Tag: travel

Collective Creation

May 8, 2013

The power of collective creation never ceases to amaze me.

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My wife and I moved to Ashland, Oregon a few months ago after traveling through Colombia for three months. My wife’s sister and her partner joined us from Seattle after quitting their job and starting a new life themselves. It seems everyone is in major stages of transition these days.

We stayed for a bit over a month in a sublet 20 miles outside of our eventual desired destination. We weren’t worried about finding a place to live because we always seem to have luck manifesting what it is we want. The four of us knew that we had to be specific with what we wanted…good location, spacious house, place for a dog, low rent, big yard, and a garden. Rallying our ideas together we set our intention.

But as the day of our move-out approached, luck seemed to be on vacation. To make matters worse, the owners of the sublet wrote to inform us that they would be coming home a week early. We queried every ad on craigslist. We submitted applications to half a dozen property management businesses. We even resorted to driving up and down the streets looking for houses for rent. But nothing was available and we were beginning to panic. We began to think that we weren’t supposed to live in Ashland after all.

With a week left to go, we realized we would need some help and so we sounded out the alarm. All of us told everyone we knew about our desire to find a place to live. Family, friends, even strangers. We even told them the specifics. We didn’t ask them to do anything in particular. We simply asked them that they hold an energetic intention for us.

What happened next was astounding. My wife and her sister went to their regular yoga class when they overheard a woman talking to a new friend of theirs about her problem: she couldn’t find anyone to rent her place – she would have to resort to handing it over to a property management – something we wanted to avoid if at all possible. Everyone was in the right place at the right time, and just believe me when I say that the synchronicities surrounding the event were uncanny.

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Let’s just say we got what we asked for, only a bit to the extreme. Within ONE day, we were the new renters of a four bedroom house, with a large yard, garden, no pet deposit, FURNISHED!, half a block from the co-op, and neighbors with not one but TWO old friends from high school. Really??

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This experience has taught me a lot. Yes the power of intention is essential to manifesting what it is you want. And yes, it is important to be specific with your desires. But never underestimate the collective power of energetic support. In a world that is so bogged-down with so many large problems, we must remind ourselves that these are problems we are facing together. We must learn to rely on each other and trust that whatever we put out, we get back. The more we support others, the more we ultimately support ourselves.

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We really do have the potential to create heaven on earth. We face a great many challenges but through those challenges we experience the rewards of our own evolution – let no one convince you otherwise. The frequency that the media is broadcasting is not the REAL reality. The real reality is something we can’t even comprehend. We are powerful beings each capable of co-creating a planet that reflects back to us our own potential. Let us end the fear game. Trust that the people around you also want the same thing…to be happy! Let us create this happiness together.

The Sustainability of Self

November 21, 2012

What defines true sustainability? How can we begin to create sustainability in a world that has such vastly differing views on the subject? If we perceive our external world as “unsustainable” what does this suggest about our own internal landscape? The Sustainability of Self is a documentary that follows two travelers for two years across the world to Ethiopia, and back, seeking insight into a world on the verge of transformation.

A community of change

April 22, 2012

How we do this is how we do everything.

Our life is made up of individual acts and decisions that have created our current present reality. In order to create positive change on this planet we must first evaluate our own motivations and why we do the things we do.

Many people right now are undergoing a major awakening. Suddenly, everything is moving so fast. What has been hidden for so long is finally becoming revealed. We are realizing (not only that, we are understanding) that certain financial establishments, powerful corporations, and both political and religious institutions have been both destroying the planet and profiting from our own ignorance.

The old paradigm reaction is one of anger and blame. “How dare they do this to us!” Yet the new paradigm is asking for a higher level of awareness. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into victimhood. It is a program that only feeds our current problems. We are living during a magnificent time, an epoch where we have the capacity to become fully empowered and take responsibility for our own actions. Self-responsibility has tremendous payoff when we are willing to accept our own role as co-creator.


