THE ENERGY NODE PROJECT

• STRATEGY

This is a Global outreach project to participate in a common activity, then to document and communicate their experience with that activity. In the process it might give us a NEW perspective on our own experience! The strategy is to bring awareness to one’s “Self” through the discovery of “Otherness”.

• CONTEXT

Society is experiencing an evolutionary impulse to converge, to become a higher, more complex organism. The urgent need is to encourage a critical mass of the population to embark on a lifelong process of self-discovery and self-transformation, mindful of the Operating Principals in Universe.

Individual transformation is a self-realized evolutionary process of change within one’s lifetime. It begins by recognizing one’s “Self” as the source of eternal wisdom and infinite energy. “Doing Your Own Thinking” is, in effect, consciously responding to the phenomena we all possess called Intuition. Source energy can also be accessed and distributed by employing the torus energy field that originates in the Heart.

Because we can’t see, hear, touch, taste or smell Intuition we must use the phenomena of the Mind to observe influential patterning to detect it’s presence. Activities that are unfamiliar to us calls on our Intuition to appear. Once the experience of “Self” is observed, it’s possible to consciously increase the visibility and familiarity with “Self”. That requires a determination to “see” and a dedication to reduce self-imposed interfering noise called “beliefs”. Giving up beliefs, entering the unknown and embracing change becomes an empowering and regenerative process.

• WHAT/WHERE/HOW

The Energy Node Project is a World Traveling Exhibit/Workshop. It’s self-contained, lightweight and easy to handle... And it’s full of timeless “Treasures”. The activities are structured around the Isotropic Vector Matrix (best described in Synergetics, RBF). I have designed a size-independent and scale-independent, fractal based modeling system to explore and interact with the operational patterning of Universe. This modeling system is called “The Energy Node, Binary Building System”. It’s an extremely lightweight and remarkably strong building system that is comprised of only two repeating building elements; (1.) The Energy Node (connector) and (2.) The Space/Time Vector (tube).

The Energy Node Project contains two, kit-of-parts building systems to work with; (1.) 2” diameter paper mailing tube scale size with custom designed rigid polyurethane foam cast nodes, and (2.) 1/4” diameter paper drinking straw scale size with 3D printed ABS plastic nodes. Both are all-space-filling, Binary Building Systems.

The system’s “strength of geometry” allows it to be assembled without fasteners or gluing. Polyhedral structures can easily be unpacked, assembled, disassembled, packed up and shipped from Host to Host, many times. It’s the ULTIMATE tool for building a “Framework for Learning”. NO Qualifications necessary! This is Experience based learning.

• IMPACT

The Exhibit and Workshops will have a direct impact on the participants themselves. Detecting that influential behavior from within, and realizing that it will, undeniably, remain within them forever, is an astronomical shift in Thinking! From then on it becomes a matter of fine tuning the connection and increasing the frequency.

The model building experience is an essential tool for invoking Intuition. More importantly interacting with Isotropic Vector Matrix unlocks primordial intelligence. The Binary Building System is designed to make it inherently simple and “intuitive” to assemble. Interacting with the system is a sensational exercise that allows you to perceive the intelligence of the Energy Nodes as they demonstrate the ability to self-align, self-connect, self-correct and self-organize! Building structures is in our nature, that’s why it’s always an Energizing experience. Our “Self” becomes unrestrained and eager to PLAY! No instructional or language barriers exists, only shared experiences to learn from and reflect upon.

To fully appreciate all the “help” we receive from our “Self”, it’s important to document the experience and store the information for future reference. At first very little of the influential patterning will be identifiable, but as the patterning accumulates over time it become recognizable and retrievable.

• LONG-TERM EFFECT

Identifying the patterning integrity of one’s “Self” can manifest a more self-fulfilling and mind-full perception of one’s own environment. Being tuned-in to your own patterning integrity enables you to utilize the torus energy field that originates from the Heart. Over time your energy field can extend further and further out to Universe. The torus energy field is also the system that brings Universal Love and Regenerative Energy back into your Heart.

This model of consciousness moves away from an externally motivated, fear/survival based decision making process to an internally motivated, Love/Abundance, decision making process. The recognition of this “mystical” phenomena, “being able to change your own Thinking”, is Exuberance and Joy! Documenting these exciting experiences and sharing them from your Heart provides you with courageous motivation and sustainable energy.

