This week Awesome Stories brings you MUSA, preventing blindness, and reforming our world.

Coral Art

MUSA is a unique art installation meant to further cooperation between the worlds of art and environmental science. MUSA is an underwater museum meant to restore the local habitat by providing a creative foundation to rebuild the sea life in the Cancun Bay. The underwater installation includes over 500 sculptures that serve as coral reefs for marine life to inhabit and grow. The sculptures were made by English sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor of a special material to anchor and encourage sea life to build upon. I find the sculptures a little creepy, but admire the scope of the project and that the materials actually help the marine life.

Healing Hearts and Eyes

Being of service to God and humanity means going well beyond … the best technology, to the humble demonstration of courtesy and compassion to each patient. – Dr.G.Venkataswamy

Dr. G. Venkataswamy and his Aravind Eye Care System are incredibly inspiring. Dr. V started the clinics 40 years ago with the bold vision to cure all preventable blindness. Since their humble beginnings, the clinics have evolved to become a model for compassionate care, the way we could and should offer all medical services. The Aravind Eye Care services are offered to patients regardless of whether they can pay or not. No one has ever been turned away, and people in need are even provided transportation to get to the clinics. Those who can afford the services pay it forward for others. They have become the largest provider of eye care in the world, serving over 5 million people. Plus, the Aravind model completely demonstrates what Charles Eisenstein envisions for a gift-oriented economy as in the story below.

Utopian Vision

Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, has what some might call a utopian vision; to help create a world with no poverty, no unemployment, and no environmental degradation. I would love to see his vision come to life and mostly agree with his sense that our economic system is the key. Currently, it focuses on profits and continued growth above all else. Muhammad Yunus, Charles Eisenstein, and many others have pointed to our economic system as the main driver of the current degradation. Both see the need for an economic system that places more value on social and environmental good. Muhammad thinks microloans and teaching people to be socially responsible entrepreneurs is the key. I tend to agree more with Charles, that we need new ways of organizing. Maybe we don’t need most people working, but rather having social supports for all as well as sharing the earth’s resources. He calls the shift Sacred Economics where we shift from a money economy based on lack and separation to a sharing economy based on abundance and sharing. The video below gives a great overview of Charle’s view on this shift.

What are your thoughts on what it will take to shift our way of living to harmonize with the planet?

PS. I’ve closed comments for now as I’m getting back on Sunday night and starting a new job on Tuesday so I may need time to get caught up on my blog and checking in with yours. I look forward to connecting and continuing our journey together.

Blessings, Brad