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.
The unusual and captivating hero of this book is the city. Not an inert mass of buildings, but a collective, a hive, a holarchy that brings people and processes of inquiry together in action. This human centered approach to systems of a city offers well chosen “sticky” concepts, grounded in practice and expressed with a simplicity that belies their complexity. What’s more, the book offers tons of great questions and grounded frameworks that help us articulate Gaia’s reflective capacity. It’s a resource for action researchers in the field of urban planning and perhaps for all whole systems/integration oriented professionals.
— Hilary Bradbury, PhD, Professor (OHSU), Editor Handbook of Action Research & Action Research Journal, Convener, AR+. (Praise for Hamilton, M. 2017, Integral City Inquiry & Action Designing Impact for the Human Hive, Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press,LLC)
Scroll to end of newsletter to access Free Resources.
Is it Easier to Live in a City than an Ecovillage? Appreciating the Fields of Ecovillages, Urban Ecosystems, 4th Voices
Local Purposing
These last few months I have been dedicating much of my energies to catalysing a Vision and Purpose Quest in the Ecovillage Findhorn in northern Scotland, where I live.
In the process of designing a Vision Quest and then following the paths that people are attracted to travel, we have re-affirmed many of the processes Integral City has identified in earlier times in other locations, working in towns and cities. It appears that key fundamental questions still reveal realities that are the energizers for incubating change in our human ecosystems (no matter what size):
- What works around here?
- What doesn’t work around here?
- If you were mayor for a day, what is the first thing you would change?
These are questions I started using in much larger urban settlements than ecovillages and that I thought would still make sense to use here (see Integral City Book 2). And so the engagement with these questions does indeed raise individual interest, energizes groups and even releases resources – especially when they are interwoven with the spiritual practice of Attuning to the Silence – the greater Field of life that flows through all of us.
It is intriguing and inspiring for me that these core questions still have power. Their simplicity means that most everyone can answer them. They are a potent place to start an inquiry and generate a Field of engagement where the 4 Voices (citizens, civic manager, business/innovators, civil society) of the ecovillage can notice the patterns that connect them.
But now that I am moving forward with focalising this inquiry in the ecovillage where I live, I notice a peculiar experience – that it seems more difficult to live (comfortably) in the ecovillage than it does in a larger town or city? . . .
Looking at patterns of human interaction, from Purpose to Placing to Presencing we discover a fractal, holographic pattern of human interaction – that connecting the system to more of itself, enables our ecovillages to become coherent, our neighbourhoods to become rewarding containers of connection and our 4th Persons/Voices to be heard in the power of their (shared) silence.
Click here to read the whole editorial.
Integral City Deep Reads for VUCA Times
Integral City Constellation Events Inspiring People
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Living Cities Earth: Emergethon
Living Cites.Earth co-founders, hailing from diverse countries, industries, and fields of activity, present a series of solutions ready for implementation and realization. These solutions are designed to benefit people, organizations, territories, countries, and our planet at large. Each presentation, lasting 30 minutes, unfolds a new perspective on how we can transform our cities and the world for the better. Meet a constellation of programs, services, products, and technologies that promise to revolutionize our mindsets and worldviews. Click here to visit LCE’s YouTube Channel.
· Marina Demchenko “The INNER KEY© to your city”
· Marilyn Hamilton “MeshSCAN AQAL City Survey”
· Marilyn Hamilton and Marina Demchenko “Lead ALIVE – LCE Flagship Course Inquiry, Action, Impact”
· Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller “Language of Spaces”
· Nathaniel Whitestone and Joseph Rathinam “SONEC: Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles”
· Ferial Puren & Andy Ferguson “SRG Journeys Technology”
· Andy Ferguson and Ferial Puren “How to absolutely love your life: SRG Journey Practice & Technology”
· Darrell Gooden “Social Experience Lab – Spiral Dynamics Integral”
· Aleksei Groshenko “Agile Career Shift Program”
· Aleksei Groshenko “Integral Leadership Dynamics Program”
· Aleksei Groshenko “Mastery of Leadership and Soft Skills Program”
· Timothy Olsson “Circles – Pro-social networking platform”
· Uri Noy Meir and Ilaria Olimpico “Story Lab”
· Uri Noy Meir “Bama Maps”
· Uri Noy Meir “Theatre that Reconnects”
· Mandar Apte “Be The Change” and “Cities4Peace”
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Ecovillage Findhorn Community Learning Springs to New Life – Click Here for Calendar 2024 New Courses
Gaia Education is a leading provider of holistic education in sustainability, regenerative practices, and community development. Rooted in the principles of Earth care, people care, and fair share, Gaia Ed empower learners worldwide to build sustainable, thriving communities. Click here to explore online and in person courses and Training of Trainers.
