Trails instead of highways
I probably never told you that I hardly ever read a newspaper or that I don’t watch television since at least 25 years. Still it seems that I know a lot about what is happening in the world. Maybe I don’t know all that is happeing in the world, but I do know what is happening on Earth, on our planet.
For my news I don’t follow the highway of mainstream entertainment and news gathering but I follow the little trails of blogs and a little on Facebook. I have my favourites and I follow the links that they provide me, which – of course – lead me to other interesting stuff.
When I recently opened a lot of the pages announced in my Google Reader it struck me how system collapse, the reasons why and what to do about it was one big red thread that showed itself. All of the blog writers that I follow don’t argue about the collapse of the current civilization model we live in in the West. They know it. And I hear more voices that say something like “if we are to save the planet, we have to throw out our economic model.” I go this link via Dave Pollard. His blog, How to Save the World is my best newspaper. He has been announcing the collapse since a long time and is both serious and vulnerable in what he thinks all of us should do about it. The Archdruid Report is another good newspaper to me, with just now an article on the Metaphysics of Money. It explains in a very clear way the difference between money and value.
Dave Pollard provided also the link to “a third alternative to smashing the system or working within it, is working alongside it.” That is what my inner sense has told me since a long time, and that’s why I do what I do. That’s also what a lot of other blogs are about. Ever heard about crowd sourcing gardens? Do you know that more and more people are really living sustainable and sharing their knowledge and experience with us? Casaubon’s Book, a blog from Sharon Astyk and Stony Run Farm are some that I like. Especially Sharon is a real writer – she writes good and a lot! – and combines a knowing of both the world and the planet.
Chris Corrigan’s blog I’m following the longest, as I know him personally through the Art of Hosting community, and I learned a lot reading his musings and afterthoughts of his hosting work. He is a deep thinkier and every week provides the best of his links. Tenneson Woolf, one of his friends, now followed him in this and calls it From the Trail. (He probably doesn’t mind that I used his metaphor.) One of Chris’ recent posts is tittled: Beauty in the midst of Impermanence. He writes about the beauty of community, both in conversations and in making music together.
Along the line of beauty, another dear friend, Amy Lenzo named her blog Beauty Dialogues. She is a real advocate of making online space beautiful and inspiring. More beauty you find in Karen Speerstra’s Kelsy Mountain Hats. They are gorgeous!
Her blog is called Sophia Serve and she just wrote about Sophia or our inner wisdom. She is a fervent reader and writer so in every piece you learn something. She also writes most of the posts on Luminous Ground, a project I am related to, if only by pointing Karen to a person or an idea on the web, which she then turns in a piece of writing right away! Another one that is really, really beautiful all the time: True Nature, a visual blog!
Rest only to point you to Tom Atlee’s inspiring writing in his new blog. He is another one of those folks that always points to what else is possible. He basically says: engage with what is going on, it is not about solving the problem! The last inspiring blogpost from my list was “Four Conversations that Build Community”, by Jack Ricchiuto. Again a message about dreaming and engaging in small and possible actions (alongside the system). This is the second post in a short time from him that I really appreciate, so I probably add him to my feed. Another track to follow.