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Welcome to Evolution Café!

Submitted by George Por on January 8, 2006 - 13:47.


 

Nancy Margulies created the "Evolution Café" image above and emailed it to share with evolutionary salonistas, with a subject line "for the fun of it." I like the lightness of it and felt inspired by it to rename this topic previously called "Welcome to our virtual lounge!"

Evolution Café is a place of informal conversations about anything that matters and don't fit our more focused conversations on specific topics.

Use our community blog for entering news, references, jokes, etc. that you don't necessarily want to start a conversation about, and our forums/topics for exploring subjects about which you do want to start a conversation. If you are unsure about what forum/topic to use, why not ask about it here, and I or somebody else who has a sense of our expanding network of conversations will suggest a place and post here its URL for you.

If you have not yet done so, go to the Orientation page, use it as a starting point to look around,  then come back here to share your impression about the site, what works well for you, what uses of it you want to make, how it can support your work and aspirations, etc.

If you run into any technical difficulty, or have a new feature to suggest, please post it in Technical Q&A and Wish List .

Remember that the site is supported by volunteer effort so bear with its initial shortcomings; we are committed to continuous improvement and your feedback and help will always be very welcome. We are looking for, in particular, technical, graphic, facilitation, and editorial talents.
 
After reading this message, don't forget to announce your presence because we can't know that you have safely landed in this corner of cyberspace, unless you say so.

Co-evolving with you,

George Pór

Empathy, Evolution and Social Systems

Submitted by Ashley Cooper on March 4, 2006 - 03:57.

I'm not sure where to post this... so I'll put it here!

I am reading an article by Evan Thompson, Empathy and Consciousness, found in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. A few passages have gripped my curiosity and invited my attention to wander off with their content, exploring the terrain of empathy, evolution and social systems. If you're interested in the topic, please visit Easily Amazed to read more.

Hello my dear virtual lounge

Submitted by Ashley Cooper on January 28, 2006 - 02:42.

Hello my dear virtual lounge lizards,

 How wonderful to cozy up beside you in this corner of cyberspace. I'm just stopping in to officially kick back, drink a hot cup of tea, and soak in the presence of all who have gathered here. Thank you for preparing this landing pad for us!

 Warmly,

Ashley 

 

Who can see this

Submitted by Nancy White on January 27, 2006 - 01:31.

Finn asked "I am wondering how many from the salon gets to see this - and if I should at all care about it. "

 

From what I can discern, you have to be logged in to see the forums. How do people feel about letting the forums be visible to browsers and just require login to post? Transparency? (I think this is technically possible, but I don't know this platform well enough to know.)

 

Also, I'm going to poke around. If the forums have RSS, we can help interested people consider how using that feature might make it easier to stay in touch here. Also I need to explore if there are email subscriptions options. Yeah, I know I'm talking tech jabber... lack of sleep and time make me less careful. I beg indulgence. 

Yes, a forum please!

Submitted by Halim Dunsky on January 27, 2006 - 01:16.

George, I have opened an initial topic for planning Salon 3 at Preparing Specifically for Evolutionary Salon 3. It would be great to have a dedicated forum rather than just a single topic! Thank you!

Nice to be here

Submitted by Kevin Kelley on January 25, 2006 - 08:19.
Hi
 
Nice to be here.  Seeing who else has been this way.  I feel honored to be here with you and humbled (in a good way) :-) .  I look forward to what all this leads to. 
 
On Friday night I was at Jair's event in Eugene.  Many interesting people - things - presentations.  One man - Alden Fuller     http://www.prototista.org/
Who knows quite a lot about evolution showed, as part of his presentation, just a piece of the biochemistry and actions of one cell.  It was a really complex diagram - of all these comples interactions.. mind boggeling... and just a piece.. and just for one of 3 trillion!  Who are we? What are we? What - where does this sense of itentity constelate amongst these 3 trillion individual interlinked and interdependent cells - and why?
 
