06 February 2022

Jamál, 01 Mulk (Dominion), 178 B.E.

Seen

Afternoon sunlight on Dieffenbachia leaves (Dieffenbachia oerstedii)

Done

I drafted and posted a first shot at an overview to the Greener Acres Value Network (GAVNet) TimeBank “project portfolio” along with brief descriptions of four projects in it. Here’s the intro:

The GAVNet TimeBank Portfolio includes projects that pertain to individual interests and group endeavors. Among the basic principles of timebanking is that each person has value as a living human being. That value is expressed by what one does with one’s time whether asleep or awake. The challenge, though, is to know what one another thinks, says, does, with whom, where, and when. While information and communication technology gets increasingly clever at gleaning some of that information through our interactions with it as we communicate with others, it still lacks the full context and therefore, true meaning. The projects in the GAVNet portfolio encourage each of us to particular ways to express ourselves more fully, establish a greater familiarity among us, and increase the potential for our combined talents, skills, and experiences to advance the greater good.

Of the four projects, here’s the description of the “How’s the Weather?” initiative that Michael Greenman and others launched last week:

Late in 2021, a group of seasoned veterans in community activism decided to express their concerns on a global stage about the urgency posed by the consequences of climate change and the inadequate measures taken thus far by governments and corporations worldwide to address them. To press their point, they targeted Earth Day (April 22), 2023 for a global “flashmob” whereby those who refuse to accept continued inaction gather in their localities and unite in their statement of resistance to this demonstrated lack of enthusiasm throughout much of the public and private sectors. The group distributed a letter that outlines five “immediate actions” they would like whoever reads it to take.

The GAVNet TB will credit you for the time you spend doing any or all of these “requests.”

Next up is a draft description of the process one follows in order to participate in these, or any other timebank projects — two more days, max ;-)

Noted

Astral Prospecting on Instagram and Astral Prospecting on Facebook

Marc Bosserman on Instagram Marc Bosserman on Facebook, and Marc Bosserman Music and Musings on YouTube

Tab’s Galaxy on YouTube

Quoted

Bahá’ís are encouraged to see in the revolutionary changes taking place in every sphere of life the interaction of two fundamental processes. One is destructive in nature, while the other is integrative; both serve to carry humanity, each in its own way, along the path leading towards its full maturity. The operation of the former is everywhere apparent—in the vicissitudes that have afflicted time-honoured institutions, in the impotence of leaders at all levels to mend the fractures appearing in the structure of society, in the dismantling of social norms that have long held in check unseemly passions, and in the despondency and indifference exhibited not only by individuals but also by entire societies that have lost any vital sense of purpose. Though devastating in their effects, the forces of disintegration tend to sweep away barriers that block humanity’s progress, opening space for the process of integration to draw diverse groups together and disclosing new opportunities for cooperation and collaboration. Bahá’ís, of course, strive to align themselves, individually and collectively, with forces associated with the process of integration, which, they are confident, will continue to gain in strength, no matter how bleak the immediate horizons. Human affairs will be utterly reorganized, and an era of universal peace inaugurated….

… Animating the Bahá’í effort to discover the nature of a new set of relationships among these three protagonists [the individual, the institutions, and the community] is a vision of a future society that derives inspiration from the analogy drawn by Bahá’u’lláh, in a Tablet penned nearly a century and a half ago, which compares the world to the human body. Cooperation is the principle that governs the functioning of that system. Just as the appearance of the rational soul in this realm of existence is made possible through the complex association of countless cells, whose organization in tissues and organs allows for the realization of distinctive capacities, so can civilization be seen as the outcome of a set of interactions among closely integrated, diverse components which have transcended the narrow purpose of tending to their own existence. And just as the viability of every cell and every organ is contingent upon the health of the body as a whole, so should the prosperity of every individual, every family, every people be sought in the well-being of the entire human race. ¹