A friend once told me that in the world of astrologers when Mercury is in retrograde (which means that it appears to the naked eye to be travelling backwards) all kinds of difficulties in the area of communication show up. I’ll bet if I were to check – which I’m not going to – Mercury has been in retrograde for a while now! Tonight my computer just stopped dead twice. Earlier this week I have been hassling with two of the City Team members, and other stuff has been breaking down or messing up, like the car door switch not working.
Just the same, aside from the pain being pretty bad all week, the most recent weeks of my life have been very powerful. For example, tonight on the way home from Newmarket, and while getting caught in a snowstorm, and while my hips and feet were tired and starting to hurt, Mike and I still had a very creative conversation around renaming our peace/Inclusion organization and around structuring it, resourcing it, etc.
My capacity to express myself is clearly shifting. I can see a kind of progression from black and white to shades of gray to colours breaking out. I find myself with the ability to experience compassion and to experience all sorts of things without needing to severely judge. I find myself laughing, and even genuinely being funny sometimes.
I am in the midst of a Landmark seminar called Sex and Intimacy. I came to it very reluctantly and mostly because I’ve been complaining for years that I don’t have a sexual partner and certainly not a lover. It is extremely ironic that I, who is absent of willing partners to support me to have a sexual expression, have been avidly sought out this last year by people who want to know more about sexuality and the experience of being physically limited in mobility. I am sure this has lots to do with the play – the Book of Judith. But even here, expression is breaking out. When I was interviewed for the Trillium funding research project on personal assistance and supporting sexual expression, I was asked very powerful questions about the nature of personal assistance and what it is like to be assisted. I felt genuinely free and grounded in answering these questions and left one of the interviewers moved to tears. I was clearly in the zone of my personal gifts.
It is emerging in the Sex and Intimacy seminar that one of my major blocks has been what we call in Landmark a winning formula. It works for me to be a strategist who builds my efforts on eliminating the likelihood of failure. In other words I always have at least one back up plan and often two in case something is not working out in my life. This way of thinking is very helpful for dealing with issues like staff people not showing up because they got ill overnight or breakdowns in my wheelchair, my car or my own body. However, it is from such a world view what clearly shows up for me is failure. In other words, when you first buy a Chevrolet, all you see is Chevrolets, or when you first find out you’re pregnant, suddenly you are surrounded by strollers. I have been causing myself to experience failure in the area of my sexual expression.
So I have decided to play a game with myself. I am going to start dating again. In fact, I promised to have one date this week. Anybody know of anybody I could go on a coffee date with??? Helen came up with a brilliant idea that if the date goes well, no problem, but if the guy turns out to be boring or annoying then I can write a story about it in my blog. Either way, it gets to be expression and I get out of the failure loop.
It also solves a problem of what to keep writing about in this blog. I do not believe I can get back to the once a day schedule, but I believe I can get this out twice a week.
Anyways, that’s it for now. I am going to bed.
Showing posts with label WPIT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WPIT. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
March 20, 2011
Happy solstice and extra large full moon! I’ve heard that the moon is as close in physical distance right now as it ever gets. On top of that last week’s earthquake shifted the earth axis, narrowed the Pacific Ocean by 13 feet and slightly compressed the Earth’s shape so that we are now spinning ever so slightly faster.
This week also marked the memorial services of two people who have effected my view of Inclusion – Wolf Wolfensberger and Marilyn Ferrell.
I felt shaken in my core this week. It’s not that anything particularly good or bad happened, but just the same, it felt like some kind of reorganization.
Outwardly the signs of this are that my circle met today and I ensured that we did not talk about my health or my needs, but about how I am groping to reorganize my life so that I can integrate and balance all of the commitments that are trying to happen to put Inclusion and Peace deeply into the conversation of the world. To use a biblical phrase, this week has been about girding myself to conduct the big fight, the big push.
Mike and I counted my commitments, not such an easy task because they do overlap quite a bit with each other. In the end we decided on twelve:
1. The ROM Exhibit
2. Laser Eagles
3. The Book of Judith
4. Zombie Video Game Research & Development
5. Making WPIT a genuine presence
6. BMX Model Research
7. Health & Well Being
8. Wisdom City Team
9. My Staffing
10. Weaning myself off ODSP
11. Having Individualized Funding Extended
12. The Book and Getting it Published
All these things together will bring about the capacity of my colleagues and I to deeply embed a new conversation about Inclusion. Anything less will have me and our efforts unstable in some way. So in a very real way it’s all or nothing at this time.
Of course, this is the way it looks right now. Expect in the near future it will consolidate into a simplified version of this picture. The genuinely core issues will emerge and it will be clear how to empower all of it through a few key efforts.
It is also clear that I and we really need project management and a project co-ordinator. These things are necessary to engage as many people as possible and keep as many efforts going as possible all at the same time.
What has shifted is my level of certainty. This is what must be and can be.
This week also marked the memorial services of two people who have effected my view of Inclusion – Wolf Wolfensberger and Marilyn Ferrell.
I felt shaken in my core this week. It’s not that anything particularly good or bad happened, but just the same, it felt like some kind of reorganization.
Outwardly the signs of this are that my circle met today and I ensured that we did not talk about my health or my needs, but about how I am groping to reorganize my life so that I can integrate and balance all of the commitments that are trying to happen to put Inclusion and Peace deeply into the conversation of the world. To use a biblical phrase, this week has been about girding myself to conduct the big fight, the big push.
Mike and I counted my commitments, not such an easy task because they do overlap quite a bit with each other. In the end we decided on twelve:
1. The ROM Exhibit
2. Laser Eagles
3. The Book of Judith
4. Zombie Video Game Research & Development
5. Making WPIT a genuine presence
6. BMX Model Research
7. Health & Well Being
8. Wisdom City Team
9. My Staffing
10. Weaning myself off ODSP
11. Having Individualized Funding Extended
12. The Book and Getting it Published
All these things together will bring about the capacity of my colleagues and I to deeply embed a new conversation about Inclusion. Anything less will have me and our efforts unstable in some way. So in a very real way it’s all or nothing at this time.
Of course, this is the way it looks right now. Expect in the near future it will consolidate into a simplified version of this picture. The genuinely core issues will emerge and it will be clear how to empower all of it through a few key efforts.
It is also clear that I and we really need project management and a project co-ordinator. These things are necessary to engage as many people as possible and keep as many efforts going as possible all at the same time.
What has shifted is my level of certainty. This is what must be and can be.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
February 17, 2011
I think this is my sixth, but certainly it is my fifth, visit to Savannah where I have stayed a significant length of time. The first visit was in the mid-eighties when I travelled through here with Jack and Marsha. We were on a tour talking about Inclusive Education. Jack drove the van and did some of the personal assistance. It’s funny how my circle questions these tours I do when it was my circle that got me started back then.
The second one was without Jack and Marsha. I was travelling with Marie Matthews, and I believe there was another assistant then, but I don’t remember who it was. I distinctly do remember that Tom Kohler was my main host back then in 1986 or ‘87. I also remember that it was around the time of St. Patrick’s Day because Marie and I participated fully in the festivities. (Savannah has the world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade outside of Ireland.) I kept the green wig for many, many years!
Other trips fade into the background excepting for the one that brought me to Tybee Island and Imlay House (where Mike and I are now). That was 2008. Gloria, Franziska and Jean came with me, and a personal assistant named Paula who turned out to be an absolute failure as a supporter. This is how I came to meet Lara. Gloria and Franziska remember this trip very differently from me, but no matter. It was the birth of the idea that I would go on the World Peace through Inclusion Tour. It’s not that I planned the tour then but somewhere in my understanding I realized how much I needed to come south to sort things out. I met the pelicans, I encountered the unconscious attachment to slavery and I realized that this was a place where I could be reflected enough to find myself – like seeing myself in a mirror.
I also remember that trip as being one where I was full of anxiety, as were Gloria, Jean and Lara. The World Peace through Inclusion Tour was also a time when my companions and I were frequently emotionally upset. Now that I have passed through the beginning of the Third Cycle and I am back in Savannah, I realize that anxiety goes along with coming here. I am sure there are many factors. My assistants get homesick. Moving from one space to another, including packing up and shifting all of my gear, is another great source of disruption. The concern that there will be enough money has legitimacy. The background “worry” that my attendant care money will get suspended is there. However, these things are typical of any trip that I have taken. Only Savannah brings out this somewhat higher level of anxiety!
Perhaps it is because of the mirror! Somehow I find myself intensely drawn into the images of slavery. They are everywhere. There is a print on my bedroom wall of a 19th century garden – a vision of elegance that includes a pale white woman in a white dress with a white parasol. It is a perfect counterpoint to the elegance of Savannah and is reminiscent of our modern idea of the old plantation. My point is that such gardens and the plantations they were part of can only and could only have been sustained by free or nearly free labour. In spite of this the labourers remain largely invisible.
It reminds me of one of my very first trips to Georgia. We were participating in a conference in a large and elegant hotel. It was my first encounter with peach daiquiris. A black woman was sweeping in the middle of the lobby. Dozens of people – white people – walked around her and never saw her.
During the World Peace through Inclusion Tour I was made aware that slavery is alive and well in the United States – I am sure elsewhere as well. The essence of slavery is the buying and selling of humans. It apparently has never been made illegal to purchase a human being. Since it has become socially unacceptable, or at least politically incorrect, to speak of slavery or to acknowledge its presence, the means of buying and selling have become hidden. For example, the police will round up idle men and when they appear in court to be convicted of loitering, they will be sentenced to work for a major employer of the local area who has been working with the police to develop his labour pool. As “criminals” the men do not need to be paid more than a pittance. Most of the money that changes hands, if any, goes between the employer and the police.
Of course, it is not hard to understand why so many men are idle. It is not hard to create a recession and end jobs in the kind of capitalist economy that pervades our society.
As I become more conversant with the means of creating slavery I have been constantly struck by the commonality of how we create disability. These mechanisms are less hidden in the southern states as well. Labelled individuals are bought and sold between nursing homes and institutions on a regular basis. Tom Kohler, John O’Brien and other Georgian activists have told many stories of people they know personally who started in the south and were shipped from state to state at the convenience of the “service system”.
When I came to Savannah last I was engaged in consulting with some citizen advocates and friends of a man in his twenties who was starved to death in a nursing home on Tybee Island. They suspect that this happened because when you reach the age of twenty-one in Georgia the state will no longer pay for your “care”. This man’s only known relative was unwilling or unable to pick up the tab, and consequently he was put in a back room and left to die.
The friends and advocates were asking themselves how it was that they could not have seen what was going on. It seems that even those who are very aware of this dynamic are still not always able to be conscious of its invisibility.
