Research Collective Meetings - Master Thread - 2024 Q1

[matthewmccarthy11]

Notes and context for the weekly meetings of the research collective for Q1 of 2024.

Intention of the meetings

To support:

• 🚢 Shipping stuff: create and share "white papers", thought pieces, apps etc
• 🤔 Developing sensemaking: develop our own personal and collective sensemaking

Within our two themes of:

• Second Renaissance Movement 🌅 (aka metamodernism / metacrisis / ...)
• Deliberately Developmental Spaces (DDS) 🧑‍🤝‍🧑🌀* (aka Conscious Coliving ...)

Rough agenda each meeting

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
  • Welcome new joiners
• 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Brown bag talk or invited guest talk (if scheduled) OR Dialog
• Updates
  • Updates from study groups
  • Updates on key projects
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)

Backlog of topics for dialogs

Please indicated which theme this relates to

• What is a 'second renaissancer'? (how do we define this?)
• How do cultural transitions happen? (examining through historical examples)

[rufuspollock]

2023-12-15

15 December 2023

Main takeaways

• We have a sense of our two overall themes: the second renaissance and deliberately developmental spaces (perhaps this can be distilled into one overall theme, like the healing narrative, or conscious cultural evolution, but that isn't that important right now)
• We do not have a sense for how to specifically apply this, eg. a specific research question to focus on. Here is a sheet where we can find new and more specific threads on what we want to do, including a few suggestions from Matthew.
• We are also at a point where we have feel like we have a 'core' and we are in the process of solidifying the core. We are looking to build a lasting group, how to do that may indeed even be a research question that we explore.
• It was suggested that we have a dedicated time in the upcoming meetings to go over our own research interests in more detail.
• We discussed having potentially new meeting structures to find new threads, like brown bag talks

Open Questions

• How can we work together and what should we focus on?
• How much do we need simply to "share time" to feel a sense of belonging, and when can we get on to working/researching together?

Links and resources

• Recording
• https://chrisbache.com/PSYCHEDELICS

Next steps

• Compile a collaborative list of potential topics for everyone to brainstorm in✅Others please feel free to put thoughts/comments/etc. in here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EbWJYdL_bRlG_wMmk3238MpyB6JzyIkUgOwXIFfZRhI/edit
• Create a summary of recent research community efforts. see issue https://github.com/life-itself/labs/issues/203

[rufuspollock]

2024-01-12

Present: Rufus, Catherine, Elisa, Matthew, Simon, Ola, Gavin, Danielle (🆕)

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m) and Welcome new joiners (3m)
• 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Dialog on a topic: What is a 'second renaissance(r)'? (how do we define this?)
• Updates
  • Updates from study groups
  • Updates on key projects
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)
    • What is the Second Renaissance: https://github.com/orgs/life-itself/discussions/994
    • Collaborative note-taking https://github.com/orgs/life-itself/discussions/984

Notes

Intros

Danielle has recently been invovled in 'network building' and 'field builing', mapping similar organizations and people as Life Itself.

What is a second renaissance(r)?

Room 1

Danielle

We are people living the question: How do we become the humans we need to be, both individually and collectively, to be in service to hospicing the old systems and midwifing the new systems that are emerging?

• Need to be active and develop ourselves
• The old systems are not equipped
• World has gone from 2 billion to 8 billion within 2 generations
  • cf https://lifeitself.org/tao/scqh "Over the last century global population has quadrupled to 8 billion and our world is more complex and intertwined than ever before. Unprecedented technological advance has brought great material wealth, but even the rich are still not truly satisfied, happy and at peace. There is a fear of the future, a lack of visionary hope and we distrust ourselves as a species and our capacity to manage our world wisely and address collective challenges such as climate change, inequality and self-government."

Gavin

• Inhabit this place of uncertainty
• Opening and holding different perspectives and worldviews without believing any one of them is definitively correct
• See characteristics of this in e.g. metacrisis framing, see it in meditation centers, frontline activism.
  • may seem quite different, but underpinned by an emergent energy
• Thomas Merton: all big influences / transformation in society are connected with people taking time to step out and then go back in
  • Some people are going a bit solitary ... (that's a big dimension of stepping back in)

Rufus

• Big tent or more focused ...
  • Big tent is great ...
• Features in terms of worldview - see https://lifeitself.org/awakening-society/
  • Ability to see ontology and paradigms and evolution of these (hospicing modernity, birthing the future)
  • Primacy of being: importance of inner development
  • Interbeing and Nonduality
  • Reintegration of religion and spiriritualiy
• A big question is tension with postmodernity/green

Danielle:

• Ability to hold paradox

Room 2

Research collective

• something needs to be shaped
• Elisa would like a space for emergent sensemaking
  • to generate threads etc
• Knowledge commons - what is ours to curate?
  • Who else is collating and curating similar material?
  • what could be the unique contribution of Life Itself?
• "ship stuff" (Rufus) could include
  1. white papers -- but who is the audience?
  2. published papers -- but where? academic journals?
  3. learning materials and courses/learning opportunities?
     - who would be the audience / participants?

