World Team Now!

Here in Kauai, Hawaii, the Ocean Tide is coming in for us collectively with organizing our summer Ocean Float and Skate-Roll Clinics and curricula. The tide is augmented with UN’s World Ocean Day, Coral Triangle Day, UNESCO Decade of Ocean— all on the heels of World Environment Day moving into Solstice June 21^st. “Gratitude” is still our font for the OCEAN!

We have some exciting news to share about the summer clinics, “Ocean-Float” and “Skate-Roll,” also with private custom experiences we are inviting you to join us in Hawaii this summer for a Clinic, Private/Group “Experience” or Certification.

These two themes of the blue on World Ocean Day and the green every day and from World Environment Day, are very close to our hearts as World Team Now grows. The idea of everyone altogether beyond the confines of time, distance, borders, or even days; yields the spirit’s freedom in each breath…

With the Ocean-Float, Skate-Roll Campaign we are training, and coaching to build out “movement” of people loving nature, and living in action with more intimacy of the Ocean and Land. We offer certification for in-line, and roller skating on already paved or surfaced land. A certification to teach the original Ocean-Float therapeutic whole-being workout is offered, to do more than reset your vagal nerve for a somatic approach to healing.

The Ocean Float Sessions are in calm waters either past the Ocean’s break or in a cove. The entire 1-3 hr. session is done on one’s back. While floating one’s spine lies directly on the healing Ocean’s surface of the water. This therapeutic modality is being studied closely for neurological healing, as an anti-inflammatory modality, and potential healing of autoimmune conditions, diseases, and more.

During the Ocean Float, we balance between floating in postures for relaxation and whole-being workout of each of the human body’s systems from cardiovascular to metabolic. The Ocean-Atmosphere nexus, the native culture indigenous traditions, physics, and biodiversity are all part of the session’s curricula, too. We also offer a certification, for Ocean-Float, so more people will come to love being intimate stewards of the living Ocean.

By building communities of practice, we play to transform ourselves and the world around us. By growing greater awareness of life on land and in the ocean, we come into better balance of giving back and receiving nature’s gifts. As we learn about the local indigenous culture and the truest sense of Aloha in, the spirit of “Mālama ka ‘aina,” (Hawaiian words meaning, “giving back to the land and the sea”).

By learning from the water’s flow, and adapting to change, we gain flexibility. Outside of rigid structures, there is a freedom beyond measurement that helps us go beyond the expectations of time bounds and other constraints, and embrace a world of possibilities. One’s presence is realized as a gift, breathing life force, “present” by giving and receiving in equal balance. Breathwork, in movement, where one’s body is moving at a different rate from the skate’s roll, or the Ocean’s float through currents; yields greater consciousness, and a somatic healing experience.

The healing of the Earth’s body and ocean has made significant strides this year with a global piece of policy finally on The Law of the Sea, a campaign we’ve been active with since 1992 prior to the start-up of WTN.

The weather and climate are changing, and together we respond to the changes that come up, and we work to embrace what is present. For example, if it is storming we will weave in other experiences that make the most of the moment, flexible, committed yet unattached to the way your flow experience comes…

The Adventure we are inviting you to create is custom-made to be a memorable experience that calibrates us all to be truly present in the moment, on the island, and in the Ocean. We cater to support your journey to be unique and bring a wealth of experience to share.

If you were one of the many people who have given to World Team Now and the World Team project with your time, talent, or treasure over the years, we would like to give back to you. Come join us in clean air surrounded by one of the lushest tropical environments imaginable.

Click here to join us and learn more about our Ocean-Flat and Skate-Roll curricula.

“World Ocean Day” could be every day-but it is today now, June 8th, 2021. With the leadership from the youth, along with each one of us altogether, we might begin to attribute every breath in gratitude for the ocean’s ability to clean the air and all it does and provides for as a home, beyond time. To Ocean Day, eternally.

