Love Rules

e v o l v e

Link: e v o l v e.

About EVOLVE Partner Organizations
EVOLVE Principles and Values

At this time of rapid change in human society and global ecology there is a need for the connecting, coordinating, and integrating of individual and organizational initiatives working on behalf of balanced, ethical, and life-enhancing evolution for humanity and Earth.

This is the mission of EVOLVE: a Global Community Center for Conscious Evolution—to serve as a central resource hub for individuals and communities worldwide that are choosing to embrace and apply the emerging principles, tools and templates of cocreative self and social conscious evolution.

Punished by Rewards? A Conversation with Alfie Kohn

Link: Punished by Rewards? A Conversation with Alfie Kohn.

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

September 1995 | Volume 53 | Number 1
Strengthening Student Engagement Pages 13-16

Punished by Rewards? A Conversation with Alfie Kohn

In classrooms where students can make choices about learning and have tasks of worth to explore, the need for punishments or rewards declines sharply.

Ron Brandt

Both rewards and punishments, says Punished by Rewards author Alfie Kohn, are ways of manipulating behavior that destroy the potential for real learning. Instead, he advocates providing an engaging curriculum and a caring atmosphere "so kids can act on their natural desire to find out."

The following interview took place at ASCD's Annual Conference on March 27 in San Francisco.

This I Believe

"This I Believe is an exciting national project that invites you to write about the core beliefs that guide your daily life. NPR will air these personal statements from listeners each Monday on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. By inviting Americans from all walks of life to participate, series producers Dan Gediman and Jay Allison hope to create a picture of the American spirit in all its rich complexity" quoted from THIS I BELIEVE

[I especially enjoyed The Power of Love to Transform and Heal. I can relate to myself as a sorrowful child, like Luke in this story, frightened and bewildered as the world around me heaves in its unfathomable complexity, with Gaia coaxing me through - cab]

Link: READ THE ESSAYS ON CITE.

The Breadhead

And the Birth of an Oven
By Lokiko Hall

"Brian T. is a carpenter, gardener, and self-taught blacksmith who has also made his living as an outdoor educator, a baker and cook, an illustrator and a muralist. He likes to ferment things, too, and not just wine, beer, mead and sourdough - he'll ferment anything that shows any promise of going bad in a good way. He makes his own miso, kim chee, sauerkraut, naturally fermented pickles, kombuche, root beer and ginger ales. And he plays the trumpet. But this story isn't about any of that. It's about when Brian turned his hand to masonry, for the first time, in order to build himself a brick bread oven. ..." --Lokiko Hall, Bummers and Gummers; read more on cite

Do Not Lose Heart

--by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Mis estimados: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now... Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...''--Clarissa Pinkola Estes, "Inspiration"; read more on cite

Nonviolent Communication, chapter 1

-- by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.

"Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions. What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances? ..." ---- by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D., The Center for Non-Violent Communication; read more on cite

Spirituality, Free Love and the New Role of Women

-- Gina Weismann

"...Love has certain qualities. Love has to do with compassion, with perception, with interest, with curiosity, with the joy of living, and with grace. Not long ago I had the thought that love without agape'(1), without grace, without kindness, without helpful support, cannot exist. And suddenly I felt how happy it made me when I can be unconditionally loving and if I can give that to someone. If from there I look at the love between men and women, I have to see love as free, and then it is something very beautiful. ..." -- Gina Weismann; read more on cite

Compassionate Communication

--Marshall Rosenberg

"At an early age, most of us were taught to speak and think Jackal. This language is from the head. It is a way of mentally classifying people into varying shades of good and bad, right and wrong. Ultimately it provokes defensiveness, resistance and counterattack. Giraffe bids us to speak from the heart, to talk about what is going on for us - without judging others. In this idiom, you give people an opportunity to say yes, although you respect no for an answer. Giraffe is a language of requests; Jackal is a language of demands. ..." --Marshall Rosenberg; Love and Evolution Site; read more on cite

The Soul of Medicine

Opening Keynote Address
Annual National Meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association, Albuquerque -APRIL 2004- by Deena Metzger

"I wish to tell you how deeply honored I am to be here. I have been thinking about what might be said here in this auspicious moment to open the door of extraordinary and unprecedented possibility that emerges because we are meeting in the presence of the Soul of Medicine that we invoked together with the musical and spiritual guidance of Dr. Larry Nussbaum. It is not lost upon me, and probably not lost upon us, that such a meeting is occurring in such horrific times as these in which we are living. Perhaps it takes such times, such desperation, such urgency, to both empower and humble us sufficiently to call upon the Soul for assistance and guidance.

"Probably the most important thing that I can say is that when you ally with the Soul of medicine, and understand the alliance as real not metaphoric, you become a medicine man or a medicine woman. This means that you carry medicine. You carry medicine as a sacred practice, you become a healing presence, medicine emanates from you. This is what it means to be a medicine person or a healer. It is not a quality that lives in an office; it lives in the world. And so the soul of medicine as a presence informs, inspires, guides and leads us directly to expand the perspectives of professionalism to investigate what it means to be simultaneously a physician and a healer. ..." --Deena Metzger, "The Soul of Medicine"; read more on cite

Children of Divorce

Children of Divorce

"...Some children may be relieved that the parents are finally going to separate and live apart. They may feel that their lives will be safer and more predictable, especially is alcohol, drugs, physical abuse, or violence has been a part of the scene. Children may anticipate the time when they will be free of tension and stress caused by the disturbed parent.

