Integral City Reflective Organ – October 2015: Places – Smart, Resilient, Integral

This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from:
Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is Place.

Just as honeybees adapt themselves to different geographies, human settlements must adapt different solutions to the same infrastructure problems. Each location provides a unique combination of matter, energy and information in its resources. Over time humans have discovered and developed different technological solutions for city infrastructure that are appropriate for each distinctive environment. This has required ingenuity and experimentation. 

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, p. 7

Micro, Meso, Macro Place Caring and Place Making

Place is becoming a favored and favorite term in the language of urban planning. From Integral City’s perspective “place” has both qualitative and quantitative meanings. When we talk about creating an Integral City we say that both Place Caring and Place Making must occur.

Place Caring happens when people are mindful, conscious of self and others, embracing the visions and beliefs they share. From the perspective of the integral quadrants this includes both upper left awareness and lower left relationships. If Place Caring are weak, then the capacity to build, sustain and adapt to the challenges of Place Making are undermined.

Place Making happens when people behave in ways that contribute to manifesting the city by building structures and infrastructures – shelters, commercial establishments, transportation and communication systems. From the perspective of the integral quadrants this includes both upper right actions and lower left urban and rural production. When these Place Making systems of structures and infrastructures are weak then the capacity to support Place Caring is undermined.

Place Caring and Place Making are inextricably linked to the macro geographical location (of the geology, environment and ecology), the meso location (of the footprint of the city or urban center) and micro location (of city address), all of which add up to a human habitat. As a result Place emerges from the tetra-realities of the invisible personal and collective sensitivities that connect individuals to the families, groups, clans, organizations and communities who care for a Place and the visible actions and interactions in living, recreating and working that actually produce a design for the way the systems of a Place work.

The history of the Human Hive indicates that as our human habitats have expanded in size, our natural predisposition for creating Places that serve us has cycled from Traditional settlements with an emphasis on Caring, through Modern settlements which swung towards Place Making. Now living in Post-Modern times we have tried to return to more emphasis on Place Caring than Place Making with only marginal success. It is only when we shift to Integral City strategies of engaging the four voices of the city, mesh working organizational directions and prototyping whole city systems, that we grasp the truth, beauty and goodness that can emerge when we balance Place Caring with Place Making and generate a naturally Smart, Resilient and Integral City. Essentially we “wake up the human hive to its full potential” (as discussed in the next article and series of blogs below).

Waking Up the Human Hive Beyond the Smart & Resilient City

IDG IT Smart Cities conference in Amersfoort NL (September 23, 2015) invited Integral City to keynote.The topic of interest was Waking Up the Human Hive and we chose to talk about How to Recalibrate Care, Context and Capacity for a Planet of Integral Cities. Here are the key points we made:

1.     Waking up the Human Hive happens when we live the Master Code: when we take care of our Selves, each Other, our Places and our Planet. This connects our Caring Capacity to our Carrying Capacity and is the core of wellbeing.

2.     The metaphor of the Human Hive offers us an integrated whole picture of the city aligned with the Master Code (Self, Others, Places, Planet).

3.     The Human Hive embraces the relationship between 3 types of cities and how they are interrelated: Smart Cities, Resilient Cities and Integral Cities.

4.     4+1=5 Voices in the Human Hive contribute to city wellbeing.

5.     Each type of city is powered by different energy sources and the Integral City GPS offers key indicators for recalibrating our cities with the Master Code.

6.     The Integral City GPS aligns City Types, City Voices, and City Energies with the Wellbeing indicator of the Master Code. It aligns the natural evolutionary potentials of the Smart City, the Resilient City and the Integral City. It gives us the feed
back to recalibrate Care, Context and Capacity for a Planet of Integral Cities.

Read the whole keynote here (and the series of blogs under Free Resources below).

Pop Ups are Places Too

At Integral Theory Conference 2015 – which took place in mid-July 2015 at Sonoma State University – Integral City took a new initiative to offer Systemic Constellations as a lunchtime harvesting process for participants to discover the invisible, non-linear insights they were gleaning from the conference plenaries and presentations.

