Geese in formation 1 2011

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Northern Spring/Southern Autumn 2011

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In Solidarity and Deep Compassion

Dear GEESE

(18 March 2011)

to the PR manager for 10 minutes. I requested to stop the power plants since the plant is located much softer ground than Fukushima Power Plants.

Then, the manager said, “Currently, the Fukushima #1 Plant has some problems, but the Fukushima #2 and Onagawa Power Plant have automatically stopped properly. So, they are pretty safe.”

Please spread the above to your friends.

Living in Miracle, Michiyo

Thanks for heart-warming messages.

Two nights ago, we had strong afterquakes which is magnitude 6.4. Later we found that we are at the epicenter.

Fortunately, we did not get any damage at all. However, we still have regular power-cut three hours everyday.

Today, I am asking that all of you contact your local representatives and if you are American, President Obama and implore them to pressure the Japanese government to shut down Hamaoka and Tokai nuclear power plants. These plants are the two closest to Tokyo and where we, Konohana Family is located.

At the bottom of this message, I attached the link for petition.

Yesterday, I called the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plants, and talked

He kept insisting the safety after this and explained that therefore, they do not stop the power plants.

Anyway, we continue to have aftersquakes that register from 4.0 to 7.0, and we are experiencing other quakes from epicenters close to and inside Tokyo. If these plants become affected it could be devastating for Japan as Tokyo has the largest concentration of our population.

We would also request that the rest of the nuclear power plant facilities (all 55) be fully checked out for safety.

One more request is to send love to the power plants. I believe that they also have consciousness. They worked hard and suffer now.

After all, what we need is LOVE.

Michiyo

Petition site with map of nuclear power plant and well-documented and an up-to-the-minute technical report: http://tinyurl.com/46d95of There are other site for petition for Europeans: www.million-against-nuclear.net For more information, here is my friend’s weblog: yumikikuchi.blogspot.com/ 2011/03/you-can-help-japanstop-hamaoka-nuclear.html

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Hide in Findhorn Dear Hide and Michiyo,

Dear Hide, Michiyo and all friends from Japan,

Dear All,

We are with you all in this very difficult time of your people and your country.

I really think all these happenings in Japan are good learning opportunities for us, Japanese and all human beings in the world.

In solidarity and deep compassion, Pracha, Jane, Mon and all of the Thai EDE team Dear Pracha,

Japan seems so far, yet so close these days. The images have been horrifying, yet the stories have been very inspiring.

In some strange way, I feel Japan is leading the way for how humanity can survive the coming decades with grace and dignity. Thank you for your communications. The GEESE are flying in formation with you.

Thank you for your kind words. My family are safe. All the power had been down since the earthquake until this morning and I’m finally catching up with what’s going on and all the heartwarming messages flowing in from all over the world. Although the situation is tragic, I can’t help feeling a sense of hope as I feel this connection and care reaching out to us.

In community, Daniel

With Gratitude, Hide

Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese community in the world outside Japan and we are connected with our brothers.

In solidarity, Victor Leon Ades Dear Friends, We follow on TV what is happening in Japan and cannot help feeling lost and unhappy for the Japanese people going through all this. We need to make this strengthen our international solidarity. We hope that Japan will get through this and recover.

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Message from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “Japan is one of the most generous and strongest benefactors, coming to the assistance of those in need the world over. In that spirit, the United Nations stands by the people of Japan and we will do anything and everything we can at this very difficult time.”

Our meteorological agency predicts other big (=M7 level) afterquakes will happen at 70% of probability.

So, I am not the third party.

We will awaken through these experience, and all events seem to calibrate us to zero in order to build a new earth community model.

Here are the short comments that described the day of the big quakes happened.

English version: ideapad.jp/68b52135/show/ French version: ideapad.jp/00a50bdc/show/ German version: ideapad.jp/397d5422/show/ I do not know what divine means us to learn. We just accept what we are given and keep learning.

