Reclaiming Our Spiritual Power

Humanity has reached a fundamental crux point. What do we really need right now? The industrial-military complex has taken over, seeping into all areas of our lives. Humanity been anaesthetised and down graded for aoens. The system is designed perfectly to retard our spiritual evolution; to prevent true, empowered human beingness and interconnectivity with the whole of life. It's become increasingly challenging to be our true selves. It's time for non-compliance with the injustice and inequity of the system. Time to reclaim our spiritual power. The real power is within us. It is time to take it back.

Valhalla Movement

Valhalla is a movement hell-bent on making sustainable communal living mainstream. Together we will create the beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. Superhuman goals can be accomplished when individuals with a common goal come together. Together, we are stronger than the sum of our parts.

We strongly believe many of the world’s ills can be solved through sustainable communal living. Thus we are building a network of 100% off-the-grid communities, the first of which in Montreal, Canada. We are documenting the entire process to teach others how to do the same AND to show the world that sustainable communities are:
- Awesome: This is not only great for the planet, but also a fantastically fun and free way to live.
- Feasible: You can do this too, and we’ll show you exactly how to do it.
- Necessary: Even if this wasn’t fun or easy, this is what we need to do right now.

We are the solution, not the protest.
Unlike other ‘hippie communities’, we are not shutting ourselves off from the world. We are doing everything possible to make this lifestyle universally appealing. We will be as loud as possible so that we’re either loved or hated, but never unheard of.

Website: Valhalla Movement

Jason Roberts: Guerilla Urbanism

This is one of the most joyful, funny and uplifting presentations. Here is someone who will revitalize your spirit as much as he revitalized his town. Arts activist Jason Roberts will have everybody rethinking what is possible in their communities after watching this video. He lives in Oak Cliff, near Dallas, Texas. He's responsible for some of the most outrageous initiatives, going out of his way to break every ordinance in a neighborhood in order to show people, just for one weekend, what kind of transformation is possible.

On a desolate, depressing Texas street that for the last 70 years has only had cars and traffic in mind, he painted on his own bike lanes. He created outdoor seating areas. He set up trees and plantings just for the weekend. Instant cafes and arts centers were created.

The message in his enthusiastic talk is not just about what a great time they had with these radical techniques to get people to rethink a city space, and turn it back into being about and for people. What surprised even him was the unbelievable level of support and response he got -- and how many joined his bandwagon and remain committed to a new vision that is possible.

It's a ground swell. This is how you get things going folks!

Website: The Better Block

Food Is Free

The Food is Free Project is creating a repeatable model of growing food and community. It is our vision and wish to empower you with the knowledge and know-how to transform your block and neighborhood step-by-step. Using salvaged materials we are building front yard community gardens for all to share. Imagine walking down a block lined with fresh produce ready for the picking. Neighbors not only growing food together, but becoming friends and supporting one another.

Website: Food Is Free

Money And Life

Can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity? Centered around this provocative inquiry, Money and Life is a feature length film that offers a new story of money based on an emerging paradigm of planetary well-being that understands all of life as profoundly interconnected. This cinematic odyssey takes us on a journey, from the origins of money to connecting the systemic dots on the current global financial crisis and how we got here. It is a tapestry of beautifully shot expert interviews woven with compelling vignettes of individuals and businesses consciously transforming their relationship with money. Together with dynamic animation, an original music score and an elegant voice of narration, the film tells a new story of money, but more broadly it tells a new story of humanity with a touch of humor and a lot of heart.

Grow Food Everywhere

Want to get young people to eat fresh vegetables? Help them grow it themselves. In the words of one young Seeds of Leadership (SOL) gardener: "I put my blood, sweat and tears into growing them, which makes them a lot more delicious to me." The SOL garden builds skills and confidence and teaches youth about issues of environmental and social justice and food resiliency.

Seeds of Solidarity Education Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in Orange MA, supported through grants and the generosity of individual contributors. Seeds of Solidarity provides people of all ages with the inspiration and practical skills to use renewable energy and grow food in their communities.

Grow Food, Not Lawns

'I would like to see our culture change so that keeping up with the Joneses means you're more sustainable.' says Heather Flores, the founder of Food Not Lawns. They are a non profit organization that promotes the idea of growing food instead of wasting resources on grassy lawns.

'Lawns are the single largest agricultural sector in the country. They are responsible for more fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides and toxins into the river, erosion, run off, water waste, you name it. Petrochemicals. There's really nothing good that lawns are doing for the environment. It seems like it would make a lot more sense to use your land for something that benefits you as an individual vs. surrounding yourself with something that's poisoning you and your family.' she adds.

She estimates that for every 100 square feet, you can generate 100 lbs of food. She says: 'Food Not Lawns is a challenge to the homogenous monoculture of lawn after lawn after lawn'.

Growing Edible Fruits and Vegetables in your Front Yard



The Edible Backyard Barrel Garden



Creating a Food Garden in a Front Yard



Part 2

A Local Food Movement

'A Local Food Movement' is a short documentary about the growing appeal of farmers markets and the importance of buying local food. It captures the spirit of what is happening. Why do we love to go to the farmers market more than the supermarket? Along with the abundance of local produce, fresh and in season, they say it is 10 times more likely that you will strike up a conversation with someone. It's a social event!

See how this revolution is unfolding in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Toby Hemenway: Redesigning Civilization With Permaculture

Toby Hemenway is a frequent teacher, consultant and lecturer on permaculture and ecological design throughout the U.S. and other countries. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Natural Home, Whole Earth Review and American Gardener. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Graduate Education at Portland State University, a Scholar-in-Residence at Pacific University, and a biologist consultant for the Biomimicry Guild.

