blog016 Making A New Agreement

Peter and Roswita firewalking

The quality of the space that is held determines what is possible in that space. (For example, walking barefoot across burning coals without burning your feet only occurs in a space held by a firewalking trainer. Outside that space your feet would become fried bacon.)

As a trainer for Next Culture Research & Training Center I have seen miracles beyond belief. In Expand The Box, Possibility Labs and Trainer Labs people regularly make life changes that put them on completely new sets of train tracks in their life. They suddenly get an entirely new future.

As their future unfolds, the confusions, delusions, and contusions central to their previous experience fade away mirage-like while life circumstances rapidly conform to their new shape . As incredible as this is to observe in others, it's even more astonishing to experience in one's own life.

I know this because it keeps happening to me.

I figured out that Possibility Trainers live in ongoing transformation because they are integrated into their training spaces - constantly at risk of rapid learning. P-Trainers cannot be lifted onto a pedestal and esteemed from afar. Instead they are in the dirty ditches and stinking gutters of personal development work, navigating all worlds, and learning to deliver whatever is needed and wanted for the participants to unfold their incredible potential. These processes cannot help but also change the trainer's life.

For example, my processes bring me into finer alignment with my core purpose. The way I would say it now is:  I am here to use memetic engineering to upgrade the morphogenetic field of the human race through the radically responsible thoughtware of Possibility Management.

How can this occur?

Actually it has already occured, although ripples from the stone-tossing have yet to hit the shore in most places.

Possibility Lab

Early in 2011a group of men at a Men's Lab, and also a group of Possibility Trainers agreed that next culture already exists. They have become that stand, both individually and as a group. The decision has already been made. It's not some future wish, not a fantasy world.

Each man and woman who made this new agreement now holds that space where ever they are as a bond. When they are not together at the same place the bond spreads over the Earth and becomes a network. The network of critical connections creates a system of infuence, a morphogenetic field.

Let it be known this has already been decided. If you wish, you can also decide: "Next culture already exists. The game is on."

A morphogenetic field is the shape-making field establishing the thoughtforms, words and deeds of a human culture. A morphogenetic field is created through agreement, through critical connections between communities of practice.

The morphogenetic field that has so far shaped the bulk of humanity is: I am my body. I am my mind. I am separate. In order to survive I must fight to win as much as I can regardless of what others lose. This is very old thoughtware.

The morphogenetic field of next culture is: I am the Earth right now having the experience of "fill in your name". We are all one. I already survived as a child and now life as an adult is a winning happening game.

It is not our planet.

Engaging winning happening requires shifting from adolescence to adulthood, including learning a different form of speaking and communication. The language of winning happening includes four skills researched by John Croft (the subject of a future blog).

I want to offer you a challenge:

Transformational wonders of clarity and possibility occur in trainings because of the space of the training. The training space is held by the Trainer. If you are a Trainer and can create and navigate possibility training spaces, how many people can you hold that space for? Fifteen? Fifty? Five hundred? Will you practice with me to ongoingly generate and hold that space for the entire planet Earth starting now? This would be a decision. You decide it. I already decided. If you decide too then it becomes an agreement between us. Will you keep developing your space-holding intention muscles so that holding possibility-space for the Earth becomes second nature to you?

Let me know how it goes...

... and, thanks.

PS: Please watch this video (3:47): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZCNRzQ0IH4

Midway Journey coming 2012

There is an island, so far away from civilization that it deserves respite from ruin, yet life on this island and the surrounding ocean is being annihilated so certainly by modern culture's ignorance and greed that it can no longer be denied. Watch Chris Jordan's film in 2012 and let your sensibility change your awareness - and your life.

blog015 Exiting The Patriarchy

Pierce: "On the 58th day of my birth I met Clinton Callahan!"

1. The universe put me and Pierce Brosnan face to face at a the classy Ceramica Casola shop in the coastal village of Positano, Italy, on Monday 16 May 2011, which turned out to be Pierce's birthday.  I'm a year older than he is!

I said, "People are starting to feel the pain of what is happening in the world."

He said, "You got that right!"

Pierce was in Italy shooting All You Need Is Love.

