Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Fall in Fall

Fall Fawn
Nothing like falling in the fall time...Occupy Wall Street is shaking the leaves on the big money tree and today 'All Roads Lead to Rome' was the adage leaf that these winds of change are blowing about...there was even a demonstration in our small rural community here in Nevada County! 

The SeThInk team has had its fair share of tree shaking since our last "Interdependence Day' post in July.  It seems everyone is needing to evaluate their priorities and make choices that will hopefully further their basic life intentions (whatever they may be).  

In early spring when the weather here in the Sierra's was still acting like winter we embarked upon our first on-the-ground strategies to build alliances and check out the local systems and structures built up around our own 'local' green and sustainable living circles.  The impetus for such a plan came from Transition California's successful sponsorship of the Bay Localize 'Roots of Resilience'5 Year Anniversary Gala.  

In May SeThInk Media sponsored our local 'Green Life EcoFest' which ended up being highly educational...uh humm....but there were a couple of outcomes from the event that at the time felt promising and made our energy and monetary investment seem worthwhile.  During the event we connected with the local indigenous Maidu tribe folks and proceeded to attempt to form a solid alliance and seek official endorsement of the Low Impact Sustainable Development agenda that we have been working on since the Lammas EcoVillage in Wales received planning approval..  

Maybe we are of a now extinct or not yet born mindset, but our team held an idea in our perhaps delusional minds that when alliances are formed there is an expected 'giving' of some kind that demonstrates worthiness and value to the pact.  Maybe we watched to many movies full of noble concepts or perhaps my generation simply missed a few human behavior memos.  Regardless I should simply fast forward and spare everyone the gory details of human dysfunction and folly but it turns out the Tsi Akim Maidu are not even the real indigenous tribe from this area - the Nisenan tribe is and we got a gullet full of...uh...politics(?) that we are still choking a bit on and trying to figure out.

By the end of September our team sat looking at substantial losses of time, energy, and resources in our pursuit of local sanity in the form of systems and structures that we had hoped would be a 3D basis for further support from our little digital matrix.  We also had a major family crises with an elder uncle.

We are now re-loading back into cyber-space and probably won't touch ground again until some omen or auspicious sign from on high demands we come out again to check the weather.  We are happy to be back in our office and realize that perhaps our little role in this transition needs to be primarily focused in our immediate sphere and our cyber-spheres.  Our attempt to expand our 'family' beyond that turned into a 13 ring circus.  Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and this summer taught us a great deal about both so onward and upward.  

Where everything currently stands:

We severed our alliances with the following organizations and movements:

  • Earth Charter U.S.
  • 4 Years Go
  • Earth Scouts (the network is now community owned/managed and goes by the new name of Planet Earth Scouts - long story)

We determined that the following local orgs/groups are unable or unwilling at this time to understand what a 'strategic alliance' is therefore we will no longer be supporting or working with them until a change in leadership or comprehension occurs:

  • Alliance for the Post Petroleum Local Economy (A.P.P.L.E.) 
  • Nevada County Maidu
  • Various community 'leaders' whom we won't name

We will be focusing our energy on the following projects:

A partnership between SeThInk Media and L.O.V.E. Productions to launch the Global EcoVillages Sustainable Community Network and publish media related to sustainable living.

Continuing the effort to import and adapt the criteria and protocols established by the Lammas EcoVillage in Wales into the U.S.  

Complete update of this project and evolving resources for community members.

Launching the storytelling online education platform.

Working with members to launch a statewide campaign to get mandatory labeling of GMO's on the 2012 ballot, getting caught up on community network admin work, completing content upgrades, connecting with groups and having meetings that have been put off all summer.  Transition California is our favorite online community effort - we look forward to being able to plug back in and keep things evolving.

We have committed to helping this new network get a solid foundation built so we will be devoting time/energy towards that effort.


Along side these we will be doing general website updates across all our platforms.  
We are the Ninjas of Wild West Web!
SeThInk Media Team
In Sustainable Solidarity
PrezDar