Young adults are at a point in there lives when they begin to discover the pattern that, the Thinking they did as a child led them to this point in their lives now, and that the Thinking they do now will effect their lives in the future! While everyone benefits from this Global shift in consciousness, young adults that embrace this shift will display the most desirable long-term effects.

• HISTORY and VISION

Growing up I had a hard time reading and in general a hard time comprehending the subject matter. After my collage application was rejected I enlisted the U.S. Army as a path to continue my education. After a 3 1/2 year service in Stuttgart, Germany I was accepted into the USC School of Architecture program. To address my learning difficulties, I focused my (1984) 5th Year Thesis on “an in depth investigation into the learning process and how best to facilitate it”, this culminated in “The Los Angeles Center for Science and Learning”.

Shortly after graduating I had the great privilege to spend eight weeks (1984) at the RBF Institute in Los Angeles working on the World Livingry Shelter Project. I was deeply moved by Bucky’s initiative and his great devotion to documenting and preserving his 50 Year Experiment. So, “being naive”, in 1987 I declared publicly my intentions to repeat Bucky’s 50 Year Experiment.

After 25 years of accumulating information and documenting my experience, I am now dedicated to “Converting my experience to the highest advantage of others”. The Energy Node Project is a case history documentation of the Design Process from concept to reality.

• PLANNING and OPERATIONS

The Binary Building System’s kit-of-parts proof of concept has been established and all of the parts are fabricated. The visual presentation of the information and packaging is in development. A dedicated website will be a self-organizing and self-planning hub of inspiration, and a community platform to showoff one’s inner “Self”.

So far I’ve had the privilege to pursue/fund this passionately on my own. I can see that the mass and momentum of this project is reaching a critical mass to which I will inevitably release it to travel the World. The website will track the location and progress of the project. Pictures of people and places from around the World will be posted. People will be able to share their experience and connect with one another. Interested parties may contact the website to become a Host to the exhibit and facilitate the activities.

The Operations directives are; Sustainability and “Self”-Preservation. I’ll nurture the project as it grows until I find a path of least resistance for it to become self-sustaining. I will also continue to grow and adapt so I can meet all of the delightfully unknown challenges The Energy Node Project will surely bring.

• COMPARE and CONTRAST

The Energy Node Project is “Me” connecting with my inner ”Self” and expressing gratitude from my Heart for that connection. I’ve entered the second-half of my 50 Year Experiment and evolutionary impulses compel me to share this information. This is such a personal experience I can’t imagine comparing this to anything.

I became a participant in the 50 Year Experiment (1987-2037), not to become Bucky or to imitate him. I became a participant because it gave me the Freedom to “Do My Own Thinking”.  Bucky left many insightful gems and helpful hints on how to reorient your Thinking and give up the Out Dated Mechanistic World Views of Cartesian/Newtonian Science.

Over the past 27 years I’ve been relying more and more on this new way of Thinking. I am also becoming more and more aware of the importance my participation plays. I’m pretty sure I did it out of convenience, but for whatever reason I answered Bucky’s call and made my pledge public. It’s becoming clear to me now that my 50 Year Experiment is the second occurrence of this phenomena, and that it will only take ONE more participant to establish a Pattern of Integrity... (INSTANCE, COINCIDENCE, PATTERN).

• THE TEAM

The only team members, from the beginning, have been Karen A. Reeser (wife) and myself. Karen is the IT Operations Manager at National TeleConsultants in Glendale, CA. She is a brilliant systems manager, she supports all of my system applications and keeps me connected to the Internet so I can perform my Design Engineering Consulting Services. She’s also a Loving human being with whom I’ve been with for 27 years!

I anticipate that The Energy Node Project will expand beyond what the two of us are capable of managing, but I also think that we are more that capable of carefully monitor the initial progress of the project and qualified to establish a sustainable pattern of growth. We are “Designs for Science and Learning” and we are located in downtown Los Angeles, CA.

