Category: Project Four
Project Four
Project Four: Process Reflection
- Project report title: Project Four: A Hero Finds Her City
- Summarize how and why you organized this Project Output as presented (Reflect on your design, process, method and purpose): A character sheet reinforces the “real life platform” game I play as a superhero. Many varied activities can be focused into a catalogue that motivates me to do more, and then feedback about how I’m doing over a longer period of time, in this case 20 weeks.
- How did this process go? I found it was helpful to have a central point to keep checking back in with, even when it felt like I wasn’t doing anything or contributing or being productive, I could go to my character sheet and think, “A-ha! I’ve been raising chickens for 3 weeks. Now they’re outside, eating compost, fertilizing, and being awesome! I think I can add a skill point to soil-building. And also, animal communication! Stacking functions, yes!!” Parts of me want to pull away from the silliness of the tights and cape, but I continue to find such a deep resonance in my work, and it seems to integrate into everything else I want to do. The character sheet helps me keep grounded even while I’m playing.
- What did you learn? I learned I want to incorporate everything all the time. There is a great need for focus, and to consciously limit the area of activity. I tend to take on more responsibility than I can handle. This sheet helps me keep track of what I am capable of, and how to get just to the edge and go a little beyond. Small and slow solutions, after all. I learned about participation, pattern, and risk. For more, see the skill points.
- What tools did you use (An explanation of the technical side of creating this project report. What software did you use? What digital literacy was required to put this together)? The sheet is hand drawn on a posterboard. I used markers and ink to update it. The report came through my phone-robot and my lap-robot working together with my fingers.
- Did you find any people or tutorials particularly useful in creating this project report? Creation Flame, Superhero Training Academy, Avatarism.
- How much time did you spend in creating this project report? The project report itself was created in under 8 hours.
- How well have did you showcase your learnings in this project report? Would you consider this project report satisfactory if it was prepared by another person? I can definitely see an improvement from past projects. When it was time, it presented itself and I worked to complete it. I would be really stoked to see someone else’s character sheet and how they track their own progress.
9. Any final reflections on your pathway integration and development? Project Four feels like a hump. It took me twice as long as originally anticipated. But that extra time allowed me to dig in, grow some roots, really put a lot of effort and focus into one place. The place I’ve found is central to the designs, because I operate according to my environment. I would like next time to do more 2D design work on paper. A lot of what I do now is intuitive, and teasing the design and process out of my brain continues to be elusive, and helped by the incorporation of symbols.
Project Four: Character Sheet
This is a character sheet I made at Creation Flame’s Empowerment Retreat at the beginning of January. Besides breaking a board and an arrow, we created sheets that could track the progress of our “Avatars.”
At the top of mine, I wrote the maxim of a designer I have enormous respect and appreciation for. His wholistic goal is, “To be of maximum benefit to the most creatures for the longest time possible with minimum effort.”
Headquarters: Superhero Rootquarters (aka The Dead End)
Team members: Twin Beloved, Mr. Sirius, Nova Love, Jasper, WarriorHealerCircusYogi, Doc
Superpowers I Discovered
+organizing space (rearranging and accessibilizing tools, books, jars,
recyclables, furniture, spices, dishes, resources)
+ shapeshifting (assuming and adapting to responsibilities and expectations)
+ star reading (tracking the biodynamic constellations in calendars and comparing to the StarWalk app)
+ tonal spirit (fancy name for ukulele playing)
+ sleeping anywhere (makes traveling easier, well rested member!)
+ play (the first power any hero learns)
Short Term Missions:
+ 30 Day Rootquarter Reorganize
+Dead End House Meeting
+Code Compliant Fence
+April Theme: Play!
Long Term Missions:
+Learn about & practice harvesting livestock
+Co-teach PDC April 27-May 12
+Permaculture Design Flow April 5-7
+Himalayan Support Member
Skill Points Breakdown:
(Here is a standard for the effort it takes to obtain a skill point, my first point was in soil building, a 3 berm hugelkulture)
Trust & Respect: 10
Permaculture Ethics & Principles: 6
Design & Mapping: 7
Teaching & Facilitation: 9
Building & Carpentry: 6
Herbalism: 5
Chi & Energy: 7
Soil Building: 8
Physical Vocabulary: 8
Graphic Design: 2
Superheroing: 6
Compassionate Communication: 7
Animal Communication: 7
Open Book Financing: 3
Spanish: 5
Bike Mechanics: 2
Total: 98
I also kept track of other heroes who inspired me in each of the four Energies as Virtues (Thanks Superhero Training Academy for this teaching!) :
Joy: Power of the Heart
I see in my friends Shabd’ji, Sugar, and Paige
Fortitude: Inner Strength
I see in my friends WarriorHealerCircusYogi , Adam, and Sam
Wisdom: All Eyes Seeing
I see in my friends Wes, Sirius the Alchemist, and Lo’kee
Compassion: Service to Others
I see in my friends Story, Pyramid John, Ryan, and Jacob
Of course all my friends are inspiring, but I added these names after having a particular experience that resonated or left an impression. Thank you, heroes!!
Diploma Project:
At the end of this report, I will have completed 4 projects in just under a year. Yay!
Books Read:
+ Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz
+ Education of the Child by Rudolf Steiner
I only included those books which I read completely from cover to cover. Others referenced include:
+Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment by Rudolf Steiner
+ Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall
+ The Ayurvedic Cookbook by Amadea Morningstar
+ Taxes in America: What everyone needs to know by Leonard E. Burman
+ Raw Cookbook by ?????
+ Chapter 5: Natural Cycle by Wilderness Awareness School
+ Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual by Bill Mollison
+ Book of Beginnings by ?????
+ The New Alchemists by ???? (circa 1971)
See what some of this means by looking at some pictures
Or read about the reflection
Project Four: A Hero Finds Her City
Batman has Gotham, Superman has Metropolis, Green Arrow has Star City. As fantastic as the colorful heroes of our comics appear, equal is the depth of their connection to their homes – cities of citizens, both powerful and powerless, tapestries of alignment, both good and evil, lawful and chaotic.
Their paths take them on fractal lines of interaction with their allies and shadows, evolving through the richness of satisfaction from embodying a genuine, personal ethic that is tied to a cape.
My avatar, Bright Sky, she who appreciates the many forms of the same essence, resides in the 3D world of Austin, Texas.
Austin is a city of heroes.
And surely, anytime there is a gathering of heroes, those villians who would wound the light are attracted to the magnetic anomalies of peace and harmony.
There is a Feng Shui strategy that recommends keeping 9 gold fish – one of them black, eight gold. If a fish dies, that means it has absorbed some bad chi that would otherwise have come into our household, our environment, our cities. Replace the fish to keep the number at 9.
And like the fish, we can hold up our own shadows to be sacrificed, and regenerate through our connection to the Source of our powers. That connection starts with the trust and respect of our families.
Because there are gardens to plant. There are whiteboards to fill. There are curries to cook. There is music to vibrate your rib cage and bike trails to fly down and wildflowers in red and blue. There is compost to make and turn and smell and seeds to start and smiles to trade and the crystals that will rock your vibratory essence throughout the entire resonant matrix of associations. There is that first leaf of green that yields a triumphant crunch after it makes its way, in less than a third of a second, from the roots in your soil to the palate of your tongue.
You are an honored member. Whether or not you wear a cape, you capture the ecstatic creative regenerative universal force and emit an equally powerful beacon.
I’m glad we’re in this together
Bonus! Awesome Left Handed Flow Chart!
