Someone once said "it's not over til it's over" and I think that might be true about this trip. I am in the home stretch, with three talks to go, but this weekend of relaxing with a friend of a friend turned out to be a turning point. Rosa Alegria, a futurist and close colleague of my friend Hazel Henderson, was gracious enough to organize a little get together for me - just on Hazel's say so. A 'few friends' turned out to be a lot of people from the advertising, business, publicity and media communities, all very very interested in my views on consumerism, brazil, simplicity, YMOYL and more. I am discovering that there is concern and awareness in brazil about rising consumerism and in some ways it seems more mainstream to express these concerns and seek solutions. As with everywhere Ive traveled outside the US, people feel like the 'kid sister' to the US. EVerything (except Bush, neo-conservatism, globalization) in and from the US looks a little better than anything at home... newer, more sophisticated, more optimal, more intelligent, more of everything leading edge and good and desireable. And so they sell themselves out! Everywhere this óne down'' attitude takes hold, the consumer culture takes hold and people do not know they are abandoning precious cultural qualities for this chance to have the american dream. since there were so many advertising people there, we asked the question, `what if advertising dedicated itself to sustainability/simplicity/cultural integrity`? and what if that could be done and people could still sustain themselves financially? As it happened, the head of the national advertising association was there and perhaps this question will go somewhere.
it has been easily 3 years or more since i have done any concerted YMOYL/Simplicity education and the intense, intelligent interest in what i am saying is pulling it all out of me again. I really love this difficult to define quality that is Brazil, and do sense it is a nation, a set of ecosystems, a people that still has ecological and social room to change for the better. So the interest in the simplicity message is reactivating the activist in me. I am so very cautious feeling, thinking and saying this because how i 'did' activism in the past was exhausting and ultimately in conflict with my deepest sense of well being. I know my personality - a sort of tendency to get flat out engaged when i sniff an exhilerating possibility - and I am seeking a place within to ground that is different from before. all that occurs to me is love and surrender... that i can use my gifts and knowledge without the anxiety and subtle desire to manipulate the world that infected my work before. it is a fine line one must walk to be in this world passionately and wisely... too detached and one can allow the degradation of living systems to persist, yet too impassioned and one can lose both the inner peace and perspective that are the qualities the world needs far more than any one project. I just know now ever more clearly it is not time for me to hang up my spurs and grab my knitting needles and just give sideline advice to younger folk.
After the meeting, Rosa and her friend Oriana White (a psychological researcher and consumer activist) took me to Oriana's beach home 3 hours north of sao paulo. It was so much fun - three high spirited, english speaking (and sometime spanish when the english got too hard for them), mid-life social activist women chattering away in the car, over food, on the beach like the oldest of friends. Sunday morning they went to get a newspaper and checked out EPOCA (like Newsweek for Brazil) to see if my interview had come out... and it did!!! here is a link which will may not work after a bit: http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Epoca/0%2C6993%2CEPT1152830-1666%2C00.html. of course, it is in Portuguese... but know it is a two page very good very respectful and intelligent spread. so here we go again, folks, the media slurping up this message like a cat laps sweet milk. back at the beach house our fantasizing expanded about ways to moderate, redirect, transform brazil's headlong race off the consumer cliff. Rosa and I talked about her being my Brazil çonnection as she knows so many people and knows the ins and outs of reputations, relationships, capacities, etc. Rosa and Oriana are quite determined to get me back... and no resistance from over here in vicki land to that possibility. the book AFFLUENZA is coming out in Portuguese within this year and that would be a great time to do some education on enoughness here in brazil. and of course, with the Epoca article the translation of ymoyl into portuguese just got 1000% more likely.
we also talked a lot about the Conversation Cafes and ways they might use this method here. We talked about what it would take for brazilians to be awake and alert to the subtle good that would be lost if the american dream were to wash completely over this country. the conversation got around to the topic of the CC i did with Jorge Mello and partner Marge in Florianopolis:
what makes brazil brazil?
what makes you a brazilian?
what do you want to see in brazil in 10 years?
