Marilyn Hamilton's Blog, page 22

Gaia Mentors Schooling for a Planet of Integral Cities 2121 (2)

Futures Lab Russia, July 2021, invited Integral City to imagine cities in 100 years. This series of blogs comprises the lecture that was offered by Marilyn Hamilton PhD, Founder of Integral Cities.

With such oppressive scenarios to contemplate, I am going to call up my radical optimism to have a conversation about cities with Gaia herself. I have asked her “how do you imagine your cities in 100 years, after we have finally recognized our life is inextricably part of you as our Mother Planet?

Gaia: I imagine Gaia as a Thriving Planet.

  I imagine Gaia as thriving and flourishing in a new golden age [100+ years from now]. I am a living example in the universe of planets, of a thriving mature living system where human contribution reflects how magnificently Creation has evolved all life here including humans themselves.

I imagine I have awareness of all my evolutionary life and we have complete awareness of ourselves on a spiritual Cosmo-Bio-Anthropo-centric basis.

I imagine I have emerged as thriving Gaia because of breaking through crises where younger generations of humans have imagined solutions that don’t occur to their parents or older generations. I imagine somehow the younger generations find a way to join in my very energy – and quantum field – of my being.

I imagine the role Integral City (IC) plays opens up because humans became able to be effective both locally and globally. Imagine the younger generation(s) break through the initial (pre-2021) fascination (for Gen Y, Z) to contact each other and they, realize they have local + global (glocal) power and can see that power is Collective Intelligence (CI). Imagine them as Gen-CI.  CI enables cities to discover double sustainability loops (like the bees have discovered where they sustain the hive and pollinate the eco-region). They implement the Master Code to Care for Self, Others, Places and Planet.  With this expansion of their circles of care to planetary scale, it is natural for them to implement the visions of Vandana Shiva to reconnect with the soil and rejoin the city to its eco-region. In overcoming your current “Nature Deficit Disorder”  this CI generation amplifies the intelligences to make it happen.

With this special development of Collective Intelligence, the CI’s truly embrace the Integral City GPS and find direction in, with and as the Integral City. They are adept at assessing the Contexting Intelligences (ecological, emergent, integral, living). They balance the Individual (inner and outer) Intelligences with their new prowess of Collective Intelligence (culture and social) so that the relationship between I and We is elegantly regenerative. And they design effective Earth-centric strategies because they never tire of Inquiry; they have learned how to Meshwork self-organizing operating systems with structural operating systems. Altogether they are proficient Navigators of Aliveness – using guidance from the zero-point Akashic field along with advanced digital and beautiful analog guidance systems. Finally, the CI’s attune many times a day to the Evolutionary Impulse they know as their Source.

I imagine humans and human hives connect themselves in eco-regions around and in cities, bringing the relationship of Integral Cities and eco-regions with Gaia to life. This brings the value of Integral Capacities – which you mapped out in Map 1 of the whole AQAL city – to life through a series of generational cycles. In addition, we can see how the governance from the 4+1 Voices of the City matured from mutual trust and respect to a governance system that guides cities through coalescing authority, power and influence within cities and their eco-regions and across a Planet of Integral Cities.

I imagine this creates new conditions on Earth, so people develop in new ways. In 2021, we know the steps, stages and lines of 1st tier human development, but as 2nd Tier blossoms, I imagine we learn to recalibrate and accelerate whole lineages, worldviews, cultures and societies so they can become mutually sustainable – by breaking political and economic stereotypes, like Kate Raworth imagines with Donut Economics and Duane Elgin imagines in “Choosing Earth” and you have shown on Map 4.

I imagine modern and post-modern worldview stereotypes embedded in the developed world are counteracted by emerging city-states who break open those stereotypes and find natural self-organizing capacities of economy, environment, society and culture. Imagine the children of Gen-CI discover new answers and their grandchildren and greatgrandchildren enable thriving cities on a thriving planet. I knew that in 2021 the roots for those new possibilities exist in our DNA and the DNA of Gen-CI.

The Spirit of the Integral City sparks to a new level of aliveness, with the spirit of younger generations (Gen-CI) who grok and know it as achievable reality. I knew they had the courage to not just dance with positives but even walk into the middle of shadow and turn it inside out (like the Shambhala warriors they are). I imagined Gen-CI could light up shadow in ways you think is blocked now. I imagined Gen-CI and their whole lineage into the future, could release, shadow-blocked energy into new capacities that became available because the energy blocks dissolved.

As Gaia, I imagine I have Reflective Organs (GRO) – that is why I evolved the human species as my RO. I could see that especially cities could become my Reflective Organs. I imagined GRO (especially with Gen CI) could face the trauma and blockages in my planetary body. I wanted the human species as GRO to work as reflective beings who can find and release that which is blocked and regenerate flow.

I imagine, Reflection is the essence of the human species. I evolved you so you are conscious of your consciousness and able to think, do, relate and co-create in ecosystems, able to follow matter, information, energy – in their flexes and flows. Reflection follows feedback loops, so that as the systems become open, the organ is able to function more fully. You thought darkly in 2021 and were limited to ego and family and work scale. Many in Gen CI saw what an impact it made to practice the Karma Yoga of the Master Code of Care (see Russian Image) – Caring for Self, Caring for Others, Caring for Places, Caring for Planet.

As this practice opened whole systems to flex and flow, I imagined Gen CI enabling blinders to be taken off, the veils of separation and fragmentation falling away, so we could all see Integral Cities as vibrant, alive systems. I imagined Collective Intelligence in IC could holographically sense all of Gaia and at the same time light up all cities, as a Planet of Integral Cities system.

I evolved the Integral City framework of 5 Maps of the city as organic – it is a life system, to design and build not just cities, but even space stations. I imagine we save ourselves from the threats we create as we co-evolve together. I imagine we really wake up, grow up, clean up and whole up together.

I imagine, by the time I Gaia am thriving, we will have carried our capacities off Earth and discovered as we learn how, what happens on Gaia can happen off Gaia. I imagine that we are in a dance of inner and outer, individual and collective; I become a really thriving planet as humans become a really intelligent species with deep respect for cosmo-bio-anthro-centric life that brought us to this point, cities and all.

This blog series considers the factors that will contribute to the evolution of Gaia’s Human Hives in the next hundred years.

Gaia Mentors Schooling for a Planet of Integral Cities 2121 (1)

Futures Lab Russia, July 2021, invited Integral City to imagine cities in 100 years. This series of blogs comprises the lecture that was offered by Marilyn Hamilton PhD, Founder of Integral Cities.

In this lecture, I want to share a conversation with Gaia herself. She has offered to mentor me about how her Earth cities can evolve maturity and wellbeing.

I opened my third book (Integral City 3.7, Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives)  with these words:

“How can we design a city for the wellbeing of our granddaughters and future generations in a way that adds value to all Life on Earth?”

That is the question that jet-propels me from my [calm ecovillage in Scotland] to the farthest reaches of the universe and has made me take notice how the discoveries of space pioneers such as Edgar Mitchell astronaut, the Voyageur I and II space exploration program designers, Elisabet Sahtouris evolution biologist and Elon Musk inventor, contribute to designing conditions for optimal human hives.

