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 Power.
“The first stage of the cycle, called involution, originates at the non-dual ‘source’ that lies at the center of existence where it descends from the invisible to the visible; from the immanent to that which is presenced; from the unmanifest to the manifest. The second stage of the cycle, called evolution, attracts all creation back to source…”
Hamilton, M. 2018. Integral City 3.7: Reframing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives. Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press,LLC p.10
Scroll to end of newsletter to access Free Resources.
Through the Cracks, a Portal
As we arrive at the December Solstice, we find ourselves standing at a quiet but unmistakable threshold.
Earlier this year, we remembered the Planetary Soul — Gaia’s living intelligence calling us into deeper relationship. By June, the Human Hive was already in metamorphosis, reorganising itself around care, discernment, and emergent patterning. And by September, the cracks appeared — places where old structures could no longer hold, and light began to enter.
Now, in the longest night or shortest day of the year, those cracks reveal something more.
They have become portals.
Portals do not announce themselves with certainty. They appear when a system has softened enough to allow coherence to emerge — when soul, relationships, and patterns begin to align. They invite us not to rush forward, but to step consciously, carrying what we have learned into what is becoming.
This Solstice, we are not closing a chapter so much as standing at the doorway of a new one. The light returning is not only solar — it is civic, cultural, and planetary.
May this turning of the year help us recognise the thresholds we are already standing within, and give us the courage to cross together — with care, humility, and hope — into 2026.
This Solstice Blog Series explores how 2025 has unfolded through the impact on the Human Hive of 4 Powers:
Integral City Weaving Labs Collective (Europe): Integral City of Year 2025
Bioregional Weaving Labs (BWLs) – the collective that is geographically grounded communities of action that organise people, place, and projects to regenerate bioregions is Integral City Weaving Lab of 2025.
Between 2025 and 2030, the BWL Collective positions its work as long‑arc, place‑based systems change: weaving ecological regeneration, social cohesion, cultural renewal, economic transformation, and inner and relational development into coherent, living systems.
At the heart of this work lies a clearly articulated BWL Theory of Change, expressed through six mutually reinforcing pathways: weaving community, building capacity, weaving portfolios of systemic innovations, activating changemakers, developing bioregional finance mechanisms, and influencing policy. Together, these pathways form the primary transformation architecture through which BWLs design, govern, and scale regenerative change in bioregions.
Seen through the Integral City (IC) lens, BWLs do not apply the intelligences as an external framework; they embody them through practice. The intelligences described below emerge through the deliberate activation of the six pathways and from how BWLs work with living systems, multi‑stakeholder governance, portfolios of systemic innovations, and awareness‑based leadership.
It is an inspiration to learn how Integral City Intelligences are being woven across Gaia’s noosphere, especially through the explorations of Europe’s Bioregions with the City Weavers of Weaving Labs Collective.
Congratulations to Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective. We are proud to recognize you as the Integral City Weaving Lab of the Year 2025.
Read more about Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective (Europe) – click here.
Integral City Meshworker of Year 2025: Jonathan Caddy – Ecologist, Educator & Nature30 Pioneer
Jonathan Caddy is awarded Integral City Meshworker of the Year 2025 in recognition of a lifetime of meshworking intelligence expressed through land stewardship, education, community governance, and ecological restoration.
Born in the original Findhorn caravan to two of the Ecovillage’s founders, Jonathan has spent over six decades weaving together inner guidance, ecological science, volunteer energy, formal institutions, and long-term stewardship structures in service of land, people, and future generations.
As long-standing Chair of the Findhorn Hinterland Trust, Jonathan guided the conservation and restoration of around 50 hectares of nationally significant dune, woodland, and coastal habitats, mobilising volunteer networks while also working effectively with statutory agencies, funders, scientists, and government bodies. This work culminated in Findhorn Hinterland receiving Scotland’s Nature30 designation in 2025, recognising over twenty years of sustained, community-rooted ecological stewardship.
Jonathan Caddy embodies meshworking intelligence by aligning inner values, scientific knowledge, and practical action; integrating self-organising community energy with formal governance; and investing decades of care for land and people. His life’s work reminds us that regeneration is cumulative, relational, and rooted in place.
We are proud to award Jonathan Caddy, Meshworker of Year, 2025.
Integral City Constellation Events with Power
Joy Drake Opens 2026 With Two Soul Infusions
January 19 – March 9, 2026
Mondays, 5pm UK – Online with Joy Drake
This two month voyage will help you discern what your soul is ready to explore, find a firm footing in today’s shifting landscape, and move forward with clarity, compassion, and confidence.
