Marilyn Hamilton's Blog, page 32

Our Evolutionary Journey to the Master Code of Care for a City of Peace

Gaia in her wisdom has created us as a fractal of her patterns. Like her we have organs made from the substances of her creation: we are bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, heart of her heart and mind of her mind.

So, in contemplating a City of Peace we must first respect that it will not just be a built environment – not just the bones of streets and buildings or the energy of communication systems. But what we create will have a home on what we call Gaia’s bio-regions. Within a watershed, geo-shed, bio-shed, we must respect the resources and honour the boundaries of the ecology that Gaia creates for us to plant the seed of a new creation.

As Gaia expresses an ecological intelligence in all her creations, so we must reflect that intelligence in creating a City of Peace that lives in its bio-region with Intelligences of Ecology, Emergence, Integral Awareness and Aliveness. I call these Contexting Intelligences.

Gaia delights in the creation of Individual uniqueness and expression – reflected in each of us as individuals with inner consciousness and outer behavioural capacities. A City of Peace would enable Individual Intelligence to shine without repressing the expression of other individuals.

Gaia also knows from her deep history that Collective Intelligence emerges when individuals agree to work, live, play, co-create together. The co-creation of Cities of Peace must be an ultimate expression of Collective Intelligence where cooperation and collaboration optimize Aliveness.

Gaia has the wisdom to open the doors of Strategic Intelligence, encouraging us to Inquire and ask good questions – like what is a City of Peace? She shows us through Ecological Intelligence how in a City of Peace to Meshwork the foundational functions of structures with the self-organizing functions of ongoing connections and exploration. She also gifts us with Navigational capacities so that we can create Vital Signs Monitors in our Cities of Peace that enable us to set targets for wellbeing and steer a course to achieve wellbeing goals and objectives.

Gaia has the impulse of Evolutionary Intelligence to encourage us to grow Cities of Peace as her Reflective Organs that continue to grow, develop and evolve dynamically.

But as Gaia evolves she uses the wisdom of complex adaptive living systems to seek coherence, resonance, and emergence. This can enable all her Cities to be Reflective Organs that can be at Peace with one another.

Gaia even gives us the capacities to create an Operating Systems for our Reflective Organs. It is a Code of Peace that I call the Master Code of Care. This Operating System enables Peace as we practise it. We must Care for our Selves, so that we can Care for Others, and together Care for our Places – or Cities of Peace – and altogether we can Care for our Planet, Gaia.

This Master Code of Care enables development and evolution of Cities of Peace within the Ecology of Gaia.

This blog series inquires into Peace and what is a City of Peace?

How Can We Create Cities of Peace When We Have Disturbed Gaia’s Peace?

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Published on January 18, 2020 12:12

How Can We Create Cities of Peace When We Have Disturbed Gaia’s Peace?

Gaia as a living being has organs for her body, brain, mind and heart. Great rivers, lakes and oceans are her veins and arteries. Rocks and mountains her skeleton. Prairies and soil are her skin. Fungi, mycelium, microbes and insects are her metabolic tracts. Forests, plants and gardens her lungs. Animals are her animators, hands and feet. And we humans are her organs of reflection – able to contemplate and appreciate all that Gaia is. Altogether Gaia and her organs are an interbeing, totally dependent on one another for existence. We are held together energetically, physically, spiritually, relationally and systemically by the Impulse of Life itself. Ho!

When Gaia’s organs are functioning in harmony she enjoys coherence, resonance and emergence. For Gaia this is evolutionary peace.

This is not a static unchanging peace – but a dynamic, pulsing, cycling peace that grows and develops and evolves.

Like a fetus developing in utero, as a species, we humans are still developing the capacity to be reflective organs for Gaia. Our heart-minds have unfolded in her womb with bodies and organs that reflect Gaia’s functions herself. In the last 70 years, we have emerged from the locations of many wombs in different eco-regions into the whole Earth landscape of our Planetary home.

But like children who have not learned the lessons of playing together with Love and Respect, we have emerged from our eco-territories into our larger play area and we have trashed our playroom. We are waking up now to look around at the destruction we have caused to our Earth Mother as a whole, to her sacred organs without whom we cannot survive, to all the artefacts that have been our toys, clothes, shelter, food and support and to the eco-regions which have supported us to live this long.

We have created un-peace. Because our evolutionary capacities manifested through our behaviour, systems, relationships and awareness have overpowered the other organs of Gaia. Instead of serving as Gaia’s Reflective Organs for which we have been evolved – we have become a cancer. We have disturbed Gaias natural flow of energies and so changed her life-balance that we threaten our own survival. For as an inseparable part of an interbeing we are utterly dependent on Gaia’s wellbeing. Her wellbeing is our wellbeing.

How can we talk of Cities of peace, when we have disturbed Gaia’s Peace?

This blog series inquires into Peace and what is a City of Peace?

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Published on January 18, 2020 12:02

Integral City Reflective Organ December Solstice 2019: Power Over – With – AS

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 Power.

… the SDG’s will only be effective if leadership takes action to respond to their data-driven signals. We know from systems theory that the place that has the most leverage to change within the city system is with the city leaders and stakeholders themselves. Leaders play such a vital role, because when leaders are willing and able to change they can gain an “overview” perspective of the whole system (Meadows, 2008). … So, it is critical to create the conditions where leaders from all 4 Voices of the city come to the table with the willingness to change. And willingness only comes when people care.

