Learning to See in Wholly Holy Way: Awakened World Conference, Italy Oct 2012

Awakened World 2012: Learning to See in a “Wholly holy Way.”

Barbara Nussbaum

Awakened World 2012 http://www.agnt.org/awakened2012.html,was  recently convened and hosted in Italy by three American organizations. I learned about the conference through the Association of Global New Thought, one of the sponsoring organizations.  http://www.agnt.org/charter/conveners.html. 240 participants came from more than 15 countries – from almost every continent. There were social activists from Sri Lanka and Mexico, Buddhist teachers from Korea, Tibet and China; University Professors from Iran, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia; Rabbis from Israel and Belgium, Muslims from Malaysia, and Pakistan;  Hindus; New Thought Practitioners; authors, therapists, ministers, film makers, peacemakers, youth workers,  leadership experts,  educators, ecologists, entrepreneurs from the UK,  Europe, USA, South Africa, Ghana and India.  The theme was “Engaged Spirituality for the 21^st Century” and the intention was to enroll delegates from all over the world in dialogues to define and refine what it means to foreground spirituality as a catalytic force for global transformation.

The conference was unique in design, bold in vision and amplified by the consciousness, soulfulness and diversity of people who came. I have seldom  experienced the degree of “mutual irradiation” in such authentic, gentle and generative encounters between people of so many different faiths.  In a short pamphlet, Douglas Steere, a Quaker described the meaning of “mutual irradiation” in the context of interfaith dialogue. http://www.pendlehill.org/images/pamphlets/php175.pdf   This mutuality happens when “each  (religion) is willing to expose itself with great openness to the inward message of the other, as well as to  share its own experience and to trust that whatever is the truth in each experience will irradiate and deepen the experience of the other.”

Rarely have I been in gatherings where the mutual irradiation happened so effortlessly. Delegates were invited to focus on how we saw signs of change, how we noticed systemic shifts, how applied evolutionary change in practical engagement and how we were embodying the spiritual and cultural evolutionary shifts our lived experience. Intellectual, spiritual and emotional integration and transformation took place within my own being, through song, story and connection and conversation.

In the background materials prepared for the conference, AGNT Executive Director, Dr Barbara Fields and Jim Kenney, program coordinator of the Peace Council, outlined the important relationship between spiritual evolution and cultural evolution. They spoke of  this moment in time, when prevailing cultural values, global awareness and spiritual understanding are emerging in new and distinct ways. The careful preparation for Awakened World 2012, showed how spiritual evolution unfolds as a key dimension of the process of a broader cultural evolution. This involves the slow, steady (and occasionally dramatically accelerated) shift of prevailing cultural values, assumptions, memes, and behavior patterns toward “a closer fit with our best understanding of reality”. The circle below was the innovative design template used to frame our dialogues across four themes: Reconciling with the Other; Rediscovering the Sacred; Transforming Society and Embracing the Earth Family.   http://www.agnt.org/charter/themes.html (This link will illustrate the design graphically)

A Personal Note

Unexpected was the palpable personal shift that emerged in the evolution of my way of seeing, my way of being. There was a profound yet comfortable healing of the internal divides and rearrangement of my lived reality. The formal dialogues and informal interactions with delegates sparked with inspiration so that it became easy to embody the spiritually motivated shifts we sought to name.

Like many, my own journey covers a search for integration of the analytic and the artistic, the masculine and the feminine, the rational and mystical; the harmonizing of inner experience and outer expression.

Like many, I have noticed the spread of a shifting paradigm and the deepening cracks of all that is not working in our world.  Since 2003, I have written about the systemic shifts which are clearing the ground for the rooting of the philosophy of Ubuntu globally. Ubuntu, in its simplest definition is about communally expressed humanity, about finding the I in the “WE”.

http://www.barbaranussbaum.com/downloads/perspectives.pdf.

Living with the faith and sometimes the loneliness of a visionary, I count among many blessings, the affirmation and validation from people such as Rinaldo Brutoco, Founder and President of the World Business Academy who had invited me to the conference. http://www.worldbusiness.org/about/directors-and-officers/rinaldo-brutoco/

Years before the global financial crisis of 2008, Rinaldo recognized that the ethical appeal and shared responsibility called forth by Ubuntu was also a useful way to name the desired direction of our interconnectedness and the changes we need to embrace as a planet.  The Awakened World conference in Italy, further demonstrated how Ubuntu, alongside other religions, could help to rediscover the sacredness of the other and translate these into practical, spiritually motivated initiatives for transforming business and society. Ubuntu was lived out, every day in Rome and in Florence – this evolutionary force melded and melted before my eyes into the oneness of other philosophies from other cultures and religions.

 

Fresh eyes and full heart

Though always informed by heartfelt passion, I have found it easier to write about Ubuntu than to consistently embody the spiritual call it demands on a daily basis. I became conscious of a slight internal disconnect between my fiery but reasoned writing, and residues of unconsciousness sometimes lacing patterns of engagement and embodiment.