Modern agriculture, industry and finance all extract more than they give back, and the Earth is starting to show the strain. How did we get in this mess and what can we do to help our culture get back on track? The ecological design approach known as permaculture offers powerful tools for the design of regenerative, fair ways to provide food, energy, livelihood, and other needs while letting humans share the planet with the rest of nature. This presentation will give you insight into why our culture has become fundamentally unsustainable, and offers ecologically based solutions that can help create a just and sustainable society. This is the sequel to Toby's popular talk, "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and The Planet, but not Civilization."

This video, whose aim is to inspire people to start their own permaculture projects, shows how permaculture is practiced in four very different settings: a Hampshire back garden belonging to the editors of Permaculture Magazine, including fruit trees, vegetables, bees, chickens, and ducks; a City Challenge project in Bradford close to a housing estate with 10,000 residents, tackling the problems of unemployment, environmental awareness, and backyard food growing; a community co-op in Devon, which involves a café, allotments, and local composting scheme; and a small farm in the Forest of Dean where innovative marketing schemes ensure a close link between producer and consumer, including meat production, a vegetable box scheme, and locally produced charcoal.

The Evolution Of The Butterfly

Celluar biologist Bruce Lipton illuminates the current social malaise and dysfunction by analogy to the cellular degeneration and regeneration of a late-stage caterpillar, as it stands on the brink of transformation into a butterfly. There is cause for optimism. Every human is a cell in the wonderfully evolving organism: humanit

More: Spontaneous Evolution

Seeking The Good Life

Like many of us, Joy is not content with the high consumption modern lifestyle we live in the United States. So she journeys to three different intentional communities - places where people have chosen to share land and resources in all kinds of creative ways - and documents her experiences. The result is a fun and engaging crash course in sustainable living, thinking outside of the box, and finding positive solutions in an increasingly challenging world.

Featured communities are:

Light Morning
Twin Oaks
Acorn Community



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4

One Million Gardens

Find out why the backyard gardener is the hero in the struggle to save the planet. Narrated by Dr.Vandana Shiva, this video offers a simple and practical solution to climate change and local food security. Opening your eyes to the impact of our dependence on cheap oil in our industrial food system, you will discover why growing your own edible garden is the key to a sustainable world.

Join the Revolution in your own backyard.

Food Myth Busters: Feed The World

How can we feed the world - today and tomorrow?

The biggest players in the food industry - from pesticide pushers to fertilizer makers to food processors and manufacturers - spend billions of dollars every year not selling food, but selling the idea that we need their products to feed the world. But, do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world? Can sustainably grown food deliver the quantity and quality we need - today and in the future? Our first Food MythBusters film takes on these questions in under seven minutes. So next time you hear them, you can too.

Here Comes The Sun

The sun could easily provide the planet with sufficient energy, if only we are willing to change and to invest in harvesting that solar energy...

Claude Lewenz: Village Towns

In five minutes, Claude Lewenz covers the core elements of a Village Town and invites the viewer to become involved. Claude Lewenz is author of "Life Liberty Happiness" and "How to Build a VillageTown (second edition, slightly renamed). A Village Town is a 10,000 population town made up of 20 villages. Within there are no cars, it has its own local economy, and its purpose is to enable its citizens to enjoy a good life, understood as the social pursuits of conviviality, citizenship, artistic, intellectual & spiritual growth.

Karma Kitchen

What would you do if the next time you ask for your bill after dining out and your server says "There is no charge, your meal was paid for by the person who came before you?" Yep, that's right, there is nothing, zip, zilch -- on your bill. You literally see "$0.00."

In a world and society where we're taught: "If it's too good to be true, it's NOT." It's hard to believe. In this case, you have to feel it, experience it -- to believe it.

Communal Living With Nikki Silva

Visiting La Selva, the communal home that Nikki and eight others have built for themselves in over thirty years of hard toiling work (in Santa Cruz, California).

While Nikki attests that there was no intention of building a commune per se, it is very much a communal living situation. They are all partners in the shares of a single plot of land, and each partner or couple has a housing space within the whole compound based on their share. On the property, there are four separate houses, a large barn, a storage shed and an art studio. There is also a main house that has the kitchen, living room, and bathhouse (I didn’t pry). In total, eight unique yet cohesive structures share the property of gardens, fields, and forest, overlooking farmland and the pacific ocean. For those living at La Selva, they eat dinner together every night, take weekly turns with the meal preparation and cleaning of the kitchen, and share in a remarkable sense of togetherness that is much like that of a family.

Choice Point: Align Your Purpose

“Be The Change You Want To See In The World”

Choice Point is a feature-length documentary film which probes the issues of transformational change and how when one person transforms his or her own life, that person can contribute in a positive way to the shaping of the world.

“How does one make lasting positive changes?”

The film answers this most important of questions by weaving together inspirational personal stories by public figures, from sports stars to statesmen to businesspeople, with discussions by a range of experts, from scientists to philosophers, about the dynamics of change.

Incredible Edible Todmorden

They have corn growing outside the police station. Volunteers plant food that is free for anyone to pick outside of the fire station, the health center, the train station, the old age home. They teach all about small scale local food production in every school, and there are public gardens and edible landscapes everywhere...food is growing literally in every unused space!

Welcome to Todmorden, UK. This town is 17 miles north east of Manchester, and they have taken the local food movement to unprecedented heights. This town has even developed "Vegetable Tourism" around their passion for growing food together as a community. Pam Warhurst, one of the founders of the "Incredible Edible Todmorden" initiative says that changing the world through the power of local food is "a simple message that just might unite us."

Amen!

See also: How we can eat our landscapes

Pam Warhurst: How We Can Eat Our Landscapes

What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.