19 months later: Back in the saddle

Hi everyone,

After a 19-month sabbatical, I am rejoining the blogosphere. I look forward to discovering the new faces and voices in the green- and communities- arenas. I'm guessing that there will be more than I can keep up with, but I will make a stab at it!

I think back to the day of my last post with a lot of emotion. We were disappointed by the turnout at our StepItUp event--Obama decided to have a rally at Georgia Tech the same day, and 20,000 people showed up for it! Even our own organizers snuck off to participate in that historic event. Now, of course, I wish I was one of them.

How far we have come since then. On so many levels. The Atlanta Beyond Oil Meetup Group, which sometimes only had three people at the meetings "back in the day," is now very popular. JoJo has done a fabulous job of hosting the meetings at his beautiful home. The last time I was there, he showed me where he was expanding the garden. It was inspiring.

I feel like there has be a shift in consciousness... not only at the political level, but also in my own circle of friends and aquaintences. People understand the importance of sustainability. There certainly has been one in myself.

I have spent the last several years learning how to facilitate in communities, because I believe that this is where I can make the greatest contribution--creating an environment that supports people in having the conversations about the issues that challenge their communities. I believe that change is going to happen in communities, not only because relocalizing makes sense, but because human beings are community-oriented beings, and working at this level will satisfy a fundamental need.

I have been exploring forms of facilitation and meeting design that I believe are cutting edge, and embody the values and principles that I hold dear--maximum freedom, maximum choice, self-organization, respect, inclusion of the emotions and the intuition, right and left brains, as well as all learning styles, and trusting the wisdom of the group.

On the home front, we put in a garden this summer, and hired Isabel and Bob from Georgia Permaculture to walk our land and give us a plan for developing it using permaculture principles. DH has been studying David Blume's work about distilling alcohol for fuel, and we are hoping to start program, either on our acerage, or nearby.

So I will slowly be revising the links on the blog to reflect my new pursuits, and sharing what I learn along the way. I also see that Blogger has some new features, so I might be incorporating those as well.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to connecting!