Marilyn Hamilton's Blog, page 23

Integral City Thought Experiment: 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.

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.

So, perhaps we should not be too surprised that all the formal and informal impulses for humans to discover the roots of the pandemic have resulted in the greatest change to health care systems in the last 2 decades (The Economist, Dec. 2020). Wherever we are on the planet, responses to the disrupting virus have demanded that health care systems re-invent themselves through data analysis on local, regional, national and global scales; creating supply chains for personal protective equipment across nations that never existed before at national, transnational or global scales; and demanding that the 4 Voices of the City work together to communicate government decisions, vaccine distribution and transdisciplinary social justice impacts.

Moreover, for extended periods of time, the labour forces in the nations of the global north have pressed the “pause” button and rediverted operational networks from city-centre workplaces to home-based operations in ways that have not existed since before the industrial revolution. This too has demanded the reconnections between individual, team, organizational and sectoral relationships on such a massive scale, that it is not clear that work locations will ever return to their city-centre hubs.

At the same time, education of our next generations has moved from institutional delivery to largely home-based online modes that has demanded constant, reiterative response to change from students (from K to PhD), families, faculty, administrators and community stakeholders.

If ever we imagined how to create a global scenario that would demand unimaginable ways to increase the connections of every level of human systems in every place of the globe, we could not have imagined greater turbulence, disruption and recalibration than what we have faced in the last year.

But (as many systems supporting innovation in “normal” times propose) disruptive or even destructive innovations that change systems may not be appreciated as they are experienced in real time; rather, in retrospect they can turn out to be the triggers that challenged assumptions, unblocked the status quo and opened new possibilities for quantum change.

With this (June 2021) issue of our newsletter, those are patterns that we are noticing have spawned the emergence and/or acceleration of connections, interconnections and transformations between single organizations and/or sectors. Here are some examples:

CAN’s are Community Action Networks that we see being experimented with at individual place level, like Plymouth, Birmingham, Stoke, Nottingham in the UK; with Food Cooperatives in Cape Town South Africa; and Tijuana Mexico. Prior community networks like Transition Towns, Ecovillages and Participatory Communities continue – sometimes competitively, sometimes cooperatively.

Competitive Ecosystems are emerging in various sectors such as the economy, in attempts to move beyond the ineffective economic practices of capitalism, communism and socialism. We see Economic Systems from Doughnut Economics, to Circular Economy, to Wisdom Economy, to Regenerative Economy all vying for head space, heart space and technological dashboards. These different expressions of whole system-based economies are still at the stage where branding, differentiation and competition seem more energizing and attractive than cooperation. (An initiative by Bounce Beyond seeks to discover the connective space that could enable shifting out of competition amongst differences to cooperation amongst symmetries.)

Coalitions have begun around issues and sectors.  In the post-graduate education sector, Ubiquity University, University of International Cooperation and GPM have formed a coalition to attract over 60 experts as course developers, faculty and funders for a Master of Regenerative Action. Spinoffs appear to invite a whole new trans-global accreditation system based on universal and transferable competencies and action projects. The coalition is explicitly community/urban, bioregional and global,  based on living systems with an outreach to supporting younger generations.

Collaborations are being woven at the speed of social media and grounded in local action through transdisciplinary learning in the Weaving Lab, U-Theory Labs, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, VocalEyes Participatory Community Technology and World Unity Week interfaith spiritual and ritual practices. Many of these collaborations have Ambassadors who further amplify collaborations and cross-connect with other coalitions, ecosystems and CAN’s.

Thus, 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).

World Unity Week Celebrates Capacities for a World of Peace

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.

