Marilyn Hamilton's Blog, page 16
June 28, 2022
In Memoriam: Beck, Henderson, Dunne
In Memorian: Dr. Don Edward Beck 1937–2022Don Beck inspired thousands of people toward a new experience of organizational and personal empowerment through Spiral Dynamics (Spiral Dynamics Integral) (SDi), his unique values-based model that charts the evolution and emergence of human nature.Conceived and led by Don, SDi is an advanced extension and elaboration of the biopsychosocial systems concept originated by the late Dr. Clare W. Graves of Union College, New York, and later developed as Spiral Dynamics—a model that Canada’s Maclean’s Magazine rather grandly dubbed “The Theory that Explains Everything.”
Don built upon Spiral Dynamics in the development of a powerful new conceptual system, called MeshWORKS: The Search for Human Cohesion in a World of Fragmentation, which enables the essential process of integrating, aligning, and synergizing resources, especially at the community and local levels, to meet the needs of people at different stages of development. (Meshworks)
Read more about Don Beck – click here.
In Memorian: Hazel Henderson 1933–2022Hazel Henderson, was an influential pioneering economist who imfluenced and shaped thinking about the intersections of economics, ecology, systems thinking, and feminism – that has influence a whole new cadre of economic theories – including the circular economy, Donut Economics and Regenerative Economics.An independent futurist, environmentalist, and economic iconoclast, she argued that the conceptual framework underlying the discipline of economics has become so narrow that it has driven economists into an impasse. Most economic concepts and models are no longer adequate to understand economic phenomena in a fundamentally interdependent world, and current economic policies can no longer solve our economic problems.
In nine books, numerous essays, and countless editorials, Hazel drove home this point for over four decades with an intensity, brilliance, and originality that are still unmatched today. She challenged the world’s foremost economists, politicians, and corporate leaders with her well-founded critique of their fundamental concepts and values. Because of her special talent for presenting her radical ideas in a disarming, nonthreatening manner her voice was heard and respected in government and corporate circles; she held an impressive number of advisory positions and cofounded and directed numerous organizations, in which her new ways of thinking have been elaborated and applied.
Click here for the full obituary by Fritjof Capra.
In Memorian: Dr. Brenda Dunne 1944–2022Brenda Dunne changed the world. In her work with Bob Jahn, they gave scientific credibility to ideas and phenomena that, despite being essential facets of the human condition, had become ostracized from mainstream science.In doing so they created spaces for people to speak openly about their experiences, and they laid the foundation for new understandings that have begun to revise the way physics describes our universe, understandings that will continue to evolve for many decades to come. It is no wonder that at the end of her life Brenda had an uninterrupted stream of people sharing their concern, love, and appreciation from every corner of the globe. impacting it through energy, habits, lineages, traumas, and wisdom.”
June 26, 2022
Reflective Organ Newsletter June Solstice 2022: Living and Dying for Gen7
This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is People
Action Research is a powerful methodology to use for city change because it involves people inquiring together. It starts with an initiating researcher (I/We), a sponsor/client (Other), participants (Others/We/You)—who all inquire, act, and impact one another as co-researchers. Like a musical ensemble, co-researchers shape a question for the inquiry. The question in turn shapes the inquiry by defining the scope, boundaries, assumptions, literature, methods, biases, and limitations that co-researchers bring.
Hamilton, M. (2018). Integral City 3.7: Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives. Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press,LLC p.xxxi
Scroll to end of newsletter to access Free Resources.
Brilliant Legacies from Living & Dying Integral City Legacies from Living & Dying
The Evolutionary Impulse has been active in this last season. It has transited the realms of the living to the dying for 3 people who have brilliantly illuminated the work of Integral City.
Don Edward Beck was introduced to me by Ken Wilber at the first ASTD conference that I attended in the century-inaugurating year 2000.
I had just completed my dissertation on Learning and Leadership in Self-Organizing Systems using the newly published Integral Model, and heard from Ken Wilber the encouraging words, “Well done.” When I asked Ken who was applying this Integral model for organizations, he pointed immediately to Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics. At the ASTD Conference in Dallas, May 2000, (where I was co-presenting the “Year 2000: The World’s First Global Learning Experience”) I walked down the hall and opened the door into Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamics presentation – with his close colleagues at the time, Lorraine Laubscher from South Africa and Christopher Cooke from the UK. Amazed to see the research of Clare Graves (whom Don never ceased to honour and reference), explaining in terms of complexity theory, the double helix of bio-psycho-social life conditions and human development, I became an instant student and subsequent host to 25 sessions of Don Beck’s SDI teachings in Canada. Out of those encounters I subsequently became the co-founder of Centre for Human Emergence Canada and colleague of the global Centre of Human Emergence.
In 2006 Don charged me with authoring a book – and was perhaps surprised that I took the focus of what has become the Integral City Book Series. Don introduced me to the term “Meshworks” which instantly fascinated me in its potential for aligning capacities along a needs and values-based trajectory – and became woven into our corporate name Integral City Meshworks.
Don loved to teach with experiential flare – using music, storytelling, role playing and learning from newer methodologies like systemic constellation work – how to wake up his students into action. He was never content to “forecast the rain” but always enjoined us “to build the ark.”
Don was willing to travel around the world to share the Gravesian insights and more than once paid dearly for the unexpected rejections from authorities (even ending up in jail in one of “stans” where he did not have the required visa) and audiences). But he also dared to (re)build bridges across many challenging cultural divides including the South African apartheid, between Israelis and Palestinians, at the UN and during the Icelandic national bankruptcy.
While Don was a pioneer and inspiration, he could also be an intransigent (business) partner, difficult co-author, unforgiving task master and intimidating rule breaker. He modelled well both the disasters and dignities at each level of the Spiral – but it is the clarity of his SDi foresight and defiance of racism wherever he encountered it – that will argue his case as he stands at St. Peter’s Gates. Thank you, Don Beck, for opening the doors to a whole new way of living in Integral Cities with our 5 Maps, GPS, 4+1 Voices and Meshworks. (See In Memoriam below.)
I first encountered Hazel Henderson when I was co-presenting a workshop with Don Beck at the World Future Society Conference in Toronto in 2006.
I am so happy to have that memory of her in her hyper-energizing, strong directional, optimistic being – because shortly thereafter, Hazel stopped travelling to garner her health.
What I learned from Hazel – living, circular, organic, ethical economics – impressed upon me the wholistic flow of Life’s resources. Hazel exemplified the evolutionary power of cooperation and collaboration. She was ahead of her time investing in solar power and renewable energy, supporting the universal principles of biomimicry and seeing human as part of Nature – not apart from Nature.
Integral City Book 1 was how Jean Houston introduced me to Hazel after Jean helped launch of Book 1 at Don Beck’s Boulder, Colorado SDi training. Hazel spontaneously sent congratulations and subsequently “blurbed” our third book, Integral City 3.7. Hazel prepared me for the emergence of Donut Economics, Circular Economies and Regenerative Economies. Like her Power of Yin sisters, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Jean Houston, Hazel was an indomitable optimist who walked her talk in defiance of traditional power structures. She will continue to be for me an inspiration and a model who demonstrated a depth of evolutionary potential by seeing living wholistic, regenerative futures in all she did. (See In Memoriam below.)
