Promoting SENSE
The Global Centre promotes the "spiritually-engaged sustainability" (SES) orientation and framework. But this needs to be based on either a SENSE of Sustainability or contribute to the development of such a SENSE.
SENSE is about a sense of spiritually-engaged sustainability. Like all other senses, we need to develop that "SENSE of SUSTAINABILITY". There are many genuine initiatives and movements promoting this. These initiatives and movements offer research, learning and action platforms for developing this sense of sustainability. It is a sense that will help us create alternative spiritually-engaged sustainable worlds.
References are made here to many initiatives that promote SENSE. They are not initiated by the Global Centre. The Centre believes in mutual support, promotion, consolidation, and networking on trust and friendship. You can help by adding to this effort: Please report broken or expired link. Please provide new links.
SENSE is about a sense of spiritually-engaged sustainability. Like all other senses, we need to develop that "SENSE of SUSTAINABILITY". There are many genuine initiatives and movements promoting this. These initiatives and movements offer research, learning and action platforms for developing this sense of sustainability. It is a sense that will help us create alternative spiritually-engaged sustainable worlds.
References are made here to many initiatives that promote SENSE. They are not initiated by the Global Centre. The Centre believes in mutual support, promotion, consolidation, and networking on trust and friendship. You can help by adding to this effort: Please report broken or expired link. Please provide new links.
As Urban Leaves evolves in response to the realities of life in Mumbai and with the diverse contributions of its volunteers, it still follows its mission and vision to * Support people to create urban farms and community gardens, ** Experiment and learn different ways of growing, and ***
Integrate people's food habits at home with what is grown and facilitate people's return to living with the cycles of nature. More Here. School For Well BeingThe School for Wellbeing also founds its inspiration in the concept of Critical Holism. “Critical Holism is an uncommon synthesis. Criticism and holism refer to different modes of cognition. This makes it a welcome synthesis: without a critical edge, holism easily becomes totalizing, romantic, soggy. Without holism, criticism easily turns flat, sour.”
Navdanya means “nine seeds” (symbolizing protection of biological and cultural diversity) and also the “new gift” (for seed as commons, based on the right to save and share seeds In today’s context of biological and ecological destruction, seed savers are the true givers of seed. This gift or “dana” of Navadhanyas (nine seeds) is the ultimate gift – it is a gift of life, of heritage and continuity. Conserving seed is conserving biodiversity, conserving knowledge of the seed and its utilization, conserving culture, conserving sustainability. Navdanya is a network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 17 states in India. More Here.
Gross National Happiness (GNH)"Since 1971, the country has rejected GDP as the only way to measure progress. In its place, it has championed a new approach to development, which measures prosperity through formal principles of gross national happiness (GNH) and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of its citizens and natural environment.
For the past three decades, this belief that wellbeing should take preference over material growth has remained a global oddity. Now, in a world beset by collapsing financial systems, gross inequity and wide-scale environmental destruction, this tiny Buddhist state's approach is attracting a lot of interest." (See here for full article) Also see here: Gross National Happiness/Centre for Bhutan Studies Gross National Happiness USA Vaidyagrama: Ayurveda Healing Village
Vaidyagrama is a built environment, 'grown' with the principles of an ideal Ayurveda center, as prescribed in the classical Ayurveda texts. The commitment is to create a truly natural Ayurveda healing centre, with a global reach, that is primarily guided by the wisdom and orientation of ancient Ayurveda texts. This commitment has naturally led to the comprehensive incorporation of the concerns for and principles of sustainability. The spaces allotted for each specific place for healing, the materials used for construction, the landscaping and even the vegetation are for an Ayurveda reason – wisdom for the comprehensive healing process to be complete.
Support This Initiative Here. (Punarnava Foundation) A supportive link here. Global Witness"The world has recently woken up to the vital importance of forests in mitigating and adapting to climate change. If we don’t end and reverse the trend in deforestation, a planetary life support system will be lost and climate change will be severe and irreversible. This grave threat is also a huge opportunity to redefine the political and financial landscape of forests.But how forests are managed is not just an environmental concern – it’s a human rights and development issue too. Over 1.6bn people live in the world’s forests, and many of them rely on them for everything – the poorer the people, the greater the reliance. Global Witness is working to ensure forests are managed sustainably, and benefit the communities that directly depend on them. Most critically, this means keeping industrial loggers out of the 20 per cent of forests that have not yet been logged. And it means making sure that governments listen and give all citizens a proper say in what happens to their land. edit."
Support DamanhurDamanhur, is an eco-society based on ethical and spiritual values, awarded by an agency of the United Nations as a model for a sustainable future. Founded in 1975, the Federation has about 1,000 citizens and extends over 500 hectares of territory throughout Valchiusella and the Alto Canavese area in Italy, at the foothills of the Piedmont Alps. Damanhur is a collective dream transformed into reality thanks to the creative power of positive thought.It is a laboratory for the future, a seed that has been growing for over thirty years, constantly transforming and renewing itself so as to bring to life the reality its citizens together dreamed of and built.
Damanhur EcoCommunity on video here. Water and Spirituality Campaign
"Click to Enlarge"
"We live in a time of environmental, social and economic crisis, where a redefinition of the values of our society is called for, in a joint effort to find new ways of living on Earth. We must place water in a sphere of care and sacredness. Water, which has always been associated with the sacred feminine, is a generous mother who feeds and nurtures her children...We need to rescue the spiritual meaning connected to water, an element that pertains to all of us...In the closing of this 10 year cycle (Water Decade 2005-2015), when various dimensions of water have been addressed, it is crucial to recognize the sacred and intangible dimension of the element that is the basis for all life.
"The Water and Spirituality Campaign is a movement without any partisan or religious affiliation, which aims to create a global alliance towards a new understanding of the role of Water, our source of life, within our consumer-oriented societies. This new understanding can foster care and respect for all life forms, by demonstrating the existence and value of the intangible connection that the human race and all beings have with water...." Sign the petition here! (* Photos by Nat taken at the sacred event - The Mahakumbh Mela - in Allahabad, India, Feb 2013, where the campaign was enacted as a carnival.) |
Marinaleda:
|
Frank Lloyd Wright’s 10-Point Manifesto
1. An honest ego in a healthy body.
2. An eye to see nature
3. A heart to feel nature
4. Courage to follow nature
5. The sense of proportion (humor)
6. Appreciation of work as idea and idea as work
7. Fertility of imagination
8. Capacity for faith and rebellion
9. Disregard for commonplace (inorganic) elegance
10. Instinctive cooperation
Note
FLW, an American architect, wrote this for his apprentices. But it is really something that can be used by anybody who is attempting to design a sustainable future. (More here.)
2. An eye to see nature
3. A heart to feel nature
4. Courage to follow nature
5. The sense of proportion (humor)
6. Appreciation of work as idea and idea as work
7. Fertility of imagination
8. Capacity for faith and rebellion
9. Disregard for commonplace (inorganic) elegance
10. Instinctive cooperation
Note
FLW, an American architect, wrote this for his apprentices. But it is really something that can be used by anybody who is attempting to design a sustainable future. (More here.)
Hannover Principles: Designing for Sustainability
THE HANNOVER PRINCIPLES
- Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
- Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
- Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
- Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems and their right to co-exist.
- Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards.
- Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
- Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
- Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not as an inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
- Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.
Case Studies Needed
We seek your support to refer us to case studies, initiatives, or sites that are great examples of "spiritually-engaged sustainability" or of SENSE. You can also submit any case studies that you may have. The idea is to offer interested people stuff that the futures can be made of...i.e. ideas of designs of and for our diverse spiritually-informed sustainable futures.