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 in our Business settings. Belonging naturally arises when we share our relationships, foods, clothing, energy and Culture in not-for-profit settings like our Faith Communities and 3rd Sector organizations. And Belonging underlies the calling of 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. Citizens can benefit from the simple act of saying Grace – giving Thanks – before every meal. We can visualize the whole span of human systems that brought food from farm gate to our food plate – from the cooks in the family, to the distributors, packagers, neighborhood retailers, health inspectors, transporters and farmers. 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)

In the city when we look around us and see those who don’t belong or those who have so few resources that they have narrow options, we can be moved to Compassion. We may be moved as we practice the Master Code of Care – to reach 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. As we Care for our Selves and one Another, then we can Care for our Places. That might be as simple as cleaning trash from the street or planting vegetables in our front garden or watering a tree in the park. 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)

When we build on the capacities of Belonging, Gratitude and Compassion, it is natural for us to notice the emergence of Love as an expression of the Divine 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. Within Integral City, we honour the Purpose that Gaia calls cities to serve – to be Gaia’s Reflective Organs. 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)

When we are energized by Love and Joy, then Integral Cities will emanate Hope for all Voices, generations and futures. 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 for Islands of Calm – where each of us can find an Island of Calm in ourselves, and thereby “infect” others with Calm and the conditions for Hope.

Unity (Map 5)

Unity arises in the Integral City because consciousness and culture align with behaviours and systems, across all scales. When we can agree that our purposes align around a superordinate goal, we create Unity for individuals, collectives, places and planet. 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.

Integral 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.

Tree Whispering Repairs Findhorn Tree Fire-Damage

The morning of the Findhorn Fires, April 12, 2021, I was amazed that most of the trees adjoining the Sanctuary and CC seemed to have survived the devastating flames. Coming from British Columbia, where I had witnessed many forest fires, I would have expected many of these trees to become instant torches. But as I visited all the trees, I realized that they were traumatized. In order to survive and recover, they needed comfort and therapy as much or more than people..

Synchronistically (in the Findhorn fashion) I met on Humanity Rising (daily webinar run by Ubiquity University since the beginning of pandemic) Jim Conroy, Tree Whisperer and his wife Basia Alexander, Chief Listener. After contacting them, I sent them photos of the Findhorn trees I had taken on the morning of the fire.

I invited Judy McAllister to join me on a Zoom call, where we told Jim and Basia the story of our trees. Jim and Basia (located in New Jersey, USA) had already worked with trees from the California wild fires and survivors of Hurricane Sandy. They started by asking permission of the trees to work with them, and they got in touch with the trees “at distance”.

Beginning with the Sanctuary, we viewed photos of nearby trees. The beech hedge section immediately behind the Sanctuary, was not going to survive; it needed support to release its nutrients back to the soil. The tall pine trees in the wild garden were badly scorched and may not survive. But the 2 large cedar trees in front of the Sanctuary, although badly singed were strong in their will to survive but needed help to rebalance. Amazingly the apple tree right beside the Original Garden gate would also survive (at time of writing it was hesitantly blooming and leafing).

Around the CC the first tree Judy asked about was the “climbing tree”. My photos still showed it quite green, but in the ensuing weeks the foliage fronting the CC started to brown and the base of the tree has blackened. But it clearly said it could survive; it wanted help to re-balance its life force. And it wanted the children back as soon as possible. We sent it love and assurance, and let it know the site needed to be cleansed from the toxic asbestos residue before the children could return.

We could see the rowans standing guard between the CC and Homecare were smoke damaged, but apparently strong. (Unfortunately, one has been limbed to enable machinery into the site – but you can see healthy wood exposed.)

The last tree we looked at was the cedar beside the metal stairs opposite the Runway entry gate to the CC. From the Runway this tree remarkably looked green and alive – but from the CC side, half of the tree had been burned away – like a sword had cleaved it from top to bottom. Even with this severe damage, the message from this tree, was that it could survive. Sadly, this message was not communicated to the right people and the tree was removed at the same time as the haunting “stairway to heaven”.

Jim and Basia work with the “intelligences of Nature” – and not surprisingly had met Dorothy MacLean when she was still travelling, and very much resonated with Dorothy’s wisdom. Jim checked in with the damaged Findhorn trees about their 3 major functions: circulation, cell division and photosynthesis. This involved inquiring into the tree’s root system, its circulation system through trunk, branches and bark and into the foliage canopy. He encouraged the trees to reconnect the broken feedback loops in these inner functionalities.

