The enlightened seeker aligns with the divine will over his ego's will. Then naturally they align with the divine plan unfolding on the planet. This is the beginning of true freedom, as they are initiated into life's mysteries and into a greater spiritual responsibility. As they learn to receive more in a constant state of grace and ease, they can offer more back in divine service to all. It is this subtle awakening that has inspired me to create this Awakening Freedom web site and movement. - Davin Infinity, AF founder
Eco-Cities and Suburban and Rural Eco-Villages
Ecocity development integrates vision, citizen initiative, public administration, ecologically efficient industry, people's needs and aspirations, harmonious culture, and landscapes where nature, agriculture and the built environment are functionally integrated in a healthy way. Ecocity development requires:
1. Ecological security - clean air, and safe, reliable water supplies, food, healthy housing and workplaces, municipal services and protection against disasters for all people.
2. Ecological sanitation - efficient, cost-effective eco-engineering for treating and recycling human excreta, gray water, and all wastes.
3. Ecological industrial metabolism - resource conservation and environmental protection through industrial transition, emphasizing materials re-use, life-cycle production, renewable energy, efficient transportation, and meeting human needs.
4. Ecoscape (ecological-landscape) integrity - arrange built structures, open spaces such as parks and plazas, connectors such as streets and bridges, and natural features such as waterways and ridgelines, to maximize biodiversity and maximize accessibility of the city for all citizens while conserving energy and resources and alleviating such problems as automobile accidents, air pollution, hydrological deterioration, heat island effects and global warming.
5. Ecological awareness - help people understand their place in nature, cultural identity, responsibility for the environment, and help them change their consumption behavior and enhance their ability to contribute to maintaining high quality urban ecosystems.
— Guidelines adopted by the 5th International Ecocity Conference delegation, Shenzhen China, 2002
For more info: http://www.ecocityworldsummit.org
Richard Register is one of the world's great theorists and authors in ecological city design and planning. The founder of Urban Ecology and Ecocity Builders, he convened the first International Ecocity Conference in 1990. http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/
The San Francisco Ecocity Declaration
An ecocity is an ecologically healthy city. Into the deep future, the cities in which we live must enable people to thrive in harmony with nature and achieve sustainable development. People oriented, ecocity development requires the comprehensive understanding of complex interactions between environmental, economic, political and socio-cultural factors based on ecological principles. Cities, towns and villages should be designed to enhance the health and quality of life of their inhabitants and maintain the ecosystems on which they depend.
More info: http://www.greencenturyinstitute.org/califia.htm
1. Ecological security - clean air, and safe, reliable water supplies, food, healthy housing and workplaces, municipal services and protection against disasters for all people.
2. Ecological sanitation - efficient, cost-effective eco-engineering for treating and recycling human excreta, gray water, and all wastes.
3. Ecological industrial metabolism - resource conservation and environmental protection through industrial transition, emphasizing materials re-use, life-cycle production, renewable energy, efficient transportation, and meeting human needs.
4. Ecoscape (ecological-landscape) integrity - arrange built structures, open spaces such as parks and plazas, connectors such as streets and bridges, and natural features such as waterways and ridgelines, to maximize biodiversity and maximize accessibility of the city for all citizens while conserving energy and resources and alleviating such problems as automobile accidents, air pollution, hydrological deterioration, heat island effects and global warming.
5. Ecological awareness - help people understand their place in nature, cultural identity, responsibility for the environment, and help them change their consumption behavior and enhance their ability to contribute to maintaining high quality urban ecosystems.
— Guidelines adopted by the 5th International Ecocity Conference delegation, Shenzhen China, 2002
For more info: http://www.ecocityworldsummit.org
Richard Register is one of the world's great theorists and authors in ecological city design and planning. The founder of Urban Ecology and Ecocity Builders, he convened the first International Ecocity Conference in 1990. http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/
The San Francisco Ecocity Declaration
An ecocity is an ecologically healthy city. Into the deep future, the cities in which we live must enable people to thrive in harmony with nature and achieve sustainable development. People oriented, ecocity development requires the comprehensive understanding of complex interactions between environmental, economic, political and socio-cultural factors based on ecological principles. Cities, towns and villages should be designed to enhance the health and quality of life of their inhabitants and maintain the ecosystems on which they depend.
More info: http://www.greencenturyinstitute.org/califia.htm
The Shift Networks amazing and comprehensive Presentation for a Sustainable and Thriving Humanity (Click here)
How to establish an intentional community from the book Creating a Life Together by Diana Christian.
This book deals in depth with structural, interpersonal and leadership issues, decision-making methods, vision statements, and the development of a legal structure, as well as profiling well-established model communities. The movement towards creating sustainable communities has gained increased prominence with approaches such as New Urbanism, yet there are few examples of the successes. This text offers an analysis of one such example: Village Homes outside Davis, California. The area offers features including extensive common areas and green space; community gardens, orchards and vineyeards; narrow streets; pedestrian and bike paths; solar homes; and an innovative ecological drainage system. The authors were instrumental in the design of Village Homes and draw extensively on their practical experiences, as well as examples from a number of other sustainable village projects, to deliver a comprehensive analysis of the process of designing and building sustainable communities.
