At the Quantum level we Live in a Universe City

Ontario is a First Nations' word meaning sunlight sparkling and dancing on the waves of lakes, like millions of points of light.  As we are finding out, quantum waveforms from our surroundings, together with our quantum waveform aspects, extend everywhere as fields of possibility.

We had possibilities scintillating in the Columbus Centre boardroom during our Social Creator Network and Universe City gathering on the evening of January 27, 2016.  We featured Lina Razgaitis, a pain and stress specialist, who routinely produces 32-page reports on the current health of Earth's biology out of concern and for her own interest.

For us to look at any claims about quantum technology devices, (that may otherwise boggle the mind or make eyes roll), we had biophysicist, Dr. John Stewart present in a support role for the group.  He specializes in the physics of biological organisms.

About 45 people, early-to-bed folk and night owls, swam through our discussion of how, at the quantum level, Toronto is a series of waveforms that interpenetrates the waveforms of Lake Ontario.  On the quantum level, we are part of life in Lake Ontario. 

Waveforms of life in Toronto and Lake Ontario do not end locally – they extend throughout the Universe. We saw graphs that summarized over 11,000 measures.  These verified that Toronto is a Universe City physically integrated into the rest of creation.

The multicultural crowd included a biophysicist, Japanese culture teacher, ecological artist, Taiwanese massage therapist, troubadour, stem cell researcher, billionaire, jewelry maker, and several proud parents.  After eight years, we've been able to gather a rich diversity of perspectives. 

Our intention is for each of us to feel supported in gaining more advanced perspectives on our lives, building bridges between various forms of understanding that are associated with left brain, right brain and fore brain neural activity.  Our strategies include listening to each others perspectives with respect.
  
We want to be able to take what we learn to help us achieve outstanding results between sessions.  

When I left at 11.30 p.m., twelve of us still talking.  The night security guy smiled and said, "You talked about strange things tonight".  Perhaps it was unusual for him to experience the quantum waves out of which we appear radiating down the hallway from the boardroom.  Who knows? 

It was late and I hesitated to say to him that we can now measure our everyday experience because everything is essentially a set of frequencies within waveforms. 

I didn't want to discuss how he and I were intimately entangled in a web of inter-relationships and consequences that extends across the Universe.   

Instead, I smiled back, said, "Thank you.  And, good night."

The remaining participants finally left at 12.15 a.m.

An article that summarizes and extends the Social Creator discussion that night will be available at our upcoming evenings.  

Its interesting that what I learned during the gathering later helped me understand a birthday suit dream I had in 1989.   

Everyone seems to dream about being naked.  But this was not like that.

In the dream I wear a suit and stand in a room waiting.  I pee into a grid in the floor on the North side of the room. 

Three women enter from the East side.  They face one another and quickly discuss my situation before one motions to me and I follow her. 

We eventually walk through a town.  It’s gloomy and around dawn.  

We are free to move but the few people walking past us follow cords that pass front-and-back through the middle of their chests.  Each cord stretches for blocks, constraining movements but probably allowing them to venture off a set path before the cord gets tight and creates stress in their hearts.

She takes me to outside a house.  I turn to face her as the four corners of the entire scene lift and curl over like a table cloth.  The passers-by, the houses, her form against the horizon and distant hills, everything in that town and beyond, scrunches itself into a ball that centres on my heart and encloses me. 

My entire vision goes black. 

I'm instantly inside the ball of that prior reality, pushing against pressure from supple walls.  I'm experiencing entry into life down the birth canal during that extreme initiation we call birth. 

It is my birthday.  She had taken me to where my future family lives. 

She is my soul aspect or anima.  She is literally what animates me.  

I only see representations of her in dreams.  But from then on she, and everything else from that world, resides inside of me.

Even if you were not physically present at the Columbus Centre, and were 'outside' somewhere across the horizon, we can accept that you interpenetrated the boardroom and were an integral part of the evening.  Thank you.

Inclusive Capitalism

In May, 2014 , Prince Charles said in a speech at the Inclusive Capitalism conference:

"We can choose to act now before it is finally too late, using all of the power and influence that each of you can bring to bear to create an inclusive, sustainable and resilient society”. 
 
The Prince was addressing an audience of 200 business leaders including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and chief executives of multinational companies such as UBS, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever. 

Here are more quotes from the article appearing in the UK's Telegraph newspaper.

