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Posts Tagged ‘human hive’

Learning Lhabitats: How to Start Small and Get Things Going?

Posted in Emergence, Lifecycle, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2013 | 3 Comments »


We are starting a new set of Integral City learning (ad)ventures. We call them Learning Lhabitats.

Lhab Jungle

Learning Laboratories and Habitats are being designed for people who sense a new Integrator Role is emerging in cities. They know MUCH change is needed and MANY voices are clamouring for attention. Those concerns lead to key questions, city Integrator Alain Vol,z asked me when I was in the Netherlands in April. Here’s the conversation we had.

A. So where to start and get things going?

IC: We think the place to start is with your self. What is your passion? Why do you feel called to step into an Integrator Role? How can your passion be in service to the greatest needs of the Human Hive?

A: Why look at the city as a Human Hive? What value does it add?

IC: Looking at the city as a human hive re-frames it from a built environment into a living system full of dynamic relationships. Each person contributes soul and role as they interact to achieve goals. The goals can be located with family in the home; e.g. putting dinner on the table. With friends at play; e.g. enjoying sports and recreation. With colleagues at work; e.g. serving customers and earning profits. With neighbours in the community; e.g. sharing a community garden. With the civil society; e.g. feeding the homeless. With civic managers; e.g. deciding on new health policies.

The value of looking at the city as a human hive is that we gain an understanding of how interconnected we are with everyone else in the city and that it makes “common sense” to work to create and share a common vision and goals. That way we can align our energies without alienating our creativity. Thinking of ourselves as a human hive gives us the keys to resilience and adaptiveness.

A. How can we take first steps on a small-scale from the perspective of the Human Hive? Where is it being applied?

IC: The first steps are to start to think in terms of the city-scale. We need to see that the city is a human system in the living system that is Gaia. Human hives are Gaia’s “reflective organs“. As individuals we are cells in Gaia’s reflective organ. We can start first with ourselves and get in touch with our Passions and Purpose. We can understand the cycles of Prosperity that natural flow through the city like the natural stages of a human life cycle. I have seen this applied with people who have created a Vision for their city. Others have created learning habitats for youth entrepreneurship. Yet others have created circle dialogues for encouraging women to enter politics.

A. What are the key conditions for success? What needs to be organized? How does one apply change/process management from the perspective of emergence?

IC: In all the examples of success, one key condition has been applied: Include all of the 4 Voices of the city  in the change process. The 4 Voices are the City-zen, Civic Manager, Civil Society and Business. That has enabled the Human Hive to naturally align and focus itself – like the living system it is.

Meshworking is a way of organizing the 4 Voices so that they can respect one another, learn together and work towards a common goal. Typically this starts with a simple set of dialogue circles where the 4 Voices meet; discover their roles and relationships; and learn how they all contribute to neighbourhood, community or city wellbeing. This opens the doors to addressing whatever issue they want to work on. It could be as simple as neighbours helping neighbours (as in an Amsterdam local health currency, sponsored by Rabobank) or as challenging as working towards climate action goals (as Colwood, BC, Canada.)

When this trust is established a network of the 4 voices emerges.  In later stages it may move into a community of practise (COP) to address the issue  and then it is possible to align individuals, networks, COP’s into networks of networks. Within a small community this can happen quickly if it is motivated to respond to change (e.g. after Hurricane Sandy in New York). Within larger communities this process can emerge over years – even decades.

Learning how to start the change/process management by attracting and strengthening the voice of City-zens will be the first course that Integral City Learning Lhabitats offers. You can find out more about what is planned for 2013 here.

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Ingredients for Honey in the Human Hive

Posted in B. Individual Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Lifecycle, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2013 | 1 Comment »


What is the equivalent for the Human Hive of producing 40 pounds of honey in the bee hive?

That is the question that I have been inquiring into through the lenses of bio-psycho-cultural-social-mimicry.

Honey Bee Ingredients

In the generative seed bed of my recent visit to San Francisco, glimpses of the ingredients for producing “Honey” in our Human Hive  Honey have emerged. It has to do with the conjunction of Passion, Priority, Purpose and Prosperity.

I have learned that it is the symbiotic relationship of the Bee Hive’s survival (or thrival) through Pollination of Plant Life that meets their need to survive and thrive. Bee Hives can “measure” their success through the production of 40 pounds of honey per year. This symbiotic relationship generates enough Energy (aka Prosperity) to not only fulfil their Purpose but to create renewable energy sources for next year.

