SWAN LAKE AS US...
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From: Bonnie K.
Date: Sunday, October 12, 2008, 11:08 AM
Subject: Swan Lake as us...
Reply to: 265199
ID: 265200

Gosh Bruce I have such a lump in my throat... and thank you Ani for inviting him.. thank you for getting the tickets for the two of you so that the rest of us could partake in the fruits of your aftermath! I was imagining that: We are the characters in the creation of our version of Swan Lake. We are the creation creating itself. In the radiating sunshine of the genius of commnity...we become the magic of love, ourselves. So happy to be a part of SB Global Community. LOVE, Bonnie

--- On Sun, Oct 12, 2008, in msg265199, Bruce Schuman wrote ---

For me -- this concept continues to grow. Santa Barbara Global Village. Something is coming. Maybe this is the idea we have held all this time -- about "anchoring the universal in the context of the particular" -- about being global while being local...

There are so many forces driving this process. I've started to collect them. Maybe we need a formal way to do this -- collecting all these aspects of "the shift", into some neat network catalog, a network of relationships and organizations, each of which specializes in some aspect.

Like for example -- IONS, the Institute of Noetic Science. I was down at the AGNT conference last week -- and there was a great talk by Stephan Dinan from IONS -- talking about what he called a "global shift network" -- which he saw as largely driven by geo-political forces. For him, as I understood it -- "the shift in consciousness" is being driven by an increasing awareness of our collective context as global. He was talking about things like "world federalism" -- mostly political ideas, in other words. I think his ideas are important -- and I'd like to be part of a "global shift network" that embraces these geopolitical ideas, and has a tight working relationship with his work, and IONS, and his "Shift In Action" project -- while at the same time, reaching out to groups and individuals with other approaches to the shift -- driven, for example, by a kind of "Oneness consciousness".

Yes, you can say that these are alternative aspects of the same thing. So be it. But we need to pull these multivarious aspects together into a single "integral" context -- a bigger and more complex context than any one of us alone is able to hold together. We need a "shift network" to hold the pieces in place.

*

Yesterday, I was thinking about running up to the Sierras. The snows are coming, the passes are going to close, it's a beautiful day, I think I want to go up through Tioga and hike to Glacier Point on Sunday.

But I checked the road conditions. Tioga is already closed. Hmm. And then I got an email from Ani, inviting me to the ballet at the Granada. Wow, what an idea. So, we did that.

I just have to say -- that this ballet -- this entire production, everything about it -- was just -- amazingly beautiful and excellent.

I was so impressed. The theater itself is beautiful, and newly refurbished. It's great, with a wonderful big curtain in front of everything. And then, as the lights dimmed, the show began, and the curtain came up -- I felt immediately that everything about this production was going to be wonderful. The staging, the lighting, the backdrops -- everything, just really lovely and brilliant.

And then came the dancers. They were so good. I could hardly believe that they were all so excellent, so graceful. The costumes were wonderful, so sharp and immaculate and well-designed. So sweet and clear. And the choreography -- it just seemed so well-timed, so in-tune with the music. This entire production just flowed, with smooth easy grace and brilliant beauty. These dancers -- can really dance. They are good. The leads are brilliant, exquisite.

The entire time, my attention never wandered. Every moment of that performance, I was concentrating, absorbing something beautiful and excellent -- there was so much to look at, so much to see and absorb and appreciate. How can they do something like this -- so complex, so disciplined, requiring so much investment -- and just offer the performance twice? Maybe it is a little like those Tibetan sand mandalas -- where the monks work for days to make something incredibly complicated and fine -- and then cast it all to the wind...

There was such a sweet spirit in this dance performance. There was so much trust among all the members -- the musicians, the stage production people, all the dancers. The whole thing could unfold with a lovely ease -- because everyone did their part so well, in a way that could be fully trusted by everyone else. The lead dancer -- such an exquisite performance. All the others -- so steady, so clear and in-line, motionless like alabaster, or moving so perfectly.

And where are these dancers from? I guess this is a "global village" thing as well. From Mongolia, from Russia, from Albania, from Kazakhstan -- and from Lompoc, and Fresno.

For me, experiencing this quality for the first time, and not really knowing anything about how this happened or came together -- I could only feel a kind of amazed admiration -- that Santa Barbara has what it takes to create something so excellent, and simply give it to the world as a gift. It's a powerful sign of our collective ability to do wonderful things.

We have the energy, the skill, the vision, the expertise and passion -- and, indeed, the money.

For me -- if flowers like this can blossom in our garden, what else of comparable brilliance could emerge from this place?

Doesn't the entire world need gifts like this, perhaps the gift of visionary leadership in a context of crisis and confusion?

There was absolute magic in the air last night at the Granada -- the magic of love, trust, exquisite excellence, and co-creativity. It was "the genius of community" that created the gift of that performance.

I am inspired by that spirit, by that magic. I want to see that energy reaching out in a thousand directions, into every aspect of what we are doing -- here, in our local world -- and in this larger context, this global village, of which we are a single point of light...

***

A little cooler this morning. The season is changing.....

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