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Integral City Map 5: Embracing Spirituality in the Human Hive

Posted in C. Collective Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ego, Emergence, Ethno, Global/Worldcentric, Master Intelligence, Spiritual intelligence, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 22, 2013 | 9 Comments »


Integral City how do I capture your spirit? Map 5 gives us a glimpse into the spiritual energy of love, that is ever-present in the Human Hive, as we live on the edge of evolution.

Integral City Map 5: Spirituality in the Human Hive

Integral City Map 5: Spirituality in the Human Hive

Where is it possible to sense the spirit of a city? Is it in the quiet of a chapel, or the chanting on a prayer mat? Is it from a vista that discloses the miracle of light and form that is the city at night? Is it while doing good deeds in the service of those in need? Or is it in the tumult and din of a play-off game for our favourite sport?

Of course, spirit is expressed in all of these ways because spirituality is a universal life force that cycles through existence as an involutionary and evolutionary impulse (Wilber, 1995). The first stage of the cycle, called involution, originates at the non-dual “source” that lies at the centre of existence where it descends from the invisible to the visible; from the immanent to that which is presenced; from the unmanifest source to manifest “re-sources”. The second stage of the cycle, called evolution, attracts all creation back to source so that it ascends from the manifest to the source; from the visible to the invisible; from gross physical bodies to subtle and causal energy fields to non-dual source. Spirituality is not outside of city creation but embedded in it as the source, flowing through it as energetic fields and manifest in its emergent re-sources (Hamilton, 2012).

James Lovelock has called humans Gaia’s Reflective Organ. I take his insight one step further and suggest that cities are the actual organs and individuals are cells within it.

As Reflective Organs we may know spirituality (or God) in all four quadrants of our integral reality (reflected in Integral City Map 1) as: spiritual experience (UL) ; action flow state (UR); collective ecstasy or ethos (LL); and collective creation (LR). Spirituality is also an UL and LL intelligence (or line) that is capable of growing from ego to ethno to world to kosmic levels of development for individuals and cultures. As well (paradoxically), it is the Absolute source of stillness at the centre of existence (Map 1) and the Relative evolutionary impulse that drives all city manifestation (Maps 2, 3, 4).

The city as spiritual container holds not only the spiritual lives of citizens at three scales (Self, Culture and Nature), but also the artefacts of spiritual expression including all the systems, structures and infrastructures within the LR built city. Ironically, although we tend to point at the physical cathedrals, mosques and synagogues as centres of spiritual life, in fact these are mere expressions of the mystical “soul” of the city in all its built form and business.  But it is this very busy-ness that incites people to seek the Space, Place and Grace in a spiritual refuge where coherence can emerge from the over-stimulation of the senses, and spiritual reconnection can occur.

As the city matures through the exchange of energy between spiritual Source and Re-Source a spiritual energy Field emerges. Evidence about spiritual behaviors, attitudes, shared practices and systems, suggest that a field effect is emerging in the city (McTaggart, 2001; Sheldrake, 1988). The field probably arises because the city as container causes the multiplicity of chaotic exchanges (Map 3) within and across holons and social holons to converge into patterns that sustain. A kind of “spiritual groove” becomes carved in the energetic field, that through repetition reinforces itself.

Finally, when we admit all three faces of God (expressed as the Master Code) as the essence of spirit in the city, we make room for an ever evolving field of spirituality.

The perennial values that all spiritual wisdoms share appear to contribute to the human hive as a Reflective Organ. Spiritual guides see Beauty, Goodness and Truth as core values that imbue spiritual life at all expressions of Self, Culture and Nature (DeKay, 2011, p. xxvii; McIntosh, 2007, p. 300; Wilber, 2007, p. 70).

Within an integral frame these values co-arise and their interior and exterior modes seem to cross-connect and rotate or even interchange as they stimulate multiple routes to the emergence of Grace, Place and Space. In tracing the cycle of spirituality in the human hive, we come to a final spirituality map that reveals Grace, Place and Space as outcomes from the dynamic interconnections of Beauty, Goodness and Truth. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the integration of these core spiritual values is apprehended as the meta-value of Love in all the horizontal and vertical zones of the Integral City (as illustrated in Map 5)?