Each week includes Soul Infusion prayers, guided meditations, and heart-centered journaling prompts to help you reflect, integrate, and apply what you’re discovering in everyday life. You’ll also join a committed circle of soul companions, cultivating accountability, connection, and shared depth.
Our journey begins on January 19th and you can find out more – just click here.
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Monday Jan 5th, 2026, 5-6.30pm GMT
Join a free live ZOOM
‘Soul Infusions’ gathering
Begin 2026 from a place of inner strength and support. Gracefully release what no longer serves and weave your authentic energy into the months ahead. This simple time of turning inward and making a quiet reset with a Soul Infusions meditation, activation and blessing, has the power to shift the entire trajectory of your year.
Click here to find out more and book your free place.
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New Year’s Day! Thursday, Jan 1st 2026
10-11.30am GMT in the Light of Findhorn
Sanctuary, Ecovillage Findhorn, Scotland
Joy will guide us into a Soul Infusions meditation to enter the new year together with clear minds and open hearts. Adjust to a New Rhythm • Make a Fresh Start • Take it Easy. Joy offers practice, presence, and celebration of the light that shines within and around us all. Together let’s spread the light, with purpose and on purpose.
Simon Divecha, Benevolution: Peak Nature 2nd Saturday of each month 60 min, 6pm UK, 1900 CET, 1000am PST; Soulprint and 19 to 22 March 2026; Footprint May 8th -16th 2026
These retreats are an arc of 3 pieces. They connect our passion with purposeful, powerful, profitable, planetary and personal outcomes.
- Peak Nature – Spiritually reconnecting humans and nature, we draw on that power. Join and: Distill the wisdom of your peak experiences, Treat these as true; Hold it lightly, what other realities unfold?
- 2nd Saturday of each month 60 min, 6pm UK, 1900 CET, 1000am PST https://unfoldingrealities.com/peak-nature/
- The Soulprint – a Place for spiritual alchemy. This is the Findhorn retreat going deeper, assisting with our growing up and opening up.
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- Soulprint is March 19 to 22, 2026. https://soulcraft.space/soulprint/
- The Footprint – a Pilgrimage of the inner awakening. 8 days on the Camino, insight, interconnection and integration.
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- Footprint – Camino is May 8th -16th 2026 https://soulcraft.space/footprint/
This set of retreats opens us to the Art and Science of radically practical action. They all work around letting us thrive in today’s complexity. We discover good sustainability and organisation outcomes…getting beyond things like the ESG reporting traps. Principally we enable this through deepening our connections with nature.
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GAIA EDUCATION Ecovillage Design Education ONLINE March 7 – July 11, 2026
Whether you’re involved in education, community development, sustainability leadership, or simply seeking meaningful change, this course gives you the skills, inspiration, and collaborative support to make an impact in ecovillage design.
Course Format & Details
Format: Live Online Course with interactive sessions, discussions, and project design groups
Duration: Four months (weekly live sessions + group work)
Start Date: March 7 – July 11, 2026
Structure:
• Weekly live sessions with facilitators and guest speakers
• Participatory group design work and practical exercises
• Q&A, interactive presentations, and design studio collaboration
Upon completion, you’ll receive a Gaia Education certificate, co-certified by the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN).
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Living Cities Earth: GLOBAL MAYORS ACADEMY
The Global Mayors Academy (GMA) – a flagship project of Living Cities Earth is a transformational, practice-oriented leadership program for visionary mayors and civic innovators who are ready to move from simply managing challenges to intentionally shaping the future.
“Our mission is to inspire, interconnect and empower 1 million leaders in 10.000 cities”.
- Starts: Friday, 20 March 2026 DURATION 6 months
Online Learning
Offline Practical Experiences
In-person event in Switzerland - Accredited
Crossing the Threshold Together: Cities as Portals of Becoming
“At the heart of every crisis is a great choice — a threshold moment where a different future becomes possible.”
