IN JANUARY this year, I flew out to attend my first full session of the Orphan Wisdom school, founded by Stephen Jenkinson and his wife Nathalie. The term “orphan” is a odd one to combine with wisdom, a juxtaposition that Stephen is fond of replicating according to the 9 months I’ve known him. An orphan after all, is not someone who has no parents. An orphan is one who does not know their parents.

On the surface, it’s hard to remember exactly what transpired during those seven days. I gathered in the Ger (a traditional Mongolian yurt) each day on Stephen’s ice-covered land, hugging the Bonnechere River, joined by other scholars. We discussed the ancient English poem Beowulf. We excavated the etymology of words as delicately as rare pottery from the old world. We ate meat and vegetables raised on their own land, offered with a story of how they came to grow, and ultimately, taken.

And on the final evening, near the stroke of midnight, we conjured a collective experience so potent, so real, that I continually question whether it happened at all.

In the morning, I bid goodbye to the scholars, and was left with Stephen, a steaming cup of tea, and the fading light of the afternoon. A piece of our conversation became “The Meaning of Death” which you can watch below (presented, or perhaps more accurately, provoked by Marc Erlbaum, who is collecting musings on the meaning of life).

Watch my new short: The Meaning of Death (6 mins)

Needless to say, it was challenging to condense even a minutiae of Stephen’s work into a 6 minute short film. Our intention is to collaborate on a future feature-length documentary, still unnamed, but no doubt, gathering in the Mystery. My friend Mia, a longtime scholar of Stephen’s, said it most beautifully:

“Dropping into such a telling may stand to open something that may not have breathed for thousands of years. In the process, I imagine we all too will come to that uncommon breath.”

In the meantime, I offer various outtakes of our interview below. Please accept as a gift, to mull over at the least expected moments, to return again and again, like a mandala that reveals itself only with a willingness to drop your “knowing” and begin the hard work of Remembering.

On depression:

“Depression, and the treatment of depression, the counselling of depression, the identification of depression, and the coping with depression [...] It used to be plastics, you remember in The Graduate? That’s the advice, plastics? If I was that guy beside the pool talking to Dustin Hoffman I’d say, “Depression.” You want a future? There it is. It’s a huge growth industry.

At the same time the culture seems utterly compelled—no, devoted–to it’s own happiness. It seems strange until you let them collide. If you let them collide there’s nothing strange about it at all because one actually gives birth to the other. And it’s the happiness thing that comes first, it’s not the despair.

The devotion to personal contentment is the depression machine, it generates the depression. It makes the depression inevitable which of course obliges you to work harder to be happy and there we are. But how does it do that? Because it whispers to you that happiness should be the discernible consequence of you winning, of you trying hard, of your best intent being in the forefront of all your design.

And a lot of people in the world, ancestrally, knew long ago that that being content or that sense of well-being, that’s a consequence of your willingness to help the world live. That your happiness is actually a corollary—let me change happiness—that your health is a corollary of the health of everything around you.”

On being on the take:

“If you talk about human culture, the travail is sometimes cumulative but always personal awakening to the fact that I, you, we have been so uniformly and without hesitation on the take from the earliest get-go. And that’s the crisis, that’s the travail. Not “being on the take”, but realizing it, awakening to this. So you say, what do you mean on the take?

Well, it’s pretty basic. You think about your food. No matter where your food comes from and how local it may be, there’s still all manner of things that have died to keep you alive, and there’s nothing in your way of life that reflects any awareness of that. If anything, our way of life reflects an unwillingness for that to intrude on our sense of well-being and peace of mind. That’s what I see. So you see the crisis is still waiting to happen here.

I don’t think it’s a poor choice of words to say crisis. We use the word crisis to describe something that shouldn’t be or shouldn’t happen. I’m using the word to say the crisis is determined by our unwillingness to know it, that’s what makes it critical. But the world dies to keep us alive. Fortunately not all the world at the same time, at least so far. We’ll see. Or maybe we won’t see.”

On the crisis of culture:

“The great calamity of awakening to what it means to be a human being is the making of human being. And I think human culture is made in the same fashion, that we’re trying to grapple with the consequence of our presence in the world, and the grappling is how the culture’s made.

So we wake into the idea that we have racked up a really inextinguishable debt as a consequence of just rattling around, and then you have one of two choices where this debt’s concerned and one is to do your utter damnedest to cancel it – you know with good intent and maybe even paying a little interest.

That’s great, but what it says is the indebtedness is the problem. But the law of life surely says indebtedness is not the problem, indebtedness is life. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. So you trying to get out of debt in this fashion turns out to be how you wage war on life. All groups of people who wage war on life surely cannot be called cultures. Call ‘em what you will. My preferred name for them would be syndrome, syndromes instead of cultures.

Cultures that are bonafide cultures are the ones that are grappling with the shifting circumstances of our intrusion into their scene, and the real challenge is can they maintain their culture-hood in the face of our inability to imagine there is such a thing.

Because our way of life, on the surface of it, is so compellingly victorious, that to think it’s actually a calamity that just hasn’t quite collapsed upon itself yet, that takes enormous sight to recognize it. If your culture is endangered by our syndrome, it’s very challenging not to opt for the syndrome as the solution. It’s understandable.

