Dear friends!  We are in the home stretch of the film.  I am now editing like crazy, hoping to have the film mixed by the end of July, and in film festivals by either this fall or early winter next year.   It's the end of a twelve year journey for me, which began with Scared Sacred, continued with Fierce Light and is now culminating with what we are now calling Occupy Love (stay tuned - we'll decide on the final title once the film is complete!)  We'll keep you posted individually as the rewards become available.  Visit the new website at http://www.occupylove.org to see the newest video and keep up to date with the project. 

In Love and Service

Velcrow Ripper

WATCH THE VIDEO UPDATE HERE 

Another new character in the film will be Angaanaq, a teacher and shaman from Greenland, who writes, "climate change is not something out there.  It is right here, in your heart." www.icewisdom.com

www.evolvelovelive.com  

"I once asked a bird, 'how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness?'
She replied: 'Love lifts me." ~ Hafiz

Dear Kickstarter Backers!

Happy Evolutionary Valentines Day! I want to thank you all again so much for your love and support. I'm back from the climate summit in Mexico, and am spending the next few months in the edit room, cutting the material we've gathered so far, and preparing for principal photography this summer.

As a special Valentines gift, I’d like to share with you a short video I've just completed, called "ZEN LOVE." It's the fourth in a series of "Evolve Love Stories" we're releasing during the production of EVOLVE LOVE, and features the wisdom of Roshi Joan Halifax, founder of the Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico.

Many of the images of love that we're bombarded with in the media, especially on Valentines Day, are extremely limited or commercialized. Real love is not sentimental, it is not 'luv.' It is so much more than that, as I am learning in the process of creating EVOLVE LOVE.

WATCH THE VIDEO NOW

I hope you enjoy Zen Love. If you do, please share it!

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3 DAY EVOLVE LOVE RETREAT WITH VELCROW RIPPER, JAMES O'DEA and SEQOUYAH TRUEBLOOD
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JUNE 3-6 Lama Foundation, New Mexico

I'm thrilled to be returning to the gorgeous Lama Foundation in New Mexico this summer. Please join me for a three day retreat at this sustainable retreat center and intentional community in the hills overlooking the Rio Grande. Last year's SHINE YOUR FIERCE LIGHT retreat was one of the most powerful and moving teaching experiences of my life.

I'll be joined again by James O'Dea, former head of the SEVA Foundation and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, along with Choctaw Medicine Man, Seqouyah Trueblood. The three day retreat brings us on an experiential journey into the themes of the Fierce Love Trilogy: SCARED SACRED - transforming crisis into possibility; FIERCE LIGHT - bringing together spirituality and action; and EVOLVE LOVE: awakening the personal and global heart in a time of planetary crisis.

There's an early bird special until mid-April, so please register soon! Learn more here

“A truly inspiring and affirming experience. The openness and compassion you brought to the workshop created room to explore and express with complete freedom. A week later, I am still glowing with the impact. I know this experience will be one I carry close to my heart for a long time. I feel empowered with very tangible tools to carry forward on my journey.”
- Beth Warian, retreat participant

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WELCOME TO OUR NEW INTERNS!
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EVOLVE LOVE would like to welcome our two new interns - Melodi Cowan and Damien Bouchard. Melodi, based in San Francisco, will be working on the social media, website and blogging dimensions of the Fierce Love Project. Read her first blog on the Evolve Love website. Damien will be focused on the post-production side of things, and is a film student in Vancouver, Canada. Check out his latest short film "Running With Giants."

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CHECK OUT EVOLVE LOVE LIVE
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Visit our new website for a great way to interact and stay up to date with the project, and join in the process. And please take a moment the EVOLVE LOVE facebook group, and follow me on twitter!

Thank you all for your love and support as we continue the process of creating EVOLVE LOVE! Stay tuned - we're excited to share the journey with you. In theaters 2012!

Love is the movement.

- Velcrow Ripper

EVOLVE LOVE: Love in a Time of Climate Crisis
www.evolvelovelive.com

Dear Friends:

It's been an amazing, exhausting, and incredibly productive couple of weeks of filming at the Cancun Climate Summit!