We can all help our beloved trees to recover, by asking permission to connect with them, and then sharing our energy through our hearts, prayers, meditations to support their inner reconnections. Any of us who do energy work with humans and animals, can offer to the trees: reiki, bio-balancing, destressing, trauma release, etc. Hopefully, by living our Findhorn Principle of Co-creating with the Intelligences of Nature, we can help our trees recover and prevent the loss of these vital members of our community. (Watch for signs of recovery when the trees push out little green shoots through the blackened trunks and branches.)

I am deeply grateful to Jim and Basia for so generously sharing their expertise and sending 6 of their many books on Tree Whispering. Learn more from their several interconnected websites that share their healing and restoration principles, methodologies and case studies. Start with this one: https://www.thetreewhisperer.com/

5+ Ways to Regenerate our Cities with Doughnut Economics

Integral City is partnering with global coalition on co-creating a Master in Regenerative Action.

We have come together with Ubiquity University (UU) and the University of International Cooperation (UCI) and Green Project Management (GPM) and a global coalition of other academic institutions, NGOs and professional organizations to launch a whole new MBA degree. We call it a Master in Regenerative Action (MRA). At the center is Doughnut Economics as well as a range of other regenerative approaches to ecology, economics, politics, consciousness, and culture. The focus is on Knowledge leading to Action to regenerate our world.

There is no more time for business as usual. Business must be redesigned to regenerate economies and the larger ecosystem. This new MRA produces Regenerative Action to save the world, with organizations from the 4 Voices of the City: Business/Innovators, Civic Managers, 3rd Sector/Civil Society and Citizens.

We celebrate our formal launch June 9, 2021, with Kate Raworth’s Foundations of Doughnut Economics. (Click here to get the details including scholarships.)

How can the Doughnut regenerate Integral Cities and how can Integral Cities benefit from the implementation of Doughnut Economics??  Let us map out the strategy with Integral City’s 5 Maps and GPS.Map 1: With Bio, Psycho, Cultural, Social Gusto Eat the Whole Doughnut

The framework of Doughnut Economics has both interior and exterior dimensions – just like the Integral City Map 1. In the left-hand quadrants we have the Psycho/Cultural capacities that enable the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) that lie at the centre of the Doughnut. On the right-hand quadrants lie the Bio/Social capacities that reveal the extent to which we live within the Ecological Ceiling of the Doughnut’s 9 factors.

Like the Doughnut, Map 1 embraces the individual and collective dimensions as they develop through a lifecycle of perspectives – from egocentric to ethnocentric to regional centric to global centric – all of which co-generate the safe and just space for humanity, as we design a regenerative and distributive economy.

Map 2: Stack the 4 Voices of City Systems as a Nested Organizational Supply Chain

Integral City Map 2 nests a holarchy of city organizational systems so we can see how each of them contributes to creating the Supply Chain of a Doughnut Economics. This reveals the interactive relationships of the 4 Voices of Integral City (Citizens, Business/Innovators, Civic Managers, 3rd Sector) . Together, they produce and consume the flow of resources through the city – from the Individual to the Family, Group, Workplace, Civic Institutions, Communities and the whole city within the context of the ecoregion. As subsystems within a living city system, the nested holarchy regenerates organically in response to the life conditions determined by the Ecological Ceiling.

Map 3: Downscale and Upscale Doughnut Economics in the Integral City

Integral City Map 3 reveals how capacities for action arise in the city from Individuals developing greater and greater complexity until they take systemic bio/psycho/cultural/social action (as revealed in Map 1). These fractal pattens enable high performance Groups and Teams that can influence Organizations and Agencies which in turn interact with the whole community/city in a holographic manner. All these scales actively self-organize and produce the structures (we see in Map 4) that downscale and upscale the application of the Doughnut to the flow of a regenerative city life.