“I remember when the Iron Curtain came down there was a certain amount of shouting about the triumph of capitalism over communism. Being somewhat contrary, I didn't think it was quite as simple as that. I felt that unless the business world considered the social, community and environmental dimensions, we might end up coming full circle.” 

He called on businesses to focus on the long-term and make “an authentic moral commitment to acting as true custodians of the Earth and architects of the well-being of current and future generations”. 

“It is only by adopting a broader sense of value that our finances will be sustained and we can find new sources of profit,” he said. 

The Prince suggested that companies must do more to put “young people properly at the heart of companies' employment practices and planning strategies, in order to tackle more effectively the world's growing youth unemployment crisis”. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html 

Ed Miliband, UK's Labour leader, has also called for “responsible capitalism”. 

Neighbourhood Campuses update

We had the first of our pre-launch parties for the Neighbourhood Campuses on October 18. 

It was a special salon with socializing, food, fun, sharing of ideas and news of gestating the trillion-dollar holistic framework I developed for neighbourhoods over the years - starting at Yonge-Wellesley in downtown Toronto.  I presented a comparison of old-style business based on project management, and business that includes flow - Ecstatic Business Practices - or EBP.

Fellow originators of the Yonge-Wellesley campus, Miss Suzette and Ava Goodman gave us a taste of what a more creative and fulfilling neighbourhoods will be like. 
There were very soulful live musical numbers by the incomparable Ethelrida Zabala-Laxa of WISER International.

An enthusiastic, Norman Waite of the local neighbourhood association (Bay Cloverhill Community Association, or BCCA) welcomed everyone and shared some local news of breakthroughs regarding a local park on publicly-held land.  He promised to be our biggest fan and to promote awareness of the Neighbourhood Campus Norman also offered us a table at the neighbourhood's annual general meeting on November 14, 2012.  This event, held at the YMCA, will attract over 100 of our local movers-and-shakers.

A huge thank you to our gracious volunteers, Adam, Alfredo, Diane, Marie, and Paul for video, greeting, registration, dishes, food service, photography, clean-up.  You name it, and they were able to deliver.

Thank you to 6 St. Joseph House for providing the venue and refreshments.  Our other local business partners, Biryani House and Freshslice Pizza, received a rousing applause when we thanked them for the food. 

Outcomes:
We now have proposals for courses for children and adults, in computer assembly kits (Arduino,) and robotics, stop-motion animation for cinema, plus offers for sessions in creative writing, drawing and sculpture.

We announced offers by participants that evening who wanted to supply venues for upcoming courses free of charge.  In this way we can present the salon in new neighbourhoods - Yorkville-St Jamestown, and Lawrence-Dufferin. 

We have been referred to someone at the University of Toronto who may book us into additional venues for upcoming courses. 

And representatives from other neighbourhoods who attended are excited and will be getting back to us with opportunities in their areas.

We don't know how things could have gone any better, but we will try at our upcoming salons in November and December.

What is a Community, now and in future?

Have you ever wondered what community is?  Its an interesting topic.

It is a topic that has become increasingly important now that we are running out of resources which sets limits on growth.  The old economic ideas are just falling away.

The first ten minutes of this video challenges the basis of today's economic philosophy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8ZJCtL6bPs

Professor Al Bartlett makes a strong case for the end of capitalism two minutes into this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNN9BvNUsIU&feature=related

A community can be a location such as a neighbourhood.  Members of a community can share a common sense of identity such as coming from Bermuda, or the Caribbean, or the West.

 
A community can also be people linked by-

A common set of practices. See medical associations, acting guilds, or knitters

Or shared interests. See physicists, book clubs

Or similar values and shared intentions. See ecologists; or the Intentional Communities movement – http://www.ic.org/

So identity, practices, interests, values and intentions attract people together. They bring a level of organization to society.

Ultimately life seems to be about coming together to resolve our differences of identity, practices, opinions, values, intentions - and do this in as conscious ways as possible.

Today, with the internet to assist us, life could be about coming together to find mutual fulfillment and strength through collaboration.

I believe the internet is here to help neighbourhood communities advance beyond old ways of doing things.  I believe these communities will continue to reorganize internationally around the internet.

Why do I think this?  The biggest losers in globalization were national governments.  National leaders have given away much of their power to unelected officials within international agencies.  This has been a trend since about 1995.  And this is exactly when the internet started to catch on.

So it's time for change.  Let's use the internet to spread solutions internationally.  And let's organize locally where we can have an immediate effect on how things get done.