The Source Zone of city spirituality exists as the Absolute, ever-present non-dual infinite ground of spiritual abundance. Here the core value of Beauty may be accessed through the Interior Portal of Appreciation and enacted through the Exterior Practice of Expression. This results in the spiritual outcome of Grace.

The Field Zone of city spirituality arises through the subtle and causal memory patterns created by evolutionary spiritual practise. Here the core value of Goodness may be accessed through the Interior Portal of Stillness and enacted through the Exterior Practice of Service. This results in the spiritual outcome of Place.

At the Resource Zone of city spirituality emerges the relative manifest qualities of the evolutionary container of the human hive. Here the core value of Truth may be accessed through the Interior Portal of Learning and enacted through the Exterior Practice of Teaching and Construction. This results in the spiritual outcome of Space.

Integral City how do I not just capture your spirit – but embrace it?? Map 5 suggests Love is the spiritual pulse through which Gaia’s Reflective Organ makes:

Grace – In Taking Care of Yourself.
Place – In Taking Care of Each Other.
Space – In Taking Care of This City.

References:

DeKay, M. (2011). Integral Sustainable Design: Transformative Perspectives. London, UK: Earthscan.
Esbjörn-Hargens, S., & Zimmerman, M. (2009). Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World. Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc.
Hamilton, M. (2011). Integral Spirituality in the Human Hive: A Primer Trialog. Retrieved from http://www.integralcity.com/wiki.html
Lovelock, J. (1972). Gaia As Seen Through the Atmosphere, Atmospheric Environment, (Vol. vol. 6, p. 579).
Lovelock, J. (2009). The Vanishing Face of Gaia. New York: Harmony Books.
McIntosh, S. (2007). Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality. St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House.
McTaggart, L. (2001). The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe. New York: Harper Perennial.
McTaggart, L. (2011). The Bond: Connecting Through the Space Between Us. New York: Free Press.
Sheldrake, R. (1988). The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1995 ed.). Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press.
Wilber, K. (1995). Sex, Ecology and Spirituality: the spirit of evolution. Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc.
Wilber, K. (2001). Marriage of Sense and Soul. New York: Random House.
Wilber, K. (2006). Integral Spirituality. Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc.
Wilber, K. (2007). The Integral Vision. Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc.

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Integral City Map 3: Relating Change to Exchange

Posted in Building - Structures, Ego, Ethno, Global/Worldcentric, Inner, Lifecycle, Outer, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2013 | 9 Comments »


Integral City how do we relate to your constant changes and exchanges? Map 3 reveals the cycles that flow through and around your prolific eco-system.

Integral City Map 3: The Scalar Fractal Relationship of Micro, Meso and Macro Human Systems

Integral City Map 3: The Scalar Fractal Relationship of Micro, Meso and Macro Human Systems

In the city, as individuals we grow our capacities. When life conditions trigger us to change, our life’s journey adds new layers of values, worldviews and competencies. Like tree rings we can symbolically map how a person grows capacities that expand from ego-centric to ethnocentric to system-centric to world-centric (Cluster 1 on Map 3).

I have been fortunate enough, teaching at Royal Roads University, to co-create the conditions where individual leaders become high performance teams, where each team member challenges the others to draw on these full set of capacities.  This gives them capacities to impact spheres of influence that can grow to global-size, making impacts on and for future generations. This team capacity is represented in Cluster 2 on Map 3.

When these leaders and teams return, with advanced capacities, to their organizations and communities, they  encounter other people and groups who do not have the same breadth or depth of competency. In this respect, their capacity becomes diluted (and explains the challenge all high performance teams have interacting with those outside such teams). On the other hand, the advanced capacities of these individuals bring new skills and perspectives to their organizations and communities, positively “infecting” their social and cultural environments, with change. (Cluster 3, in Map 3).

We can see the same paradoxical effects (of dilution and infection) when the high performers interact in even larger scales at nation or global contexts. (Cluster 4, in Map 4).

Integral City Map 3, shows how the human systems are constantly interacting in exchanges that emerge from natural cycles, values exchanges, and complex processes. We can see the role of both agents and collectives and the mesmerizing outcomes of interactions in self-organizing systems of exchange.

