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

Action Research is a powerful methodology to use for city change because it involves people inquiring together. It starts with an initiating researcher (I/We), a sponsor/client (Other), participants (Others/We/You)—who all inquire, act, and impact one another as co-researchers. Like a musical ensemble, co-researchers shape a question for the inquiry. The question in turn shapes the inquiry by defining the scope, boundaries, assumptions, literature, methods, biases, and limitations that co-researchers bring.

Hamilton, M. (2018). Integral City 3.7: Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives. Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press,LLC p.xxxi

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Brilliant Legacies from Living & Dying

The Evolutionary Impulse has been active in this last season. It has transited the realms of the living to the dying for 3 people who have brilliantly illuminated the work of Integral City.

Don Edward Beck was introduced to me by Ken Wilber at the first ASTD conference that I attended in the century-inaugurating year 2000.

I had just completed my dissertation on Learning and Leadership in Self-Organizing Systems using the newly published Integral Model, and heard from Ken Wilber the encouraging words, “Well done.” When I asked Ken who was applying this Integral model for organizations, he pointed immediately to Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics. At the ASTD Conference in Dallas, May 2000, (where I was co-presenting the “Year 2000: The World’s First Global Learning Experience”) I walked down the hall and opened the door into Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamics presentation – with his close colleagues at the time, Lorraine Laubscher from South Africa and Christopher Cooke from the UK. Amazed to see the research of Clare Graves (whom Don never ceased to honour and reference), explaining in terms of complexity theory, the double helix of bio-psycho-social life conditions and human development, I became an instant student and subsequent host to 25 sessions of Don Beck’s SDI teachings in Canada. Out of those encounters I subsequently became the co-founder of Centre for Human Emergence Canada and colleague of the global Centre of Human Emergence.

In 2006 Don charged me with authoring a book – and was perhaps surprised that I took the focus of what has become the Integral City Book Series. Don introduced me to the term “Meshworks” which instantly fascinated me in its potential for aligning capacities along a needs and values-based trajectory – and became woven into our corporate name Integral City Meshworks.

Don loved to teach with experiential flare – using music, storytelling, role playing and learning from newer methodologies like systemic constellation work – how to wake up his students into action. He was never content to “forecast the rain” but always enjoined us “to build the ark.”

Don was willing to travel around the world to share the Gravesian insights and more than once paid dearly for the unexpected rejections from authorities (even ending up in jail in one of “stans” where he did not have the required visa) and audiences). But he also dared to (re)build bridges across many challenging cultural divides including the South African apartheid, between Israelis and Palestinians, at the UN and during the Icelandic national bankruptcy.

While Don was a pioneer and inspiration, he could also be an intransigent (business) partner, difficult co-author, unforgiving task master and intimidating rule breaker. He modelled well both the disasters and dignities at each level of the Spiral – but it is the clarity of his SDi foresight and defiance of racism wherever he encountered it – that will argue his case as he stands at St. Peter’s Gates. Thank you, Don Beck, for opening the doors to a whole new way of living in Integral Cities with our 5 Maps, GPS, 4+1 Voices and Meshworks. (See In Memoriam.)

I first encountered Hazel Henderson when I was co-presenting a workshop with Don Beck at the World Future Society Conference in Toronto in 2006.

I am so happy to have that memory of her in her hyper-energizing, strong directional, optimistic being – because shortly thereafter, Hazel stopped travelling to garner her health.

What I learned from Hazel – living, circular, organic, ethical economics – impressed upon me the wholistic flow of Life’s resources. Hazel exemplified the evolutionary power of cooperation and collaboration. She was ahead of her time investing in solar power and renewable energy, supporting the universal principles of biomimicry and seeing human as part of Nature – not apart from Nature.

Integral City Book 1 was how Jean Houston introduced me to Hazel after Jean helped launch of Book 1 at Don Beck’s Boulder, Colorado SDi training. Hazel spontaneously sent congratulations and subsequently “blurbed” our third book, Integral City 3.7. Hazel prepared me for the emergence of Donut Economics, Circular Economies and Regenerative Economies. Like her Power of Yin sisters, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Jean Houston, Hazel was an indomitable optimist who walked her talk in defiance of traditional power structures. She will continue to be for me an inspiration and a model who demonstrated a depth of evolutionary potential by seeing living wholistic, regenerative futures in all she did. (See In Memoriam.)

