History of Creating Our Future
1987-1991
1987-1991
In the spring of 1987 our daughter Snatam had joined the environmental club at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley California. Shortly afterward, she brought her fellow club members to meet with me to help them clarify their plans. The meeting went very well, and the next time we met, students from two other Marin high schools also came. An even larger group of students from all the Marin high schools attended our third meeting. Then we held a meeting that included my friends Ram Dass, Shams Kairys, John Steiner, Chellis Glendinning, and Marc Kasky. We decided to organize two experimental workshops that summer that we called Creating Our Future (COF). There were about fifty high school students at each workshop, which were so powerful for all concerned that we decided to launch Creating Our Future as an ongoing organization.
This was made possible by the support of Jerry Garcia, who was on our board of directors, along with Bob Weir and Ram Dass, both of whom played an active role in our board meetings and summer camps. Over the following years, Jerry and Bobby did a variety of benefit concerts for Creating Our Future.
Creating Our Future flourished, and before long we were averaging three workshops every month with twenty-five to thirty-five students attending. Within a couple of years, there were regional clusters of COF student groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the Los Angeles area, the Sierra Foot- hills, Arizona, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Original Statement of Purpose (circa 1987)
We are young people working together with experienced adult advisors to end environmental destruction and to achieve social justice. We are committed to learning the skills needed to work together and have a meaningful impact on the world. We are training ourselves and other young people to be empowered social activists, and to be conscious, effective world citizens while learning to care for ourselves and one another. We hope to gradually create a network of concerned young people, first regionally, then nationally, and ultimately worldwide.
Creating Our Future provides a base for working together towards our common goals. Mostly we are high school students assisted by experiences leaders in the fields of environmental, social action and spiritual consciousness movements. Our unique approach is characterized by: the collaborative relationships that exist between our young people and our adults and by our combination of action, training, and meditative practices. Participants are developing skills in meeting process, project planning, centering -- both in group and individually, public speaking, systematic analysis of issues, fundraising, direct action campaigns and other events, and listening to ourselves and to others.
Our generation of high school students represents the future of our planet. We know that our birthright is being squandered, and a growing number of us are rising to the needs of the times. We want to do more than simply express our concern; we are looking for ways to work together in order to have a meaningful impact on the world. We want to find ways to use our whole beings to work against war, to halt the destruction of the environment, to achieve social justice, and to live in harmony with the planet and all its beings.
Creating Out Future’s primary mission is to those who wish to be, or are engaged in, working for social change. In our workshops, we create a healing and transformative experience for participants as a means to: awaken and/or support an understanding of “spiritual activism,” (acting for change from a place of spiritual practice and heartfulness); create community as a place from which to work (collectively or separately) and share support with one another.
We recognize that, as a species, we are in a collective race between our ability to destroy ourselves, and our learning how to love one another. Creating Our Future is a part of, and a contributor to, the work of creating a planetary shift in consciousness. We are committed to spreading the Creating Our Future experience as widely as possible,
In our workshops we:
This was made possible by the support of Jerry Garcia, who was on our board of directors, along with Bob Weir and Ram Dass, both of whom played an active role in our board meetings and summer camps. Over the following years, Jerry and Bobby did a variety of benefit concerts for Creating Our Future.
Creating Our Future flourished, and before long we were averaging three workshops every month with twenty-five to thirty-five students attending. Within a couple of years, there were regional clusters of COF student groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the Los Angeles area, the Sierra Foot- hills, Arizona, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Original Statement of Purpose (circa 1987)
We are young people working together with experienced adult advisors to end environmental destruction and to achieve social justice. We are committed to learning the skills needed to work together and have a meaningful impact on the world. We are training ourselves and other young people to be empowered social activists, and to be conscious, effective world citizens while learning to care for ourselves and one another. We hope to gradually create a network of concerned young people, first regionally, then nationally, and ultimately worldwide.
Creating Our Future provides a base for working together towards our common goals. Mostly we are high school students assisted by experiences leaders in the fields of environmental, social action and spiritual consciousness movements. Our unique approach is characterized by: the collaborative relationships that exist between our young people and our adults and by our combination of action, training, and meditative practices. Participants are developing skills in meeting process, project planning, centering -- both in group and individually, public speaking, systematic analysis of issues, fundraising, direct action campaigns and other events, and listening to ourselves and to others.
Our generation of high school students represents the future of our planet. We know that our birthright is being squandered, and a growing number of us are rising to the needs of the times. We want to do more than simply express our concern; we are looking for ways to work together in order to have a meaningful impact on the world. We want to find ways to use our whole beings to work against war, to halt the destruction of the environment, to achieve social justice, and to live in harmony with the planet and all its beings.
Creating Out Future’s primary mission is to those who wish to be, or are engaged in, working for social change. In our workshops, we create a healing and transformative experience for participants as a means to: awaken and/or support an understanding of “spiritual activism,” (acting for change from a place of spiritual practice and heartfulness); create community as a place from which to work (collectively or separately) and share support with one another.
We recognize that, as a species, we are in a collective race between our ability to destroy ourselves, and our learning how to love one another. Creating Our Future is a part of, and a contributor to, the work of creating a planetary shift in consciousness. We are committed to spreading the Creating Our Future experience as widely as possible,
In our workshops we:
- Create a healing and transformative experience for all participants.
- Tap our collective wisdom through interactive dialogue between workshop leaders and participants, in both plenary and small group sessions.
- Enhance our understanding of how to conduct campaigns and actions consistent with our core beliefs.
- Develop clear and coherent next steps, new tools, techniques and plans of action, for both individuals and small and large groups.
- Hang out, relax, chant, meditate, sing and dance.
- Create a sacred space, which nourishes & supports us.
