A holistic aboriginal framework for individual healing

This paper offers up an holistic Indigenous model of individual healing that utilizes medicine wheel teachings to break down the four aspects (spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental) of individual wellness. Teachings about each direction are presented followed by practice techniques for each aspect of the individual self. It is bookended by an introduction to the historical trauma faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, and a conclusion that draws implications for healing

Biocultural Community Protocols: Dialogues on the Space Within

This paper starts by explaining "the space within" -- the ethical grammar and code by which indigenous peoples use and steward nature. It then explains the inextricable links with nature demonstrated by a number of communities with which we have worked, and their experiences in the ABS context. It discusses the importance of processes of prior informed consent, before then discussing the possibility of "tools of conviviality" that may act as bridges between the fundamental ecological principals of indigenous peoples, and the researchers and companies that seek to utilize biodiversity and knowledge within community control.In the final sections, we explore the use of both community protocols and Ethical BioTrade, with some examples, and their potential role as tools of conviviality -- opening up dialogues between actors from vastly different worldviews. While we do not see community protocols as a panacea for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, we have seen them act as an important step towards the protection of indigenous knowledge and the recognition of legal pluralism

Shadows along the spiritual pathway

Contemporary spirituality discourses tend to assume that a canopy of light and love overarches all spiritual pathways. Unfortunately, the dark side of humanity cannot be spirited away so easily, and aberrations of personal spiritual development, interpersonal spiritual relationships and new spiritual movements can often be traced to the denial, repression and return of our dark side. Transpersonal psychology offers a way of approaching, reframing and redeeming the unconscious depths of our psyche, with its metaphors of shadows and daimons on the one hand, and its therapeutic practices for symbolically containing and transcending polarities on the other. In its absence, any spirituality which eulogises holistic growth is likely to engender the reverse effect

On Autonomic HPC Clouds

Proceedings of: Second International Workshop on Sustainable Ultrascale Computing Systems (NESUS 2015). Krakow (Poland), September 10-11, 2015.The long tail of science using HPC facilities is looking nowadays to instant available HPC Clouds as a viable alternative to the long waiting queues of supercomputing centers. While the name of HPC Cloud is suggesting a Cloud service, the current HPC-as-a-Service is mainly an offer of bar metal, better named cluster-on-demand. The elasticity and virtualization benefits of the Clouds are not exploited by HPC-as-a-Service. In this paper we discuss how the HPC Cloud offer can be improved from a particular point of view, of automation. After a reminder of the characteristics of the Autonomic Cloud, we project the requirements and expectations to what we name Autonomic HPC Clouds. Finally, we point towards the expected results of the latest research and development activities related to the topics that were identified.The work related to Autonomic HPC Clouds is supported by the European Commission under grant agreement H2020-6643946 (CloudLightning). The CLoudLightning project proposal was prepared by eight partner institutions, three of them as earlier partners in the COST Action IC1305 NESUS, benefiting from its inputs for the proposal. The section related to Autonomic Clouds is supported by the Romanian UEFISCDI under grant agreement PN-II-ID-PCE-2011- 3-0260 (AMICAS)

Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural-Psychological Analysis of Tobacco Use

This theoretical dissertation explores tobacco use from the perspectives of social constructivism and phenomenological depth psychology. In Part I, tobacco use is described as a cultural artifact, and transformations in tobacco use are traced through three different cultural contexts or worlds : the indigenous or aboriginal worldview, the European and American worldview of the 17th through mid-19th centuries, and the modern American worldview (or modernity ). In each of these worldviews, the cultural context informed and influenced (or reflected and reproduced) understandings of tobacco use. One notices the transformation of tobacco use, for example, from a god to a commodity and from a panacea to a pandemic. In modern American culture, tobacco use, through cigarette smoking, now stands out as a leading cause of preventable death. While most psychological schools of thought advance explanations and therapies for tobacco use based on their respective guiding assumptions, the author proposes that tobacco use is not a disease to be treated or cured, but is a symptom of the cultural frame of technology. Accordingly, in Part II, tobacco use is interpreted as a cultural-psychological symptom. As a cultural-psychological symptom, tobacco use both reveals and conceals the cultural psyche, and shows that when things of the world are reduced to commodities, our relatedness changes. The type of relatedness in the technological context becomes addiction, and the consequence of this relatedness is death. Yet, within the technological context of the modern world is the possibility of a different framework, one of poiesis. The movement towards the cultivation of poiesis, through psychological reflection, is discussed

Third way urban policy and the new moral politics of community: a comparative analysis of Ballymun in Dublin and the Gorbals in Glasgow

Whilst Third Way Urban Policy (TWUP) often associates itself with a kind of anarchic vision of self-regulating and self-reproducing local communities, it can in fact be thought of as a thinly veiled moral crusade targeted towards vulnerable residents in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Sustainable communities are defined as those who can stand on their own two feet within the terms set down by neo-liberal market economics. When these morally charged crusades fail to connect locally, they have the potential to stir local conflict over who has the authority to judge forms of community life. As third way urban regeneration rolls out across capitalist cities, mapping and accounting for the uneven development of moral conflicts over community is a pressing concern. Focusing upon the ongoing regeneration of two of Europe's most famous social housing estates- Ballymun in north Dublin and the Gorbals in central Glasgow - this paper presents a comparative analysis of the different ways in which moral disputes over community have surfaced in these two neighbourhoods. On the bases of an analyses of both the localisation of TWUP and the prior biographies of both estates, the nature of conflict is shown to be contingent upon who has ownership of the local social capital agenda

The Democratic School: First to serve, then to lead

Today there has been a shift in the organizational structure in our schools (Murphy and Seashore Louis, 1999). These include educational leadership shifts in roles, relationships, and responsibilities; the alteration of traditional patterns of relationships; and the fact that authority tends to be less hierarchical. Senge (1990) believes systems that change require a variety of leadership types at different times in organizational development. As schools move toward democratization, it appears that servant-leadership may be one such vehicle for possible systems change, within educational organizations. Servant-leadership is not a panacea. It is a transformational, democratic form of leadership that requires time to implement and to provide abundant opportunities to involve all members of the learning community. The following paper will present the theoretical framework of servant-leadership, a concept identified by Robert K. Greenleaf in his seminal work, The Servant as Leader (1970/1991), and link servant-leadership to current literature on democratic schools. The paper will conclude with suggestions for the sustainable development of servant-leadership in the educational milieu.