In this second entry, I offer you my thoughts on how the consensus of our Voice may come about and a personal experience leading toward its experience...
CONSENSUS
See also: flowcalization
Creativity-Consensus=Healthy Democracy
Benoit Couture: Necessary, is the immediate development of a core community integrated consensus management to shape natural co-operative initiative teams. Here, I must give an explanation of how I see consensus to operate. The mistake with how I've seen this word used is to think that it means everyone agrees to the same thing, with the same position. So no one in their right mind would go for that. Con means with. Sensus means direction. Heading in the same direction is what consensus means. Decision making by consensus means that the poles are identifies among the people's positions and the lining up of the axis between the poles' extremes sets the smooth equilibrium for the movement's orbit to be calibrated from. Consensus in not something to be reached. It is what we start from and it is the way we are sustained with. Consensus dwells in serenity and unity and gets deployed with direction, not achieved from division. The deceitful heart that lives on in each one of us, the wall of enmity that lives in the subliminal regions of our relationships and the tyranny of urgency, live on to permanently challenge our resolve to sustain unity. Such is the initial battle to be taken on by anyone who so wishes to engage in the service of justice, love and freedom of God and humanity.
CONSENSUS CULTIVATION
Here is a basic framework of rules for interactive dynamics.
1- Agreeing to disagree with the commitment to reach agreement. Reality is that objectivity has its own subjectivity. Our contacts are needed to stay objective until we uncover all facets of a topic. once unveiled, subjectivity of the topic appears. We then eack have our own reaction to the completion of the research. This means that sooner or later, all involved must learn, adapt and/or grow up.
2- The other part of the framework is to know that mature freedom of speech stays in the speech of freedom. By stay this course, we eventually we develop a culture of intelligent freedom, hapiness grows and work becomes a breeze, ready for any challenge or to grow from overcoming adversity with eternal life's pulsation into the present.
Flowcalization is a word I invented to describe the movement of the Spirit from personal to local to global by combining the words: Flow, Focal, Localise. With regards.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE
MAKINGS OF HISTORY IN THE MAKING FROM ALBERTA, CANADA...
Value Love and sancttity extend into wise knowledge
As a stay-at-home-dad-voter, Love is what I most need to be good at, but the reality of what I am made of keeps trowing me back on my heals, feeding my fear, hesitation, grumpyness ranging from bad mood to flying out the handle with rage. The evil nature of deceit keeps on compounding stress, ignorance and indifference, blinding me to the service to which Love calls me to breathe in from justice, to breathe out at peace and to live out in the strength of joy. God is Love. The more aware I grow in Love, the more I am aware of what offends Love and how Love does get to be offended. There is no turning back either, once touched by the light of Love. The light of Love burns away the impurity and corruptibility of my mortality until burning turns to shining of the Sacred Fire. Ongoing shadows and struggles go on until maturity is reached and when that day comes, private do I become in the war between light and darkness of the present human condition. My search for Value Love is to discover how to develop the intimate community focus within the boundaries where my love ones and I get to be kept on shining so bright from the mutual comfort of one another's presence and of our response to the moment that each offenses become an experience, swiftly learned by all involved. From strength to strength, imagine the trans-generational renewal of the pension movement that Value Love can arouse for the present and the future, with the support of 2 generations who are awaken to see all of the Value that is going to waste for lack of healthy intimacy with the one fading away! Value Love of the organic spiritual kind does bring on healthy intimacy, because of the personal awareness of how sensitive and delicate the Power of Love is. The worth of Value Love is mined from our treatment of such sensitive delicacy. No shame in ridding what shames us from Love and to Value the freedom from the rule of our personal fear and collective ignorance. The Value of Love is found in its correctional capacity and qualities. There lies from deep within each heart and spirit, the cleansing river of life eternal coming to our soul and body for the flowcalization...(which can now be googled for better acquaintance with the concept)
SPONTANIOUS COMBUSTION OF VALUE LOVE
Live Internet development since Oct 31, 2005
I have been granted the pleasure of getting into a very healthy, online dialogue with someone who is involved with Alternatives to Violence Project. It came about from a simple encounter with someone who was walking my way in a shcool where NGO's are working together. A colleague of the person I met on that Friday in October 2005 replied when I wrote them for further information about their work after a couple of days of the encounter. I thought that it might be relevant as a live example of what led to my introduction to her of GUP...