I have described the merits of this map in the audio (and printed) book, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences in the Human Hive. I also discussed it with Ken Wilber during our Integral City 2.0 Online Conference (and Integral Life) Interview. Map 3 as a whole captures the Integral Intelligences of the city: Inner, Outer, Cultural and Social, as well as Living and Ecosphere  Intelligences).

Map 3 in the Integral City demonstrates strong patterns that relate to the natural designs in Tim Winton’s Pattern Dynamics (TM) Structure , Creativity and Dynamic Patterns. But the Pattern of Exchange seems to capture best the flow of interaction that influences interlocking human systems at micro, meso and macros scales inherent in Map 3. The Pattern of Exchange in the city shows us how human systems produce capacity both for the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of the systems with whom they trade. At its core the Exchange Pattern is the pattern that drives economics, sustainable growth and eco-system balance.

Map 3 captures the relationship patterns of the city at a much more granular level of the city than Map 2′s nested holarchy of holons. It adds to Map 1 the path of emergence and the interrelationship of multiple scales of human systems.  Map 3 allows us to peer more closely into the inner life of individuals and the dynamic characteristics of the social holons they belong to. The conditions for generative trade between systems is reinforced, because inequities exist between different individuals and organizations.

Exchange PatternMap 3 reveals aspects of the Pattern of Exchange because it reveals seven qualities identified by the language of Pattern Dynamics (TM):

  1. Cycle: Map 3 shows how individuals grow in natural cycles. Also it implicitly suggests the generational cycles where individuals and groups learn from older more experienced people. Thus a cycle of knowledge exchange occurs.
  2. Balance: Map 3 conveys how the encounter of team members with differing skills but equally matured capacities creates well-balanced teams, able to give and take as they engage to produce results.
  3. Capture: Map 3 shows the scales of human systems, that “capture” within their boundaries the skills and competencies needed for their team or organizational system to achieve their goals.
  4. Trade: Map 3 implies that the reason human systems prosper in the city is because humans trade bio-psycho-cultural-social information, matter and energy. In a healthy economy, such trades improve the life conditions of both traders and provide positive feedback for repeat performances.
  5. Uniqueness: Map 3 implies that the larger human systems of team, organization, community and city are inevitably unique because no two people express their competencies, capacities or talents in the same way as any other. Thus both the combination of structures, and the emergence of self-organizing creativity can produce uniqueness that offers selling propositions and values exchanges that can only be discovered through trade and exchange.
  6. Process: Map 3 hides the processes that are better expressed in Map 4 (explained in a future blog). Nevertheless the basic systems frame of input – process- output is essential to the operation of any productive exchange. That can be as “intangible” as a creative thinking brainstorm that results in new ideas for a whole new industry (e.g. the concept of music distribution on the internet); or it can be as tangible as publishing and selling newspapers on the street corner.
  7. Flow: Map 3 clearly shows the flow of the exchange of the neural network within individual minds (Cluster 1) and the flow between people in teams, organizations, communities and the city (Clusters 2, 3, 4).

Integral City how do we relate to your constant changes and exchanges? Map 3 shows that exchange of energy, information and matter flow through the neural network, of the brain, economy and ecology of human systems. The key to city sustainability is that these exchanges between the human hive and its environment flow in renewing cycles which creates a metabolism where exchanges continuously flow through the entire system.

In future blogs we continue the exploration of Integral City Maps 4 and 5 and show how each adds further depth to Maps 1 , 2 and 3.

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Sense in the City Spring 2012 – Generating Change in the Human Hive

Posted in Global/Worldcentric, Inquiry, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2012 |


Spring Equinox Greetings, Integral City-zens and Friends of Integral City  

Today’s Integral City Sparkies for City Diversity Generators:

What city in the world has developed a course of study and practise that enables a person to methodically progress from cradle to peak prformance at the defined levels of complexity that deliver leadership to the powers 1 through 8?. p.120

Preparing leaders to the Power of 8, involves capacity development with a curriculum and experience that aligns knowledge, values, structures and life conditions.. p.123

We may be standing on a whole new threshold of human capacity emergence that will make the Level 8 leadership competencies (which we explored in some detail in Chapter 5) look primitive.p.140

 Our senses, our learning and our science now tell us that behaviors in the city can become more intelligent. Our aspirations tell us that we must become more intelligent. p.144