Human Hive Honey

In the Human Hive – our thriving arises from feeling fully alive – this Passion is expressed as Joy. Our great Purpose arises from the fulfilment of Caring Service to the world’s Priorities or Needs. This is just as much a symbiotic relationship with Gaia, as the bees have with her plants. What is more, it generates the same kind of Energy (which we call Prosperity) that rewards us for acting from Joy and creates renewable Energy to continue to meet Gaia’s bio-psycho-cultural-social Needs on an ongoing cycle.

It seems to me these ingredients and the recipe for making Honey in the Human Hive are fractal – that is they occur at every level of  scale in the Human Hive (individual, family, organization, neighbourhood, city).

Human Hive Honey_Page_3

It is the fundamental energy equation of the Master Code:

  • To Care for Ourselves (through Passion/Joy)
  • To Care for Others (in living our Purpose in service to Priorities/Needs)
  • To Care for this Place (as a natural result of Prosperity)
  • To Care for this Planet (as we align the Prosperity engine around Gaia’s wellbeing Needs)

Is this too simple?? Maybe just a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious)? Maybe just another step along the path for Human Hives to achieve the double sustainability system that the honey bee hives have created in their service to Gaia?

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Great Purpose. Great Need. Great Joy. Great HUBs.

Posted in C. Collective Intelligences, Inquiry, Integral Maps, Lifecycle, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2013 | 2 Comments »


It’s an honour and privilege to celebrate the inauguration of HUB Oakland, on this Easter weekend (march 29, 2013).

Hub Oakland

In Canada this Good Friday, is a statutory holiday. Here in California, today it will be remembered as the opening of something very special – the HUB will be generating energy that will wake up all of Oakland in the years to come.

Thank you for asking me to join you in your integral celebration. Thanks to David for leading us in Qi Gong and opening up our whole chi energy system. Thanks to Mark Fabionar for sharing the success of HUB Sonoma State U – Honoring the Past. Uniting the Present. Building the Future.

HUB Sonoma State U

Thanks to Lisa Chacon, Konda Mason and Ed Street for inspiring us with HUB’s vision and plans for structures to serve its Purpose. Thanks for sharing that the HUB’s job is to nurture Joy – What Makes You Truly Alive. Your video also mentionned how different this is than focusing on the World’s Greatest Needs. But I wonder what would happen if everyone coming to the HUB could notice the intersection of their Greatest Joy and the World’s Greatest Needs? There, I believe, is the sweet spot of everyone’s Purpose!! And tonight I’d like to talk to you about the mysterious connection between Great Purpose,Great Need and Great Joy.

A Great Purpose

My name is Marilyn Hamilton, and I am most well known for my book Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. That is my purpose – I wake up the Human Hive!!

Let me hold up a cover so that you can see the lineage that I come from – that we all come from. You can see Gaia in the context of our Solar System, Galaxy and the Universe. She has birthed all geographies and Life on earth – including our eco-regions and all its plants and animals – including us Human Beings. In turn we have birthed our families, clans, kingdoms, nations and states. We have co-created the cities – which I call Human Hives.

I call cities Human Hives, taking instruction from another species – the Honey Bee. Apis Mellifera is the most intelligent species on the branch of the Tree of Life called the Invertebrates. Homo Sapiens is supposed to be the most intelligent species on the branch called the Vertebrates.

Now Honey Bees as a species are a 100 million years old. We as a species are only 100,000 to 1 million years old (depending on whose metrics you use). And Honey Bees have populated every geography on Earth with their bee hives. So I have been wondering what might we learn from a species that is 100 million years old that might not only sustain us, or create thriving cities – but contribute as much to all of Earth’s species as the Honey Bee does.

This morning I was walking with Alex&er Laszlo, Chair of ISSS, on the powerful land of IONS Earthrise in Petaluma. He said to me, “ You know all the species in all of the ecologies of the world know what the bee contributes to everyone’s wellbeing. Now, I am asking,‘What does the human species contribute that supports the whole?’”.

This is a powerful question that ties in with my admiration of the honey bees. For each hive must produce 40 pounds of honey a year in order to support a hive of about 50,000 bees. But in achieving that goal, year after year those bees pollinate the plants in the fields, around the globe, that produce $90 billion worth of food that humans consume each year (and we don’t even count the ways that other species also benefit). And that cycle of harvesting pollen and nectar, pollinating plants and producing honey, is a double sustainability cycle where the bees are creating renewable energy that supports them in the following year. This is an exponentially greater contribution to sustainability of global ecosystems – because it not only serves the bees, but the whole eco-region on which they depend.

