FW: The Da Vinci Connection -- Open Space and the Feminine

[Harrison Owen]

From: Douglas D. Germann, Sr. [mailto:76066.515 at compuserve.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 10:09 PM
To: Blind.Copy.Receiver at compuserve.com
Subject: The Da Vinci Connection -- Open Space and the Feminine

Harrison--

A couple of months ago a friend lent me Leonard Shlain's _The Alphabet
Versus the Goddess_; more recently another friend lent me Lietaer's and
Belgin's _Of Human Wealth_. Although they seem to be about different
subjects, they trace and fill out the story (his-story) of patriarchy's
repression of the feminine.

Shlain speaks of what alphabets can do to focus attention on the right hand
and left brain, and away from the nurturing left hand, for instance. Both
books put the start of the repression closer to the end of pre-history than
the end of the Roman empire, for whatever that is worth.

I too have wondered about what is masculine and feminine in this business
of self-organizing. Shlain in a startling chapter puts the turn around away
from the alphabet at about 5 years before the start of WWII, when Hitler
figured out how to use the radio (sound, not writing) for propaganda
purposes to mesmerize people. This change was propelled by the invention of
photography almost a century earlier and the television a couple of decades
later.

We are, from what I see, in this OS business about the work of increasing
conversation--the honest to Martin Buber meeting of person with person--and
the honest to David Bohm search for truth. This work is very much moving us
away from a writing- and alphabet-centric world into one in which other
senses and skills have value--drawing, music video, dance (of masculine and
feminine, among other things), spirit, connection.

Thus we are valuing what people with other skills can bring. Women and men
with other skills are seeing something they like in this OS stuff--maybe it
is the fact that they are listened to, heard, and valued.

                              :-Doug. Germann
                              Seeking people making community change.

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