Seeds for a happy planet

Yesterday evening six of us gathered in Brussels to celebrate George’s birthday. Of course that couldn’t happen without some deep, inspiring conversations! George wanted to look beyond the circles that were born during this last year and which hold all a lot of potential: What is the deeper pattern that speaks through all of them?

What we saw were different communities on different practices – the how – (Art of Hosting on Art of Hosting, World Cafe Stewards, Collective Intelligence Conveners, Women Moving the Edge, …) and different places – the where – (Rivendell, Hazelwood, Kufunda, Heerlijckyt, …). We also see emerging a next level in group formation. They differ from the communities above. They are not gathered around one practice but around a calling in the world. The members of these new communities have different competences and different practices, and they are all present and centered in themselves. They know their individual place in the world. The synergy of these individuals can make a lot happen in the world!

This afternoon this conversation went on with Amy Lenzo, who is a steward of the World Café Community. She raised the same question: “What is this where the World Café is part of?” She also said: “In the mean time the different communities need to evolve and strengthen and be nurtured. Nevertheless, if it is an inward looking thing, we missed something! We need to look outward and link with others.” It reminded me of one of the principles of the Art of Hosting: ‘Find your mates’.

As a constellator (a facilitator of systemic constellations) it is fascinating to see how all this is about ‘finding the right place’; first for the individuals, then for the communities around the different practices, and also for Europe and other continents and cultures. What is the role or the gift of Europe in the world?
Each of us has a part to play – on every level. It is important that we know that place and then reach outwards. In partnering and coming to another level of working together we make the overall field stronger. We will need this for the time to come, when we are called to challenging tasks and difficult places.

Last weekend I was part of a most remarkable gathering at De Heerlijckyt in Belgium. This specific constellation of people emerged from an Art of Hosting training, which happened at the same venue early October ‘06. Before this gathering there were a lot of friendships build over the last years and months. Somehow we sensed we all hold a piece of work and competence that will be necessary for the future of Europe.

We don’t hold any official autority, not at all, but we feel called to how we can put ourselves into service for the best of the world to come. We called ourselves a Jedi Council or Circle.
A little harvest:
“We are all holding some kind of pain, struggle or conflict. We often carry it away to the side to be with it on our own. It builds a sense of isolation, and we creep into it – it becomes bigger than we are.

We have here, together, a container that transcends and embraces our struggles and our hopes and joys, our present and our future. It is made up of the consciousness that we all partake of and participate in. What we individually bring is our unique personal perspectives. That struggle between what we aspire to and what we perceive as present and real is arising inside that vast field of consciousness. We are big enough to hold it ALL and still have room to seed the future with what emerges from the centre of our circle.”

One of us wrote: “I’m still digesting what happened. I would not hesitate to call it a peak experience.”

These last years a lot has been said about bringing balance between left and right hemisphere, between knowing and feeling, between mental and inner knowing.

Lots of people use the word intuition as opposed to or as counterbalance for the mental knowing. But what is intuition really?

I think it is useful to make a differentiation between intuition and felt sense. The latter is a concept introduced by E.Gendlin, within his philosofical/therapeutic work of Focussing.
I understand intuition as recieving some information: this can be a thought, a feeling, an image… If we want this more feminine side of knowing to take its full place to balance the mental knowing, then this ‘recieving information’ needs refining, and widening.

As Gendlin states: Felt Sense is a “body sensation that has meaning”. “A felt sense is often subtle and as you pay attention to it you discover that it is intricate. It has more to it.” So it is not only a thought, or only an image, but a “….dimension of experience which is not emotion and not thought, which is subtle yet concretely felt, absolutelty physically real”. This I see as the refinement of the concept of intuition.
The broadening exist in the relationship of this Felt Sense with the world around, the context. If the mutual influence between my intuition and the context I am in is not taken into account it can still be (very) useless.

Since Moving the Edge in March 2006, David Reis and my self, had regular Skype conversations. They were always deep inspiring and gave us both an energising feeling. Today again, before the call, we wondered what we were going to talk about… this is what happened:

Silence – silence – silence …

Ria: Working yesterday on Women Moving the Edge. Reading Andrew Cohen’s “liberation without a face”. He says: Real enlightenment means: gender doesn’t matter any more. Thinking of our idea last time of doing a Couples workshop. What does Andrew’s concept mean in daily life? It is a big jump from daily life.

