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.

Carers, Curators Choreographers: Integral City in Metamorphosis

Carers, Curators, Choreographers: The Integral City in Metamorphosis

As summer unfolds, the Integral City is entering a season of metamorphosis. Across our ecosystem — from Ecovillage Findhorn feasibility studies to Soul Power gatherings — we are witnessing cities not as static structures, but as living hives in transformation.

In the face of global metacrisis, we ask: what roles are needed to midwife a regenerative future?

Three evolutionary functions are arising: Carers, Curators, and Choreographers.

Carers nurturing the heart of the city, show up through the 4 Voices of the city — Citizens, Civil Society, Institutions, and Business — tending to the wellbeing of people, place, and purpose.
Curators holding memory and meaning, discern what holds life as old systems dissolve, guiding coherence through governance, storytelling, and soulful sensing.
Choreographers weaving complexity into coherence, attune to the rhythms of emergence, coordinating learning journeys, facilitating alignment, and dancing with uncertainty.

Like bees, butterflies, and bumblebees, we are called to pollinate, trust emergence, and defy the limits of what seems possible. The Human Hive is not stuck — it is becoming.

So we ask:

What is cocooning in your city?
What Soul Power is stirring?
And which role calls you now?

We are all invited to become part of this Human Hive in metamorphosis.
How can we midwife the city that is longing to be born?

This issue of the Integral City Newsletter invites you into that inquiry—and into action.

Let’s co-create the Integral City in metamorphosis — together. Click to read our Full Editorial Here.

Cultivating Regeneration: A Metamorphic Invitation for Cities

As the Human Hive navigates the metamorphic threshold from breakdown to breakthrough, the question facing every urban steward is not just how to sustain, but how to regenerate. In his thoughtful post, “10 Reasons Why Urban Environment Stakeholders Should Cultivate Regeneration,” Menno Lammers outlines a compelling case for why cities must evolve beyond extractive systems into living, breathing ecosystems of care, creativity, and resilience. His call aligns powerfully with the Integral City view of transformation—not as linear progress, but as emergence through coherence.

Click here to read the blog, where we’ve distilled his key reasons.

Follow the link for the full article. (mennolammers.com).

Book Preview – Second Sapiens: The Rise of the Planetary Mind and the Future of Humanity

What will it take for us to preserve what remains of life on the planet? Is humanity itself at risk? These are the overarching questions that Said Dawlabani asks in his new book Second Sapiens: The Rise of the Planetary Mind and the Future of Humanity. Second Sapiens answers the question: what would Mother Nature do? And in the book’s Foreword Marilyn Hamilton (even in the Voice of Gaia) appreciates Said’s insights.

If we could hear Gaia’s voice the first thing we would hear about this book – is Gaia thanking Said Dawlabani for creating the concept and coining the word to describe the measures that are meaningful to Gaia as the Living Planet that she is. Second Sapiens introduces the term “Gaiametry” – the metrics for living at a planetary scale.

In fact Said goes one step further and imagines viewing these metrics from Jupiter – giving Gaiametry a context even beyond the planet into the solar system and Universe. … Of course, in Second Sapiens, Gaian Intelligences are reflected at every level of scale – Contexting Intelligences (to integrate the patterns of symbiotic interconnections), Individual Intelligences (for inner and outer agency), Collective Intelligences (for inner and outer relationships), Navigating Intelligences (to steady homeostasis within Gaian organs and body at every scale) and Evolutionary Intelligences. Said has insightfully reframed this system of knowing as a Living System, affirming Gaia’s evolutionary journey as a never ending quest.

But more than that he has posited that human intelligence must now be nested in Gaia’s natural intelligence. Said asserts this shift is non-negotiable, saying: “if we are to survive and thrive as a species in the face of Earth systems collapse and other existential challenges.” … Said takes us through an incisive journey to consider how the patterns that bring stasis to different eras of evolution change from stage to stage. He examines the evolution not just of value systems but of the impact they have in Coalescing Authority, Power and Influence at each stage (CAPI). …

Ultimately, Said moves us away from the Anthropocentric delusion that humans are at the center of the universe into “a symphony both of stardust and of newly born stars, all orchestrated by a silent conductor.”

Thank you Said for serving Gaia as a life-renewing stem cell in her Reflective Organ. Guided by Gaia, humans can evolve and thrive far beyond the disasters and despairs of Sapiens1. Your book opens up the possibility that a new seed of knowing can be regenerated and nurtured in the epoch of Second Sapiens.

To connect to more of the book and Read the Full Preview Click Here.

