Marilyn Hamilton's Blog, page 52

Integral City Reflective Organ June 2016: Catalysts for Change in a VUCA World

This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is People..

With all the stress, tension and terrorism in the world, it is ironic to consider that cities could not exist if some minimum level of acceptance or tolerance did not exist. Acceptance is a behavior that can be charted on a scale measuring the degree of tolerance for others more or less like us. The more the citizens of a community accept people who are visibly different from them, the more biological diversity can contribute to the resilience of a city.

Well-being in the city requires that we pay attention to how we manage our individual and group energies. By doing so, we serve the patterns, processes and structures of well-being that support our city intentions, cultures and social systems. If we fail to do this, Diamond cites the repeated blindness of societies to grasp the implications of their short-term behaviours for their long-term survivability. He describes in horrific detail the histories of societal “collapse” from the South Pacific to the North Atlantic to Latin America. He cautions that these historical instances may be more than metaphorical warnings for the continuation of life on earth.

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, p.146

Spoiler Alert: Can Cities Survive in a VUCA World with Aliveness Weather Report?

The any-time-all-the-time-anywhere newsfeeds of the world seem demonically intent on injecting us with a continuous stream of VUCA “hits”.

Not surprisingly the military coined the VUCA term to capture the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous qualities of life that have become the daily experience of many people in most countries and the flavor of our glocal news addictions. We have all viewed the stories many times over.

Middle eastern, and especially Syrian refugees risk death on the shores of the Mediterranean, compelled to flee the VUCA life they face in their native cities just to survive.
Recent and second generation migrants to northern Europe, especially youth, languish without purpose or pay in cultural maladaptation within city environments alien to their families, hopes and potential.
Intolerance and indignity thrive in Orlando’s tourist mecca of the United States defying the regeneration of the differences that make a difference in the city.

When we convened the Integral City Online Conference in 2012, speakers from Rabobank shared their view that all cities were faced with five key challenges: climate, energy, water, food and finance. Shortly thereafter it became apparent that a sixth challenge trumped them all and that was culture. Culture is the internal collective domain of cities, where belief systems converge or clash. Culture is the source of the wars between and within our cities that is disemboweling city capacities to respond to the five other challenges. Culture is threatening the very aliveness of cities, defined as:

The ability to survive
The capacity to adapt to life conditions and the environment
The capacity to regenerate.

When the boundaries of cities were fixed, certain, simple and defined by history and/or constitution, our expectations for survival, adaptation and regeneration depended on assumptions that were built into daily exchanges, civic management and the modicum of civility taught by our families, faith practices and schools. This was the case a mere generation ago.

But when the boundaries of cities become porous, messy, shifting and destroyed because life conditions have altered through the globalization of trade, transportation, technology, tourism and wars, then assumptions about daily life in cities have been forced to change. And when the impacts of those life conditions have been amplified by military incursions, natural disasters and climate change we have created a recipe for a perfect storm of VUCA conditions in cities. This has all happened within a generation.

While cities have evolved to optimize life conditions for human systems (hinting at their biomimical nature as Human Hives) they have now become the unfortunate targets of tyrants, terrorists and rebels who covet the resources that enable survival, adaptation and regeneration. They demand this now.

But as dissonance seems to reign in the world, unexpected capacities for resilience are emerging. We see them in surprising places – Like Angela Merkel risking her political capital to welcome a million refugees. Like intrepid Millennials reaching out to assist the victims in the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels. Like the global affirmation from many cities for their own local Pride events to defy the gunman’s motivation behind the Orlando mass shooting.

If newsfeeds stopped focusing just on the grim details of the VUCA world and instead gave us a new “aliveness weather report” – AWR –  on the state of our cities’ six Challenges, then perhaps we could switch the messages from disasters, death and destruction to stories of cultural resilience, responsiveness and co-creativeness.

The AWR could report for each Challenge the state of survival, adaptation and regenerative capacity for climate, energy, water, food, finance – and especially cultural clashes.

