Paramedia Ecology
http://ionaparamedia.50megs.com/
"A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding." ~Marshall McLuhan
POP OCCULTURE Genesis P-Orridge Lydia Lunch Thompson Requiem Aleister Crowley Bearden 0.0 Subliminazis Strange Attractors Pineal DMT Virtual Magick Reality Tunnels Free Style Cyberotica Intentionality Manifesto DIY Mind Control SpiritComm Uberbabe Hot Links Antibothis
POP OCCULTURE Genesis P-Orridge Lydia Lunch Thompson Requiem Aleister Crowley Bearden 0.0 Subliminazis Strange Attractors Pineal DMT Virtual Magick Reality Tunnels Free Style Cyberotica Intentionality Manifesto DIY Mind Control SpiritComm Uberbabe Hot Links Antibothis
Paramedia Ecology
THE GUERRILLA INFORMATION WAR
“Paramedia” describes what happens when peers come together in networks of influence, using media innovation. In the era of USER AS CONTENT, self-organizing people with the status skillsets of traditional media and access to media publishing tools converge in mutually-reinforcing, democratic and purposeful new ways beyond journalism and the shameless self-promotion of "Web 2.0" and other non-compliant media and distribution channels.
DIY Media: Paramedia, including desktop cinema, is the medium of the "Naughties." Arguably, it is the single most important factor in current social evolution, light years beyond the offerings of dry pedagogy and endless Power Point presentations. It penetrates deeply into the gaps of conventional culture, rigidity and atrophy, bursting it apart at the seams, like overripe fruit. It is a chaotic factor mirroring the criticality of our times, and magnifying its influence through the butterfly effect of info-memes.
Infowars: Taking its message directly to the people who either actively seek it or come upon it synchronistically, it is a new way of teaching and learning that suits our busy lifestyles and our infolust for concise, up to the minute reportage, analysis and applcation. As with all media, once you digest the content, you are invited to make up your mind for yourself.
Paramedia Ecology describes the peer-to-peer world of subtle interactions of the sum of all such evolutionary media interactions, networks of influence, and peer relationships. It includes social and political potential, agitprop, blogging, podcasting, videocasting, network nodes, tiny TV, YouTube, and the next thing we haven't heard about yet but will soon all be doing.
• Paramedia is a form of media that applies the training that has been largely restricted to journalists, artists and storytellers by limited access to the tools and channels for making and distributing messages;
• Paramedia operate beside, between, above and below the traditional practitioners of media and the paramedia channels enjoy an increasingly similar access to audiences through distribution channels.
• Paramedia can be dysfunctional; the assumption by established media is that paramedia is essentially flawed by a lack of professionalism. Paramedia people, likewise, believe the conventional media they supersede is dysfunctional. (Ratcliffe).
"McLuhan believed that electronic environments were molding people on a scale that was greater than any artwork, and that, therefore, artists should embrace the technologies of the future," says Paramedia Ecologist, Bob Dobbs."By this, he meant that in mass media environments, people are molded not only by the content but by a sensory bias specific to the medium," says Dobbs. For digital media, he adopted a different adage, that the "user is the content."
McLuhan's "put on" is the mysterious process of continual mutual transformation, resulting from a reciprocal dynamic whereby a reader's perceptions are altered by putting on a mask or poem, and a writer or maker puts on the reader, having to project his own image as the mask of the user or reader. McLuhan would later note that the "complexity of this process is such that even literary critics have despaired of ever unravelling it. Critics of the press, on the other hand, are accustomed to label the whole thing as degrading…" given that in the commercial sphere, the process can be referred to as "giving the public what it wants." He continues, "this process is at the very heart of any communication activity…It is certain to remain the central issue so long as readers are human and not merely robots." -Andrew Crystall
STAY TUNED
Now, it's time for the TAKE OFF, as we all GET REAL, online or off, once again ~ what is called in media ecology, the ANTHROPOMORPHIC PHYSICAL (AP), the physical body - not just the chip-body.
The audience is US, the users, the DOWNLOADABLE HUMANS.
MYTH IS the pattern of information/culture/community/technology and words/archetype/story/passion. Previously myth was imposed, now it is evoked. Instead of ruling people by controlling their passions, we rule through their passions. Myth is passion and under the electric myth all passions are retrieved and recycled simultaneously as software "form" (to live in on a long-term basis) and as hardware "content" (short-term and temporary lifespan). In terms of communication, which is what a medium is - it's shared information, it's community - shared communities and archetypes are talking, living out loud.
"We are polluting Art as fast as we are tidying up Nature. The people of the Earth are encouraged to engage in an experiment of utmost urgency. We must turn off the electric environment for a period of one week to perform a cleansing of mass-man's mind, body and spirit. We must get back to our bodies, lest we forget they are still there! Imagine the freedom to be experienced as the top-down cultural control of civilization is eradicated for even the briefest period! If everyone did participate in the media Fast, how would we know it happened? Stay tuned..." ~ Bob Dobbs
Who are we?
What we need is a new existential paradigm, a design pattern for putting knowledge into action. Doctors tell us we don't know the simplest things like how to eat or sleep properly. Psychologists tell us we don't know how to behave and politics shows us we don't know how to get along. Pundits and talking heads tell us we don't know how to think critically. We don't know what to believe, and fall victim to mind control, the spiritual supermarket, memes, agitprop and propaganda, and our own outworn childhood scripts.
We need a new Participatory Wisdom for how to be and how to get along in our rapidly changing world. We need to change the architecture of our participation with self, others and world for a richer user experience, an attitude not a technology. Science isn't the panacea. Soon it will make us Borg, transhumans with bioelectronic supplementation. Science still doesn't know what energy, matter, electricity, life, or the cosmos is, but the secret of the Universe is that IT's ALIVE! And so are we.
Calm Passion
It is that very nonmechanical liveliness, the joi de vivre of passion that best communicates our holistic Presence to others, to the world. In ancient times, wisdom was thought of as the type of knowledge needed to discern the good and live the good life. It was one of the four virtues, including justice, moderation, and courage which comes from the heart as the root couer shows. The pursuit of wisdom comes from a willingness to expose the pretenses of wisdom wherever we find it, even in ourselves. It gives us the infallible judgment to discern what is worthy of pursuit.
The "courage to be" -- what we potentially are, our mission and raison d'ete -- is essentially an ethical act of affirming our identity despite any shortcomings or the possibility of dreadful outcomes. It is embodied in two basic life strategies, which can be summed up as, "Say it then play it" or "Play it and then say it."
In the former we declare our intent. We begin with an inspiration, fantasy or desire, name it then go about the process of making it so. In the later, we place ourselves in the matrix of spontaneous events and find ourselves living larger than life, and then maximize that fortune to parlay it into further opportunities for fantastic experiences. Wisdom is developed through experience, insight and reflection -- the common sense of foresight, or "connecting the dots."
Philosophy as the love of wisdom is a metaphysical pursuit which opens the depth dimension. Sure, each of us can be wise in our craft, but that is merely a steppingstone to the greater accomplishment of a well-lived life, optimizing our talents and opportunities for expression. Knowledge is the basis for making good choices. Without the right information, we are stuck in the "garbage in/garbage out" modality.
Participatory Wisdom
Practical wisdom, then, means the disposition and skill to use knowledge in the right ways -- fully actualized power. Skepticism toward rigid dogmas and even our own beliefs helps us stay quietly open to the opportunities which might otherwise be lost. In this mode, faith comes from a solid connection with the nurturing Ground of our Being, the inherent power of self-affirmation, despite the threat of nonbeing.
Faith in oneself pragmatically confronts and transcends both theism and mysticism with a skeptical eye toward their limiting content. In this regard, it affirms radical freedom. This is a freedom to simply be what we are, more fully, without cultural or "imported" conditioning. Insecurities remain, but are no longer paralyzing. When the inner aim is true, we cannot help but be drawn forward toward our own Truth. Aligning ourselves with others who appreciate the fundamental interconnectedness of life helps us thrive. It opens the door to both learning and mentoring others.
Courage in the face of the unknown is a gift of our Spirit. This strength of mind and heart is our Essence, our essential nature, which can neither be taught nor learned, but is a grace. It means power over oneself to muster and self-regulate inspiration, mood and creativity. It gives us the will to surpass ourselves, and joy in doing so. Without courage, we can tolerate neither failure nor success. With it, we can face the prospect of setbacks, guilt, condemnation and even death, for our lives are not empty nor meaningless...but a grand work of art, an artfully lived life with the acceptance that what IS-IS.
Thus, seeking and promoting wisdom means the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides that is the domain of aesthetics - Art with Heart.
“Paramedia” describes what happens when peers come together in networks of influence, using media innovation. In the era of USER AS CONTENT, self-organizing people with the status skillsets of traditional media and access to media publishing tools converge in mutually-reinforcing, democratic and purposeful new ways beyond journalism and the shameless self-promotion of "Web 2.0" and other non-compliant media and distribution channels.
DIY Media: Paramedia, including desktop cinema, is the medium of the "Naughties." Arguably, it is the single most important factor in current social evolution, light years beyond the offerings of dry pedagogy and endless Power Point presentations. It penetrates deeply into the gaps of conventional culture, rigidity and atrophy, bursting it apart at the seams, like overripe fruit. It is a chaotic factor mirroring the criticality of our times, and magnifying its influence through the butterfly effect of info-memes.
Infowars: Taking its message directly to the people who either actively seek it or come upon it synchronistically, it is a new way of teaching and learning that suits our busy lifestyles and our infolust for concise, up to the minute reportage, analysis and applcation. As with all media, once you digest the content, you are invited to make up your mind for yourself.
Paramedia Ecology describes the peer-to-peer world of subtle interactions of the sum of all such evolutionary media interactions, networks of influence, and peer relationships. It includes social and political potential, agitprop, blogging, podcasting, videocasting, network nodes, tiny TV, YouTube, and the next thing we haven't heard about yet but will soon all be doing.
• Paramedia is a form of media that applies the training that has been largely restricted to journalists, artists and storytellers by limited access to the tools and channels for making and distributing messages;
• Paramedia operate beside, between, above and below the traditional practitioners of media and the paramedia channels enjoy an increasingly similar access to audiences through distribution channels.
• Paramedia can be dysfunctional; the assumption by established media is that paramedia is essentially flawed by a lack of professionalism. Paramedia people, likewise, believe the conventional media they supersede is dysfunctional. (Ratcliffe).
