Suzanne, I am honored to know you and the beautiful invitation you offered to the world. My sense is that this "contest" is evolving into something even more profound and actionable. I have some ideas to share with you once you finish your reading and selection process. In the meantime, the world is a better place for all those evolutionary pathways to be documented.
Hi Maurice, I agree wholeheartedly! Suzanne is inspiring many of us to presence a future that serves all of humanity, not a select few. I'm excited by the potential that we have to effect this positive change... NOW! Enjoy... Stu
Thanks for your good submission and right on. This seems t to possibly be of greater value than I had anticipated. Catch me when I'm past evaluating!!!!
What a great idea, to share these snippets, Suzanne! Very inspiring. What I'd like to suggest is that you continue this idea by including us in your decision process. Perhaps let us read your top 10 and vote on them... tiered voting, where we get 3 votes with differing weights: our 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Then the calculation comes... and the winner and runners up will be announced...! Then, let us step, together, into those visions!
I love this. I also would absolutely love to see the ones that "don't make the cut". I am super curious about the space in between all these ideas. The context, the relationship between them all and if there is an opportunity to coalesce them into one project. Suzanne seems to be doing an amazing job at catalylizing transformative energy into movement. Maybe there is a way to keep the energy moving as a web? Money is always the "issue" that stops most people...but maybe there could be an idea there too?? I would be very up for thinking together about how to make it happen.
Next steps after awards are to maximize value, where there is so much richness even in entries that won't win awards. I've got a tiger by the tail and for today I have to stay focused on evaluation, but I still have a little voice poking me about what to do where I have thoughts of Zooms for people who wrote very good entries and you'd be among them.
Hallo Again Adriana ! I too wish to read them all, there is bound to be a wealth of inspiration here. I have some experience in "seed funding in kind" That was my approach to helping to bring so many essays in. Happy to do the same again ...... Peace, Maurice
Yes I’m also super interested in finding out ways in which the collective benefits from the collective and heals it in turn…It’s seems like the perfect medicine for such an individualised culture such as ours…
Thanks Adriana for your enthusiasm. I think we are witnessing the birth of a movement here, a Global Collective. Group Introspection delivers healthy cultures. Thanks for subscribing, Peace, Maurice
Sharing good seeds is core. Maybe have the 'top' ideas somewhere more permanent than a one time post.. on you website, with a hyperlink in your Substack Now What?
Yes, they need a permanent home. Also some combing through them all to extract excerpts. I wonder if there would be any volunteers to work on that. I even could hire someone...???
Your comment about starting to cry touched me. I feel like that daily with the constantly depressing news, ignorance and self-serving, broken politics. But ever hopeful and beleagueredly optimistic, I commend your having created this opportunity for awakening of minds and hearts to join in the ripple effect I mentioned. This is a very good thing you are doing. It is vitally important in bringing even a measure of balance into the insanity of these times.
The depressing news is there to destroy your aspirations. So much of it put out by rightwing presses, who profit from stifling creativity. We can change that. Peace, Maurice
Thank you for sharing all the beautiful comments! I loved reading those and felt a strong sense of community. Suzanne I'd be happy to help host a Village gathering for all the contestants so we can meet each other and build some community around this :-)
With the contestants being spread far and wide, I assume you mean a virtual village ? Since May last year I have been busy with the concept of creating a physical project to do something similar. Which is why I jumped at the chance to support Suzanne's brilliant concept. Later this year I want to travel France and Spain looking for a site to buy. Thirty to forty years ago I visited many such alternative communities. Finally I am ready Found another. Stay in touch Jason. Peace, Maurice
Greetings again Maurice! I'd sure love to connect with you and hear more - will you send me an email at jason@VillageCo.org? And yes, this would be virtual - but our Village Gathering model transcends place - virtual, in-person, rural or urban, it works everywhere!
First Suzanne, let me thank you for the kind comment you make below, crediting me for many of the essay submissions. Really it is you that fired the first shot of inspiration. Being able to assist is reward enough, and I am more than happy to continue building this community with you.
I have read these 25 comments once. Now I will read and respond to each. Looking forward to your announcement. Peace, Maurice
Suzanne, what I love about what you're doing is gathering ideas that can maybe save us in one place. I hope we can view all of the submissions so we can be inspired by what people are envisioning and how to get there.