Oct 31, 2005
Greetings,
On Friday Oct 28, I had the chance to meet with a gentle lady who introduced me to AVP at Sacred Heart school. I work to promote a the starting of a focal point so that the movement against all forms of violence may begin to consolidate momentum on the recovery road from self-destruction to self-control to community self-government. I seek to open up a community centre that will serve the Correctional Family Circuiting by bringing the best of Restorative Justice and Community Mental Health into a renewal home, open 24/7, including holidays. The centre is called "The Faculty of Living" and the deployment begins with a simple home video production of an ongoing live story of violence(myself and my immediate victims) who are seeking and finding the help to complete our passage "From domestic oppression to Domestic Health". In finding the help, there grows the movement from all seekers who find what they need to give and to receive in the communal settings of life. Can we explore how to get stronger from each other's contribution? Thank you for time and consideration, Benoit Couture
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Oct 31, 2005
Dear Ben,
Thank you so much for connecting with us at Sacred Heart School on Friday and following up with providing information about idea to start a focal point for collaboration between movements for promotion of nonviolence. My name is Judy Litke and I was one of the volunteer facilitators at our weekend Alternatives to Violence Project workshop and believe you would have spoken with one of my teammates. I will pass along your message at our next AVP-Alberta team meeting for discussion (our organizational process uses consensus model of decision making). Following that I will contact you with any discussion conclusions that may come from our meeting. I would also like to provide you with some AVP websites that you may find further information about our project: www.avpcanada.ca www.AVPUSA.org www.AVPInternational?.org
I look forward to reconnecting with you and this will probably be after mid December, but please don't hesitate to write in the meantime if you have any questions. Also, if you have any written materials to send either by email or to our mailing address: AVP-Alberta, B102, 400 5212-48 Street, Red Deer, AB T4N? 7C3 this would be helpful to us. I am personally very interested in The Faculty of Living as you've described, just unable to speak for AVP-Alberta until hearing consensus from our organizational group. All the best and thank you so much for connecting with us. Judy
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Nov 1, 2005
Dear Judy,
Likewise, thank you for getting back in touch that swiftly and with such warmth. I wish to inform you at the offset that I am a recovering violence victim and offender. I am now 47 years old and my recovery began at 16 years old. The story is quite unusual in the sense that my offence was in fact paid for and applauded as I was a short and young bouncer of Quebec junior hockey, whom at 15, was beating up these 19 years old who were 50 to 75 pounds bigger. The crowd loved it. It went on until my path in life slapped me in the back of the head and woke me up. Adjusting to the conversion has been uphill ever since, all the way from addictions to exile, a difficult marriage with 4 adult children who are just starting to find some balance from the intensity they were exposed to. You were asking for some reading, so before going into the Faculty of Living, why don't I give you my page where I explain all of that difficult part of myself first. I will then feel like my past will not be something to hinder the possibilities that the future may hold for our co-operation against all forms of violence. Here is my life's training:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A4549575 I hope not to turn you off with such writing and if you are pleased with this first one, I look forward to give you more, as I wrote quite a bit about how to make use of my life experience. Can we go on with the same email reply as we do now. It may consolidate into an initiative for many to learn from afterward, Best regards,
Benoit Couture
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Nov 2, 2005
Hello Ben,
I appreciate so much your speaking from your own experience and what you have learned from your journey. I very much would like to keep in touch and will follow up to read on the site you have given. The next couple weeks I'm preparing for my daughter's wedding and following that I would like to reconnect with you again. In AVP we too speak from our own experience and share our learnings together. The program uses an experiential learning process of seeking and sharing and not of teaching. Volunteer AVP facilitators use what we call 'exercises' or activities which help us to reflect on the group and individual learnings and then to apply to our real lives. And we do a lot of fun activities which help to add lightness and humour. We each are on a journey of becoming aware of that something of good which is within each and everyone of us. As we build community together we increase our awareness and become more empowered to choose alternatives to violence. Fellow AVP team mate, Nelson McClelland? and myself respond to messages which come through the AVP Alberta (our Area Council) email address. Nelson is contact for those interested in participating in workshops held in prison and I am currently contact for those interested in community workshops - the most recent held at Sacred Heart School this past weekend with space provided to us by Edmonton Social Planning Council and the Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations (NAARR). My own wake up call came at about age 26. I am now 56, still learning and grateful for each and every opportunity. I look forward to talking with you further and appreciate your understanding this will need for me to be a bit later in November following my family's wonderful event. I appreciate all opportunities to dialogue further. Thank you so much and all the best, Judy
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Nov, 20, 2005
Dear Ben,
