GENERAL OVERVIEW  - what's happening that excites me

As the rate of change continues to accelerate across all human activity, I become even more positive that people around the world are shifting their understandings and values to focus on what is most important - a healthy happy population in harmony with a sustainable planet.

As technology becomes an extension of our self, almost cellularly connected, we are seeing the world shrink into the size of our neighbourhood. We are seeing more readily the important similarities shared with all peoples rather than the fear inducing differences.

We are witnessing the greatest extremes in values and behaviours of our leaders of any time in history - the good the bad and the ugly. I am delighted with the openness of the flagrant intolerances, the absurd parochialism, the immense ignorance, and the lack of dignity and self respect of many of our political, business, religious, media, sport, and cultural leaders.

What greater educational tool is there than for us to see and hear in living colour the actions and consequences of old paradigm values from people who are supposed to be wise, benevolent, compassionate, and selfless ? To personally witness the old motivators of materialism, greed, competitiveness, territoriality, and fear fear fear.

Peoples everywhere are gaining in wisdom, in knowingness, in personal responsibility as our leaders seem to be doing just the opposite, locked into historical irrelevance. I happily see people globally :

• disbelieving the rhetoric of politicians everywhere
• honing their skills of spin detection
• disrespecting most of what mass media purveys
• questioning what needs to replace materialism as our key driver
• searching, rediscovering, & exploring practices for a greater spiritual awareness and ways of being finding courage to question assumptions of right & wrong, good & evil rediscovering the magic of community developing ways of working - relating - sharing - with others that assume good will always prevail
• recognising that our wired young are creating a fascinating - better - world that is rarely understood & mostly disbelieved by older generations
• the gap widening between the old and new paradigmers, with the rapid shifting of grassroots people everywhere to the new paradigm of valuing people, the planet, and responsible harmony.

Look & you will see it , too.

WOW STUFF from others

• M-LEARNING : using SMS texting thru mobile/cell phones as highly engaging dominant teaching tool with teenagers http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/projects/txtme.htm
  
  
• CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO revisited : from Doc Searls & David Weinberger
  

World of Ends : What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else.

'There are mistakes and there are mistakes'. For example, thinking that:

... the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages.

... the Net is something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise "improve."

... it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.

... the Net suffers from a lack of regulation to protect industries that feel threatened by it.

The Nutshell (of the item - ed)

1. The Internet isn't complicated
2. The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement.
3. The Internet is stupid.
4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
5. All the Internet's value grows on its edges.
6. Money moves to the suburbs.
7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.
8. The Internet's three virtues:
   a. No one owns it
   b. Everyone can use it
   c. Anyone can improve it
9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
10. Some mistakes we can stop making already. '

Full Item : http://www.annimac.com.au/archive/trendsletter-15-05-05-A.php

You Get Proud by Practicing

Laura Hershey is an American woman with a disability. She is a disability activist. Her website www.cripcommentary.com contains articles and other writings, from which this poem is taken

If you are not proud
for who you are, for what you say, for how you look;
if every time you stop
to think of yourself, you do not see yourself glowing
with golden light; do not therefore, give up on yourself.
You can
get proud.

You do not need
a lot of money, a handsome boyfriend, or a nice car.
You do not need
to be able to walk, or see, or hear,
or use big, complicated words,
or do any of the things that you just can't do
to be proud. A caseworker
cannot make you proud
or a doctor.

You only need
more practice.

You get proud
by practicing.

Full Item (105 lines) : http://www.annimac.com.au/archive/trendsletter-15-05-05-B.php

Quantum Intelligence

Beyond IQ, EQ and SQ'The Evolution of Intelligence

By Soleira Green

╘ Copyright 2004

To find out more about Soleira, email her at

or visit her websites at:

www.AlchemicalCoach.com

www.SOULutions.co.uk

www.TheSOULAcademy.com

www.CorporateSOULutions.com

INTELLIGENCE EQUALS EXPANDED CONSCIOUS AWARENESS.

'The more you can expand your conscious awareness, the more intelligence you will have. If we can expand our conscious awareness into the completeness of a whole body, mind, heart, spirit, soul, consciousness and creation experience, then we can truly access a power of intelligence that has, up until now, not been available to us from inside our minds alone.'

