What are powerful images, narratives, and sounds that will awaken others to the universal/new story?
Led by: Allison Quaid (aquaid@gmail.com)
*session participants: please add to notes if I left something out*
Notes:
- Rap can be a powerful motivator - Gen Up Mixes It Up
- In terms of participatory art, you could make mandalas, where the universe OR a person is drawn in the center of the mandala, and the connections to the universe/humanity spiral outward – so that the connections are clear
- Could also use collage and photography as activities for getting people connected to their universal/divine nature
- Need to re-frame the prosperity story
- Identify imagery that already resonates with people – that tells us how it will resonate with other people
- Give people the question and let them choose the images. For example, ask kids “how are you connected to the universe” and give them images to answer that question
- Jane described an example where NYC asked kids to tell them what a sustainable NYC would look like, held a contest, and the winning entries adorned public buses & transit stops
- Budweiser and Guinness (UK only) ads have great evolutionary/creatheist imagery
- Anima and Manga is full of great examples of spiritual evolutionary nature images – some of the best examples are seen in Pheonix: A Tale of the Future
- The Sims – cartoon characters that might give some inspiration for imagery
- Use idea of us as stardust, and ourselves as compost/waste for regeneration
- Co-opt images from advertising
- Digital stories: Ratatouille, Happy Feet
- Averting Extinction – massextinction.net
- The Call of Life – trailer about the mass extinction crisis
- John Brisco – from Council of Churches
- George Lakoff – Linguistics assistance
- Conduct focus groups to learn how to get people to respond – the weather is one way to frame climate change in a non-political manner
- Focus groups have shown that overwhelming people disengages them, instead we want to empower them to take action
- Best way is to frame people as parents and ask, Do you care about the future of your children?
- 11th Hour (film) has some good imagery
- Mark Bockley – framing consumerism – “the trance”, “infertilization of culture”
- Could illustrate the process of internalizing the great/universal story and showing what it means to a modern household
- Present bad news in context of evolution and show the tremendous opportunity to act
- Michael Dowd said that what really resonates with teenagers is his analysis of understanding how our brain and evolution works (furry lil mammal, etc.)
- Pop culture uses iconography of butterflies for connecting the change agents and transforming the planet
- Tree image of thousands of butterflies
- Where is the masculine imagery?
- Spiral dynamics?
- Sky scrapers, maps
Post-session metaphors that have come to mind:
-Magnetic change agents - small to big actions really matter
-The metaphor is that we are like magnets, and each time we make a right choice, we increase the strength of the field of positive manifestations inside and outside ourselves. We also attract others doing the right thing, and thereby create a stronger field that re-inforces a positive reality. That positively magnetized field also faciliates new configurations, thereby increasing the possibility of positive manifestations.