So here I am struggling to make something visible that scares me deeply. No wonder I am anxious as are those around me. No doubt some wish I would just go away.
The second one was without Jack and Marsha. I was travelling with Marie Matthews, and I believe there was another assistant then, but I don’t remember who it was. I distinctly do remember that Tom Kohler was my main host back then in 1986 or ‘87. I also remember that it was around the time of St. Patrick’s Day because Marie and I participated fully in the festivities. (Savannah has the world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade outside of Ireland.) I kept the green wig for many, many years!
Other trips fade into the background excepting for the one that brought me to Tybee Island and Imlay House (where Mike and I are now). That was 2008. Gloria, Franziska and Jean came with me, and a personal assistant named Paula who turned out to be an absolute failure as a supporter. This is how I came to meet Lara. Gloria and Franziska remember this trip very differently from me, but no matter. It was the birth of the idea that I would go on the World Peace through Inclusion Tour. It’s not that I planned the tour then but somewhere in my understanding I realized how much I needed to come south to sort things out. I met the pelicans, I encountered the unconscious attachment to slavery and I realized that this was a place where I could be reflected enough to find myself – like seeing myself in a mirror.
I also remember that trip as being one where I was full of anxiety, as were Gloria, Jean and Lara. The World Peace through Inclusion Tour was also a time when my companions and I were frequently emotionally upset. Now that I have passed through the beginning of the Third Cycle and I am back in Savannah, I realize that anxiety goes along with coming here. I am sure there are many factors. My assistants get homesick. Moving from one space to another, including packing up and shifting all of my gear, is another great source of disruption. The concern that there will be enough money has legitimacy. The background “worry” that my attendant care money will get suspended is there. However, these things are typical of any trip that I have taken. Only Savannah brings out this somewhat higher level of anxiety!
Perhaps it is because of the mirror! Somehow I find myself intensely drawn into the images of slavery. They are everywhere. There is a print on my bedroom wall of a 19th century garden – a vision of elegance that includes a pale white woman in a white dress with a white parasol. It is a perfect counterpoint to the elegance of Savannah and is reminiscent of our modern idea of the old plantation. My point is that such gardens and the plantations they were part of can only and could only have been sustained by free or nearly free labour. In spite of this the labourers remain largely invisible.
It reminds me of one of my very first trips to Georgia. We were participating in a conference in a large and elegant hotel. It was my first encounter with peach daiquiris. A black woman was sweeping in the middle of the lobby. Dozens of people – white people – walked around her and never saw her.
During the World Peace through Inclusion Tour I was made aware that slavery is alive and well in the United States – I am sure elsewhere as well. The essence of slavery is the buying and selling of humans. It apparently has never been made illegal to purchase a human being. Since it has become socially unacceptable, or at least politically incorrect, to speak of slavery or to acknowledge its presence, the means of buying and selling have become hidden. For example, the police will round up idle men and when they appear in court to be convicted of loitering, they will be sentenced to work for a major employer of the local area who has been working with the police to develop his labour pool. As “criminals” the men do not need to be paid more than a pittance. Most of the money that changes hands, if any, goes between the employer and the police.
Of course, it is not hard to understand why so many men are idle. It is not hard to create a recession and end jobs in the kind of capitalist economy that pervades our society.
As I become more conversant with the means of creating slavery I have been constantly struck by the commonality of how we create disability. These mechanisms are less hidden in the southern states as well. Labelled individuals are bought and sold between nursing homes and institutions on a regular basis. Tom Kohler, John O’Brien and other Georgian activists have told many stories of people they know personally who started in the south and were shipped from state to state at the convenience of the “service system”.
When I came to Savannah last I was engaged in consulting with some citizen advocates and friends of a man in his twenties who was starved to death in a nursing home on Tybee Island. They suspect that this happened because when you reach the age of twenty-one in Georgia the state will no longer pay for your “care”. This man’s only known relative was unwilling or unable to pick up the tab, and consequently he was put in a back room and left to die.
The friends and advocates were asking themselves how it was that they could not have seen what was going on. It seems that even those who are very aware of this dynamic are still not always able to be conscious of its invisibility.
So here I am struggling to make something visible that scares me deeply. No wonder I am anxious as are those around me. No doubt some wish I would just go away.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
February 3, 2011
It looks like Kimberly is back playing Farmville. Yay!
The crane was dancing this morning again. During the night sometime several more cubes arrived and all of them were rearranged. In the further distance one can now see that a whole new layer of cubes has been added to the prison, a little southwest of the rest of the building. Perhaps there is an entire new section going up. How big are sixteen hundred cubes when they are stacked up!?!
The bits and pieces for the Savannah trip are beginning to take shape. Mike and I are getting down to the wire, which means organizing things like travel insurance, lodging down and back, scheduling the nights that I will do workshops for Chatham Savannah Citizen Advocacy. On Tuesday I “acquired” two small painting kits with brushes and mini tubes of all the basic colours. These kits came inside of canvases that Laser Eagles had bought at a dollar store. They were going to be discarded because we use 2-litre size bottles of paint. I get a chuckle when I think about how often I have found significant resources by just such acquisition – from picking up garbaged furniture, to taking other people’s leftovers after a restaurant meal, to sorting through clothes that others are about to recycle. I wonder if I will post notices in the ROM exhibit of all the paintings that were created out of scrap materials. It might very well fit the theme!
Part of the kit that I was assembling today for Savannah is my medications for diabetes, pain support and nutrition (chewable vitamins and calcium). It’s kind of like gathering my armour for a battle. These create my sense of security and safety as much as knowing that there will be enough money. The last important $500 came in this morning with a commitment from Peter Block to hire me for one morning on the way down. It is like putting the last brick in the wall and I bless his generousity.
I believe this will be the sixth time that I have journeyed to Savannah. It forms a kind of rhythm in my life. Savannah is the place I go to to warm up, to eat well, to feel great with good friends, to see the Spanish moss and the pelicans and, perhaps most importantly, to become clear on what slavery does to human relationships and creativity. It was in Savannah that I learned that I am a slave. I learned this listening to a man present his book about how slavery has been recreated in the United States. The fundamental element of slavery is the buying and selling of a person’s body¸ especially without the permission of that person. Of course, people who are labelled with disability are bought and sold constantly and most often have very limited or no choice about their location. I myself cannot leave Ontario for more than five weeks in a year. This would not be considered a huge problem to most people who are labelled disabled, but since the majority of work I have been doing in my life has been outside of Canada, I have frequently been an outlaw. It used to be that people turned a blind eye on my behalf but that ended just before Gabor, Erin and I left for the Tour in 2008. Now I must be careful!
It is paradoxically refreshing to be in a place where people are polite but very explicit about the intention to keep racism and slavery alive and well. The clarity of the experience allows for genuine dialogue. It also allows for grounding reflection on the personal experience. This, of course, gives me a solid base to become more creative. The wishy washy soft talk of Canadians about economic imprisonment can leave me and others quite befuddled.
Anyway, it is almost time and I can feel so strongly the urge to leave!
The crane was dancing this morning again. During the night sometime several more cubes arrived and all of them were rearranged. In the further distance one can now see that a whole new layer of cubes has been added to the prison, a little southwest of the rest of the building. Perhaps there is an entire new section going up. How big are sixteen hundred cubes when they are stacked up!?!
The bits and pieces for the Savannah trip are beginning to take shape. Mike and I are getting down to the wire, which means organizing things like travel insurance, lodging down and back, scheduling the nights that I will do workshops for Chatham Savannah Citizen Advocacy. On Tuesday I “acquired” two small painting kits with brushes and mini tubes of all the basic colours. These kits came inside of canvases that Laser Eagles had bought at a dollar store. They were going to be discarded because we use 2-litre size bottles of paint. I get a chuckle when I think about how often I have found significant resources by just such acquisition – from picking up garbaged furniture, to taking other people’s leftovers after a restaurant meal, to sorting through clothes that others are about to recycle. I wonder if I will post notices in the ROM exhibit of all the paintings that were created out of scrap materials. It might very well fit the theme!
Part of the kit that I was assembling today for Savannah is my medications for diabetes, pain support and nutrition (chewable vitamins and calcium). It’s kind of like gathering my armour for a battle. These create my sense of security and safety as much as knowing that there will be enough money. The last important $500 came in this morning with a commitment from Peter Block to hire me for one morning on the way down. It is like putting the last brick in the wall and I bless his generousity.
I believe this will be the sixth time that I have journeyed to Savannah. It forms a kind of rhythm in my life. Savannah is the place I go to to warm up, to eat well, to feel great with good friends, to see the Spanish moss and the pelicans and, perhaps most importantly, to become clear on what slavery does to human relationships and creativity. It was in Savannah that I learned that I am a slave. I learned this listening to a man present his book about how slavery has been recreated in the United States. The fundamental element of slavery is the buying and selling of a person’s body¸ especially without the permission of that person. Of course, people who are labelled with disability are bought and sold constantly and most often have very limited or no choice about their location. I myself cannot leave Ontario for more than five weeks in a year. This would not be considered a huge problem to most people who are labelled disabled, but since the majority of work I have been doing in my life has been outside of Canada, I have frequently been an outlaw. It used to be that people turned a blind eye on my behalf but that ended just before Gabor, Erin and I left for the Tour in 2008. Now I must be careful!
It is paradoxically refreshing to be in a place where people are polite but very explicit about the intention to keep racism and slavery alive and well. The clarity of the experience allows for genuine dialogue. It also allows for grounding reflection on the personal experience. This, of course, gives me a solid base to become more creative. The wishy washy soft talk of Canadians about economic imprisonment can leave me and others quite befuddled.
Anyway, it is almost time and I can feel so strongly the urge to leave!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
January 29, 2011
Gloria had a fabulous idea today. She suggests that I take all the entries I have made about the cranes, cubes and the prison which is rising before me and make them into one article and publish it – somewhere like The Globe and Mail.
I will do this, but not tonight.
The doing of this is related in a number of ways. First on my mind is to develop the capacity to be calm, courageous and to celebrate life in the midst of all that is life destroying, horrible and disgusting. My automatic response is to ignore or run away. Truly I want to do neither. I want to be able to continue to look out my window, to be a watcher as my Mother was, and to celebrate the fabulous variety of insignificant events that continue to emerge moment by moment just outside my bedroom window. I want to continue to love living in this odd neighbourhood, so close to the lake, so “underdeveloped”, so human. I want to paint the emergence of life around me. I do not want to stop seeing and I do not want to have to go away. These are ways of the past that I have been able to rise above. This is my personal legacy – to be able to be where I am and be who I am whether or not I am afraid.