Rosa, Oriana and I imagined many conversation cafes on this theme - a Socratic way to get people to name for themselves the invisible - and visible - wealth that is brazil. and in naming it, love it. and in loving it, want to protect it. of course all this was just blue sky thinking under wonderful blue skies - but everything begins with dreams.
Of course another importantissimo aspect of the beach was the beach itself. i spent hours in my beloved warm atlantic ocean playing with the waves, floating gloriously in the sun. in the early morning i meditated and did yoga on a large rock at the end of the beach - as the sun rose in the east, a rainbow grew in the west. one of those mornings when you cannot gulp enough goodness to really anchor it in your soul. everything passes, and there are so many of these gorgeous human and natural moments here in brazil that i just had to let go of as they were knocking my socks off.
I reconnected with Susan yesterday in the airport for the final leg of our journey, and we flew to Uberlandia where I sit today writing this and resting up for tonight's talk. This morning we were interviewed for TV and then went shopping for a more brazilian looking pair of shoes. I cannot tell you how dowdy i feel in my american clothes - as pretty as most of them are. brazilian women wear towering stilleto heals and tight everything with much of the belly and boobs uncovered. and they are by and large so beautiful that you actually like looking at all the flesh. the down side, as Rosa and Oriana told me, is that brazil is becoming the plastic surgery capital of the world and sensible brazilian women think this focus on perfect bodies is all pandering to male chauvinism. in addition, rio is now one of the easy sex capitals of the world. so there is a light and dark side to this natural brazilian beauty. none the less, i got a tasteful pair of sandals with tastefully tall stilleto heels (not 4 inches, more like 2).
Our last talk in Sao Paulo went very well (150 people) and we are now functioning so smoothly as a team. i know her needs and rhythms and style and can weave my presentations around her greater wisdom. and it is just plain fun to have susan for a friend - an impressive spiritual presence with a good sense of humor and a depth of interest in and understanding of the world. we are feasting on this companionship and will likely do more together in the future - at very least for the fun of it. Now that EPOCA has come out, tonight's talk in Uberlandia is sold out with sro and people begging to come. so we will have 250 people waiting for us in just 2 hours.
I am feeling my return coming toward me - and feel ready. Happily I am not thinking I dont want to go back to the US after the luscious love here in brazil... i am thinking how good it will be to dive into rewriting my freedom book, to start seeing how i can contribute to the south whidbey community, to work on the fledgling AFFLUENZA PREVENTION AND TREATMENT CAMPAIGN the simplicity forum is launching this year, to explore some new writing projects, to get back to painting, singing and dancing... and to have the quiet of my home for inner communion as well.
and who knows... there are still three days left and ANYTHING can happen.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Friday, March 10, 2006
Brazil - 10 March, 2006
We are in the home stsretch and I am feeling it. Tonight is a talk in São Paulo, the weekend in free and then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are talks in Belo Horizonte, Uberlandia and São Jose... and then I get on a night flight to start the long slog home to my little island and to the life that awaits me.
Our talks on Sunday and Monday went quite well, though I had the uneasy feeling that we were two speakers with two messages, not one message with two very different styles of speaking it. By Wednesday's presentation in Joao Pessoa, that flaw showed up in technicolor. Many things were less than wonderful about the situation. The Visao Futuro facilitators had booked an inexpensive hall, but... it belonged to a religious group whose reputation apparently made some people unwilling to come. and it was a cavernous auditorium with 800 seats and a stage 5 feet off the ground with a monumental dais for a panel of speakers that would have fit right in to the old Soviet Union. Intimacy was not easy to create. Plus, about 120 people came who scattered themselves in the auditorium, making it feel creepily empty. My translator was on her maiden translation voyage and so nervous she became stiff, loquatious and often just plain wrong. Neither Susan nor I felt able to spiritually touch the people scattered in the vast emptiness of this hall. there was no bounce, no lift, no light and we both need to feel a connection to connect with the deepest source of speaking.
