Nipun Mehta has provided the material for many NPD posts through his wonderful Daily Good blog. I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with him several years ago and greatly admire his service orientation. I believe service is the antidote to greed and can help transform a “me” into a “we”mentality. Nipun is also the founder of ServiceSpace.org, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of the gift-economy, technology and volunteerism.  His popular TED talk “Designing for Generosity” provides an overview of their work and guiding principles.

You might also enjoy reading an edited transcript of a Baccalaureate address he gave to the 2012 graduating class at the University of Pennsylvania. If you know any graduating seniors, you might want to pass it along to them. It might serve them well on their coming life adventure.

What would the world look like if we designed for generosity? Instead of assuming that people want to simply maximize self-interest, what if our institutions and organizations catered to our deeper motivations? This compelling TEDx talk explores this question and introduces the concept of Giftivism: the practice of radically generous acts that change the world. The video is charged with stories of such acts, ranging from: the largest peaceful transfer of land in human history, to a pay-it-forward restaurant, to a 10-year-old’s unconventional birthday celebration, and the stunning interaction between a victim and his teenage mugger. With clarity and insight, it details the common threads that runs through all these gift manifestations, and invites us to participate through everyday acts of kindness — in an uplifting global movement.

by Andy Isaacson
From UTNE

Five years ago, while he was harvesting mussels on the Pacific coast, Kaichang Li, a wood science and engineering professor at Oregon State University, marveled at how the mollusks were able to cling to shoreline rocks even when they were being pounded by ocean waves. Later, munching on a bowl of tofu, Li started to think about how the small threads the mussel uses to anchor itself contain a protein that functions as a sort of adhesive. He had a revelation: Amino acids could be added to soybeans—a protein-rich, locally abundant crop (not to mention a tasty lunch)—to create a water-resistant, all-natural bonding agent.

Read more…

Read more about Biommicry:

http://janinebenyus.com

http://chirp.wildcenter.org/gallery/moi/index.html?gclid=CKHntP2qm64CFeIQNAodOUoSLA#mother-of-invention

My friend, author, and awareness teacher, Robert Rabbin was just told he has stage four lung cancer that has spread to his bones and is seeking treatment alternatives, a place to live and conduct meetings in the San Francisco area and financial support since he has no insurance. As a result, Robert is offering his eighth book, The 5 Principles of Authentic Living and all his other digital books and products free to the world. To access his e-books, please click here. In 5 Principles, Robert shares the distilled essence of what he has experienced about life — after almost 50 years of deep spiritual work, meditation, and self-inquiry.

Please join me in reviewing his offerings and if it feels appropriate, making a donation in any amount. Here is a video Robert just made.

Judith Thompson and James O’Dey are pioneers in this emergent field and Judith has written a brilliant overview that beautifully articulates the story and framework of Social Healing. I invite you to enjoy her article and if you want to know more to download the free The Social Healing Project Report available at http://www.charityfocus.org/docs/books/socialhealing.pdf

We Are Between Stories
by Judith Thompson

We live in an exciting time. As cultural historian, Thomas Berry put it: “We are between stories.” The old story — bracketed on the one side by reductionist scientific materialism, and on the other by institutional religious dogmas — is no longer able to guide us toward human or planetary flourishing. Instead, the chasms created by both science and religion, and the various social philosophies they spawned, are implicated in pushing us toward the precipitous edge upon which we now stand. At this edge we see both breakdowns and breakthroughs.

While the story of scientific materialism has been part of our evolutionary journey, it has created a map of reality — a worldview — that de-legitimized a vast portion of wisdom and experience. It placed reason over intuition, intellect over emotion, material over spiritual, objectivity over subjectivity, exteriority over interiority, and condensed this into a story that we live in a mechanistic, material world that can only be known through objective and measurable observation in which human reason reigns supreme.

Institutionalized religion upheld a story that gave male authority figures the power to interpret and mediate purported divine
laws and construct theological justifications for power over women, children, the natural world, and non-believers. While scientific and
religious stories were at odds with each other, both saw it in their interests to label metaphysical or spiritual worldviews outside their boundaries as heresy, superstition or witchcraft.

Yet ironically, science itself has now begun to step into the realm of the mystics. The “new sciences” story finds biologists and neuroscientists astounded by the hitherto unstudied capacities of the human brain and heart, indicating our ability to intentionally amplify love and compassion. It finds psychologists exploring the territory of contemplatives and revealing a map of human consciousness far beyond the individual ego-self. It finds physicists discovering that the presumed separation of observed and observer doesn’t exist.

Much like the African worldview of Ubuntu — “I am because you are” – all things exists as a communion of subjects, not an assortment of objects. The new story frames the human journey, not within the context of tribes or nations, but embedded in a constantly evolving planet and cosmos, interconnected and interdependent at every level. The implications of this framing could signal dramatic changes in
every field of human endeavor. The trends we are seeing within restorative justice, reconciliation, transitional justice, dialogue and other forms of peace practice, are evidence of new ways of addressing human conflict that are moving beyond the old dichotomies. We have chosen to name this trend social healing partly because we see an evolving paradigm that is not fundamentally hinged around the dualities of good vs. bad and right vs. wrong, but is rather inclined toward viewing human conflict through the lens of wounding and healing. Social healing, then, is not guided by revenge, retribution or punishment, but rather by the compassionate response of relating to all people — victims, transgressors and bystanders alike – as inextricably connected.

–JudithThompson, in _Social Healing Project [1]_report
Links:
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[1] http://charityfocus.org/docs/books/socialhealing.pdf

Please feel free to send this link on to your network and ask them play it forward. Let’s help this important film go viral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAU2K4JwTjc&feature=share

If you are moved by Jim’s wonderful work, please consider making a tax-exempt donation to help recover the production costs.

CALL 808-339 2432 and thanks to all who helped!!

Go Planet!

JIM