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LIFE – Love, Inspiration, Fun, Energy

Week 29

The aim of this week is to increase your everyday quality of LIFE. The week is bilingual (english/danish). Come with an open and explorative attitude. With or without previous experience. Together we’ll share experiences and examine dogma’s and idea’s about right and wrong.

We work with food, lifestyle, beliefs and relationships based on the Macrobiotic principles and use Sociocracy for common decision making with the aim of optimizing your take-away from camp and allocate the tasks of the camp. Focus will be on the themes that participants show the most interest in. Here are some examples

Macrobiotics
means ”The principles of a great life”. It isn’t a diet as many believe, but rather an increased awareness of how food, lifestyle, beliefs, relationships etc affects the quality of our everyday LIFE as well as a will to take full responsibility for our own quality of LIFE. The aim is to create balance between what we receive, the way we transform/digest it, and what we give out. During the week it will become evident that we are different and that what’s right for one, isn’t necessarily right for someone else. Read the 7 basic principles of the macrobiotic philosophy further down on the page or see this 4 minute video with Kristiane from a lecture in USA. www.macrobioticsforyou.com/what-is-macrobiotics

Regarding the food during this week, we are so lucky to have fresh vegetables from the field next door. Besides this the food mainly consist of ”unstressed” organic and vegan ingredients, prepared with respect to taste, visual impression, effect, season and nutritional content. If you want to improve your ability to cook consciously, you have the opportunity to learn. If you already feel you are good at it, you’ve got the opportunity to share and exchange knowledge and tips with others.

Sociocracy
means ”to rule together”. It is a simple and efficient governance system based on DECIDING TOGETHER as opposed to democracy, which is based on the majority ruling over the minority. During the camp you get to experience Sociocracy in action, since we’ll use Sociocratic methods to distribute tasks of the camp, such as cooking, cleaning, gathering firewood, taking care of the children, lecturing/leading workshops, entertainment, shopping etc, while everybody’s personal needs are met as much as possible.

When decisions are made together, it naturally encourages interplay and cooperation. When majority rules over minority the tendency will naturally be to fight against each other to get the majority on your side. The sociocratic decision process has 5 basic steps: 1) Proposal shaping, 2) Presentation of proposal, 3) Clarifying questions to ensure that everybody understands the proposal, 4) A round with reactions, comments and adjustments of the proposal, 5) A consent round. Adoption of a proposal requires consent from everybody in the group. Objection is done when a proposal contradicts the values of the group or stops the group from realizing it’s aim. Personal preferences are shared during the reaction round, since they aren’t considered a reasoned objection.

A sociocratic organization consist of several circles with different functions and areas of interest/responsibility. Typically an organization starts up with a visionkeeper circle, who creates a general circle with the aim of initiating, delegating and coordinating the operations of the organization, so that decisions in a circle are not countering decisions in another circle or prevents the overall aim of the organization to be reached. For every work area a sub circle, who has the mandate of making independent decisions in it’s domain is created. Two members of every sub circle also is members of the general circle.
Here is a 4 minute video which gives you a good overview over sociocracy www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3zFWpntExg&feature=youtu.be.
If you want to learn more here is a 23 minute video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=F818QTn6_f8&t=1038s

The core in the macrobiotic philosophy of life is the following 7 principles of the order of the universe, which may be used on all phenomena of life.

1. All things are differentiations of One Infinity. To make something real takes focus and action. Since more than 90% of our focus and actions are governed by our subconscious mind, it is easy to miss how much influence our focus actually has on our well-being. Kristiane works with exercises to increase our awareness about where our focus is and to empower us to consciously choose our actions and focus.

2. Everything Changes; nothing is stationary. Kristiane work with exercises, which help us to be more present in the moment, also when life is difficult and not working the way we want. Where are you? Where would you like to be with your LIFE?

3. All antagonisms are complementary. When we take side for someone / something, we simultaneously create distance to somebody /something else. When we label something as good, something else simultaneously gets labelled as bad. When we label something right, something else simultaneously gets labelled as wrong. If we don’t label anything we become characterless and loose our motivation to act. There is always this catch that when our conscious focus goes to one side of the coin, our unconscious focus goes to the other. Thus both sides of the coin get’s an equal amount of energy. The art is to avoid attachment to dogma and and recognize that all aspects of life and all characteristics are good when used appropriately and ’evil’ when used inappropriately.

4. All phenomena are unique; there is nothing identical. The unconscious mind automatically look for similarities, so that it can act on automatic and save the conscious mind for the effort it is to relate to an experience, just as it is. Appreciating an experience, just as it is, for better or for worse, without comparing with other situations/experiences, is a powerful tool to set you free and allow you to stay in your conscious mind.

5. All phenomena have a front and back. There is pros and cons about everything. Whether we experience the pros or the cons, depends on which perspective we are experiencing from. Which glasses we are wearing, so to say.

6. The greater the front, the greater the back. If we could pull far enough back and experience a situation from a birds perspective, we would experience pros and cons as equally large. Since we usually experience life through our own character (where we’ve already decided what is good and evil), it can be very difficult to accept that ultimately pros and cons are equally big. The gain from assuming this perspective, is that decisions taken with awareness about both pros and cons will be sustainable in the long run, whereas decisions made only from one of them usually can’t be sustained, when the other side become appearant.

7. What has a beginning has an end. To remember this impress the importance of being grateful and appreciate the good times and it makes it easier to get through bad times. (They too shall pass).

Kristiane Ravn Frost, who is the initiator of this week has taught macrobiotics since 1982 primarily in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and USA. In 2001 she developed the AIMA methods, a new generation of dynamic, systematic and in-depth tools for coaching and self-reflection. She’s the daily leader of the Aima Institute.
Read more www.kristianeravnfrost.com