The Ubuntu Spirit Blog
Volunteer Spotlight: Dillon Zavala
Meet Dillon Zavala. This brave 18 year old from Austin Texas, is currently living in Riviersondered for 6 months with the intention of doing HIV Prevention and Leadership Training. Dillon's presence in South Africa was made possible thanks to the support of our partner organization The Light Center of Kansas and the Unity Church of the Hills.
Fully adjusted to living in South Africa after his first month, he is loving every minute of his stay. He is living with the Baartman family in a portion of the village called Oostergloed. Dillon helps them all with their English, and they are teaching him Afrikaans. They are both learning so much!
Daily life is quite different from the hustle and bustle of Austin, as everything there seems to move slower, more relaxed. According to Dillon "I realized that I tend to get more meaningful things accomplished when I don't constantly have a phone attached to my ear or am rushing into a meeting."
This first month of his stay, Dillon has been working with the local clinic doing healing touch in the clinic and and in patient's homes, doing HIV counselling on house visits, and planning our future projects. His projects for the next five months include a mass HIV outreach programme, going into various areas of Riviersonderend and dancing and singing traditional South African songs then teaching the basics of HIV Prevention and doing HIV testing at the local clinic. Also, in June and July he will be coordinating a Youth Leadership Camp for 12-18 year-olds. At least two other volunteers from the United States will travel to SA and help him facilitate the camp.
We at Novalis Ubuntu are very proud to have Dillon as part of our Outreach Community and truly admire the way in which he's chosen to give his time and talents selflessly to help South Africans in need. Thank you Dillon! You are a true example of the Spirit of Ubuntu!
Creating Fulfilling Relationships
What has happened to our “And we lived happily ever after?” The current divorce rate in West is between 40 and 50%. Why? Have we lost our ability to love and live together? No, it is because the purpose of marriage has dramatically changed over the last few decades. In the old days, marriages were primarily economical arrangements. Amongst royalty, it was used to extend power, by affiliating families and their possessions.
For example, through marriage there was a merger between the British and Dutch royal families. This made them allies. For ordinary people, it was important to ensure the man was able to earn enough, so his wife could stay at home and raise the brood. The divorce rate was much lower back then, but were people really much happier in their relationships? I don’t know, but I do know many women stayed in the marriage even if they were unhappy, because they were financially dependent on their husbands. Now that many women are economically independent, this purpose has fallen by the wayside. If we want to live happily ever after, we need to replace the old economical arrangement for a new fulfilling partnership. What will make a relationship fulfilling? One vital element is mutual love/respect. Most of us know that and focus on the love side of the relationship and completely overlook the second element.
The Vital Relationship Key
The equally important second element of the relationship is that both parties must have a sense of achievement regarding their aspirations. (Let’s call this our need to grow. From now on when I use the word growth, I refer to having new experiences and/or developing our skills.) Some of these aspirations need to be shared by both parties, to prevent us from growing apart. These two elements together form The Vital Relationship Key to making relationships fulfilling! If one of these two elements is absent for one party, one or both parties will be unhappy and the relationship will fail, because it is not fulfilling. This key is essential for both personal and business relationships!
The reality is we all have some relationships whereby the other party does not take into consideration our need for both love and growth. For example they treat us disrespectfully or prevent us from growing. What do we do then? Do we walk away or is it still possible to live happily ever after? In most cases walking away, is not the solution. There are ways to ensure our needs are met. In this book we will explain with many practical, down to earth techniques and examples, how to ensure that both our love and growth needs are met.
When relationships are fulfilling, we perceive them as high quality. This is very important, because the quality of our relationships determines to a very large extent our quality of life. No matter how rich we are, if we don’t have fulfilling relationships, we will not be really happy. As the same rules apply to both, personal and business relationships, our main focus will be on personal relationships. References to business relationships will only be made when there are differences.
In this work you will find practical, down to earth solutions to take full responsibility for the love and growth in your life, so that your experience happy ever after.
Hanna Kok is the author of Happy Ever After - Building relationships from the Inside Out. This book has a fresh approach to the skills of good relationships, so necessary in today's stressful world. She is also a Brain Gym instructor and an expert in Educational Kinesiology (Edu-K). She currently leads a busy practice in Johannesburg helping many families and groups through her transformational workshops and programmes. For more information about Hanna please visit www.makealife.co.za
Upcoming Workshops by Hanna Kok
Happy Ever After: Relationships, with Hanna Kok
March 12th - 14th, 2010
Our relationships directly affect our quality of life. For any relationship to be exciting, meaningful and fun, we need two components, love/respect and growth. If we take full responsibility to bring these two elements into our relationships, they will flourish. (Read More)
Looking for volunteers to help our front entrace get a face lift
Starting this month of February, a group of volunteers and community members of the Institute will be donating their time and skills to support us in giving our front entrance a much needed face lift.
