“We live in a different now than has ever been known. Now is not the now of your grandma’s careful attention to detail and rhythm. Today, the world pours in through our beeping mobile device’s calendar, emails, text messages, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. The frantic attempt to respond to all this everything creates what Douglas Rushkoff has dubbed “present shock,” a condition in which we’re assaulted by a present that we ceaselessly grasp to obtain and never quite live in. Not entirely opposed to our technologies, Rushkoff questions how they can better complement our basic rhythms of presence.”
Keenly-contemplated meditation on time, technology and consciousness by Douglass Rushkoff: click play to watch the vid. (just under 8mins)
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When the political purse-holders gradually eliminate financial support for universal education, a number of responses are possible. Protest is one way to respond. Resignation – either through opting out of education, or through studying but only by accruing massive debts – is another. Creating a new, parallel system is another… Cue the emerging model of Free Art Schools…
“If you could have a window in your cell, what place from your past would it look out to?”
Prisoners have a unique perspective on the nature – and relativity – of freedom… The photographic project Windows from Prison seeks to offer moments of relative liberation to people incarcerated in the U.S. federal prison system by bringing them a photograph of a view of their choice. Read ->>
Emily Von Hoffman reports on recent research showing measurable positive effects on our mental state from looking at and being in buildings designed for contemplation. Read more here >>>
Note to the future: what do we do with the mess of disused airports full of broken old aeroplanes in war-torn lands? Ask the children! Article by Chris Guillebeau on Michael Christopher Brown’s images from Congo. Read & View the article >> View the images in Michael’s portfolio >>
All around the world, indigenous and traditional cultures have used rhythm as both the catalyst and container for the transformation of consciousness. Introduction to shamanism and the power of the drum by Gary McGee.Read >>
Stories from the forgotten zones of inland Spain where people are unfazed by the apparent obstacles to sustainable living and just getting on with it… article by Robert Alcock. Read >>
“In the shamanic view, mental illness signals ‘the birth of a healer’ explains Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born. When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening…” Exploration of an indigenous African approach to mental health, by Stephanie Marohn. Read more >>
Postcard: image & text based missive sent to friends by travelers. Babylon: (1) capital of Babylonia in 2nd century B.C, often considered the first city. (2) Rastafarian term for capitalist civilisation. Liberation:the process of seeking and embodying freedom for, and by, all peoples
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