| 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. Integral City Reflective Organ –June Solstice 2019 : 4 Voices Imagine the Human Hive For tens of thousands of years (or possibly hundreds of thousands of years) humans were contained in local contexts that became the objects of care that sustained and taught people what and how it was possible to live. As both caring and capacity dimensions expanded within local contexts, those boundaries expanded and the boundaries of the local were traversed into the watersheds, the regional, the continental, the oceanic, the global and as we have now explored, into the Earth-orbital and solar systems—with the ambassadors of our satellites pushing out into galactic and intergalactic spheres.Hamilton, M. (2018) Integral City 3.7: Reframiing Complex Challenges for Gaia’s Human Hives. Minneapolis, MN: Amaranth Press, p. xxx— Scroll to the end and click “View Entire Message” to access Free Resources. Imagine the Human Hive Imagine the city as a human hive – a living organ of Gaia who has a purpose that is in service to Gaia’s wellbeing and sustainability and is embraced by its citizens.Imagine human hives who can resource their purpose with internal and external resources and funding.Imagine the human hive as a living innovation eco-system, where we enable the connections between the 4 voices of the city – Citizens, 3rdSector/Civil Society, City/Institutional Managers, Business/Innovators – so they not only thrive today but create a legacy of life conditions for the next generations to evolve and thrive.Imagine human hives who know how to connect. They can map their existing connections, align people to purpose and priorities. They can amplify what works, let go of what doesn’t and continuously improve the value they contribute to Gaia.Imagine human hives who learn from each other and develop the whole system of human hives in an evolutionary direction.If we can imagine such a city, we can imagine creating and implementing plans for the glocal-scale challenges of climate adaptation, energy shifts, water management, food security and cultural evolution. To do so, we can imagine how to release resources now trapped in city sectors, silos and stovepipes. We can imagine the frameworks, tools and processes that catalyze new conversations, build on the underlying values and recalibrate the assets, capacities and capitals into meshworks of economic, environmental, social and cultural interests. We can imagine creating the model for community engagement, city development, business strategies and communication technologies to evolve the intelligences in our cities into thriving human hives. Signs of Human Hives Emerging in 2019 and Beyond When I imagine the city as the Human Hive – with the 4 Voices acting, behaving, relating and co-creating our evolutionary future, I imagine that by working together we can backcast from that powerful vision of the future. I remember the research I have done to identify 12 intelligences that a city as a complex adaptive, living system would have to manifest through the lives of our 4 Voices, if it wishes to resiliently survive and evolve.From this future forward projection we can plan out what would need to be done to achieve it – strategic designers call this backcasting. [We have mapped out 17 steps in this blog.]Now that we are at the mid-point of 2019 we can consider what impacts our current life conditions will have on our attempts not just to imagine ourselves as a human hive but to become one. We can ask ourselves, “What needs to happen in 2019 for our next steps as a human hive to emerge?”I propose we need to start with Intelligence 1: Eco-Intelligence.We need to thread that through the Mastercode and see how that will change our individual behavior, relationship with others, respect for our ecology and align our human ethos with the whole of life on Mother Earth.In 2019 we have seen extensions of #metoo from individual experience/blame of one gender to other genders. Is it too soon to hope that this process is starting to catalyze the evolution of respect for all humans? For mutual trust and respect (MTR) provides the foundation for healthy human living systems.As MTR deepens, we catalyze the deepening of care for our families to another level of appreciation. This is also fundamental to enable the manifestation of what our children – who are joining Greta Thunberg – can expect as their legacy through changes to our own behaviours, especially related to respecting the ecology of living systems that populate Earth.Through the gateway of respect we can continue the journeys to understanding our fractal relationship to Energy (already started), Information (IT underway) and Matter – in the form of actions/systems/infrastructrues and the relationship to the Intelligences of Nature.Cosmic Holograms may well become the new math for our children. The Blue Planet should become the basis of our new morals and relationship to all life. Ecocide should be a very real (and international) crime that entails consequences, restitution and regeneration. The Plastic Revolution/ Extinction Revolution is already igniting Citizen Voices in countries around the world, demanding that Business/Innovator Diversity Generators take responsibility for their cleanup. Moreover our Civic Manager Resource Allocators are being called to wake up to their real job of creating the conditions for wellbeing by holding all 4 Voices accountable and transparent to individual human hives and their eco-regions.It is time now for the 3rd Sector/Civil Society as Integrators of the Hive Mind to claim their voice of integration and demand that Spirit be welcomed back as a guiding force for life enhancing decision processes that impact everyone in the human hive.2019 is forcing us to look to the End of Slavery and the End of Ecocide– to see the patterns of decisions, actions, legislation, etc. that we must initiate in 2019 so that all our (climate and environmental) targets for 2020, 2030 and beyond can be met.Is it possible that in 2019 we will even start to unlearn the ancient power of shaming and heal it with LOVE to transform the millennials and their children into a force for good?Integral City (inspired by Elisabet Sahtouris) has imagined the full backcast of 17 steps that are needed for our human hives to become innovation eco-systems. You can read the full set here. |