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Is Peace Enough?

Friday Jan 08 2010

By Shae Hadden


In every moment, all possibilities are happening:

  • birth, rebirth, death
  • love, fear
  • war, peace
  • compassion, hate
  • trust, distrust
  • harmony, conflict
  • poverty, wealth
  • starvation, obesity
  • disease, health
  • beauty, toxic waste
  • wisdom, folly
  • youth, adulthood, elderhood
  • creation, destruction

And so on....

Opposing forces are constantly in dynamic motion, striving for balance and harmony.

When 99.99% of human beings all desire the same things (to live peacefully, feed their families and enjoy life's abundance), it is no longer enough for us to simply strive for peace.

In these challenging times, we need to transform the entire dance of creation and destruction.

More later on why peace may not be enough....

 © 2010 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

Written by admin at Personal Empowerment

Tagged with: peace possibility war

Alternative Economic Paradigms: Holiday Alternatives

Friday Dec 04 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio
Perhaps as a reaction to the annual peak of consumerism (the pre and post-Christmas holiday season sales), I’m thinking these days of ways of alternative non-material gifts for my friends. What comes to mind are the types of things we, in our technology-driven world, may be taking for granted as everyday conveniences. Yet, in many parts of the world, these are considered luxuries.

It’s easy enough now to share images and videos of ourselves with either the world at large or a select group of friends and colleagues using sites like Flickr, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Facebook and YouTube. When it comes to gifts for loved ones, creative items like online photo galleries, calendars, books, photographic prints, and ‘home-made’ videos made with images you’ve taken are one-of-a-kind presents that say “I took the time to create this for you…instead of spending 5 minutes at a store buying something made in a factory.”

And you don’t have to rely on your ability to shoot extraordinary photos or video. As prices for consumer-level photography and video electronics drop, more and more ‘amateurs’ are able to play with these media and share their creative work online. When they apply Creative Commons Licences to the materials they publish, they are, essentially, giving away their rights to their online digital media. Depending on the type of licence they’ve applied to the image or video, anyone can republish it, edit (or in the case of video, annotate) it or link to it with or without attribution. This has impacted both the photography and video industries in that prices for ‘stock’ footage have dropped: there is just too much quality content available now through user-generated online sources. Which again, makes it easier for consumers to find exactly the right images to create high-quality creative gifts.

For some people, getting cited or mentioned on Wikipedia is on their ‘wish list’. It’s easy to give them their wish. Anyone can become a contributor to this free global encyclopedia. To contribute, just create an account and log in. There are currently over 11 million ‘users’ (contributors). Wikipedia content is also under a Creative Commons Share Attribution Licence…so you could even capture an entry you create or modify and then turn it into a poster or other brochure to share as ‘the gift’ (just include an attribution).

If you know of other ways to give holiday gifts that are essentially ‘free’ and environmentally friendly, please share them with us by submitting a comment.

© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

Written by admin at The Great Turning

Tagged with: consumerism creative_commons_licence environment gift

Elders and the Environment - Part 2

Friday Nov 13 2009

By Shae Hadden
According to Dr. David Suzuki, “it is not progress to use up the rightful legacy of our children and grandchildren.” He opened the first Elders and the Environment Forum on Monday in Vancouver, Canada with a keynote address that focused on the role of elders in the environmental movement and how we can make a difference:
  • Tell it like it is, find our voice and speak out
  • Tell us all what is possible and keep us fixed on creating the future
  • Remind younger generations that true wealth is found in our relationships with family, friends and neighbours (in community) and that people lived full, rich lives long before we had all this ‘stuff’
  • Teach children that the word ‘disposable’ is a ‘dirty word’
  • Help younger generations see how things are shifting environmentally in the world by sharing the changes we have seen and are seeing in baselines (for example, the differences in salmon runs between now and years past)
  • Challenge the perspective that views the natural world as an ‘externality’ (as economists do), in which all the services that ecosystems perform are irrelevant to calculations of value
  • Teach young people the values of thrift and stewardship by showing them how to live in community (for example, teach them how fix things when they are broken; how to compost, grow things, harvest and store food; how to knit and sew and darn, etc.)
Dr. Suzuki’s message is not a nostalgic call for a slower-paced lifestyle. It is a vital reminder that we have had and can have fulfilling lives based on what we do with other people. And that we can help heal our relationship with Mother Earth while we’re at it.

© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

Written by admin at News

Tagged with: david_suzuki elders environment future generations relationship

Elders and the Environment

Tuesday Nov 10 2009

By Shae Hadden


I attended the David Suzuki Foundation's first Elders for the Environment Forum today in Vancouver, Canada. The event drew 200+ people, including Elder representatives from several First Nations and concerned 'older' citizens from Canada and the U.S. Following are some of the highlights from an inspiring talk given by Miles Richardson, former Grand Chief of the Haida Nation and a member of the board of directors of the David Suzuki Foundation.

  • "We are all in the same canoe, and we have to begin paddling together in the same direction."
  • "An Elder is very importantly and universally recognized as a knowledge-keeper. But we look to them for more than that. We depend on them for wisdom, the distillation of that knowledge gained from living and experieneces, and we depend on them to pass that on from generation to generation.We look to them for guidance when we face the huge challenges that life puts in front of us. We look to them for validation when we are doing what we believe is right when others can't understand or cannot see what we see."
  • "Being an Elder is not about age. You don't become an Elder because you've grown old. An Elder is someone whose integrity I trust and whose wisdom I respect. That must be earned and real."
  • "Talk is good. Actions are stronger."
  • Overheard at the 4th World Wilderness Congress: "Economic growth is an interpretation. The environment is a matter of survival."
  • Wisdom from an Elder given to Miles when he was complaining about the loss of his native culture: "Before you take another step forward, take a step back and listen."
Check back later this week for more highlights from the speakers at this event.

Written by admin at News

Tagged with: david_suzuki_foundation elders_for_the_environment integrity respect wisdom

What is that?

Friday Oct 23 2009

Written by admin at Wisdom in Action

Tagged with: video

The Alternative Economic Paradigms: Gift Economy II

Friday Oct 16 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio
My habits of reducing and reusing come from a tradition I inherited from my family, a tradition that firmly believed in the value of sharing and stewardship. My father used to tell me of Depression days when his mother would wash the tea bags and dry them for reuse, and when he, being a ‘middle’ son in a family of 13, could always count on wearing ‘hand-me-downs’. Considering the environmental and economic crises we face, it’s no surprise that the principles of communal sharing, stewardship and ‘gifting’ are feeding the move to reduce, reuse and recycle. People of all ages are looking at ways to keep ‘stuff’ out of landfill sites.

In the 1960s the hippies of Haight-Ashbury opened ‘free shops’ to swap clothes, shoes and personal items. In the US today, ‘giveaway shops’ have evolved into ‘swap sheds’ in rural towns (where people leave things that are usable but unwanted for anyone to take) and  ‘free stores’ or ‘free bins’ on college campuses (stocked with donations or items that students have sorted from trash). Official give-away stores with retail storefronts have existed in Amherst, Massachusetts and in several locations in the Detroit area. And The Free Store operated in NYC until March 2009.

An online version of this concept has emerged. There’s a free national website where you can search for items by zip code: Take Me I’m Free. The global player in this scene, the Freecycle Network™, comes out of Tucson, AZ. This online network of 4,836 groups with 6,601,000 members is moderated by volunteers. Of course, there’s always the FREE listings on Craigslist as well.

An ‘offline’ development is the Really Really Free Market (RRFM) movement.  Collectives of people commit to creating community around sharing resources and caring for each other: they gather in community spaces to share goods and services, clean up afterwards and take home what they are unable to give away. The first RRFM was organized in protest of the G8 Summit during the anti-globalization protests of 2004 against the Free Trade Area of the Americas. RRFMs have emerged across the U.S., and the first Canadian one was started in Toronto earlier this year.

Next up… how ‘gifting’ influences our lives online.

© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

Written by admin at Wisdom in Action

Tagged with: free_store freecycle gift_economy really_really_free_market recycle reuse rrfm

Alternative Economic Paradigms: The Gift Economy

Friday Oct 02 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio
I’ve been glancing in shop windows recently as I wander my new neighborhood. There seem to be more sales and discounts now at the retail outlets than ever before, as if lowering a ticketed price will lure consumers in to buy when the prevailing mood is one of restraint and caution. Experts argue over whether our market economy is going to limp along in its current form or be remade or redefined. Scarcity thinking seems to predominate consumer behavior. Meanwhile, what I don’t want us to lose sight of are the barter and gift economies that co-exist (and continue to evolve) alongside the regular buying and selling of goods.

A ‘gift economy’ is one in which people give away products and services without any expectation of compensation. In a way, bartering is a reciprocal form of ‘gifting’, in which two parties exchange what they need with each other and eliminate the transfer of money. In a gift economy, simultaneous giving to others (and not just a back and forth between two people) is looked on favorably, as it circulates and more widely redistributes resources within a community. In some societies, the person who ‘gifts’ is seen as being altruistic and is accorded some social status for being the ‘giver’. In others, gifting is simply seen as an expression of a genuine concern for others.