So the only way you can do it is to go back to the understanding that indebtedness is the condition of being human, the willingness to live that way, not in a blasé fashion, but to really live the torment of realizing that humans have a really epic consequence by virtue of their presence on the scene, totally out of proportion with our nominal contribution to the story. And that seems to be part of being human, to find a way to live that and not try to get rid of it.”

On the meaning of life:

“Humans participate in the making of the meaning of life—not human life, life—and our willingness to be claimed by life and understand the ending of everything we hold dear as something that helps life to continue is how life continues, and that’s how the meaning shows up. You try to prevent people from dying, or you try to prevent your dog from dying, or your houseplant from dying, or the culture, or what you have instead of a culture, but if cultures die—they surely die. Cultures die. Syndromes don’t die, though.

Until you are willing to be claimed by the way it is and must be, until you stop playing your get out of jail card saying we can clever our way out of this, it doesn’t have to include us, we will never be included in life, we will always be on the outside looking in, we will always wonder about a better time, we will always try to get to heaven, we will always colonize and plunder people who have not given into any kind of syndrome at all in the name of trying to save ourselves. That’s a given.”

Grief is the willingness to be claimed by a story bigger than the one you wish for.

On the path of grief:

“Grief is the human angel in the world. Grief is not in the order of despair, depression, you know, “I give up.” Grief is the deep getting of it, and the deep being gotten by it. Grief is the willingness to be claimed by a story bigger than the one you wish for. So in that sense grief is a willingness to know. That’s what it is. Grief is the human angel in the world.

What a revolutionary proposition to realize that your heartbrokenness turns out to be the key to your willingness to remember what it takes to be a human being. That’s the beginning of how we can say, we’re in an impoverished time. That poverty marks our opportunity to have it be otherwise. Not getting out of poverty, not solving poverty, but understanding that all our instincts about poverty are themselves impoverished. But poverty’s not nothing, it’s not zero, it’s not a recipe for another iteration of self-hatred.

No, all the cultures that are really cultures, all of them are deep and skilled practitioners of grief. They are. And that grief is a willingness to see things. And that willingness is the beginning of your chance to have it otherwise, and by your grief you can be recognized as a fellow human being by people who are past masters at it, and you become trustworthy to them. Your refusal to grieve or your illiteracy where grief is concerned might be the thing that causes the most uneasiness in the people for whom, who are not afflicted that way.

The world is fed by our willingness to weep for the impossibility of being human. And the irony is, weeping for the impossibility of being human is human.”

Learn more about Stephen’s work at Orphan Wisdom.

The Vancouver, B.C. media activist, filmmaker, photographer and writer is a prolific and brilliant creator of short films and documentaries like “The Revolution Is Love” and “Sacred Economics”. These are films that shatter ennui and inspire you to do something. Ian’s work is revolutionary. He makes you think, and he does it in a way that is impassioned, kind and lusciously filmed.

In the interview I discuss the work of many other teachers and spiritual activists, including Charles Eisenstein, Eve Ensler, Michael Stone, Stephen Jenkinson, along with topics like Occupy Love and Burning Man.

From the perspective of interdependence, we realize that each of us represents a microcosm of the whole. If we embody the future consciousness in our own lives, if we treat every relationship and action as significant, we tap into the acausal paradigm of change. This is the realm of synchronicity, where the events and moments of our lives align according to a higher intelligence.

Read the full interview here: Artist Interview with Ian MacKenzie

IN NOV 2012, I was invited by a friend who works with spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen to interview him during a visit to Vancouver. Intrigued, I accepted the invite.

Aside from being a longtime teacher and founder of EnlightenNext magazine, I had heard somewhat of the controversy surrounding Andrew. There have been allegations of manipulation and guru syndrome from some of his former students. At the same time, I wanted to approach Andrew’s work with an unbiased perspective and let his ideas speak on their own.

From attending his full day talk, then shooting the interview the following day, I found Andrew articulate and affable. His ideas on “Evolutionary Enlightenment” (also the name of his latest book) definitely aligned somewhat with my own path of personal inquiry. In the following months I read through his book and found many compelling passages that piqued my interest, including his take on meaning of consciousness:

“What is God’s purpose? To create the universe, in his or her own image. And what is that image? Consciousness. To create a material universe in the image of God, as outrageous as it sounds, means nothing less than the awakening or enlightenment of all matter. This seemingly impossible task is what I call the Universe Project.” (p48)

He continues:

“In this evolutionary context, the point of enlightenment is not merely to transcend the world so you can be free of it, but to embrace the world completely, to embrace the entire process as your self, knowing that you are the creative principle incarnate, and you have a lot of work to do.” (p52)

The tragic irony of our cultural predicament is that many of the most highly evolved and privileged people on the planet are lost in an emotional, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual relationship to life that tends to be very superficial. (p79) [...] For the most privileged people in the world, the ego has become focused on itself. There is no psychological solution to these problems. The only solution is spiritual. (p83)”

Though embracing the tenets of “Evolutionary Enlightenment” Andrew shares what a vision for a new world might look like:

“My vision of a new world is not some vague utopian ideal a thousand years away; it’s a new structure in consciousness that emerges between us, in the most interior dimension of the cosmos, in real time, right now. At first, it is glimpsed as a new potential, then tasted as a thrilling intersubjective experience of consciousness beyond the familiar boundaries of the individual ego and the outdated structures of the culturally created self.

