Sunday Agenda
- Check in
- Opening Blessing
- Review WWWs
- Weekly event logistics
- Review Agenda
- Practices Audit … and Maintenance
- Fall Equinox
- Writing the Other
- Evaluations
- Closing Blessing
Check-in
- Brandon … I'm a little out of sorts today. Not sure why exactly.
- Ben … I got less than 5 hours of sleep because I’m now dependent on a drug to sleep and I forgot to take it
WW(W)s from last time
- <s>Ben … meditate regularly with Eric ... ongoing</s>
- Ben … spend at least 15 minutes a day on Flight in a Cage … ongoing
- Eric … meditate regularly with Brandon ... ongoing
- Eric … meditate regularly with Ben ... ongoing
- Eric … spend 15 minutes every day on Buckleberry or Auberge Paradis ... ongoing
- Brandon … meditate regularly with Eric ... ongoing
- Brandon … spend 15 minutes every day on Machine Learning … ongoing
WW(W)s
- Ben … meditate regularly with Eric ... ongoing
- Ben … spend at least 15 minutes a day on Flight in a Cage … ongoing
- Ben ... write some more seasonal festival pages
- Ben ... email the writing exercise instructions to Brandon ... by Thursday
- Eric … meditate regularly with Brandon ... ongoing
- Eric … meditate regularly with Ben ... ongoing
- Eric … spend 15 minutes every day on Buckleberry or Auberge Paradis ... ongoing
- Brandon … meditate regularly with Eric ... ongoing
- Brandon … spend 15 minutes every day on Machine Learning … ongoing
- Brandon … review my daily practice routine and re-schedule everything in light of the new school year (machine learning, meditation prep, meditation, etc) … by today
- Brandon … plan the Fall equinox with Shelley … by today
Weekly Events Logistics
Midweek
- Sept 8 Work-Bee: 6:30 PM PDT / 21:30 EDT
Weekend Service rotation: Eric, Ben, Shelley, Brandon
- Sept 10 Service: 8:00 AM PDT / 11:00 EDT … Ben (Eric out (Ireland))
- Sept 11 Business Call: 5:30 PM PDT / 20:30 EDT
- Sept 8 to Oct 6 (Eric out Irish trip)
Practices Audit … and Maintenance
Brandon
- Daily (new): Meditation preparation (15 minutes) … writing and planning the meditations that I do with my boys … connecting it to the season (both liturgical and astronomical) … emphasizing one particular lesson.
- Daily: Meditate with Boys (needs help)
- Daily: Meditate with Eric (not happening)
- Daily: Machine Learning (in danger)
- Weekly: Service (needs re-vitalization)
- Weekly: WorkBee (haven’t been coming)
- Weekly: Business (spotty, un-grounded)
- Monthly: Finances (unhappy with our system)
- Seasonal: Festivals (in decline)
Maintenance:
- Prioritize: items that affect my family (Daily meditation, Weekly services, Seasonal festivals)
- Next Steps:
- Take advantage of the start of school to revitalize meditation practice with the boys, by adding a 15-minute preparation step beforehand to write and plan
Ben
- Daily: Work on novel (needs more diligence)
- Almost Daily: Meditate with Eric (dependent on Eric's availability)
- Weekly: Service (okay)
- Weekly: Work Bee (often canceled)
- Weekly: Business call (often canceled, want to reschedule or reduce frequency)
- Monthly: Finances (only done twice so far)
- Seasonal: Festivals (concerned about the amount of time we spend planning them)
Maintenance:
- I need to figure out a regular time to work on my novel on weekend days.
- Ben: I want to say noon … right before lunch which is better than right after. Hopefully more awake than if I do it in the morning.
- I need a plan for meditating while Eric is in Ireland. (Perhaps just meditate at the same time, but just by myself).
- Brandon doesn't think doing a daily meditation call with Ben is very doable right now, but check back in a week.
Opening Blessing
As we move through life, there is a need to keep things fresh. May we identify when our practices and other business is getting stale. May we do the work even still. May we also find ways to bring life back to our religious practice. -- Blessed Be
Fall Equinox
When: September 22, 2016 at 7:21 AM PDT
- Earthseed Festival of Changes
- Activism opportunities around the equinox
- Ben's Sierra Club group has a meeting in Bellevue on Wednesday the 21st
- Get Squashed! family event on Saturday the 24th, including a farmer's market, picnic on a farm, and carbon footprint teach-in
- Volunteering opportunities around the equinox
- Marquam … Sat, Sept 24 - We will be doing tree ivy removal along the Marquam Trail. Meet at 9:00 at the trailhead on SW 12th and SW Gaines
- Hoyt … Saturday, September 24 … 9-12 noon Assist our horticulturist with special projects, invasive species removal, trail maintenance and more.
- Fun opportunities around the equinox
- Pagan pride: September 18th at Oaks park
- Saturday, September 17, 2016 … 9:00am-12:00pm … Floodplain Forest Bike Tour at Willamette Mission State Park (Willamette Riverkeepers)
Themes
- We love the liturgical seasons about the future that start on the Equinox
- Activism/service is a nice idea from previous years
- Change (the time of intense change we live in, which is appropriate as we transition from past-focused to future-focused seasons)
Big Changes in the past year
- All of our moves
- SolSeed realignments
- Politics and the environment (Clean Power Plan, Paris treaty, polarized presidential campaign)
- Space (SpaceX successful rocket landing, visits to Ceres and Pluto and that comet)
- AI (Tesla's self-driving-on-freeway car, Alpha Go)
Writing the Other
A book by Nisi Shawl (we met at the Shaping Change Conference). Ben has started reading it and believes it will be helpful in writing characters in his novel. There is a partner exercise he’d like to do with Brandon. Best done as text messaging. 10 minutes through IMs, 10 minutes to discuss afterward.
Evaluation
- Ben … I’m sad about all the difficulties we’re having with regular practice and hope that we can make major progress on that quickly. It’s going to be a little tricky with Eric gone.
- Brandon … I'm feeling positive and really excited … I have some very concrete things to work on that I think will be high-value
Closing Blessing
A wise man once said, “I haven’t failed. I’ve simply found 100 ways that don’t work.” The process of finding what works is long and arduous. May we not lose heart as we continue to try new ways, some of which won’t work. May we find some ways that work and then make them solid practices. -- Blessed Be