In March this year, I began to heal this disconnect, starting to incorporate resonance building process using music in my team building facilitation. I translated Ubuntu principles to reframe a way for people to listen to the music of the other. This involved a request for several shift in awareness:  suspending judgment, finding reverence and respect; and dignifying others by listening to their chosen tracks of music with an open heart and a loving soul.

The energy and alchemy of the conference poured a new brew of glue to fill gaps in the global jigsaw of my belonging and fire up synapses necessary for my own evolution.

Dancing like Candles

At Awakened World 2012 my soul danced like a candle with other candles, moving gracefully and smoothly in an easy choreography on a changing sea. The shore ahead felt closer, more visible because of the collective light.

Instead of a pressure to hold tightly onto “my” candle, a vision of Ubuntu, I have relaxed into the deep knowing that many of us at Awakened World, share a vision of oneness and are living it daily, feeling “it”.

What the “it” is became clearer.

Andrew Cohen’s interview with Rickie Byars Beckwith provides a helpful vocabulary.  http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j32/soulful.asp

Rickie says:  “I mean “One Love” in the way Bob Marley meant it. It’s that love. It’s beyond self-preservation. It’s something that cares. In that love, there’s no other. We are it. It’s us, and so we share it. I believe that a soulful person is someone who is swimming in this, who’s dedicated to it, who’s here for this.”

The universal quality of oneness was expressed in countless forms by many people. Rickie Byars Beckwith, Faith Riveira http://www.faithrivera.com/ and others in the conference music group A.W.E (Awakened World Ensemble), sang the oneness of Ubuntu in Rome and in Florence. Every day we were treated to prayers and meditations and songs from many religious traditions.  And in our dialogues, so many of the delegates from Japan to Ghana embodied the oneness of Ubuntu in their very being. Rinaldo Brutoco and James Quilligan spoke it in their vision of http://p2pfoundation.net/James_Quilligan

ethical business a new economy and a just society. Barbara Fields role modeled beautifully what collaboration looks like in its most generous form.

I can relax in the knowing that the system shift is so deeply shared by an increasing number of soul- ful people, that spiritual evolution feels tangible and cultural evolution genuinely with us.

We become instruments of collective transcendence

In the same interview with Andrew Cohen, Rev Michael Beckwith had this so say: “There’s a rhythm; there’s a harmony, a vibration…. soulful people have the ability, consciously or unconsciously, to allow that vibration to move through them. Sometimes they don’t even know they’re doing it. Have you ever listened to Sam Cooke or Ray Charles? In the music of certain people, you hear them touching that ineffable place. They become instruments to translate and transmit it to the audience. And when it hits the audience, you can feel  it.”

At our most transformative moments in South Africa, people asked one another other, can you “feel it?” “It” was described as “gees”, an Afrikaans world for spiritual aliveness that has marked some of our transformative moments in South Africa. Our miracle moments in that country are those of collective transcendence, where people connected into a greater oneness. In those moments, what is ineffable becomes palpable. What is intangible becomes lived and profoundly felt by many. These moments of shared transcendence happened often in Italy at Awakened World 2012.

Michael Beckwith described “it” this way. When singers make a big hit, it is because the song is carried so deeply in their being, and they are resonating so deeply with the lyrics, that in the singing, the lyrics are magnified. The singers increase the power of the words and carry them forward.

I felt sung to so gorgeously, by so many delegates and I sang with them. We all amplified our shared awakening, carrying the song of our evolution forward.

The intention of the Dialogues at Awakened World was to “model the harmony of the world’s great religious and spiritual communities – their common ground and the differences that give them unique identities – demonstrating that a shared vision can transcend differences and reveal wisdom. This value of this undertaking will lie in the contribution it can make to global evolutionary awareness and transformative action.”

There were many moments of modeling harmony.  Many pearls of wisdom shared. They emerged in music, in conversation, in story in thought, in envisioning new projects and extending existing projects within the Awakened World Community.  The rooted collective wisdom gave voice to the nascent buds of a new tree of life.

On the final day in Rome, we sang “we are the world, we are the children”.  I found a fresh voice resonant with others. We found our voices in harmony in that song for a moment in Italy. We’re singing evolution forward. We’re learning to love and to serve in a “wholly holy way”.[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Rr0BuFeCo

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Barbara Nussbaum is an author, coach, and a creative consultant living in South Africa.

http://www.barbaranussbaum.com/

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[1] With thanks to Rickie Byars Beckwith for the Inspiration of these lyrics. The last U tube link gives you a chance to see Rickie singing her song!

What if
Thoughts of judgment
became meditations of appreciation
Ways for the heart to become lovingly curious
about how human beings are held together
in unique patterns of beauty?