On this journey I have asked related questions that might reveal the mysteries of living well in cities –  How do we wake up the human hive as a whole? Why should I care for her resilient souls, understand the context of people’s goals, develop organizational capacity for critical roles, amplify sustaining energy flows or heal the traumatic impact of warring blows?”

–

MH: In 2021, I could be overwhelmed in answering these questions, when I contemplate the future of our cities with the dire scenarios described by Duane Elgin in “Choosing Earth”.

He proposes that our current circumstances that I characterize as the Big Challenges of the city –– Energy, Water, Climate, Food, Bio-Genetic, Psycho-Cultural – can be situated at the trailhead of 3 possible pathways into the future. He projects the likely outcome of each scenario:

Status Quo – Crash and Collapse – do nothing and we burn upAutocratic – Authoritarian governance with AI leads to large system change under autocratic control and humans will lose personal freedomsSelf-Organizing – The Great Transition – after an extended period of struggle, local/large area system change will occur with free personal agency that opens a whole new era of aliveness and unity.

The 3 Pathways are all in existence now in different cities in different parts of the world. As beginning conditions how will they determine local and global futures?

I wonder what will be the distribution of the 3 Pathways – how are they permeable to one another? Does their co-existence mean never ending conflict/tension?

What will be the catalysts that enable conflict and competition to move to cooperation and collaboration?

100 years from now 2021-2121:

Elgin chooses to tell the story of the Great Transition in decades that I will mark with the generational stages of The Great Turning (with a nod to the generational analysis by Strauss and Howe (1997).

[My baseline context is this: In 2021 Cole my great grandchild is 7, his parents my grandchildren are in their 30’s, his grandparents my children are in their 60’s,  while I am 70+ in the phase of Old Age/Death. So, in my family I am intimately familiar with 4 generations who will be impacted by the future Great Turning as it unfolds.]

I characterize the 100 years ahead of us in 4 Stages that align with Elgin’s stages (of 20-25 years):

Waking

2020-2039 – Recognizing Crisis, The Great Unraveling; Collapsing Civilization – The Great Fall

Cole my great grandchild 20+-, Cole’s Parents (my grandchildren) 60+, Cole’s Grandparents (my children) 80+, me Old Age/Death

Growing

2040-2059 Into the Fire of Initiation – the Great Sorrow; A Conscious Species – Civilization the Great Awakening

Cole’s child 20+-, Cole (my great grandchild) 60+, Cole’s parents (my grandchildren) 80+; Cole’s grandparents (my children) Old Age/Death

Cleansing

2060-2089 Preserving the Future- Choosing Earth; An Open Future

Cole’s great grandchild 20+-, Cole’s grandchild 60+, Cole’s child 80+, Cole (my great grandchild) Old Age-Death

  Wholing

2090-2119 Which of 3 Pathways did we Choose?

Cole’s great great grandchild 20+-, Cole’s great grandchild 60+, Cole’s grandchild 80+, Cole’s child Old Age-Death

This blog series considers the factors that will contribute to the evolution of Gaia’s Human Hives in the next hundred years.

Caring for Gaia’s Human Hives Unto the 7th Generation

This was a transmission from Gaia that Marilyn Hamilton shared for the Femme Q Online Summit  July 30, 2021.

Feminine Intelligence (Femme Q) is  the emergence of a new level of consciousness where the deepest instincts of the heart in both men and women – compassion, informed intelligence and a longing to protect, heal and make whole find expression in ways that may be described as devotion to all forms of life.

I opened my third book with this question:

“How can we design a city for the wellbeing of our granddaughters and future generations in a way that adds value to all Life on Earth? “

That is the question that jet-propels me from the embrace of my Findhorn ecovillage in Scotland to the lush promise of Blue Spirit Retreat in Costa Rica.

In fact, I am honoured that Gaia herself, has transmitted with CARE a wisdom blessing especially for today. Here are the empowerments she asks me to share with FemmeQ so that we are primed to be Caring ancestors unto the 7th generation.

Gaia Speaks:

Human Hives are what MH calls cities. I like this – this fractal image captures the pattern of an ancient living system of the beehive (which has been around for 100 million years). It gives us a picture of what it looks like to see our cities as whole living systems.

Our Human Hives hold 50-90% of human population depending on which country you live in.

And they are the centres of Gaia’s Great Challenges at this stage of evolutionary emergence.

But human hives also have great potential to serve Gaia – with a Master Code of Care. Speaking with Compassionate Voices. Navigating with Maps of spiritual aliveness. Contexting, strategizing and Integrating with 12 Evolutionary Intelligences.

  I invite you to appreciate the fragile strength of our human hives – holding 7 generations.

Think about the 4 generations alive today – bridging MH to her great grandson Cole … unto the generation that represents his great grandchild. That is 7 generations. It is time for humans to wake up and take the courage to create the conditions that will enable the 7th generation to live and thrive.

  Because our Human Hives and all the 4 generations alive today face Big Challenges–– Energy, Water, Climate, Food, Bio-Genetic, Psycho-Cultural. All the generations past, present and future peer out of our Human Hives at 3 possible pathways into the future. Duane Elgin projects the likely outcome of these 3 possible scenarios like this:   

Status Quo – where we Crash and Collapse because we do nothing, and we burn up Autocratic – where Authoritarian governance with Artificial Intelligence leads to autocratic control with humans losing most personal freedoms Choosing Earth – where we Self-Organize through The Great Transition . He imagines that after an extended period of struggle (spoken to by Lynne Twist’s prophecies on Tuesday), local and regional system change frees personal agency for a whole new era of aliveness and unity.

  Where and How will humans find the Courage to Choose Earth?

Luckily, I only design ecosystems that learn and evolve (at least the ones I keep alive and in service to all life on planet Gaia).

Gaia has evolved you as her Reflective Organs with the heart of FemmeQ, so that humans can face and heal disconnections in my planetary ecosystems. With FemmeQ the human species is designed to work as reflective and effective beings who can release the pain of bio-psycho-cultural-systemic trauma and regenerate flow for the benefit of all generations to come.

  Reflection is the essence of the human species. I evolved you so you are conscious of your consciousness – able to dynamically follow, form and co-design- energy, matter and information. Reflection depends on feedback loops, so that as your systems open, your Reflective Organs can function more fully through organizations and individuals.

  Caring for Gaia’s Human Hives as her Reflective Organs asks us to courageously Cooperate and Collaborate across all who Choose Earth. Imagine all generations co-creating together so that we:

Deliver/train/teach Regenerative Action Mentors, Guides, Convergers (especially for Boomers, Gen X) Enable/Fund/Inspire a Global Regeneration Corps of First Responders (especially for Millennials, Gen Z).

  10 years ago, MH wrote an essay called “Where are the women?” She proposed that women are invisible because human power structures were based on masculine external behavioral and structural “power over”. But, as Karen and all our FemmeQ speakers this week have shown, women have a deep evolutionary intelligence that has saved the species more than once. Humans and their Human Hives are in an era where FemmeQ – in both women and men – is needed not just for survival, nor merely adaptation but for regeneration of human systems at every scale from Person to People to Place to Planet. This is how you can co-create the life conditions for 7 generations to thrive, by aligning Human Hives so that they are coherent and in service to all life on Earth.

