Greetings!
We are having a great time
here at Seven Stones and want to welcome you whether you are just returning
from summer vacation or heading out to catch some fun before Labor Day. Since we like metaphor around here we
will say that we are blossoming just like those summer gardens of ours. Much is
taking shape, growing, and expanding, and we want to offer some of our bounty
to you.
Reports from the
field:
1. Re-weaving our Social
Fabric was an evening of some depth and wonder earlier this summer. We have been mildly
obsessed with the metaphor of social fabric. Since then Jen is particularly
fixated on what happens while driving. Read more >
2. We will host a second conversation, Re-weaving Social Fabric by
Phone, on Tuesday, September 14th at two different times (same
call!) 12-1:30pm EDT and 8-9:30pm EDT. Learn more and register.
3. Jen will be teaching Moving from Past to Presence at Omega
this Fall - and Gina and Shea are participants.
4. Jen is launching a somatic
coaches supervision and experiential group this fall. If you are interested
in learning more about this forming group, contact Jen.
5. Jen attended a meeting at Four Years. Go. in San
Francisco July 24-26, a meeting for leaders dedicated to using the context of Four
Years. Go to encourage and galvanize all of us to move towards an
environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human
presence on this planet. It is our mission to cause this shift through the work
of moving from the context of scarcity to a mindset of Exquisite
Sufficiency.
6. In the service of this coordinated effort Gina and Jen
continue to serve the Global Sufficiency Network as
special advisors.
7. Gina distinguished a narrative about our fee structure
earlier this year. While we are still exploring the possibilities of how to be
in exchanges, currency and otherwise, for our work,
we wanted to share with our your latest thoughts and about money
and exchanges. Read more >
8. Jen
and Shea attended an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium at colleague Barry Taylor's
house this past month. One of the evening's outcomes was to experience, to be
left in, 'blessed unrest' - a state of agitation intended for social,
ecological and political change. The book accounts the multitudes of
organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social
justice.
In community and with gratitude,
Jen, Gina and Shea
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 Jen Co-Leading at Omega
Moving from Past to Presence: A Deep Dive Into Embodying our Fullest Potential
Our bodies have a lot to tell us. But few can read what they
are saying. This workshop shows us how to look directly into our inner
world-our mindsets, movement, and energy-to see what our bodies have to teach
us about the ways we keep falling back into habitual patterns, and how we can
fully embody who we wish to become. Jen will be co-facilitating this 5-day
experiential workshop with Samuel Bartussek and Paul Dunion, EdD.
September 19 - 24,
2010
Omega, Rhinebeck, New York
For more information and to register, click here.
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Re-Weaving Social Fabric by Phone!
Tuesday, September 14th at either 12pm or 8pm - you choose!
Eight people joined us for
a radical conversation about social fabric last month and many others wished to
be there but couldn't. We want to continue learning with our community about
what is becoming more and more clearly a core conversation of sufficiency, that
there is none without
community. Please join us on Tuesday, September 14th, at either 12pm EDT or
8pm EDT for a 90-minute exploration
of our interdependence. We
are offering the exact same call at two different times on the same day to
accommodate different schedules. Please register for the one that works best
for you!
Tuesday, September 14th at either 12pm or 8pm
Pricing:
Investment: $20
Valuing: $15
Honoring: $10
Click here to register >
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Money & Exchange
Creating a Company Inside Sufficiency?
Shea
asked me to contribute to the newsletter. She wanted me to share my thoughts
about money and exchange. I wrote a blog back in March called Letting Go of All I Know which outlined our thoughts about having our clients choose
how much and in what form to pay for our services. We called the choices investment, valuing, honoring and exchange. It is an experiment we
implemented shortly after I posted the blog. It has brought us to deepen our
conversation with our clients and vendors and on all of our parts to engage in
relationships where there is no hiding, and where we speak our truth and say
100% of what we need 100% of the time. We have made and received bold requests
for exchanges and have found ourselves diving deeper and deeper into the
inquiry of what is enough?
As
I write this, I am clear that although five months has passed, this is the beginning
of our experiment. How do we measure worth and value? How do we truly serve our
clients and deliver value in a way that brings love, care, growth and all that
they declare - while receiving
inspiration, passion and the resources to build a company, nourish our families
and make a difference?
Our
experiment continues, and we promise to keep practicing. We ask you for your
help. Is there a way we can interact with you, work with you, coach you, write
contracts, invoice or facilitate your team within your definition of
sufficiency? How would you know your company had arrived at enough? What would
a business relationship from sufficiency look like? Is there a way to grow and
expand within the paradigm of sufficiency? Are our collective business
structures so tied to scarcity that we are forever trapped in old ways?
Join
us in our experiment. Come play with us; discover love and fulfillment inside a
rich exchange.
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On our book shelves:
by Laura Munson, This is Not The Story You Think It Is - This "end of suffering" as she wrote about
it, moved all of us and you can read Shea's reflections here.
by Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose - Gina says read this book to see how
to bring fun and values to your organization. She is impressed by their culture book and 10 values that Zappos inculcates in their business.
by
David R. Loy, Money, Sex, War, Karma - We've got Buddhism on our brains, and the InterDependence Project, or IDP, on whose
board Gina serves, just launched a new website to forward its online community
inter-activity. Check it out here.
by Tim Ferriss,
The 4-Hour Workweek - Is the possibility of earning a living without giving up
our lives. We are hoping the principals here will offer some insight into how we can
continue to bring forth sufficiency, pay our bills and take good care of what
is important to us - family, friends, community and those lush gardens...Stay
tuned! And tell us what you think if you pick it up.
by Alan Atkisson, The Isis Agreement - A great tool for organizations looking to put
sustainability on their agenda while continuing to innovate and perform.
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