Gaia: Actions and Reactions - Obstacles

Re: Ever feel frustrated with Gaia?

http://zetwhite.gaia.com — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:57:32 GMT

Yup, overwhelmed, or something like that. Will take time to get back on track, unfortunately had to leave the pod die. Ah, I wasn't ready to pull something like this yet.

Ever feel frustrated with Gaia?

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:35:31 GMT

I find that often people get upset with Gaia and even leave because they feel frustrated with their experiences here - whether in pods, blog discussions, interactions with others in private conversations, and so on.

Marmalade has posted an excellend blog about this which is sparking an active blog discussion.
What are your thoughts and feelings? Does any of this, the blog or the comments, make sense to you in your experience and in the experiences of those you observe?

Please click on the blog title below to read the whole blog and the comments.

minor frustration

Posted on Jun 9th, 2008 by Marmalade

I'm feeling a bit frustrated with Gaia at the moment, but this is partly because I've been busy with family lately and haven't had enough time. I have various pods and blogs on email notification that it takes quite a while just to sort through all of that. When I'm busy, that leaves me no time to blog.

Gaia is such a humungous community that I can feel overwhelmed. I still feel like I'm barely beginning to get to know people. Whereas, in some smaller online communities I've joined, the getting-to-know period was much shorter….

Re: Being Busy. And Different. Etc.

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:04:14 GMT

cool! :) thanks,

nicole

Re: Being Busy. And Different. Etc.

http://loveasthesubstrataofspace.gaia.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:33:05 GMT

okay young uns...

i will weigh in on this one...

I spent my whole life asking "what can I, one person , do???"
I needed an action that, when I studied its effect, it would satisfy my need to gift into the realm, the chance that my OWN GRANDCHILDREN would NOT have to live without the options I personally craved, yet could not find...

a lifestyle that, when all in our heart is in balance, we know...without doubt...that we are living the life of spiritual action, generating only good for our selves...unchained from the wheel of earning the dollar, that traps us into needing to hide from discomfort, so deep is our own self realization of how ineffective our life is if we have not authentically ended at least one form of suffering for our selves or our children...

in a world where the simple act of turning on a news station causes the heart to suffer...what I realized was needed is a SYSTEM to ease us back into the flow of a spiritual life...this can only arrive...if our life is lived within the flow/seasons/realities of food growing, clothes making...and the delight of sharing our art and our village sustaining acts with the children we love...

so...from the process of surrender...which leads us to follow the inner voice...

I followed until I had the skills to design a recovery system for our planets struggling cultures

now....if only I could get people to USE this system...it would break out all over the earth....this environmental recovery system called natural village living...it is what caused joy to break out in every life...for millenia....until the industrial nations took this right away from us...the right to live on land with nature as our primary support system...spiritual nature...the true test of enlightenment, I have discovered...is how well NATURE responds to YOUR CONVERSATION WITH HER...

to understand what this means...check out the hummer video at our website and in my blog...
nature, and the agents of nature...cannot find us

if we are working in an office
or driving our kids to a ball game

they find us...
when we live among them...in the forest
in the jungle...sharing space with their reality

this...is to become part of natures enlightend condition, and then to share this experience of a visiting hummer with your child...as cultivation of love and joy within the heart of nature...this is who we are: NATURES CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this...is to live love, the beauty way....

What are we doing???
pretending to live..and feeling bad when we understand that our comforts have led to the profound suffering of those who are not white
and
are not privaleged enough to have these options.

suffering comes to every person according to their own spiritual understanding...a lack of an enlightened population means the failure of a culture to teach joy...which is the JOB and responsibility of THE CULTURES LANGUAGE...

(to be a fluent Lakota language speaker means to understand how to LIVE LOVE INHERENTLY) Every authentically spiritual language that belongs to an ancient indigenous culture teaches this same lesson without fail.

please do click on the sustain ability link at the site...learn about how love and the nature of love IS a LOVE OF NATURE....and is the inner fire of our SELVES... My suggestion...is to study the Natural Villages join, earn and earth peace pages...and ask yourselves...

"what would it take for me to establish a living situation where I have no mortgage, and I am growing food with freinds and neighbors...in a place where my joy can find me...by sending me a visit from a hummer, or like recently..a raven came to my front door.....why???"

for a "chat"...he was curious about this human who was talking to him...so he beegan to talk to me...IN MY OWN VOICE! (because I, tried to talk to him...is HIS voice!) so he tried to communicate effectively with me...only using HIS words!!!! onk errrh onk!

my squirrels were worshipping a jaguar skull in my back yard...another story...SHOWING that ANIMALS WORSHIP NATURE FORMALLY!!!! AS WE ARE SUPPOSED TO: HENCE THE existence of CEREMONY.....aaaahhhhhh

www.natural-villages.org
we are being interviewed by the World Watch organization this week....
and thank you to Zet, who is really working to support one of our young african leaders in training...so our programs can expand one day, into the countries that really need them...

sometimes it is difficult for me knowing how much work is needed, how much suffering is occuring...and yet...so so so few people give into these programs...or take the time off from work to go into a crisis community like Pine Ridge...and actually make sure a solution and and end to suffering occurs...in our own nation...

where we erased these landlords (this hallocaust we forgot to tell ourselves about...where we allowed our military and cultural hatred to murder oh maybe ten million native americans??? less than 200 years ago???)

and then we rounded those left over into reservations like pine ridge....so we could set up the money system...and create this comfort of living on a job site, and spending some time in a big big house ready to drive kids to a ball field to play a simple game.