From another perspective it is too simplistic and fundamentally not true to say that this prison building is wrong. It is very much not what I would choose, but this is not the same thing as being wrong. There are many dynamics that bring about the global economy that result in Texan prisoners building cubes for Ontario prisoners to assemble and live in. I would prefer that people make different choices, and organize themselves differently in the awesome, largely unconscious, effort to work together around the planet. Just the same, although the results of this effort seem so contrary to life and its affirmation, still it is life and living people that are bringing it about. I do not understand and perhaps understanding is not an adequate response or approach. However, in my not understanding I can still appreciate the awesomeness of what is beyond me and my capacity to understand.
I have spent most of my life in a conscious choice to make a difference that I call Inclusion. I feel that this choice, this calling, is in some kind of coordination with the eternal impulse that brings life to the world – often called God. The rising presence of a massive prison in my backyard – rising night by night as I sleep or don’t sleep in my bed – can it be accidental? And even if it is accidental is it not something to which I can respond? What is before me at this time is to discover the response that I can make that forwards the conversation called Inclusion because that is who I am.
If I write my life with a large brush then it seems that Camphill fell through and my finances fell apart so that I might end up in this bedroom looking out this window at the very time when this prison is being assembled. Of course, I could say the same thing about other elements of my life – for example, that Gabor turned against me so that Mike would come to fill the empty position, or that I would have to turn to ODSP so that I would be in a clear position to choose powerfully how I accept or do not accept the next plan from ACF, or that I would contract a life threatening infection and have five doctors deal with it ineffectively so that I might end up lying and looking out this window for nine weeks. I am sure that many would say that I am far too full of myself to write such a major role into my life script.
On another topic, tomorrow is the day that I set to choose if I am leaving for Savannah, or not, on February 12. It seems that we are about $4000 short of what it would take to pay Mike and another assistant separately from the CILT based fund for my personal assistance. The value of doing it this way, besides keeping the peace among myself, CILT and the Ministry of Health, is that I would recoup a large part of the overspending of this account that has happened in the last seven months.
Unfortunately, no such amount of money is forthcoming for all the usual reasons. It is certainly not for lack of looking for it, although I’m sure there are sources that I have not discovered or touched. For the last six weeks I have kept a chart with happy faces and stars to reinforce my efforts to find money. The chart has helped. I am now more than likely going to earn enough money each month this year to be able to pay back some of the ongoing debt I am in, and to travel to some important engagements like the Conference for Global Transformation in May. Just the same, the money for Savannah is not there today. Of course, it may show up tomorrow. It would be awesome!
What would I do in Savannah? Paint “Dirty Window” and have it ready for the ROM exhibit. (This is the painting of the rising prison.) Catch up on what’s been happening with people who are struggling to be economically included in the most racist place I have ever been. Re-immerse myself in an explicitly Christian environment that somehow moves me deeply. Hang out with pelicans during the month before all the tourists invade. Speak to people about what I have learned and questioned in the two years since I last spent time with them. Enjoy the car ride down and back – a time that always allows me to pull my thoughts together. Eat fabulous southern grits and BBQ and other foods rarely encountered in the cooler north. There is so much more that I can hardly imagine that three or even five weeks wouldn’t pass by in a flash.
But it seems, at least tonight, that I am not meant to go. Seemings can be wrong. I sure hope this one is!
I will do this, but not tonight.
The doing of this is related in a number of ways. First on my mind is to develop the capacity to be calm, courageous and to celebrate life in the midst of all that is life destroying, horrible and disgusting. My automatic response is to ignore or run away. Truly I want to do neither. I want to be able to continue to look out my window, to be a watcher as my Mother was, and to celebrate the fabulous variety of insignificant events that continue to emerge moment by moment just outside my bedroom window. I want to continue to love living in this odd neighbourhood, so close to the lake, so “underdeveloped”, so human. I want to paint the emergence of life around me. I do not want to stop seeing and I do not want to have to go away. These are ways of the past that I have been able to rise above. This is my personal legacy – to be able to be where I am and be who I am whether or not I am afraid.
From another perspective it is too simplistic and fundamentally not true to say that this prison building is wrong. It is very much not what I would choose, but this is not the same thing as being wrong. There are many dynamics that bring about the global economy that result in Texan prisoners building cubes for Ontario prisoners to assemble and live in. I would prefer that people make different choices, and organize themselves differently in the awesome, largely unconscious, effort to work together around the planet. Just the same, although the results of this effort seem so contrary to life and its affirmation, still it is life and living people that are bringing it about. I do not understand and perhaps understanding is not an adequate response or approach. However, in my not understanding I can still appreciate the awesomeness of what is beyond me and my capacity to understand.
I have spent most of my life in a conscious choice to make a difference that I call Inclusion. I feel that this choice, this calling, is in some kind of coordination with the eternal impulse that brings life to the world – often called God. The rising presence of a massive prison in my backyard – rising night by night as I sleep or don’t sleep in my bed – can it be accidental? And even if it is accidental is it not something to which I can respond? What is before me at this time is to discover the response that I can make that forwards the conversation called Inclusion because that is who I am.
If I write my life with a large brush then it seems that Camphill fell through and my finances fell apart so that I might end up in this bedroom looking out this window at the very time when this prison is being assembled. Of course, I could say the same thing about other elements of my life – for example, that Gabor turned against me so that Mike would come to fill the empty position, or that I would have to turn to ODSP so that I would be in a clear position to choose powerfully how I accept or do not accept the next plan from ACF, or that I would contract a life threatening infection and have five doctors deal with it ineffectively so that I might end up lying and looking out this window for nine weeks. I am sure that many would say that I am far too full of myself to write such a major role into my life script.
On another topic, tomorrow is the day that I set to choose if I am leaving for Savannah, or not, on February 12. It seems that we are about $4000 short of what it would take to pay Mike and another assistant separately from the CILT based fund for my personal assistance. The value of doing it this way, besides keeping the peace among myself, CILT and the Ministry of Health, is that I would recoup a large part of the overspending of this account that has happened in the last seven months.
Unfortunately, no such amount of money is forthcoming for all the usual reasons. It is certainly not for lack of looking for it, although I’m sure there are sources that I have not discovered or touched. For the last six weeks I have kept a chart with happy faces and stars to reinforce my efforts to find money. The chart has helped. I am now more than likely going to earn enough money each month this year to be able to pay back some of the ongoing debt I am in, and to travel to some important engagements like the Conference for Global Transformation in May. Just the same, the money for Savannah is not there today. Of course, it may show up tomorrow. It would be awesome!
What would I do in Savannah? Paint “Dirty Window” and have it ready for the ROM exhibit. (This is the painting of the rising prison.) Catch up on what’s been happening with people who are struggling to be economically included in the most racist place I have ever been. Re-immerse myself in an explicitly Christian environment that somehow moves me deeply. Hang out with pelicans during the month before all the tourists invade. Speak to people about what I have learned and questioned in the two years since I last spent time with them. Enjoy the car ride down and back – a time that always allows me to pull my thoughts together. Eat fabulous southern grits and BBQ and other foods rarely encountered in the cooler north. There is so much more that I can hardly imagine that three or even five weeks wouldn’t pass by in a flash.
But it seems, at least tonight, that I am not meant to go. Seemings can be wrong. I sure hope this one is!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
January 27, 2011
Now and then life throws something that can make one (me!) laugh.
If you are a regular reader you know I have been in a tizzy about how to respond to ACF when the ED offers me something. I don’t know what she might offer but, since I have had 2 meetings with her, one with Mike, she has asked for a proposal (and received it!), and then Mike and I were at both consultations on Tuesday whereat she said she would get back to me, I think it safe to think there WILL be an offer of some sort.
The “problem” has been that I have not been thrilled with what she wants me to do. It certainly looks light straightforward advocacy – she calls it campaigning. I see advocacy as part of the trap that keeps people in the M world, with no other identity except as a disabled service users. I have been at work to put Peace through Inclusion into real time and space in the world, as opposed to a nice idea. It will be no small feat if I/we pull it off because not many are willing to believe that World Peace is possible. I now feel that it is to go way off track to be doing advocacy.
Conversations with Shirl Edwards, Martha Leary and this morning on the “money call” led by Gary Menezes and with 4 others have expanded my point of view.
With Shirl it was mostly about realizing that M is everywhere, all the time anyway so working from ANY position still has power. With Martha I realized that there are many leaders among people who do not speak, and that to give them a chance to advocate is something some of them highly desire.
This morning I asked Gary to say something about negotiation and this sparked a rich discussion indeed. Hence the space to laugh.
The first step he explained is to be clear what the alternative is to the outcome you (me) are negotiating. In my case my alternative is clearly something I value a lot. For example, I have:
- freedom to not work
- freedom to engage a large network in resourcing me and my vision
- freedom to work on developing new concepts and strategies for Inclusion
- freedom to relate to whomever I please who wants to relate to me
- time and energy to support the development of promising others, like Mike and Kimberley
- evidence that I can be trusted that will be accepted by marginalized people
- large repair, replacement and medication costs covered
I also have an ongoing struggle to sustain enough income without disrupting the ODSP benefit.
Then Gary explained that if the offer is not as attractive as your real alternative you are negotiating to enhance a partnership, and you can ask for enhancements of the deal. It is important to get clear what your (my) value is to your potential partner so you can be clear what it is you have to offer. Look for what they see or could see as your (my) assets, which may actually be hidden to you (me!)
This last part is also particularly true when the potential offer is clearly better than your (my) current situation. This situation is like getting a job, and assets can be like you are relieving your potential employer of the trouble of doing it him/herself, you are improving the ambiance of the workspace, you can work at home and don’t need an office, etc. In my case the ED really enjoys that I am creative, straight and will argue with her!
This morning’s tutorial lifted my anxiety big time, and gave me considerable power when I was meeting this afternoon with a man who is arguing with his support staff. To cut a long story short I increased my income today with a small contract, doing work I love to do, and had NO trouble saying I expect to get paid!
A new day has dawned indeed!
On another note, Helen and I located the prison under construction, drove by and took a picture. Here it isǃ
If you are a regular reader you know I have been in a tizzy about how to respond to ACF when the ED offers me something. I don’t know what she might offer but, since I have had 2 meetings with her, one with Mike, she has asked for a proposal (and received it!), and then Mike and I were at both consultations on Tuesday whereat she said she would get back to me, I think it safe to think there WILL be an offer of some sort.
