Hello HopeDance users, as well as listserv folks,
I finally hired someone to help me out with the website and it's amazing what we did in two hours. We have a new category called Laughter / Happiness so it's all in one place, like Energy, Food and Soul are all in one place.
I now know how to post some
ads on the site. Please see the lower right-hand corner of the homepage where I learned of an organization called
www.fouryearsgo.org. I learned about it from listening to Lynn Twists talk at the recent
Bioneers conference. (to watch the short
commercial about this very cool group that is an outgrowth of the Pachamama Alliance, please visit:
http://hopedance.org/community-media/videos/686)
And if you wish to donate, we cleaned that option as well. But more exciting than all the above is a new seed that has been planted in me for the past two weeks... The idea is to come out with a PRINT edition of HopeDance irregularly. It all depends on how easy it can be. If you recall, with some of my particular changes in this past year including lots of laughter, I'm taking myself less seriously and no longer fighting a War with Reality. If in fact I do print an edition of HopeDance it will be because it's a lot of fun. The last thing we need is to have a bunch of sustainability people becoming fundamentalists.
The other day a post peak oil activist wrote me and declared how dare I talk about joy in these horrific times. I reminded her of what Emma Goldman wrote decades ago that if she couldn't dance at the Revolution, she didn't want anything to do with it. Well, that didn't go over very well. She called me a typical white middle-class activist and I simply chuckled and let it die. It seems to me that rather than dividing ourselves more and more which only creates smaller numbers of active citizens as well as wounded and hurt people, I prefer to find out what is common among us, and thus my new interest in laughter and joy, especially contagious laughter. Yes such things as food, housing, energy are all ways we can see our commonality, but what can really give us a “taste“ of oneness? To reach the core of our oneness will reveal as to what we need to be doing. I sense this. I don't know it in an intellectual sense. But my life seems to have become a quest to go to deeper core issues, call it the sacred wound or what you will, but it appears to me that once we establish a foundation of this human oneness connectivity, this spirituality, this than will assist humankind in creating solutions that will be viable for all of us, no matter what happens.
It's not enough to simply chat about this “oneness,” and be in our heads about the idea of “we are all one” but to viscerally feel and taste that oneness and by golly laughter, deep genuine laughter and unconditional laughter can do it. For me. I simply invite you.
So, if all things go smoothly you might see HopeDance as a print edition in 2-3 months (in Santa Barbara and SLO areas). If you are interested, please send me your:
1. Five top stories
2. Five top advertisers (who you think will advertise for both print and online)
3. Five places you'd want to see HopeDances at
4. Five top books you'd want to see reviewed
5. Your top five websites.
And if you can contribute in any way, please let me know:
1. Writing
2. Reviewing books, films, CDs, websites
3. Photography
4. Distributing the HopeDances
5. Being an advertising rep
6. Helping out with film screenings.
7. Donating large sums of monies
8. We are specifically reigniting all of our book reviewers to come on board... write a 500 word review and keep the book!!
Some exciting new films and articles: (at the site)
Thanks for your patience and your support of HopeDance for all these years as it continually evolves and changes...
Bob Banner