David: It’ true; it is a big jump. Only a few will make the jump. I wonder if Andrew is in the masculine perspective of enlightenment. The spiritual teacher of my wife is very aware of men and women’s difference. He and his partner, a remarkable woman, they have been exploring this a lot. I wonder if Andrew is right. Anyway: there need to be some bridges and we need to meet where people are.
* Last gathering in my spiritual community went very well. Description of the context we are in: different than before. Organization changed, the leadership changed; my position is changed and will finish in Sept. The rise of the feminine was mentioned in the previous years, but now was the first time that we really looked at it. Before, it was ignored.
* Creation works on the principle of sexuality. When we looked at it: the feminine can only show up when there is a safe place. Gender is not the main issue here. The masculine is the embodiment of love: designed to create a safe space for the feminine; that’s the partnership. It allows forms of live to appear. In the Tao: first the one, then the two; then you have the three; then the ten thousand things. The feminine and the masculine are both part of the One. Each dynamic carries a different quality, aspect of the One.
The feminine and the masculine are expressions of the One; all other forms are then the three.
* In the gathering: it was liberating for the women; also for the men: getting rid of the mistrust! Now: space for the trust. In one of the groups, equally balanced by gender, many times different women would bring forth a strong intuition – like needing more art. Once I acknowledged the strong emotion in it. Then she talked about the importance of drawing, collages, dance, and music: that what cannot be said through words.

One of my women friends says: Talking is a masculine activity.

The fear is that the feminine will become dominant; which is not true. The feminine need to arise, because the conditions are right for it now. Right now the context is not safe for the feminine. The true masculine need to become forward; instead of the shadow of the masculine.

You said: “The feminine cannot come forward if it is not safe.” I’m wondering: If I am really centered in myself, do I need the men/masculine to hold the space?

You need to have the masculine in yourself. The nature of the masculine is to create space, to create borders; to set the quality. Something glimpses here…. the field in which the masculine can be present is in the womb of the world… difficult to talk about… the feminine is also there… a perspective of 100% masculine and 100% feminine… as a gliding scale… nothing is totally 100% … they overlap always… we all have both… if the masculine and the feminine is in the One, then everybody has both in them! That is why the man can create a context, like a womb! Looking at the dynamic of thinking, women were designed to … to inseminate men with a seed of thought. They are catalysing a topic or a tread of thinking, for further insemination. In plants, in weed seed, masculine… and feminine…

One of the basic ideas from Macro-biotics is: If the form is feminine, the core is masculine energy; and vice versa. It is in everything. When the form comes as masculine, the content is feminine. Best words here: Form and energy (not content).

In the thinking of our group: we talk about a unified body of people. Humanity is designed to be the Body of Love. Body=feminine, Love= masculine.
Masculine and feminine is in every holon. Humanity, as being receptive to Love/Life, is feminine.
* In the gathering the women were visibly relaxed. They said: “We were able to bring the Earth in.”; which never happened before. Before it was all about Spirit; and frustrating the natural flow.
* Basic is: Honor the process of emergence. It opens up different ways that women and men can show up in the gathering. One man talked about a ‘spiritual oasis’; that the group can be like that. Not an organizational function, but embodying the Truth of Love. Being an oasis in the desert of the culture. Giving room for emergence instead of designing the focus beforehand. The role of Leadership changes: it is acknowledging what is emerging: what is emerging in form and what is emerging in spirit. What are the essences that are crossing over … for that to happen everybody is responsible for spirit, for listening for what is in the middle. That’s the key: everybody is responsible for doing that! Everybody is a leader! It shifts from leader-follower, to all leaders following the movement in spirit.

I like to call this Collective leadership.

In our group the son of the initiator started the collect. Leadership, but shadow elements came out.

What I hear is that your group becomes adult now. When the initiator starts a movement like that, all the other ones start as being a child, regarding this spiritual focus of course. Then everyone in the movement has to grow up. In the teen-age years, fights start. You can see the development in a many-years-perspective.