"McLuhan believed that electronic environments were molding people on a scale that was greater than any artwork, and that, therefore, artists should embrace the technologies of the future," says Paramedia Ecologist, Bob Dobbs."By this, he meant that in mass media environments, people are molded not only by the content but by a sensory bias specific to the medium," says Dobbs. For digital media, he adopted a different adage, that the "user is the content."
McLuhan's "put on" is the mysterious process of continual mutual transformation, resulting from a reciprocal dynamic whereby a reader's perceptions are altered by putting on a mask or poem, and a writer or maker puts on the reader, having to project his own image as the mask of the user or reader. McLuhan would later note that the "complexity of this process is such that even literary critics have despaired of ever unravelling it. Critics of the press, on the other hand, are accustomed to label the whole thing as degrading…" given that in the commercial sphere, the process can be referred to as "giving the public what it wants." He continues, "this process is at the very heart of any communication activity…It is certain to remain the central issue so long as readers are human and not merely robots." -Andrew Crystall
STAY TUNED
Now, it's time for the TAKE OFF, as we all GET REAL, online or off, once again ~ what is called in media ecology, the ANTHROPOMORPHIC PHYSICAL (AP), the physical body - not just the chip-body.
The audience is US, the users, the DOWNLOADABLE HUMANS.
MYTH IS the pattern of information/culture/community/technology and words/archetype/story/passion. Previously myth was imposed, now it is evoked. Instead of ruling people by controlling their passions, we rule through their passions. Myth is passion and under the electric myth all passions are retrieved and recycled simultaneously as software "form" (to live in on a long-term basis) and as hardware "content" (short-term and temporary lifespan). In terms of communication, which is what a medium is - it's shared information, it's community - shared communities and archetypes are talking, living out loud.
"We are polluting Art as fast as we are tidying up Nature. The people of the Earth are encouraged to engage in an experiment of utmost urgency. We must turn off the electric environment for a period of one week to perform a cleansing of mass-man's mind, body and spirit. We must get back to our bodies, lest we forget they are still there! Imagine the freedom to be experienced as the top-down cultural control of civilization is eradicated for even the briefest period! If everyone did participate in the media Fast, how would we know it happened? Stay tuned..." ~ Bob Dobbs
Who are we?
What we need is a new existential paradigm, a design pattern for putting knowledge into action. Doctors tell us we don't know the simplest things like how to eat or sleep properly. Psychologists tell us we don't know how to behave and politics shows us we don't know how to get along. Pundits and talking heads tell us we don't know how to think critically. We don't know what to believe, and fall victim to mind control, the spiritual supermarket, memes, agitprop and propaganda, and our own outworn childhood scripts.
We need a new Participatory Wisdom for how to be and how to get along in our rapidly changing world. We need to change the architecture of our participation with self, others and world for a richer user experience, an attitude not a technology. Science isn't the panacea. Soon it will make us Borg, transhumans with bioelectronic supplementation. Science still doesn't know what energy, matter, electricity, life, or the cosmos is, but the secret of the Universe is that IT's ALIVE! And so are we.
Calm Passion
It is that very nonmechanical liveliness, the joi de vivre of passion that best communicates our holistic Presence to others, to the world. In ancient times, wisdom was thought of as the type of knowledge needed to discern the good and live the good life. It was one of the four virtues, including justice, moderation, and courage which comes from the heart as the root couer shows. The pursuit of wisdom comes from a willingness to expose the pretenses of wisdom wherever we find it, even in ourselves. It gives us the infallible judgment to discern what is worthy of pursuit.
The "courage to be" -- what we potentially are, our mission and raison d'ete -- is essentially an ethical act of affirming our identity despite any shortcomings or the possibility of dreadful outcomes. It is embodied in two basic life strategies, which can be summed up as, "Say it then play it" or "Play it and then say it."
In the former we declare our intent. We begin with an inspiration, fantasy or desire, name it then go about the process of making it so. In the later, we place ourselves in the matrix of spontaneous events and find ourselves living larger than life, and then maximize that fortune to parlay it into further opportunities for fantastic experiences. Wisdom is developed through experience, insight and reflection -- the common sense of foresight, or "connecting the dots."
Philosophy as the love of wisdom is a metaphysical pursuit which opens the depth dimension. Sure, each of us can be wise in our craft, but that is merely a steppingstone to the greater accomplishment of a well-lived life, optimizing our talents and opportunities for expression. Knowledge is the basis for making good choices. Without the right information, we are stuck in the "garbage in/garbage out" modality.
Participatory Wisdom
Practical wisdom, then, means the disposition and skill to use knowledge in the right ways -- fully actualized power. Skepticism toward rigid dogmas and even our own beliefs helps us stay quietly open to the opportunities which might otherwise be lost. In this mode, faith comes from a solid connection with the nurturing Ground of our Being, the inherent power of self-affirmation, despite the threat of nonbeing.
Faith in oneself pragmatically confronts and transcends both theism and mysticism with a skeptical eye toward their limiting content. In this regard, it affirms radical freedom. This is a freedom to simply be what we are, more fully, without cultural or "imported" conditioning. Insecurities remain, but are no longer paralyzing. When the inner aim is true, we cannot help but be drawn forward toward our own Truth. Aligning ourselves with others who appreciate the fundamental interconnectedness of life helps us thrive. It opens the door to both learning and mentoring others.
Courage in the face of the unknown is a gift of our Spirit. This strength of mind and heart is our Essence, our essential nature, which can neither be taught nor learned, but is a grace. It means power over oneself to muster and self-regulate inspiration, mood and creativity. It gives us the will to surpass ourselves, and joy in doing so. Without courage, we can tolerate neither failure nor success. With it, we can face the prospect of setbacks, guilt, condemnation and even death, for our lives are not empty nor meaningless...but a grand work of art, an artfully lived life with the acceptance that what IS-IS.
Thus, seeking and promoting wisdom means the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides that is the domain of aesthetics - Art with Heart.
PARAMEDIA ECOLOGY: LET THE READER BE AWARE
PARAMEDIA ECOLOGY
PARAMEDIA ECOLOGY: LET THE READER BE AWARE
by Iona Miller, 10/2006
“Paramedia” describes what happens when peers come together in networks of influence, using media innovation. In the era of USER AS CONTENT, self-organizing people with the status skillsets of traditional media and access to media publishing tools converge in mutually-reinforcing, democratic and purposeful new ways beyond journalism and the shameless self-promotion of "Web 2.0" and other non-compliant media and distribution channels. It is an extension of the zeitgeist of our times to connect directly with Source and Spirit.
Paramedia is arguably the single most important factor in current social evolution, light years beyond the offerings of dry pedagogy and endless Power Point presentations. It promotes both/and thinking and penetrates deeply into the gaps of conventional culture, rigidity and atrophy, bursting it apart at the seams, like overripe fruit. We can put collective shifts into high gear - and have a great time doing it.
Born at the creative edge of culture, paramedia helps us create the means to unleash our full potential. The future is being unleashed by a new generation of collaborative artists and Internet tools, such as conscious social networking, paired with an integral approach to personal growth. It is a chaotic creative factor mirroring the criticality of our times, and magnifying its influence through the butterfly effect of info-memes. It is a new way of getting our intellectual, emotional and expressive needs met through resilient communities.
Infowars: Taking its message directly to the people who either actively seek it or come upon it synchronistically, paramedia is a new way of teaching, learning and sharing that suits our busy lifestyles and our infolust for concise, up to the minute reportage, discussion, analysis and application.
Paramedia opens the door to direct modeling of behaviors as well as mentoring. But, let the reader be aware of its inherent challenge: separating the wheat from the chaff. Remember the consumer maxim, "Let the buyer beware." Let the reader be aware, since you may be dealing with OpEd news, mis- or disinformation, intentional or otherwise. As with all media, once you digest the content, you are invited to make up your own mind for yourself.
Paramedia Ecology describes the peer-to-peer world of subtle interactions of the sum of all such evolutionary media interactions, networks of influence, and peer relationships. It includes social and political potential, agitprop, blogging, podcasting, videocasting, network nodes, tiny TV, You Tube and the next thing we haven't heard about yet but will soon all be doing.
• Paramedia is a form of media that applies the training that has been largely restricted to journalists, artists and storytellers by limited access to the tools and channels for making and distributing messages;
• Paramedia operate beside, between, above and below the traditional practitioners of media and the paramedia channels enjoy an increasingly similar access to audiences through distribution channels.
• Paramedia can be dysfunctional; the assumption by established media is that paramedia is essentially flawed by a lack of professionalism. Paramedia people, likewise, believe the conventional media they supersede is dysfunctional. (Ratcliffe).
"McLuhan believed that electronic environments were molding people on a scale that was greater than any artwork, and that, therefore, artists should embrace the technologies of the future," says Paramedia Ecologist, Bob Dobbs."By this, he meant that in mass media environments, people are molded not only by the content but by a sensory bias specific to the medium," says Dobbs. For digital media, he adopted a different adage, that the "user is the content."
McLuhan's "put on" is the mysterious process of continual mutual transformation,”resulting from a reciprocal dynamic whereby a reader's perceptions are altered by putting on a mask or poem, and a writer or maker puts on the reader, having to project his own image as the mask of the user or reader.”
McLuhan would later note that the "complexity of this process is such that even literary critics have despaired of ever unravelling it. Critics of the press, on the other hand, are accustomed to label the whole thing as degrading…" given that in the commercial sphere, the process can be referred to as "giving the public what it wants." He continues, "this process is at the very heart of any communication activity…It is certain to remain the central issue so long as readers are human and not merely robots."
STAY TUNED
Now, it's time for the TAKE OFF, as we all GET REAL, online or off, once again ~ what is called in media ecology, the ANTHROPOMORPHIC PHYSICAL (AP), the physical body - not just the chip-body.
The audience is US, the users, the DOWNLOADABLE HUMANS.
MYTH IS the pattern of information/culture/community/technology and words/archetype/story/passion. Previously myth was imposed, now it is evoked. Instead of ruling people by controlling their passions, we rule through their passions.
Myth is passion and under the electric myth all passions are retrieved and recycled simultaneously as software "form" (to live in on a long-term basis) and as hardware "content" (short-term and temporary lifespan). In terms of communication, which is what a medium is - it's shared information, it's community - shared communities and archetypes are talking and talking back, living out loud.