The “problem” has been that I have not been thrilled with what she wants me to do. It certainly looks light straightforward advocacy – she calls it campaigning. I see advocacy as part of the trap that keeps people in the M world, with no other identity except as a disabled service users. I have been at work to put Peace through Inclusion into real time and space in the world, as opposed to a nice idea. It will be no small feat if I/we pull it off because not many are willing to believe that World Peace is possible. I now feel that it is to go way off track to be doing advocacy.
Conversations with Shirl Edwards, Martha Leary and this morning on the “money call” led by Gary Menezes and with 4 others have expanded my point of view.
With Shirl it was mostly about realizing that M is everywhere, all the time anyway so working from ANY position still has power. With Martha I realized that there are many leaders among people who do not speak, and that to give them a chance to advocate is something some of them highly desire.
This morning I asked Gary to say something about negotiation and this sparked a rich discussion indeed. Hence the space to laugh.
The first step he explained is to be clear what the alternative is to the outcome you (me) are negotiating. In my case my alternative is clearly something I value a lot. For example, I have:
- freedom to not work
- freedom to engage a large network in resourcing me and my vision
- freedom to work on developing new concepts and strategies for Inclusion
- freedom to relate to whomever I please who wants to relate to me
- time and energy to support the development of promising others, like Mike and Kimberley
- evidence that I can be trusted that will be accepted by marginalized people
- large repair, replacement and medication costs covered
I also have an ongoing struggle to sustain enough income without disrupting the ODSP benefit.
Then Gary explained that if the offer is not as attractive as your real alternative you are negotiating to enhance a partnership, and you can ask for enhancements of the deal. It is important to get clear what your (my) value is to your potential partner so you can be clear what it is you have to offer. Look for what they see or could see as your (my) assets, which may actually be hidden to you (me!)
This last part is also particularly true when the potential offer is clearly better than your (my) current situation. This situation is like getting a job, and assets can be like you are relieving your potential employer of the trouble of doing it him/herself, you are improving the ambiance of the workspace, you can work at home and don’t need an office, etc. In my case the ED really enjoys that I am creative, straight and will argue with her!
This morning’s tutorial lifted my anxiety big time, and gave me considerable power when I was meeting this afternoon with a man who is arguing with his support staff. To cut a long story short I increased my income today with a small contract, doing work I love to do, and had NO trouble saying I expect to get paid!
A new day has dawned indeed!
On another note, Helen and I located the prison under construction, drove by and took a picture. Here it isǃ
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
January 25, 2011
I apologize to readers. Last night I forgot to blog! Just plain forgot until I was already in bed.
In some ways, since I blogged about the prison cells collected outside my window, I have lived a rather drunk, rather surreal life. Not literally drunk – I have had no alcohol and very little Morphine. Rather I have thrown my hat thoroughly into Cycle 3 and now it is simply unfolding. With this come demands – on my time, listening, focus, energy, stamina, words. There are demands from my assistants, ACF, ODSP, the Marsha Forest Centre, the Wisdom City Team, from my circle, my body, Father, WPIT, e-mail, Laser Eagles, the ROM?, the Book of Judith. I am not complaining – just spinning!
It all stems from taking myself seriously – perhaps way too seriously. I continue to imagine that I can transform the world by transforming how diversity is valued and included. Mike and I saw “The King’s Speech” again tonight, and though I waiver between whether I am more like George or Lionel I know (as in KNOW) I have an essential part in a drama much bigger than myself. Everything speaks to me as a potential means of finding a pathway to peace through Inclusion so I can turn down very little these days. That, and the ongoing search for $$’s, keeps prodding me on.
This morning Mike and I met with ACF and their poverty reduction champions and this afternoon with old and new members of the ACF Board and the Inclusion Circle. In all we met for over six hours. Mike was still raring to go after it all, but I was exhausted. For me the morning was mainly about listening, and listening to mainly whining, grieving and nostalgia for days when organizing seemed clearer. Listening took place on top of my own weary concern with feeling like once again I am being drawn into strategies that don’t work,
In the afternoon I felt the need to speak up about how it seems that ACF has not implemented the Inclusion Task Force recommendations. That and other people’s stuff led to a much livelier energy. However, at the end of the day (literally), it still remains in the hands of others to decide when, who and for what end this process will continue.
Going into the movie I lined up behind a young woman who is familiar to me from the Wisdom Course. Coming out we ran into a woman and her friend/supporter, both of whom were active twenty-five years ago in some committee or other that I was part of, probably the Ontario Advocacy Coalition. I felt that a certain element of safety and familiarity was added back into my day. In particular the woman who has a long term cognitive difference after a brain haemorrhage that she had in 1970 brought back the joyful sense that life is to be celebrated. She is just the sort of person I want to bring to lunch with ACF – Mary Lou, Miriam, Chloe, Greg and Felicia – the people who show me over and over again that it is way more effective in the end to stop trying to fix everything, and to enjoy the food, the company and the movie.
Speaking of lunch, I had the best roast beef sandwich I think I have ever had in my life. I could chew and swallow every bite, and I ate the WHOLE thing.
In some ways, since I blogged about the prison cells collected outside my window, I have lived a rather drunk, rather surreal life. Not literally drunk – I have had no alcohol and very little Morphine. Rather I have thrown my hat thoroughly into Cycle 3 and now it is simply unfolding. With this come demands – on my time, listening, focus, energy, stamina, words. There are demands from my assistants, ACF, ODSP, the Marsha Forest Centre, the Wisdom City Team, from my circle, my body, Father, WPIT, e-mail, Laser Eagles, the ROM?, the Book of Judith. I am not complaining – just spinning!
It all stems from taking myself seriously – perhaps way too seriously. I continue to imagine that I can transform the world by transforming how diversity is valued and included. Mike and I saw “The King’s Speech” again tonight, and though I waiver between whether I am more like George or Lionel I know (as in KNOW) I have an essential part in a drama much bigger than myself. Everything speaks to me as a potential means of finding a pathway to peace through Inclusion so I can turn down very little these days. That, and the ongoing search for $$’s, keeps prodding me on.
This morning Mike and I met with ACF and their poverty reduction champions and this afternoon with old and new members of the ACF Board and the Inclusion Circle. In all we met for over six hours. Mike was still raring to go after it all, but I was exhausted. For me the morning was mainly about listening, and listening to mainly whining, grieving and nostalgia for days when organizing seemed clearer. Listening took place on top of my own weary concern with feeling like once again I am being drawn into strategies that don’t work,
In the afternoon I felt the need to speak up about how it seems that ACF has not implemented the Inclusion Task Force recommendations. That and other people’s stuff led to a much livelier energy. However, at the end of the day (literally), it still remains in the hands of others to decide when, who and for what end this process will continue.
Going into the movie I lined up behind a young woman who is familiar to me from the Wisdom Course. Coming out we ran into a woman and her friend/supporter, both of whom were active twenty-five years ago in some committee or other that I was part of, probably the Ontario Advocacy Coalition. I felt that a certain element of safety and familiarity was added back into my day. In particular the woman who has a long term cognitive difference after a brain haemorrhage that she had in 1970 brought back the joyful sense that life is to be celebrated. She is just the sort of person I want to bring to lunch with ACF – Mary Lou, Miriam, Chloe, Greg and Felicia – the people who show me over and over again that it is way more effective in the end to stop trying to fix everything, and to enjoy the food, the company and the movie.
Speaking of lunch, I had the best roast beef sandwich I think I have ever had in my life. I could chew and swallow every bite, and I ate the WHOLE thing.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
January 19, 2011
The awaited meeting with the ED of Atkinson Charitable Foundation happened this morning. I was able to organize that Mike Skubic was with me and, much to the ED’s amazement, he and his work on the inclusive video games was very exciting to her. It turns out that she has encountered the Zombie Walk movement, and the whole idea that zombies could be a vehicle for experiencing and teaching Inclusion was a welcome eye-popper. I was a little bit jealous. My whole stuff around the BMX Model of Inclusion is way more serious, significant and unfun!
Afterward, Mike and I had lunch and considered deeply her request. Fundamentally, she is offering both of us a partnership, and some space to invent what that partnership will look like. I am sure I don’t fully understand what she is offering or what her request is. By the end of the meeting I was struggling a bit to shift gears and so lost track of some of what she was saying. Basically, I have been working hard in a certain direction for the last few months and had not seriously considered Atkinson as a "playground". I am more than willing, even thrilled, to work with Atkinson. It's just unexpected!
I am hoping that because of this I can use the BMX Model to work with members of the Inclusion Circle, the Community Advocates that Atkinson funds, the ED herself, and any Atkinson Board members who wish to participate. I want them to describe their personal and organizational situations and issues and to describe strategies they might like to use to move forward.
After, say, six months we could collect the stories and thoughts and together look at where the model is and isn't useful. This will help to tighten up the model or debunk it if it is genuinely useless. Lastly, it might (FINALLY) create a way to connect with the work being done around the Canadian Index of Wellbeing - a result I have been trying to achieve for about three years!!!!
I am thankful to Mike for pushing me beyond my own cynicism. Atkinson has done very little with the Inclusion Circle, and neither did the Laidlaw Foundation before that. It seemed to me that advising these philanthropic organizations created the same kind of exclusion that advocacy does, i.e. it’s just another by-product of M. So my first reaction to her enthusiasm was to get confused and wonder what the heck I could do that would make any difference to what I am entrusted in. By the end of lunch a pathway was much clearer.
By the way, the work of the last week has required me (and us) to articulate the BMX Model more succinctly so here it is:
The BMX Model of Inclusion was created by Judith Snow, WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. It is designed to succinctly capture the multitude of circumstances that people call Inclusion. Its elements are “B” (for Basic), “M” (for Mechanical), and “X” (for Crossover).
At a most Basic level, a country or community allows a group to coexist, but no other changes are offered or made for the group. In the “M” or Mechanical state, the community is willing to make accommodations for the included group—examples might be ESL classes, job training, etc. In the third, Crossover state, both the community and the included recognize that their world benefits from the gifts and contributions of everyone. The perception fades that there are two sides and a distinct boundary. Any human difference can be looked at this way.
The model is useful for more than description. Communities and individuals can use it as a way of analyzing their situations and determining powerful strategies for finding better placement as participants and contributors in their society.
So, yet again, I have a new departure. Like Gloria, I worry that this is an utter waste of time. However, I think I must try this, because after all, supporting and rescuing people one person at a time is just another way of ensuring that basic change never happens.
I am not saying that I know how to make the basic transformation of society happen. I am saying that I am willing and able to keep looking for that way.