   

2. At Tempelhof, 23-25 September 2011, during the Men’s Lab, twenty-three men exited the patriarchy.

There are various ways to exit the patriarchy. One way is to face the immense but still unconscious price you pay to remain in the patriarchy.

"Price?" you ask.

Think about it. You weren't schooled in a way that empowers your natural talents but rather to fit into a system designed to serve a wealthy elite. You were born guilty and trained to blame others and try to get away with anything you can. "Responsibility" is a dirty word in the patriarchy - only stupid people behave ethically or take responsibility. You made an unspoken promise not to expose the emptiness of "success" as defined in this system. Anybody can be bought. Nature is valued only when money changes hands. Your mind has been over-taxed while your heart and soul shrivel in neglect.  You can't articulate the pain in you because the training is to stay disconnected and numb, without encouragement for compassion, empathy, relationship or sensuality. Instead you get addicted to adrenaline intensity, fighting and competing with others for power and material possessions just to survive. Time is money. Women are sex objects - disposable wives. Children are a problem. Death is a fantasy. There is no space for simply being.


When you were born you had to choose: join the patriarchy or be abandoned. The ultimate price of becoming a patriarch is that you do not get to become yourself.

To stop paying that price means to exit the patriarchy. No one can exit for you. Exiting takes every effort you can make and is extremely personal, yet, you cannot escape alone. You need something to exit into.

That is why before exiting we men made a new pact amongst ourselves. "I have a new pact."

From the book: Directing the Power of Conscious
Feelings by Clinton Callahan

Through this pact a circle of men now stands that "next culture" exists – the culture emerging after patriarchy (see Map of the Present Epochal Culture Shift).


Our new pact makes it easier for you to escape the patriarchy because there is already a place to go to. It is called "next culture" - archearchy - the creative collaboration of the archetypal masculine and the archetypal feminine.

(I heard a rumor that in 2012 there will be a Women's Lab...)



Mayan shamans delivering their message to the North.
They all spoke, clearly, powerfully, with compassion and humor.

3. From September 26-27 Marion and I joined a group of social entrepreneurs at Taiji Center in Oslo, Norway,  to welcome eight Mayan shaman.

They were four couples, and when they spoke they emphasized the importance of men and women working together, and then they demonstrated it through their loving interactions and collaboration.

These eight shaman, living in four separate villages, speaking four Mayan dialects, together got the "instructions" to visit four northern hemisphere countries (Norway, Japan, Arizona, and Guatemala) so as to deliver a message and to perform an awakening ritual.


The Mayan's message has three imperatives, in short, as follows: 

1. Remember Mother Earth. You are a manifestation of Mother Earth, both men and women working together.
2. Respect Mother Earth by asking permission before you take things, before you walk on Mother's face. 
3. Reciprocate, that is, ongoingly give back to Mother Earth the qualities you would wish to receive (e.g. cradle-to-cradle manufacturing rather than dumping depleted uranium and pollutants everywhere, replanting forests, etc.). Express ongoing praise and gratitude for what you receive.

The message is clear: living in a spiritually fulfilling, socially just, ecologically (and economically) sustainable world requires changing the dream (the nightmare) of the "North," meaning the dream us "white folks" are living.

Changing your dream depends on first recognizing that what you perceive is only one of many possible "story-worlds" that could interpret your current situation. In other words, what you perceive is a self-generated dream.

By taking responsibility for the dream you are creating, you gain the possibility of intelligently changing it. This is why I think that Awakening The Dreamer / Changing The Dream should be integrated into the core curriculum of any modern school.

Eight Mayan shamans preparing the awakening ritual in Oslo, Norway.
(As soon as the fire was lit, no more photos or films wer permitted.)

Tuesday afternoon the Mayans led a walk along the waterfront of Oslo with about 300 people all carrying flowers and fruits as offerings of praise to Mother Earth. We arrived in the center of the old town, a Celtic power place upon which a church had been built that is now in ruins. Here the ritual was performed to awaken Europeans to our connection to Mother Earth.

Lee Lozowick and Arnaud Desjardins

4. I would say that Arnaud Desjardins was my teacher Lee Lozowick's best friend. Lee died November 2010. Arnaud died July 2011.