The question I ask is “What is the equivalent of the bees’ 40 pounds of honey for the Human Hive?”.

Bee 40 lb honey - Tijmen Brozius1

A major hint of the answer has been given by James Lovelock who developed the Gaia Hypothesis – that the Earth is a living, self-regulating system. I heard him interviewed by a reporter who asked in a very disdainful voice. “Well I guess you don’t have a very high opinion of humans with all the damage they have done to the Earth?”. Lovelock countered with considerable vigour, “On the contrary,humans are Gaia’s reflective organ!” It is just that as a species we are very young – hardly teenagers in comparison with the 100 million year old honey bee. As reflective organs we have a lot of evolutionary maturing ahead of us.

In fact, I suggest that humans as individuals are cells in Gaia’s reflective Human Hive organs – and these reflective organs are like nodes on a planetary meridian system – our Planet of Cities. It is cities or Human Hives that are actually Gaia’s reflective organs. And those too are at very early stages of maturity – in comparison to what they could be. Because most of our sustainability paradigms focus only on sustaining ourselves, and not on the symbiotic relationship that the bees have established, with their capacity to co-create renewable energy.

Now if the bees as the most intelligent species of the invertebrates, can do that, I ask, why cannot the most intelligent species of the vertebrates also accomplish that? Especially with our distinctive capacity to be reflective organs? Organs that can multiply reflective capacity through both individual and collective consciousness and culture?? Organs that live by what I call the Master Code: Take Care of Yourself, Take Care of Each Other and Take Care of this Place.

So those are the kind of questions I am asking myself about the “Evolutionary Intelligences of the Human Hive”.

When I first wrote my book, I imagined my readers would come from the “progressive” thinking in cities on the west coast of North America and northern Europe. And so do many invitations to speak in academic settings affirm that audience. But much to my surprise, invitations have also come from cities in the Developing World – Mexico, South Africa and even Russia. (My book has been translated into Russian and Korean this year.) When I first received those invitations, I was not sure how to respond – whether I was the right person to do this kind of work in those challenging (and challenged) locations?

A Great Need

Then an experience in my personal life, changed my whole perspective about how I do my work in cities. Two years ago my brother, Richard, called me and told me that he had been suffering (silently) from lymphoma for 11 years. (This is a cancer of the blood, related to leukemia, that destroys your immune system by attacking your white blood cells.) Richard had completed many rounds of chemo, and all possible treatment modalities except one – a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. He needed a sibling donor (as they have the most likely blood markers) and asked if I would do that for him. I was shocked!! This is one of those times, when one’s IOU to the Universe, to serve at the highest and best use, is called in for payment!! With considerable trepidation, I agreed to go for the tests to see if we were a match. I was a 10 out 10. (My friends said that was typical – I am an overachiever!!).

Another friend did some subtle energy work with me and told me my lineage from both sides of my family were so happy that I would do this. But best of all – my blood cells were intoxicated with delight, that they were going to have an out of body experience!! That totally cracked me up – just to think I had a scheduled date for an OBE!! Still, both Richard and I knew that there were no guarantees with this treatment – it only created the conditions for his own system to re-gain the strength to re-balance his immune system and start producing his own white and red blood cells again. It might take months to do this. It might take years. It might take the rest of his life. Or it might not take at all. Basically, it came down to – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I wasn’t sure I could do this – and if I did, I knew I couldn’t do it alone – so, I told my brother I asked for three conditions:
1. I needed to ask my sangha to support me (and they did).
2. I would send him not just my blood but every mindful condition for health and wellbeing I could infuse directly and non-locally into my transplant.
3. I needed to ask him to stop working at the successful entrepreneurial venture he had created as a second career choice. He had traded in his music career for a high-tech welding operation. I asked my brother as a condition of the transplant not to return to this “job from hell”. If he was going to live, then I asked him to go back to his first love – to live for his music – not to let the music die in him.

He agreed. And he wrote me (and his wife Jean) the symphony “Appaloosa” (now playing here).

