MY Awakening (with Facebook)

Am writing this post rather breathless after a whirlwind 3-day trip to Malaysia and an astounding couple of events in Kuala Lumpur.

June ‘09 is dedicated to supporting the growth of the Awakening community in South East Asia, and this has occasioned a tour of the region. One of the stops was KL where the World’s Greenest Man lives.  Matthias Gelber, who won this acolade in a worldwide search, is also an entrepreneur, the founder of Eco Warriors Malaysia and a trained facilitator for the Awakening the Dreamer symposium.

So you’ll guess that Matthias is a make-it-happen kind of guy, and he was delighted to create both a symposium and then a one-day training in Malaysia this past weekend, and what events they proved to be.  On Friday evening 180 people gathered in the Grand Millennium Hotel (Matthias had exchanged his time as an eco-trainer for use of this venue!!!!).  What followed was the most spirited symposium I have ever been involved in; the crowd was with us, and vocally so, from the outset as Matthias, Jo Fok (remember Jo as the force of nature organising the whole June trip) and I lead the event.  At least three wonderful possibilities emerged; the first was a grouping of the many people there working in the field of education, the second a collection of committed and active young people and thirdly the a group who wanted to attend the Facilitator Training the next day.  The crowd was eventually dispersed (by the cleaners I think) over an hour after the event had formally concluded and it was clear that this first event had been a huge hit.  The people who attended were almost all already active in some way, but as is so often the case, were galvanized into new levels of activity and collaboration by the ATD message.  And, demonstrating a real opportunity for other groups around the world, the crowd had been assembled almost entirely on Facebook (no trees were harmed in the promotion of this event).

And then . . . . . the next day 47 of these people came together to train and form MY Awakening, the first group of facilitators in Malaysia (which is MY for short).  Ranging in age from 13 (is Liam the youngest facilitator in the world?) to much older, speaking Malay, Tamil, Hindi, Cantonese, Danish, German, Spanish, Japanese and English (I probably missed a couple too) this group really represents the diversity of Malaysia and the natural joy and exuberance of its people.  24 hours later there is already a Facebook site, a nominated Youth Officer (Liam’s older brother Stephane) and a series of meetings in the diary.

I left the post-training celebrations in time to get 4 hours sleep and catch the first flight back to HK where we’ve just run another symposium . . . . . but that’s another story, for another post.

What I’m inspired to understand and pass on for other facilitator communities around the world is how tools like Facebook can be used so effectively, and what is it that Matthias is doing that has such a large and willing group ready to mobilise in support of symposiums, tree-plantings or other events. But for now, bravo Matthias and welcome to MY Awakening.

What’s Missing in Being the Change

Its often said that we’re preaching to the choir.

There are millions of people who ‘get’ the urgency of the current situation and want a change, they see it ad believe it is possible, and still there is one question that nags away in my thinking -

What will it take to turn the good intentions of so many people around the world into a positive and unstoppable force for change?

Perhaps the adage lies in the most used and most appropriate quote for these time, from the Mahatma Gandhi, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world” and in the way we hold “being the change”.  You see I think we’re still holding this as an option, a nice thing to do, an awareness I usually have when I go to the supermarket or a dinner party conversation.

Its as if we advocate change but want to continue to enjoy the benefits of the unchanged world, our comforts and choices, the 5-planet lifestyle, its just too hard to give these up.  So to assuage the guilt we cloak it all with a veil of progressive thought. We’ve got all the opinions ready to roll off our tongues, we can discuss the good, the bad and the horribly ugly of the world we live in with the best of them, showing appropriate amounts of outrage or distaste.  We even recycle and use cloth bags, can’t you see how green I am?

Being the change isn’t an option any longer, its has to become the necessary, ever-present companion to what is otherwise just verbal posturing and an empty promise.  Its uncomfortable but nonetheless true that if we’re not part of the solution we are part of the problem; and this is in every choice and every purchase and every action.  Being the change is disengaging from the world that doesn’t work, not just following who’s doing what for climate change but getting to grips with not flying, not driving, turning the heat and the air-con off.  Being the change is disengaging from all of the patterns of oppression which we are tied into, with our purchases or our habits and our speech and our own nasty prejudices (hands up if you’re free of these), being the change is disavowing violence in our own lives as well as the policies of our governments.  Being the change is stopping consumption, not merely refocusing the urge toward ‘good’ purchases.

Being the change is now a question of integrity.  You see 5 years ago when this thinking was new it was OK to play with these opinions but today, as experts tell us the time we have to turn this around is ticking down real fast if you are indulging in any of this thinking there is an imperative to “do something”

So let’s advocate people start their own active disengagement from the old dream, let’s up the ante on this.  And of course, to take this stand we need to be committed to our own active disengagement, being the exemplars of all we say.

Most of all being the change is not discretionary, its a pre-requisite and an ever more urgent response

Hong Kong’s Happening

I’ve just arrived here in Hong Kong at the beginning of a 30 day visit to this busy, bustling city and other parts of South East Asia.

The team here have worked really hard to create symposiums at a bunch of places, two universities in mainaland China, the Asia Consciousness Frstival here and Manila and Kuala Lumpur too.  We’re also planning trainings in each of these countries so we hope by the time the month is out to have new teams of facilitators in the Philippines, Malaysia and mainland China – how cool is that.

And here’s what I was writing about the opportunity we have for the region during this period

The Big Opportunity
During this month we can build significant new capacity in the Awakening the Dreamer community here in SE Asia, which means

• train more facilitators to present the symposium and to join the other activities
• take some of these people through the Deepening Training to develop an even greater connection to the work
• help more of the trained facilitators to find their own active role within the activities and possibilities of the region
• to develop materials and tactics to specifically support activities in the region [including translations and local promotional strategies]
• to develop strategies for the continuing development of the Initiative in the different countries and in the region

The target to which we are all committed is to further develop self-generated, self-expanding activity here that is also aligned with the rest of the ATD Initiative around the world.

Better get going, there’s work to do