I tend to be a big picture thinker. So, when I survey all the cChallenges that are underway with the ccc19cChallenge, I recognize that we are drawing on resources or capitals that arise from the larger community that I call Meta-Findhorn.
My colleague Sean Esborn-Hargens of MetaIntegral has identified 10 Capitals that most organizations and every village or city uses.
- Financial, Manufactured, Natural
- Cultural, Social,
- Knowledge, Psychological, Spiritual,
- Health and Human
When us cChallengers start a project like ccc19cChallenge we think that our individual changes belong to the person who initiated the change/challenge. But very quickly we see from the postings in our cChallenge platform that we are learning together as a community. That expands our capacity for resources and grows our capitals. Using the MetaImpact Framework that looks like the graphic above, here are some of the ways I observe our experiment accessing MetaCapitals.
- Financial, Manufactured, Natural
- Everyone financing food purchases for change (Susie, Daniela, Judith, Marilyn, Mari) has noticed the costs of ordering, bagging, storing food without plastic is a challenge. It requires turning up at the butcher with your own containers and paying a bit more for farm-raised meats.
- Daniela has been measuring her (manufactured/generated) energy needs and discovered the thermostat and kettle give her feedback that allows her to reduce energy consumption.
- Marilyn has discovered that her (manufactured) wood stove design has a brick liner that requires care and attention. At the same time the wood stove enables her to use the same energy for heating, cooking and boiling water.
- Berent has been measuring the (manufactured) weight of plastics consumed by his family from the start of the experiment to the completion. He has realized that the individual/family efforts are embedded in the social/cultural systems that determine how food/supplies are packaged and distributed.
- Jane has been enjoying the benefits of being in Nature daily and/or noticing Nature’s resilience – even in the eavestroughs of Edinburgh rooftops.
- Eveline created a community-wide project that involved all these capitals – Hot and Cold Composting – financing hot bins through crowdfunding, setting up (manufactured) bins, in a Natural setting to let Nature create compost from food waste.
- Cultural, Social
- As individuals report in on the cChallenge platform and/or on FB The Park Sustainable, they are connecting socially with others, creating the meta-currency of valued relationships. These relationships are in turn generating new ideas and influencing people’s choices; e.g. Reinhoud’s change to give up coffee, influenced Marilyn to give up caffeine for the 30 days; Daniela’s thermos usage suggested the woodstove water heating.
- As the various postings accumulated the cultural capital of shared meaning making We seem to have become inspired to support one another in our successes and our little/big vulnerabilities (like, YIPs making their own oat milk; Susie inventing “splodge”; and Kerstin taking little bites of pizza and – thus giving permission to others to keep trying.)
- Knowledge, Psychological, Spiritual
- Berent and Kerstin both have a scientific mindset. And Eveline is both practical and operational. They are just a few of the examples of how their research and endeavours have shared understanding and Knowledge for all participants.
- Various cChallengers have confessed that the challenges give them Psychological wellbeing challenges (and even behavioral/health challenges). It is a comfort to read the postings from someone who discovers their aspirations to go Vegan can extend to chocolate (that is Vegan) and the special joy that gives to realize that change isn’t always about giving up what one loves – but discovering new ways to enjoy life.
- Jane’s posting of the birdsong brought both the capital of Nature into the experiment but also the Spiritual uplift that can come from Nature.
- Health and Human
- More than one person has noticed that improved Health (physical wellbeing) has been an unexpected consequence of participating in the experiment. Kerstin (who opted for eating vegan) has reported improved sleep, sense of bodily health and a “lightness of being”.
- Finally, it seems to be a natural outcome of this experiment to find that we are all acquiring Human Capital (skills and capacity) that we didn’t have before and/or that we are re-membering. Like keeping a woodfire burning throughout the day
As a result of accessing these 10 MetaCapitals it appears to me that we are effectively generating MetaImpacts that are outlined in the graphic above like this:
- High Impact: Transforming systems and environments
- Wide Impact: Transforming relationships and culture
- Deep Impact: Transforming individual’s hearts and minds
- Clear Impact: Transforming individual’s behaviors and bodies
By experimenting with cChange through the gateway of our own cChallenge we are demonstrating the necessity of people to support systems that seem larger than us, but which we are realizing we can change precisely because they depend on our support. When I, you and we change, the systems will change too. And hopefully the Climate that they and we all co-create.
This blog series focuses on the ccc19 cChallenge experiment taking place in the Findhorn Community in 2019. It includes these titles:
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