A Prosperous New Year for All!

(Written Jan. 1)

Happy New Year!

As hoped, being on the cruise and in the course “Simple Pleasures” has opened a space for me to learn about better ways for me to fulfill on the World Peace through Inclusion Tour and to spread the message. But first, the details of the cruise.

We are on the Adventure of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship. We sailed out of San Juan, Puerto Rico for a day and a half and on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008 docked in Aruba. I went shopping and found a discount mall where I bought a swim suit, sports bra and some panties.

Next day, in Curacao, Aaron and a Landmark friend Brad Grandbouche, took me swimming in the ocean. It was perfect!

Later I had my make-up done for the New Year’s Eve party and I have to admit I was pretty stunning. The Landmark Education group (about 350) had its own big band party in the Imperial Lounge, and after midnight Aaron and I danced and strolled along the Royal Promenade before retiring early this morning.

Today ii a sea day and tomorrow we will have a day in the port of Philipsburg, St. Maarten.

In between I have been at work developing my strategies for the tour which in Landmark language I call “my impossible promise”. This phrase is a jargony term used by graduates of the Wisdom Unlimited course who have also completed or are interested in a higher level course called Power and Contribution.

I took this course about 3 ½ years ago and realized in it that nothing could make me happier or more fulfilled than focusing my life on creating inclusion. This means to me creating a stable group of people who work successfully at having diversity become welcome and invited into our communities and societies. Diversity is a powerful source of economic and social opportunity. Every opportunity can only exist if there is a difference that makes it possible for people to form relationship and mutual action. Inclusion can be a benefit no matter what diversity is at stake, but I have the most interest and personal experiences with the diversities that get labeled “disabilities”

The phrase “Impossible Promise” refers to a mission to transform something far beyond our own personal lives. The “impossible” part is the reality that some missions require a transformation in society to make the outcome possible. In the present world understanding that certain characteristics are “disabilities” and that these characteristics must be viewed as “impairments” and be reduced, eliminated or accommodated as much as possible full inclusion is not possible because the opportunity creating capacity of these differences is not appreciated for their community, relationship and economy creating potential.

A part of my mission to create inclusion is that in the late ‘80’s I began to notice that people became more peaceful when they took on becoming inclusive. I decided that people need to know that this road to peace is available to them particularly since other pathways to peace seem closed to most societies.

Nevertheless after my Power and Contribution course I mostly avoided having anything very constructive to do with my Impossible Promise of World Peace through Inclusion. After all I don’t want to be a world leader – it’s too much trouble and potentially dangerous!

I worked on and off at getting someone to measure the peace making nature of inclusion. The idea behind this was that since lots of people pay closer attention to results that are publically measured and reported like projects designed around the Millennium Goals then if the peace building capacity of inclusion were measured it would eventually enter into public consciousness.

Two lengthy efforts at building such a measurement project failed and I was pretty much ready to give up on the whole idea when I also became aware in the summer of 2007 of how much I hated working for a government funded agency as a support circle builder. By October 2007 I “retired” and took off to Savannah in January 2008 to write an autobiography.

The ensuing months did not lead to a book but they did lead to an understanding that I could redesign my life so that I could reach people in their homes and intimate places where they would listen to me and engage me in conversations about how inclusion had touched their lives and how inclusion could lead to peace.

And so I dived down the rabbit hole.

I have been deeply engaged in many, many conversations since Aaron and I joined the cruise. I have come to understand that the nature of the other side of the rabbit hole is that it is a closed, complete world in itself and that typically no one enters or leaves it. For most people there is no reason to shift “worlds”, and there are strong, if invisible, structures in place that make shifting worlds difficult and possibly dangerous.

“Disability” and “inclusion” are like two mutually exclusive worlds. Inclusion itself is about bridging from one world to others. My disorientation is a natural consequence of entering, in a fully participatory way, into a completely unfamiliar world. My loss of funding for personal assistance is a natural consequence of leaving the world of concepts and structures to which it is firmly attached.

I have also realized that personal assistance itself is currently attached to the world of disability and that it can be redefined as a bridge that creates a way for people to move with support from one world of participation to another.

Along the way the Tour has been given a magnificent gift of $10,000. I have learned so much about how important inclusion is to others and how valuable people consider my work.

I am looking forward to a prosperous and effective 2009 indeed!

Judith