Paramedia ecologist, Bob Dobbs suggests, "We are polluting Art as fast as we are tidying up Nature. The people of the Earth are encouraged to engage in an experiment of utmost urgency. We must turn off the electric environment for a period of one week to perform a cleansing of mass-man's mind, body and spirit. We must get back to our bodies, lest we forget they are still there! Imagine the freedom to be experienced as the top-down cultural control of civilization is eradicated for even the briefest period! If everyone did participate in the media Fast, how would we know it happened? Stay tuned..."
Who Are We?
What we need is a new existential paradigm, a design pattern for putting knowledge into action. Doctors tell us we don't know the simplest things like how to eat or sleep properly. Psychologists tell us we don't know how to behave and politics shows us we don't know how to get along. Pundits and talking heads tell us we don't know how to think critically. We don't know what to believe, and fall victim to mind control, the spiritual supermarket, memes, agitprop and propaganda, and our own outworn childhood scripts.
We need a new Participatory Wisdom for how to be and how to get along in our rapidly changing world. We need to change the architecture of our participation with self, others and world for a richer user experience, an attitude not a technology. Science isn't the panacea. Soon it will make us Borg, transhumans with bioelectronic supplementation. Science still doesn't know what energy, matter, electricity, life, or the cosmos is, but the secret of the Universe is that IT's ALIVE! And so are we.
Calm Passion
That very nonmechanical liveliness, the joi de vivre of passion, best communicates our holistic Presence to others, to the world. In ancient times, wisdom was thought of as the type of knowledge needed to discern the good and live the good life. It was one of the four virtues, including justice, moderation, and courage, which comes from the heart as the root couer,shows. The pursuit of wisdom comes from a willingness to expose the pretenses of wisdom wherever we find them, even in ourselves. It gives us the infallible judgment to discern what is worthy of pursuit.
The "courage to be" -- what we potentially are, our mission and raison d'etre -- is essentially an ethical act of affirming our identity despite any shortcomings or the possibility of dreadful outcomes. It is embodied in two basic life strategies, which can be summed up as, "Say it then play it" or "Play it and then say it."
In the former we declare our intent. We begin with an inspiration, fantasy or desire, name it then go about the process of making it so. In the later, we place ourselves in the matrix of spontaneous events and find ourselves living larger than life, and then maximize that fortune to parlay it into further opportunities for fantastic experiences. Wisdom is developed through experience, insight and reflection -- the common sense of foresight, or "connecting the dots."
Philosophy as the love of wisdom is a metaphysical pursuit, which opens the depth dimension. Sure, each of us can be wise in our craft, but that is merely a steppingstone to the greater accomplishment of a well-lived life, optimizing our talents and opportunities for expression. Knowledge is the basis for making good choices. Without the right information, we are stuck in the "garbage in/garbage out" modality.
Participatory Wisdom
Practical wisdom, then, means the disposition and skill to use knowledge in the right ways -- fully actualized power. Skepticism toward rigid dogmas and even our own beliefs helps us stay quietly open to the opportunities, which might otherwise be lost. In this mode, faith comes from a solid connection with the nurturing Ground of our Being, the inherent power of self-affirmation, despite the threat of nonbeing.
Faith in oneself pragmatically confronts and transcends both theism and mysticism with a skeptical eye toward their limiting content. In this regard, it affirms radical freedom. This is a freedom to simply be what we are, more fully, without cultural or "imported" conditioning.
Insecurities remain, but are no longer paralyzing. When the inner aim is true, we cannot help but be drawn forward toward our own Truth. Aligning ourselves with others who appreciate the fundamental interconnectedness of life helps us thrive. It opens the door to both learning and mentoring others.
Courage in the face of the unknown is a gift of our Spirit. This strength of mind and heart is our Essence, our essential nature, which can neither be taught nor learned, but is a grace. It means power over oneself to muster and self-regulate inspiration, mood and creativity.
The evolutionary "edge,” the new self-organizing order always emerges from chaos. Courage gives us the will to surpass ourselves, and joy in doing so. Without courage, we can’t tolerate failure or success. With it, we can face the prospect of setbacks, guilt, condemnation and even death, for our lives are not empty nor meaningless...but a grand work of art, an artfully lived life with the acceptance that what IS-IS.
Thus, seeking and promoting wisdom means the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides that is the domain of aesthetics - Art with Heart. There is an art to creating environments, new worlds of perception.
YOU REPRESENT; THEY RECOGNIZE
"Association with pupils keeps one's work youthful. Critiquing others keeps one's point of view clear." (William Merritt Chase, 1849-1916)
MENTORING is the art of giving and receiving wisdom; guiding, nurturing and enabling others to realize and develop their full potential with respect for their own journey. It celebrates an extension of self-cultivation with kindred spirits in soulful relationships.
Mentoring is a means of expressing and receiving feedback from many points of view (POV). It is a mode of knowing and learning with. We find our identities in “mirroring”, empathy, mind-sharing and the struggle with different points of view.
Mentoring is individualized and tailored. Instructables means sharing what you make and how others can make it: step-by-step collaboration and nouveau niche opportunities - status skills. Once you find your niche, phreak it!
Now, consumers and "trysumers" can acquire as many skills as they want, but equally important is showing-off what you've learned and created. Don’t forget: without ‘the others’ seeing, tasting, hearing or smelling your skills, without the inevitable story-telling, there is no status coming your way!
The anti-trend to status skills is LACK OF TIME, balancing skill time and consumption time. Where on earth will consumers find the time to actively acquire these new skills? Infolust drives status skill-building and trend immersion.
The intergenerational "group leader" is a very busy and observant character, anticipating and even creating trends. While alternately bombarding the viewers and leaving them in pregnant silence, her approach is nevertheless anticipatory and dependent on the will of individuals within the group. This goes a long way toward avoiding the toxicity of recipes, the flapdoodle of stating the obvious.
The mentor must be able to think on her feet, with fluid concepts and creative analogies, and thus make it a learning experience for herself as well. Her job is to inspire, encourage and validate, to give authoritative crits, tips, demos, as well as input from Leonardo, Andy, Vincent, Georgia and others. It's good to instill and cultivate a feeling of the historic brotherhood and sisterhood. Newbies benefit when they keep their pride and lose their inhibitions.
Teaching can stealthily eviscerate your own need for art-making. Of course, there are those who find teaching a stimulus. Because many of us have a hard-wired need to share--and teaching is an obvious vehicle--we need to find ways of satisfying this need. Teaching art and hypermedia is not like teaching accounting. In the first place, individuals in an art community are likely to have vastly different expectations, potentials, aesthetics, icon repertoires, and prior experiences.
Because everybody is on a different page, you need to adjust your methodology. A feeling of "We're all friends here" must be established. In a game-like environment and an urgent atmosphere, all the participants start by going to work on current projects at their own level of proficiency. When the mentor feels that some direction can be reasonably offered, she engages on a one-to-one basis.
Students, collaborators and colleagues may gather or disperse. On occasion the mentor may pontificate for the whole group. She may quickly demonstrate her own or another's work for whoever may be interested. Examples of work, good and bad, finished or not, are held up for quick discussion. There's an ongoing interactive crit, a celebration of individuality within the joy of the group.
Attentional Processes: Beyond the Consumer Dream
Attention shuttling is self-soothing - a positive coping mechanism of resilient individuals, shifting attentional focus between the cognitive and emotional regulatory process. It is more akin to multitasking than the pathology of ADHD. It allows us to correct imbalances in our immediate environment by finding wider frames of reference that meet our needs better. It stimulates inner dialogue that often can’t be reduced to a single viewpoint from different perspectives.
Based on his work in creativity and with gifted children, John Curtis Gowan developed a model of development, which bootstrapped off Piaget and Erikson, but included adult development beyond the ordinary or "normal" adult successes of career and family building, extending into the emergence and stabilization of extraordinary development and mystical states of consciousness.
Gowan described the entire spectrum of available states in his classic Trance, Art, & Creativity (1975), with its different modalities of spiritual and aesthetic expression. He devised a test for Self-Actualization, called the Northridge Developmental Scale. http://www.csun.edu/edpsy/Gowan
Gowan outlines a developmental theory whereby we may tap our latent creative potential and self-actualization, organically growing toward the psychedelic or soul-revealing and illuminative states. He describes these states most fully in Development of the Psychedelic Individual (1974) and in Operations of Increasing Order. His use of the term 'psychedelic' does not connote drug use; quite the contrary he is strongly opposed to the developmental forcing and disintegration drug-use brings.
He describes how dyplasias between cognitive and affective growth can bleed off developmental energies, resulting in dysphoria and displacements, leaving us feeling unintegrated, blocked or stuck. He carries developmental theory past the concept of a strong coping ego. Fearing the loss-of-control by our egos, we may be reluctant to enter the soul-revealing stage of psychedelia and remain content to re-experience successes at our familiar or comfortable level of experience--usually expressed by the metaphor of "the American Dream,"--a cultural myth.
Gowan considers plateauing out before these upper stages to be akin to lack of sexual maturation in an adolescent. Clearly, resilience is the ability to continually redefine oneself and experience are fundamental to this life-long process of connecting with Source and Spirit. One of these means is finding more resilient ways of processing information through emotional and spiritual intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is demonstrated by the individual who is able to interrupt the emotional feedback loop as needed in order to allow the brain's logical functions to assess the situation. The techniques by which this is adaptively and intelligently accomplished are what psychology calls "positive coping mechanisms." Maladaptive coping mechanisms include those which succeed in circumventing emotional over-reactions at a cost of psychophysiological health to the individual, (Goleman, 1995).
Goleman's expanded model of intelligence thus presents a compelling argument that it is actually intelligent emotions rather than intelligence alone which forms the core of human coping skills and thus makes it a "master aptitude," (Goleman, p. 80).
Summary
We can fulfill the developmental process and develop our emotional intelligence to help us become more resilient. This facilitates information-shuttling between left and right hemispheres which intuitively facilitates the intelligent sequencing of information so that we more resiliently make use of our human emotions. From this enhanced state, intuitive information-sequencing facilitates evolution of resilient personality traits and adaptive coping styles. We become increasingly conscious of our own ability to effect positive outcomes within our worlds.