Eventually, if each of the individuals involved has the heroic commitment necessary to sustain the perspective revealed in that experience, that perspective becomes an actual structure in our shared culture. As it stabilizes, that structure becomes the ground for new and higher orders of relatedness. (p176)”

Note: I hear clear parallels with Thomas Hubl and his thoughts on “coming from the future.”

All in all, I enjoyed my interview and collaboration with Andrew. Thanks to Naad for the gorgeous music, and Jeremy Therrien for the sound mix.

Post-interview with Andrew

THIS YEAR will mark my 5th visit to Black Rock City aka home to the audacious and irreverent Burning Man festival, held every year in Nevada. Every since I arrived as a virgin back in 2009, the playa has forever marked its dusty footprint on my heart.

I have prophesied about the partipants. I have professed my love for The Temple. And I have contributed when I could towards the cascade of glorious and participatory art projects that manifest from the ether and passion of fellow Burners.

These days, I divide my time between my own film projects (like Occupy Love), and offering crowdfunding strategy and workshops to others. (To date, I’ve assisted over 25 projects, helping raise almost $450,000).

As a gift to the Burning Man community, I’ve collected my best advice for creators to harness the power of crowdfunding. After all, it’s a perfect fit: much like Burning Man, the true currency being exchanged isn’t money, but relationship (also known as shared indebtedness).

As Rob Trump said in a recent article in The New York Times:

“[Crowdfunding] as a phenomenon is made much more comprehensible once you realize that it’s not following the logic of the free market; it’s following the logic of the gift.”

And Amanda Palmer concurs:

Without further ado – I give you: The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding Your Burning Man Art Project.

Step 1. Pick Your Platform

As the first sites in the game, Kickstarter and Indiegogo appear to be the most popular among Burning Man creators as well. Here’s some quick pros & cons for each:

Kickstarter

• you must reach your goal or you get nothing
• they take 5% and another 3% for bank fees
• only available in the US and UK (Canadians need to open a US bank account)
• application process means you must be approved
• Burning Man will only list Kickstarter projects on their Support A Project page

Indiegogo

• you can choose Fixed or Flexible funding
• they take 3% for bank fees and 4% if you reach your goal (9% if you don’t)
• available anywhere in the world (except countries with US sanctions against them)
• no approval process (just can’t post anything illegal)

Step 2. Choose Your Campaign Goal

Choosing the appropriate campaign goal is a tricky process. Of course you need enough to actually complete your project, but don’t forget to include the cost of fulfilling your rewards. Also consider the size of your existing fan base (if you have one) and/or what existing groups would be interested in helping your project.

For example, the 2012 piece Burn Wall St was likely able to raise funds not just from Burners who would attend the event, but also from those sympathetic to the Occupy Wall St movement, and those against the current financial economic paradigm.

Step 3. Choose Your Campaign Length

The longer your campaign, the more money you can make, right? Unfortunately, the truth flows differently than logic with crowdfunding. That’s because the campaign “arc” is exactly the same no matter the duration. The money will gush at the beginning, then slow to a trickle during the middle “anxiety trough” (as I call it), before finally picking up again in the final days and hours.

Therefore, ideal length is 30-45 days. Any more and you’re just making more work for yourself and your friends.

Step 4. Create personal/unique rewards

With crowdfunding, every contribution comes with a reward. There are no limits to what you can offer, other than your ability to actually deliver them. This is your opportunity to get creative! For example, Pier 2 (2012) offered hand made Pier medallions that would be beautiful momentos of their incredible art piece. The Temple of Transition (2011) offered a unique metal dog-tag with the Temple logo etched into the surface. Having donated to it myself, I wore my dog-tag on the playa with pride (and it was a great conversation starter for others who recognized my support of the Temple).

As a general rule: digital rewards are always better than tangible ones. It’s much easier to send out a link than physically pack an item.

Step 5. Shoot the pitch video

The pitch video is by far the most important aspect of any crowdfunding campaign. If you can nail the video, you are 80% of the way towards a successful campaign. Check out my other article “7 Ways to Craft a Kickass Crowdfunding Video“, then read my list of Burner must-includes:

• Show yourself – Crowdfunding is all about shared passion. Allow your potential contributors to connect with you by showing your face! Even if you’re awkward on camera, even if you feel embarrassed, it’s the real you. And that’s what counts.
• Share the story behind the concept – how did you come up with the idea for your art project? Let others peer into your creative mind and learn about your journey.
• Show the specs/blueprints – it may seem like too much information, but nerding out with blueprints and piles of wood, fancy looking instruments, and 3D designs are what make your project REAL.
• Ask for what you need – at the end of your video, don’t forget to ask directly for what you need. You’ve come this far, might as well leave the timidity behind. Rally your potential funders to click the ‘contribute’ button.

Get your juices flowing by watching these great pitch videos:

Step 6. Launch your campaign

Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far in your campaign, you deserve a pat on the back. Many people talk of creating things, but now you’ve proven you’re doer. Once you hit the ‘publish’ button your campaign is LIVE for the world to see.

FIRST 24 HOURS – Email your friends/family and ask them to kick in the money right away. This ensures that you have some money in the pot before you start pushing it out to others. (Also, keep in mind: 30-40% of your crowdfunding dollars tend to come from your close network).

ONE-THREE WEEKS – Continue pushing the project via your social network. I recommend you Facebook at least once a day, and Tweet as much as you feel like. Campaign updates (which are sent through the platform and are sent out as an email to your contributors) I recommend twice per week – any more than that and you risk annoying your fan base.