Upcoming Integral City & Constellation Events with People Purpose

Suzanne Quinney of Appreciating People: Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, Saturday, 19 July (starting from 9am) to Sunday, 20 July at the SunShine room, East Whins, The Park, in Findhorn (IV36 3TH).

This module is a practical two-day Appreciative Inquiry course providing a taste of AI, covering the principles, tools and reflections. Open to individuals, it will offer special in person opportunity at the Park Ecovillage Findhorn, Scotland.

Click Here to read all the details and Register.

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Simon Divecha, Benevolution: 25 to 28 September 2025, Thursday to Sunday, and 19 to 22 March 2026: Blueprint, Soulprint, Footprint.

These retreats are an arc of 3 pieces. They connect our passion with purposeful, powerful, profitable, planetary and personal outcomes.

The Blueprint – a Path of mastery. Delivered in Ecovillage Findhorn, Scotland. This is organisation & leadership focused, within a specific organisation.
The Soulprint – a Place for spiritual alchemy. This is the Findhorn retreat going deeper, assisting with our growing up and opening up.
The Footprint – a Pilgrimage of the inner awakening. 8 days on the Camino, insight, interconnection and integration.

This set of retreats open 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.

Click here to find out more.

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Living Cities Earth: Invitation to become Ambassador for Living Cities Earth’s Future Leaders Project – A Community-Led Movement to Spark Local Transformation.

The Future Leaders Project is a global initiative created by Living Cities Earth in partnership with Earthwise and YouthxYouth, offering a FREE, fully developed 7-session online immersive learning experience for young people aged 15–26. Through a gamified journey known as the Future Leaders Quest, learners build leadership, emotional intelligence, collaboration skills, and a sense of purpose—all while taking part in community-based projects.

If you’re someone who looks around and thinks, “What can I do to help my city become a place where people thrive again?” —then you’re already who this project is for.

As a Future Leaders Ambassador, you become a catalyst. You help bring this powerful, no-cost opportunity into your city, your circles, and your community.

What Makes This Different

FLP equips you with everything you need to share this opportunity and spark local impact:

An Ambassador Toolkit with digital posters, emails, messaging, and outreach templates
A fully resourced, no-cost program ready to be shared across your community
A growing network of like-hearted citizens working to co-create a thriving future
The flexibility to lead at your own pace—in your own way

You don’t have to manage the program. You just help people find their way in.

Three Ways You Can Make a Difference

1. Rally Your City: Share the FLP opportunity with educators, schools, city leaders, local orgs, and youth groups. Be the person who says, “Here’s something meaningful—and it’s ready for us.”

2. Spread the Word: Use your Ambassador Toolkit to share the message online, in person, or through local networks. Whether it’s an email to a school or a post in a neighborhood group, every connection counts.

3. Build Local Momentum: Encourage registration, help spark local Learning Circles, and connect people who care. Your role is to ignite curiosity and invite collaboration.

This Is Your Moment …You don’t need permission to lead change. You just need to begin.

Your Next Steps…

Watch our FLP Ambassador Webinar: An 18-minute online webinar hosted by Living Cities Earth – FLP Foundational Introduction to Partnership Webinar

Join the Ambassador Network: https://futureleaders.info/

To receive your toolkit and get started: Fill out the Ambassador Form – https://forms.gle/T37RP9o8DauCvTXP8

Living Cities Earth at IEC2025: Finding Wholeness for Integral Age

Living Cities Earth (LCE) was well represented at Integral European Conference (IEC) by Co-Founders: (Right to Left):

Theo Eisenman, Marilyn Hamilton, Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller, Said Dawlabani, Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, Kara Stonehouse.

Here below are abstracts of some of our presentations.

Click these links to read Christiane’s IEC Opening and IEC Closing wisdoms.

Click here to access the recordings and livestreams from IEC.

Marilyn Hamilton: AQtivating Soul Power: Action Research Design for Cities in Metacrisis

In this action research design workshop, we explored the possibilities of Soul Power to resolve the Metacrisis that cities face. We asked – “What?” is the challenge? Why are cities so fragmented, climate threatened, at war, polluted, biodiversity deserts, chaotic, destructive and disrespectful. Then we asked: “So What?” How do these conditions arise from and contribute to cultural collapses, aging infrastructure, insufficient housing, degrading environment and broken economies? We shared our research on “Now What” can we do about the Metacrisis? Gleaning from Integral and Living City practitioners, polymaths, cosmologists, transdisciplinarians and ecovillage realities we considered if the fundamental cause of city Metacrisis might be a disconnection from our Soul? What is Soul Power? And how can the Beauty, Truth and Goodness in Integral/Living City frameworks AQtivate us to address the Metacrisis in our cities?