We can mirror the optimistic positive attitudes and aptitudes of our mentors. The process of co-consciousness or mindsharing involves a shared reality in which the integrity of the mentor stabilizes the journeyer even though they may be moving through the fear and pain in a highly emotional state. The empathic sensing, "mind reading," and compassionate reassurance of the mentor sustains the dynamic momentum of the process as it moves spontaneously toward natural healing.
Mindsharing comes down to us from the ancient shamanic tradition of spiritual healing.. "A shaman is someone whose specialty is induction of a well state, someone who may help either through research or treatment to induce a state in someone else's brain that will produce health," according to psychiatrist Arnold Mandell. "But the brain is an open, instrinsically unstable system, and if its higher level order is perturbed enough, it gets more and more turbulent. It fractures, then organizes into a new regime.
By directing our attention both inwardly and outwardly, we connect with the eternal source of wisdom and our intuition comes to the fore. An inherent part of the process of changing from the inside out is that as the deepest self transforms, downline faculties such as beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior, as well as psychosomatic condition, automatically change as well. Thus, resilience can be seen as the ability to dynamically change at the most fundamental level toward a more adaptive way of being in the world.
Individuals can develop a sense of wholeness on all three levels of their identity: 1). the egoic, which requires a more adaptively cohesive sense of self identity with and yet separate from the world; 2). the existential, which while encompassing the egoic state, also requires a more coherent sense of one's individuated state within the human conditions; and 3). the transpersonal, which requires that one transcend the egoic, existential identities and enter into a heightened awareness of essential unity with all human beings, living things, and perhaps the cosmos.
PARAMEDIA ECOLOGY: LET THE READER BE AWARE
by Iona Miller, 10/2006
“Paramedia” describes what happens when peers come together in networks of influence, using media innovation. In the era of USER AS CONTENT, self-organizing people with the status skillsets of traditional media and access to media publishing tools converge in mutually-reinforcing, democratic and purposeful new ways beyond journalism and the shameless self-promotion of "Web 2.0" and other non-compliant media and distribution channels. It is an extension of the zeitgeist of our times to connect directly with Source and Spirit.
Paramedia is arguably the single most important factor in current social evolution, light years beyond the offerings of dry pedagogy and endless Power Point presentations. It promotes both/and thinking and penetrates deeply into the gaps of conventional culture, rigidity and atrophy, bursting it apart at the seams, like overripe fruit. We can put collective shifts into high gear - and have a great time doing it.
Born at the creative edge of culture, paramedia helps us create the means to unleash our full potential. The future is being unleashed by a new generation of collaborative artists and Internet tools, such as conscious social networking, paired with an integral approach to personal growth. It is a chaotic creative factor mirroring the criticality of our times, and magnifying its influence through the butterfly effect of info-memes. It is a new way of getting our intellectual, emotional and expressive needs met through resilient communities.
Infowars: Taking its message directly to the people who either actively seek it or come upon it synchronistically, paramedia is a new way of teaching, learning and sharing that suits our busy lifestyles and our infolust for concise, up to the minute reportage, discussion, analysis and application.
Paramedia opens the door to direct modeling of behaviors as well as mentoring. But, let the reader be aware of its inherent challenge: separating the wheat from the chaff. Remember the consumer maxim, "Let the buyer beware." Let the reader be aware, since you may be dealing with OpEd news, mis- or disinformation, intentional or otherwise. As with all media, once you digest the content, you are invited to make up your own mind for yourself.
Paramedia Ecology describes the peer-to-peer world of subtle interactions of the sum of all such evolutionary media interactions, networks of influence, and peer relationships. It includes social and political potential, agitprop, blogging, podcasting, videocasting, network nodes, tiny TV, You Tube and the next thing we haven't heard about yet but will soon all be doing.
• Paramedia is a form of media that applies the training that has been largely restricted to journalists, artists and storytellers by limited access to the tools and channels for making and distributing messages;
• Paramedia operate beside, between, above and below the traditional practitioners of media and the paramedia channels enjoy an increasingly similar access to audiences through distribution channels.
• Paramedia can be dysfunctional; the assumption by established media is that paramedia is essentially flawed by a lack of professionalism. Paramedia people, likewise, believe the conventional media they supersede is dysfunctional. (Ratcliffe).
"McLuhan believed that electronic environments were molding people on a scale that was greater than any artwork, and that, therefore, artists should embrace the technologies of the future," says Paramedia Ecologist, Bob Dobbs."By this, he meant that in mass media environments, people are molded not only by the content but by a sensory bias specific to the medium," says Dobbs. For digital media, he adopted a different adage, that the "user is the content."
McLuhan's "put on" is the mysterious process of continual mutual transformation,”resulting from a reciprocal dynamic whereby a reader's perceptions are altered by putting on a mask or poem, and a writer or maker puts on the reader, having to project his own image as the mask of the user or reader.”
McLuhan would later note that the "complexity of this process is such that even literary critics have despaired of ever unravelling it. Critics of the press, on the other hand, are accustomed to label the whole thing as degrading…" given that in the commercial sphere, the process can be referred to as "giving the public what it wants." He continues, "this process is at the very heart of any communication activity…It is certain to remain the central issue so long as readers are human and not merely robots."
STAY TUNED
Now, it's time for the TAKE OFF, as we all GET REAL, online or off, once again ~ what is called in media ecology, the ANTHROPOMORPHIC PHYSICAL (AP), the physical body - not just the chip-body.
The audience is US, the users, the DOWNLOADABLE HUMANS.
MYTH IS the pattern of information/culture/community/technology and words/archetype/story/passion. Previously myth was imposed, now it is evoked. Instead of ruling people by controlling their passions, we rule through their passions.
Myth is passion and under the electric myth all passions are retrieved and recycled simultaneously as software "form" (to live in on a long-term basis) and as hardware "content" (short-term and temporary lifespan). In terms of communication, which is what a medium is - it's shared information, it's community - shared communities and archetypes are talking and talking back, living out loud.
Paramedia ecologist, Bob Dobbs suggests, "We are polluting Art as fast as we are tidying up Nature. The people of the Earth are encouraged to engage in an experiment of utmost urgency. We must turn off the electric environment for a period of one week to perform a cleansing of mass-man's mind, body and spirit. We must get back to our bodies, lest we forget they are still there! Imagine the freedom to be experienced as the top-down cultural control of civilization is eradicated for even the briefest period! If everyone did participate in the media Fast, how would we know it happened? Stay tuned..."
Who Are We?
What we need is a new existential paradigm, a design pattern for putting knowledge into action. Doctors tell us we don't know the simplest things like how to eat or sleep properly. Psychologists tell us we don't know how to behave and politics shows us we don't know how to get along. Pundits and talking heads tell us we don't know how to think critically. We don't know what to believe, and fall victim to mind control, the spiritual supermarket, memes, agitprop and propaganda, and our own outworn childhood scripts.
We need a new Participatory Wisdom for how to be and how to get along in our rapidly changing world. We need to change the architecture of our participation with self, others and world for a richer user experience, an attitude not a technology. Science isn't the panacea. Soon it will make us Borg, transhumans with bioelectronic supplementation. Science still doesn't know what energy, matter, electricity, life, or the cosmos is, but the secret of the Universe is that IT's ALIVE! And so are we.
Calm Passion
That very nonmechanical liveliness, the joi de vivre of passion, best communicates our holistic Presence to others, to the world. In ancient times, wisdom was thought of as the type of knowledge needed to discern the good and live the good life. It was one of the four virtues, including justice, moderation, and courage, which comes from the heart as the root couer,shows. The pursuit of wisdom comes from a willingness to expose the pretenses of wisdom wherever we find them, even in ourselves. It gives us the infallible judgment to discern what is worthy of pursuit.
The "courage to be" -- what we potentially are, our mission and raison d'etre -- is essentially an ethical act of affirming our identity despite any shortcomings or the possibility of dreadful outcomes. It is embodied in two basic life strategies, which can be summed up as, "Say it then play it" or "Play it and then say it."
In the former we declare our intent. We begin with an inspiration, fantasy or desire, name it then go about the process of making it so. In the later, we place ourselves in the matrix of spontaneous events and find ourselves living larger than life, and then maximize that fortune to parlay it into further opportunities for fantastic experiences. Wisdom is developed through experience, insight and reflection -- the common sense of foresight, or "connecting the dots."
Philosophy as the love of wisdom is a metaphysical pursuit, which opens the depth dimension. Sure, each of us can be wise in our craft, but that is merely a steppingstone to the greater accomplishment of a well-lived life, optimizing our talents and opportunities for expression. Knowledge is the basis for making good choices. Without the right information, we are stuck in the "garbage in/garbage out" modality.
Participatory Wisdom
Practical wisdom, then, means the disposition and skill to use knowledge in the right ways -- fully actualized power. Skepticism toward rigid dogmas and even our own beliefs helps us stay quietly open to the opportunities, which might otherwise be lost. In this mode, faith comes from a solid connection with the nurturing Ground of our Being, the inherent power of self-affirmation, despite the threat of nonbeing.
Faith in oneself pragmatically confronts and transcends both theism and mysticism with a skeptical eye toward their limiting content. In this regard, it affirms radical freedom. This is a freedom to simply be what we are, more fully, without cultural or "imported" conditioning.
Insecurities remain, but are no longer paralyzing. When the inner aim is true, we cannot help but be drawn forward toward our own Truth. Aligning ourselves with others who appreciate the fundamental interconnectedness of life helps us thrive. It opens the door to both learning and mentoring others.
Courage in the face of the unknown is a gift of our Spirit. This strength of mind and heart is our Essence, our essential nature, which can neither be taught nor learned, but is a grace. It means power over oneself to muster and self-regulate inspiration, mood and creativity.
The evolutionary "edge,” the new self-organizing order always emerges from chaos. Courage gives us the will to surpass ourselves, and joy in doing so. Without courage, we can’t tolerate failure or success. With it, we can face the prospect of setbacks, guilt, condemnation and even death, for our lives are not empty nor meaningless...but a grand work of art, an artfully lived life with the acceptance that what IS-IS.
Thus, seeking and promoting wisdom means the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides that is the domain of aesthetics - Art with Heart. There is an art to creating environments, new worlds of perception.
YOU REPRESENT; THEY RECOGNIZE
"Association with pupils keeps one's work youthful. Critiquing others keeps one's point of view clear." (William Merritt Chase, 1849-1916)
MENTORING is the art of giving and receiving wisdom; guiding, nurturing and enabling others to realize and develop their full potential with respect for their own journey. It celebrates an extension of self-cultivation with kindred spirits in soulful relationships.