My introduction to Brenda Dunne was indirectly via IONS. I became a member of IONS in the mid 90’s as I came to appreciate how Edgar Mitchell, IONS Founder and his team, opened the doors to the intersection of science and spirituality. One early experiment that caught my attention was related to the Random Event Generator (REG) results from placements around the world (by Princeton’s Roger Nelson) – which received some media attention for aligned and synchronized readings of world events like Princess Diana’s death, global sporting events and even natural phenomena like earthquakes.
Lynn McTaggart (author of The Field and The Intention Experiment) went on to document the research originating with the team behind the REG’s – located at Princeton University’s – namely Brenda Dunne and Bob Jahn, Dean of Princeton Engineering and Founder of Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Lab, a parapsychology research program.
I didn’t meet Brenda until 2021 at the Science and Consciousness Conference at Broughton Hall Estate in Yorkshire – where her entire PEAR lab had been transported from storage in Princeton to the newly opened Wyrd Lab.
What did I learn from Brenda? Courage in the face of scepticism, criticism, resistance from the scientific establishment. I learned about humorous workarounds in the face of the establishment, loyal partnership with Bob Jahn and care and compassion with her family and friends. Following her intuition and calling despite refutations from traditional authorities – including their home ground of Princeton Engineering Faculty and University Administration.
Brenda also took a huge leap of faith, trusting in a new partnership with Peter Merry (whom I met through Don Beck in 2004 and Centre for Human Emergence NL in 2008) for a new life and new recognition in a new country even. As Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Peter Merry honoured Brenda Dunne with her only official recognition for the innovative discoveries and devoted research and scholarship by bestowing on Brenda an honorary Doctorship – just 6 months before she passed into a” virtual life”. I learned from Brenda how to enjoy life one day at a time.
Brenda’s humour surrounded her in her transplanted PEAR Lab where amongst the scientific REG tools masquerading as Froggie, Murphy and Water Flows, Pears abounded everywhere – in art, artefacts and many gifts. My direct encounter with Brenda was all too short but her influence will live on because even the world of Findhorn Ecovillage is interested in applying the REG methods to demonstrate how spiritual connections through attunement, community and Nature beings can be demonstrated with scientific equipment that shows the patterns of our energetic shifts and development. Thank you, Brenda, for your persistence, intuition and spontaneous responses to lively relationships of all kinds. (See In Memoriam below.)
Aliveness Seeds 7th Generation : Living Cities
Earth
Out of Living Cities Russia has come a ULab experiment to seed Living Cities Earth to transform our cities into fully alive regeneration hubs for Gaia’s 7th generation.
We wrote earlier about the challenges of the Russian/Ukraine war not just for the millions of Ukrainians who have become refugees to escape the conflict – but for the Russians escaping a country whose politics they can no longer support.
Like many of the Ukrainians these Russians joining millions in the Russian diaspora, are highly educated, skilled and often holistic/integral thinkers.
Meet three Russians whom we have worked with since the Integral City Book 1 was translated into Russian as Living Cities (2); Lev Gordon, co-initiator of Russia’s Urbanfest, Oleg Lega, author of the New Sincerity Manifesto and Pavel Luksha, futurist, educator, schooling for planet.
What happens when these 3 Russians meet me as Founder of Integral City Meshworks (IC) Anne-Marie Voorhoeve the co-founder of The Hague Center for Governance Emergence and Peace (THC), and Pieter Wackers AQtivator with both IC and THC?
We agree to explore the opportunity of Living Cites Earth with a Ulab (based on Otto Scharmer’s Presencing Institute and UTheory).
Earth is unfolding into.What is Media?
A New Media SystemGuest Contributor: Indra Adnan, Co-Initiator of Alternative Planet, in Conversation with Alternative Community Action Network CANCan ULAB Fast Prototype Team (Maria Dorothy Skov London, Pieter Wackers Amsterdam, Amanda Faulkner Knaresborough, Simon Divecha Isle of Harris, Scotland, Marilyn Hamilton Findhorn Ecovillage Scotland)
… What is it that we’re actually trying to redesign? What is it that we are recoiling from? And where are we with it historically? So from a historical point of view, to think about the last 30 years as having been something that really is changing fast our access to information, and what Pieter said – the possibility of [being] overwhelmed with information.
And then living in the world of people managing that information – how we get access to it, and how much power we have to change the way we’re being fed things. Given that we now have these infinite number of tools to curate our own media sphere.
I want to posit the idea that because of this last 30 years, even though we are often told that … the internet has made things worse for everyone. I want to remind us of what came before the internet – which was really, us having very little access to information. Information nearly always came from whomever was above us – the authorities that we acknowledged or the business we were in, or whatever kind of hierarchy we put ourselves in.
The information came mostly from above. We were told what to think. And within that was many, many skilled and subtle ways of controlling our thinking.
We’ve been having our thinking controlled all of our lives, which is more or less why we are part of the growth economy machine – we’ve become consumers, we are more or less the thing we need to be to keep this system going. That’s who we became as a result of the media that we consumed. And the way we responded to advertising, the way we responded to the news.
We will always be subject to propaganda. What I believe the internet began to do was to begin to make us aware of that.
So over the past 30 years waking up- wokeness – all of this is signs that people are beginning to get conscious of the way they are in the media sphere.
Read the full Guest Blog – click here.In Memorian: Dr. Don Edward Beck 1937–2022Don Beck inspired thousands of people toward a new experience of organizational and personal empowerment through Spiral Dynamics (Spiral Dynamics Integral) (SDi), his unique values-based model that charts the evolution and emergence of human nature.
Conceived and led by Don, SDi is an advanced extension and elaboration of the biopsychosocial systems concept originated by the late Dr. Clare W. Graves of Union College, New York, and later developed as Spiral Dynamics—a model that Canada’s Maclean’s Magazine rather grandly dubbed “The Theory that Explains Everything.”
Don built upon Spiral Dynamics in the development of a powerful new conceptual system, called MeshWORKS: The Search for Human Cohesion in a World of Fragmentation, which enables the essential process of integrating, aligning, and synergizing resources, especially at the community and local levels, to meet the needs of people at different stages of development. (Meshworks)
Read more about Don Beck – click here.
In Memorian: Hazel Henderson 1933–2022Hazel Henderson, was an influential pioneering economist who imfluenced and shaped thinking about the intersections of economics, ecology, systems thinking, and feminism – that has influence a whole new cadre of economic theories – including the circular economy, Donut Economics and Regenerative Economics.
An independent futurist, environmentalist, and economic iconoclast, she argued that the conceptual framework underlying the discipline of economics has become so narrow that it has driven economists into an impasse. Most economic concepts and models are no longer adequate to understand economic phenomena in a fundamentally interdependent world, and current economic policies can no longer solve our economic problems.
In nine books, numerous essays, and countless editorials, Hazel drove home this point for over four decades with an intensity, brilliance, and originality that are still unmatched today. She challenged the world’s foremost economists, politicians, and corporate leaders with her well-founded critique of their fundamental concepts and values. Because of her special talent for presenting her radical ideas in a disarming, nonthreatening manner her voice was heard and respected in government and corporate circles; she held an impressive number of advisory positions and cofounded and directed numerous organizations, in which her new ways of thinking have been elaborated and applied.
