National Park(ing) Day 2008, an annual event, is coming up on September 19th. It celebrates parks in cities by creating temporary parks in public parking spaces. National Park(ing) Day is an all-volunteer event, and any participation is welcome. One can, build his or her own park, help others build parks, or simply visit Park(ing) Day parks throughout the day. Get the details here, a how-to manual, photos and videos, or to connect with participants near you.

A political education and organizing workshop:

Saturday, June 28
10AM - 1PM
Chicago Center for Green Technology

Learn how the city works from the people who do it everyday! Work more effectively and strategically with aldermen, ward staff, and city departments to get green things done and build the healthy neighborhood food systems we envision. This three-hour workshop will provide tools, insights, and guidance - and a chance to converse with policy makers about ways we can help them to help us, help each other. More Info and Register Online

Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture says Permaculture is a creative and artful way of living, where people and nature are both preserved and enhanced by thoughtful planning, the careful use of resources, mimicking the patterns found in nature (bio-mimicry) and a respectful approach to life. Thus embraced, these attributes create an environment where all may thrive for untold generations.

We’re intrigued. So Jill and I are signing up for the upcoming seminar here in Chicago. Join us?

Saturday, March 29th - 2:00- 5:00 p.m.
Hosted By: Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center
1246 West Bryn Mawr Avenue, Chicago

Fee: $50 Door -or- $35 with Pre-registration (by March 26, 2008)
To Register - Call Yoga Center: 773-878-7771 (MC/Visa)
You may call or email the center if you have questions.
The Sivananda Yoga Center is in the early stages of creating a permaculture design for their urban location.

Evening Meal and Discussion 5:30 - 8:00
Topic: Spirituality and Permaculture - Exploring the Connection?
Stay into the evening for an open discussion. Share your thoughts.
Suggested Donation for Dinner and Talk: $20

What About Me?

Friends at Grand Valley State University and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, in Grand Rapids, Michigan are planning a conference in Open Space:

• Are you an emerging leader committed to social and community change?
• Are you willing to discuss the unique needs of emerging leaders and explore innovative solutions to the challenges that lie ahead?
• Are you eager to share your vision, ideas and passion for the sector?

You have the opportunity to convene with peers and add your voice to a conversation on future leadership of the nonprofit sector.

Nonprofit 2020: Issues and Answers from the Next Generation on July 26-28, 2007, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Full Invitation and Registration Info

Julia Butterfly Hill asks What Is Your Tree?

After meeting with Jean Russell, Michael Maranda and Julie Peterson all afternoon, I think Inviting Neighborhood Leadership is my tree. One of my trees?

Jim Slama at Sustain invites:

Join us on March 23 & 24 at the Chicago Cultural Center for the 3rd Annual FamilyFarmed.org EXPO - the one event in Chicago where farmers, families and friends all come together to celebrate delicious, healthy, local and organic food.

You’ll have the chance to meet local family farmers, shop the farmers market and learn from informative exhibits set up by local food businesses and organizations. There are a wide variety of workshops to attend; keynote speakers including top names in the food world; great movies; an interactive Organic Kids Corner; bookstore with hundreds of titles; and demonstrations by some of Chicago’s hottest chefs including Rick Bayless, Bruce Sherman, Gale Gand, Karyn Calabrese and Timothy Young.

Buy your tickets online at www.familyfarmed.org and get two tickets for the price of one!

Friends and colleagues Holger Nauheimer and Peggy Holman announce upcoming Conference and Training events, in March and April, for leaders of change in large systems. I’m hoping to join them at the Conference, an unprecedented gathering of organization development practitioners.

Two important bits from Peggy Holman lately… The Change Handbook (2d edition) is unquestionably THE book on large system change methods AND the Nexus for Change summit gathering of many of the Handbook authors, an unprecedented confluence of change leadership and practice, including many of the Handbook’s 90+ authors.

Faith in Place has just released the list of more than 140 congregations that will host screenings of An Inconvenient Truth, many of them for free. If you haven’t seen the flick, this would be a good time. Most of them happen in early October, but some later in the month.

Weekend of September 30th, David C. Korten, author, veteran, engaged citizen, speaks at various local places and times.

David Korten’s, When Corporations Rule the World, was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination—with far greater consequences.

In The Great Turning, Korten argues that corporate consolidation of power is merely a contemporary manifestation of what he calls “Empire” — the organization of society by hierarchies of domination grounded in violent chauvinisms of race, gender, religion, nationality, language, and class. The result has been the same for 5,000 years, fortune for the few and misery for the many. Increasingly destructive of children, family, community, and nature, the way of Empire is leading to environmental and social collapse.

The Great Turning makes the case that we humans are a choice-making species that at this defining moment faces both the opportunity and the imperative to choose our future as a conscious collective act.

via Nurul Eusufzai