Soleira's article discusses her brilliant insights into :

Evolution of Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence - Heart based abilities

Spiritual Intelligence - Spirit based abilities

Wholistic Intelligence - Soul based abilities

Quantum Intelligence - Consciousness & Creation abilities

Intelligence Equals Expanded Conscious Awareness

Full Item (2250 lines) : http://www.annimac.com.au/archive/trendsletter-15-05-05-C.php

FROM NOISE TO WISDOM

'We are drowning in information and starving for wisdom'

from Allegory of Wisdom and Strength

by Paolo Veronese 1580

The transfer from noise to wisdom

• noise becomes data when it can be discerned and differentiated by the mind
• data becomes information when it is assembled to derive meaning
• information becomes knowledge when it is integrated with other information useful for deciding and acting
• knowledge becomes understanding when integrated with other knowledge to be useful in conceiving, anticipating and judging
• understanding becomes wisdom when informed by purpose, ethics, principle, memory of the past and dreaming for the future

Data versus Wisdom

• Data is
  • separable
  • objective
  • linear
  • mechanistic
  • abundant
• Wisdom is
  • holistic
  • subjective
  • spiritual
  • conceptual
  • scarce

When you increase data (a lower order) wisdom and understanding (higher forms) are drowned out. In the ever accelerating assault of data and information on cognitive capacity, understanding and wisdom may be declining in absolute as well as relative terms.

The 'management' of infomatics

• The Western institutional structures are becoming savvy with information
• The term spin recognises already 'multiple discourses' in information already implicit in the process is a decentering of truth
• information is dis-embodied
• information can be manipulated to mean almost anything
• without frames of reference to other ways of knowing the message disappears
• more information does not solve the problem
• meta-analysis is left in the cold

(My thx to Anon'..that writer very prolific throughout history. - ed)

Indigo Children

As soooo many folks still ask me about Indigo kids aka New kids, Star kids, Crystal kids, here's some more info. These kids are real, throughout the world, across all sociodemographic groups, cultures, ages. They have things to say we need to hear for a healthy sustainable world.

From key site : http://www.indigochild.com/ comes :

'What is an indigo Child?

As a summary, here are the ten attributes that best describe this new kind of child, the Indigo Child (named by those who predicted it).

• They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it)
• They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others don't share that.
• Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents "who they are."
• They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
• They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.
• They get frustrated with systems that are ritually oriented and don't require creative thought.
• They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like "system busters" (nonconforming to any system).
• They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.
• They will not respond to "guilt" discipline ("Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did").
• They are not shy in letting you know what they need.

You can read more fully the description of these children in a summary
published on the Internet at [www.kryon.com/k_37.html]. '

The following comes from Kiara Windrider

'Here's a summary of resources for and about the New Children that I am currently aware of. I'm hoping this will grow into a worldwide directory of resources:

Books:

Emissary of Love by James Twyman

The Indigo Children by Lee Carrol and Jan Tober

Secret Truths for Teens and Twenties by Virginia Essene

Children of the New Millennium by Phyllis Atwater

Doorway to Eternity by Kiara Windrider (a context)

Articles:

Donna Cunningham, "The Ritalin Generation" (The Mountain Astrologer, April/May 2001)

Websites: www.indigochildren.com

Movies: The Big Blue Sixth Sense Starman The Dark Crystal

School systems: Waldorf Montessori Nizhoni Robert Muller

Communities: Auroville, India Findhorn Scotland Hummingbird Ranch, New Mexico '

Also look at Soleira Green's website www.SOULutions.co.uk for the collaborative publications by Soleira and I on New Kids.

(Yeah I know, shld B on mine2, soooo slack'..)

OLD WISDOM

On Being Sheep

"... I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities.

The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilised, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.

Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race - the individual's distrust of his neighbour, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbour's eye. '

Mark Twain The Mysterious Stranger, 1916.

Full Item : http://www.annimac.com.au/archive/trendsletter-15-05-05-D.php

More Old Wisdom :

Four year old when asked what she wanted for Christmas :

' Surveillance camera so I can see the tooth fairy. '

Snippets on '

HARMONY

Before doing, ask :

what will it enhance
what will it retrieve
what will it obsolesce
what will it reverse into ?

Then do the best you can.

EDUCATION

Are education textbook publishing companies run by people who still use rotary telephones and listen to 8-track systems in their Studebakers?

The ideas relating to quantum mechanics in modern physics are among the most important during the entire 60,000-year history of modern humans, and it's probably not an exaggeration to say that 99.999999 percent of the human beings who have ever lived on the planet haven't understood a single thing about quantum mechanics.

There is good reason to believe that a great proportion of currently operating higher education institutions will go dark within the next fifteen or twenty years or so .

All from : Travels Without Charlie : Ruminations on higher tech's role in higher ed. Gary G. Johnson October 29, 2004 on www.newwork.com

m-learning : Using SMS thru mobile phones as key educational tool

TxtMe Project http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/projects/txtme.htm

From the outset, the Txt Me project recognised that mobile phones are an unavoidable feature of youth culture in Australia. In most formal education and training settings, however, mobile phones are considered to be intrusive and counterproductive to learning goals.

