I am attempting to chunk down a whole book here full of good stories and descriptions in order to give tools for continued conversations. This is part III and the final section I will attempt to share from as part IV is a speech Korten wrote and his amazing summation of his work.

Part I
Part II

This book makes sense to me and gives me hope. I think the discussions are starting and there are murmurs all around about change. I needed to get a real grasp on real information before I could understand the changes that I needed to make and I hope this series of posts will inspire others to join in the conversation. The Divide and Conquer Club is in full session. I believe that it is a discussion that needs to happen from the grassroots – tough talk to the game players still in the game.

A. What People Really Want

• “We humans are awakening to the reality that we are living beings and that life, by its nature, can exist only in community. Our future depends on getting with the program and organizing our economies in ways that mimic healthy living systems.”
• As Humans we have choice – our lower natures or our higher natures can be cultivated. We have allowed our lower natures and phantom wealth to define our lower natures and give it measure. We can chose to not cultivate that any more – we can cultivate our highest selves.
  The Internet and Communications Technologies now allow us greater potential for choice and collective dialogue.
• “…a desire to cooperate and serve is hard-wired into the human brain.”
• ““…a sense of personal responsibility and self-restraint is an essential foundation of a mature democracy.” We are all a part of the one organism.
• “ Most of us want to breathe clean air and drink clean water. We want nutritious food uncontaminated with toxins. We want meaningful work, a living wage, and security in our old age. We want a say in the decisions our government makes. We want world peace.”
• We all want REAL WEALTH and it is within our means.
• The GDP is the wrong measure of our economic health. Try the HAPPY PLANET INDEX instead
• Happy Planet Index = (Life Satisfaction x Life Expectancy)/Ecological Footprint
• Turning into an Era of Partnership
• The ability to see something you have never seen before is an important part of navigating to the Earth Community.

B. Essential Priorities

• Addressing the Earth’s resources and the equitable use of said resources.
• Population growth
• Human economy will be a subsystem of the Earth’s ecosystem.
• Principles for Healthy Living Systems:
  1. Self-organize into dynamic, inclusive, self-reliant communities of place.
  2. Balance individual and community needs and interest.
  3. Practice frugality and reciprocity.
  4. Reward cooperation.
  5. Optimize the sustainable capture and use of energy and matter by adapting to the specific details of the microenvironment.
  6. Form and manage permeable boundaries.
  7. Cultivate diversity and share knowledge. (Sounds like the bloggers I have been reading!)
• Wall Street says it has exclusive rights to the resources of any community. There is a lot of “punishment” going on presently – like huge banks starving local banks and assets to take them over and to get them to conform to assisting the wealthy – training the locals to think that their local stores and companies are not good enough. We’ll show ‘em.
• “Advertising beyond informing the public of the availability and features of products and services has not legitimate place and is not a legitimate business expense.” We will not be creating human want machines.

C. Liberating Main Street

• Main Street is already coming back to life through self-organizing group with vision
  Navigational goals of Main Street: “restructure consumptions to achieve a 90 percent reduction in the release of greenhouse gases, achieve an equitable distribution of income, regenerate social and natural capital, eliminate war, and reduce population growth.”
• The implementation of market rules is the corrective.
• 12 – Point New Economy Agenda (these are detailed and spelled out)
  1. Redirect the focus of economic policy from growing phantom wealth to growing real wealth.
  2. Recover Wall Street’s unearned profits, and assess fees and fines to make Wall Street theft and gambling unprofitable.
  3. Implement full-cost market pricing.
  4. Reclaim the corporate charter.
  5. Restore National economic sovereignty
  6. Rebuild communities with a goal of achieving local self-reliance in meeting basic needs.
  7. Implement policies that create a strong bias in favor of human-scale businesses owned by local stakeholders.
  8. Facilitate and fund stakeholder buyouts to democratize ownership.
  9. Us tax and income policies to favor the equitable distribution of wealth and income.
  10. Revise intellectual property rules to facilitate the free sharing of information and technology.
  11. Restructure financial services to serve Main Street.
  12. Transfer to the federal government the responsibility for issuing money.
• Shrink the GDP and bring social and environmental indicators to the fore. Children and the environment are our greatest assets.

D. Real –Wealth Financial Services

This is a detailed work up of points #11 and #12 and I will only share a brief word or two.

• No Man can serve two masters:….Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. ~Jesus Matthew 6:24
• This is a direction and framework for policy action and not a blueprint.
• This chapter is very detailed and descriptive and I would be better off hoping you would read the book rather than attempting summarize that which I am not an expert and am just learning.

