You and you and yours and yourns!

YOU, YOU, YOU....

You and you and yours and yourns would be welcome to use our place as a homebase to do more, to getmore, and to shake the fun out of it. We have built it for that. It is open to you. And, I know you can afford it. In fact, you can't afford not to. And, BTW - Thanks!! Thanks for the invitation.

And, yes, yes we might just take you up on it. We do a fair amount of traveling. And, we love your town and how much you have become part of your community. House swap - dog sitter, plant sitter, cat pooper scooper - you got it!!

What we are always finding is that much of the best perspective we can get from any travel is simply to hunker down and get to know a place. It lets you save money, extends your enjoyment, and leads you to be more profound and reach your expectations... anyway, let's all keep talking and planning. South America too. Asia for that matter. Europe for sho!

Our bases are probably shifting somewhat- which makes it an opportune time to get involved. Instead of just arriving to a cookie cutter plan - you all could help build our future TOGETHER - get some real buy in, be on the foundation.... I am publishing these plans as a blog. I am going to continue to sketch out how to do it financially - and how the pay back can be as big or bigger than any risk.

How did we come here? It's not for nothin'...

My wife and I are in Cordoba, Argentina.

Today, we discussed how good it feels that in the midst of raising a three year old boy, and with the arrival of a new baby girl quite imminent, I have the time and energy to start blogging again. How amazing that in the midst of this joyous work of family life - I am freer. It is a divine gift to me that there is mental energy, creativity, confidence, hope, deliberation, and time to work on new projects. We have created the safe space and the extra space to conceive of new things, to try on different hats!

I am thrilled to share in this blog 'sketches of Cordoba' many of the assets and risks that are paying off for our family, and consequently, for our world. We find comfort in decisions we have made to sacrifice societal standards of 'normal' for the life we have created. Time can be found; in fact, this is the first ingredient to buying back more of your life.

What is better than knowing you can push a little good forward? I hope this reaches your life too.

Here is a quick jam to get you psyched, keep you interested, and bring you back.

Cuban-santeria-ukg-nostalgia-and-french-experimentation

How did we come here? It's not for nothin'...

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina wrecked my homeland and set in motion the truth I already knew about the need to get very curiously active, I was despondent about seeing really amazing people sidelined by work, actually dying, and having health concerns which were related to not giving themselves a retreat space. I saw it in myself. And this was the new normal in a post-disaster world.

As I widened my focus, I could see it all over. I could see the evils of debt-riddled economics. I saw people giving up living for work routines. I began to see how harsh were the lives of many immigrant families in the USA: working three jobs, living without ease, all to send remittances back home for a retirement, a dream, or the dedication to family. On another extreme, I saw our privileged, powerful, often securely-wealthy families losing to hopelessness, losing to sloth with very low motivation: we who were held up to be paradigms of success. These were our winners. In the most elite, most powerful halls of power, once you moved beyond vapors of making money or decisions, most people could not trace their steps back to where and when they abandoned their ambition, social consciousness, moral compass, or time, energy, and reflection on whom they had aspired to become. The others 'normal', sick, drugged, self loathing, consumed by prejudices, imbalanced - swam like lemmings in a frozen stream - only tiny minorities realizing their errors.

And, there we all were - the many, many great souls who were living surrounded by invisible fences.

I saw firsthand and up-close our government, the NGO gatekeepers, faith-based non-profits, even community leaders: we were all selling out meaningful opportunities - and as a rule we did not want to and had no idea how to stop ourselves from doing this.

We began insisting to friends, family, and people we thought would benefit that they could take us up on what little we had and wanted to offer: space and time for retreats, perspective, and a chance to turn off the cell phone. Basically, we encouraged visiting Colombia. While it never completely got off the ground, and the number of peoples (boards of directors, philanthropists, real artists and philosophers, critical thinkers and radicals, and real community leadership etc) who I was convinced we could entice to come get some tropical space and perspective never did amount to the critical mass I imagined, we did succeed in seeding great occupancy and joy.

It started a movement in us to really use our space and experiences to help, to heal, to widen the options.

What it turns out (what I have learned) is that in the ripple effects, through the memes, by the mere 6 degrees of separation connecting us all, and in today's rush of social network milieus - SUCCESS!!

We have reached critical mass. And it is just4you. It is just this small.

Now! is a 92 line truth serum. Almost 9thousand ideas pushing forth.

God bless. Get to work!!

Offer aid and perspective to others when you can do so with zero sense of recompense.

Expect a world seeking your voice.

I want you all to do that. No matter your age. No matter the handicap. Make peace and listen.

BASTA YA!


**** special thanks this week and every week to my editor partner and cohort BSS all my famdamily and friends of creation - I know you __ gonna miss JG