by Bonita Ford. Creative Commons - Attribution, 2010.
I started this blog entry at the request of a friend. We were talking about the roles of "shadow" or "darkness", and "lightness" in bringing about social and personal transformation.
by Bonita Ford. Creative Commons - Attribution, 2010.
by Bonita Ford. Creative Commons - Attribution 2010.
Since much of what I write is informed by my personal practice in Nonviolent-Compassionate Communication (NVC), I feel compelled to share about my understanding of NVC and why it is so powerful and enriching for me.
At its simplest, I would describe Nonviolent-Compassionate Communication as a practice where we are trying to connect deeply with another person and trying to find ways to meet both of our needs.
Last weekend, we had the pleasure of going to a house-raising. Our friend, who designs and builds traditional timber-framed homes, had taken several months to design and pre-cut the entire frame for their new house. They invited all their friends to come for one day to help "raise" the frame. Imagine 25 people working in tandem lifting, pulling on ropes, pounding sledgehammers and levering prybars to move huge wooden posts and beams - a job for which they usually hire cranes! And to top it off, the frame itself is held together with not a single nail. It all fits together like a highly-elab
When I hear about "the bad economy", I find it easy to fall down the slippery slope of fear into scarcity mode. I would describe both scarcity and abundance as self-reinforcing loops - the more we sow, the more we reap, and the more we have new seeds to sow again more of the same. Gladly, I've been reminded recently that abundance can be found and cultivated, even in hard times.
I was reminded in a workshop I gave last week, called "Inner Peace and Outer Nature", that observation is as much about paying attention to details as it is about opening our attention and allowing information to come in. I think meditation is a great example of effective, thoughtful observation in both permaculture and Nonviolent Communication. In meditation and observation, we focus on one object (an element) or our field of awareness (patterns in a whole system), open our attention and notice whatever is there, all without grasping at a certain solution.