(and we forgot they are STILL THERE only STILL SUFFERING...but maybe some a little less than back then...but not less than YOU)

If this post moves anyone...it can be moved, too
to somewhere more people might read it!

namaste...
and...to motivate us to end suffering...someone needs to be willing to remind ourselves that

the truth does hurt...that is WHY we need to hear it!!!!!!!! So we can move and act in ways that actually end the pain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Being Busy. And Different. Etc.

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:59:39 GMT

This is a wonderful beginning and great help. I wish to build on it, but will continue to think on how. Thanks again!

Love,

Nicole

Re: Being Busy. And Different. Etc.

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:29:20 GMT

As Nicole and I found on the homeless thread; there are some things we aren't doing because of bringing up children in the house.

At the same time, the most help that each of us can do, is whatever can be done easily. I like to think of do-able actions because there are so many things that each of us CAN do; even at the physical action level, as this group is about.

One of the obstacles to taking an action, is to choose one that is too difficult, and then excusing ourselves for not doing it.. Reminds me of the Fear of Failure - need for ACHievement [nACh] intearction we studied in Psychology; and how that helps us to set goals that are realistic or unrealistic.

So for me; it is a doable action to take: to pay monthly for vision operations for the poor; to give money to the homeless; and clothes and food to those around me who need them. And to involve the children in what I'm doing; so that they learn that giving needs to be a regular action in our lives.

Re: Being Busy. And Different. Etc.

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:08:46 GMT

wow, zet, your post really makes me think... we are so very very comfortable aren't we with our three meals a day, nice houses, good jobs, etc etc

most of us have never known the horror of war, famine, ongoing natural disasters and many other circumstances people in too many parts of the world accept as the way things are... for them, there...

what are the "problems" we middle and upper class people in western countries have? minor health concerns by and large - this headache i am fighting as i write this, the sleeplessness, being up at three in the morning on the computer instead of getting rest, traffic jams, stress and deadlines, emotional difficulties through falling in love and our relationships...

our relatively small problems can bring us tremendous suffering at times, which as much as the comfort and ease drowns out the voices calling for our help in other parts of the world.

thank you for this reminder. i want to do so much more than i am doing right now. it's not good enough an excuse for me that i am very busy, because i know it's a question of priorities.

love and light,

nicole

Being Busy. And Different. Etc.

http://zetwhite.gaia.com — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:10:26 GMT

...I mean, I don't even have a full-time job and kids! And I still don't manage to follow what's going on on several pods I subscribed to, not to mention my friends' blogs! I really have to start mastering RSS feeds... But that's concerning Gaia activity. What about "social activism" of various kinds? Who can find the time and resources to engage in minor, let alone serious, activism?

I'm learning things like counselling, hypnotherapy and other helpful stuff to be able to provide some quick effective support to some people on my path. (Already proving helpful!) I would really love to get into photojournalism and get really visually and contextually powerful images about social injustice out into the public. But where am I going to get the money and time for all the travelling if I'm a full-time employee in an office (supposedly)?

No wonder that there are complaints about the World Social Forum being mainly "young and white" and rather unrepresentative of the very disadvantaged groups/countries they/we claim to defend. (G. Monbiot - Age of Consent) As Monbiot says: "Most of us who attend the national and global social forums, who travel to our capitals or other people’s to protest, who fill cyberspace and the printed page with our opinions and debates, are members of a priveleged minority. We have time, money, passports, literacy and access to technology."

This made me think... The people most oppressed in this world have the least power, the least voice, the least ablility to influence the ones who cause their oppression. The ones who vitally need to go out on the streets of London and New York - simply can't. The ones who can - us? - don't.

Why don't we? This question hits my head like a heavy brick every time I hear, see or read about injustice in the world. Why didn't I take my (wow) own car and drive to the capital with my friends and make/print (wow, print!) posters requesting, for example, freedom to Tibet?

Gosh, what a stupid reason my "being a full-time employee" excuse above sounds now. Or does it? What if I'm working full-time for a charity? Hmm...

I think, even for me, it's also this "being different" part. I don't actually know what it's like in Tibet nowadays. Or in Africa or Latin America or etc. etc., I heard it's bad, but I don't FEEL EXPLICITLY how bad it is. In my meditations, in my quiet, confortable corner in my room, after a nutritious dinner, i.e. a third meal a day (yes third.) (yes, a day.), my meditative state whispers to me - "alll issss weeelllll..." Ommm......