As that happens (the movement becomes adult), the old form passes away. When maturity happens, new patterns of relationships happen. It shifts into trust and each one will embody what is theirs to do. Then the role of leadership also changes: from giving direction and instruction to coordination.

Not just coordination. It is about holding the field … and more… It’s not giving directions or directives, but somehow holding direction; becoming more mature maybe. It is like when you raise your children. When they are 6 or 8 you give directives. When they are 16 or 18 you hold direction.

Yes, I actively look for direction! Looking into what is in the midst; and what people are saying. Then looking for the connection and speaking it as it develops.

Maybe we are growing mature as human beings, instead of quarrelling all over the place.
* Back to Women Moving the Edge. Our conversation confirms what I have been holding. What you spoke about the woman speaking about art, music, etc. In MtE in March, I was holding that perspective. Somehow it got some form – through one of the women participants, but not enough.
* The other point: for women to step out into the world with real feminine qualities, they need to master their masculine qualities also. Like knowing their boundaries, where to do it and where not to do it. Being able to create their own safe space. In a way: being in control of yourself of your own re-actions: as compared to being controlling. Able to MASTER your reactions, able to withhold reactions that go into fights. If you see it comes to fight, you just drop the line of conversation. And not being hurt by it! Many times when you go with the feminine quality in the world, many don’t see it, laugh or fight with it. However, you can outgrow being hurt by that.

It takes the women out of the role of the victim; and of the perpetrator!
If the women come out like this, the men have to relate differently. The men, who are less mature and are still treating women in these shadow ways, will have to come to terms with women who don’t fight. Surprising! Women in developing this masculine side, they don’t develop the shadow masculine side; which we see so much in business context.

David Deida says that the masculine at the core is: holding consciousness and presence; the feminine at the core is embodying love.

We were both surprised and energized by this beautiful and inspiring dialogue! I hope you enjoy it too!

I invite your attention to some striking patterns that I see happening in the collective field.

Finn Voldtofte – the initiator of Moving the Edge – wrote earlier this summer about what he sees happening:
“It seems to me that in these months patterns are being created – prototypes are emerging for gathering people around both a theme and an intention, with the intention being to participate for the sake of the whole (engaging a field of collective intelligence amongst the participants) and in service of the theme. As participants we are being powerfully called to stretch our willingness to show up — not for personal purposes and hopes of gain, but to be present, hang in, lean in, let ourselves get at times almost lost in confusion, and eventually experience ourselves as part of an unfolding great story. Oddly, this challenge makes people come rather than stay away.”

Almost at the same time, Hans Jecklin, was convening and facilitating ‘The Living Circle’ in Switserland. Very much with the same theme and intention then the gatherings that Finn initiated. I find Hans’ report of what he learned in this circle very, very meaningful. If you are interested in this kind of stuff, please read it.

Information that goes in the same direction, although it doesn’t come from life experience, but from an inspiring dream is the recent blog entry by George Por.
He is talking about the features of a group or community, engaged in “ramping up connectivity”. They include:

• A remarkable ease with which they fall into a deep, silent, causal domain of consciousness, in one another’s company

• A heightened capacity to pick up even weak signals from the collective field of the future

• Sustaining a loving attention to the well-being of each and the whole

• Staying alert to interference from any fear or unfulfilled desire that would want to impose its version of the future

• Letting their resonant rings connect into broader patterns of meaning

• Moving from inter-connections to inter-being, by expanding the self-sense to include the surrounding field created by all crewmates participating in it

Then another website is speaking about something similar, although they don’t give their information for free!
“Through the willingness to follow the VMC rules, this higher frequency allows a new viewpoint which resolves the seeming separation between the individual and the group, the one and the many.”

Look for yourself at all the links!

In my search to understand what forces are driving our world and our evolution I recently had a very deep experience that seems to carry deep value for all who want a better world for all.

I was set up as a representative of communism in a constellation of a young Macedonian. His parents and grandparents were strongly affected by the arrival of communism in their country, in personal and financial ways. Systemic Constellation work is a methodology that has a deep simplicity and probably therefore can reach deep, hidden dynamics in human systems.

