Seeds for a happy planet

Mark Jones wrote: “I am exploring living into the construct that there are “sensing mechanisms and practices” at the Turquoise meme that are distinct from our apprehension of reality from the perspective of the Yellow, Green, and other memes.”
and: .
“The “psychic synchronicity | sensitivity” — sensing what is happening among and within those that we feel highly connected to — may be a Turquoise meme siddhi when invoked by intentional mindfulness.”

As far as I understand the Turquoise meme, it means that we experience reality as a whole; separation and fragmentation is gone; is left behind or better: is transcended. We still have our identity but our center of gravity is in the Whole.

George asked the following questions in a forum:

How do you deal with information overload and other forms of overwhelm?

What are some of the practices that help you come to cimplicity on the ‘other side of complexity’, without closing down and staying on this side of it?

What collective practices do you think can alleviate individual overwhelm?

My guiding principle or question is “What wants Evolution me to do?”. I’m holding that question since 2-3 years and I use it for small and big decisions. It is a translation of “Not my will, but thy will.” I’m pretty sure Evolution/Life/Love does not want us to feel overwhelmed, neither confused or guilty. All these feelings are part of our ego, and are in one way or another related to fear.

The biggest challenge for me was to become very clear and precise in choosing what events, meetings, gatherings are really the ones that I should go to; because there is so much interesting going on and so much problems to be solved. First of all I don’t focus on the problems. So I never gather with people ‘because there is some problem that needs to be solved’; I only gather when there is some opportunity for co-creating something really new. Second, in doing so, I developed an ever more finer sense of where I need to be, what I need to do. This ever evolving precision of what is my real authenticity, what is truelly my gift to the world is so important! It cannot be underestimated. And in these moments that I’m kind of overwhelmed – which is mostly being anxious that I won’t be ‘ready’ on time – I’m going to sit in silence until the inner relaxation and centering is back, even if this means that there is even less time left. I cannot function anymore when being in this ego/fear/uncertain state.
Regarding the collective practices I don’t have a clear one. I can only trust that other people do the same as I do. I mean, I hope that they do what Evolution wants them do and then I can be sure that in the end all problems, all information, all … will be covered. I don’t see another way in our highly complex world and really think that this is the way out.

The next step is to ask ourselves this same question when we are together, in whatever group we are. Even if the other people are not aware of this question I hold it in my mind and try to sense the answer. But I find myself more and more in the presence of others who are not surprised by this question and who also like to lean into the not-knowing and sometimes the answer comes pretty quickly. My experience is that if it takes too long to find the answer I better stop meeting these people.

That’s my bit of the puzzle….

Here we are, three women friends and myself, driving 2,5 hour to gather with other, unknown women to meet around the question: “What is the role of women in an evolutionary context?”

This is not an academic writing, just sharing notes and trying to get my arms around the field of: hosting – collective intelligence – evolution of consciousness – Spiral Dynamics Integral …

If we want to talk about Hosting Evolution of Consciousness it is needed that we try to integrate The Art of Hosting with the maps we have available for us: the 4 quadrants from Wilber and SDi.

Hosting the four quadrants

The Art of Hosting as we know it up to now is related to hosting meaningful conversations.

What I experienced and learned in Hazelwood is that hosting physical places (houses, gardens, environments) is at least as important.

Now we are more and more confronted with the challenge of hosting meaningful and ongoing communities.

And isn’t a great part of our ongoing work to host our sacred, inner space too?

As I see it, hosting this inner space is UL in Wilber’s terms.

Hosting the house, gardens and surroundings as the Hazelwood ladies do, is LR. Providing us with organic food, made and served with love is taking care for our UR.

Hosting communities should be the LL.

What about the conversations we host? One could argue to put it in LL, but I see conversations as a tool, a technology to go from UL to LL; from individuality to community.

But what I am struggling with (and maybe you too), is to see and to be conscious about the differences in the ‘I’ and the ‘We’ when people are in different vMemes.

Hosting Green, Yellow and Turquoise

I will not go into the details that are provided by Ken Wilber, Don Beck and Andrew Cohen and many others – as I don’t know them – but I try to make something clear about the relationship between the I and the We and about how we worked and will work together.

I and We in Green

The We in green is about sharing, about seeing the other and be seen by them; about hearing the other(s) and be heard by them.

From a psychological, individual viewpoint it is the adult who is able to empathize with others; to be able to see through each other’s eyes. We can see each other as equal.

That’s why cooperations are a good form of organizations for this Meme.

I and We in Yellow

In Yellow different people gather for different projects related to their core qualities, competences and skills to change the systems. The individual has some kind of meditation practice; knows how to be present, at least when he is on his own, on the meditation cushion or in the dojo.

I and We in Turquoise

Here the individual sense of separation dissolves. Not only in exceptional moments, but throughout working, eating, learning while being together with others. Individuals have a ‘felt sense’ that the other is myself and vice versa. The individual is centered in this We instead of in the individual, separate Self.