Map 4: Reveal a World of Doughnut Economics in Complex Adaptive Structures

Map 4 lets us look at the emergence of 8 structures of organizations – each representing a more complex design than the previous one. We see that the Doughnut must find bio/psycho/cultural/social expression in different ways to be coherent and productive within different life conditions. Thus, the Ecological Ceiling demands that we choose the appropriate structures . Moreover, to balance social/cultural justice within Earth’s constraints we will have to learn how to “right size” the structures (and the cities) to serve ecoregional wellbeing and Gaia’s wellbeing. This requires local action as well as global awareness . Thus, the Integral City Map 4 suggests multiple ways of right sizing, aligning and meshworking an ecosystem of organizations from family hearth to clan gathering, to tribal hierarchies, to bureaucracies that deliver peace, order and good government, to social safety systems, to systemic design labs, to global wellbeing coalitions.

Map 5: Spirituality in the City Radiates the Soul of the Doughnut

Integral City Map 5 locates the Doughnut in the zone of Beauty, Truth and Goodness, showing that the Involutionary spirit that inspires the inner/outer relationship in the Doughnut rests in the same impulse that matures the Doughnut to evolve into service for global wellbeing. The Doughnut arises out of the Ground of Love and is a core Resource inspired by Source that enables the Regenerativity of the city as complex adaptive living system.

Use Integral City GPS for Intelligent Regenerative Doughnut Economics

Finally, we amplify the effectiveness of the Doughnut with the Integral City GPS so that it can access 5 sets of Intelligences that enable the implementation of the 5 Maps for the Doughnut as an economics for regenerativity.

To implement the SDG’s and stay within Earth’s Ecological Ceiling the city’s multiple intelligences of Contexting, Individual, Collective, Strategic and Evolution all contribute to the effective implementation of Doughnut Economics within each city and across a Planet of Cities.

At the same time, Integral City development will accelerate within our VUCA World, through the implementation of Doughnut Economics.

Where do you start regeneration in the Integral City with Doughnut Economics? Join us at the formal launch June 9, 2021, of Kate Raworth’s Foundations of Doughnut Economics. (Click here to get the details including scholarships.)

Tree Whispering Repairs Findhorn Tree Fire Damage

Tree Whispering Repairs Findhorn Tree Fire Damage

The morning of the Findhorn Fires, April 12, 2021, I was amazed that most of the trees adjoining the Sanctuary and CC seemed to have survived the devastating flames. Coming from British Columbia, where I had witnessed many forest fires, I would have expected many of these trees to become instant torches. But as I visited all the trees, I realized that they were traumatized. In order to survive and recover, they needed comfort and therapy as much or more than people.

Synchronistically (in the Findhorn fashion) I met on Humanity Rising (daily webinar run by Ubiquity University since the beginning of pandemic) Jim Conroy, Tree Whisperer and his wife Basia Alexander, Chief Listener. After contacting them, I sent them photos of the Findhorn trees I had taken on the morning of the fire.

I invited Judy McAllister to join me on a Zoom call, where we told Jim and Basia the story of our trees. Jim and Basia (located in New Jersey, USA) had already worked with trees from the California wild fires and survivors of Hurricane Sandy. They started by asking permission of the trees to work with them, and they got in touch with the trees “at distance”.

Beginning with the Sanctuary, we viewed photos of nearby trees. The beech hedge section immediately behind the Sanctuary, was not going to survive; it needed support to release its nutrients back to the soil. The tall pine trees in the wild garden were badly scorched and may not survive. But the 2 large cedar trees in front of the Sanctuary, although badly singed were strong in their will to survive but needed help to rebalance. Amazingly the apple tree right beside the Original Garden gate would also survive (at time of writing it was hesitantly blooming and leafing).

Around the CC the first tree Judy asked about was the “climbing tree”. My photos still showed it quite green, but in the ensuing weeks the foliage fronting the CC started to brown and the base of the tree has blackened. But it clearly said it could survive; it wanted help to re-balance its life force. And it wanted the children back as soon as possible. We sent it love and assurance, and let it know the site needed to be cleansed from the toxic asbestos residue before the children could return.

