Many things inspire, including but not limited to (in random order):
- Azby Brown’s Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan
- Charles Eisenstein’s Ascent of Humanity
- Masanobu Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution
- My wife’s parent’s hometown of Uchinoura on Kyushu
- My wife
- Always feeling like a stranger in a strange land in America, but feeling strangely at home when in Japan
- The long-held intuition that humanity is birthing a new level of awareness in the evolution of consciousness, a lived awareness that we are one interconnected whole
- The insight that our old masculine-values-oriented paradigm is on its way out, and being replaced by a new feminine-values-oriented worldview of cooperation and collaboration
- The recognition that this paradigm shift will manifest in practical terms through increasing worldwide efforts to relocalize and revitalize community, and making socio-ecosystems sustainable and resilient by maintaining biodiversity and ecological health
- The belief that while this transition between paradigms will be profoundly disruptive to our civilization’s status quo, it will ultimately result in a new way of being in the world, indeed a new human, and a new world
Satoyama Spirit 
Posted by Steven Liaros on November 1, 2012 at 4:18 am
Alan,
My partner and I are also on this journey… Exploring, encouraging and hoping for a transition to a relocalized, revitalized, more connected and more beautiful world. We are trying to tie all the aspects of our lives into this journey … and I have also started a research project, which next year will hopefully take us to various local communities around the world. I was hoping you could offer some contacts in Japan as I believe that the Satoyama example is the optimum style of ecovillage… and one we would definitely like to experience … (see my website for more info abut me)
Posted by Alan Zulch on November 3, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Hello Steven, I’m intrigued by your website and perspective. I do have a few connections you might be interested in, both in Japan and in the US. My cousin, Liz Walker, is the founder of EcoVillage Ithaca in upstate New York, and I’d be happy to introduce you to her. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and there are many interesting people and organizations here, if you’re doing a tour. These include the close connections with Transition US, based in Petaluma, which is nearby. And in Japan, I have met with a variety of interesting people over the years. I think you’d want to visit Hide Enomoto at Transition Town Fujino, north of Tokyo. If you’re near Kyoto you could visit Naoki Shiomi of the “Half Farmer Half-X Institute”. Bring an interpreter in case you don’t speak Japanese. 🙂 In Kyushu, Jeff Irish is an absolutely engaging and fascinating fellow living the life, south of Kagoshima. You also might investigate The Sloth Club in Tokyo. They’re doing some very interesting work. These are what are on the top of my head right now.
Posted by Steven Liaros on November 5, 2012 at 1:16 am
Alan,
Thanks for your comments. We’d love to take you up on your offers of introduction. We are just organising our itinerary and are hoping to be in Japan in March/ April next year and in the US towards the end of the year… Perhaps we can discuss in more detail offline.
I have to say that when I read your post the idea that seemed to jump out was the “half farmer, half X”… This is a fantastic way of of expressing the simple idea that if we help each other, and facilitate nature to provide for our basic necessities then we create the spare capacity for us to all to be and do the things that we love.