Leadership for Innovation in Society

For the first time in a Social Creator network event the discussion focused mostly on developments in neighbourhoods, on June 12, 2012.

The Toronto neighbourhood of Roncesvalles has become a great example of, "If the grassroots leads, then organizations will follow." 

A simple thing, like dealing with cigarette butts left on the sidewalk outside of bars, can be too controversial for a local business organization to handle. 

Perhaps it is the diverse membership of organizations that makes directors more conservative, not wanting to do things that may conceivably upset the membership.  Sometimes directors have to get member consensus.  

Hence we see little in the way of innovation coming from organizations.

The subject of this post is not ciggy butts.  It's about organizations holding up innovation.  It's also about no-one's vision being too big or too small to be taken into account and acted on.

Don't think that big visions are all that count in this world. 

If one person has a vision of a butt-free neighbourhood, then let's support them in that.
A grassroots group put in place a solution for the cigarette butts situation in Roncesvalles. Next they will be conducting a questionnaire about the solution, listening to the business owners in the area, anticipating a positive response.  This grassroots action will 'make it safe' for the local business organizations in the area to act, without 'ruffling feathers'.

Check out: Butting in to butt out

Often business owners do not live in the neighbourhoods where their stores are located.  They worry about anything that may interfere with sales during the times when their stores are open.  Once the store closes for the evening the owners can be in another part of town or another part of the world.

Local business organizations tend to focus on their main street.  There is much less interest in residential side streets, or the rest of the neighbourhood.

We really need innovation in society.  We need to respond to huge changes in the economy.  I believe it probably won't come from existing institutions.  It usually comes as a result of collaboration at the grassroots, and coordination with existing organizations.

As we look after the smaller changes, the bigger changes will also eventually come about.

Communing with a Brazilian Music Legend

The Salon21 series yesterday evening was terrific.  See Soundstreams.ca.  Renown Brazilian musician, Egberto Gismonti is in town and he engaged us in a communal feeling with his words, and did things with his guitar that were unheard of before.  

He was born in Beirut to an Italian mother who was steeped in what he called the "aristocratic, piano-based tradition of Europe."

He said that when he was 21 and living in Brazil in 1973 a leading actor picked him to write the score for a movie.  This took him to Montreal and other cultural centres where he sat, talked and played with some of jazz's musical greats.  

Back in Brazil he was invited to join groups of musicians that encouraged him in his art.  Based on his talent he was invited to stay at the homes of one master musician after another, for periods of two weeks or more.  

So he drank up all that was offered and that he could learn about music and life from his elders.  Gradually he felt encouraged to go further than he ever imagined.  

Eventually he went to stay in the rainforest for forty days with a tribe of some of the two-million indigenous people of what is now called Brazil.  He felt excluded initially because there was the problem of not having a shared language.  

But each night the villagers gathered around an 8 foot bonfire, partly to keep insects away and partly to talk and play flute music.  He stood outside the circle.  

After a few nights he talked about his family and where he was from.  Even though no-one had the means to understand what he was saying the local people opened the circle and welcomed him in.

Towards the end of the SoundStream session an audience member asked Gismonti how he would characterize the importance of Brazilian composers, Los Lobos.  His answer intrigued me. 

Gismonti explained that Los Lobos obviously were not creating in a vacuum.  Everyone was part of a collaboration of musicians that stretches across Brazil.  Half of Brazilians are dancers, and half of Brazilians play guitar (because guitars are cheap to buy) unless you are indigenous in which case you play flute.  This is the social and cultural ecology.

Gismonti said that a researcher and musicologist gave Los Lobos a compilation of the music theory of many forms of indigenous music.  This body of knowledge informed everything that Los Lobos achieved after that.  It influenced the writing, and the connection the music made to the soul of the land.  Los Lobos became extremely popular and a very significant influence on others.

Now Gismonti is 64 and tours around the world.  When he talks with students in Brazil, Gismonti encourages them to devote their lives to music.  "Music will be good to you."  

He has become an elder who talks from experience.  Imagine the social, cultural, and even economic benefits of learning, teaching and playing music in such a musical country.

I could not help but think of how we are counseled in North America.  Can putting so much emphasis on being a rugged individualist and self-made man or woman really be a hangover from the frontier days?  Maybe not.  

How could you survive in the long harsh winters without coming together and cooperating to put up a house, replace a barn, or generally get anything done? 

I believe the ideas we are taught about individualism are a product of the values someone else thought they should be instilling into younger generations.  As a society that sees itself as an economic engine, why would we need music and dance and creative collaboration?  

