Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2013.2.17 Day 1 Todays Events and Curriculum: I arrived a day earlier than most of my fellow students. So, that meant that I was able to help out this morning before the rest of the class arrived. There are many teams that I will write about throughout this report. Yesterday, I helped out the kitchen team with dinner preparations Today, I helped out the snack team, and baked about 200 peanut butter cookies from my own recipe! Our day officially started around 11am with registration and a general health evaluation. We were also asked to surrender our wallets as we will not need them while we are here. We can retrieve them on Saturdays: our days-off from studying. We then had lunch as a group, with most of the Konohana Family members as well. We then proceeded to our orientation. We were joined by about twenty Konohana Family members who will be directly supporting us, and all of us gave a 2-minute self-introduction. We then went over our schedule for the month, daily activities and chores, special events, and other organizational matters.
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2013.3.10 Day 22 Todays Events and Curriculum: This morning we had a class related to envisioning our future, followed by a workshop I will detail below. In the afternoon, we looked at Konohana Familys care program and how they provide for guests with mental, emotional and psychological sicknesses. One current care guest and three former guests turned Konohana Family members shared their stories in overcoming a variety of illnesses. The key points to Konohana Familys successful treatment that emerged from the discussion were that the care guests are treated holistically and are not treated separate from daily life. In fact, they are immersed in the daily life here. One member summed it up this way, living happily is a healing process. My Impressions: During this mornings exercise we wrote our past way of thinking on one sheet of paper and our future vision on another. We were asked to place our future paper anywhere in front of us and our past paper somewhere behind us. I could easily place the past, and put it directly behind me to symbolize that I (thought I) realized the way of my old thought processes and have taken the tiniest of steps away from that mode of thinking. Placing my future paper in front of me was much more challenging, and actually impossible this morning. I didnt place it close, nor did I place it really far ahead of me out of reach. I just kept it in my hands. I couldnt envision my future anywhere. I was totally stuck. We were then asked to take a step forward towards our future, and then another and then another. I went through the motions of stepping forward, but I was not moving towards anything. I could see behind me and I was putting distance between me and my past, but I was not going in any particular direction because I had no goal ahead of me. I feel I do not know how to manifest my dreams and my future. The last thing we had to include on our future papers were the people we envisioned being around us, supporting us in the future. I tried hard to imagine who would be there and even asked for more time to finish writing. In the end the only thing that came to me, no matter how hard I looked into my future, were the two
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from Sada-chan, as we practiced for our group presentation next week. Directly after that I sat down with Michiyo to help prepare for a class tomorrow on ecovillages in the context of disaster relief. I had prepared some information on and pictures of Ishinomaki and Ajishima after the 3.11 disaster. Having relaxed my body, my mind and heart found a moment of respite. Michiyo offered me a lot of good advice that I was able to easily receive. The shining star was this: if I can first improve my heart and work on my relationship with my wife then we can create a model of peace and harmony that will radiate outwards, a beacon of hope that will attract others to us and to our burgeoning community on Ajishima. I have never felt such a fear of failing like the debilitating fear I have felt since the disaster two years ago. Before the disaster, I was a little nervous about starting an ecovillage, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. I dont know if it was the trauma of the disaster or a pre-existing yet buried condition within me, but something flipped like a switch and I was powerless against it. I do believe we live in a generous universe. Now, I am also realizing, though, that I have felt unworthy of that generosity. Perhaps I should take a cue from my biblical past: ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. I can also take Isadons advice to another EDE member today and reframe my goals. Inherent in the biblical quote above is the necessity of a pure spirit when making such requests. All indications are leading me to see that I have to start with my own heart first, before I can begin to ask for anything else. Isadon: Even if you cant see a specific vision in your future, you will be able to see it for sure, by living in the here and now all the time. You could say that is your vision. And the vision you will see in the future will be influenced mainly by your current spirituality. Therefore, if you step forward towards the future with positive thinking, you will be able to solve your problems if you have any. Useful Items for Ajishima: Another piece of solid advice that Michiyo offered was that we need to figure out the people we need to help us on Ajishima. This basically means identifying the skills and abilities we lack and seeking those in perspective members of our community. Specific examples would be people with knowledge of business law, land use and zoning, local ordinances, etc.; and skills like rice farming, medium to large scale vegetable farming, orchard management, etc. There are many more skills and niches we will need to fill eventually. For now, learning what we are capable of should be the first step.
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Useful Items for Ajishima: There are old abandoned rice paddies on Ajishima that have not been cultivated in over 30 years. There are massive trees growing in the middle of most of them. I would love to start growing rice as soon as possible. Todays afternoon class illustrated the need for us to attract skilled rice farmers to our community. Growing rice is not something I can, or would really want to, do alone. So, here is one more case in support of community! Our EDE in Pictures:
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