So there I stood in front of this family. The son, the mother and her lost dreams. As communism I was totally stiff, my legs very firm on the ground, and I felt like steel: very hard and not to be moved by anything or anybody. Not one tiny, little expression was possible in my body; my eyes were closed and wouldn’t open.
Whatever happened before my closed eyes was not at all affecting me, so I had time to become aware what was happening in myself. I was wondering that although I was really stiff allover my body I was breathing quiet deeply and I was wondering where this liveliness cam from. I daunted on me that it was the seed of solidarity that wanted to find it’s way into the world. It was a seed buried in humankind that was looking for a way to manifest itself; it came out of an evolutionary force.

As the constellation went on I got more and more stiff; my muscles were painful in my neck. At a certain point the parents of the young man were bowing to me, to the force that had influenced their life so hugely. After that the mother said to the son: “I shouldn’t do it (bowing), but it helps anyway.” That was the first thing that had some effect on me! A little softening, a little relief from the stiffness.
I kept sensing in my body, the stiffness was hard to bear, but one place in my body kept open: my sacrum. As if the seed of solidarity was born out of the sacred, out of Life, out of Evolution.
The son was unwilling to give in to his mother’s gesture and for the first time a thought arose about what happened before me: “You are stupid, you cannot deny this force of evolution!”

Suddenly I saw the bigger picture. I saw the seed of communism, which is solidarity; I saw the seed of capitalism: innovation and progress, and how evolution is searching its way to combine these two seeds. I clearly saw that before this can be possible, in order to find a way that they can manifest into humanity we have to bow to these forces of Life and what they did to so many people throughout history and right now.

Being present, as the core of being conscious in the here and now, is ultimately an alignment of body, mind and spirit. Being aware of our body, expanding our movements – very literally – refine our capacities for being present and to go beyond our normal limits. All spiritual practices have a connection with some physical practices, let alone to become aware of your breathing. Becoming more conscious of your body brings you – no matter what – into the here and now.

Being present connects us with silence, the quiet spot inside of us. Do we dare to engage ourselves in color, in movement from this still point, with no attachment to outcome, without controlling it? To let inspiration being present ‘in the moment’ with no translation by the mind?
Dancing, singing, drawing, … are all, besides talking, expressions of our wholeness. In our Western culture so many of these expressions have been cut of. Our ‘new culture’ will need to find ways to integrate these ways of expressing and gathering information. We can integrate the masculine and feminine ways of knowing, because if we need to handle ever more complexity, more of the whole, this is the way to go.

Expand mental knowing
Finn Voldtofte wrote for the gathering Moving the Edge, that the individual and the group itself can be an entry point of consciousness. My dance, my walk at the beach, my drawing can also be entry points of consciousness, not only my talking. So much inner knowing in our bodies and in the subtle layers of reality is not directly accessible with our minds, even if we ‘lean into the unknown’ in our conversation. Words needs a certain kind of being aware that we don’t need for expressing ourselves in sound, colour or movement. Exploring this direct knowing more often and intentional can show us a way to access it with words more easily.
Most of the time we don’t go into an inquiry and reflection of our inner knowing, if we notice it at all! But the world is in need of this inner knowing. It can reveal deep, hidden wisdom. This kind of knowing has to come into the world, to balance the importance of the mental, analytical knowing. When we release the mental knowing that we are so used to, we create an opening, a space where we can be open for other kinds of knowing, sensible in the body. If we take time to inquire and reflect the hidden wisdom becomes accessible and then we can share it – also with words – with others.
We all know that an image, a poem, a performance can carry much more meaning than words in a conversation. Let’s use these intelligences more intentional, individually and collectively.

What if we could/would always listen and think with our bodies and our minds?

Creating more community
In the experience of my women’s circle, over the years we have come to value all these different expressions as honoring and living authenticity. Not only the authenticity of the individual but also on the level of community. Isn’t dancing, singing and eating together a core part of every community worldwide? I am longing for creating this kind of shared culture, as much as Check-in rounds and the bells ringing for silence have become a part of the culture that we all create together as we go.