We could see the rowans standing guard between the CC and Homecare were smoke damaged, but apparently strong. (Unfortunately, one has been limbed to enable machinery into the site – but you can see healthy wood exposed.)

The last tree we looked at was the cedar beside the metal stairs opposite the Runway entry gate to the CC. From the Runway this tree remarkably looked green and alive – but from the CC side, half of the tree had been burned away – like a sword had cleaved it from top to bottom. Even with this severe damage, the message from this tree, was that it could survive. Sadly, this message was not communicated to the right people and the tree was removed at the same time as the haunting “stairway to heaven”.

Jim and Basia work with the “intelligences of Nature” – and not surprisingly had met Dorothy MacLean when she was still travelling, and very much resonated with Dorothy’s wisdom. Jim checked in with the damaged Findhorn trees about their 3 major functions: circulation, cell division and photosynthesis. This involved inquiring into the tree’s root system, its circulation system through trunk, branches and bark and into the foliage canopy. He encouraged the trees to reconnect the broken feedback loops in these inner functionalities.

We can all help our beloved trees to recover, by asking permission to connect with them, and then sharing our energy through our hearts, prayers, meditations to support their inner reconnections. Any of us who do energy work with humans and animals, can offer to the trees: reiki, bio-balancing, destressing, trauma release, etc. Hopefully, by living our Findhorn Principle of Co-creating with the Intelligences of Nature, we can help our trees recover and prevent the loss of these vital members of our community. (Watch for signs of recovery when the trees push out little green shoots through the blackened trunks and branches.)