Sometimes I feel like Luke Skywalker, when his teachers one-by-one die and line up in heaven to provide coaching and support from out of the body.

I'm lucky to have been around these two men, now and then, when they were with each other privately, eating, walking, haggling prices, speaking to groups. When I need a role model for adult manhood, or for friendship between men, I have Lee Lozowick and Arnaud Desjardins to look to.

Expand The Box video

5. If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to check out the four-minute video we made that captures the energy and purpose of the Expand The Box training.

Have Fun!

blog014 Down To The Wire

1. I love Japan. Most of its amazing art and culture is ancient. The modern technology that wiped out The Last Samurai may now also wipe out Japan.

It's a strange thing to me that, as smart as we pride ourselves to be, human beings have not yet figured out how to be more intelligent than bacteria. Seems like we can't actually change our behavior until it hurts too much to keep doing it the old way, even if the old way kills us. To quote Richard Heinberg in his Rob Hopkins interview posted at Transition Culture, "I wish I could say something more cheerful..."

In the interview Rob Hopkins (originator of Transition Towns) addressed Richard Heinberg with this question (perentheticals added by me): 

In Powerdown, you proposed four possible future scenarios:

1. Collapse (social and ecological) (What about the economy? Stupid question.) (regardless of which scenario eventually plays itself out, we are also on the fast road to global collapse),

2. Waiting for the Magic Elixir (hoping for a technological save - or compassionate aliens),

3. Powerdown (conscious global collaboration to downsize consumption and population) (doing this would prove we are intelligent),  and

4. Last One Standing (military contest - winner takes all) (all of what, though...). 

Do you still see those as being the four key scenarios?



Richard Heinberg said: "Clearly, governments of the world still appear to be on the track towards ‘Last One Standing’. Clearly, ‘Powerdown’ is the best way forward on a collective basis, and clearly, ‘Building Lifeboats’ is not a bad idea – to the extent that one is not just going about that in a survivalist frame of mind but on a community basis of building some kind of collective infrastructure for survival and renewal and not just heading for the hills. I don’t think there’s much of a future for our species in terms of individual survivalism."

So we are building a lifeboat called Tempelhof . And you can too, because at Tempelhof we will provide Arkbuilder Training School. You can read about our project at Transition Network or Global Ecovillage Network.

  


Henry and Samantha:  Next Culture Dating

  2. I keep being both inspired and flabbergasted by the insight that perhaps THE key factor to humans taking a path different from the one worn smooth by lemmings is thoughtware.

I'm inspired because it is straightforward to personally upgrade your own thoughtware.

I'm flabbergasted because even though it is so straightforward, the possibility of upgrading your thoughtware is not offered in school or university. One has to leave the center of mainstream and read books and find authentic training programs to do it.

What brand of thoughtware are you using? You may be using very old and, more importantly, very outdated thoughtware.

Along those lines I wrote 5 short videos using http://www.xtranormal.com/ text to video animation. You might enjoy them.

1. Thoughtware Workout      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbbwwIwPYJ4

2.  Next Culture Dating     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgoRfj0Sx7E

3.  Low Drama Detector     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZIv1BSwGNc

4. “Is-Glue” Paint Brush     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbEbE1dRGJE

5.  Resentment Kills Intimacy     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4YzRiukWZs

 3. I just finished reading a wonderful book by Martin Prechtel called Secrets of the Talking Jaguar. In it he speaks about community in a startling and refreshing way that I never thought of before. On page 279-281 he says:

The secret of village togetherness and happiness had always been the generosity of its people, but the secret to that generosity was village inefficiency and decay... all life must be regularly renewed. To do this, the villagers come together once a year at least, to work on putting back together somebody's hut, talking, laughing, feasting, and helping wherever they can in a gradual, graceful way.

If a house is built too well, so efficiently that it is permanent and refuses to fall apart, then people have no reason to come together. Though the house stays together, the people fall apart, and nothing gets renewed. Smart people might be able to invent excuses to get together, but this is too abstract and hollow, and such contrivance insults the soul. People have a genuine need to make things with their ingenuity and with their hands... Violence is close behind when people won't come together to remake each others' houses.