We are currently the output and product of institutionalized schooling.  We are still taught to become good cogs ready and able to fit in the workings of the wheels of industry. 

As a society of people that advertisers have relentlessly conditioned to long for retirement, which literally means shutting ourselves away from the day-to-day goings-on, why would we open up our homes to young people to soak up all they can from us?  

We have actively deprived society of it's elders if we relied on state-hired teachers to deliver the standardized curriculum on which we base all that there is to know.  And if we feel dry, alienated, and out of place, wrapped up in our layers of conformity, we won;t feel like we have much to offer future generations.  If we believe 'the state' is the authority on education, what can the next generations soak up from us?

I believe that as North Americans we can end the denial and connect deeply with the abundance that exists, and the soul of the land.  Has progress been about what we are taught it is about?  Does progress really depend on what we are taught, and what we are teaching?

I remember Gismonti saying, "In Brazilian music we value the question, not the answer."  

A question becomes a point of departure from which all kinds of possibilities can arise.  

There are things about life, and our lives in today's society, that we do not have the means to understand.  Yet we can see the circle is open and we are welcome in.

Gross National Happiness - despite everything

This post is about the world debut of Gross National Happiness measures, or GNH, to take the place of those tired Gross National Product figures, or GNP. 

GNP is used to monitor manufacturing economy activity in industrial societies but includes financial gains.  GNP led to managing of countries using information that has horribly distorted the overall picture.  And bear in mind that all forms of ignorance are unnecessary.

Perhaps now that rich donors have a complete stranglehold on what is taught under the term, economics, in universities, and the credibility of economics grads is at an all-time low, it's time to allow economic academics to briefly give up on ignorance and recognize the obvious. 

Our academics appear to be adopting new sets of indicators that look at fulfillment.  But this could be some of that ol' time tokenism.  Tokenism is the best way to suppress true reform and prevent our chances of adapting to reality.  You simply ensure that you can say, "Oh, we already have a department in place that's in charge of that.  (But we don't listen to what they say, and we don't give them money so they won't threaten the existing system which, let's face it, our donors ensure we continue to do well within.)"

But something really is going on.

The French government began publishing happiness indicators in 2009. 

The Office for National Statistics in the UK has a program in place to measure national well-being at the same time that prime minister, Cameron, is touring East Asia to promote sales of weapons made in the UK.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, is drawing up guidelines for members (mostly finance ministers of 'developed countries') to collect “well-being data”.

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics, is drawing up measures of “subjective well-being”. His group is financed by the Obama administration.  (We might wonder, "When is well-being not subjective?"  So look for answers, coming soon.)

The first World Happiness Report was published recently, commissioned for a United Nations Conference on Happiness, under the auspices of the UN General Assembly.  There's input from Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and two happiness experts, Richard Layard of the London School of Economics and John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia.

The happiest people are in countries in northern Europe:

Denmark,

Norway,

Finland,

Netherlands. 

Countries with the most misery are on the African continent:

Togo,

Benin,

Central African Republic,

Sierra Leone.

At the UN Headquarters in New York City on April 2, 2012 the country of Bhutan hosted 600 participants from governments, academia, civil society and religious bodies.  The conference focused on Bhutan's new economic paradigm. 

Prime Minister of Bhutan, Jigmi Y. Thinley: "It is now the intention of the meeting on April 2, (2012) to bring together people from around the world – ... we are looking at the launching of the initiative for the creation of a sustainability-based paradigm comprising of, basically, four dimensions. These are: 

1. well-being and happiness;
2. ecological sustainability; 
3. fair distribution; and
4. efficient use of the increasingly scarce resources."
   

The conference outcomes will inform negotiations related to Rio+20, the global conference on sustainable development in June of 2012.  Bhutan will present the revised plan.

Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom.  But it's no Shangri-La.  There's wealth and then some estimates peg a quarter of the population of 700,000 as living on less than US$1.25 a day.  70 percent of the population is without electricity.  

It's a country which experiences large, ongoing problems with Nepalese migrants.  It borders on Assam (India) where there is political unrest, and Tibet, which was violently reabsorbed into China.  So the country remains rocky in more ways than one.

And in 2014, Bhutan will go further and hold a conference at home aimed at developing a new GNH-based agreement equivalent to the Bretton Woods Agreement to establish post- WWII global economic controls.  See previous blog post for the significance of the Bretton Woods Agreement and why it fell apart.

