It doesn’t matter what the state of the world currently is- chaotic or calm, irrational or lucid, happy or sad. There is always a need to recreate our planet and ourselves to move onto a higher plane of existence. The key component to this is control over ourselves, and letting our external circumstances take their course. Peace seems to be a value we all seek, yet it is one of the most elusive states of the human mind.

Respect yourself and others will respect you.

- Confucius

The Best of Our Traditions

If we really look at the traditions we come from, they are all rooted in good. Whether religious, cultural or the more common synthesis of both, if we are able to pick up a book such as this and read, then chances are we have a background of contemplation that can be traced at least in part to our traditions. We can learn from our environment and circumstances. What does it mean to be you, with the traditional legacies of identity through race and religion? Take a few moments to think it through. There would probably be basics lessons and influences of respect, care and learning. The applications of these values to contexts of our lives may vary but the underlying concepts do not. If there indeed is nothing that you can uncover, then look for the best of what is available. The tradition of your own life as an individual would have values of saving grace, again, in the very fact that you are still alive.

"By creating, subsidizing, and providing training for jobs in childcare, early education, healthcare, eldercare, and other "caring industries," as well as supporting caring work in homes, we quickly stimulate the economy, help families, radically reduce poverty and violence, reward women's economic contributions, save billions in crime and prisons -- and develop the "high quality human capital" needed for our post-industrial economy.

Our economic crisis is an opportunity to lay foundations for a sustainable and equitable economic system instead of just trying to patch up an economy based on unsustainable consumerism, unsustainable consumer debt, and unsustainable environmental practices. The current economic meltdown is not due simply to the globalization of unregulated capitalism. The problem goes much deeper -- and so must the solutions.

The financial return on investment in caring jobs and home activities is huge -- and not accounted for in popular economic models circulating in Washington which, as shown by our economic crisis, encourage disastrous short-term market speculation. We need a new economics that really works -- both in the short and long term."

To find out more, visit http://www.rianeeisler.com/

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.
- Dag Hammarskjold

One of the main criteria for any kind of transformation is reflection. In the religious sphere this may be referred to as meditation. At the end of the day, it is simply going back to the core of our creative, spiritual selves and being still. If new information comes our way, it is best processed by bringing it back to our own human-ness for it to make sense to us, and then translating this learning to others through sharing and application.

Within the context of learning and living creatively, we do not need to reply on any religious framework. It would however, be most effective to have some kind of ethical or value-based personal framework with which to engage in life. Without this, learning has no meaning, and may even take us farther away from the goal of internal and external peace which we naturally gravitate towards.

"What we're all striving for is authenticity, a spirit-to-spirit connection." - Oprah

2009 is upon us! Let us look at this time of transformation as a time to actualize Peace and Create bounty. The disintegration of all that we know, allows space for the unknown to be manifest.
The Peace Cafe's current projects are heavy on gender, ecology, and peace. I will update more as we go along...

Let's wrap up 2008 with smiles, and welcome 2009 with open arms.

Live the Peace!

A dear friend introduced me to this poem...

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

– Derek Walcott

This is a fascinating article, giving power to community from our seemingly ordinary relationship to food. Incidentally, The Peace Cafe was created based on the same mindset; by breaking bread together we break barriers to promote peace.

"Although the commodification of food is a global problem, its solution is local and personal. We can eat thoughtfully and moderately, with occasional and appropriate fasting and feasting. We can select our food to be consonant with our values, prepare it ourselves with pleasure and attention, and present it with an eye to beauty, natural religion and sensual delight. Then we might know the power of food to magically create intimacy, conviviality and community...."

Thomas Moore is a former Catholic monk. He is the author of many books, including Care of the Soul and Dark Nights of the Soul.

Read more at http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2652.html

I'll be in Kochin 19th - 25th October for a regional meeting on Gender Sensitive Active Non-Violence. This is a kind initiative of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. IFOR also funded The Peace Cafe & Ikhtiar Link's program for youth on Sustaining a Culture of Peace Through Education. Here is a photo of the Asian contingent in India who will be reuniting in a couple of days.

Look out for developments on the latest initiative of The Peace Cafe...

Ain't this such a cool career to create for yourself:

"World of Good, a fair-trade gift company, works with 6,000 artisans in 34 countries. The artisans, most of whom are women, are responsible for more than 25,000 dependents, and Priya Haji has helped improve their lives.

After graduating from the Hass School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, Haji traveled for six months in the Third World, trying to decide where she could do the most good. Instead of living in a community with one group of artisans, Haji decided to help artisans from around the world find access to the consumer market in the United States. Retailers who partner with World of Good get a small turn-key gift section for their store, and each product has a tag that describes the product and the people who make it."

- The Natural Foods Merchandiser

With some participants from the International Sustainability Conference 2008, in Basel, Switzerland
Ah.. the peace of the Alps
Lovely Eliane humoring me in remembering Heidi...!

"...countries invariably assume that they can model their economic development plans in accordance with modern economics, and they call upon modern economists from so-called advanced countries to advise them, to formulate the policies to be pursued, and to construct the grand design for development, the Five-Year Plan or whatever it may be called. No one seems to think that a Buddhist way of life would call for Buddhist economics, just as the modern materialist way of life has brought forth modern economics." Read more

If you're feeling a little low, why don't you check out a positive tv site on the web? Particularly the Public Meditation Project on Quantum Shift TV.

It's been 2 weeks since my last post? Errant me!
Here's an interesting article on the Creative Economy, but with relevance to developing nations. Rather long, but interesting, of course.

"The Creative Economy Report 2008 of UNCTAD

The emerging "creative economy" has become a leading component of economic growth, employment, trade and innovation, and social cohesion in most advanced economies. Unfortunately, however, the large majority of developing countries are not yet able to harness their creative capacity for development. The creative economy offers to developing countries a feasible option and new opportunities to leapfrog into emerging high-growth areas of the world economy." Read more

"The human stress response has been characterized, both physiologically and behaviorally, as “fight-or-flight.” Although fight-or-flight may characterize the primary physiological responses to stress for both males and females, we propose that, behaviorally, females’ responses to stress are more marked by a pattern of “tend and befriend.” Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend and befriend pattern appears to draw heavily on the attachment/caregiving system, and considerable neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core. This previously unexplored stress regulatory system has manifold implications for the study of stress." Read more

The other day a concept took root in me- A Goodwill Economy. When I find myself doing work where there is no direct monetary returns, yet I simply want to, and enjoy doing it, I realize that it a form for me to express myself. And there is returns of another sort- goodwill. If goodwill is our global currency, what would the world be like? A lot of times goodwill can be 'exchanged' for other needs to be fulfilled. We're all basically self-sufficient economies of one. Don't let industrial or money economics make you believe otherwise.