Please visit the website that I started building almost two years ago. The Energy Node Project is featured on the Home page, it documents the entire design process of the project. I have over 25 years of accumulated work to filter through and select out the significant for posting... so it’s a good thing I still have 23 more years to finish my 50 Year Experiment.

WE WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU HEARD ABOUT BUCKMINSTER FULLER AND THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER INSTITUTE. IF APPLICABLE, PLEASE SHARE HERE ANY PERSONAL NARRATIVE ABOUT YOUR FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH BUCKMINSTER FULLER’S WORK AND THE IMPACT IT HAS HAD ON YOUR CHOSEN AREA OF WORK.

I met Bucky briefly at the 1983 Earth Day Festival in Los Angeles, CA. Basically he just signed my copy of Critical Path. But, when he handed me my book back, Bucky look me right in the eye and gave me a BIG SMILE, and a funny (“hump”). Apparently that’s all it takes!

That was three weeks before Bucky passed away. I was a USC Architecture student working on my Thesis. His book “Education Automation” was a big influence in my research, but I had no idea how fascinating his Life was. Bucky’s passing brought the most wonderful stories of his Life to my attention.

A few months later I had the great privilege to spend eight weeks (1984) at the RBF Institute in Los Angeles. Sure, I thought it was a great opportunity and I jumped on it, but at the time it didn't really move me, “inside”, to the degree it does today! I guess it just felt natural!? What changed all that? The experience I had the few times I was allowed to enter the archival room. The door remained closed most of the time so when you entered the space you could feel the mustiness permeate the air. The first things you see are Models, models on desks, models in boxes, models high up on shelves. There were old tensegrity models made with light wooden dowels that had darkened to brown and most of the tension lines had lost their tension. There were large cardboard polyhedral models with more models stacked on them. There were open boxes stuffed full of rolled up drawings and larger drafting flat files filled with bound sets of drawings. And then... there was Bucky’s hand drawn sketches! Those sketches jumped right off the paper and straight into my brain, I could see the patterning instantly and I was mesmerized!

I wanted to find out more so I started to read Synergetics and consequentially I started building models and sketching polyhedrons. There was no doubt in my mind that Bucky was on to something and, as I told Allegra, reading Synergetics was like remembering my most earliest childhood memories. I was drawn to the metaphysical subject matter because it addressed all of the questions I had about why the World seemed to be so screwed-up, and he resolved them all with reason and compassion! There was no need for blame, or disgust, he simply provided a more efficient way to operate Spaceship Earth.

So, in 1987, at the age of 31, I reasoned that if Bucky’s 50 Year Experiment was truly a “Scientific Experiment”, then,surely, it MUST be repeatable. As “naive” as it sounds, I set out to do just that by publicly declaring my intention to repeat the 50 Year Experiment. The simple act of creating that document and sending it out into Universe changed my Thinking forever. I was emancipated from societal restrictions and I was FREE to “Do My Own Thinking” and really “Explore My Own Geometry of Thinking”.

I knew I didn’t want to just peal off from society and become a “starving artist”, but I didn’t want to pursue the “Money Game” Bucky warned us about. So I entered the work force to “earn my living”, not to make money but to position myself to learn the most I could about geodesic domes, space frame structures and the building industry in general. I had the great fortune to do just that. I learned the computer programs to build 3D CAD models and to create 3D environments, I learned the manufacturing process and got hands-on field experience on construction sites. One job took me to Shanghai, China for seven weeks to oversee the construction of a large swim stadium space frame vault!

As I passed the mid-point of my 50 Year Experiment I started becoming uncomfortably aware that all the problem solving systems Bucky detailed many years earlier where all now in place, like computers, social networks, YouTube! That’s the good news, the bad news is that there is NO evidence to indicate that our Thinking has changed... AT ALL! This discomfort led me to reexamine my own Thinking. Surprisingly, I thought I was doing my own Thinking by making my own way though knowledge and learning, but I found I was still chained to a desk... Not doing my own Thinking at all. All I was doing was getting really good at doing the wrong things.

A few years ago I reduced my consulting hours to the very minimum that I could get by on and I started Thinking!

