I am at the stage of my move from Canada to Scotland, where small doubts, hidden concerns and niggling worries creep into my daily thoughts. I wonder (privately to myself), “Did I make the right move?” Of course, it is too early to tell. I just have to trust the process of following [...]
Place Making As I set up a new home here in Findhorn Scotland, I notice the actions it takes to make a place comfortable, workable, effective, functional. It tends to focus on the physical container, the artefacts that equip and furnish it, the operational systems we so often take for granted (heat, light, power, [...]
Moving – Stilling – Repeating – that is the simple recipe for motility of the most basic cellular forms that started life on earth. Much of my earlier life was impacted by moving schools, cities, neighbourhoods, companies, sectors and communities. Only in the last 3 decades have I enjoyed the stability of living [...]
Be moved. Be still. Repeat. Last year (2017) I was moved to write a series of blogs on the journey of grief I was experiencing on the death of my husband, Peter. I was moved, by his last wishes, to return to Scotland (north of Inverness) to Royal Dornoch Golf Course and scatter [...]
Workshop Tarragona, Catalonya 20-21 November 2017 New leaderships for what and how We live in times of accelerated change and increasing complexity that challenge us to develop new individual and collective abilities if we want to become real builders of a better future for a thriving, sustainable and harmonious world. We are in [...]
A healthy city is the one that continually creates and improves its physical and social environments and extends community resources that allow people to mutually support themselves in the realization of all the functions of life and develop to the full potential. World Health Organization International Congress on Integral Cities: Transforming the world through [...]
Professor of Cities, Richard Florida has reconsidered the consequences of cities pursuing the creative class as a desirable strategy for their success (subject of his book The Rise of the Creative Class). In his new book The New Urban Crisis: How our Cities are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – [...]
Practising the Principles of Living Systems with intention and attention in/with/as the Integral City reveals that they offer guidance for defining, strategizing and learning the lessons of sustainability and resilience in ways we still struggle to achieve. But translating the Principles into the injunctions of the Master Code produces the holarchy of expanding [...]
The Master Code of CARE that lies at the heart of Integral City evolution arises from the Living Systems Principles shared by evolution biologist Elisabet Sahtouris. The paradox in Elisabet’s Principles is that they are not only biological, but are founded in the assumption that the universe is conscious. That means that the [...]
The 12 Intelligences of the Integral City can be directly connected to the Principles of Living Systems. This may not be surprising given the core influences of their creators. In the case of the 12 Intelligences, I was considering the evolution of the holarchy of human systems from individual, to family/collectives, to organizations, to [...]