E. Life in a Real-Wealth Economy

This is a written scenario of what life would look like in communities that exist today and in the future with these changes in place and real wealth the overriding measure.

• An address I Hope President Obama Will One Day Deliver to the Nation
• When the People Lead, the Leaders Will Follow

Part IV: Change the Story, Change the Future

I hope this 3 part review was not too much for a blog reader to handle. I believe it is vital and important information and that communities are already involved in huge paradigm changes. I need to constantly keep updating my thinking.

I now have new questions to ask all my candidates for the local elections coming up in August for City Council and Port Commissioner.

I realize this is a longer post than I usually do, but I have found this to sound and good news to share as best as I am able. I too believe that bloggers will be making profound differences in our systems of communication, in our definitions of community and finances and I think this is a good start point.

What do you think? Do you even care about this? What are the big questions in your individual communities? Will you have any retirement security? How would you un- polarize us?

Looking forward to you comments.
Related posts:
To Be Of Use
Taking It On: Architecture2030 Challenge
Relocalization
Kindle 2 and 5 Things I Love About It

Post from: www.patriciaswisdom.com

I started chunking down this book in a three part post, because I am hoping that I can get lots of people interested in reading the book. Need to read part one?

By doing this I am hoping folks who will not read the book will get some idea of what this is all about even if they are missing all the great history lessons, defining stories and appropriate referrals to other works and scholars.

This just makes sense to me, so here goes the 2nd of three chunks….

A. What wall Street Really Wants

• The Wall Street game is a power game to build the empires of a few. The Wall Street version of economic gain is to make the wealthy, wealthier – the highest paid is the winner and there is only a winner who has it all. There are two great arcs in Economic History – high inequality to relative equality and a political arc of extreme polarization to bipartisanship. We are in a golden age of polarization and partisanship – the breakdown of the middle class strength is nearly vanished and has been victimized by the empire building of unregulated Wall Street high finance con games and individualism. The suspension of moral codes, rules, and the game has been played out in the global market place.
• “Wall Street corporate interest provided the money and largely controlled the real agenda. The religious fundamentalist provided the votes in return for lip service to a conservative social agenda on abortion, family planning, and gay marriage. The Libertarians provided the ideological framework. The neocons provided justification for outsized military expenditures that swelled the profits of the defense industry and secured corporate access to resources and markets. “
• Restoration of the middle class will only come from political action by a strong political bipartisan movement.
• Banking is the joy ride of speculation and borrowing money and selling /leveraging bets in the foreign markets. Gambling at 35 to 1 in a rigged system. We do not need Wall Street, it produces nothing of value.
• “The richest 2% of the world’s people now own 51% of all the world’s assets.” “The poorest 50% own only 1%”
• Families turned from saving to borrowing – Gotcha the Game is closer and closer to winner takes all – hey world we can’t quit now! Wall Street should be doing hard time; instead they are using the bailout to play to the end of the game.

B. Buccaneers and Privateers

• “Wall Street hedge fund managers, day traders, currency traders, and other unlicensed phantom-wealth speculators are the buccaneers of our day, and Wall Street banks are the commissioned privateers. The economy is their ocean. Publicly traded corporations serve as their favored vessels of plunder, phantom wealth is their favored weapon, and the state is their servant-guardian.”
• “…the current import-dependent U.S. economy-with the primary difference that U.S. imports are financed not by stolen gold but by foreign debt.” The rise of scruples crime and war lords – competing or cooperating to gain and win…sound familiar to anywhere in today’s news?
• “Publically traded limited-liability corporations now operate with substantial immunity from legal liability and accountability. They have become the defining institutions of our day. Wall Street is their symbolic seat of power, and they have revered their relationship to the state.”
• Wall Street now commissions and finances armies to protect their interests and to staff diplomacy – using the economy at will.

C. The High Cost of Phantom Wealth

• “The full costs of Phantom Wealth are beyond comprehension.”
• “So often we say ‘I can afford it,’ without asking whether the Earth can afford it.” Growing Phantom Wealth defies the laws of conservation. Only Voluntary Simplicity advocates and practioners seem to understand not to spend randomly and that money does not grow like phantom wealth. Retirement Comfort built upon phantom wealth just does not exist at all. Most baby boom retirees will be in desperate straits or unable to retire.
• Foundations, Universities, Public Trust Funds, and Non-Profits will be the first to “fall”. None of the bonus money paid out exists and because there were no regulations no one knows how much phantom wealth is out in the world that the bailouts are attempting to relieve. Korten asks is your head spinning now. It should be! We are now dealing with pieces of paper that no one knows the sum or total of or how to pay for them.
• Decisions are made with the criteria that what will bring the highest financial return to the investors is the highest priority not how to care for the community, provide health care to the citizens or find jobs and increase productivity. More paper shuffling.
• We are taught to value our financial net worth and processions over our intrinsic self-worth.
• When we are concerned about being of service to our community rather than competing in a power hierarchy we feel a calmer exhilaration – our health and happiness improve.
• Wall Street produces a narcissistic culture and rewards predatory competition.
• We have the means and the know how to build a better system and a better life.