Barbara Nussbaum November 11, 2012

Ceiling of Pallazo Vecchio, Florence Italy

South Africa’s high drama over Speargate has touched people deeply. Opinions have been thrown in every direction, from every corner. As we engage further in public debate in the media, we need individually and collectively to identify the many layers make the complexity of the moment so profound.
We need to ask new questions that help us transform the raw pain and confusion of this moment into opportunities for healing, mutual recognition and nuanced debate. In facing the challenge of this moment, we need to nourish our nation’s soul by sourcing the wisdom of those who have incisive minds and compassionate hearts.
Personally, I sought refuge in the writings of former Constitutional Judge, Albie Sachs, whose keynote address, Free Spirits and Ravaged Souls at the Time of the Writer Festival, in March 2011 poses a powerful question for our country. “How do you reconcile expression of a free spirit, on the one hand, with sensitivity to the ravaged soul of people subjected to historical hurt, on the other?” Other questions might include: what are the multiple meanings and impacts of art? How do these vary according to race, class, culture? How do we speak to each other with a more informed understanding of the range of interpretations influenced by wounding, poverty, power, privilege and political manipulation?
Healing is happening because we’re communicating but there have been many lost opportunities for healing this national high drama. In fact, more possibilities emerge for radical transformation when fires of collective outrage boil close to the surface. For now, shallow, cynical and defensive reactions co-exist with deep and complex emotions. But we can make corrective choices at every moment in history. Now is one of those moments when thousands and thousands of corrective choices can be made by each of us, by all of us.
Let us begin a communal healing journey – a transformative path to discover how “light might triumph heat” and how compassion might unfreeze what is frozen. Let us use this moment to all grow into more tolerant, more human versions of ourselves, where we transcend our initial reactions and feel the power, the humanity of the liquid gold that hides beneath our respective unconsciousnesses. We have experienced these healing moments in South Africa. We know how to do this.
During the recent ANC court case, as I watched Judge Claassens’ uncaring response to Advocate Malindi, I remembered the business submissions to the Truth Commission held in Johannesburg during 1997. On that morning, it was only the Ruperts, founders of the powerful Rembrandt group, who acknowledged that they benefitted from apartheid. And the Ruperts apologized, sincerely, with no prompting.
That was a corrective healing moment. It grew out of the good will and generosity in the soil tilled by President Mandela, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and our other founding mothers and fathers. However, there were lost moments for change then and now. That morning, the majority of business leaders denied that they were beneficiaries of apartheid. Sam Shilowa, the then head of COSATU lightened a tense atmosphere with a powerful joke! “How great it is to know that we had so many business comrades in the apartheid years!” That day, mostly denial and defensiveness played out. When Dr. Alec Boraine of the TRC suggested the benefit of an apology to one business leader, he said sarcastically “Sure, how many apologies do you need for it to do the trick – three, four or five?” It is that kind of denial and defensiveness which takes away our shared humanity – it wounds those who have already been hurt and freezes the wounded souls of those who could have been more genuinely remorseful. A frozen and skeptical heart is as wounded as an angry one.
We now need to soberly face the cumulative consequences of what too many of us have failed to learn. Some become numb, some are fearful and ignorant and others keep hurts hidden. The beauty in this moment is that we have an opportunity to learned from each other. Paul Mashatile, Minister for Arts and Culture spoke on Justice Malala’s show on Etv Sunday May 27. With great dignity, he informed viewers that African men were forced to take down their trousers in order to receive a pass. I feel shame in acknowledging my ignorance. I did not know.
I am an advocate of Ubuntu. (See Reflections of a South African on our Common Humanity http://www.barbaranussbaum.com/downloads/reflections.pdf ) Although Ubuntu has lost its currency in South Africa, we desperately need to recover this understanding of communally lived humanity and find pragmatic ways to apply it to protect our national fabric. Ubuntu is about respecting all the voices. It involves patient listening with flexibility and openness to multiple perspectives. It demands accountability communal reconciliation, respect and dignity for all and social and economic justice.
And it is complicated. While I feel Advocate Malindi’s pain, it is difficult at the same time to witness the ANC manufacture the “currency of racial intolerance”. This tendency is well described in the May 26 Cape Argus editorial. Instead, we need the currency of compassion and healing. How could acknowledging our woundedness, applying compassion and cultural sensitivity, help us all become nationally stronger during this dramatic moment?
Ann Lamont, a Cape Town based social entrepreneur offers useful insights. To her, “we’re seeing reactions which lack understanding of the multiple perspectives of the other. This isn’t a time for rigidity. There is clearly so much pain. It is a golden opportunity for us to really understand that pain.”
She continues, “using the constitutional tool of the court(whilst critical) only deals with a legal dimension of what is so clearly a deeper problem. The tool of the court must be used in conjunction with the underlying principles of our constitution and the creation of a space for understanding our respective wounds.”
A similar perspective is offered in a conversation held with Peter Gabel, a law professor at John F Kennedy University in northern California. “The artistic expression should be upheld as a matter of law, but with some process to reveal and heal the embedded pain. This would require a public dialogue which would work best if the artist and the ANC lawyer both participate, with perhaps Tutu officiating.”
If South Africa chooses to seize this watershed moment, civic leaders will come forward to host such dialogue. One such leader might be Dr Mamphela Ramphele and her Citizens Movement for Social Change, a new organization whose mission is to generate dialogue about the wounds of the past. Well facilitated civic dialogue is one of the only antidotes to the national division we risk.By using protests and the perceived expedience of ANC rhetoric to magnify racial intolerance to manufacture political capital, we stay divided. We need to radically remedy that division by coming together – slowly, safely, and thoroughly – one conversation at a time, owning our ambiguities, our resistances and working through the complex layers of our narrative. At this juncture, I feel an ironic kind of hope. The intense conflict we are having also brings a certain level of intimacy into our engagements. I thought Ferial Haffajee’s open letter to Zuma’s daughter was a moving example of such intimacy. http://www.citypress.co.za/Columnists/How-a-painting-divided-a-nation-20120527.