So we did the transplant. 36 hours and 13 complete transfers of my whole blood system through a centrifuge machine to collect 2 bags of stem cells that took 50 minutes to be transplanted into Richard’s bloodstream. On transplant day plus one, his positive indicators shot through the roof. We were all elated. And that was a good thing – because we needed that first blast of success to see us through the weeks and months ahead of us where his fight for survival was as demanding as you can imagine – where death seemed like the only realistic thing to plan for. And at the end of six months, that is what we all expected. But it turns out those stem cells were not prepared to stop living their purpose. They were intent on doing the magic that these primal cells can do – and they were busy colonizing Richard’s bone marrow to such an extent that his own body’s immune system kicked back into life. Just when Richard thought the doctors were going to tell him all hope was gone, they told him: “You better stop preparing to die – and start preparing to live!!! Most of your misery is now caused by graft-host disease!! Your body’s immune system is fighting your sister’s stem cells. That’s what we wanted to see because it means your body is exerting its own sovereignty and energy.”

Richard went through many ups and downs in the last year. Little did we know the power of this stem cell transplant, meant that his whole blood type converted into my blood type (and all the other organs in his body had to make that adjustment!! He changed from a personality subject to SAD syndrome to my radically optimistic personality (one of those little extras that I said I’d send along for the ride).

Fast forward one year – just 2 weeks ago. Richard has been in a slump and once again feeling like this whole risk has been for naught. The docs sit him down and this time the news is: “You are cancer free!!”. Imagine, after 13 years being told he is cancer free!! He called me up overjoyed and a little amazed. I was ecstatic!! I share it with you this Easter weekend, as a true story of commitment, faith, deliverance and hope. A true Easter message that we can celebrate here at the HUB’s opening.

A Great Joy

So, this is a very long story that I said helped me understand how to look at my work differently. It helped me understand that when I align my Greatest Joy to Great Need, my Purpose is easily expressed. It also helped me realize that the Master Code – Taking care of yourself is the pre-requisite to being able to take care of others, so that we all can take care of this place and this planet.

I have come to imagine myself as a stem cell when I go into challenging and challenged places. My Purpose is to transplant the primal capacities for the habitat to grow strong enough to take care of itself. The first job I have is to Turn Up on Purpose. The second is to be Present to Joy – both mine and the people in the city I am working with – so I can hear and witness what the system’s next natural evolutionary step, most needs. The third is to respond appropriately with the appropriate gift to strengthen the existing system. The last step is at once the simplest and the hardest – it is to let go of results. Just like I had to let my stem cells do their work in my brother’s bloodstream, I must let the people in the Human Hive grow capacities for themselves. So they can discover, what is the way they can produce their 40 pounds of honey to look after themselves, each other, the city, the eco-region and even the planet.

Planet of Cities

As HUB Oakland opens its doors in our City of Planets, I affirm and invite all the magic that will happen here because your Purpose is to create a habitat for what Makes People Fully Alive. Everyone in the HUB are the stem cells for the Reflective Organ – the Human Hive of Oakland. You are really living your Purpose with the Master Code. You are co-creating all the conditions to model how – Taking care of yourself will enable all of you, working together, to take care of each other, so that you can take care of this place and our planet.

Participating in HUB Oakland is the key to Great Joy and a requisite ingredient to co-generating Oakland’s 40 pounds of honey!!

Congratulations. Happy Easter. And JOY to HUB Oakland!!

(This was my keynote to HUB Oakland’s Opening Night, March 29, 2013)

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Regenerativity in the Human Hive – A Quality Shared by All Classes

Posted in Emergence, Integral Maps, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2013 | Leave a Comment »


Regenerativity in the Human Hive is a quality shared by everyone – not just a special “Creative Class”. The first day of Spring (in the northern hemisphere) or Fall (in the southern hemisphere) can especially remind us of how the power of creativity is regenerative for all the roles in the human hive.

beehive

It is interesting that the critique of the “Creative Class” has prompted it’s author Richard Florida to admit that focusing on a cluster of artistic, technologically, educated elite in cities has not led to whole city regeneration. His analysis now shows that this strategy seems to benefit only the elites themselves in terms of wages and quality of life. (Read Florida’s analysis here.) Florida notes that this condition is ” not just a vicious cycle but an unsustainable one — economically, politically, and morally.”

If we were going to seek some lessons on Regenerativity from the natural systems, suggested by Pattern Dynamics(tm) we might consider how the Pattern of Creativity, intersects with all the other Primary Patterns. This path seems to lead to the qualities of Regenerativity that emerge in both the Growing Season of Spring and the Harvesting Season of Fall. Let’s consider how these qualities of Regenerativity show up in the Integral City Maps.