 

Then we might have a feedback loop that could indicate the direction(s) we need to change for our very survival, adaptiveness and regenerativity.

Just a few musings from a radical optimist. MH

  

July People Event: Hub Impact – Future of Cities

Waking Up the Human Hive – join Marilyn Hamilton with a group of Unlikely Allies at Hub Impact’s International Conference July 5-6, 2016.

In this Master Class  Marilyn explores the relationship amongst Traditional Cities Smart Cities, Resilient Cities and Integral Cities and how all four types of cities contribute to a more integrated whole picture of the city. She demonstrates that each city type has a distinctive source of power and how the 4 sources of power differ through – 3 external and 1 internal sources – and how they impact the city. This Master Class links to other courses in an online series of Integral City Trainings. Learn how a natural evolution in the potential of the Traditional City, Smart City, Resilient City and the Integral City and how we can work together for the wellbeing of a Planet of Cities.

 

Advancing Language Research – Automated Text Analysis for Large Group Development Levels

Tom Murray has invited Integral City to participate in his MetaIntegral Foundation sponsored research into automated text analysis for group levels. Tom’s research explores how to use computer generated response analysis for assessing large and medium scale transformation projects and activities. What this means is that his team has developed software that can analyze response text to indicate respondents’ levels of complexity and depth in meaning-making.

With Imagine Durant (Oklahoma) Integral City is working with a number of groups interested in leadership development. In June we will start a pilot project as part of Tom’s research with a cohort from the LEAD program at First United Bank. This opportunity will be a way for us to contribute to research around the relationship between development in leadership and civic values. 

The automatic scoring process, called StageLens, uses a sentence completion leadership assessment based on Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES theory and assessment methodology for human development.  It will provide additional lenses for Integral City’s work on analyzing the values of people in Durant. Integral City will correlate Tom Murray’s aggregated results with another set of MeshSCAN values assessments that we have been collecting with Imagine Durant in the last few years.

You can learn more about STAGES on Pacific Integral’s web site: http://www.pacificintegral.com/new/homepages/stages/.

 

Imagine Durant – Health & Environment Dialogues for Policy Action

Imagine Durant continues to expand the dialogues on Economy & Community from 2015 into dialogues on Health & Environment in 2016. Thought Leaders and Citizens have added to the Recommendations for Policy Makers to take action by Developing Citizen Health, Building Performance Capacity for Health and Environment, Engaging Community Wellbeing and Influencing Healthy Business Development and Systems. Here are their 4 Quadrant ideas for action.

Develop Citizen Health – Leadership Vision, Personal Capacity, Education

Develop job opportunities for SOSU students to match skill sets of graduates and keep them in Durant

Build Health and Environment Management Performance Capacity for Health & Environment

Be strategic when deciding what budget cuts to make and don’t just move money to fix a temporary problem
Think socially about how to redistribute funding strategically with a solution that works with what your constituents are saying…especially through a process like community dialogue.

Engage Community Wellbeing – Cultural Diversity, NFP, Faith

Empower citizens to take responsibility with community led initiatives.

Influence Healthy Business Development and Environmental Systems

Identify tangible 1, 3, 5 year goals people can see and set priorities to attain them.
Map a plan for growth.
Join the Housing Revitalization Committee
Adopt a stretch of road

Read the full Health & Environment reports from the Thought Leaders here and Public here.

Celebrating Cities-as-People in the Coming Quarter of 2016

June 21 marked the start of what Integral City calls the People Quarter (from June 21 to September 20). What people perspectives do you bring to celebrate aliveness in the Human Hive at this time of year? What people, leaders, stories, rituals and family celebrations engage you?  We notice new tensions amongst, within and between cities exploding around the world as people in cities face the six challenges of Culture, Climate, Energy, Water, Food and Finance. Visit us on  Integral City Facebook Collective or the new Integral City Website and Blog and post a comment about your stories of the Human Hive.

