What a joy it was to visit Manila and witness the birth of another new community of soul brothers and sisters committed to help ring in a new dream for the human family.
And what a pity to visit the Philippines for the first time and be there but 72 hours. I arrived to a wonderful greeting from the Philippines Tourist Board and was promptly escorted by the helpful and gracious Jo-Jo to a waiting car, and whisked safely off (thanks Vic) to Tagaytay, a volcano within a volcano just south of Manila. Although an afternoon of site-seeing was on offer all I could do was fall into the hotel bed for a long-postponed sleep. Hours later I woke up, enjoyed a massage and went back to sleep for another 10 hours. That was my chance to see something of the country.
Returning the next day to Manila I met with some of Earthwards, stewards for a sustainable world, a newly formed group in Manila who had organised my entire visit: hotel rooms, symposium venues, professional A/V and meeting production staff were all arranged, and funded, so my thanks go to this group for their vision and their generosity. You can find out more if you find the Earthwards page on Facebook.
The symposium on Saturday afternoon was quite a blast. There was a full and enthusiastic crowd, lots to eat (remind me never to mix food and symposiums again) and a brown-out half-way through (yep, a black-out in that part of the world is called a brown-out!) So the second half of the symposium was delivered by yours truly into a gloomy room as our A/V team worked to restore power. And by a mix of means we got to the desired end-point, a crowd of folk awake and inspired to see what (more) they can do through their own lives to bring about an environmentally sustainable, spiritually-fulfilling and socially just human presence on Earth.
The very next day 18 enthusiastic souls gathered again to train as facilitators, here they are with their message to the world.