Mentoring is a means of expressing and receiving feedback from many points of view (POV). It is a mode of knowing and learning with. We find our identities in “mirroring”, empathy, mind-sharing and the struggle with different points of view.
Mentoring is individualized and tailored. Instructables means sharing what you make and how others can make it: step-by-step collaboration and nouveau niche opportunities - status skills. Once you find your niche, phreak it!
Now, consumers and "trysumers" can acquire as many skills as they want, but equally important is showing-off what you've learned and created. Don’t forget: without ‘the others’ seeing, tasting, hearing or smelling your skills, without the inevitable story-telling, there is no status coming your way!
The anti-trend to status skills is LACK OF TIME, balancing skill time and consumption time. Where on earth will consumers find the time to actively acquire these new skills? Infolust drives status skill-building and trend immersion.
The intergenerational "group leader" is a very busy and observant character, anticipating and even creating trends. While alternately bombarding the viewers and leaving them in pregnant silence, her approach is nevertheless anticipatory and dependent on the will of individuals within the group. This goes a long way toward avoiding the toxicity of recipes, the flapdoodle of stating the obvious.
The mentor must be able to think on her feet, with fluid concepts and creative analogies, and thus make it a learning experience for herself as well. Her job is to inspire, encourage and validate, to give authoritative crits, tips, demos, as well as input from Leonardo, Andy, Vincent, Georgia and others. It's good to instill and cultivate a feeling of the historic brotherhood and sisterhood. Newbies benefit when they keep their pride and lose their inhibitions.
Teaching can stealthily eviscerate your own need for art-making. Of course, there are those who find teaching a stimulus. Because many of us have a hard-wired need to share--and teaching is an obvious vehicle--we need to find ways of satisfying this need. Teaching art and hypermedia is not like teaching accounting. In the first place, individuals in an art community are likely to have vastly different expectations, potentials, aesthetics, icon repertoires, and prior experiences.
Because everybody is on a different page, you need to adjust your methodology. A feeling of "We're all friends here" must be established. In a game-like environment and an urgent atmosphere, all the participants start by going to work on current projects at their own level of proficiency. When the mentor feels that some direction can be reasonably offered, she engages on a one-to-one basis.
Students, collaborators and colleagues may gather or disperse. On occasion the mentor may pontificate for the whole group. She may quickly demonstrate her own or another's work for whoever may be interested. Examples of work, good and bad, finished or not, are held up for quick discussion. There's an ongoing interactive crit, a celebration of individuality within the joy of the group.
Attentional Processes: Beyond the Consumer Dream
Attention shuttling is self-soothing - a positive coping mechanism of resilient individuals, shifting attentional focus between the cognitive and emotional regulatory process. It is more akin to multitasking than the pathology of ADHD. It allows us to correct imbalances in our immediate environment by finding wider frames of reference that meet our needs better. It stimulates inner dialogue that often can’t be reduced to a single viewpoint from different perspectives.
Based on his work in creativity and with gifted children, John Curtis Gowan developed a model of development, which bootstrapped off Piaget and Erikson, but included adult development beyond the ordinary or "normal" adult successes of career and family building, extending into the emergence and stabilization of extraordinary development and mystical states of consciousness.
Gowan described the entire spectrum of available states in his classic Trance, Art, & Creativity (1975), with its different modalities of spiritual and aesthetic expression. He devised a test for Self-Actualization, called the Northridge Developmental Scale. http://www.csun.edu/edpsy/Gowan
Gowan outlines a developmental theory whereby we may tap our latent creative potential and self-actualization, organically growing toward the psychedelic or soul-revealing and illuminative states. He describes these states most fully in Development of the Psychedelic Individual (1974) and in Operations of Increasing Order. His use of the term 'psychedelic' does not connote drug use; quite the contrary he is strongly opposed to the developmental forcing and disintegration drug-use brings.
He describes how dyplasias between cognitive and affective growth can bleed off developmental energies, resulting in dysphoria and displacements, leaving us feeling unintegrated, blocked or stuck. He carries developmental theory past the concept of a strong coping ego. Fearing the loss-of-control by our egos, we may be reluctant to enter the soul-revealing stage of psychedelia and remain content to re-experience successes at our familiar or comfortable level of experience--usually expressed by the metaphor of "the American Dream,"--a cultural myth.
Gowan considers plateauing out before these upper stages to be akin to lack of sexual maturation in an adolescent. Clearly, resilience is the ability to continually redefine oneself and experience are fundamental to this life-long process of connecting with Source and Spirit. One of these means is finding more resilient ways of processing information through emotional and spiritual intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is demonstrated by the individual who is able to interrupt the emotional feedback loop as needed in order to allow the brain's logical functions to assess the situation. The techniques by which this is adaptively and intelligently accomplished are what psychology calls "positive coping mechanisms." Maladaptive coping mechanisms include those which succeed in circumventing emotional over-reactions at a cost of psychophysiological health to the individual, (Goleman, 1995).
Goleman's expanded model of intelligence thus presents a compelling argument that it is actually intelligent emotions rather than intelligence alone which forms the core of human coping skills and thus makes it a "master aptitude," (Goleman, p. 80).
Summary
We can fulfill the developmental process and develop our emotional intelligence to help us become more resilient. This facilitates information-shuttling between left and right hemispheres which intuitively facilitates the intelligent sequencing of information so that we more resiliently make use of our human emotions. From this enhanced state, intuitive information-sequencing facilitates evolution of resilient personality traits and adaptive coping styles. We become increasingly conscious of our own ability to effect positive outcomes within our worlds.
We can mirror the optimistic positive attitudes and aptitudes of our mentors. The process of co-consciousness or mindsharing involves a shared reality in which the integrity of the mentor stabilizes the journeyer even though they may be moving through the fear and pain in a highly emotional state. The empathic sensing, "mind reading," and compassionate reassurance of the mentor sustains the dynamic momentum of the process as it moves spontaneously toward natural healing.
Mindsharing comes down to us from the ancient shamanic tradition of spiritual healing.. "A shaman is someone whose specialty is induction of a well state, someone who may help either through research or treatment to induce a state in someone else's brain that will produce health," according to psychiatrist Arnold Mandell. "But the brain is an open, instrinsically unstable system, and if its higher level order is perturbed enough, it gets more and more turbulent. It fractures, then organizes into a new regime.
By directing our attention both inwardly and outwardly, we connect with the eternal source of wisdom and our intuition comes to the fore. An inherent part of the process of changing from the inside out is that as the deepest self transforms, downline faculties such as beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior, as well as psychosomatic condition, automatically change as well. Thus, resilience can be seen as the ability to dynamically change at the most fundamental level toward a more adaptive way of being in the world.
Individuals can develop a sense of wholeness on all three levels of their identity: 1). the egoic, which requires a more adaptively cohesive sense of self identity with and yet separate from the world; 2). the existential, which while encompassing the egoic state, also requires a more coherent sense of one's individuated state within the human conditions; and 3). the transpersonal, which requires that one transcend the egoic, existential identities and enter into a heightened awareness of essential unity with all human beings, living things, and perhaps the cosmos.
MANIFESTO
EVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO for 2007
Summary
VIDEO CLIP: http://www.remyc.com/Deepak/coalition_for_onevoice.html
It is clear that if we are to make the political, economic, educational, and ecological changes necessary for survival, we must change the way we see ourselves, each other and the world we live in. We must find it in ourselves to turn away from competitive and exploitive social practices to those of cooperation and nurturance. Because this shift to open-heartedness is essentially a transformation of consciousness, perhaps the most useful resource we can have would be a simple and effective tool to put people in their "highest mind" in the course of daily living. This essay introduces a simple and elegant process for doing just that -- "Top-Down Yoga."
Top-Down Yoga -- so named because it involves subtle and powerful exercises "from the neck up" -- activates certain neurological pathways or what is called the "Social Engagement System." Identified by Dr. Stephen Porges as the most advanced human brain organization, the Social Engagement System makes people intelligible to each other and helps regulate the autonomic nervous system away from excessive reliance on the mechanisms of arousal and fear. Not only does this system allow us to "read" the facial expressions and other subtle cues in human communication but it acts as a gateway to the kinds of deep meditation and abilities that have long been the province of yogis and other spiritual adepts. The beauty of Top-Down Yoga is that anyone can learn to do it and anyone can benefit.
Top-Down Yoga is an important part of an emerging, scientifically-grounded spirit-based participatory knowledge system. Its simple movements tap into and strengthen each practitioner's Social Engagement System, so that we may use our evolving consciousness to join together to exploit our collective wisdom. "Harmonic Continuum" celebratory events are a vehicle for integrating these principles into the culture. They form an open-ended context for regeneration, celebration, adaptation and evolutionary learning that can be integrated into daily life. "Oxytocin Salons" can be used as way-stations to support the emerging connectedness of human being.
Introduction
Careless and destructive measures are being widely pursued for short-term economic and political gain, to growing alarm and concern among thoughtful individuals and leaders around the world. The wonders of human creativity and innovation are often applied to the wanton exploitation of resources and the advancement of weaponry. Such obviously foolish and short-sighted behavior is leading to the extinction of many species, including homo sapiens. Our collective activities may even be taking us to a "tipping point" beyond which global systems may not be recoverable no matter how much effort is expended. If we are to survive, we must redirect ourselves en masse towards life-positive ends.
The public is becoming increasingly aware of the destructive choices being made by business and government. While one need only look at the news to get an idea of what is happening, recent publications and films are focusing attention on the damage done by conflicts between countries and on the extent of our destruction of the environment. The possibility of shifting toward ecological and social sustainability is emerging as the dominant issue of our times. The success of the film, "What the Bleep Do We Know", demonstrates the passion of millions to understand the relationship between frontier science, spirituality and social dynamics. The film, "An Inconvenient Truth", explores the ways our collective consciousness and actions can play a role in resolving the environmental disasters that are confronting us.
We have always been capable of envisioning a world in which peace and satisfaction are the norm for everyone, but such goals remain elusive in a world where the populace is increasingly entrained to accept and focus on hostility, animosity, separation and inequality.
Modern science has begun to study consciousness itself in order to clarify the features of "mind" that are capable of pointing our collective awareness in beneficial directions. These investigations are leading to new ways of addressing the common root of the environmental, spiritual, social, educational, economic and political crises.