D. The End of Empire

• 5,000 years we have been in the Era of the Empire.
• Our ancestors chose to cooperate with life rather than to dominate it. (Riane Eisler, historian)
• All the community care systems that were built during this time needed to be built to open the door for Empire.
• Mesopotamia (Iraq) was the first area to turn away from generative power of life to a reverence for hierarchy. We have had many celebrated Empires – at great cost in human life and natural wealth. Social Pathology became the norm.
• In 1776, “…the grassroots rebels who initiated and led the revolution in its earliest manifestations demonstrated a capacity to express the popular will through self-organizing groups and networks – long one of democracies most meaningful and effective forms of expression.”
• Hierarchy overturned the Continental Congress began creating a powerful government making sure the white male would be the power.
  We are still in a mindset of Empire.
• “Deceived by the divide-and-conquer tactics of imperial politics, each places the blame on the other rather than forming a united front to reject Empire’s lies and unite to achieve our common dream.”
• “The struggle for the health and well-being of our children is potentially the unifying political issue of our time and an obvious rallying point for mobilizing a political majority behind a New Economy agenda”.
• “The world’s estimated 1.5 billion Internet users, 22 percent of all the people in the world, are learning to function as a dynamic, self-directing social organism that transcends boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality to serve as a collective political conscience of the species.”
• An Epic Opportunity, “of the awakening of a new human consciousness of our shared interests and common destiny – and a foretaste of the possibilities for new ways of organizing human affairs.”

We know how to do this. We have the potential for a fully human, humane potential.Does this excite you to read the book and get active in your own community? I hope so…

I just cannot stop talking about this book. Do you have any other recommendations?

Post from: www.patriciaswisdom.com

If one keeps doing the same thing over and over again they achieve the same results over and over again.

3 Basic National Discussion Questions:

1. Do Wall Street institutions do any anything so vital for the national interest that it justifies opening the national purse strings to shower them with trillions of dollars to save them from the consequences of their own excess?
2. Is it possible that the whole Wall Street edifice is built on an illusion that has no substance yet carries deadly economic, social, and environmental consequences for the larger society?
3. Might there be other ways to provide necessary and beneficial financial services with greater effectiveness and at lesser cost?

Who is David Korten

• Stanford and Harvard Schools of Economics and Business Graduate
• Worked in Asia with Ford Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development
• Author: The Post Corporate World: Life after Capitalism; When Corporations Rule the World; The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and Agenda for a New Economy.
• Father of two daughters is he. Husband of the publisher of YES, Magazine – Fran Korten

How to find out more about David Korten

• Yesmagazine.org
• Business Alliance for Local Living(livingeconomies.org)
• American Independent Business Alliance (amiba.net)
• Institute for Policy Studies (ips-dc.org)
• New Economy Working Group (new-economyworkinggroup.org)
• Davidkorten.org
• Greatturning.org

Part I: The Case for a New Economy

A. Looking Upstream

1. What it means to treat the causes rather than the symptoms
   • bailout makes more of a crisis – destroys future
   • stimulus and green jobs thoughtful approach
   • rebuild the economic system from the bottom up
2. Getting the facts and the assumptions sorted out.
   • Definition of Phantom Money: Money created by accounting entries or the inflation of asset bubbles, debt pyramids and performance fees – millions and fancy
   • Definition of Real Wealth: Real wealth has intrinsic, as contrasted to exchange value. Life, not money, is the measure of real-wealth value; healthy, happy children, loving families, caring communities, and a beautiful, healthy natural environment. (artistic, spiritual, utilitarian values)