Pattern Dynamics (tm) Creativity

The Autopoeisis Pattern “makes itself” from combining Source with Creativity. Building on Transformity and Power, Self-making that is adaptive drives the emergence of the nested holarchy of city systems in Map 2, the emergent capacities in Map 3 and the increased complexity of organizations in Map 4. This pattern recognizes how the city as a human system is constantly making and re-making itself through the grand cycles of Spiritual Sourcing and Re-Sourcing in Map 5.

The intersection of Creativity and Dynamics gives us Spontaneity. Spontaneity occurs “in the moment” as a creative impulse. It arises in more complex form than the more simple pattern of Synchronization in the Rhythm Pattern (discussed below). But often because Synchronization has occurred, the conditions for Spontaneity arise. Spontaneity arises from the trust to openness and exudes freedom and flow with the zest of excitement. It transcends the Past,  springboards from the Present and propels the system into the Future. In the city because there are so many opportunities for Synchronization and Emergence Patterns, the potential for Spontaneity is ever-present. For many people coming from more traditional structures (as mapped in Map 4) the Spontaneity of the city, is (almost) like an addicting state of creative arousal.

The intersection of Creativity with Creativity (a double reinforcing loop) gives us Emergence. Emergence in Map 2 suggests that the interaction and interconnections amongst the different wholes (or holons) of the city will cause emergence – i.e., the creation of something new that has not existed before. (This is also powerfully conveyed in Map 3.) Emerence is a quality of complex-adaptive, self-organizing living systems – which is exactly what a city is – and why it can be so regenerative.

The intersection of Creativity with Exchange gives us Uniqueness. Uniqueness in Map 3 implies that the collective 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.

The intersection of Creativity with Structure gives us Complexity.  Map 4 shows a step-by-step emergence of Complexity as each organizational pattern integrates more complex goals, roles and capacities into its structures. With each new layer of complexity the organization (and eventually the city) can impact greater spans of space, time and moral influence. 

The intersection of Creativity with Polarity gives us Order/Chaos.  Map 1 appears very ordered and one has to assume that chaos is ever-present as an invisible quality of this map (and be comforted by the discovery in complexity theory, that we “get order for free” as systems do self-organize). We explored this quality when we looked at Map 3, but for the purposes of considering its impact on regenerativity, we can see the alternating cycles of order and chaos are built into the city as an ecology of living systems.

The intersection of Creativity with Rhythm gives us Synchronization. Synchronization: As the magic of synchronization arises, in the city, this enables human systems at all scales to start to notice the metabolic patterns that link them and bring about fortuitous and regenerative synchronicities and exchanges. Strangers discover common ancestors. Co-workers discover they live on the same street. Politicians with apparently opposing views discover common ground. Synchronization is implicit in all the maps of the city – as it contributes to the emergence of meta-patterns that set up new levels of coordination.

These qualities are all embedded in our understanding of Regenerativity in the city. They enable the conditions for new growth to emerge in Spring. And they are equally responsible for the harvest that we can gather in Fall. Certainly they belong to everyone and are not restricted to an elite group in the city.

I have continuously rediscovered this fact, when I meet my audiences and ask them to “tell me about a time when you created something new by combining two ingredients (people, ideas, organizations, etc.)”.  When the audience shares their stories with each other an explosion of self-discovery occurs and a release of creative energy that regenerates spirits, inspires action, intitiates new relationships and develops new systems. It is the nature of cities to be Regenerative and it is a quality that is sharable by all classes – not to mention being sustainable, economically, politically and morally.

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Regeneration Stories Shift the Human Hive

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2013 | Leave a Comment »


The seasons shift this week – in both hemispheres.

Regeneration moves Life through another seasonal cycle. In the Human Hive, the plot energizing this oldest of tales tells us how we produce the 40 pounds of honey that keeps us alive.

  • Our babies and our children respond to the family environment that cares for them. Their fusion with their landscape  gives us the stirrings of mystic awareness that we come from and are surrounded by abundance.
  • Our teenagers feel the impulses of growth hormones surging through their bodies, beating out the raps of mythic heroes who defy the odds (aka slay dragons in the environment) to claim the prize.
  • Our adults follow their news in well-ordered reports, mapping the logic of reason, science, work and productivity.
  • Our elders discern the shared learnings from the practical power of everyone’s stories about manifesting the feast.
  • Our spiritual guides compose new melodies of universal re-sourcefulness, sung octaves beyond the mystic murmurs, mythic tales, organizational reports and community stories heard around the Human Hive.