Hi Again Diana. When you sent me that video on the lack of solutions to war, you also mentioned 2,000 Grass Root Peace groups. Could you please provide me with any contacts there. Maybe we can shed some internet light on them. Peace, Maurice
As I took a walk, a break from making final edits to my essay, I asked for help from a young person who will inherit this world. A spiritually-minded young man I adore happened to approach me. I said, “Jonah, you’re the answer to my prayer! May I share a ‘save the world’ idea with you?” He listened to my Circle of Eight concept, said he wanted IN! and offered wise council. Then I listened to his current life challenges. Next day he texted me, on fire 🔥with ideas for starting his own Circle of Eight, to practice creative compassion games. Who knows how far this hope you’ve inspired will ripple out? Thank you 🙏🏽 Suzanne.
Food for thought, though, how after a year of not getting much engagement despite almost begging for it, this opened floodgates. What poured in was so heartfelt adn beautiful that maybe it's just the way of the world we live in. About the judging, sit tight. I am trying to devise a mechanism where the people who submitted essays get to vote on winners.
Diane I agree and at the same time, unfortunately, disagree. :-(
I spend the vast amount of my time and energy doing things in the world that I get zero money for. This is very unsustainable in my family context. I absolutely love coaching and I also do that as paid work but my energy has been pulled elsewhere lately (in the past few years) and I believe I can make much more of a difference in the world if I just dedicated 100% of the time to those things. But I can't. So when I saw the invite to an essay competition my first thought was: wow, this sounds fun and beautiful. My second thought was: I don't have time. Then I saw there was a potential for earning something and that started justifying my time. I had to take time "away" from family, from work, from the things I am directly involved in to write. So I needed to "justify it". Now, I agree with you that once I justified and decided to write, then it was less about the money and more about engaging with the fullness of my idea and making it alive in my being as if it was a truth. This was already super powerful and potentially one of the most important outcomes of this whole process. I actually believe in it and I am actually going to make it happen, even if it takes a life time. This feels good. I can inhabit now a place of extra confidence because I don't see it as a "far fetched utopia" but something that can be incrementally achieved. I had to follow through with my thought process because of the essay. So this has been tremendously valuable. The other piece that I hadn't thought about was the community piece here. The community of people that have written. This is also very interesting. Who are these people? Who are you? :-) Maybe we should all have a zoom call?? ;-)Where are we all in the world? What are we already doing? Can we help one another? Maybe, some of us might need less money but other types of resources. Is it possible make more projects happen if we all get to know one another?
I would never have thought of that before subscribing and being "lured" by the potential of a cash prize that could support the writing of my book. BUT now the money is NOT what keeps me here. What keeps me here is the collective dreaming. The potential to harness some of this gold as a community, invited in by Suzanne, of change makers. People that care. This is pretty cool.
I'd add to this good rundown that having money on the table legitimized it. If I were a well-known auspice people would write essays without rewards, but I bet I wouldn't have gotten anything back if there hadn't been a money prize. Nothing evil or dark about the money -- just legitimate reality so people have confidence that it will be real project.
I love how you open up on your thought processes here, Adriana. Haven't we now laid the foundations for this community, it's potential to induce change. Peace, Maurice
Small committees sharing a common vision, empowered to decide, can work well and quickly. Larger ones who only advise higher bodies fail miserably. (Speaking from much experience).
I believe that you are correct in stating that money was not the absolute motivator. Certainly not Suzanne's motivation - any more than an intended insult. Remember she also wishes to give support to authors who struggle financially. That's an example of the creative kindness we need to Heal Our World. BTW - I do heed your word "can". Semantics are important, n'est ce pas ? Peace, Maurice
Maurice, my angel, descended from a cloud to rain support for this contest beyond any I ever expected from anyone, especially someone I didn't know. I should give you some special award for getting this to the broader Substack community, where I bet a lot of the entries from Substack strangers were because of what you did. To get you subscribers as you have gotten them for me, folks, click on "Maurice's Substack" above!
Well Suzanne, I would be delighted to run a campaign for anyone who takes part in driving your concept forwards. Who would you most like me to work with ? Peace, Maurice
Suzanne, I am honored to know you and the beautiful invitation you offered to the world. My sense is that this "contest" is evolving into something even more profound and actionable. I have some ideas to share with you once you finish your reading and selection process. In the meantime, the world is a better place for all those evolutionary pathways to be documented.
Hi Stuart, yes evolution is on the hoof. Suzanne is the catalyst I'd been searching for. Isn't it great to be involved !? Peace; Maurice
Hi Maurice, I agree wholeheartedly! Suzanne is inspiring many of us to presence a future that serves all of humanity, not a select few. I'm excited by the potential that we have to effect this positive change... NOW! Enjoy... Stu
Yup
Omg!
Thanks for your good submission and right on. This seems t to possibly be of greater value than I had anticipated. Catch me when I'm past evaluating!!!!
