The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth's evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. The work of H.O.P.E. is to make visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope.

This issue of Cairns describes H.O.P.E. The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth's evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. Of course, H.O.P.E. can't accomplish this by itself and of course millions of other people and organizations are working towards the same mission and of course H.O.P.E. will be focusing on just a small piece of the total work. In other words, millions of others could use the same mission statement. But by our each proclaiming the bigger picture we fit within, we create opportunities for stronger collaborations to turn the prow.

H.O.P.E. does have a specific, smaller work within this large mission. The work of H.O.P.E. is "making visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope". Let me explain this work by explaining the acronym of H.O.P.E. - Hands On Phenomenal Ecology.

"Ecology" is the science of the relationships between a living thing and its environment. Ecology was important within both biology and science in general for shifting attention from objects to relationships. A similar shift is happening in science education - deemphasizing the memorization of vocabulary (world seen as objects and parts thereof) and emphasizing direct interaction with phenomena and relationships.

Ecology has been a lead science in developing a science of relationships. A science of relationships tends to lead one in the opposite direction of reductionism. So the word "Ecology" in H.O.P.E.'s title corresponds to "the larger relationships we live within" within its mission statement. By emphasizing ecology as relationships, I also state my belief that one of the main problems we face as a culture is the severing of the relationships that bind us with the world - either through destruction of the relationships, or through hubris, or through short-sighted greed, or often simply through lack of experience with these relationships. Implied in this, and described in Shifting, is the point that these relationships create and sustain the environment we both evolved within and are dependent on. The environment that we depend upon is not an object but is a vast network of relationships and flows.

Another point, by having the word "ecology" in the title, I imply a certain commitment to science. I personally believe that science is one of the most powerful tools humans have created for the healthy and proper expansion of consciousness. I am very pro-science. There is a certain tension currently between "scientists" and "spiritualists" within our culture - which I might address in the next issue of Cairns. But the work of H.O.P.E. definitely wishes to be within the proud tradition of science.

"Phenomenal" can mean fantastic which is a nice marketing term for H.O.P.E.'s work. I want to teach concepts of ecology that I find phenomenally fantastic in ways that are phenomenally astounding. There is, however, a deeper meaning - which is why the P originally stood for Phenomenological - until I realized it made the title a bit too pretentious and might put people off. However, "phenomenal" in the dictionary still implies this deeper meaning.

A few years ago, Dr. David Seamon wrote me, praising Shifting as a phenomenological book. I didn't understand what he meant. He sent me a book he had edited, Dwelling, Place, and Environment ,which included an essay by Henri Bortoft. I started the essay and was stopped by the first several pages. A few months later I was teaching flower development to children. I asked the students to find several buttercups at various stages of development and arrange them in chronological order so that by running their eyes through a few inches of space, they could run their minds through several days of developmental time and see how flowers turn into seeds. But one boy couldn't see it. When I looked at his sequence, I saw there was a large gap at a critical transition. We went looking for an intermediate stage. When we found it and he saw it within the sequence, a loud "Oh, wow" of aesthetic delight spontaneously burst forth from his soul and mouth. (That spontaneous reaction is a goal of H.O.P.E.) Later I attempted Bortoft's essay again. In the second half, he wonderfully described characteristics of that moment.

"The experience is one of entering into a dimension which is in the phenomenon, not behind or beyond it, but which is not visible at first. It is perceived through the mind, when the mind functions as an organ of perception instead of the medium of logical thought."

"As an authentic discovery, this moment can only be experienced directly; it cannot be "translated" adequately into the verbal language of secondhand description."

"The primal phenomenon is not to be thought of as a generalization from observations, produced by abstracting from different instances something that is common to them. If this result were the case, one would arrive at an abstracted unity with the dead quality of a lowest common factor...In a moment of intuitive perception, the particular instance is seen as a living manifestation of the universal."

"Authentic wholeness means that the whole is in the part, hence careful attention must be given to the parts instead of to general principles. In contrast, an intellectual approach to scientific education begins by seeing the phenomenon as an instance of general principles."

"The counterfeit approach to wholeness - i.e. going away from the part to get an overview - leads only to the abstraction of the general case, which has the quality of uniformity rather than uniqueness."

"The experience of authentic wholeness requires a new style of learning largely ignored in our schools and universities today. Typically, modern education is grounded in the intellectual faculty, whose analytical capacity alone is developed, mostly through verbal reasoning....[S]tudents are much happier with textbook descriptions and explanations, a fact readily understandable once one recognizes that most educational experience unfolds in terms of one mode of consciousness - the verbal, rational mode."