B. Modern alchemist and the Sport of Moneymaking

1. Reality focuses behind the Wall Street Illusions
   • Capitalists ideal is to create money out of nothing, without a need to produce anything of real value in return. Wall Street calls this a high-stakes competitive sport. Addictive
   • Making rich people richer.
   • Money is only an accounting chit, no meaning outside of the human mind. It is a system of power and how to use or abuse that power.
   • Easy to confuse money for real wealth because it can be exchanged for labor, ideas, land, gold, health care, food and many things of value.
   • People on Wall Street believe money is REAL. They do not realize that money is built upon the real work and effort of others to produce real wealth.
2. Methods used by Wall Street for making money without creating anything of real value in return
   • We are taught to believe this because we see the rich getting richer and Paris Hilton is out spending so much money.
   • We are told repeatedly this is what our goal is in life and it is the American Dream
   • We are conditioned to believe, and advertised to believe that we can achieve this with hard work and effort on our part.
   • When Wall Street is gaining it is a net loss for all of the rest of society. We bargain away all the resources of the poorest of the poorest leaving them nothing – including no hope or future, all the time believing that we deserve this and if we just work a bit harder or longer or faster we will win the prize – wealth of money. The wealthy need servants, and of course the trickle down of the funds will provide health care to the poorest of the poor.

C. A Real – Market Alternative

1. The only other way to rule by Wall Street is to rule by communist bureaucrats
   • Extreme choices believed to be the only choices
   • Unaccountable power which suppresses liberty and creativity for all but those at the top [we will not be able to choose our own doctors or plans!]
2. Fallacy and Myth busting
   • Wall Street versus Main Street Economies – very different priorities, values, and institution.
   • Wall Street is pure finance, making money for those who have money.
   • Main Street is local businesses and working people engaged in producing real goods and services which provide a livelihood for themselves and their communities. Values moderate the drive for profit.
   • Corporations are not commodities bought and sold but are part of the Main Street Values and systems of creating Real Wealth.
   • Democratic ideals and policies are a work in a Main Street System.
   • Hear word Capitalism – think Cancer Cells – has lost its definition.

D. More Than Tinkering at the Margins

1. Adjustments approach favored by the establishment will not stabilize economy
   • Bailouts are akin to putting a bandage on cancer.
   • Doomed to fail – even stimulus packages with no limits are failures
   • Sachs = bandage approach Speth= holistic approach.
2. Will not reduce economic inequality, or prevent environmental collapse.
   • Tremendous amount of research shared on Sachs and Speth Approaches
   • A community activist who is smart will use bandages and work day and night to rebuild from the ground up and holistic recovery.

I hate to tell you that you are missing a whole lot of fine stories and explanations, but hopefully this will give you a more solid understanding of what needs to happen..
Parts II, III, and IV are coming up on the next two posts.

Related Posts:
12 Reasons I Want People To Read This Book
Agenda for a New Economy From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth
Animal Vegetable Miracle
Relocalization

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Post from: www.patriciaswisdom.com

Maybe you need, not a boisterous family party, but a few private hours to remember, to honor the sacredness of the profound changes that have occurred in your life. Birthdays are new beginnings, but they’re also moments of personal closure, which are crucial if we are to grow positively into our authenticity.

My partner has really taken this birthday ritual idea to the max. This will be his tenth year of riding his bicycle in the Seattle to Portland Ride (STP) and this year it is not just around his birthday it is on his actual birthday date!

There are at least 8,000 people who ride the STP each year, it is fun to see parents and children teamed up together and then there are the folks who team up and spend the days as a group in festive attire and destination spa visits at the end.

He did the ride in two days a couple of times, but now his idea of a good ride is to accomplish this in just one day. 204 miles! He has ridden the ride one time alone and I have made him promise not to do that again, it is not as much fun as having a teammate and he pushes himself too hard when alone and made himself ill. Two of his daughters have ridden with him and several times they have done it on the tandem.

We drive to the University of Washington Husky field at about 3am the morning of the ride, and a few minutes before 5am the single day riders take off. There are lots of folks who arrive in Portland – Rose Center Park by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. My partner always hopes to be there between 8 and 9 pm.

The park is filled with tents of food, lots of equipment, travel guides and Whole Foods (a sponsor) always has a free grocery bag for each participant. Although there are food stops in route, one sees lots and lots of food being consumed by the cyclists. It is very festive.

In years past, I am the team support unit, driving to the UW and then to Portland for the next day pick up. I have also prepared the training diet, which begins with training rides in early March – always building up the mileage. Sometimes there is an overnight in Portland and time for shopping and a lovely meal.

It is quite a ritual and this year I asked him not to do the STP, so that I would not be taxed into illness right before my adventure, so that the budget would not be overwhelmed, and for him to stop training, training, training, and take care of a few things around the house.

Nope – his love of the ritual, the celebration and the ride won out. He is riding to Seattle and staying in an Inn on Friday – so I will not have to drive in the wee morning hours and in the afternoon also. So add another 60 miles to the weekend.

So Happy Birthday Guy and Have a Great and Safe Ride – may it be the best celebration of all.

