Requests #1 and #2 on this page did not come from me alone. These came from Chrysalis Wisdom Councils, Talking Stick, Talking Mirror discussions, or Clear Choice Conversations, that I did individually with my Joyful Wisdom Buddies Delta, Ashara, and Paschal.
I have so many questions and ideas about the shape of the Joyful Wisdom Community and the Joyful Wisdom Journey curriculum, and I don’t want to make these decisions by myself.
This section may not interest you if you’ve just started your first co-mentoring relationship. You may be more interested in Mutual Choice Topics from the other two main subsections:
However, if you’ve surrounded yourself with transformative growth-oriented relationships, you may want to know what’s behind this emotional, social, and spiritual breakthrough that you are enjoying.
Some of you may know about the 2400-page curriculum that I’ve already written, described at the Joyful Wisdom website. On the Joyful Wisdom Journey site, you can see results of the PHP programming that I have done, because navigation system and guide to the content are working, even though the content is not there yet.
The content will be exercises, meditations, and processes that are either interactive or guided in real time. I’m currently programming these functions, using jQuery and PHP.
If you go to either site, it will take you literally no time to understand that what I’m doing is the result of decades of work—that will be immediately obvious to you.
What in not so obvious is that I plan to give control over this curriculum to the Joyful Wisdom Community, because I don’t want to limiting it because of my own personal limitations.
This curriculum will evolve and grow through the involvement of Joyful Wisdom Community members. I have written detailed plans in a 104-page design document, but those plans are just a record of my thoughts several years ago. I’ve already changed my ideas significantly, and as the Joyful Wisdom Community organization takes over the reins, the ideas guiding the Joyful Wisdom Community will change even more.
As you will see below, I want to limit my involvement to that of an employee of this organization—when we’re finally developed enough that the organization can afford to pay anyone. I have some ideas, listed below:
1) First, when this organization has grown, when the automated web application is fully programmed, and when this organization has taken it over from me, I want to be an employee of the organization. I do not want to be the boss. I do have some considerations to discuss.
- The value that this announcement about my goals expresses is important now, and should be implemented in some way as soon as possible. I need a boss—a group of people who are active in the Joyful Wisdom Community. I will first invite my own Joyful Wisdom Buddies, and the group will decide where to go next.
- I already have a long to-do list, a development plan for the interactive online application, and requirements that I want to negotiate for this organization. I need a committee of people who I feel comfortable with, an oversight committee that will honor the work that is already done or in process.
- When I have three acceptable volunteers, we will begin this group. This group will then help me work out my future relationship with this organization. This planning group will also create a recommended direction for the organization, to be ratified by a vote of interested members.
- The reason that this is the first of my requests, and the reason the point below is the second of my requests, is that I am doing a Toltec practice of talking with my own death, which is sitting on my left shoulder. My death tells me that the most important aspect of my work is to ensure that it doesn’t die if I do.
- In other words, I would summarize request #1 and request #2 as: Let it be so that the Joyful Wisdom Community doesn’t depend on me for its existence. Let it be a living entity that will grow and evolve both before and after I pass on.
- Even as an employee, I need recognition for having foreseen this organization and curriculum on February 15, 1976, as well as for making this my primary focus all of my life. This information does not define my role as an employee, but I need this organization to find a way to take this factor into consideration.
2) As soon as possible, I need help designing an organization that stays true to the values of the Joyful Wisdom Community. These values include
- A close-knit transformation-based community that is not primarily online.
- The provision that all sessions be reciprocated.
- The system respects experience without being hierarchical.
- The use of the Chrysalis Wisdom Council to manage appropriate elements of the organization.
- The ability to give the Joyful Wisdom Journey curriculum to as many people as possible without charge.
- The ability to generate an income for as many people in the Joyful Wisdom Community as possible.
- The growth of the curriculum from the insights and expertise of others so that it is not limited by my personal limitations.
- A decision-making process that always starts with consensus, but which incorporates voting to ratify the results of consensus.
- A voting process that gives everyone a voice, but that gives more status to votes by people who are more involved—especially with Joyful Wisdom Community Groups, Wisdom Councils, and other activities, as determined by the organization.
- A volunteer process that promotes and facilitates personal growth, that builds the volunteer’s community in meaningful ways, and that empowers both the volunteer and the community.
- A continuous evaluation of how well our groups, volunteer program, decision-making methods, and other organizational processes are working. Supporting this value is a top priority in the software programming, and I need this evaluation to be also supported by the organization.
3) Some other topics you may wish to discuss include:
- How do we, as an organization, deal with power? What do we do to prevent a misuse of power in this organization?
- How can we empower dissenters without allowing a small group of individuals with an axe to grind or a destructive personal agenda to take over the organization.
- How can we create an organization that stays focused on spirit, on personal evolution, on transforming communities, and on developing insight? My personal recommendation is that we concentrate on core practices like the Chrysalis Wisdom Council that promote consensus, using inner silence, tuning in, nonattachment, and building the energy bonds between participants.
- How can people who want a cluster obtain one right away, even if they are uncomfortable about developing deeper relationships with their current friends?
4) I’m currently using an out-of-the-box WordPress system. In the future, I need to dig down into its guts and integrate it with my automated online application. Furthermore, I need to do this as soon as possible so that I can use WordPress as my membership system.
- I need a WordPress guru who knows how to hack the application to integrate it with an external application, who can help me get a multi-user version that satisfies some very specific technical requirements installed on the main development site as soon as possible.
- For that matter, I need help with the programming, currently in PHP and jQuery. I don’t care if this help comes from a volunteer or if we get funding to hire a programmer.
4) I personally want to implement the 300 methods in the Joyful Wisdom Journey Curriculum myself, rather than hiring someone or getting a volunteer to do it. The reason for this is that I will probably revise and refine all of the methods a final time as I implement them.
- But I would like help with the audiovisual elements of that curriculum, for instance from someone who has expertise in high quality production for the web.
- Down the road, I need help with programming an interface so that members and other teachers can add content to the curriculum, as well as help with the organizational aspects of this next phase. But that’s not now.
As stated at the outside, many of these ideas came from co-mentoring conversations with my Joyful Wisdom Buddies. However, for any of these ideas to develop into an agreed-upon tradition and a formal structure in this organization, you must take them on, so that they don’t simply reflect my personal opinions. Together, we can create agreements about them in a group Wisdom Council or Talking Stick, Talking Mirror discussion, followed by some sort of ratification by voting.
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On this page, please suggest other topics in this category for me to add to this page. I prefer that you discuss these topics with your Joyful Wisdom Buddy first, but that is not necessary.
Please volunteer to help me by posting in the Comments section below. After this volunteer and I discuss the topic using the Basic Co-Mentoring Methods, we may ask you to edit your comments, or we may simply give your topic a page of its own without any editing.
I will eventually turn this function entirely over to volunteers.
Thank you.
Cougar
deltadoster
The Joyful Wisdom Community 