Integral City’s PopUp Playgrounds were “temporary Places” designed to attract spontaneous, unexpected, unplanned diverse people to discover in the moment what they can do together. All of a sudden the city’s voices PoppedUp together – in an instant forming bonds amongst citizens, community and cultural organizations, the business community, and civic institutions. Our PopUp Playgrounds were intended to remind us of our capacities for joy, creativity, acting as a “we”, and rediscovering our brilliance. They brightened our day and reminded us of the interconnections that we are so often blind to. We just published a Harvest Report – and you can find out more about the PopUp Places, Process and Purpose here.

Celebrating “Place-focus” in the Third Quarter of 2015 

September 21 marked the start of what Integral City calls the Place Quarter (from September 21 to December 20). What Place perspectives does the change of season bring to your mind? What Place Caring processes wake you up?  What impacts of Place Making connect you to Place in deeper, wider, clearer or higher ways?  Visit us at Integral City Collective on Facebook and post a short note or a photo about a Place for which you are Caring and/or Making.

Meshful Blessings for the Planet’s Emerging Integral City Places

Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Core Team

PS

Here are some some Free Resources for learning how Integral City practitioners work with Place:

1. Imagine Durant Policy Makers Dialogue Harvest Report

2. Janice Simcoe writes “There are many roads to the High Place”. The story, as she received it, is about different kinds of leadership and how each has its place and space.   She tells of the Anishinaabe, also called the Ojibwe, people have a clan system that, among other things, helps to identify relationships between families, connections with those newly met, and the teachings – including some of the roles and responsibilities – of an individual’s ancestors, and thus perhaps the individual her or himself.  Each clan traditionally has a particular responsibility to the community.  Read the whole of Janet’s article “A Circle of Aiijaakag, a Circle of Maangag: Integral Theory and Indigenous Leadership” in Integral Leadership Review here.

3. Check out the series of blogs that expand on Waking Up the Human Hive Beyond the Smart and Resilient Cities: Recalibrating Care, Context and Capacity for a Planet of Integral Cities:

• Bee Hive Metaphor Offers Human Hive Disturbing Pattern of Survival? ·
• The Human Hive Reveals Patterns that Determine City Types
• Beehive: Biomimicry Patterns for Smart, Resilient, Integral Cities ·
• Human Hive: Roles & Types ·
• How Do We Locate the Smart City? ·
• How Do We Locate the Resilient City? ·
• How Do We Locate the Integral City? ·
• How Do We Power Up Our Cities? ·
• Integral City GPS Locator Compass ·
• Waking UP the Human Hive – Recalibrating With Happiness

4. Here are two more blogs that give “gentle” Integral City guidance to share as “Householder Dharma”

Householder Dharma: The Best Exotic Qualities of Home

Householder Dharma: Gaining Altitude on a Community of Blessings

 

 

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Integral City Reflective Organ – June Solstice 2015 – Pope, Planet of Integral Cities, People, Playgrounds

This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is People.

International developer Gail Hochachka proposes that people’s feelings, beliefs and worldviews affect how they are ready and willing to participate in sustainable behaviors (2005, p. 1). Moreover, she points out that traumatic experiences, like natural disasters and war, can damage people and leave them disabled from appropriate responses. Although these interior realities of a city’s population have been largely ignored or discounted because they are subjective, invisible and difficult to study, they are just as real as the exterior physical realities of the city. Interior realities create an interior environment that has just as many or more layers, contours and textures to it as geographic environments. We have studied them through the lenses of psychology, philosophy and the humanities, but until recently we have not recognized that, like our exterior qualities, they evolve and develop. We map the paleontology of our interiors through the shifts in worldviews that enable the growth of our interior landscapes and, therefore, our capacities for response, adaptability and resilience. The key centers of those internal views are the self, the other (family, clan) and the world  (society, sectors, spheres of influence, regions, globe).

