"The Pattern of Renewal: What to Look for and Help Bring Forth" by Christopher Reynolds

Chris Reynolds, teacher, musician, and traditional healer, writes about the regional economic and cultural transformation already taking place in Northeast Ohio at its centers of creativity, spirituality, and healing. 

He writes,

In our time, the general pattern is that the world, as perceived by the orphan, is much more expansive, meaningful, loving and merged with spiritual realities than the “real” world as delineated by the current family, educational, religious, political, scientific and technological systems. 

The resultant isolation and suffering brings the orphans to a crisis point that many do not survive. The individuals who do manage to find the healing information for their lives, usually through a form of death and rebirth experience, are now gathering in greater numbers at our local creativity and healing centers.

Chris writes further,

The renewal our region is seeking has already been quietly underway for some years now. This essay is a Calling in itself to those who would be leaders to invite those centers and individuals who have been living in this renewed, holistic manner into public awareness.

There is an astounding amount of wisdom for our times waiting to be welcomed home and permitted to share what Joseph Campbell in the Hero of a Thousand Faces called, “The Boon”, with the culture at large. 

Time, money, effort, generosity invested in the wave of renewal I described opens a better way forward for the future generations.

Who is the orphan in your community and how will you welcome their creative, wholistic insights?

 

 

The Passion of the Western Mind

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Homework from Chris Reynolds - teacher, musician, and traditional healer - in this collection of his favorite books connecting the power of creativity and the power of one's ties to the land, both integral to the economic and cultural renewal of regions.

…so I would like to introduce you to a thinker named, Richard Tarnas, and in particular, his book, “Passion of the Western Mind” which is followed by “Cosmos and Psyche”. For Tarnas, the falling apart that we’re doing right now is the end of a twenty-five hundred year arch. And for him, the passion of the Western Mind, what he calls the ‘Western Development’ has been predominately masculine, predominately male.

And the proof he uses for it, is the names of the human being in all languages in the West are, ‘man’, ‘lum’, ‘wom’ – it’s all, when we talk about a human being we say, ‘man’. For him, at this time in history, we are going through the end of man.

That doesn’t mean the end of human beings; it means the end of a way of life. And for him, the future looks like a completing of the masculine in the feminine or a sacred marriage where there is a balance between the two.

And I like to think of what we’re going through now in those terms. If you look through our culture through that lens, you will see all the qualities that were cultivated over the last twenty-five hundred years have reached a point where they no longer work. There’s this old way that’s dying around our feet and at the same this new way is rising up.

So, I would like to say again, the way it looks regionally is, where the new ground is breaking through, through what’s falling apart, is these healing centers, these places where the people who fell apart and who are coming back together. So, it’s right in our midst. The important thing for us as leaders is to be able to allow what wants to die, to die. And that which is being born, that’s where we would place our interest.

Learn more from Chris about the relationship of creativity, traditional rites of passage, and the cosmos to mindfullness, passion, and meaningful civic engagement at his page on I-Open.

Follow the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:

I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net
Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712&ref=ts
Facebook The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712&ref=ts
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/iopen/sets/72157623351094216/
Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/user1999383
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

John Zitzner, President, Friends of E Prep Schools Interview 01-07-10

Building Brainpower: Our Most Competitive Regional Asset

John Zitzner, President, Friends of E Prep Schools in Cleveland, Ohio, shares a story of transforming education regardless of circumstance - the first step in revitalizing regional economic sustainability.

In this transcription of John's I-Open interview, he describes how he brings his entrepreneurial zeal and experience in building successful for profit enterprises to connect entrepreneurship and education, transforming workforce development for regional prosperity.

Learn about this successful, replicable investment model of innovation in charter school education celebrated this week, June 14, 2011 - "100% of E Prep's 8th graders and 100% of The Intergenerational School's 8th graders passed the Ohio Achievement READING Assessment. #1 in the county." - John Zitzner.

More about John's work and the work of others building successful charter schools at Breakthrough Charter Schools.

Learn from civic intelligence at these I-Open communities:


    •    Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Open/170817416694
    •    Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/iopen/sets/72157623351094216/
    •    Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
    •    Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
    •    Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
    •    Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
    •    Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
    •    Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
    •    Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/user1999383
    •    You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

 

 

Closing the Brainpower Gap: Transforming Regions One Student at a Time

John Zitzner, President, Friends of E Prep Schools in Cleveland, Ohio, shares a story of transforming education regardless of circumstance - the first step in revitalizing regional economic sustainability.

You can visit E City to learn more about how this model of innovation in education works.

Breakthrough Charter Schools, a replicable model of innovation in charter school education, celebrated  "100% of E Prep's 8th graders and 100% of The Intergenerational School's 8th graders passed the Ohio Achievement READING Assessment. #1 in the county" - John Zitzner, June 2011.

Learn from civic intelligence at these I-Open communities:


    •    Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Open/170817416694
    •    Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/iopen/sets/72157623351094216/
    •    Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
    •    Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
    •    Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
    •    Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
    •    Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
    •    Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
    •    Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/user1999383
    •    You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

 

I-Open on Livestream: Saul Kaplan's story of building innovation networks in education, health care, and energy

Saul Kaplan, Founder and Chief Catalyst, Business Innovation Factory in Providence, Rhode Island, talks on I-Open's Livestream channel about his rich experience and present work identifying innovators, building networks and community for new systems to implement new solutions in education, health care, and energy.

You can download the transcription of the interview to your desktop from the I-Open library on Scribd or Slideshare.

Learn more about I-Open innovators like Saul Kaplan in Open Source Economic Development at I-Open's collaborative community space here.

Copyright 2009 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

COINS: An Economic Development Tool for Education, Economic, and Workforce Development in Open Source Economic Development

COINS 2009 Paper 10-12-09

Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder, Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) contributed this paper to the COINS 2009 conference at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) October 8- 11, 2009.

This paper describes I-Open's approach to a higher level of organization, process, and tools needed to build networked collaborative communities from our experience working in the "Civic Space" (everywhere outside the four walls of any organization) over a six year period from 2003 to 2009.  It offers a starting point for us to take a closer look at how to integrate COINS and apply CONDOR, an analytic and mapping software tool, to improve creativity, collaboration, and communications to accelerate Open Source Economic Development.

We're suggesting an accelerated networked model of Civic Forums hosted in collaboration with colleges, universities, and libraries. Let us know if you or your organization is interested in collaborating to build a three to five site Civic Forum model to advance creativity, collaboration, and communication.

You can learn more about COINS and Condor on the Swarm Creativity blog.

Please add your comments and suggestions! Thanks!

Posted by Betsey Merkel.