When people fight as much as we do in South Africa, it assumes there must be a certain level of trust among us that enables us to choose to continue to talk in the first place. Through our post-apartheid heritage, we have developed some capacity to take on painful issues and talk about them. This dynamic does not easily happen in other parts of the world.
While we clearly do not go far enough and we have a great deal to learn, we continually engage with each other through many informal means, mostly through the media. We now need to structure this engagement more honestly, more sensitively by hosting more dialogues, in large forums and in small groups.
The heart of our democracy will not heal, unless we heal each other. Courts will not get us there, conversations will. Boycotts and protests will not restore our collective dignity, conscious compassionate listening and dialogue will. We need to find a politics worthy of our humanity and learn to navigate more complex waters. Our only hope is to deepen our knowledge of each other, heal all of our wounds and find the heart that melts what is frozen, and the heart that lies beyond the heat .

Barbara Nussbaum co-authored Personal Growth African Style with S Palsule and V Mhkize (Penguin 2010).

 

YOU ARE INVITED TO A WORKSHOP TO EXPERIENCE MUSIC AND UBUNTU

Groups are limited to 8

Date:    Saturday, March 17, 2012

Venue: 1919 Meiners Road, Meiners Oaks

Cost:   $40

Time:  10 a.m. till 1 p.m.

To register: Contact barbara.nussbaum@gmail.com

Registration essential as there 10 minutes of preparation to complete before the session

___________________________________________________________________________

Barbara Nussbaum was born in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa, and holds graduate degrees, from the London School of Economics in the UK and Drexel University in USA.  She is the author of 3 books, author of numerous articles and a global spokesperson for Ubuntu, an African idea, which calls forth communally expressed humanity. Her workshops use music to promote conscious learning and deepen connection between people.  The purpose is to help delegates find the I in the WE and the We in the I. Barbara combines two elements – the intangible qualities of music and Ubuntu, to get to the felt experience of BEING in a group.

This is an experiential session .Prior to the group, you will be sent a one pager, to select a track of music to bring. The first step begins by discovering how to consciously name and claim the “I” in the music, and to prepare to share it, from a place of authenticity and courage.

Different channels of appreciation are opened up. It is safe, and the sensitive facilitation paves the way for deep listening and sharing to happen.  The combination of the music and lived Ubuntu builds a joyful and beautiful dynamic in the group. People listen the intention: to see the other, to feel the other – to celebrate what is unique about each person, and to then sense what is unifying. We become more of who we are because each person is seen, celebrated and affirmed by the group. The music wakes up deeper levels of our listening and our humanity.

Why it works:

 

For Yo Yo Ma, the famous cellist: Music is one of the ways we can achieve a kind of shorthand to understand each other.” …so it helps us connect with each other in groups. We add the awareness of Ubuntu to the mix, and delegates experience connection with each other, which wakes up communal consciousness – the felt, and palpable feeling of “WE” that many yearn for.

Benefits

This workshop will:

• change the way you listen to music and yourself.
• deepen the way you listen to others through music
• shift and elevate group dialogue
• quickly build resonance in a team or group

Testimonials

“Barbara’s workshop is beyond delightful.  It is a treat for body mind and spirit.  I found it relaxing and energizing on a deep and profound level.   Her insights as to how to use music to enhance daily life and personal aspirations was clearly miraculous.  Don’t miss the opportunity to work with this gifted teacher.” Rev. Marilyn Miller, Ojai, California

“It was a great joy to be part of your workshop today.  It provided a beautiful container for being connected in the heart with others in a very brief time through the music. I felt heard, seen and discovered deeper insights about myself through the intentional listening and reflection of my chosen music. It was also very enriching to experience and reflect on the music of others.” 

Lisa B. Holistic Health Practitioner, Ojai, California

“I speak from my experiences with her, that Barbara takes people and their music places they have never been before, leaving a lasting impression.” Dr. Leland Kaiser,  Founder Kaiser Institute, Denver; CO; Health Futurist: Faculty Member Spiritual Leadership Institute, Houston, TX

“Barbara’s special blend of insight, empathy and ability to ‘connect’ is the perfect skill set to ensure that her innovative process works. My team were deeply moved and enthused and the ‘ music album’ we created has ensured that we have carried those feelings long past the excellent team building event.”  David Storey, CEO The Resolve Group, Johannesburg, South Africa

Franschhoek, South Africa

November 1, 2o1o

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I enjoy beginning my days with what Julia Cameron calls morning pages – a discipline for writers,

or anyone who wants to spend 15 minutes at the beginning of each day, tuning in to whatever wants to be written, without too much fuss or judgement.