Click here for the full obituary by Fritjof Capra.
In Memorian: Brenda Dunne 1944–2022Brenda changed the world. In her work with Bob Jahn, they gave scientific credibility to ideas and phenomena that, despite being essential facets of the human condition, had become ostracized from mainstream science. In doing so they created spaces for people to speak openly about their experiences, and they laid the foundation for new understandings that have begun to revise the way physics describes our universe, understandings that will continue to evolve for many decades to come. It is no wonder that at the end of her life Brenda had an uninterrupted stream of people sharing their concern, love, and appreciation from every corner of the globe. impacting it through energy, habits, lineages, traumas, and wisdom.”8
To connect to Brenda’s Memoriam Click Here.
Upcoming Integral City & Constellation Events with People PurposeIntegral City and Constellation are offering a range of courses in 2022. Marilyn Hamilton will be teaching through Ubiquity University and Beth Sanders will be teaching in the new City Makers Mighty Network(Note: Registration for courses at Ubiquity University is through Ubiquity University. Registration for Mighty Network courses is through “Courses” in the Mighty Network. Links are provided below.)
Cities Rising for a Regenerative World (Ubiquity University)With its roots in the Humanity Rising 2021 Cities Rising for a Regenerative World, this micro-course focuses on human systems at the scale of the city. We define “city” as the human habitat (or “human hive”) at scales from village to megalopolis, embracing the ecoregion in which the city is located. The inquiry embedded in Cities Rising complements other courses in the BRA/MRA, by highlighting the context–cities–in which most humans live, and the contribution cities can make to a Regenerative World.
This is a 6-hour micro course offered through Ubiquity University. Course details and registration can be found on the course page at Ubiquity University. This is an asynchronous, self-directed course you can take at any time.
Beyond Smart (Ubiquity University)Beyond Smart introduces “practitioners” to just the basics of the Integral City model. You will learn the framework of practices, tools and maps that reveal the common patterns that impact the lives of individuals, organizations and communities within your city. This short course explores three powerful images animating Integral City systems – the integral map, the meshwork and the human hive. You will learn from your own situations (and other student sharings in the Ubiverse Group) how the toolkit guides you beyond models for Urban Ecovillages and Traditional, Smart and Resilient Cities.
Beyond Smart is a 12-hour micro course offered through Ubiquity University. Course details and registration can be found on the course page at Ubiquity University. This is an asynchronous, self-directed course you can take at any time.
Beyond Resilient (Ubiquity University)Beyond Resilient enables Practitioners, Catalysts and Meshworkers to build capacitating scaffolds so that cities work for everyone. Participants grow their leadership to serve the city to thrive within the Master Code of Care: Caring for Self, Others, Place, Planet.
This course explores the city as the Human Hive and co-creates the conditions for you to catalyze and explore all the Voices who inhabit your spheres of influence – including family, neighbourhood, workplaces, recreation zones, communities, city, and eco-regions.
Beyond Resilient is a 12-week macro course offered for credit through Ubiquity University. Course details and registration can be found on the course page at Ubiquity University. There are two options to take this course:
Asynchronously, in a self-directed fashion, any time you like OR“Live” with Marilyn Hamilton, Beth Sanders and wonderful classmates. (Recommended–so you have the live experience of community. Next live offering will be September to December 2022.)Islands of Calm for Global Cities – Monthly City Subtle Activism Meditation (lead by Marilyn Hamilton on 4th Saturday of Month on a rota of different timezones. Check Compassionate Cities or Eventbrite for the schedule.The City Nestmaking Series (Mighty Network)City Nest Making Courses delivered by Beth Sanders – Details Available in Mighty Network Here : Improve your city making skills, learn to work with tension, and foster resilience and transition in citizens and cities
City Making (Starts Sept 14/22): The distinction between city building and city making is vital to improve our experience of cities.
Engaging Inquiry (Starts Nov 16/22): Cultivate your capacity (and your city’s) to foster adaptation, resilience and transition.
Working with Tension (Starts Oct 12/22): Learn to work with conflict as a means to improve the city.
Join Marilyn Hamilton/Integral City for periodic zoom interviews Interviews from the Balcony
Join Beth Sanders/Nest City monthly for free zoom Street Corner Visiting – – 8pm BST – 4th Tuesday of the Month.
Whole Systems Design: Inquiries in the Knowing Fieldby Diana Claire Douglas
Constellating for the Collective is how Diana Claire Douglas describes her work. In Whole Systems Design she shares her rich and diverse background that led her to this powerful Systemic Constellation Work and how she built a foundation (with family and organization clients) for her constellations that served communities, cities, societies and global emergence.
In addition to the theory, structure and practice of constellating Diana Claire describes constellations through conversations with colleagues. Her interviews reveal the practices of Constellators for the Collective who come from nine different contexts – including conference constellations of 250 people, ancestral trauma, colonization, the relationship between the quantum field and knowing field, healing and archetypal mythodrama.
In this book, Diana Claire reflects her wise facilitation of constellations and illustrates why Diana Claire was awarded Integral City Meshworker of the Year 2018.)
Click here for all the details.
Love Money, Money Loves Youby Sarah McCrum
Sarah McCrum has opened up a completely new way of thinking about and interacting with money in her Money Loves You book. This latest edition gives us all a glimpse into what the future of value and currency could look like on our planet – it’s very hopeful and exciting!
Sarah has written a unique narrative, that helps you better understand money and attract more of it in practical and realistic ways.
Sarah has a fresh and rare perspective on money, unlike anyone else. She shows you how to reduce the stress and anxiety you feel around money and ultimately attract more of it into your life.
You will never think about money the same way again after reading Money Loves You! It’s full of wonderful insights and practical exercises to help you shift your money mindset to one of positivity and abundance.
Click here for all the details.
Celebrating Our Cities as Places of People
“How do we become more human, more generous, kinder, more loving where there is inhumanity?
After all, isn’t this exactly what we’re here to experience?
How do we protect and expand our natural, sovereign freedom where there is control and domination?
It’s the deepest calling that unites us across the planet.
This is the real news.
This is new.
This produces new stories.
Stories worth hearing.
Stories that give hope.
Stories that inspire.
Stories that create pathways that others can follow.
These are stories without a central, dominant narrative. There is no obligation to keep up with them. There is no pressure to conform with them. They don’t control your attention.
They are for sharing.”
June 21 marked the start of what Integral City calls the Peope Quarter (from June 21 to September 20 ). In the northern hemisphere this quarter is our summer time – the normal season for people to connect back home, share stories and relax. But we are not in normal seasons or normal times. It seems that all the existential realities that cities can be threatened with are unfolding ahead of wherever we want to go – climate change can bring drought, flood, fire or tornadoes equally to our homes or the destinations we would love to visit; Covid19 continues to mutate in unexpected ways; financial down cycles aggravate food, fuel and energy costs. When we gather in circles – wether they be online or in person – how do we encourage each other with Aliveness? If our politics is broken, what is the alternative? Indra Adnan (co-initiator of the Alternative Global) and Sarah McCrum (rebranding herself as Liberate Humanity) and the seed Team of Living Cities Earth are reaching out to disrupt the systems that seem to be colluding against the human right to Happiness and responsiveness to Care.