Every birthday, not just the ones marking a new decade, is a significant milestone. Every age brings with it three hundred sixty-five Real Life lessons. ‘We turn, not older with years but newer every day,’ Emily Dickinson reassures the birthday celebrant in all of us. And that’s certainly something worth celebrating in grand style. ~Sarah Ban Breathnach

So how do you make your day special? Come on confess here and now – you do have little rituals that make your day special. Looking forward to your comments.

Related posts/sites you might also enjoy:

www.bikingarchitect.com has more information about the STP and other rides taken
Champagne Tour
Rejoice Beloved Woman
Gearing Up for the STP
Dream Bicycle

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Julie from Random Meanderings presented me with the award. Talk about creative! Julie takes thoughtful ideas and spins them into a positively, spiritual, exceptional read. She very rightly received the “Kreativ Blogger Award” and has passed along this fun and deceptively challenging 7-7-7 award to me. Julia came in from her vacation mode to receive this award. She certainly surprised me, and I’m very flattered to know she considers my words to be creative. Thank you, Julie!

The 7 INSTRUCTIONS are easy to follow:

1. Thank the person who awarded the KBA to you.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who gave you the award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself people might find interesting.
5. Pass the KBA along to 7 more Kreativ bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 new awardees.
7. Let each of them know they’re now recipients of the KBA.

Here are 7 THINGS which I hope you will find interesting about me:

1. My family had the first Television set in our entire neighborhood. My Fathers was so busy helping families with special needs children bond and grow strong, that we were given several wonderful and innovative gifts along the way. My Father saw many amazing possibilities for the future of television and gave me a love of new inventions and gadgets that assist folks in learning and growing.
2. I took two classes from Fred Rogers in graduate school – you know Mr. Rogers from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. I found him to be an amazingly kind and dedicated educator and felt that his song, “You are special and I like you just the way you are” was personally written for me.
3. We had a player piano upright grand when I was growing up. It was the hit of all the parties at our house and I loved being able to sing with accompaniment. My Father, brother and I replaced all the old air feed hoses in the piano and repaired and rebalanced all the hammers and pads.
4. My own children experienced being the first family to have a home computer in our neighborhood. It was an Apple GS and the kids just really took to it and learned how to use it right away. My Grandmother left all of her Grandchildren $1,000.00 when she died and for me, my instructions included that I had to use the money to purchase a computer.
5. I read Dr. Zhivago the Russian Novel at age five. Each character had so many names, my Mother had to make a list of all the names that were attached to each character so I could keep them straight. It was fun reading a book the same time that my Mother was reading a book, although we did not discuss the book. My Mother would not go see movies because she thought they were addicting and made you unhappy with your life, so we played the movie for her on her DVD player when she was over 90 and had lived a good life.
6. I read the whole 26 volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia that my Mother bought to help keep us learning and to be good in school. I read each New Yearbook when they arrived. I also read all of the volumes of a compilation of all the greatest literature from England which my Grandfather owned and have since discovered that one of my cousins also read the whole set of those books too.
7. My second grade teacher assigned an essay about what we did for our summer vacation. I had mumps and was too young to do any of the activities my brother and sister did at the University my Father taught at that summer (and I gave my Father Mumps – which was tantamount to having nearly murdered him) that I had nothing to write about so I created a fantasy vacation of a trip to Mars. The teacher labeled me a fanciful liar and put that on my school records, which followed me all the way through graduate school.

My second daughter wrote a book about going to Mars with her family and won a ribbon at the science fair when she was in 4th grade. It was the right time and the right place!

Now here are my picks for the next 7 awards: ( This was the hardest part of this whole award, because many of my favorite bloggers already have received the award and my list of favorites is so long and always growing!)

Barbara Swafford from Blogging Without a Blog

Cath Lawson

Cindy from Namas Daisy

Dot from Deeper Issues

Eliza from Silver and Grace

Robin from Let’s Live Forever

Vered from Mom Grind

Again, Thank you Julie for the award – I feel honored to accept !

I hope this was fun! Who would you nominate for a Creative Blogger Award?

Looking forward to your comments:

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Blogger Dad Blame Tara Meme
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I Do Not Know Anything Different

Post from: www.patriciaswisdom.com

Several years ago (quite a large number of years ago) my left knee started to ache all the time when I was sitting. I remember being at a ballet performance in the big city and my knee just screamed in pain through the entire experience.

About 5 years ago, one of the toes on my left foot just felt strange all the time, as though you were putting your hand up to another’s hand and feeling the fingers pressed together – we called it the dead finger test.

My hips were nearly always popping in and out of joint and the small of my back was just exhausted all of the time.

