Coyote's Guide

A long, long time ago, maybe two hundred thousand years ago, and in a few places still today, the native people who lived off their land schooled their children – but they did it invisibly. Our ancestors’ children didn’t go to school. School surrounded them. Nature was a living teacher. There were many relatives for every child and every relative was a mentor. Stories filled the air, games and laughter filled the days, and ceremonies of gratitude filled mundane lives.

This Guide passes on this method of invisible schooling, so that people will connect with nature without knowing it. They’ll soak up the language of plants and animals as naturally as any of us learned our native language. Do you remember learning to talk? Probably not. Spoken language happened around you all the time, and allowed you to experiment with words, make mistakes, and every single day grow vocabulary. Mentoring with the language of nature happens just the same. With stories, games, songs, place-names, animal names, and more, you invisibly and subtly stretch your students’ language edges.

The invisible school of nature proves to be more than just effective, it is also fun, healing, and empowering. Like the Coyote whose methods at first seem unorthodox or even foolish, in the end, it works better than anyone could dream.

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Toward 2012 -Fusion of Spirit and Science

Neal Goldsmith introduces us to psychological concepts of the self. As we evolved we compartmentalized our lives, science and spirit have been separated for millenia, isn't it time we try to reconcile them and begin to fuse them together again?

thebuilders · D.I.Y. ~*~ conscious agents of change

~~~Avant Gardening, Building and Living~~~

There is more life on the edge where two systems overlap. Systems can then access the resources of both. Lets increase the edge ~ traditional, regenerative, cooperative and wise ways to build and live ~ adobe, cob, domes, yurts, living architecture, tents, wabi sabi, community networking, links/leads for learning, services and ideas, dreams, spiral walls, spiral gardens, permaculture, mycorrhizal fungi, strawbale houses, herbalism, crafts, furniture, musical instruments, festive protests, bartering, tool making, metalsmith, medicine/health, bodywork, yoga, Tai chi, Aikido, squating, ceramics, renovated ghost towns, nomads, qawwali, tea, animism, culture jamming, poems, thoughts, bioregionalism, primitives, bioregional-animism, experiences, Voluntary Simplicity.........

Lets share our stories and experiences around living a more balanced life, making this group a vehicle in bringing these topics out into the light and really happen. Sharing our experiences and ideas, and supporting each other to organize and build our lives, and communities in the "real world."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thebuilders/

Visionary Psychedelic Surrealism by Myztico

http://myztico.mosaicglobe.com/

"The creative process is truly a spiritual transcedental gift that allows one to co-create with our Divine Creator, to put it simpley "Creativity is my Religion". It gives me a deeper purpose in life much more gratifying than the quest for impermanent materialism. We are all blessed with certain gifts that we bring to this world while we are here on this earth plane. Each of us are part of a complex matrix of consciousness that spans across the inter-dimensional cosmos. Some of the images in this gallery were inspired by entheogenic sacred teacher plants that I have explored throughout the years. Others appear through Dreamtime cycles behind the veil of perceptions, beyond the superficial everyday experience that the naked eye and our limited 5 senses can decipher. Therefore "ART" is the 3rd eye of human evolution, it is a sacred gift not to be taken lightly. It informs, educates, heals, enlightens and defines our humanity on various levels. Here, I share with you some of the imagery I have experienced within a variety of inter-dimensional realms. I have attempted to capture these visions to the best of my natural abilities". This is the first gallery of several on this site, take your time to absorb what is here. There is something here for just about everyone and if you can learn something new while visiting here and if the art, music, poetry, videos and educational materials contained within this site resonate with you please share this site with your family and friends. I have put together this site as my small contribution to the human family with the intention of spreading positive energy about the state of our fragile planet and that collectively with our love for all life and the unknown that we can each contribute towards dreaming a better world for generations to come! NAMASTE!

http://myztico.mosaicglobe.com/

What story is the place you live telling you?

What season is it?

What animals are out and active?

What plants are awake, what are they doing?

How is the weather?

Which constellations and planets are out?

How are you interacting with all of this?

Connecting to our environement

How do we exist in our day to day reality? In what manner do we connect to our environment and all that is within it? How do we relate to our own bodies?

I invite you to give this some deep thought and to share what you find.

