Social fabric: stuck between 2 contexts

Then I saw it. That is how it all works. I have to have one of everything and you have to have one of everything because we don’t have a clear social contract about the norms. Or I guess you could say the social contract we do have is about each person for him/herself so I am going against that contract by even making such a request. I could see the whole territory I have to traverse just to borrow one tool, one lousy tool. And I could see how I would rather have my own tool than confront this relatively simple set of transactions. So how then will I get the courage to have conversations about matters much closer to the heart? How will I get the courage up to break down some much larger barrier erected by this culture of separation? How will I find what I need to re-weave that social fabric so my sharing with my neighbor is more relevant than all of the noise I find in the context of separation?

The Next Right Thing: the gift of consumption (Part 2 of 2)

In my physical discomfort due to morning/all day sickness, the past several weeks I have eaten a lot and watched a lot of TV – a lot being the operative descriptor here. I have been feeling strange about this, habits I have overcome from my younger years coming back in spades. I’ve been coping byRead the Rest…

Noble Silence

When I registered for a three day meditation retreat where I will sit in “noble silence” at the time it felt like the right course of action for my personal development. I have dabbled with mediation for about seven years but I wouldn’t say I have a bona fide practice. I had been talking toRead the Rest…

The Next Right Thing (Part 1 of 2)

I once heard conventional wisdom that sounded something like this. “Smoking is not inherently bad. It was useful at one time in the life of the smoker. When it ceases to be of value, then it becomes something worth letting go of.” To me this was an explanation of a coping strategy, and by copingRead the Rest…

Gardening, an experiment in sufficiency

I reconnected to Jennifer Jewell of http://www.jewellgarden.com/ in July. She is a garden writer and photographer, her pictures are stunning. In talking to her about sufficiency, gardening and what is enough, it struck me at all three of us at Seven Stones have gardens. Shea being the most avid at this moment, Jen getting herRead the Rest…

social fabric in motion

Because sufficiency is a lost art in living and business, we are constantly experimenting on ourselves. Everything we offer to our clients comes from the laboratories at Seven Stones and emerges from the quiet voices in our hearts, guts and the far reaches of our minds. Recently, it came to be in our circle thatRead the Rest…

Vacation: a learning in sufficiency

Being on vacation has gotten me thinking about being on vacation. Like anything, it can be an empowering and strengthening experience, a ritual of coming together for the shared purpose of enjoyment and relaxation. Or, for some, and I’ve had these, it can fray nerves from exhausting preparation to being out of sync (and theRead the Rest…

driving and social fabric

What is it, I thought, that has someone react with such venom when someone else is clearly under enormous stress? Isn’t that stress, or distress, the source of their erratic and disturbing behavior in the first place? I think that our sense of knowing each other, our sense that each person is doing their best at any given moment, that we are somehow in this together, is hidden from our view and missing in our hearts. This hole in our social fabric, this fraying of our knowing each other, of our sense of deep and real connection to all living being, permits us not to notice, or to even assume the best. This tear in the social fabric makes it ok to beep and yell and gesture in ways that only cause more harm.

team building is social fabric

Everywhere I turn people are talking about social fabric, using their own words: community, interdependence, the web of life, the fellowship, the sangha, team buidling… There is a big difference though in how we build teams, which is really community in the work place. We can build them like some families are built: through obligationRead the Rest…

Slow and Contemplative

Yesterday my husband dragged me out on a date. I say dragged because I wanted to stay home and work on my blog and other Seven Stones work. We were intending on going to a concert but beforehand he wanted to stop at a museum that we had heard about and he had free passesRead the Rest…

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