Here is today’s humble offering.

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A Blessing for Little Things

by

Barbara Nussbaum

At times when days feel long

Find beauty in slow time

Let your eyes linger on the insignificant details

Of nature’s flows and rhythms

Celebrate the eclipsed glory of a strelitzia

Pert bright orange  and purple flowers

Transformed into a messy shreds, dull and  faded brown

Marvel at the grace of birds small and large

As they fly, as they land

Hear the gentle sounds of each moment

Of life’s little orchestra

Car sounds, bird song, random chirps of birds

Improvising effortlessly though silence

Making today’s unique musical composition

Appreciate the sensual movement of random leaves dancing

The pride of lemons turning bright yellow

The movement of the wind inspiring a different dance

In every tree

Look up at the large sky

Appreciating the naturalness of its large canvas

May you feel  gratitude for all you see around you

The wispy clouds, the solitary fallen leaf

Yes! There is a joy in noticing little things

And loving the beginning of each new day.

Soccer Final -Flying High in Franschhoek

Barbara Nussbaum.

In his article of June 15^th, John Battersby, former editor of the Sunday Independent newspaper in South Africa, predicted in the Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0615/South-Africa-and-the-2010-World-Cup-the-great-leap-forward  that  “ … the most enduring benefactor of the World Cup will be the national psyche and the quest for a common national identity to transcend a deeply divided past.”  I think he is absolutely right!

I could easily feel the healing balm the “gees” in Cape Town, but wondered how Franschhoek, where everything is both more known and more hidden, fared in healing its own divides. Brett Garner, editor of one of our local newspapers, The Month (http://www.themonth.co.za/)  described Franschhoek’s social heritage as a place – where people from different groups just never mixed. Settled originally by the French Huguenots, and up till 20 years ago, largely Afrikaans, Franschhoek is now quite cosmopolitan – having attracted permanent residents from England, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as a variety of young parents with children, moving to the countryside from urban areas like Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The gastronomic and wine capital of South Africa, home to 50 wineries and plenty bling, Franschhoek is also home to a growing community of African foreigners – from Zimbabwe, Malawi and the Congo – who work in restaurants, or as security guards.  Country homes and wine estates sell for tens of millions of rands here. In certain ways Franschhoek exemplifies a microcosm of South Africa where some of the greatest gaps between the wealthy and the less fortunate are clearly in evidence.  And where despite good will by individuals and companies towards the less fortunate, it is quite a divided community.  How did the world cup touch the psyches of people in this gorgeous village, hidden in the valleys of the winelands?

On the night of the world cup soccer final, I spoke to a few people at the local pub in Franschhoek, the Elephant and Barrel http://www.elephantandbarrel.co.za/ . I asked people what had moved them most, or what struck them most about the Soccer World Cup. I first spoke to Kennedy Ngubalunga, one of the waiters. “ This was more than the game – it was about the worth of the people. I loved the vuvuzela, that it is our own. It is a unique South African item.” I was then greeted by Samuel – a beautiful blonde 4 year old, wiggling his tiny hips to the music and masterfully blowing a vuvuzela -a skill taught to him by his teachers at a Montessori nursery school in Cape Town.

Morgan a beautiful  twenty something young woman, discovered the power of being a South African through the loving eyes of  foreign fans and visitors.  “Cape Tonians are quite closed people. They stick to themselves and their friends. The world cup opened us up. I went to places I would never usually go to like the fanparks.  The overseas visitors were just so receptive to us; they were so excited that I was a South African. I loved the unity I felt.” 

A shy Coloured woman who works at a local primary school said “this world cup brought all colours together.” For her, the highlight was “blacks, whites, pink and yellow and green people came together like a rainbow. We all stood together in front of a screen at a shebeen in  Mantyotyombeni, an informal settlement near Franschhoek, watching the soccer. (Mantyotyombeni is a Xhosa word for many shacks).  Rich people and poor people, whites and blacks and coloureds all watched the game. Owners of wine estates, guest houses, businessmen – they all went to the shebeen. That never happens here”.

A guesthouse owner at my table confirmed the story – “Yes she said, my husband was there. They went up in a combi and had a great time. Watching soccer with others in Mantyotyobeni was new. They found it exciting watching the game together.  He and his friends discovered that people living in informal settlements are like anyone else – love drinking together and enjoying the game. I think they will keep it up.”

Reading the news this morning, Dennis Davis, a well known judge and public figure in South Africa, quoted in the Guardian UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/11/south-africa-world-cup , asks the question on everybody’s mind :  “ What comes out of this, is how do we– without an event, without an imposition of a deadline – capture the joy and spirit and community? How do we actually translate that into something beyond a month? Why should it not be possible to do it on a more permanent basis?”