Thinking of the world in terms of limited resources and little time left to save the planet can easily lead us into thinking along the lines of “There’s not going to be enough…”. Conversely, the gift economy rests on a belief in ‘abundance’. In early human societies (before the existence of currency), the sharing of food and other perishables ensured the continuity of the group and the ‘abundant living’ of all. Native American potlatches allowed leaders to strengthen the community by sharing their accumulated wealth with their followers. In Tonga, Samoa and some of the outer Cook Islands, reciprocal gifting is still part of their culture today.

In North America, we still practice this at the family level (when we share our time, money, food, shelter and wisdom with relatives). What I find interesting is that the concept of ‘gifting’ has expanded to include things like:
  • Open source software (free access to software code for developers)
  • The blood bank system
  • The organ donor system
  • Gift exchanges
  • Regiving networks
  • Creative Commons Licences (free access to other people’s creative works)
  • Wikipedia (a free online encyclopedia)
  • Free schools
  • Give-away shops

I see a connection between this movement and Eldering: a common commitment to sustainability and a shared future for all. And I'm reminded of the wisdom of my grandparents and my parents in dealing with troubled times in their lives. I’ll be writing more about these and other ways in which the gift economy is showing up in our lives today in the coming weeks. 

© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

Written by admin at Leadership

Tagged with: abundance_thinking eldering gift_economy market_economy scarcity_thinking

Musing on Beliefs

Friday Sep 18 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio

I was in an interesting conversation recently about how we can interact with people who hold different beliefs than ours. The question posed was, “How can one be with someone whose beliefs are the antithesis of our own?” An important inquiry to engage in, considering that a clash of beliefs is at the heart of most conflict and strife between people.

Responses from the group varied from escape (“We can’t be with them at all, so we leave”) and avoidance (“We can’t be with them, so we avoid them”) to pity (“The only way we can be with them is to think how sad it is that they hold their beliefs”), and curiosity and compassion (“We can be with them by observing their thoughts and relating to their essential humanness”). Many in the conversation found it difficult to move beyond pity. And yet, even pity is insufficient to resolve a conflict. For one who pities still sees themselves as being ‘more’ or ‘better’ than those they pity.

When we pity, what remains unspoken is sensed and colors the relationship. I worked for a manager once whom I pitied, and that contributed to increased antagonism between us—for it didn’t create an opening for us to discuss what we shared in common and what we both considered to be our birthright as humans. Basic things, such as:

•    Access to education and meaningful work
•    Freedom of expression
•    Safe places in which to live, raise children and grow old, and
•    Access to sufficient resources (food, water, shelter, medical care) to be healthy.



We clung to our beliefs as if they were what we knew to be ‘truth’. Unfortunately, the relationship deteriorated and I chose to leave the organization. I found out years later that she had eventually left shortly thereafter. Neither of us got to have a conversation about what we really cared about, because we were entrenched in our positions about ‘what was so’.

One of my friends once pointed out to me that, for them, beliefs are not knowledge. That seemed to me to be self-evident at the time, but in l my recent conversation about beliefs, I became aware that many confuse their lives by equating beliefs with knowledge. Yet, it seems to me that when we collapse what we hold to be ‘truth’ (our beliefs) onto what we think we ‘know’, we shut down any possibility of anything else being ‘true’. When we cling to what we believe and know as ‘truth’, then we destroy all chances for peace.

According to leaders like the Dalai Lama, true reconciliation (and perhaps the only peaceful way through the world of differences we inhabit) is available to us through wholehearted compassion. When we can see and interact with others as human Beings (as individual souls having human experiences) instead of as a maelstrom of beliefs, then perhaps we can begin to live together peacefully. I’m certainly not advocating that we condone behaviors and actions that destroy life in any way. However, setting ourselves up as better than another because of what we believe is a covert form of resisting their beliefs.

Perhaps what underlies our difficulties as a species is a belief that it is not possible to fulfill everyone’s birthright to the basic elements of life. This type of thinking contributes to our disagreements over resources and rights and creates the so-called battle between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.

What if … we individually and collectively choose another belief?

What if … we see the world as being sufficient for all our needs—as long as we respect each other and the planet?

What if … we see it as our responsibility to each other and to future generations to base all our actions in this belief?