Here are some ideas on what to share:

• Comments from funders – every time someone contributes to your campaign, they tend to leave a comment on your platform page. Copy + paste that with a message like “Look at what others are saying? Will you join them?” and include a link to your campaign.
• Rewards – post photos or diagrams of your rewards. Get people thinking of how much they’d like to have them in their hot little hands.
• Media coverage – if you score media coverage of any kind (newspapers, blogs, etc) share the link to the article to show how others are supporting your project.
• Campaign fund updates – Be specific when you post updates about your campaign. For example: “25 days left and we’ve raised over $11,000 dollars! Help us get even closer by watching our pitch video and contributing to our campaign” then include the link.

FINAL WEEK – The homestretch is when your campaign takes on a sense of urgency. Now all of your social media updates include direct mention of the impending end date. For example: “Only 6 days left to help us bring a giant spaceship to Black Rock City! We need 40 brave souls to contribute $20 each. Are you one of them?” then include a link to the campaign.

The final 24 hours will no doubt be a flurry of continual updates and calls to bring in all the fence sitters who were waiting around until the last minute to contribute. It’s not out of the ordinary to raise over 50% of your funds during these final moments.

Step 7. Fulfill the rewards

Now that you’ve (hopefully) raised the funds for your campaign, it’s time to kick back and bask in your glory! Just kidding: it’s actually time to start fulfilling all the rewards you promised. Don’t underestimate how long this can take, especially if you’re packing and mailing physical objects. It’s worth putting out the call to your friends to come help and throw a reward fulfillment party.

Step 8. Keep your funders in the story

Crowdfunding is not a bank machine! While it’s tempting to dive back into actually creating your art project, ensure you keep your funders in the loop. This means updating your social media networks and sending out platform updates that share the continuing saga of your project. There’s nothing quite as rewarding as arriving on the playa to witness the manifestation of what they helped support.

Step 9. Help fund other campaigns

Remember: crowdfunding is fundamentally aligned with the spirit of the gift. As you have been supported by the crowd, so shall ye support others in their efforts. As we all know from the playa, true abundance comes from sharing. If you don’t have the funds to support other projects, take a moment each time you find one you like and share it on your social networks, email your friends, and offer gratitude that artists are willing to give so much to a week in the desert.

Happy funding!

I’ll see you in Black Rock City.

- Vision Weaver

IN APRIL 2012, I had the pleasure of sitting down with spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl. The interview was prompted by the post I wrote (We Come From the Future) which was inspired after hearing a previous interview that was posted online. From his website:

Thomas Hübl is a contemporary spiritual teacher. He respresents an uncompromising clarity, which brings the enlightened potential of a new “Culture of WE” into the light. His workshops and trainings invite people to experience a deeper dimension of self-awareness and individual responsibility. The radical path of transcendence from the ego-centric world opens the door to deeply authentic expression, service to the world and to the focus on the absolute. Experiencing a driving force to take part in evolutionary processes, people apply their gifts into the world in a concrete way.

The first thing I noticed when I met Thomas… he’s tall. Much taller than he appears in photos or interviews. Or perhaps he was always sitting down. Either way, I appreciated his presence and grounded speech. He never rushed into an answer, and I believe, genuinely attempted to respond based on what arose in the moment, rather than from pre-packaged as can be common in other speakers.

Below is another except from our 60 minute conversation.

Learn more about Thomas on his website.

ONE OF THE most common questions I get asked at my crowdfunding workshops is “can I do a crowdfunding campaign if I’m not famous and/or already have a huge audience?”

The short answer: yes. The longer answer: everything tends to be easier when you already have an audience of people interested in what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean a crowdfunding campaign is easy, but it certainly helps you out of the gate.

“[Crowdfunding] is not good for building a tribe. It’s good for leveraging a tribe.” – Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception

The best way to prepare for your own campaign is to start building a tribe NOW. The further away you are from launching your campaign, the better.

While some of these points may seem painfully obvious, you’d be surprised how many don’t do them. Here’s some guidance to get your started:

1. Join Facebook

If you’re one of the six people who still isn’t on Facebook, I highly recommend you join immediately. Privacy concerns aside, Facebook is by far the most effective tool I’ve ever seen to build and audience and rally them to an event/cause or creative endeavour. Where I’m torn is whether to use a personal page or a Fan page.

A few months ago, I would have said Fan page, but Facebook’s recent changes to their algorithm for displaying posts means that a lot fewer fans will see you updates. (Instead, they’re asking users to pay for exposure, though the costs can be prohibitive if you’re not a large business or corporation).

Here’s what I recommend now: if you are comfortable using your personal page for “work,” especially if you already have a number of friends, then I suggest continuing to use your personal page. If privacy is a concern, or if your project is large and specific enough for its own Fan page, then go with that.

For example, my film OCCUPY LOVE is a major release, therefore we decided to use the fan page. Though for my upcoming short film REACTOR, I’ve decided not to create and maintain a new page.

2. Start Tweeting

If you’ve never used Twitter, but you already have an opinion, forget everything you think you know. As Jonathan Harris, founder of the storytelling site Cowbird says,”Twitter is an incredible tool for directing human attention.” What’s more, Twitter is another very powerful tool for connecting with followers and spreading the word about your crowdfunding campaign. Here’s a quick guide to learn the basics.