~ Karen O’Brien (You Matter More Than You Think)
December 21 once again marks the beginning of what Integral City calls the Power Quarter (December 21–March 20) — a liminal season when endings and beginnings overlap, and when what has been gestating quietly seeks expression. The past year has felt like a series of thresholds crossed without maps: wars that entangle old alliances in new configurations; political realignments that dissolve long-held assumptions; economic excesses that fracture coherence and strain our shared values of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. And yet, even amid disorientation, new portals have opened. We see them in the rapid maturation of artificial intelligence applied with care in health, education, and collaboration; in bioregional regeneration efforts and Earthshot innovations across the globe; in the steady moral courage of youth leadership and Children’s Parliaments; and in the accelerating shift toward renewable energy and nature-positive frameworks. The recent global agreements affirming humanity’s inseparable relationship with Nature remind us that thresholds are not merely passages of loss, but invitations to remember who we are. As we stand at this turning point, we may recognize that the turbulence of our times is not failure, but the necessary in-between space — the threshold where an extractive story loosens its grip and a regenerative civilization learns how to step forward together, caring not only for ourselves, but for our places, all life, and our living planet.
Meshful Blessings of this Sacred Season Celebrating Power in our Planet of Cities …
Marilyn Hamilton
Founder Integral City Meshworks
PS Here are some FREE resources for uplifting Integral City Power:
- Charter for Compassion 2.0
- Global Silent Minute December 21, 9 pm GMT – Information:
- Global Silent Minute website: www.globalsilentminute.orgFor the story of the Global Silent Minute: https://www.globalsilentminute.org/history-of-the-silent-minute/
- Flyers, bookmarks and social media banners for Global Silent Minute https://www.globalsilentminute.org/resources/
- Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/726040717876690
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SilenceAsAction
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silenceasaction/
3. IPBES Transformative Change & Nexus Assessments – A systems view of our interconnected crises and pathways toward integrated solutions.
https://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change-assessment (ipbes.net)
4. You Matter More Than You Think – Quantum Social Change – An accessible look at how personal agency and collective transformation are entangled.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362456234_You_Matter_More_Than_You_Think_Quantum_Social_Change_for_a_Thriving_World (ResearchGate)
5. Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) – Tools and guides for imagining regenerative cities and places.
https://doughnuteconomics.org/ (doughnuteconomics.org)
6. City Portraits & Data Tools – Practical PDFs for exploring your place through the Doughnut lens:
– City Portrait methodology: https://doughnuteconomics.org/tools/creating-city-portraits (doughnuteconomics.org)
– Doughnut Data Portrait handbook: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/186065/1/Doughnut%20Unrolled%20-%20Data%20Portrait%20of%20Place_v2.pdf (White Rose Research Online)
7. Integral City Blogs
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A Golden Thread: For the Keepers of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
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How the Soul of the City is Revealed through 12 Intelligences
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How AI can Deepen, Enhance, and Synergize the Intelligences in each Integral City Intelligence Set
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Listening to the Inner Voice: Ecovillage Findhorn’s Call to Community
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Scaling Up Consciousness: Applying Integral Frameworks from Local to Global
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Hospitable to the Soul – Living with Beauty, Truth, and Goodness
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Gaia’s Reflective Organs – Cities, Communities, and Consciousness
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Governance in Transition – Tough Love with Collective Responsibility
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From Eco-Village to Regenerative Learning Community – A Microcosm for the World
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IEC25 O’Brien’s Fractals of Soul Power: Weaving Change Across Scales
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IEC25 Fein’s Wholeness in Politics Connects Wholeness in Cities
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IEC25 From Skills to Soul: Weaving Björkman’s IDGs into the Evolutionary Impulse of Wholeness
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IEC25 The Archetypes of Wholeness: Lattuada’s Triunity Meets AQtivating Soul Power
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IEC25 Dawlabani Gaian Science and Soul Power: Exponential Change for a Planet in Crisis
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The Alchemy of Collapse: World work through networks of light, and on making the impossible possible, Guest Author: Daniel Mihai
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Through the Cracks, a Portal: Reflections on the Turning of 2025
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Spirit of Oneness Retreat: AQtivating Soul Power in the Human Hive
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Integral City of Year 2025: Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective (Europe)
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Meshworker of Year 2025: Jonathan Caddy – Ecologist, Educator & Nature30 Pioneer
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- 8. Newsletters and Equinotes Past Issues 2024 and 2025
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September 2025 Equinotes: Cracks Where the Light Gets In – From Collapse to Coherence
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Reflective Organ Newsletter June Solstice 2025: Carers, Curators, Choreographers of Metamorphosis
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March 2025 Equi-Notes: Regenerating our Planet’s Soul
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Reflective Organ Newsletter December Solstice 2024: Soul Power as Beauty, Truth, Goodness
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