What if … we focus on collaborating instead of resisting each other?

Perhaps we could develop a whole new set of beliefs from this—beliefs that support and serve our collective future and the future of our world.

© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

Written by admin at Wisdom in Action

Tagged with: belief conflict future knowledge peace possibility truth

The Importance of Sandcastles

Wednesday Aug 19 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio

Friends and family have been stressing the importance of taking vacations with me for years. I have somewhat deliberately avoided the conversation as much as possible until now. End result: a lifetime of little travel, lots of work and limited 'fun'. All work and no play makes for a dull life. I've been beginning to wonder if perhaps I am afraid of taking vacations...for every time I think about it, my concerns about all the things that are remaining 'undone' while I'm away 'at play' loom larger and larger. Yet I watch people around me taking time off throughout the year (anywhere from a few days to several weeks to months at a time) to go on pilgrimages, to make sandcastles at the beach, to idle away time doing nothing in particular, and they don't seem to be suffering at all. In fact, they seem to prosper for taking time off to rejuvenate.

So I'm going to break my mule-like habit of grinding on through the summer and take next week off. That means idle time away with no work-oriented mindset. I've scheduled a couple of posts to go live on this blog during the week...and will return in September. My intention: to follow all that good advice and rejuvenate myself before summer disappears.

© 2009 Shae Hadden. All rights reserved.

[Read More]

Written by admin at Health

Tagged with: health travel vacation

Focus and Time

Wednesday Jul 01 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio

What we do with our time seems to be an ongoing topic of interest for many. Popular belief says we need to balance time for 'work' and 'life'. Innumerable authors and experts have invented tools and techniques for us to 'manage' our time. Common sense says that procrastination occurs when we 'waste' time doing nothing or doing things other than what we say we're going to do. More experts have written about how we can get motivated,  stop procrastinating and get down to business. Then why is it that many still struggle with trying to stay focused on what they really want to do?

[Read More]

Written by admin at Learning

Tagged with: discipline focus procrastination time will

Mindfulness and Aging Parents

Monday Jun 29 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio

I was talking with a friend recently about our parents, about what we're observing in their health as they grow older and what we think is possible for them in terms of living arrangements. I think a lot of Boomers are in this same conversation these days. A few things we discussed got me wondering about how 'true' any of our thinking about health issues in later life really is for our parents. I began to ask myself whether we are fully present and mindful about this..

[Read More]

Written by admin at Health

Tagged with: aging_parents health living_arrangements

Moving: The Big Change

Friday Jun 05 2009

   By Shae Hadden | Bio


I’m sitting at my desk, watching the sun set behind the mountains, listening to the city winding down at the end of a long, hot summer day. My big move is now complete: all boxes unpacked, everything put away (at least somewhere, for now), cupboards stocked, and fresh linens on the bed. Three months ago, when I chose to relocate, I had no idea it would be such a circuitous route to my new ‘home’. But now that I’m here, I’m glad for everything that showed up in my journey and for everything I had to let go of in order to arrive at this most perfect place for the next phase of my life.

[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: change community moving relationships routine

Break the Mirror

Monday May 11 2009

By Shae Hadden

I don't want to look in the mirror today. There's a funny old woman staring back at me, and I can't quite figure out who she is or where she belongs. Certainly not in my mirror! But there she is, plain as day. Wrinkled and wizened, meditating for nothingness, yet still wanting to save the world.

[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with:

Trauma as an Opening

Tuesday May 05 2009

By Shae Hadden


A friend shared corporate poet David Whyte's recent article "A Fire Inside: Thoughts on the Creativity of Winter" with me. David uses a brilliant metaphor to explore the trauma of loss prevalent in the global economic crisis. He speaks of a a fire burning inside a home on a winter's day as being like an "internal, alchemical, almost catalytic core of identity-making and decision-making....the soul of an individual" existing within the winter of our current economic crises. Many can equate with

[Read More]

Written by admin at The Great Turning

Tagged with: circumstances creativity david_whyte future trauma

Simplifying Uncertainty

Tuesday Apr 28 2009

By Shae Hadden | Bio
Spring flowers bloom passionately on this sunny West Coast day, birds are preparing nests for their young and people run madly by me as I sit by the ocean and ponder what it takes to survive in these times. My search for a place to live has not yet been entirely successful, and the conversations I’ve had reveal both desperation and gnawing hesitation in myself and others to actually put a stake in the ground—metaphorically speaking—and declare that this is the future we are committing to. It’s almost as if[Read More]

Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: courage creativity future possibility uncertainty

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