Living in Miracle, Michiyo

We send all our love, Hildur

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2011/1

GEDS Matures Into an Official Postgraduate Course The Gaia Education Design for Sustainability Team After 3 years of dwelling at the Open University of Catalonia’s Campus for Peace, we are excited to announce that Gaia Education’s Design for Sustainability course, GEDS, has become an official postgraduate course!

As the first official course on sustainability offered by UOC, the postgrad GEDS programme will be part of the Area for Cooperation and Sustainability within the International Graduate Institute. The programme will commence as soon as October 2011 in Spanish, while the English version should be on offer from October 2012. Plans to upgrade the programme to a Masters degree, inclusive of European credits, are underway and it should be released in the near future. The Masters programme will use the existing GEDS programme as the first part of the two year long programme.

The postgrad GEDS programme will be offered as two different Specialisations or majors, taking place over a period of two semesters. The first semester will focus on the socioeconomic aspects of sustainability, weaving together the social and economic dimensions of the current EDE. The second Specialisation focuses on a whole systems approach to sustainable design, equivalent to the existing Worldview, but with emphasis on ecological design. Students who enrol in either of these will be required to take an additional subject, Principles, Scales and Attitudes for Sustainable Design, serving as an introduction to the major ideas of sustainable design.

As an essential part of the postgrad GEDS training, students will be required to work together in designing and presenting a real case scenario.

These projects, developed through the span of the course, will enable

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Geeseinformation students to tackle complex designs in a practical manner while applying the communication and collaborative skills learnt during the course. Projects will be incentivised with awards going to the top rated and UOC has committed to publicising the projects through different university media, including the magazine EcoUniversity.

Ulises at new UOC headquarters, Barcelona

2011/1 The Peace for Campus is a section of the Open University of Catalonia, UOC, which is open to collaboration with NGO’s such as Red Cross, Engineers Without Borders and Amnesty International.

To date, nearly 90 students have participated in the Spanish GEDS & 50 in the English GEDS, representing 20 countries from around the world.

We are hoping the postgrad GEDS will attract more young students seeking to complement their undergraduate training with a cutting edge program in sustainability.

With this wider audience we are aiming for a greater impact on mainstream organisations and communities. Not wanting to miss the potential grassroots leaders who currently enrol and who may not have the financial resources needed to complete the postgraduate course, new courses are being planned at the Campus for Peace. These will remain affordable to everyone and provide the training, knowledge, skills and sustainable tools to all those already committed to “be the change we want to see in the world�.

A big thank-you to UOC who has put all their resources at our disposal and continues to give their full support to the GEDS programme!

Thank-you for spreading the word!

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2011/1

São Paulo EDE: 2 to 17 December 2010 An Always Evolving EDE! Victor Leon Ades Since its first edition, EDE São Paulo has always been an innovative and evolving course: the 1st EDE ever to be held in the world in early 2006, the 1st in an urban environment, the 1st and only free of charge for all participants. This year was no exception as we started testing some new subjects of the fifth version of the EDE curriculum.

From previous evaluations proposed in 2010, a greater sense of urgency, practical tools and experiences, focus on design and action and a reduction of ecovillage model examples, were all followed through. The latter specifically because so few of our participants live or intend to live in an ecovillage in the near future.

The course schedule was intensive, running 6am to 9pm weekdays, from December 2nd to 17 th. The group of 120 was divided into 3 smaller groups, each with a dedicated facilitator and each working in a specific dimension, simultaneously! I was one of the facilitators and what an experience it was!

The idea of having the 3 dimensions - social, economic and ecological – happening simultaneously but in different classrooms, was very interesting. Groups traded places from time to time and through this, perceptions, ideas and curiosity for the next steps were strongly enhanced. World Vision was delivered to the entire group, interconnecting all 4 dimensions.

Themed sacred dances were held every morning, bringing a very special energy and care to everybody. Park and neighbourhood walks, a class inside the Planetarium, picnics and other activities were also arranged.

A team of former EDE participants were invited to help inspire and motivate this year’s participants in 4 important areas of urban environments – mobility, food, networking & communication and leisure & care.