We processed for several hours this failure with the facilitators, two high spirited women who ended up way down in the dumps. Then we stayed up for another two hours searching for the way through... especially with 6 more talks to go.
So much of what I have relied on for public speaking was missing. I can't make jokes. I can't use slang. I can't feel what is real for Brazilians like I can feel with American audiences. We are sort of locked in to using powerpoint so that if the translator is off at least the slides on the screen are correct - so I can't be spontaneous. I am sharing a time slot barely big enough for me to get it all across... and needing to leave the audience alert and alive enough for susan to have something to work with. In trying to adjust the talks until then, susan had been getting feedback from her facilitators in each place and then trying to steer me into better choices. Each correction seemed to move me further from the ease and intuition i rely on to hit the mark.
what a perfect set up for breakthrough! all we needed was to understand what this wall we hit meant. i staunchly navigated through the dark forest of doubt - and the desire to just throw inthe towel and let her do it all in her charming Portuguese. I settled again and again my ruffled feathers as susan would try to steer me to choices that didn't feel quite right... but what do i know as i am so at sea with the language and culture. i needed her - badly - to steer or i would sink. and I knew that my uneasiness had nothing to do with her... but with being so very challenged on every front, unable to use most of my normal speaking skills. so we sat in this fire of not knowing and the breakthrough came. We searched for the one message - what is true fulfillment - that would link our two presentations. With that key, we each tossed chunks of what we had been doing and massaged what was left. I searched for ways to have my intuition and personality present with the awkward rhythm of pausing every sentence for translation. in that fire we also became more 'one' with one another, more of a team, deeper friends and companions.
AND, the talk last night worked very well. I did little skits and pantomimes to make my points, the translator had a sense of humor as well so could support me in playing with the audience, the setting was perfect, every chair in the auditorium filled (about 250), and the group so happy about the result.
There are some deep teachings in all this... about pulling within for deeper ways of connecting beyond words and culture. I have long felt that i wear my personality like an overcoat - it isn't me, it's what i run around in. But being so stripped in high demand situations with lots of people witnessing my nakedness is certainly a crucible for transformation.
it's time to go for tonight1s talk so, to paraphrase jimmy durante, goodnight mrs calabash and the rest of you reading, wherever you are...
Our talks on Sunday and Monday went quite well, though I had the uneasy feeling that we were two speakers with two messages, not one message with two very different styles of speaking it. By Wednesday's presentation in Joao Pessoa, that flaw showed up in technicolor. Many things were less than wonderful about the situation. The Visao Futuro facilitators had booked an inexpensive hall, but... it belonged to a religious group whose reputation apparently made some people unwilling to come. and it was a cavernous auditorium with 800 seats and a stage 5 feet off the ground with a monumental dais for a panel of speakers that would have fit right in to the old Soviet Union. Intimacy was not easy to create. Plus, about 120 people came who scattered themselves in the auditorium, making it feel creepily empty. My translator was on her maiden translation voyage and so nervous she became stiff, loquatious and often just plain wrong. Neither Susan nor I felt able to spiritually touch the people scattered in the vast emptiness of this hall. there was no bounce, no lift, no light and we both need to feel a connection to connect with the deepest source of speaking.
We processed for several hours this failure with the facilitators, two high spirited women who ended up way down in the dumps. Then we stayed up for another two hours searching for the way through... especially with 6 more talks to go.
So much of what I have relied on for public speaking was missing. I can't make jokes. I can't use slang. I can't feel what is real for Brazilians like I can feel with American audiences. We are sort of locked in to using powerpoint so that if the translator is off at least the slides on the screen are correct - so I can't be spontaneous. I am sharing a time slot barely big enough for me to get it all across... and needing to leave the audience alert and alive enough for susan to have something to work with. In trying to adjust the talks until then, susan had been getting feedback from her facilitators in each place and then trying to steer me into better choices. Each correction seemed to move me further from the ease and intuition i rely on to hit the mark.
