forum sums

FGC Forum Diary

These descriptions give a sense of what happens at our monthly forums, the first tuesday, 7:30 - 9:30pm
Though we explore various topics, the process of dialogue plays an important role in how we conduct these meetings. We strive to listen, not debate but hear others, suspend our individual points of view while we listen, honoring the fact that everyone has a bit of the truth, trying to enlarge our own view and participate in and precipitate a cultural shift.

We continued the Zeitgeist DVD, folks having various reactions and puzzled over the emphasis on the monetary system. We may pick up again in September. Then again we may disband.

This Spring we've been viewing and dialoguing around the DVD Zeitgeist with May & June sessions planned. This series post-pones our decision to desolve FGC/Atlanta's monthly forum with no other meetings or events planned. It looks like we're moving on to other things, having done what we were going to do. It was always our wish to change the world and we ended up only changing ourselves. Of course as vibrating beings we are now influencing things on that level. The most effective form of activism, as Tolle teaches, lies in the strategy of entering the Now.

The January 2010 forum saw in the new year with a ritual where we wrote down on two separate pages what we hope to discard
this year and what we hope to adopt or change. We lit candles and burned the discard, joining the intentions in a bowl. We also read some poetry and improvised some sounds.

December's forum was our annual pot luck then part 2. of the Tolle dialogue. Once again heavy rain kept attendence down, this time to four but the upside to that is intimacy. FGC for a long time has recognized the need for a shift in values and some (one?) in the group see Tolle as providing a means to that shift with his ideas about presence.

November's Forum was nearly cancelled due to heavy rain... that's presumably the reason so few showed up but thos who did had a very engaging dialogue around Eckhart Tolle's teachings. We decided to continue that dialogue 12/8/09

We gathered for a social in June and summer schedules prevented meetings until September when we had a guest speaker, Todd Daniel, on one of the three prime threats to our species, over population (the two others being pollution and nuclear war).

Our May forum continued the listening exercise begun last month, using Augusta Jaccaci's book, America Awake, which plays with the idea of channeling Thomas Jefferson to explore the awakening or shift in consciousness necessary to our survival.

Our April forum: we read from a book which uses the device of Thomas Jefferson returning, speaking to us in contemporary language and raising current issues around evolution of consciousness. One person would read a section while the next person in the circle listened, then summarized what was read. In turn that person then read while the next person listened. After the summary others were invited to add any thoughts that arose for them.

Our March 09 forum: we viewed a DVD by David Orr: The Fifth Revolution, The Evolution of Ecological Design Intelligence, with dialogue afterwards.

Our February 09 forum had guest speaker renowned environmentalist Karen Hutcheson, a Green Construction Management worker, who spoke on the focus of her business, Eco Forte, which is to provide green consultation to construction companies. One nugget from that meeting: 30% of energy goes to lighting - shut off those lights.

Our first 2009 Forum had us exploring where we want to go with FGC and enacting our annual ritual where we put into the fireplace paper on which is inscribed behavior we intend to change this year, both positive and negative.

Our final 2008 meeting included the viewing of a film, a follow-up to What the Bleep!
We discussed/dialogued and agreed to do the same with the second part for a future forum.

We met in September to commemorate the loss of our dear friend Ed Arnold.

We began the Low Carbon Diet by David Gershon & will continue for the next several months. Due to an illness striking our dear friend Ed Arnold we instead had a speaker for May, Laina Maxwell on Ego.

The Spring saw us looking at several videos, The Secret, which was loved/hated in various ways by the various participants, it being too "new age" for some. Another evening we looked at an in-depth video on Noam Chomsky, his take on power relations in the U.S. which portray the wealthy elite as disproportionately influential. We took the summer off due to so many different travel plans meeting again in September for a pot-luck check-in. In October we began a 2-part study of Paul Hawken's book Blessed Unrest, part 2. being November. In December we had a pot luck and looked at a marvelous video on Biomimicry.

The forum for February 2007:
a presentation by Donna Elkayam, B.A., N.C.M.E., C. Ht., a wholistic Health Consultant, Life Coach and Intuitive Healer.

The Forum for January 2007: we wrote on separate pieces of paper what we wanted to eliminate from our behavioral repetoire and what we wanted to add. We tossed the one to eliminate into the fireplace, keeping the hopeful one for a future review/check-in. This is a ritual of sharing and hope.

The forum for December 2006 examined the ideas of Eckhart Tolle, listening to & dialoguing around a CD of Eckhart reading from his book, The Power of Now.