Former Canadian ambassador Jim George, in his book, Asking For The Earth, presents the view that ecological and spiritual crises are two sides of the same coin. He equates global warming with spiritual crisis because he sees the underlying cause for the neglect of the planet is belief in the existence of a dichotomy between "us and them" that has allowed us to stray from our own best interests. For significant change to occur, we must transcend the moment in our collective evolution when apparent individuality and objectivity emerged to dominate human consciousness. While this development led to almost unimaginable technological advances, it has also inflicted misery on many at the hands of a few, even to the brink of mass extinction. Now is the time for us to use our bodies, minds and spirits in secure connection with each other to take control of the evolutionary process.
This essay describes the beginnings of a remarkably simple strategy that enables us to confidently envision a far more viable individual, collective and planetary future.
Metafluctuation
To aid us in furthering our collective evolution, it may be useful to recall times when consciousness has undergone dramatic shifts that have awakened both the public and the institutions to our fundamental interconnectedness and to our clear potential to embrace harmony. In his seminal text, The Self-Organizing Universe, Erick Jantsch refers to a metafluctuation in the 1960's that "rocked the world." It was a time of grass roots movements: the awakening of awareness about and concern for the environment, rejection of the war in Vietnam and advocacy for domestic and international human rights. It was also a time of novelty. People felt free to explore alternative lifestyles, live in communes, do mind-expanding drugs and dance to rapidly evolving music that borrowed tone-scales and rhythms from around the world. Eastern spirituality and the beginning of the Human Potential movement provided powerful new guiding images and social norms.
Jantsch saw several basic themes in those dynamic times: "self-determination, self-organization and self-renewal… the recognition of a systemic connectedness over space and time of all natural dynamics…, the logical supremacy of processes over spatial structures… the role of fluctuation that renders the law of large numbers invalid and gives a chance to the individual and its creative imagination."
Looking back, it is easy to understand why the metafluctuation, which changed the world in some fairly radical ways, was dampened back into the existing paradigm. It simply did not have the coherence or necessary information to carry humanity over the threshold of the seemingly immutable values and beliefs of the Cartesian paradigm. Now, almost a half century later, we have the tools and the communication technologies we lacked in the past. It is up to us to summon the will to use them.
The Social Engagement System
Dr. Stephen Porges is the director of the Brain-Body Center in the
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois, Chicago
http://www.stressrelease.info/polyvagal_eng.html
http://www.nexuspub.com/articles/2006/interview_ma.htm His Polyvagal Theory asserts a biological basis for social behavior and proposes intervention strategies to enhance positive human interaction. It is derived from over 30 years of research on the relation of the autonomic nervous system to socio-emotional processes. His new understanding of a third branch of intelligence in the autonomic nervous system has led to the confirmation of a neurological basis for what he has termed "The Social Engagement System."
The old model of the autonomic nervous system presents only two branches, the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. That model has been shown to be incomplete as it only describes the autonomic components we share in common with reptiles. A third branch of intelligence, found in mammals, introduces an autonomic alternative beyond the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, one that sparks and maintains a body-based sense of well-being and the social functions of mammalian – and human – existence.
The Social Engagement System is a synergistic function of five cranial nerves that coordinates and integrates head-turning, looking, listening, vocal communication and facial _expression with cardiac output. Freed to function optimally, the Social Engagement System works to ground the human experience and _expression in love and social bonding. Dr. Jim Oschman, author of Energy Medicine, the Scientific Basis and Energy Medicine in Human Performance and Therapeutics, writing on social engagement behaviors states that "social bonds are scientifically described as a powerful form of learning regulated by long-lasting changes in the brain and endocrine system." http://www.intelligentbody.org.uk/lever.php Dr. Oschman further notes that social attachment is "hard-wired," as it were, in human being and cites research positing that it is vital to human health, longevity, perhaps even to existence itself.
Regulation of cardiac output by the Social Engagement System induces a positive state of stasis or stillness that conserves precious life energy and establishes the primacy of the warm-blooded current of heart "consciousness" as the bodymind's central organizing mechanism.
TOP-DOWN YOGA
Thanks to this framework and other developments in the understanding of the biological underpinnings of human consciousness, we can now explore a user-friendly and precise method of beneficial self-regulation called Top-Down Yoga. This innovative tool for strengthening the Social Engagement System enables people across social and political divides to overcome the many impediments they face to peace, economic and ecological viability and personal and cultural fulfillment.
The gentle movements of Top-Down Yoga release constriction at key anatomical points to free the neuroanatomical structures of the Social Engagement System to operate at their best. The ensuing chemicalchanges translate into a positive and dynamic state of consciousness. Easy to learn and simple to perform, Top-Down Yoga can be used by anyone almost anywhere, sitting in a chair, standing or lying down.
Here's how it works: the cranial nerves, identified as a part of the Social Engagement System, emerge from the brain stem. If the deep muscles of the neck are chronically tense, the nerves become irritated and their ability to function as a part of the system diminishes. In this compromised condition, people commonly experience a lack of safety and trust and feelings of separation and conflict are easily aroused. By gently releasing these structures with simple, systematic movements, the tissues and fluids of the body undergo a physiological change that fosters a very real sense of security and openness within the flux of the dynamically emerging universe.
Coordinating the breath with movements designed to activate the deep,
small muscles of the head, neck and spine, uncouples neurological and chemical patterns associated with fear and hostile arousal.
Working with eye movements disengages the practitioners of Top-Down Yoga from their habitual patterns of seeing. The ensuing changes in heart rate and concomitant release of neuropeptides foster not only a more positive outlook, or how the practioner sees, but an awareness of the act of seeing itself. The seeing of seeing is a vital step to self-awareness and the introduction of new choices in behavior.
Top-Down Yoga works to unify the most primordial organization of the fluids and tissues of the body, with the advanced evolutionary organization of the Social Engagement System. It is an embodiment practice that encourages the optimal flow of cerebrospinal fluid while activating the potent neuropeptide "messenger molecules" that coordinate almost all physiological and emotional processes of the body at the cellular level.
When the cranial nerves of the Social Engagement System are not functioning optimally, the nervous system becomes overloaded with messages from the structures of the reptilian brain, driving the whole toward dualistic thinking, stress, anxiety, depression and resignation. An unprecedented number of people world-wide suffer from these chronic conditions. The upward shift of neurological organization fostered by Top-Down Yoga transforms these conditions at their root level, generating an instantaneous shift towards a body-based feeling of wholeness and freedom and away from the chatter of lower brain dominance. Most people feel immediately soothed and calmed. Practiced with regularity, these feeling states become habitual and self-renewing.
The beauty of Top-Down Yoga is that each person, in the context of family, office, school, elder care facility, prison or peace negotiation, can draw upon its benefits to transcend stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome
A new model for evolutionary advancement
"The quiet little movements of Top-Down Yoga automatically shift a
person's primary method of support from thinking to feeling. There's
nothing wrong with thinking but feeling is better for assessing
physical safety and balance. Moreover, a mind relieved of these
preoccupations becomes clearer and more still. I believe that this
shift is one of the goals of most meditative practices, much of
martial arts, yoga and even religion, since it entails the practical
application of relying on a higher power. The good thing is that such
reliance does not really require faith as it makes itself palpably
manifest almost from the get-go. What it does require is the looking
for it. Top-Down Yoga is a pretty damned good place to start.
Not-coincidentally, a sense of unshakeable strength opens the heart.
There's nothing wrong with the world that loving it can't cure,
especially that interior world where we're stuck with our hurts and
diminishments. Choosing invincible receptivity changes everything."
From the Rolfing(r) perspective of Deborah Stucker, Advanced Certified
Rolfer, originator of a Direct Electromagnetic Approach.
Humanity -- whether expressed individually, as a society or as a species – if chronically stuck in a less-than-optimal autonomic state that compels competition and divisiveness, simply lacks the resources of energy, awareness and inspiration necessary to adapt to internal or external challenge.
We have the potential to come from a position of wholeness and connection. We can merge without loss of individuality to collaborate creatively. We are a field-like property of natural light that is the evolutionary 'body' of humanity.
Top-Down Yoga directly activates the most potent, positive neurochemistry of human being. The simple movements and postures of the practice create a novel context from which to explore one's own experience. Perhaps more invitingly, they also serve to promote the rest and the equanimity typical of deep meditation. Top-Down Yoga, by reinforcing the neuroanatomical components of social engagement, awakens the practitioner to the wisdom of the body and provides access to our body-based collective wisdom. Perhaps, by using a practice that binds our primary body-consciousness together with the newest, most evolutionary advanced component of the autonomic nervous system, we may, in the words of Dane Rudhyar, "begin again together."
The Harmonic Continuum
"In order to share these practices with people worldwide – and positively impact the entire human "field" on the planet – Lorin envisions what he calls the Harmonic Continuum as an ongoing context for us to fulfill our true "human potential."
Based on the highly-successful and powerful meditations done nearly 20 years ago as part of the Harmonic Convergence, these simple embodiment practices offer a new way to impact the "morphic field" and the coherence of human consciousness.
We envision Harmonic Continuum celebratory events which teach these new practices in the context of music, comedy and other performance. In a series of simulcast events, we seek to teach individuals the art of self-regulation which transforms our dis-ease from the inside-out and top-down and awakens what is most primary -- "loving love and
being Life in the service of life."
This new "technology" is not part of any "church" or organization such as TM, or part of some multi-level commercial venture, but an effective practice that is given to the world to use freely."
Steve Bhaerman, comic performer and social activist, Swami Beyondananda, www.wakeuplaughing.com
The Harmonic Continuum is conceived as an ever-evolving, ongoing movement supporting new social applications arising from our emergent, collective wisdom. The initial inspiration for the idea of Harmonic Continuum is the promotion of simple practices of self-regulation that take advantage of our neurological organization for optimal human potential. Harmonic Continuum ceremonial events, broadcast in real-time and disseminated all over the globe, would engage their participants in Top-Down Yoga and bring them together in comedy, music and dance.
In an effort to create the world we would like to -- and can -- inhabit, Harmonic Continuum ceremonies will introduce powerful and coherent messages for collective understanding, adaptation and action. Ceremonies that awaken the celebratory nature of our collective humanity provide fresh inspiration and can nurture coherent and intuitive paths of action. Engaging the Social Engagement System at the level of the individual calls into play each person's response to the environment and may, lets us hope, translate into a concerted effort to save the world politically and ecologically.