what a perfect set up for breakthrough! all we needed was to understand what this wall we hit meant. i staunchly navigated through the dark forest of doubt - and the desire to just throw inthe towel and let her do it all in her charming Portuguese. I settled again and again my ruffled feathers as susan would try to steer me to choices that didn't feel quite right... but what do i know as i am so at sea with the language and culture. i needed her - badly - to steer or i would sink. and I knew that my uneasiness had nothing to do with her... but with being so very challenged on every front, unable to use most of my normal speaking skills. so we sat in this fire of not knowing and the breakthrough came. We searched for the one message - what is true fulfillment - that would link our two presentations. With that key, we each tossed chunks of what we had been doing and massaged what was left. I searched for ways to have my intuition and personality present with the awkward rhythm of pausing every sentence for translation. in that fire we also became more 'one' with one another, more of a team, deeper friends and companions.
AND, the talk last night worked very well. I did little skits and pantomimes to make my points, the translator had a sense of humor as well so could support me in playing with the audience, the setting was perfect, every chair in the auditorium filled (about 250), and the group so happy about the result.
There are some deep teachings in all this... about pulling within for deeper ways of connecting beyond words and culture. I have long felt that i wear my personality like an overcoat - it isn't me, it's what i run around in. But being so stripped in high demand situations with lots of people witnessing my nakedness is certainly a crucible for transformation.
it's time to go for tonight1s talk so, to paraphrase jimmy durante, goodnight mrs calabash and the rest of you reading, wherever you are...
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Brazil - 8 March
It is International Women's Day and i am so aware that in the US many of my gender compatriots are very actively bringing women's values, perspectives and basic embracing nature to the fore. Here I've bumped into quite a few expressions of appreciation of women, so I am feeling connected.
I am now in João Pessoa, our third city on our tour. Again met at the airport by loving, smiling faces of people who have taken Susan's courses in the beautiful Visao Futuro ecological park. In a way, our speaking tour is also a tour for her to nourish these budding centers across the country where people who have been inspired beyond belief by the courses are trying to maintain the practices and offer to others a bit of the magic. It is hard, to be sure, so all of our hosts are also problem solving with Susan who holds the whole network and the whole vision in her slim being.
I am daily appreciating more the gift of Brazil to our world. This place is rich in cultural, emotional, spiritual and ecological resources. the very vitality of the land (we are now in the tropics with heat heat heat and lush vegetation) gives the country a sort of young, gonna live forever feeling. the tendency towards happiness here, towards going to the beach rather than at each others throats, is to me a real resource. I think about other places in the world... africa, india, china, even the US... and i see places that are getting used up, heading towards the barren realities of Easter Island. But Brazil still has so much in its original state, and this alone makes be believe that we are on the ascendant continent. the darker realities of our times are not far away, though... global warming or 'something' is changing the climate here. they say it is hotter now and summer is lasting longer. my last city - fortaleza - and this one are bristling with new high rise apartments that look as flimsy as the ones i saw growing nearly overnight all over beijing.
yesterday i stayed in a little beach resort near fortaleza and was treated to a wild dune buggy ride plus a delicious hour in mother ocean. today somehow the local coordinators pulled some strings and i am in a 5 star hotel. i so remember this life... a different city every day, doing media interviews, getting up in front of different people doing the same speech. i am checking in with myself... do i like this anymore? the old missionary zeal is rising as i sense how eager people are for the ymoyl and conversation cafe messages, so we shall see.
gotta go... today it's a date with the sunset.
I am now in João Pessoa, our third city on our tour. Again met at the airport by loving, smiling faces of people who have taken Susan's courses in the beautiful Visao Futuro ecological park. In a way, our speaking tour is also a tour for her to nourish these budding centers across the country where people who have been inspired beyond belief by the courses are trying to maintain the practices and offer to others a bit of the magic. It is hard, to be sure, so all of our hosts are also problem solving with Susan who holds the whole network and the whole vision in her slim being.