The best example of Intentional Community, Urban City Permaculture & a Resource Economy:
Portland, Oregon's Annual 10 day Village Building Convergence: http://vbc.cityrepair.org/
Earthships - natural, simple, yet state of the art
An Earthship is a type of passive solar house made of natural and recycled materials. Designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico, the homes are primarily constructed to work autonomously and are generally made of earth-filled tires, using thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. They also
usually have their own special natural ventilation system. Earthships
are generally Off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. The original Earthships' designs were at first very experimental,
but with practice and evolution the houses began looking attractive.
Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources, especially energy from the Sun. For example, windows on sun-facing walls admit lighting and heating, and the buildings are often horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter months. The thick, dense inner walls provide thermal mass that naturally regulates the interior temperature during both cold and hot outside temperatures.
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources, especially energy from the Sun. For example, windows on sun-facing walls admit lighting and heating, and the buildings are often horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter months. The thick, dense inner walls provide thermal mass that naturally regulates the interior temperature during both cold and hot outside temperatures.
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
Resource Economy & New Economic Structures
Ownership. Property. This is mine. This is yours. Do you think you own
anything? You don’t. Ownership is an illusion. So is property. Why?
Because all the things you use are only used by you temporarily before
they are passed on or thrown away. Be it food, clothing, cars,
property, furniture, cell phones, air, water.
This movement is about what a moneyless resource-based society can be like on this planet. Sharing ideas, visions, thoughts and plans in this regard. Take care of every ones basic needs first, then explore creativity and sharing, and then let an economy build around that structure and flow afterwards.
To learn more, visit: http://www.theresourcebasedeconomy.com/
www.greenbusinessnetworking.org - www.metacurrency.org
This movement is about what a moneyless resource-based society can be like on this planet. Sharing ideas, visions, thoughts and plans in this regard. Take care of every ones basic needs first, then explore creativity and sharing, and then let an economy build around that structure and flow afterwards.
To learn more, visit: http://www.theresourcebasedeconomy.com/
www.greenbusinessnetworking.org - www.metacurrency.org
Open Source Ecology & Culture
The term open source
describes practices in production and development that promote access
to the end product's source materials. A main principle and practice of
open source software development is peer production by bartering,
sharing and collaboration with the end-product, source-material,
"blueprints" and documentation available at no cost to the public.
The principle of sharing predates the open source movement; for example, the free sharing of information has been institutionalized in the scientific enterprise since at least the 19th century. Open source principles have always been part of the scientific community.
The sociologist Robert K. Merton described the four basic elements of the community:
- universalism (an international perspective),
- communism (sharing information),
- disinterestedness (removing one's personal views from the scientific inquiry) and
- organized skepticism (requirements of proof and review) that accurately describe the scientific community today.
These principles are, in part, complemented by US law's focus on protecting expression and method but not the ideas themselves. There is also a tradition of publishing research results to the scientific community instead of keeping all such knowledge proprietary. One of the recent initiatives in scientific publishing has been open access - the idea that research should be published in such a way that it is free and available to the public.
Open Source Ecology develops open source technology for sustainable living. This facility is an intentional communy known as Open Source Enterprise Learning Community. In this community, a sustainable lifestyle involves providing many of the basic needs from on-site resources - food, housing, energy, transportation, and culture. We engage in what we call neo-subsistence, or technologically advanced subsistence that blends ancient wisdom and new technology to provide a high quality of life. The lifestyle includes meaningful work, service to the greater global community, and leisure to pursue one's true interests. Neo-subsistence involves wise utilization of resources and best practices that keeps overhead low and helps us to focus on our mission.
The principle of sharing predates the open source movement; for example, the free sharing of information has been institutionalized in the scientific enterprise since at least the 19th century. Open source principles have always been part of the scientific community.
The sociologist Robert K. Merton described the four basic elements of the community:
- universalism (an international perspective),
- communism (sharing information),
- disinterestedness (removing one's personal views from the scientific inquiry) and
- organized skepticism (requirements of proof and review) that accurately describe the scientific community today.
These principles are, in part, complemented by US law's focus on protecting expression and method but not the ideas themselves. There is also a tradition of publishing research results to the scientific community instead of keeping all such knowledge proprietary. One of the recent initiatives in scientific publishing has been open access - the idea that research should be published in such a way that it is free and available to the public.
Open Source Ecology develops open source technology for sustainable living. This facility is an intentional communy known as Open Source Enterprise Learning Community. In this community, a sustainable lifestyle involves providing many of the basic needs from on-site resources - food, housing, energy, transportation, and culture. We engage in what we call neo-subsistence, or technologically advanced subsistence that blends ancient wisdom and new technology to provide a high quality of life. The lifestyle includes meaningful work, service to the greater global community, and leisure to pursue one's true interests. Neo-subsistence involves wise utilization of resources and best practices that keeps overhead low and helps us to focus on our mission.