We are all curious how you might be feeding your soul? What is the essence of life that you wish to capture to make you feel fully alive? What would you bequeath unto the 7th Generation so they become fully Alive Reflective Organs, Organelles and Cells of Gaia?
Visit us on our Integral City Website and Blog or post a comment about your city interests on our sister City Makers Mighty Network.
Meshful Blessings of this Season Celebrating our Cities of People …Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Constellation Corps TeamPS Here are some FREE resources for uplifting Integral City People:Marilyn Hamilton, YouTube Video – Recovering Cities Through Rooms of Peace – Integral Europe Conference 2022David Spangler – How to Create a Light BankHazel Henderson – Solar Age Video (2013)!!Henry Mettinck, Amsterdam to Paris – Preserving Earth with Wheel Barrow WalkAldo Ilardi, Chile, Inclusive Social Franchise – Sailing for EveryoneFindhorn Films – Roots of Spiritual Ecovillage1. The Findhorn Film, Danny Miller, (9 min)2. The Findhorn Community and Foundation in Scotland | Ecovillage | Auroras Eye Films
Bees1. I Dream of Bees2. Bees Officially Type of Fish in California
Integral City BlogsBrain Gain – How Ukrainian & Russian Brain Drain Will Change Europe
From Manifesto to Mistaken Identity: How Care Brings the War Close to Me
Book Review: Whole Systems Design
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (1/4)
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (2/4)
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (3/4)
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (4/4)
Manifesto of Living Peace: for Gaia’s Reflective Organs
Aliveness Seeds 7th Generation Ulab: Living Cities Earth
9. Newsletters Past Issues 2022-2021 Integral City Reflective Organ – March Equinox 2022: Fact, Fake, Fantasy Integral City Reflective Organ – December Solstice 2021: Rejoice, Research, Regenerate Integral City Reflective Organ – September Equinox 2021: Code Red for Regenerative Action Integral City Reflective Organ – June Solstice 2021 -Unity, CAN’s, Competition, Coalitions, Collaborations10. Integral City MetaBlog 2021 – A Synthesis and index of all Integral City Blogs from 2021
.fusion-fullwidth.fusion-builder-row-1 { overflow:visible; }A New Media System
Guest Blog
by Indra Adnan, Co-Initiator of Alternative Planet, in Conversation with Alternative Community Action Network CANCan ULAB Fast Prototype Team
(Maria Dorothy Skov London, Pieter Wackers Amsterdam, Amanda Faulkner Knaresborough, Simon Divecha Isle of Harris, Scotland, Marilyn Hamilton Findhorn Ecovillage Scotland)
June 23, 2022
What I’m giving here is not a presentation – it’s really a sharing of a model or a diagram with you. I’m really kind of framing it [for you] before we look at the diagram. And then the thing that we’re going to respond to [in our fast prototyping] really is the diagram, which in a way is a nightmare, because I hate diagrams. And I invite you to hate this one as well.
But how I frame it now [can maybe] open up the space and get access to the six of you as valuable responders to the diagram.
So just very, very broadly and to do a little bit of what we started to do in the check-in is to first of all, ask the questions.
What is media?
What is it that we’re actually trying to redesign? What is it that we are recoiling from? And where are we with it historically? So from a historical point of view, to think about the last 30 years as having been something that really is changing fast our access to information, and what Pieter said – the possibility of [being] overwhelmed with information.
And then living in the world of people managing that information – how we get access to it, and how much power we have to change the way we’re being fed things. Given that we now have these infinite number of tools to curate our own media sphere.
I want to posit the idea that because of this last 30 years, even though we are often told that … the internet has made things worse for everyone. I want to remind us of what came before the internet – which was really, us having very little access to information. Information nearly always came from whomever was above us – the authorities that we acknowledged or the business we were in, or whatever kind of hierarchy we put ourselves in.
The information came mostly from above. We were told what to think. And within that was many, many skilled and subtle ways of controlling our thinking.
We’ve been having our thinking controlled all of our lives, which is more or less why we are part of the growth economy machine – we’ve become consumers, we are more or less the thing we need to be to keep this system going. That’s who we became as a result of the media that we consumed. And the way we responded to advertising, the way we responded to the news.
We will always be subject to propaganda. What I believe the internet began to do was to begin to make us aware of that.
So over the past 30 years waking up- wokeness – all of this is signs that people are beginning to get conscious of the way they are in the media sphere.
That kids get conscious of the power structures, they begin get conscious of the effect it has on them, they begin to see their own powerlessness, they begin to mobilize around identity, they begin to do something that they feel is original. All of this has been made possible by having contact with each other having access to information, and so on. But as we already said it’s not – it doesn’t make everything right – we’re still very much subject to the way we look at things – to our own kind of personal development – to our ability to have access to information, which is still very, very, very transactional(?). But I do want to put it to us that it’s a time of great possibility, as well as a time of possible further manipulation.
So we live in the world of algorithms now instead of propaganda. We live in bubbles of our own making, and so on and so on. But we are questioning everything all the time. So that questioning possibility exists in our media. And everything becomes a two-way process. It’s not just what we’re receiving. But it’s also what we are making sense of – how we make meaning. And then to come back a little bit to what Amanda was saying, it becomes a world of choice – you start to decide what you’re going to try to build rather than simply be on the receiving end and feeling that you’re powerless.
I think everybody [in the team check-in around what media we use to learn about the world] gave a little bit of aspect of that.
In the middle of all of this revolution, I have been paying attention to the media most of my life. I was part of a think tank called Conflict and Peace Forums for about 10 years; I’ve worked with journalists looking at what is really the impact of the effect of the war agenda from our government.
And I’m saying that because once you understand the power of the military industrial complex and the effect it has on the economy, you’re quite clear about how important it is to always be ready to go to war. It’s part of our economy. And then, with this clear war agenda, which never gets questioned by the mainstream news (sometimes by the further left papers?) but not really by the BBC.
You have to be quite actively creating a peace agenda. And for some time, we worked on something called the peace journalism option, which was really more to do with a normalization of relationships between people rather than one that is constantly prepared to go to war.
But knowing all of this and being part of this development of ideas of what is this media –
What we are talking about – myself, my partner, Pat Kane and other people that were working with us started to work more in politics and look at the political agenda – what was happening there. And right in the midst of all of that Brexit occurred. And we were able to really experience the incredible divisiveness, the divisive design of everything, and how to step outside of that. And you will know that then we came up with the Daily Alternative as giving people access to something outside the growth economy media bubble.
So that was our attempt – Maria Dorothy Skov, Pat Kane, myself – weekly, generate alternative media.
It looked like it was very random. But actually, it has a very distinct axis – it connects the complex human being to the world in which that being lives in, and its impact from the planet. So we call that an I/We/World axis. And that’s really the axis on which we report. And that’s also the axis within which we look at emerging new power structures.