I am deeply grateful to Jim and Basia for so generously sharing their expertise and sending 6 of their many books on Tree Whispering. Learn more from their several interconnected websites that share their healing and restoration principles, methodologies and case studies. Start with this one: https://www.thetreewhisperer.com/

~~~

Marilyn Hamilton

Findhorn, the Park, Forres, Scotland

Meshworker of the Year 2021: Jim Garrison, Humanity Rising

Meet Jim Garrison, Integral City Meshworker 2021Jim Garrison is the Founder and President of Ubiquity University and producer of Humanity Rising. His passion and the purpose of Humanity Rising  is to create a historical gathering of great minds and hearts responding to the pandemic “as a crisis not to be wasted”. As  Founder of Ubiquity University, Co-Founder of State of the World Forum and the Gorbachev Foundation, Jim creates global learning meshworks that are Gaia-Focused, Wholistic and Action-Oriented. Demonstrating these qualities as an individual, Jim thinks like an Integral City. He is dynamics, complex, evolutionary and always vitally alive.~Jim demonstrates all of the Integral City Intelligences at a global scale.Contexting Intelligences

Ecosphere — Every day of Humanity Rising Jim paints a picture for the theme of the day that is sensitive to the Ecological setting of the story. He is knowledgable about all the Big Challenges faced by the Earth, recognizing that humans are not merely on the Earth, but ARE, like all life, part of the Earth – our Mother.

Emergence — Jim trusts that Resonance and Coherence result in Emergence. For a year he has invited into Humanity Rising’s explorations people who have  emerged new discoveries right on the screen, in conversation and interaction. In doing so he has clearly demonstrated how not to “waste a good crisis”.  Over the year, he has fearlessly parried with multiple crises and unexpected challenges – like the murder of George Floyd – and in doing so has catalyzed 12 months of generative insights.

Integral — In forming Ubiquity University, Jim invited the world’s quintessential Integral Expert, Ken Wilber, to be Chancellor of the University and backed him up with the Involutionary Expert Peter Merry as  Chief Innovation Officer. Together this trio has created a field where Humanity Rising was Ubiquity U’s natural response to the pandemic, so that the evolutionary lenses of AQAL could be used “to learn the many partial truths from any crisis.” Moreover, Jim is a natural host to the 4 Voices of Integral City, equally at home with Citizens, Business/Innovators, Civic Managers and the Third Sector, and able to navigate across the 5 Maps of Integral Cities around the world.

Living — Jim’s approach to both Ubiquity University and Humanity Rising has been multi-generational. He has reached out to invite in the Next Generation on Ubiquity’s Operations Team (including Assistant, Matt Robertson). At the same time, Jim has used his very wide spheres of influence, to draw into the Humanity Rising conversations from his connections with the early days of Esalen, his catalysing of the Gorbachev Foundation and his interconnections from the State of the World Forum. As a result, Humanity Rising has cycled through a grand parade of humanity from cradle to grave in every geography and culture of the globe. This has made Humanity Rising a welcoming, inclusive and compassionate container of the Master Code of Care.

Individual and Collective Intelligences

Individual: Inner and Outer — Jim has been exemplary in demonstrating both Inner and Outer Intelligences. Each day he (or co-host) introduces Humanity Rising with a minute of meditation (and/or mantra), opening the field of Humanity Rising with deep personal inner awareness. Jim has also been faithful to bring to the series the enactment of bodywork – from breathing, to humming, to trauma release, to optimizing physical health – through diet, organic food, water and a whole range of healthy behaviours.

Collective: Structure — Jim has modelled how Humanity Rising can stabilize self-organizing complexities into structures that serve and mature. When the early Chat function in the Zoom format, started to take on a life of its own, he supported the emergence of an AfterChat Zoom Meeting that enabled the audience to see itself and engage with the information that had been shared in the main HR Zoom Webinar. As the ChatAction Group moved on to create archives and integrate resources, Jim expanded his support, so that the audience was encouraged to move from passive listeners (although the live Chat was anything but that) to active participants/contributors. Jim shifted from the early HR of 7 days per week to 5 days a week, and then supported week long intensives on Regenerativity, Cities, Peace.

Collective: Cultural — Jim’s special support of Culture in Humanity Rising has spanned the globe. Daringly, he curated the first 10 days of HR to be delivered entirely by women – and repeatedly returns to the theme of “What if women ruled the world?” Jim has introduced the poetry of Kim Rosen and the music of Gary Malkin, many forms of art, and artists from Russia to Africa to South America to New Zealand. Jim seems to live the Master Code of Care – for self, others, place and planet.

Strategic Intelligences

Inquiry — Jim’s enlivening approach to Humanity Rising is always the question – whether it has to do with American politics, or research into regenerativity or how to expand the reach of Doughnut Economics. He is always seeking to discover, “What choices do we need to make for humans to be a healthy, vibrant species in all Gaia’s eco-regions, contributing to the wellbeing of all of Gaia’s life” ?  

