[Dialogue] Witness

Mon Dec 10 17:35:42 PST 2012

Thank you, Dick, for this witness. There's so much going on under the  
surface that will one of these days will blossom like the big bang and  create 
newness once again. So glad you're well and still engaged in good  work.

Love and blessings,
Jann McGuire

In a message dated 12/10/2012 2:02:24 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
dick_alton at hotmail.com writes:

Burning  Man 
Celebrating my  71st birthday this December. You would think after all 
these years  I would have learned a few things and, more important, be a lot 
wiser.  Not sure. I guess one thing I have  learned is that there is a lot of 
wisdom out there in this great old world.  And to act on this insight I try 
to collect wisdom and jot them down in my  yearly calendar… I am not sure it 
makes me wise. 
One example is my daughters  going to Burning Man (gathering of old and new 
hippies as one friend explained  to me to smoke a lot of pot). Well my 
daughters Christina and Kay had not told  me about this last part so I 
immediately went and googled Burning Man. And  upped popped the Burning Man 
principles: There is no default world; Expect more  from strangers; Form your own 
camp; Be part of the generosity economy and Embrace  impermanence. I wrote 
Christina- the older daughter- what is this all  about? She says, “you know this 
is like what we learned with ICA, you know the  other world” Now that 
caught my attention. 
The one principle I was most  fascinated with was the one about ‘Expect 
more from strangers”. It seems  Burning Man believes that people are scarred of 
other people, and it is their  job not to be scarred. They also recommend “
go in for a hug”- that seems a  little too scary for me. Most people it 
appears are trying to project their  appearance of normalcy instead of 
celebrating their wonderful weirdness. The  key seems to be able to say “yes” to the 
strangeness of strangers. Your job  appears to be to expect people to be 
interesting.  Also you have a right to approach any  random person and have an 
interesting interaction. 
So I now have these 5  principals in my calendar book. I usually try to 
read through these wisdom  notes regularly and try to be mindful of them 
through the day. ‘Expecting more  from strangers” went with me to the ICA Nepal 
Conference. The second day there  I tried to walk from the ICA Nepal office 
back to my Hotel. A course, I got  lost. I had a map but it did not seem very 
helpful. And then I noticed a man  walking near me who also had his map out 
with a great big backpack like he had  been trekking. Finally, I walked 
over to him and asked, “have you found where  we are?. Nope, but I think I am 
close” We finally figured out where we were  with the help of a policeman and 
we started walking together. Where are you  from?: Egypt. What do you do?: 
I am the Egyptian consular at the Egyptian  Embassy in New Delhi and come 
regularly to Nepal to trek. He asked me some  questions and I told him about 
our El Bayad work and that I had coached  baseball in Maadi (suburbs of 
Cairo). And then I asked him about the new  government in Egypt. He spent about 
15 minutes trying to explain the situation  in Egypt and what he thought the 
future looked like. I was just startled that  this just totally out of the 
blue interaction had produced such an amazing  interaction. 
And then there was the actual  Nepal Conference. What a way to just 
maximize such weird connections?  And is not that finally what community  is all 
about? I guess that is what Burning Man means by Form your camp. Burning Man’s 
 philosophy seems to suggest that these camps are about making an impact  
together. They are not just for hanging out together, but camps are where  
people are about something that contributes to the larger community..this is  
what gives camps meaning. These camps seem to leads us to the generosity 
economy; this has to do  with someone who always gives to others as a way of 
life. Burning Man sees the  transformative feature of their faith is the ‘
gifting’ economy. Notice how it  makes your life better to give. In fact, giving 
away can become a way of life  for you and your people. 
The last principle is embracing impermanence which is  really up in your 
face at 71 years old.  I am going to put that one in my 2013  monthly planner 
for my brood screen for the year. I know I have to embrace it…  I am sure it 
will embrace me.  
Bet you that these principles  came from smoking too much pot. Probably, 
the same pot the Other World came  from. 
Dick Alton, just back from  hanging out with Bill McKibben and 350.org 
working to divest my oil  stocks…  

Richard H.T. Alton 166 N. Humphrey Ave, Apt, 1N Oak Park, IL 60302  
T:1.773.344.7172 richard.alton at gmail.com Don't let the fear of striking out  hold 
you back Babe Ruth  
=

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