As groups enjoy and reinforce the upward shift in their neurological organization, they will discover how to carry humanity over the current evolutionary threshold into a viable future.
Oxytocin-Salons
Dr. Stephen Porges suggested an answer to the question, "What is love?" "Love," he suggested, "is immobilization without fear." Oxytocin is a peptide produced in abundance when humans bond, make love, give birth – truly the "molecule of love." As such, it allows the body to be immobilized without fear. According to Porges, "it is part of the feedback system regulating the old unmylenated vagal system. Oxytocin enables the old immobilization system to be utilized for a special reason. Immobilization without fear is mediated by a co-opting of the neural circuit regulating defensive freezing behaviors through the involvement of oxytocin, a neuropeptide involved in the formation of social bonds"
Oxytocin's first and strongest role may have been in forging the mother-infant bond. Subsequently, its ability to influence brain circuitry may have been used to serve other affiliative purposes that allowed the formation of alliances and partnerships, thus hastening the evolution of advanced cognitive skills by playing an essential role in the evolution of social behavior. Dr. Sue Carter, whose multidisciplinary research on the physiological factors mediating mammalian behavior has investigated the behavioral effects of oxytocin, notes that "we have evolved as social organisms." "The study of love tells us that we have a biology that allows us to be good to each other." Top-Down Yoga, by releasing the tensions that inhibit oxytocin production, automatically reinforces a sense of safety and trust, the prerequisites to bonding and attachment.
David Brooks' New York Times editorial of Sunday, July 2nd, "Of Human Bonding", calls on his readers to discover a way to "tap" this most precious and essential human resource, the "affiliative neuropeptide",... that "helps mammals bond." "Humans who have a higher level of oxytocin are more likely to trust other people." He notes that these people "are more resistant to stress and social phobias." Brooks ends with an appeal to everyone to focus on what we really need to solve our problems. "The real resource shortage afflicting our country is not the oil shortage. It is the oxytocin shortage."
Oxytocin Salons are a perfect place to regenerate and enhance genuine care and concern for others and the earth and allow people to discover what wisdom they can find in the human collective. Oxytocin Salons will be a leading innovative social 'technology' in an emerging
paradigm of human evolution.
Oxytocin Salons will provide drop-in classes open to the general public. The salons will also 'double' as a training center for Top-Down Yoga and mystery school for refining the self-regulatingprocesses and exploring the morphic potentials of "collective wisdom."
Global-Education
"A dream is a wish your heart makes" – Walt Disney We in the nascent Harmonic Continuum envision a present in which television and film documentaries, dramas, animation and comedies set fire to our collective imagination and encourage each person's active participation in new social, environmental, scientific, political and economic action. The key is access to the openness, freedom and coherence of simply being. As Illya Prigogine says, "We must seek a new order through fluctuation."
Erick Jantsch states, "Evolution is basically open. It determines its own dynamics and direction." If consciousness, life itself, is left open to create itself dynamically as a form of poetry, each emerging moment -- as opposed to a straight-forward narrative with its hierarchies and limitations -- "not only restores strength, but also creates the possibility of recognizing and bringing into play ever new… developmental lines."
Embodied openness surely aligns us with our true nature. We can use our rich, if potentially divisive, neurology to surmount our traumatic imprints and imposed mechanizations to nurture ourselves and our environment. Why not embrace the simple techniques to do this now?
Let's start with our house and move towards the White House, to move ourselves collectively forward towards an ecologically viable future that offers maximum benefit to all. Let's celebrate our humanity through the acknowledgement of our own bodies to inspire action worldwide.
Summary
VIDEO CLIP: http://www.remyc.com/Deepak/coalition_for_onevoice.html
It is clear that if we are to make the political, economic, educational, and ecological changes necessary for survival, we must change the way we see ourselves, each other and the world we live in. We must find it in ourselves to turn away from competitive and exploitive social practices to those of cooperation and nurturance. Because this shift to open-heartedness is essentially a transformation of consciousness, perhaps the most useful resource we can have would be a simple and effective tool to put people in their "highest mind" in the course of daily living. This essay introduces a simple and elegant process for doing just that -- "Top-Down Yoga."
Top-Down Yoga -- so named because it involves subtle and powerful exercises "from the neck up" -- activates certain neurological pathways or what is called the "Social Engagement System." Identified by Dr. Stephen Porges as the most advanced human brain organization, the Social Engagement System makes people intelligible to each other and helps regulate the autonomic nervous system away from excessive reliance on the mechanisms of arousal and fear. Not only does this system allow us to "read" the facial expressions and other subtle cues in human communication but it acts as a gateway to the kinds of deep meditation and abilities that have long been the province of yogis and other spiritual adepts. The beauty of Top-Down Yoga is that anyone can learn to do it and anyone can benefit.
Top-Down Yoga is an important part of an emerging, scientifically-grounded spirit-based participatory knowledge system. Its simple movements tap into and strengthen each practitioner's Social Engagement System, so that we may use our evolving consciousness to join together to exploit our collective wisdom. "Harmonic Continuum" celebratory events are a vehicle for integrating these principles into the culture. They form an open-ended context for regeneration, celebration, adaptation and evolutionary learning that can be integrated into daily life. "Oxytocin Salons" can be used as way-stations to support the emerging connectedness of human being.
Introduction
Careless and destructive measures are being widely pursued for short-term economic and political gain, to growing alarm and concern among thoughtful individuals and leaders around the world. The wonders of human creativity and innovation are often applied to the wanton exploitation of resources and the advancement of weaponry. Such obviously foolish and short-sighted behavior is leading to the extinction of many species, including homo sapiens. Our collective activities may even be taking us to a "tipping point" beyond which global systems may not be recoverable no matter how much effort is expended. If we are to survive, we must redirect ourselves en masse towards life-positive ends.
The public is becoming increasingly aware of the destructive choices being made by business and government. While one need only look at the news to get an idea of what is happening, recent publications and films are focusing attention on the damage done by conflicts between countries and on the extent of our destruction of the environment. The possibility of shifting toward ecological and social sustainability is emerging as the dominant issue of our times. The success of the film, "What the Bleep Do We Know", demonstrates the passion of millions to understand the relationship between frontier science, spirituality and social dynamics. The film, "An Inconvenient Truth", explores the ways our collective consciousness and actions can play a role in resolving the environmental disasters that are confronting us.
We have always been capable of envisioning a world in which peace and satisfaction are the norm for everyone, but such goals remain elusive in a world where the populace is increasingly entrained to accept and focus on hostility, animosity, separation and inequality.
Modern science has begun to study consciousness itself in order to clarify the features of "mind" that are capable of pointing our collective awareness in beneficial directions. These investigations are leading to new ways of addressing the common root of the environmental, spiritual, social, educational, economic and political crises.
Former Canadian ambassador Jim George, in his book, Asking For The Earth, presents the view that ecological and spiritual crises are two sides of the same coin. He equates global warming with spiritual crisis because he sees the underlying cause for the neglect of the planet is belief in the existence of a dichotomy between "us and them" that has allowed us to stray from our own best interests. For significant change to occur, we must transcend the moment in our collective evolution when apparent individuality and objectivity emerged to dominate human consciousness. While this development led to almost unimaginable technological advances, it has also inflicted misery on many at the hands of a few, even to the brink of mass extinction. Now is the time for us to use our bodies, minds and spirits in secure connection with each other to take control of the evolutionary process.
This essay describes the beginnings of a remarkably simple strategy that enables us to confidently envision a far more viable individual, collective and planetary future.
Metafluctuation
To aid us in furthering our collective evolution, it may be useful to recall times when consciousness has undergone dramatic shifts that have awakened both the public and the institutions to our fundamental interconnectedness and to our clear potential to embrace harmony. In his seminal text, The Self-Organizing Universe, Erick Jantsch refers to a metafluctuation in the 1960's that "rocked the world." It was a time of grass roots movements: the awakening of awareness about and concern for the environment, rejection of the war in Vietnam and advocacy for domestic and international human rights. It was also a time of novelty. People felt free to explore alternative lifestyles, live in communes, do mind-expanding drugs and dance to rapidly evolving music that borrowed tone-scales and rhythms from around the world. Eastern spirituality and the beginning of the Human Potential movement provided powerful new guiding images and social norms.
Jantsch saw several basic themes in those dynamic times: "self-determination, self-organization and self-renewal… the recognition of a systemic connectedness over space and time of all natural dynamics…, the logical supremacy of processes over spatial structures… the role of fluctuation that renders the law of large numbers invalid and gives a chance to the individual and its creative imagination."
Looking back, it is easy to understand why the metafluctuation, which changed the world in some fairly radical ways, was dampened back into the existing paradigm. It simply did not have the coherence or necessary information to carry humanity over the threshold of the seemingly immutable values and beliefs of the Cartesian paradigm. Now, almost a half century later, we have the tools and the communication technologies we lacked in the past. It is up to us to summon the will to use them.
The Social Engagement System
Dr. Stephen Porges is the director of the Brain-Body Center in the
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois, Chicago
http://www.stressrelease.info/polyvagal_eng.html
http://www.nexuspub.com/articles/2006/interview_ma.htm His Polyvagal Theory asserts a biological basis for social behavior and proposes intervention strategies to enhance positive human interaction. It is derived from over 30 years of research on the relation of the autonomic nervous system to socio-emotional processes. His new understanding of a third branch of intelligence in the autonomic nervous system has led to the confirmation of a neurological basis for what he has termed "The Social Engagement System."
The old model of the autonomic nervous system presents only two branches, the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. That model has been shown to be incomplete as it only describes the autonomic components we share in common with reptiles. A third branch of intelligence, found in mammals, introduces an autonomic alternative beyond the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, one that sparks and maintains a body-based sense of well-being and the social functions of mammalian – and human – existence.
The Social Engagement System is a synergistic function of five cranial nerves that coordinates and integrates head-turning, looking, listening, vocal communication and facial _expression with cardiac output. Freed to function optimally, the Social Engagement System works to ground the human experience and _expression in love and social bonding. Dr. Jim Oschman, author of Energy Medicine, the Scientific Basis and Energy Medicine in Human Performance and Therapeutics, writing on social engagement behaviors states that "social bonds are scientifically described as a powerful form of learning regulated by long-lasting changes in the brain and endocrine system." http://www.intelligentbody.org.uk/lever.php Dr. Oschman further notes that social attachment is "hard-wired," as it were, in human being and cites research positing that it is vital to human health, longevity, perhaps even to existence itself.