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World Unity Week 2024
World Unity Week 2024 invites Integral City Meshworks to join Living Cities.Earth to share views of MeshScans and other wisdoms in WUW’s Meshworks Convergence Room on June 21, 2024 at 11am EDT. Click here to join the Zoom
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Integral City Meshworks’ Team Leader, Ellen van Dongen:
- offers to our WhatsApp Group 4+1 Voices a monthly gathering to (re)connect our global family to share, inquire and celebrate. “Family are the relationships that lie at the centre and connect across our Human Hives. We recognize one another because we resonate with shared purpose and intention and we love to gather so we can share stories from all our 4+1 Voices.” Send an email to info@integralcity.com if you’d like to join.
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Integral City Meshworks as a Partner with Living Cities.Earth
- in 2024 is designing and delivering new trainings. In the Design Room we have the following resources and courses emerging shape:
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- ALIVE series of courses that explore the fractal patterns of Person, People, Place and Planet – including:
- Lead ALIVE
- Organize ALIVE
- Place ALIVE
- Planet ALIVE
- ALIVE series of courses that explore the fractal patterns of Person, People, Place and Planet – including:
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- PROFILES for Assessing, Connecting and Collaborating with the 4+1 Voices:
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- 12 Intelligence Discovery Tour – assessing emergence of 12 Intelligences in your City
- MeshSCAN – revealing 4 Quadrant Perspectives of your City
- Inner Key – (developed by Dr. Marina Demchenko/Panorama Studio) revealing Subjective/Intersubjective Profile of your City
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- PROFILES for Assessing, Connecting and Collaborating with the 4+1 Voices:
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For inquiries send an email to info@integralcity.com – and stay tuned through www.livingcities.earth
Celebrating Our Cities as Patterns of People
June 21 marks the start of what Integral City calls the People Quarter (from June 21 to September 20). How intriguing it is to consider cities not only at Planetary Scale through our relationship with Living Cities.Earth but also at Ecovillage Scale through our work with Ecovillage Findhorn. And in the midst of these dynamic experiences, we are reminded how the metaphors for the city are stretching beyond Human Hives (as we have imagined as Integral City for decades) but to be reminded that cities can be thought of as Forests (as Janine Benyus suggests in the link below) and to gain new insights from the bar coding of our microscopic DNA (see link below). In a time when the news still leads with the tragedies of war, how imperative for survival it is that we are reminded of the simple value of Restoring Sanity (thank you dear mentor Margaret Wheatley for your new book - link above) and the never ending quest for a politics that enables and inspires the relationships between those dearest and nearest and those most honest and clear-eyed in places of conflict and incubators of deep evolutionary change (thank you Mark Satin for clarity in the long now - expressed in your new book Up from Socialism - link above.)
Meshful Blessings for this Season exploring the multitude of connections that improve the health of our Human Hives of all sizes, dimensions and voices...
Marilyn Hamilton
Founder Integral City Meshworks
PS Here are some FREE resources for uplifting Integral City People:
1.Intelligence of the Biosphere
- Video:Janine Benyus – Cities that Function Like Forests: Biomimicry Maps a Sustainable Future
Scientists Using AI to Talk to Animals - Bees – Scientists are Learning Bee Language
- Check out this Bee House
- The Making of the Bees Exhibition, National Museums Liverpool YouTube
2.Wellbeing News at Scale
- How to BarCode DNA
- Declaration de Chaillot – Building Industry Creates Climate Decarb Standard
- Year in Cheer 2023 – Reasons to be Cheerful
- Architect Wendy Hastricht Witnesses Dream Come True: Winda Mara Aboriginal Corp. Integrated Health Centre, Heywood Australia
- Village of Lovers – Tamera Portugal
- Green Corridors Reduce Medellin City Heat 2+ degrees
- Net Zero Island – the First
- Vital Signs Monitor for Earth Health
- Earth Shot News
3. Integral City Blogs
- Ecovillage Findhorn Catch Up: On Purpose
- What’s the Purpose of Purpose for Ecovillage?
- Inspirations for Community Purpose: Findhorn
- Findhorn: Work in Progresss – Draft Purpose Statements
- Patterns of Purpose – 5 Themes for Findhorn Community
- Revisiting Parker Palmer’s 13 + 1 Reflections on Community
- Post Partum Suffering for a Greater Reality
- From Purpose Quest to Exploring Aims
- Is it Easier to Live in a City than an Ecovillage? Appreciating the Fields of Ecovillages, Places/Urban Ecosystems, 4th Voices
- 4. Newsletters & Equinotes Past Issues 2024 and 2023
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March 2024 Equinotes: Surviving Shadow, Trauma, Loss
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Reflective Organ Newsletter December Solstice 2023: Gaia Breathes, Learns, Fruits
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September 2023 Equinotes: Amplified Intelligences, Wisdom, Principles
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Reflective Organ Newsletter June Solstice 2023: We-Space, Ecologies, Holobionts
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