronto near Sheppard and Bathurst - see Googlemaps for detailed directions ) and will begin identifying the best means to become an association that takes advantage of opportunities for –

1. moving the world agenda forward based on members’ existing projects and spheres of influence,
2. determining a self-sustaining and integrative direction for humanity where all can contribute and no-one is left behind,
3. promoting innovation in terms of how society adopts new learning and insights,
4. revealing convincing means for society to understand the consequences of actions taken,

At this Interim Meeting November 11, I am looking forward to showing you and discussing the actual business model - as developed to date - on how we organize as a self-organizing system.

Some of us have contacts in other parts of the world that are working on great projects and who could benefit from collaboration.  Consider bringing an outline of these projects on November 11.

At the moment we are -

a mutual support network that looks at areas of overlap amongst what we are already doing to advance scientific, spiritual, business, and psychological understanding.

I hope you can make it out for part of the day on November 11.  Let me know if this works for you by emailing ucitytoronto @ gmail.com.

There will be two further Intro Nights on Wednesday November 13, and Thursday Nov 28 to which you are free to invite friends with projects for a society that works  for everyone.

Embrace a Social Ecology. Go beyond Dogma

The industrial activity of North America and Europe relocated overseas .  And national governments allowed this to happen mostly during in the late-1990`s.  This is how capitalism was able to take advantage of lower wages and lower environmental standards in other countries.  


Business has mostly served the financial, production, promotional and distribution needs of industry.  Following that relocation of factories overseas we saw the contraction of businesses at home.  


It’s time we accepted this, learned to proceed accordingly, and adapt.  


But how do we adapt?  It's certainly not by using the same level, or the same complexity of thought that produced factories, businesses as we've known them to date.

Within government and business we relied heavily on a level of thinking that could solve isolated problems.  This is the relatively simple level of linear thinking that has allowed the ‘dogma’ of project management to continue unquestioned.  If there were a powerful priesthood that upheld this dogma of project management, which I don't think there is, it would never disclose to you the basis of project management which is process philosophy.  People would question the main pillars of process philosophy and thus bring an end to the priesthood's power.  


Process philosophy is the thinking behind project management and therefore the unquestioned basis of how things get done in Western business, government, and much of science.  I have studied process philosophy intensely for several years at the same time as studying Eastern philosophies about the workings of reality.  And process philosophy pales in comparison.


A project management approach requires that we keep life away from everything we do.  (Think of analyzing the workings of 'a small piece of life' in a test-tube.)  A project manager has the ridiculous job of pushing life aside  constantly in order to clear the path so that the preconceived results or goals proceed in an uninterrupted manner to the planned outcome.  


Unless life is maintained outside the project and outside closed doors where all the real planning of outcomes gets done things quickly get too complicated for linear thinking.  (Think of Western society where $1-billion is spent on troops to keep life outside the perimeter fence of a G-20 summit.)  


To adapt we need to move to the next level of thinking in terms of complexity However to enter today’s emerging creative economy we acknowledge that nothing is isolated and that everything exists in mutual relationship and interdependence.  (Think of fluid groups of people being gassed and beaten outside the perimeter fence of a G-20 summit and formal proceedings in a hotel complex inside the fence.  Many outside the fence have sufficient complexity of thought to allow for life, grasp some of the wisdom of our ecology, and usher in some of the social adaptations we need at this time.)

Society is an ecology that meets the need for interdependent levels of products and services within that society.  We are learning how to better meet these needs simultaneously through coordination of projects.  

We can think of projects as arranged in a large array consisting of six-stages.  Levels within the array are a rational approach to face our challenges.  Position each project in a level from 1 to 6 depending on the need it meets:

1. social, 
2. cultural, 
3. educational, 

4. for business, 
5. for communication, or 
6. for overall coordination. 

It's good to notice how each stage builds on the prior stage.  Think about it.  We don't have a culture without a society; we don't have a culture to share through education without a society and a culture; we don't have a business sector to get things done without education, a culture, and society; and so on.  

The progression of these stages show a marked increase in complexity.  A system of coordination requires a more complex way of thinking and doing than communication, or business.

We need a culture that goes beyond project management to allow for life.    We need education that shares process philosophy on which Western society is based, and philosophies on which Eastern societies are based.  We need to examine them, come up with rational alternatives and test their effectiveness as social adaptations.  Without a rational approach for all to examine and discuss we are stuck with something like the unexamined 'truths' a priesthood would hold in place.