But, for most children, separation means suddenly dealing with change and experience unexpected losses Unfortunately, families are under greater financial strain when there are two households. Mothers may need to go to work or work longer hours to help pay the bills. The family home may have to be sold to divide the property as a joint asset. The child may need to attend a different school and make new friends, adding to the many other adjustments the child has to make. The child must learn to know new caregivers and babysitters. In each home, there will be new rules, expectations, and routines.

Sometimes, the separation is not permanent. Parents may attempt reconciliation and raise everyone’s hopes that the family will return to normal. Conversely, the parents may begin to date and spend time with other adults in and away from home.

As when there is a death in the family children are often sucked into a morass of negative emotions of their mother and father or even upset grand parents during separation and divorce. They must deal with the anger, sadness, jealousy, and despair of one or both parents. Parents have little time and energy for laughter, loving words, relaxed and mellow outings, and joyful celebrations at home. Home may be pretty Grim.

Parents may expect a school-age child to fill the emotional void created by divorce, separation, or death. This is a burden for a young child. Often, a boy is expected to be the “man of the house” and a girl to be “mom’s little helper,” which places too much responsibility on the young child. Of course, age-appropriate expectations are important to sustain. But depriving children of a carefree childhood and expecting more from them than they can provide is somewhat exploitative. ..." --Isabelle Fox, PhD, "Children of Divorce: Divorce and Attachment", Attachment Parenting International; read more on cite

Menstrual Musings

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Menstrual Musings: Glad Rags embraces a positive attitude toward menstruation

"Reusable pads. Thats gross!" Thats a comment we've heard and one we might have made ourselves before we really thought about it. But just envision your lifetime supply of used pads and tampons in landfills or washed up on a beach. Now thats gross!
The menstrual cycle is a healthy and natural process. However, in our culture we have been led to believe it is a messy inconvenience to be kept secret, or worse, a repugnant disease-like condition. We encourage you to examine your beliefs about menstruation carefully. Any embarrassment or shame you may feel could be the result of culturally-inspired negative conditioning. How we perceive and interpret the feelings that accompany our cycles can have a dramatic effect on our health. Imagine the self-fulfilling destiny of the girl who hears "now youve got the curse, get ready for cramps, and a bloody mess."

In her class "The Positive Power of PMS", Nancy Conger states: "Studies show that a negative attitude about ones body and menstrual cycle is a major factor in PMS. There are times in your cycle when emotional and physical sensitivities are on high - but it is sensitivity to all emotions and sensations, both positive and negative. If your mind set is that your cycle is a curse you may only perceive negative when changes occur. Some women have found relief from PMS in just changing how they value and honor their femininity." ..." The Glad Rags Group; read more on cite

Conversion

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conversion

"...It's only a matter of Time; but considering that the Mayan Calendar ends on 21st December 2012 it's really NO-TIME at all. Anchored in the Template of Oneness, Giddy in the Heights of True Love, Floating on Rainbow Clouds of No-Mind, No-Problem, No-Worries, Mate... and transported by Gleaming Starspangled Trekset Magical Mystery Tour Bus, I arrived back in Melbourne on the 21st March high on Soluntra's marvellous Star Essence.

And That's When The Loony Lords Of The Labyrinth Took Over

Bear in mind it was the Fall Equinox in the Wonderful Land of Oz, and the Wizard was ready for some Real Fun. I took a cab with Aku Ek Tara back to her little house in St Kilda (where I'd left the rest of my 3D baggage). As soon as we entered I sensed a powerful magnetic field of despair and isolation: it was emanating from Aku's nomadic house guest, a Swiss visionary painter, musician and mystic named Christian Camenzind. Aku announced that she needed some head space and disappeared into her room. I made tea and had it in the garden with Christian, who began to unburden his soul to me. After a while it dawned on me that I was face-to-face with the Phantom of the Unfinished Opera of Duality. Christian had taken on my own former experience of Unrequited Love and Tragic Romance - which was the meaning of my earlier name "Tamaares" and on the last day of the Falls Creek Reunion I had edited out that name, having played out the painful cycle of separation and loneliness that has been the lot of all passionate lovers during the Time of Duality.

Christian finally let me in on a "secret": he was actually St Germain. Well, he could have been Count Dracula for all I cared. I felt compelled to try and heal him, to fill the vacuum in his heart; and so we went out and had a Chinese meal together. ..." --Antares, Magick River; read more on cite

Towards an Optimistic Future

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Towards an Optimistic Future

"...It is useful to think in terms of an emerging 'meta-strategy' that will shape technolgoy in the 'sustained development' economy. This meta-strategy for technology is an overall framing of technology itself in a future sustainable society and in the institutions and organisations within it, including corporations. It relates the application of technology by a corporation to the larger goals of society. It sits beyond or behind the strategies of individual firms, shaping their individual strategies and being expressed by them through their detailed technological programs, product development, manufacturing systems and support infrastructure.