Hamilton, M. 2018. Integral City 3.7: Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives.Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press,LLC p. 295

Scroll to end of newsletter to access Free Resources.

Gaia’s Reflective Organ Reflects on Power Over – Power With – Power As?

Note to Reader: This is a precis of the full editorial published here …[Full Editorial]

The December solstice opens the door to the theme of Power in the Human Hive. Gaia’s Reflective Organs (as individuals, collectives and human hives) have evolved through three eras of Power: Over, With and As.

Power Over

In today’s world too often, Power is associated with Power Over. The news delights in reporting the conflicts that Power Over engenders, and we regularly read about stories of Power Over at all levels of human scale from individual to family to organization to city and nation and planet. But the news is changing because those who have been the victims of Power Over are pushing back. Most of these resistors are staging their protest in cities – where nearly half of all people naturally live, work, relate and co-create. …[more]

Power With

In today’s VUCA circumstances, it is hard to imagine how Power Over could transform into Power With. But out of the ashes of the fires of human insecurity – related to climate, water, food, energy, culture and finance – has arisen a whole value chain of Power With service providers trying to meet the needs of the most destitute. The Not-for-Profits (NFP) and NGO’s have mustered the will and the way to build bridges between the developed nations and developing nations.

Power With brings into the power equation the power of feminine ways of knowing – the power emerging from the deepest relationships of bonding, belonging and caring. …[more]

Power As

Thus, Power With is creating the conditions for a more complex practice of Power As.

Power Over is dominator-based.

Power With is relationship-based.

Power As is consciousness-based.

Power As combines both the masculine and feminine sources of power into a fully human – or some would say even Gaian – source of power.

Power As recognizes that each person has the capacity to be purpose-driven in a way that can transcend and include domination for appropriate reasons, like responding quickly to disasters. Power As also transcends and includes relationships (for bonding, belonging and collaborating) to co-create and meshwork situation-responsive cultures and structures.

We see Power As enacted by those who have been willing to step into the fires caused by Power Over and Power With, witness the deepest truths (however uncomfortable), come along beside others (to strengthen and help them release their powerful capacities) and be open to learning why Nature, Life, Consciousness, Gaia (aka the Divine) has evolved us for a higher purpose.

We see Power As called forth by Dr. Monica Sharma who has worked at the UN so deeply, broadly, widely that she speaks of the Power we possess when we see the Practical, Political and Personal as a system with the capacities to meet any challenge.

Her colleague and scientist (and Nobel Laureate) Dr. Karen O’Brien integrates this wisdom into climate challenges researched by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) where she has served as a social scientist for 25 years.

Likewise, Terry Patten, Founder of State of Emergence and lifetime activist has shifted his influence on power into framing a “New Republic of the Heart” that explicitly reveals the heart-based intelligence that lies at the core of Power As.

Thomas Huebl’s online inquiry into Trauma and Healing and Charles Eisenstein’s vision of a “beautiful Earth we know is possible” also evoke and enact Power As.

On the city-scale Power As integrates all the intelligences – from Contexting to Individual to Collective to Strategic, into and as an Evolutionary intelligence.

Power As can be practised by individuals, empowered to tap into deep knowing or not-knowing (as Charles Eisenstein would suggest) in service to a purpose greater than any one person.

Power As can be practised by collectives, able and willing to act as WE-Holders, tuning into a Hive Mind (perhaps exemplified by Spiritual Activist Alistair McIntosh and his Scottish Land Reformers and the Lorian’s Subtle Activists tapping into the Subtle Realms as life partners from other different dimensions).

Power As would result in a worldview naturally arising from making decisions through the lens of the Master Code – to Care for Self, Others, Place and Planet.

Even as we have declared our current age to be the Anthropocene, we enter the era when Power As is called into being, because Power Over has been applied not only to every scale of human life but to every form of life on this planet. Power Over without the transmutation of Power With and Power As has proven to be ultimately disruptive, traumatizing and life-destroying.

Power As is also called forth because Power With seems powerless against Power Over. Power With has the best intentions to include Power Over in the dialogues and collaborations it imagines and attempts. But Power With fails to recognize the capacity for hijacking resources that Power Over can too easily manipulate. Only Power As is willing to speak Truth to Power Over and offer Appropriate Love (and not be naively manipulated) to Power With. Power As has the wisdom to act AS Life to realign and recalibrate the inappropriate use of the Powers that have evolved in earlier eras.

Gaia’s Reflective Organ Reflects

When we stand at this point in time and look backwards, it is too easy to simply condemn Power Over and Power With as incapable and unworthy. But each of those eras was powered by natural fuels that enabled the accumulation of power as wealth and knowledge that set the life conditions for the next Power to emerge.

Bio Fire – enabled Power Over. Cultural Power Over was powered by the forests and peat that could be collected from the Earth’s surface and support the spread of agriculture.

Fossil Fuels – enabled Power With. Without the accumulation of wealth enabled by fossil fuels, mined from below Earth’s surface, Power With culture could not have emerged to try to right the injustices caused by Power Over structures and systems.

