|
Visioneers Bulletin
VOL. 2 NO. 7
Achieving a Big Vision
Creating Epiphanies
A Moment of Sudden and
Great New Understanding
|
|
|
|
Founders Dr. Desmond Berghofer and Dr. Geraldine Schwartz
|
|
|
Gerri here
We
live in a moment in the history of humanity where the ugliest images of
war and acts of cruelty invade out hearts and the urgency of the
potential consequences of famine on a large-scale never before
experienced could create overwhelming despair; shattering both
individual and collective hope for the future.
And
yet, we also have the opportunities and choices to create a future of a
golden time so wonderous that history will point to the generations
alive at this time with gratitude for our remarkable achievements.
But how do we get from here and now to this new place?
Most importantly, we will need a new, clear and big vision of what this place looks like,
an epiphany, a moment of sudden new understanding, so to speak. It must
be based on a new understanding of who we are as a species, when
international borders and barriers of diversity are taken
down.
Let’s begin to paint the canvas with the multicultural brush. Images of a new community as a global village...
that honours and reflects our nature
as a connected social, noble species
whose relationships with each other are primary.
It
is guided by a moral compass centered in kindness, compassion, justice,
truth-telling and the understanding that peace is as central to each of
us as the air we breathe.
Even further…
Peace is not just the absence of war.
Humanity’s peace is multifaceted and includes all the ways we are and act in this world.
We are each and all
To do this at this time we must take
enormous risks, even to the point of not letting the war-makers succeed.
This takes courage, real courage. Because the stakes are so high,
we must act to create this vision together. It will be magnificent in
scope and soul-sized in depth and meaning.
Indeed, we must act to ‘wage peace’
with as much craft and strategic intention
as those who wage war.
So,
to begin, we need a big, new vision. Next, we assemble the champions,
the peace-builders to step beyond their current outstanding achievement
to a new place, to higher ground, where our common spirit makes us bold,
where we tell our best stories, use art, music, literature, and culture
to inspire us, and we finally understand…
That acting together provides the power, the energy,
to step-by-step achieve a common golden vision
in which we and the generations that follow us thrive and flourish in ways we cannot yet even imagine.
So, let’s do this.
|
|
|
The Launch of the
Visioneers Project
|
|
|
|
Set for Sunday, October 9th, 2022 at 11am PDT.
To ensure
unrestricted participation in the Launch attendance will be free
by registration for both the live event (with tickets) and the
live-streamed sessions through the Visioneer network and the networks of our strategic partners.
The live Launch will take place at
the newly renovated beautiful Old Auditorium Theatre on the University
of British Columbia’s campus in Vancouver. It is described
below:
It
will be a timeless, organic production where music, art, stories and
poetry carry the message in a hybrid, live and virtual event to a
multigenerational diverse audience of leaders, builders of the Golden
Peace.
Live in Vancouver and Free for those who pre-register, live in
Vancouver, and live-streamed free through our
networks to viewers virtually everywhere with a
digital connection, to tens of thousands of people, ready and willing to
act to move the needle on the moral compass to a new enlightened
position.
The Launch event called
Humanity's Golden Peace
An Entry to the Age of Global Consciousness
A Catalyst
will have 3 parts:
- 1. The celebration and official designation of Visioneers Awards
- 2. Humanity’s Golden Peace,
described in visuals, stories, music, poetry and songs, sending our
message through the Arts, with choirs of many ages and voices and
ongoing audience participation.
- 3. A mosaic of film clips, of 10 follow up inspirational episodes of wisdom, stories of outstanding achievement and visions of Humanity’s Golden Future.
Visioneers Leadership Circles to
be formed worldwide will be introduced as we wage peace and register
our achievements on the Visioneers Wall of Stories, colour-coded to
display progress on the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
To learn more visit here!
https://thevisioneers.ca/sdgs
|
|
|
Pre-register for the Launch
October 9th, 2022 at 11:00am PDT
Please indicate your intention to pre-register for free to attend the launch
live on site in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia OR to
pre-register for the free live-streamed virtual event.