It was touch and go, but thankfully, this vital process is still alive. There were three possible outcomes insiders were predicting here at Cancun - stagnation, trainwreck or fragile life line. We got the life line. In the wee hours of the morning, on the last day of the talks, a consensus - minus the vocal opposition of Bolivia - was reached. The gavel banged, and the UN representatives and NGO's roared their applause. No one is calling the deal perfect - it's definitely a compromise. But getting the worlds nations to come to any kind of a massive agreement like this is an incredible achievement. Bolivia points to the lack of teeth in the deal, to the ambiguity around the future of the Kyoto Protocol, and the fact the 100 billion dollar climate finance package is intended to be administered by the World Bank, which is indeed problematic. World Bank funded mega projects are infamous for degrading the environment, and crippling developing nations with debt in a strategic and controlling maneuvers. We definitely should not be giving that fox the keys to the chicken shack.

But these issues will be up for continuing discussion next year in Durban, and the process has definitely rebounded from the calls of backroom deals and lack of transparency of the last COP in Copenhagen, which left the whole process in a shambles. Concerted efforts were made to ensure transparency, and while there still huge imbalances of power between rich and poor nations- there has been real progress in making the process more just. The UN isn't perfect, but it's the best we've got, and it's a step in the right direction, as humanity comes together to tackle the greatest challenge we have ever faced.

As I immersed myself in the world of climate change here in Cancun, it became less and less an abstract issue. I found myself looking straight into the eyes of people on the frontlines of climate catastrophe - like the beautiful people of Kiribati, who's island nations are in danger of drowning due to rising sea levels. "For us, it is more than a loss of land that's at stake - it's a loss of our very identity." They performed their songs during one poignant side event. Particularily moving was the "Song of the Frigate", written years before they knew of sea level rise or global warming, this prophetic song tells of a frigate bird that leaves their island home of Kiribati in search of food for her young, only to find, upon her return, that the island has disappeared beneath the sea. The haunting refrain "rise up, rise up Kiribati" brought tears to my eyes.

As Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, told me in a powerful interview - climate change isn't something that's happening to future generations anymore. It's happening now. It's one huge global experiment, and none of the scientists predicted it would start unravelling this fast.

My search, as always, is for the stories of hope - the love stories as I'm calling them in EVOLVE LOVE: Love in a Time of Climate Crisis. And I certainly found them here in Cancun. The sheer diversity of the people stepping up to the plate to take action, to recognize the gravity of the situation, and the willingness to step across political, economic and cultural divides is astounding. There are global alliances of grass roots groups like Tck Tck Tck, representing millions of people. There are indigenous people marching side by side with campesinos, with workers, with NGO's and, dancing to their solar powered beat box, the inevitable gaggle of well intentioned hippies who seem to be able to dance endlessly. There are scientists, there are remarkable statesmen, and there are remarkable presidents, who are stepping into their calling in this time of great crisis.

The indigenous President Evo Morales of Bolivia is the most vocal of them all, and also the lone world leader to leave the compound of the Moon Palace, to address the people on the outside. It was a beautiful moment when he took the stage at La VIa Campesina, under a hail of white flower petals, as a double rainbow appeared in the sky overheard. As Ofelia Rivas, O’dham, co-chair of the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples at the Cochabamba, told RedRoadCancun, “As grassroots people, we needed to hear that strength in his voice. The strength of the people was confirmed by the double full rainbow when President Morales arrived.”

What became clear is that while we absolutely need these talks at the nation state level, we also can't wait around - there is no time to lose. Change needs to begin, from the bottom up, all over the world. City by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, we need to make the transition to a carbon free future happen ourselves. The gathering at COP 16 was yet another stepping stone towards the formation of the groundswell that needs to happen if we're going to turn the corner on this one. THe solutions need to come from every corner, from every walk of life. The wonderful thing is that the transition does not mean a life style downgrade… in fact, what's best for the planet, is also best for humanity. ANd what if all this global warming talk is just a big hoax - and we end up creating a sustainable world, with stronger communities, local economies, fresh air, fresh water and healthy ecosystems, all for nothing? Hmmmm.

