I just posted a narrated presentation about global transition, climate change and the 2020 climate leadership campaign here: http://bit.ly/bJbZU. It's one I've been talking to since coming back from the launch of the 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

A friend, Clinton Callahan, invited me to write a short blurb on his upcoming book No Longer Numb. This is what came out:

"Coming alive right now is essential to us literally being able to stay alive as a species. We need to open our hearts and minds to the shift that is happening on the planet right now, allow it to penetrate deep into the center of our being, allow the pain to be felt and released, and feel ourselves re-awaken to who we are as sentient, pulsing human beings, deeply connected to the earth and the universe at once. We need to remember that we are of the Earth, and that our future is in our own hands. Numbness is suicidal. It is time to awaken - now!"

Here, for your info, is more on Clinton and his book:

Fall 2009: German Spring 2010: English Summer 2010: French

This letter announces the upcoming book: NO LONGER NUMB – using the power and intelligence of conscious feelings for living a life closer to your own truth, by Clinton Callahan.

 

The ideas given to us about feelings by modern culture are so distorted that we equate feeling good with feeling nothing. We don’t actually want to feel happy. We want to feel numb.

 

The present conditions of environmental degradation, mass extinction, tipping points for global warming, economic injustice, overpopulation, war, and the general failure of seemingly intelligent human beings to create a sustainable future for ourselves reflect a deep disconnection from our own feelings. Idealizing the strong numb hero has possibly exterminated the human race.

 

The book takes the reader by the hand and says: Personally choosing numbness may have been unconscious for you. But in this moment you can choose to change your mind and learn to consciously feel. And then step by step it shows how.

 

This book is about lowering your personal numbness bar, which was set very high by modern culture. Lowering the numbness bar is neither philosophical nor conceptual – it is a journey through the Ten Distinctions for Consciously Feeling, the central contents of this book. Each chapter is enriched with thoughtmaps – clear diagrams of ways we presently think and ways we could possibly think – supported by an abundance of practical experiments to try.

 

This book midwives the reader through four distinct evolutions:

1.              Personal: unlocking you from the past and from the influence of others.

2.              Relational: bringing extraordinary clarity and possibility into your personal and professional communications.

3.              Transformational: igniting your archetypal feelings as a rite of passage into adulthood.

4.              Cultural: using your adult feelings and Bright Principles as rocket fuel for creating sustainable culture.

 

Any reader embracing these experiments is immediately at the cutting edge of human evolution shaping new forms of consciousness that others can then more easily follow. Each person joining this network of explorers promotes the emergence of the sustainable next culture that replaces patriarchal empire.

 

When no longer numb, you are freed from solitary confinement in your private world of thoughts and beliefs. You emerge, already connected with other human beings, connected in the world of feelings we all have in common.

 

 

 

Clinton Callahan, originator of Possibility Management, Expand The Box trainings, and the Possibility Trainer Certification, co-director of Callahan Academy, BS Physics 1975, author of Radiant Joy Brilliant Love, 2007 (also in German as Wahre Liebe im Alltag, 2007), and Wild Thinking (only in German as Abenteuer Denken, 2004), has traveled, worked or lived in 36 different countries. He presently lives in Munich, working with a group to build the sustainable culture research ecovillage of Possibilica.

A few days back from Brazil, and it is still all sinking in. The 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign is well and truly launched. People were very appreciative of the role I played leading the design and facilitation, as well as having lots of great ideas about how to take it forward.

Today, sitting on the beach with the family, I was talking to my wife about it all. Coming out of that conversation, there was part of me that was "lit up" or irritated. I realised that it had to do with the implications of me really committing to this work. (I was reading Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, which helped it sink in!).

As it all churned around, I turned to my I Ching to see what it might show. Holding a question about me and my relationship to this campaign and issue, I couldn't be bothered with doing the stalks (as I usually do) so just requested that the book open at the appropriate page. This is what was on that page:

17 Following
You are being drawn forward through a strong attraction. Follow the inevitable course of events. Yield to the path set out in front of you, the path of least resistance. Be guided by the way things are moving. You are involved in a series of events that are firmly connected. This can open up a new time. It will bring fundamental success, profit and insight. It is not a mistake. The call has come. Let go of what is past. A new focus is emerging. Dim your discriminating power so old habits can dissolve. The whole world must follow the times and the seasons. You are following a righteous idea inherent in the time.

OK. I surrender.

So here I am in the midst of an incredible historical event. Somehow the last months of my life have brought me to leading the design and facilitation of a 3-day event to launch the global and Brazilian 2020 Climate Leadership Campaign. Tomorrow there is a huge public launch with a capacity 1800 people here in Belo Horizonte. Globo, the biggest media company, is broadcasting ads and integrating our messaging into their soap operas that go to dozens of other countries - read more here. Governors from the different states of Brazil, CEOs of major companies, Directors of NGOs are all flocking to join. Jim Garrison and Emilia Queiroga are doing incredible work here.

On Wednesday we start a 3-day process with over 200 Brazilian and international experts drawn from multiple sectors and disciplines. We will use the participative meshwork approach to elicit the best of the collective intelligence in the room and feed results into the Gaiasoft online platform that will enable ongoing collaboration. All designed through an Integral framework.

This is the work I have always known I was here to do. Now it's coming together. Serving humanity and the planet at a time where there really is nothing else we should be doing. Combining process and content work, putting an Integral perspective into practice, honouring as much of the Kosmos as possible as we re-align our relationship to ourselves, each other and the earth. And celebrating life.

For more info go here and here.

I just want to flag up what I believe is going to be an amazing event in January 2010. The Netherlands is hosting the first European edition of the Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA) programme, which has run very successfully at the Shambhala Institute in Halifax Canada for a number of years. Its powerful combination of focused work on building the capacities we need to engage the world effectively at this time, with the arts and spirituality, make it pretty unique. In this way, all dimensions of ourselves are invited and activated. I will be offering a module on  “An Integral Practice for Evolutionary Leadership and Change” with Dylan Newcomb (who has a background in dance and music). We love working together, and this promises to be a special few days. Click here for more info.

Check out this short intro video to Dylan Newcomb's 16 Ways. I work closely with Dylan, practice the 16 Ways myself and can vouch for their power. This will be big! Get in on it now!

Here's a link to an interview that Jim Garrison did with me for PRN radio, about the state of the world and what to do about it - find it here - http://www.worldforum.org/2009media.htm

Hi there,

Just to let you know that you can follow GTI developments on Twitter now @globaltransit.

We are hosting the first high level design meeting at the Hague Center 27-29 May, and will post news from that on the twitter feed. Following that meeting, we will also be producing more information on the Initiative and how the State of the World Forum is shaping up.

Exciting times! Watch this space...

Here's a link to an audio of me being interviewed by Helen Titchen-Beeth on four core roles that tend to be played and can be supported in non-linear transitions.

Here's a heads-up for what I feel is going to be a key initiative in the coming years. Together with Jim Garrison, Morel Fourman and others from the State of the World Forum team, we are preparing the Global Transition Initiative. The initiative will support collaboration between individuals, organisations and communities to deliver results around our sustainability challenges. It will be launched at the State of the World Forum 2009 in Washington. You can read first thoughts about the Global Transition Initiative here and hear me talk (17mins) about it here.