Solar/Renewables – enable Power As. Without being able to source our energy needs from natural sources like the natural systems that build up life on Earth, we would not have the natural models, teachers, or sciences that show us how Power As is shared in Integral Ecologies and circular metabolisms.

When we look back at the evolutionary trajectory of Power Over, Power With and Power As we can appreciate that Power has always been a blessing and a curse in human life. But perhaps now, we have matured enough as a species that as we access and use our Power, we can take responsibility for the rules of engagement (and related authority) and relationships (and related influence) that Power As can reveal to us.

We look to the new faith practices (like subtle/spiritual activism), universal patterns of life-giving principles (like New Republic of the Heart) and holistic decision sets (like the Master Code) to guide us through the maturing of our stage of Power As.

May that be the legacy we will remember from this Age of the Anthropocene , with and as Gaia’s Reflective Organs.

This is a precis of the full editorial published here …[Full Editorial]

Anne-Marie Voorhoeve: Meshworker of the Year 2019

Anne-Marie is a strategist, social alchemist, social architect, innovative co-creator, experienced facilitator and expert in meshworking.

She focuses on the integral transformation of society into a sustainable world. She has decades of international experience with communities, businesses, networks, organizations, technology providers, groups of politicians, NGOs.

She enjoys designing, meshweaving and supporting complex multi-stakeholder projects that commit to meaningful and ambitious goals.

Recipient with the Club of Budapest of the Luxembourg Peace Prize 2017, Anne-Marie was inducted in 2019 as an Evolutionary Leader.

Integral City 2019: AMSTERDAM

Amsterdam, City of Water is Integral City of the Year 2019.

Amsterdam will be the city featured on the new cover of the Second Edition of Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences of the Human Hive.

In a year when we saw high tides engulf Venice, Amsterdam (often called Venice of the North) continued to survive and thrive despite the fact that it is mostly 2 meters below sea level!

Named European City of Innovation in 2017, Amsterdam hosted WeMakethe.City Festivals in 2018 and 2019 to celebrate the value of the city.

The beauty of these festivals was that they were not staged in a conference area but throughout the city in installations from the Food Fair to churches to the Eye. The city showed itself at the docks, in De Ceuvel and in outlying neighborhoods like the Kraiennest.

Amsterdam is Europe’s 5th largest port and it is one of The Netherlands gateways to the world of trade.

Its canals and circular city design make it walkable, accessible and attractive to 5 million tourists annually.

In 2019 Amsterdam was the natural location to declare 2 manifestos supporting Integral Cities:

The New Sincerity Manifesto

The Manifesto Integral City Climate Change Agenda for Organizations

On King’s Day Amsterdam hosts the largest street party in The Netherlands, opening its parks and curbs to the citizens of the city to stage and enjoy a host of pop-up musical performances, art exhibits and clothing and household item sales.

Amsterdam demonstrates all of the Integral City Intelligences – many of them at a world-class level:

Contexting Intelligences

Ecosphere – the city is intensely aware of its relationship to the North Sea and water management of everything from the quality of its drinking water to canal levels is paramount in city operation.

Emergence – the city in many ways is a self-making urban entity that has continued to reinvent itself despite the pressures from its European neighbours, migration from Africa, Middle East and its Dutch colonial past.

Integral – most Integral and Spiral groups, estimate that the density of people trained in these mindsets and modalities is greater in The Netherlands (and thereby Amsterdam) than anywhere else on earth.

Living – Amsterdam has a classic bell curve of age distribution with a relatively young population (60% below 45). It glories in offering skateboard parks as well as revealing the “Unseen Amsterdam”.

Individual & Collective Intelligences

Individual – Inner and Outer – although the population of Amsterdam largely declares itself without religious affiliation, many are “spiritual but not religious” and mindful of many personal development processes and bio-physical healthy lifestyles.

Collective – Structural – Amsterdam exhibits some of the most exciting architecture in the world – and protects its historic building (especially in the heart of the city) while experimenting with modern structures in its newer neighbourhoods. At the same time Amsterdam is the beneficiary of The Netherlands post-war policy to invest in public transportation and has one of the most integrated systems of human mobility of any city in the world – including walking, bicycle, streetcar, bus, car, rail system, metro.

Collective – Cultural – Amsterdam could have been named the City of Culture just as easily as the City of Innovation. Home to world-famous artists like Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Mondrian, Amsterdam’s museums, galleries and concert halls are equally renowned (and attractive to tourists).

Strategic Intelligences

Inquiry – Amsterdam is famous for its ongoing experiments with governance, citizen engagement, technology, research and experimentation.

Meshworking – the intelligence of weaving together self-organizing systems and structures that enable operations, is another Amsterdam expertise. It is a leader in “connecting the system to more of itself” (such as annual family walking days and King’s Day street/park gatherings.)

“Together means: local government, knowledge institutes, businesses, social institutions, start-ups, entrepreneurs, and all residents of Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, with their own neighbourhood initiatives. THAT IS THE AMSTERDAM APPROACH!”

Udo Kock, Deputy Mayor, Alderman City of Amsterdam in Welcome to WeMakethe.City

Navigating – Amsterdam has been the beneficiary of Dutch global navigation expertise and the enabling of trade that financed its development. Its navigational skills no doubt underlie its emergence as a world heritage site for much of its water expertise (including its canals).

