So, How Is It By You? - Citizen Science Building the Authentic Narrative of the Pattern of Life

Each of us, each of our communities, paying attention to how it is by Us -
Around us.
How does it smell?
Is it warmed by the sun?
What grows there?
What thrives there?
What's thriving depends on the wellbeing of where we are?
Are our actions enhancing life throughout the ecosystem we are but parts of?


How would we know?

By devising the cultural means to share our understandings of How It Is By Us.

Through perpetual Citizen Science Programs in our Communities , documenting the pattern of life in the ecosystem we are merely a fragment of, each of us.

See Meridian Design's Concept Paper calling for the development of programs engaging citizens in urban design and related citizen science programs. We’ve been helping develop an urban design academy in the South Bronx and are working towards similar programs in my home town of White Plains.

WHY THIS IS ESSENTIAL TO LONG-TERM COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY?

An essential and currently largely ineffective basis for judging the merits of proposed environmental changes is to assess their “CUMULATIVE IMPACT” on the well-being of the living systems we inhabit.

Cumulative impact is a cultural construct, one we must define, and to the degree we wish to have uncontroversial civic processes to use this construct, we must develop the skillful means, language and common understandings necessary to civil discourse.

That isn’t working well for the communities I’m a part of just now.

For cumulative impact to be meaningful we need an effective means to account for the cumulative effects of our inhabitation of the landscape and thereby to concur, without rancor on the full cost impacts of our policies and decisions.

Maybe, here in White Plains, our Citizen Science can become an endless and authoritative record of the cumulative impact of human inhabitation of these hills, and of the bottom-lands where once the mist on the marshes looked like “white plains” from the surrounding highlands – could work in your community too.



Want to help?

Scientifically spring, in spite of . . .

Scientifially, I suppose
There can no longer be any question
That spring will follow

Winter,

Rather inexorably.

Still, I am startled -

To see the life returning so suddenly,

buds bursting,

Amidst what was justly grey and, frankly, full of pain, prolonged, seemingly lifeless, frozen.

How can it be that as a loved one fades towards death, as so many doubt that there is a vital future,

Just the same,

Flowers burst forth,
And joy arises

The sun warms the sleeping greens, and they awaken, full of hope

Neither knowing, nor caring, about
What happened while they slept.

Now, they awaken, simply thriving on the rich humus of past lives,

Lives once mourned,

Now simply nourishment for
Those actors in the inexorable next act.

Place-Making Towards Thriving

All thriving occurs some Place -
In Community

Vast as the earth, Intimate as your heart.

You, sitting on that rock,

Your loved ones thriving in their dwelling places,

Always some Place,

Never alone

The extended pattern of life we inhabit

Our entire interdependent web

Ever evolves

Towards thriving.

Even when it’s killing us.

This aspiration, an ancient desire,

as yet ephemeral,

Always ephemeral,

Creates by every action

The well-being of myriad Places

Every moment, every day

Places we are in, and Places seemingly remote yet

Always specific, knowable

These make our being

Before / Here / Later

Possible.

RIGHT NOW Unseen Places exist so we can thrive.

Beings sacrifice in our names,

Proffer gifts for our well-being.

Products of Place,

Nourishing us on their way to nourishing some Place else.

We can know and understand that web,

In ways our ancestors only hoped to –

Now knowing, we

Can take responsibility for all the Places ever

Aggregating in us,

That makes us Place-makers,

In every place-moment

Responsible,
Joyful, mournful
Generative, even when destructive

SO, Here, Now, You,

There,

Reading This in That Place/Moment,

US,

together,

Reading This in our Place/Moments --

How can WE build Place-making culture –

Become ever more skillful Place-makers,

Ever enhancing the beauty of the pattern of life?

What are the skillful means we can avail ourselves of?

What do you know? Teach us. Join us.

http://thrivable.wagn.org/wagn/Book+Values#Place-Making [Have a look, Page Around]

Thriveability Aspiration

Exploring the step beyond sustaining well being – How about thriving, beyond surviving.

I mean, I know it’s a lot to ask, but. . . . . .

Is it too much to ask?

Thriveability Meme is launched and now abroad, burgeoning.

See just “published” curated, crowd sourced, Web Deck, bookish wagn.com Page, . . . . [whatever we call this constantly morphing content thingee product, just until the name changes again].

http://thrivable.wagn.org/wagn/Book+Full

In there, In the “Values” section, my Place-Making

Have a look.

Enjoy.

Paramitas, Natural?

Natural Paramitas

BCW 15 March 2010

Dancing on the knife edge of practice aspiring to effortless discernment - how to do what comes naturally ?

Ever Mindful that right action has no inherent nature that will be easily discernible from:

Distraction, or

The natural by-product of indigestion,

Compulsion or

Habit or,

Maybe the legacy of all our ancient, twisted karmas, arising from beginning-less greed, hate and delusion

Thus we practice towards a bodhisattva’s natural discernment free of this/that & me/mine, we

Dance [Generosity, Morality, Forbearance, Effort, Meditation, Wisdom, Generosity, . .] Dancing on the tao of natural practice,

Step

by

ginger, step

Sometimes experiencing moments of joyful ease --

Sometimes, Just Sitting.

EVOLVING TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE WHITE PLAINS: VISION, CULTURE & PRACTICE

Access the text of my 12 January 2010 Keynote Speech

at the

White Plains Council of Neighborhood Associations'

STATE OF SUSTAINABILITY FORUM.

Life-and-Death by Uchiyama Roshi

Water isn't formed by being ladled into a bucket

Simply the water of the whole universe has been ladled into a bucket

The water does not disappear because it has been scattered over the ground

It is only that the water of the whole universe has been emptied into the whole universe

Life is not born because a person is born

The life of the whole universe has been ladled into the hardened "idea" called "I"

Life does not disappear because a person dies

Simply, the life of the whole universe has been poured out of this hardened "idea" of "I" back into the universe