12:30 p.m. Pacific/3:30 p.m. Eastern

Circle Connections Blog Talk Radio Show
Act In, Act Up, Act Out, Act Together

Call: 347-215-7136

- or -

Listen online: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/circleconnections

September 6th, 2010 ~ The Power of Eco-Connections: Eco-Extravaganzas, Eco-Networking, and Eco-Interneting for the Greater Good
It’s been a tough year: in North America, oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico; in Asia some of the highest temperatures ever recorded; in the Arctic, the fastest melting of sea ice ever seen; in Latin America, record rainfalls washing away whole mountainsides. Marjorie Levine-Ziff joins us to share about her involvement in the 10-10-10 event in Naples Florida and her feminine touch in the development of  http://www.ugogreen.com.

I found this wonderful video while I sit this weekend blissfully alone in a coffee shop rather than in the care of my autistic grandson and his little sister. I love being ‘Grandma Tutu’ and know that my devotion to the evolutionary process of this journey of expanding and revealing his potential and possibilities with autism and the spiritual nudge it offers all of us is my grandson’s gift me, calling for the expansion of my own potential and possibilities, making here the perfect place for me to be even when it is uncomfortable.

I am constantly juggling between all the things I want to BE and DO. Being with my grandson as an integral p[art of his journey and in between the cracks being involved with Circle Connections as well as mentoring other families amidst the challenges of autism helps me refine balance in my life. It calls for the realization that balance is not an achievement or a still moment in time, but a process of one change after another demanding constant motion and adjustments. It is all so much easier when I remember that when I cannot change the circumstances, I can change the quality of my thoughts. It is not about the outcome. It is about living each moment in love, lovevolve.

I am a connector who loves to learn and be an instrument of change. I am more open to change than many, and savor this skill. Although I reach out all the time, I am an introvert by nature. My calling to serve and make a difference too often distracts me from my equal need to refuel my spirit, soul and senses. Currently, with a health challenge and financial constraints nipping at my heels, these situations awakened me to my imbalance and denial. My implosion reminded of the importance of incorporating stillness and reflection time and some physical exercise into all that I do and give.

The volume of the ‘human ‘DOing’ voice that lives in me that somehow still believes that this constant action provides the validation and evidence of my worth resists being dialed down a bit by the ‘human BEing’ voice in me that knows that BEing trumps DOing, or at least calls them to dance together to create the tension that creates what we know as balance. I have not been good at this over time. It seems to be my recurring life lesson, however here it is again, another choice point inviting the further evolution of my consciousness. It seems I am not the only women who stumbles over this opportunity, and so, in my sweet alone moment I felt inspired to share it with you.

So am I really alone if I am thinking of the importance of sharing this with you? Yeh, I think it counts.

Relax, contract. Open, close. Inhale, exhale. Remember, forget. Be alone, connect. It comes together in the creation of this grand insight and reveals that life is pretty amazing, as am I, with all my high and low spots and all its twists and turns.

And my mom always said that “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.”

So, take some time alone, and…

In-Joy it all,

Rhonda

Mark your calendar now…

Join us August 30th, 2010
(and every Monday…)

12:30 p.m. Pacific/3:30 p.m. Eastern
Circle Connections Blog Talk Radio Show
Act In, Act Up, Act Out, Act Together

Call: 347-215-7136

- or -

Access online: http://blogtalkradio/circleconnections

Joining us as our guest to explore How a Radically Different World View is Possible by Adopting a Gift Economy will be Gift Economy expert Genevieve Vaughn.

According to Wikipedia, in the social sciences, a gift economy (or gift culture) is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards (i.e. no formal quid pro quo exists). Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community. The organization of a gift economy stands in contrast to a barter economy or a market economy . Informal custom governs exchanges, rather than an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity.

Genevieve Vaughn, independent researcher, activist, social change philanthropist,speaker and visionary, joins us to demystify and share her insights about a Gift Economy inside and outside of patriarchal capitalism and how women play an important role in making a radically different world view is possible.