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, p. 14-15

Pope Francis Offers Blueprint for Impacting a Planet of Integral Cities

With his encyclicals on the Environment and Climate Change (May, June, 2015), Pope Francis seems to be thinking as big as a Planet of Integral Cities.

Pope Francis has gifted the world with a Kosmic view of the environment and the implications for climate change. He instructs the faithful that God has not given dominion to man to dominate the environment but to respect all Life. He explicates what Integral City calls the Master Code – emphasizing that man’s individual expression must be viewed in relationship to others (particularly those in the developing world and the poor) and nature.

By implication that so many of the poor now live in cities, Pope Francis’ encyclical reveals the inextricable interconnected relationship of cities to their eco-regions and that cities everywhere have an obligation to steward not only the health of people but the health of the environment.

Pope Francis’ sweeping views that marry spirituality and science bring together the inner and outer worlds of peoples everywhere. He explicitly references our need to embrace Beauty and Goodness with our pursuit of Truth.  Without question Pope Francis has opened the door to an explicit Integral Ecology (the name of a whole chapter of the May 2015, Encyclical). In fact, in the May/June 2015 Encyclical the Pope has used the word “integral” 23 times.

Now is the time for all good people to come to the support of our sister/Mother Earth to optimize our impact on our Planet of Cities.

Many of Pope Francis’ points to make impact resonate with our series “How to Optimize Integral City Impact” (inspired by Roger Walsh’s 2014 Keynote at Integral Europe Conference). In this set of blogs we framed optimizing injunctions for the implementation and impact of Integral City Principles:

1.     How to Optimize the Impact of Integral City Work

2.     How to Optimize Integral City Impact Through Adult Development

3.     How to Optimize Integral City Impact by Getting Ideas Out Into the World

4.     How to Optimize Impact of Integral City Work from Direct Experience & Deep Wisdom

5.     How to Optimize Integral City Impact through Transconventional Religion

6.     How to Optimize Integral City Impact with Community of Practice

7.     How to Optimize Integral City Impact as Spiritual Practice

8.     How to Optimize Integral City Impact as Accomplice to the Divine

Read more on this story here.

Integral City Blueprint

People in Dialogue: Imagine Durant Harvests Community Insights

How does Integral City work with a whole city? Durant Oklahoma is emerging as a gem of a generative action research process. We started with a visit in 2013 at the invitation of 2 City Leaders (Greg Massey, President of First United Bank, and Gary Batton, Chief of the Choctaw Nation). At that time we did due diligence with Integral City’s 12 Intelligences and came back to a small group (that became Durant’s Core Team for the next year) with a long term Proposal for Discovering, Imagining, Designing, and Delivering a unified vision for Durant and the strategies to implement it. From that Core Team, Imagine Durant was born as a project, financed by the 4 Voices of the city and guided by Executive Director, Kara Hendrickson.

On April 17-19, 2015, Imagine Durant began its visioning process, along with the Integral City team of: Beth Sanders, City Planner and Civic Meshworker; Linda Shore, City Management Advisor; Scott Moore, Architect and Community Planner; David Jaber, Natural Step Sustainability Expert; under the AQtivating leadership of Marilyn Hamilton.

We convened the first (of nine) dialogues where community thought leaders met to exchange and brainstorm possibilities for the future of Durant, Oklahoma. The special focus of this first round of dialogues was on the Economy and Community of Durant.

Twenty-four Thought Leaders pulled inspiration from their surroundings at the historical Three Valley Museum, located in downtown Durant. Leaders and community members from a wide variety of organizations, businesses and industries took time from their family and friends to share their stories, hopes, concerns, and visions for the city of Durant, Oklahoma.

The dialogue began with reflections among participants over an evening meal where they each shared stories of their personal connection with the community. Over the next 3 days participants asked good questions, explored four revealing scenarios (Dark Days Ahead, Status Quo, Durant Leads the Way, The Stars Aligned in Durant)  and finished with commitments to take the next steps together.