3. Create a newsletter

In the age of Facebook and Twitter, you may believe having an old-school newsletter is outdated. Yet statistics show that newsletters are still the #1 most effective way of getting fans to respond to your calls-to-action. There are a variety of options out there, but I recommend two: Mailchimp or Constant Contact. Both offer vary robust platforms and reasonable fees for creating a newsletter and collecting signups. It’s as simple as cutting and pasting a piece of code on your website.

Speaking of which: how about signing up for my newsletter?

4. Give something away

“[Crowdfunding] as a phenomenon is made much more comprehensible once you realize that it’s not following the logic of the free market; it’s following the logic of the gift.” – Rob Trump, New York Times

You may not realize it, but there is a big difference between “free” and a “gift.” Free means ‘no value.’ A ‘gift’ on the other hand, means value-less. There is no price that can be paid for a gift. The only response is gratitude and a desire to reciprocate. To help build your audience before your campaign, consider what you can give away to the masses. If you’re a musician, you can give away a song. A writer can give away a few free chapters. A filmmaker can give away a short film, or perhaps even better, tips on the craft of filmmaking. Those that accept your gift will undoubtedly feel grateful, and when the time comes to launch your crowdfunding campaign, they will be more likely to contribute, and/or spread the word.

5. Reach out to existing networks

Why build your own audience from scratch when you can tap into an existing one instead? No matter your project, you are likely to find a variety of groups/sub-cultures that would be interested in your project. For example: if you’re making a social justice film about Tibet, there are hundreds of Tibetan activist groups and publications that would be happy to spread the word, as it helps their own cause. If you’re an entrepreneur creating a pair of emotive animal ears, there are legions of sub-cultures that would love to have them, from young ravers to veteran Burning Man participants (also known as Burners).

Keep in mind: it’s best to reach out to these groups long before your upcoming campaign. That way, when you ask them to pull the trigger and share with their audience, you maximize interest and potential to capture contributions and you’ve already tweaked your campaign hopefully with feedback from these groups.

BONUS: Read “Hacking Kickstarter: How to Raise $100,000 in 10 Days”

What other ways have you found to build an audience before you launch? Share in the comments below!

WHAT IF you watched the last colours of dusk seep out of the atmosphere, leaving you silently in your own stillness? What if, beneath your modern certainty that life will go on without your participation, the sun didn’t rise again in the morning? What if the Old Man decided he’d had enough – enough of your indifference, your unconscious expectation, and your unwillingness to see the signs?

It’s a thought that was previously unthinkable to my mind, before I met Stephen Jenkinson.

Last August, on a chill morning beneath the canopy of stars, I gathered with new friends and scholars next to the impressive teepee recently constructed for this event. The night before, Stephen had instructed us to gather at “first light.” When a few of us leapt to questions of further clarification, he responded “You’ll figure it out.” Such is the vague but oddly respectful directions of a man that trusts the tenacity of people.

And so – darkness. We sat on the bales of hay, round the smouldering embers a campfire’s memory. A few offerings of conversation, but mostly silence. Waiting.

Then, the faintest tinge of white began to seep into the horizon. A figure quietly, and calmly, emerged from the trees, until he stood before the teepee, and before us. He began to tell a story.

Lest I offer a clumsy retelling of the tale, I shall offer this: the story involves the old man in the sky, and the role the human plays in pleading with him to rise for one more day. This contradicts the perspective inhabited by most “modern” humans – that the universe is simply a machine that has been set in motion long ago. Our own coming and going are of little consequence in this impassive grinding of cogs and gears, no matter how often we allow ourselves to recognize the staggering beauty. But what if that perspective is wrong? What if, in fact, we have always been needed but have shirked our duty to the rest of life?

Hours passed, and Stephen’s words flowed like a memory buried deep; like a book found dusty and weathered, an anachronistic longing from another time. As the sun climbed carefully, but assuredly, into the sky, my vision grew blurry, and my heart threatened to claim me.

“Grief,” says Stephen, “comes to those who get it, not from being above it.”

The “it” in that statement can and will take a lifetime to excavate, but the truth of the words is a detonation I’ve needed to hear for a long time.

From that teaching on Salt Spring Island, I committed to amplifying Stephen’s offering in the world, the first I’m pleased to share with you now. HOMECOMING is a 10 part series filmed in Maui in early 2012. While I was not involved in shooting, I did the final editing and post-production, along with cutting the trailer:

In Stephen’s words:

This three day teaching is part wonder, part battle cry and part strategy for the beginnings of a deeply wrought human life which makes peace with the ravaged world, finds a home along the old abandoned road, and honours the grief soaked longing for those things and those people we thought we lost. This is what generations to come deserve from us, this labour, and it might yet fashion from us a generation of ancestors worth coming from.

I highly recommend you proceed immediately to purchase the DVD set or download the entire series. Having gained an intimacy with the material, I can whole-heartedly say the teachings therein, if you let them, will rupture your certainty in ways you didn’t know you wanted.

And not a moment too soon – the world desperately needs the broken-hearted.

“Here it is. Here’s what Danny wanted so badly to return.”

I’m shooting an interview at the home of Myke Chutter, a biologist who could pass for Robert Redford’s younger cousin. He’s clad in jeans and a vest in the drizzly Pacific Northwest afternoon, standing outside his backyard shed. In his weathered palm, he’s gingerly holding a circular calcified stone.