I challenge you to begin to relate to your self and your surroundings in a slower and more personable way than usual. You have the wisdom inside you that you need and if you get stuck, try asking the land and animals that you live with.

What story is the place you live in telling you?

Off the grid of modern technology

What do you think, is it possible, would you want to, is he doing it right?

What benefits would it have in the practice of Bioregional Animism?

How would you do it?

Dharmahouse in Santa Fe?

For some time I have been considering the development of a contemplative and sustainable living based household here in Santa Fe.

I am a full time student looking to live in a household where meditative and healthy living is a central focus to those living in it. We could combine resources to make living well much more easier. Gardening/permaculture, Community-supported agriculture, along with other aspects of living where combined forces will ease our efforts.

I invite anyone interested and/or has any ideas on this topic to share here. I hope that something will develop along these lines.

Below I have posted some info and a link to a community that is doing some of the things that I am thinking of. This is a dharma house in France, they own the land, but I don't see why we couldn't begin by renting a house and in time consider the development of a larger community.

The Dharmahouse community project

In May 2006 the community moved in and started to live together in an 8 acre property in southern France. The property was previously a farm, and gave us a great opportunity to start to explore our desire for community living in the context of natural surroundings. We started to experiment with growing our own food using ideas based in natural and synergistic agricultural systems. We have also started to explore ecological and sustainable building techniques as a basis for future community building. The present property is serving as a springboard and small-scale temporary model for community living. Our main goal is to establish a co-housing community based around the teachings of the Buddha and environmental concern. Why did we choose Cohousing? And what is it? To start with a dictionary definition Cohousing is:

"a type of collaborative housing that attempts to overcome the alienation of modern subdivisions in which no-one knows their neighbours, and there is no sense of community. It is characterized by private dwellings with their own kitchen, living-dining room etc, but also extensive common facilities. The common building may include a large dining room, kitchen, lounges, meeting rooms, recreation facilities, library, workshops, childcare."

The concept of Cohousing was first established in Denmark in the 1970s; catalysed by frustration at the isolation and impracticality of modern day housing designs, cohousing became an attempt to redefine how our living arrangements can support and develop our human relationships. Taking inspiration from different cultures and traditional village settings, the concept of cohousing is now being developed across Europe, north America, Australasia, and eastern Asia.

Expanding on this definition of cohousing within the context of the Dharma, we are seeking a ‘practicing neighbourhood’, a sangha to provide nurturing and supportive conditions for our spiritual lives. Our common building could perhaps be a Dharma hall, to again support our practice, where we could come together to share, discuss, meditate and support each other. This could also be a place where Dharma teachers could come and lead retreats from time to time.

In the on-going development of this project we are keen to discuss the social, economic and environmental aspects of cohousing. What follows are some of the benefits of cohousing and also some of the issues that we will be looking at in our discussions when we come together in August of this year (1st-5th). I am sure many more questions and discussions will be raised when we meet, this will give us a chance to inquire into what best direction we can take this project in the years to come. A chance to dip in to the sea of possibility! Maybe a few different visions of community will emerge from these discussions, maybe a few different communities could start - the beginnings of small network?

Let's see……

http://www.thedharmahouse.com/English%20pages/EN_cohousing_community.htm

Buddhism

I recently got a bug to check out the Buddhist schools here in Santa Fe. I had first thought to return to the Shambhala Center where I attended a really great series of classes last spring. I found that they have moved a little further from my house and stopped the classes for a while. So I checked out the Thubten Norbu Ling Buddhist Center on Alameda because it was really close to home and I felt drawn to it for some reason. I would stop there during slow periods while on my Taxi shift, sit across the street, listen to the river, smell the sweet blooms and chant.

I checked out their calendar and decided on a class to attend. Fortunately, before I attended, I stumbled across a flyer for the class I intended to attend, it said down towards the bottom that the suggested donation was $20 per session or $75 for the entire weekend workshop. I had read on their website that classes were free, but they asked for a donation to help with rent and all. I usually leave about ten dollars if I can afford it, so $20 threw me for a loop. I could attend a yoga class at the most expensive studio for that price. Wow!!! So, now I am looking for some teachings, a school or center once again.