So all of that is a preamble to this media diagram I’m going to show you now. So I think most of you know, I don’t think I’ve said anything that you don’t already know about the work that we do or who I am.
But I want to just to present all of that to bring us into this diagram in the right way.
So I will share the diagram.
So here is the flat map – it’s a new media system that we are trying to bring into being.
And I’ll just talk you through it and you may be able to see what we’re trying to achieve.
Different parts of it are taking shape.
At this time, it’s kind of emergent. We’re having a light hand in trying to bring it together, but it’s coming together in a way of its own momentum.
And that’s a lot largely to do with what we’ve been doing anyway with a CAN of cans. So at the heart of this media system, we always think about – is the heart of a new politics. In a way these two things are, are the same thing – what keeps wanting to move is this idea of the complex human being.
So we felt it was very important to put that really at the heart of anything that we’re doing now. Because if you’re looking at the previous media system or the previous politics, the human being at the heart was very much homo economicus, … you know, the sort of entity that needs a roof over its head, it needs a tax cut, and it needs to be able to buy stuff. That’s the human being really at the heart of our growth economy, and the media.
So even when we’re in the heat of war, or the heat of COVID, it becomes about our freedom to shop and whether or not we’re able to go out and get the wheels of the economy moving again, because that’s really our value in the system that we are consuming and keeping the engine going all the time.
So this new idea of the complex human being is really a human being which has history in the past, has complex emotional needs, which have been hijacked by the current system. So we get our needs – our complex emotional needs – met by buying things.
And we’re trying to bring that whole complex human being back into the center. So part of the media that we’re generating all the time is news around this – some news around what is the human being? How is a human being getting their needs met in new ways at this time, allowing media or generating media that allows conversation to happen that allows exchange to happen that allows relationships to build, that builds belonging that builds meaning and purpose and so on.
A lot of the media that we are holding dear, is aimed at helping the complex human being come back to life, in a sense, have a better sense of itself in the public space. And I would say that a lot of what has emerged over the last 10 years does that. So whether it’s Facebook or Instagram, or TikTok, it highlights human creativity, human desire to be present, to be the creator to be visible, all of that is being highlighted by these new forms of media. So I’m quite keen to not make them wrong. They’re part of people coming back into back into life.
So serving this complex human being – what is the kind of an incubator [needed]? what is the kind of good context for the human being to thrive – this is this area here [in the second ring]. These are all the community agency networks that we are seeing coming into being.
So what is a community agency network? In our mind, it’s a good incubator, for the health of a community. It’s like a womb – a light kind of place where people can find themselves and move into relationship with others as they become relevant to the thriving and the flourishing of that place. And have an actual impact on how that place develops and is designed for the future to have an impact on the planet. So all of these CANs are the many different forms of CANs now around here (in the second ring).
Now, I’m not talking about ideas about this – this is more where something that is actually taking place in in situ. So actual eco villages, transition towns, mutual aid networks, the neighborocracy, the network of villages. This is a more interesting term that describes a lot of – they call themselves DAOs, because of their structure – decentralized autonomous organizing systems, in many, many different forms.
Some of the municipalities – not all of them – some are, in a way, very driven still by government agendas, but some have their own community life and engage citizens in a more independent, autonomous way, with a relationship to the council and so on, but not dependent on the council.
So all of these CANs are coming into being and what is our concern? Our challenge is, what is the media of each of each of these? And many of them have their own media systems, but also what is the relationship and the growing relationship between the complex human beings living anywhere and their ability to relate to a camp? How can they find their community? How can they find their incubator? How can they, where can they go to find a place to grow, that really has the whole system in it in the way that the CANs are trying to do? So these CANs themselves are cosmo-local – meaning, they’re local, but they are very connected through the internet – in fact, to all the to the commons, of global tools, methods, prototypes.
You know, the very fact that we’re having this conversation, and this conversation is part of a conversation taking place all over the world is cosmo-localism. It’s not small and flat local. It’s always cosmo-local.
So what is the relationship here? What is the media that can build between these? How are these different CANs going to start to be connected to each other? What is the media that does that? And what is the news coming from that?
How do these people become the news, if you like, is a big question.
And then [on the 3rd ring] outside of that are global operators who already have very comprehensive media systems of their own right.
So the Wellbeing Alliance for example, or the Shareable Network, or the Network of Bioregions, or Ecosystem as an incredible global operation that is trying to bring eco civilization into being the network of Fearless Cities. (I’d put Integral Cities here as well, if, they were self-constituted already as Integral Cities.)
PTP is the Peer-to-Peer network that Michelle Barnes has built, which has very, very actively built a commons of available and free technology and practice. The Permaculture Association, which is a global association bringing the most incredible learning and connectivity between every aspect of growth, like real growth, meaning life.
This TTP Trust The People is also just groups of young people now happening in different parts of the world, as well as very much in the UK who are going [into] play space that they bring into connection with other activists – global activists through Extinction Rebellion.
So I hope that you can see that the intention of trying to bring all of these things not into connection (meaning a map and a comms system) but this should become a relational system. That’s the challenge, that it’s not enough to just share information, put it on a website make it available, it’s how do these different levels move into relationship with each other, to know each other, to sense each other to be of each other. So that as a vibrant system, it really has energy, and therefore attraction.
This is how really releasing relationship [matters] – it’s easy for me to put these on a diagram together. But because they’re not interrelated, they’re not causing the attraction that I feel is really the core of a new media system.
So when all of this comes together, and the media is released between these things, then we’re looking at that broader cloud (outside the 3rd ring). So I’m just going to describe how the much wider system which is very actively served by social media of all kinds – at the moment is really a bit lacking an anchor. There’s a lot of energy for good things, but it can’t find the system to connect to that will actually end up giving them ways, means, methods, and practices to create value, from where they live, cosmo-locally, and in every area that they touch.
So at the moment, it feels to me as if all these uprisings (in the cloud) all this available energy has been created, but there’s nothing to choose. Right now, they can only try to be a protest or some sort of alternative to the current system. But there’s no way [to connect] – there’s really a lack of ways of connecting them to this incredible, regenerative, full of practice, full of instant, full of method, full of storytelling about the future – that is possible.
So this part here [in the cloud] becomes the most important part. Because this part has been slowly emerging, without our help. We’re just watching it and telling the story of it all the time but telling the story of it makes it more available to the rest. So that’s what we’re trying to mediate. This part here is almost like [new?] readiness for something, but nowhere to go – all dressed up and ready to go.
I’m trying to make this the destination for all of that emergent energy. So that’s the overall diagram at the beginning. I just want to show you one little thing, to give you a sense of how I see things coming together at the moment.
[In conclusion] I just wanted to show you [the video of the skydivers coming together as a cluster group] because that is the sense of how people are coming together as a media system.
Aliveness Seeds 7th Generation Ulab: Living Cities ❤ Earth
Out of Living Cities Russia has come a ULab experiment to seed Living Cities Earth to transform our cities into fully alive regeneration hubs for Gaia’s 7th generation.
We wrote earlier about the challenges of the Russian/Ukraine war not just for the millions of Ukrainians who have become refugees to escape the conflict – but for the Russians escaping a country whose politics they can no longer support.
