Mom always used to say, “be careful of the company you keep”. Transpersonal psychologist, Integral pioneer and wise elder, Dr. Roger Walsh, at IEC, emphasized the importance of the company you keep, to support your Integral spiritual practice. By gathering with, for and as the people who embrace the paradigms of evolutionary consciousness and culture, complexity and living systems we amplify the Field of Integral Practice.

That is why Integral City and its growing Community of Practice produce, support, present and attend the conferences that enable us to keep company with Thought Leaders, Designers and Practitioners who demonstrate the 12 Intelligences of Integral City.

Gaia's Reflective Organs? (Image from Chihuly Glass Gallery Seattle)

Gaia’s Reflective Organs? (Image from Chihuly Glass Gallery Seattle)

 

The wave of integrally informed or designed conferences, where Integral City has contributed has become a movable feast,  travelling from Perpignan, France (Renaissance II gatherings in 2009, 2010); to  San Francisco (the locale of three Integral Theory Conferences in 2008, 2010, 2013); to Budapest (venue for the Integral Europe Conference 2014); to Haiphong, Vietnam (city for the International Society for Systems Science 2013); to Izhevsk, Russia (location for Urbanfest, 2014); and  the ubiquitous internet (with our own Integral City 2.0 Online Conference, 2012).

Integral City Meshworkers (like Beth Sanders, Roberto Bonilla, Lev Gordon, Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, Diana Claire Douglas) bring special expertise to other gatherings in their local cities where city planning, organizational development, city development, transorganizational collaboration and systemic constellation work expand the influence of integral paradigms into families, teams, sectors, economic sectors, neighbourhoods and eco-regions.

As Reflective Integral City Practitioners our contributions to gatherings – whether they be local or global — help to heal a troubled world because we offer options for noticing more possibilities for healing conflict (from all 4 quadrants), processes for decision making that embrace all 4 Voices of the city, laboratories for learning (like Learning Lhabitats), technology for research (like values mapping and vital signs monitors) and principles for expanding circles of compassion (Master Code).

Situating and modeling, Integral thinking, acting, relating and creating, as it relates to human systems in the City, we bring “Mohammed to the mountain”. Because cities are the places where most humanity now lives (50% in developing world to 90% in the developed world) it makes sense that we take advantage of the greatest opportunity for leverage offered to Integral practitioners. As Thomas Huebl takes the ashram to the market place, he is recognizing the intersection point of the world’s greatest needs – to solve all the major problems created by humanity with humanity’s greatest purpose – to be Gaia’s Reflective Organ.

Integral City Practitioners, Catalysts and Meshworkers are learning how their skills can address our current evolution as a species – where  the individual and collective immaturity and psychological pathologies of humans threatens the existence of all Life on the globe.

Integralists are called to address the psychological and pathological immaturities and disruptive pathologies of individuals, groups and institutions that we have the lenses to see from all four quadrants of: intentions (UL), behaviours (UR), cultures (LL) and systems (LR).

Flocking together with other Integralists at conferences, city gatherings and working on projects, enables Integral City’s Community of Practice to amplify our capacities to not only embrace the great efforts of the Smart City, and the Resilient City but transcend and include them into the Integral City and Indra’s web of our planet’s cities.