Regulation of cardiac output by the Social Engagement System induces a positive state of stasis or stillness that conserves precious life energy and establishes the primacy of the warm-blooded current of heart "consciousness" as the bodymind's central organizing mechanism.
TOP-DOWN YOGA
Thanks to this framework and other developments in the understanding of the biological underpinnings of human consciousness, we can now explore a user-friendly and precise method of beneficial self-regulation called Top-Down Yoga. This innovative tool for strengthening the Social Engagement System enables people across social and political divides to overcome the many impediments they face to peace, economic and ecological viability and personal and cultural fulfillment.
The gentle movements of Top-Down Yoga release constriction at key anatomical points to free the neuroanatomical structures of the Social Engagement System to operate at their best. The ensuing chemicalchanges translate into a positive and dynamic state of consciousness. Easy to learn and simple to perform, Top-Down Yoga can be used by anyone almost anywhere, sitting in a chair, standing or lying down.
Here's how it works: the cranial nerves, identified as a part of the Social Engagement System, emerge from the brain stem. If the deep muscles of the neck are chronically tense, the nerves become irritated and their ability to function as a part of the system diminishes. In this compromised condition, people commonly experience a lack of safety and trust and feelings of separation and conflict are easily aroused. By gently releasing these structures with simple, systematic movements, the tissues and fluids of the body undergo a physiological change that fosters a very real sense of security and openness within the flux of the dynamically emerging universe.
Coordinating the breath with movements designed to activate the deep,
small muscles of the head, neck and spine, uncouples neurological and chemical patterns associated with fear and hostile arousal.
Working with eye movements disengages the practitioners of Top-Down Yoga from their habitual patterns of seeing. The ensuing changes in heart rate and concomitant release of neuropeptides foster not only a more positive outlook, or how the practioner sees, but an awareness of the act of seeing itself. The seeing of seeing is a vital step to self-awareness and the introduction of new choices in behavior.
Top-Down Yoga works to unify the most primordial organization of the fluids and tissues of the body, with the advanced evolutionary organization of the Social Engagement System. It is an embodiment practice that encourages the optimal flow of cerebrospinal fluid while activating the potent neuropeptide "messenger molecules" that coordinate almost all physiological and emotional processes of the body at the cellular level.
When the cranial nerves of the Social Engagement System are not functioning optimally, the nervous system becomes overloaded with messages from the structures of the reptilian brain, driving the whole toward dualistic thinking, stress, anxiety, depression and resignation. An unprecedented number of people world-wide suffer from these chronic conditions. The upward shift of neurological organization fostered by Top-Down Yoga transforms these conditions at their root level, generating an instantaneous shift towards a body-based feeling of wholeness and freedom and away from the chatter of lower brain dominance. Most people feel immediately soothed and calmed. Practiced with regularity, these feeling states become habitual and self-renewing.
The beauty of Top-Down Yoga is that each person, in the context of family, office, school, elder care facility, prison or peace negotiation, can draw upon its benefits to transcend stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome
A new model for evolutionary advancement
"The quiet little movements of Top-Down Yoga automatically shift a
person's primary method of support from thinking to feeling. There's
nothing wrong with thinking but feeling is better for assessing
physical safety and balance. Moreover, a mind relieved of these
preoccupations becomes clearer and more still. I believe that this
shift is one of the goals of most meditative practices, much of
martial arts, yoga and even religion, since it entails the practical
application of relying on a higher power. The good thing is that such
reliance does not really require faith as it makes itself palpably
manifest almost from the get-go. What it does require is the looking
for it. Top-Down Yoga is a pretty damned good place to start.
Not-coincidentally, a sense of unshakeable strength opens the heart.
There's nothing wrong with the world that loving it can't cure,
especially that interior world where we're stuck with our hurts and
diminishments. Choosing invincible receptivity changes everything."
From the Rolfing(r) perspective of Deborah Stucker, Advanced Certified
Rolfer, originator of a Direct Electromagnetic Approach.
Humanity -- whether expressed individually, as a society or as a species – if chronically stuck in a less-than-optimal autonomic state that compels competition and divisiveness, simply lacks the resources of energy, awareness and inspiration necessary to adapt to internal or external challenge.
We have the potential to come from a position of wholeness and connection. We can merge without loss of individuality to collaborate creatively. We are a field-like property of natural light that is the evolutionary 'body' of humanity.
Top-Down Yoga directly activates the most potent, positive neurochemistry of human being. The simple movements and postures of the practice create a novel context from which to explore one's own experience. Perhaps more invitingly, they also serve to promote the rest and the equanimity typical of deep meditation. Top-Down Yoga, by reinforcing the neuroanatomical components of social engagement, awakens the practitioner to the wisdom of the body and provides access to our body-based collective wisdom. Perhaps, by using a practice that binds our primary body-consciousness together with the newest, most evolutionary advanced component of the autonomic nervous system, we may, in the words of Dane Rudhyar, "begin again together."
The Harmonic Continuum
"In order to share these practices with people worldwide – and positively impact the entire human "field" on the planet – Lorin envisions what he calls the Harmonic Continuum as an ongoing context for us to fulfill our true "human potential."
Based on the highly-successful and powerful meditations done nearly 20 years ago as part of the Harmonic Convergence, these simple embodiment practices offer a new way to impact the "morphic field" and the coherence of human consciousness.
We envision Harmonic Continuum celebratory events which teach these new practices in the context of music, comedy and other performance. In a series of simulcast events, we seek to teach individuals the art of self-regulation which transforms our dis-ease from the inside-out and top-down and awakens what is most primary -- "loving love and
being Life in the service of life."
This new "technology" is not part of any "church" or organization such as TM, or part of some multi-level commercial venture, but an effective practice that is given to the world to use freely."
Steve Bhaerman, comic performer and social activist, Swami Beyondananda, www.wakeuplaughing.com
The Harmonic Continuum is conceived as an ever-evolving, ongoing movement supporting new social applications arising from our emergent, collective wisdom. The initial inspiration for the idea of Harmonic Continuum is the promotion of simple practices of self-regulation that take advantage of our neurological organization for optimal human potential. Harmonic Continuum ceremonial events, broadcast in real-time and disseminated all over the globe, would engage their participants in Top-Down Yoga and bring them together in comedy, music and dance.
In an effort to create the world we would like to -- and can -- inhabit, Harmonic Continuum ceremonies will introduce powerful and coherent messages for collective understanding, adaptation and action. Ceremonies that awaken the celebratory nature of our collective humanity provide fresh inspiration and can nurture coherent and intuitive paths of action. Engaging the Social Engagement System at the level of the individual calls into play each person's response to the environment and may, lets us hope, translate into a concerted effort to save the world politically and ecologically.
As groups enjoy and reinforce the upward shift in their neurological organization, they will discover how to carry humanity over the current evolutionary threshold into a viable future.
Oxytocin-Salons
Dr. Stephen Porges suggested an answer to the question, "What is love?" "Love," he suggested, "is immobilization without fear." Oxytocin is a peptide produced in abundance when humans bond, make love, give birth – truly the "molecule of love." As such, it allows the body to be immobilized without fear. According to Porges, "it is part of the feedback system regulating the old unmylenated vagal system. Oxytocin enables the old immobilization system to be utilized for a special reason. Immobilization without fear is mediated by a co-opting of the neural circuit regulating defensive freezing behaviors through the involvement of oxytocin, a neuropeptide involved in the formation of social bonds"
Oxytocin's first and strongest role may have been in forging the mother-infant bond. Subsequently, its ability to influence brain circuitry may have been used to serve other affiliative purposes that allowed the formation of alliances and partnerships, thus hastening the evolution of advanced cognitive skills by playing an essential role in the evolution of social behavior. Dr. Sue Carter, whose multidisciplinary research on the physiological factors mediating mammalian behavior has investigated the behavioral effects of oxytocin, notes that "we have evolved as social organisms." "The study of love tells us that we have a biology that allows us to be good to each other." Top-Down Yoga, by releasing the tensions that inhibit oxytocin production, automatically reinforces a sense of safety and trust, the prerequisites to bonding and attachment.
David Brooks' New York Times editorial of Sunday, July 2nd, "Of Human Bonding", calls on his readers to discover a way to "tap" this most precious and essential human resource, the "affiliative neuropeptide",... that "helps mammals bond." "Humans who have a higher level of oxytocin are more likely to trust other people." He notes that these people "are more resistant to stress and social phobias." Brooks ends with an appeal to everyone to focus on what we really need to solve our problems. "The real resource shortage afflicting our country is not the oil shortage. It is the oxytocin shortage."
Oxytocin Salons are a perfect place to regenerate and enhance genuine care and concern for others and the earth and allow people to discover what wisdom they can find in the human collective. Oxytocin Salons will be a leading innovative social 'technology' in an emerging
paradigm of human evolution.
Oxytocin Salons will provide drop-in classes open to the general public. The salons will also 'double' as a training center for Top-Down Yoga and mystery school for refining the self-regulatingprocesses and exploring the morphic potentials of "collective wisdom."
Global-Education
"A dream is a wish your heart makes" – Walt Disney We in the nascent Harmonic Continuum envision a present in which television and film documentaries, dramas, animation and comedies set fire to our collective imagination and encourage each person's active participation in new social, environmental, scientific, political and economic action. The key is access to the openness, freedom and coherence of simply being. As Illya Prigogine says, "We must seek a new order through fluctuation."
Erick Jantsch states, "Evolution is basically open. It determines its own dynamics and direction." If consciousness, life itself, is left open to create itself dynamically as a form of poetry, each emerging moment -- as opposed to a straight-forward narrative with its hierarchies and limitations -- "not only restores strength, but also creates the possibility of recognizing and bringing into play ever new… developmental lines."
Embodied openness surely aligns us with our true nature. We can use our rich, if potentially divisive, neurology to surmount our traumatic imprints and imposed mechanizations to nurture ourselves and our environment. Why not embrace the simple techniques to do this now?
Let's start with our house and move towards the White House, to move ourselves collectively forward towards an ecologically viable future that offers maximum benefit to all. Let's celebrate our humanity through the acknowledgement of our own bodies to inspire action worldwide.