My introduction to Brenda Dunne was indirectly via IONS.

I became a member of IONS in the mid 90’s as I came to appreciate how Edgar Mitchell, IONS Founder and his team, opened the doors to the intersection of science and spirituality. One early experiment that caught my attention was related to the Random Event Generator (REG) results from placements around the world (by Princeton’s Roger Nelson) – which received some media attention for aligned and synchronized readings of world events like Princess Diana’s death, global sporting events and even natural phenomena like earthquakes.

Lynne McTaggart (author of The Field and The Intention Experiment) went on to document the research originating with the team behind the REG’s – located at Princeton University’s – namely Brenda Dunne and Bob Jahn, Dean of Princeton Engineering and Founder of Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Lab, a parapsychology research program.

I didn’t meet Brenda until 2021 at the Science and Consciousness Conference at Broughton Hall Estate in Yorkshire – where her entire PEAR lab had been transported from storage in Princeton to the newly opened Wyrd Lab.

What did I learn from Brenda? Courage in the face of scepticism, criticism, resistance from the scientific establishment. I learned about humorous workarounds in the face of the establishment, loyal partnership with Bob Jahn and care and compassion with her family and friends. Following her intuition and calling despite refutations from traditional authorities – including their home ground of Princeton Engineering Faculty and University Administration.

Brenda also took a huge leap of faith, trusting in a new partnership with Peter Merry (whom I met through Don Beck in 2004 and Centre for Human Emergence NL in 2008) for a new life and new recognition in a new country even. As Ubiquity University Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Peter Merry honoured Brenda Dunne with her only official recognition for the innovative discoveries and devoted research and scholarship by bestowing on Brenda an honorary Doctorship – just 6 months before she passed into a” virtual life”. I learned from Brenda how to enjoy life one day at a time.

Brenda’s humour surrounded her in her transplanted PEAR Lab where amongst the scientific REG tools masquerading as Froggie, Murphy and Water Flows, Pears abounded everywhere – in art, artefacts and many gifts. My direct encounter with Brenda was all too short but her influence will live on because even the world of Findhorn Ecovillage is interested in applying the REG methods to demonstrate how spiritual connections through attunement, community and Nature beings can be demonstrated with scientific equipment that shows the patterns of our energetic shifts and development. Thank you, Brenda, for your persistence, intuition and spontaneous responses to lively relationships of all kinds. (See In Memoriam.)

Aliveness Seeds 7th Generation : Living Cities Earth

What is Media?

A New Media System

Guest Contributor: Indra Adnan, Co-Initiator of Alternative Planet, in Conversation with Alternative Community Action Network CANCan ULAB Fast Prototype Team  (Maria Dorothy Skov London, Pieter Wackers Amsterdam, Amanda Faulkner Knaresborough, Simon Divecha Isle of Harris, Scotland, Marilyn Hamilton Findhorn Ecovillage Scotland)

… What is it that we’re actually trying to redesign? What is it that we are recoiling from? And where are we with it historically? So from a historical point of view, to think about the last 30 years as having been something that really is changing fast our access to information, and what Pieter said – the possibility of [being] overwhelmed with information.

And then living in the world of people managing that information – how we get access to it, and how much power we have to change the way we’re being fed things. Given that we now have these infinite number of tools to curate our own media sphere.

I want to posit the idea that because of this last 30 years, even though we are often told that … the internet has made things worse for everyone. I want to remind us of what came before the internet – which was really, us having very little access to information. Information nearly always came from whomever was above us – the authorities that we acknowledged or the business we were in, or whatever kind of hierarchy we put ourselves in.

The information came mostly from above. We were told what to think. And within that was many, many skilled and subtle ways of controlling our thinking.

We’ve been having our thinking controlled all of our lives, which is more or less why we are part of the growth economy machine – we’ve become consumers, we are more or less the thing we need to be to keep this system going. That’s who we became as a result of the media that we consumed. And the way we responded to advertising, the way we responded to the news.

We will always be subject to propaganda. What I believe the internet began to do was to begin to make us aware of that.

