Earth Day Abundance & Blessings!

Earth Day blessings to you and all Sustainable Matrix Weavers.  

The Earth is abundant and no where is the life giving abundance more obvious then in sprouting.  Seed, sunlight, and water are all a seed needs to sprout into a living source of food.  On this Earth Day spend some time in gratitude for this abundance and then consider helping to spread the abundance by becoming an Interdependent Partner with the Seeds of Sustainability program.  

When you become a partner you will receive 25% of every DVD purchase that you refer AND 10% of all sales get donated to the Green Fire Foundation which is being established to provide infrastructure grants to existing and developing EcoVillages and sustainable communities globally.  

When you click this link and become a partner you will also be adding another 10% from any sales made from sharing SOS with friends and family.     We all can experience Interdependent wealth and abundance by learning to create partners in sustainable trust. 

The Seeds of Sustainability Education Series Volume I:  The Marche Sprouting Method & Living Oils teaches a revolutionary NO RINSE sprouting method that allows you to grow massive amounts of fresh living sprouted vegetables in just 72 hours AND teaches you how to make LIVING oils from nuts and seeds that feed the body enzyme rich acid/alkaline balanced essential fatty oils!  

Learn more about the partner program here and blessed Earth Day to us all!

In Sustainable Solidarity

Darlene Green

What is Interdependence?

This is the question that many of us will be asking in the coming decades as we transition to a sustainable global culture.  As we evolve our understandings we will be able to bring deep definitions from first hand experiences in discovering and exploring our interdependence with all life.  

We are at the beginning of this journey so it is a good idea to at least check out existing definitions for a good starting place.  Wikipedia offers this definition:

 

Interdependence is a dynamic of being mutually and physically responsible to, and sharing a common set of principles with, others. This concept differs distinctly from "dependence" in that an interdependent relationship implies that all participants are emotionally, economically, ecologically and or morally "interdependent." Some people advocate freedom or independence  as a sort of ultimate good; others do the same with devotion to one's family, community, or society. Interdependence recognizes the truth in each position and weaves them together. Two states that cooperate with each other are said to be interdependent. 

The part about 'sharing a common set of principles' is probably where the rubber hits the road for some.  Values and principles are usually rooted in one's unique culture so in order for 'interdependence' to be able to take root on a global scale there must be universal shared principles?  That is where sustainability comes into the equation and allows all humans to adopt shared principles in relationship to our shared future well being.

The Earth Charter Initiative is celebrating it's 10th year since the release of The Earth Charter - Values & Principles for a Sustainable Future.  You can learn about the how the Earth Charter was drafted in this Interdependent Project Radio interview with Steven Rockefeller who was chair person for the drafting committee or visit the Earth Charter website.

The Interdependent Project is celebrating the Earth Charter through promoting the 'Earth Scouts' - a new program for children that was launched by the Earth Charter US.   There is a new network currently being created that will be launching soon that we have been supporting.  

We are also celebrating through our ongoing commitment to share and promote the Earth Charter as a valuable tool for bringing all of us into harmonious interdependence from solid shared values and principles for a sustainable future!

Looking back February 2009 - Getting the Sphere ready to launch & Re-Branding

Happy Imbolc - February 2nd!

When the Interdependent Project was first created the first intent was to create a functional, dynamic, and private social network that would serve existing/developing EcoVillages and sustainable communities at no cost to the communities.

All of us at the Interdependent Project have worked, lived, and traveled to various sustainable communities and EcoVillages throughout our lives and the one common need that we have seen among these communities was a solid online networking hub that would allow connections to happen between communities.

In February 2009 we began building this hub and making contact with the first 4 communities that would populate what we called the "Interdependent EcoVillage & Community Sphere".  Susan Frank joined the core team to serve as the Executive Administrator and provide guidance and support to the Sphere community.  

The Sphere is by invitation only and provides a safe sanctuary for members to share information, resources, trade between communities, and connect with each other.  The Sphere was officially launched on the Spring Equinox 09 and has been steadily growing as we make contact with specific communities that our team feels would benefit from the Sphere.  One of ours goals is to be able to publish resources and information that member communities would like to share publicly on the main website and through various publications as it evolves through SeThInk Media, the Interdependent Project parent company, digital publishing services. 

Branding
Independent/Interdependent Conference 09

On our last blog post we promised we would share the story of the re-branding of the Interdependent Project shortly after the launch.  Some of you who have been with the Interdependent Project since the launch remember the original logo and red/black theme of the website.  And some of you might also remember a 5 day period in February 09 when the main website had a message saying, "Site temporarily down for Independent/Interdependent Conference" on the index page.  