Hamilton, M., 2008, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive

2012 is a year pregnant with the anticipation of change. Many look to the storylines presaged by the Mayan calendar, that this year is the end of an old way of Being, and the beginning of a new way of Becoming. The shifts from theatres of war to congresses of peace; the revisiting of the first Rio sustainability conference; the many tensions of the 2012 US election; the craziest aberrations in weather patterns; and the continued ambiguities of the old monetary system – all these life conditions call attention to the scale of change that is occurring at a global level. We sense the uncertainties of the future, the non-linear jumps in our experience of time, place and moral influence, the continuous flow of scientific discovery that reveals the amazing miracle of life and the surprising practise of compassion that embraces the deepest tragedies of human and kosmic shifts.

It is a time for the Diversity Generators of the Human Hive to intensify the messages in their dance that show new resources, new directions, and new potentials for the City – the most complex of Human Systems. It is time for the intelligence of the Human Hive to be recalibrated to the Power of 8 and beyond. In 2012 Integral City will initiate the course of study that enables the City to learn through the lenses of the Integral Paradigm. We are ready to open the doors of an eLaboratory where we invite all who are part of the Brain Trust to collaborate on designing and putting into practise a new operating system for the City.

Integral City will leverage the change climate of 2012 to meshwork the What, the So What and the Now What of action learning, to integrate scientists, philosophers, designers and practitioners into a community of People, Purpose, Practise and Priorities in service to the wellbeing of our Cities and our Planet.

 1. INTEGRAL CITY e-LABORATORY 2012:

See the invitation and mark you calendars for September 2012  - Integral City Meshworks in partnership with Integral Initiative and Integral Leadership Review is sponsoring the Integral City e-LABORATORY throughout September 2012. Modelled on the smash-hit of 2011 the Integral Leadership Collaboratory the e-LABORATORY will explore how Integral Frameworks and Best Practices are evolving intelligences in cities around the world. With Keynote Speakers from City Leaders and the Integral World; Design Labs with Global Developers and Civic Managers; and Community Circles Lead by Activists and Civil Society Entrepreneurs we will deliver four weeks of non-stop exploration about the City, that will open your eyes to environmental breakthroughs, career opportunities and evolutionary collaborations, all at the convenience of your nearest e-screen. Details will be released in the months ahead. Let us know if you’d like to volunteer, support, sponsor and/or be part of our powerful list of speakers and panelists already confirmed (including Hazel Henderson, Don Beck, Bill Rees, Bob Willard, Richard Register, Ann Dale). Get on our Early Bird update list by sending an email to eLAB@integralcity.com

2. 2012 Learning Events:

  1. Birth 2012: Co-Creating Planetary Shift – Join Evolutionists, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Jean Houston, Stephen Dinan and the Shift Team on Conception Day – April 22, 2012 to celebrate and plan for December 22, 2012 to create a planetary shift. Free Registration is at: http://conceptionday2012.com . Let’s create a wave for change that exceeds the 100 million people this event intends to attract.
  2. Apply Integral City principles to a Community of Interest in April, 2012 at Royal Roads University Sustainable Community Development Graduate Certificate. The Capital Regional District of Victoria will be our Community of Interest and we will be working with them on their Master Pedestrian and Cycling Plan for our second Graduate Certificate Course. Click here for Registration Details. Or contact us if you’d like to nominate a location for a Community of Interest rru@integralcity.com . You supply the place, we supply a cohort of highly motivated Action Learning researchers!
  3. Join Dr. Don Beck at the Adizes Graduate School in Santa Barbara for his timely Spiral Dynamics: The Quest for the Master Code . April 9-14, 2012. For registration, contact stephanie@adizes.com
  4. Foresight Canada www.foresightcanada.ca is offering a course on systems mapping as one of the foundational skills for seeing and shaping the future, March 22 & 23, 2012 in Calgary. They are also offering in Ottawa, April 26-27 Is our Civilization Sustainable;  May 10-11, in Victoria, New Tools for Foresight; and October 18-19 in Calgary, Governing Whole Systems for our Shared Future. Contact Ruben Nelson, ED at foresightcanada@shaw.ca
  5. Center for Human Emergence is sponsoring a Global/Local Change series in October/November 2012. Send inquiries to CHEChange@integralcity.com . Stay tuned for dates and locations.
  6. Order the DVD of the August, 2011 Embody Integral Sustainability Conference sponsored by Experience Integral at Venwoude, NL. This DVD includes presentations by Barrett Brown, Marilyn Hamilton, Irini Rockwell, Anouk Brack +++.

