William Now, a member of the Wiser community, believes we can’t create meaningful change outside ourselves unless we nurture and strengthen resources from within. In his own words, read on to “hear” why William is doing this work and what he thinks is in it for our community.

What Physical/Emotional/Social Tools Do You Need to Thrive In Our Changing World?

That’s the title of a survey offered by The Conscious Gardener William Now.

He’s spent many years working with tools and resources that do that.  Now he’s building a support system to provide these tools, along with a daily practice to encourage our efforts. William has created a survey to help him zero in on what would be most helpful to “we”, the members of this community.  And it will also help you make a self-assessment of what you need to support yourself and the planet.  To participate in the survey, click here.

Now, read on for more from William himself.

William is a WiserEarth member working on his own project called The Conscious Gardener.

This is a unique and gifted community. Its members demonstrate a level of personal growth, integrity, intelligence, and global awareness that I deeply appreciate. It also exposes me to people from many backgrounds. That broadens my perspective. I want to collaborate with you amazing people.

Like many of you, I’ve done a lot of environmental and social activism in my lifetime.  I’ve worked on the Endangered Species Act, urban smart growth, climate change, marriage rights, GMOs, etc. As I’ve “faced off” with the folks “over there” on the “other side” of many an ideological divide, I’ve realized that most people aren’t trying to be obstinate or even oppositional.  What is confounding our cooperative forward movement is this fact: far too many of us have a fundamental disconnect between our relationship with nature and our relationship with ourselves. Many folks simply can’t relate to and understand issues about nature.

Many people have no direct physical connection with nature and don’t understand their vital interdependence with its diversity and its health.  And at the personal level, most people have lost touch with the fact that our very own bodies, minds, and emotions are wired to nature–and are endowed with nature’s intuition, wisdom, and creative powers.  Many of us are in our heads and out of our bodies… losing touch with our emotional and spiritual wisdom.  This makes it easier for us to ignore that small voice that tells us what really matters in life

The support system I’m building focuses on perceptions, beliefs, and wonderful physical/mental/emotional/communication practices that help us to connect and nurture both the nature inside us and the natural world around us.  I’ve chosen to call this support system The Conscious Gardener. I visualize conscious gardeners practicing a daily “yoga” that cultivates both their own “inner” garden as well as the shared “outer” garden of society and nature.

I believe there is an army of people out there with the passion and courage to face our environmental and social challenges.  Many are overwhelmed by the gravity of these challenges, as well as by a disempowering guilt that they are not “saving the world.”  I believe we need to “retool” our beliefs so we can approach these challenges without guilt or overwhelm.  And we need to develop practical surviving and thriving skills.

I am aiming to create a very organic “face” and function to the website so that people want to engage because it plugs into the rhythm of their daily life. It will also provide practical exercises or activities to reach out to your daily life, and beyond, to your connections with others.

Most of my life has been an accumulation of skills and experiences that were an unknown preparation for my creation of The Conscious Gardener. Now, over the past year, I’ve been building content for the website to bring this process to those who are interested.

It will take much personal time and investment to support this venture.  So I want to look to the Natural Capitalism experts in this community to help me design a subscription-based compensation model that supports me financially and also supports the values of Natural Capitalism. Soon, I will start a WE forum to solicit your feedback and creative wisdom.  Perhaps it can be the start of many models that support Natural Capitalism values and the entrepreneurial efforts of some of you “conscious gardeners” out there.

Next Steps & How You Can Help

  • Join my Wiser Network and be notified of upcoming developments and opportunities. (Be patient. There is hard work ahead for me.)

With gratitude and excitement about our future together,

William Now

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