I found an inspiring answer to this question in conversation with the very last person I spoke to after the game, Prakash, an advertising executive with  Draftfcb[1],  is originally from the UK, but relocated to Franschhoek where he fell in love with the place and the woman who was to become his wife. With heartfelt enthusiasm he said, “South Africans really need to give themselves credit for what they have done. This is amazing country. The South African heart, the African spirit is incredibly powerful. We all need to recognise that.”

He told me about an inspirational campaign, the brainchild of Draftfcb, (one of the world’s biggest communications agencies, with over 80 year history in South Africa) initiated simply as a social responsibility project.  The language on the Keep the Flag flying website is passionate, moving, inspirational.“Keep Flying is a simple idea. An idea that matters. And an idea that belongs to all of us. It believes that it’s all of our responsibility to fly the flag. Every South African Brand; every South African and to recognise what the flat symbolizes to Us and our unity. A Unity that brought the World’s greatest tournament to life in a way only we could. A unity that still reverberates across continents a world away. A unity that says to the world and ourselves. “ Hear us, each one of us, as one. Our time has truly come.”  (For more information about this initiative check out http://www.keepflyingtheflag.co.za/About_Keep_Flying.html).

At 1 a.m.I walked out of the Elephant and Barrel, elated and inspired. Through the small lens of one joyous night talking to people in a lively Franschhoek pub, I learned that John Battersby had correctly predicted that the healing of South African psyche may well be the biggest beneficiary of the world cup.  Arriving at my car  I noticed that my own South African flag, previously placed on my car window had been taken by someone obviously caught up in the spirit of excitement. I didn’t even mind.  I hope he/she keeps flying the flag. I for one will be buying another one immediately!

Barbara Nussbaum is a published author, currently living in Franschhoek. She is a published author, often flying the flag for South Africa and Africa. Her latest book,  published by Penguin Books, http://penguinbooks.co.za/book/9780143026389/ Personal Growth African Style, co-authored with Palsule and Mkhize, will be in bookstores on August 1. She is, for now, turning her hand to blogging. Check out her site for details of the book and some of her blogs. http://www.barbaranussbaum.com/

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[1]  http://www.bizcommunity.com/PressOffice/DraftfcbSouthAfrica; http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/147/49632.

Like millions of South Africans I am doing what I can to drink the milk and taste the honey of joy that is flowing through our land. We’re living in a different time, a transformative time. There is something beautiful about the magic of world soccer and the pride of being a successful host.

I am a cross-breed. Semi academic and once a dance therapist, I am fascinated by the intangible!  I love reading books by my friend and World Business Academy Fellow, Verna Allee http://www.vernaallee.com/VA/Verna-Allee-Complete-Works.htm  who writes that in the future, our competitive advantage as businesses, as countries, lie in the spaces between us. That is where creativity and knowledge lie. So living during a time, when there is permission to “feel the spaces in between us” is nothing short of magic. To share the experience of being hosts for the biggest international sporting event is nothing more than a privilege. To simply  love Africa without worrying that you’re not “indigenous” has been liberating.

I have appreciated the permission these times give to all of us to ‘feel it’ and to invite others to to share the feeling.  Checking into Kulula airlines in Johannesburg on June 16^th, Simphiwe Moyo, behind the counter,  looked at me straight in the eye and said, “are you feeling it?”. I smiled and said” Yes I am!  Are you?”  And what passed was a lovely moment of mutual recognition. Ineffable, intangible, and never to be forgotten.  A memory of a moment which speaks volumes about this time. I loved not simply the uncomplicated directness of  his enquiry, but also the freedom to connect, human being to human being without the constraints of rank, privilege or what is deemed an appropriate “professional” question on the job.

What is “ feeling it”?  That day, that moment,’ it ‘was the connection, and the excitement in the interconnection and the pride of being hosts to the world. It’s about the freedom to be connected, to invite connection. For me it was the joy of being in South Africa at her best, and enjoying  fellow South Africans at their best. 

I wanted to experience how other people were” feeling it” in different places. I invited some friends to Mzolis- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzoli’s well known to locals in Cape Town, a successful butchery turned restaurant in Guguletu township. ( Even Jamie Oliver visited Mzolis!) From the moment the car journey began from Cape Town’s city bowl to Guguletu, I was laughing. One of our group, is a South African actor recently returned from seventeen years in Canada, where he developed a thriving business as a “voice-over artist”. On the way there, we were regaled with stories of  unimaginable assignments and hilarious accents – one was GPS recording in a Borat accent. This is absolutely true. This product is available!