Evolutionary Intelligence

Amsterdam exemplifies a city who responds to life conditions with commitment, curiosity and technological invention. It is as likely to reinvent its old parts – like DeCeuvel or North Amsterdam as it is likely to encourage the growth of cities outside itself (like Almere) so that it can balance its own evolution with the health of neighbouring urban centres and the natural environment.

Having recognized all 12 intelligences active in Amsterdam, finally we would point to the generosity of Amsterdam. Its leaders recognize that in a world of turbulent challenges, cities are the incubators of cooperation, healthy competition, optimism and capacity building. Amsterdam is a city that exemplifies both Placecaring and Placemaking.

In the WeMakethe.City Festival Amsterdam declared:

“Our Goal is to unite everyone in making cities better for everyone!”
That summarizes our reasons for awarding Amsterdam as Integral City of the Year 2019.

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For prior Integral City of the Year Awards see:

6AIKA Finland – Cities of the Year 2018
Russia’s 3 City Associations – City of the Year 2017
Fort McMurray – City of the Year 2016.
Paris – City of the Year 2015 .

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Published on December 21, 2019 04:57

Integral City Meshworker 2019: ANNE-MARIE VOORHOEVE

Meet Anne-Marie Voorhoeve – Integral City Meshworker of 2019.

Anne-Marie is a strategist, social alchemist, social architect, innovative co-creator, experienced facilitator and expert in meshworking.

She focuses on the integral transformation of society into a sustainable world. She has decades of international experience with communities, businesses, networks, organizations, technology providers, groups of politicians, NGOs.

She enjoys designing, meshweaving and supporting complex multi-stakeholder projects that commit to meaningful and ambitious goals.

Recipient with the Club of Budapest of the Luxembourg Peace Prize 2017, Anne-Marie was inducted in 2019 as an Evolutionary Leader.

Anne-Marie is core team member of Integral City Meshworks and founder – partner of Integral City Netherlands. She is co-founder, director and strategic connector of the Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation and Emergence.

The Hague Center operates on a global scale and is involved in both large projects and small local ones. (Sometimes bringing larger visions back to a smaller scale, sometimes using what is manifesting on a small scale and generalizing to a larger scale.)

Anne-Marie co-creates and/or facilitates international teams that support stakeholders to hold opposing truths at the same time and being able to bring this into decision making processes for governing organizations, cities, countries and groups

Certified in Spiral Dynamics integral, Art of Hosting, SQ21 spiritual intelligence and ECO-Intention she uses social technologies like The World Café, Spiral Dynamics, Open Space, U Theory, Appreciative Inquiry, Generative dialogue, Holacracy, Systemic Constellation Work and Meshworking to enable large groups of people to efficiently interact and gain access to their collective intelligence, wisdom and consciousness.

Some of the large-scale projects Anne-Marie has worked on include:

Integral Africa co-facilitator 2019.
The Gathering, Vienna, co-facilitator 2019.
Co-Creating Europe Conference, co-facilitator, 2019.
With Deep Earth Architecture, consulting to City of Hope design, Auschwitz.
Co-creating the research and real-world implementation for The Conscious Witness Project (with Diana Claire Douglas, Meshworker of the Year 2018).
Developing a roadmap and meshwork for reducing Brazil’s CO2 emissions by 80% by 2020 (with Morel Fourman, Peter Merry)
YES: Building our capacity to lead a global Coalition for Youth Employment Case Study Meshwork (with Morel Fourman)
For the Offices of the Future developing strategies with the Wheel of Co Creation (Barbara Marx Hubbard and Monterrey team.

In addition to all the above achievements, Anne-Marie is Chief Creative Director for the International Club of Budapest (COB) and president of COB Netherlands. She is Facilitator of Gaiasoft Ltd.

Integral City is proud to award Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, Meshworker of the Year 2019.

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Definition of Meshworker

A Meshworker of the Year demonstrates the meshworking intelligence as defined on the 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:

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

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Published on December 21, 2019 02:06

Integral City Meta Blog 2019

Here is the Integral City 2019 Meta Blog. It connects the 4 Voices of the Integral City to the Planet, People, Place and Power that energized us in 2019.

It follows the traditions of:

Integral City Meta Blog 2018
Integral City Meta Blog 2017
Integral City Meta Blog 2016
Integral City Meta Blog 2015
Integral City Meta Blog 2014
Integral City Meta Blog 2013
1. Equinox/Solstice Newsletters – Integral City Reflective Organ

Integral City Reflective Organ – March 2019: Are Cities Evolving as Gaia’s Reflective Organs?

Integral City Reflective Organ – June 2019: 4 Voices Imagine the Human Hive

Integral City Reflective Organ – September 2019: Strike the City vs City on Strike

Integral City Reflective Organ – December 2019: Power Over – Power With – Power As

2. City of the Year 2019: Amsterdam

Read about the City of the Year award

here.

3. Meshworker of the Year 2019: Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, The Hague Centre for Global Governance, Innovation and Peace

Read the full story of Meshworker of the Year 2019

here.