To learn more about her and her work, visit: http://www.gift-economy.com/

If you have any specific questions you would like us to ask Genevieve, just email and let us know…

CLICK HERE

If a profound respect stirs in you, appreciating and admiring the strength and leadership, simplicity and unconditional love that this woman embodied, it is because it lives in you as well. Perhaps a spiritual muscle that needs to be strengthened or a knowing intuition that needs to be acknowledged and fostered, but that innate power lives in each of us.

Drink this in and let it act as a mirror, a resting spot, a consciously evolving way of being, for this is the feminine that is being revealed one circle, one connection, one step at a time.

Circle Connections in honor of Women’s Rights Day, August 26^th , celebrates the re-turning to the Divine Feminine, bringing healing, love, compassion, cooperation, justice and peace.

Women and girls are showing the way in forming equal partnerships with men and boys, bringing us two-leggeds into harmony and alignment with all creation.

Holy Mother sung by Eric Clapton and Luciano Pavarotti fills us with Her love, Unites us as One.  Holy Mother Father, We are One.

Namaste!!!

Ann & Rhonda

Women Bringing Light to the Economic Value
of Unpaid Female Care

Jan Peterson, founder and chair of the secretariat of the Huairou Commission and founder of GROOTS International, and Shannon Hayes, also working at the Huairou Commission – first as an intern and now as AIDS Campaign Coordinator, join us in an important conversation that will bring light to the Economic Value of Unpaid Female Care in the Context of HIV and AIDS  and to speak about the power of women in organizing and advocacy on home-based care in Africa.

Don’t miss the show…
12:30 p.m. Pacific/3:30 p.m. Eastern
Circle Connections Blog Talk Radio Show
Act In, Act Up, Act Out, Act Together

Call: 347-215-7136

- or -

Listen online:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/circleconnections.com

More about our guests…

Shannon Hayes moved to New York City from Southern California in 2003 to pursue a Master of Arts in International Affairs at the New School. In the summer of 2004, she traveled to Kenya for 2 months to participate in a Community AIDS Watch, documenting the work of GROOTS Kenya. The experience sparked her dedication to supporting grassroots-driven development, with a particular interest in processes through which grassroots women are leading the creation of healthy and democratic communities. Since she returned from that trip, she has been working at the Huairou Commission – first as an intern and now as AIDS Campaign Coordinator and supporting various organizing processes in Africa including the Home-Based Care Alliance. Shannon’s work and life are motivated by a deep belief that all beings are equal, and a commitment to creating the life circumstances and contexts through which we can all fully realize our best selves.

Jan Peterson, founder and chair of the secretariat of the Huairou Commission and founder of GROOTS International and prior to that, founder and executive director of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, a grassroots women’s empowerment organization in the United States. With 30 years of experience in developing local initiatives, Ms. Peterson is the recipient of many awards for community service and is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences and events.

Linda Sechrist and Sharon Joy will host circle conversations on their tour from San Diego to South Carolina to collect “green stories” and of course water stories.

Please pass on this information.

Namaste!!!

Ann

Stone Soup Listening Tour September 7-23, 2010

Help connect the green dots…

In the 1990’s, author Paul Ray’s research on changing values and lifestyles concluded that in the U.S. alone, there are over 50 million “Cultural Creatives”—adults participating in the social and consciousness movements, which have emerged since World War II. Cultural Creatives care about the planet, relationships and steward leadership, supporting a more organic, systemic view of how we live together.

More recently, in Blessed Unrest, author Paul Hawken’s writes that there are more than two million organizations making a meaningful difference around green and social justice issues.

So why aren’t we hearing about, collecting and connecting all the green and sustainable stories being told by the 50 million Cultural Creatives, who are undoubtedly involved in some of the two million organizations? Are their stories hanging “out there” somewhere like “dangling participles” disconnected and unable to effectively transform, modify or enhance the momentum of the grassroots movement already taking place?

The Stone Soup Listening Tour:
Connecting people, places and projects

What “green stories” are happening everywhere?
Who’s telling them?

Linda Sechrist, a writer and editor for Natural Awakenings Magazine and co-founder of Upstate Green Central Station, and Sharon Joy Kleitsch, founder of The Connection Partners, want to hear the latest in the emerging green story.