"It is widely acknowledged today that, through the growth of the science of matter, the Western mind has become more and more removed from contact with nature. Contemporary problems, many arising from modern scientific method, confront people with the fact that they have become divorced from a realistic appreciation of their place in the larger world. At the same time, there is a growing demand for a renewal of contact with nature. It is not enough to dwell in nature sentimentally and aesthetically, grafting such awareness to a scientific infrastructure which largely denies nature. The need is a new science of nature, different from the science of matter, and based on other human faculties besides the analytic mind. A basis for this science is the discovery of authentic wholeness."

These quotes express what the P stands for in H.O.P.E. and also elaborate on the phrase "relationships that inspire visions of wonder".

Finally, "Hands On". Two meanings are nested in this phrase. Science teachers are familiar with one meaning - education that happens by creating whole body interactions with the phenomenon one is learning about - as opposed to "textbook descriptions and explanations [unfolding] in terms of one mode of consciousness - the verbal, rational mode." Shifting tried to mirror this style by telling several stories before making a generalization.

The second meaning is a counter-reaction to a common sentiment I hear all the time - "the way we are going to save our planet (or our species) is through education". I am an educator and I would love to believe this but I don't. It is a cop-out - a way to avoid the reality that actually confronts us. Education - at least in the way it is usually meant - is transfer of conceptual information. There is no change of behavior implied - especially if it stays isolated in the intellectual domain as Bortoft points out. We somehow have this illusion that if we change the education of the next generation, that the behavior of the next generation will change. Not true. After all, we know the things we are trying to teach the next generation. Has it changed our behavior sufficiently? If knowing the things we want to teach the next generation has not changed our behavior, then why should we expect it to change the behavior of the next generation? Before we go educating the next generation, we need to change our own behavior. In so doing, the next generation will receive a far more powerful education watching us change our own behavior than they will from receiving instruction which is laden, nay burdened, with heavy expectations that they somehow must make changes which we ourselves are not willing or able to do.

Another attack on this kind of education is that it tends to not be Hands-On. It tends to be lecture. It tends to place expectations without offering a significant avenue for doing anything about it. So one of the goals of whatever "schooling" H.O.P.E. creates is that it directly involves or models prow-turning behavior. (This is meant in a very large sense - since there are millions of prow-turning behaviors.) This is the meaning caught in the phrase "inspire...works of hope". Such education also gives a second meaning to "make visible". There is the first meaning of learning how to see the larger relationships we live within. The second meaning is doing work that strengthens these relationships so they become more easily visible to others.

The logo has two meanings. First, the blue curve captures the proportionality between the thickness of our blue sky (basically the biosphere) and the curve of the Earth. (The radius of the curve is about 300 times its thickness.) That blue line symbolizes the prow, all of life, all that life has created. That thin curving blue line fills me with reverence for the miracle of life. In this way, the blue line is an example of H.O.P.E.'s work - making visible the larger relationships we live within.

That thin blue line on a black background serves as my personal Earth Flag. On my flag at home, the blue line is placed so that the center angles across the flag at 39° - my latitude - so that it reveals my position on this Earth. I like this because everyone could have basically the same flag and yet each person's flag would uniquely express that person's homeplace.

On H.O.P.E.'s logo, I have positioned the blue curve so that it expresses the curve's second meaning - turning the prow. There is a whole metaphysics of shifting direction which I will describe in some future Cairns. Suffice it to say now that the logo shows the line heading downward but gently changing direction to an upward direction which dominates the logo.
 
 

Is H.O.P.E. a business or a non-profit organization? I agonized over that question for months. I finally decided that H.O.P.E. would be a business. I had assumed it would be a non-profit because I had been inspired by Peter Drucker's Managing the Non-Profit. I liked the nobility and efficacy he saw in non-profits. I liked how he saw the non-profits filling the important niche of creating community and making our world a better place. He also stressed the importance of a vision and a mission and that I had. H.O.P.E.'s mission statement sounds like a non-profit's. So I thought H.O.P.E. would be a non-profit organization.

But beginning the process of incorporating H.O.P.E. as a non-profit set off warning lights. The work of H.O.P.E. is my life work. It is my calling, my special gift that is my responsibility to nourish and share with others. I would like to devote my full attention to this work. But I am also a husband and daddy. My presentations and sales of Shifting currently bring in about $3000 - not enough to support my family. H.O.P.E.'s revenues must grow significantly for me to both devote my full energy to this work and support my family.

In other words, making a profit for myself is an important part of H.O.P.E.. As I worked on incorporating H.O.P.E. as a non-profit, I felt my moral center being split. Non-profits must not be self-serving. I would be walking a fine line constantly and I could easily fall into posing one way while acting another.

