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Publish With Pride
Weave by Gather

A manifesto for re-connecting

Our children will not tell tales of conference calls, meetings, mergers or acquisitions.

They will not praise apathetic companies, industrial pollution or the ownership of ‘things’.

All that will echo in the years of history what we chose to do for our future.

How, as our cleverness increased, so too did our kindness.As technology expanded, so too did our consciousness.

How we travelled the distance between us. Our conversations carving new paths, as we chose to embrace the messy, the complex and the vulnerable.

How we held space for one another to heal old wounds, and create space for a new story to emerge.

How we swam through the unknown, through the murky waters, journeying closer to understanding and living together with humility.

It might feel new, maybe even unrecognisable, yet we’ve been there before.

Take a sacred pause between your breaths.

Inhale… Exhale…

Remembering that presence is the immunity from haste, the rush, the never enough. A moment to rekindle connection to community – a base from which we carve our new story.

People no longer statistics, but stories interwoven of joy and pain, and overcoming. Places no longer destinations for transaction. Now living tributes to the cultures before, within and beyond us.

Each of us stewards, and ambassadors for the new now. With courage and compassion, weaving the culture we want to live.

We dream beyond ourselves and remember where we’ve been.

Hurling our hearts into the space between.

Reweaving our fabric and renewing our inner lives; we rekindle community as we navigate transition in the 21st Century. This is The Base Between.

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How I spend $86,400 every day!

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course.

Each of us has a bank exactly like this!

Its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back.

There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success.

The clock is running.
Make the most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have.

And remember that time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.
That’s why it’s called the present.

(thanks to Marc Levy for this poem)

–Just a little perspective on why when money is involved we want to get the most out of it…why aren’t we the same with our own time?!?

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Alex Jeffery looks at the future of living in communal living

Looking forward: Communal living

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

We all seek connection and all want to know that in some way or another we are part of a ‘tribe’ and a community. We also know that with the current path planet Earth is taking we need to find more sustainable ways of living together…ways that mean we get more out of our resources — sustainably!

The definition for “communal living” is:

An intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some places, work and income.

We see these already coming up around the world (in America mainly at the moment) with more and more 17-27 year olds finding this form of living more social, more economical and just a lot for attractive.

I see two main benefits with communal living, one for the people and one for the planet:

People

We all want connection and to feel part of a group and a community. It’s what we all seek at the end of the day…
Communal living where there is structure and you are living with people with similar interests, complimentary strengths and common goals means that you will be completely immersed in a community of people you are going to love being around!

Of course one reason some people might not like communal living at all, is the lack of privacy and not “having your own place.” This is completely understandable and probably won’t be realistic when we have families start to get involved and need their own space. Maybe then there will be parts of each community that have separate houses but still share resources and work together in community?

Imagine if you knew your neighbours so well that you shared your weekly shop, cooked for each other, and worked so closely that your expenses were cut, you had more time and you had a new best pal next door?

Planet

Living in communities means we get to share our resources among the community and therefore reduce waste! Anything we can do to come together a little more and use our resources a little more effectively will create a dramatic difference.

We look around and see so many cars driving in the same direction with 1 or 2 people in each…the same applies with housing. It is possible to still maintain a healthy living space, that isn’t crowded and over-populated but still shares resources among members.

Overall I think you can see that communal living is something I truly believe is going to be the future of sustainable living and I didn’t even get into the potential of designing these communities with permaculture principles and including an aspect of entrepreneurship and project creation in each community!!

Anyways, this is something we are going to be experimenting with in the ONEWorld Summit Communities.

Feel free to comment or email me your feelings on this topic…would love to hear them!

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