Meshful Blessings for all People of the Human Hive from
Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Constellation Core Team

 

PS Here are some some Free Resources for nurturing People the Human Hive:

1.     Imagine Durant Gallery of Resources

2.     Short Video: Dealing with Wicked Problems – an Integral Approach

3.     Here is one Blog that offers a gift (from ISCE’s Michael Lissack) for anyone you love living in a VUCA City:

I’ve Been Violated – Give this App to Someone You Love

4.     And for Brexiteers – here are some inside views of the Big Vote:

Brexit Needs Guidance from the Edge of Inside 
Brexit Morning After Intelligence from Inside the Un-United UK
Brexit Leave Vote=Gift of Death – Note from NL

Brexit Leave Vote=Gift of Death – Note from NL

My friend, Lisette Schuitemaker, another Center for Human Emergence Global member from the Netherlands writes to us on Brexit.

 

Dear all, and most of all dear Ian (who wrote this message) and Jon [residents of UK],

What a turn of events – what a dramatic way of disengaging with the EU-project –
feels like Britain will push from the continent and drift towards the US physically as I sit here …
I understand your ‘bruised and tired’

My personal experience is that the death of each person holds a gift that I often only see later. 
While I am not suggesting that the UK is dying, this is such an impactful departure that I am using the simile.

More than once a person’s death fosters the coming together of those who stay behind and if that were to happen, if the remaining 27 countries came together more strongly in their zest to make Europe work, to transform it to an enabling organization, I would be deeply, deeply grateful for the UK to have made the sacrifice.

Sometimes a death brings greater insight into what the person contributed, and while the vote is irreversible, we might over time be able to see better what the gift of the UK is in this world, instead of trying to muddle on with opaque compromises.

Or – it is that another can shine now a person of authority has passed which I even felt when my beloved father died – his demise offered me and my siblings space to grow into, and maybe this step will finally allow Scotland and Northern Ireland to come into their own

who knows …

While I certainly don’t, I am wanting to hold space for the unfolding to be somehow serving the spiral, and hold all who voted ‘remain’ and now sit with the pain of having the connections severed – I deeply feel for you, as I felt for Cameron when I saw him make his statement live this morning.

with open heart
Lisette

 

Brexit Morning After Intelligence from Inside the Un-United UK

Ian McDonald, member of Centre for Human Emergence Global, makes some on-the-scene integrally informed observations of the morning after the Brexit Vote.

Ian writes.

As you might imagine, it has been an interesting 18 hours in the UK since we [CHE Global} spoke.  As I suspected the voter engagement was very high with 72% of those eligible to vote doing so.  In recent General Elections the turn-out has typically been closer to 35%.  

The easy shot for the campaigners on both sides was around fear; fear of economic meltdown if we left the EU or fear of immigration and losing jobs if we stay.  So a very large percentage of the voters used the opportunity to vent both anger and fear at the established status-quo after many years of an austerity economy following the banking crash.  It was a strike back at both the policy and the politicians who were seen as self-serving rather than actually about the headline issue. 

The result of a 2% majority in favour of leaving has now created a power vacuum as David Cameron has resigned and the leader of the opposition Labour party who was pro-Remain is facing a vote of no-confidence through weak leadership.  In theory the right-wing Conservative party has largely torn itself apart leaving an open goal for a Labour government to be formed as I am sure a general election will occur within 12 months. Labour however have a leader who has no leadership ability. 

It is like a boxing match with both opponents being knocked out.

At grass-roots level business and community owners are showing early signs of trying to build bridges with the recognition that only a route that heals the rift between the two camps will endure.  I believe Boris Johnson, figurehead for the Leave campaign will be seen as too divisive both within his own party and in a wider context to succeed Cameron and he will face strong opposition. 

For either party to take steps in leading the exit process and re-negotiation we need a strong leader capable of uniting a very divided UK which itself may further fragment as both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted strongly to stay as parts of Europe.