Guest speaker for the Forum meeting on 11/7/06 was Walt Rodenberger. He practices EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), a method of releasing emotional and mental blockages from mind/body/spirit with many other applications as well. He practices out of the EFT Center located in Marietta, and his website is:
http://www.eftcenter.com/

June-October 2006: Computer problems have precluded monthly updates. In brief, July we had a pot-luck, more informal forum. August a speaker (I was out of town so can't report just now). In October we watched a DVD called The Secret which turns out to be "law of nature", of attraction. We had a lively discussion (I won't say dialogue because we relapsed into arguing different accepting/skeptical polarities. Old habits dy hard).

May 2006

Meeting Minutes

Attending:

Ed
Geneva
Janet
Lloyd
Margaret Ann
Woody

We went on a hike on the property next to Janet's house. Margaret Ann
pointed out various native plants, and non-native invasive plants.
She educated us on ways to preserve the native plants, and choosing
which non-native plants to try to get rid of. Then back at Janet's,
we had a Q&A session about this.

We voted to start having a donation jar sitting out at each meeting
for people to make voluntary contributions to help with the group's
expenses.

Margaret Ann and Lloyd have begun helping Janet plan the meetings so
it doesn't all fall on her shoulders. If you have an idea for
something you want to present at a meeting, or for someone you know
to present something of relevance to us, they'd love to hear about it.

The June meeting will be our annual pot luck and pool party.

Anyone who was at the meeting is welcome to send in corrections to
these minutes.

Submitted by Geneva Nelson

March/April 2006

Since the National FGC office has decided to close in June we used our March & April Forum and dialogue method to explore what we want to do here in Atlanta in response. The primary decisions were: to remain as FGC/Atlanta, continue our forums.... pretty much as-is. We will be asking for donations, low-key, at forums to off-set costs (for the host) and to build up a fund for speakers, events etc;

February 2006

Carol Bartlett talked a little about Ga. Interfaith Power and Light, about green power and Ga. Power and the people power needed to convince Ga. Power that there's a market for certified green power. We took petitions to that effect to pass around to our friends & neighbors.

January 2006

We viewed & dialogued around a DVD called "Kilowatt Ours - A plan to Re-energize America" by Jeff Barrie. "What would you find if you traced the wires from your light switch to their energy source? Mountain top removal, childhood asthma, global warming or hope? We followed filmmaker Jeff Barrie from the coal mines of West Virginia to the solar panel fields of Florida as he discovered solutions to America's energy related problems.

December 6, at 7:30pm. (& November)

Lloyd Rojewski and Margaret Ann Tufts presented an introduction to the Enneagram Personality System at our November forum. It was so enlightening as to our personal modes of survival so have decided to do Part B. for December. Topics to be covered will include Enneagram system history and background, introduction to the Enneagram, and an introduction to the Nine personality types - which one is yours? Come find out. to catch up those who missed Part A and further educate those who want to
study more, try these links:

hthttp/wwwwwuauthenticenneagramom/

hthttp/wwwwwnenneaom

October: Edward McNally shared a DVD and spoke about the Bioneers,
their goals, and their upcoming FORUM, Oct. 28, 29, and 30th., here in Atlanta.
Bioneers seem to be very much congruent with FGC, recognizing the urgent need
for a cultural shift in values.

The forum for September featured guest speaker Cheryl Tarr exploring the Dennis Kucinich idea of a Department of Peace.

On September 14th, 2005, the long awaited U.S. Department of Peace legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives. The Department of Peace will research, articulate and facilitate nonviolent solutions to domestic and international conflict, while also employing proven and effective strategies for reducing violence both domestically and internationally. It is an important piece of legislation that will, if enacted, go a long way towards changing how our government approaches conflict internally and externally.

In July 2005 we heard from Janill Mitchell on

Energy Management and The Human Energy Field

To function at the highest level, we need to acknowledge ourselves as the
energy beings that we are. In this brief, interactional presentation, Janill
Mitchell introduces energetic anatomy and some easy, useful techniques for
managing energy. These techniques will enable you to feel better now, eliminate
pain and energy drain and understand the holistic model of disease manifestation.

The Forum for June (May 31) 2005

We viewed an inspiring video together of the student movement in Serbia which eventually overthrew the dictatorship of Milosevich. It left many of us envious of the organized activism. Of course the economic situation was very seriously ailing so the general population could not be placated by shopping malls.

The Forum for May, 2005

We engaged in a teleconference on-line with the national office and others in locations around the country. The subject is the idea of Mindshift. There are four tools to examine in terms of the here/now and the everywhere/forever, which examiniation should help clarify our response to the current crisis. PAIR: being Present, Authentic, Inclusive & Responsible.

The Forum for April 5,
We continued our exploration of the Dialogue process, responding to a new video on global warming. We also discussed the planned weekend, which would be a condensced Living on the Edge of Evolution course, May or June.

February 2005
Healing Suffering: In Iraq...In our Hearts.

