Good morning, from Santa Barbara --

Just feeling all of this -- I've been wanting to review some of these coalescing forces.  For me, this last month or so has been an intense period of creativity, with some new ideas emerging, some new web tools unfolding, and the sense that all of these things can work together in some marvelous way -- that is not yet entirely clear, but seems to be getting clearer...

One element of this -- is a new "blog" framework, that is intended to make it easy for our members to get their ideas and presentation into a distinct and accessible format.  Over on http://globalresonance.net, we do have the "My Pages" framework, essentially intended to do something like this -- but this project has been a little hard to focus.  That system needs more work -- it's a good framework with a lot of capacity, but it's not as intuitive or popular as a blog.  So, here, in Lightpages -- I have been building something that works more like traditional blog. 

It has several features that I think make it interesting

1. The blog is organized in terms of "themes".  A theme is like the title for a blog, where you can group a bunch of messages together.  If you just want to put together one list of messages, and "only have one blog", then you only need one theme.  But if there are several ideas you want to explore, you can create more than one theme, and thus have "several different blogs"
2. Another feature of the blog -- is that your themes, and the messages you display within each theme, can be shown on any LightPages group where you are a member.  So, this creates a way to "dissolve the boundaries between groups" --
3. Also, you can individually select which messages show in which groups.  All of this combines into a very high degree of freedom. 

4. Plus, there is a way to "import into my blog" any email/bulletin board message you may have posted.  You can just grab messages you have written, that you feel belong in some blog theme you have created, and insert the email message into that blog.

It's true that all of this freedom is just a bit complex to manage, so it might turn out that we create a "simple mode" option, where some of this freedom goes away, in favor of fewer options.  But for now, take a minute to explore what is possible.  To me, it feels very fluent.

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Another technical factor -- is the option to use this "Rich Text Editor", which acts like a word processor.  It offers a bunch of interesting features, that do make it much easier to write nuanced and complex html messages.  Different fonts, different colors, automatic links, bullet points, many other things.  Another things to explore.

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As regards emerging ideas -- this last month has been a powerful time -- maybe a little overwhelming.  Obama got elected, these new ideas on "Integral Politics" have begun to take shape ("Integral Politics is the politics of The One" - think about that!) -- and now, before these things have even begun to coalesce, there are these new possibilities for this "Portal to Unity" concept. 

I am still just letting all of this "come to me".  I am pretty sure that all of these elements can work together, are intended to work together -- but exactly how that works is not entirely clear -- though it is getting clearer.

On the Portal to Unity idea -- one source of guidance and suggestions -- is the website by Deepak Chopra -- http://intent.com

It was interesting to me to discover this site, when we were talking about "taking the vow" (of non-violence), over in the Love-Radiance-Intention group.  The "Intent" site is a social networking system about human intentions -- purposes -- which each member of the site can list.  Each person lists at least one intention -- and others in the network can "support that intention".  This concept very much reminds me of a project I built a few years ago, on the domain "sharedpurpose.net".  The idea there -- was (is) to allow everybody to list their own personal purposes, in a brief form that could be selected or checked off by other members of the network.  When people select the same purposes, they form an instant "electronic coalition".  Just as in any social networking system, as soon as people connect around something like this, they can send each other email, or be otherwise understood as connected, or in agreement.

What I am thinking of doing regarding the Portal to Unity -- is to follow this concept, maybe offering a few different ways that people could come together -- such as

1. Intentions
2. Beliefs
3. Commitments (like "vows", etc.)
4. Issues
5. Projects

As an experiment, and a way to get this started, I'm thinking about collecting the core intentions of the Love-Radiance-Intent group -- and providing a way that the members of this group could click off exactly what "intentions" they really have in common -- as well as, perhaps, their beliefs, or issues they believe are important.

One reason I think this is important -- is because this vision of "Integral Politics" -- a very high and utopian notion -- needs some way to coalesce or come together, that is motivated by and driven by the grass-roots participation of people who have their own motivations and intentions -- rather than some centralized top-down vision that somebody (like me) thinks everybody should be interested in.  Instead of imposing a broad universal vision on everyone -- just give people total freedom ("free will"), and let them enter the forcefield on any basis that attracts them.

Then, as energy and momentum builds, just unfold the natural interconnectivity that emerges in to shared choices or intentions.  An approach like this could emerge simply and naturally, if given time, and an easy way to interact with it.  One idea I have -- is simply to send everybody a brief email message, maybe once a week, with one question, or some very simply basic form or questionnaire, and a link to click.  It's not a big overwhelming thing -- you just click this link, answer one or two multiple choice questions, maybe add a new option or two, and are out of there in a couple of minutes.

If we had the energy to sustain this project for a few months or a year, we might build up a bit network of people and groups who wanted to become involved in some piece of this concept.  Everybody gets into that part that turns them on -- and the whole thing grows, connecting everything that anybody is interested in...

So -- all of that is in the air.  It's a lot to think about, a lot of potential.  Blessings to everybody, thanks for being here.