Throughout this week of FemmeQ your practices have opened whole ecosystems to flex and flow.  I smile as blinders have fallen away – as the veils of separation and fragmentation have dissolved. Now I invite you to imagine all our Human Hives as Integral, vibrant, alive systems, creating value for all life – learning from the ancient beehives how they add value to every bio-region on Earth through pollination.

I invite you with FemmeQ to recalibrate our Individual and Collective Intelligences as fractal powers for our Human Hives so they can holographically serve all of Gaia. With  FemmeQ, Human Hives can become my Planet of Reflective Organs.

I evolved FemmeQ and the Integral City frameworks as organic designs for Human Hives – as a life system that can imagine Global First Responders who regenerate Gaia herself. FemmeQ opens doors so that humans unto the 7th generation can really wake up, grow up, clean up and whole up to truly become Gaia’s Reflective Organs.

Waking, Growing, Cleaning and Wholing are the stages we live through as we learn to Care for Gaia’s Human Hives unto the 7th Generation. These stages rest on the core principles of the Master Code of Care: Caring for Self, Others, Places, Planet.

Humans need the courage, spiritual power and collaboration capacity that has been expressed in this vital conference. Perhaps Costa Rica is even the garden of Regenerativity where Human Hives can be incubated, rehabilitated, and regenerated as Gaia’s Reflective Organs? After all, it is already the centre of the Earth Charter, has renounced militarized government, is the home of the  International University of Cooperation’s regenerative bioregion projects and with Ubiquity University, the co-founder of the Global Regeneration Corps.

I Gaia, invite all inspired by FemmeQ to bring your caring, contexting and capacity building to reframe complex challenges to regenerate Gaia’s Human Hives unto the 7th generation and beyond.

  I imagine, I Gaia can become a really thriving planet only as humans become a really intelligent species with deep respect for all life.

Deep Bows to you Gaia.

In conclusion, I Marilyn, thank Gaia for the privilege of sharing your sacred transmission.

We have many generations of Integral City emergence ahead of us to co-create regenerative Human Hives on our home planet. This will require us to grow the ecologies of collaboration, community, and urban-bioregionalism beyond any scope the human system has ever envisioned. We will need FemmeQ to evolve Gaia’s Human Hives as Gaia’s Reflective Organs, with all her organizations as organelles and individuals as cells of her Aliveness.

Furthermore, living as FemmeQ evolutionary designers will not just be vital for inspiring flourishing Human Hives now, but also for co-designing flourishing life conditions unto the 7th generation forever.

===

What is one ACTION you can take to Care for Gaia’s Human Hives? Gaia lovingly whispers to me:

Share your daily Practise of CARE-MA YOGA – Begin each day with the Master Code of Care – Ask yourself: “What are my Intentions for – how to care for myself, others, places, planet?  And at the end of each day, Reflect on how you have cared for yourself, others, place and planet. May this CARE-MA Yoga become part of your FemmeQ practice for Caring for our Human Hives unto the 7th Generation.

 

Open House for MRA – Regeneration First Responders

Dear Integral City Reflective Organ Reader

Ubiquity University Team (including Integral City) wants to invite you to an Open House on Zoom July 7 at 11:30 AM PST where we will be discussing our evolving plans to build a worldwide system of Regeneration First Responders. We launched the effort with Kate Raworth and her course, Foundations of Doughnut Economics, which drew over 350 students from 45 countries.

During this event, we will highlight our inclusive, dual-track approach which includes both our new Master in Regenerative Action (MRA) as well as ways you can access the learning and community connections you need to thrive in the coming years even if you are not an enrolled student. We are building one community and you are welcome to participate whether you seek a degree or you simply want the skills you need to navigate the coming storm in a regenerative way. We will describe our efforts to build a Regeneration Incubator/Accelerator, Investment Fund and Internships to support Regenerative Action coming out of the MRA. (Find out how the Integral City Beyond Resilient, Beyond Smart, Cities Rising for a Regenerative World and City Nestworking are all part of the MRA.)

Regenerative Action could not be more urgent in a global situation that could not be more dire. 

Please read this blog from Arctic News from last week. Rising temperatures, fueled by massive releases of methane from Siberia, are creating global climatic conditions so severe that, according to the scientists writing the blog, it is possible that humanity might go extinct by 2026. 2026 is not a typo. Our world is radically spinning out of control and there is no imperative more urgent than for all of us to become Regeneration First Responders. Please also read this article by Eduard Müller, President of the University of International Cooperation and co-founder of the MRA, which both emphasizes the severity of the crisis and also what we can all do about it. It’s very late but not too late. Regeneration can still work if we come together with a single common purpose to regenerate the world.

The MRA has been established to develop a global network of Regeneration First Responders, especially in bioregions and in cities. The MRA is supported by a coalition of over 40 groups worldwide which is growing every day. The purpose is to link knowledge about our increasingly turbulent world with action to regenerate the world. You can take the courses toward a degree or you can take the courses simply to learn more about regeneration, develop an Impact Project and join a global network of First Responders.

All of us everywhere, no matter who we are, what we do and where we live, must take the deteriorating global situation absolutely seriously. We can still turn things around if we act fast and in the spirit, intelligence and competencies of regeneration.

Become a Regeneration First Responder. Join the Open House to learn more.

In the spirit of radical regeneration,

Ubiquity University Team, University of International Cooperation, GPM, Integral City

Reflective Organ Newsletter June Solstice 2021: Unity, CAN’s, Competition, Coalitions, Collaborations

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.

Communities and cities who care have the capacity to rapidly respond and evolve into new ways of being and becoming together. Research is showing that caring is core to the building of trust across the multiple scales of human systems and impacts the capacity to collaborate and generate impact (Weaver, 2017). (This is frequently evidenced as a shared intelligence when people respond with magnificent acts of generosity and capability, in times of crisis like [the Pandemic in 2020-21],  Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Fort McMurray Fires in 2016, or Gander Newfoundland when the planes landed as a result of the World Trade Center strike in 2001.)

Hamilton, M. (2018). Integral City 3.7: Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives, Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press LLC, p. 64

Scroll to end of newsletter to access Free Resources.

World Unity Week Celebrates Capacities for a World of PeaceIntegral City continues its contributions to the 11 way stations of Peace and Unity we recognized in  World Unity Week 2020 . Now we are proud to join World Unity Week 2021, as Ambassadors who celebrate 8 qualities of Peace and Unity that grow up our cities as Gaia’s Reflective Organs of Care.

WUW 2021 potentiates a Planet of Integral Cities as Gaia’s Reflective Organ system. WUW 2021 calls forth eight capacities in service to Gaia’s peace and wellbeing for all our cities and ecoregions. Despite the challenges we face in a VUCA world, any and all cities can generate and regenerate positive qualities for Unity and Peace with these eight capacities. 