The meta-strategy for sustainable technolgoy addresses our total us of technology around the world and our ability to make serve both society and indicivuals. It includes our need to work within geopysiology on both the large and small scales, the need to do this equitably, and the ability to keep doing it over time. ...

"The technology meta-strategy involves a balance between technological development and the development of social values. At present, the extremely rapid advance of technological power is not being matched by a corresponding development of social values for shaping and guiding its application. ... How can the imbalance be corrected? Technology is both part of the problem and part of the solution..." --Hardin Tibbs; "Towards an Optimistic Future"; read more on cite

Around the Campfire

--Dave Foreman; The Rewilding Institute

"I set my toilet paper aflame and stand. A movement over my shoulder catches my eye. I turn my head. A black wolf walks past me less than 100 feet away. It glances at me and continues unhurried on its chosen path across the tundra. A minute or so later, it fades away over a rise.

"I am standing with my pants around my ankles in the middle of tens of millions of acres of unbroken Arctic tundra between Hudson’s Bay and the Great Slave Lake. My mind drifts back to Aldo Leopold in 1936. After a bow-hunting trip to Mexico’s Sierra Madre, he understood that, for the first time
in his life, he had seen a healthy landscape. So it is with me this August of 2003. The Thelon Game Sanctuary and a vast sweeping swath around it may not be pristine (nothing is in the twenty-first century), but it is as wild as land comes today—untrammeled, self-willed, self-regulating.

"Although I’ve been in many wilderness areas over the last 40-some years, the Thelon has set a new standard of land heath for me, or, as Leopold would have said, a new “base datum of normality.” With all native species present in ecologically effective population densities and free to wander over hundreds of miles of unfettered land—for whim or ancient urges—the Thelon is normal. It’s what land should be like. It’s what land was like before we began to stomp our will over it. ..." --Dave Foreman, the Wildlands Project; read more on cite

Death Penalty as Revenge

--A Message From The Dalai Lama on the Death Penalty."

"...The death penalty fulfills a preventive function, but it is also very clearly a form of revenge. It is an especially severe form of punishment because it is so final. The human life is ended and the executed person is deprived of the opportunity to change, to restore the harm done or compensate for it. Before advocating execution we should consider whether criminals are intrinsically negative and harmful people or whether they will remain perpetually in the same state of mind in which they committed their crime or not. The answer, I believe, is definitely not. However horrible the act they have committed, I believe that everyone has the potential to improve and correct themselves...." --Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama; read more on cite

The Gift Economy

--Gifford Pinchot

"Lest we think that the principles of a gift economy will only work for simple, primitive or small enterprises, Hyde points out that the community of scientists follows the rules of a gift economy. The scientists with highest status are not those who possesses the most knowledge; they are the ones who have contributed the most to their fields. A scientist of great knowledge, but only minor contributions is almost pitied - his or her career is seen as a waste of talent.

At a symposium a scientist gives a paper. Selfish scientists do not hope others give better papers so they can come away with more knowledge than they had to offer in exchange. Quite the reverse. Each scientist hopes his or her paper will provide a large and lasting value. By the rules of an exchange economy, the scientist hopes to come away a "loser," because that is precisely how one wins in science.

Antelope meat called for a gift economy because it was perishable and there was too much for any one person to eat. Information also loses value over time and has the capacity to satisfy more than one. In many cases information gains rather than loses value through sharing. While the exchange economy may have been appropriate for the industrial age, the gift economy is coming back as we enter the information age...." -- Gifford Pinchot; read more on cite

My Country: The World

--Howard Zinn

"Our government has declared a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate. I will mourn the dead -- the American GIs, and also the Iraqi dead, of which there have been many, many more. I will mourn the Iraqi children, not just those who are dead, but those who have been be blinded, crippled, disfigured, or traumatized, like the bombed children of Afghanistan who, as reported by American visito"rs, lost their power of speech. ... If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade -- we call it globalization -- should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity?

"Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways. Tom Paine used the word "patriot" to describe the rebels resisting imperial rule. He also enlarged the idea of patriotism when he said: "My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind." ..." --Howard Zinn; read more on cite

Hope is Not for Wimps

--Frances Moore Lappe

"... I was aware that without hope we die, if not physically, certainly spiritually. So my self-appointed task of spreading hope seemed pretty important. It's taken me three decades, though, to begin to understand that hope is not about cheerleading or even about stacking up the evidence... Hope isn't in any picture, in any static accounting. Hope, I learned, is more verb than noun. It is action. Hope is not what we find but what we ourselves become. But how?

...Perhaps we are looking for hope in all the wrong places. And maybe this is one reason the World Health Organization reports that depression is now the 4th leading cause of the loss of productive life as a result of disability and premature death. In less than 20 years, it will place second. Maybe we've been looking for hope in evidence—in tallying up the positive and weighing it against the negative. Hope is something else. Hope is what we do..." Francis Moore Lappe; Gary Zukav Interview read more on cite

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