As we travel our journeys of purpose, on purpose, with purpose, it is so comforting to know that others are doing the same. It releases the burden (and hubris) of thinking that you have to do it all. Today I am thinking of four events going on in the world simultaneously in four different cities and three different continents:
In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Jim Garrison and Peter Merry and team are working with the city and country to catalyze their energy around initiatives for climate change. This kicks off the State of the World Forum Climate Change ten year initiative.
In Toronto, Canada Dr. Don Beck is presenting to the American Psychological Association his views of a new psychology — Large Scale Psychology. This helps explain human behaviour in large agglomerations like cities, cultures and communities. Our intensely local, trans-local, and global interactions demand new frameworks to understand how life conditions are triggering our actions and shaping our adaptive responses to change.
On Whidbey Island, WA, USA, the Integral Education Conference is convening for the third year to explore how best to teach humans of all ages to live, work, play in the integral paradigm.
In Tuscany, Italy, Andrew Cohen and his EnlightenNext team are in the midst of a 20 day Discovery Cycle retreat where participants are discovering the depths of practise to Be and Become, so that they can activate their roles as Evolutionaries — active contributors who embody the evolutionary impulse.
The study of Climate Change, Human Behaviour, Capacity to Learn/Teach, our Spiritual Evolution – all give me great hope for the species. The Integral Worldview is opening up new ways for us to survive, connect with our environment and reproduce our memes (as well as our genes) — in other words to LIVE at a new order of being/becoming, that embraces sustainable, intelligent whole systems thinking.
Interestingly the venues for these events are a combination of alive cities and resilient eco-regions – reminding us of the co-creative emergence of our human hives in the context of their re-source-ful environments. I can see many ways that Integral Cities will benefit from each of these undertakings. I am deeply grateful to Don Beck, the Integral Education Conference Convenors (the Martineau team et al), Andrew Cohen and EnlightenNext, and Jim Garrison, Peter Merry and team, for being inspirations as we travel along the Via Integral — each encouraging and inspiring the others.