I really liked the people and teachings at Shambhala, I wish that they were still around.

Have any suggestions?

Grow Here Now and Build Here Now

a future of possibility Lama Foundation, located in the Mountains of New Mexico is host to Grow Here Now and Build Here Now. Annual ... all » workshops which bring together teachers as well as students of sustainability. Join us as we examine “what is permaculture” as we attend the Grow Here Now - Convergence at Lama.

Permaculture is a word originally coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the mid 1970's to describe an "integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man" 'Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs. People, their buildings and the ways in which they organize themselves are central to permaculture. Thus the permaculture vision of permanent or sustainable agriculture has evolved to one of permanent or sustainable culture.

Local Ecology

http://resistancetraining.wordpress.com/2007/04/13/daoism-and-ecology/

Because of the vast comprehensiveness of the Daoist cosmic ecology, and not in spite of it, the arena for all human action is the immediate environment. Only by paying attention to the minute details of one’s local context is one able to penetrate to the deep roots of the Dao. Popular Chinese culture is full of ways for human beings to micro-manage their environment, from feng shui, the strategy of arranging one’s immediate area to take full advantage of its natural environment to taijiquan (t’ai-chi-ch’üan), the embodiment of cosmic patterns to properly attune the self in the world.

Daoism has particularly emphasized the importance of small beginnings and local perspectives not as an end in itself, but as a strategy. The advice of the Dao de jing is to be low, soft, weak and nonassertive. The Zhuangzi praises the spontaneous skillfulness of craftspeople that cannot be easily taught in words, but is achieved only by the repeated practice of an individual in a highly particular context. Religious practices begin with the purification of mind and body and take for granted the respect for all living beings in one’s immediate environment. Religious communities enshrine such attitudes in precepts that are the precondition for more advanced methods.

Reversion and Spontaneity
The goal of all higher Daoist practice is to mirror unobtrusively the dynamic spontaneity of one’s environment, to become imperceptible and transparent as though one were not at all. This goal is made all the more remote by the complex web of social and intellectual structures layered throughout history that form the cultural flux in which human life is trapped. The path towards pure spontaneity thus consists always in reversion or undoing. This reversion can occur mentally, through sitting in oblivion, physically, through the generation of an immortal embryo, and even cosmogonically, through alchemical practices founded on the principle that degenerative natural processes can be reversed and restored to their pure essential state.
Constructing Nature
Daoism proposes a comprehensive and radical restructuring of the way in which we conceive of our relationship to nature and our cosmic environment. This imaginative act does not readily lend itself to the solution of the problems of modern society except inasmuch as it challenges the very foundations of our economic, political, scientific, and intellectual structures. At the same time, however, as Daoism becomes more influential in the West, even as it is misunderstood, it surely exerts a positive influence with respect to understanding what it means to be embedded in a cosmic ecology.

In such an understanding nature is not something outside of us to be dealt with after the fashion of a mechanic repairing a car, but is both a mental attitude to be carefully cultivated and the true condition of one’s body that contains the infinite dimensions of cosmic reality within itself. Ultimately, therefore, nature is to be constructed and visualized time and again. Its destiny lies more than anything else in the human powers of imagination.

Surya Namaskar

From:

Chant to accompany Surya Namaskar

Om Hram Mitraaya Namah Salutations to Mitra, the bestower of universal friendship

Om Hrim Ravaye Namah Salutations to Ravi, the bestower of radiance

Om Hrum Suryaaya Namah Salutations to Surya, the dispeller of darkness

Om Hraim Bhaanave Namah Salutations to Bhaanu, the shining principle

Om Hraum Khagaaya Namah Salutations to Khaga, the all-pervading

Om Hraha Pushne Namah Salutations to Pushan, the mystic fire

Om Hram Hiranyagarbhaaya Namah Salutations to Hiranyagarbha, the golden colored one (who brings healing)

Om Hrim Marichaye Namah Salutations to Marichi, the light

Om Hrum Aadityaya Namah Salutations to Aaditya (an aspect of Vishnu)

Om Hraim Savitre Namah Salutations to Savita (Savitri) the impeller

Om Hraum Arkaaya Namah Salutations to Arka, the remover of afflictions

Om Hraha Bhaaskaraaya Namah Salutations to Bhaskara, the cosmic brilliance

http://www.yogaisyouth.com/yiy/108.htm