One Community Programs

admin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:23:55 +0000

EXPLORING NEW TERRITORY

With the new year approaching, we would like to give you the chance to tell us what interests you.

We are currently putting together our 2009 calendar with many new and exciting programs, but we would love to get feedback from you.

What would inspire you?

What is it you wish to see One Community Programs bring to you?

Email or Blog us today with your Heart’s Desire

IMAGINE if….

Luca DiMatteo — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:38:29 +0000

we all had the courage to trust in our self enough to share freely.

we expressed love and kindness and it spread throughout the world.

we lived our lives without limitation and the world became a place of endless possibilities.

CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU AND AFFECTS THE WORLD.

ALL WE NEED TO DO IS BELIEVE WE CAN!

Please joins on December 14, 2008 in Tampa Florida for our next workshop.

“FINDING CREATIVITY, WISDOM AND POWER FROM BALANCE”

11:00 am to 4:00pm

Cost: $75

Contact: Laura Turlington at 203.215.0070

Please see our event calender for more detail

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:02:17 +0000

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR JOINING US IN OUR WORLD MEDITATION ON NOVEMBER 2ND!

PLEASE READ ALL THE DETAILS IN OUR UPCOMING NEWSLETTER

PLEASE EMAIL US IF YOU HAVE A WORLD MEDITATION EXPERIENCE YOU WISH TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE

KEEP THE UNITY OF OUR COMMUNITY

Join us for a workshop on Creativity, Balance and the Power of Conscious Choice in Wilbraham, MA on Saturday, November 15, 2008

Creativity, Balance & the Power of Conscious Choice

admin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:10:29 +0000

November 15, 2008
11:00 am	to	4:00 pm

A bi-monthly workshop eries presented by One Community Programs and hosted by Maura B. of Well Being Yoga & Health.

Location: Wilbraham, MA

Dates and Topics: 11am- 4pm

Saturday, November 15, 2008 “Revealing Life’s Purpose”

Saturday, January 24, 2009 “Awakening Conscious Choice”

Saturday, April 4, 2008 “Authentic Creativity”

Cost: $55 per person per workshop or $135 per person prepaid for all three workshops. Visa/ MasterCard and checks accepted

Registration: contact Maura B. Phone: 413.519.3999 e-mail: mkb122@charter.net

for more info contact: Laura Turlington at laura@onecommunityprograms.com

SEE FLYER BELOW FOR MORE INFO ON THE WORKSHOPS

Creativity, Balance and the Power of Conscious Choice

admin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:09:28 +0000

April 4, 2009
11:00 am	to	2:00 pm

A bi-monthly workshop eries presented by One Community Programs and hosted by Maura B. of Well Being Yoga & Health.

Location: Wilbraham, MA

Dates and Topics: 11am- 4pm

Saturday, April 4, 2008 “Authentic Creativity”

Cost: $55 per person per workshop Visa/ MasterCard and checks accepted

Registration: contact Maura B. Phone: 413.519.3999 e-mail: mkb122@charter.net

for more info contact: Laura Turlington at laura@onecommunityprograms.com

SEE FLYER BELOW FOR MORE INFO ON THE WORKSHOPS

Creativity, Balance and the Power of Conscious Choice

admin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:08:32 +0000

January 24, 2009
11:00 am	to	4:00 pm

A bi-monthly workshop eries presented by One Community Programs and hosted by Maura B. of Well Being Yoga & Health.

Location: Wilbraham, MA

Dates and Topics: 11am- 4pm

Saturday, January 24, 2009 “Awakening Conscious Choice”

Saturday, April 4, 2008 “Authentic Creativity”

Cost: $55 per person per workshop. Visa/ MasterCard and checks accepted

Registration: contact Maura B. Phone: 413.519.3999 e-mail: mkb122@charter.net

for more info contact: Laura Turlington at laura@onecommunityprograms.com

SEE FLYER BELOW FOR MORE INFO ON THE WORKSHOPS

Keeping the “Checklist” in Check

Luca DiMatteo — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:56:48 +0000

Each day we get up and run through our mental checklist of all the things we have to do for the day. Our day progresses and we keep reviewing the list over and over. Each night we run through our mental checklist and see what we managed to get done during the day. We climb into bed and recall how overwhelmed we felt all day and what can we do to get more done tomorrow. This is the perfect recipe for paralyzing ourself and creating inaction. We then find our self unable to tackle any of those items on the checklist.

How do we break away from this pattern and regain the power of action that we unknowing gave away to the fear of the “checklist”?

The key is BALANCE. If you are not giving yourself the time to play and to experience living life for the enjoyment of happiness, you have locked yourself into a task filled life with no room for the love of SELF. I would recommend a balance between the checklist and playing. Schedule time for yourself to play in whatever way brings you joy. This checklist will be there after you take time out for you. Just like it is each morning when you wake up.