As Regeneration moves across the life cycles, seasons and generations of individuals and collectives, consciousness creates itself anew throughout the ever-creative exchanges of the Human Hive. Through self, others, organizations and systems we grow a deepening appreciation that all the stories about the “40 pounds of honey” keep us alive – they shift us into new adaptive patterns in every season.

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Energizing Elections in the Human Hive

Posted in B. Individual Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Storytelling - Cultures, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2013 | 2 Comments »


When was the last time you got really involved in an election? What role did you play? Voter or Election Candidate or Supporter?

elections

If you want to navigate the outcomes of elections, the usual injunctions include:

  • Follow the money
  • Vote with your feet
  • Mark an X on the ballot.

But if you are running for election in a city-centric office,  how can you develop an election platform for the  Human Hive based on city wellbeing and sustainability? How can you create the conditions for an interactive conversation about new ways of designing, supporting and fulfilling election platforms that make a difference to the health and wealth of our cities?

These are some of the questions I asked early this month, in a circle, called by a community think tank, encouraging women to become electoral candidates.

After a lively introduction from one of my former RRU graduate students, I asked people to introduce themselves and tell me what Voice they represented in the city. When all 20 had checked in we found that everyone brought the voice of the Cityzen - and we had about the 7-9 voices from each of Civil Society, City Managers and Business.

We then ventured into the realm of storytelling – and I related the story of the Honey Bee – with its energizing focus on:

  • Goal – produce 40 pounds of honey per year in order for the hive to survive
  • Role – act as a symbiotic team, where five key Roles contribute to achieving the Goal:
    • Producers – (voice of the Cityzen) gather the nectar and pollen and produce the honey
    • Entrepreneurs – (voice of the business/innovators) source new resources and keep the Producers advised of all options
    • Administrators – (voice of the City Managers) allocate resources to reward effective performance
    • Integrators – (voice of the Civil Society/Integrators) integrate all the other Roles for the achievement of the Hive Goal and survival
    • Competitors – (voice of the other Hives in the same eco-region) ensure that the best survival strategies emerge and sustain the species
  • Soul – respond to what is really important. What do we value as individuals and as a Hive?

As the dialogue started to unfold we were able to ask ourselves some interesting questions:

  • In the Human Hive – what is the equivalent goal of the 4o pounds of honey that we must produce in a year? How do we honour the power of human consciousness and culture in setting goals for City wellbeing and survival?

How do the Roles in the Hive relate to the Voices in the city? (We marked them above in brackets.)

Just as we seemed to be on a “radically optimistic roll”,  a strain of criticism and negativity started to creep into the conversation. I interjected a state-shifting question: “Would you like to try an experiment?”  Yes, they agreed!!  Turning to the person beside them, I asked them to each tell this story:

Tell me about a time when you were really involved or excited about an election? Who was there? Why were you excited? Where was it? When?

The room burst into noisy and positive exchange. I could hardly call them back above the din.  But when I did, I asked each conversation dyad to identify three values they saw in their stories. Quickly again the room exploded … and we were subsequently able to fill a flip chart with the values that had engaged them:

Listening, Caring, Sharing, Giving back, Recognition, Community, Supporting, Growing, Genuine Curiosity, Multiple Generations, Linking Across Cultures, Working for Something they Believed in, Imagining the Future

In a flash we saw that these values revealed the Souls of the election process. We had easily jumped from the depressing consideration of no new candidates or no positive slates for future elections, to recognizing that Cityzens (just like the bees) are always casting their ballots before, during and after elections – somehow trying to survive even without clear Goals, Roles or Souls.

The Think Tank realized they had discovered how framing elections in the context of Goals, Roles and Souls Changes “Business as Usual”!

And their lively exploration of Goals, Roles and Souls also revealed the reality of the Master Code:

  • Take care of ourselves
  • so we can … Take care of each other
  • so we can …Take care of this place
  • so we can … Take care of this planet.

And before we could enjoy our cup of tea and cookies, the circle insisted that we identify the topic of their next dialogue. That was easy … everyone wanted to know:

How can we imagine the future of our City?

Thanks to the invitation from the Women’s Think Tank, Mission BC, for the opportunity to explore this topic in dialogue with a circle of all the 4 Voices of the city.