We did some healing excercies and rituals for world suffering. This special evening was led by Janet Jikei Wells. Our long time member of FGC and a long time teacher of Zen practice in the way of the late Taizen Maizumi Roshi.
1. The practice of Tonglen...a method of connecting with suffering in a compassionate and healing way thus discovering "bodhichitta"...the noble or awakened heart.
2. Chanting of the ancient "Heart Sutra"
3. Closing ritual for activists who give their heart and soul.

December 2004

This was the Holiday Potluck Forum. ... a vegetarian delight . ..Tom Ferguson had some new songs to share. & others brought songs, music, poems, discoveries, or a favorite holiday story ... our year-end check-in with each other.

September's forum continued the dialogue session we began in July (we skipped August), the practice where one suspends one's opinions, LISTENS and HEARS all viewpoints without refuting, simply hearing them... expressing yours when you have the floor but not in opposition to anyone, simply as your view, to which others LISTEN.

July 2004
(we have shifted our forum to first tuesdays) - July a pot luck then a session of dialogue, the practice where one suspends one's opinions, LISTENS and HEARS all viewpoints ... This was done very informally this time, as it turned out, actually more of a gathering, celebration.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 03, January through May 04: Toni Carlucci from Athens, Georgia has been meeting weekly with a group to study Nonviolent Communication. For the October Forum Toni shared her enthusiasm for this process and some of her experience with NVC thus far. She showed a video, gave a brief introduction and provided an opportunity to dialogue on the introductory material. We followed up in November, watching Part 1. of the video and, in December, what we had of Part 2. We've been finding the material controversial and difficult but exciting. We continued this exploration thru May's Forum where Toni returned for a summing up.

"Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a way of speaking that facilitates the flow of communcation needed to exchange information and resolve differences peacefully. It helps us identify our shared values and needs, encourages us to use language that increases goodwill, and avoid language that contributes to resentment or lowers self-esteem."

"Nonviolent Communcation focuses our attention on compassion as our motivation, rather than fear, guilt, blame, or shame. It emphasizes taking personal responsiblity for our choices and improving the quality of our relationships as our goal. It is effective even when the other person or group is not familiar with this process."
(From Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion by Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. Puddle Dancer Press.

Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D., internationally renowned Educator, Trainer, Lecturer, Mediator, Consultant, and Psychologist, founded the Center for Nonviolent Communication in 1984. He has "initiated peace programs in war torn areas including Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, the Middle East" and many other countries. Dr. Rosenberg will be in Atlanta, Oct. 20-23 to present workshops and lectures at The Carter Center and the Central Congregational UCC, and Unity Atlanta.

The September forum had guest speaker, Physicians for Social Responsibility Executive Director, Ed Arnold, presenting information to the group about the Earth Charter, announcing an Earth Charter Summit to be held Oct. 11. FGC was represented at this gathering, Tom Ferguson giving a brief overview of FGC.
The Foundation for Global Community/Atlanta's Forum for July was tuesday 7/8/03. It was time for more SOUL food after all that has and is going on in our world. We dialogued around the book "Seat of the SouL" by Gary Zukav. The June Forum was an introduction to the Seat of the Soul and this is follow up. For a summary of the readings for June click hear

The Forum for June 03 dialogued around an introduction to Gary Zukav's, The Seat of the Soul. For a transcript of the reading and a chart see Zukav.

The Forum for May 03 re-visited the basic ideas of Beyond War, FGC's predecessor, which attempted to build consensus around the facts that:
We are One
War is Obsolete

WE ALSO EXAMINED THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION'S NUCLEAR STANCE, ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PROLIFERATION, NUCLEAR WAR AND OUR SURVIVAL.

The Forum for April 2003 was
a pot luck dinner and dialogue around the 4th Principle of Spiritual Leadership:

Fourth: The fourth principle is related to the third: the need for unified integrity in both means and ends. Integrity in means cultivates integrity in the fruit of one's work; you cannot achieve a noble goal using ignoble means. Some participants in our workshops engage regularly in political debates, testimony, and hearings. We have them experimenting with consciousness techniques for transmuting challenging energy into compassion and love-right there in the hearing room. Early indications are that this is helpful in defusing charged psychological situations, and reducing tension in heated debates (this last report is from FGC/National in Palo Alto).

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The Foundation for Global Community's Forum for March 2003 consisted of a discussion of the Iraq situation and a
dialogue around the 3rd Principle of Spiritual Leadership:

The third principle is that your integrity is your protection. The idea here is that if your work has integrity, that will tend to protect you from negative circumstances. For example, there are practices for making yourself invisible to the negative energy that comes toward you in adversarial situations. It's a kind of psychic aikido, where you internally step out of the way of negative energy, and you make yourself energetically transparent so it passes right through you. But this only works if your work is rooted in integrity

Our speaker for January was a well known nature photographer, Charles Needle who understands that nature heals and restores our bodies and souls. We viewed his video, the Healing Power of Nature.

