Nuclear explosions since 1945

Bob Thomson's lecture in class - listen online!

Click the media player below to listen to Bob's lecture for our course Sustainable Relations: a vision of indigenous peoples.

Mandala

Our common Mandala

The word "mandala" is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean "circle," a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself--a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Describing both material and non-material realities, the mandala appears in all aspects of life: the celestial circles we call earth, sun, and moon, as well as conceptual circles of friends, family, and community.

A mandala is...
An integrated structure
organized around a
unifying center
Longchenpa

"The integrated view of the world represented by the mandala, while long embraced by some Eastern religions, has now begun to emerge in Western religious and secular cultures. Awareness of the mandala may have the potential of changing how we see ourselves, our planet, and perhaps even our own life purpose."
(From Mandala: Journey to the Center, by Bailey Cunningham)

creating unity Creating a group mandala is a unifying experience in which people can express themselves individually within a unified structure.

The Mandala Project workshops for children include the creation of a group mandala quilt. The students enjoy creating individual mandalas that are incorporated into a larger work of art. Creating a group mandala can be an enjoyable activity with friends. It can also provide an excellent closure to an event or workshop.

These photos of a beach rock mandala were taken by Mary Ann Rolfe. The mandala was made at the culmination of a week long workshop in August 1998 at Findhorn in the Northern part of Scotland.

Mary Ann writes about the experience:"We all brainstormed to decide on a closing project to celebrate the week and the wonderful connections we had made with people from all over the world, the Findhorn Foundation and with ourselves. "At this lovely North Sea beach, instead of sand we found incredible washed stones of every size and color. So, we began this impromptu creation knowing that part of the beauty would be in its temporary nature as the tides washed it away." See Mary Ann's personal mandala.

More examples of group mandalas:
Miguel Tomas' art classes in Spain
Regina Drummond's workshop in Costa Rica

cross-cultural patterns
The mandala pattern is used in many religious traditions. Hildegard von Bingen, a Christian nun in the 12th century, created many beautiful mandalas to express her visions and beliefs.

In the Americas, Indians have created medicine wheels and sand mandalas. The circular Aztec calendar was both a timekeeping device and a religious expression of ancient Aztecs.

In Asia, the Taoist "yin-yang" symbol represents opposition as well as interdependence. Tibetan mandalas are often highly intricate illustrations of religious significance that are used for meditation.

different cultures, similar expressions
Both Navajo Indians and Tibetan monks create sand mandalas to demonstrate the impermanence of life.

In ancient Tibet, as part of a spiritual practice, monks created intricate mandalas with colored sand made of crushed semiprecious stones. The tradition continues to this day as the monks travel to different cultures around the world to create sand mandalas and educate people about the culture of Tibet.

The creation of a sand mandala requires many hours and days to complete. Each mandala contains many symbols that must be perfectly reproduced each time the mandala is created. When finished, the monks gather in a colorful ceremony, chanting in deep tones as they sweep their mandala into a jar and empty it into a nearby body of water as a blessing. This action also symbolizes symbolizes the cycle of life.

A world away, the American Navajo people also create impermanent sand paintings which are used in spiritual rituals–in much the same way as as they are used by Tibetans. A Navajo sandpainting ritual may last from five to nine days and range in size from three to fifteen feet or more.

Learn more about Tibetan art and culture
Learn more about Navajo Sand Paintings

mandalas in architecture
From Buddhist stupas to Muslim mosques and Christian cathedrals, the principle of a structure built around a center is a common theme in architecture.

Native American teepees are conical shapes built around a pole that represents the "axis mundi" or world axis.

Buckminster Fuller expanded on the dome design with his famous geodesic dome structures. The dome structure has the highest ratio of enclosed area to external surface area, and all structural members contribute equally to the whole--a great structural representation of a mandala!

micro to macro
Representing the universe itself, a mandala is both the microcosm and the macrocosm, and we are all part of its intricate design. The mandala is more than an image seen with our eyes; it is an actual moment in time. It can be can be used as a vehicle to explore art, science, religion and life itself. The mandala contains an encyclopedia of the finite and a road map to infinity.

Carl Jung said that a mandala symbolizes "a safe refuge of inner reconciliation and wholeness." It is "a synthesis of distinctive elements in a unified scheme representing the basic nature of existence." Jung used the mandala for his own personal growth and wrote about his experiences.

It is said by Tibetan Buddhists that a mandala consists of five "excellencies":
The teacher • The message • The audience • The site • The time

An audience or "viewer" is necessary to create a mandala. Where there is no you, there is no mandala. (from: You Are the Eyes of the World, by Longchenpa, translated by Lipman and Peterson).