Significantly, the project research has linked the learning styles of younger students to m-learning strategies, and shown the benefits of adopting approaches which recognise the significance of mobile technology in the lives of young people.

In spite of their high familiarity with technology, relationships were of greater importance to the young people involved in the Txt Me trial. In their personal world, technology was used to enhance and end relationships. Students wanted and responded to an individual, personalized relationship with their teacher.

(from Project Report - see above home site)

ECONOMY

The Gift

"The economists" myth tells us that exchange fulfils a simple instrumental function. You live in a community that produces yams and I live in a community that raises pigs, so we enter into an exchange in order to vary our diets. One fine day, to facilitate our transactions, we invent a system of equivalence between our products -- money -- and there you have it. But, as anthropologists have shown us, Marcel Mauss in particular, the main form of exchange in so-called 'primitive' societies is the gift, which cannot be reduced to economic rationality."

by Mark Anspach. "Global Markets, Anonymous Victims", UNESCO Courier, May 2001.

Quoted by Tom Walker on list 4 June 2002

Digital Divide

As the gap between the Haves & HaveNots widens, we can see the cause of the gap shifting. For centuries the gap has been based on wealth - The Haves have it, the HaveNots do not. Along with wealth went power and options, the two biggies for being a Have. What is becoming more apparent is that technology is now the reason, particularly accessing the Internet, with access to it and skill to use it being the criteria for the Haves. No or limited access or no skill to use it means you are increasingly disadvantaged - have less access to information, less access to options, less control over your life - the HaveNots.

The sad news is that the divide is globally increasing daily. The good news is that it is easily conceivable to think of every person in the world being able to access and use the Net - it could probably happen within a few months of the making and resourcing the decision. It would not cost an inordinate amount of money - it is power politics that is the stumbling block. We just need to shift a few more attitudes while carrying on our normal everyday lives. It would be much more difficult, if not impossible, to equitably redistribute global wealth - that would require a massive radical revolution of all existing power structures - corporate, religious, political. As Bill Gates knows, it is easy to wire people.

A Smith Family report in Aug 04 on the financially disadvantaged in Australia found :

• less than 33 percent of low income families can access Internet at home - national average is 60 percent of all households with kids
• less than 60percent of LI families have a home computer; national average is 74 percent of families
• 43 percent of households where parents left school before Yr 10 have a home computer; 90 percent of households with university educated parents have at least one home computer
• only 18 percent of lower educated household have Internet access; 57 percent of households with more highly educated parents can access the Net.

The economy revisited: an initial analysis of the digital divide among financially disadvantaged families. The Smith Family, Australia, 2004

UNCONSCIOUS KNOWING

' I wonder how many religions have been born from the mistake of thinking a sequence was a consequence?

Figuring that out in anything is never easy. The problem with religion is that perceptions are more like feeling the cable coming behind your back as you guide the steel beam to the connection 50 stories up in a wind chill factor that registers below zero Fahrenheit. Dancers, Ironworkers, Trapeze artists and duo piano teams all learn to work non-visually feeling what is happening in ways that cannot be explained in terms of consequence and yet somewhere it is. It is a kind of knowing that is not very popular these days with the academic folks. That is why they have trouble with most disciplines that include performances before large audiences.

It took many years of analysis, and subtext practice in theater scenes, for me to accept that unconscious knowing and action was as real as that which crossed my conscious mind and that doing something that I knew, incorrectly, always had a reason that was many layers deeper than just that I had made a mistake with something that I knew. Once I realized that, I took responsibility for many discussions where I was more than a little nasty to people who themselves were dealing in subtexts that they refused to acknowledge to themselves, much less to the persons they were holding the discussion with. '

from Ray Evans Harrell on list 29 Nov 2002

A creative society has the majority of its people living off ideas rather than through commodities, industry, agriculture or services.

Creative thinking is a spiritual process - we get an emotional psychic kick.

Creative people live off their brains, their minds - new information rubs up against our memories like tectonic plates that don't fit, creating new ideas.

We have a strong personal ID based on the quality of our ideas, that's how we cope with failure.

Creative people are always learning, enjoy subjectivity, enjoy chaos, and get fired up by our own ignorance.

Ideas are available to anyone; a creative economy is very democratic.

Creative culture is a confident culture.

The creative economy must be one of personal and organisation failure, particularly at government policy level.

Creative people work alone and with people who have no need to help; creative people must persuade those detached people to help advance our ideas in a highly competitive business, the business of ideas.

Howkin's personal philosophy : 'Have ideas, have fun, make money.' hmmmmm.

Great innovators, like good tea, can only be appreciated when they are in hot water.