Afterward, Mike and I had lunch and considered deeply her request. Fundamentally, she is offering both of us a partnership, and some space to invent what that partnership will look like. I am sure I don’t fully understand what she is offering or what her request is. By the end of the meeting I was struggling a bit to shift gears and so lost track of some of what she was saying. Basically, I have been working hard in a certain direction for the last few months and had not seriously considered Atkinson as a "playground". I am more than willing, even thrilled, to work with Atkinson. It's just unexpected!
I am hoping that because of this I can use the BMX Model to work with members of the Inclusion Circle, the Community Advocates that Atkinson funds, the ED herself, and any Atkinson Board members who wish to participate. I want them to describe their personal and organizational situations and issues and to describe strategies they might like to use to move forward.
After, say, six months we could collect the stories and thoughts and together look at where the model is and isn't useful. This will help to tighten up the model or debunk it if it is genuinely useless. Lastly, it might (FINALLY) create a way to connect with the work being done around the Canadian Index of Wellbeing - a result I have been trying to achieve for about three years!!!!
I am thankful to Mike for pushing me beyond my own cynicism. Atkinson has done very little with the Inclusion Circle, and neither did the Laidlaw Foundation before that. It seemed to me that advising these philanthropic organizations created the same kind of exclusion that advocacy does, i.e. it’s just another by-product of M. So my first reaction to her enthusiasm was to get confused and wonder what the heck I could do that would make any difference to what I am entrusted in. By the end of lunch a pathway was much clearer.
By the way, the work of the last week has required me (and us) to articulate the BMX Model more succinctly so here it is:
The BMX Model of Inclusion was created by Judith Snow, WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. It is designed to succinctly capture the multitude of circumstances that people call Inclusion. Its elements are “B” (for Basic), “M” (for Mechanical), and “X” (for Crossover).
At a most Basic level, a country or community allows a group to coexist, but no other changes are offered or made for the group. In the “M” or Mechanical state, the community is willing to make accommodations for the included group—examples might be ESL classes, job training, etc. In the third, Crossover state, both the community and the included recognize that their world benefits from the gifts and contributions of everyone. The perception fades that there are two sides and a distinct boundary. Any human difference can be looked at this way.
The model is useful for more than description. Communities and individuals can use it as a way of analyzing their situations and determining powerful strategies for finding better placement as participants and contributors in their society.
So, yet again, I have a new departure. Like Gloria, I worry that this is an utter waste of time. However, I think I must try this, because after all, supporting and rescuing people one person at a time is just another way of ensuring that basic change never happens.
I am not saying that I know how to make the basic transformation of society happen. I am saying that I am willing and able to keep looking for that way.
Monday, January 17, 2011
January 17, 2011
At about 4:50pm EST I was sitting with Helen and Dad in a branch of the TD bank watching the black computer screen of the burly, sometimes surly, financial officer as she set up a joint line of credit on the GIC that Dad has willed to me on his passing. The intention was to pay off the loan on the trailer that Gabor, Jason and I lived in on the WPI Tour up until Sept. 22, 2009.
Suddenly a clear white sentence appeared in bold letters near the bottom of her screen. TRANSFER APPROVED LOAN PAID OFF.
I nearly cried, fainted and stopped breathing for two seconds. The enormous unshiftable burden – the physical sign of my failure to manage my life during those seven months, the unending anxiety of a responsibility I can’t meet yet must meet every month – in a split second dispassionately disappeared.
I had no idea of the extent of the weight on my spirit until it was gone. And when it was gone, it was just gone. A pile of papers to sign, two managers to say “Yes”, an electronic ritual to complete precisely – and the white letters simply appeared at the bottom of the computer screen.
Forgiveness has been dispensed.
This does not mean I have no financial concerns. It means I have a path to getting from “red” to “black” to being once again free to powerfully impact my and other’s circumstances with my own money, not just other’s on my behalf.
I owe so much to my parents I cannot fathom the depth. My Mother’s relentless saving reaches from beyond her grave through my Father through his love of me and of manipulating his GIC’s to release me from the shackles and the shame I incurred for throwing my hat over the wall in 2008. I am blessed.
My sense of mission is once again reinforced. Why am I so blessed, so lucky if not for being yet again showered with opportunities to keep on bringing Inclusion. Forward – go forward!
Today I met a young research student, and in a nutshell, a feasible research project is emerging around measuring the impact of the WPIT inclusive video games on the peacefulness of the children and youth who play it. A new “Yes”, a different “Yes”, a powerful “Yes”! Forward – go forward!
Jen was here this morning. Together we explored the nature of standing. For me it was more like having a conversation with my body about the experience of standing – the being of upstanding – of leadership and courage. I am stretching and parts of my body are turning and curving differently. The body of Judith is discovering how to support her stand.
I, Judith, am leading the world, through a planet wide team of young people, into an international culture of abundance, inclusion and peace. It is my destiny and I choose to fulfill this dream.
Suddenly a clear white sentence appeared in bold letters near the bottom of her screen. TRANSFER APPROVED LOAN PAID OFF.
I nearly cried, fainted and stopped breathing for two seconds. The enormous unshiftable burden – the physical sign of my failure to manage my life during those seven months, the unending anxiety of a responsibility I can’t meet yet must meet every month – in a split second dispassionately disappeared.
I had no idea of the extent of the weight on my spirit until it was gone. And when it was gone, it was just gone. A pile of papers to sign, two managers to say “Yes”, an electronic ritual to complete precisely – and the white letters simply appeared at the bottom of the computer screen.
Forgiveness has been dispensed.
This does not mean I have no financial concerns. It means I have a path to getting from “red” to “black” to being once again free to powerfully impact my and other’s circumstances with my own money, not just other’s on my behalf.
I owe so much to my parents I cannot fathom the depth. My Mother’s relentless saving reaches from beyond her grave through my Father through his love of me and of manipulating his GIC’s to release me from the shackles and the shame I incurred for throwing my hat over the wall in 2008. I am blessed.
My sense of mission is once again reinforced. Why am I so blessed, so lucky if not for being yet again showered with opportunities to keep on bringing Inclusion. Forward – go forward!
Today I met a young research student, and in a nutshell, a feasible research project is emerging around measuring the impact of the WPIT inclusive video games on the peacefulness of the children and youth who play it. A new “Yes”, a different “Yes”, a powerful “Yes”! Forward – go forward!
Jen was here this morning. Together we explored the nature of standing. For me it was more like having a conversation with my body about the experience of standing – the being of upstanding – of leadership and courage. I am stretching and parts of my body are turning and curving differently. The body of Judith is discovering how to support her stand.
I, Judith, am leading the world, through a planet wide team of young people, into an international culture of abundance, inclusion and peace. It is my destiny and I choose to fulfill this dream.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
January 16, 2011
Within myself and within my circle there is an argument about how to unfold WPIT. By the way I think we are close to changing the name – to something like Include.Me.org.
My certainties are based in some simple stories. They are stories from my own experience. Of course there is nothing unusual about this. All humans build their lives from their experience, their stories within the contexts provided by culture.
The story of my Father and the binding of ancient female children’s feet provides me with certainty that Inclusion can only be built on a foundation of Giftedness. His story of the killing of children with Down Syndrome (when I was 6) gives me the understanding that I have a “mission” and – more recently – that there must be an economic foundation to our approach to Inclusion. My encounter with the reality of God’s love when I was twelve gives me a greater understanding that I have a unique path, and that there will always be a way for me to enjoy my life, be fulfilled and bring about Inclusion. Then there was the day Dad told me to pay attention to where my clean laundry went, and I began to see that I could direct my support, and so the relationships and tasks of the daily life that would be my journey.
I am uncertain where the idea that peace is available through Inclusion comes from. There is no stellar tale. This frustrates me and is perhaps the cause of the slow development of this “project”. In the 80’s and 90’s an aggregate of stories coalesced in my experience and I began to see the potential socio-political transformation that would lead to greater peacefulness as communities became more inclusive.
To me it is not about personal peace although that is tied in and important. It is about cultural peacefulness. After all, the Scotties, Felicias and Eddies are everywhere and if their Giftedness is included powerfully, peace will break out everywhere!
Without a strong story I am not communicating powerfully. So it grows slowly and has weak roots.
I have been looking for a strong enough story. I have been hoping that I could find or build it through research. Apparently this approach is too weak. I must find it more clearly in my own stories and experience.
Perhaps it resides with my Mother. This seems unlikely.
So tonight I commit myself to give birth to a story that links Peace and Inclusion so powerfully that people’s hearts will be opened. Gloria’s message to me tonight is that I will not find that story in research, economics or my head. The story must reach those understandings, but it must be anchored in my heart.
Right now the story is simply missing. There clearly a space and a need for it, but where the story should be – in my mouth and heart – there is simply silence. Of course, silence – my silence – is the perfect place to begin the exploration! The path has always been linked to silence.
Perhaps tomorrow I will meet the person who will show me where the story lies within me.
My certainties are based in some simple stories. They are stories from my own experience. Of course there is nothing unusual about this. All humans build their lives from their experience, their stories within the contexts provided by culture.
The story of my Father and the binding of ancient female children’s feet provides me with certainty that Inclusion can only be built on a foundation of Giftedness. His story of the killing of children with Down Syndrome (when I was 6) gives me the understanding that I have a “mission” and – more recently – that there must be an economic foundation to our approach to Inclusion. My encounter with the reality of God’s love when I was twelve gives me a greater understanding that I have a unique path, and that there will always be a way for me to enjoy my life, be fulfilled and bring about Inclusion. Then there was the day Dad told me to pay attention to where my clean laundry went, and I began to see that I could direct my support, and so the relationships and tasks of the daily life that would be my journey.
I am uncertain where the idea that peace is available through Inclusion comes from. There is no stellar tale. This frustrates me and is perhaps the cause of the slow development of this “project”. In the 80’s and 90’s an aggregate of stories coalesced in my experience and I began to see the potential socio-political transformation that would lead to greater peacefulness as communities became more inclusive.
To me it is not about personal peace although that is tied in and important. It is about cultural peacefulness. After all, the Scotties, Felicias and Eddies are everywhere and if their Giftedness is included powerfully, peace will break out everywhere!
Without a strong story I am not communicating powerfully. So it grows slowly and has weak roots.
I have been looking for a strong enough story. I have been hoping that I could find or build it through research. Apparently this approach is too weak. I must find it more clearly in my own stories and experience.
Perhaps it resides with my Mother. This seems unlikely.
So tonight I commit myself to give birth to a story that links Peace and Inclusion so powerfully that people’s hearts will be opened. Gloria’s message to me tonight is that I will not find that story in research, economics or my head. The story must reach those understandings, but it must be anchored in my heart.