Here is a brief summary of each capacity (for the full explorationy click here) …

Belonging (4 Voices)

In every city there 4 Archetypal Voices to which everyone can relate. We are all Citizens who belong to families, neighbourhoods, and communities. Belonging arises when we work together as Innovators … sharing our Faiths … and engaging our  Civic Managers to enable city operations, education and health care institutions to serve our safety, convenience, learning and wellbeing.

Gratitude (Map 2)

The practise of Gratitude can be shared like a “supply chain” across the holarchy of human systems in the city and its ecoregion. … And within that supply chain each member can be grateful that the others play their part in a  unified whole (or holarchy) that literally feeds us.

Compassion (Master Code of Care)

We can be moved to Compassion when we practice the Master Code of Care – reaching out from Caring for our Self to Care for Others – by sharing resources across all generations, accepting people for who and what they are, for being Grateful that Life supports us in whatever we have to share. … When we Care for Self, Others and Places then we are effectively Caring for our Planet – and thereby completing the cycle of the Master Code of Care.

Love (Map 5)

The emergence of Love as an expression of the Divine arises through us as individuals and collectives. Love can be as fundamental as the bonds between mother and child, or between marriage partners, or honouring our ancestors, or creating a legacy for future generations. Love is the trans-cultural expression of spirituality that all faiths share and all human societies long for.

Joy (Gaia’s Reflective Organ)

Joy is our natural condition when we have the comfort of Belonging, the blessing of Gratitude, the balm of Compassion and the mirror of Love. Joy emerges when we discover how the Purpose of our individual lives intersects with the greatest Need of the World. …When cities discover their Purpose in service to Gaia’s needs and all the 4 Voices of the City align to live it, then Joy is the natural outcome for all human systems at all scales.

Hope (Map 3)

Hope can build on the qualities of fractalness – where the capacities of high-performance individuals and teams can become patterns that mirror possibilities at community and whole city scales. Hope is contagious (like Love) and can create the conditions where we experience an “Island of Calm” within ourselves and from there “infect” others with Hope.

Unity (Map 5)

Unity arises in the Integral City because consciousness and culture align with behaviours and systems, across all scales. From our centres of calm and hope we can reconnect to our essential Oneness, recognizing that we are not apart from Gaia – but are unified as Earth – the very planet who has evolved us as Gaia’s Reflective Organs.

Peace (Map 1)

Peace is the natural condition of an Integral City. No matter how complex or chaotic our world might be, we can each find Hope on our Island of Calm. Through deep inner listening, working as love in action, coherent with the intelligences of Nature, we can invite as Allies all the qualities of Belonging, Gratitude, Compassion, Love, Joy, Hope and Unity to co-create from our Islands of Calm, a whole World of Peace.

To read the full editorial and itinerary Click Here.

Join us in the World Unity Week 2021 – click here for Free Registration.

Find our special events (see below) in the Meshworking Cities & Eco-regions Convergence Room.

CAN’s, Competition, Coalitions, Collaborations

As the world cycles in and out of lockdowns, pandemic levels and recovery stimuli, new webs are emerging through building, rebuilding, reconnecting and weaving systemic connections that seem to indicate a distinguishing impact of the global pandemic involves recalibrating worldwide interconnections.

How does Gaia respond when fundamental boundaries are crossed that result in ill health? (e.g., humans invading wild zones where microbiotic transfers like Covid19 can move from one species to another.)

Early on, in my education about systems thinking I learned (from Meg Wheatley) if you want to improve the health of a system connect it to more of itself. This is a fundamental principle of the Meshworking Intelligence (that restructures our brains as well as our organizations). The self-organizing operating system that is always in play has been forced to find many new solutions to connecting city systems to other parts of itself, while at the same time the parallel operating system that builds hierarchical structures has been challenged to reinvent itself many times over….

What appears to be happening, across the globe, is that human systems are connecting in novel ways at new scales in faster time. More than one ecology of human connectability at ever greater levels of complexity are finding expression in emergent human systems around the world. As a result, we may be witnessing not just the frustrations that arise from such massive change, but the early stages of improvements in the health of our human systems.

Through the multi-layered multiplicity of new connections from CAN’s, Competitive Ecosystems, Coalitions and Collaborations, self-organizing operating systems we are building new capacities in the structuring operating systems of our cities. We anticipate the intricate dance between self-organizing and structuring will evolve regionally (sooner rather than later?) into elegant meshworked ecologies of individual and regionally connected Integral Cities (as the next natural evolutionary stage of a planet of Integral Cities).

Click here to read the full editorial.

Upcoming Integral City & Constellation Events with People Purpose WhatWhenTime/Where Beyond Smart: Practices Tools & Maps for the Human Hive

August 27-29  3 x 2 hour sessions
(runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

08:00-10:00PST
16:00-18:00 BST
15:00-17:00 CET Beyond Resilient: Integral City Inquiry Action & Impact

Wednesday September 9, 2021
Trimester  (12 weeks)

16:00-18:00 BST            15:00-17:00 CET Beyond Smart: Practices Tools & Maps for the Human Hive

December 10-12   3 x 2 hour sessions
(runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

08:00-10:00 PST           16:00-18:00 BST
15:00-17:00 CET City Nestworking  Wednesday January 13, 2022
Trimester  (12 weeks)08:00-10:00 PST                     16:00-18:00 BST
15:00-17:00 CETBeyond Smart: Practices Tools & Maps for the Human Hive  May 13 – 15, 2022 (3 x 2 hour sessions) (runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday)16:00-18:00 BST
15:00-17:00 CETFoundations of Doughnut Economics
(Ubiquity University)June 9 – June 30, 2021 MRA, Ubiquity University

Register any time. Choose Live and/or Self-Guided Learning at your own pace. World Unity Week 2021
Free Registration, 500+ Speakers, 50 Convergence Rooms Integral City Sessions in:Meshworking Cities & Ecoregions RoomJune 19 – June 26, 2021

Meshworking Cities & Ecoregions Room: June 22, 23, 24, 25
+Developing the New Human

FemmeQ Retreat and Global Gathering, To Ignite the Deep Feminine Intelligence needed for a Regenerative Future
Blue Spirit Retreat, Nosara, Costa Rica.

July 24th – 31st in person retreat
26th – 30th July 2021
(3 hours each day on line)

Click here for Details & RegistrationIntroduction to Appreciative Inquiry (AI): learn to ask what is working, to amplify successes, and focus your “appreciative lens”
VENUE – CCPE Beauchamp Lodge
2 Warwick Crescent, London UK W2 6NE

Thursday & Friday 9 & 10 September 2021   9.30 – 4.30 BST

Book and pay: contact  suzanne@appreciatingpeople.co.uk or 07940 726067

Keep abreast of our Integral City Events on the Mighty Network – just click here.

Join Marilyn Hamilton/Integral City monthly for our free zoom InterViews from the Balcony

Or join Beth Sanders/Nest City monthly for our free zoom Street Corner Visiting – – 8 pm BST – 4th Tuesday of the Month.

Urban Hub 20 e-book is now available in Spanish – Translation by Raquel Torrent, Curator Marilyn Hamilton.