On June 13, 2015, a Public Dialogue continued the Visioning process, as citizens gathered to explore Burning Questions about Leadership Capacity, Engaging Community, Civic Management & Performance and Influencing Business Development. Participants offered generous resources including designing apps for “Discover Durant” and engaging veterans’ skills and interests with city projects.

Imagine Durant Public Dialogue

In September 2015, this first round will conclude with a dialogue with Durant’s Policy Makers, presenting the Harvests from the Thought Leaders and Public and seeking input for taking ideas forward for early wins, supporting resources and aligning long-term strategies.

Read the full Thought Leaders story in the harvest report in the Resources Link below.

Pop-Up Playground: A Unique Way to Constellate Integral City Intelligences

Have you observed the “Pop-up” phenomenon that is emerging as a form of urban engagement, experiment and enterprise? Pop-ups are usually temporary co-creations of citizens, artists, performers, entrepreneurs and even serious city developers. It is often associated with “tactical urbanism” and can emerge as restaurants, retail, and/or entertainment in places like urban streets, flood plains, under bridges.

Integral City has borrowed the Pop-Up process and is combining it with Systemic Constellation Work to co-create three lunch playgrounds at Integral Theory Conference 2015

Joining MetaIntegral’s Integral Theory Conference for its fourth international event (and sponsoring the conference for the third time) Integral City has designed Pop-Up Playgrounds where we invite conference participants to harvest conference insights with the help of the Knowing Field. Lead Constellator, Diana Claire Douglas (Founder, of Knowing Field Designs) will help us to explore and experiment with our conference experience – drawing on the systemic constellation process that taps into our collective intelligence and releases energy for surprising reflections and fun results.

In the context of our Integral City engagements, we call this method AQAL Systemic Constellation Work. Guided by Integral City’s Master Code, we will co-create conditions for participants to engage conference outcomes that take care of Self, Others, ITC2015 and the Places of our hearts and homes.

We hope that you can join our Pop-Up Playground Lunch, any or all days (July 17, 18, 19, at12:30-1:45pm.)

Click here for 10 reasons to Join our Pop-Up Playground.

 

Integral City Calendar for People Quarter

• July 16-17: Integral Theory Conference 2015 – Integral City will sponsor 3 Lunchtime Pop-Up Playground Constellations
• September 11: Imagine Durant Policy Makers Dialogue

 

Celebrating “People-focus” in the Third Quarter 2015

June 21 marks the start of what Integral City calls the People Quarter (from June 21 toSeptember 20). What people perspectives have been inspired by the Pope’s Integral Ecology message or Durant’s Integral City practices? What inspirations, actions, methods revitalize you?  We notice that People are gaining deeper, wider, broader insights of our Planet of Cities connecting not only because of disasters and sustainability challenges but because they are motivated to wake up, grow up and clean up. Visit us at Integral City Collective on Facebook and post a short update or a photo.

Meshful Blessings for June Solstice from

Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Core Team

PS

Here are some some Free Resources for learning how Integral City practitioners work with People:

1. Imagine Durant Thought Leaders Harvest Report

2. Tam Lundy’s leadership tip (offered in Integral Leadership Review – Canada Issue offered a Leadership Tip on Generative Change) explains how leaders generate change through both integral thinking and practice.

Connect to Tam’s key pointing out instructions for generativity that align well with Integral City’s 12 Intelligences here and download her Generative Change: A Practical Primer.

3. Here are three blogs that give “gentle” Integral City guidance to share as “Householder Dharma”:

Householder Dharma: Optimizing Home Base with Values

Householder Dharma: Connecting People, Improving Health

Householder Dharma: Fifty Shades of Green Make Walking Delightful

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Integral City Reflective Organ – September Equinox 2014: Celebrating the Power of Place

This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is Place.

… When we consider the complexity of hierarchies and centers that make up a city, it is easy to see why cities represent the pinnacle of human social emergence. With their concentration of human populations in focused time-space continuums, they require the most complex forms of social system management ever created. In addition the translation and transfer of the extensions of human systems into built form demands the most complex form of structural system management ever needed by life. 

