accessible food supply, distribution and markets where people live, work, play, pray and learn.


Neighbors in Milwaukee, Wis- consin, organized park cleanups with the long-range goal of replacing crime and litter with learning. Now, Riverside Park, once an area of urban blight, has both a college-level field research sta- tion and grade school outdoor class- room, offering innovative school, adult and community programs operated by the Urban Ecology Center (UEC). Programs serve 44 schools and have spawned two branches in Washington Park and Menomonee Valley to serve residents in those areas. The UEC’s latest project, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Milwaukee, the River Revitalization Foundation, Milwaukee County Parks, private businesses and local landown- ers, is an arboretum that will protect and restore 40 acres of land for native species and wildlife habitat along the Milwaukee River. “With the creation of the Milwaukee Rotary Centennial Arboretum, southeastern Wisconsin has a new, biologically diverse space for growing future environmental stew- ards,” says UEC Executive Director Ken Leinbach. He particularly likes creating spaces and resources that give people that wouldn’t normally connect a place to bump into one another.


Expanding Worldview College settings are similarly intended to encourage stimulating and expansive dialogue among diverse populations. At Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, recent environ- mental study grads Dana Rubin and Hannah Blackmer met Frances Moore Lappé when she visited to share the message of her book EcoMind: Chang- ing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want. As a result, the pair embraced the need to shift their view of the world away from looming negatives to focus on creating positive connec- tions and meaningful relationships that recognize life’s interdependence and


“We’re one humanity and we’re all in this together.”


~ Jack Canfield


“The transformation of


our society, world and uni- verse starts and ends with the transformation


of ourselves… and in this way to co-create with others and Spirit a person, a community, a civilization, a planet and a cosmos that are whole and harmonious.”


~ Malcolm Hollick


fuel constructive change. After more research, the duo built a simple website named Convenient Resilience.com and created a blog before commencing a coast-to-coast, 100-day, solutions-oriented journey last summer. They posted nearly 30 “webi- sodes” of heartfelt interactions with in- dividuals and organizations with stories to tell, like the group at 2100 Lakeside Emergency Men’s Shelter, in Cleveland, Ohio, that is using small-scale, practi- cal and cost-effective solutions to lessen their impact on the environment. “The personal stories we heard affirm what we learned from Frances—that it’s pos- sible to locally solve global problems together,” advise the sojourners, who travel in a grease-powered car. “Learn to think beyond negative


thought traps that engender fear,” advises Lappé. “Thinking, ‘There isn’t enough to go around, so I have to grab what I can now,’ for instance, focuses on separate- ness and lack, which is precisely what got us into the state we are in.”


Starting Within A big-picture, more-whole-systems per- spective forms naturally when individu- als come together to explore the power of building intentional coherence. The Art of Hosting (and convening conver- sations that matter), World Café, Vistar Method for Circles and OpenSpace col- laborations leverage technology for the practice of mindfulness to foster deeper


connections, authentic conversations and outside-the-box ideas, all contrib- uting to a more enlightened collective intelligence. One’s own new world perspective


can even emerge as a result of a dark night of the soul, as Patricia Ariadne, Ph.D., author of Drinking the Dragon, has observed with clients that have undergone a personal metamorphosis as a result of the economic downturn. “Often, the entire process of transfor- mation indicates a spiritual initiation— a renewal or rebirth—that acts as an induction into a level of expanded consciousness and new relationship with Spirit,” remarks Ariadne. “True spiritual progress inevitably leads to a desire to be of greater service to others, to go from ‘Me to We,’ which I believe is our mandate for the 21st century.” Living mindfully can literally


change our brains, states Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., in the introduction to A Mind- ful Nation, by Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, which reports on the supporting


“We are facing a critical moment in the unfolding of our human story, and


feel called to create path- ways to a better future.”


~ Craig Hamilton


science. “Mindfulness… can improve our capacity for perspective taking and decision making, and enhance our emotional intelligence and our ability to act with clarity and wisdom, alone and in concert with others.” Kabat-Zinn is the founding director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society, at the University of Massa- chusetts Medical School, in Worcester. “A peaceful revolution is being led


by ordinary citizens across our nation,” confirms Ryan. “At the core of it is mindfulness—finding ways to slow the mind, pay attention to the present mo- ment and see how you are connected to others and can work in a spirit of cooperation to get things done.” The inner impulse to recognize the deeper unity of all life and sense the reality of Oneness is bubbling up within individuals, small groups and organiza-


natural awakenings December 2012 17


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