I really took the time necessary to look inward. I wanted to address this “Intuition” that has been compelling me to draw funny little tetrahedrons. The funny thing is Intuition was right there when I called on it. I call it my “Self” for the lack of a better term. Through meditation and performing mind-full task like calligraphy and building models I have become more in-tune with my “Self”. Everyday I wake up and ask my “Self”, “what have you got for me today?”. Sometimes I will be drawn to the computer, sometimes I will be drawn to a paint brush or sketch pad.

One day I started sketching and very preliminary concepts for The Energy Node Project started to emerge. YES! These were the results I was looking for! It wasn’t like I was given instructions to draw something, the experience was more sensational, like running barefoot through a dewy grass field on an early Spring morning. It was a REAL experience!.. and right then I knew that I needed to start documenting the Design Process and capturing the experience. It hasn’t been a linear process at all. At first it seemed to be all over the place, but as I pay attention I am seeing that I “get what I need”. It’s just that our “Self” is WAY out ahead of us and knows what we need to Get Doing. Now, the Doing become a delightful enterprise of anticipation. Building layer upon layer, it continues to grow and form increasingly complex patterns of integrity. I’m also finding that there is almost nothing that is Not used. Each “divergent” path weaves itself back together in the most splendid fashion. It’s really a JOY to Think like this, there is nothing scary about it.  Just the opposite, the experience is Loving Knowledge of Abundance.

So this brings me to the Buckminster Fuller Institute 2014 Challenge... and I ask my "Self";

ME: “so "Self", What am I HERE for?”

SELF: “It's a MYSTERY!"

THANK YOU very much for listening to my story!

James B. Walters

Designs for Science and Learning

www.DSLStudio.com

WE AIM TO CREATE A RIGOROUS APPLICATION PROCESS FOR ENTRY TO THE FULLER CHALLENGE IN WHICH APPLICANTS GRAPPLE DEEPLY WITH OUR UNIQUE SET OF CRITERIA. WE ASK YOU TO MEASURE YOUR IMPACT AND WE WOULD LIKE TO MEASURE OURS. PLEASE SHARE ANY COMMENTS ON THE APPLICATION PROCESS ITSELF.

Thank you very much for this opportunity, this is a great privileged and I am very grateful.

The process itself was a remarkable experience for me. I find that being a participant in the 50 Year Experiment that I have keep most of this experience very close to my heart. 27 years into the experiment and NOW I’m feeling a tremendous evolutionary impulse to share this information. I had not prepared The Energy Node Project for this Challenge and up until a few weeks ago the project was going to be a 20’ tall, glued together, structure. Suddenly I saw it MORE as a kit-of-parts PLAYGROUND! Just as sudden I got the courage to inter the BFI 2014 Challenge, so metaphorically speaking, I closed my eyes and I began “Thinking Out Loud”. It was truly a wonderful and memorable experience. I thought the Application Questions were well placed and very thought provoking. Thank you for that, and I would like to thank every single person that read my application, it means a great deal to me. THANK YOU!

THE ENERGY NODE PROJECT

WE WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU HEARD ABOUT BUCKMINSTER FULLER AND THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER INSTITUTE. IF APPLICABLE, PLEASE SHARE HERE ANY PERSONAL NARRATIVE ABOUT YOUR FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH BUCKMINSTER FULLER’S WORK AND THE IMPACT IT HAS HAD ON YOUR CHOSEN AREA OF WORK.

I met Bucky briefly at the 1983 Earth Day Festival in Los Angeles, CA. Basically he just signed my copy of Critical Path. But, when he handed me my book back, Bucky look me right in the eye and gave me a BIG SMILE, and a funny (“hump”). Apparently that’s all it takes!

That was three weeks before Bucky passed away. I was a USC Architecture student working on my Thesis. His book “Education Automation” was a big influence in my research, but I had no idea how fascinating his Life was. Bucky’s passing brought the most wonderful stories of his Life to my attention.

A few months later I had the great privilege to spend eight weeks (1984) at the RBF Institute in Los Angeles. Sure, I thought it was a great opportunity and I jumped on it, but at the time it didn't really move me, “inside”, to the degree it does today! I guess it just felt natural!? What changed all that? The experience I had the few times I was allowed to enter the archival room. The door remained closed most of the time so when you entered the space you could feel the mustiness permeate the air. The first things you see are Models, models on desks, models in boxes, models high up on shelves. There were old tensegrity models made with light wooden dowels that had darkened to brown and most of the tension lines had lost their tension. There were large cardboard polyhedral models with more models stacked on them. There were open boxes stuffed full of rolled up drawings and larger drafting flat files filled with bound sets of drawings. And then... there was Bucky’s hand drawn sketches! Those sketches jumped right off the paper and straight into my brain, I could see the patterning instantly and I was mesmerized!