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Decoding Integral City Maps; Cohering the Source of Patterns

Posted in E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Integral Maps, Master Intelligence, Spiritual intelligence, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2013 | 1 Comment »


The Key to decoding  the Integral City Maps is the Master Code:

  • Take Care of Yourself
  • Take Care of Each Other
  • Take Care of this Place
  • Take Care of this Planet

Evolutionary Intelligences

This Key is symbolized with the Integral City Compass which decodes the 12 Intelligences we need to explore Integral City Maps with ever-increasing circles of care.

Each of the five Maps for the Integral City, gives the Map Reader a different territory to explore. Because all the territories are interconnected, the Maps shape-shift from one form to another, leading the Reader through a labyrinth of city patterns, that taken together with the Master Code Compass, cohere into a whole.

City explorers who have taken journeys with the Principles of Living Systems and/or the language of PatternDynamics(TM) start to notice that Integral City Maps and Intelligences belong to this cluster of systems that decode patterns of life.

In the last six blogs, we have explored the language of PatternDynamics(PD) in order to translate its symbols into the language of Integral City Maps. In many ways we could say PD provides six archways (marked by a PD symbol) to the different territories of the city.

In this last blog (of this PD series) we enter the archway to the heart of the city – it’s Source.  Here we recognize the territory of City Spirit which we explored in Map 5.

The Source Pattern is foundational to all the other patterns, emerging from evolutionary consciousness: order, identity and purpose.

PatternDynamics Patterns

Like the other PD patterns, the Source Pattern has seven qualities, but as a meta-meta-pattern each of these qualities derives from a marriage of Source with the other 6 PD meta-patterns plus Source itself.

Energy: The Energy Pattern emerges from the conjunction of Source with Rhythm. The Energy Pattern is foundational to the city’s many ways of moving, expressing and evolving. It is evident in the exchanges of Map 3 and the involutionary, evolutionary cycle of Map 5. Energy appears as first cause for the Evolutionary, Integral and Living Intelligences and Emergent result in the experience of Love.

Resource: The Resource pattern is the child of Source and Polarity. In Map 5 Resource is the centre of the city’s Grace, Place and Space and the emergent quality of core values, Beauty, Goodness and Truth. The Resource Pattern reminds us that the city as Gaia’s Reflective Organ adds value to our planet’s evolutionary journey.

Transformity: The Transformity emerges naturally when Source inspires Structure. It is clearly the pattern of Map 4′s spiral of complex organizational structures.  Transfomity is a source of hope, reminding us that evolution has been experimenting with 14 billion years of complex transformations, to which human systems, including the city, belong.

Power: The Power Pattern, emanating from the collision of Source and Exchange, represents  the Big Bang on Earth. As such it lies in the centre of Map 1 and drives the “prime directive” behind all the cycles in all the other Maps. While Energy is multi-directional, Power is multi-cyclical with a central purpose or centered focus (like the beehive’s 40 pounds of honey). The Power Pattern of the Integral City will eventually produce the city’s purpose. And when 10% of Gaia’s cities discover and start to live into their purpose, we will have a Planet of Cities in service to all life on Earth.

Autopoeisis: The Autopoeisis Pattern “makes itself” from combining Source with Creativity. Building on Transformity and Power, Self-making that is adaptive drives the emergence of the nested holarchy of city systems in Map 2, the emergent capacities in Map 3 and the increased complexity of organizations in Map 4. This pattern recognizes how the city as a human system is constantly making and re-making itself through the grand cycles of Spiritual Sourcing and Re-Sourcing in Map 5.

Pattern: The Pattern Pattern is Source’s grand Dynamic Dance with itself on the Universe’s dance floor.  We notice the choreography of patterns in each of Integral City’s Maps. Tracing the Patterns reinforces our appreciation of the miracle that “we get order for free” (1). The PD Book of Patterns, records how Life has chosen to repeat its most productive Patterns at every level of scale in the human systems of the city.

Void: The Void Pattern is Source reflecting on Source. As Source we discover this empty fullness through our meditations, contemplations and other spiritual practices that remind us that we have all evolved from the same Source and will return to the same Source. There is nowhere else to go. Map 5 is a “busy expression” of discovering the Void Pattern in the centre of our Fields of Coherence.

Decoding Integral City Maps, is as simple as accessing the Void through the Source of Source.  And as we practise living with the Patterns of Aliveness that dynamically run through the territories of our bio-psycho-cultural-social lives in the Integral City, we expand our Practise of the Master Code, so that we can evolve to be stewards of a fully conscious, sustainable and resilient Planet of Cities.

