This newletter 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 Planet.

The chance to stretch my imagination for the value of Integral City beyond the confines of planet Earth came from dialogue with another worldcentric leader — a member of the NASA medical team. His lessons from aerospace reminded me that the greatest opportunity for creating new realities comes not from the past but from the future. Our history tells us where we have been in the past and how we survived, adapted and regenerated to live another day. But it is through our imaginations we can literally gain altitude from toxic cities on a beleaguered Earth. First off, from 10,000 meters we can literally see the wholeness that is in any given city. Even Google Earth gives us the tool of zooming in and zooming out at different levels of scale to appreciate the patterns and structures of the city. But it is truly from the galactic distances of the moon and solar system that we are able to see the Earth as a whole system (even in its minuteness to galactic time/space). From that perspective, we can truly marvel at the intelligence we know exists in the pinpoint of the blue planet. We can better see that not just the tiniest of individuals but the cities we have evolved are critical nodes of intelligence—literally dots of light that indicate where intelligence has coalesced in the universe.  

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, p. 264

The Story of Space – ON Earth, OFF Earth, WITH Earth

American astronaut, Scott Kelly just celebrated breaking an endurance record, spending a year in space. (http://www.pbs.org/show/year-space/ )  It is mpressive that he was actually accompanied by a Russian colleague, Mikhail Kornienko who lived and worked with him. This has prompted a re-wind of nostalgia about all things space-related – especially connected to the early exploration of space by the American Air Force (using balloons – who knew?) followed by the Russian’s successful launching of the first man into space by rocket and the American creation of NASA in response. Then the landing of the first man on the moon and more recently the multi-national collaboration to build and maintain the International Space Station.

My discussions with the NASA medical team member in 2007 surprised me because he admitted that NASA was interested in space launches and space exploration – and somewhatless enthusiastically interested in space stations – but was not really interested in space colonies. Perhaps it was because space colonies necessarily require the longterm cooperation of people to make them successful? They cannot simply be engineered – but must be peopled and cultured and socialized? That was when I realized that the study of the emergence and development of cities was not simply planet-centric calling – but was a pre-cursor to learning about space colonies.

How we succeed in our cities ON Earth may determine how successful we can exist OFF Earth. But more importantly, considering what we can learn WITH Earth might well determine theultimate success of space colonies. I have argued that learning ON Earth and WITH Earth is a sensible and less expensive investment than just experimenting OFF Earth, because our whole beings are designed to adapt to Earth’s life conditions.

This is an opportunity that NASA has more recently realized could serve their strategies for space exploration well, because Scott Kelly’s twin brother, Mark, stays ON Earth as a control in the experiment to understand what happens to human beings when they live OFF Earth for extended periods of time. NASA is comparing Scott’s OFF Earth vital signs to Mark’s ON Earth vital signs to learn how they change and what this implies for designing space travel, adapting human systems and ultimately living on other planets.

Scott and Mark and Mikhail are living microcosms of the research project that could be expanded to studying cities on the Planet so that space colonies OFF Planet (and their requisite organizations) can succeed and thrive.

New Website for Planet of Integral Cities  

This issue of Gaia’s Reflective Organ is primarily devoted to introducing you to the new website for Integral City. We have taken the opportunity to migrate a website that is more than a decade old to a new platform and a new structure.

We invite you to visit www.integralcity.com … and we offer some suggestions for a Guided Tour:

The Front Page introduces:

• our Global Positioning System (GPS) tool for finding the 12 Intelligences
• the 4 Voices of the City

About tells the stories of:

• our Vision from a Planetary Point of View and a City Point of View
• our Global Constellation of Associates
• our Constellation Corps Team
• our Board of Advisors

Voices and Intelligences lead to in-depth explorations of who, what and how these impact the Integral City.

Events and Trainings offer an On-Ramp for Integral City practices with 6 Online Trainings.

Resources (all Free) provides links to:

• Essentials for working with the Integral City framework that include Ken Wilber’s interviews
• Books that explain features of Integral City ideas, organized by 4 Quadrants and 8 Levels
• Podcasts that include the Integral City Talking Book narrated by Marilyn Hamilton
• Videos of Marilyn’s best interviews on the Human Hive
• Research by Integral-City-informed academics and graduate students

Services describes Integral City Systems, our Advisory Board contributions and the catalogue of Custom Trainings available for delivery.

Finally, we are delighted to tell you that our Integral City Meshworks Blog is now tightly integrated with our website. You can find it easily on the top Menu – plus when you use the Search function you will tap into the tags and categories of over a decade of blogs related to the Integral City.

Upcoming Events With Planetary Purpose

1. May 4 – 8, 2016 (+Pre and Post Programs, Lake Balaton, Hungary) Integral Europe Conference 2016 explores the theme of Reinventing Europe. Keynote Speakers include Ken Wilber, Don Beck, Elza Maalouf, Thomas Huebl and Jos de Blok.

1. The Program will feature 2 members of Integral City’s Constellation Corps –Diana Claire Douglas and Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, presenting a systemic constellation workshop on Finding a home for the victim/tyrant: a spiral journey exploring the abuse of power.

2. In addition, a whole track on the Teal Organization is being coordinated by IC Constellation Corps Team, Alia Aurami and IC Thought Leader, George Por. This includes Jon Freeman’s probing challenge: So How Does Orange Get to Teal? as well as about 30 other presentations.

3. Integral Europe Conference will also celebrate the 20^th Anniversary of Spiral Dynamics – one of the deep wells of wisdom and research that has inspired the emergence of Integral City.

2. July 5-6, 2016 (Seattle Washington) Impact HUBS’ Future of Cities, Unlikely Alliesis a new conference series building global impact. Marilyn Hamilton will be presenting aMaster Class on the Integral City’s 4 Voices as Unlikely Allies Who Align with the Master Code. (Stay tuned for Program details.)

Celebrating Planet-of-Cities in the Coming Quarter of 2016

March 21 marked the start of what IC calls the Planet Quarter (from March 21 to June 20). What planetary perspectives do you bring to celebrate Earth and her Planet of Cities at this time of year? What planetary perspectives, visions, resources and research inspire you?  We notice an awareness of the Planet of Cities emerging in the news every week – often through the clash of cultures from around the planet that ripple through our cities.  Visit us on the new Integral City Website and Blog and post a comment about your city interests.

Meshful Blessings for our Planet of Cities from

Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Constellation Core Team

PS Here are some some Free Resources for nurturing our Planet and the Human Hive:

1. Integral City MetaBlog 2015 – A synthesis and index of all Integral City Blogs from 2015.
2.  Meshworker of the Year Award 2015 – Imagine Durant, Oklahoma, USA – learn how Integral City is working with this small city to develop a Vision for their city as the natural process to connect Place Caring to Place Making in their strategies to realize the Vision.