Great book!

If you liked Robert Wolff's Original Wisdom , or Malidoma Patrice Somés Of Water and The Spirit, you will love Secrets of the Talking Jaguar.

blog013 Behaving Powerless?

  

Lee Lozowick

A third of a year has whizzed by since my last blog.

It's unbelievable.

A lot has been happening in the life turbulating around me.

It's so much so fast and so amazing that I must stop for a few minutes and tell you about some of it.

  

To begin with, my teacher Lee Lozowick died 16 November 2010 in his own bed in Prescott, Arizona, from a long and nasty disease.

I wasn't there, but they say he died with a big smile on his face.

What a way to go!

2. If I were to write a SPARK right now it would say this: Behaving as if you are powerless against a system is indistinguishable from being a designer and perpetrator of that system. (See David Hazen's blog below.)

3. Brad Blanton's evolutionary new book is out! The Korporate Kannibal Kookbook. It is scathingly clear and to the point:

The Empire Is Consuming Us

(either we eat them or they eat us, so let's get cooking).

He means it.

The interesting thing is that if you turn the book over and read the back cover, what you will find is:

Yep. Ain't that sumpin'.

4. At Next Culture Research & Training Center we completed 24 videos for our 2010 Adventskalender. The whole thing is spoken in German except the parts where I speak (or fail to speak...), for example:

#9 in the final advertisement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5o0CTaCLC0

#10 The Cowboy Liver Cleanse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmyaVpADBbY

#17 Tante Calinta's Brownies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTTLTQzOA10

plus English is also spoken in #20 by Ross Jackson (founder of the Global Ecovillage Network) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEnYxhJKmw0

5. I recently got to connect with David Diamond, head joker at the Headlines Theatre in Vancouver, where they do this incredible inquiry on stage with the audience called Us and Them.

 David writes: A new revolution is required on the planet. Somehow, we must find a way to let go of our mechanistic need for certainty - our need to know that "we" are right and entitled and therefore "they" must be wrong and not entitled. We must find a way to relax into the certainty of UNcertainty - to know that in whatever geography, whatever politic, whatever context, there is no certain "them"; there is only an ever-evolving us.

David has a new book out called Theatre for Living: the art and science of community-based dialog. I am just beginning to read it, and it feels excellent.




For Sale +49-89-74949473



6. Our house is up for sale.

It's a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath duplex located south of Munich, close to the Höllriegelskreuth SBahn 7 station. The house will be connected to city geothermal heat this year, has close-by groceries, gas, and a natural pathway along the Isar River to the beautiful little village of Pullach, where Café Dolce serves the best haselnut gelato in the whole world! Really!

Where are we moving?



Tempelhof, Germany



7. ...to Tempelhof, an ancient little castle being transformed into a sustainable culture research ecovillage. http://www.schloss-tempelhof.org/ (the website is all in German...)



Connecting to Tempelhof Land Dec '10



Our 31 hectares of farmland in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is registered as a Transition Initiative and an ecovillage, and will be the new headquarters for Next Culture Research & Training Center.

More about this later, I'm sure...

8. I found a new ally in David Hazen's blog Victim, Rebel, or Co-Creator? from 30 November 2010:

http://davidhazen.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/victim-rebel-or-co-creator/ He writes:

I do not submit. I have the power to create an entirely different social structure. I have the power to create a world that works for all, and it does not depend upon the domination system to disappear for me to engage in this creative act, although if I persist in exercising my creativity I am absolutely certain that the domination system shall eventually collapse, implode, and die because it will be seen clearly as dysfunctional. This time, there will be no blood, the military-industrial complex will simply dry up and blow away, useless and unwanted.

No struggle, no rebellion, no acts of violence are necessary to destroy the domination system. The dominators are already in trouble and worried about their own survival, and they would be greatly reassured of their power if someone would only rise up in rebellion against it. How reassured will they be when we simply walk away from the battlefield? The presence of millions of culturally creative revolutionaries everywhere on the planet is the beginning of that walk, and is now unstoppable.

If you have any doubts about that,
ask Captain Jack Sparrow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ_1ZZSNFuQ