You are invited to bring your friends and family to the launch event
ceremony, celebrating the official designation of all Visioneer Award
Winners.
To pre-register for either the live event or the virtual livestream contact Tatiana at speed.tatiana@gmail.com
If you are planning to participate live, we are currently seeking
Visioneers to join the local team and act as hosts on the day of the
event. Let us know if you are interested.
This will be an extraordinary event.
|
|
|
|
Ten Episodes of Wisdom
We have chosen from the hundreds of award winners ten outstanding
thinkers, the people’s champions, to each present an episode to educate
and inspire Visioneers. These will each be live streamed 2 weeks apart
and then the recorded version of the Launch and first 10 episodes will
be permanently posted on the Visioneers Virtual Expo on the pavilion of
the speaker. They will also be available on request to networks who act
as our strategic partners and to all individual Visioneers who can
pre-register free for the Launch and the episodes that follow.
The second collaboration of 10 episodes will be available in 2023, and so on. All new stories will also be posted on our Wall of Stories
as observable evidence of progress on the United Nations 17 Sustainable
Development Goals as we actually build the Golden Peace.
https://thevisioneers.ca/sdgs
The Episodes:
The episodes following the launch will be
live streamed individually at two week intervals following the launch
and then created as a permanent package, available as inspiration to
all.
The
following Visioneer Life Achievement award winners have agreed to do
these cameo greetings for the live event, as well as to prepare one
of the ten episodes for the follow up program:
- Dr. Ervin Laszlo, Hero of Humanity
Dr. Anne Baring, Heroine of Humanity
- Dr. Jean Houston, Heroine of Humanity
- Dr. Jane Goodall, Heroine of Humanity
- Dr. William Halal, Visionary Leader
- Barbara Muller, Visionary Leader (for Dr. Robert Muller, Hero of Humanity)
Barbara Muller
Robert Muller
Four others have been asked to create
episodes in the first collection of ten. Each episode addresses a
different aspect of Humanity’s Golden Peace. The presenters include:
- George and Sedena Cappannelli, Visionary Leaders
George
Sedena
- Dr. Dean Radin of IONS, Visionary Leader (for Dr. Willis Harman, Hero of Humanity)
Dean Radin
Willis Harmon
- Claudia Wells of IONS, Visionary Leader (for Edgar Mitchell, Hero of Humanity)
Claudia Wells
Edgar Mitchell 
- Fred
Arment, Visionary Leader (for International Cities of Peace, Visioneer
Project Excellence award winner, more than 350 cities now in 71
countries)
|
|
|
|
Sponsorship
Opportunities for Sponsorship Promotion
All promotion and updates will provide links to the Sponsors’ Page on the website of the International Foundation of Learning and The Visioneers official website. The sponsors message will describe their own community outreach of good work projects.
All sponsors promotion will be available digitally and in print to the
live audience and digitally to the virtual audience.
Sponsors’ promotion opportunities will be threefold:
- They will be included as good corporate citizens in all the Visioneers promotions going forward from July 2022.
- They will be invited to send a team as honoured guests to the live event.
- Further promotion materials can be made available in the take home kits following the live performance.
|
|
|
|
The Live and Virtual Audience
Local
Visioneers, community leaders, university students, faculty, alumni
and all Visioneers will be invited to pre-register free and
have access to tickets for their family and friends.
For those who are participating virtually, Visioneers are invited
to ask their friends, family and colleagues to watch the
live-stream of the event to witness the ceremony of
official designation of all Visioneer Awards.
Visioneer Leadership Circles
An important
concept and activity arising out of the launch will be the creation of
Visioneer Leadership Circles in communities wherever Visioneers are
to be found.
All Visioneers are invited to consider creating Visioneers Leadership Circles of 3 or more people, to participate in the Visioneers future activities and to become builders of Humanity’s Golden Peace.
Visioneers will be able to:
- nominate worthy projects and people for Visioneer awards from their own community to join the Visioneers global project.
- Their stories will be posted on the Visioneers International Virtual Peoples Exposition and added to the Wall of Stories that provide observable evidence of progress on the United Nations 17 SDGs.