4. 2019 Edition 2 of Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive

Foreword by Elisabet Sahtouris, Evolution Biologist

5. Blogs
Conference Papers, Lectures, Notes

Integral City in Amsterdam: WeMakethe.City Better for All of Us
Living Cities Russia Discovers “Habits for Changing Cities”
City, Psychology and Place Summit Generates Rich Inquiry
Co-Creating Europe: What Have Cities Got to do With It?
From Findhorn Beehive to Vancouver Human Hive: How Evo & Eco Evolve Gaia’s Reflective Organ, Keynote Address Ecocity World Summit, October 8, 2019
Refocusing Human Sensitivity in a Digital World Through Caring, Contexting, Capacity Building
Professing a Spiritual AQtivation
Biomimicry Lessons from the Beehive for Hindustan U Architecture Class
Gaia’s Reflective Organ: Marilyn’s Spiritual AQtivism Journey

Manifestos for New City in New Society

The Manifesto of New Sincerity
New Sincerity Manifesto – an Update
Manifesto for Integral City Climate Change Agenda for Organizations

City as Living System

Comparing Integral City Intelligences with Charles Eisenstein Living Earth
Interview for Living Cities – Part 1
Interview for Living Cities – Part 2

Are Cities Evolving?

Are Cities Evolving as Gaia’s Reflective Organs?
Thought Experiments – Listening & Learning from Bees
Integral City Maps, Intelligences, Emergent Practices for Gaia
Evidence for Big Bite & Hope for Gaia?

Enlivening Organizations for Teal/Yellow Development

How Do Organizations Enliven the City?
Are you a Member of the 10%
Manifesto for Integral City Climate Change Agenda for Organizations
Imagine Your City as a Thriving Innovation Ecosystem
Citizen & Civil Society Organizations Evolve with Lessons from the Honey Bee
The Power of the Pebble

Climate Change

How Do You and I Make Drawdown Personal?
cChallenge Draws On & Creates MetaCapitals
New Perspectives on Beauty, Goodness and Truth from ccc19 cChallenge
Meta-Findhorn 4+1 Voices Think Cosmically, Feel Globally, Act Locally
Welcome to the Restaurant at the end of ccc19 cChallenge
Integral City Consciousness at Climate Change Conference

On the Road With Integral City Voice

4 Voices of City Visit Amsterdam, Moscow, London
Hope from the Heroine’s Journey
Integral City Stories for Our Times
A Journey of a 1000 Miles Begins with a Single Story

Findhorn & Global Ecovillage Network (GEN)

Appreciating Meta-Findhorn 2019 Transformational Path
Global Ecovillage Network EU 2019 Conference in 4 Graphics
Integral City Prepares for Ecology Panel at GEN EU 2019 Conference
Global Ecovillage Network Europe 2019 Ecology Panel

Urban Hub 15: Dancing With the Future – Integral City Dance

Imagine Waking Up the Human Hive: A Dance in 3 Acts
Imagine Waking Up the Human Hive: Dance Prelude
Imagine Waking Up the Human Hive: Act 1 Deep Inner Listening
Waking Up the Human Hive: Act 2 Work is Love in Action
Waking Up the Human Hive: Act 3 Choreographing With Nature

6. Guest Blogs

The Knowing Field and Constellating for the Collective (Diana Claire Douglas)
When Does a City Have Heart? (Govert Van Ginkel)

7. Videos

Beyond Smart, Beyond Resilient, Beyond Complexity: Are Cities Evolving as Gaia’s Reflective Organs? (password: H3UniHamilton)

This collection of videos features Integral City founder Marilyn Hamilton speaking about various aspects of the Integral City.

Dr. Tom Henfrey Interviews Dr. Marilyn Hamilton for UrbanA Research
Dr. Sheeba Chander Interviews Dr. Marilyn Hamilton re Ecocity World Summit plans
Watch 2 Green Manifestos delivered by Oleg Lega and Marilyn Hamilton at Amsterdam’s 2019 WeMakethe.City Festival

Password for all video’s: WeMakeTheCity1!

After movie: https://vimeo.com/344647596

Oleg: https://vimeo.com/344652468

Marilyn: https://vimeo.com/344653330

Discussion: https://vimeo.com/344653036

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Published on December 20, 2019 06:58

Gaia’s Reflective Organ Reflects on Power Over – Power With – Power As?

The December solstice opens the door to the theme of Power in the Human Hive. Gaia’s Reflective Organs (as individuals, collectives and human hives) have evolved through three eras of Power: Over, With and As.

Power Over

In today’s world too often, Power is associated with Power Over. The news delights in reporting the conflicts that Power Over engenders, and we regularly read about stories of Power Over at all levels of human scale from individual to family to organization to city and nation and planet. But the news is changing because those who have been the victims of Power Over are pushing back. Most of these resistors are staging their protest in cities – where nearly half of all people naturally live, work, relate and co-create.

Women are declaiming, through the #metoo movement, the gender-based power-over structures that disempowered them. The Catholic Church has been taken to court in many countries for the exploitive power some of its priests have exercised over children’s rights of safety, security, and sense of worth. Hong Kongers have refused to allow their democratic rights to be disempowered by battling Chinese hegemony on the streets of Hong Kong for the better part of this year. The Gilet Jaunes in Paris have protested the unfairness of the governmental power that makes decisions that directly affect citizen’s lives without consultation or input.

