By Irene Noble
Admittedly my vision of my granddaughter
is somewhat impaired by my love for her, but for the life of me I fail
to understand how she became so wise so soon. We are
both an only child, both raised by a single parent (a father for her,
and a mother for me). We share a “jack of all trades” DNA. I watch her
now as she, like my younger self, slightly out of focus, tries her
wings. Like a hummingbird sampling nectars looking for the blossom with
the most satisfying sugar, she fearlessly plunges into an array of
interests that defy the time needed to perfect any one of them. I tell
you this by way of introduction hoping to lead you into a greater
subject. There she is at 23 with time to spare and here I am at 85
almost out of time.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
Tagged with:
dream
failure
potential
rejection
serenity
soul
wisdom
By Eliezer Sobel | Website
There is much talk on Serene Ambition and
elsewhere about altering one’s perspective and internal conversation
about aging so as to “create a future to live into” that infuses the
present with passion and energy, as distinct from the dreary
resignation of merely playing out the repetitive and predictable habits
and tendencies generated by the past. And yet, while this sounds
good in theory, what of the physical limitations imposed by age? [ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
Tagged with:
aging
conversation
possibility
suffering
time
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
How does it happen? It starts with a conversation. A while back, Cecile Andrews, our local Seattle author of The Circle of Simplicity,
explained to me how the women’s movement changed the story on gender
and unleashed the long suppressed power of the feminine. It started
with discussion circles in which women came together to share personal
stories. As each woman spoke her truth, a larger truth was revealed for
all to see. The prevailing story that the key to a woman’s happiness is
to find the right man, marry him, and devote her life to his service
was not true.[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
choice
conversation
responsibility
voluntary_simplicity
womens_movement
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
Profound
social change takes place when an important cultural story changes—and
the impetus to challenge imperial rule rarely comes from within the
institutions of Empire. Democracy took hold when we replaced the story
of the divine right of kings with the story that the powers of
government derive from the will of the people. People of color and
women won recognition of their full human rights only as the civil
rights and women’s movements successfully exposed the fallacy of the
story that people of color and women are less than fully human.
Recognizing the full humanity of all peoples opens us to a deeper
understanding of what it truly does mean to be human in all the rich
potentials that our human nature embodies.[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
authentic
democracy
earth_community
great_turning
social_change
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
Change
begins with a new story that celebrates the best, rather than the
worst, of what we are and can be. It’s pretty straightforward. If we
convince ourselves that we are innately brutal, greedy beings and that
this is all for the good, then we set ourselves a goal of perfecting
our capacity for greed and violence, thus perpetuating the world of our
nightmares. It is time to start filling our heads instead with
the story that it is our nature to be caring and giving and that this
is all for the good, and therefore we properly set our sights on
perfecting our capacity for love and caring and create the world of our
dreams.[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
earth_community
empire_story
great_turning
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
So
what’s our problem? Why are we in such a mess? Why didn’t we long ago
just get together to create the world we really want? What are the real
barriers to creating the world in which we measure our progress against
a national happiness index rather than by an index of how fast we are
turning stuff into garbage?[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
empire_story
leaders
power
wealth
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
Wouldn’t
it be nice if it turned out the choices we must make together to
survive together are the same choices we must make to create the very
world most of all the world’s people want? If that were case, then we
should be able to just get together and make it happen. Wouldn’t that
be cool? Maybe we should start a conversation to find out what people
truly want…[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
choice
compassion
conversation
cooperation
earth_charter
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
This
brings us to the third element of the big picture of the human
confrontation with the limits of our Mother Earth: the governing
institutions to which we give the power to set our priorities and our
collective course. We might wonder how such injustice could happen in a
world governed by democratically elected governments. The answer is
simple and alarming.[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
community
democracy
environment
government
justice
sustainability
By Zakia Carpenter | Unending Conversations of Hope blog
This
article appeared in the April 20-26, 2008 issue of the Michigan Citizen
and is reproduced here with the author's permission. Please post your comments here.
I
have noticed a breakdown in youth-adult functionality that I'm just
beginning to articulate. From what I have read about the Millennial
Generation (youth, like me, born between 1977 and 1998), experts
predict it will be more separate from previous generations due to the
technological divide. However, this is just one factor
dividing us. Every generation has ideas and values differentiating it
from prior generations. Our histories shape us differently.
