Saturday Links for the Week — March 22, 2008

Unbearable Grief for Gaia: Vancouver blogger Sanjay Khanna writes about what I have called Unbearable Grief for Gaia, which now has a name…solastagia. Or perhaps, in Portuguese, saudade. Thanks to David Parkinson for the link.

Sustainable Urban Design: Melbourne’s Kate McMahon is attempting to make her own community sustainable, and is using the following ten sustainable urban design objectives to do so. If we could replace GDP with a measure of our success achieving these objectives, we’d have a measure that mattered:

1. Zero Carbon
2. Zero Waste
3. Sustainable Transport and Urban Form
4. Local Sustainable Materials
5. Local Sustainable Food
6. Sustainable Water
7. Habitats, Wildlife and Natural Biodiversity
8. Culture and Heritage
9. Economy, Equity and Fair Trade
10. Health and Happiness

Conversation Week: Monday is the start of Conversation Week. Its founders encourage people to get together with others for conversation on things that matter, particularly these top 10 Questions (thanks to Mia for the link):

1. How can we best prepare our children for the future?
2. What does sustainability look like and how do we get there?
3. How do humans need to adapt to survive in the 21st century?
4. How do we shift from me to we to solve our problems?
5. How can we “be the change we want to see in the world”?
6. What kind of economy supports sustainable living?
7. How do we reinvent politics so people have a real voice?
8. What kind of leadership does the world need now?
9. How can we balance personal needs with those of the community and world?
10. How can we end violence everywhere?
11. What is the most important question in the world today, to you?

Achieving Consensus: The Fellowship of Intentional Communities provides a great handbook on Formal Consensus decision-making. If we are to reinvent our society as a responsible, sustainable, community-based one, we need more guides like this.

Understanding How the Brain Works, and Doesn’t: Several people pointed me to this remarkable TED video by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who chronicled her own stroke, and recovery, and in the process taught us all a lot about how our brains work, and how, if we listened more to the right side of our brains, the world would be a better place.

Create Your Own Social Network: I’m intrigued by the simplicity of Ning, a tool that lets you create your own social network, as a means of finding people with the same passions that you have.

Meditation Music an Oxymoron?: Many practitioners of meditation discourage listening to music while meditating, believing it is a distraction that keeps you from focusing. I have found that, in the absence of both natural sounds and music, I just can’t do it. When I’m outside, in a natural setting, I’m fine. But indoors, it is as if my ears are missing something to ground me. Complete silence, recommended to focus on your breathing, just seems unnatural to me — I can’t focus on anything. I’ve found three types ofmusic work best for me:

• Sounds of nature: Especially rainforest sounds. 
• Classical music: Choral music or adagios. Jonathan Elias’ Prayer Cycle is amazing.
• Music designed for meditation: My favourite is Singh Kaur’s 43-minute This Universe. It, and music like it can be heard on Artists4Mercy.