It simply was not possible to handle coordination of arrays of interdependent projects before the Internet.  On-line tools provide international society with organizational support for coordination services to emerge as the next, great source of value, and therefore the next, great economy.  

Hello, Occupy! What you doin'?

To better understand how the Occupy Movement is so different, here is an email a devout Christian land developer friend of mine sent.  It's about a seminar that was being offered to North Americans about opportunities to legally evade paying national taxes by using tax havens in the Caribbean.  


My friend wrote:

These tax schemes are only one way that the 1% have legal ways to get further ahead of the rest of us. This is an actual example. If you were an accountant, you would know lots of other examples. The point is that the high net worth of the 1% does not come from just being industrious. If they paid their fair share of taxes, this would be a start in moving all of us towards equity.

This was great fuel for the Occupy conversation that the mainstream media has now engaged the broader population in.  


In response to my friend's request to pass forward something ‘that might be of interest to Occupy’ I sent the following email: 

Thanks for pointing out a real way in which the 1% gets ahead of the 99% with little effort.  This is a great idea that could turn into an action that Occupy takes, or at least enter the general discussion within the movement.  However, I've since discovered that there are no means for me to forward this suggestion on your behalf to, say the Action Committee for consideration.  


You are part of Occupy.  Sorry to have to say this... it’s either of interest to the individual or not.  It can't be 'of interest to Occupy'. 

Expressive movements fly in the face of everything we're taught about organizing.  They start with trust.  Trust is earned through experiences of working together.  'Organizing ourselves' as a corporation doesn't give us options, like choosing to only work with, or under people we trust.  Instead we pay ourselves to show up, and when we show up, we work.  That's part of what's usually called the 'command and control' model.


However an expressive movement bases collaboration on trust, sharing, caring, kindness, respect... and even more advanced values.  Together we become an embodiment of ideals, and compassion.  Delegation is out the window, and it’s more about freedom or expression, not imposing our individual ideas or ideology on someone else, or suggesting our ideas are things that others could be attending to.  It's about freeing ourselves from chains of command.  

The combination of community, creativity, and compassion results in something that no--one can command and control.  All this is relatively new and something I am still struggling to get my head around.  So far, I know this way of doing things is life affirming.  Both life and light are allowed in.  It's an enlightened development that goes beyond 'organizing ourselves' as a corporation.  Perhaps we're allowing God to step into the middle.  

An 'expressive movement' is special and very different from a single-issue movement or a corporation. The culture in Occupy is that something happens when someone decides to move it forward and it gains wider support.  Otherwise it languishes by the wayside.

To move forward with this valuable idea of doing something about tax haven seminars, you'd either take it as a proposal to a General Assembly, or, more effectively, join the Action Committee by signing on to their Googlegroup.  The info is given under the 'Committees' tab on  the main OccupyTO.org web site.

All the best to you, and heaven help us all.

Natural Ways to Organize Society

To learn from "how nature organizes" doesn't mean looking at wolf packs in the wild, or how geese get together before migrating, etc. It means observing things while we think of them as "systems", or self-sustainable, constantly changing, yet complete wholes.

The simplest of all systems we can study are atoms and molecules. They are self-sustainable, functioning, moving, yet balanced organizations of electrons, protons and neutrons.

We can learn a lot from the seven stages of the Periodic Table of Elementary Properties.  A huge amount waits to be discovered in terms of similarities with other systems of higher degrees of complexity. Plants and animals are, of course, much more complex systems. But perhaps they differ from atoms and molecules mostly in terms of their degree of their complexity. 

However, if the patterns found in how atoms organize are relatively simple, these same fundamental patterns could occur again and again continually throughout the world of plants and animals. 

Perhaps we can become aware of overall patterns that lend themselves to how we can organize in more natural ways as an international society.

This way of thinking is the basis of the Healing Economy of Conscious Evolution.

A system always finds balance, or it falls apart.  Its close enough to perfect balance, or it does not exist.  Perhaps, at this and every other point in our evolution as a society, there is something perfect in terms of the inherent balance of what goes on inside each individual, and as a planet-wide society.  Our natural capacity to approach perfection of balance could continue to move society to higher levels of complexity.  

Nature will not change over to being less reliant on balance, no matter how much we may want it to be otherwise.  It is up to us to become more conscious of this evolutionary development from perfect balance towards more complex stages of perfect balance.