I walked and walked, lifted weights, took supplements and a couple of pharmaceuticals and was told I had moderate to severe arthritis in my knee, hips, and toes. When I slipped and fractured 3 bones and tore 3 ligaments in my left foot, I found out that there was no sign or evidence of arthritis.

In the meantime, a group of us took the pledge to stop wearing shoes that were not comfortable and only wear shoes that we felt good wearing.

Right now I walk 6.5 miles every morning around the Lake. I finished off having my hips centered in March at the Chiropractor and I began looking for comfortable shoes I could wear walking on my tour of Scotland.

I am also in recovery from a torn ligament which holds digestive organs in place – we think this happened in yoga class but not for sure?

I went to sporting goods stores, running shoes stores, and searched on line; I even glanced at the $400 pair of sneakers Mrs. Obama wore to a school one day.

On a trip to the big city, I came across a store called The Walking Company. They sell shoes – lots of shoes. They are primarily an online company but it was nice to discover them at an actual store. The clerk actually interviewed me about my habits, routines, and what I needed a shoe for; he then made a recommendation of a Swiss Shoe call the MBT.

I tried on the shoe that they had in my size and walked around in the store. The pain in the small of my back was relieved – immediately. My posture was improved – immediately. My hamstring muscles in the back of my legs felt a gentle pull and release. Because the shoes move on a rocking motion, my daughter was sure that I would twist my ankle or fall down.

I was told I could order the style I wanted and they would be delivered to my home in about 2 days from the warehouse. I could wear them around home, watch the video, and if they did not work for me – I could return them within a month’s time. The shoes were about $100 more than I wanted to spend, but with the return guarantee I decided to give them a try.

I wore them around the house for three weeks. I loved standing in them while I prepared things at the sink or when was on my feet for a number of hours at a time – no small of the back pain or stiffness. I decided I would keep the shoes, they did the trick.

I now have nearly 300 miles of walking on the shoes. No knee pain, no hip disjointing, no small of the back pain, my toe is back to feeling normal, the circulation in my feet is improving, and my posture is just getting better and better all the time. I am not taking any supplements for joint pain and have almost no inflammation – one ankle is still problematic in the heat.

I chose the sandal style, see related picture, and I will choose the shoes again; saving money to do just that. Isn’t it just wonderful when you find something that works?

What have you found that just works for you? Makes you feel better and better? And what do you think about comfortable shoes?

Looking forward to your comments – they are greatly appreciated and add so much to each post – thank you.

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Post from: www.patriciaswisdom.com

They are my hands working in the water; usually it is moments like these in which I find myself looking at my Father’s hands, occasionally my Mother’s.

Do you ever have moment like that, when the work and habits that are being undertaken reveal your minds knowledge of someone else’s endeavors? Is it reassuring, pleasing or frightening to make this discovery?

At the moment, I have my hands dipped into cold water and am rinsing strawberries fresh from the garden. I have previously taken care of 2 flats of berries and now begin on the last 2 flats. We will eat some fresh, I will freeze at least 10 quarts and I will dry one full flat.

Strawberry Shortcake is on the menu for our Independence Day Celebration.

Actually, my hands are here on the computer keyboard, I am just remembering the 10 hours I have devoted to the care of Strawberries!

This year the Organic berries are in very short supply. Demand is up for the local, fresh berries and the chemical free varieties. I go to the farmer’s market and purchase my first two flats the first week of the season. Two weeks later I am scrambling to find two more flats, because I want the very ripest berries for drying as I add no sugar or preservatives to my task. I want the flavor to explode into the mouth when I give them as gifts during the Winter Holiday Season.

The weather has been strange and the berries are small, hard to find, and exceptionally sweet – expensively delicious.

My hands guide the colander full of berries through the water and they wield the knife to remove the tops in a smooth gliding motion. There is no arthritis to mar the shape of the joints, they are not swollen, short and unwieldy – they are my hands moving in a rhythm all their own – precision instruments of care.

I feel the seeds and anticipate the juice and know the overripe or bad spot without hesitation or conscious thought. I sit down, I stand, I love my comfortable CROCS and I think about the woman who have gone before me and prepared for the year ahead.

I do not grow my own strawberries, our urban, downtown farm spot does not have enough room for organic slug control and my small traps of beer do not catch enough of the hungry consumers. The ground cover I use is a tiny, tiny strawberry plant that the birds just love to enjoy and I love the massive white blooms in the middle of spring. I pay for someone else to bend and pick the berries for me.

I do have 15 blueberry bushes which are a part of the hedge system in our yard. They are loaded with fruit and I must stake up a couple as they are bent nearly to the ground in abundance. I notice that the Winter Squash and pumpkins all have blooms and a couple of free starts from the compost have set uniquely shaped orbs – I wonder how they will taste.

