Allied Arts Center, Menlo Park, California, November 8th & 9th, 2014
By Catherine Austin Fitts
Thirty-five subscribers came from all across the United States as well as from Europe, Australia and New Zealand. You were remarkable in spirit, passion, interests and accomplishments.
Meeting each other was the best part of the weekend!
The inspiration for sponsoring the workshop was a series of conversations during and after the highly successful Secret Space Program conference (SSP) in San Mateo in June 2014.
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The Inspiration
The inspiration for sponsoring the workshop was a series of conversations during and after the highly successful Secret Space Program conference (SSP) in San Mateo in June 2014.
Organized by Jeroen Van Straten who joined us at the workshop from Holland, the conference was defined by serious scholarship with little interruption for disinformation or entertainment. Dr. Joseph Farrell was particularly focused on the “creation of a new conference culture.” Jon Rappaport’s presentation focused on the role of the individual. [These presentations are now available for Solari Report subscribers here:/the-secret-space-program-for-solari-suscribers/]
After the conference I spoke with Jon and Joseph about whether it was possible to do additional events to keep the conversation alive. How could we nurture what had begun?
I surveyed some of the subscribers who had attended. They too wanted to nurture what had begun. However, they were adamant. They did not want to hear presentations by experts. They wanted to meet and talk with each other. And the
thing they wanted to talk about was, “What’s next? Given what I have learned, how do I live a free and inspired life”.
On the way back to Tennessee, I stopped to see Ben Lizardi who is a key strategic partner to the Solari Report. Ben was willing to organize a workshop for us. It was a go.
Backcasting
Ben persuaded me and the Solari Report team to do a backcasting first before we tried one at the workshop.
A backcasting is a technique in which you write your story as of a date in the future that tells how your vision succeeded. The backcasting technique was developed by Gail Taylor who taught me how to use it in the 1990’s and who facilitated the workshop.
What emerged was Vision 2020 – our vision for what the Solari Report team hope to accomplish for the next five years.
The process made me realize how down in the mud we were as a result of the environment.
Obstacles, obstacles – we needed breakthrough inspiration to deal with the obstacles.
Jon Rappaport, Dr. Joseph Farrell and I did a Solari Report on the workshop In September and we prepared our presentations in audio and video form so they could be digested before the workshop. You can find them here: /free-and-inspired-life-resources/
The Workshop
One of the first exercises was called a Wayfinding. One wall of a long room became a time line, going back 50 years and going forward 50 years. We were all invited to write down on post-it notes what we thought were the most significant events of the last 50 years and what would be the most significant events of the next 50 years.
Many of the events of the past 50 years that we posted were negative events – such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and 9/11. I realized that the inability for our society to share a factually accurate explanation of these events has made it difficult for us to clear them and move on emotionally. We are building up quite an emotionally expensive past.
I was also struck at how much opportunity there was to expand our future thinking. We were not thinking in 50-100 year increments at all.
Then we turned to individual and group backcastings. Turns out everyone needs help on the obstacles.
Here are the big ones:
- How do I filter information?
- How do I filter people – and align with people of differing interests and maps of the world?
- How do I deal with dysfunctional organizations?
- How do I build an independent cash flow using my skills and passion?
During Sunday Q&A, numerous insights emerged. Many attendees were concerned about economic and financial scenarios (the dollar or the US economy collapsing, the Yuan replacing the dollar as reserve currency), which Joseph and/or I thought of as unlikely.
One of the themes that was reoccurring was Joseph’s insight as to the Golden Rule being the alternative model to the force model that runs the planet and the extension of the Golden Rule to the financial realm (see my discussion of Solari Investment Strategy in the recorded presentation)
Joseph spoke about the efforts to debase our culture. Using music as the metaphor, he compared the 28 tracks of Bach’s harpsichord compositions with the 1 or few tracks of the “jungle beat” in popular music. How do we embrace and enjoy complexity and avoid the dumbing down? How do we preserve and nurture Western culture and civilization in the face of a steady debasement of art, music, media, education and literature?
This dovetails with the question of “how do I filter information” as a great deal of manipulation is done by promoting generalized concepts, void of the detail necessary to truly understand the facts involved, and marketed with highly emotionally charged platitudes.
Joseph’s sentiments echo similar ideas in Jon’s presentation in the Voyage of Merlin, one of my favorite Rappaport recordings.
One of the comments that most struck me on Sunday was from a wonderful participant who explained that he had attended because he wanted to understand what was really going on in the world and he wanted to enjoy his life and accomplish something positive. He said the only place on the Internet he ever found that combined a realistic map with a positive, hopeful attitude was the Solari Report. There were lots of websites that were focused on understanding reality, but they were angry and depressing. There were plenty of websites focused on positive action. But they were in denial.
Looking around the room, I realized that was a defining connection. We were all people who wanted to understand the word around us and wanted to collaborate and enjoy a rich portfolio of sources to help us do so. We were also doers. We were entrepreneurial, we wanted to accomplish things, create, contribute, act, invent, and invest. We were not people to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves or play the victim. We take responsibility.
What I heard on Sunday was similar to what I am hearing at our lunches around the country. It is not easy to find people who share those two qualities. Having lunches or events as I travel about can help us find each other.
Another Theme
One idea that Jon, Joseph and I kept coming back to at various times before, during and after the workshop was the integrity of the individual.
Our goal is a free and inspired individual – to be one, to collaborate with those who are, to serve those who are or want to be. A coherent, powerful individual is at the core of the culture we cherish.
Jon and Joseph are deeply concerned and offended by the efforts to debase the individual culturally and intellectually. I focus more on concern regarding the compromise of individual legal freedoms, and financial and property rights.
I also feel we need connection – that people do not want to be alone in this period. Control is implemented by isolating people – by atomizing each one of us into a zombie whose best friend is their smart phone.
This is why coming together for occasional collaboration and exchange is valuable.
We need to enjoy the support of a “field.” How to do that in a way that has no organizational center – that is, essentially, “out of control?” Rather, its strength is powerful individuals, networking and organizing as serves their best interests.
My Free & Inspired Life
For me, the process was life changing. Here were my decisions that emerged as a result of participating:
- For 2015, the #1 business goal for the Solari Report team is “we have fun.” The operating environment is challenging and increasingly uncivil. Enjoying our day-to-day flow helps to mark the pathway of where we go and what we do.
- I am closing Sea Lane Advisory as of December 31. This makes it possible for me to work from Asia and Europe as well as North America – which I believe can contribute to both performance and personal satisfaction. I still anticipate spending several months a year in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- The Solari Report team wants to make an effort to help the next generations coming up. Our success as a people and a civilization depends on the success of our young people. So we are going to look for ways to help the younger generation both understand their history and the history of their people and to get the financial literacy they need to navigate the system and to build personal wealth.
We are conspiring about doing more lunches and one-day events in the heartland of North America as well as on the East Coast, Asia and Europe as I travel this coming year. Stay tuned!
Conclusion
Thank you to every one who participated and attended.
I want to extend a complimentary invitation to all of the paid participants for the next lunch or workshop we do in your area. Your contribution was significant.
My prayers are that you live a free and inspired life in 2015. This is your most important contribution to a free and inspired culture for us all.