Early in the wee hours of the morning of the last day of the salon I was walking back to Grannies.. It was calm - cool, damp - the light moon dimly fused through a layer of clouds illuminated the scene.  An owl hooted..  pretty soon another. Truth be told I joined in.  Pretty soon there were more. And then there was this whole orchestra.. maybe 14, 15, 18 .. I don't know...  so many all over - all near by but spread through the woods..  Leafless trees siolwetted against the grey sky.. the only sound all these owls -  I like to think of it as a symphony to our event.  Maybe it was the field that brought them all in.  I have never heard so many owls in - within one hearing..  What a blessing - I like to think it was for us.. and perhaps a part of us and our doings and beings..  Our evolutionary Being.. on that land - in that moment of time..
 
Blessings and thanks,  Kevin 
 

I'm in...reflections of Salon 2, nature of online forum ...

Submitted by Dana Lynne Andersen on January 24, 2006 - 17:56.
I'm in. I will soon post the notes from the forum "Evolutionary Salons; What Might they Become?" on that forum. When I returned from the Salon I was in an uplifted state. The quality of my conversation with my daughter was noticably higher (and we already have fantastic communication). I was tangibly shifted by the spirit of inquiry and by the creation of a collective field. At the salon I was impressed with the quality of language that was spoken by many- Presence, listening deeply- and an underlying assumption that the purpose of the conversation was to evolve and clarify one's thinking rather than to defend, or even just to express, ones viewpoint. I felt that the expression of a question was held by myself and my listener as a living process rather than a static summation. Language was crafted very consciously to be opening rather than closing of possiblity. The SPIRIT OF INQUIRY (loving, respectful, appreciative, curios, cultivating, open) and the cultivation of a FIELD that moves beyond the personal and group dynamics to draw from the emergent UNKNOWN- these elements created a living reverberance in me. The online forum is new to me- intellectually exciting and tecnically challenging. At the next salon I will ask for a live lesson. But it does seem to me that it has both limitations and possibilities that are different than live and also from email. The forum allows for another dimension and that is the process of writing- which is always a way to clarify and hone thought. I am pondering this still, but it seems to me that this modality calls for ways to become even more cohesive. I also miss live time conversation, and I ponder live chat and video conferencing as well as hope for "R to R" gatherings. (This, Jair, explained, means "Real to Real" as in human contact) The role of email versus forum: One guideline that Tom shared with Jennifer is that email is for timely news that all should hear, while forums cultivate ongoing conversations. I am grateful for all of you who are co-creating this 'moving' (a 'movement' without a pre-existing static platform?) JOY! Dana

I'm in

Submitted by Finn Voldtofte on January 24, 2006 - 15:45.

I am getting closer to catch up with what is already posted, and have right now psoted to the blog on "conversations we shall have".

Next I will write a piece on "inquering from the middle" to the wiki-pages.

I am wondering how many from the salon gets to see this - and if I should at all care about it.  Would there be more imediate response if theese texts were sent out on the email list? And what would then be a way to capture and harvest texts and conversation flows  as this site do? 

Welcome, Tom and Halim!

Submitted by George Por on January 24, 2006 - 02:54.

Tom, your presence here is very precious to the community. I saw the other day Anne Dosher, too, online. It's heartwarming to see our elders embarking in this new dimension of our connectedness.

Hi Halim, thank you for stopping by in the lounge!

> I have a personal commitment to participate in making Salon 3 happen, and I look forward to ongoing conversation with others who have ideas and/or time to contribute.

And the hosting team is committed to help you making it so. Have you seen the Future of Evolutionary Salons? If you want to have us olpen a forum dedicated to Salon 3, let us know.

Love,

george 


Hello

Submitted by Thomas Hurley on January 24, 2006 - 02:37.

Many thanks to all who have created this space for collaborative inquiry and the weaving of connections -- and to all who will contribute. May it vastly enrich our personal and collective journeys!

Checking in...

Submitted by Halim Dunsky on January 23, 2006 - 18:22.

Hi - I'm here. I haven't looked around the site much yet, but I wanted to say hello first and offer my thanks for the terrific effort in setting this up!

After I poke around a bit, my first task will be to post meeting notes from the sessions I attended on upcoming Salons, particularly Salon 3. I have a personal commitment to participate in making Salon 3 happen, and I look forward to ongoing conversation with others who have ideas and/or time to contribute.