2. Recent Blog Postings from marilyn.integralcity.com include:

…meshful blessings for this season of Birth and Generativity … 

 Marilyn

Useful Links:

Twitter: integralcity; LinkedIn: Marilyn Hamilton

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Spiritual Practices for Dealing with the News

Posted in C. Collective Intelligences, Emergence, Global/Worldcentric, Integral Maps, Level 8 Turquoise, tagged , , , , , on March 23, 2011 |


As a follow up to my blog on the Systems and Resilience Cycles for the Restoration of Sendai, Integral City Spiritual Advisor, Terry Patten blogs a much needed set of practices for dealing with the News – good, bad and otherwise.  Terry says:

“The news so far during 2011 has been particularly electrifying: Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the whole Middle East.  Budget crises worldwide, and in the USA, bitter battles including dramatic moves to rewrite the social contract. Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. The brutal civil war and international intervention in Libya. And there will be more electrifying and heartbreaking news soon, undoubtedly.

It stirs our hearts and our fears, distracts us, fascinates us, and confuses us. There are several ways to practice with this kind of news, and I want to share three perspectives about how we can work with it as a practice.” 

Terry outlines three practices that work at every level – from the macro-world scale to the deeply personal experience.  Click here to read his full blog.

These practices can help us find how to respond to news in ways that tap into our capacity to find out how we can offer our greatest service to the world’s greatest needs - whether that be holding a compassionate heart-space and/or taking appropriate action.  Following, Terry’s wisdom releases us from addictive reactions into designing proactive responses. This is a whole system win because it creates relationships with self, other, Gaia and the Kosmos that make possible an evolutionary emergence. For those who follow these practices in the Integral City it opens up the channels of healing, resonance and collective intelligence.

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Merchants & Philanthropists Creating & Using Diasporas

Posted in C. Collective Intelligences, Emergence, Ethno, Global/Worldcentric, Meshworking, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 4, 2011 |


The weak signals that diasporas emit into and outside of systems reported earlier this week is the subject of a new book. Parag Khanna, a Distinguished Visitor at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto has just released “How to Run the World”.

Excerpts in today’s National Post read:

“In the Middle Ages, diverse merchant communities were a driving force of diplomacy, managing to translate languages, exchange currencies, and trade a cornucopia of goods across Eurasia. … Corporations now have the grand strategies just like countries. … Technology and finance have torn apart the relationship between borders and identity. … What will the politics of Arab monarchies look like if the Indian government starts demanding a political voice for its millions of guest workers who outnumber the local populations by five to one?”

One wonders what kinds of inter-group tournaments are on the verge of emerging between human hives and national clusters of human hives?

Read the whole excerpt here: Our Ne0-Medieval World

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RRU Faculty & Students Sustain Community Development Using Integrative, Integral & Evolutionary Models

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, F. Training, Global/Worldcentric, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 28, 2011 |


At Royal Roads University, the inaugural Sustainable Community Development (SCD) cohort has just completed their first Potentials for Adaptive Change Residency on RRU Campus.

In the first week of February, after three weeks online, a cohort, with professions as varied as municipal forester, downtown revitalization director, tourism instructor and sustainability officer, whose members come from geography that spans from Port Hardy to Ottawa and eight other locations in between, met face to face for the first time.

As a backbone of their studies they will be working with one Community of Interest throughout the program. In 2011 it is the Royal Roads University City of Colwood. The cohort accepted a challenge from Colwood to develop strategies for implementing a Climate Action Plan. Using Colwood’s Official Community Plan as a guide for framing a strategy, over the next five months, the cohort will complete two distance learning programs as they determine their recommendations. 