While many are called to explore the ultimate mystery of the ocean, becoming intimate with the ocean can be a gift like love. A love that lives within us all, nurtured through growing greater respect by being in the ocean and learning through both science and experiential education from its constant change.

This year begins the “Ocean Decade” with a priority collectively to transform humans’ relationship with the ocean, globally by the year 2030 (ideally sooner) through the United Nations Global Goals or (SDGs). World Team Now teamed up with others and set ambitious global goals in 2017 joining through the UN Ocean Conference Sustainable Development Goal #14 in our voluntary commitment with the SOS-IS partnership to demonstrate solutions of systems on islands. Although we have been delayed we continue to forge forward and completed a campaign with Biodiversity; Sea Turtles and Cetacean Experiential Research. From planting Mangrove seeds to seeing what the ocean surprises us with on this island, we grow our capacity to be lifelong learners in action.

We were able to join in communication with some of the global communities we’ve been part of around the world in these past decades journeying for the World Team project, virtually from Samoa, Fiji, Singapore, Monaco, Spain, France, Africa, and Japan. Seeing the Starlink Satellites launch regularly inspired the gifts of innovative technology, which has brought us collectively opportunities to learn and grow from our connectivity.

This past year living on an island locally, we were fortunate to remain connected with our coastal communities around the USA; in Hawaii, off California, Massachusetts, and Florida. We discovered more natural-based solutions which led to the development of World Team Now’s Ocean Curriculum. Floating in the ocean, with wild dolphins who chose to join almost daily, inspired us through a year with a myriad of collective crises in 2020.

Being with the ocean and going out to float afforded an opportunity to learn directly from the ocean itself. With the remarkable nexus of the ocean-atmosphere and all species, we heard and witnessed the challenges and begun to discover more opportunities where we might apply solutions. We are looking forward to the chance to share more through this decade together.

Responsibility to the ocean to clean-up and transform ocean plastics, to become more resilient on developing alternative systems on islands –that live with the ocean is just the beginning. From cleaning up the shipping industry, supporting artisanal fishing, cutting farm fishing subsidies, and tackling global agreements with biodiversity and law of the sea- all are needed. There is a myriad of challenges to discover more solutions and for collective action. Here are some of the many events happening now; From WTN’s Pioneer for the Planet Award recipient, Fabien Cousteau, watch the OLC’s channel, or the Explorer’s Club, or the United Nations’ High-Level Debate on the Ocean, read about Boris Herrmann’s Malizia Mangrove Park project with 350.000 mangroves planted and World Ocean Day.

With this year’s theme for World Oceans Day, “The Ocean: Lives and Livelihood,” we are focused on our bi-coastal communities and what we can do for future generations to empower all to gain greater respect for the ocean. It is the youths’ future we have borrowed from, and it is their lives, livelihood, and future that is innocently at stake, as they have inherited the state of the planet. Here are some ocean youth lovers in WTN’s home state, who are from Santa Barbara California. Let’s hear it in their words after their Float.

June 7th, 2021 Isabel Johanson ©

June 8th, World Ocean Day, is an opportunity to remind ourselves of the critical role our oceans play in the grand scheme of global health. The sea occupies over 70% of our planet and equips every organism with the tools they need for survival. World Ocean Day is a symbol of civilization’s responsibility to unite and protect not only the ocean, but ourselves. We are only as healthy as our world’s seas. We must remind ourselves of the principles this global holiday represents year-long, to gain the momentum we need to accomplish our goals. Humanity has the responsibility to rise to the occasion in order to develop and implement equitable and sustainable solutions in a timely manner.

I was raised in Santa Barbara, CA and Kauai, HI. My proximity to the ocean ingrained in me the need to appreciate and give back to our Mother Earth. I have witnessed the precariousness of nature. Through fire, flood, ground trembling beneath my feet, and nature in all her furry crying out for help, I realized the true urgency of the climate crisis. My childhood heart-centered empathy toward nature turned into planetary activism.

