David Sibbet

Fires, Family and the Fourth of July

I’ve been thinking a lot about fire this Fourth of July! Soot’s falling on my Santa Cruz friends from the Big Sur fire, called the Basin Complex fire. At only 5% containment it has already burned some 71,200 acres and is threatening the town of Big Sur itself, the Zen Center’s Tasajara Retreat Center, Nepenthe’s and other landmarks. As scary as this is, our morning Chronicle quoted some local residents as seeing the great cycle of renewal in this catastrophe. The coast will survive. These ecosystems are actually accustomed to burning, and many species depend on it. But what is renewal when one’s own house is at risk? What is change when one’s sacred memories and sacred sites are the ones changing?

Seeds of Light

Can I walk each day in a sacred way? Can I start each day in the clear light mind? Can I have my work and play circle around my spiritual practice rather than fitting my spiritual practice into my day? These are the questions that are front and center on returning from my Joshua Tree Vision Quest. The deep nourishment I received from my reflective time on the desert feels almost like waking up again from a long sleep. I want to stay awake. And I want to stay engaged! I feel like I am watering little seeds of light.

At Joshua tree I connected deeply with what I consider to be my real work, which is to plant and nurture seeds of hope, and to awaken myself so that who I am and what I do supports others waking up. This work is most engaged with my extended family, and the staff and clients I work with through The Grove, many of whom have left The Grove to start their own businesses and take their learning and insights into new jobs. I spent hours thinking about how the desert plants seed themselves, and appreciated that we humans seed our lives through our projects and stories. When we work side by side with another, we learn from the way they are in life, and these experiences are the deep templates that guide our development.

TED BIG VIZ Book and Movie are LIVE!!

You can download the TED2008-BigViz Book and see an amazing Movie of the 700 plus illustrations Kevin Richards and I did for Big Viz (see stories below). It's a BIG file, but amazing to see. Enjoy.

Second Life Retrospective

I just completely a 40 page illustrated retrospective on my learning from an initial year and half exploring Second Life. I've focused on 12 themes that have posed the most interesting questions and learning in this new medium, which increasingly represents an integrated experience in self-organizing, web 2.0 phenomena, all embedded in a 3D dynamic environment. The paper is too long to include here, but you can down load it by clicking on this link. I would love to hear your comments and reactions here however. The picture below is my SL self, Sunseed Bardeen, contemplating all this in my Deimos studio.

Download SecondLifeRetrospective.pdf (2518.2K)

The Joy of True Community

I come into the workweek renewed by a "corn feed" at our Argonne Community Garden autumnal equinox work party. The garden has 70 plots, and is next door to our place in San Francisco wrapping around the Argonne Children's Center, the first solar public building in San Francisco. It was built thanks to the focused effort of our garden community and leader Ed Dierauf back in the 1980s when the District thought about selling the land. Our network is strong and came out in force, with politicians in tow! Two young architects threw themselves into the project and instead of more apartments we have a wonderful children's center--AND community garden.

This weekend we were welcoming a group of new members, several of whom are biodynamic gardeners we were thrilled to discover. Two years ago I was elected President of the garden, succeeding Ed, and help "facilitate" the major events we hold. It's unlike any other facilitation I do. This is community, and I'm a part of it. It's more like just showing up and being me! Our gardeners come to the garden for refuge and renewal, not more organization--but there are things we need to attend to.

Radical Acceptance: Seeing the Rising Sun of Goodness in Others

An experience I had at a recent Thought Leaders Gathering is “working me” as my colleagues say. Its symptoms are a cascade of thoughts and feelings, revolving around an emerging insight that I feel is really important to understand, but seems just out of reach. It began with my response to a simple question on the part of Pele Rouge and Firehawk, facilitators of the TLG.

“What is the gift I must give to create the community in which I want to live?”

Pathfinder Gathering: Visualizing Our Commitments for the Next Cycle of the Sun

The longest day of summer, the solstice, is a special time for me. It’s right after my birthday, and for the last six years has been a time for gathering in Santa Cruz with three-dozen or so colleagues in a special Pathfinders Summer Solstice retreat. Our intention is to take stock of the past year and set intentions and commitments for the next cycle of the sun. It was an especially powerful experience for me this year, one that I would like to share.

Honoring Michael Doyle

This last Saturday I had the honor of helping create a histomap of the life of Michael Doyle, my mentor and first supporter in business 30 years ago. He passed away this last January 29, 2007, and his wife Juli and a design team of colleagues created a special memorial day to honor his professional contributions. Some 60 people came from all parts of the collaboration spectrum. We've been keeping a special blog in memory of Michael since he passed, and his history is posted there if you are interested in seeing it. Just click here to go to Remembering Michael Doyle.

Reconnecting with San Francisco, the African Way

On Saturday my wife Susan and I decided to spend a day reconnecting with our city, the old fashioned, hands on way, inspired by my recent trip to Africa. Things were so intimate and immediate there I was  already feeling cooped up and contained being inside so much.

We began at the Presidio Nursery, where our Community Supported Agriculture group sorts food. We were "sort leaders," meaning we got the list of what was picked at Good Humus farm the day before, and orchestrated the various cluster representatives in dividing up the cabbages, beets, carrots, garlic, oranges, asparagus, and lettuces into 62 baskets. It only took at hour. The produce is fresh and organic and unbelievably tasty. We are blessed to have this relationship, and to know where our food comes from. We pay twice a year, once to Good Humus for the winter crops, and then now, in the spring to Live Power Farm for the summer crops. It's a link back to the way people have lived in relation to food since they began growing it. It tempers the alienation. We only sort three times during a season, so this day is always special.

Then Susan and I went to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Louis', a concession on Golden Gate National Recreation Land out at lands end, overlooking the old ruins of Sutro Baths. This family restaurant has been here since the 1950s, and is a blend of local and tourist clientele. Linda remembered my name as she got us coffee, even tho I haven't been there in a month. "I know Susan" she smiled "and you are connected." We sure are. We had our 40th anniversary this month! Our talk this morning was all about stories from Africa, and how touched I was by the people and their love of the land and their intimacy with it. This is the place we come for our deepest talks, where we can look out at the sea, and suspend time. Susan's family is Navy, her grandfather was the Chief of Naval Operations under FDR. The sea and its ships is in her blood and this Golden Gate is part of her earliest memories after WWII.

SUTRO BATH RUINS AT LANDS END IN SAN FRANCISCO

Umfupa wa Kobe

"Gina lako umfupa wa kobe!' I said as Tuté and I clammered through the vines and thorn bushes to the cozy campsite under a large rock overhang. I was greeting Mpunipuni, one of the dorobo hunter gatherers who had led my colleagues Craig Neal and Glenn Gordon to this site a bit earlier in the afternoon. This was a traditional dorobo camp, used for untold numbers of years judging from the ancient charcoal and more recent Maasai shield paintings on the rock.

Mpunipuni doesn't speak English. I had said, in Swahili, that "my name is bone of turtle." In fact "Turtlebone" is my medicine name, received on vision quests at Shasta, and I had just learned the day before, after finding the scattered bones of a leopard turtle on the path during our morning walk, that my name in Swahili would be Umfupa wa Kobe.