Like many of the Ukrainians these Russians joining millions in the Russian diaspora, are highly educated, skilled and often holistic/integral thinkers.
Meet three Russians whom we have worked with since the Integral City Book 1 was translated into Russian as Living Cities (2); Lev Gordon, co-initiator of Russia’s Urbanfest, Oleg Lega, author of the New Sincerity Manifesto and Pavel Luksha, futurist, educator, schooling for planet.
What happens when these 3 Russians meet me as Founder of Integral City Meshworks (IC) Anne-Marie Voorhoeve the co-founder of The Hague Center for Governance Emergence and Peace (THC), and Pieter Wackers AQtivator with both IC and THC?
We agree to explore the opportunity of Living Cites Earth with a Ulab (based on Otto Scharmer’s Presencing Institute and UTheory). The momentum for a Ulab begins online for four meetings of Initiation and Co-Sensing by creating a Team Charter. Co-sensing happens when we meet in person June 10-13, 2022 through 3D Modelling – creating our views of how Living Cities is already in the world and noticing what are its essence(s)?
We charge on to explore 4D Mapping/Modelling through Systemic Constellation Work, Constellated from Ottawa Canada to Vreeland NL by Integral City Core Team Member and Whole Systems Design author Diana Claire Douglas. In this process we discover and embody that we are a bridge from how cities and city associations currently operate chiefly with focuses on infrastructure and some behaviours to cities who can dynamically amplify Aliveness by uniting full Placecaring (for consciousness and culture) with Placemaking (for behaviours and systems). We practice Attunement, Spiritual Connection and Community amongst our Seed Team. And the Divine Feminine emerges to take her place with the Divine Masculine bringing aliveness to a new bridge to the future of a planet of cities.
Following our 4D Modelling/Mapping we transfer our Seed Team of Six to the Circl Meeting Hub in Amsterdam – there we are joined by city Voices whom each of us invites to listen to our story – the longing to act as if it were the norm that cities act as if they are Gaia’s Reflective Organs – to live fully Alive as cities aligned with Nature and Gaia.
From two days of sharing and listening we craft an early essence statement: Living cities are places where people are happy, healthy and live longer in harmony with Nature.
More invitations reach out around Europe, and we move and/or assemble members of our LCE from St. Petersburg, Berlin, Zurich and Amsterdam/USA to travel to Findhorn Ecocommunity in Scotland.
We continue to iterate our co-sensing by interviewing and sharing our LCE energy with Findhorn residents/2nd and 3rd and 4th generation founders. We explore Findhorn’s founding principles of Work is Love in Action, Deep Inner Listening and Co-Creating with the Intelligences of Nature. Our listener/commenters are Lori Forsyth, Chair of Titleholders Association; Mark Anderson, Roger Collis and Kathy Tyler Findhorn Foundation Trustees; Roger Doudna Chair of Park Ecovillage Trust and initiator of Findhorn Fellows (global affiliates/experts); Michael Shaw, Co-Founder of Biomatrix, Designer of Findhorn Ecovillage’s Living Machine waste water plant, past Chair of Findhorn Trustees and active Research-Engineer; Caroline Matters CEO of Findhorn Foundation Operations; Suzanne Quinney and Tim Slack Co-Founders of Appreciating People; Maria Cooper Chair of Park Planning Group and Award Winner Permaculturist; Samantha Graham Barrel house resident (and Australian election changer); and Eveline Rodenburg initiator of the Transforming Waste Back into Food project.
The LCE delegation continues at time of writing – meeting with Pooran Desai Founder of One Planet Living, and other UK based Living Cities Earth potential affiliates. We are on the road to framing up a “Fast Prototype” for our emerging ecology of associates.
At time of writing LCE’s first public face will be seen/heard on World Unity Week Meshwork Convergence Room – sharing our discoveries and inviting interest from cities and citizens around the world.
We believe LCE is one of the few city associations that looks at cities wholistically from the living lenses of Planet/Place/People/Person – and that is an approach that is needed to make Living Cities the norm for children, families and all the 4 Voices of the city. We imagine that trauma and conflict can be resolved in Living City Peace Rooms and Fully Alive Regeneration Hubs.
Make Aliveness the Norm in your city – Gaia needs us for the 7th Generation – join us in co-creating Living Cites Earth – drop us an email here: info@integralcity.com
Footnotes:
Integral City Russian translation created the book Living Cities – and hence the Living Cities Russia association of hundreds of Russian cities that came from applying its Maps, Voices, Master Code of Care and GPS.The organization Living Cities Russia (LCR) continues within Russia with no mention of the war – but actively creating and spreading Integral frameworks, worldviews and practices, building capacity from the bottom up.
May 19, 2022
Manifesto of Living Peace: for Gaia’s Reflective Organs
In Gratitude may we Celebrate the Master Code of Care as we fulfil our Commitments:
to protect our individual needs for physical and spiritual safety and survival; and prevent harm to all individuals so that we may serve all of *PPPP.to honour the traditions and heritage of the elders and each group of persons so long as they do not threaten the health of *PPPP. to defend the freedom of each individual to express their agency, development and creativity without infringing on the freedom of others to express their agency, development and creativity so that we may serve all of *PPPP. to respect the value of order without imposing restrictions that harm individuals or groups; and honour the need for order that serves the entire system of *PPPP. to promote the success of persons; to publicly recognize the origination/originator of ideas, products and services; to be accountable for the integral and fair exchange of products, services and ideas as long as resources do not accumulate for the benefit of a few interests, organizations and/or levels of development, at the expense of (or while depriving resources to) *PPPP. to accept the dignity of groups; to ensure fair opportunity for all persons to pursue happiness as long as no individual or group is prevented from doing likewise; to not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender, creed and not to favour any group at the expense of another group as long as such action ensures the health of *PPPP. to facilitate the integral flex and flow of energy across all aspects of the Gaia’s ecosystems; to unblock the barriers to the emergence of new ways of thinking, doing, being as long as they respect the health of all life; to mesh the elegance of natural patterns, processes and structures across *PPPP. to value the geo/bio/noetic capacities of the planet; to respect the integral ecology of *PPPP; to co-emerge the evolutionary intelligence of Life inherent in *PPPP.This blog series on Recovering our Cities through Living Cities Peace Room includes the following posts:
1/4 Gaia’s Zones of Evolutionary Emergence
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (4/4)
Barbara Marx Hubbard used to imagine a Peace Room (instead of war room) where we could overview the emergence of Peace.
Here is how Living Cities::Earth could develop a possible design.
An energy field for recovering a broken City growing the potential for an Integral City as one of Gaia’s Reflective Organs of Peace can be mapped to support the capacities for the Master Code of Care as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Integral City 5 Maps
Living Cities::Earth would create the life conditions for mapping Integral City Vital Signs Monitors using like this:
Individual Performance (Map 1)Collective Coordination, Cooperation, Collaboration (Map 2)Placecaring and Placemaking (Map 3)Planetary/Global Participation. (Map 4)The Goal of a City of Peace is to Mirror this process for living every day – not just as performance, but as Evolutionary/Involutionary Principles in Practice. (Map 5)
The City as Gaia’s Organ of Peace is an evolutionary impulse from and for Gaia. Living Cities::Earth has the frameworks, tools, practices and skills to design it. We must call forth the will to Placecare and Placemake all Cities of Peace as Living Cities legacy for Earth’s future generations.