“I researched the stone and discussed it with scientists familiar with bone and rock and we concluded that it was a concretion composed of carbonate rock that had formed around a seed material much like a pearl forms around a grain of sand. It is possible that the seed object could have been a small piece of bone.”

The artifact is a long way from its original home. It was retrieved by a young 28 year old Daniel Northcott from a Mayan cave, in the heart of the Yucatan penisula. Dan (Myke’s nephew) was on a mission to travel the world, documenting his perspective, shared by mystics and sages, that all of life was one brilliant, evolving organism. He called his expression of the theory “orbicularity.” Dan also loved to collect souvenirs from his travels as a way of staying connected to the place, and the gods. This was his intention when gathering the “bone” even though he was warned repeatedly by the local guides.

‘People who take things from this sacred cave, they become sick.’ ‘But I want it so bad,’ replied Daniel, who perhaps not ironically, recorded the entire event.

Daniel took the bone. 8 months later, he was diagnosed with leukaemia, a bone cancer. After a year long battle with the illness, which he also documented in unflinching detail, Dan died on June 20, 2009.

“Do you think the bone had anything to do with his illness?” I asked Myke, on camera.

“Do I think the bone caused his illness? No, no I don’t think that,” said Myke with a laugh. “But I do believe Dan thought there was a connection, and I know he wanted to return the bone. He never could find it.”

Near the end of his life, Daniel lamented that he had misplaced the artifact. It wasn’t until a year after his death that his mother and sister Erin Northcott found it in the storage locker. Perhaps out of respect, or a little superstition, they gave the bone to Uncle Myke “the scientist” for safe-keeping.

In his will, Dan asked his sister to take his 1000+ hours of footage and finish his film. “How will I know what to do?” she had asked. “You’ll know. A team will form around my work, and you’ll know what to do.”

Through a series of synchronistic events, Erin ended up in the production office of Elevate Films, based in Ojai California. Founder and CEO Mikki Willis was in tears after viewing Dan’s rough edit of clips he was able to finish, under the title “Roam.” Erin and Mikki struck a pact to complete the final version of the film for Dan, including the return journey of the bone back to its original Mayan home. The new title: Be Brave.

Mikki had asked for me to join the team, which is why I now stood, camera in hand, while Myke rolled it between his fingers. Part of me wanted to touch the bone as well. I wanted to reach out and feel the texture, to determine if I could detect anything…different. Then I could walk away, content that it was nothing more than a fossil. But I didn’t.

“It was beautiful ceremony, Dan’s burial. Just up the road actually,” said Myke, with a trace of sadness in his eyes.

My brow shot up. “Dan’s buried up the road?” I asked. “Can we go seem him?”

“Well, sure!” said Myke. He dropped the bone back into its leather case, and placed it in the shadows of his shed – to be retrieved once more when he would pack the following morning and board a plane down to Mexico to join the rest of the family.

We drove in his car, through the mist of the forest, until we emerged at Royal Oak Burial Ground. We cruised past the typical headstones and burial plots, some with wilted flowers, others with a fresh offerings.

At the top of the hill, overlooking the ocean, was the designated “green burial” area. Myke parked and we walked to the edge of the trees. The earth was a quilt of various native fauna: ferns, flowers, and the occasional mushroom. I noticed immediately there were no neat burial plots, no headstones. No way to identify exactly where Dan was buried.

“If I remember correctly, he’s about here somewhere.” Myke motions to an area in before us, in the shadow of a sapling. “This is how they do green burials. There’s no coffin. No boxing up the body so the bugs can’t get at it. Just a cloth, that’s it. The decomposition process is much faster that way. It’s what Dan wanted.”

Myke grew quiet, studying the ground as if he could peer through the soil.

“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. You know, all that stuff.”

As we left the burial site, Myke showed me the large plaque that sat on the edge of the ground. The names of the dead were listed one on top of the other, typical names like “Elizabeth” and “Joseph.”

“Dan had a symbol he created, which was 8 circles all inside of each other. It was his way of capturing the theory of orbicularity. He actually wanted it for the burial stone, but they wouldn’t let him. So he did this instead.” Myke pointed at one name in particular that was hard to miss.

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“If you turn the infinity symbol right-side up, you get the number 8.”

We studied the etching in silence. 8 circles.

“That was Dan.”

Finally, Myke turned and headed back to the car. I snapped a picture and followed soon after.

WE MADE IT through the ordained Apocalypse.

And to paraphrase Hafiz “All of life is clapping.” We decided to stay. We persuaded the world to show up for another day. Lest you feel it inappropriate to suggest that all of existence rests on you, we’ve tried the opposite – pretending that life will go on without us. And we’ve laid waste to those in our footsteps.

As is customary for me at this time of year, I reflect on the 12 months past. (You can find 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 here).

Whereas 2012 seems to have been the year of the collective inhale, perhaps what’s coming is the year of the exhale. Right down to the bottom, what Buddhist teacher Michael Stone says is “like a little death.” Where we finally let go of the stories that govern our lives – both ensnaring us in apathy, or embroiling us in conflict.

In 2013, let us be participants again. Let us join the circle of life and offer what it truly means to be human: to share the story of universe back to itself.

JANUARY – The month kicked off with an auspicious event, a powerful talk from Charles Eisenstein and the subject of my short ‘The Revolution Is Love.’ The event brought together many from the Vancouver community, laying the groundwork for a cross-network alchemy which continued to reverberate throughout the year.

