Learning how to live with love & make media

In 2005 I traveled to Thailand to make a documentary with kids and women affected and infected with HIV & AIDS. In three weeks I visited social service centers, a camp for kids and families and a residential living center that makes its own clothing, bread, art and goods to sell that supports a village of 40 residents. There are many inspiring stories out there of what it means to love oneself and others through positive action – this is just a glimpse at a few of the people who have inspired me along the way.

A big thank you to Lars Hasselblad Torres and the Global PeaceTiles Project for making this journey possible, along with all of my extraordinary colleagues featured in this short. This was very early in my video production career and was all self-produced and edited – thankfully I can hire editors now to help me. It’s good to know our strengths – and hire others in our community to create more beautiful things together.

Please leave a comment and tell me what’s inspiring you to action – and let me know how we can create beauty together.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=9212315598638441881&hl=en&fs=true

Greening the Virtual World

I love building new worlds; it is the most provocative challenge for a mixed media artist in today’s horizon.

Community building in virtual space has risen to the level of an art form with the advent of multiplayer worlds with real world challenges embedded within our games. We have learned to move beyond the screen and into new lives through avatars and words typed on a page and this extraordinary new type of remotely connected community has grown to maturity in less than 50 years; less than 30 years in a mode like our current incarnation of internet with basic chat and filesharing.

Our communities are not monolithic; we are as diverse as our imaginations will let us be. Through the USC Network Culture Project we were honored to give out awards this week for the Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge. We awarded a million lindens to five great groups building out real world solutions that benefit many, having an opportunity to touch millions more with their unique work. Ability Commons, one of the award winners, takes the ideas created in the Nonprofit Commons and extends them to create a gathering point for all living with challenges and disabilities that are looking for support.

Native Lands is a project that I am personally very happy to see win an award in this challenge. We will keep land for them at the Annenberg Archipelago and they will have an opportunity to crosspollinate with communities at Justice Commons, Aloft Nonprofit Commons, Virtual Gitmo and the Wallsickness team, Interactive Accessible Home, Texas Obesity Research Center and Ability Commons. We are thrilled that these groups are coming together to reside and grow their work around the world.

This week I had the pleasure of visiting Great Strides equine therapy organization in Maryland, one of the first nonprofits that I got actively engaged with through Second Life. They have raised quite a bit by expanding their profile beyond their local region and building a beautiful horse farm on Aloft Nonprofit Commons. Brad from GS described how Second Life allowed his regional nonprofit to go international and meet new supporters around the world who would have never otherwise encountered their work. There is a history of dynamic engagement in these spaces tracking back as far as our chat.

I’m looking forward to new adventures in community building with some of my favorite projects, environmental causes coming together for a new Nonprofit Commons and the opportunity to share a new vision of collaborative building at major virtual world conferences this fall, including State of Play in Chicago this October where we will change the way we view working together.

A good summary of the carbon footprint of flexible virtual worlds containing advanced design control and persistent identity can be found in The Content Economy’s look at Carbon-free living and energy use through virtual meetings and business engagement. In this case, I think it’s easy to be green….but I do love Kermit’s thoughts on the topic:
Green on Fire at Nonprofit Commons
It’s not easy, being green
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves
When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold
Or something much more colorful like that
It’s not easy being green
It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things
And people tend to pass you over ’cause you’re
Not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water
Or stars in the sky
But green’s the color of Spring
And green can be cool and friendly-like
And green can be big like an ocean, or important
Like a mountain, or tall like a tree
When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful
And I think it’s what I want to be

Ways to grow more love

  • VOTE
  • Dance at Lucent L’Amour (I’ll see you at the door!)
  • Advocate for the displaced worldwide
  • Find a new talent in your arsenal and use it wisely
  • Make something and share it with your closest friends
  • Give your sweetheart something personal and close to your heart
  • Travel somewhere new and take time to listen to an unheard voice
  • Follow your passion with the people who can help you reach your goals
  • Make Mitt Romney go away soon (oh sorry to let that slip in, he’s just so wrong)

Boring

Photo by Cheryl Colan 

Nexus

There is a place where we all come together, where nothing separates us. We are water, metal and earth, ashes and spirit, love and energy. Everything we breathe and share together creates us and the world where we collide.

We also create the boundaries, the limitations, the weakness of will that tells us that we cannot succeed at ____________. Think about the one thing you feel you are failing at now, and think again….is there anything insurmountable that’s keeping you from meeting your goals? Is your failure a true inability or a lack of intention?

In the sweat lodge with Daniel Hawk this week I struggled deeply, fumbling to breathe in the burning hot darkness of the Lakota womb. As my brothers and sisters sang I kept a wet towel close to my face, breathing deep and reminding myself of the very basics. Self love. My handsome partner. The beautiful tribe we share, our family and friends. The land we envision sharing with our global community, the unifying forces that bring us together in that space.

Then the fear hit…hard. I clenched, struggling to breathe. An asthma attack set in that kept me tight all night, reliving the last year and my incomplete failures, the measure of my love and how it spills out. I WANT it to spill out more freely to find new ways to be a loving being in this world.

The book the abbot gave me was “The Miracle of Metaphysical Healing” by Evelyn Monahan. My meditation practice now has a new challenge….is my will strong enough to heal my body? Can the fear and its symptoms find rest?