On their Stone Soup Listening Tour in 11 cities across the southern U.S., Sechrist and Kleitsch plan to meet hundreds of innovative folks, listen to stories about their projects and learn what they’re doing to create sustainable communities intended to ensure a future for all. Adding sustenance to make a healthy and savory “stone soup,” the women will collect the bounty of conversations and stories from each community as they travel along and contribute them to the next “pot.” The much anticipated result: a truly savory and soulfully good soup story that sustains all.

The prologue to the Stone Soup Listening Tour began when Sechrist’s brother in California gifted her with a car. A resident of Spartanburg South Carolina, she decided to fly to California and drive back, stopping to visit with 11 of the 82 Natural Awakenings publishers as she traveled east. Upon sharing plans with her friend on July 4, the spark ignited in Kleitsch a knowing that she was supposed to join her.

The tour begins in San Diego on September 7th and moves on to Tucson, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, ending in Greenville/Spartanburg.

While education is essential, the ways we listen together to discover paths to wise actions are critical. Partnering with the World Café, Open Space and Art of Hosting networks, Kleitsch and Sechrist anticipate co-hosting evening, weekend or afternoon gatherings in each city. While daytime hours include visiting with individuals, organizations, and regional leaders to hear about what is working in their communities, evenings are set aside for stories and conversations that matter. This gives everyone an opportunity to hear about community happenings around slow food, slow money, permaculture, Transition Towns, Awakening the Dreamer, Four Years Go, 10.10. 10, Circle Connections, Social Artistry, Bioneers, transportation, clean energy, green building, sustainable cities, and everything it takes to build and strengthen sustainable communities.

Through their various networks the women are connecting with regional non-profit, business, government and media leaders to support what they and others are already doing in the tour cities. “This adds to an even more satisfying Stone Soup of true sustenance,” says Sechrist. “Many are already hosting conversations to address current issues, offering experiences to recognize the value of listening for what we don’t know. We’re just connecting a few more green dots, stirring the Stone Soup pot and will watch what happens,” adds Kleitsch.

Ray points out, “All the technical and social innovations needed to solve our problems have already been developed and are staring us in the face. Cultural Creatives, who are over 30% of U.S. adults, represent a new emerging consciousness that if made aware and mobilized, could provide critical mass of influence and pressure in the economic, cultural and political domains to shift the balance.”

From Separation to Collaboration

‘When Cultural Creatives finally connect and delight in what they share in common, amazing things are going to occur,” say Kleitsch and Sechrist. Among others who are sensing the growing need to connect and move from separate projects to collaboration, Sechrist and Kleitsch are excited about answering the call with their Stone Soup Listening Tour, intended to help others connect, align, synergize and leverage what is showing up faster by paying attention.

Join us for a chance to share what you are noticing, to connect and to be pleasantly surprised. Be part of the Stone Soup Listening Tour. Contact Sharon Joy Kleitsch, The Connection Partners, with ideas, contacts and venue possibilities in any of the 11 cities.

To explore how independent media can support and magnify the new emerging story, video interviews will be posted on Facebook, blog.naturalawakeningsmag.com and Creative Loafing’s Green Communities sites http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/green as well as YouTube and UpstateGreenDirectory.com.

The tour begins in San Diego on September 7th and moves on to Tucson (9/9), Phoenix (9/10), Albuquerque (9/12), Santa Fe (9/13-14), Oklahoma City (9/16-17), Tulsa (9/18), Little Rock (9/20), Memphis (9/21), Nashville (9/22) and Chattanooga (9/23, ending in Greenville/Spartanburg (9/23).

Sharon Joy Kleitsch, kleitsch@verizon.net.
Linda Sechrist, lysechrist@aol.com.

To listen to the archived show, visit:

http://tinyurl.com/283rvjx

In genuine support, we wanted to pass along the following invitation from Lucky Sweeney and Jeanie DeRousseau of Evolutionary Women…

Dear Friends of the Heart, dear Evolutionary Women,

Will you help set the template for a new wave of evolutionary women???

