This is another Interview from the Balcony. And today I’m just delighted to have as my guest Anneloes Smitsman. I’ve been following her work over many years and now today I have the delight of having a conversation with her. And before we get started, just let me share some of Anneloes background. It’s so impressive. Dr. Anneloes Smitsman is a visionary scientist. She’s an author, a futurist, a system architect, and a leadership catalyst for the transition into a thrival civilization. She is the founder and CEO of Earthwise Center. She holds a Master’s degree in Law and Judicial Political Sciences, and a Doctor of Sustainability. Her groundbreaking PhD dissertation into the Heart of Systems Change, addresses how to diagnose and transform key systemic barriers of our world crisis through a transition plan for thriving global civilization. Many of you may know Anneloes as the co-author of the Future Humans Trilogy with Jean Houston – this book has just been released. And maybe you’ve seen the first one, The Quest of Rose. Anneloes is also the author of the bestseller Love Letters from Mother Earth, the promise of a new beginning. She’s also written in many peer reviewed journals and chapters in books. And she is the architect of Earthwise tipping point system, the lead author of R3.0 Educational Transformation Blueprint, and has been connected with the SEEDS, constitution and new currency. I believe that Anneloes resides in Mauritius. And so with me residing in Findhorn Scotland, we’re almost halfway around the world from each other. So welcome, Anneloes, I’m so happy to have you here with us today.

Marilyn Hamilton 

… What the indigenous invite us to do is to think about seven generations from now. And so I love the idea that you invite the child to imagine what city would they like to pass on to their next generation, while they’re still thinking as a child, because I think they can probably get very close to a real wellbeing and positive place – I can imagine that they would want to share that with their peers,

Anneloes Smitsman

They would want to share that – that’s right. And often [they] have not been asked, because everyone around them is so busy. And they always [just endure] when asked to do the certain task or learn in a certain way that there’s not enough space – [but] you can pool that creativity and I think that creativity is really what makes us so human – is what is the heart of our humanity that we need to keep nurturing. And that is what we come into from those processes.

Then designing for regeneration and flexibility, is also designing for these practices, designing for these questions. And designing not just for sustainability – you can’t create a good marriage with sustainability, you know?  You don’t “sustain” your marriage, or your relationships with others … You want a thriving relationship. So going further, and then initiating a nurturing – what I call the R.3.0 approaches – and that is, when we go back again, to these systemic barriers – what we see underneath these systemic barriers as a result of mechanistic archetypes is a very dualistic conception of life. And dualism in those ways. When it becomes really stifled and very tense, then it becomes also very polarized.

So we really need third way approaches for being able to address that. And that’s a big word right now. I think it relates to cities also – when there’s all these new waves of migration.  What does integration in a city mean? Some people, they may be afraid –  what does it mean? Is absorption integration? Asorption or being absorbed into our collective? that I will forget my cultural roots, my ethnicity, and my ancestors? Will I just be annihilated in this process? And so it can bring up a lot of fears and concerns.

Or does it mean: Oh, we’re going to just agree to disagree – which is not transformative, you know. We’re going to: “you stand here.” , “I stand there”. “Don’t come any closer. I’m going to co-exist so that we’re not going to call on [each other].”?????

So a third way approach is to initiate and nurture – that is first of our making, again, the tensions and polarization visible in the same way. Yes. And then really the very much integral approaches that you work with, so really for people [can] understand what’s the larger We, and where this perspective and that perspective come from? Could it be actually common roots? And what’s the kind of third principle here so that the third way emerges?

It is not an absorption; it is a new approach. It’s a new understanding. It’s a new perspective, it’s not a compromise, because a lot of people feel, “okay, I can’t win this battle. So to get out of the duality, I will just let it go. I won’t go on here anymore. I’ll just let my point of view go, then.”  No, then we haven’t come to a third way ground.

Third Way only happens when there’s truly the emergence of a new understanding – a new perspective that’s larger than what I was before.

This blog is an excerpt from a full interview with Dr. Anneloes Smitsman. Read the the transcript of the whole interview here: Interview Anneloes Smitsman sep30

Or listen to the recording here Zoom Recording Interview Anneloes Smitsman .

Marilyn Hamilton interviews Dr. Anneloes Smitsman, visionary scientist, futurist, author, system architect and leadership catalyst about the r3.0 Educational Transformation Blueprint with 7 Transformative Learning perspectives for Regeneration and Thrivability. Together they explore how the 13 Recommendations of this Blueprint can relate to cities and collective learning processes, and how to invite the future into our learning as future ancestors for the 7th Generation.
 
To learn more about the r3.0 Educational Transformation Blueprint visit – https://bit.ly/2Woxlfo
To learn more about Anneloes and her work, visit – https://bit.ly/3kLI50y