The brand consisted of interlocking Canterbury Cross's (in the spirit of the Flower of Life) and we developed it as a 'transformative derivative work' from the Independent Truck NHS logo (skateboard trucks).

The cross itself, being an ancient symbol, cannot be copyrighted and the way in which we developed it was protected under 'fair use' copyright laws.

Before we launched the project we envisioned how skaters could be harbingers of the evolved paradigm of interdependence and sustainability.

Also our deceased and beloved team member Beau Shaver was a skater and the design was also in tribute to him.

We attempted to contact the NHS corporate heads to invite them to jump on board with a win/win strategy but contacting them was harder than chasing someone on a skateboard - their website does not give email addresses for board members and there appeared to be a certain anarchy in their structure.  We finally found one of their directors of marketing, Keith Wilson, on facebook and tried to contact him but never got a response.  

Well months later at the end of February 09 we were contacted by the president and CEO Bob Denike.  At first we were excited to have made contact finally and were hopeful that our 'youthful idealism' would inspire Bob to see what we felt was an obvious alliance full of great potentials and possibilities...uh hmm...well the learning spiral never ends right.  We had a conference via emails and Bob and NHS has absolutely zero interest in an alliance and basically told us that they believed we were infringing upon their copyrighted logo.  We consulted with our attorney and decided that although we were protected under the 'fair use' copyright laws we had zero interest in the win/lose paradigm of court battles.  

 

So full of mirth and zest we re-launched and re-branded with what we feel is a much better logo and a clear understanding of why Beau always said, "Embrace skating, condemn skateboarding..." 

We are grateful to have been given the opportunity to experience the Win/Win of Interdependent thinking!

In Sustainable Solidarity

Darlene Green

This Time Last Year - Interdependent Project Radio

By this time last year we were well into the launching of the Interdependent Project Radio on Modavox's new Green Talk Network.  So why did radio programming cease?

The whole internet radio program developed the summer of 2008 when we contacted an internet talk radio platform and requested that they add a new category called 'sustainability' for interview shows we wanted to do that featured the best of the best pioneers, educators, and leaders within the sustainability movement.

Those of you who have been with us since back then probably remember the excited emails we sent out explaining that we had been offered our own 24/7 channel on their platform after sharing with them our program ideas - verbally that is.  After we spent months lining up guests, the representative who had made the offer dropped the bomb on us and told us that the agreement he had made earlier was now null and void.

We are intentionally leaving out some sordid details not to save them from any bad press but to save you the time in having to read it.  First big lesson on this learning spiral - "get it in writing" (sad but true when dealing with entities that missed the course on win/win realities).....

So we contacted Modavox and they appeared to be an upgrade - next lesson - "don't be fooled by appearances" - and we then went into a - get this - 'non-cancelable' contract (as if such a thing really exists) with a promise of millions of listeners and movable audio widgets.  After one month of broadcasting and a less than desirable Google Analytics report we decided to cancel the deal for more reasons than we can even share openly here.

It was then that we decided it would be best to simply get our own licenses and launch our own radio network.  We set a goal to resume broadcasting after the release of Volume I of the Seeds of Sustainability Education Series...another lesson - "if you want something done right do it yourself." 


We lamented the fact that these old proverbial sayings proved to be true in our learning spiral and we are confident that many more will hold up as we progress down the path of inspired idealistic folly.  We imagine we will somewhere in here cross the dreaded path that 'they' have all warned us about - the place where you simply realize your efforts have all been in vain and that you cannot stray outside of the box and refuse to adhere to rules without having to..uhumm..compromise your principles "like we all had to - you know - 'bite the bullet' or 'wake up and smell the coffee' or even god forbid 'grow up' right?  

We'll see...until we get there though we can only say that as long as we are having fun - which we are - it matters not one iota how others judge and measure our successes or failures.  


So on that note - we are stoked to be going into the next stage of planning for the Interdependent Project Radio.  We hope you have appreciated this behind the scenes and candid sharing.  If you enjoyed any of the launch radio shows you can look forward to more coming this spring/summer...if you have not even listened to any of them you can check them out in the archives here.  

On our next 2009 revisited post we will share with you what happened around the original brand and why we changed it...

In Sustainable Solidarity
Darlene Green

Interdependent Project Celebrates Core Team Members

Everyone knows how hard it is to birth an excellent team and the Interdependent Project has been blessed to have attracted core team members who are aligned with it's mission.  In the beginning we had some team members who fully supported the project during its launch phase and contributed energy in ways that fueled the rockets to get lift off and their contributions were invaluable.  But just as the solid rocket boosters must fall away as orbit is made these team members had other commitments to fulfill and directions they were heading.  The Interdependent Project is celebrating its one year since launch and we want to celebrate the team members who have made this past year a deep success as well as introduce new team members who will be helping to set coordinates as we navigate through the global transition to a sustainable future.