The apple trees have dropped some leaves and self pruned the non-viable apples, and it is notable that the trees do not carry as much fruit as in other years. The woodpeckers ate too many of the Mason Bees?

Early season or late – I can not speculate but am hoping for late so that I can make sauce, dried, and juice for the days to come, and not be away on my walking tour.

Who would have thought that these hands would be a part of such abundance and beauty? Who would have known that these hands would be taking care of me and mine? Who would have known that these hands would assist me in sharing so many words and ideas?

They are my hands now lifting the berry coins off the dehydrator trays and putting each into their containers for a mouth watering surprise. Hands that know the rhythm and motion by heart.

What do your hands know by heart? How do you care for your hands? Are you remembering?

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I have to admit this phrase has gotten stuck in my mind for several weeks now.

Tom Volkar, one of the coaches on line, wrote that one needs to think about the “BIG” Thing you want to do in your life and get this out of your head and your heart and put it out for the world to see and for you to work towards. No use in thinking small.

I started wrestling with these ideas – first with my thumbs, then with arms, and now it has become a full body contact match. I thought maybe the big idea would come to me while I was walking and touring in another country. No it is right here and right now – I do not need to come up with something new and this is already on the table, before my eyes, and in my face real.

I am looking for a magic wand to change the WANT into reality. I would like a magic pill- well not really – a magic wand that truly worked would certainly do the trick.

I am looking for a support system and a belief system outside of myself – and I will never achieve this something BIG if I believe that it is outside of me.

The naysayers are everywhere with the proof to back up what they are shouting at me.

So here is the deal: the BIGGY

I want to heal myself of this dis-ease this dis-order and I want to live at least until I am 85 and I want to live healthy…..not infirmed or diminished.

One of the promises I made to my Father when he was dying was that I would figure out what this dis-ease was and take care of myself. I know the name of the disease: Genetic, non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. It mimics diabetes sometimes with its insulin resistance and it wrecks havoc on your immune systems. It leaves one open to cancer and environmentally caused cancers – not to mention other disease.

If I take the American Diabetes medicine, I know I will be dead within 10 years.

I am already involved in the BIGGY. I have moved me, myself, and I up to the top of the list. I am putting exercise first on my goals for the day and I am repeating my mantra with every step of the way.

I am removing the toxic and replacing it with the positive. I am recognizing when I am stuck and when I need an interpreter, and I know who to go to for assistance.

I know what I need to do and the teachers and lessons are coming at me in perfect timing. I am not playing around, wishing and hoping; rather I am in constant touch with my goal. Today I see clearly that this is IT and I am on the path.

I am putting aside my fear, daily ritual, of being in an accident or getting ill and ending up in the ER unable to defend myself or protect myself. It is not going to happen! “They” are not going to kill me before my time or relax me into complacency.

I will be able to be my own advocate and show other how to do this – and not to numb down, but to gear up and positive radiate – avoiding radiation.

I have transitioned into this moment. I just had to let go of the magic wants and move into Trust and Belief. This is a moment of LOVE.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13:12-13

Playing it small is not the answer to my prayers. Thank you Tess and Thank you Tom – it was on the tip of my tongue – it just needed your words to get it out.

What is your BIG thing? Do you have magic wants? Distractions? What are you avoiding seeing?

Archived Post that you might also enjoy:
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Beautiful

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I would like to tell you that I have read and outlined this book, but rather I am reporting that I have heard David Korten speak about this book nearly 10 times now and this has inspired me to treat the book as a course of study. I wish to understand and convey exactly what Korten is talking about and I believe that I want to incorporate his concepts into my daily living and into my community.

I hungrily read Korten book When Corporations Rule the World a number of years ago and was so impressed by his command of information, his ability to translate complex systems into understandable language and thought, and how his ideas were smart, savvy and so honest that they need to arouse the spirit to do something to make change.

I then heard him speak when his partner became the Executive Director, Publisher of the Positive Futures Network and involved with YES magazine, so he now live nearby and was locally accessible. His words and ideas resonated with our Voluntary Simplicity Study group, our Spiritual Community and the State College Community where I was working.

I prepared a paper and lead a discussion group on that book and then passed it on for the next reader to find its wisdom. I believe Mr. Korten is one of the smart people, who is ahead of his time, and provides real opportunity to develop systems of change within one’s own community.

Korten is from the Global Economic Community and the New York City – Beltway Community, but he created his efforts from his personal foundation in human values. As the political signs begin popping up for our city council elections, I am formulating questions based on my study of the new book.