It is difficult to imagine a world without circumstances that permit and placate the practices of Power Over. The “Over” kind of power is an evolutionary capacity that naturally arose out of Tribal cultures. As such it is usually connected to masculine energies and embodied even today in the most powerful political leaders of the most powerful nations: Trump, Johnson, Putin, Ping.

Interestingly, it is alive in both democracies (where the stranglehold of Power Over practices drag those nations down the evolutionary spiral) and in totalitarian states (where the traditional Power Over practices are meeting an uprising of resistors who want to move up the evolutionary spiral). Thus, the tectonic plates of Power Over nations are becoming locked into Power Over subduction zones. Progress is becoming difficult in either direction because the Power Over leaders are not adapting to the changing world.

This becomes evident when we consider the impacts of globalized communication combined with technological energy exploitation. Whether it is China building more coal fired generators that are polluting their population to early deaths or North Korea flaunting its nuclear arsenal, no nation can keep “power” activities out of the global eye. Satellites and their power-detection capabilities rapidly expose most such activities to public view. This combustible combination means that Power Over is no longer an unassailable right of those in positions of power who too often could keep secret the impacts of their exercise of Power Over. We see now that smaller nations like North Korea and Iran, Syria and Bangladesh can hold their own cities and the world to ransom by threatening use of dirty bombs and/or polluting industry.

Power With

In such circumstances, it is hard to imagine how Power Over could transform into Power With. But out of the ashes of the fires of human insecurity – related to climate, water, food, energy, culture and finance – has arisen a whole value chain of service providers trying to meet the needs of the most destitute. The Not-for-Profits (NFP) and NGO’s have mustered the will and the way to build bridges between the developed nations and developing nations.

Power With brings into the power equation the power of feminine ways of knowing – the power emerging from the deepest relationships of bonding, belonging and caring.

The UN is the most widely recognized organization born out of an aspiration that power could be shared, and justice could emerge so the haves would be able and willing to share power, resources and developmental opportunities with the have nots. The vision that people signed up for was that an international organization could come alongside everyone in need and share “Power With”. After 50 years of operation – that is often decried as ineffective and too costly – the UN (and its cadre of related global Agencies) – can point to many successes that have shifted worldviews, resources and health outcomes.

Practising Power With while the most powerful nations continued to exercise Power Over at the voting level of the UN has proved frustrating and damaging.

The model of Power With has been replicated for other global initiatives like Climate Change Conferences (Conference of the Parties) known widely as COP. And we have seen just this month at COP25 in Madrid, the terrible impasses that result when the Power With meme gives all members equal votes/rights but without requirements for matching evolutionary responsibilities to life on earth.

Nevertheless, out of Power With has emerged some recent more advanced variations like Extinction Rebellion (XR). The younger generations have taken lessons from the fields of complexity science and organized protests and non-violent direct action that practices inclusion but with some rules of engagement. XR is confounding the institutions of Power Over (police) and Power With (social services) by discerning the lessons of natural power, ecological relationships and organic emergence.

Power As

Thus, Power With is creating the conditions for a more complex practice of Power As.

Power Over is dominator-based.

Power With is relationship-based.

Power As is consciousness-based.

Power As combines both the masculine and feminine sources of power into a fully human – or some would say even Gaian – source of power.

Power As recognizes that each person has the capacity to be purpose-driven in a way that can transcend and include domination for appropriate reasons, like responding quickly to disasters. Power As also transcends and includes relationships (for bonding, belonging and collaborating) to co-create and meshwork situation-responsive cultures and structures.

We see Power As enacted by those who have been willing to step into the fires caused by Power Over and Power With, witness the deepest truths (however uncomfortable), come along beside others (to strengthen and help them release their powerful capacities) and be open to learning why Nature, Life, Consciousness, Gaia (aka the Divine) has evolved us for a higher purpose.

We see Power As called forth by Dr. Monica Sharma who has worked at the UN so deeply, broadly, widely that she speaks of the Power we possess when we see the Practical, Political and Personal as a system with the capacities to meet any challenge.

Her colleague and scientist (and Nobel Laureate) Dr. Karen O’Brien integrates this wisdom into climate challenges researched by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) where she has served as a social scientist for 25 years.

Likewise, Terry Patten, Founder of State of Emergence and lifetime activist has shifted his influence on power into framing a “New Republic of the Heart” that explicitly reveals the heart-based intelligence that lies at the core of Power As.

Thomas Huebl’s online inquiry into Trauma and Healing and Charles Eisenstein’s vision of a “beautiful Earth we know is possible” also evoke and enact Power As.

On the city-scale Power As integrates all the intelligences – from Contexting to Individual to Collective to Strategic, into and as an Evolutionary intelligence.

Power As can be practised by individuals, empowered to tap into deep knowing or not-knowing (as Charles Eisenstein would suggest) in service to a purpose greater than any one person.

Power As can be practised by collectives, able and willing to act as WE-Holders, tuning into a Hive Mind (perhaps exemplified by Spiritual Activist Alistair McIntosh and his Scottish Land Reformers and the Lorian’s Subtle Activists tapping into the Subtle Realms as life partners from other different dimensions).

Power As would result in a worldview naturally arising from making decisions through the lens of the Master Code – to Care for Self, Others, Place and Planet.

