Good On Ya Rushkoff, You’ve Caught Up With Abundance League Thinking Circa 2005

Life Inc. Dispatch 01: Crisis as Opportunity from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

Seriously though, it’s nice confirmation of our little community where we have been practicing and celebrating “engaging one another in small ways” for four years as a way of opening a new life affirming cultural space that gives our humanity some oxygen amidst a suffocating corporatist vacuum.

Rushkoff also points out the opportunity our f’d up economy presents us which is also familiar Abundance League terrain, “we’re actually forced to start to look towards one another and ourselves to what value we can create.”  Maybe Rushkoff’s book catalyzes a shift which leads to more breathing space for all of us.  Great if so.  In the mean time, we”ll just keep doing what Rushkoff describes so well right here where we live with friends and family.  

I can’t help but note that despite his wise words, he’s contradicting himself more than a little bit.  While he articulates the dangers of corporatism, his book tour, promotion, and web site completely embody it.  His is a very slick warning, but probably useful nonetheless.

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Reminder: SF May 21st Meeting, Lessons from The Global Creative Community

Just a quick reminder about our meeting with Eric Poettschacher who is coming to Abundance League San Francisco from Vienna, Austria to share his learnings from a two-year odyssey through the global creative community to found Shapeshifters.net.

Learn more about the Thursday, May 21st meeting at the original invite here.

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Free Screening of Food, Inc. Monday, May 18th

I hear tell from our friends at Roots for Change, who are working towards a sustainable food system in California by 2030, that there’s a free screening at the Landmark Embarcadero in San Francisco of the documentary, Food, Inc., about the negative health and environmental health impacts of industrial agriculture. I’m going to check it out and hopefully further radicalize myself, if that’s possible. If that fails, I’m sure I’ll enjoy what appears to be a well made documentary.

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Think Like a Genius Everyday Using Your 5D Symbolic Models

By Todd Siler, PhD: Founder of Think Like A Genius

A Denver tALer presents her ME Model

A Denver tALer presents her ME Model

Here are some essential questions for further exploring the meanings of your ME Models models you created in the Think Like a Genius Workshop. These questions will help you get the most out of your symbolic models and apply them in practical ways everyday.  There’s a PDF available with even more than the 20 questions and some common-sense suggestions for mining the models for more meanings and other actionable next-steps. If you’re interested, simply contact tsiler@thinklikeagenius.com.

[editor's note: Todd Siler, PhD presented his Metaphorming® process to the Denver chapter of the Abundance League in April 2009. Attendees created three-dimensional symbolic models to describe themselves called ME Models.]


Questions To Help You Make, Understand, and Share Your ME Model™

The following questions can either help you think about what to make in creating your ME Model, or they can help you better understand what you’ve made. Either way, they can be useful for putting more meaning into your model, or getting more meaning out of it. Continue reading ‘Think Like a Genius Everyday Using Your 5D Symbolic Models’

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Leading Change Through Tribes: Seth Godin on TED

By Taj Moore of the Denver Abundance League

I just finished watching a wonderful TED Talk by Seth Godin about making change in the world. It was stirring to hear this because it felt like he was speaking right to me about our very own Abundance League.

Seth Godin: Why tribes, not money or factories, will change the world

The idea Godin proffers about making change is not the old model of “build a big factory and make change,” or “get a big enough mouthpiece in media and make change”; the model he describes is “leading and connecting people with ideas” through something he calls “tribes.” You don’t have to invent the idea, just organize the people around it. You don’t need everyone, just the few people who believe and are passionate.

“Find something worth changing and assemble tribes that assemble tribes that spread the idea … and it becomes something bigger than ourselves: it becomes a movement.” Continue reading ‘Leading Change Through Tribes: Seth Godin on TED’

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Denver: Abundance League gathering – “Spring Renewal” Tuesday, May 12th

The Abundance League meets this coming Tuesday, May 12th at Hooked on Colfax coffee house. Join us as we celebrate Spring’s renewal! Sow the seeds for your 2009 passions/projects, express what you need to enrichen your passions/projects, and offer your gifts to support the fruition of each other’s passions/projects. Of course, please bring some finger food to share and support Hooked on Colfax with a refreshing beverage purchase!