Truly, we are on the verge of ecocide. Our planet is being over-fished, over-logged, our top soil is being depleted, this list goes on and on. Yes, some people are more responsible for this devastation than others. But ultimately, when the final tree is cut down, who cares who’s fault it was?  We need to start asking ourselves, “What kind of world do I want to live in?” and “What am I doing to create this?” Our individual creations have a tremendous impact. Our thoughts and our ideas ripple out into a broader community where they transform and evolve. No question about it, we are in this together.

Currently in Southern Oregon, where I’m living, communities are popping up all over the place. People from all over the country are pouring out of larger cities in the pursuit of a more simple and sustainable lifestyle.

Community has become a buzz word. People tend to think that if they live “off-grid” with twenty other people away from the matrix, life will be easier. Far from it. Living on the land is hard enough. But living with each other, now that’s a challenge. I’ve been living in community for over a year now and the social dynamics of living together in close proximity has been my greatest lesson.

If my external world is a representation of my inner terrain then I have no one else to blame but myself when something bothers me. We are all existing as divine mirrors for one another. We tend to externalize our own behaviors and project our issues onto other people.

Life in community is a microcosm of this global community we are living in. If day after day the plants aren’t getting watered because someone hasn’t been doing their job,  it is the responsibility of the individual and the community to address the problem from a place of compassion. Creating an argument or blaming only reflects our own issues of not fulfilling our duties to our community. Before we can change these immense problems that we face in this world, we have to learn to truly work together, and the quickest way to work well with other people, is if we know how to work well with ourselves, and taking responsibility for our own behaviors.

As a community of co-creators, we are each taking on the role of being leaders and teachers for our fellow community members. Our daily decisions have the power to influence hundreds of people, all the more reason to be conscious of each moment in our day. I understand that this is easier said than done. Today’s world is engulfed in tantalizing distractions. It is easy to get swept up into someone else’s drama or find ourselves lost in the electronic void of the 21st century. But ultimately, it comes down to this: how are you directing your consciousness? Our bodies are consciousness generators. Our thoughts create universes unto themselves.

So what are you thinking about?

It’s time we start focusing on the solution. And we can exemplify this process through our day-to-day actions. We must return to our hearts. We must align ourselves with motivations of the highest caliber, because without question, that’s exactly what this planet needs right now. The beautiful thing about aligning with our highest purpose is that endless possibilities begin to unfold. By following our passions through the most mundane of tasks we create new ways of being and new avenues of perception take place. Envision yourself living in a global community full of innovative, caring, and responsible people. Trust that you too have something to offer.

The mindset of sustainability – an emerging education for the collective

September 26, 2010

My outlook will be different now, there’s no turning back.

I’ve been doing work trade on a permaculture farm for almost a week … and I’m hooked. Perhaps it’s the delicious food I pull right out of the earth, or the abundance of wildlife outside my doorstep, or the fact that the matrix is currently nowhere near my reality. Where I’m at, has something very important to teach me.

Aprovecho, a sustainable learning center, sits on a modest 40 acres in the hills of west central Oregon, outside Cottage Grove. Here, people from all backgrounds come to learn a variety of sustainable practices such as aquaculture, proper water harvesting, practical building design, and even pedal powered technology – ever grind your own wheat with a bicycle?

Before I came, I had only once before experienced permaculture while traveling in Ethiopia. I was staying at a small hostel which had transformed dead earth into a thriving oasis by mimicking nature through sustainable land use design. I watched as the owners took awe-struck villagers through the property, showing them innovative yet simple practices that obviously worked.  It was an incredible experience to witness the children process this new information like thirsty sponges. The term sustainable education sprang to mind.

On the other side of the planet, outside Cottage Grove, OR, Aprovecho has been working as a permaculture education center for over ten years. Ironically, many people who read this article have probably never even heard of permaculture before. But soon, they will. The concept and philosophies of permaculture are catching on fast, and the movement, is becoming a revolution.

The foundation of permaculture relies on the observation of patterns and systems and an understanding that nothing is independent.