Anne-Marie Voorhoeve of LCE/The Hague Centre Team: Research on EU Coherence+

What is Coherence?

our natural state of being, our true nature guided by the divine intelligence of life – What makes your heart sing?
An experience of harmony and flow among a group of collaborators without a lot of pressure and control required to effectively achieve outcomes.
a means to strengthen the collective power, focus and impact of social change agents working towards global systems transformation.
Working through periods tension is necessary for coherence.

Cohering in the Workshop

Reflect on your purpose driven, heart centred work for the world…

Where does your work fit in the big picture of the great movement and our collective capacity development
Why is that important

Launch European Conscious Media HUB

Preparation	Sensing and researching the conscious media landscape in Europe, Continuing to form the Vision of the Global Alliance with core team of Media Colab.
Formation	Inviting partners to ‘play’ and dialogue to develop the principles and strategies together, seeing the whole together and allowing synergies to emerge.
Activation	Impactful opportunities and projects identified. Partners commit to the Alliance co-created vision and feel enough trust to share resources and airspace.
Integration	Embodying the vision and commitments, grounding the governance processes and procedures.

Kara Stonehouse: LOVE organized – a Gaian system of co-creation.

Kara outlined a vision of how to get from meta crisis to metamorphosis into a healthy, peaceful world.

She offered a 50 year business and governance model for massive transformation to a thriving civilization

Theo Eisenman, Marilyn Hamilton: Integral Approach to Urban Planning

The Goal of this workshop was to brainstorm and co-generate urban planning, design, and management approaches across integral’s 4 Quadrants for cities and districts at different stages of development.Human society is urbanizing à “age of cities” (Young 2017)
2008: 1^st time >50% of humans living in cities
2100: ~80% of global population urban
3 periods of urbanization (Angel 2011)

1/ DOMESTICATION (~10,000BC – 1800) <10% of global population – premodern: warrior / traditional

2/ INDUSTRIALIZATION (Late 1700s to early-1900s) < 16% of global population urban in 1900 – Europe & North America – modern

3/ GLOBALIZATION (mid-1900s to 2100) – Africa & Asia – 2/3 urban by 2050; 4/5 urban by 2100 – premodern, modern, early-postmodern

Maturing human species development beyond the stage of competition into the stages of cooperation and collaboration – expands our capacity to plan (Sahtouris).

Cities move through stages as energy resources shift from Bio to Fossil to Renewable to Solar.

Developments Rights matter: Everyone has the right to be where they are, without judgment and without them needing to change (Stages Intl. 2025)

Said Dawlabani: The Great Obsolescence, A Spiral Dynamics View on Geopolitics, War & Ecology

Said’s Keynote walked us through the challenges to Finding Wholeness in an Integral Age. He addressed the Post WWII World Order, the Digital Age and the Collapse of Planetary Systems.

A powerful slide showed us how the tipping points of Mother Nature had moved from 3/7 boundaries exceeded in 2009, to 4/7 in 2015 and 6/9 in 2023.

The unintended consequences of our “Digital Disruption” has been to make obsolescent many of our democracies, while opening the door to old autocracies to dominate, while new autocracies take advantage of the lack of guidelines, rules and laws to govern our new realities.

Celebrating People Caring, Curating, Choreographing

Metamorphosis is the soul’s slow unfolding into wholeness — not an escape, but an embrace. (Anonymous)

As we celebrate both the Summer a nd Winter Solstices that embrace all people on our planet, we celebrate the initiatives of People who are Caring, Curating and Choreographing the Integral City in Metamorphosis. Like bees tending the hive in all seasons, they care for the wellbeing of others and the commons. Like curators of living museums, they make visible the stories, structures and sacredness of place. Like choreographers of emergence, they attune to the rhythms of coherence and cultivate graceful transformations. Each of these roles reveals how we are becoming conscious agents of regeneration — co-creating new possibilities for our cities as living, evolving ecosystems. In the light of both the longest day and longest night, may we pause to honour and amplify the wisdom and work of these soulfully engaged citizens in our human hives.

We invite you to join us on the LCE Future Leaders Program and create the conditions for youth to learn how to Care, Curate and Choreograph for our Human Hives.

Blessings of Aliveness as we Celebrate People across our Planet of Cities …

Marilyn Hamilton

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

🐝 Bees & Pollinators
2. 🌍 Cities & Urban Livability
- The World’s Most Liveable Cities in 2025 – The Economist
3. Blogs

4. Newsletters Past Issues 2024-2025

5. Integral City MetaBlogs – A Synthesis and index of all Integral City Blogs from 2013