These enlightened individuals form little communities who will find their own collective core qualities, competences and skills (CircleBeings). It will be these little We’s that will connect, not just for projects, but for the building of the new society – changing the global systems.

Coherence in Green, Yellow and Turquiose

In a ‘normal’ community it is the shared purpose that makes the coherence. Mostly a lot of time and effort is spent to come to a purpose that is truly shared. It is mission-oriented. I think this is still the Orange value system.

Form the Communities of Practice we know that their coherence comes from the need to become better practitioners. These communities are discipline-oriented and are from their nature peer-to-peer: the Green meme.

My guess is that the coherence in Yellow comes from the shared project for the world. Every individual is based in her self, doesn’t need others to be happy, but seeks connections with others to accomplish this particular endeavor, to make a better world.

What about Turquoise, where communities become Communities of Co-creation? There is a purpose, it is peer-to-peer and we do something together for the good of the Whole and still, something is new. The shared purpose could be named here as the individual and collective felt sense of the CircleTask; the task that is unique for this connected group of individuals: the CircleTask as related to the CircleBeing. For me it is a translation of: “Not my, but thy Will.” shared by all members of this group.

Collective Intelligence in Green, Yellow and Turquoise

George wrote in his draft document on CI: “In order to ensure our survival and success as a species, we will need to integrate and apply what we have all learned about collective intelligence to improve our capacity to create sustainable social, political, and economic systems that work well for everyone involved, and to creatively meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

To me “integrate and apply” is not enough. It is good to do – and we still need a lot more of it in the world of today – but it seems to me too small as the collective intelligence needed for the future. I see it as making the best soup that is possible with all the ingredients that are available.

Evolution of humanity gives us a perspective that definitely calls for a “higher order complexity, integration and wisdom”. It asks for an upshift/upgrade in our capacity of collective intelligence. What could the “magic in the middle” be when we take all the knowledge and experience we have and “lean together into the not-knowing” looking and listening for what evolution wants us to do? Can we create together – as we go, with no plan or recipe – a total new meal that has never ever existed?

I never thought of myself as a writer or a journalist; but here I am: committed to write some notes related to the evolution of consciousness.

For me, Evolution of Consciousness is the bigger context that I’m looking from; writing on.

And what I see happening in the threads that I followed and was part of during these last years has to do with building a collective capacity, a capability of the community. Of course we could name it as collective intelligence or collective wisdom, but I want (to try) to describe something that mostly is not understood by these concepts.

What I see is that the (morphogenetic) field that defines who we are, as humans, is changing. And it seems changing at rapid speed. We, as Westerns, are all deeply identified with our separate self, our identity. And it is this separate self that is wondering how collective intelligence or collective wisdom can happen. We stand in awe; we don’t understand it and we name it magic.
Strange enough to us, the magic is not happening inside us, not inside the box we identify with, but between us! And it seems that the other separate selves can experience it too! So we are not crazy… there is magic in the middle!

When I refer here to community I mean the whole bunch of people that, in one way or another, is part of the tip of the wave; the tip of the evolutionary wave.
The part of the wave that I can see is CI related and I can see evolution happening over time and beyond particular groups or gatherings. Tim Merry named it as: “the same learning field though the geography often changes.”

I see us moving from experiencing the magic now and then up to the expectation that it will happen again, and even further to the trust and the inner knowing that it is there, right between us if we are only sensitive enough to give it time and space to experience.

This magic is only viewed as magic when looked from the separate self, within its own box of identity. When we look from the identity of interconnectedness, from the Whole, it is only natural; totally obvious that it happens, that it is there.

Experiencing this interconnectedness while being, living and communicating with others is the new capacity that I see building up. It is not a capacity of individuals only, but it is a groove in the consciousness of the collective, of humanity that becomes more and more visible for those how know it exist and which is seducing for others to follow it. I saw it building up from the conference calls with the CI-conveners, in the first Evolutionary Salon, through the video conferencing between Seattle and Belgium, and in the Hazelwood Retreat.

I see in huge capital letters the importance of showing this evolution to the people who are part of it; who are actually living this evolution. My part in the showing is writing in this blog

I my search for the fundamental ‘building blocks’ or organising principles for our future society, George advised me to read The hacker ethic, by Pekka Himanen.
For me it is a great book, although it is probably ‘old’ for the real hackers, because it is written in 2001. Basically the hacker’s ethic has three components: a Work Ethic, a Money Ethic and a Nethic or Network Ethic.

The Work Ethic resonates deep within myself. Being a self employed psychotherapist I have the freedom and the responsibility for my own agenda. I do the work that I love and live my life totally as I want it to be. And I can see how this part of the ethic is finding and will find it’s way to society.

But how can the Money Ethic be applied broadly?
That’s an important question that I hold. And Pekka Himanen notices also that here “reactions are bound to be more divided”. But if we want an enlightened society, our relation to money will need to change too.
Probably it is not our relation to money that should change, but what do we call property and what not?

