CommunityCommons Links

My Story of Community-building
Lynnette Allen

There is a very old Douglas Fir tree at Stimpson Family Nature Reserve near Bellingham that I just wanted to hug the first time I saw it. I asked the question--how shall I enter the forest? The answer: Ask the spirit of the forest to walk with you, and then, Walk as the spirit of the forest. I asked another question--how can we save the Earth? The answer: The Earth has always been ready, willing and able to return to health. Nature only needs humans to accept this and cooperate with it. It can happen quite rapidly if we will allow it.

Recently I participated in a process to revisit and clarify our vision and mission at the Bellingham IONS' steering team's annual planning retreat. The process involved brainstorming about four things: our vision, our mission, our theme, and our plan. As we were brainstorming on each of these, something was clarified or highlighted for me.

Our overarching mission, as an IONS community group has been to build "wisdom community". I found myself redefining this goal like this:

Start with doing events that present different ways of knowing--science, quantum physics, co-creative science, metaphysics, shamanism, the world's religions, New Thought, Wisdom traditions like Native American, women's spirituality, wisdom from nature, even remote viewing and more.

Integrating these brings wisdom because we find that they have a lot in common, similar values, principles and bottom lines. And when these values are adopted and practiced, grassroots wisdom community is created and that is a wonderful thing to behold and to experience.

Today I heard a homeless man talking to someone at Maple Alley Inn (a place to get a good meal) about the "wisdom tradition". I asked him what he meant by that and he said the indigenous and Celtic and feminine traditions. He said he thought that if these were integrated with the traditional religions, they would result in more balance.

This leads me to thinking of Machaelle Small Wright's program that she outlines in her book, MAP, or Medical Assistance Program. This program is also expanded to include what she calls "Soiless Gardens" which is a way of saying "any project". I believe the most effortless, harmonious planning and organizing of an event I've been part of was when Leslie Shankman, (a Bellingham ATD Facilitator who is experienced in Machaelle's coning process) used the Group Calibration Process described on page 137, to plan an event about The Mayan Calendar. Her way of working in a balanced way with nature is beautifully introduced by Albert Schatz, Ph.D, who discovered the first effective means of treating human tuberculosis. He calls Machaelle's work Co-Creative Science and says MAP is qualitatively different because, like co-creative science of which it is a part, it integrates the involutionary input of nature with man's evolutionary development. The healthy human being is a balanced combination of these two dynamics.

I had the opportunity to.....

August 21, 2008

Blog >How the Symposium Helps Build Local Community

July 28, 2007
Bellingham, WA
Pachamama Alliance's Awakening The Dreamer Symposium Builds Sustainable, Wisdom Community Locally

Bellingham, WA

Pachamama Alliance's Awakening The Dreamer Symposium Can Help Build Sustainable, Wisdom Community Locally

When Mara Mitchell, a trained Symposium facilitator, met with members of our Sustainable Bellingham and Bellingham IONS vision teams to have a conversation about the possibility of cosponsoring the Symposium (in October, 2007) we brought up the subject that many in Bellingham are well educated about the subject of sustainability and we would want to provide something more for this component of the Symposium for it to be successful in it’s goals here. Mara thought about it and suggested we integrate the local community leaders working for sustainability into the symposium. I think this is a great idea—give the Symposium, and invite local green project leaders to be part of it. When the subject comes up in the Symposium about sustainability specifics, ground it in reality and locally by having the people who have worked on it, for years sometimes, give a short piece. They can say who they are, the organization or business, accomplishment, “now” project and how to connect with them.

This way the Symposium takes on practical meaning and integrates locally. People are informed about what is happening right in their backyard, (or in their neighbor’s front yard) that they may not have known about. It gives them a way to connect with people who know the tools and who have real expertise. Sustainable Bellingham has been looking for a way to connect these veterans. We would like to map the highlights in our area--sustainable projects, organizations, businesses and sponsor a regularly occurring tour so more people can connect and network.

When we started Sustainable Bellingham, we were just a handful of concerned people who had seen the film “The End of Suburbia” and who wanted to do something about the looming challenges: global warming, peak oil, the corruption of our institutions and the erosion of our environment and our economy. We realized the need to have a parallel relocalized infrastructure in place. At first we spent a lot of time choosing and developing our organizational model and the tools we would use. We were unaware of all that was being done by so many groups and of how necessary it was to connect with the diverse cultural groups and especially of how important it is to connect across lines of society—non-profits, for-profits, concerned local governmental agencies and officials, the Neighborhood Associations, and the spiritual communities. When these factions come together we will be able to attain our goals because we will have connected in true community. The connecting up is the real goal. I believe what we want will naturally flow from that coalescence—because so many people are now wanting harmonious, wise earth community. I believe the Symposium brings this vision together and supports our working together.

In Bellingham we have developed the IONS community group in a wonderful way. Our goal has been to build grassroots wisdom community and we have kept our suggested donations and membership fee reasonable, with no one ever turned away. We have endeavored with evolving success to organize a monthly community event, bringing presenters, both local and national to inform and inspire us. Though for years we met in small groups of 5-15 in our living rooms, now we have several hundred on our announcement list and find it easy to attract inspiring presenters. Diana La Due Hand has offered us a permanent home at Wise Awakening’s Orca community room which holds 50 and we sometimes use other venues for larger events. Our average attendance now is around 30-50 and sometimes more.

We are noticing that now people come early and stay after to socialize and we have built time for that into our events. Also we’re now taking our community building a step forward by cosponsoring with other organizations. We just had a community-wide David Korten event with around 200 plus attending and a follow up Strategy Session that attracted 53 local community leaders. We are at present cosponsoring an Awakening the Dreamer, Changing The Dream Symposium here in October, 2007.

Update: 90 participants and volunteers attended our October 17th Symposium at Woodside Spiritual Center. Our overflow list is filling up for our next Symposium, tentatively projected for February 23, 2008. Eleven from this event chose to take the Facilitator Training and did so at Camp Brotherhood in Arlington, WA, November 8-11, 2007. It was by all accounts a wonderful experience. Our Practicum will be at a beautiful retreat here in Bellingham on December 1 and 2, 2007. After that, look out Bellingham. There's a Symposium happening soon somewhere near you!

We have much to be grateful for. We especially thank Susan Burns and the IONS NW community groups who been supporting and inspiring us for years. We thank IONS and Shift in Action for their wonderful resources. We have much to celebrate.

Lynnette Allen