Reference:

1. Kauffman, S. A. (1993). The Origins of Order:  Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. New York: Oxford Press.

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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 | 8 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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Guiding Step Two: Identifying Assumptions for a Planet of Cities

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Master Intelligence, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2013 | 4 Comments »


Assumptions in the city arise not only from the four voices of the city – but from the worldviews being expressed in those voices.

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Worldviews emerge from the beliefs of what is important around here and how those values are translated by the city’s voices.

In the most basic ego-centric way, assumptions are implicit – how do I access the basics of life (food, shelter, clothing)? how do I fit into my family? how am I earn my living (or not)?

When these needs are met, more complex ethno-centric assumptions build upon them – what language do we use to communicate within our groups or clans (the one from our home country, our special dialect or the one(s) we learn in school)? how does our group or neighbourhood relate to other groups or neighbourhoods (in being entitled to schooling or healthcare) ? how do we practise and express our spiritual and religious assumptions? who are our leaders and who are the authorities we follow?

Smaller cities have traditionally been able to coalesce around shared ethno-centric assumptions.

But as a city grows in size, the multiplicity of ethno-centric assumptions can make the Tower of Babel seem like an apt metaphor for the mixture of voices and clashes of worldviews that vie for air-space and audience.

Large cities that mature create a city-centric worldview that embraces the multiple ethno-centric and ego-centric assumptions into a coherent perspective of how the city can be governed for the greatest benefit of all.  With a city-centric worldview we can make decisions about the infrastructure that supports Citi-Zens’ daily life; the relationships that Civil Society can bridge between ethno-centric groups; the resources needed for thriving Business; and the governance that City Hall, Education and Healthcare institutions require to coordinate city-centric functions.

The most mature cities go beyond even a city-centric set of assumptions and realize that they are part of a Planet of Cities – that their exchange of resources and commerce depends on assumptions about planetary economy; that their exchange of ideas produces assumptions contributing to planetary generativity; that their demands on the environment require assumptions about evolution, sustainability and resilience; and that their cultural embrace of the shared story about their city on the planet, emerges a world-centric set of assumptions that aligns ego-ethno-city-world-centric assumptions and connects cities together as a Planetary System of Cities.

When you consider this holarchy of worldviews – what assumptions do you hold about your city? How do your assumptions impact the way you practise the Master Code for the Human Hive?

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Thanksgivings and Question-Harvests in the Human Hive

Posted in A. Contexting Intelligences, B. Individual Intelligences, C. Collective Intelligences, city, D. Strategic Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Master Intelligence, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »


Ten days after the final Integral City 2.0 Online Conference (IC2OC) … and we have celebrated our first Thanksgiving (whose timing we borrow from Canada :-) )

We are thankful for the people who made the IC2OC possible: all the volunteers, the speakers, the affiliates and the participants – in a constantly
intermeshing order.

We have an inventory of harvest outcomes that is almost overwhelming in its plenitude: products like 50 mp3 recordings; 36 pdf transcripts of
interviews (in various stages of completion); daily harvest summaries; website postings from participants; conference member profiles; weekly harvest paintings; music; video; social media and more to come.

We are grateful for all the relationships we discovered – not only with individuals, but with affiliates, partners and suppliers to name a few.

We are awed by the complex learning and research processes we created to produce the eLaboratory and Live Event phase of IC2OC.

And now we are harvesting a process that took 36 months to produce 36 Live Event sessions. We are noticing natural patterns emerging as we
immerse ourselves in a sea of amazing data about the Human Hive.

These I pose now simply as research questions, that we will be exploring as we gather, store, appreciate and re-purpose the Harvest in service to our Planet and her Cities.

  • What have we learned about designing a new operating system for the city on a Planet of Cities?
  • How is the new paradigm of the city integrally based on the Principles of Life?
  • How do those principles of sustainability and resilience emerge from Energy, Matter and Information?
  • What are the protocols of behaviour, thought, relationship and systems that we need in our cities on a Planet of Cities?
  • What is the new story of the city on a Planet of Cities?
  • What are the life-giving practices for individuals and communities in our cities?
  • How do we source and re-source Life in our cities for our planet?
  • What is the relationship of City Spirit to the new operating for this city on a Planet of Cities?
  • What have we come to understand about how the Master Code impacted our inquiry, our processes, our conference?

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