This is useful wisdom for an expanding planet. More and more people are beginning to understand that their everyday actions are having great impact on other people halfway across the planet. For those seeking true sustainability, daily micro-management becomes essential. The processes that make up our day must be done consciously if we are to create a healthy future for the individual and the collective, which these days are one and the same.

Sustainable is a tricky word to define, especially in today’s green-market driven economy. Linguistically appealing terms such as all natural or self-sufficient have all but stigmatized historically traditional methods of conservation and practical science. The push for low-impact practices like car-pooling and water conservation have been obvious for years, but today have become synonymous with emotionally charged advertisements for hybrid cars and the monopolization of utility companies. A new earth conscious mind-set from society has been needed for decades, but only recently has our government seen the economic opportunity  to implement/sell these eco-friendly technologies to the public.

Hippies on the other hand have been screaming sustainable practices and “community mentality” since the 1960’s yet have been demonized as out-of-touch, impractical, and idealistic misfits in a consumer driven society. This same consumer driven society has brought us to where we are today, completely out of touch with our natural environment. The majority of us no longer grown our own food or even understand how it gets to our dinner table. The complexity of natural systems and cycles evades the general public. This results in a poor understanding of the earth we were once a part of.

In Oregon, over 90% of old growth forest has been clear cut. This has resulted in a huge explosion of blackberry bushes which grow best in areas with disturbed soil – another reason they are seen so frequently in ditches and vacant lots in towns and cities in the Pacific Northwest. One of my main duties as a work trader at Aprovecho is blackberry maintenance. Long tedious days of clipping, pruning, and de-rooting yield piles upon piles of blackberry vines.

Today, blackberries are considered an invasive species, much like scotch broom, a large yellow-flowered bush that grows throughout the country next to roads and highways. Both plants are soil rejuvenators, providing much needed nitrogen into the damaged soil for re-growth. Yet because of their invasive nature, toxic chemicals are being used to eradicate them, furthering damage to the soil.

Blackberries are but one example of the many problems we face and the impractical solutions we have created for solving them.

Sustainability is a mind-set, an evolving practice that encompasses all aspects of one’s lifestyle. External observation is paramount to understanding what actions we must take and why we must take them.  It’s not simply buying locally, it’s understanding a neighbor’s needs and lending support when possible. Going green isn’t just recycling, it’s rethinking.

Solutions are rarely arrived at before the problem becomes too big. Suddenly, the problem is much too big.

A ballooning global population is no longer upon us, it is us. We now find ourselves looking squarely in the face of some pretty disturbing realities: diminishing food chains, the end of oil as we know it, global drought, and an ever-broadening of the social classes.  As  time and globalization march ever forward, no longer  can we elude responsibility. There are no islands to escape to, save mars.

Aprovecho is the first stop of many. For the next 6 months, my partner and I will be visiting multiple alternative education centers and sustainability  programs in the United States – the end product, a documentary about sustainable education.

As a former educator, I believe that holistic education, above all else, is the foundation for a sustainable society and planet. As we collectively move into a new understanding of humanity’s role on Gaia, we must be certain that our youth are not only understanding this change, but are also spearheading it. New insights in education are being made every day. Teachers are coming forward with innovative new ideas and for a healthy planet to grow, these ideas must be shared. Students must be encouraged to think outside the conventional, because our future will be anything but.

The Evolution of Community

June 22, 2010

As this time of acceleration brings us and like-minded individuals closer together, we begin the process of what role we have to play in this new global community and what foundations we will build for a successful integration.

I leave you with a brief discussion about community and some of the rolls yet to be analyzed. Enjoy!

You are NOT crazy…

June 20, 2010

The Fountainhead saved my life, I think.

I was 22, finishing college, and was terrified that I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Society was in shambles and no one cared! People talked about nonsense, politicians were de-evolving nations, cats and dogs, living together!

But there is always hope in the recognition of self – like looking into the looking-glass of life and meeting someone’s confident gaze that you do in fact exist.

Who is John Galt?