The first distance course will focus on Building Community Engagement and the second with explore Foundations for Resilient Systems.  Throughout the program, the cohort is using ideas, tools and models with a distinctive RRU flavor – from the work of Dr. Ann Dale, Canada Chair of Sustainable Community Development, Dr. Marilyn Hamilton’s Integral City model and Dr. Graeme Taylor’s evolutionary views of global transformation.

By the time the SCD cohort meets again for their Capstone Residency in July, 2011, they will have designed an “integrative model, with effective, implementable tools to engage community stakeholders to strengthen communication and create a culture of resilience regarding climate change and the community’s future.” Echoing, the City’s Mayor Saunders, the cohort believes, “This is an opportunity for our community to be a leader in sustainability”.

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Sense in the City News Update November 2010

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, climate, Global/Worldcentric, tagged , , , , , , on November 30, 2010 |


November Greetings, Integral City-zens and Friends of Integral City  

Today’s Integral City Sparkie for the City Brain :

… a tension in favor of the values and behavior that are most coherent with the current life conditions will tend to be maintained. The flip side of this behavior is that the dominant culture will protect itself against diversity generation. When life conditions finally require the solutions that diversity generation can offer, the problems created by the conformity enforcer values will usually have become so acute that the majority are willing to change. It appears that these natural evolutionary cycles are fractal and emerge at all levels of scale …

Hamilton, M., 2008, Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, p.187

What a difference a month makes. From October’s jubilant Chilean miners’ rescue to November’s desperate Irish economic rescue. We must ponder, how do we know if an eruption of the underworld brings nutrients to the surface or merely toxic discharge? Is it the season of Advent, regrouping, full body scans, pat downs, WikiLeaks, shadows, surrender, pollination, dormancy, climate change or long economic emergencies? We live in a world where tensions, seasons, cultures and expectations are so jumbled we need an integral map to sort out mind, brain, heart and body – so that we can notice the pattern language of the evolutionary impulse as it emerges more resilient meshes.

 

So amongst the seeming disruptions, this month’s newsletter notices signs of hope from Ireland (yes!), Sweden, and Canada.

  1. This month I spent a week in Ireland. While the media reported on the jaded negotiations of the EU and IMF with the Dail, Integral City was contributing to Globe Forum Dublin, witnessing 200 of Ireland’s best researchers and innovators demonstrate Ireland’s real recovery plan in their innovation, ideas and intellect. Listen to our interview with Globe Forum Founder Johan Gorecki and see the Innovating Ireland that Globe Forum catalyzed in November. 
  2. Also check out here Globe Forum Dublin’s Highlight coverage.    
  3. Integral City spoke on Cities as Innovation Ecosystems. Click here for the summary and a great video of our evolutionary teachers, the honey bee.
  4. Nominate your City for Globe Forum, Sustainable City Awards 2010 (deadline in Feb. 4, 2011). This award focuses on a holistic approach to Sustainability  in cities and integrates different types of capital for a better future in cities around the world. If your city can demonstrate one or more special initiatives that it has undertaken in the last two years in one or more of the various types of capital (environmental, intellectual, social, financial, technical, cultural, political) to reach a more sustainable future, then Click here to find the details and invitation links .  
  5. Review the new Research by three Graduates of the Master’s of Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability Program (Bleckinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden). Juan Carlos Kaiten, Kara Stonehouse and Sonja Niederhumer describe their work in  The Magic Canoe – Large Scale Collaboration Towards Sustainable Development. Click here to download a summary and full thesis.   In resonance with the PhD Researchers and Innovators in Dublin the authors say this about their Findings:

The magic canoe is a story about a collaboration process that magically expands in size to include any participants wanting to help in the effort towards achieving a common goal.

In order to ensure the actions taken in the complex system are not accidentally counterproductive, a strategic approach to sustainable development can be undertaken.

The concept of backcasting from basic sustainability principles using systems thinking is the core of strategic sustainable development, and can be can be applied to the collaborative body….

This research attempts to further the body of knowledge for collaboration in complex social systems, as well as link it directly to Strategic Sustainable Development. [The Research Question was:]

How do we foster effective collaboration for systemic sustainable development?

  • Sub Question 1: What are the conditions of success for collaboration?
  • Sub Question 2: How can a process of collaboration be described?
  • Sub Question 3: Based on the process, what guidelines lead to success?