So we have the risk of a Un-United Kingdom with an independent Scotland and a united Ireland both remaining in Europe and an isolated England and Wales trying to re-invent a place in the world.  The hour has come; let us see who arrives to face an extraordinary challenge.

From a  bewildered , bruised  and tired UK.

 

Brexit Needs Guidance from the Edge of Inside

“When people are afraid or defensive, they have no tolerance for the person at the edge of inside. They want purity, rigid loyalty and lock step unity. But now more than ever we need people who have the courage to live on the edge of inside, who love their parties and organizations so much that they can critique them as a brother [sister], operate on them from the inside as a friend and dauntlessly insist that they live up to their truest selves.”

So writes Inside the Edge, about the value of people who live “on the edge of inside”. They are neither people at the center of the core nor are they revolutionaries throwing flames from the outside.

The Brexit Results announced today (that Britain leave the EU) has resulted from the vote of the revolutionary and flame throwing “Leave the EU” outsiders who oppose the the current system. The shock effects of their victory are rippling around the globe. The temptation for those who fear a meltdown of the status quo is to run to one of two poles – in defence of the (mortally?) wounded (Remain) insiders – or join forces with the giddy winners of the Leave Vote who want to turn back the clock and erect barriers to change.

For those who love their communities, cities, country and international relationships we must find the courage to talk from “inside the edge” about the highest good that birthed the core  – in Britain’s case the political lineage that has brought to the world and EU the principles of peace, order and good government as well as the benefits of modernism, internationalism and tolerance.

For those readers who know Dr. Don Beck’s Assimilation-Contrast Effect Model – this place of “inside the edge” lies in the center of the spectrum of danger zones that exists on both sides of the Remain/Leave issue, stretching from the flame throwers to well-informed negotiators.

Today’s newsfeeds will be dominated by the victory speeches of the revolutionaries and the sorrows of the core insiders.

Tomorrow’s deep background stories could be sourced from the subtle activities of the “inside-edge walkers”.

If we are to take this vote for change as an inflection point for shifting to a new order at any level, then may we find the courage to become or support the “inside-edge walkers” of Britain, the EU and the World to live into their truest selves – as they find the wisdom needed to explore with the negotiators from the wounded old core and the impassioned outsiders.

And may we encourage cities (as the meso-zone between micro individual voters and macro national / international governments) to claim their roles, full of potential and power, to act as crucial “inside-edge walkers” that can speak truth to both insiders and outsiders in a way that can make a positive and integral difference for all.

I’ve Been Violated – Give this App to Someone You Love

Here is an App to gift to someone you love.

When a woman says no, she means no. Use this image to help stop violence against women!

ISCE’s new app gives Voice to those who have been violated. It is an App that you can give to someone you love as a proactive measure for surviving if they are ever violated.

I’ve Been Violated uses the intelligence of the human system in service to those who have suffered violation. It creates archival records of traumatic experience practically on the scene.

How did I learn of this??? Through ISCE’s announcement today:

The recent Stanford rape case, in which Brock Turner (a star swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman and yet will serve a jail term of only three months) highlights the sad reality that “rape culture” remains ingrained in the American psyche. In this culture, the victim has no voice. But, technology gives us the chance to transform this unconscionable state of affairs by empowering  victims with a new voice.

 A  new app for victims — the I’ve-Been-Violated™ App — is ISCE.edu’s tool to help victims ensure their side of the story gets accurately told   It is the only App to give them a voice and a way to be heard.

Please see https://youtu.be/MLHImxvCHHY  to learn more.

Thanks to Michael Lissack for modeling the Master Code – Taking Care of Self/Others/Place/Planet – and allowing others to live it!

Integral City Reflective Organ April 2016: Planet of Cities Coming into View

Integral City Reflective Organ April 2016: Planet of Cities Coming into View
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 Planet.