See if you can take this advise and “checkout” how you ability to wipe things off the ckecklist may improve. Let me Know how it works for you.

Eco Being

admin — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:11:23 +0000

The ECO BEING section of our website features articles, discussions and events which focus on the realization that we are whole and connected to everything. From this point of view, we have the potential to restore balance within ourselves, with humanity, with animals, with resources, with the environment, with the planet, with life in every form.

INTIMACY WITH NATURE: Living a Sensual Life

submitted by Lisa Morris

We’ve all seen television ads of happy people recklessly driving through pristine forests and streams, hermetically sealed in an automobile while the kids sit in the back seat watching a movie, unaware of the world beyond the windows. This strikes me as such an apt metaphor for the way we often move through everyday life, sealed within our homes, our habits and our heads, lost in our thoughts and oblivious to the beauty around us.

Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods writes that while we are aware of the threats to our planet, we are losing our “intimacy with nature.” Most readily agree that we can no longer pretend that the world is simply a neutral commodity awaiting the mark of our intervention and added value. And yet, increasingly we are out of the practice of noticing and appreciating the places we move through each day. This “nature deficit disorder” is, I believe, a root of the larger issues we now face. We cannot truly value the natural world if we are not fully aware of the natural world.

On the theory that we are less likely to obliterate that which we know and respect, it makes sense to move beyond the concepts of green living and to get intimate. Every part of our planet, from the largest mountain to the smallest sub-atomic particle is alive, aware, and intelligent. Beyond an intellectual knowledge of this Life that we all share, we can benefit from slowing down and feeling the experience of it directly. Our animal nature with its physical senses is perfectly equipped for this learning and knowing.

Our senses are the doorways to the natural world and also doorways to the inner world. The senses often bypass the thinking process and provide real knowingness. In fact thinking and talking make it difficult to be aware of what we are experiencing through our senses. As a culture, we have become hypnotized with thinking. It’s not that thinking is a bad thing to do - thinking can be very useful indeed. It’s just that we have filled up so much of our awareness with thinking and talking that we ignore the huge volumes of wisdom from our fuller, non-verbal experience.

Be the human animal that you are and become sensually intimate with the world around you.

Just get outside. Make a goal of being outside, either walking or resting, for an extra fifteen minutes each day. Pay attention to the experience of it. Feel the delicious pull of the Earth’s gravity on your body. For this short period, put away your cellphone and ipod and avoid conversation with others. Most importantly, avoid conversation with yourself.

Regard the non-human members of your neighborhood. Get into the habit of noticing the presence of trees and plants, insects, rocks and soil, air and water. You don’t need to know anything about nature at all. Simply witness its existence and aliveness. You could even repeat the word “alive” with every encounter of your senses. Meadow: alive, air: alive! Color: alive, sweet smell: alive! Soil: alive, another human: alive!

Open your windows. Smell. Listen without identifying what you hear. What is the closest sound you can hear? What is the farthest? Let what you hear be the soundtrack of your day.

Go on vacation -in your everyday life. With the attitude of a traveler, observe your everyday world. Take a different route to work. Look in directions you’ve never noticed-(hint: try looking down below your feet and up above eye level.) Allow yourself to see without knowing what it is that you see. Look at the spaces between things. Appreciate. There will be plenty to appreciate.

Learn the names of the plants and animals in your yard and neighborhood. Consider that learning the name of something is like meeting a friend. The introduction can be the beginning of evermore learning and noticing and appreciating. Check out Jim Conrad’s website www.backyardnature.net for identification resources and inspiration. Work toward his Bug-Eaten Leaf award.

Enjoy a meal, with gratitude. Allow yourself to truly enjoy the food on your plate. If you believe a particular food will not nourish your body and soul, don’t eat it. Otherwise, eat with mindfulness and gusto! Any healthy thing you are eating is alive, so express your thanks.

My family has a very straightforward blessing at meals: we thank the beings that gave their lives to nourish our bodies. All of them. While this makes for a much rowdier (and earthier) meal starter than I remember at my grandparents’ table, it is awareness-provoking and fun.

In our first Living Green column, we introduced ways to begin a composting station at home. Have you tried it? How is it going? Do you have any questions about how to proceed? If you already have a composting station, do you have tips to share with others who are just getting started? One Community Programs would like to introduce our Composting Guide, Lisa Morris and our new ECO BEING resource blog. Lisa can assist you via email with any questions you have about composting: the process, the tools, the components of a rich mix, and so on. Please drop her a line: lisa@onecommunityprograms.com . Your blog and/or question(s) may be posted on this website so that others who may have the same question can also benefit from you generosity. Let us know how it’s going by posting to our blog! Share your insights, your successes, and your challenges. Remember that your comments and questions will help others along the way.