 6. Download PDF of Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Community Development Grad Certificate at Royal Roads University, January 2011– July, 2011 – click here.

 7. Register for Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Feb.14, 2011 The Human Hive Creating Intelligent Livable Cities.  

 8. Click on these links for ongoing Integral City Resources:

…meshful blessings for the light that inevitably emerges from the depths in the evolutionary cycle of Life … 

 Marilyn

======================

Marilyn Hamilton PhD CGA

Founder & President, Integral City Meshworks Inc.

www.integralcity.com

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Integral City Interview Zoom’d Radio/Voice of America

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, city, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ego, Ethno, Global/Worldcentric, tagged , , , on November 6, 2010 |


Marilyn Hamilton talks to host John Schmidt of Avastone Consulting  re Integral City on Zoomd Radio. Click here for the link. We talked about the Integral City as the Human Hive – and how that enables Leadership, Relationships and Resilience.
Examples that were used included New Orleans and Burning Man. Listen to the broadcast or download it as an MP3.

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Australia, Minority Governments and What the Human Hive is Saying About Eco-Regions

Posted in Building - Structures, C. Collective Intelligences, climate, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ecosphere, Ego, Ethno, Global/Worldcentric, Lifecycle, Navigating - IVSM, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2010 | 3 Comments »


I have been watching the outcome (or not?) of the recent Australian election with some interest. I have been thinking about swarming (as in what can we learn from the bees when they swarm?).

My bee sources (books, articles, movies) tell me that the swarming process is a kind of hive decision. That when it is triggered by abundance ie. Too many bees causing too much heat in the hive, then the bees actually make a second queen. If memory serves, it is the new queen who goes off with the swarm. The bees actually leave the old hive as a swarm and decamp to a temporary location, from where the scouts/foragers (diversity generators) go looking for a new location and report back with their dance-info. The swarm then actually reviews the different options to kind of “vote”  on the preferred location – to which they then move and build their new nest.
 
The old queen left behind will be replaced as the hive decides, depending on her productivity (producing eggs). Since that depends on when she last mated (and I think she just mates once in her whole life, but with multiple drones.) (There is also emerging research about how different species of honey bees can gain control of the hive by having their queen hatch a day early eg. This is the genetic advantage (and thus strategy) of the Africanized bees.)
 
Anyway, thinking about parallels in the human hive, I think about Australia as an eco-region of Human Hives (HH). It is a country, indeed a continent with many HH’s.  In Howard Bloom’s (2000) terms each of Australia’s HH’s are in intergroup tournaments with one another. It is the economics of exchange between the HH’s and the genetic diversity that each can contribute to one another that might be the zones of application for hive thinking. Since the eco-regions for each HH in Australia are so distinctive (based on watersheds, etc.) it is quite conceivable in my frame of reference that each Australian HH will have a different purpose.

So each HH would have a different derivative economy (and all the natural Information-Energy-Matter functions and sub-functions (defined by Miller et al, 1978) would be in service to it). Now how each HH actually serves its eco-region (as opposed to the opposite way around) is a question I am betting is not being asked (by many or any)?
 
With Australia’s recent assertiveness in downloading a global-centric agenda (especially related to climate change, immigration and mining), it appears from afar that Rudd, the former (ousted) PM didn’t grow the sociocentric agenda in each HH that is needed to support his world-centric view and purpose? 

Rudd (and/or his advisors) were globally right (or intending to be) from an integral perspective, while being viewed from a lower order of development as locally (sociocentrically) wrong. The locals just can’t grok/talk how a 40% mining tax can possibly serve their ego or sociocentric needs. 

This imho is the dilemma of HH’s everywhere – many local mayors can see the need to be of greater service than just internally in the city – but they are acting without establishing local context (based on purpose and economic equation) or eco-regional service.  I think being of service to the city’s eco-region and creating the infrastructure to do that is the building block step needed to get to worldcentric articulated economies that can be supported locally.
 
Right now, this appears to be the “bridge-too far” that hangs parliaments/governments. The general populace is in a beta/gamma state (not wanting to move off what has worked in ego-centric terms at the city scale, and can’t break thru to socio-centric freedom in service to their eco-region.  So they collectively (maybe in the subtle realm???) hedge their bets and vote 50/50 between the polarities of their options.