Essentially we are our own entity, separate from those who gave birth
to us. [ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
dialogue
differences
generation
intergenerational_relationships
leadership
support
transformation
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Read more posts in The World We Want series.
The
second piece of the big picture of the human confrontation with the
limits of our Mother Earth is an unraveling of the social fabric of
civilization that is a consequence of extreme and growing inequality. A
world divided between the profligate and the desperate cannot long
endure. It intensifies competition for Earth’s resources, undermines
the legitimacy of our institutions, and drives an unraveling of the
social fabric of mutual trust and caring essential to healthy social
function.[ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
equity
ethanol
inequality
natural_wealth
poverty
resources
By David Korten | Great Turning website
Many of us have been anticipating the day
of reckoning for our reckless human ways for decades. That day has
arrived. Peak oil, climate chaos, financial collapse, and spreading
social disintegration are all consequences of deep cultural and
institutional dysfunction. The imperative to address them presents us
with an epic test of our human intelligence and creativity. When I was a student in business school my professors always told us,
"Go for the Big Picture. If you find a problem, don’t just treat the
symptoms. Look up stream to find and deal with the cause." The big
picture of the human confrontation with the limits of our Mother Earth
becomes crystal clear once we step back and take a look upstream. This
big picture has three critical elements. [ Read More]
Written by admin at The Great Turning
Tagged with:
consumption
environmental_collapse
growth
production
This story was submitted by Cindy La Ferle over at Cindy's Home Office.
Until
I met Sylva B., I rarely socialized with 'older people' outside my
family circle. When I wasn’t working, I hung out with friends my own
age. At least 40 years my senior, Sylva was the silver-haired
personnel manager who interviewed me for my first job in reference book
publishing in Detroit. I was 25 then, and desperate to get my career
off the ground. Applying for an entry level position, I was required to
pass a typing test and a two-hour literature exam. I was so nervous
during the session that my fingers froze at the keys and I flunked the
typing test on the first try.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Learning
Tagged with:
friends
friendship
intergenerational
mentor
older
wisdom
By Kay Costley-White
The most joyful person I have ever met was a young man dying of AIDS. Chris’s path to serenity had been long and difficult.
In the early 1990s, his family, afraid of their community's reaction to
his gay lifestyle, rejected him. He moved from central Canada to
Vancouver, developed a family of choice, and lived with a partner
committed to a life-long relationship. But his partner and many of his
friends died of AIDS. Then his place of employment found out the reason
for his many absences for sick leave, and he was fired on the spot.
Later, life-threatening infections kept him in hospital, too weak to
care for himself. When I knew him, he understood that there was no hope
for a cure or prolongation of his life. Medicine could do nothing
beyond keeping him comfortable, and he was facing his imminent death.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Learning
Tagged with:
die
dying
healing
learning
living
serenity
to
By Marilyn Hay This is the second post in a two-part series.
Changes and adaptations to my arthritis didn't end with learning to
manage pain or finding new and fulfilling things to do at home. I could
no longer manage the spiral staircase where I was living—I came close
to falling enough times that it scared me. And the long, brutally cold
winters in Winnipeg brought even more constant, relentless pain. I
couldn’t bend well enough to get boots on, so was often confined
indoors, unable to negotiate the snow. The idea of house-hunting was
exhausting and I really didn’t know where to begin looking. I just knew
I needed somewhere that wouldn’t get as cold in the winter and,
hopefully, wouldn’t have as much snow. [ Read More]
Written by admin at Health
Tagged with:
arthritis
change
pain
travel
By Marilyn Hay
Some
bodies weather age better than others. In my case, arthritis has
invaded my whole spine and all major joints, so my mobility has
diminished quite significantly over a relatively short period of time.
While I was never much of an athlete, I was always on the go, with
energy to burn, traveling pretty much constantly in my job and for
pleasure … And then, because of the unbearable pain and attendant
exhaustion, I just had to stop. I couldn’t do my job any longer.
I
scarcely remember the first two months of this change of lifestyle as I
spent most of the time sleeping. When I woke up enough to really look
around, I realized I was no longer the person I had been.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Health
Tagged with:
arthritis
change
grateful
grief
lifestyle
loss
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