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, p. 158

 

Equinox Reflections on the Tilt of Adaptiveness

Many observers of the human condition suggest that we are naturally resistant to change. Actually I think the exact opposite. The Earth is such a constantly dynamic home, that adaptation derives from our evolutionary lineages and is built right into our histories and daily lives. The combination of the Earth’s rotation around the sun, the presence of our moon, spinning its gravitational pull about the Earth and the axial tilt of the Earth’s spin keep every Earth-based system – including our cities – in constant flux. The September Equinox can serve to remind us of all this fascinating scientific information – or simply be a marker for northern and southern hemispheres, that indicates a shift in how we use that information to adjust our use of energy and matter.  Because during the Equinox the difference in daylight is much greater from one day to the next, in terms of our Places on the planet, the equinoxes seem to be times of far more rapid change in our relationship to the great cycles that impact us through sun, light and seasons. Thus it is not surprising that Equinox times somehow seem to heighten our senses to the “tilts” in our Life Conditions that make themselves known through our food systems and signal oncoming harvest season or spring planting. What’s tilting in your Place on this Planet?.

September Equinox: Thank, Remember, Celebrate Abundant Places

September Equinox opens us into a season of many Thanksgiving celebrations around the world. We remember the Places where we have put down our swords and have taken back our pens and ploughshares. We use the celestial signs to celebrate Islamic New Year, Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, Hanukkah and Advent. And now we can even “ascend into the heavens” and view not only our home Place, but gain an overview (and overview effect) of the whole ofGoogle Earth from space. Which abundant Places could you thank?

First World City Day October 31, 2014: Celebrate the Most Complex Human System

Two years ago, writing for Integral Life, I lamented:

“When I look around the world at the many days we set aside as celebrations I am struck by a major omission. We celebrate the planet with Earth Day. Most nations celebrate a Nation … We celebrate causes such as Pride Day or recognize health awareness like Heart Month. We have Festival Days that vary with the geography and the season … We have drama festivals, sports festivals and ethnic celebrations … We have parades for Saints …Mother’s Day… and some places even have Family Day. But in a planet of cities, why don’t we have City Day for our individual cities??” (Read the whole article here.)

As if in answer to my plea, UNHabitat has created an opportunity for all cities to celebrate themselves on October 31, 2014. It turns out that, in 2013, the United Nations General Assembly during its Sixty-eighth session designated every 31 October, beginning in 2014 as World Cities Day.

World Cities Day is expected to promote global urbanisation, encourage cooperation among countries in meeting opportunities and addressing challenges in urbanization towards sustainable urban development. Read more about it here.

But I suggest that every city should use World City Day to celebrate itself as an important member of our Planet of Cities – with a parade through the four quadrants of the city, led by core representatives of the 4 City Voices (Citizens, Civic Managers, Civil Society and Business) , enlivened by street parties and culminated with celebrations in all the faith systems of the city (see my article for more details).

Because our cities are now repositories of so much wealth and complexity, they are precious and vulnerable living systems, whose existence deserves to be celebrated. This consciousness can contribute greatly to their future thriving and flourishing.

How will you celebrate your City-Place on October 31? How might you invite others to celebrate?

 

 

What is the Relationship between our Place in the Human Hive and Inner Work?

While in Budapest at the first Integral European Conference (IEC), Marilyn Hamilton was interviewed by Alex Howard of Conscious2 TV. They talked about her book Integral City, and the relationship between city life and inner work. Watch the Video of the interview here.

 

Some key points marked by the interview time include:

2:56 – Honey bees are most intelligent species of invertebrates on tree of life

3:43 – Humans are a very young species

9:44 – The 4 different voices of a city

13:35 – Creating a vision for a city at the grass roots

15:57 – What supports people in engaging more in their community?