I am imagining a robust network of such groups that will share among each other the perspectives and skills they learn and will collaborate with one another on larger visions and endeavors. There will be a facilitative core that helps organize and guide the network according to the principles and directions that emerge from within the network. Again, I don't know how to do this, but there are people reading this who will have much more experience and ideas along these lines than I will. From out of these circles and the more comprehensive wholes that form from them, the network can evolve various kinds of more universal social and economic patterns. Some such models might include the following:
Village Fairs: Weekly community gatherings where local people may interconnect, exchange, and celebrate together.
Town Halls or Community Centers: Full time centers for learning, exchange, social interaction, and civic dialogue.
Town Squares or Commons: Outdoor places with space for markets, meeting places, community gatherings, social intercourse, community gardens, demonstration gardens, and any other collectively beneficial activities.
Ecovillages: Small urban, suburban, or rural settlements where people meet their social, economic, material, and spiritual needs locally, cooperatively, and sustainably.
Living Economy: An economic system that supports wholesome rather than destructive environmental, human, and transcendent ways of life.
Inclusive Power: As the now dominant system disintegrates and collapses of its own contradictions, this resilient and robust network of human hearts may one day arise from the ashes and form a resilient collective power that takes us to a new level of evolution. Indeed, I see that emerging even now.
The fruits of such a social network will be innumerable. We will not only nurture our deep human endowments without harming each other and the environment, but also collectively create the world we have dreamed of. These small fellowship circles will form the social cocoon in which we may transfigure from the furry little earthbound caterpillars we have been to awaken as the beautiful unfettered butterflies we always contained the matrix for deep inside. -Brad Smith, Eco Activist of Culture
For more info on Open Source Ecology & Culture: www.opensourceecolgy.org
The Social Network for Sustainability: www.wiserearth.org
A LIVING EXAMPLE: The Green School
Village Fairs: Weekly community gatherings where local people may interconnect, exchange, and celebrate together.
Town Halls or Community Centers: Full time centers for learning, exchange, social interaction, and civic dialogue.
Town Squares or Commons: Outdoor places with space for markets, meeting places, community gatherings, social intercourse, community gardens, demonstration gardens, and any other collectively beneficial activities.
Ecovillages: Small urban, suburban, or rural settlements where people meet their social, economic, material, and spiritual needs locally, cooperatively, and sustainably.
Living Economy: An economic system that supports wholesome rather than destructive environmental, human, and transcendent ways of life.
Inclusive Power: As the now dominant system disintegrates and collapses of its own contradictions, this resilient and robust network of human hearts may one day arise from the ashes and form a resilient collective power that takes us to a new level of evolution. Indeed, I see that emerging even now.
The fruits of such a social network will be innumerable. We will not only nurture our deep human endowments without harming each other and the environment, but also collectively create the world we have dreamed of. These small fellowship circles will form the social cocoon in which we may transfigure from the furry little earthbound caterpillars we have been to awaken as the beautiful unfettered butterflies we always contained the matrix for deep inside. -Brad Smith, Eco Activist of Culture
For more info on Open Source Ecology & Culture: www.opensourceecolgy.org
The Social Network for Sustainability: www.wiserearth.org
A LIVING EXAMPLE: The Green School
SOLUTION : 2.) The Human Potential & Spiritual Technology
All paths to sustainability seem dependent on finding ways to catalyze and nurture a collective awakening of our conscious capacity to be transformed. For if we do not change our attitudes and ways of living that are destroying our relationships, societies, and the natural ecosystems upon which we all depend, we face a bleak future.
The changes we need to make must be on a monumental scale if we want to avert wholesale suffering and death as our way of life expands more and more beyond the capacity of the social and ecological systems that sustain us. This will require a global collective awakening from the unconscious cultural conditioning we have been subjected to since birth. Since we are fundamentally social creatures and actually learn and develop socially rather than as isolated individuals, the question I ask is this: how can we create a healthy and compelling new social context that will catalyze the necessary awakening and facilitate our living together in a happy and sustainable manner?
To see an overview of the convergence of the planetary shift we live in and the dormant human abilities and knowledge that are now being activated and awakened, please visit our section on the Ascension: http://awakenfreedom.weebly.com/the-ascension.html
2012 - The Revolution Has Begun
An incredible video connecting all of the Challenges and Solutions:
The changes we need to make must be on a monumental scale if we want to avert wholesale suffering and death as our way of life expands more and more beyond the capacity of the social and ecological systems that sustain us. This will require a global collective awakening from the unconscious cultural conditioning we have been subjected to since birth. Since we are fundamentally social creatures and actually learn and develop socially rather than as isolated individuals, the question I ask is this: how can we create a healthy and compelling new social context that will catalyze the necessary awakening and facilitate our living together in a happy and sustainable manner?
To see an overview of the convergence of the planetary shift we live in and the dormant human abilities and knowledge that are now being activated and awakened, please visit our section on the Ascension: http://awakenfreedom.weebly.com/the-ascension.html
2012 - The Revolution Has Begun
An incredible video connecting all of the Challenges and Solutions:
THE REVOLUTION IS YOU. THE EXPERIENCE IS YOU. YOU ARE THE ANSWER.
See for yourself: