Matthew’s Blog

Apparently VP of Environmental Affairs isn’t thinking big enough or perhaps I filled out the wrong application.  Look what I saw on Channel 3 News.

This story came in the mail today and thought it was worth repeating. I do not know its origin.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, ‘Tell me what you see.’

‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma The daughter then asked, ‘What does it mean, mother?’

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water , they had changed the water.

‘Which are you?’ she asked her daughter. ‘When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength.

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level?

How do you handle adversity?

Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

This story  arrived in my email today without attribution. Think outside the drum.

There was once a small boy who banged a drum all day and loved every moment of it. He would not be quiet, no matter what anyone else said or did. Various attempts were made to do something about the child.

One person told the boy that he would, if he continued to make so much noise, perforate his eardrums. This reasoning was too advanced for the child, who was neither a scientist nor a scholar.

A second person told him that drum beating was a sacred activity and should be carried out only on special occasions. The third person offered the neighbors plugs for their ears; a fourth gave the boy a book; a fifth gave the neighbors books that described a method of controlling anger through biofeedback; a sixth person gave the boy meditation exercises to make him placid and docile. None of these attempts worked.

Eventually, a wise person came along with an effective motivation. He looked at the situation, handed the child a hammer and chisel, and asked, “I wonder what’s inside the drum?”

Last year I wrote about Paul Hawken and his presentation at the Bioneer Conference. I just found a video feed on QuantumShift.tv that gets to some of the heart of the speech, how all these movements (environmental, social justice, indigenous rights, bioneering . . .) all are really under the umbrella of one enormous cultural movement shift.

Malcolm Cohan, Vision Story creator extraordinaire, is coming in from Australia to meet all of us wonderful thought leaders and change magicians! Malcolm is the Visionary who started the ViSION Statement craze on YouTube. Malcolm is helping people create POWERFUL Vision Story/ Statement videos.

I was introduced to this man when George Johnson sent me this link along the lines of “You’ve gotta see this! You’re really going to align with this guy!” Boy was he right!

At the time Malcolm’s website had three really powerful vision stories that just knocked my socks off. One was called “Think It So” and the other “Vision for Humanity. The second made me cry. He is currently redoing those two movies and will show the later at our gathering, but I found a copy of the original Vision for Humanity on google.

George was so inspired that I think he is becoming Malcolm’s business manager. George has a 2 minute talk about why he invited Malcolm to come to Minnesota. view video

Malcolm will be here for about a week where he’ll be meeting with the great thought leader energy that Minnesota attracts and keeps.

COME MEET HIM!

George and I have coordinated, well mostly George, an introduction to Malcolm evening program at Horst Rechelbacher’s (founder of Aveda) newest endeavor Intelligent Nutrients. If you haven’t been there you are in for a real treat! Amazing atmosphere, great food, and conscious business.

It will be from 5-7 Tuesday evening the 5th of June at The IN with free hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS.

Preregister with me if you want to come to the Tuesday evening event so we get a proper head count.

What is a Vision Story/Statement?
It’s an awesome little movie that you make about your future. Write down some very bold statements about what you want, combine this with powerful royalty free images, add in a music track that totally inspires you and there you have your audacious vision of the future.

Want to see some examples click on any of the movies on Malcolm’s homepage, these were all made by students, colleagues, friends of Malcolm.  They are awesome.
http://www.malcolmcohan.com.  If you come to Rocket Ship Minnesota you can learn how to make one too.

Rocket Ship Minnesota Seminar
Malcolm will also be giving on SUNDAY the 10th of June at the Holiday Inn Select (MCA’s new home) in Bloomington from 10am-6pm. Malcolm calls these seminars Rocket Ships because it will take you to a place you have never been before. In this seminar you will learn how to make a ViSION Statement Video and about Malcolm’s “Vision for Humanity.”
To register for the seminar and to learn more about Malcolm goto www.entrevis.com

I’ve just had a great two days with poet David Whyte.  We were playing with courageous conversations.   He shared with us last night one that is still ringing in my ears.

Sometimes

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,

who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

~David Whyte from Everything Is Waiting For You

Hi all,

Here’s something that’s been brewing in me for a while. I received a comment yesterday from someone that got me stirred up enough to write about it. (or maybe it was my inner god).

I hear all the time about goddess programs, goddess groups, awesome women groups, crone circles, wise women enclaves, goddess training, women empowerment groups, etc. Where are the male equivalents? Before anyone gets on the their high horse that those groups came out of the response to the overwhelming male dominated society - I grant that.

AND

As a child of progressive parents who raised my brother and I endogenously and to recognize that women are equal to men I have grown up to be a male feminist. My closest colleagues are women and have surrounded myself with awesome women role models.

That’s great AND

I feel like we’re missing something. Like the balance has been tipped too far the other way. For example when and why has it become acceptable to have national women’s networking groups but not acceptable to have nationwide male networking group? I think the historical argument was valid, but the world is changing, women are changing, men are changing, society is changing. Do women still need to learn about their own personal power and goddess withing? Absolutely! AND that is not the point of my comments here.

My point is, What about the men? What about the conscious men out there who see women as equal partners in life yet while being supportive of women they feel like they have lost their identity of being male, of being the gods (to use the same god/goddess metaphor, Even now as I am writing this I have a twinge of embarrassment in using that word, like I don’t have the rite to use it, but it is ok to use goddess). Are we not all gods and goddesses?

Where are the programs for gods AND goddesses?

Where are the programs for male energy ritual? rites of passage? The ones that celebrate the male spirit? male comradeship (outside of the inane sports metaphors)? The ones that explore what it means to be male in todays society and how to be the best men we can be? What would that look like? Instead of saying what is wrong with men - what is right about us? What is enviable? What is good? What is sacred? What is grounding? What is uplifting? in the male energy.

The Mankind project and its ilk are one variety of maleness training. They seem outdated. They seem to be outgrowths of the 60s&80s - go to the forest, chant, scream, cry and then return to your family and obligations. They seem to make men wrong to make them right. It is not an attractive option for me.

What is the creative, resourceful and whole approach?

I want more. I want a program that is evolved. I want a program that shares with me why I should be proud to be a man. I want a program that shares with me how together men and women will create a better place on earth. I want a place where it is ok to talk about and express and be with all of our emotions anger, love, empathy, wounds, delight, joy, ecstasy. With out being made wrong for doing so.

Comments welcome. Solicitations not! Discussion about coming together/partnering to talk about creating such a program may be of interest.

Feels great getting that out there.

Matthew Egan Rochte

Conscious Human
Conscious Man
Conscious Capitalist

me

http://www.MatthewRochte.com
http://www.MakingTheWorldRoundAgain.com
http://www.ConversationCircle.com