Note:  Coverage of Bhutan's conference at the UN was also given by:

Kuensel (Bhutanese news site)

Matthieu Ricard's Blog 

The Guardian

The Economist

New York Times

The Washington Post

CNN

as well as Canada’s CBC and Global News, plus Le Monde, and Time. 

Pointers to Our Near-term Economic Future

'Developed nations' are rapidly leaving the manufacturing economy behind.  What can we expect from our near-term withdrawal from the old economy?  


The BDI tells you a lot about what to expect.  It is an indicator of international trade of raw materials.  Look at the graph  from the 1980's to the present on the page linked below and decide whether what has happened in the last year is 'significant':


http://www.alt-market.com/articles/540-baltic-dry-index-signals-renewed-market-collapse


And what to expect in the Eurozone.  This is dictated by the US-based banks that will continue to make themselves look as good as possible for as long as possible.  


Ellis Martin of www.EllisMartinReport.com talks about the impending undeclared default of five of the major US banks.  Whether the banks have officially run out of money all depends on the very powerful International Swaps and Derivatives Association.  This association is run by some of the same banks.  Listen to this January 30, 2012 audio interview:


http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/01/30/the-impending-undeclared-default-of-5-major-us-banks/

We don't have a say in terms of what goes on in the global economy.  It makes us feel powerless to act.  Maybe the fact that the global economy was designed and is run by un-elected officials in international banks and economic institutions suggests that it was designed to disempower... Who knows?

This is important to understanding and attempting to anticipate our near-term economic future.


The creative economy has become increasingly important.  And its rooted in your neighbourhood, where you have some say in what is goes on.  Adapt accordingly.

Update on Social Creator network in Toronto

We had a Social Creator gathering at the Italian cultural centre in Toronto on Wednesday February 8th, 2012.

As promised we took a look at the income model.  We are redesigning business as a fine art form, called Biz Nouveau.  Using the methodology of 'expressive movements' rather than work with a preconceived agenda, other than the income model we let topics for discussion emerge.

One focus that emerged quickly was on the group supplying physical products and systems for land developers who are putting up condos, theme parks etc. 

A second focus was an agency to represent, or sell the ideas and services of our arts-based professionals. We also saw a market for accreditation of land developers as agreeing to work by certain standards that the agency will develop.  People interested in participating in the agency shared an interest in collaborative villages.  We are witnessing and keeping track of these gradually spreading across various neighbourhoods and coming together as a social ecology. 

Another focus was on services such as theatre productions that put across subtle ideas about the role of the interrelationships and the technology in our lives.  

The agency's income as a percentage of the ideas, services and goods sold will allow us to establish an acting troupe for storytelling, skits and theatre productions.  These events will prepare people for new ideas, our products and services, as well as outright 'selling' to interested prospects.  We also see a promotional role for video production and film.

Knowledge-based Economy?

Strategic notions of a knowledge-based economy in `developed countries` require all levels of government to put in place policies that ensure citizens get paid for their knowledge.  


Realize that when governments ask us to submit ideas free-of-charge we limit the quality of input as well as the possibilities of some kind of economic knowledge recovery.  Then we could spend in our neighbourhoods and strengthen local economies.

Knowledge is embodied in each individual.  Supposedly it's lodged inside each person's neurology and muscle fascia.  But who knows where knowledge extends?  


Officials at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, have been pumping out ideas of a knowledge economy for some time now.  It's an international institution run by unelected officials that use ideas about economics to help governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy.  Ministers of industry and finance subscribe to these ideas and dutifully pay their membership dues each year.  The notions of the OECD result in national strategies that have very real consequences in all of our lives.  www.oecd.org.

I've never heard of economies other than those derived from creating less demand on limited resources, or less need for action.  Who knew we are strategically planning our competitive stance as societies based on economies derived within the accretion and rearrangement of bioplasma in brain cells and electronic impulses in body cells?



If we want to progress through economies of knowledge then would we be well advised to drop ideas of competition and work together internationally, much like how learning progresses through sharing of academic studies and research.


We need to change as individuals so we're able to produce the items and services that contribute to whatever kind of society we want to live in.  The specific nature of your ideal society differs from that of other individuals based on cultural outlooks, values, education, and experiences.


It would be tragic if government talk of competitiveness tended to distract us from making our unique contribution and fulfilling our unique needs and aspirations.  In economic crises are soothing words delaying the need for personal introspection and the prospect of shared  adaptations?