Even as we have declared our current age to be the Anthropocene, we enter the era when Power As is called into being, because Power Over has been applied not only to every scale of human life but to every form of life on this planet. Power Over without the transmutation of Power With and Power As has proven to be ultimately disruptive, traumatizing and life-destroying.

Power As is also called forth because Power With seems powerless against Power Over. Power With has the best intentions to include Power Over in the dialogues and collaborations it imagines and attempts. But Power With fails to recognize the capacity for hijacking resources that Power Over can too easily manipulate. Only Power As is willing to speak Truth to Power Over and offer Appropriate Love (and not be naively manipulated) to Power With. Power As has the wisdom to act AS Life to realign and recalibrate the inappropriate use of the Powers that have evolved in earlier eras.

Gaia’s Reflective Organ Reflects

When we stand at this point in time and look backwards, it is too easy to simply condemn Power Over and Power With as incapable and unworthy. But each of those eras was powered by natural fuels that enabled the accumulation of power as wealth and knowledge that set the life conditions for the next Power to emerge.

Bio Fire – enabled Power Over. Cultural Power Over was powered by the forests and peat that could be collected from the Earth’s surface and support the spread of agriculture.

Fossil Fuels – enabled Power With. Without the accumulation of wealth enabled by fossil fuels, mined from below Earth’s surface, Power With culture could not have emerged to try to right the injustices caused by Power Over structures and systems.

Solar/Renewables – enable Power As. Without being able to source our energy needs from natural sources like the natural systems that build up life on Earth, we would not have the natural models, teachers, or sciences that show us how Power As is shared in Integral Ecologies and circular metabolisms.

When we look back at the evolutionary trajectory of Power Over, Power With and Power As we can perhaps appreciate that Power has always been a blessing and a curse in human life. But perhaps now, we have matured enough as a species that as we access and use our Power, we can take responsibility for the rules of engagement (and related authority) and relationships (and related influence) that Power As can reveal to us.

We look to the new faith practices (like subtle/spiritual activism), universal patterns of life-giving principles (like New Republic of the Heart) and holistic decision sets (like the Master Code) to guide us through the maturing of our stage of Power As.

May that be the legacy we will remember from this Age of the Anthropocene , with and as Gaia’s Reflective Organs.

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Published on December 18, 2019 07:42

Appreciating Meta-Findhorn 2019 Transformational Path

One year ago, I issued a Climate-Challenge to Meta-Findhorn (my name for the larger Findhorn community) for 30 people to select and practise change that could contribute to climate resilience for 30 days. See the blogs on our experience here.

One year later many of our participants have graduated beyond our successful experiment into a new level of commitment to Climate Change and Consciousness in Meta-Findhorn. Just this month the Collaboration Circle (last year’s Inquiry Circle) agreed to seek support at the February 2020 Community Meeting for Meta-Findhorn becoming a Carbon Neutral Community by 2030 (aligning with a grant funding application to the Scottish government). That is a giant leap for humankind in our eco-village. I am deeply appreciative of the journey from there (December 2018) to here (December 2019) as it has been marked by a 1000+ steps and stories.

Let me count my perspectives on the ways (probably not necessarily shared by all) these steps/stories are revealing the emergence of an Ecovillage with a worldview in service to the Care of Self, Care of Others, Care of Place and Care of Planet (what I call the Master Code of Care for an Integral City/Village).

Care of Self:

Leadership has transferred in FF Board Chair from Lisette Schuitemaker to Kathy Tyler; FF CEO from Camilla Bredal Peterson to Caroline Matters; Findhorn College Board Co-Chair from Camilla to Marilyn Hamilton.
Leadership in FF has renewed/emerged with new CFO Simon and Environment Steward Iris. FF Leadership attended Holistic Centres conferences/co-learnings in Hollyhock, BC and Esalen, California.
Architectural leadership has offered concept designs: for Planetary Village of Light (including the Wave, Nautilus and Seed structures to upgrade guest accommodation, community and administration offices); Silvertrees Affordable Housing; North Whins Affordable Housing. (The latter two are already before Moray Council review.)
Findhorn College achieved renewal of its British Accreditation Council (BAC) status for accrediting world work courses like Ecovillage Design, Permaculture and Practical Spirituality.

Care of Others:

Caring Community Circle successfully received a grant for CCC Dementia Care Coordinator.
Subtle Activism practise has created and held containers for coherent and resonant process and outcomes for Whole Community Meditations, North Whins engagements and Duneland/PET/NFD Affordable Housing projects.
Baby Boutique gained new location and structure and funding support.

Care of Place:

The Park Pottery has emerged as an inspiring community creative space, raising funds, (re)engaging potters, inviting highest purpose.
In mid-year, Findhorn Hive opened its new building as a Social Enterprise for Moray.
Craig Gibson and Maria Cooper received recognition award from Scottish Government for their Permaculture Teaching/Garden.
In August, the wider community (catalysed by Michael and Gail Shaw) started dialogue and Action Research into Deep Adaptation (drawing on Jem Bendell’s framing of Resilience, Relinquishment, Recovery and Reconciliation). This has led to involvement in Extinction Rebellion, commencing a strategy for Food Resilience, inquiries into land, labour and learning options to expand food production, emergency responsiveness and connecting with near neighbours in Forres and Kinloss Military base.
NFA has initiated research into transforming its governance structure from an informal volunteer organization into a legal structure (perhaps as some form of charity or community enterprise).