Six years later, against all odds, I have great hope for where the collective is heading. Every day I meet more and more people who have begun to wake up out of the virtual reality that chronic mass delusion has created. For those of us who have taken the challenge of challenging our beliefs about “reality”, there is much in store for us. At this moment I believe, there is an army that is emerging out of a hyperly complex system, deep in the bowels of the collective unconscious. It is a rolling over – it is an uprise of unconsciousness and inaction, it is the creation of co-creation, a separation of the ego and a new formation of new ideas and spiritual awakenings.

I could go on and on… this wasn’t meant to be some dissertation or a call to action. Just a recognition of hope and a recognition of like-minded individuals, that we are not alone, that things are changing, that WE are changing, that evolution is our birthright.

New Reality Consumption

June 16, 2010

It is no mystery that what we place in our body has a great and profound relationship with our external world.  Just like all living beings, our physical bodies require air, food, and water; it is the quality of these staples that determine our state of health and vitality, as well of course, as our mental state of well-being.

Over time, our thoughts and feelings become affected by the toxins that we indirectly and regularly consume. As our collective consciousness expands, we are beginning to understand that the planet’s state of well-being is in direct relationship with our own. Many of us are retreating back into nature to renew what is inherently ours: a profound connection between the macro and the micro/ a communication between Man and his Cells – a communion between Human and Gaia.

Yesterday was my final day of a week-long raw foods diet. This diet was culminated with a vision quest with the aid of San Pedro Cactus deep in the forests of Washington state. San Pedro grows predominantly in the Andes mountains of South America and just like its North American cousin peyote, it is rich with mescaline and other healing properties. It has been used by shaman for thousands of years. Recently, western doctors, under the guidance of shamanic discipline and technique, have used san pedro to remedy diseases ranging from arthritis to cancer.

On a mental level, san pedro helps us to formulate a more sophisticated perception of reality. Like many true hallucinogens (magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, ibogaine) it guides the user into deeper states of consciousness. As one shaman describes: “San Pedro heals by fundamentally changing our perception of reality – our belief in what is real and possible for us – so we understand our true power and the healing abilities we have. “It shows us reality as it actually is, not how we think it is.”

“It changes what we think of as real so we see the power we humans have: we can manifest whatever we choose – if we believe we can.”

http://finalizations.com/san-pedro-the-miracle-healer.html

There is much taking place of which we are not aware.

Altered states of consciousness (taking san pedro, jumping out of an airplane, meditation, traveling) expand our filters of reality; altered states allow us to take in more information about the world at once. Most of us live under the law of expectation – we go into our day expecting to go to work, expecting to see people in the city, expecting things to happen as they’ve always happened.

Other people however are on their own “expectational adventures” and they use their own reality filters. Their reality is dependent on their beliefs about their own day-to-day life. All of our expectations come from a deeply imbedded idea of who we think we are and how we think we fit in with the rest of the world.

Collective expectations are what we are now currently agreed upon. We agree that our particular culture speaks this particular language, that money is of this value, and that gravity does what gravity is supposed to do. We expect certain things to exist. We expect certain things do not exist.

When we enter into an altered state of consciousness, we begin seeing more than we expect to see.

Multiple realities are happening all around us and they are all taking place at once. Every reality has its own certain truth and validity for the particular person who is experiencing it and believes it to be true. With that in mind, the collective reality isn’t necessarily true or necessarily good, but that still doesn’t not make it a reality for many people.

Becoming conscious is witnessing what we don’t expect to see. It is empowering one’s self to choose to be the creator rather than the created…not the garden but the gardener. Imagine your mind as a garden and imagine everything else as a potential seed that is constantly bombarding your mind. Everything you focus your attention on becomes planted in your garden and begins to grow. It is the gardener’s job to cultivate the seeds which enter his garden, it is his job to pull the weeds and that which does not serve him. We have the power to manage our gardens as diligently as we choose. The more carefully we process the external world, the more creative we can become with our filters. We can choose any reality we desire, but that desire must be made conscious, and then, it must be put into action.