Soon after the talk, my wife and I took a much needed adventure to Maui – though it wasn’t long before I connected with the Occupy crew for a good ol’ fashioned “Evict Monsanto” protest. While there, I shot this music video with The Human Revolution:

I also compiled the rest of our Maui experience with a good dose of dubstep:

FEBRUARY – I had the pleasure of interviewing Polly Higgins, UK lawyer/activist and author of Eradicating Ecocide, and sharing her Vancouver talk about creating international laws protecting Earth, and how it will fundamentally change the rules of our economic game.

This month also marked the moment when I feel I gained an additional family. Called forth by a mutual friend, a number of us gathered on the coast of BC for an experiment in community weaving which is taught me so much about relationship, interdependence and love. This group of various names, as been a constant support and inspiration throughout this year.

MARCH – Shot during my visit with Charles the previous October, March 1st was the official release of my short Sacred Economics, based on Charles’ book of the same name. Throughout the year, I’ve continued to marvel at the amount of people who have reached out to tell me how the film allowed them a new potential perspective on the future, one beyond fear, and reflecting true compassion and abundance.

On assignment for Matador, I returned to New York City to uncover the shadowy “Explorer’s Club” as the sidekick of Robin Esrock:

APRIL – Speaking of manifestation, back in January, I wrote a blog post called “We Come From the Future,” quoting the likes of Thomas Hubl. An excerpt:

Around awake people, more awakening will happen. Awakening is spiral. If you spend time with someone who is more awake than you, then chances are your consciousness will be elevated. And if through your practice, you manage to stabilize your consciousness at this level it will become your reality as well.

What is needed at this time is those who can hold a global awareness. People who are grounded, that are literally coming from the future. They look the same, but they are motivated from a different place. If you are coming from the future, and you embody this, then the future will manifest around you.

Based on that connection, I was able to interview Thomas when he passed through Vancouver. Here’s a short clip from conversation:

In mid-April, I flew over to Japan to co-create a short film called “Reactor” – based on the invitation from Michael Stone. The central question we were asking, in the aftermath of the tsunami and near Fukushima meltdown, was “what does it mean to see clearly?” Watch a short vlog from the journey (full film to be released in spring 2013).

MAY – Inspired by Jeremie Battaglia’s gorgeous Montreal film, Vancouver answers the Quebec student movement with a “pots and pans” revolt of our own. It was also the first time I’d truly shot in the rain. Here in Vancouver, we discovered what it means to make music together in the streets, in the rain, and you can see it on our faces. It is magic.

This month I also shot my first significant timelapse, during a visit to a friend’s cabin on Savary Island.

JUNE – While the Casseroles movement continued with vigour over the ensuing weeks, I could feel a shift in the tide. It culminated in a march on City Hall, and then the Granville Street bridge, which I reflected on in “This is where the world breaks down.”

As I looked around, at the proclamation of civilzation, I felt we were revealed as we are: fragile storytellers in a universe much bigger than all of us.

In June I also supported the livestream initiative for the Indigenous Leadership Gathering in Lilloet, BC. For me, and perhaps many others of European descent, the event marked my first glimpse of what it means to walk in a “sacred way.” (View the full photoset.)

Photo: Jonah Greenman

The event also stood in stark contrast to the tragic death at Entheos, which among many things, served as a catalyst for a healing and deep re-examination within the Intentional Community movement.

JULY – Shot by the talented John Huddart, I directed & edited a new series “Yak Attack” for Matador – covering Paul Bolla and the world’s highest bike race. (You can view all episodes here).

Of course, it’s impossible to make it through July without at least one wedding. (And a chance to look fancy with your wife).

This month also marked my first public foray into crowdfunding workshops – a topic I had been studying for 2 years, and finally felt ready to share with the world.

AUGUST – In early August, I flew down to Ojai, California to meet up with Mikki Willis, Akira Chan, and the rest of the crew from Elevate Films. The meeting would solidify our aligned mission in the world, and lead to a fruitful collaboration later in the year. Hint: Be Brave.

Mid-August I arrived on Salt Spring island to partake in my first teaching with Stephen Jenkinson, a man I can only describe as the oldest soul I’ve ever met. It would be an understatement to say that Stephen’s teachings have affected my perspective, a trend I suspect will continue for some time to come.

In late August I met with the crew from Matador outside San Francisco for one final time, as I bid goodbye to pursue my first love: transformational film. The beautiful setting was tinged with sadness, as all good things are. I have nothing but respect for the team, and particularly the founder Ross Borden – a man who wears a beard almost as impressively as myself.

And finally, I weekend stop in Whistler for Wanderlust yielded the following examination of the future of yoga:

SEPTEMBER – With some apprehension, I returned to Black Rock City. For a variety of reasons, it was my most challenging Burning Man yet. An excerpt from a much longer piece I wrote was published in the Temple Stories blog here: The Mirror.

Soon after my return, I flew to Toronto for an epic editing marathon with Velcrow & Nova to complete Occupy Love for the Vancouver International Film Festival. Note to self: pack more than Lululemon hoodies, even if visting Toronto at the end of summer. Those cold snaps can take you by surprise.

OCTOBER – After four shows at VIFF (two sold out), Velcrow and Nova headed to Toronto to premiere at the Planet in Focus festival (where we won ‘Best Canadian Film). I joined forces with Zack Embree and hopped the ferry to Victoria to ‘Defend our Coast.’