Thank all again so much for your support, and for joining me on this journey!

*LOVE*
Velcrow

View the full photo set here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/evolvelove/sets/72157625525047794/

Dear Community Film Producers...

I hope you're all well! It's been a busy, intense week of shooting so far here in Cancun at the Climate Summit. I've conducted some great interviews, and gathered some wonderful footage.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing BIll McKibben, the founder of www.350.org Bill was one of the early "Paul Reveres" of the climate crisis, and his organization has helped launch a global movement of movements to combat the crisis, which is taking off around the world. The recent 10.10.10 day of action, which we filmed, was the largest global action in history, and last weeks eARTh project, in which massive human created art pieces about the climate crisis were created, that could be best seen from satellites, was the largest global art project in history. 350 is all about scaling it up, making it big. Bill told me that "Art needs to be much more important in movement building. We can't just appeal to the cerebral cortex - we need to bring in the spirit, the heart. It's a cultural fight as much as it's a political fight. We need to create a zeitgeist around the climate crisis." That's the whole point of EVOLVE LOVE!

Today was a day of action for the youth. Wearing t-shirts that said, "you've been negotiating all my life. You can't tell me that you need more time," the youth spread out across the venues to get their message across. The youth that have gathered here - over 1,000 of them - are a presence that needs to be heard, and respected. As Ethan Case, a youth delegate from SustainUS told me, "most of these negotiators will be dead before the full effects of climate change will hit us. We'll still be here!"

Japan is talking about scrapping the Kyoto Accord, which is itself inadequate, but at least much more potent than the watered down Copenhagen Accord, which many developed countries hope will supplant it. This prompted the Youth to hold a demonstration that featured a large heart, wearing t-shirts that say, "I love Kyoto", bearing placards saying, "don't break up" and "true love means commitment" and singing, "all you need is love!" Lots of great love footage for Evolve Love!

Another vocal and passionate presence that I've been following here are the stories of the people of the Small Island States - countries like the Seychelles, who will face "the end of history" if global temperatures continue to rise, causing sea levels to rise. Their entire nations will be submerged. As Ronny Jumeau, the UN Ambassador from the Seychelles, told me, in a haunting interview, "we will not stop shouting - even as we sink into the ocean you will hear our voices rising with the air bubbles." These states are the "miner's canaries" - taking action to save them, now, will ultimately save us all.

These small states are stirring up trouble here at COP 16, with their loud voices, and their refusal to settle for a deal that will allow anything more than a 1.5 % rise in temperature - or 350 ppm of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.

Another important story line I've been following, is the emergence of a global, indigenous climate change movement. Today a group of indigenous representatives from around the world gathered in front of the Moon Palace, the main venue, in a moving ceremony, demanding that the United Nations to listen to their voices, to include them at the table, to recognize that their wisdom is needed.

Casey Camp-Horinek, from the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, dressed in turquoise blue, finished with a prayer, which in part said, "We're asking that the United Nations open it's heart, so that this heart can receive the blessings and the understandings of the creator and the earth mother, so that the United Nations will understand how to go forward in a way that is harmonic with all that is."

My prayer is that we all open our hearts, that we learn that the heart is as important as the head, and that we bring them into harmony, so we can call upon our fullness to address this unprecedented crisis. We're going to need everyone at the table, from the scientists to the indigenous peoples, from the negotiators to the activists, from the young to the old, from the rich to the poor, acting together, in harmony, to solve this problem. We need to stop our "silo" thinking, and move towards integrated, full systems ways of understanding and acting. The climate crisis is so great, so challenging, that we are being urgently called to unite as a human family, to come together with our utmost creativity and energy to tackle the greatest problem humanity, in our short history on earth, has ever faced. A planet, united, will never be defeated.

Thank you again so much for bringing me here!
*Love*
Velcrow

Here is the video footage of Casey Camp-Horinek's "Prayer for the United Nations"