- https://www.thevisioneers.ca/sdgs
Participation In the Visioneers project can now begin
In the next months, as we create this live event we will ask you to begin your participation.
We will include you as we create a new kind of community of
leaders without international borders or barriers that divide us by
our beliefs and diversity.
We will be the village it takes to inspire and influence communities worldwide.
- We invite you to begin by creating your own community of 3 or more people as a Visioneer Leadership circle.
- We invite you to treasure hunt for the people and projects in your community worthy of a Visioneer award.
- We invite you to nominate them for this honour and ask their permission to send us their nomination.
- Special note - Visioneers can invite people to join the Visioneers with or without awards.
Here are the basic elements of our mission:
- To embrace a new moral compass as we evolve towards goodness
- To
move beyond our current focus and passion to put our individual energy
to the task of building Humanity’s Golden Peace together https://thevisioneers.ca/activities/wisdom/humanity-s-golden-peace
- To wage peace with as much strategic intention and high energy as those who wage war
- To
collect, promote, display and celebrate the observable evidence of what
we are doing through song, story, poetry, art, education, and every
aspect of human culture so that we understand our connection and
celebrate our achievements.
"So, at last we have come to it
Whether to fashion a value shift among all cultures,
Replacing sense of separation
with understanding of the all.
At last we have come to it."
Desmond Berghofer
from
Prayers for a Thousand Years
|
|
|
The Visioneers continue to build an outstanding cohort of Leaders worldwide nominated by their fellow Visioneers.
Here are some examples of the leaders posted this quarter:
|
|
|
We honour the Lifetime Achievement of our most recent Hero and Heroines of Humanity:
https://thevisioneers.ca/heroes-and-heroines-of-humanity-2
Ervin Lazslo
Italy, Hungary
Hero of Humanity
https://thevisioneers.ca/heroes-and-heroines-of-humanity-2/heroes/ervin-laszlo
Jean Houston
USA
Heroine of Humanity
Jane Goodall
Global
Heroine of Humanity
|
|
|
We honour our most recent Lifetime Achievement Award Winners:
Paul Samuel Dolman
Christopher Bache
Nicholas Janni
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Scott Catamas
Anneloes Smitman
Jocelyn Star Feather
|
|
|
The Masterworks Emporium of the
Great Works of our Time
Features the following examples of outstanding
Visioneer Award Winning
Writers
posted this quarter
visit https://thevisioneers.ca/masterworks/writing
|
|
|
Richard Tarnas
Ervin Lazslo
William E. Halal
Willis Harman
Rama Mani and Alexander Schieffer
Cherl Melody Baskin
Dr. Joan Borysenko
Joan Borysenko and Gordon Dveirin
|
|
|
The Masterworks
Features the following examples of Visioneer award winning musicians posted this quarter:
|
|
|
|
|
Tatiana Speed presents her newest song Refuge. A song of healing and comfort.
|
|
|
Listen to peace itself presented by Visioneer Award winner
Lori-Ann Speed in her beautiful exquisite piano composition
Love's Last Breath.
|
|
Desmond speaking...
In Doug Gillies wonderful book on the life of Robert Muller, called Prophet: The Hatmaker’s Son,
schoolboy Robert quotes German writer Friedrich Schiller: “Life
imitates art.” Robert is not sure what this means, but his teacher
explains in the words of Schiller: “Life imitates art because art is a
voice preparing the shape of things to come.”
I
have been thinking about these words in relation to what is happening
with the Visioneers Project as we prepare for its official launch on
October 9, 2022. The project has grown out of the book I wrote in
1992 called The Visioneers: A Courage Story about Belief in the Future. In
that book I was consciously creating art in the form of literature and
filling it with ideas that had been percolating in my mind for many
years about the need for humanity to chart a different course into the
future. I thought that if I wrote these ideas in the form of a
story they might somehow influence the course of things to come. I
had never heard of Friedrich Schiller or his dictum “Life imitates
art,” but I had the sense that if I wrote a story in which a band of
ordinary people called Visioneers set about creating a future for
humanity better than the one that appeared in 1992 to be coming in the
21st century, it would somehow have the effect of making that
imagined future become reality, that future life would imitate the art
of fiction.