NOVEMBER – As has now become customary, the month started with my yearly “No Booze November” cleanse. Lucky I was able to keep myself busy with crowdfunding workshops in San Francisco, and the Living The New Economy conference in Vancouver.

Photo: Hilary Henegar

And I bumped into a familiar face, fitting, considering Charles also kicked off the year.

DECEMBER – A new talk from Michael Stone started the final month of 2012, as he reflects on our earlier journey to Japan for Reactor.

As the solstice on Dec 21st ticked closer, and the world collectively inhaled, I chose to spend the time with my newfound emergence kin. Honouring our ancestors, both known and unknown. Feeling deeply that the key to the future is not in transcending our past, but by realizing there is no future that does not speak the past into the present.

Today is Christmas. As I reflect back on the moments past, I know I also weave the story. There have been moments of grief unmentioned here. Moments of doubt and loss. Perhaps someday I’ll share them.

Soon I leave for a meditation retreat to silently bring in the New Year.

The year of the exhale.

“[Crowfunding] is not great at building the tribe, but leveraging the tribe.” – Seth Godin

CLEARLY, 2012 is the year of the Apocalypse. Running a close second, you might consider this to be the year crowdfunding finally reached a tipping point. It was only 4 years ago that both Kickstarter and Indiegogo opened their virtual doors, and the dreams of artists and entrepreneurs have been forever altered.

Now there are hundreds of platforms, expanding out of creative projects to neighbourhood repair and hybrid’s of traditional investment funding models.

Given this meteoric rise, it’s natural to assume that therefore, every project is ripe for a campaign. You may be surprised to discover that not every project is suited for crowdfunding – and a number of factors should be considered before jumping on the bandwagon. (Full disclosure: I have some involvement with the examples I use below, whether through strategic advising or direct participation in their campaigns).

Will people care about my project?

One of the dangers of being passionate about a certain topic/project or idea is that you have a tendency to believe everyone will be as interested in it as you. Don’t wait to figure this out by launching your campaign. Instead, share your project idea with others and pay attention to their response. Ideally, this would include your friends but also people outside your inner circle that aren’t afraid to play devil’s advocate. This will also challenge your ability to distill your project down to its essence (also known as the ‘elevator pitch’).

For a great example, check out the pitch trailer for “Fractured Land” – a film about Caleb Behn, a young Dene man from the northeastern British Columbia who is fighting the fracking industry and its impact on his peoples’ territory. The story is familiar as indigenous groups are struggling with familiar battles around the world. What happens here could be a lesson for how we grapple with the insatiable appetite for energy.

Support Fractured Land here!

Do I have an existing network to build momentum right out of the gate?

Prolific author and marketer Seth Godin has argued for years that the age of the consumer is dead. Love live the rise of the tribe. Essentially, a tribe is a network of people that share similar ideas and values. When considering your crowdfunding project, think: do you have an existing tribe that can help you spread the word and bring in other contributors with their shared passion? This ingredient isn’t make or break, as some project ideas are so compelling, they breakthrough the noise and find their tribe.

For example, check out this project “Aung San Suu Kyi and Democracy’s New Voices of Freedom”.

Support “Aung San Suu Kyi and Democracy’s New Voices of Freedom”

This project has a huge opportunity to tap into existing networks that support Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s struggle for freedom, along with other spiritual and peace groups around the world.

Does my project fit the crowdfunding model?

One of the key features of a creative crowdfunding campaigns is a tangible goal or “thing.” It could be a film, an album, a health operation, a conference, etc. Another way to think of this question is: how will the world be different once this project is complete? This is what your potential contributors will be pondering. Nobody likes to see their money flow into a black hole, but often that’s what campaigners are doing when they launch with an ambiguous goal. Sometimes, if a campaign starts vague, once you dive into you’ll discover one aspect of the project can be expanded upon to become the more compelling goal.

Is my funding goal realistic?

Now that we’re 4 years into crowdfunding, it’s become clear that every type of project has a sweet spot in terms of funding goal. For example, on Kickstarter the most popular successfully funded tier for Film & Video is 10,000-19,999. Film & Video also takes the top spot for the 20,000-99,999 range. Once you reach 100K and above, the most success projects are in the Design and Game categories. This is only one part of the equation. Other factors to consider are: the size of your friends/family network willing to contribute, the applicability of the subject matter to a wider audience (see ‘will anyone care?’ above) and more.

Watch “Be Brave“- the story of Dan Northcott, a filmmaker from Vancouver with an unbelievable story. The goal for the campaign is $108,000 – ambitious, but given the incredible subject nature of the film, and the team behind the project, this is a story for all of us.

Support Be Brave.

Do I want my idea out in the world?

Crowdfunding is fundamentally public. If you’re concerned that your idea will be stolen, and/or adapted by a competitor, or any other reason you don’t want the world to know about it, then crowdfunding is not for you. That said, I tend to reassure creators that almost every idea already exists in the world – the real task is actually making it happen, which is what you’d be doing with a campaign.

Am I ready to work hard?

Crowdfunding is hard work. Crowdfunding is not easy money. Crowdfunding can often seem like a full-time job during a campaign. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with creators who underestimated the amount of blood, sweat, and tears it took to guide a successful campaign. If you’re not prepared to work, or simply don’t have the time, better look for more traditional sources for raising funds, or wait until you can dive in head long.

Don’t miss: 7 Ways to Craft a Kickass Crowdfunding Video