The power of organised individuals

What can a person do to change businesses? Carrotmob brings one alternative. Check it out!

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

Love is important, damn it!

A few months ago, a lonely graffitter wrote on a wall in Sao Paulo: Love is important, damn it!

It turned out it became a viral urban intervention movement. Various artists and citizens joined the idea and we could see the love burst everywhere in the city.

When photographer Fábio Candeias tried to register the collective feeling, though, he captured a lot more.

Picture taken at Consolação Avenue.
Source: InternetCidade

Cultural Revolutionaries - Independence Declaration

The more I think about my lifestyle and how life in general should look like, the more I value cooperation, diversity and ecology - and the more I notice other people, movements and organisations searching for the same. In this direction, my great friend Marcelo (Dad of my beautiful god daughter Luna) recently found an insightful declaration available online. Check it out!

This is an open experiment.
A putting in words of what is already in the air.
The more this declaration is being read, thought or spoken out, the more its energy will manifest in our world and in our society.
If what is written here resonates with you, make it your statement.
Find ways to read it, share it and put it into action.

DECLARATION OF CULTURAL REVOLUTIONARIES 2009

Cultural revolutionaries in 2009…

_live, act, work with and not against nature
_know that life is too complex to understand it intellectually
_build and support local, self-governed economies
_value and safe-guard diversity of all kind
_value interdependence, since they know that nothing is separate
_regard themselves as equal to all life forms
_protect and support life
_love and support children unconditionally
_work on themselves towards greater awareness
_know about ecological principles and integrate them into their lifes
_see music and dance as an integral part of their expression and communication
_live on an animate earth and regard it as sacred
_know how to grow their own food
_appreciate their sensory awareness
_celebrate life
_cooperate
_make the shift from thinking ‘either, or’ to thinking ‘as well, as’
_share their knowledge
_understand and integrate process as a way of being
_are not identified with their body, thoughts or emotions
_see the mind as a tool
_realize that there is no right or wrong
_are not identified with any social tag, their past or their future
_are aware that the very essence of who they are is life itself
_take responsibility for their emotions
_are aware of and value their relationships to their living and seemingly non-living surroundings
_value and integrate the wisdom of women
_value and integrate the wisdom of indigenous cultures
_value generalist knowledge
_are aware of change as one of the core principles of evolution
_work towards diversification and decentralization
_engage in and create bonds to the place where they live
_turn from dependent consumers to responsible producers
_are looking for ways so that their interests and talents may unfold
_have the courage to resist and disobey laws that render self-rule, self-provisioning, and self-sustenance illegal
_are informed about the current money system and identify it as a contemporary form of enslavement
_identify and boycott biological, cultural, social and philosophical monocultures
_boycott monopolies of any kind
_question everyone who promotes one solution
_value environmental and human ethics over profit maximization
_reclaim land and forests as common good
_reclaim water as common good
_reclaim biodiversity and knowledge as common good
_are aware that they participate in the process of co-creation at all time
_allow life to unfold through them

Berlin, 03/2009

Source: culturalrevolutionaries.org

Earth Hour

Your action can trigger many others

On March 28th, swich off the lights at 8:30 p.m. for 1 hour

Maybe host your neighbours and friends for a conversation about global warming.

More: http://www.earthhour.org

Green Grannies

Grannies are globally known for being kind, generous, patient, wise... and for making the most out of resources.

Acknowledging all those characteristics are more than necessary these days, Oxfam launched the Green Grannies initiative as part of the Good Ideas Unltd campaign.

Through their website, we can learn how to cook a delicious meal out of leftovers, how to repair our favourite pair of socks and how not to waste energy. Meanwhile, we can remember our precious moments with our Grannies and perhaps save some money for kindly surprising somebody.

Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence.


Yesterday, I joined Bicicletada, a group of people passionate about cycling, who ride in São Paulo and in other cities for pleasure and as a means of transportation, with no one leader. As they ride, they question why bikers don’t have the same rights as drivers to come and go, once taking certain streets and roads can be dangerous or even prohibited, even though everybody knows cyclers use a lot less space and don’t emit greenhouse gases.

In this context, the idea was to go from São Paulo to Santos by bike, so we could swim in the ocean after the effort of accomplishing the 80km journey. The plan attracted about 200 cyclers and started early in the morning.

Unfortunately, the police didn’t allow us to pass the 41st km, claiming they were concerned about the group’s safety and that the tunnels are not prepared to receive walkers and bikers.

As negotiation continued, my frustration gave way to the satisfaction of being part of a civil disobedience movement. Everybody from the group kept talking, bringing up the arguments, always with respect and determined not to cause any violence. The police was as peaceful and patient.

We ended up needing to come back to São Paulo without swimming in Santos’ sea. But the media, the company that takes care of the road and even the police seemed to have understood and even agreed with the importance of the discussion.

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Leaving from São Paulo


My friends and I


Stopped by the police for the first time