What a great idea, to share these snippets, Suzanne! Very inspiring. What I'd like to suggest is that you continue this idea by including us in your decision process. Perhaps let us read your top 10 and vote on them... tiered voting, where we get 3 votes with differing weights: our 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Then the calculation comes... and the winner and runners up will be announced...! Then, let us step, together, into those visions!
You're reading my mind. Talking to my techies about how to get submitters to be the voters po the top ones I pick.
I love this. I also would absolutely love to see the ones that "don't make the cut". I am super curious about the space in between all these ideas. The context, the relationship between them all and if there is an opportunity to coalesce them into one project. Suzanne seems to be doing an amazing job at catalylizing transformative energy into movement. Maybe there is a way to keep the energy moving as a web? Money is always the "issue" that stops most people...but maybe there could be an idea there too?? I would be very up for thinking together about how to make it happen.
Next steps after awards are to maximize value, where there is so much richness even in entries that won't win awards. I've got a tiger by the tail and for today I have to stay focused on evaluation, but I still have a little voice poking me about what to do where I have thoughts of Zooms for people who wrote very good entries and you'd be among them.
Hallo Again Adriana ! I too wish to read them all, there is bound to be a wealth of inspiration here. I have some experience in "seed funding in kind" That was my approach to helping to bring so many essays in. Happy to do the same again ...... Peace, Maurice
Yes I’m also super interested in finding out ways in which the collective benefits from the collective and heals it in turn…It’s seems like the perfect medicine for such an individualised culture such as ours…
Thanks Adriana for your enthusiasm. I think we are witnessing the birth of a movement here, a Global Collective. Group Introspection delivers healthy cultures. Thanks for subscribing, Peace, Maurice
Love your voting suggestion Shannon. Suzanne has a lot of work heading her way, let uslend a shoulder. Peace, Maurice
Sharing good seeds is core. Maybe have the 'top' ideas somewhere more permanent than a one time post.. on you website, with a hyperlink in your Substack Now What?
Yes, they need a permanent home. Also some combing through them all to extract excerpts. I wonder if there would be any volunteers to work on that. I even could hire someone...???
Wish I could help but I am writing my own Earth saving piece around healing personal, collective and historic trauma at multiple levels of scale.
That may be the only way we can transform systems and human consciousness.
Put out a call for volunteers Suzanne. I can magnify that for you again. Peace, Maurice
Absolutely, Vital, Such a source for mankind. to be disseminated for free. Peace, Maurice
Your comment about starting to cry touched me. I feel like that daily with the constantly depressing news, ignorance and self-serving, broken politics. But ever hopeful and beleagueredly optimistic, I commend your having created this opportunity for awakening of minds and hearts to join in the ripple effect I mentioned. This is a very good thing you are doing. It is vitally important in bringing even a measure of balance into the insanity of these times.
We just have to be optimists. Nobody knows enough to be a pessimist, and it's bad for your health.
The depressing news is there to destroy your aspirations. So much of it put out by rightwing presses, who profit from stifling creativity. We can change that. Peace, Maurice
It's not that we don't have cause for the despair that gets reported on by all sides, but that the media doesn't deal in anything else. Trouble sells.
Despair promotes Apathy or Action. Apathy promotes Depression. Action promotes Enlightenment and Determination. N'est ce pas ? Peace, Maurice
Thank you for sharing all the beautiful comments! I loved reading those and felt a strong sense of community. Suzanne I'd be happy to help host a Village gathering for all the contestants so we can meet each other and build some community around this :-)
That could be great. Let's talk.
With the contestants being spread far and wide, I assume you mean a virtual village ? Since May last year I have been busy with the concept of creating a physical project to do something similar. Which is why I jumped at the chance to support Suzanne's brilliant concept. Later this year I want to travel France and Spain looking for a site to buy. Thirty to forty years ago I visited many such alternative communities. Finally I am ready Found another. Stay in touch Jason. Peace, Maurice
Greetings again Maurice! I'd sure love to connect with you and hear more - will you send me an email at jason@VillageCo.org? And yes, this would be virtual - but our Village Gathering model transcends place - virtual, in-person, rural or urban, it works everywhere!
Gimme a few days to catch up, Jason. Then I will email you with how I can promo your event - for free. Peace, Maurice
Wow - the snippets are so moving. You're very understandably on Cloud 9!
🥰🥰🥰❤️❤️❤️
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
First Suzanne, let me thank you for the kind comment you make below, crediting me for many of the essay submissions. Really it is you that fired the first shot of inspiration. Being able to assist is reward enough, and I am more than happy to continue building this community with you.
I have read these 25 comments once. Now I will read and respond to each. Looking forward to your announcement. Peace, Maurice
Suzanne, what I love about what you're doing is gathering ideas that can maybe save us in one place. I hope we can view all of the submissions so we can be inspired by what people are envisioning and how to get there.