In Korten’s own word from the Spring 2009 issue of YES, Magazine:

Trying to solve the crisis with the same tools that caused it is the definition of insanity….
Real wealth is, first of all, the tangible things that support life-food, shelter, clothing. Of course, the most valuable forms of real wealth are those that are beyond price: love; a healthy, happy child; a job that provides a sense of self-worth and contribution; membership in a strong, caring community; a healthy vibrant natural environment; peace. Our Wall-Street-driven economic system makes fantastic amounts of money and actively destroys all these many forms of real wealth.

Every time I spend my money, I feel as though I am making a vote for a new way of life; voicing my opinion in the loudest voice I have. Do you feel you can vote with your money?

Here is what one of the professionals says about Korten’s book:

Building upon his earlier explorations of economics, history, and psychology, Korten explains why Washington’s response to the current economic crisis is like trying to put a fire out with gasoline. By outlining a foundational framework for extricating the economy from the clutches of Wall Street and creating a real-wealth New Economy based on Main Street, Korten provides essential guideposts for those working for real change.

Charlie Cray, Director, Center for Corporate Policy.

I want to make real change for my future and for my children’s future. I am arming myself with the best knowledge I can find. Surrounding myself with experts and planners, who can jump start my endeavors.

What do you think? Want to read this book? Want to know more? Feeling powerful? How do you help to make change happen? Fix the problem?

Looking forward to your comments and studying this book.

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I signed up for a walking tour and apparently not many other people wished to walk around, so that tour was cancelled and now I am on a Castles and Highlands tour. There are moments when I am just so excited I can hardly stand it and other times when am working very diligently to be prepared.

For the last 23 years, I have been the stay at home parent, while my partner went to work conferences, mountain climbs, and bicycle tours. We did some family camping adventures, but most of our travels involved going to Grandparent’s homes and enjoying their good company and hospitality. We did not wander far.

I made it a point to make sure that each of my children got a trip to someplace else on this planet in hopes of helping them be better global citizens and understanding human beings. I accomplished this.

When I got to thinking about how I wanted to spend my 60th birthday, I had no hesitation. I knew right away that I wanted to see my forbearer’s homeland – Scotland. My Parents had been reared in Canada and I have been from Ocean to Ocean in that country with family guidance.

I haven’t been exploring and relaxing in any other locations for a very long time. It is my turn, so to speak.

Now I am chronically packing my suitcases. This is problematic and is a form of anxiety produced by years of mothering.

These are things that need to fit into my trip suitcase:

• I can only take one suitcase of limited dimension and only 49 pounds – I did this before I can do this again.
• I can take only a day pack sized back pack or carry on because the larger ones with handle and wheels do not fit into the luggage racks of the bus
• I can only take what I can handle myself
• Passport, money and food, because I only get 1 meal per day – Breakfast.
• I do not know what clothing to take, but I do not wish to take very much – simple
• I did find an amazing pair of shoes which I can walk 6 miles in and no problems uphill and flat surface
• Voltage converter – very heavy
• My IT person says NO COMPUTER – so she bought me several smaller journals to write in and compile my posts.
• I have a nice compact digital camera and my exquisite photographer will be joining me
• Personal items and supplements – essential to life for me; must be in original packaging which is extremely heavy.
• Blog Care: guest bloggers, and written ahead posts for 2 blogs, and an IT person for maintenance. Many of these things are being checked off as I write today.

Now this really is not such a bad list and I am very organized, the problem comes when I mentally start packing the suitcase – over and over again. Did I remember the sun screen or the toothbrush? Then I reassure myself by saying I can purchase something if I forget. I move on to packing other items into my suitcase and worry about that item.

This anxiety does not get me packed or resolved. It just escalates the worry. The primary problem is that I am busy packing the suitcase and not thinking about the places I will go and the people I will meet or the things that I will see.

As of today I am stopping packing my suitcase and have set up a schedule for being prepared and enjoying my trip. I have used the blocking technique suggested by so many coaches and set aside a few minutes every day to look at the itinerary and look up on the Internet that location. I will physically take my suitcase out of the attic the weekend before my trip and pack it with clean and fresh gear. I have 3 more items to take care of and I have set aside 30 minutes each week to accomplish those items. Whew!
I am now in the present. I have stopped packing and packing that suitcase. I am feeling productive, excited, and as though I will be ready to go and enjoy my adventure.

How about you? How do you focus on the adventure and not the suitcase? How do you shift out of worry and get to the present when you find yourself going there?

Take a deep breath and stop packing your suitcase… truly I mean it…ah doesn’t that feel better?

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