I wanted to get back to you now that life is getting back to normal for me following our daughter's wedding (it was wonderful!), and also to let you know I have just read your life's training account on the h2g2 site. Thank you so much for refering me to your very genuine and dynamic description of your life journey. I would very much like to read or dialogue further as the concept of social entreprenurship follows much in line with my own learning journey and personal philosophy. The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) has been a very big part of my journey. As it turns out our AVP-Alberta team meeting won't be scheduled until early in the new year and at that time I would like to be able to provide our group information about the Faculty of Living Centre. Anything you could provide in further information would be very helpful to me. This is a statement of values and philosophy of Alternatives to Violence Project: * honours that something of good in all people (a principle referred to as Transforming Power) * experiential learning format (if a picture is worth a thousand words, experience - a million) "Ours is a process of seeking and sharing, and not of teaching. We do not bring answers to the people we work with. We do not have their answers. But we believe that their answers lie buried in the same place as their questions and their problems - within themselves. Our job is to provide a stimulus and a 'seeker-friendly' environment to encourage them to search within themselves for solutions. People come with lifetimes of experience behind them. We believe that all experience is valuable [to learn from]...We try to draw out those experiences and help people to look at them. In doing so, we are ourselves in constant process of learning... We try to make AVP an opportunity to examine life and make it more worth living [in respectful ways to self and others] * all volunteer - facilitators and participants (no one mandated to participate) * team work * nondiscrimination * decision making by consensus * community building in groups of 10 to 20 participants I would be very happy to provide further clarification of the work of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) at any time. AVP is in many countries of the world. In Alberta we are presently active in Bowden and Edmonton Institutions. Community workshops (as the one we just did at Sacred Heart School) are less frequent, but community participants are very welcome in the prison workshops once completing the clearance process which takes a little time but isn't difficult. Please let me know if this is something you might be interested in. Thank you so much for sharing your story and experience. As you can see from our statement of values, this is deeply appreciated and at the core of our experiential learning method. I look forward to hearing from you again as you have the time. Regards, Judy
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Nov 20, 2005
Hi again Judy,
This is great news, to hear from you and of your daughter's wedding. I'm also thankfull that my aproach to social entrepeneurship is not too far off in space for you. The kind of frankness that I use in my writing has not produced too many feedbacks yet, but I think that it is a matter of time before it becomes obvious that burreaucracy and mandated programs are not the way to go to move onward socio-culturally, generally speaking. The Faculty of Living is directly connected to the process of seeking and sharing that you mentioned being used by AVP. The idea of calling it like that is to bring on a catalyst to rally all the intelligence of the humanities with a common ground of understanding, of reference and of operation. As the centre grows, I am hoping to heal the decision-making process from the confusion of the "operational definition syndrome" that we suffer from a variety of expertises which all have to "perform" and compete for funding. That centre is the blossoming of the inner resouces as you state: "...we believe that their answers lie buried in the same place as their questions and their problems - within themselves. Our job is to provide a stimulus and a 'seeker-friendly' environment to encourage them to search within themselves for solutions. " I work to find my position where ever I shall be most suitable to the need on the health trail that goes from self-destruction to self-control to community self-government. In the meantime I keep on sowing the seed however I can. To help you understand the kind of promotion I do toward some kind of opening, here is how I started on the Internet. In Feb of 2002, I participated as a stay-at-home-dad into the SUFA review. That is the Social Union Framework Agreement. It was signed by all provinces except Quebec. The federal and the territories also signed it in Feb of 1999. It is the instrument by which they are revamping 150 billions dollars a year of social spending in Canada. That was the beginning of my promotional campaign toward the Faculty of Living. Here it is with a the copies of a couple of emails to whom it may concern:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A6039010In May, 2005, I drew the attention of some people from Europe on the Internet who guided me to learn some basics of networking so that I may get on to close the distance to zero from local to global. So much of my writing is to people who needed to understand me in order to help me. That is why that much of what I give you to read is in a letter context. Here is, mapping of the recovery road:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A4694411The Faculty of Living as I explained it to an open source of major proportion in Europe:
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?comment=2913Why do I write with a certain religious approach? Here are 3 letters. One to her majesty, queen ElisabethII as the Defender of the Faith, one to mr. George Bush and one about the BenedictXVI.
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?comment=2910http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A4414457http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A6992373As you saw in those writing, I seek to establish a focus that cannot be missed from micro to macro. Violence is a personal and community matter that cannot be left alone, just as all the rest of darkness. Let the light shine on...
Thanks for your interest. I realise that I am sending you much material to read and I give it to you because of that interest with no expectation of any kind on my part other that I hope that you may be blessed by some of it. Feel free to share with anyone whom could benefit. There is also a whole lot more of my writings to come if you wish me to send you more. Next time, I could fill you in as to what can be done practically speaking to connect such big dots as what I gave you to read today.
