Wild Cotton: Radical Nonviolence, Loving Bliss, Internet & Off the Grid

Dreaming Bear at Harbin mentioned radical nonviolence in a poem the other evening in the Harbin Temple.

Radical nonviolence is a practice which has been around for a long time. Mahatma Gandhi represents one fascinating, relatively recent example of what it can do. The Society of Friends {Quakers} have engaged this discourse over centuries, too. And radical nonviolence emerged again dramatically in the 1960s on a widespread basis, and secularly, poetically, spiritually, and irreverently. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and civil rights' marches in the U.S. south are two remarkable examples. Is Obama's presidency in this tradition of practices? Where might this lead?

I wonder if one example of exploring radical nonviolence might be eliciting loving bliss, naturally. Here are some practices ~ scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm
~ for beginning an exploration.


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Harbin has provided access to the Internet slowly. Visitors can get limited ($1.00 for 7 minutes), dial-up speed internet access in the Blue Room cafe in Stonefront Lodge. I think this partly reflects Harbin's view that it's a hot springs' retreat center, and visitors come as a kind of retreat, as well as a kind of hippy vision of living off the grid. It is possible to go into town (Middletown, California) and get access, too.

But I think places around the world in the future without the internet will also be very fascinating anthropologically, because they won't have been as influenced by new media as people with internet. And Harbin continues to be unique in this sense, in the context of the 'wired' world.