Hi Diana, one place being the internet cloud, n'est ce pas ? Peace, Maurice.
There's very little I would rule out, Maurice. I think a lot of things can come to light on the internet.
Hi Again Diana. When you sent me that video on the lack of solutions to war, you also mentioned 2,000 Grass Root Peace groups. Could you please provide me with any contacts there. Maybe we can shed some internet light on them. Peace, Maurice
Hi Maurice, I've lost track of the video, but World Beyond War is one great place to start. Sorry I don't have a better list.
OK Diana, thanks - I'll look 'em up. Peace, Maurice
As I took a walk, a break from making final edits to my essay, I asked for help from a young person who will inherit this world. A spiritually-minded young man I adore happened to approach me. I said, “Jonah, you’re the answer to my prayer! May I share a ‘save the world’ idea with you?” He listened to my Circle of Eight concept, said he wanted IN! and offered wise council. Then I listened to his current life challenges. Next day he texted me, on fire 🔥with ideas for starting his own Circle of Eight, to practice creative compassion games. Who knows how far this hope you’ve inspired will ripple out? Thank you 🙏🏽 Suzanne.
Techie issues for what should should already have gone out. Wonderful pieces. Biting fingernails here.
Food for thought, though, how after a year of not getting much engagement despite almost begging for it, this opened floodgates. What poured in was so heartfelt adn beautiful that maybe it's just the way of the world we live in. About the judging, sit tight. I am trying to devise a mechanism where the people who submitted essays get to vote on winners.
Well put Diane, on all counts. Let's all get there together. Peace, Maurice
Diane I agree and at the same time, unfortunately, disagree. :-(
I spend the vast amount of my time and energy doing things in the world that I get zero money for. This is very unsustainable in my family context. I absolutely love coaching and I also do that as paid work but my energy has been pulled elsewhere lately (in the past few years) and I believe I can make much more of a difference in the world if I just dedicated 100% of the time to those things. But I can't. So when I saw the invite to an essay competition my first thought was: wow, this sounds fun and beautiful. My second thought was: I don't have time. Then I saw there was a potential for earning something and that started justifying my time. I had to take time "away" from family, from work, from the things I am directly involved in to write. So I needed to "justify it". Now, I agree with you that once I justified and decided to write, then it was less about the money and more about engaging with the fullness of my idea and making it alive in my being as if it was a truth. This was already super powerful and potentially one of the most important outcomes of this whole process. I actually believe in it and I am actually going to make it happen, even if it takes a life time. This feels good. I can inhabit now a place of extra confidence because I don't see it as a "far fetched utopia" but something that can be incrementally achieved. I had to follow through with my thought process because of the essay. So this has been tremendously valuable. The other piece that I hadn't thought about was the community piece here. The community of people that have written. This is also very interesting. Who are these people? Who are you? :-) Maybe we should all have a zoom call?? ;-)Where are we all in the world? What are we already doing? Can we help one another? Maybe, some of us might need less money but other types of resources. Is it possible make more projects happen if we all get to know one another?
I would never have thought of that before subscribing and being "lured" by the potential of a cash prize that could support the writing of my book. BUT now the money is NOT what keeps me here. What keeps me here is the collective dreaming. The potential to harness some of this gold as a community, invited in by Suzanne, of change makers. People that care. This is pretty cool.
I'd add to this good rundown that having money on the table legitimized it. If I were a well-known auspice people would write essays without rewards, but I bet I wouldn't have gotten anything back if there hadn't been a money prize. Nothing evil or dark about the money -- just legitimate reality so people have confidence that it will be real project.
I love how you open up on your thought processes here, Adriana. Haven't we now laid the foundations for this community, it's potential to induce change. Peace, Maurice
Small committees sharing a common vision, empowered to decide, can work well and quickly. Larger ones who only advise higher bodies fail miserably. (Speaking from much experience).
I believe that you are correct in stating that money was not the absolute motivator. Certainly not Suzanne's motivation - any more than an intended insult. Remember she also wishes to give support to authors who struggle financially. That's an example of the creative kindness we need to Heal Our World. BTW - I do heed your word "can". Semantics are important, n'est ce pas ? Peace, Maurice
Maurice, my angel, descended from a cloud to rain support for this contest beyond any I ever expected from anyone, especially someone I didn't know. I should give you some special award for getting this to the broader Substack community, where I bet a lot of the entries from Substack strangers were because of what you did. To get you subscribers as you have gotten them for me, folks, click on "Maurice's Substack" above!
Well Suzanne, I would be delighted to run a campaign for anyone who takes part in driving your concept forwards. Who would you most like me to work with ? Peace, Maurice