7gen Bloc

Cleaning my apartment thoroughly seems to always require the arrival of a visitor (usually my mother). And then, rather than starting with the tedious vacuuming, mopping, or even picking up – I often begin by opening a closet or drawer and exploding the contents onto the scene. Basically, I tear the place apart.

Midweek arrives. Time for a scan of the distant horizon to spot approaching signs and incoming indications. Must peer out into the virtual firmament and across the murky ether that separates tomorrow from today to see what may soon come this way. Is the periscope predictive?

Now that we’ve had a chance catch to quell the panic attacks and mop up all the puddles of perspiration, here’s an update on our tampon donations to women’s shelters. In a word: Whoa! After Kendra posted about our program, the viral nature of the internet took it and ran with it like there was no tomorrow. Our little initiative became a big giant tampon-breathing monster. Budgets were crushed. Hair was lost. Tampons were virtually hurled from coast to coast. Here’s how our internal newsletter, Inner Piece, reports the chain of events in this week’s edition:

Our friends Barb and Tom Burstyn have made a new film about biodynamics, an ancient agricultural solution that's ripe for our modern times. It's called How to Save the World and it's a pretty eye-opening look at what's broken where our food supply is concerned and how we can fix it. Here's the trailer: Take a taste and then feed you head with the whole thing. If you want a quick primer in biodynamics, the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association is the place to go.

Our friend Dharma Dog is back from his journey to and through India and sends us this thought-provoking video postcard about permaculture and the vision of the world held by his traveling partner, Rico Zook. Back home in Arizona after my eco-odyssey through India, where I tagged along side permaculture advocate, and sort-of modern-day Kokopelli, Rico Zook, I capture a slice of his vision for "Heaven On Earth" While I reenter the atmosphere of life in the U.S., like an astronaut adjusting to life under the influence of gravity, I relive the vision

So earlier this week I circulated a link to an interesting video about things to come and asked a few inspired protagonists here and there what they thought. The future in the video is the future that is being built behind our backs. It is a question whether this is what the Buddhist tradition might call the "right" path... Funny how the designers of this path have not increased love and a genuine sense of humanity to all. Odd how we keep depending on the machine to be consciousness and not develop

Our man, Scienceman, has been one busy lab-coated crusader. Seventh’s grime-fighting superhero has fired up the Factmobile and left his super secret research lair deep beneath Explain Manor to do battle with the forces of eco-evil. Whether it’s banishing dangerous chemicals from the local water supply or being profiled in a leading industry publication, Scienceman is everywhere. Chemical criminals beware!

I spent two days this week doing something I haven’t done for five if not ten years: going to a retreat to explore who I want to be in the next iteration of my life. The retreat was led by Peter Senge and the Shambhala Institute outside Boston on bright, crisp sunny days that just oh-so-faintly smelled of springtime. We meditated, rolled around on the floor, did some movement that seemed to approximate modern dance and talked about the transformations we were most passionate about effecting in our own lives.

Things are moving. Ideas are raining through the biosphere, percolating through the substrata, reaching down into the cultural aquifer where everyone can tap them and take a good long drink. Some days it’s hard to keep up with all these emergent memes. Feels like being in one of those game show money booths where high speed fans whip up a storm of $100 bills and you try to grab as many as you can. But do these embryonic notions represent lasting trends or only ephemeral fads?