Charles Needle is an Atlanta-based nature photographer and writer whose award-winning photographs of nature are on permanent display in many hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and other public spaces nationwide. His videotape, The Healing Power of Nature, currently plays in over 200 hospital and physicians' waiting rooms across the country - and on closed-circuit television in numerous hospitals, including Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.

Best-selling author and mind/body medicine pioneer, Bernie Siegel, MD, has endorsed Charles' video and applauded his innovative efforts to bring the healing benefits from nature indoors. His work has also been featured in SELF Magazine, Woman's World, The Chicago Tribune, DaySpa Magazine and The
Atlanta Journal & Constitution.

The forum for November presented the excellent video THE NEXT INDUSTRAL REVOLUTION with William McDonough, Michael Braungart and the Birth of the Sustainable Economy. It tells the story of the movement led by architect Bill McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart to bring together ecology and human design.

Please click on "Principles" to read 12 principles of Spritual Leadership. Our check-in to included folk's reaction to the first Principle of Spiritual Leadership.

The first principle is that the motivation underlying our activism for social change must be transformed from anger and despair to compassion and love. This is a major challenge for the environmental movement, for example. It is not to deny the legitimacy of noble
anger or outrage at injustice of any kind. Rather, we seek to work for love, rather than against evil. We need to adopt compassion and
love as our foundational intention, and do whatever inner work is required to implement this intention. Even if our outward actions remain the same, there is a major difference in results if our underlying intention supports love rather than defeating evil. The Dalai Lama says, "A positive future can never emerge from the mind of anger and despair.":

For the October forum we heard a point of view and engaged in dialogue on the controversial Department of Transportation proposal for an outer perimeter.

August 13, 2002

Greg Davis made a presentation on alternative views of reality, sharing a glimpse of the activists in this intuitive field, of alternative healing/thinking being.

The Forum for 6/11/02:

We began this meeting at 7:00pm, a ritual in a beautiful clearing in the 20acre woods adjacent to our meeting place. The ritual was to envision the land saved and other properties like it throughout the city for wildlife refuges . We all brought some biodegradable offering for this precious, sweet scrap of land.

The focus of the meeting following was Sister Miriam Therese MacGillis' new video, "Exploring the New Cosmology...Part I". Of course, check-in, networking and refreshments were included with our dialogue.

Let's take the world back from our monsters with the strength of our LOVE, education, and action.

May 14, 2002

We were fortunate to have as our speaker, Luiz Lobo, from Brazil, the director and producer of a documentary series on the Amazon. He has dedicated his talents to educating the world about the wonders and possibilities of this area of our world in an effort to save her from further destruction. Please visit his website at http://www.amazoniasite.com/ for more background.

The February & March 2002 Forum explored Health Realization

Understanding Change

How does change happen? How much effort is necessary? Betsy Burnet, Lanie Damon, and Bruce Kitchell, from the Atlanta Health Realization Group, will will return to lead part two of the discussion. They will share from the orientation of Health Realization, a principle-based understanding of how we function as human beings. HR points to innate wisdom or common sense, creativity or innovation, and constant change or being in the present moment.

In facilitating change of any magnitude, an understanding of the principles of Health Realization contributes insight into individual, separate realities, as well as to our collective connections. It is foundational to insight into why change can be slow to happen or may occur in an instant.

The December Forum discussed the remaining chapters of the Isaiah Effect

The November forum was changed to the 3rd tuesday, 11/20/01, so that on the second tuesday, 11/13, we could join WAND (Women's Action for New Directions) for their monthly meeting which included a talk by Back From the Brink, a Washington, D.C. group working to remove nuclear weapons from their present hair-trigger alert status.

The forum on the 20th discussed the first 4 chapters of the Isaiah Effect.

The October 2001 Forum dealt with questions:

What in your background leads you to be concerned with FGC issues?

What do people need to know in order to make an appropriate pardigm shift happen, both for themselves and for society at large?

The September 11th Forum focused on Thomas Berry's book, The Greath Work. We addressed the question,
What is my great work?

The August Forum was part 2. of a follow-up report and ritual from the Earth Spirit Rising Conference attended by some FGC folks, in June in Lousiville, Kentucky. Thomas Berry's book, The Great Work, is good background for this discussion.

The July Forum had Sue Wooten, Barbara Meyers and Janet Wells doing a follow up report and ritual from the Earth Spirit Rising Conference.

For the May 8 Forum Janet Wells lead a discussion of Thomas Berry's theory, the Cosmology of Peace, from his book Dream of the Earth.

For the April 10 Forum we viewed the video , "God's Creation & Global Warming" which looks at global warming from a "faith" perspective.

For the March 13th Forum we had a talk on Bioregionalism by Gerald Lowery.

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