Care of Planet:

In February GEN preceded the CCC2019 with the CCC Online Summit, introducing many of CCC2019 speakers to a global audience. In October GEN offered an Online Summit on Trauma and Healing (in conjunction with Thomas Huebl), reaching both global and local audiences.
In April/May FF delivered the globally acclaimed Climate Change and Consciousness 2019 (CCC2019) conference – attracting over 300 guests and livestreaming to many more.
In October FF and Findhorn College released the Transformation Magazine focusing us as an international living laboratory through transforming human consciousness.

So many steps; so many stories behind each move. For me, these steps and stories mark the evolution from Findhorn as a collection of organizations into a holistic (and Integrally emerging) Eco-Village (fulfilling and presaging Eileen’s vision of a City of Light). It has been an enormously Transformational year and I congratulate and deeply appreciate our Caring Villagers All.

Marilyn Hamilton, NFA Member, Founder Integral City Meshworks, Co-Chair Findhorn College Board

December 16, 2019

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Published on December 16, 2019 09:48

When Does a City Have Heart?

This is a guest blog by, Govert Van Ginkel

I was asked in the Integral City online community, “What Energizes You About a City You Have Visited?”

I think what I appreciate most about a city is when it has a heart. A city with a heart can draw people together and be a source of joy. A city without it can be depressing for those who live there.

So, to me that is the interesting question: When does a city have a heart and how do we nourish it in such a way that it creates well-being?

I think I’d like to take the term ‘city’ into a wider perspective as it helps to identify elements that make a heart tick. Maybe even elements we then can use when we think about creating a bigger heart or stimulating the heart of a city.

When I think of a city in terms of community, then all sizes can be included, as long as there is a sense of community and that is probably the first element of a city with a heart.

All who live in that city have a sense of community, a sense of belonging that is greater than just belonging to their next of kin or just their neighbors or the street they live in. Like a shared identity.

And it is this sense of belonging that also creates a natural way for participation to happen. Yes, certain things become organized and get a certain structure because that makes the most sense for what people are doing together, but there is also a certain fluidity to it that excludes none and intends to include anyone interested.

I think I have seen this best in a school, based on the principles of Restorative Practices. It is a community in a small city, and it has different classes belonging to the same school, with age differences and different topics they are working on and yet all contained in this one identity of their school.

What impressed me most when I visited was their sense of pride in being part of this. I never went to a school myself where I felt proud or where other students felt proud of their school and their achievements together and had a sense of belonging, but this school I visited quite clearly had. It was so strong, that it created a longing in me, a wish that I would have been part of a school like that.

So, here’s another element identified with the heart: the pride to be and the attraction it has to others that are outside of it. I have never quite seen this pride in cities of thousands in the same way with the same intensity as in smaller cities. Maybe it changes with the number of people in the city? I know, in general, people in Amsterdam and Rotterdam have a certain pride of being in that city and it is often connected to or expressed through their favorite soccer club. But that often comes out in competition with others.

A city with a heart, like that school I mentioned, does not need that because it takes pride in its being. Maybe it can be compared with a person with healthy self-esteem. There is no need for competition when one has a healthy sense of self-worth and takes pride in one’s being.

Thinking of that, maybe the lack of it is also a root cause for the kind of competition we see in our society and as a result the missing sense of belonging. When everyone is part of the competition, with who do you have a sense of belonging, unless it is to be temporarily united in the common goal to defeat others?

To continue exploring the city with a heart, I think it is also seen in how it attracts others. I know old cities here in the Netherlands and we say it is ‘gezellig’ to go there. We don’t even go there to shop but to enjoy the cozy kind of atmosphere that you may have when you are in a nice place with friends while having a very nice dinner. People come away saying they had a good time together and they want to repeat it.

Newer cities built later lacked that heart and were called ‘sleeper towns’ You go there after your work because you have to live somewhere. It just doesn’t make it sound like much of a choice and I guess it isn’t. You go there to sleep but for fun, you go somewhere else. So, fun is another element of identifying a heart. Fun can be translated as “vibrant” I think? Things are happening and people feel motivated to organize these ‘fun’ things and contribute.

I think another part of the heart is seen in how people care for each other. Is there an interest in each others’ well-being and what do people do when extra care is needed? Do they spontaneously chip in?

I think that when we start to organize in charities we are in danger of institutionalizing poverty. We intend well but are not addressing the question of how come we need a charity and what does this mean in terms of how well we are taking care of each other?

How could individual goals be more important than the well-being of “us – or our goals” as a community? In a city with a heart, these questions have been answered in a way that guarantees individual freedom as well as a commitment by all to take care of each other.

That sums up the many ways a city with heart energizes and attracts me.

Image by John Lindner, Pixabay.

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Published on December 16, 2019 09:19

A Journey of a 1000 Miles Begins with a Single Story

As I have travelled many miles in the last 2 months, I have had the pleasure and fun of learning from the many new friends and colleagues I have encountered. Many of those learnings will take months or years to unpack.

But here is a sampler of stories that intrigued me and that I want to learn more about.

Auroville, India was created from the vision of The Mother and Aurobindo. Auroville was conceived as a city of 50,000 people. (hmmmm about the size of a beehive

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Published on November 20, 2019 23:07