If you've been a member of our community and visited the Institute lately you probably have noticed how the front entrance has been looking rather pale and flat. At the end of last year we took down the flow forms and together with Brian Johnson, the designer of the building, we made the decision to pave over where the old water fountain was. The dream that we have is to install a sculpture symbolising the "Ubuntu Spirit" consisting of a wrought iron figure of the world, illuminated by an internal fire flame emanating out of Africa that will greet visitors and keep them warm when they come to our evening events. We envision our front entrance not only having the sculpture, but to also welcome our visitors with ornamental plants, a lush garden of vines and potted plants that will not only be visually stimulating, but that also inspire the soul.
To this effect a team of volunteers, community members and staff has decided to donate their skills, talents and resources on Fridays of Saturdays of every week to help us realize our dream of making our front entrance something that we can all be proud of. Last week we had our first meeting and we were very grateful for the participation of Talfryn Harri, Allan Wise, Mark Clifton, Marine Larrive, Irieza Fortune, Mandy Vlotman and her husband Chris, as well as other members of our staff. Thank you so much guys! We so appreciate your willingness to support our mission.
We look forwad to begining this wonderful project this Friday and Saturday!
If you are interested in helping us with this project by donating your time, skills or financial resources please contact Gabriel Gonsalves at (021) 797-1857 or (079) 039-9693
How to speed read without speedreading?
"We live in an age when too little time and too much information compete. If we are too succeed, we require new skills for processing adn learning from information. Photoreading is about working with the greatest information processing device known to mankind: the human mind" - Paul R. Scheele, PhotoReading Developer and Co-Founder of Learning Strategies Corporation
So what specifically PhotoReading and why is everyone raving about it? Simply, PhotoReading process that accesses your whole mind (conscious and other-than-conscious-mind, left-brain and right-brain functions). It consists of Five Step: Preparation, Previewing, PhotoReading, Postviewing, and Activation. This accelerated learning technology results in achieving excellence.
PhotoReading Supersedes Speed Reading
About the only similarity between speed reading and PhotoReading is the word "reading". Speed reading is basically regular reading hastened up. Instead of going for words you are going for phrases, complete lines or paragraphs. It is still primarily a conscious -mind, left brain function. Photorading on the other hand, is an other-than-conscious, right brain process. You learn how not to rely on the words that are on the page, but on what goes on in your head. Its not about moving your eyeball really fast, it is about using your brain more efficiently. Speed reading is about getting comprehension of the words on the page while PhotoReading is about getting comprehension of the meaning of the page.
What SEEG Evidence of the PhotoReading Effect on the Whole Mind/Brain
Brainwave activity changes immediately with PhotoReading. You can see in the chart below how brainwave activity instantly changes when a student began PhotoReading during a special session taped for a United Film & Television documentary called "Genius". The dark areas show brainwave activity during regular reading. The lighter areas show activity while the student was PhotoReading. Brainwaves change immediately. It is like plodding through a dense forest and then suddenly running through an open filed. "Mental Chatter" disappeared as the PhotoReadier instantly expanded the capability of the mind.
This highlights yet another way that PhotoReading is different from regular reading and different from speed reading.
PhotoReading allows you to process information in a way that is more compatible with the tremendous power of the human brain.
What SEEG Evidence of the PhotoReading Effect on the Whole Mind/Brain
Here are just a few of many benefits PhotoReaders enjoy:
- Accelerated learning, improved memory and heighten concentration and comprehension
- Discover new perspectives and approaches. Step outside familiar was of approaching situations and habitual ways of thinking.
- Acquire new skills and behaviors. PhotoReading books on tennis, chess, time management, painting, rock climbing, self-improvement, etc. prepares your mind and body to express those skills directly as new behaviors.
- Process information three times faster with greater ease and effectiveness.
- Propel yourself to higher personal performance. Your confidence and self seem will soar , inspiring others to more greatness.
- Enhance the use of your intuition. Society encourages your logical & analytical abilities. PhotoReading activates your creative, holistic and intuitive abilities creating more choices more power and more fun.