In contrast with the ruling paradigm of “information-owning”, “the original computer-hacker ethic emphasized openness”, the ethical duty to share their expertise. In fact “creations are given away to others”.
This originates in or is alike with the culture of scientists, where information is freely shared between peers.
So, how would an open-source enterprise look like? Or an open-source society? It seems “not allowed” to close off information to others.

Himanen raises the question “Could there be a free market economy in which competition would not be based on controlling information but on other factors…?”
Maybe this basic assumption of competition as a basic rule in economy can be questioned.
What about a free market economy based on cooperation?
Isn’t it what nature does?

What was most inspiring for me in our transatlantic Collective Intelligence (CI) meeting was a much deeper understanding – with mind and body – of what is “the CI-field”.
For me it is not the sum of the individuals; it is not the 3 concentric circles as described by Tom Atlee; it is not even the connections between the conversations as we talked about it in our closing session; but for me the CI-field is the process of an ever-growing and ever-expanding Coll.Intelligence, through the individuals, through the connections, through the ftf and online meetings, through…

This made me see our meeting, the Kaleidoscope Café in Devon, the Evolutionary Salons (and many more probably) as a very big Open Space spread over time.
This means that no one is excluded, that there is no core group and no criteria. Only hosts/callers of certain meetings with (more or less) clear purposes and people deciding with their two feet if they can contribute and/or learn.
Our meeting was an Open Space – although not really designed that way – and it was only one workshop of the Big Open Space that is happening in the world.

Duri, my partner stated the purpose as: “To design for the emergence of CI as a powerful social and intellectual movement that …”. I see the purpose of this Big Open Space as: “the emergence of CI as a powerful social and intellectual capacity that…” – probably both sides of one coin; wholeness.

I think the CI-field will become more conscious of itself if we – in whatever meeting we will be participating – are conscious that we are always in this big Open Space and that we are training ourselves – together – in more CI-capacity.

Out of our larger community new proposals for gatherings will be posted in our Global Market Place. And the ones who feel called will answer the invitation and let new things emerge.

Yesterday evening, I was listening to Yasuhiko Kimura on WIE Unbound and he is talking about thinking; not only the remembering of information and shuffle it around, but real new thinking. It is his life’s mission to teach people how to really think.

It reminds me of something I read in the book of Satprem on Sri Aurobindo. Aurobindo states that it is not us who think, but that we receive thoughts (and also emotions) from outside. These last few days I was meditating – contemplating on this and I guess it is true. In meditation I can reach this Ground of Being where I am totally still and at the same time there is a high energy ‘happening’. Like how I envision the wood or metal of the table, which is still, but I know the electrons are spinning around at high speed. In these moments of true meditation I’m able to leave all thoughts – old and new – outside. The next thing is, that I can choose to open the door, so to speak, for new thoughts to come in. Probably this is what Andrew Cohen is calling ‘the edge of not-knowing’.

Another line of new thinking that I came across recently is called Thinking at the edge ; a term and a process invented by Eugene Gendlin. This resonates deep in myself as it refers to a process that integrates, or even better: access the bodily wisdom and makes real new thoughts possible.

If we could once integrate all this what new territories of knowing could we discover??!!

Thinking about the world that we all want to live in, this beautiful, exciting and sustainable world; I was thinking about: What is at the core of what we have to learn to create it?

We know a lot about creating ‘things’: structures, products etc. If our worldview is evolving to more wholeness and interconnectedness, what is it that we need to learn to create?

At the core it seems to be processes or maybe better to use the word relations. Not just ‘relationships’ as the friendship between you and me, but “the process of the quality of relation” as my teacher called it recently.
And not only the relation between people, but all relations over time, space, cultures, species and so on.
I like to call it ‘the in-betweens’, that what is not visible to the eye, but is very meaningful and also tangible if you learn to ‘listen’ to it, or to ’see’ it. That what is (in) The Field.

All this came together after a training block in Systemic Constellation Work; an inspiring conversation with Toke Moeller, who is teaching the world The Art of Hosting; and to hear something more of the ‘landscaping’ his wife Monica Nissen is doing.
Our co-creation will have to focus on creating these in-betweens.
More precisely: we need to become masters in creating ‘structures’ in order to let meaningful processes happen; so that the quality of the relation can be healed and can generate some renewing content.

Convinced that we need to think out of the box, creating a new reality and not improving the existing one; the image of the imaginal cells is very, very useful.
If we are the imaginal cells, then we have the response-ability to call next reality into existence. First by resonating with some other individuals – also imaginal cells -, then by coming together in small groups, online and offline; and finally by groups who join each other and form the organs of the new Being. In these little groups we can grow views on which organ we belong to. Collaborative, social tools like blogging and wikis can provide us with support to bring ideas, images and functions easily together in a flowing form.