For this purpose we offer this curriculum for Peace as a Manifesto of Peace
Manifesto of Living Peace. Click to continue to next section.This blog series on Recovering our Cities through Living Cities Peace Room includes the following posts:
1/4 Gaia’s Zones of Evolutionary Emergence
4/4 Designing a Peace Room for Integral Cities of Peace
Manifesto of Living Peace: for Gaia’s Reflective Organs
References:Blogs on Peace: https://integralcity.com/page/2/?s=peace
Integral City 3.7 Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives (2018)
Integral City Inquiry and Action: Designing Impact for the Human Hive (2017)
Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive (English 2008, 2019, Russian 2014).
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (3/4)
Designing a healing process for the war will call us to address all that is broken in the cities and nations. Living Cities can develop a design strategy by using the same 10 capacities as we identified above in What is Broken? – but in a different sequence as suggested below – where the sequence from the What is Broken? shows in parentheses.
1. (8) Practise the Master Code of Care (MCC) to expand our circles of compassion. (Hamilton)
A fundamental place to start is with the MCC because it provides an ethic for Peace, a theory of change and a practice to calm the inflamed and damaged systems.
2. (9) Nurture Human Security as Ecology for Peace. (Hamilton, Buhaug O’Brien et al)
Recognizing that safety and security is a human right that is fundamental to every stage of development and manifestation of human habitats will depend on the MCC – but must be held by trusted others who have not been party to the conflict (on either side). Safety and security must start small with individuals and families and embrace the city block by block. This can be tied into the next step of creating a Peace and Conflict Restoration process (e.g. Truth and Reconciliation commission).
3. (10) Manage Peace and Conflict with the 4 Voices as Community, acting as a 3rd Side able to engage any issue and heal trauma, pain, injustice, conflict, pollution, degradation. (Ury, Huebl)
In this stage, the 4 Voices of Community (Citizens, Civic Managers, Business/Innovators, 3rd Sector) must be found and strengthened so that they can have the courage to engage issues, damages, and injuries in any of the 4 areas of reality (bio, psycho, cultural, systems). They will likely need strong representatives from other cities who can come in and incubate assemblies for Recovery (and reconciliation).
4. (1) Recognize cities as complex adaptive living systems with 5 sets of intelligences for surviving, adapting to our environments and regenerating. (Hamilton, Capra)
Cities must be honoured as living systems who have intelligences at all scales from individual to collective to organizations, neighbourhoods, communities and are embedded in bioregions. They need to use the contexting and strategic intelligences guided by the evolution impulse of the Master Code of Care.
5. (2) Learn Biomimicry lessons that reveal our cities are human hives – powerful resilient collectives, like the beehive is for bees. (Hamilton, Bloom, Benyus)
When we look at regenerating cities as human hives, we will consider not only the rehabilitation of bricks and mortar but the lives of individuals, relationships and purposes and values embedded at every scale of the city. Looking at how Nature can recover from natural disasters can give us inspiration and impetus to learn how best to be effective in our recovery efforts.
6. (3) Co-exist with 4 realities that inspire our lives through: intentions, cultures, behaviors, systems. (Wilber, Hamilton)
We can use these 4 realities to look for early wins to build capacities for recovery. This will include individual cities and the people and organizations from the rest of the world – always keeping in mind to embrace the 4 realities as co-arising, co-existing dimensions enables us to be most impactful (and should be based on the strata of Needs).
7. (4) Empower 4 ways of knowing through multiple perspectives: subjective, intersubjective, objective, interobjective. (Wilber)
We can empower people’s recovery by using 4 approaches/epistemologies/strategic designs that embrace all our senses, intelligences, response-abilities in the 4 Quadrants. We bring in specialists for 4 Quadrants and work as recovery teams – co-operating and co-laborating with locals.
8. (5) Serve the Purpose of Peace with the 4 Voices in our human hives (like the 4 roles in the beehive: Citizens/Producers, Business-Innovators/Diversity Generators, Resource Allocators/Civic Managers, Inner Judges/3rd Sector). (Hamilton)
We make room for the activities of all 4 Voices to serve Peace as we rebuild capacities. We keep Peace as an integrating/uniting Purpose in service to Planet/Place/People/Person.
9. (6) Mature species development beyond the stage of competition into the stages of cooperation and collaboration – in other words Peace. (Sahtouris).
We help the city systems discover what resources they can contribute, how their needs are being met – and create the life conditions for recovery to emerge. We need to meet them where they are at and help them regrow full, healthy capacities for living (surviving, connecting with the environment and regenerating).
10. (7) Grow our Cities through steps and stages that scale the Capacity for Peace. (Eddy, Hamilton)
We are mindful of Gaia’s stratified elements/capacities and design Journey for Peace to respect and recover how life depends on life in an ecosystem of Peace. We help the city design its own steps and stages and link individual cities to others in their bioregion so they can help each other.
How Might We Design a Peace Room for Integral Cities of Peace? Click to continue to next section.This blog series on Recovering our Cities through Living Cities Peace Room includes the following posts:
1/4 Gaia’s Zones of Evolutionary Emergence
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (2/4)
How can Integral Cities learn from Gaia, endowed as her Organs of Reflection? How can we imagine an ecology for the emergence of Peace? What City Capacities can we draw on to recover wellbeing at all scales of human existence – person, people, place and planet?
In using the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as an example let’s consider first what is broken and then how Gaia has built into herself – through her humans and their hives – the capacity to recover, heal and even thrive?