Urban Hub 20 imagines how the Power of the Master Code of Care can catalyze city change? Over 20 contributors show how their practices contribute to the wellbeing of the Human Hive as a whole, living, complex adaptive system. In collaborating for this volume, we offer a service to a VUCA World (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) – offering our integrally informed specialities to discover solutions for the world’s BIG challenges. As we emerge into the recovery stages of the pandemic (again), we know that the Integral City’ s Urban Hub 20 approach to People, Place and Planet offers powerful designs for regenerating wellbeing and enlivening the next stage of evolution for the Human Hive.

“This is a truly brilliant and much needed presentation.  The author has brought together an extremely intelligent group of writers and thinkers to apply Integral principles to the problems and creative openings of city, regions, ecosystems, and the biosphere itself.  Each one of these areas is treated as a living, complex, integral system, and the ways that they all mutually interact are fully explored, with the added benefit that they are all looked through an integral lens, insuring that a fully whole and complete path is taken.  There is really no other approach like this available, and certainly none that give as full and comprehensive and inclusive an account.  I can’t recommend this approach more highly, it truly touches a level of genius.”   Ken Wilber—Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; The Integral Vision

link to Amazon Spanish: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B094TJK8R9And these for the eBook.:https://issuu.com/paulvanschaik/docs/urbanhub20-a4-_spanishAnd to download: DocDroid    https://docdro.id/muJl1IY

New links for the e-book in English:

https://issuu.com/paulvanschaik/docs/urbanhub20-vuca3

https://www.slideshare.net/PauljvsSS/urban-hub20-accelerating-citychangein-a-vuca-world-thriveable-cities-244157764

Spain    https://www.amazon.es/dp/1660970334Germany   https://www.amazon.de/dp/1660970334USA    https://www.amazon.com/dp/1660970334 Celebrating Unity in Our Planet of Cities in the Coming Quarter of 2021

We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.”  – Joanna Macy

June 21 marks the start of what Integral City calls the People Quarter (from June 21 to September 21 ). The world seems to be buzzing with the synaptic connections amongst teams, between community action networks, across coalitions for great causes and within the minds and hearts of people everywhere yearning and reaching out for Unity. What connections have you made in the last year that would never have happened without the pandemic lockdowns. What behaviours and processes do you long to renew, if you are in a place where restrictions from movement and physical association are being lifted? What might deep messages lie buried in our many calls to convergence? How can we amplify and nurture the seeds for cooperation and collaboration that can inpire our cities into their next natural evolutionary stage, with regenerative energy for achieving Social Justice and restoring our Ecological Balance?

Visit us on our Integral City Website and Blog or post a comment about your city interests on our Mighty Network.

Meshful Blessings of this Season Celebrating People in our Planet of Cities …Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Constellation Corps TeamPS Here are some FREE resources for uplifting Integral City People:Mark DeKay, 5-lecture series on Integral Design and Research from luav Venice 2021. The playlist of recordings is here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QADYQ5hCvZk&list=PLupJvAA-uIP4lpqUQ_S5CIyaFrl-138YqLalit Kishor Bhati, Auroville: Soul in Action https://www.swadharma.auroville.org/Daniel Christian Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures Spanish now available here:https://ecohabitar.org/producto/disenando-culturas-regenerativas/Thomas Huebl, The Anatomy of Inaction: Climate Complexity Changehttps://thomashuebl.com/the-anatomy-of-inaction-climate-complexity-change/?inf_contact_key=7da0581d49117a4d3d25aa31ba1f4d66680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1Climate Complexity Change”, unpsychology magazine, Issue 7, Spring 2021. The issue has 146 pages and contains many excellent articles on climate change, and also artistic works! You can download the complete magazine free of charge hereDuane Elgin, ​Facing Adversity: Choosing Earth, Choosing Life, film and book https://choosingearth.org/video/Johan Rockstrom at Planetiers 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cwr_hEDYt0&t=1sColor and the Built Environment Conference https://colorimpact2021.com/Link to talk available here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/3188408213643993346For children: Isn’t it time we all pull together ?-  here is the video Peter Anderson, VocalEyes made with Broad Haven Primary schools, UKIntegral City Blogs Integral City & Doughnut Economics Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral Dynamics Thought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics Thought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics Thought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics Thought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics 5+ Ways to Regenerate our Cities with Doughnut Economics Doughnut Economics Scholarships for Master Regenerative Action

      2. Integral City Awards & Events

World Unity Week Celebrates Capacities for a World of Peace Meshworker of the Year 2021: Jim Garrison, Humanity Rising Moments of Mass Mindfulness – MOMM – May 9, 2021 Integral Europe Conference 2021 – the Future of our Collective Evolution Integral Europe Conference 2021 – Join Integral City World Unity Week 2021 – Let’s Do Something for World Unity

      3. Integral City in Practice

World Unity Week Celebrates Capacities for a World of Peace CAN’s, Competition, Coalitions, Collaborations Learn 5 Ways With Integral City City Nestworking – How You Serve the City and the City Serves You March 20th, 2021 – Russian Living Cities/RANEPA Launches School for Mayors

                4. Dharma Teaching

Tree Whispering Repairs Findhorn Tree Fire-Damage Immunity: a clot between ourselves and the world Allow Yourself to be Infected by Love VUCA vs ENCC in Refiner’s Fire of Findhorn 11. Newsletters Past Issues 2020 -2021  Integral City Reflective Organ – March Equinox 2021 – Translate Care for Gaia with Impact, Training, Story Integral City Reflective Organ — December Solstice 2020 – Cities Waking Up, Growing Up Integral City Reflective Organ – September Equinox 2020: Places of Unity Peace and Partnership Integral City Reflective Organ – June Solstice 2020: Lockdown Wakes Up the Human Heart Integral City Reflective Organ March Equinox 2020: Superordinate Goal in a VUCA World

8. Integral City MetaBlog 2020 – A Synthesis and index of all Integral City Blogs from 2020

Thought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

We continue our Thought Experiment in this instalment by looking at Doughnut Economics (DE) and its relationship to Spiral Dynamics and Integral City through a Globalcentric Worldview.

As we noted in our first blog, the Globalcentric Worldview spans Levels 7 and 8 in Spiral Dynamics (see Table 5). A regionalcentric worldview embraces the structures of Strategic Enterprise and Social Safety Network.

Table 5: Globalcentric Worldview, Spiral Dynamics, Archetypal Structure

WorldviewSpiral Dynamics Level of ComplexitySpiral Dynamics ExpressionArchetypal StructureGlobalcentricLevel 7Yellow – IndividualSystemic EcologyLevel 8Turquoise – CollectiveGlobal Meshwork

We can summarize the inner qualities and outer contexts of these 2 levels complexity as set out in Figures 8 and 9.