-- Anon

LONGEVITY : spirituality volunteering friends&family

Spiritual development, volunteer work, and building a solid network of friends and family is what keeps the longest living people alive and well, says latest research. The Okinawans, inhabiting a cluster of islands between Japan and Taiwan, have more and healthier centarians than any other society. VP of Australian Psych Society, clinical psych Amanda Gordon says 'When we're involved in the community we're making relationships all the time and relationships are the cornerstone of our emotional existence. If you try to enhance a sense of community, it increases social capital and makes us all healthier and happier.' from body&soul 2005

WARS KILL CIVILIANS NOT SOLDIERS

Dr Annie Sparrow, Paediatrician and Human Rights activist, researches the direct link between human rights and health - destroy one, you destroy the other. Working with the hundreds of thousands of Darfur, Central Africa, political refugees escaping for their lives into Chad, she noted the wholesale slaughter of innocent villagers. And the scorch and burn policy of the attacking militia - with the apparent tank and armed helicopter support of the Sudanese government - razing villages so the refugees are truly displaced with no home to return to, were it safe to do so. Which makes it undeclared genocide. Annie commented : in modern war, 90 percent of all casualties are civilians.

Annie is the Human Rights Millennium Fellow at Harvard Uni, seconded to Human Rights Watch.

There are still over 30 wars raging on our small planet. Some people do very silly tragic things.

RELATIVITY

In 5 billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen and burn up the earth.

Earth is wrapped in its own mesh of stars - the Milky Way. One hundred thousand light years from rim to rim but still only one tiny galaxy in millions upon millions.

NANO WORLD

Dr Julian Gale, Nanochemistry Research Institute, Curtin Uni of Technology, recently described nanotechnology as studying very small things that potentially have a very large impact.

Size relativities - he asserts that size does matter - labels the everyday world of objects as 10⁰ , the known universe at 10²⁶, and the nano world at 10^-9 or : if we were the size of the Earth, the nano object would be the size of a fingernail. Tiny. A nanometre is the size of a few atoms or one billionth of a metre.

Interesting points :

• science computer graphics innovations are driven by innovations in computer games
• CSIRO has a nano house project underway http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=Prnanohouse
• nanochemistry has developed self cleaning glass & textiles of woven nanotubes
• there are ethical and metaphysical issues around nano knowledge that need to be discussed by society in general.

ENERGY

Having recently addressed several major conferences for the Oil & Gas industry (powerpoint presentations on website), here are a few hot thoughts :

• regardless of how much oil/gas is in the ground, we will not have enough useable stuff to meet global demand - industry experts say between 2007 & 2012 the Big Rollover - demand outstripping supply - will occur. Very serious repercussions - think of no more petroleum products like plastics
• all major energy companies are looking at alternatives - this is good news
• the need for more exploration & production is reaching near panic - extra pressure to disregard eco friendly practices

CARS

770 million in world

200 million in USA

40 million more every year

THRIVING WITH LAUGHTER

• Laughter is an all over body work out.
• A belly laugh is an internal job - great for cardiac conditioning, stimulates the respiratory system, massages the internal organs.
• Laughing 110 times is like 10 minutes on rowing machine or 15 minutes on exercise bike.
• Laughter produces endorphins - natural painkillers - aids healing.
• Laughter reduces 4 of neuroendocrine hormones created by stress.
• Deep belly laughing relaxes muscles and may lower blood pressure.
• Laughter strengthens immune system by increasing infection fighting T cells.
• Deep belly laughter cleanses lungs.
• Laughing out loud contagious - removes artificial barriers between people.
• Laughter has fewer calories than chocolate !

because they make me laugh''.

FAV C&W SONG QUOTES

You're the reason our kids are ugly.

I wish I'd known you sooner, I'd be over you by now.

My wife left me for my girlfriend.

Don't ruin if for the rest of us, With your braggin that you fell in love,

Can't you see we're kind of busy here, Swapping lies and crying in our beers.

I'm not crazy, I'm just out of her mind.

I'm a bridge you keep on crossing but won't burn.

Sorry, my give a damn's broke.

Sure got me right where you want me now - that's where I wanna be.

Here's to the past, they can kiss my glass

I hope she's happy with him.

I may be a real bad boy but baby I'm a real good man.

A woman can walk faster than a man can run

Shame on you if you fooled me once
Shame on me if you fooled me twice.

You are what you're doing and if you don't then you ain't.

The only ground I ever owned was sticking to my shoes.

We will raise up our glass against evil forces

Saying whiskey for my men and beer for the horses.

I'm having daydreams about night things in the middle of the afternoon.

I never went to bed with an ugly woman but I sure woke up with a few.

You'll see less of me from now on.

Save the horse, ride the cowboy.

Red sunrise, you greet the day like my bloodshot eyes.

The end.