Right now the story is simply missing. There clearly a space and a need for it, but where the story should be – in my mouth and heart – there is simply silence. Of course, silence – my silence – is the perfect place to begin the exploration! The path has always been linked to silence.
Perhaps tomorrow I will meet the person who will show me where the story lies within me.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
January 15, 2011
I had wine with dinner – a fabulous duck dinner at the King Eddy – supplied by Peter Christianson. A few hours later I took Morphine because the left foot pain just wasn’t abating – the first dose in six days. In any case the inebriation may come through.
I am learning to play with and get used to the person I am becoming, which is an internationally oriented player with power. I must rapidly – am rapidly giving up that I am a small actor in a big show.
It has come up four times this week.
The first was with the agenda published by Second Story Press. I started to read the vignettes for the other eleven women only to discover that the women written up for January is a Burmese activist for democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. How did I get into this group?
Next I met Kimberly Fu’s father, David. He is an international broker for companies in Mexico, Taiwan, China, Canada, etc., providing communication structures so they can work cooperatively. At his invitation we talked for about 1 ½ hours – a rich gift in his framework. He gave me several insights into how to organize WPIT so that it is more sustainable, productive and understandable in the corporate world.
Next was the time spent on Skype with Liz Denny, an artist in Massachusetts who is also a PhD in Sociology and a grant writer. We are creating grant writing streams to bring $$’s to WPIT. She is our incipient financial office!
And although Peter C is mainly working in Canada his outlook is international. Tonight he was presenting several observations and resources to strengthen WPIT’s organizational power.
Of course I have been international since the mid-80’s – this is not really new. I just never have felt like I belonged in that sphere of influence. Yet clearly I do – I have evidence of my ideas and writing showing up in thirteen or fourteen countries, and physically I have been in seven. It’s now about me owning the reality.
Indeed, there is other evidence as well:
- advocating for individualized support with people from the UK, Germany, the US and Canada;
- participating on teleconferences that are Wisdom related with people in Canada, the US and more than one European country;
- helping to lead Summer Inclusion Institutes with a similar spread of participation, but also including the UK, the Netherlands, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand; and,
- playing Farmville with over 27 million other Facebook members.
And, in addition, there are seventeen Wisdom Unlimited City Teams around the planet and I have been a City Team member since March 2003.
So I guess it’s about time I stepped into my own shoes!
I am learning to play with and get used to the person I am becoming, which is an internationally oriented player with power. I must rapidly – am rapidly giving up that I am a small actor in a big show.
It has come up four times this week.
The first was with the agenda published by Second Story Press. I started to read the vignettes for the other eleven women only to discover that the women written up for January is a Burmese activist for democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. How did I get into this group?
Next I met Kimberly Fu’s father, David. He is an international broker for companies in Mexico, Taiwan, China, Canada, etc., providing communication structures so they can work cooperatively. At his invitation we talked for about 1 ½ hours – a rich gift in his framework. He gave me several insights into how to organize WPIT so that it is more sustainable, productive and understandable in the corporate world.
Next was the time spent on Skype with Liz Denny, an artist in Massachusetts who is also a PhD in Sociology and a grant writer. We are creating grant writing streams to bring $$’s to WPIT. She is our incipient financial office!
And although Peter C is mainly working in Canada his outlook is international. Tonight he was presenting several observations and resources to strengthen WPIT’s organizational power.
Of course I have been international since the mid-80’s – this is not really new. I just never have felt like I belonged in that sphere of influence. Yet clearly I do – I have evidence of my ideas and writing showing up in thirteen or fourteen countries, and physically I have been in seven. It’s now about me owning the reality.
Indeed, there is other evidence as well:
- advocating for individualized support with people from the UK, Germany, the US and Canada;
- participating on teleconferences that are Wisdom related with people in Canada, the US and more than one European country;
- helping to lead Summer Inclusion Institutes with a similar spread of participation, but also including the UK, the Netherlands, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand; and,
- playing Farmville with over 27 million other Facebook members.
And, in addition, there are seventeen Wisdom Unlimited City Teams around the planet and I have been a City Team member since March 2003.
So I guess it’s about time I stepped into my own shoes!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
January 11, 2011
Well there are days when the ball just won’t go between the posts! I was running late pretty well all day. Mike and I went to a consignment store this morning and there were some really great things but nothing in quite the right size. I got an email back from someone who had been asking good questions about WPIT but he declined to donate. I called some more people to be guests at the Wisdom Completion Evening this Thursday but just got message machines. Blah blah blah.
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
January 9, 2011
As I was going to bed last night, Mike assisting, after staying up a little late to blog, I thought that the day had been so fulfilling, so replete with authentic experience, that I could happily die with no regrets. Well, I didn’t die. I awoke to a day of more video taping in my winter coat under camera lights, more Farmville, more apple pie, and beautiful sunshine. The vision out of my lake facing window was just like so many of those Christmas card scenes with brilliant sun shining on neat and even tiny houses with perfectly snow covered roof tops!
I got so tired today that I actually fell asleep momentarily during a pause in the taping. Just the same, finally, Michael, Sarah and I reached an ending to the play that we all are excited about. It is in the camera. The editing can happen. I do not have to travel with the play unless I want to.
At the same time I feel the pressure of how structured I am making my life again. Each of my chosen task areas could use whole days in and of themselves to “do” them with research and thoroughness. WPIT, painting, blogging, the ACF Inclusion Circle, travel and workshops, Wisdom Graduate Liaison, the Robert Cooke Coop, attending to the gifts and needs of my staff, not to mention the Individualized Funding envelope upon which we all depend, Farmville, time with my Dad, time watching pelicans and construction cranes – I can’t keep up with myself, and to just give each of them “a lick and a promise” (there’s my Mother again!) fills my day from 6:30am to 12:30am.
Yet I don’t seriously intend to change a thing. It’s all too rich!
A clone? Would it really give me “more time” or would I just expand to nearly burst two lives – not just one?
So often I feel like I never left off being four years old. I just want to play and eat. I do NOT want to go to bed no matter if I can’t stay awake long enough to get there. I want to get into everything, leave the messes to someone else and find out how everything works. And I never really mean to do harm.
Four is compelling and passionate, creative and fantastical, and NEVER reasonable. Four doesn’t have a style, a culture, a career, a financial plan, an ethic or a long memory. Four is optimistic. Four makes and loses friends easily, forgives easily and is easily forgiven. Four is able to bend a long, long way before breaking.
Four is also right on the edge of losing that openness, of becoming fearful, judgemental and certain, of narrowing the options and playing the game. It is nearly the moment to find out there is no Santa Claus.
Then it’s a long, long stretch until maybe, just maybe the adult becomes willing and able to be responsible for creating a world within which she and everyone she touches can be four again.
I want to be, and sometimes am, that adult. It is good!
I got so tired today that I actually fell asleep momentarily during a pause in the taping. Just the same, finally, Michael, Sarah and I reached an ending to the play that we all are excited about. It is in the camera. The editing can happen. I do not have to travel with the play unless I want to.
At the same time I feel the pressure of how structured I am making my life again. Each of my chosen task areas could use whole days in and of themselves to “do” them with research and thoroughness. WPIT, painting, blogging, the ACF Inclusion Circle, travel and workshops, Wisdom Graduate Liaison, the Robert Cooke Coop, attending to the gifts and needs of my staff, not to mention the Individualized Funding envelope upon which we all depend, Farmville, time with my Dad, time watching pelicans and construction cranes – I can’t keep up with myself, and to just give each of them “a lick and a promise” (there’s my Mother again!) fills my day from 6:30am to 12:30am.
Yet I don’t seriously intend to change a thing. It’s all too rich!
A clone? Would it really give me “more time” or would I just expand to nearly burst two lives – not just one?
So often I feel like I never left off being four years old. I just want to play and eat. I do NOT want to go to bed no matter if I can’t stay awake long enough to get there. I want to get into everything, leave the messes to someone else and find out how everything works. And I never really mean to do harm.
Four is compelling and passionate, creative and fantastical, and NEVER reasonable. Four doesn’t have a style, a culture, a career, a financial plan, an ethic or a long memory. Four is optimistic. Four makes and loses friends easily, forgives easily and is easily forgiven. Four is able to bend a long, long way before breaking.
Four is also right on the edge of losing that openness, of becoming fearful, judgemental and certain, of narrowing the options and playing the game. It is nearly the moment to find out there is no Santa Claus.
Then it’s a long, long stretch until maybe, just maybe the adult becomes willing and able to be responsible for creating a world within which she and everyone she touches can be four again.
I want to be, and sometimes am, that adult. It is good!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
January 5, 2011
Yes, almost unbelievably, the repair man arrived at my Etobicoke apartment, from Pickering, before 9:00am and the chair was working by 9:15am. A loose wire somewhere! Thank God.
The new Executive Director of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation is a mother of two young children, and our meeting started a few minutes late due to her handling children’s needs. It made me feel a whole lot more comfortable!
Olivia is both a respectful listener and a great listener. She comes from a UK culture where disability advocacy is the rage – considered to be the ultimate activity for a person who has been labelled disabled. At first she gave me the impression of being dumbfounded to hear that I think advocacy can be a trap. By the time that our meeting was over she invited me back for a focused conversation about how she might guide the Atkinson board in the direction of Inclusion. We scheduled a time!
Right now seems to be a gestation period – a plateau. The difference is that this plateau is at a distinctly different – higher? – level than I have ever been before.
On the one hand people are listening and doing like never before. Mike is ACTUALLY preparing the book’s first draft with me; people ARE reading this blog; Kimberly is REALLY preparing to do tracker training; Paul is INCLUDING my support needs in his plans for developing Laser Eagles and CAVE.
On the other hand just as I am myself starting to give WPIT more of my attention Atkinson and CAVE are taking notice and offers to pay me to work out of town are starting to materialize. Could it be that I suddenly will have to choose – travel to make money and be heard versus sustainability at home while I/we give these new beginnings a chance to grow to new maturity.
Is it true that both – out of town expert and local, reliable leader – are possible? How can this truly be possible?
It’s late. Another short piece – I apologize. I think you get the gist. In order to not drop back and hide, to stand for “All of it” as Landmartians say, I need to be open to strategies opening up that right now I cannot imagine.
Good night!
The new Executive Director of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation is a mother of two young children, and our meeting started a few minutes late due to her handling children’s needs. It made me feel a whole lot more comfortable!
Olivia is both a respectful listener and a great listener. She comes from a UK culture where disability advocacy is the rage – considered to be the ultimate activity for a person who has been labelled disabled. At first she gave me the impression of being dumbfounded to hear that I think advocacy can be a trap. By the time that our meeting was over she invited me back for a focused conversation about how she might guide the Atkinson board in the direction of Inclusion. We scheduled a time!
