Thoughts on beginning (Carol)

Working on creating this site is an interesting process for me, as I’m juggling the ideas behind the words “Open” “Source” “Spirit” as we work.

Right now there’s techy stuff to be sorted to make sure the interviews run smoothly, a time of testing and development. The old idea that a challenge becomes a test that then becomes an initiation holds true here. If at any point in the development we see a challenge as too much for us, then we miss the opportunity that it holds for us when we eventually do solve the problem or come up with the creative solution.

They say we should always ask, “Am I doing things correctly or am I doing the correct thing?”

Sometimes we need to just move over and see from a slightly different angle - then the situation reveals a new facet that hadn’t been seen before. Hitting our heads against the wall to find an answer to something that has no answer because we are asking the wrong question (ah but is there ever a “wrong” question?) - well, you know what I’m getting at here.

Why is this discussion part of Open Source Spirit? Because the implementation of intuition and guidance means we work very much on the physical plane with materials and the laws of life on earth.

This work isn’t done by angels and genies, it’s done by human beings who put their minds, hearts and hands into the core of things to come up with ways to connect, ways to contribute, ways for individuals and groups to become more able to achieve their goals.

So in keeping with that point of view, I’ll be documenting our process of developing this site, the work we are doing behind the scenes to take this baby to launch, and the ups and downs of it all. We have a very high ideal and all the tools to bring it into being are spread before us. This work is a play, and it opens us up.

We’ve done two versions of the video intro so far. The first was just a test, but went through with it, logged in to SightSpeed and connected to each other there. Technical issues were pretty clear - my audio was quite hissy, and Jim’s camera had a movement thing going on that was a distraction. Then I found I was looking down at my screen rather than up at the camera eye on the top of my laptop, etc. So we did it anyway, then had another go at it, more tight, able to see how to make it work better, I still had the sibilance but not as extreme, the camera didn’t move anymore. It got a decent C or C+ as a grade, and the + was for effort.

Now to set up for interviews, I need more testing, and that’s the stage we are at today. Slight computer glitch that becomes a rebuild. But we are undaunted, if a little time-poor.

I’d like to lift off for a moment here, and relate the best part of the process of doing this video stuff: I learned really a lot from our first video welcome.

Not only did I feel we were really broadcasting, I felt that doing this plugged us in at a level of commitment to the project, and expanded our words to include whoever could be watching this, at whatever time in the future. It was an opening feeling, and that was very good.

And, full disclosure, there was the usual self-critical stuff comparing our own images to the video images of others, but that soon passed, replaced with a feeling of Yes! We’ve begun!

Source

Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill talk about the meanings of the word “Source”.

“It’s a huge thing to talk about because the source isn’t separate from us and we’re not separate from the source, but we feel we have to go back to it. So all of the quest stories and the tales of going to the source, or going to the source of the Ganges, finding the mountain of Siva where the source of the water flows from; all of this is a metaphor for us to go inside ourselves and make those connections.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

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Welcome to Open Source Spirit

What is Open Source Spirit?

Carol Sill and Jim Van Wyck have their first online conversation about Open Source Spirit. This project applies the ethos and methodology of open source to spirituality.

We are creating a place and a space for everyone who wishes to share and express their spiritual insights, experience, beliefs, practices, writings …..

Join us!

We’d love to have YOU share and express YOUR experience with us in conversation, on video.

“We’d love to talk with you and then take that conversation over to the web for more comments, and we hope by this that we can get a really open conversation going about some of the ideas that really matter.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

Spirit

The meaning of spirit in our lives.  “….if you can dare to actually bring this forward into everyday life, that’s it, I think that’s just exquisite. Without diminishing all the incredible power, magnificence, beauty and love that is unseen and can’t really be touched except by the unseen part of ourselves. But it’s still exquisite isn’t it, to just be able to know that there’s so much more than what we see.”

An early conversation between Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill

Link here for the text version of this video.

Explore a little more. Click something interesting to you!

First Video Conversation

In our first video conversation, Jim and I are exploring the very beginnings of the Open Source Spirit project.

“Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.”

Link here for a text version.

This is for you if …..

Carol sent these words to me this morning.

OpenSourceSpirit is for you if:

If you are awakening intuition, sensing life beyond the material world,
looking for answers to the philosophical questions.

If you have had experience with some or one of the many spiritual paths.

If you are following your inner guidance, aware that there is more to life than meets the eye, ready to take an evolutionary leap.

If you wish to become immersed in the sea of being, in the life of love, or in the world beyond the seen.

If you are experimenting within the lab of your own nature.

If you wake with ideas in your head.

If you do yoga, sing, dance, are a scientist or gardener.

If you write, play or compose music, paint or sculpt.

If you are an artist, a scientist, a teacher, a philosopher, a meditator, an athlete, a parent, a son or daughter, a man, a woman, a seeker of truth.

If you have read Rumi, Gopi Krishna, the Bible, Buddhist scriptures, On the Road, the words of the poets, the saints, the business people, the lawgivers, the historians.

If you love life and its seen and unseen gifts.