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On Sunday (Apr. 12/15) I invited, after some earlier conversations, Jan Sheppard and Madelainne K. Joss to the 'table' or you might say to the 'altar' to share our past, present and future relationship with In Search of Fearlessness Project. In particular, our focus was on the In Search of Fearlessness (Calgary) initiative, with ISOF Center and Community and Research Institute. It was good to do this in Calgary, AB, Canada, where it all began, and where I was born, and so many wonderful and difficult things happened in those years 1989-1999. There's so much to attempt to gather from what we shared, and I won't even begin it here. My purpose is to say it happened, and there was a real strong connection and understanding after that night that 'we' (at least the 3 of us) are joined-at-the-hip in terms of this experience and we are going to be in each others lives hereafter in a more significant way than we have been since the closing down of ISOF (Calgary) some 17 years ago.

We each are going to take the "spirit of fearlessness" forth, and continue the work of liberation, each in our own ways. We're not sure what forms that will take, but we feel the energy from all the ISOF (Calgary) happenings are still flowing and moving and bringing transformations in various ways, personally and globally. I was glad personally to be able to share with Jan and Mad. the most recent work I have been doing and how the shape of the Fearlessness Movement itself has been the larger umbrella of my energy and how I 'fit' in the ISOF (Calgary) project. It's all about expanding contexts and for each of us to get beyond our "me" picture of what ISOF was about, is about, and could be about. Who knows where another version of it may show up.

And on that brief introduction, let us know what you think, and if you'd like to be involved in future conversations, and most importantly check out the FORUM on this site to see some prompting questions where ISOFers can further dialogue and process on our relationships and whatever else we'd like to manifest. It's a beginning and I look forward to more people involved in the sharing.

I was just opening a page in my book The World's Fearlessness Teachings: A Critical Integral Approach to Fear Management/Education for the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010), and this is what I thought was worth quoting today re: ISOF Project (In Search of Fearlessness): 

"After ISOF's rise (1989) and fall (1999) as an organization, I had been researching and writing to figure out what went wrong: why did it collapse, at least, in its first community manifestation in Calgary, Alberta, Canada? This is not the first time in history (herstory) that various visionary leaders [like myself] have witnessed the painful collapse of a radical movement. Usually they follow that with a reflective incubation and exile. They attempt to think through and write about their theories of revolution once again, before they pass away. ISOF Project is still going strong--in spirit--in the spirit of fearlessness. I expect new forms will emerge in the future; its inevitable, no matter how much one sees Fear's Empire growing and dominating (e.g., post-9/11 era). That said, it gives one great moral strength to carry on a Tradition (still unrecognized), when one finds that other's have acknowledged the importance of fearlessness in our future and attempted to lead movements to make that known." (p. 172)

It is now 2015, and as I reflect on this passage, sitting in Calgary at the computer awaiting emails from people I put a 'call' out to here, there is a sense that a lot of folks have more or less folded into a practical (pragmatism philosophy of life) way to be. I'm still appreciative that we have to be pragmatic to survive, I should know as a person who has been underemployed and unemployed for 22 years or so. Yet, I am still a critical thinker not willing to fold under my essential rebel spirit (of fearlessness). I am still willing to lead this fearlessness movement in some form, somewhere.