Saturday, March 29, 2014

True Gift Culture - ReFashion Rising




water color renditions of garment upcycles

True Gift Culture is now the umbrella name for the ReFashion Hub. This enterprise is now in gestation but birth is imminent.

(Seeking interested everyones. This is way beyond the clothes and will butt heads with multiple false beliefs and the systems built in their honor. Artists, students, poets, writers, crafters, healers, organizers, promoters, it takes a village to raise a child or fly a phoenix)


This morning, Charlie Rose had a segment about the gift economy. This was good to see as PBS is mainstreamish now, with Nova  produced by David Koch and the NewsHour with it’s  iffy sponsors. (The noise in the background is justification, it is everywhere, ignore it)

A few years ago, I wrote about the essay, Money and the Divine Masculine after seeing Charles Eisenstein’s video from his book, Sacred Economies. I was inspired and heartened. After all the bad news about banking cartels and the economic Gigantor complex, this voice from the wild web was a perfect gift, right in time. (Uni-verse appears to like a good game of faith and woes) 

So YES!  we shall overcome all the fear based, psychologically wounding and ecosystems damaging thinking that is pushing the world madly towards a precipice it won’t recognize for what it really is; a systemic failure.  The ignorance of false beliefs at the core cannot be bandaged by intelligent dressings on the surface. Eventually the disease is onerous and gets enough attention that we “see” it. That time is now…and now  and now.

And no sweetie, this isn’t an opportunity for more control, domination, more symptom cures or more faulty sustainability programs. No m’dear-that rumble in the streets is a wake up scream and people are responding.  We are human beings and we can do better and we will. Let us all help each other and we will all heal from the insanity we inherited.  Our childhood tapes need to be faced, which will help us understand why we got here and how to proceed. We know this stuff! We just put most of our attentions elsewhere.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Makers Faire at EMP


I have been working in the background.

Writing drafts, starting a lexicon of new words for new stories and gathering a group of like minded people who are more than ready to take on a large, multi layered project.

Working title: ReFashion Hub

This Sunday I will be joining the terrific cast of Sew Up Seattle at a booth in the Mini Mekers Faire which in turn is part of the  "Seattle Tool Libraries and Fixers Collective" at EMP.

EMP is the self proclaimed 

"leading-edge, nonprofit
museum, dedicated to the ideas
and risk-taking that fuel
contemporary popular culture."

I have a personal intern (not) story about a summer i ended up volunteering for the Museum warehouse, with a prior expectation of credits that did not manifest as discussed. I hope this flaw has been mended. On the upside, i got to work with an amazing high res camera and see bands and old friends resurfacing in posters and memorabilia. 

Oh yes and a Refuzor story.....later.

So, I am looking forward to this event in many ways.

Volunteering with Sew Up Seattle is righteous! Doing it at EMP, ironic. In a group of Fixers-sublime.

Ideas and Risk -Taking that fuel pop culture -how sweet the dare.

The risk is in the not taking and the pop is about to explode (fireworks).

The Olde Timey Takers Paradigm is in need of new, fresh stories, as saving face and justifications can not prevail, much longer.  The wholesale ignorance of former beliefs is ragging up  exposed surfaces, the foul bits need discarding, the healthy remnants need reclaiming.  We are showing up to heal and reSet the course.

ReFashion can be all this.  In the new hub it will.



Tuesday, March 4, 2014

reDress for Revelations


yield to love 
photo op provided 
by local anon artist and the dept of transportation.

Transparency and Livelihood pages from the Sustainable Fashion Handbook, by Sandy Black



The other night, my friend and i got into a biblical discussion. This happens when you are playing around with ideas, myths, stories and beliefs. Keeping an open mind, not judging and the like is not as easy as it sounds..and really at the end of the day, I find i judge -not person, but content; else how do i respond or act on information?

Like the Adam and Eve thing. I was taught the whole story with Eve the Clone Woman as the garden scapegoat that got Adam the Tattler and herself - kicked out of the garden of Eden. (my later date edits) In that story i came away with concepts of nakedness, guilt and shame. This intro to sin 101 has been used to rule a lot of people for a very long time. I am not saying all rules are "bad" just saying that those who could make the rules-did so, and that means bias. (ref at bottom of entry)

Then, fairly recently, a fresh nuance leaped out. The word "naked" as in "they saw they were naked"-implies vulnerability. Conscious vulnerability is huge...and fear is its nemesis.

So now i see that the version of the story i was told, fit splendidly into what was already a patriarchal construct designed for protection and group collaboration in scary days of yore. The bias was, well "everybody knows" right?

Putting my head into the scene is all suppose-it but even so, to think of the predators and uncertainties; well what were people to do?  When life feels threatened, safety and security looks good. Those stepping up to defend and protect were classic heroes.