Testimonial - Bronwyn Gore
"Photoreading has really helped me. It was given me that edge to succeed. Not only academically but in many different areas. I grasp concepts much faster and can remember facts for longer ad more easily. I am much more prepared and and its calms me before an exam. Once, I forgot to learn for a test so I quickly PhotoRead and got 90%. Lately my friends have even started commenting on my photographic memory. I PhotoRead a section 10 minutes before a lesson and was able to answer questions with no previous knowledge. PhotoReading has freed up a lot of time for me so that I can do many extra murals an still get really good marks. Pohotoreading has become a way of life for me."
This is an essential practical life skill for people of all ages
- Essential skill for teacher wanting to maintain their professional development
- Essential for student a life long skill impacting every area of their lives.
Gary Wait is currently the only licensed certified PhotoReading instructor available in South Africa. He’s one of the 86 PhotoReading instructors worldwide certified by Learning Strategies Corporation of Minneapolis, USA. For more information about Gary please visit www.photoreading.za.net
Upcoming PhotoReading Workshops at Novalis Ubuntu
March 5-6, 2010 Photo Reading Whole Mind Reading System with Gary Wait
Are you struggling down the information superhighway with the same horse and buggy reading skills you learned in elementary school? Information bombards you from your mailbox to your email box, from your home to your office, and few people can keep up. Can you? With today's deluge of information, you have to do something different to keep up, otherwise you will be passed by someone who can.
That's why so many people just like you are using the Ferrari-style of reading called PhotoReading. It blasts printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page a second. You actually "mentally photograph" ...
The Listening Heart
I love the sentence from an old Buddhist text ( I forgot which one): “ All who love are healers of those who need it.” We serve in many ways, including acts and words of kindness and encouragement, holding each other in a positive and constructive light, but one of the most powerful healing tools is through listening with the heart. It is a matter of moving out of the head and into that sacred space.
Many relationships are in jeopardy today in partnerships, families, communities and the work place because people do not listen to each other. It leads to anger, resentment, frustration and a feeling of being unimportant, even irrelevant. How often have you heard the common complaint of Inner Child work that a person was not heard? Decades later they still carry a sense of low self-esteem and lack of confidence because as children they were not acknowledged by this simple act of containment through listening.
Globally, listening has become an imperative. A couple of years ago a major participant at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland said “ The real problem we have is that everybody is talking and no-one is listening”. In America and other countries major organizations and institutions, including the Global Leadership Forum, are investigating how some of the really tough problems of the world can be resolved without resorting to force. Time and time again, the answer has been simple but not easy. The solution many have come to is that they have to bring about a different form of communication. Instead of just downloading their point of view and perspective leading to endless, fruitless debate, they have introduced what is called a generative dialogue, dialogue which produces results. Whereas the old was closed and unproductive, generative dialogue is open and constructive.
That this method is opening up communication through listening is hardly surprising. There are so many texts on marriage, business management, and negotiation on this topic, including references in old philosophical and religious texts. The Old Testament exhorts us to “Listen ye, to your brother” The Sufis say “The living thing in the heartis love. It may come forth as kindness, friendship, sympathy, listening…”
What amazes me is how this simple shift in how we perform this basic, social action can unlock the most complex and stuck problems in whatever environment they are. True listening literally creates miracles. I believe that listening is just a beginning, a training for the purest of dialogue where there is a merging with another, a “we and an us”, an “I and Thou” as Martin Buber would say. This is the expression of oneness which many of us long for.
Excerpt from Natalia's article "The Listening Heart" published in Odyssey Magazine
Natalia Baker's Upcoming Events at Novalis Ubuntu during January 2010
Full Moon Meditations
Next one is this Saturday 30th January at 7:30pm
Conducted by spiritual teacher Natalia Baker, these meditations are designed to help us attune by opening the heart, thus enabling us to receive the great potential each Zodiac sign holds for the realization of the Self and the healing of humanity. A Deeksha blessing will be given on most evenings. More information at www.nataliabaker.com. Value: 30 at the door.
Authentic Power 6-Week Workshop
Starts 15th February 7:00pm - 9:00p
Take back your soul power and watch your outer life change and the planet heal. This profound, dynamic, creative, challenging and fun 6-Week course that will enable you to do all this and more! Understand and live by your own authentic power, create your life through choice and intention, the new energy fuels be truthful to your inner self... (Read More..)