My
expectations were too high and nothing appeared to change to shift the
trajectory away from a future in which the environment would continue to
be degraded, armed conflict would erupt in various places around the
world, inequality would remain rampant among the global population, and
the human presence on Earth would steadily erode natural systems.
As my book comes up to its 30th
anniversary in October 2022, I am taking another look at it and
noticing some powerful indicators that life might actually in some ways
be imitating the art of the story I wrote.
I
am struck, in particular, by the emergence of people I would call
Visioneers around the world. Though I built my story around a plot
of high action adventure and a love relationship between the two
central characters, the ground zero of what I was writing about is
contained in this quote from the early part of the story:
“The Visioneers are calling upon you wherever you are, whatever your status,
to come together with whoever you can to build shared visions of the future.”
My
vision was that ordinary people meeting together in their communities
to carry out projects of good work based on kindness, compassion,
equity, and peaceful cooperation could become such a force in the world
that they would shift the trajectory of political action towards a
peaceful sustainable future for all humanity. I described how that
happened in my fictional story, but in 1992 the technology for
communication to pull something like that off in the real world had not
been invented. Thirty years later, however, in the decade of the
2020s, things are very different.
I
was reminded of my imaginary Visioneers the other day as I sat in on a
zoom meeting of the International Cities of Peace. This is a
non-profit organization that encourage people around the world to
designate the city where they live as a city of peace and to organize
activities that foster peaceful cooperation. There are now over
350 such cities in more than 70 countries. As I sat in on a
meeting by zoom of many of the coordinators of these Cities of Peace and
heard them discussing their plans to spread positive action for good, I
had this déjà vu experience that I was witnessing Visioneers at work.
The
Virtual Exposition on our own Visioneers platform provides other
observable evidence of visioneering activity in many aspects of human
endeavour, from education to health promotion to peacebuilding to care
for the environment to artistic expression, and so on. These are
all examples of Visioneers at work, and this is only the tip of a very
large iceberg.
As
we plan for the launch of the Visioneers project in October, we are
being brought into active collaboration with other organizations with a
global reach to people with a planetary consciousness like Humanity’s
Team, the Scientific and Medical Network, the Institute for Noetic
Sciences, to name only the most prominent. Through live-streaming
technology we will be able to broadcast at the launch of the Visioneers
Project the celebration of our Visioneers Award winners and uplifting
musical performances and inspiring presentations to tens of thousands of
people in networks reaching into many countries. The declared
intention of the outcome of the launch is to create Visioneers
Leadership Circles to do good work wherever two or three Visioneers are
to be found. This is a remarkably similar intent to the aim of the
Visioneers from my 1992 book:
“We’ve come together around the vision of a world in which people
are using their educated imaginations to create a preferred future.”
I
don’t want to put too much spin on the point that I am making, but is
it too much of a stretch to say that there is a universal intelligence
guiding evolution, and if human minds tune into that intelligence they
can through their educated imaginations create safe passage for humanity
as life imitates art in a very profound and definitive way?
I
am inclined to say that the answer is No, it is not too much of a
stretch, and that in the years ahead in this decade, we will see a full
flowering of Visioneer activity not too far short of what I described in
1992.
|
|
|
Dr. Desmond Berghofer has written The Rationale behind the Visioneers International Network Project.
To read the article click here:
https://thevisioneers.ca/activities/visioneers-bulletin/rationale-for-a-global-mind-change
|
|
|
|
The Invitation
Act to Nominate Our Fellow Visioneers
We invite each Visioneer to consider their own community and to soul-search
to ingather from whom they admire and respect, those who need to be
part of this team. With that talent, we will create the future.
We
look forward to hearing from you with your nominations and be assured
we will make the rest easy. Send the information to Gerri gerrischwartz@thevisioneers.ca, Tatiana tatiana@thevisioneers.ca, or Desmond desgerri@direct.ca.
Let’s go for it.
www.thevisioneers.ca
|
|
|
|
|
|