I wanted to find out more so I started to read Synergetics and consequentially I started building models and sketching polyhedrons. There was no doubt in my mind that Bucky was on to something and, as I told Allegra, reading Synergetics was like remembering my most earliest childhood memories. I was drawn to the metaphysical subject matter because it addressed all of the questions I had about why the World seemed to be so screwed-up, and he resolved them all with reason and compassion! There was no need for blame, or disgust, he simply provided a more efficient way to operate Spaceship Earth.

So, in 1987, at the age of 31, I reasoned that if Bucky’s 50 Year Experiment was truly a “Scientific Experiment”, then,surely, it MUST be repeatable. As “naive” as it sounds, I set out to do just that by publicly declaring my intention to repeat the 50 Year Experiment. The simple act of creating that document and sending it out into Universe changed my Thinking forever. I was emancipated from societal restrictions and I was FREE to “Do My Own Thinking” and really “Explore My Own Geometry of Thinking”.

I knew I didn’t want to just peal off from society and become a “starving artist”, but I didn’t want to pursue the “Money Game” Bucky warned us about. So I entered the work force to “earn my living”, not to make money but to position myself to learn the most I could about geodesic domes, space frame structures and the building industry in general. I had the great fortune to do just that. I learned the computer programs to build 3D CAD models and to create 3D environments, I learned the manufacturing process and got hands-on field experience on construction sites. One job took me to Shanghai, China for seven weeks to oversee the construction of a large swim stadium space frame vault!

As I passed the mid-point of my 50 Year Experiment I started becoming uncomfortably aware that all the problem solving systems Bucky detailed many years earlier where all now in place, like computers, social networks, YouTube! That’s the good news, the bad news is that there is NO evidence to indicate that our Thinking has changed... AT ALL! This discomfort led me to reexamine my own Thinking. Surprisingly, I thought I was doing my own Thinking by making my own way though knowledge and learning, but I found I was still chained to a desk... Not doing my own Thinking at all. All I was doing was getting really good at doing the wrong things.

A few years ago I reduced my consulting hours to the very minimum that I could get by on and I started Thinking!

I really took the time necessary to look inward. I wanted to address this “Intuition” that has been compelling me to draw funny little tetrahedrons. The funny thing is Intuition was right there when I called on it. I call it my “Self” for the lack of a better term. Through meditation and performing mind-full task like calligraphy and building models I have become more in-tune with my “Self”. Everyday I wake up and ask my “Self”, “what have you got for me today?”. Sometimes I will be drawn to the computer, sometimes I will be drawn to a paint brush or sketch pad.

One day I started sketching and very preliminary concepts for The Energy Node Project started to emerge. YES! These were the results I was looking for! It wasn’t like I was given instructions to draw something, the experience was more sensational, like running barefoot through a dewy grass field on an early Spring morning. It was a REAL experience!.. and right then I knew that I needed to start documenting the Design Process and capturing the experience. It hasn’t been a linear process at all. At first it seemed to be all over the place, but as I pay attention I am seeing that I “get what I need”. It’s just that our “Self” is WAY out ahead of us and knows what we need to Get Doing. Now, the Doing become a delightful enterprise of anticipation. Building layer upon layer, it continues to grow and form increasingly complex patterns of integrity. I’m also finding that there is almost nothing that is Not used. Each “divergent” path weaves itself back together in the most splendid fashion. It’s really a JOY to Think like this, there is nothing scary about it.  Just the opposite, the experience is Loving Knowledge of Abundance.

So this brings me to the Buckminster Fuller Institute 2014 Challenge... and I ask my "Self";

ME: “so "Self", What am I HERE for?”

SELF: “It's a MYSTERY!"

THANK YOU very much for listening to my story!

James B. Walters

Designs for Science and Learning

DSLStudio.com