June 2009 Newsletter - ENGLISH

Awakening the Spirit of Ubuntu
ONENESS?  IT'S CHILD'S PLAY!
HT partners with Oneness TV show
What is Humanity's Team to Us
Volunteers needed

Awakening the Spirit of Ubuntu

Dear Friends,

SteveWe've just returned from South Africa where we had an incredibly rich experience.  We talked about Oneness, we celebrated it, and most importantly, we experienced it.  I'm going to get to the "experiencing it" part in a moment, but before I do, I'm going to share key decisions we made together as a Global Council in South Africa.

Once a year, Global Council members come together from all over the world to meet, collaborate and make decisions concerning our most important plans for the year ahead.  We are a coordinated movement so once we come to consensus, we synchronize plans worldwide.  We made some very important decisions I'd like to share with you now.

First, we decided to collect the remaining 40,000 signatures for our Oneness Day petition by January 31st next year and then to bring our 50,000 petition signatures to the United Nations in May with key leadership from around the world.  We will announce an exact date and our plans by September.  For now, please pencil in to meet us at the United Nations in New York City in May next year.  If you can come, please join us.  It is important that we all call on the United Nations to create a Oneness Day when we together, all over the world, announce and declare, express and fulfill, become and experience Who We Really Are.

Next, we agreed to focus on starting or joining Humanity's Team communities near where we live.  We are coming together virtually at our global and country web sites, social networking sites and even video sites such as YouTube.  It is important that we leave our computers and homes and come together physically also to discuss and celebrate Oneness and to do educational outreach and spiritual activism.  To make meetings inviting, we are recommending that each community decide its own format.  Here in Boulder, Colorado we've created a monthly Humanity's Team dinner format with featured speakers but there are many other inviting formats.  What is important is that we each organize a monthly or weekly meeting near where we live so we can come together, collaborate, celebrate and create activism as a community.

Finally, we decided to form global "task teams" focusing on key project areas so collaborative decision making can be moved out to the maximum number of people.  One project involves setting up a strategic country web site that will integrate with the global web site.  Another will focus on inviting financial nurturing at every level of the movement: globally, at a country level, and within Humanity's Team communities.  Other important project teams were formed as well.  We will update you on key projects as the year progresses.

Now, to the fun part, the "experiencing it" part of the trip.  The theme of our Oneness Summit this year was: Awakening the Spirit of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu means we are part of a larger whole and therefore available to each other.  This is an important part of our Humanity's Team message.  When we see we are all One, One with God, humanity, and all of life, our identity changes.  No longer do we see we are just our body, separate from others.  When we awaken, we see we are part of a larger whole that is interrelated, interconnected, and interdependent.  We naturally seek to nurture the larger whole that we are part of.

The speeches were uplifting and wonderful but what I loved most was the practice of Ubuntu when we were together.  You could feel it everywhere: on the bus when we traveled around together, during meals, in the halls when we were a few together or many, and in our Global Council meetings dispersed through out the week.

What does Ubuntu feel like?  For me, it feels like love that keeps on giving.  It is telling the truth but with love because we know we are always speaking to our Self.  It is checking in with another to see how they are doing and really being present to the response.  It is helping people with funds when funds were left back in the hotel room or not available.  It is never speaking over another.  It is listening intently to another who is sharing.  It is loving another person even when you can feel their sense of separation from you.  It is loving unconditionally.  It is being with many but feeling as One.

When we completed our Global Council meeting, we talked about what had just happened.  We shared that our experience had not been perfect Ubuntu.  Sometimes one or more of us would fall out of connection, but it was a breathtaking experience just the same.

In the months and years just ahead, we'll experience Ubuntu more and more in our worldly living because the world is waking up.  Our time has come and we are being guided and supported every step of the way [thank you God!].

All my love,
Steve

P.S.  Please send our Oneness Day petition to every like minded person and organization you know.  It is perhaps the most important petition that has ever come along.

P.P.S.  The following links take you to news coverage in South Africa of our Oneness Summit.   News Clip 1 News Clip 2 News Clip 3 News Clip 4

ONENESS?  IT'S CHILD'S PLAY!
Anna-Mari Pieterse

18th April turned out to be an awesome, never to be forgotten, once in a life-time experience!

I had been looking forward to the day for many reasons; one of these was to finally meet in person Alwyn van den Berg and his partner Juanita Human!  When I met Alwyn on the phone about a year ago I knew I simply had to meet this special being in person. Alwyn and Juanita work and live in Tzaneen in the Limpopo province of SA, some 400 kilometres from Pretoria where the Oneness Summit took place.   This rural area counts amongst one of the most beautiful and scenic in our country and is also regarded as one of our ‘food baskets.'

When Alwyn learned about the Oneness event that was going to take place he knew he had to be there and that he had to bring some of the local village kids along.  Alwyn who has a contagious passion for children, the environment, and for Life, and who is an artisan by trade, became conscious of the local village kids who according to him ‘were just hanging around aimlessly.'  One day he could not witness this anymore and gave in to the urge to stop and play with them.  Soon they were playing cricket and Frisbee together on a regular basis.

But Alwyn also has the hobby of building wire cars, and soon these cars that give a child the magical opportunity to ‘travel' anywhere, became his tool for teaching them respect for self and the environment; bringing home ideas of responsibility, recycling, and a clean environment. Alwyn naturally found a way to teach children aspects of Oneness and the circle of life in a playful way.

He is delighted by and amazed at how a child's body manages to become one with the car and how this innocent play becomes a wonderful opportunity for a child to get in touch with the depth of life.  Alwyn sees this as a great way to stimulate a child's imagination and to make them realize how we are all part of a big human family and the Cosmos.

Alwyn had no real means to transport the kids from Tzaneen to Pretoria and the kids also did not have proper clothing to attend such an important event.  True to his spirit he got part of the transport costs sponsored, organized a mini-bus and a trailer to carry their luggage, and he worked day and night to provide each child with his/her own Humanity's Team T-shirt (Alwyn did the printing), a wire car filled with fruits and other things, complete with Humanity's Team and New Spirituality slogans, and food for the trip.

And so they arrived at the event; spotless: Alwyn, the beautiful Juanita, fifteen kids plus their own daughter, two care-takers and a translator left Tzaneen in the early hours of the morning. (Can you imagine the excitement?)  I knew it was them when I heard the sound of the wheels of their wire cars on the cobbled pathways of Freedom Park.  I will never forget this moment!

It is absolutely safe to say the event would never have been the same without the great energy they brought along on this day.  Their presence made the day magical and complete.  Imagine their playful laughter, their awe and wonder... All of this as a beautiful program played itself out, the day turning from bright sunlight, to sunset, into evening. We were experiencing our dream of a beautiful world for all right there in that moment; a complete Oneness.  We had seen this in our dreams, and there we were; standing right in it.

We visited feverishly until after mid-night that day, with the kids peacefully at sleep on the big family bed that we had made for them on the floor.

I intend for Alwyn's local wire car project to become a huge project, and that he is supported in un-imaginable ways in anything that he tackles.  Thank you Alwyn and bless you! You are an immense inspiration.

Thank you and bless you Juanita.  Thank you and bless the kids, their caretakers, Maluleke the translator, and their community.

Touched by angels.

Namasté.

HT partners with Oneness TV show

Humanity’s Team is partnering with a television program focusing on Oneness and why the truth of humanity’s Oneness is part of nearly all religious traditions.

You can preview the program, “The Journey Towards Oneness,” on this page.

The hourlong show — airing on cable and satelite TV at 9 p.m. (21.00) Eastern Daylight Time (UTC/GMT minus 4 hours) Sunday, June 14, and available online that date — is part of a 10-segment series called “Global Spirit,” produced by Link TV.

Hosted by Phil Cousineau, who spoke at the Humanity’s Team “Seeds of Transformation” conference at New York’s Bard College four years ago, the series explores spiritual, psychological and scientific belief systems from around the world.

Episodes, mostly in English but with parts in other languages, investigate the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world’s ancient wisdom traditions and by modern science.

Guests include Karen Armstrong, Robert Thurman, Deepak Chopra, Sobonfu Somé, Andrew Harvey, Chief Oren Lyons, Azim Khamisa, the Rev. Alan Jones, Joanne Shenandoah, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, Coleman Barks, Robert Bly, Michael Meade, Hamza El Din and Jai Uttal.

The “Oneness” episode that Humanity’s Team is supporting includes wisdom from Bob Randall, a Yankunytjatjara Elder in Australia, one of the “stolen generation” of Aboriginal people, who speaks of Oneness as caring for Life Itself with unconditional love.

“You can never feel lonely (living in Oneness),” Randall says. “How can you, when all around you are family members, from the ground up to all the trees around you and all the clouds?”

Physicist Ravi Ravindra of Canada’s Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, traces Western society’s move away from Oneness to at least the 16th century, when he says scientists began to “mechanize” nature “like a big machine” and people started disconnecting “ourselves from what we study,” separating “the knower from what is known.”

Sufi author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee adds that the Western sense of separation, or disunity, is a product of a patriarchal religious culture that places “God above and humans below.” And because, with this theology, people believe God is not on Earth, they also believe that what happens on Earth doesn’t matter — which has not only wreaked havoc to our outer world, but done the same to our inner world as well, he says.

But humanity will always return to unity consciousness, Vaughan-Lee says, because “deep within each of us, we have a yearning for Oneness.”

“And the beautiful thing is, really, (that) all of humanity — in fact, the whole of creation — is longing for Oneness (and) wants to make that journey, either consciously or unconsciously,” he says.