Evelyn Monahan challenges her readers to find their 3 WISHES, 3 WANTS and 3 NEEDS. I like this exercise as we begin 2008.

Mia Farrow's blog

3 WISHES:

* An end to tyrannical regimes, imperialist wars and shameful propaganda

* That every one of us find the strength to face our fears openly, with love

* A healthy revolution across the world that protects our freedom to stay close to nature

3 WANTS:

* To identify where we will locate the AMO land

* Flying lessons, working toward the pilot license

* Solid partnerships and opportunities to produce groundbreaking media that educates and inspires

3 NEEDS:

* 365 blog, vlog, archive and tweet the signal and beat of our people

* Integrating the real and virtual with participatory arts culture, opening new doors through immersion

* Peace in my home and in my heart

Lying in bed with my handsome last night we talked about the heartbeat, how it channels the flow for the body and sets the rhythm for all movement. If action that inspires is the goal, the heartbeat must be the drumroll that makes our actions most authentic and true. The heart unifies my global wishes, my focused wants and my essential core needs as a creative human being.

Post your 3 wishes, wants and needs here or in your own blog, and tell us why you do what you do. As you think through how you will achieve your desires, consider your will and the strength within the cells and consciousness that swarm to become YOU. Who are you and who will you be? The photo above is from Mia Farrow’s blog, 3 Needs from Darfur from Sand and Sorrow, a documentary by Paul Freedman featuring Darfur advocates from around the world. I can’t wait to see your 3/3/3 in blog, vlog or tweet.

Defining Love

Over the next few months we will archive years of writing on love, connection and bondedness here at the Amoration wordpress. Together we explore the words and you are welcome to add to this blog by writing to Evonne @ Amoration and asking for a password to join the Amoration writers.

Many people ask Why Amoration?

The English language is terribly stiff and lacking when it comes to terms and words to express love in the many forms we understand. This limited view of love causes social issues to worsen and communication gaps to widen as people around the world learn to share important pieces of their lives with one another. No longer is the American world just made across the globe….we are created by all that we consume, imported from around the world and encapsulated in this blog, one voice among many.

So let’s look at Spanish instead. From About.com:

How many ways can you say “love” in Spanish? Here are some of the most important ways, but there are others. In the lists of “love” as a noun or verb you will find alternative translations in parentheses following the Spanish word. In the list of phrases, the parentheses indicate the English phrases that include “love.”

“Love” as a noun

  • afición (enthusiasm): Tiene afición por las cosas de su tierra. She has a love for the things of her land.
  • amado (sweetheart)
  • amante (sweetheart)
  • amistad (friendship)
  • amor (pure love, romantic love)
  • caridad (charity): Si yo hablase lenguas humanas y angélicas, y no tengo caridad ….If I speak in tongues of humans and angels, and have not love ….
  • cariño/a (sweetheart):
  • cero (score in tennis): Cero a cero. Love all.
  • pasión (passion, not necessarily romantic): Tiene una pasión por vivir, una pasión por saber. He has a love of living, a love of knowledge.
  • querido (sweetheart)
  • recuerdos (regards): Mándale recuerdos míos. Send him my love.

“Love” as a verb

  • amar (to love, to love romantically): Te amo. I love you.
  • encantar (indicating strong like): Me encanto escribir. I love to write.
  • gustar mucho (indicating strong like): Me gusta mucho este sofá. I love this sofa.
  • querer (to love romantically, to want): Te quiero. I love you.

Phrases using “love”

  • amarío (love affair)
  • amor a primera vista (love at first sight)
  • amor mío (my love)
  • aventura amorosa (love affair)
  • canción de amor (love song)
  • carta amatoria (love letter)
  • carta de amor (love letter)
  • enamorarse (to fall in love with): Me enamoré de una bruja. I fell in love with a witch.
  • estar enamorado (to be in love): Estoy enamorada de él. I am in love with him.
  • flechazo (love at first sight): Fue flechazo. It was love a first sight.
  • love story (historia de amor)
  • love token (prenda de amor)
  • hacer el amor (to make love)
  • lance de amor (love affair)
  • me quiere, no me quiere (she loves me, she loves me not)
  • mi amor (my love)
  • no se llevan bien (there is no love lost between them)
  • no se tienen ningún aprecio (there is no love lost between them)
  • periquito (love bird or parakeet)
  • por el amor de (for the love of): Por el amor de una rosa, el jardinero es servidor de mil espinas. For the love of a rose, the gardener is the servant of a thousand thorns.
  • por nada del mundo (not for love nor money)
  • por pura afición (for the pure love of it, just for the love of it): Toca el piano por pura afición. She plays the piano just for the love of it.
  • relaciones sexuales (love making)
  • vida sexual (love live)

connect

i have some amazing things to share with you … the past few days have been very enlightening. you came to mind tonight as i was dancing … we were moving like atoms, bouncing across the floor, CONNECTING, and i knew that the essence of GOD, of all life can be found in the energy within us and our ability to CONNECT to the world. LOVE is that connection, our ability to openly touch the universe and all beings within it. the absence of love is the absence of life is the absence of god … humans build up the toughest armor through the years, but children have an innocent touch and wonder for creation, the purest of love. our goal, as humans, is to widen our scope but retain that pure, loving connection.