So i am thinking, what started as good intent, just grew beyond its real need but because so many years of choosing to flee or fight made it the probable choice, it like had to be sustained (Laws of Probability QP) Therefore it grew and became its own "entity a system" which then started defending its right to exist. This is a bio mimicry whack thing,  but there it is.

As ego was also emerging and evolving at this time and the individuating process was set into motion; it is easy to see how the biggest egos started running the tribes. They in turn formed those "we are so cool"  leadership cliques who set the rules. This also accounts for the "rewards" of leadership, because power had to continue to exert itself, strut, look big, scary et al in order to deter rivals  From masks, to war paint and mighty artillery intimidation devices, the past has influenced the present.

Therefore when the stories that became the Bible, were collected, there were a lot of accepted knowns. And according to Mark Twain, and many examples concur, "
it’s not what you don’t know, but what you know for sure that gets you into trouble."
(Thnx Wayne Dyer for pulling this quote in his latest
PBS special, "I Can See Clearly Now.")

So it's the translation and the bias that "everybody knows" that has colored our world  and this is what is now being questioned. The voice of authority is no longer enough, it’s content , not just context.

The collective curiosity is asking why, who, what when and where. The answer arrives at the level of the question. This keeps unfolding the path of life’s journeys New information elicits new paths of thinking this fuels  imagination and boosts creativity. This is what evolutionary, radical change looks like- it is ongoing,  as thoughts and actions continue to explore life.

Our conversation ended with Revelations and the whole Armageddon thing which i was taking as a story of what is in store if we don't wake up and change the patterns. My friend saw it as more prophetic and literal. We are both right.


Nature's gracious natural abilities to endure trauma and restore diverse abundance continues being defiled by the ignorance of beliefs set into motion ages ago.  These beliefs are connected to the construct of tradition, heritage, education, religion, money and economics.  "Grow up, me kiddies, planet "time" is getting short." 

But because a western majority has relied on this level of thinking, these beliefs, we are having a hard time  leaping out of this madness” and instead, just keep digging in deeper.  Even as our human situation becomes ever more a story of having a tiger by the tail, our cognitive dissonance, our abilities to justify our actions, keeps many of us just  going around and around. I suspect this might be a remnant “  a classic expectation for an authority to step up and save us as, old habits die hard.  (Even as time and again it is the people who step up provoke the change, leadership falls back into old patterns et al)

Now the fear to let go is almost as bad as the fear of holding on. 

So Revelations is not a dire punishing, threatening, cataclysmic winnowing, because that doesn't align with god (gaiad, uni-verse, the one) being LOVE.  


Revelation means revealed, as in all is being revealed. Well Yes!! that is what's happening,
Manning, Snowden, the bank systems exposed for the institutions of debt they have become, the edits of history queried and unwoven, the whole hierarchical construct is looking shabby and not chic, and technology has opened our ability to see, hear and understand more than ever before. Many see that we can align with the Great Mother and the Great Father, see that they are entwined, are as one. Nature and consciousness witnessed by life and transformed by choices that collapse energy waves into particles; this range of possibilities is as infinite, and so it is. This is what we are awakening to understand, we are more, life is more, God is more.

So, Revelations is not a death sentence but a waking up from who we thought we were, to align with who we can be.. a new beginning.

In the new beginning...there were many new stories. They were shared amongst the people, and helped them learn to see and act in harmony with the laws of the uni-verse. This is how the people healed the planet, themselves and all of life rejoiced.

And it was done in the very nick of time, because all good stories thrive on drama!!

PS In a new story, human potential, natural abundance,  energy and choices will align to rewire our systems.  Tools and tech will be utilized for understanding, learning and sharing. The idea of profit will grow, as wanting to contribute is a part of who we are. This will assure diversity as every beings potential is different. This matters because diversity is good for healthy ecosystems and imaginations. We need, want thrive and soar with both, they are entwined.

References:

FROM Bible Hub 

Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

But plot shifts after the forbidden fruit and shame is inferred.

 Genesis 3.7  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths
Posted by deborah at 7:45 AM 

Professor of Fashion and Textile Design and Technology at the Centre For Sustainable Fashion at LCF - See more at: http://www.daisygreenmagazine.co.uk/fashion/daisy-picks/the-sustainable-fashion-handbook/#sthash.vhofKQy6.dpuf
Professor of Fashion and Textile Design and Technology at the Centre For Sustainable Fashion at LCF - See more at: http://www.daisygreenmagazine.co.uk/fashion/daisy-picks/the-sustainable-fashion-handbook/#sthash.vhofKQy6.dpuf)