The other day I picked the 2012 issue of Common Ground magazine, and the first large ad was for a Transformational Story conference, February 4, 2012 in Los Angeles. It caught my attention because Aaron and I have been deep in the storytelling world for several years now.  While we enjoy stories in general, given the time we live in, our focus has been stories that teach, stories of change and growth, stories that support the shift that is already occurring.  Our focus is transformational stories and especially those that are magnetic for young people.

The event is produced by GATE, the Global Alliance of Transformational Entertainment, which was founded by John Raatz in 2009 and now opening up to membership at the February event. Jim Carrey and other celebrities have been on board since the beginning.

GATE is an evolving community of creative, business and technical professionals in entertainment, media, and the arts, who realize the vital and expanding role media and entertainment play in creating our lives, and who aspire to consciously transform those domains for the benefit of all.

GATE is a nonprofit 501c(6) membership trade association providing valuable and relevant knowledge, resources and services to a wide range of professionals in the media, entertainment and arts industries, to aid in their personal transformation and to help them create and distribute content that expresses their transformational worldview.

BALANCE Edutainment is all about transformational entertainment.  We are using story, music and celebrity to encourage kids to become superheros in their community.  We have been looking for a means to distinguish our work from what Sesame Street does. We see our work as being within a cultural context that in the process of shifting and as supporting the shift to a higher level of collective consciousness.  Our content generally helps its audience better understand and navigate relationships with one self, others and nature.

Butterflies are Beautiful

I like butterflies.  One of the songs on our new Pacha’s Pajamas: A Musical Story Written By Nature EP features master lyricist Talib Kweli rapping from the perspective of a butterfly. The butterfly is often offered as a metaphor for how human society among other things could evolve. Thinking in this context, Bucky Fuller’s words comfort me “There is nothing in the caterpillar that tells you its going to be a butterfly.” Perhaps there is hope for us after all even if I don’t always see it.

If you are interested in learning more about the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, check out the metamorphosis lessson at Butterfly School. Prior to entering the chrysalis, the caterpillar pigs out, consuming many times its body weight in food (leaves and fruit). The type of plant they eat depends on the species of caterpillar; many species will only eat one type of plant their entire lives.  After five stages of molting (i.e., shedding their old skin to reveal their new larger skin), the caterpillar sheds its skin once more only to find itself within its chrysalis. Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar loses its form. New and different cells begin to appear. They are called imaginal cells. They resonate at a different frequency from the caterpillar cells. The immune system of the caterpillar attacks the new cells, but the new cells continue to appear in an accelerating rate, eventually overwhelming the caterpillar’s immune system.  The new cells begin to form groups, which resonate at a different frequency. The groups continue growing an expanding until at one point the former caterpillar realizes it is a butterfly.

The metaphor relates people to imaginal cells.  Yes, you probably are an imaginal cell if you are reading this.  Groups of change agents are then groups of imaginal cells.  Since I first heard the metaphor, I have been thinking about what the analog for “a group of imaginal cells resonating at a different frequency” might be.

One way to think about it is that the human analog of the imaginal cells resonance is our guiding story (or worldview).  We appear different to the System if our guiding story about who we are are, how we got here and where we are going is different from the norm. To the extent that our guiding story manifests differently than others, the System attempts to suppress what it sees as troubling aspects of us. The human analog for groups of imaginal cells is then people coming together around a common story, creating a group of change agents that share a common narrative, a new story for humanity.

We are looking forward to meeting and crafting new stories with our imaginal sisters and brothers in the GATE community.

Join Our Virtual Caravan

BALANCE is headed to Los Angeles in early February for the Transformational Story event.  We’d love to connect with other Northern California organizations focusing on transformational entertainment, and to have a strong presence from Northern Cali at the Transformational Story conference. We are also open to collaboration, especially around music, young people and pop culture. Contact dave (at) balanceedutainment.com.