So over the past 30 years waking up-  wokeness – all of this is signs that people are beginning to get conscious of the way they are in the media sphere.

Read the full Guest Blog – click here.

Upcoming Integral City & Constellation Events with People Purpose

Celebrating Our Cities as Places of People

“How do we become more human, more generous, kinder, more loving where there is inhumanity?
After all, isn’t this exactly what we’re here to experience?

How do we protect and expand our natural, sovereign freedom where there is control and domination?
It’s the deepest calling that unites us across the planet.

This is the real news.
This is new.
This produces new stories.
Stories worth hearing.
Stories that give hope.
Stories that inspire.
Stories that create pathways that others can follow.

These are stories without a central, dominant narrative. There is no obligation to keep up with them. There is no pressure to conform with them. They don’t control your attention.

They are for sharing.”

Sarah McCrum, Blog, 2022

June 21 marked the start of what Integral City calls the Peope Quarter (from June 21 to September 20 ). In the northern hemisphere this quarter is our summer time – the normal season for people to connect back home, share stories and relax. But we are not in normal seasons or normal times. It seems that all the existential realities that cities can be threatened with are unfolding ahead of wherever we want to go – climate change can bring drought, flood, fire or tornadoes equally to our homes or the destinations we would love to visit; Covid19 continues to mutate in unexpected ways; financial down cycles aggravate food, fuel and energy costs. When we gather in circles – wether they be online or in person – how do we encourage each other with Aliveness? If our politics is broken, what is the alternative? Indra Adnan (co-initiator of the Alternative Global) and Sarah McCrum (rebranding herself as Liberate Humanity) and the seed Team of Living Cities Earth are reaching out to disrupt the systems that seem to be colluding against the human right to Happiness and responsiveness to Care.

We are all curious how you might be feeding your soul? What is the essence of life that you wish to capture to make you feel fully alive? What would you bequeath unto the 7th Generation so they become fully Alive Reflective Organs, Organelles and Cells of Gaia?

Visit us on our Integral City Website , YouTube Channel and Blog or post a comment about your city interests on our sister City Makers Mighty Network.

Meshful Blessings of this Season Celebrating our Cities of People …

Marilyn Hamilton and the Integral City Constellation Corps Team

PS Here are some FREE resources for uplifting Integral City People:

1. Marilyn Hamilton, YouTube Video – Recovering Cities Through Rooms of Peace – Integral Europe Conference 2022
2. David Spangler – How to Create a Light Bank
3. Hazel Henderson – Solar Age Video (2013)!!
4. Henry Mettinck, Amsterdam to Paris – Preserving Earth with Wheel Barrow Walk
5. Aldo Ilardi, Chile, Inclusive Social Franchise – Sailing for Everyone
6. Findhorn Films – Roots of Spiritual Ecovillage1. The Findhorn Film, Danny Miller, (9 min)2. The Findhorn Community and Foundation in Scotland | Ecovillage | Auroras Eye Films
7. Bees1. I Dream of Bees 2. Bees Officially Type of Fish in California
8. Integral City Blogs

   1. Brain Gain – How Ukrainian & Russian Brain Drain Will Change Europe

   2. From Manifesto to Mistaken Identity: How Care Brings the War Close to Me

   3. Book Review: Whole Systems Design

   4. Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (1/4)

   5. Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (2/4)

   6. Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (3/4)

   7. Recovering Cities Through Living Cities Peace Room (4/4)

   8. Manifesto of Living Peace: for Gaia’s Reflective Organs

   9. Aliveness Seeds 7th Generation Ulab: Living Cities Earth

   10. A New Media System

   11. In Memoriam: Beck, Henderson, Dunne

9. Newsletters Past Issues 2022-2021

• Integral City Reflective Organ – March Equinox 2022: Fact, Fake, Fantasy
• Integral City Reflective Organ – December Solstice 2021: Rejoice, Research, Regenerate
• Integral City Reflective Organ – September Equinox 2021: Code Red for Regenerative Action
• Integral City Reflective Organ – June Solstice 2021 -Unity, CAN’s, Competition, Coalitions, Collaborations

10. Integral City MetaBlog 2021 – A Synthesis and index of all Integral City Blogs from 2021