World Team Now’s commitment to global and personal transformation and unity encourages everyone to take meaningful action. Since Environmental Studies is such a multifaceted topic, it is essential to apply the concepts to as many dimensions of life as possible. In the words of Suzanne Maxx, Founder and President/Chair of Word Team Now, “We play to transform our world.” Even simple steps, like floating at sea, fuels a connectivity between one’s self and nature, prompting a long-term commitment to change. The accumulation of small actions practiced by an array of citizens has the power to heal our world.

In the spirit of World Ocean Day, a group of loved ones, Atticus Shorr, Ally Drevo, Nicolas Johanson, Charlie Vasquez, Niko Klopp, and myself, Isabel Johanson, decided to head to Hope Ranch Beach and soak in the Pacific Ocean’s primal energy. As we lay floating on our backs, with our hands intertwined, a sense of harmony became present. Each of us felt connected by our dedication to the water. It was as if we entered a meditative state of heightened consciousness. In reflection, I was able to correlate this to World Team Now’s goal of creating a consciousness that allows the World’s inhabitants to work towards a greater good. A feeling of refuge and safety overcame the six of us while at sea. It is only fair that we reciprocate these emotions and celebrate the ocean’s divinity. In honor of June 8th, I have asked each participant to write a short analysis of what the ocean and our floating experience meant to them.

Hope Ranch Beach, CA June 2021
Photo by Ally Drevo

“It’s nearly impossible to understand how much the ocean has impacted our world. I find the vastness of the ocean to be spiritual and bewildering. It can be harsh and miraculous at the same time, similar to humans. Knowing this makes me believe we are capable of behavioral change in order to remedy our missteps. Yesterday my friends and I floated in the ocean for hours. Not only was it a healing experience to float with the tides, it was heightening and completely lifted my spirits.” Atticus Shorr, 24

“Dedication to the ocean is a beautiful and universal effort which I’m elated to be a part of. Throughout the years, I’ve worked with Heal the Ocean and lobbied our city council for plastic ban efforts in the hope of restoring and preserving a beautiful and complex home of sea life and resources. Yesterday’s project with World Team Now was one moment out of many where we got to celebrate the ocean in our idyllic seaside hometown. I have endless gratitude and respect for marine life preservation and hope to experience more collaborative visions.” Ally Drevo, 22

“All life begins in the sea, so as a human being I feel intrinsically connected to the ocean. After years of aquatic sports, surf instruction, and being an avid beach-goer, the beauty of the sea and sand will forever hold a special place in my heart. However it’s truly heartbreaking to see the growing amount of waste, plastic, and unnatural debris covering our world’s beaches and diluting our oceans. It seems to me that we have become predators to one of our most precious ecosystems. That being said, it brings me hope and pride to be part of the movement to remedy the issues we have brought upon ourselves.” Nicolas Johanson, 20

“My first connection to the ocean was when I moved from Indiana to Santa Barbara. Coming from a land-locked state it was a powerful change. Whenever I feel stressed, the beach is the first place I think of to calm my nerves. It’s ironic to think the place I go to relieve anxiety is in high stress from the harmful and selfish actions of humankind. I will always do my part and attempt to inspire others to keep our local beaches clean and to help out with the ever-growing environmental problems we are facing.” Charlie Vasquez, 21

“Ever since I was young, I have loved the ocean. Not only does it provide endless opportunities for adventure, fun, and relaxation, it is also a livelihood for so many. My brother is a fisherman and that has taught me to not take more than the ocean can replenish. I have also learned of society’s inescapable dependence on the ocean’s fragile ecosystem. I recognize World Ocean Day as a Day to be thankful for everything the ocean has to offer and reflect on how we can help preserve and heal our ocean.” Niko Klopp, 17

Tag: World Ocean Day

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World Ocean Day Eternally ©

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