Seeds for a happy planet

again by Judy!

This afternoon was moving in and out of confusion and chaos.  I guess this is part of the process.  I felt we were really all coming from different places.  I could not discern a voice from the Middle.  I think we were not at all tuned into any collective knowing.  We were working with Action Learning, which is probably a very good tool, but not working well in this context.  We did not seem to converge on a question or have group buy-in to the process.   So we seemed to stop and start and restart.

All the while most present for me were the questions:

What is our Circle Task?
What if we are doing this FOR the world?

Many seemed to feel the question of how we were to make a difference in the world was too big.  Or that it was presumptuous to think we could really be much more than a ripple in a stream.  I was yearning to move into a deeper inquiry, a deeper space, into communion with a question, almost any question.  I know that from Moving the Edge last March I had worked through some of my uncertainty and fear with this process.  And yet it is still an edge.  After once touching into speaking from the Middle, I would forever want to return there, to that incredible and liberating power of knowing.  To that little worn groove in consciousness, that is now a bit more familiar.  The possibilities are so vast.  The opportunity to shift consciousness even in a small way is so attractive energetically.  It is as if consciousness is calling, magnetizing me and us to answer, to listen, to sense into, to be present, to co-sense, and to co-presence.  Once knowing this experience it becomes a capacity that must be utilized, that must be put into service.  The sense of urgency is compelling.

And then near the end of this long afternoon, Ria spoke as consciousness spoke through her.  I sat in silent support, holding the space, honoring her as the vessel.  Lisa captured her words; I was in stillness and awe of the clarity and presence of what emerged.  I defer here to Lisa’s rendering.  It was a huge shift for us.  We all knew it.

And then we moved easily and gently into dinner and a relaxing evening of conversation.  We glowed around the fire and admired the incredible pictures captured on Helen’s camera – colorful renderings of our faces, our hands, our time, and the beautiful setting that is the Heerlijckyt.

A Blessed day!

Blogentry by Judy

What is behind the shadow? The long held and suppressed multiple ways of women knowing. The natural ways that have been suppressed in consciousness – from Witch hunts, the Inquisition, and our own permission. The wisdom of the body, of the womb, of ritual, ceremony, intuition and of the mental and feeling natures.
And now … And now we can begin to rediscover from this level of consciousness, we can create new ways of knowing from this place integrating all, bringing a wholeness to knowing, a new stage on the evolutionary spiral. From the interval, the space between, in time and between us, we can bring forward these sensing organs, nurture this as if a baby in the womb, that is being birthed through us. We have the power to co-create, to co-discover, to nurture, to bring something greater into being, into the world, to change the world.
Comfort Zone and beyond What is ego still holding on to, how do I still make myself feel safe? Is there fear – yes in the not-knowing, in the nothingness, in the fear of being lost. And yet I know that beyond the ego self is the Self, the one who has no fear, no past or future, no need for anything except to be in fullness, in now, and to emerge. No need for comfort as there is no fear. It is really the One, a Collective Self. The only me that is there is an instrument of how this Collective Self will move in the world, through this human consciousness.
The Circle Being So how can we as a circle of women co-create access to this Self? Are there practices that can take us there? How are death, emptiness, the womb, rebirth, nurturance all connected? Who is the She, the Collective She? How can being in a state of inquiry be liberating, safe in a way, free of all limitations, beyond the fears, pain, holding back of the ego self. Is the long held and dwelt upon pain and suffering a comfort zone? I am exhausted from the pain and fear of pain that lives within me. Can I allow what pulls and attracts me to be the draw, at least to the next level of safety and comfort? Can I be in the chaos that surrounds and infuses this journey? With the not-knowing. I am so used to knowing, to the comfort of mental models. Can I move to this frontier? Can we?

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.

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?