Keep up the good work, Benoit Couture
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Nov 21, 2005
Hi Ben,
I look forward to talking with you again once I've read the material you've provided. Your micro to macro approach is very much in line with a personal interest I have to to take the learnings I've gained through workshops, readings and everyday life along with my wish to not shy away from (because it seems so big or so impossible or so many things) learning about and seeking global community. I have spent time the last 5 years in international dialogue through this sometimes difficult and sometimes amazing new technology. Because this is a personal interest I will write from my home email address after I complete the readings which may take me a week or two. But as I mentioned, should you wish to follow up with participation in an AVP workshop, please don't hesitate to write to this AVP.. address at anytime. Thanks Judy
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Nov 24, 2005
Dear Ben,
I had some difficulty getting into some of the sites you provided but did read as much as I could, and enjoyed hearing your thoughts and ideas. I must be honest that I would need specifics perhaps to understand more fully and better your vision; but this dream for a "citizenship...the science of caring for each other and the art of making peace a living reality" is one I share with you. Yes, a blueprint is needed (and perhaps is present in many shapes and forms and in many places but as yet not cohesive or collaborative in nature). The Faculty of Living I'm hearing, would be a place of gathering for the movement, "the healing of meaning...the exercise to establish the cultural process for the refining of thoughts, living and relating." I like the sound of this. Yes, I would appreciate very much all you can say practically speaking, "to connect the big dots." I have spent most of my life working in nonbureacratic, and nonmandated way as much as possible. It can be very hard - like swimming upstream against the current. I recently made contact with an individual who has an idea that would assist small groups to communicate and connect, then representation from those groups doing same, and so on such that many people could be connected and learning to understand and respect one another - at vast distances, and not dependent upon the usual media or bureacratic informational sources. (I'm not describing this very well, but it is one idea for global community which I liked a great deal, but just unsure of how to get started). This is all I can think of to say for now. Thank you for speaking so openly. Regards, Judy
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Nov 25, 2005
Dear Judy,
Perhaps, the sites you could not get into ould have been irrelevant, as you seem to have zeroed in at the heart of the matter. The swimming up stream that you speak of, is what I understand the birth of social entrepreneurship to be about. I am working with people who have the capacity to bring into reality a "Brand" that would provide a marketable home, consolidating the reforming energies that are brewing in all aspects of human evolution. In that regard, there is the embryo of an online university which has began to draw some of the biggest players of globalisation. It is called: GUP for Global University against Poverty. When you get to it, look on the left side and see the various corporate names that have recently started to sign up:
http://www.stratagility.com/connect/og/gup_0 If you decide to look at my postings, I work with the name Benoit17. This community home houses the life where the invisible value of being human gets cultivated and nourrished until substanciated to maturity. Therefore the name of the Brand that I propose is made of the words "essence" and "substance": "Subsence Publishing and Promotion". The Faculty of Living is the host of the assembling of all other relevant faculties so as to reconcile specialisations and completion from the personal acquisition of the taste for health to the communal organic experience of spiritual unity. Subsece Publishing and Promotion is the personal, local and global tool to assemble all interested parties of the deep correctional movement in human sciences that are needed to guide democracy up to date. This is why this work is being helped along to develop the focus of social entreprerneurship that brings together the local adaptation to flow in direction of the universal citizenship. The idea of a curriculum from minus 40 to grade 40 is coming together with the work of google and of their way to be engaged at serving knowledge management with the open source in the public domain. Sixty four trillions, I repeat, trillions dollars already invested for such curriculum are waisting away on the Internet for the profit of gambling, porn and diffused focus of oblivion land. What is the strategy for the awakening and activation to come about, is the question that I have been at work to raise the focus for the vision to come through. The Faculty of Living is the essence from the personal culture and GUP substanciates the communal organic experience of spiritual unity. Such vision can only come from a massive promotion that manges to capture the public's interest. I can see the coming federal elections in a few days as a perfect promotional platform for an independant sovereignist French man from Alberta to run specifically to challenge all forms of integrity, be it personal, professional, locally, nationally; intellectual integrity must draw the attention whith a project that can seize the momentum for consolidating the reforming energies that are brewing in all aspects of human evolution. If we were to address the electorate from the connection of the whole spectrum of our needs, the work you do about violence can be a great wik for the complte ignition. The path I am on has given me access to some people who are in position to help doing just that. Would you be interested to know more in that sense? The former head of the Alberta RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is one whom would join something serious such as the recovery road from self-destruction to self-control to community self-government. I am also convinced that the times are such, that we could position the plan to quickly build from individuals like him and many others. We would soon draw people ranging such as from David Suzuky to Chief Fontaine to Bruce Cockburn and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell... So many are aware that we need rest from having our collective intelligence constantly assaulted with the non sense of image making ang keeping. I am willing to run as an independant in Edmonton East and I can easily see AVP as a possible partner toward the big picture. What do you think?
Have a good day Judy
Benoit
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