18:12 – Agriculture has become an urban experience

20:00 – We have to create the conditions that allow us to align our intelligences

21:20 – We need to create a safe space for people to talk about what is in their hearts

23:40 – Listening is such a gift we can give each other

24:34 – Listen, respect and be open

 

How Does Integral Spiritual and Life Practice Cross-Train Us for Thriving in City Places?

Also at IEC Terry Patten (co-author of Integral Life Practice and a key Thought Leader forIntegral City 2.0 Online Conference) was interviewed by Alex Howard of Conscious2 TV. They explored how Terry sees life as a school that continually gives you the lessons you need until you learn them. Terry explains Integral Life Practice without jargon and comments on the value of “cross-training” the spirit and the body and hanging out with people who stretch your capacity to reflect on self and others. Watch the Video of the interview here.

 

How Can You Facilitate the 4 Voices to Engage and Enrich Place?

Last year we introduced our Learning Lhabitats to encourage the convergence of the 4 Voices of the City. (Read more about Learning Lhabitats here.) In order to strengthen and catalyze these Voices, Integral City has created a scaffold of learning modules to guide Practitioners, Catalysts and Meshworkers to gain skills and knowledge for waking up the “Integral City” that lies dormant in so many Places. This year, we are delighted to let you know about two programs being delivered by Integral City colleagues that further unpack the scaffold.

1. Learn to co-create places where there is just enough chaos to evoke collective wisdom, and just enough order to discover wise action.

This framing for training that engages self, other and places, comes from co-developer of the Learning Lhabitats, Beth Sanders and her team from Populus. They are delivering The Art of Hosting BIG Decisions While Looking After Self, Others and PLACE. This will take placeNovember 25-28, 2014 in Edmonton, Canada.

This program will teach participants how to ground yourself in the artistry of circle to:

• Unveil and explore the choices and BIG decisions that you face in your life and work

• Learn hosting practices to engage self, others and places that lead to wise, intentional action

• Advance or evolve to a new level of expertise in leadership and co-creation

• Strengthen your presence and clarify your purpose

 

2. Cultivate authentic presence, clear purpose and agile perspective-taking.

We want to introduce you to our Integral colleagues, Rebecca Colwell, Diane Musho Hamilton, Cindy Lou Golin and Rob McNamara. They are offering the second Integral Facilitator® Certification starting October 29, 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Integral Facilitator® is a 9 month professional training program in the advanced competencies of facilitative leadership and masterful facilitation, designed for leaders, facilitators, coaches, trainers and professionals working with groups.

By combining the core skills and techniques of masterful facilitation with leading insights from the fields of developmental psychology, integral theory and mindfulness practices in the Zen tradition, Integral Facilitator® provides core training for self-actualizing individuals who wish to unlock the subtleties of human interaction that can make a difference in waking up the Human Hive. Read details and how to register here.

 

Blog Series for Optimizing Integral City Impact, and Reinventing Cities

In this last quarter I have written 2 Blog series. The first explores the injunctions on Optimizing the Impact of Integral City Practices inspired by Dr. Roger Walsh at Integral Europe Conference; the second taps into the research of author, Frederic Laloux and what Reinventing Organizationssuggests for Reinventing Cities.

• Here is a link for the series on Optimizing the Impact of Integral City.

• Here is the link for Reinventing Organizations to Reinvent the City.

 

Celebrating “Place-focus” in the Coming Quarter of 2014

September 21 marks the start of what IC is calling the Place Quarter (from September 21 to December 20). What do you think of the new World Cities Day? How do plan to celebrate your city — whether that be as an individual, a family, an organization, a community, a Voice? Or????? We would love to learn from you how we can amplify the celebration of our Planet of Cities. Visit us at Integral City Collective on Face book LINK and post a short update or a photo.

 

Meshful Blessings for September Equinox from

Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Core Team

 

PS

Here are some resources for empowering Place in the Human Hive:

1. FREE video of Reinventing Organizations – delivered by Frederic Laloux

2. BY DONATION – download of Reinventing Organizations.

3. Register for the third Integral Living Room Oct 9-12, 2014 – Theme: COSMOS TO KOSMOS: An Integral Spacetime Odyssey. ILR plans to explore an awesome universe governed by natural forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, expanding them into the gravitational pull of goodness, truth and beauty, and the magnetism of attraction and love as forces we can work with to co-create a better world.