As many of you know, the field of “evolutionary women” is becoming more and more visible each day. We are poised at a solar and galactic moment of new beginnings. Now is the time as never before!

Our dear Bonnie and her true evolutionary partners, Cheryl Gould and Margaret McAllister, are launching their new documentary film, The Heart to Lead: Women as Allies for the Greater Good. Cheryl, Margaret, and 7 of the women in the film are Evolutionary Women! The Heart to Lead is a visible expression of all that we have experienced together, and an energetic invitation to women everywhere to be in conversations that evoke their innate divinity. If we as a collective support and take action on behalf of this film, it will inevitably move into its right place to invite the next wave of change…

In just a few days, we will be sending out a formal email invitation to taste and purchase the DVD. It is offered with a complimentary companion guidebook, The Guide to Heart-knowing, for evoking THE conversation around the content of the film.

This is the template we are asking you to co-create with us:

1) Receive the information about the film with an open heart, to feel the love and unity of the transmission.
2) Anchor it into the Evolutionary Women field, into the Earth Itself if this is something you do, and intend that it attract the right women.
3) If it is possible for you, buy the film with great appreciation for all the inner intention, change and growth that it represents. (Write Bonnie directly at bonnie@imaginethegood.com to contribute in other ways).
4) Invite at least one other woman to watch The Heart to Lead with you, and have a heart-to-heart conversation afterward. Please “play it forward” by sharing the invitation with your family and friends.
5) Circle the energy back to the film by writing a few words about your experience, and posting them on Evolutionary Women’s LightPages.

Please watch for the email, and do what you can to assist this birth. As never before the power is in the collective, and together we can do this for each other… we can use our new awarenesses to speed up the evolutionary processes…. your gift will return to you a hundredfold…

With deep gratitude and awe for the Process,
Lucky and Jeanie

For more info, contact:

evolutionarywomen@cox.net

Join us Monday, August 9th, 2010 on Blog Talk Radio when our guest will be Maria Riley.

12:30 p.m. Pacific/3:30 p.m. Eastern
Circle Connections Blog Talk Radio Show
Act In, Act Up, Act Out, Act Together
Call: 347-215-7136
- or -

Listen online:  CLICK HERE

We will share a valuable conversation about:

Seeing the World Anew: A Framework for a ReNewed Economy

Maria Riley, co-founder the Global Women’s Project at the Center of Concern will join us to share in a valuable conversation about the important influence of women in seeing the world anew as we create a framework for a reNewed economy.

The Center of Concern is a faith-based organization working in collaboration with ecumenical and interfaith networks to bring a prophetic voice for social and economic justice to a global context.

The Center is both a provider of information and analysis as well as a catalyst for launching projects to address issues or opportunities that advance an authentic human development agenda. Through analysis, education, advocacy and capacity building, the Center challenges structural injustice and promotes innovative economic alternatives.

Effective Strategies

To advance their mission, the Center of Concern has adopted three overarching strategic goals:

1. Influencing Public Policy
   • Give the voiceless a voice at the tables of power
   • Critique policy for those in leadership and for the general public
2. Exercising leadership in national and international circles
   • Provide leadership and moral vision to advocacy networks working for more just institutions and policies in the U.S. and in the international arena
   • Support grassroots justice movements
3. Educating for justice and social transformation
   • Develop theological/social reflection
   • Articulate a call to justice for the faith community
   • Provide education on critical domestic and international issues

The Work of the Center of Concern

For over 38 years, the Center of Concern has been enabling individuals, organizations and coalitions:

1. to explore and analyze the global issues and social structures from an ethical perspective based on Catholic Social Teaching
2. to become involved in strategies and projects that promote the good of the entire global community and the integrity of every individual

Since 1971, the Center of Concern has offered moral vision and provided effective leadership in the struggle to end hunger, poverty, environmental decline, and injustice in the United States and around the world.

Theirgoal is to provide individuals and organizations with basic tools to address these universal questions:

~ What are the root causes of human suffering in the world today?

~ How can we change systems to increase social justice and offer hope? We provide reliable information and analysis on development issues, practical alternatives to current development policies, practical suggestions for personal action, and faith reflections on this work for justice.