Meshworking — Jim’s disposition is to be a natural meshworker. He can bring together the 4 Voices of the City, with functions that fit any challenge in a self-organizing way. At the same time, he stands back and allows structure to emerge through the high-capacity people he surrounds himself with (like Richard Buckley and Georg Boch as the tech support for Humanity Rising; or Shelly Alcorn Ubiquity U COO, re-purposed as an expert commentator on American political science). Jim saw the potential of a new kind of MBA and immediately seized on the twist to a new name, delighting in the invention of an MRA: Master of Regenerative Action.

Navigating — Jim seems to be an intuitive navigator – able to use the Integral City GPS with great adaptability. He senses the strong pull from the future and finds the vessel – such as Doughnut Economics –  that is needed to move the most influential number of people in a generative direction. Jim always views setbacks as merely temporary and listens to his Advisors, even while he is way out front, sighting new possibilities and potentials.

Evolutionary Intelligences

Jim would not have demonstrated all the foregoing intelligences without listening to the Evolutonary Impulse that flows strongly through his being.  With Humanity Rising, he has cross-pollinated a whole year of deep insights, intricate interconnections and new relationships across the globe. The energy of these discoveries has attracted the Beauty, Truth and Goodness that Jim natrually amplifies in the fields around him. Jim is a real lifeforce of the Human Hive who cannot deny the Evolutionary Impulse he is called to serve. Gaia is a planet better able to nurture her cities as Gaia’s Reflective Organs because of Jim Garrison.

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For personal investment in Humanity Rising’s initiatives in “not wasting a good crisis” we are proud to award Jim Garrison, Meshworker of Year, 2021.For more on Jim Garrison here.

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Definition of Meshworker

A Meshworker of the Year demonstrates the meshworking intelligence as defined on the Integral City website .  Meshworking intelligence creates a “meshwork” by weaving together the best of two operating systems — one that self-organizes, and one that replicates hierarchical structures. The resulting meshwork creates and aligns complex responsive structures and systems that flex and flow.

Candidates for the Meshworkers of the Year Award invest dollars, time, effort and expertise at a level of complexity that serves a whole city or cities. Here are our previous winners:

2020: Ellen van Dongen

2019: Anne-Marie Voorhoeve

2018: Diana Claire Douglas

2017: Hub Co-Evolucio, Reus, Catalonia, Spain

2016: Morel Fourman, Gaiasoft,Africa

  2015: Imagine Durant, USA

2014: Team ARGO, Russia

2013: Populus, Canada

Immunity: a clot between ourselves and the world

This series of posts are by Guest Contributor, Dr. Simon Divecha. They intimately illustrate Simon’s deep awareness of the connection between the personal and the planetary. Spoiler alert – they may be a difficult read if you haven’t discovered the gift inside the multiple challenges we face in our VUCA world.Simon lives on the Isle of Harris in western Scotland – so as you read his story, imagine how you would fare if you lived an hour and a half away from your nearest neighbour.

Simon’s beautiful website Ve-Benevolution can be found here.

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Dr. Simon Divecha has been addressing climate change and sustainability for three decades. He’s both an award-winning academic, and a highly sought-after international consultant for all things related to climate change, carbon management and sustainability. Simon shares that, “I’ve been part of global organisations that have attempted to address climate change at a global level as well as trying to implement solutions at a local scale. What’s different now is the world has changed.

We’ve moved from climate change being something important we address to it being a human imperative. We’ve known the technical solutions for two or three decades but this is essentially a human problem. By which I mean it is as much about individuals’ cares and values and our societies’ way of acting as it is about money, profitability, business models and government policies. “

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Dateline April 26, 2021

Immunity

Three and a half weeks ago I had my first Covid vaccine shot. I felt relived and surprised about
feeling relieved.
I took the opportunity to shop—living in a remote area pre-made pizza is a serious luxury! I
remember being up, super positive and encouraged as the days were getting rapidly longer,
weather warming here in the far northern hemisphere and hints of green buds appearing.
It is an hour and a half mountainous drive back. Entering the house I stumbled. That’s remarkable
—I am used to exceptionally good balance as a skier and climber. Being unsteady with shopping
in my hands is weird.

It got stranger

By the next day I am short of breath and definitely noticing my well out of kilter balance—as I’m
walking back down a hill I am worrying about faceplanting! By the evening I am fatigued, feeling