I came away from this san pedro experience feeling fresh and revitalized. Synchronicities have already begun to stack up. The future looks hopeful.

I challenge the individual to maintain and cultivate how we choose to see the world. Place yourself out of your expectations, breath consciously and with intent. The more I do this, the more I find that certain things really start to stand out. Individuals make eye contact and a conversation leads to synchronicity. Reality expands on many levels…

External perceptions abroad and the sitcom “Friends.”

June 11, 2010

I have been back from Ethiopia for just over 5 weeks now. I have begun to settle again into what I once thought of as normal and what I now think of as a damn interesting game of energy exchange.

This morning, I received this email from an Ethiopian priest, one of the first Ethiopians we met on our trip and one who overwhelmed us with his kindness and hospitality. An excerpt:

Dear Mike, I frankly, am in financial crisis at this moment. I ask for pardon for asking money in our first contact via email, please, understand ! if you could intervine no matter how little, if you were able to send some thing via Western union, it could help me to push a little bit and move around for mission appeal. Mike and Amy, I consider you as my real brothers and friends.

Before I received this email, I was able to count 3 Ethiopians who we met on our trip who did NOT ask us for money during anytime in our relationship. Father Goesh was among this small number.

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There are several harsh realities we as travelers have to come to terms with.

Reality 1: our plane ticket to said country probably costs more than the majority of the people in that country earn in 5 years. (round trip ticket from Seattle to Ethiopia = $1,300)

Reality 2: the color of our skin tells people more about you than anything you could attempt to explain – whether it’s true or not

Reality 3: We get to go home at the end of the trip. They ARE home.

Anyone who has traveled to a more impoverished country than their own understands the challenges of being perceived as the financial savior sent from abroad. On any given day, it was common for us to be asked for money somewhere between 50-100 times in Ethiopia. This request was at times very serious, other times more like a kind of joke, while for others it was something that was taught to them by a parent, i.e. “When you see a ferenji, politely ask them for money and wait patiently until they give you some.”

So if we take the low estimate and multiply that by nine weeks, that means that we were asked for money roughly about 3,150 times during our stay in Ethiopia. There are obviously people you want to help and people that need help. But giving money to everyone is not practical.

A quick look at the average backpacker –

-Many of us have low paying jobs (if we are in fact employed),

-Most of us do not own our own home but are rather renting ($520 for a shared apartment in Seattle),

-Cost of food is considerably more in our own countries

-Does the average backpacker even have health insurance back home??

-Some of us have vehicles but after tacking on gas, insurance, parking, maintenance, etc….

-Entertainment is expensive ($3-$10 for a drink in a bar not to mention cover)

This is something that I have tried to explain to others abroad and I have been met by laughter and at times been called a liar. But the reality is, 1 out of 2 “backpackers” living in the United States between the ages of 18-28 would be considered to be living under the cultural economic standard of living.

Consider the fact that America is the largest soft product producer in the world. We export more culture than any other nation through a wide variety of media, and no matter where you are in the world, you can’t help but come across a coca-cola sign and a Brittany Spears poster.

Because of this, a lot of people in other countries think that wealth and comfort are simply benefits of living in America. I call it the “Friends” delusion. People across the world turn on the tv and watch an episode of Friends and can quite understandably assume that everyone in America is Caucasian, sits around and drinks coffee, doesn’t have a job, and has lots of money.

Anything that is considered “good” comes at the sacrifice of something that is also “good.” I highly recommend a documentary called “The Lost Boys of Sudan.” It follows five men orphaned by civil war who leave their huts one day and the next find themselves in Houston, Texas of all places, where they pursue the American dream only to discover that there “truly is no paradise on earth.” “No one in America has any friends,” one man tells a friend in Sudan over the phone. “I don’t have time to do anything.”

We travel to challenge who we are and to challenge our beliefs about the world at large. It is a two way street. Our perceptions about the world are just as subjective as the world’s perception about us. Our interactions with different individuals will result in different experiences for all involved. I may act pleasant with all I encounter, but not everyone will consider me to be a pleasant person. So is it more important to be perceived as pleasant or is it more important to believe yourself to be pleasant? Which truth is more true?

