NEW EARTH ARMY.com Envision the militaries of the world uniting to serve the planet.
 
WHO IS JIM CHANNON?
 
RENAISSANCE MAN (Adapted from Magical Blend Magazine) The early Renaissance in Europe was a cauldron of beliefs. While Christianity had consolidated its power during the medieval period, large pockets of pagan beliefs still thrived, and a new spirit of scientific investigation was taking hold that, when technically applied turned city states into nations and nations into empires. It was a time when the dragon, the cross, and the human mind vied for the future and stirred the imagination of a continent rethinking a thousand-year-old-paradigm. Perhaps we are overdue for another rethink of our world as a unified global civilization? “Indeed,” says Jim. “For the first time in history we are a united planetary civilization and have been for thirty years. But you cannot expect nation states to announce this, it will diminish their control.” That hasn't stopped the World Business Academy from pursuing such a notion. Jim has been an Academy fellow for ten years and completed the first positive vision for planet earth 100 years out. It was called Project Earthrise. This vision is very much more a cultural vision than an economic one with the essential idea being that we see earth as fully capable of being paradise. 2000 leaders participated in the polling on the final 12 solutions. On his own three acres in Hawaii, Jim set about creating an amphitheatre in his back yard. Known as Artesia, the amphitheatre has provided his community with a venue for some 20 mini festivals. It serves as a laboratory for social inventions and was designed and built primarily with a backhoe. “Painting with tractors,” is what Jim fondly refers to when he recalls the building of Artesia. The seats, walls and stage are all terra-formed and surrounded by seven fresh water ponds. He designed the village like buildings and rooflines and made the cheerful masks that adorn them along. He even creates new costuming for each occasion. Jim’s approach is to provide 12 to 15 layers of stimulation when putting on an event, going well beyond just the sound and lighting to include the birds, croaking frogs, wind chimes, fire pit and other natural elements. He then digs into a box to show me a dozen puppets he recently bought together with a portable puppet stage. Where did Jim learn about stagecraft and production design? He laughs and says: “I garnered that skill first as the social chairman of my college fraternity and then later from having personally directed five different 50 man rifle platoons in the army. My voice and arms can move people or back hoes convincingly at a distance. But why is it we can’t get a degree in event production in college?” he asks. Community venues are disappearing, he laments. It is horrifying to him that people shuffle from work, to mall, to sub-division without places for community to gather. “The renaissance happens when and where we celebrate together ... in beauty ...with music...with dancing. And that means everybody, not just the people on stage,” he says. When asked what a Renaissance individual is, Jim responds: Expansive, inclusive, expressive, and extra-ordinary! My personal approach is to assemble the most viscerally rewarding civilization about me and my friends while alive. It is life force living in a time of magic. It is the need to delight ourselves with the situation we are in. It is the anti-thesis of the industrial economy.” He turns on some Italian music then launches into a Michelangelo character who tells me about the Renaissance Humanists and the development of their romance language.
 STORY-TELLER • PRANKSTER We have all been trained by the movie industry to desire and expect a high level of stimulation; it’s almost a prerequisite to motivate us to action. For this reason, Jim adds story telling, heraldry, mythology and costuming into his bag of tricks. He creates a total immersion experience for the ideas people have decided they want to realize. It is common at the end of a strategic visioning session for him to flip on a CD, crank up a rousing musical theme and appear suddenly in costume to tell a legend as a bold character. The legend might be about how this group of committed workers surmount the odds and pushed forward, united on their heroic journey to make the world’s best computer, created that healing hospital, or developed innovative strategies to get them through a downturn in their industry. Playing with every tool he can muster –gesture, tonality, accents, humor, and even the lighting – Jim sends people on their way, inspired to fulfill their mission. He embellishes the adventure story of their upcoming success with a navigational map and a cheer to help them remember their higher purpose and their commitment. Channon takes his inspiration from Joseph Campbell's hero's journeywork. His foray into the magic kingdom of fairy tale and myth helps override one’s current reality and create a psychic shift in one’s state of being. “These were their ideals, I just help them believe they are possible,” he says. One client describes Channon’s summation process as ‘riveting and motivating, leaving a lasting impression.’ Jim’s theatrical work began early in his army career when, contemplating how to dramatically make his point about “energy” being as powerful as “concepts” to a room of 1000 Army officers, he boldly played Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” while spray painting his message in fluorescent colors on a large 60 foot black lit backboard. “It was then that I realized the power of ‘out of the box’ storytelling and its use as a key piece in communication,” he recalls. “There is a huge difference between simply discussing a concept and otherwise giving people an experience of it,” he says. His story telling grew to new heights when he flew 300 mutual fund executives by Indonesian military aircraft into the Great Western Desert in Australia and had them believe they were lost. Just before panic and sunset set in, Jim emerged in an orangutan outfit and gave them the opening to a three-day challenge course. This was six years before the show “Survivor” and reality TV. This gave the participants of Seal Corp the ‘reboot’ they needed to accept their new values and vision.

Susanne Sims is the author of Healing Vacations in Hawaii, the former Environment Editor of Honolulu magazine and Founding Director of the New Millennium Institute. Her passion is interviewing maverick minds of the future and interpreting their words, and worlds, to others.

 

GLOBAL SHAMAN I asked Jim how he sees fully employing all his five skill sets and he replied: “I recently underwent a review of my life during a seven-year archiving process which turned out to be a highly satisfying pursuit. I recommend every elder take part in some kind of life review. The unexamined life is not worth living, it has been said. During this time I discovered that I had been using a similar overall strategy in all my work. To my great surprise, it turned out to be a classic shamanic practice.” “Of course no one imagines they can be a shaman in the 21st Century but that’s because we have all been raised with a project manager mentality and we are stuck there simply because the Industrial Age had its way with us,” he chides. “Change Agent is as close as we get, but that job is not defined as such.” Like every shaman, his first objective has always been to discover the deep need of the organization or individual he was serving – whether that be military, governmental, collegiate or corporate. Knowing their angst or unfulfilled desire, he could calculate a solution or response by soliciting and generating the answer from within them. Using whatever culturally dramatic forum he could, he was a mirror, there to present them with the life and death story of their destiny. “The process is dynamic, instinct based, and requires the preparation of more than one solution. But what always emerges is magical and often I just need to step out of the way to let it birth itself. I like the odds. Eventually it all leads to some sort of initiation, ritual or rites of passage to assume this new identity,” he continues. “I have now completed four positive strategic plans for our planet Earth. They are each important because each activates a different dimension of the citizenry, the institutions, and the concepts needed for the global overhaul. I’d like to take this skill set onto the world stage but I don’t know how to reach that level. The Internet is such a gift,” says Channon, who now has 75 videos on You Tube. Go Planet!

Contact Information:  SusanneSims@gmail.com


Photo by: Monica Schwartz   www.mschwartzphoto.com


For information on hiring Jim Channon for a Strategic Visioning Session or corporate work, please download this file: JimChannonPresentations.doc 

Jim Channon  performs at Artesia, his outdoor amphitheatre

in Hawaii.

In the Western

deserts of Australia adventure story telling is taken to new heights.

Illustration of combined skill set by Jim Channon.