Let us consider what is broken.Cities as complex adaptive living systems have stopped using 5 sets of intelligences for surviving, adapting to our environments and regenerating. We disregard the damage to individual citizens, organizations, and cities. The bombing of Mariupol to reduce it to rubble apparently targeted civilian residences, hospitals, schools and the very basics of a civilized life.Biomimicry lessons that reveal our cities are human hives are being ignored – powerful resilient collectives, like the beehive is for bees. The military assaults on human habitats in the war, acknowledged the importance of human life but disregarded its value through the mass shootings of individuals and targeting women and children in refugee convoys.Acting blind to the 4 realities that inspire our lives denies our wholeness when we separate our intentions, cultures, behaviors and systems. The 4 realities reveal intentional misinformation, cultural propaganda to hate, inhuman actions like rape and torture and systemic use of weapons to disable transportation routes e.g. roads, bridges, airports.Ignoring 4 ways of knowing fragments our unity as multiple perspectives are disconnected from one another: subjective, intersubjective, objective, interobjective. It would appear that the invading force acted under autocratic control that denied individual conscience, cultural history (of intertwined Russian/Ukrainian stories), ethnic bonds (intermarried Russian/Ukrainian families) and combined infrastructures (of pipelines, sea lanes, agricultural supply chains).Not listening to our 4 Voices prevents us from acting on the Purpose of Peace in our human hives (disconnecting the 4 roles in the beehive: Citizens/Producers, Business-Innovators/Diversity Generators, Resource Allocators/Civic Managers, Inner Judges/3rd Sector). The 4 Voices of the Russians were strategically misinformed via news and propaganda thus disabling their intercommunication capacities. The 4 Voices of the Ukrainians were damaged by the 5 million citizens who exited the country as refugees, leaving behind a further 7.5 million people displaced within Ukraine (Economist May 2022). The majority of Ukrainian Voices were diverted from their usual peace-time occupations into military roles in defence of the country. Thus in both countries the 4 Voices were serving the Purpose of War rather than the Purpose of Peace.Regressing species development from possibilities of cooperation and collaboration into mere competition or authoritarianism blocks the emergence of Peace. The war conditions ironically demonstrated the more complex stages of cooperation and collaboration amongst the Ukrainians who fought for the value of freedom and democracy. Meanwhile the Russian nation was rewarded only for service to the attacking of its neighbour, wasting Russian resources for generations. In further irony the Russian oligarchs were targeted by the EU and Western democracies to reduce their influence and recover their resources for the rest of the world supporting Ukraine through delivery of weapons, munition and training, Preventing city growth through steps and stages severs flows to support the development of capacities for Peace. While the war continues no growth is possible. In fact the war has impacted the evolutionary trajectory and set it back into less complex stages of complexity possibly for generations to come.Forgetting the Master Code of Care shrinks our circles of compassion. Some Russians in the diaspora in the rest of the world have been able to demonstrate compassion for those involved in the conflict, including Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have been reduced to care for self and their immediate families and countrymen and women – while desperately trying to live as their human habitats (cites, towns, villages) have been assaulted. The Master Code of Care has been seriously injured, even while the Rest of the World assimilates the impact of refugee migrations.Weaponizing Human Security mechanizes human disconnections creating deserts of Peace. This most fundamental assumption of daily life – that safety and security is fundamental to all human endeavours – has been transgressed by the attackers and the cause of fear in the victims.Traumatizing the 4 Voices of Community prevents the emergence of a 3rd Side able to engage any issue and blocks the healing of trauma, pain, injustice, conflict, pollution, degradation. The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war will last generations, as it derives from unhealed traumas from previous wars and conflicts. The great wounds of distrust and disrespect have damaged both victims and aggressors. Rescuers, Rebels, Witnesses cannot be effective while the conflict continues.How Might We Heal ? Click to continue to next section.This blog series on Recovering our Cities through Living Cities Peace Room includes the following posts:
1/4 Gaia’s Zones of Evolutionary Emergence
Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (1/4)
Integral City integrates and synthesizes the evolutionary dynamics of the city as the most complex human system yet created. Guided by Gaia’s Evolutionary Impulse, we can build Capacity for Peace when we honour Context and live the Master Code of Care: simultaneously Caring for person, people, place and planet.
Using Integral City Frameworks, when threats to Human Security destroy Peace we can use Gaia’s wisdom to design approaches to heal and rebuild Gaia’s living systems that she manifests through her human beings.
How can we imagine applying these principles to the horrors of war we observe every day of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict?
I have pointed out (Hamilton, 2019, Chapter 6) in Security Systems: Evolutionary Framework for the Human Hive, that Gaia has evolved in a sequence of planetary evolution – translating the gifts she inherited from the evolution of the Universe and Solar System into the zones of our Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere, Biosphere, Anthroposphere and Civilization (Eddy, 2003, 2005) as seen in Figure 1
Figure 1: Gaia’s Zones of Emergence.
When we ponder this stratification of elements they challenge us to consider what would happen if any of them were threatened. I identified the threats related to the last six of these zones as related to Energy, Water, Climate, Food, Biogenetics and Psycho-Cultural-Social impacts as seen in Figure 2 (ibid).
Figure 2: Threats to Gaia’s Zones
It used to be that the costs of wars would be “simply” measured in terms of the loss of infrastructure, human life and economic costs. Now we talk about the impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as not just calculated based on those “traditional” valuations of the costs of war, but we are beginning to realize that this war is impacting our access to energy (oil, gas, nuclear), water (Black Sea), food (oils, grains) and that all these elements are interconnected on all the levels of planetary emergence.
Likewise, the threats we have endured in the last 2 years of the pandemic are clearly bio-genetic, while the IPCC’s latest report reminds us that climate change continues to threaten life on our globe.
So, through a natural convergence (not a conspiracy) of Gaia’s zones of emergence we sit on the edge of a perfect storm of ecosystem breakdown.
Integral City proposes cities are Gaia’s Reflective Organs, with humans the cells in those organs and our organizations their sub-systems/organelles (Lovelock 2009). Effectively what happens to Gaia happens to her organs and vice versa. And humans as those organs are now challenging the very qualities of life itself – failing to survive, failing to connect with our environment and failing to regenerate our capacities. We threaten ourselves as Gaia’s expression of consciousness.
What is Broken? Click to continue to next section.This blog series on Recovering our Cities through Living Cities Peace Room includes the following posts:
1/4 Gaia’s Zones of Evolutionary Emergence
April 25, 2022
Book Review: Whole Systems Design
Constellating for the Collective is how Diana Claire Douglas describes her work. And if you want to learn how she came to facilitating constellations for the collective, then read this book.
[image error]Whole Systems Design is not only logical and informative with its 3 Sections of:
Diana Claire’s StoryConversations with ColleaguesInterviews with Constellators.It is also a pleasure to read (benefiting from Diana Claire’s deep experience as author, co-author, editor and publisher).
Diana Claire shares her rich and diverse background – both personal and professional – that led her to this powerful Systemic Constellation Work. She was attracted to the calling through the doorways of Personal and Family Constellations, followed by Constellating for Organizations. These smaller scale constellation experiences built a solid foundation for her to gradually accumulate knowledge and experience for constellations that served communities, cities, societies and global emergence.
Readers will benefit from the author’s clear description of how she prepares for constellations by researching the issues involved as well as establishing a strongly respectful relationship with the host or client of the question being explored. They will then learn how Diana Claire harvests the impacts and documents the shifts in situation relationships, both graphically and through written reports.
In addition to Diana Claire’s illustrations of the theory, structure and practice of constellating, she describes her personal service through the work of systemic constellations through conversations with colleagues. Especially tantalizing are the leading- edge inquiries she has co-initiated into the Conscious Witness Project and Systemic Co-Creation and Collaboration.
The third interview section of the book provides a world of juicy insights into Diana Claire’s peer group of constellators. Her interviews reveal the practices of Constellators for the Collective who come from nine different contexts and many cultures around the globe – each showing how constellations can make visible the invisible elements of situations as complex as conference constellations of 250 people, ancestral trauma, colonization, the relationship between the quantum field and knowing field, indigenous healing and archetypal mythodrama.
In this book, Diana Claire reflects her wise facilitation of constellations through her generous sharing of knowledge, experience and on-going learning of Constellating for the Collective. I have been waiting for this book for years. I am not disappointed, and I am recommending it to all Integral City practitioners, catalysts and meshworkers.
This book illustrates why Diana Claire was awarded Integral City Meshworker of the Year 2018.
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