Hence we get the minority (hung?) governments not only in Australia, but in Canada, UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

What we need to do to move beyond this impasse is for cities to step into a new role where they are not only in service to self at the city scale, but in service to the eco-region at the eco-regional scale. This will require changes at the city, state/province and federal level to recognize the sustainability equation the bees figured out long ago; ie. sustain your eco-region so it can sustain the city. Where are the ecologists, environmentalists and politicians who want to lead this major evolutionary transition? Well, they might be being ousted like Rudd, by his own party, or by citizens who are preventing the evolutionary diversity generators from assuming office and/or having the necessary authority to make changes.

If the bees have anything to teach us, it is that the trigger point is not yet painful or depressing (or hot) enough for us to swarm into a new way of thinking/being. But if you are a Diversity Generator, or know a Diversity Generator who is leading the way (through activism, research, writing) — don’t give up!! We need your perseverence (a message being reiterated by Margaret Wheatley these days). And each of us needs to persevere in supporting your perseverence.

References:
Bloom, H. (2000). The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. New York: John Wiley & Son Inc.
Miller, J. G. (1978). Living Systems. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

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Executive Summary, Mapping Abbotsford Values & Developing Integral Vital Signs Monitor

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, city, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ego, Ethno, Global/Worldcentric, tagged , on July 1, 2010 |


I have posted to the website the Research Report on Mapping Abbotsford’s Values and Developing an Integral Vital Signs Monitor. This 2010 research updates the reserach I completed in 2003.  You can read the full study at http://integralcity.com/discovery-zone/research.html 

This study contributed Knowledge and Development Exchange (KDE) for a Welcoming and Inclusive Communities and Work Places project, named “Food for Thought” located in Abbotsford BC. 

The objectives of this study were:

  1. Values mapping to identify the location of differences: cultural sources of misunderstandings, conflicts and differing expectations. This contributed directly to effective decision making in the “Food for Thought” Demonstration Project (DP). 
  2. Mapping values of newcomers and immigrants to Abbotsford, identifying postal code locations, languages (and thereby culture and ethnic backgrounds) and age (with a special focus on youth), to help locate the geographic clustering or distribution of newcomers and immigrants.  This revealed the interconnections and disconnections of people.
  3. Creating a framework for a capacity and asset map of Abbotsford that embraces Place Caring and Place Making capacities.
  4. Developing a framework for a vital signs of wellbeing monitor for Abbotsford based on the values and asset maps, which can contribute to the strategic planning process of the City, the Fraser Health Authority, the School District, UFV, Civil Society and private firms.

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from a random population sample of 479 residents including youth, and residents whose first language was Punjabi, Korean and Mandarin. Analysis showed that Abbotsford adults prefer collective-based values of family, order and caring; while youth and Punjabi and Korean language groups have stronger individual-based values, particularly related to personal expression. Overall the data showed that Abbotsford was experiencing a deficit of values related to results, planning and strategy. Most respondents from all the data samples agreed that what was not working well in Abbotsford related to unhealthy personal expression, showing up as drugs, gangs and violence.

Recommendations proposed that :

  1. Abbotsford grow its capacities for success, results and planning at all ages. The Chamber of Commerce is a key stakeholder in enabling this to happen.
  2. The agriculture sector promote the whole trajectory of jobs from the farm gate to the food plate to young people in an annual agriculture career fair.
  3. Policy makers across the city incorporate  the results of this research into values-based strategies in their programs and services.
  4. Key city stakeholders collaborate to activate the prototype of the Integral Vital Signs Monitor (IVSM) to track effective changes to Abbotsford’s wellbeing. 
  5. Key city stakeholders collaborate to create a Community of Practice to administer the Integral Vital Signs Monitor (IVSM) and meshwork community organizations so that their services are aligned.
  6. Other recommendations included: approaching Abbotsford wellbeing with a whole systems, all quadrant, all levels, cross cultural, all faiths meshwork.

 Details of the research on the Integral City Meshworks Inc. website www.integralcity.com and Food for Thought website www.hungryforfutures.ca . Presentations of key Research Findings to interested parties can be scheduled with charter partner Integral City Meshworks Inc. at kde@integralcity.com .

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