The chance to stretch my imagination for the value of Integral City beyond the confines of planet Earth came from dialogue with another worldcentric leader — a member of the NASA medical team. His lessons from aerospace reminded me that the greatest opportunity for creating new realities comes not from the past but from the future. Our history tells us where we have been in the past and how we survived, adapted and regenerated to live another day. But it is through our imaginations we can literally gain altitude from toxic cities on a beleaguered Earth. First off, from 10,000 meters we can literally see the wholeness that is in any given city. Even Google Earth gives us the tool of zooming in and zooming out at different levels of scale to appreciate the patterns and structures of the city. But it is truly from the galactic distances of the moon and solar system that we are able to see the Earth as a whole system (even in its minuteness to galactic time/space). From that perspective, we can truly marvel at the intelligence we know exists in the pinpoint of the blue planet. We can better see that not just the tiniest of individuals but the cities we have evolved are critical nodes of intelligence—literally dots of light that indicate where intelligence has coalesced in the universe.  

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, p. 264
The Story of Space – ON Earth, OFF Earth, WITH Earth

American astronaut, Scott Kelly just celebrated breaking an endurance record, spending a year in space. (http://www.pbs.org/show/year-space/ )  It is mpressive that he was actually accompanied by a Russian colleague, Mikhail Kornienko who lived and worked with him. This has prompted a re-wind of nostalgia about all things space-related – especially connected to the early exploration of space by the American Air Force (using balloons – who knew?) followed by the Russian’s successful launching of the first man into space by rocket and the American creation of NASA in response. Then the landing of the first man on the moon and more recently the multi-national collaboration to build and maintain the International Space Station.

My discussions with the NASA medical team member in 2007 surprised me because he admitted that NASA was interested in space launches and space exploration – and somewhatless enthusiastically interested in space stations – but was not really interested in space colonies. Perhaps it was because space colonies necessarily require the longterm cooperation of people to make them successful? They cannot simply be engineered – but must be peopled and cultured and socialized? That was when I realized that the study of the emergence and development of cities was not simply planet-centric calling – but was a pre-cursor to learning about space colonies.

How we succeed in our cities ON Earth may determine how successful we can exist OFF Earth. But more importantly, considering what we can learn WITH Earth might well determine theultimate success of space colonies. I have argued that learning ON Earth and WITH Earth is a sensible and less expensive investment than just experimenting OFF Earth, because our whole beings are designed to adapt to Earth’s life conditions.

This is an opportunity that NASA has more recently realized could serve their strategies for space exploration well, because Scott Kelly’s twin brother, Mark, stays ON Earth as a control in the experiment to understand what happens to human beings when they live OFF Earth for extended periods of time. NASA is comparing Scott’s OFF Earth vital signs to Mark’s ON Earth vital signs to learn how they change and what this implies for designing space travel, adapting human systems and ultimately living on other planets.

Scott and Mark and Mikhail are living microcosms of the research project that could be expanded to studying cities on the Planet so that space colonies OFF Planet (and their requisite organizations) can succeed and thrive.

New Website for Planet of Integral Cities  

This issue of Gaia’s Reflective Organ is primarily devoted to introducing you to the new website for Integral City. We have taken the opportunity to migrate a website that is more than a decade old to a new platform and a new structure.

We invite you to visit www.integralcity.com … and we offer some suggestions for a Guided Tour:

The Front Page introduces:

our Global Positioning System (GPS) tool for finding the 12 Intelligences
the 4 Voices of the City

About tells the stories of:

our Vision from a Planetary Point of View and a City Point of View
our Global Constellation of Associates
our Constellation Corps Team
our Board of Advisors

Voices and Intelligences lead to in-depth explorations of who, what and how these impact the Integral City.

Events and Trainings offer an On-Ramp for Integral City practices with 6 Online Trainings.

Resources (all Free) provides links to:

Essentials for working with the Integral City framework that include Ken Wilber’s interviews
Books that explain features of Integral City ideas, organized by 4 Quadrants and 8 Levels
Podcasts that include the Integral City Talking Book narrated by Marilyn Hamilton
Videos of Marilyn’s best interviews on the Human Hive
Research by Integral-City-informed academics and graduate students

Services describes Integral City Systems, our Advisory Board contributions and the catalogue of Custom Trainings available for delivery.