4. Download Podcasts of the interviews with the 12 Thought Leaders from Integral City 2.0 Online Conference 2012 (IC2OC). They explored Place through each of the Integral City Intelligences. Podcasts are available here at a 30% discount for Reflective Organ readers. Individual Thought Leaders can be downloaded for $10 each).

 

Newsletter Published Quarterly by Integral City Meshworks Inc.#601-2825 Clearbrook Rd., Abbotsford, BC, V2T6S3. Send us an email if you wish to subscribe to the Newsletter and for occasional updates: newsletter@integralcity.com

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Integral City June 2014: 4 Voices as Gateways to Goodness in the Human Hive

This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is People.… the second person Intersubjective WE appreciates the Goodness of Life … revealing the moral qualities of the life choices that are necessary on every level of human existence and association. These Intersubjective perspectives are woven from the everyday stories we tell each other in every informal connection of daily life. They reflect the tales and myths we create to pass along our archetypal experiences….The Goodness perspectives become the crucibles that hold our Subjective Beauty [and (Inter)Objective Truth].Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, pp. 63-4    Solstice Reflections on Goodness from the Overview of Planet of Cities Summer (northern hemisphere) and Winter (southern hemisphere) Solstice remind us that Earth’s cities experience our journey around the sun in opposite measures of light and dark. This natural phenomenon can act as a touchstone to our sense of being in Fields of abundance and scarcity as reflected in the quantity of daylight we receive. (Travel from Vancouver, Canada to Sydney, Australia on the solstice might completely reverse your experience of natural light.) But figuratively speaking our Planet of Cities is receiving the same total amount of sunlight all the time – it is just constantly being reapportioned as our Earth’s tilt adjusts the length of day and night across the hemispheres. It can remind us of the essential Goodness of Life and our purpose as Humans as Gaia’s Reflective Organs. Reflections on Goodness from the Voices of Integral Travellers My recent travels for Integral City to Hungary and Russia have shown me yet again this old Goodness: If you want to reflect more  “integral” qualities, travel. Travel broadens the mind, stretches the body, connects you to new cultures and engages you with different systems. Travel offers you the benefits of an “Overview Effect” – the opportunity to see your city from “away” – as an aerospace voyager, a boat navigator, a train rider or a bus passenger.   Each mode of transport opens new gateways into and outside the boundaries of our “home” self, familiars and city – and by doing so helps us re-appreciate what is most familiar to us.By the same token the persona that we travel as, connects with different aspects of the Integral City Field as she/he explores, through the Voices of Citizen, Civil Society, Civic Manager and Business/Innovator, for the good of all. June Solstice: Celebrate Goodness with Voices of All People in Mind On Solstice days the sun appears to stand still and people have deemed them as potent occasions to notice the importance of our relationships with the Sun and each other. Summer Solstice opens the gateways to people in our lives and the ways we celebrate our relationships to Family (BBQ’s), National Holidays (July 1, 4), Holidays and Festivals (Eid) from bank and work. Sharing Souvenirs of Great Goodness from Eastern Europe’s City Voices In the last quarter, our visits to Eastern Europe gave us direct experience of how Integral City principles can be applied whenever and wherever the 4 Voices of the City sit in Council. We met “sapient circles” everywhere we went and had the privilege of seeing how they can bring and amplify fresh energy to the city. Here are some links to some of our deepest engagements: 1.      Budapest, Hungary 4 Voices: Integral City’s visit to Hungary enabled us (Anne-Marie Voorhoeve /The Hague Centre and Marilyn Hamilton) to connect  with the Field of Integral Europe in Budapest  (IEC 2014). There we continued our Learning Lhabitat research into the qualities of the 4 Voices of the City. This gives us the chance to compare our findings with the research we (Beth Sanders/Populus and Marilyn Hamilton) collected both at ITC2013 and with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities 2014. Check out our blogs reporting our Findings on the qualities of the 4 Voices of the City, starting here.   2.      