SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

When I discovered Happyzine a few months ago I was happy! It seems very appropriate that Aotearoa-New Zealand has a vehicle for spreading good news. When I first arrived in Aotearoa in 1994 from the UK, I immediately felt a connection with the future which I hadn’t been able to experience in my birthland. Soon after, I was lucky to meet and listen to Dr Rangimarae Turuku Rose Pere, Maori spiritual leader and teacher. She spoke of Aotearoa as a retreat centre for the world, a place where people “come to find the lost pieces of their soul”. She cautioned, once we have found our lost pieces, we must go out again into the world, taking the soul wisdom with us to heal the world.

One of the ways I have been taking the soul wisdom of New Zealand out into the world is through my book, “Living your Passion: How Love-in-action is seeding A Whole New World”.  It’s based on interviews with 25 people and all but two of them are New Zealanders.  I call them “ordinary extraordinary people” because they’re all making a difference in their communities and creating a New Story of peaceful, sustainable, co-operative living. There are people all over the world creating similar projects and the hope and inspiration in these stories are so needed at this time of change and transition.

One of the people I interviewed in “Living your Passion” was James Samuel, at the time he had a vision for transforming Waiheke Island into a sustainable community. He said:

“My interest is to support people to find ways to come to a greater place of trust with each other. Part of that involves all the practical things that relate to food, shelter and clothing, because if we handle those basics, then all sorts of other wonderful creative possibilities exist for us to explore also. We can meet those needs in a way that is very, very gentle on our environment and creates a very gentle footprint.”

Subsequently, James became co-ordinator of Transition Towns NZ, which now has projects all over NZ as part of an international grassroots movement creating the kinds of practical community initiatives James was envisioning. www.transitiontowns.org.nz

I also interviewed Jim Horton and Susan Jessie from the wonderful Tui Community in Golden Bay about the groundbreaking work they are doing with teenagers in their Tides and Tracks programmes. Jim’s passion is for the men’s movement and connecting men of all ages, so that older men can mentor teenage boys, and both generations give and gain something they need from the exchange. He said:

“A person can have a huge amount of talent and skills, but unless they consciously choose to offer those skills and offer to teach those skills, then no progress is made. It was about confronting myself and other men and saying: “Hey! Make a decision! Be proactive! These young people are all around. Get alongside them! They actually do want to talk to you! It might not seem like it, but they are dying to ask you questions and learn from you!” [email protected]

Through writing “Living your Passion” I came to understand that we each have our own unique gifts to bring and when we do the work that is ours to do wholeheartedly we serve the larger wholes of which we are a part, and everyone benefits. This is the first law of co-creation: do what you love to do, follow your passion, do it 100%. But that’s not to say it’s easy. Through developing my own project, A Whole New World, as well as talking with others, I’ve discovered how long it takes and how dedicated you have to be to bring a project from the initial vision into physical reality. Every project of this kind which is creating the New Story needs at least one person who will hold the vision through thick and thin. For me, having found the work I am passionate about is a great blessing, it’s like having a rudder on the boat. Sometimes the boat gets tossed around by big seas but when you know what you’re here to do and where you’re headed you keep your hand on the rudder, and trust, and allow your intention and vision to carry and guide you.

What better time to be thinking about the kind of whole new world we want to co-create than at the beginning of a new year and a new decade?

Rose Diamond lived in the Nelson/Golden Bay area of the South Island for 12 years. Her first book, Migration to the Heartland: A Soul Journey in Aotearoa, tells of her own journey to wholeness and is a love song to the spiritual beauty of New Zealand; her second book, Living your Passion: How Love-in-action is seeding a Whole New World, presents New Zealand as a potential role model for the world as a peaceful, sustainable society. Rose is a lifelong educator with a passion for whole person learning and a profound fascination with the creative process. Her own particular piece of the puzzle is mapping the inner process of transformation, recording and publishing some of the emerging community models for the new culture, helping to link initiatives locally and globally, and identifying the curriculum for the transition. Through her project, A Whole New World, she holds a vision for global unity through the awakening of consciousness and grassroots empowerment. To find out more about A Whole New World go to: www.awholenewworld.net for books: www.awholenewworld.net/books.htm or email me: [email protected]

(Peace image courtesy of www.onepeopleoneplanet.org)