Again, you can preview the episode now on this page and view the entire show online on the Link TV site starting June 14.

What is Humanity's Team to Us
Zaneta Jacobsen in collaboration with the Czech HT Teammates

We would like to share with you something from our Czech HT experience, about our workshop called: ‘The spirit of Humanity's Team' and its outcomes which we found very impactful.

This event was a product of a long term creative process. It was preceded by a number of other events such as Christian Pankhurst's "Introduction to Heart Circles" or "Natural Expression" facilitated by Robert Sattler. These and other events attracted a number of enthusiastic and motivated people into Humanity's Team who were willing to become the change they wanted to see in the world. At the meeting of the Czech Humanity's Team's Council it was decided that a workshop will be created where we will all have an opportunity to review what "The Spirit of Humanity's Team" means to us, and this is when Robert Sattler once again offered his help. The workshop - led by Robert - aimed at getting to know each other and tuning in with the new people who joined the council of the Czech HT association. Hence this became the title of the workshop. Our vision was to use this event to become clearer on what exactly we want to take part in, within Humanity's Team Czech - what exactly we want to offer people inside and outside the movement, which tools and language to use or who do we want to approach first. We also wanted to find our unique way on how to describe Humanity's team in a simple, powerful way that we all agree upon. We are of course in alignment with the main description of what Humanity's Team is, yet we wanted to tune in to our own way; how else we can convey a message about what Humanity's Team is for us, from our own experience.

The workshop finally materialized at the end of February. Those three days were truly demanding as we asked a lot from ourselves and everybody had to be 100 percent present. Not in a sense that we were coerced into something but if you are doing what you are passionate about, with people you love, it is the only way. And the result was extraordinary. The tangible outcomes were four sentences and one painting, and an enormous energy standing behind them as well as a close team. A team of people where everybody is aware of what Humanity's Team is is capable of expressing it precisely and where we all know that what we express is in tune with the others. The Spirit of Humanity's Team that we evoked there entered us and we became its body.

This is our answer to the question - "What is HT to you?" - upon which 13 of us agreed on:

Humanity´s Team is a community of people creating a free space for expressing who we really are. It nourishes the individuality of everyone while building upon what all of us have in common. We are bound by mutual kindness, joy and respect. HT activities help us live a conscious and harmonious life.

And how did we reach this outcome? Robert took us on a journey where we all were searching and expressing what we are in relationship to Humanity's Team, how we feel there with others and how we feel the Spirit of Humanity's Team and its materializations in our everyday lives. We became clearer about the paths between what is and what we want. We expressed our individuality while touching the Spirit of Humanity's Team with our unity, giving it strength and meaning in our day-to-day reality. And the Spirit of Humanity's Team created through us its intentions. Our participation opens a whole new chapter in our self-development, self-realization and a new era of cooperation. The work we carried out contained mental, emotional as well as spiritual and physical levels. We cried, laughed and were deeply fulfilled. These were an extraordinary three days, filled with mutual trust, respect and cooperation where so many things were born that we will have so much to do until the end of time. But most importantly, we believe that this work is so meaningful, that its impact will last forever.

Our team is now inspired and new members started to become involved in many of our ongoing activities. We all agreed to take part in future events, where each person decides what projects to participate in.

You can read more about the many activities, history and functioning of Czech HT on our website in the English section: http://plus.humanitysteam.cz/english/

Humanity's team Czech Republic, 20. March, 2009

The following is an excerpt from the constellation work we did:

Robert: Marketa, repeat the feelings you had when you became the Spirit of HT.

Marketa: It was very pleasant and this feeling was coming from the fact that while I felt great lightness and playfulness it was at the same time very profound.

Robert: Marcel, will you share any feelings from this short exercise?

Marcel: When I was in the role of HT, I felt grandness but at the same time I was relaxed. There was a great lightness in the power.

Volunteers needed

Humanity's Team is looking for volunteers experienced in grant writing and grant research.  If you are interested in these positions, please contact Lynn Launer for further details.  lynn [at] lynnlauner [dot] com

Special thanks to Ann Cook, Chip Cooper, Thomas Dachsel, Kirill Filonenko, Gerry Harrington, Monika Jamborova, Nannette Kennedy, Miriam Klajnberg, Lynn Launer, Ruth Luna, Chansomaly Ouk, Colline Gori, Danielle Dauphinais, Lénah Chonville, Mireille Cantin, Philippe Pasqualini, Anna-Mari Pieterse, Nancy Seymour, Nikolay Sluzhinin, Dannie Stahlecker, Catalina Sursilov, Aziz Tegin and Danielle Versé for helping with the creation, translation and publication of this newsletter.

Humanity's Team is a nonprofit, global grassroots spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement the belief that we are all one, one with God and one with life, in a shared global state of being, so that the behavior of humanity may shift to reflect this understanding.

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