Taken from: The Mandala Project (http://www.mandalaproject.org/Index.html).  In this site you can view hundreds of mandalas.

Permaculture principles

Please click here to download principles of permaculture

Brewster Kneen's lecture to Sustainable Relations students - listen online!

Permaculture principles

First film footage of remote Amazon rainforest tribe

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12360013

Alternative Latin American Folk Music in OTTAWA

Our guest speaker: Bob Thomson

Author Bob Thomson will be our guest speaker this Monday March 14 for our course EAS "Sustainable Relations". He knows about Suma Qamaña (this is in Aymara, in Quechua it is Sumak Kausay) and his latest article about Degrowth and the Pachakut'i can be found here: http://bit.ly/gpIZCK . Please read his article to be well prepared for his visit.

This is a very concise biography about Bob Thomson:

From 1994 to 2000, Bob Thomson was the founder and Managing Director of TransFair Canada, Canadian affiliate of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), a 17 nation certification body promoting a fair trade label for coffee and other foods/commodities. 

He was Co-ordinator of the Ottawa Food Security Council (now Just Food) in 2003/2004 and the Facilitator of the Export Credit Agency Watch network in Paris from 2005 to 2008. Bob has a degree in Civil Engineering (U of T 1968) and an M.A. in International Affairs (Carleton 1983). 

He has lived and worked in Peru, the Caribbean, France and Canada and has extensive experience with NGO programme and project evaluations, fair trade producer support, non-profit governance, housing co-operatives, computer assisted communications for civil society, and finance and the environment. He is currently involved in organizing an international conference on convivial degrowth in Montreal at the end of May 2012 and now calls himself a Slowcialist. 

Visit his web site at http://slowcialism.wordpress.com.

Drake equation

This is the equation Frank Drake wrote on the blackboard in 1961:

N = R f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L

Each term to the right of the equals sign represents one of the questions we asked earlier:
R is the rate of star formation within the Galaxy, expressed in stars per year (approx.: 100 billion);
f_p is the fraction of stars that form planets (approx.: 20% to 50%);
n_e is the average number of planets each such star possesses, which are capable of supporting life (from 1 to 5);
f_l is the fraction of those planets where life actually occurs (from 100% -resilience of life- to 0%);
f_i is the fraction of life-bearing planets where intelligence arises (from 100% to 0%, depending on your assumptions);
f_c is the fraction of intelligent life-bearing planets where intelligent beings develop the ability to communicate beyond their own world; and
L is the length of time, in years, that such communications remain detectable.

By estimating values for each of these terms and multiplying them together, one arrives at:

N, the estimated number of detectable civilizations.

TO CALCULATE 'N' follow this link: Drake equation calculator

Our guest: Brewster Kneen

Brewster Kneen was born in Ohio and studied economics and theology in the U.S. and the U.K. before moving to Toronto in 1965. There he produced public affairs programs for CBC Radio, and worked as a consultant to the churches on issues of social and economic justice. In 1971, with his wife Cathleen and their children Jamie and Rebecca, he moved to Nova Scotia, where they farmed until 1986, starting with a cow-calf operation and then developing a large commercial sheep farm.
For many years Brewster was secretary of the Sheep Producers Association of Nova Scotia and in the early 1980s he organized the Northumberland Lamb Marketing Co-operative (Northumberlamb) and the Brookside Abattoir Co-operative, both farmer owned and operated. In 1980, the Kneens started publishing The Ram's Horn.
In 1986 the Kneens returned to Toronto and Brewster began his career of writing and lecturing on the food system, with increasing attention to biotechnology. He received two grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council as an Independent Scholar for research into 'technological determinism' and in 1994-5 he was a Senior Fellow of the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. Brewster was also a founding member of the Toronto Food Policy Council. During this time he wrote his first four books.
The Kneens lived in British Columbia from 1995 to 2006, first in Mission in the Fraser Valley and then at Left Fields (the farm operated by Rebecca Kneen and Brian MacIsaac) in Sorrento in the Shuswap. During this period Brewster wrote Farmageddon and Invisible Giant, 2nd edition, and engaged in public education and organizing, helping form the BC Biotechnology Circle and the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN). In 2006 the Kneens moved east to a more accessible location, Ottawa, where a bicycle replaces the automobile much of the time.
Much of his current focus is on the cultural and ideological underpinnings of public and political life.  His latest book, The Tyranny of Rights, was published in 2009.

Happy international Women's Day!