Figure 8

Figure 9

As we are examining the correlative life conditions that Doughnut Economics points to, we can look back in fairly recent history at the inner and outer factors of DE and see the expansion from regional influence into a more fully systemic globalization with commensurate global techonoligial interconnections that is waking up to the lack of balance between the Ecological Ceiling and Social Justice factors. In many of our lifetimes, the kinds of human settlements that are emerging at these stages are what we would now call Integral Cities with growing realization that responsibility must lie in  local and regional human systems for a fully balanced global life flow that are becoming increasingly enabled by the boundaryless conditions needed for renewable and solar energy systems, airsheds and water quality (both ocean and fresh)

At the seventh level of complexity, DE Inner factors build on the life conditions of earlier levels with legistalated intentions to convert fossil-fuel energy into renewable energy. With the experience of the global pandemic, recalibration of how Income and Work relate to Peace and Justice, along with a diversity of Political Voices finding audiences across a world of social media (and much less expressed through traditional media).  Education, Health and Social Equity continue to recalibrate as cooperation and even international collaboration arise in public, private and not-for-profit enterprises . Outer factors are expanding to rebalance nitrogen and phosphorous loading (by attention to the regeneration of the quality and of the soil ), air pollution (from reduction and control of C02 emissions), ozone layer depletion, and ongoing land conversion (to steward it for its highest and best use for global wellbeing). The earlier factors requiring ongoing commitment as populations peak include fresh water drawdown, biodiversity loss (as natural habitats are invaded by human activity through increased population).

The Level 7/Yellow Spiral Dynamic factors are oriented to the individual with the focus on ecology, systems, restoration, regeneration, cooperative labour forces, and global agreements for the fair distritution of energy, food and water. Furthermore, with the experience of the Covid19 pandemic, the sectors of healthcare, education, housing and land/property ownership are being recalibrated into transectoral hybrids.   The Human System Context that set the life conditions at this level of complexity were kickstarted by the international experience of the Covid19 pandemic. Governments were forced into unexpected international agreements (albeit tenuous to start) – which set the conditions for systemic worldnvew, expansion of rights and responsibilities that all humans be guaranteed basic conditions of life and learning. Indigenous rights are being restored gradually around the world and environmental protection is committed for global survival of Nature, land, water and air sheds.

At the eighth level of complexity, DE Inner factors continued to strengthen education, health, social equity (granting equality for all), gender equity (with equality for both women and men), expanded regional and increasingly global agreements for peace and justice. Energy is now almost entirely from renewable sources of water, wind and solar.  Outer factors have been neutralized, and the fact of climate change is now widely accepted with international agreements to address its cause. The differences of opinion that characterized earlier stages are largely addressed by the evidence of facts that impact people in all regions (albeit differently with different geographies/geologies).

The Level 8/Turquois Spiral Dynamic factors are oriented to the collective with the worldview  globalcentric with continuing global characteristics, cooperatives, collaborations and networks emerging. Global citizenship is accepted as a condition of being human along with transnational human rights.  Environmental protection on a global scale protests the basics of life and Nature (including forest, water, air, soil, animals, insect). Private, public and NFP options are available for health, education, housing, land, energy, food and water (options varying by the country but generally available). The Human System Context combines the best features of Socialism, Capitalism, Autocracy for an advance Globalcentric form of governance.  With world courts and strong social activism Social Justice is globalized. Trauma clearing has improved the wellbeing of individuals and collectives everywhere. The rights of Indigenous people are recalibrated as a recognition of all ancestral wisdom. Global governance works with environmental activists to support the wellbeing of Nature, Land, Water, Air quality.

DE reveals the interconnection of Social Justice factors and to the balance of factors in our Ecological Ceiling. At this stage of evolution, the great challenge is embrace the learnings from the past so the lessons are not forgotten.  We know that if our DE dashboard signals that the alarm bells are ringing, we ignore them at our peril and must change behaviours to re-set global wellbeing guidelines and protocols.

Looking at human habitations in 21st century, at these seventh and eighth stages, we gain a clear vision of how our worldviews and capacities impact the effectiveness of economies. When we have a global worldview then Social and Justice factors must be calibrated for everyone. Our global worldviews still live in a tension between individual and collective rights and responsibilities for Social Justice but we have the insight to step in “Gaia’s shoes” and consider the planet’s Ecological Ceiling as a powerful feedback mechanism that reminds us of the inner and outer boundaries that hold us in a state of individual, collective, regional and global wellbeing – all at once.

In these mature stages of worldview and capacities, human settlements have great incentive for global aspiration that enable wellbeing (but not necessarily extreme wealth) and abundance that can be  invested in living systems technology so we can live within our Ecological Ceiling.  It is a global wisdom and practice to live within the Ecological Ceilings and recognize that living with globally attuned Social Justice factors for all people enables a whole spiral of structures to develop the intelligences for wellbeing for individuals, collectives, regions and a planet that demands the Global Positioning System of Integral Cities. We can use it to orient our intelligences for:

ContextingStrategizingIndividualCollectiveEvolution

GPS Integral City Intelligences

This series of Thought Experiments consider: How do the Spiral Dynamics integral worldviews of humans living in cities impact the Social Justice and Ecological Ceiling dimensions represented in Doughnut Economics? The blog series includes the following:

Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral DynamicsThought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

Thought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

We continue our Thought Experiment in this instalment by looking at Doughnut Economics (DE) and its relationship to Spiral Dynamics and Integral City through a Regionalcentric Worldview.

As we noted in our first blog, the Regionalcentric Worldview spans Levels 5 and 6 in Spiral Dynamics (see Table 4). A regionalcentric worldview embraces the structures of Strategic Enterprise and Social Safety Network.

Table 4: Regionalcentric Worldview, Spiral Dynamics, Archetypal Structure

WorldviewSpiral Dynamics Level of ComplexitySpiral Dynamics ExpressionArchetypal StructureRegionalcentricLevel 5Orange – IndividualStrategic EnterpriseLevel 6Green – CollectiveSocial Safety Network

We can summarize the inner qualities and outer contexts of these 2 levels complexity as set out in Figures 6 and 7.

Figure 6

Figure 7

As we are examining the correlative life conditions that Doughnut Economics points to, we can look back historically at the inner and outer factors of DE and see the expansion from regional influence into a global commercialization commenced the rocky road toward the unbalancing of the Ecological Ceiling and Social Justice factors. Historically, the kinds of human settlements that emerged at these stages are what we would now call modern and postmodern (even Smart and Resilient) cities now stretching the balance of local and regional life conditions into a global reach because of the technological developments that enabled this possibility.

At the fifth level of complexity, DE Inner factors included building on the life conditions of earlier levels include energy (intensive fossil-fuel and early renewable energy) and intensified performance related to Income and Work, a more assertive Political Voice with Education, Health and Social Equity organized into public, private and not-for-profit performance enterprises . Outer factors expanded to include nitrogen and phosphorous loading (caused by industrialized agriculture practices) air pollution (from burning fossil fuels) ozone layer depletion, and intensified land conversion (to capture the commodity and biological resources for industrial use). The earlier factors continued to be threatened with fresh water drawdown, biodiversity loss (as natural habitats are invaded by regional and global enterprises).

The Level 5/Orange Spiral Dynamic factors are oriented to the individual with the focus on results, growth strategies, competitive labour forces, and global agreements for the exploitation of energy, food and water. Furthermore, the industrialization process led to the expanded  privatization of healthcare, education, housing and land/property ownership.   The Human System Context that set the life conditions at this level of complexity were a capitalist influenced government, with effective efficient functional departments. In democracies this phase tended to be anti-union, with continued globalization of resources, a divestment of colonial governance but a continuation of colonial commercial influence, and an expectation that land, water and air sheds were available to be exploited.

