[OSList] sacred economics 101 and the future

[doug]

Raffi--

Tell us about your birthday gift circle: who did and did not do what?

			:- Doug.



On 04/22/2013 08:56 PM, Raffi Aftandelian wrote:
> Kerry,
>
> Thanks for sharing those other links to Eisenstein. I'm also enjoying listening to his earlier book, Ascent of Humanity (which of course is freely available as an e-book and as audio).
>
> As for what we can do-
>
> I think that is a great question.
>
> Part of it for me is simply learning to live in a more interconnected way.
>
> To paraphrase Thic Nhat Hanh-
>
> i am the unjustly foreclosed upon worker
>
> andthe "bankster."
>
> Also, I think it
>   is about starting to apply some of the ideas in the book (none of which, as Eisenstein acknowledges, are new anyway) like Gift Circles.
>
> Incidentally, Eisenstein references Alpha Lo as someone who is active with Gift Circles, and I had the good fortune of meeting him at the San Francisco 2008 WOSonOS...
>
> One thing I've resolved to do is hold a monthly gift circle where I live. I held my birthday last month as a gift circle- and it was wonderful! It took some courage to do a birthday a little differently...but it was really beautiful.
>
> Will that change the world? i don't know. Will it make the world more just? good question.
>
> For me, holding the gift circle was about opening a little space.
>
> That said- for a gift circle to truly be powerful, we must really
>   need each other. And our lives are often set up so that we are pretty darn separate. As eisentein posits, since we don't reallyneed  each other, community doesn't really happen.
>
> that said, i see value in gathering in a circle like this....
>
> Part of the positive story I hear in Sacred Economics is that this "Age of Separation" is ending whether we like it or not- the process of the shift, though, can be rather bumpy...So, this old system- including this financial system with "banksters," he seems to suggest will just collapse.
>
>
> my two kopecks/rials/drams,
>
> greetings from this southwest corner of continental obamastan,
>
> raffi
>
>
> p.s. i've also enjoyed this three hour chris hedges interview given on cspan early last yearhttp://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303072-1  I'v shared it with a lot of people (especially those who were seriously contemplating voting for Obama in the '12 election) While I share a lot of the criticism and can look past the critical/negative tone, I think the worldview he is operating from is a limiting one.
>
> Dear Listers
>
> Thanks Raffi for introducing SACRED ECONOMICS.
>
> If we can find a way to get rid of money by reinventing the way we exist,
> the banksters will disappear along with all the greedy and selfish people
> who have accumulated the world's riches on the backs of others through the
> shibboleth of globalisation.  There is something disastrously wrong when
> the three richest people have more wealth than the poorest 48 countries in
> the world.  How did 0.5% of the population amass 38% of the world's wealth
> when 68% of the population have only 4.2%?
>
> How can capitalism, which depends on consumption economics to create more
> and more growth, continue when the earth's resources are finite and the
> environment is ravaged to produce yet more wealth for the few.  In our
> hearts we know the old system is bankrupt and corrupt, so something must
> change.  Eisenstein's book is one attempt to look at what the transition
> might involve.
>
> For some years I have believed there is another way we can move away from
> production and consumption of quantity by focusing on quality, making and
> doing things that last and allow people to feel good without using more and
> more precious resources.
>
> Do you have any thoughts?
>
> More specifically, does Open Space have a role to play here?  How do we get
> from Bruce opening space from his park bench in deep winter to transforming
> the world?
>
> Peace
>
> Kerry
> Edinburgh
>
> ******
> "The truism that we reap only what we sow only goes back as far as
> agriculture. Before then, we could reap without sowing: nature
> was fundamentally  provident.  For  the  hunter-gatherer,
>   the providence of nature requires little labor or planning, but only
>   an  understanding  of  nature’s  patterns.  Primitive survival is a
> matter of intimacy and not control.."
> -- Charles Eisenstein, Ascent of Humanity
>
>
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