We start at 6:30 pm, and end by 9:30 pm, but you are always welcome to come and go at any time.

WHERE
Hooked on Colfax
(lower level meeting area)
3215 E Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80206

AGENDA
6:30–7:00 pm — Mingle, eat, drink
7:00–8:00 pm — Member Announcements: Your passions, needs, and gifts
8:00 – 9:15 pm — Break, eat, mingle, exchange eupport and swap clothing!
9:15 – 9:30 pm — Final wrap up, clean up, clear out!

BRING

Yourself, friends, and food! This is a potluck, so please bring finger food to share if you can.

Business cards, handouts, flyers

Share: books, CDs, DVDs, seeds, or anything that you’d like to loan or gift at the meeting.  

QUESTIONS? Call Susan at 303-455-0852.

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Recipe For Street Corner Bliss

Social, food and culture adventurer Rachel Weidinger posted a recipe for a “happening,” for lack of a better term, she calls “Forty Margaritas on a taco safari.” I think this easily qualifies as grassroots social innovation. The video is such a tease, despite the weird angle (couldn’t fix it). I want to be there now!

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Is Abundance Right Thinking?

If the right hemisphere of our brains is all about the here-and-now, the “we,” and the unity that is all of us, is this where abundant thinking comes from? If the left hemisphere is about linearality, and the past and the future, what can we learn … or unlearn?

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neural anatomist who “got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one.” In this uplifting talk, she describes the process, including a feeling of oneness with the universe as the left hemisphere in her brain shut down. Listen to her talk at the  TED conference…

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

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SF April Meeting Notes

Our April meeting brought gardeners and food lovers together to help each other. Olin Anderson spoke about native plants that work well in our climate. Tarka Sanchez spoke about the power of community gardening. And Jen Dalton shared 10 ways to support a sustainable urban food system. Read Jen’s excellent tips here:

10 Ways to Support a Sustainable Food System 

Below are member announcements from the April meeting. Please lend a hand to those that ask for help. And be open to receiving help from those offering.  Also included is a list of food and gardening resources created by meeting participants.

Our next meeting Thursday, May 21 features Eric Poettschacher of Shapeshifters.net. He’ll share his two year journey linking creatives from across the globe. This is a chance for SF artists of all stripes jack into a global network of creatives and patrons. Learn more about the meeting here:

Lessons from the Global Creative Community
Continue reading ‘SF April Meeting Notes’

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10 Ways to Support a Sustainable Urban Food System through Politics and Participation in the Food Economy

by Jen Dalton, www.jendalton.com  &  www.gastronautsf.com

1. Start small and simple. Make things from scratch. Pick 3 things to do like stop eating packaged foods, prepare your own food and cut out meat eating once a week. Compost. Plant and grow your own herbs. Or, get clear on the origins of your favorite food (Do you eat burritos more than once a week? Or coffee? Sugar? Rice?) – where do the ingredients come from? How was it made? Harvested? Who harvests the ingredients and how is it processed? What’s the impact of your choice?

2. Share your passions with others. What about this opportunity for change do you love? Get curious about others and what they’re doing. Ask farmers how they prepare foods, talk to your friends about their favorite foods. Do you have a cultural tradition to share and keep alive?

3. Unite and create coalitions. Gather at tables. Start conversations about food, taste, traditions, people who grow food, what we eat and how it reflects who we are.

4. Vote with your fork. You have a responsibility as an eater to know what you’re eating, for your health and the health of the environment. You also have consumer choice and this is a powerful force. Money talks and you have an opportunity to have your voice heard every time you eat. Look in your refrigerator. Throw out everything that has more than five ingredients. And, anything with the #1 ingredient as high fructose corn syrup should be the first to go. Stop drinking soda and that would be huge. While you’re at it, do the same with your cleaning products. Continue reading ’10 Ways to Support a Sustainable Urban Food System through Politics and Participation in the Food Economy’

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