I am daily appreciating more the gift of Brazil to our world. This place is rich in cultural, emotional, spiritual and ecological resources. the very vitality of the land (we are now in the tropics with heat heat heat and lush vegetation) gives the country a sort of young, gonna live forever feeling. the tendency towards happiness here, towards going to the beach rather than at each others throats, is to me a real resource. I think about other places in the world... africa, india, china, even the US... and i see places that are getting used up, heading towards the barren realities of Easter Island. But Brazil still has so much in its original state, and this alone makes be believe that we are on the ascendant continent. the darker realities of our times are not far away, though... global warming or 'something' is changing the climate here. they say it is hotter now and summer is lasting longer. my last city - fortaleza - and this one are bristling with new high rise apartments that look as flimsy as the ones i saw growing nearly overnight all over beijing.
yesterday i stayed in a little beach resort near fortaleza and was treated to a wild dune buggy ride plus a delicious hour in mother ocean. today somehow the local coordinators pulled some strings and i am in a 5 star hotel. i so remember this life... a different city every day, doing media interviews, getting up in front of different people doing the same speech. i am checking in with myself... do i like this anymore? the old missionary zeal is rising as i sense how eager people are for the ymoyl and conversation cafe messages, so we shall see.
gotta go... today it's a date with the sunset.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Brazil - March 7... I think
It has been a wild week since I had access to the Internet, and I only have time for a few short thoughts before going ... ahem... shopping in the middle of this intense tour to alert Brazilians to the dark side of the American Consumer Dream.
Susan Andrews and I have done two talk of the nine scheduled, each time to groups of 200. Her network of facilitators for her stress management/yoga/meditation course... there are well over 100 such around the country... are organizing in every city. They are all so happy to have her - their prime teacher - come to their area so she is the queen here and i the princess getting showered by much second hand love and grace. My Portuguese is rapidly improving and I sometimes even understand everything that people say. Sometimes, though, I only get 50% and the interpretation I derive is often pretty far off. And sometimes I get nothing and am just the happy village idiot, smiling in all the wrong places but somehow endearing. This language opportunity and challenge is a blessing and a curse. Mostof the time I am clueless about where we are going, what we are doing, who is talking to me and why. Surrender is the key. and lots of smiles and hugs and `tudo bom`.
Our messages are getting daily better woven together and the shared presentation - me re ymoyl principles and her re psychobiology/love - fit and really turn people on. and we are having such fun as `girlfriends.`
My 5 days in Floripa were nigh on to eccstatic - my mini vacation between teaching gigs. Ocean. Parties. Dancing. Singing. Drumming. Chanting. Blissing. And even a Conversation Cafe the last night to top it off.... question was... what makes brazil BRAZIL... and/or what makes you brazilian. I learned a lot about this country I am loving more every day.
Lunch now... more to come.
Susan Andrews and I have done two talk of the nine scheduled, each time to groups of 200. Her network of facilitators for her stress management/yoga/meditation course... there are well over 100 such around the country... are organizing in every city. They are all so happy to have her - their prime teacher - come to their area so she is the queen here and i the princess getting showered by much second hand love and grace. My Portuguese is rapidly improving and I sometimes even understand everything that people say. Sometimes, though, I only get 50% and the interpretation I derive is often pretty far off. And sometimes I get nothing and am just the happy village idiot, smiling in all the wrong places but somehow endearing. This language opportunity and challenge is a blessing and a curse. Mostof the time I am clueless about where we are going, what we are doing, who is talking to me and why. Surrender is the key. and lots of smiles and hugs and `tudo bom`.
Our messages are getting daily better woven together and the shared presentation - me re ymoyl principles and her re psychobiology/love - fit and really turn people on. and we are having such fun as `girlfriends.`
My 5 days in Floripa were nigh on to eccstatic - my mini vacation between teaching gigs. Ocean. Parties. Dancing. Singing. Drumming. Chanting. Blissing. And even a Conversation Cafe the last night to top it off.... question was... what makes brazil BRAZIL... and/or what makes you brazilian. I learned a lot about this country I am loving more every day.
Lunch now... more to come.
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