The laughter turns to temporary sobriety when we enter Mzoli’s place.  Delightful in its simplicity, there are long tables with benches and plastic chairs and a variety of televisions screens large and small.  Coming from the rarified country air of Franschhoek, http://www.franschhoek.org.za/ however versatile my tastes in music, even taking pride in a long standing African music collection, it was difficult to cope with the extremely loud and unpleasant sounds of hip hop, or whatever  unharmonious tones appealed to the disc jockey. Blissed out by the music, wearing headphones, undoubtedly to give his audience the “subtleties” of whatever what playing, he was oblivious. Not afraid to ask for help when supremely uncomfortable, I spoke to a young man in dreadlocks who seemed to be in charge and I said, “ would you mind playing the music a little softer?”  He looked at me and said” We don’t DO soft”.  While I enjoyed his assertiveness, I quietly wondered how we would get through an hour of this unharmonious din. We were unlikely to get used to this volume – even the earplug didn’t work. Eventually I was referred to the owner, Mzoli himself, who was very accommodating and saw to it, that the volume was turned down.

We slowly saw Mzoli’s place fill up and vuvuzelas began to sound as more and more people took their places. People of all ages, all races, all freely expressing their fan loyalties and their heroes in their garb. Some wore T-shirts that said Messi, 11;  or Ronaldo 10.  Taken up by the spirit, I had invested in a Ghana scarf and large Ghana flag which I didn’t quite know how to wear or how to juggle with a long shawl.

 And then the game began. Holland was playing Brazil. At this point, it was difficult to tell which team the audience was supporting. It simply didn’t seem to matter.  A group of six African women sat in the row just in front of us.  If Brazil scored they cheered, if Holland scored, they cheered! They were feeling the joy of the game – their excitement followed the ball and the players who played fantastic soccer. They did their own individual moves and sometimes spontaneously entered into more choreographed rhythmic group moves, side to side, in unison.

Holland won the game, the vuvuzelas went wild, the TV commentary and debrief was immediately switched off and the loud music resumed!!!  And people simply started dancing – some on the tables, most on the floors. At that point, I was ‘feeling it” so much that it was impossible not to be swept up into spirit of celebration.  It was so easy to connect – to give people high fives, and flow into the dancing.  Dance for has always been the best way to “feel it”. Not even caring about the volume of the music, I abandoned the Ghana flag on our table and just entered the fray.  

Marc, my Swiss friend, shyly held up the flag high, dancing behind it. And it was in the dance, I found myself connecting with three young African men – I forgot about the loudness, just dancing in a blissful sea of joy was all I could feel.  There were signals from my guests that it was then time to go – so I pick up my shawl, the Ghana flag and scarf and place them awkwardly around my neck not quite knowing what to do.  Before long, my three dancing partners “dressed me up” like a proud Ghana fan.  They tied the scarf around my head, the flag around my body and placed a pair of large yellow plastic sunglasses on my face.  Before I knew it, there I was dancing again –  with my new found friends. All I felt was happiness – Jabulani – the name of our South African Fifa soccer ball – and the dizzying experience of connection and the shared anticipation of a Ghana victory that night, which unfortunately was not to be.

Later that night – I recalled one of my favourite quote from one of West Africa’s finest social philosophers, Leopold Senghor.  I lived the philosophical sentence which for him best describes Africa’s way of being. “ I feel the other, I dance the other, therefore I am”.  A mini epiphany flashed through my mind – why listen to the commentary when you can feel it?  Sure beats Descartes – I think therefore I am.

Invictus – a reminder of the glue of our common humanity

By Barbara Nussbaum

Reading reviews of Invictus, on Google news gives the usual spread of opinion – an inspired journalist from Manila, a cautious interview from John Fourman of the Jewish Chronicle, an ungenerous critic from the UK based New Statesman, and an elated interview from a blogger who reports Clint Eastwood’s experience of walking into Mandela’s cell. “It’s very emotional when you go into a little cell that doesn’t even have a toilet in it. To think that someone spent 17 years of their life in there, cracking rocks or just digging in salt mines out there is a little bit overwhelming. And to come out and been as open, as magnanimous as forgiving as he did is almost impossible to fathom that. In the spirit of Josey Wales, I could never have been like that.” For those unfamiliar with American history, Wales was a peaceful Missouri farmer, driven to revenge by the brutal rape and murder of his wife and family by a band of pro- Union Jayhawkers, [1] from Kansas. This movie, in which Clint Eastwood portrays Josey Wales came out in 1976 and was set towards the end of the American civil war.[2] Eastwood’s incredible eye in recent times for stories which focus on the daunting task of journeys towards reconciliation may speak to his own remarkable journey as a producer and director.  I learned from Prof John Van Zyl, formerly of Wits University that the theme of “revenge” has played such a central role in most of Eastwood’s movies. “From The Unforgiven to Mystic River the idea that revenge is regrettable but unavoidable is central. How the revenge is carried out is the staple of those movies. In “Invictus” Eastwood has inverted this. Revenge is not inevitable but it is also disastrous”

As a transplant to South Africa from Zimbabwe and California, and someone who writes about “ubuntu” an Nguni word for our common humanity,[3] I was moved to tears in the movie and re-inspired by the vivid memory of a moment of magic in the life of this country.  Unlike John Forman, I found that Eastwood did a magnificent job of capturing the subtle touches which marked a day blessed by hundreds of thousands of small scenes where ordinary people were moved by the reconciliatory spirit all around. How can one film cover hundreds and thousands of mini transformations on a day of such grand collective human magnificence?