chilled or feverish in rotating cycles, sore stomach and head with an almost continuous adrenalinendorphin
like rush coursing through my skin.
I look up the covid vaccine side effects.
In many ways the vaccine side effects are a straightforward list. They are clearer than worldwide
side effects—our activities such as fossil fuel consumption driving are planetary biodiversity loss,
colonialism underlying an intergenerational, wildly inequitable wealth distribution. These are our
meta-crises.
The analogy to my side-effects is apt. We did not set out to create these crises. Mostly we were,
and are, seeking solutions.

Crises feed each other

The loss of biodiversity, for example, has quite a direct link with the likelihood of future covid like
pandemics—see Pivotal moment here> Similarly, our burning of fossil fuel is obviously warming
the planet and creating feedback, more severe and dangerous weather patterns, floods, fires
alongside much more that. More significant worldwide calamities and extinctions are on the way.
Cross-meta-crises links might be less obvious, e.g. between our current pandemic and
colonialism plus wealth disparity. Yet, this is very present. For example people in richer countries
eat more meat, we produce significant quantities of this in factory farms where animals are fed
grain rather than grazing on grass. That grain is grown on arable land which in turn pushes less
profitable farming into more and more marginal land, to de-forest land and degrade river systems.
Links from that include: more meat, less forest, less greenhouse gas absorption, a warmer planet.
There are many other connections yet, in simple terms, the world has a fever. When we have a
fever it is usually our body fighting an infection. A virus is multiplying inside us and our body is
fighting to regain health. However, if the fever is too extreme, it can damage our brains and it can
kill us.

To read the full narrative of this Part 1 of  Simon’s story click here.

Or to read the sequence of Simon’s 4 postings and/or obtain the pdf of the full series,  click on the links below.

Here are the links to this story in 4 parts and the full story.

Part 1 Immunity here>

Part 2 Visions beyond crisis here>

Part 3 Descent here>

Part 4 Boom, crash, bounce?? here>

Pdf full article, Immunity and a clot between our world and individuals here>

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COVID-19 has made people in India wake up to the links between food and health. Everyone was waiting for the vaccine. But it turned out that the people who did not get COVID-19 were the ones with high immunity. And who were they? The ones who weren’t eating junk food. They were eating indigenous diets: lots of turmeric, a lot of ginger, a lot of ashwagandha. As a result, there’s been a waking up to the sophistication of the Indian diet. This is in line with Ayurveda philosophy and its foundational idea about diet, which is just as Hippocrates recognized: let food be thy medicine. Ayurveda says, “Annam Sarvaushadhi.” Food is the best medicine.
Vandana Shiva

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Learn 5 Ways With Integral City

This is a Special Issue of our Newsletter to invite you to learn 5 ways with Integral City – in the next 2 months.Click here to see the release of the original newsletter.[image error][image error]Doughnut Economics Scholarships for Master Regenerative ActionIntegral City is a partner with Ubiquity University in designing and delivering the Master in Regenerative Action. Explore the potential. Find out why Regenerative Action is vital to our existence now.Start with the courses:Core Course – Foundations of Doughnut Economics (Kate Raworth)  (1 credit) Starting June 09, 2021Elective Course – Beyond Resilient: Integral City Inquiry, Action and Impact (Marilyn Hamilton, PhD and Beth Sanders, MCP, RPP) (3 credits)Elective Course – City Nestworking (Beth Sanders, MCP, RPP) (3 credits) Starting May 12, 2021[image error]

Foundations of Doughnut Economics with Kate Raworth – June 9, 16, 23, and 30, 2021

About Doughnut Economics Course

Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics opens the doors to Regenerative Action that makes a difference for the wellbeing of the world. By the end of the course you should be able to:

Explain the main concepts behind Doughnut EconomicsUnderstand the ramifications of exceeding planetary boundaries on Earth systemsDeepen your understanding of practical implementation using case studiesBegin your own process of exploration to see if Doughnut Economics could be viable in your community or local area

Weekly Schedule

Week 1 – June 9, 2021
• Exploring the Doughnut of Social and Planetary Boundaries

Week 2 – June 16, 2021
• When the Doughnut Meets the City – The Implications of Downscaling

Week 3 – June 23, 2021
• Can We Do Business in the Doughnut?

Week 4 – June 30, 2021
• From Ideas to Action: Learning with Changemaker

Listen to Kate Raworth talk about the value of Doughnut Economics – click here. For link to original newsletter released May 9, 2021 click here.

World Unity Week 2021 – Let’s Do Something for World Unity

Integral City will once again join World Unity Week. We start with a trialog on the impact of the  “Unity of Everything” on Integral City – with Author, Nishad Dubashia and Ubiquity U Chief Innovation Officer, Peter Merry. We invite you to unite with us in an inspiring exploration of spiritiuality in the city.

(Date tbd – watch the World Unity Week schedule on their website below.)