At the sixth level of complexity, DE Inner factors expanded from the fifth level’s factors to include education, health, social equity (for most definitions of diversity), gender equity (with equality for both women and men), regional and even global agreements for peace and justice. Energy starts to be delivered from renewable sources of water, wind and solar.  Outer factors continued to deteriorate, and the specter of climate change became more fully recognized but with few intentions to change the underlying causes. This became characterized by the “inconvenient truths” that could be named but seemed too costly to act on.

The Level 6/Green Spiral Dynamic factors are oriented to the collective with the worldview still regionalcentric with many global characteristics or networks emerging. A sense of global citizenship started to emerge from the regional affinities, that also spawned transnational human rights initiatives. At the same time people started to recognize environmental protection was needed for the basics of life and even Nature (as forest, water, air, soil). Private, public and NFP options emerged for health, education, housing, land, energy, food and water. The Human System Context favoured an increasing interest in Socialist governance (as a counteraction to the privatizing interests represented by Capitalism).  With world courts and strong social activism Social Justice became globalized. Truth and Reconciliation processes emerged and the rights of Indigenous people were demanded (if not granted). Environmental activism supported Nature, Land, Water, Air quality

Thus, DE helps to reveal the undeniable interconnection of Social Justice factors and the encroachment on our Ecological Ceiling. At this stage of emergence, the great challenge is to make the “walk” match the “talk”.  The alarm bells start ringing, but people are either frozen in place (from fear) or ignore them (expecting technology to solve the problems.)

Looking at human habitations in 21st century, at these fifth and sixth stages, we can consider the implications that these worldviews and capacities have had on the effectiveness of economies. The influence that is amplified when strategies are focused on growth that expands to globalization, means that Social and Justice factors become more visible locally while becoming more untenable globally. These worldviews live in a tension between the strategic growth focus and the increasingly loud call for Social Justice that resonates around the world, acting as if they are blind to the increasingly endangered Ecological Ceiling while disconnecting these factors from their impact on Social Justice.

These regionalized human settlements have global aspiration to continue to accumulate wealth that it is expected will be invested in technology to solve the overreaches of the Ecological Ceiling.  The continued practice of ignoring the dangers of not living within the Ecological Ceilings and their links with Social Justice factors for all people increases the local, regional and global tensions, causing climate, water, energy refugees and threatening the whole spiral of structures within the regions and a planet of cites – as illustrated in the recalibrated Levels 5 and Level 6 below representing the planetary challenges we are now experiencing.

This series of Thought Experiments consider: How do the Spiral Dynamics integral worldviews of humans living in cities impact the Social Justice and Ecological Ceiling dimensions represented in Doughnut Economics? The blog series includes the following:

Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral DynamicsThought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

Thought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

We continue our Thought Experiment in this instalment by looking at Doughnut Economics (DE) and its relationship to Spiral Dynamics and Integral City through an Ethnocentric Worldview.

As we noted in our first blog, the Ethnocentric Worldview spans Levels 3 and 4 in Spiral Dynamics (see Table 3). An ethnocentric worldview embraces the structures of Dominator Hierarchy and Ordering Bureaucracy

Table 3: Ethnocentric Worldview, Spiral Dynamics, Archetypal Structure

WorldviewSpiral Dynamics Level of ComplexitySpiral Dynamics ExpressionArchetypal StructureEthnocentricLevel 3Red – IndividualDominator HierarchyLevel 4Blue – CollectiveOrdering Bureaucracy

We can summarize the inner qualities and outer contexts of these 2 levels complexity as set out in Figures 5 and 6.

Figure 5

Figure 6

As we are examining the correlative life conditions that Doughnut Economics points to, we can imagine historically, that the inner and outer factors of DE live within the balance of the Ecological Ceiling and Social Justice factors. Historically, the kinds of human settlements that emerged at these stages were what we would now call traditional towns and cities living in balance with (albeit starting to stretch) the local life conditions.

At the third level of complexity, DE Inner factors included building on the life conditions of earlier levels and added energy (fossil-fuel) plus concerns for Income and Work and developing a Political Voice. Outer factors added to the earlier factors, fresh water drawdown, land use conversions (e.g., forests to farmland), biodiversity loss (as natural habitats were invaded by human settlements.

The Level 3/Red Spiral Dynamic factors were oriented to the individual with the focus on power and exploiting the basics of life in service to the head of the hierarch to protect labour, rent and servitude in exchange for energy (fossil fuel), food, water and health, housing and land. The Human System Context that set the life conditions at this level of complexity were a dominator hierarchy, with a ruler (chief, tyrant) who had the power to overrule and control the faith system, invade and capture the territory of others and claim ownership of land, water and air sheds.

At the fourth level of complexity, DE Inner factors expanded from the third level’s factors to include education, health, social equity (within a hierarchy), gender equity (with male dominance) as human systems became more complex. Outer factors stabilized and even expanded (because of Level 4’s management capacity) to include fresh water, land, biodiversity.

The Level 4/Blue Spiral Dynamic factors are oriented to the collective with the worldview still ethnocentric and expanded beyond the dominator hierarchy to the nation with an organized bureaucracy that can set standards, create rules and enforce compliance to social norms. In this 4th level of complexity resources are distributed through state influence systems for energy (fossil fuels), food, water, health, housing and land/property ownership. The Human System Context that set the life conditions at this level of complexity are capitalist, communist or socialist, with substantive rules-based bureaucratic (civil service) control, unionized work force, peace/order/good government, management protocols for conquered territory (aka colonies), expanded management of land, water, air rights.

Thus, DE helps to situate the emergence of Social Justice factors at the developing stages of human history when the Ecological Ceiling was intended to be managed (in service to the colonizing capabilities developed at the 3rd and 4th stages, and because human populations tended to be managed within circumscribed geographic territories (that had been conquered).

Looking at human habitations in 21st century, at these 3rd and 4th stages, we can consider the implications that these worldviews and capacities have had on the effectiveness of economies. The power that is amplified when territory is conquered and then colonized, managed and organized means that Social Justice factors tend to favour those of the conquering people. These worldviews tended not to care about the reduced availability of Ecological resources for anyone except themselves.

These more complex human settlements created the conditions where it was possible to accumulate enough local wealth that the next stages could ignore the danger of not living within the Ecological Ceilings and/or ignoring Social Justice factors for all people (conquerors and conquered alike).

This series of Thought Experiments consider: How do the Spiral Dynamics integral worldviews of humans living in cities impact the Social Justice and Ecological Ceiling dimensions represented in Doughnut Economics? The blog series includes the following:

Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral DynamicsThought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

Thought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

We continue our Thought Experiment in this instalment by looking at Doughnut Economics (DE) and its relationship to Spiral Dynamics and Integral City through an Egocentric Worldview.

As we noted in our first blog, the Egocentric Worldview spans Levels 1 and 2 in Spiral Dynamics (see Table 2). An egocentric worldview embraces the structures of Family Hearth and Clan Gathering.