Teotihuacan-World Meditation November 2, 2008

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:05:31 +0000

November 2, 2008
11:00 am	to	12:00 pm

From miles apart we can all gather together for a healing meditation on November 2, 2008 at 11:00am eastern.

Please bring together those people in your circle so that we can all share a space of loving healing around the World. We will be at the sacred pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico at this time rejoicing in the connection that we are making with each and every grouping that wishes to take part linking the energy to active Conscious Choice throughout the world.

WHAT CAN YOU IMAGINE…

Luca DiMatteo — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:05:43 +0000

“The times they are a-changin’.” Bob Dylan

Greetings,

“The times they are a-changin’.” We see and feel it all around us. In politics, in the climate, and most recently, in the economy. In this special interim mailing, we would like to offer a simple invitation: choose to take action outside of the box. Acting outside the box can feel especially challenging, because change brings up uncertainty, and uncertainty can make us feel uncomfortable.

In our last newsletter, we discussed the personal box (or identity, or structure) we create based on all of the beliefs we hold about our life’s experiences. These beliefs become the filter through which we interpret every experience moving forward. Well, the same is true at the level of humanity: we have a set of cultural beliefs based on the entire history of human-kind and its collective interpretation of experience. After all, everything is interconnected, so why would the box be any different at the scale of the collective than what we experience personally?

Just as it happens at the individual level, collective cultural evolution happens when we free ourselves from our beliefs and make our structure flexible - more able to adapt to the circumstances of the present moment. What we are witnessing now is the evolution of our collective culture as experienced through the re-structuring of our economy. The old structure can no longer stand on the beliefs which have defined it to this point. What
is the outcome of this change? We don’t know. What we do know is that holding on to an outdated structure is futile. We all know the story: when change is afoot, the universe invites us along with a whisper at first, then a tap, then a knock, then a pound, and so on, until we get the message. This happens because it is the nature of the universe to balance itself. If we are the creators of our life in collaboration with Life at large, then this moment is our call to wake-up and consciously choose what to create next.

We can choose to hunker down, to ride it out. This is the familiar response to feeling out of control. What if instead we chose to take an action outside of the familiar box? What if we acknowledge that change is happening, that it generates fear in us, and in that admission, free ourselves to take a new action, from our creativity and awareness?

This is the simple invitation: to use our awareness, our conscious choice, to take an action based on creativity and inspiration, not on the habit of the collective box.

What can you do? Here are some ways you can take action right now if this simple invitation inspires you:

1. Send this invitation out to everyone you know. Cut and paste it, forward it in this format, edit it as your creativity dictates, create your own message: it does not matter. What does matter is to share the possibility with others that we can take action NOW in a new way. Like ripples in a pond, our conscious choices make a difference in the outcome of what we are experiencing. We can ally fear. We can offer a vision of balance. We can build a network of support. Our thoughts matter, our actions matter.

2. Create gatherings in your communities, your workplaces, your families, where a vision of smooth, graceful transition is held and sent out into the world. Many traditions have a form to gather in community in this way. If you do not have a tradition, then invent your own. Once again, there are no rules; there is only the choice to create anew, outside of the limitations of our old structures.

For our part, One Community Programs is taking these actions:

1. We are hosting a series of free bi-weekly teleclasses to gather in community and support conscious choice in every action from now until the end of November. See the schedule below and on our website.

2. We have added a blog “What Can You Imagine” on the homepage of our website where we ask everyone to share how they are taking action outside of the box, fueled by conscious choice. Your action will feed the collective consciousness and inspire others. We are sure of this beyond a doubt, so please share your creativity and inspiration with the world.

3. We are expanding the format and intention of our upcoming journey to Mexico to directly support the growing awareness that we create the quality of life on this planet with our conscious choice. We consolidate our power when we gather in community, with common purpose, to move through fear and limitation to new choice and action. The fee schedule for the trip will be based on total attendance, so the more participants we have, the lower the cost per person will be. The deeply reduced fee structure is a one time offering, funded by the generosity of anonymous individuals committed to the awakening and unity of humanity NOW. Please inquire if you are inspired to join us.

4. We will create a special live gathering across the miles on November 2, 2008 at 11:00 am eastern time to link those at home with those of us in Teotihuacan. Details will be sent out prior to October 30 describing how to engage with us in the Teotihuacan-World Meditation. Let us know if you are interested in this gathering, and we will send you the details.

Click on this link to request information:
Teotihuacan-World Meditation November 2, 2008

Thank you for inspiring us to reach out with our hearts at the helm.
We are grateful for your support, as we are all in this together.
Here’s to heart-inspired action,
Laura & Luca