Right now seems to be a gestation period – a plateau. The difference is that this plateau is at a distinctly different – higher? – level than I have ever been before.
On the one hand people are listening and doing like never before. Mike is ACTUALLY preparing the book’s first draft with me; people ARE reading this blog; Kimberly is REALLY preparing to do tracker training; Paul is INCLUDING my support needs in his plans for developing Laser Eagles and CAVE.
On the other hand just as I am myself starting to give WPIT more of my attention Atkinson and CAVE are taking notice and offers to pay me to work out of town are starting to materialize. Could it be that I suddenly will have to choose – travel to make money and be heard versus sustainability at home while I/we give these new beginnings a chance to grow to new maturity.
Is it true that both – out of town expert and local, reliable leader – are possible? How can this truly be possible?
It’s late. Another short piece – I apologize. I think you get the gist. In order to not drop back and hide, to stand for “All of it” as Landmartians say, I need to be open to strategies opening up that right now I cannot imagine.
Good night!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
January 4, 2011
It was a double whammy sort of day. The back/leg pain is strong, then my chair broke down. Now I am lying in bed, and so is Mike, who also has felt crappy (and crabby) all day.
What is authentic expression right now? Whining, bitching, sleeping?
What is keeping my word right now? Blogging, figuring out how to get to the Atkinson meeting anyway, stating openly what isn’t going to get done?
It’s not going to be a two pager right now. The body/mind is too tired.
I can imagine a support circle that honoured my vision and my perspective, that fully got why I can’t stay home and play safe, AND worked with others who say they can imagine me reaching the world through video conference to make this years’ old dream come true. Then I wouldn’t have to be figuring out how I can be travelling ten weeks of this spring coming. Where are these pushy people who will make it happen?
I think, at the root of it, I haven’t stood enough for myself. Now I will. It is urgent!
What is authentic expression right now? Whining, bitching, sleeping?
What is keeping my word right now? Blogging, figuring out how to get to the Atkinson meeting anyway, stating openly what isn’t going to get done?
It’s not going to be a two pager right now. The body/mind is too tired.
I can imagine a support circle that honoured my vision and my perspective, that fully got why I can’t stay home and play safe, AND worked with others who say they can imagine me reaching the world through video conference to make this years’ old dream come true. Then I wouldn’t have to be figuring out how I can be travelling ten weeks of this spring coming. Where are these pushy people who will make it happen?
I think, at the root of it, I haven’t stood enough for myself. Now I will. It is urgent!
Monday, January 3, 2011
January 3, 2011
There is a little tug-o’-war going on in me these days. The “I don’t wanna’s” are pretty strong – I don’t wanna:
- fundraise
- have a support circle
- cut down on gluten and drink more fluids – not caffeinated ones at that
- invite people to the Completion Evening of Wisdom
- catch up on e-mail
- set up paying gigs for February and March
- get my eyes checked
- etc.
I DO wanna too, and generally I am doing a little better than 50% which is the level I was at for years.
Why the ambivalence? Well, besides not wanting to “stick out” I realized as I was waking up this morning that I have been reluctant to be honest and open about my life-long sense, strong and clear since I was twelve, that I have a personal relationship with God and that God has given me a mission – to create Inclusion, especially so that people who don’t speak can be seen and supported as contributors to society.
But this is a fact for me – one that has shaped all my life. Still I cannot imagine saying in public, or in front of my circle, certainly not frequently and bravely: “Got wants this and I want to do it!”
This reluctance to sound like a religious weirdo constantly gives strength to the “I don’t wanna’s”. It’s better to not stick out, but rather to look like I’m motivated by good thinking and research, to seem like I just want the same things as most people.
But probably I am not fooling anybody anyway. Clearly I DON’T want the same things as most people!
Being at the Terracotta Warriors exhibit last Friday reinforced deeply for me the realization that most people do not know that there is an alternative path to peace besides war. The visible evidence was impactful - that fighting for a stable society and community with abundance and opportunity for all is a way of every culture that goes back multiple millennia. It was also powerfully clear that this way is wasteful, bloody and ineffective.
The other clear message was that history takes no account of the needs, desires or contributions of ordinary people. They live and die hearing that their sole contribution to peace on earth is to support war, up to losing the lives of loved ones and themselves.
I have another way. It takes many ordinary people to build and sustain Inclusion. The good news is that when they do so they also build abundant economy and community, and eliminate the fear and inadequacy that lead to war.
Can I gather enough courage, faith, people and resources to get the message across so that all ordinary people know they have a choice and they know how to implement that choice?
- fundraise
- have a support circle
- cut down on gluten and drink more fluids – not caffeinated ones at that
- invite people to the Completion Evening of Wisdom
- catch up on e-mail
- set up paying gigs for February and March
- get my eyes checked
- etc.
I DO wanna too, and generally I am doing a little better than 50% which is the level I was at for years.
Why the ambivalence? Well, besides not wanting to “stick out” I realized as I was waking up this morning that I have been reluctant to be honest and open about my life-long sense, strong and clear since I was twelve, that I have a personal relationship with God and that God has given me a mission – to create Inclusion, especially so that people who don’t speak can be seen and supported as contributors to society.
But this is a fact for me – one that has shaped all my life. Still I cannot imagine saying in public, or in front of my circle, certainly not frequently and bravely: “Got wants this and I want to do it!”
This reluctance to sound like a religious weirdo constantly gives strength to the “I don’t wanna’s”. It’s better to not stick out, but rather to look like I’m motivated by good thinking and research, to seem like I just want the same things as most people.
But probably I am not fooling anybody anyway. Clearly I DON’T want the same things as most people!
Being at the Terracotta Warriors exhibit last Friday reinforced deeply for me the realization that most people do not know that there is an alternative path to peace besides war. The visible evidence was impactful - that fighting for a stable society and community with abundance and opportunity for all is a way of every culture that goes back multiple millennia. It was also powerfully clear that this way is wasteful, bloody and ineffective.
The other clear message was that history takes no account of the needs, desires or contributions of ordinary people. They live and die hearing that their sole contribution to peace on earth is to support war, up to losing the lives of loved ones and themselves.
I have another way. It takes many ordinary people to build and sustain Inclusion. The good news is that when they do so they also build abundant economy and community, and eliminate the fear and inadequacy that lead to war.
Can I gather enough courage, faith, people and resources to get the message across so that all ordinary people know they have a choice and they know how to implement that choice?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
January 1, 2011
It has been a day of rest, play and building tools of accomplishment for 2011.
The rest is needed. I have had wheezing and an odd swelling in my left arm and hand. Considering how many people have been down with the flu recently, and how big the conversation has been lately about my death, it seemed important to consciously do stuff to tell myself that I am taking good and successful care of myself. So I have been in bed all day, peeing whenever I had the slightest inkling. The wheezing is gone and the swelling down.
The play consists of three Farmville harvests and all that entails, about five games of electronic Price is Right with Kevin my 11 year old neighbour, teasing Mike (not too much – he’s really tired from last night), some FreeCell and contemplation of greater sexual expression!
Building tools is a large piece that won’t be done all in one day. It involves opening 2011 folders, setting up a year-long calendar with everything in it – in five colours! – that I already know I am committed to and organizing my promises and related resources. I set up two tables – one for this week and one for next.
Yesterday I completed the year with the typical review of what I intend my year to look like. This work, of course, is required to be able to set up the tools. For all that 2010 was a year of dramatic events, little has changed in how I intend to live my life. This is my “To Do” banner: "I am the possibility of interesting. I am committed to World Peace through Inclusion. My word creates the world my community lives. I create with beauty, truth and goodness."
These words are essentially the same as those for 2010. I am certainly committed to World Peace through Inclusion, to my coop, my personal stability and to having a superlative staff of personal assistants. These are as clear, or even more clear than ever.
What is new is my commitment to my own expression. Hence this blog and a nearly completed first draft of my autobiography. It is also in focus that WPIT needs a real organization – I am willing to believe that the concept that peace is available through Inclusion will not disappear entirely as I let go of the reins.
And so, as I wrote two days ago, now is the time to push for money. So many of the 2011 tools now in use or in creation are intended to keep me asking for financial resources – for WPIT and for my personal assistants.
My financial coach had me realize that I did not fully realize the cost to me and to the world that I don’t have the $6 million to stabilize WPIT. I am used to imagining and working toward finding enough money month by month to keep my home, health, car and staff. My immediate work is to get crystal clear on the earth changing difference that world peace would make and how uniquely available that peace is through Inclusion.
The more clear that state is the more powerful I will be at finding the people and resources that WPIT needs.
Happy New Year!
The rest is needed. I have had wheezing and an odd swelling in my left arm and hand. Considering how many people have been down with the flu recently, and how big the conversation has been lately about my death, it seemed important to consciously do stuff to tell myself that I am taking good and successful care of myself. So I have been in bed all day, peeing whenever I had the slightest inkling. The wheezing is gone and the swelling down.
The play consists of three Farmville harvests and all that entails, about five games of electronic Price is Right with Kevin my 11 year old neighbour, teasing Mike (not too much – he’s really tired from last night), some FreeCell and contemplation of greater sexual expression!
Building tools is a large piece that won’t be done all in one day. It involves opening 2011 folders, setting up a year-long calendar with everything in it – in five colours! – that I already know I am committed to and organizing my promises and related resources. I set up two tables – one for this week and one for next.
Yesterday I completed the year with the typical review of what I intend my year to look like. This work, of course, is required to be able to set up the tools. For all that 2010 was a year of dramatic events, little has changed in how I intend to live my life. This is my “To Do” banner: "I am the possibility of interesting. I am committed to World Peace through Inclusion. My word creates the world my community lives. I create with beauty, truth and goodness."
These words are essentially the same as those for 2010. I am certainly committed to World Peace through Inclusion, to my coop, my personal stability and to having a superlative staff of personal assistants. These are as clear, or even more clear than ever.
What is new is my commitment to my own expression. Hence this blog and a nearly completed first draft of my autobiography. It is also in focus that WPIT needs a real organization – I am willing to believe that the concept that peace is available through Inclusion will not disappear entirely as I let go of the reins.
And so, as I wrote two days ago, now is the time to push for money. So many of the 2011 tools now in use or in creation are intended to keep me asking for financial resources – for WPIT and for my personal assistants.
My financial coach had me realize that I did not fully realize the cost to me and to the world that I don’t have the $6 million to stabilize WPIT. I am used to imagining and working toward finding enough money month by month to keep my home, health, car and staff. My immediate work is to get crystal clear on the earth changing difference that world peace would make and how uniquely available that peace is through Inclusion.
