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WELCOME TO THE GREEN PEN!

It's my personal soapbox, a place for me to express thoughts and feelings, musings and rants, reflections and recollections; to have fun with words -- about things spiritual, environmental, social, political, economic, and, from time to time, personal. And of course about peace. Soapboxes are in public places (as London's legendary Hyde Park) on purpose, and so I invite conversations with you, for it is through civil discourse that we can gain some perspective on the seeming chaos of these changing times and learn together how to shape a positive future for ourselves, our communities, and the generations to come.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Green Phoenix - Models for a Culture of Peace

Although I am not likely to be able to go to the Green Phoenix Congress in Switzerland this October 24-28, just knowing that this type of thing is going on gives me so much hope and excitement about the emergence of a culture of peace. Like the Occupy Movement (however that may continue to organically evolve), the Green Phoenix Congress provides amazing evidence of that self-organizing, co-creative process.

The imaginal cells of a culture of peace are effervescing all over the world, and the human social organization is metamorphosing -- as it must.

The culture of peace is evolving as a bottom-up, community-based organizational form. Not even bottom-up, actually – there is no “up”; more of a horizontal, egalitarian system. The top-down nation-state system we have had for the past 500 years or so is breaking down in so many ways and being replaced by a system of local, resilient, adaptive communities networked globally with other local, resilient, adaptive communities. The Green Phoenix Congress is synergistically helping build that network.

See the quoted excerpt below and the Green Phoenix website.
GREEN PHOENIX is a platform for exchange of knowledge and experience among communities, networks and individuals. With the help of experts and representatives of projects, communities we work on models and initiatives for a culture of peace. They are based on a system change and on coherence between the four working areas of Ecology, Economy, Living Together and Spiritual Consciousness.

The GREEN PHOENIX CONGRESS 2011 was a huge success. There were many communities, networks and experts who completed each other for the benefit of all. The blend of expertise on a high level and cultural intimacy led to precious and sustainable experiences. We wish to continue this conference and move on to the next level. Again we will invite communities and experts to the conference so that there can be a fruitful exchange and we would like you to take the next step together with us.

GREEN PHOENIX CONGRESS 2012 will be a 5-day congress from 24 to 28 October 2012. It continues to be open to the public, but it is mainly focused on the cooperation and learning between communities, networks and experts. This year, besides some new experts on the four areas and back up for our regional work from 2011, we will invite representatives from four different community types: rural, urban, virtual communities and communities from crisis areas.

In addition, we will invite the following communities and more to present themselves:

Rural communities


Urban communities


Communities in crisis areas


Virtual communities


You may obtain additional information from the Green Phoenix website and Facebook page.

3 comments:

  1. This definitely inspires me to continue my efforts to build peace, Mike. Thank you. I continue to hear about different groups forming to teach peace and sustainability. Attended one yesterday called "Awakening the Dreamet,Changing the Dream Symposium."
    Barb Mallin

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  2. Thank you for posting this. It's a wonderfully inspiring vision for our future.

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  3. Thanks Mike, We are into a SHIFT, this encourages me to think EVOLUTION rather than Revolution is possible.

    Laugh and Love

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