This was written on my flight back home, while the second Evolutionary Salon was in it’s last day.

Flying between Seattle and Atlanta, not even knowing for sure where I would find Atlanta on a map, I still feel the connection with the Evolutionary Salon gathering. I see a landscape full of snow, hills and threes, suddenly changing in what seems a dessert to me. I see the flowing and curved lines made by nature and the straight lines draw upon the landscape by humans. The straight lines reveal me that humans – of course also part of nature – try to be wiser than the rest of it. If water would flow in a straight line, it couldn’t feed so much land.

The flow and the staccato in the dance;
the feminine and the masculine searching for a synergy;
the balance between timeslots and really open space;
the tension between the purpose and building community …

I don’t think balance is what we need to search for, if it means a careful tended ‘position’. We need more of a dynamic, changing dance. Something that is beyond a combination of the opposites. I’m looking for a dynamic interplay, the wholeness in this all.

Do we need to deepen the purpose? Yes, of course.
Do we need to strengthen the community? Yes, of course.
As long as we see them separate, we didn’t learn much. As long as we don’t integrate this playful dance of energies in our individual selves we will struggle, we will stumble – together – to find process, form and practices that will guides us slowly into the dance.

The landscape beneath me is full of wide circles, all of the same size, within are square pieces of land. For irrigating the fields the circle shape seems to be more efficient…

My guess is that Life itself is this dance. If we live the purpose, engage our full heart, minds and bodies in it, then we are the community. If we engage fully in the community, with conversation, with dance and ritual, then the purpose will be fulfilled.

Is there more to say than just DO – BE – DO it?

What did I learn in the Salon?

I sense a connection with the energy field that is ‘underneath’ all the visible.
I was aware of the subtle dimensions underneath the conversations and actions that happened in the gross, manifest level.

I saw the coming into being of this community, how it developed itself from a field of possibilities to some kind of manifestation.

We all responded to the call, felt the push or pull from the field of possibility; it was Michael who gave it words and sent out the invitation. All our individual visions of what is possible, all our individual treads of silk spun between now and the future, came together.
It came into manifestation because we are willing to open our minds, we are willing to look into assumptions that we hold, we know that our point of view is only one part of reality.
We are willing to open our hearts and go beyond judgment.
We opened ourselves for a greater will, or the soul’s yearning to come through.

We are in a big experiment to weave our threads together until the fabric will be strong enough to include all areas of life. We will create together a fabric that doesn’t have a fixed shape or a fixed pattern. We will weave something really new, totally in line with the rest of nature. A fractal kind of human life, sustainable, playful, scaleable.

Silence is needed, not only to slow down, but to become aware of the subtle dimensions in all what we do or don’t do.
It is not only silence for our ears, but the stillness in our emotions, the stillness in our minds, the stillness in our bodies, so that we are on all levels the antennas for the subtle messages that aligns us even better with future possibilities.

Stillness is needed to be able to sense how we can dance together a new dance, a new creation.

How to give space for the dance that exist between us?

Arriving in Aldermarsh and in Whidbey Institute (for the 2nd Evolutionary Salon) is an all-senses experience! I wish I could guide you through my journey of the first hours of being here.

What is it about all these artful details that give these places their harmonic feeling? Why do people sense ‘the field’ as Jean-Francois named it, when they are here?

Walking from the great Thomas Berry hall to ‘Granny’s place’ on this narrow trail I became aware – again – of the deep silence inherent in all nature. Looking at all the details: the circle structure of the garden on Whidbey; the Zen-like, raked sand square by the front door in Aldermarsh; the naturally formed doorknobs on the sauna; the collection of different metal circles on an outdoor wall; the beautifully written signs for leaving your shoes at the door; … it became clear that it has to do with this silence, the stillness.

Although there was not one super-designer in all this, they fit together and they bring harmony to the place and to our senses. The same is true for the encounters with the people! Nobody is in a hurry, everybody stays with his or her inner needs and impulses, there is friendship in an instant, there is warmth in speaking and doing, there is deep meaning in the stories told at the dinner table.
The beauty in conversations, the beauty in community, the beauty in all details…