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2011/1

The EDE alumni’s presence provoked this year’s group to organize themselves around these themes: yy Mobility – reducing their carbon impact through car pooling and biking to and from venues yy Food – checking the quality and supply chain of food, food sharing, collective buying directly from organic and social enterprises yy Networking & Communication – week-night and week-end activities yy Leisure & Care – trekking, parties and museum visits This interaction between past and present students proved wonderfully inspiring, offering the former students an opportunity to give back what they had already received while directing the energy of the new group in important and practical solutions. A sense of a bigger family, empowerment, integration and responsibility emerged for all.

New subjects like Networks & Collaborative Actions, Art & Social Transformation, Art & Celebration and Geopolitics were tested with great success.

Last but not least, a final Open Space was held, mobilizing people for direct actions and a big celebration with dance and music!

It was a real pleasure to experience all this with a group of 120 engaged and motivated people! What a great experience!

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2011/1

Thailand EDE: 17 January to 20 February 2011 Design Studio Comes of Age Melinda de Smidt Wide eyed and breathless, the participants for the 2011 Thailand EDE navigated Wongsanit Ashram’s famous canal crossing – 20 people from hugely different cultures & backgrounds: Cambodia, Scotland, India, England, Indonesia, China, Canada, Thailand, South Africa, Bangladesh and later, Nepal, were represented. 76 year old Victor, Canadian, living lifelong dreams, and young Mabu, an indigenous Karen villager, touching all with his peaceful love of the forest & Earthly wisdom.

“Eat my fruit don’t cut my branches, sit under my shade don’t cut my trunk” Karen Proverb

To be with Nature among water lily cloaked ponds, have classes in gracefully roofed adobe centres, fed on consciousness-awakening knowledge, daily meditations and exquisite Thai vegetarian food... To shift from the ego- to eco-self... Wongsanit was an ideal venue for the social and world view dimensions, and this year, complemented with Transition Towns with May East, the stage was set for transforming paradigms.

Onto the ecology week. The Khao Yai valley’s Ashram of Energy served as our training centre and venue – a working example of a closed loop, whole system design. I am sure I was not alone as my heart was moved though their simple, practical living, galvanising me to follow my dreams!

For the economic week we headed to the Northeastern province of Surin, home to a strong, living, local economy with organic farming, micro-credit unions, green markets and thriving local handicrafts. In translated Thai we listened to the villagers’ stories and learnt from their trials and triumphs as they shifted from indebtedness and poisoning self and land towards empowerment and sustainability, through the battles of individual greed and on to community success. Another moving and enlightening week!

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2011/1

Finally the much anticipated 5th week, Design Studio (DS). Unique to the Thai EDE, DS is an opportunity to put lessons learnt from the 4 keys into practise on a real site design. Running in its second year, our local team of facilitators was enriched with the presence of Max Lindegger.

The DS was held onsite - the coastal district of Bor Nok is home to an inspiring community with a strong activist core who have successfully opposed government, big business and mafia over power stations, shrimp farms and steel mills. Despite their non-violent, direct approach, leaders have been lost and heroes made en route. As the communities’ awareness has increased, so has their desire to tell their story, spread their knowledge and turn the strong tides of tourism and consumerism that threaten their livelihoods and culture.

Our task for the week was twofold – redesigning the eco-resort we were staying at (in simple bamboo beach huts and tents) and designing a local community learning centre.

Using the process of participatory action research, facilitators and translators guided us in interviewing the villagers around several themes of the 4 EDE keys. Building our knowledge of their needs & desires served as a starting point for the designs. We then learnt to read the actual land, awe struck by Max’s example and guided by holistic, permaculture design principles.

Learnings from the previous 4 weeks and the beautiful warm Pacific ocean helped us stay cool and work together in 4 teams in an intense design process. On our final day each team was able to present results we were all proud of and which inspired and delighted the Bor Nok community.

Building on lessons learnt over the previous few years and the 2010 contributions from Chris Mare and Arianne Burgess, the 2011 DS was a fantastic learning experience and a benchmark for future Design Studios.

