Thirty Days of Gratitude

This is a most inspiring post From Rev Ken's Thirty Days Of Gratitude Blog. Take a moment to watch the all out inspirational video of the Opera Company of Philadelphia singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" in Macys. Perfect setting for sharing large.


Thirty Days of Gratitude: Twelfth Day

"Right this moment, as I remember spiritual giants I have been privileged to meet Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, His Holiness the Dalai Lama - I can still feel the life energy they radiated.  But how did they come by this vitality? There are no lack of surprises in this world, but such radiant aliveness is rare. What I observed was that these people were all profoundly grateful, and then I understood the secret...."

Click the link to enjoy both the practice and the video.  You'll be glad you did :)

Namaste in this season of Thanksgiving!

Award winning video on HUNGER

Monkey topics of late have been our related to our food system, from issues of soil and seeds to distribution and packaging. The challenge of our times I think. What in the name of heaven are we doing with our food??  


Today my topic is hunger. What changes are we blind to when we take no interest and choose not to see? 


To help call attention to the challenge of food insecurity, in early 2010 ShopRite teamed up with General Mills and launched a Caring Expressions of Hunger video contest.to bring awareness to the issue through song, poetry, dance, and dramatic reading.  This is a post sent in by my friend Gerry about some folks from Trentin NJ who submitted a video.. 


Here is some good stuff - grass roots and local. A group of poets that met as part of a TASK literacy project and won a national contest - and the uplifting news is that they are now on the front of Cheerios boxes where more people can see.  


More eyes. More knowing.  More healing.  More sharing. 


Check it out.


Award winning Hunger Video 


What can you do for others today? Whatever that is, do what you can.  
Follow this blog and share it with others.  Your comments are welcomed!


namaste

Do you know where food comes from?

Blue sky...children in the distance...birds singing...the land is flush with good living.  How can one actually desire to get immersed in news that will rock the foundation of your world when the world seems so at peace, and so many other things are so pressing - at least in your own neck of the woods.

I credit Steven Covey with saying we so often opt for handling the immediate in lieu of the important...

This is a deep challenge and a quandary that drives to the heart of what our resistance is all about - the resistance we so often have to rattle the cage of comfort. Such is the importance of a sense of security even when the security is false.  Will the world need your social security check when the issue at hand is global water shortage? Will your 401K matter when the evidence of Monsanto and others like them will have their way with your food?  Will we ever be able to say we have done our best when our best is hidden from view?

We will seek change when it hits home.  We will seek change when our level of discomfort is too great for the challenge of staying put.  We will seek change when it is personal.  We will seek change when we are in danger.  Any other reasons? There are many and you will know some of them for yourself if you just think for a moment...

This blog is about seeing what is good in the world and making it known.  The Hundredth Monkey shares a change in consciousness one step at a time - one person at a time.

Sometimes the need for change comes from adversity.  The monkeys who first washed their sweet potatoes (see the initial post to this blog) did so out of the adversity of being cut off from their preferred food source.

Could this be happening to us? Must we wait until we get thoroughly trounced before we vote for better ways
to handle our resourses today?

We are in a time of change now that some say can be reversed - or stayed at the least - and others would say has no turning back and we have no choice but to watch the fall...again and again and again.

The Hundredth Monkey votes for clarity - honesty - and full awareness of the choices he makes in order to thrive.

It is in the spirit of knowing that I offer you the opportunity to educate yourself as much as you can about our global actions with regard to our most intimate currencies - food and water.

Perhaps the Hundredth Monkey can then make the personal choice that will tip the scales away from such disaster.  Will it be you? 

Watch FLOW: for the Love of Water available from Twilight Earth. Click here.

Watch The World According to Monsanto. Click here.

May we all grow in abundance and caring for our planet Earth and for each other.

Namaste

Being known, heard and loved. Does it matter?

My friend Tracey had a bright idea and she is acting on it by creating a business model around the topic of compassionate listening.  She initiates her blog on the topic with this story:

"Known, Heard and Loved got its start when I was a twenty-three year old college grad working at my first job in health care public relations. I was in my windowless office having a down day when, no kidding, a clown walked into the room. You know, the red nose, white face paint, yarn-mop of hair and wacky clothing ensemble that looked as if it had been made from a melange of Mrs. Roper's muumuu castoffs (please tell me you're old enough to remember Three's Company? "Oh, Stanley...").

Do you happen to know anyone who is a fan of clowns besides clowns themselves (that is, if you actually know a real clown)? I don't, and I'm not a fan - but I am terribly polite. So I braced myself for the clown's unfunny antics and the laughter I'd force myself to muster.

The clown got my attention alright, but in the most subtle of ways: Silently, she pulled a tiny, folded piece of paper out of her huge straw basket, put it on my desk, smiled, bowed and left. 

I opened this tiny scrap of paper, which was only about two inches long and two centimeters wide. In neat script, it said:

"You are known, heard and loved."

Check out her blog at Known, Heard and Loved to see where she is going with an experience that shaped her life.

Hundredth Monkey stuff for sure.

Namaste

Communities and TED

Big time sharing is what I see here...

Excitement and vision and growth.

I have been intrigued with the concept of the TED talks - "ideas worth spreading" - for quite a while now, and perhaps I'm just late in noticing, but there seems to be an EXPLOSION of opportunity to share insight and opportunity across the globe through this venue.  Free access to videos, you tubes, blogs and written reports abound - AND - communities are stepping forward and hosting their own TEDx events  and more, like the one right here in my own community at the old historic Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, PA in September (take a look!)

I feel so proud, and so hopeful for our world when I see community action like this!  Soothes the soul I say...and the Hundredth Monkey gets closer and closer.

Could it be you? Please take the time to share what you see going on in your own space.  The more we see the more we share.

Blessings to all....

Who is The Hundredth Monkey?

The Hundredth Monkey

Just a little back-story - by Ken Keyes, Jr.

The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.
In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.

An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.
Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable.
Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes. Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known.

Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them.
The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice...
A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea --

Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
 

From the book "The Hundredth Monkey" by Ken Keyes, Jr.

(THE FOLLOWING WAS TRANSCRIBED FROM A BOOK WITH COPYRIGHT INFORMATION AS FOLLOWS: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG NO. 81-70978 / ISBN 0-942024-01-X.) 

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the Dinosaurs, who mutely warn us that a species which cannot adapt to changing conditions will become extinct. 

This book is not copyrighted. You are asked to reproduce it in whole or in part, to distribute it with or without charge, in as many languages as possible, to as many people as possible. The rapid alerting of all humankind to nuclear realities is supremely urgent. If we are wiped out by nuclear destruction in the next few years, how important are the things we are doing today? 

Download the entire book The Hundredth Monkey. It's a free gift to all who want it from Ken Keyes Jr.

Click here for your free download!