September/October 2002
Feature Articles
Holistic Health Q & A
by John DeCosmo, D.O.
Of genes and gene testing and evaluation.
What is... the Organic Movement?
by Robert Roman
Part two of a three-part article detailing
the author's personal experiences and the growth of the organic movement.
UnCommon Sense!
by David Findlay
War - Iraq - Should we remove Saddam
Hussein?
Articles on the theme "The Learning Process"
A Basket Weaver
by Lou Galgano
An example of how one artist learns
and teaches what he knows.
Getting "It"
by Lewis Fishman
Using "it" as an inspiration
to learn.
Learning Without Harm
by Barbara Bedingfiled
How intellectualism has negatively
influenced our education of the young - and how to counter this.
Music and Movement, and Learning
by Bob and Claire Franki
How the combination of music with movement
from age zero not only facilitates musicianship but increases coordination
and learning.
September 12
by Janet Kato
A moment when the learning process
became the healing process
Learning From Everything
by Patrick Plaskett
Learning from life - from both the
"good" and the "bad."
Learning From Other Cultures
by Dr. Jean Houston
The birth of the Planetary Human
The Relationship Learning Process
by Bob Murray, Ph.D.
How our problems stem from failed relationships;
how to make good ones.
Learning From Other Cultures
Dr. Jean Houston
There is so much to learn from other cultures. Here lies a worldwide harvest of human powers and potentialities, drawn from profound studies of the cultures and civilizations of many lands and many peoples. There is so much to understand from the skills and knowledge from all over the earth. Each civilization contains riches beyond even a gleaning of the planet's physical wealth its oil, its diamonds, its metals. I have made it my life's work to seek the human capacities activated within cultures around the world.
The intensity of this time burns in me because of a vision of a new interdependent world, with the old barriers between cultures dissolving, along with the phobias that sustained them. Doorways are opening to an exchange not only of information, but also of true minds and hearts in mutual discovery and creation.
A more inclusive organism is in the process of being born, a Planetary Human. We each serve as a living cell within this new organism, and we are being re-scaled to planetary proportions in both our responsiveness and responsibilities. Blessedly, this inclusive worldview inspires us with renewed hope and caring.
Do you vividly remember the first pictures of the earth beamed from outer space? For the first time we saw our world as one living being. I believe these photos touched us with the possibility of cherishing every other person and culture on this earth. How do we invigorate and embody that sense of cherishing? How can we come to know more deeply those people and the cultures they developed? That is, in part, what power is about.
Events have accelerated wildly since those first pictures. People and ideas are fast becoming interconnected in ways that create a new environment virtually a new world-mind. But for a new world of cherishing, one that is safe for every part of the planetary body, we need not only the new mind of connectedness, but also energy, passion and high skills. These high skills, I believe, have been brewed in cultural cauldrons around the world, and it is this genius of many cultures that we must engage through new ways of being and of understanding.
Part of my work, over decades, has been the study of cultural potentials in over 40 cultures and then bringing these together for use in education, health care, social welfare, relationships, personal growth, work, art and creativity. One of the delights of such work has been bringing what I perceive as an essential cultural gift from Greece to a group of business leaders in India and vice versa; or West African problem-solving techniques to South American social workers. I have found that challenges arising in one culture can often be met by applying strategies and stories developed in another.
I have thus had the high honor of being one of those able to assist in this harvest of genius from many cultures, with the avowed goal of creating the first true planetary persons with global minds and earth-wide hearts. This is possibly one of the first times in human history that such a harvest could occur. Become a social artist, someone who cares for cultures, for peoples, for the world in effective and useful ways.
When you focus on different cultures, you activate different parts of the brain, the body, the mind, the emotions and the soul. A sampling of the possibilities:
The art of creativity and deep empathy: From India, the power to evoke the creative imagination.
The nature of making peace possible: From the Iroquois Confederacy, we learn ways of establishing and maintaining peaceful and productive communities.
Dreamtime as creative source and resource: The potency most alive in Aboriginal Australia with its elegant understanding of the symbiosis of human, animal, landscape and the constantly creating meta-worlds.
Discovering the Inner Artist: From Bali, comes the art and ritual of "doing everything as beautifully as possible." Activating the aesthetic state of consciousness within the body/brain gives us the power of gaining and enhancing artistic skills and abilities.
Problem-solving in the real world: This gift of the peoples of West Africa awakens a profound sense of community, as well as the capacity to honor the body's wisdom and aliveness.
Dr. Jean Houston, author, philosopher, scholar and teacher, has been a pioneer in the field of sacred psychology for more than 30 years and is co-director of the Foundation for Mind Research. She has been an advisor to UNICEF in human and cultural development and has worked with governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy. For workshop details call Kashi Ashram (Sebastian, FL) at l-800-226-1008, ext l00. Also see ad for Kashi .
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