In Gran Torino, directed by Eastwood in 2009, we witness Eastwood’s character, a bitter and disgruntled Korean War Vet returning who sets out to reform a young Hmong teenager, who tried to steal Kowalski’s prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino car.  In this film, Eastwood plays the leading role highlighting the dramatic transformation of a bitter, lonely and racist war vet sounded by foreigners as neighbours. How Mandela copes with the natural desire for some kind of revenge on the part of his followers is part of the central message of Invictus. Eastwood artfully documents Mandela’s daunting challenge of reconciliation in the early years of South Africa’s democracy as exemplified in the tension between the new African body guards and the older Afrikaaner guards, who protected the former president, De Klerk[4]. An astute reviewer in the Washington Post[5] observed that in the film Invictus South Africa herself, is one of the transformational characters, marked by “pluralism at its most dynamic, unruly and inspiring.” And as a country, South Africa is still dynamic, unruly, inspiring and I would add, very scary at times. I wonder how we’re doing as this unruly pluralistic character which some say is a microcosm of the world?

In the film, we witness the transformation not only through the eyes of the body guards, but also in several heartwarming scenes – touches from the heart-full hand of a director with a feel for the inner landscape of transformation and how to reflect the dance of these complexities on the screen. Towards the end, we see a young African boy, unable to afford a ticket to the game at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg which hosted the world cup rugby final.  We witness the unfolding of his encounter with two policemen in a police car.  During successive shots the police initially growling at the child “to bugger off”; the child’s quiet insistence of staying close to the police car to listen to the radio; and over time, the police tolerating the presence of the young boy edging closer to the car and radio, to the final moment when the exhilarated policemen lift the young boy high in the air and place a police cap on his head.

The Pienaar family “maid” whose transformation role John Fourman fails to recognise, we actually see a reclaiming and expansion of her dignity – where she shifts from the silent background ironing quietly in Pienaar’s family with no power at all; to a person claiming more space starting from the small act of cutting out a  newspaper photograph of Francois and Mandela; to the bold political act of asking Francois  Pienaar to let Madiba know her views about the great need for transport and housing before his first private visit to Mandela. We see the culmination of this moment when she is included as an equal, sitting next to her employer Pienaar’s mother, sharing the excitement of the final rugby game.

For those of us who were in South Africa on that day, Eastwood documented enough examples, to jog the heartfelt memories of the many extraordinary scenes we came to see. That day, driving back from a lunch in Pretoria to Jo’burg, I saw an African flower vendor. She was hugged spontaneously by a white male customer – they jumped up together, hugged again and again. I recall many of us driving in cars stuck in slow traffic reaching over to touch the hands of whoever passed by – whatever colour or class, whether in cars or walking, whether in taxis transporting many passengers or fancy cars carrying a few. As many have already said, that day was more than our team winning, it was about a nation seeing and experiencing the power of that intangible glue we felt that day. It was the memory of the alchemy of that day which may have left a residue for many of us in deepest parts of our souls. It was about the inspirational catalytic role of Mandela and the collective wisdom of a number of smart caring people whose leadership made it possible for all of us to step into the greater landscape of our common humanity – to feel the glue that binds us when we allow our hearts to open to let alchemy happen.

At a time in South Africa where “ubuntu”, has become overused, taken for granted or cheapened, the film has given this writer, internationally published on why ubuntu is important[6], the courage to follow through on something a little scary – to write a blog on “glue”- that intangible quality that binds us together as human beings. Invictus has re-inspired me. Thank you Madiba, Clint Eastwood and Francois Pienaar for your inspiration! My reach is smaller, my goals more humble, but the glue of our common humanity is certainly the “beat” of my dance and the captain of my soul. Will you join the dance?  Will you join the dance? At the 20^th anniversary of Madiba’s release from prison, we’re more jaded and the political context more complex and sobering. But if we honour all that Mandela has stood for, we cannot forget promise of that day, February 11 1990, and the euphoria of the rugby world cup final. What will it take for each of us to be re-inspired to step into action and the kind of citizenship engagement which uses the alchemy of that glue to build our communities, our country and our world?

Barbara Nussbaum is a published author. She is affiliated with the Centre for Conscious Leadership in Johannesburg and also coaches people who want to write books. She can be reached at bnussbaum@mweb.co.za

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[1] Also known as Senator James Lane’s Redlegs

[2] http://blog.onthebox.com/2010/02/05/invictus-interviews-eastwood-freeman-damon-talk/

[3] For those who want to read more about  this see. http://www.barbaranussbaum.com/downloads/reflections.pdf;  http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=3085

[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121002700.html?sid=ST2009121003301

[5] Anne Homeaday   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121002700.html?sid=ST2009121003301

[6] Published by the World Business Academy, a cutting edge think tank in California   http://www.barbaranussbaum.com/downloads/perspectives.pdf