I am a firm advocator of challenging your beliefs and traveling is a good way to do this. Always remember, that once your beliefs have been challenged, you will hang in a limbo state as you restructure your views of reality. This may take a year, a month, or a moment. I have been able to do some major restructuring since my last trip abroad, but nothing permanent has been put in its place yet.

Reshaping the collective – abandoning fear

June 9, 2010

We have the ability and capacity to change everything. We can use certain influences that have previously been against our own individual thought, i.e. television. It is becoming more commonly known that information, along with the power of individual choice are spreading like fire. We have the power to show the world, the collective, another reality. That life isn’t all scandal and that it certainly isn’t fear. Before I left on my 21 month hitchhiking trip through Latin America, nearly everyone I came in contact with told me I had a death wish. Because this is what the media proclaims. That life outside of our homes is uncertain and dangerous. That people, our neighbors!, are suspect to God knows what.

Most of us, I believe, are waking up to this reality…the reality that life is much more than we have been led to believe. It is a blossoming reality that is happening at an individual and collective level. We are magnificent co-creators and when we choose to link up with other like-minded people, or dare to discover familiarity in unfamiliar situations, we begin to recreate what has been deemed destroyed, or worse, static.

It doesn’t cost a cent to question the world we live in, to ask ourselves if the reality we live is the same reality that other people see. The purpose of our films is to convey a new reality. A reality that all of us live but few of us see.

These volatile times are very exciting! As the forest burns down new growth is emerging in remarkable and powerful ways. We are becoming the leaders we have been asking for. In this new phase of leadership, we must lend our secrets of success to all who are willing to mutually succeed. Dare to create collectively, share the power of information, and question, always question, if reality is really what those in power tell us it is.

Conscious MapMaking

June 6, 2010

MapMaking is a continuing process. As we collectively go through this time of acceleration, many of us are changing and transforming in radical ways. Some of us are doing this consciously, some not so consciously. If we choose to change, the first step is to make it a conscious change.

As our consciousness expands, it does so on a macro and a micro scale. The more we open ourselves to new views and ideas, the more highlighted the connections become. This can be taken all the way down to the neural pathways – energy highways in our mind that we consciously choose to allow more traffic to travel upon.

When we form connections about the external world we form them about the internal as well. New patterns begin to emerge where before it was just this unfiltered barrage of random information. We see that our actions take on new meaning when they are done consciously. If our actions are done consciously then it is because we have thought our actions into consciousness, hence, conscious thought.

Now get this: conscious thought begets self-empowerment! A conscious being living in reality can identify his or her beliefs and thus question these beliefs about his or her reality. The more we question our beliefs the more patterns begin to surface – we begin to create a map of our OWN particular reality (6 billion perceptions can’t all be right, you dig?).

Consciously scrutinizing our map, we begin to see a map that tolerates certain beliefs and doesn’t tolerate others. Long held views about the world begin to surface – and since everything reflects the micro, it is only natural that similar long held beliefs about ourselves surface as well. The more we analyze our map of reality the more flexible the reality becomes, due to the conscious awareness of the rigidity of our previous map!

Suddenly, we have become more self-empowered because we realize that we are no longer at the whim of some external “force.”  If we have consciously acknowledged that certain fear-based beliefs no longer fit or agree with our map of reality they quite simply fade away and eventually disappear. This is quite a shift from the vicarious reality of being influenced by the media, pundits, politicians, nay-sayers, wet blankets, nincompoops, and the like.

We are a very powerful bunch. And it is my personal belief that the vast majority of us are not assholes. That being said, the more conscious we become the more power we have to create a new reality, a collective reality, that is interdependent on a community of like-minded people willing to learn and share from one another. This is not utopia talk. This is practical talk. We are a very powerful bunch and in my opinion we are not stupid. In fact, we’re beginning to realize just how powerfully conscious we are becoming.