Russia offered us three occasions to think differently about the importance of cities. 1. “City Trigger Points, Country Tipping Points” has been published in the new Online Journal Eros and Kosmos (co-created by Eugene Pustoshkin, Russian Translator of Integral City book). This article discusses the shift in the power of cities to impact the wellbeing of nations.   2. As a preamble to the book launch of the Russian Translation of Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, I gave this interview to iPraktik Founder, Dmitry Baranov , observing how the Integral City paradigm reframes many intractable city development issues. Then I gave my  lecture on “Opening Wellbeing Gateways to the Human Hive”  (see link to slide-share below). 3. In Izhevsk, Udmurtya, I  worked directly with the dynamo Lev Gordon, Founder of ARGO (Association for City Development, an Integral City Affiliate) and his ARGO team which had organized for Urbanfest. Amongst the multitude of events of the Urbanfest gathering for the 44 participating Russian cities, I had the honour to offer a Master Class in the Udmurtia Presidential Palance.     Integral City Sharing New Resources for Increasing Your Own Goodness1.  Building on our great success from the Integral City 2.0 Online Conference (IC2OC) 2012, we have packaged the podcasts of the interviews with the 12 Thought Leaders who explored each of the Integral City Intelligences, into a Downloadable Release. You can access the website to download the interviews here. We are offering a 30% discount from the regular $89 price – at a Special Opening Price of $69, available for the next 30 days. Individual Thought Leaders can be downloaded for $10 each). Try a FREE sample and listen to the recording of Dr. Ann Dale talking about the Inquiry Intelligence – see PS link below. 2. Integral City Affiliate Brett Thomas (founder of Integral Initiatives and partner with our IC2OC 2012 conference) has created a new opportunity for the Voices of Business to accelerate and expand their capacities in his new Conscious Business Coalition. Find out all the details anddownload some valuable resources here. 3. Particularly for the Voices of Business and Civil Society  or anyone who wants to learn how the emerging 2nd Tier Organization thinks, acts, relates and structures itself, you would do well to read Frederic Laloux’s new book Reinventing Organizations. If we are to move towards building a full set of City Intelligences in the Integral City we will have to develop the kind of organizations Laloux has researched.  Ken Wilber has written this enthusiastic foreword and Integral Life offers the opportunity for a FREE download here. 4. A last announcement to mark the beginning of this People Quarter.   Integral City, in partnership with Centre for Human Emergence Canada, will offer a new training: Spiral Dynamics integral ™ for the Human Hive September 18 – 21, 2014 in Abbotsford, BC, Canada. If you are interested in this special city-focused training send an email to humanhive@integralcity.com and we will send you further information about the training as it becomes available. How Do You Celebrate People-Goodness in 2014 3rd Quarter? June 21 marks the start of what we are calling the People Quarter of 2014 (from June 21 to September 20). How do you plan to celebrate your Summer or Winter holidays? How will you spend them with friends or family? What Goodness do you appreciate from your own Culture? We would love to learn about your stories of families and festivals. Tell us how you are travelling, connecting and celebrating together to create a Planet of People-Powered Integral Cities  – visit us at Integral City Collective on Face book  and post a short update or a photo. Meshful Blessings for June Solstice and Integral City’s People Quarter fromMarilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Core Team PSHere are some FREE resources for discovering new Gateways to the Human Hive. If they inspire, intrigue or ignite you and you’d like to bring Integral City energy to your city – just let us know: moreofintegralcity@integralcity.com:1.      Slide share of Moscow presentation “Opening Gateways to the Human Hive”.2.      FREE Podcast IC2OC2012 Thought Leader: Dr. Ann Dale discussing the Inquiry Intelligence. 3.      FREE downloads from Conscious Business Coalition. 4.      FREE download of Reinventing Organizations.

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