Brazil - March 13, 2006

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.