SUSAN FRANK

Beginning in May 2009 team member Susan Frank who is the executive administrator of the Interdependent Community Sphere began a 6 month 'Communities and Sustainable 'green' Events Tour' that took her across the United States to visit developing/existing sustainable communities and attend/volunteer at events/festivals that were focused on 'green' and sustainable living themes.  As the Interdependent Project Media Ambassador Susan conducted interviews and produced videos throughout her journey and blogged her travels as she immersed herself in many different worlds that share a common vision of a sustainable future.  We are featuring her videos and posting links to her stories on the main site.  Most of her travels and experiences were incredibly positive and enriching but she also shares her own perspective of some of the shortcomings and disappointments that she encountered as well.

Susan was a student as Prescott University during her travels and much of her work was also course related for her degree which she successfully earned in December 09`.  Her reports to the Interdependent Project during her travels also contributed to changes and re-shaping of the IP strategies and alliances.  Susan has set a standard for the project of the high quality commitment and dedication we are striving for with our core team and her contributions are impeccable.  Thank you Susan!

MEET EVAN SPURRELL

Evan T. Spurrell joins the Interdependent Project core team from ground zero of the project's second year since launch.  He is the founder of the Permaculture Production Crew which is a campus club at Sierra College.  Evan leads students into the realm of Earth Stewardship/regenerative projects and inspires students to learn permaculture practices within urban and rural environments.  We met Evan at the Seeds of Sustainability DVD release party and were instantly impressed with his authentic and sincere dedication to world-bridging solutions to those who have limited access to the solutions that exist and perhaps have been living in a state of hopelessness around the global problems.  Evan will be participating in the production of Volume 2 of the Seeds of Sustainability Education Series and working with the team to further the goals of the Interdependent Project.  We are stoked to have you aboard Evan!

We also want to give a special thanks to Vladimir Frolov, Josh Green aka 'Electrolysis', Robin Marche, Jason Deptula and Alayne Chauncey for the rocket fuel they continually have provided to keep this ship in orbit.

We invite you now to check out the updated 'Sustain Yourself" page and the info about 'Raw Food' which includes some great links to the G-Living Network  site!

In Sustainable Solidarity

Darlene Green

Happy New Decade!

1 - 10 - 10...we thought we would wait a bit before we posted about the turning of the first decade of the new millennium...and what a turning it has been! The Interdependent Project is celebrating it's 1 year anniversary for the rest of the month of January and we have updated the main website with new content and cleaned the site up a bit....

2009 was an epic year for us and we were actually pretty amazed at how much our team accomplished and learned.  We have often used the terms 'running sideways' and 'learning spirals' in many of our posts and emails because the truth of the matter was when we began we had nothing but our unbending intent to 'Dream It-Do It' - Youth Venture slogan...

Many along the way scoffed at our idealistic grandiose goals and we have had our fair share of shocking obstacles and hurdles to jump over.  Humor was our savior during the worst parts and as we learned we made sure to take note of the lessons in ways that allowed us to further develop the 'standards' we would be sure to go by in the future.  

The launching of this project began in 2008 when we received a small seed grant from Youth Venture with the intent to launch a private online networking hub for EcoVillages and sustainable communities.  That was when the project was named and the first mission statement was developed.  The universe decided to give us an opportunity - that turned out to be a lesson and then another opportunity - that turned into lesson - again and again in relationship to this project.  So are we more knowledgeable now?

We believe in the Golden Dragon Rule:

“Life's secret lies in Comprehension rather than only in Knowledge."

The Tree of Sustainability page on the main site finally has an article written on it and we invite you to check it out and let us know if it is 'comprehensible'....

This month we will be blogging about goals for 2010 (and the next decade), posting about the new content and recapitulating the past in order to share and process our journey thus far into the Sustainability Matrix!

In Sustainable Solidarity

Darlene Green

SOLSTICE BLESSINGS
WINTER SOLSTICE IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
SUMMER SOLSTICE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Gratitude & ThanksGIVING

G - iving
R - eflection
A - ttention
T - ime
I - nside
T - ruth
U - pholding
D - ivine
E - xperience

We wanted to thank all of you on this day and express our gratitude for the Interdependent reality that we all share.

In Sustainable Solidarity
Darlene Green