The more clear that state is the more powerful I will be at finding the people and resources that WPIT needs.
Happy New Year!
Friday, December 31, 2010
December 31, 2010
It seems fitting to end this tumultuous year by writing about a tumultuous day.
There has been a lot of flu going around so when I developed a wheeze and 1 (and only 1!?!) swollen hand and forearm two days I took steps to increase the amount of non-caffeinated fluids I drink, reduce my sugar and carb intake and increase my time lying down. Of course this is no fun for my personal assistants and means that everyone’s sleep is interrupted.
Well Peter’s increased fatigue level interacted with Helen’s misunderstanding that her desire to not work this evening had NOT been reflected in the schedule meant that 4:30pm arrived with no one confirmed for the shift that started at 5:30pm. A flurry of phone calls and the generousity and flexibility of Mike, Kimberly and Peter and it all worked out.
I started today with the commitment to not be grumpy and several times today the memory of that promise came in handy!
In the end I got today a lot of what I wished for last Saturday. I got to have New Year’s Eve dinner with a personal assistant I love being with, with a family I love being with and to come home to a green Christmas tree made from a rosemary tree that a friend brought me last Tuesday when she learned how much I struggled with the tin can sculpture. Now the home where we had dinner could be accessed only with my ramp, but it wasn’t too steep, and with several burly guys around, felt safe enough. Also, like Cinderella I had to leave early because that was all that Mike and Kimberly could give. In addition my computer would not start this morning but somehow tonight it decided to go on the second try and so I get to come home to blogging and Farmville.
To backtrack, a staff member of the ROM arranged for me and some friends (whom I didn’t really celebrate with at Christmas with because they got flu) to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. It was eerie and magnificent – both. I came away with the following impressions:
- I am going to die someday; (a fundamental principle in the Chinese culture of the day was that a well lived life demanded careful preparation for one’s life after death),
- one person can change an entire culture,
- a healthy economy can sustain a lot of waste of resources, and human life and effort,
- the idea that war leads to peace survives massive evidence to the contrary,
- history takes no account of the lived experience of ordinary citizens, and,
- many lasting historic impacts, for better or worse, were made by teenagers,
- the same sort of things have happened everywhere, at one time or another.
In other words it reinforced for me that the world needs a new idea about how to foster and sustain peace and I had better get on with spreading the word about transformation to peace through Inclusion.
So, Happy New Year, and let’s continue to do the work!
There has been a lot of flu going around so when I developed a wheeze and 1 (and only 1!?!) swollen hand and forearm two days I took steps to increase the amount of non-caffeinated fluids I drink, reduce my sugar and carb intake and increase my time lying down. Of course this is no fun for my personal assistants and means that everyone’s sleep is interrupted.
Well Peter’s increased fatigue level interacted with Helen’s misunderstanding that her desire to not work this evening had NOT been reflected in the schedule meant that 4:30pm arrived with no one confirmed for the shift that started at 5:30pm. A flurry of phone calls and the generousity and flexibility of Mike, Kimberly and Peter and it all worked out.
I started today with the commitment to not be grumpy and several times today the memory of that promise came in handy!
In the end I got today a lot of what I wished for last Saturday. I got to have New Year’s Eve dinner with a personal assistant I love being with, with a family I love being with and to come home to a green Christmas tree made from a rosemary tree that a friend brought me last Tuesday when she learned how much I struggled with the tin can sculpture. Now the home where we had dinner could be accessed only with my ramp, but it wasn’t too steep, and with several burly guys around, felt safe enough. Also, like Cinderella I had to leave early because that was all that Mike and Kimberly could give. In addition my computer would not start this morning but somehow tonight it decided to go on the second try and so I get to come home to blogging and Farmville.
To backtrack, a staff member of the ROM arranged for me and some friends (whom I didn’t really celebrate with at Christmas with because they got flu) to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. It was eerie and magnificent – both. I came away with the following impressions:
- I am going to die someday; (a fundamental principle in the Chinese culture of the day was that a well lived life demanded careful preparation for one’s life after death),
- one person can change an entire culture,
- a healthy economy can sustain a lot of waste of resources, and human life and effort,
- the idea that war leads to peace survives massive evidence to the contrary,
- history takes no account of the lived experience of ordinary citizens, and,
- many lasting historic impacts, for better or worse, were made by teenagers,
- the same sort of things have happened everywhere, at one time or another.
In other words it reinforced for me that the world needs a new idea about how to foster and sustain peace and I had better get on with spreading the word about transformation to peace through Inclusion.
So, Happy New Year, and let’s continue to do the work!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
December 30, 2010
Yesterday I wrote for the book and you will, of course, get to read that within the next few months – by May is our intention.
For the last week I have been fundraising with determination. WPIT provides me with lots of opportunities and lots of reasons to get more people involved and find lots of dollars. Right now it’s my most grounded way out of personal poverty.
So tonight I will just share my notes I use in constructing fundraising e-mails. The document they refer to is posted on www.peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com.
To a Canadian potential donor:
We spoke on the phone this morning. You said you would see if some of your friends (10?) would let me contact them about donating to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation.
I believe in and am giving my life to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation - WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. I noticed in 2006 that people become more peaceful when they take the journey to include diversity in their everyday lives. I have attached a document with lots of information, including our latest projects.
The most exciting project is that we are coding a 3-game series of video games where players do better in the game when they include diversity in the group of people who are playing AND reward diversity in the Zombie characters.
The money we raise is used for project development. the coding costs $80,000, and video development costs $7,000.
Money also goes to cover thousands of dollars each year of wages for my personal assistants – money that the government does not cover. This year I must raise $14,000 for this necessary expense alone.
One possible way to donate is to send a cheque to the Family Life Foundation. WPIT gets 85% of your money and you get a charitable receipt. Send the cheque to:
Family Life Foundation
c/o Lindsay King, Director
6 Kings Inn Trail
Thornhill, ON, L3T 1T7
Include in the memo: World Peace through Inclusive Transformation
The other way is to go to www.ppsn.on.ca and click on "Donate". Follow the prompts I get 50% of your donation and YOU get 75% of your donation back as a tax credit when you file your income tax. More information is on their website.
Thank you for your consideration and generousity.
Warmly; Judith
To a potential US donor:
It is awkward to ask for donations, but I believe in and am giving my life to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation - WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. I noticed in 2006 that people become more peaceful when they take the journey to include diversity in their everyday lives. I have attached a document with lots of information, including our latest projects. The most exciting project is that we are coding a 3-game series of video games where players do better in the game by including something that is different about the characters and about other players.
The money we raise is used for project development. It also goes to cover thousands of dollars each year of wages for my personal assistants – money that the government does not cover. This year I must raise $14,000 for this necessary expense alone.
There are two things you can do to make a difference with WPIT, and my ongoing underfunding with my personal assistance.
First, make a list of people you think would be open to listening to a request for money to support my ongoing participation, and ask them if I can contact them. If they say "Yes", give me their contact information. I am attaching a brief about WPIT and its projects.
Secondly, send a check directed to the World Peace through Inclusion Tour to:
First Presbyterian Church of Savannah
c/o Barbara Bishop
520 Washington Avenue
Savannah, GA 31405-2323
Thank you!
(Let me know how much so I can budget, please.)
Warmly and Season’s Greetings; Judith
For the last week I have been fundraising with determination. WPIT provides me with lots of opportunities and lots of reasons to get more people involved and find lots of dollars. Right now it’s my most grounded way out of personal poverty.
So tonight I will just share my notes I use in constructing fundraising e-mails. The document they refer to is posted on www.peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com.
To a Canadian potential donor:
We spoke on the phone this morning. You said you would see if some of your friends (10?) would let me contact them about donating to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation.
I believe in and am giving my life to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation - WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. I noticed in 2006 that people become more peaceful when they take the journey to include diversity in their everyday lives. I have attached a document with lots of information, including our latest projects.
The most exciting project is that we are coding a 3-game series of video games where players do better in the game when they include diversity in the group of people who are playing AND reward diversity in the Zombie characters.
The money we raise is used for project development. the coding costs $80,000, and video development costs $7,000.
Money also goes to cover thousands of dollars each year of wages for my personal assistants – money that the government does not cover. This year I must raise $14,000 for this necessary expense alone.
One possible way to donate is to send a cheque to the Family Life Foundation. WPIT gets 85% of your money and you get a charitable receipt. Send the cheque to:
Family Life Foundation
c/o Lindsay King, Director
6 Kings Inn Trail
Thornhill, ON, L3T 1T7
Include in the memo: World Peace through Inclusive Transformation
The other way is to go to www.ppsn.on.ca and click on "Donate". Follow the prompts I get 50% of your donation and YOU get 75% of your donation back as a tax credit when you file your income tax. More information is on their website.
Thank you for your consideration and generousity.
Warmly; Judith
To a potential US donor:
It is awkward to ask for donations, but I believe in and am giving my life to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation - WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. I noticed in 2006 that people become more peaceful when they take the journey to include diversity in their everyday lives. I have attached a document with lots of information, including our latest projects. The most exciting project is that we are coding a 3-game series of video games where players do better in the game by including something that is different about the characters and about other players.
The money we raise is used for project development. It also goes to cover thousands of dollars each year of wages for my personal assistants – money that the government does not cover. This year I must raise $14,000 for this necessary expense alone.
There are two things you can do to make a difference with WPIT, and my ongoing underfunding with my personal assistance.
First, make a list of people you think would be open to listening to a request for money to support my ongoing participation, and ask them if I can contact them. If they say "Yes", give me their contact information. I am attaching a brief about WPIT and its projects.
Secondly, send a check directed to the World Peace through Inclusion Tour to:
First Presbyterian Church of Savannah
c/o Barbara Bishop
520 Washington Avenue
Savannah, GA 31405-2323
Thank you!
(Let me know how much so I can budget, please.)
Warmly and Season’s Greetings; Judith
Monday, December 20, 2010
December 20, 2010
Jen the masseuse, Kevin the frazzling child, trading a ride to Christmas shop with Helen for a car wash – inside and out, fundraising, cancelled meetings all day, tracking down a minced pie for tomorrow’s Laser Eagles potluck, discussing the next phases of WPIT with Mike, answered and unanswered e-mail, wrapping presents – these occupied my day.
Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!
When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.
There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.
I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.
Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.
Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.
I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.
Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.
Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.
The Third Cycle will continue.
Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!
When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.
There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.
I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.
Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.
Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.
I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.
Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.
Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.
The Third Cycle will continue.
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