Table 2: Egocentric Worldview, Spiral Dynamics, Archetypal Structure

WorldviewSpiral Dynamics Level of ComplexitySpiral Dynamics ExpressionArchetypal StructureEgocentricLevel 1Beige – IndividualFamily HearthLevel 2Purple – CollectiveClan Gathering

We can summarize the inner qualities and outer contexts of these 2 levels complexity as set out in Figures 3 and 4.

Figure 3

Figure 4

As we are examining the correlative life conditions that Doughnut Economics points to, we can imagine historically, that the inner and outer factors of DE live within the balance of the Ecological Ceiling and Social Justice factors. Historically, the kinds of human settlements that emerged at these stages were indigenous habitations living in balance with the local life conditions.

At the first level of complexity, DE Inner factors included energy (biofuel), food, water, health. Outer factors included air, oceans, climate.

The Level 1/Beige Spiral Dynamic factors were oriented to the individual with the focus on survival, and garnering the basics of life for energy, food, water and health. The Human System Context that set the life conditions at this level of complexity were family, foraging/gathering, responding to land, water, air and geology.

At the second level of complexity, DE Inner factors expanded from the first level’s factors to include housing and gender equity as human systems became more complex. Outer factors expanded to include fresh water, land, biodiversity.

The Level 2/Purple Spiral Dynamic factors are oriented to the collective with the worldview still egocentric but expanded to the clan. In this 2nd level of complexity resources became shared for energy, food, water, health and housing. The Human System Context that set the life conditions at this level of complexity were clan, respecting clan elders, foraging/gathering in groups, worshiping spirits of land, water, air.

Thus, DE helps to situate the emergence of Social Justice factors at the early stages of human history when the Ecological Ceiling was not threatened (not only because of the simple way of living, but because human populations remained low and spread across wide areas of the globe.

Looking at human habitations in 21st century we can consider the implications that worldviews and capacities have on the effectiveness of economies that cannot yet express a full set of Social and Justice factors. We can also be cognizant of the reduced availability of Ecological resources for such human settlements because of the incursions of more complex human systems, not living within the Ecological Ceilings and/or ignoring Social Justice factors for all people.

This series of Thought Experiments consider: How do the Spiral Dynamics integral worldviews of humans living in cities impact the Social Justice and Ecological Ceiling dimensions represented in Doughnut Economics? The blog series includes the following:

Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral DynamicsThought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics

Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral Dynamics

Introduction

How do you reveal the contribution of Spiral Dynamics integral to Integral City Meshworks?

We could start by looking at Integral City’s 5 Maps.

Map 4 (in the lower right of the 5 Map image above) shows the Complex, Adaptive Organizational (and Archetypal) Structures that have emerged across the history of human settlements from : family hearth, to clan gathering, to dominator hierarchy, to ordering bureaucracy, to strategic enterprise, to social safety networks, to systemic ecologies to global meshworks. (It should be noted that one structure is not better or worse than another – but represents the best “fit” to the contexting life conditions.) In the world’s large cosmopolitan cities all the organizational structures are alive and functioning within emerging urban contexts.

Furthermore, Map 4 acts as a proxy for the emerging complexity of brain development over time – recognizing the structures that emerge out of self-organizing human systems responding to life conditions.

Clare Graves, the researcher behind Spiral Dynamics proposed that human capacity always emerged along a “double helix” where the context of life conditions, called forth the capacities that enabled the living human system to survive, adapt and regenerate (see Figure 1). His research indicated the emergence of 8 levels of complexity, but he proposed that the evolutionary pattern was a “never ending quest”. He suggested that each level of complexity would cycle through stages of “fitness” which we could call childhood/emergent, mature/coherent, old age/misaligned (see Ichak Adizes’ “Managing Corporate Lifecycles” for fuller explanation). Thus, Level 8 is not the final stage of human development, but like all prior stages will create the life conditions for the next level of complexity to emerge to respond to those life conditions.

Within the Spiral Dynamics integral framework there are 8 structures that have emerged that can be parsed in pairs across worldviews that become progressively more complex as human systems, organizations and settlements evolve. The pairs are a combination of individual expression (represented by I/Me/Mine focus – the warm colours of beige, red, orange, yellow) and collective expression (represented by We/Us/Our focus – the cool colours of purple, blue, green, turquoise).

So, the Spiral within any given human settlement could potentially reveal the patterns shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Spiral Dynamics Levels of Complexity and Worldviews

WorldviewSpiral Dynamics Level of ComplexitySpiral Dynamics ExpressionArchetypal StructureEgocentricLevel 1Beige – IndividualFamily HearthLevel 2Purple – CollectiveClan GatheringEthnocentricLevel 3Red – IndividualDominator HierarchyLevel 4Blue – CollectiveOrdering BureaucracyRegionalcentricLevel 5Orange – IndividualStrategic EnterpriseLevel 6Green – CollectiveSocial Safety NetworkGlobalcentricLevel 7Yellow – IndividualSystemic EcologyLevel 8Turquoise – CollectiveGlobal Meshwork

Integral City Map 1 provides a “plan” view of the emergence of the levels of complexity revealed in Map 4.

Integral City Map 1

Map 1 shows the 4 quadrants that open up the contributions of not only the individual  (upper) and collective (lower) quadrants but also reveals the inner (left) and outer (right) expressions of human development – thus offerings a bio-psycho-cultural-structural view of the city.

Map 1 is fractal and can represent the unfolding potential journey of complexity (from the centre of the quadrants outwards through each dimension) for an individual or a collective (like an organization or a city).

Doughnut Economics is Archetype of Global Economics

Doughnut Economics (DE) is a framework for understanding the relationship of humans to the planet that supports all life.

It is derived from 2 other frameworks, that provide narratives that are widely shared by qualitative and quantitative scientists around the world. The outside of the Doughnut derives from the Ecological Ceiling’s 9 Factors (researched extensively by Rockstrom, Steffen et al).

The inside of the Doughnut derives 12 factors of Social Justice from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).

The Doughnut describes the relationship between the Ecological Ceiling and the Social Justice factors in relation to human activity. Originally proposed for nations, it has been “downsized” to provide self-portraits of cities (City Selfies). At time of writing many cities have signed on to Doughnut Economics to provide a framework for making decisions that enable cities to thrive (rather than grow).

When surveying the early adopter DE cities, this Thought Experimenter suggests that the majority of them could be characterized through Integral City Maps 4 and 1 as aspirational Globalcentric cities.

This observation has motivated the Thought Experimenter to explore how Doughnut Economics evolves across developmental/evolutionary time as human settlements (aka cities) and their organizations develop more or less complexity in response to their life conditions.

The following blogs will explore the possibility of correlating levels of complexity in the city to ecological and social justice factors in the Doughnut.

This series of Thought Experiments consider: How do the Spiral Dynamics integral worldviews of humans living in cities impact the Social Justice and Ecological Ceiling dimensions represented in Doughnut Economics? The blog series includes the following:

Integral City Thought Experiment 1: Exploring Doughnut Economics & Spiral DynamicsThought Experiment 2 Egocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 3 Ethnocentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 4 Regionalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut EconomicsThought Experiment 5 Globalcentric Worldview: Spiral Dynamics, Integral City & Doughnut Economics