Then I read the book, Marketing without Advertising. That book articulated the noble yet thoroughly pragmatic possibility of business as a way of creating community and making our world a better place. That work that provides service to the customer is important. The exchange of money for something at least as valuable can be a celebration. This image appeals to me. It feels more honest. It feels closer to the true nature of living things. "You can take as much as you want as long as you first figure out a way to give more than you take."

In addition, there is a common perception that the nature of business lies at the heart of many of our ecological problems. Therefore, an important job in turning the prow is to help make better known the image of moral business. Then people, when confronted with issues involving the environment, won't gloss over the conflict with a "jobs vs. nature" reflex. Instead they will be more likely to view the conflict as "immoral business vs. moral business". Such a shift would be an important ally in turning the prow.

So I have decided that Peter Drucker's distinction between the "business sector" and the "social sector" is not rigid. There are ample opportunities to integrate the best of both. That is what I hope to do with H.O.P.E.. In fact, one of the main incentives for becoming a non-profit was so that H.O.P.E. could apply for grants. But once I became clear in my heart, I realized that H.O.P.E. could still do that through collaborations with non-profits that shared the same mission. So if you work for a non-profit and would like to collaborate on a grant, feel free to contact me. I am fairly successful at writing proposals that deliver exciting results.

So H.O.P.E. is a proudly, for-profit business. A business that nourishes hope by making visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope. Can I support my family with this work? We shall see.
 
 

So, what does H.O.P.E. do? We are currently working on two projects of H.O.P.E.. The first is Chrysalis. Alysia started Chrysalis in August. Chrysalis is "education for the naturalists of the next generation." It is in collaboration with the natural science museum we work with. Chrysalis is a way for us to explore what Bortoft pointed to when he wrote "The experience of authentic wholeness requires a new style of learning largely ignored in our schools and universities today." There are several characteristics we are trying to combine into a flesh-and-blood school that is very different from current schools. We want Chrysalis to be a charter school; it is an option we are working on. If that happened, then we could develop "a new style of learning largely ignored in our schools and universities today." while receiving a liveable salary. Unfortunately, the bureaucracies involved in public schools are very defensive about the rerouting of money to people currently outside their systems. So, in the meantime, Alysia is developing Chrysalis as a home-school support program.

One of the areas that particularly excites us is the creating of curriculum that nourishes what we call "Big Thinking" in kids. Kids love to do this kid-centered form of systems thinking; they practice the various tools spontaneously on their own. The perspective of "Big Thinking" allows the teacher to see connections between topics that would otherwise remain isolated. (I will describe Chrysalis and Big Thinking more in a future issue of Cairns.) Publication of "Big Thinking" curriculum might be one source of business..

The second immediate project is a small book I am writing - In the Earth's Shadow. Of the scores of books on the night sky I've seen, I've never seen one with the perspective I am putting into this book. Shifting's stories of sunset, the earth shadow, and stars as 3-D will be part of it. Very few people understand many of the stories in the night sky. That is because we teach those stories abstractly, divorced from all experience. For example, we go around knowing that to the north, the winter nights are longer than to the south. And yet few people ever see that as a daily reality. However, if you have a clear vista to both north and south, go outside about 15 minutes after sunset on a clear evening and look to both north and south. The sky in the south will be brighter, more glowing, than the sky to the north. To the north, much of the lower atmosphere has turned into the shadow while to the south, most of the lower atmosphere is still in the sunlight. Those to the north do,indeed, enter the shadow of night earlier than those to the south - in the winter time. One can see it for oneself. (And, of course, guess what happens in the summertime?) And yet most people walk around with an assumption that one can't see this. This reminds me again of those quotes of Bortoft. "Typically, modern education is grounded in the intellectual faculty, whose analytical capacity alone is developed, mostly through verbal reasoning....Contemporary problems... confront people with the fact that they have become divorced from a realistic appreciation of their place in the larger world."

In the Earth's Shadow will be filled with descriptions and simulations to help one see more of the stories in the night time sky. It will be a publication aimed for teachers, homeschoolers, families. I can imagine it creating invitations to give more presentations and creating opportunities to help shift the way education happens within our culture.

There are other future projects that I will describe as they grow more definite. Hopefully, this is a sufficient introduction so you know what H.O.P.E. is. If you have suggestions or questions, give me a call. I am available for presentations, inservices, and inspiring talks.

If you are reading Cairns for the first time and wish to continue receiving it by e-mail, just e-mail me at  paul@krafel.net

© 1995, Paul Krafel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
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