WHAT’S UP with WATTS UP!
NEW !
Read the
Toronto Star Interview with Belvie Rooks
****In February we completed an important interview with Edgar Mitchell in West Palm
Beach about personal, social and global healing and transformation. We are especially
excited because the interview was in the context of the 35th anniversary of his
historic walk moon walk. An important new CD commemorating that historic event has also
just been released entitled, The View From Space: A Message of Peace. (http://www.fascinatingpeople.com.)
****We are happy to announce that Demaria is in college in Los Angeles.
****NEW from Dedan Gills—Green
Recovery and Spirituality: Seeding the Dialogue
PREVIEW WATTS UP! IN BALI
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 months since we were all together
in Bali attending the first Quest for Global Healing Conference. We hope that you
are well! We would love to hear from you and to learn more about what that experience
meant for you.
As you may recall, while in Bali we launched a wonderful film project called, Watts
Up! Exploring the Frontiers of Consciousness.
We are excited to let you know
that a 6-minute preview clip of Watts Up! will be presented at the second Quest for Global
Healing Conference Film Series on May 5th in Ubud. It will
be airing along with another film by Watts Up director Damani Baker
entitled, Return, about indigenous healing practices in Africa.
Things are going incredibly well and we are excited about the progress that we have
made on the project. The really great news is that we are in the final completion stages
for Watts Up!
THE VIEW FROM SPACE
The framing for the project and the conversation that we are seeding involves
an exploration of the unitary, interconnected nature of who we are as embodied in
astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s epiphany upon his return from moon. Viewing "space
ship earth," our small, blue "home planet" from deep space, Edgar’s
experience was the embodiment of a cosmic sense of self and place.
A DIFFERENT VIEW!
Demaria Perry—on the other hand–comes from a community that has one
of the highest rates of gang-related violence and youth homicides in the country—if
not the world. Nickerson Gardens is a marginalized community in which many people have a
very different sense of self and place. Demaria’s is a community in which many young
people are willing to kill and be killed while engaged in a struggle over territory
amounting to a couple of blocks; basically that’s what urban, inner-city, gang
violence is about.
IT’S ALL CONNECTED!
In the context of our understanding about oneness, wholeness and
inter-relatedness, what is the conversation that is needed in order to connect these two
very different views of reality? What do the marginalized aspects of the whole have to
teach us? What is the underlying nature of the interconnection between these two
realities? What is the interconnection between the work that an organization like the Pachamama Alliance does
with indigenous people to save the Amazon rainforest and the incredibly high rate of
asthma and respiratory ailments in communities like Nickerson Gardens? What do the trees
in Bali and Watts have to teach us about the psyche, emotional and physical health? What
can we learn about the psyche, physical and emotional health of people in Watts and Bali
by looking at the trees? The trees in Bali are bright, vibrant green, the
trees in Watts are drab, dull, gray-green. In the film, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu reminds us that "the good that we do has a rippling effect" in the
world. The not-good and the not-caring, of course, has the same impact.
In Watts Up! we are seeding a conversation that has at
its essence an exploration of who we are as one inter-connected, unitary whole; it’s
a conversation "across the apparent divides."
A CONVERSATION THE WORLD NEEDS
We’re excited! We’re challenged! There are days when we know that
it’s a conversation that the world needs and there are other days when we are in deep
despair because maybe we misunderstood and the Universe didn’t really say
"Yes!" Jean Houston recently talked about the spiritual power of entropy and of
what it means spiritually when it looks like you’re stuck and that things are not
moving; it’s often is an invitation to try harder—an opportunity to reaffirm the
commitment. We are reconfirmed and we are recommitted!!!!
MORE GREAT NEWS!
****Maribeth Thompson has joined Watts Up! as a segment producer and will be
working with Damani in Bali on some wrap-up filming. We met Maribeth at the first Quest
for Global Healing Conference, and we are very happy that she is working with us. We
excited about both her enthusiasm and the skills that she brings to the project. Thank you
Maribeth!
Maribeth Grant Thompson has 15 years of professional experience in the photography and
film industries. After receiving her B.S. in biology, she pursued graduate work in
cross-cultural anthropology, focusing on the unity of all people as explored through
shared stories and symbols.
DEEPENING THE DIALOGUE!
****We are also working with Jeanine Canty—a
specialist in Multicultural Education at Prescott College in Arizona. Jeanine is
helping us develop a template for a Discussion Guide that will accompany the film. The
idea of the Discussion Guide is to help our audience connect some of the critical dots in
the broadest possible multi-cultural context. One of the really rewarding and exciting
things about developing the Discussion Guide is that we’ve had an opportunity to talk
to a wide range of groups, organizations and individuals--environmental activists,
homeless men and women in recovery, scientists, theologians, animal
rights lovers, teenagers, etc.
PLEASE HELP US HOLD A VISION!
Our plan is to finish Watts Up! by August!!!! We’d
love to have your support in achieving that that vision. It’s been a long journey but
now we only have the final edit to complete once Damani gets back from Bali in May.
We’re hoping to have all of the money in place by then to allow Damani and an
assistant editor to spend June, July and August doing the final edit.
We welcome your SUPPORT, your comments, your feedback and any suggestions that you
might have that would help us ACHIEVE THIS GOAL!!!
Thank you So Much!!!
Belvie Rooks
Executive Producer
Watts Up! Exploring the Frontiers of Consciousness
(From Watts to Bali and Beyond)