Finally, we are delighted to tell you that our Integral City Meshworks Blog is now tightly integrated with our website. You can find it easily on the top Menu – plus when you use the Search function you will tap into the tags and categories of over a decade of blogs related to the Integral City.

Upcoming Events  With Planetary Purpose

1. May 4 – 8, 2016 (+Pre and Post Programs, Lake Balaton, Hungary) Integral Europe Conference 2016 explores the theme of Reinventing Europe. Keynote Speakers include Ken Wilber, Don Beck, Elza Maalouf, Thomas Huebl and Jos de Blok.

1. The Program will feature 2 members of Integral City’s Constellation Corps –Diana Claire Douglas and Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, presenting a systemic constellation workshop on Finding a home for the victim/tyrant: a spiral journey exploring the abuse of power.

2. In addition, a whole track on the Teal Organization is being coordinated by IC Constellation Corps Team, Alia Aurami and IC Thought Leader, George Por. This includes Jon Freeman’s probing challenge: So How Does Orange Get to Teal? as well as about 30 other presentations.

3. Integral Europe Conference will also celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Spiral Dynamics – one of the deep wells of wisdom and research that has inspired the emergence of Integral City.

2. July 5-6, 2016 (Seattle Washington) Impact HUBS’ Future of Cities, Unlikely Alliesis a new conference series building global impact. Marilyn Hamilton will be presenting aMaster Class on the Integral City’s 4 Voices as Unlikely Allies Who Align with the Master Code. (Stay tuned for Program details.)

Celebrating Planet-of-Cities in the Coming Quarter of 2016

March 21 marked the start of what IC calls the Planet Quarter (from March 21 to June 20). What planetary perspectives do you bring to celebrate Earth and her Planet of Cities at this time of year? What planetary perspectives, visions, resources and research inspire you?  We notice an awareness of the Planet of Cities emerging in the news every week – often through the clash of cultures from around the planet that ripple through our cities.  Visit us on the new Integral City Website and Blog and post a comment about your city interests.

Meshful Blessings for our Planet of Cities from

Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Constellation Core Team

PS Here are some some Free Resources for nurturing our Planet and the Human Hive:

Integral City MetaBlog 2015 – A synthesis and index of all Integral City Blogs from 2015.
 Meshworker of the Year Award 2015 – Imagine Durant, Oklahoma, USA – learn how Integral City is working with this small city to develop a Vision for their city as the natural process to connect Place Caring to Place Making in their strategies to realize the Vision.

Integral City Meta Blog 2015

Here is the Integral City 2015 Meta Blog. It connects the 4 Voices of the Integral City to the Planet, People, Place and Power that energized us in 2015. It follows the traditions of: Integral City Meta Blog 2014 Integral City Meta Blog 2013 1. Equinox/Solstice Newsletters – Integral City Reflective Organ Integral City Reflective Organ […]

Integral City Reflective Organ – December 2015: Inner Power, Outer Climate

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 reality of the (modern) city is that the issues of consciousness, intention and responsibility are the gateways of understanding, preventing and transforming material challenges because the […]

Meshworkers of the Year Award 2015 – Imagine Durant, Oklahoma, USA Integral City of the Future

Imagine Durant has created a bold invitation to the 4 Voices of Durant Oklahoma, USA to imagine a vision for the future and develop the strategies to implement it.   Building on the economic boom of gaming tourism, and their own journeys as integrally informed leaders, the President of First United Bank and the (now) […]

Paris – City of the Year 2015

Integral City nominates Paris as City of the Year 2015. Paris is the city featured on the cover of the Integral City book. The City of the Year is a new – but natural award for us to make. We have recognized the importance of cities as both trigger points and tipping points in their […]