Our Integral City 4.0 project brought together 16 participants from around the world – Australia, Russia, Spain, France, Netherlands, Mexico, Canada. The intention of the 3.5-day workshop was Co-creating the Future of Cities Now through Placecaring and Placemaking.

We explored experientially key maps from the Integral City framework – the Integral map of wholeness; the holarchic map of the 4 Voices of the City; the map of Leadership; and the Map of Spirituality. In the process we invited 4 Voices from Findhorn to share with us what is working/not working/ envisioned – from perspectives of Citizen (RD had been resident for 30 years in the ecovillage); Civic Manager (MH was Director of Findhorn College and past Chair of the Board of Trustees); Business/Innovator (GM had started Moray Carshare and manages it for the county); Civil Society/Integrator (DH acts as the Listener-Convenor – a unique role in Findhorn).

After the Interviews we used Open Space to explore Burning Questions that Participants brought; and then the last day we created 3 parallel Charrettes based on challenges Findhorn now faces. The 3 teams presented to the Findhorn “client”. What came out of the charrettes was: a community engagement design to engage from the lower chakras and v-memes on the Spiral to light up embodied energy BELOW the heart (aha!!!);

A 2nd design was offered for Integral City Practitioner practices that would align with Clients – using the whole spiral to design more complex structural engagement derived from Findhorn’s newly drafted purpose statement.

A 3rd design focused on a housing policy to integrate the 4 Voices of the community plus the voice of the LAND/GAIA in relation to the local district.

The combination of the international participants and Action Research at/with Findhorn Voices was powerful – nicely overlighted by our Angel of Transformation – a quality chosen to inspire us from the Findhorn Game of Transformation.

FYI our Integral City group definitely brought a different ethos to the Community Learning Centre of Findhorn International Centre of Sustainability – because we used intentional design with the Master Code of Caring and had intentional engagement with the Spirit.

As a result, we worked a lot outside the box with the Conversations we had with peer Practitioners (some of whom wept to be finally fully met); multiple tribes within Findhorn (and outside); and with an intentional community seeking new governance.

Participant Practitioners and Findhorn co-researchers are reviewing the Proceedings of the Inquiry. We look forward to releasing an update when the review is completed.