I leave Thailand with fond memories, a wider circle of close friends and the knowledge and desire to be the change I want to see in the world.

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2011/1

Elders in the EDE: J. Victor Parker Let the Adventure Continue!

Paola Vidulich Victor is one of those people that I, as a relative youth (less than half his 76 ripe young years), could simply not help but be inspired by. The man talks. Allot. And good humouredly puts aside stories when informed he has told it several times before.

With 2 Masters degrees to his name, a third is underway. A bus driver for income, a volunteer social worker, retired and far from done. His time in Thailand is a result of the third degree he is currently completing, which includes ‘A Thailand Year Abroad Program’. His motto in life is to never stop learning and his compass set by a fierce determination to be true to his path, his heart, his calling, himself.

“Anyone taking and experiencing this adventure shall be bettered by it... What else can I say about the EDE programme but ‘Wow! What a Programme?’“ J. Victor Parker

boundless And so he joined us for the EDE and Design Studio here in Thailand. On arrival he could not stop comparing it to the Unitarian Church’s uni-camps. Our conversations veered from Wicca to Kabalah, from Christianity to Buddhism, from Shamanic adventures to healing family legacies of abuse and discord, from uni-camp to how the EDE was so much more than he had ever experienced or anticipated. By the time he left his heart was radiating with what he described as a ‘gentle yet pronounced loving energy, about 2’ in diameter’.

Testimony to the youthful joy with which he joined the EDE, fellow participants from Cambodia to South Africa, shared tears and joy as we bid him farewell. The grandfather some had never had, the elder who shone a bright new light and path by the very way he lived he joined participants, clothes and all, in a spontaneous group swim in the ocean, sun setting in the background.

the ESSENCE of the within communes with all and life echoes its wondrous tides across the waves of time with smiles and going forth. with seventh generation bond from spirit land with bounded ties of kinship flow. carried to child’s way from elders’ guiding gaze sustained energy with action swirls. from invasion’s way to now, let each flow in buoyant balanced measure with this and the ESSENCE of future time beckons.

J. Victor Parker, 4 November 2010 (ESSENCE meaning “The Great Spirit”)

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2011/1

Bahia EDE: July – November 2010 Denise Noronha and Gaia Bahia Team Bahia, Brazil’s 4th most populous state, hosted its first EDE between July and November 2010. Attended by 40 participants from across the state, the course included a 30 hour internship alongside the EDE’s 4 dimensions. The course venue was the Ekovida Space, home of Ecobairro Bahia, in Salvador.

The seeds of the Bahia EDE were sown as early as 2007 after the São Paulo EDE in the same year. The final programme is the result of a collaboration between Ecobairro São Paulo and the Ecobairro Bahia programme of the Roerich Institute of Peace and Culture of Brazil (Salvador).

With the youngest participant 22 years old and the oldest participant 81 years old, the selection process focused on ensuring a richly diverse composition of life experiences, professions and networked organisations.

Each of the four dimensions was held over two 3-day weekends and closed with a Council. The course kicked off with the Social week, helping create links between the diverse members of the group. This was supplemented by dancing, Tai Chi and other body movement work. The social dimension ended with a World Cafe before a group Council.

An intense economic dimension followed and proved to be a great exchange between participants and facilitators. The highlight of this dimension was the Fair Trade group practise, a rich experience in the trade of both services and material goods where much fun was had and even more learnt.

Several guest speakers and facilitators joined for the Ecological dimension, offering diversified content and workshops. Despite this there was still somewhat of a disconnection between content and the local reality, largely due to the different needs of urban and rural settings. In this module participants joined in the collection of herbs for teas and salads, enjoyed as part of their daily meals.

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2011/1

EDE 2010 Bahia closed with the World Vision week. Taoist Inner Alchemy, African and Indigenous Cultures and Principles: Male and Female formed part of an interesting mix of content. Learnings and inspirations from the previous 3 keys created fertile soil for this week as important questions emerged. There were moments of deep emotion and moving words. The course came to an end with a Biodance, offered by a participant, and followed by the final closing Council.

With the experienced support and assistance of EDE veterans the whole course ran smoothly with daily improvements to the logistics and general organisation. The schedule of the course, with modules separated over time, gave students space for personal transformation and integration of knowledge, while strengthening the relations between participants.

Testament to the success of the course, some participants have volunteered to continue supporting their selected case study projects. Another Brazilian EDE and another moving journey with practical results and applications!

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2011/1

Victor Ananias, 1971–2011, Eco Pioneer Deniz Dincel It is with sadness that we share our condolences to friends and family of Victor Ananias who passed on 2nd March 2011 at the age of 40.

Victor was six when his family moved from Germany to the Bodrum, a beautiful seaside town in Turkey, to grow organic foods, grind their own wheat with a traditional windmill and live self-sustaining lives. At eighteen, Victor travelled to Chile and Europe working in vegetarian restaurants and spiritual centres, including the Findhorn Ecovillage where he worked in the bakery and kitchen.

On returning to Turkey Victor helped a local farmer sell products to Englishspeaking tourists in exchange for space to sell organic products. This was the first of a long series of alliances with shop owners and farmers to promote organic foods and local products.

1992 he opened Bugday (‘wheat’ in Turkish), Turkey’s first Vegetarian Restaurant with an organic health food store and environmental and cultural centre. He also started a newsletter, which later became a bimonthly publication, distributed nationally, containing articles about local products, organic and sustainable farming techniques, ecovillage info, spiritual practices, etc. He later established the Bugday Association for Supporting Ecological Living NGO (www.bugday. org) and initiated the first open organic farmers’ markets in Istanbul, the latter which have grown in popularity all over the country.

Victor received many awards including the ASHOKA – Change Makers. He was father to an 11-year old son and a dedicated vegan. He was buried in Bodrum where he grew up.

It is his passion, integrity, and vision that has changed how thousands of people think about the ecological agriculture movement and organic markets in Turkey. We celebrate his life with respect and admiration.

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2011/1

Designing Ecological Habitats – Creating a Sense of Place Ecological Key Editors

Chris Mare and

Max Lindegger

Designing Ecological Habitats Creating a Sense of Place

The Ecological Key of the EDE

Gaiaeducation

Designing Ecological Habitats - Creating a Sense of Place, the Ecological Key of Gaia Education’s 4Keys to Sustainable Communities, is a whole systems design of a nested holarchy of understanding required for the ecological dimension of ecovillage design.

Edited by Chris Mare and Max Lindegger, it has rhythm and symmetry, form and purpose, guidelines and insights aimed at multiple levels of understanding.

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The Park, Findhorn Forres IV36 3TZ Morayshire, Scotland, UK administrator@gaiaeducation.net phone: +44 1309 692011

www.gaiaeducation.net

Designing Ecological Habitats is currently having its cover designed and will be available for download from the Gaia Education website within the next few months. The Social and Economic Keys, Beyond You and Me and Gaian Economics, are already available for download from the Gaia Education website and available in hardcopy from www.green-shopping.co.uk and all good book stores.

Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in Scotland No 353967 Scottish Charity No SC040839

www.gaiaeducation.net

Upcoming EDEs The Japan EDE is underway, coming to completion on 2nd April 2011, as is the UOC Online programme, coming to completion 20 June 2011.

Brazil, Universidade Federal do Parana & Ecohabitare 31 March – 30 June 2011 gaiacuritiba.wordpress.com Italy, Damanhur 2 – 30 April 2011 www.damanhur.org Brazil, Terra Una Ecovillage 16 April – 11 September 2011 www.terrauna.org.br

Spain, Son Rul-lan 17 May 2011 – 6 November2011 www.sonrullan.es/gaia Israel, Kibbutz Hukuk, Galilee 5 June – 1 July 2011 Brazil, Ecobairro Salvador 22 July 2011 – 4 December 2011 www.ecobairro.com.br

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