2nd renaissance?

• 'Building' vs documenting a 2R
  • What is happening out there and how can we hang it together?
  • How can we create learning materials for a kind of 2R '101' course?
  • 2R course must be more than just a long list of Youtube videos / course materials
    • Need to structure course content in a way that is conducive to learning;
      • deliberately developmental course!
    • Something stimulating and productive itself
• Knowledge commons
  • how we might plan and build a knowledge commons around 2R?
• "renaissance" as a term
  • to what extent can/should we be trying to build a movement (or whatever) OR watching for something to be emergent
  • both/and (rather paradoxical)
  • just 'building' in the modern paradigm is not going to work
  • 'emergent' is important but if seen alone it could be rather (SD) "green"

Room 3

• Metacrisis is a useful term- but how can everyday people have 'language' that can create solidarity/common understanding?
• Does the term influence how we perceive what is happening?
• Does it encapsulate different cultures, not just how it can be perceived by academics?
• Can it integrate and consider multiple cultures?

How can we sense into things that words cannot capture?

Second Renaissance instills more 'hope'. Metacrisis is more of a 'sign post' or 'indicator', second renaissance is more of a 'call to action'

What is there is something that we are missing by focusing merely on the metacrisis?

Shifting in between languages can shift experiences, and adopting words and making words finite can be a problem.

How can it be more of a global renaissance? How can it capture a global imagination, not just a european one?

What are the building blocks that are needed to capture a global phenomenon, but make space for the voices that have not been heard/opinions that have not been heard, such that it is flexible?

C: Second renaissancer =...

• Someone living in time of 2R?
• Someone who is "campaigning for" 2R?
• Someone who is actively working to bring about a 2R?

Summary in feedback session

What is a second renaiassance? (feedback from break out rooms)

R1: Holding multiple perspectives, and also 'playing with them', and not holding any of them too tightly and to be able to see 'humaness in everyone' no matter their beliefs, but also how to take the good parts of each of the perspectives.

R2: Building vs documenting- can we document what is happening out there. What do we count as second renaissance, so we can build up a knowledge commons on that basis? These can then be learning materials. What could we create as a course, which could be a deliberatley devleopmental one, which could be a second renaissance 101? (This in itself would be stimulating)

The paradox of building and emerging. Just 'building' is modern, waiting for something to emerge is a bit green, so maybe we need to go beyond and dive into the paradox for a both and approach. 'Cultivating'. What are the central metaphors of the second renaissance?

R3: How eurocentric is the second renaissance in the sense that it stems from the first one, so how can we capture a global imagination? It is not a 'static' or 'finite' word, so how do we make space for others cultures which can use and understand and join in on the conversation, so that it can elevate the concept? It is not a sign post- more of a living word. In particular, how can other cultures join in at the start?

[elisapaka]

19 January 2024

Present: Elisa, Catherine, Matthew, Simon, Ola, Danielle, Gavin

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Brainstorming questions and voting (7m)
• Breakout rooms: somatic inquiry (10m)
• Whole group discussion (25m)
• Updates (2m)
  • Update re study group
• Check-out (3m)

NB recording from this session is split in two, as we jumped over to Catherine's meeting link halfway through in order to go into breakout rooms

Question brainstorm

Questions transferred into MoC

• What distinguishes a modern/orange vs. a postmodern/green vs. a Second Renaissance/teal organisation? What behaviours, views, values or norms characterise them? 🦕
• What would be some capacities of the future? What capacities / skills / ways of being do we need to individually and collectively evolve? 🐳 🦕 🍎 🦋 Question selected
• What knowledge commons content would provide a good start to supporting both 2nd renaissance and DDS? And how can we structure that content in a way that is most conducive to learning? 🍉 🐳
• What are the important societal roles needed to support a second renaissance?
• How can we facilitate more 'virtual culture' online to help support the networks we are building, through certain rituals or events, not just discussions?
• How can we have conversations (within and outside our network) to 'prepare for paradigmatic systems transformation?' 🦋
• How central should energy supply and availability be, to 2nd renaissance visioning?

Emojis: 🔮🦋🐙🍎🍉🦕

Notes

Question for inquiry: "What would be some capacities of the future? What capacities / skills / ways of being do we need to individually and collectively evolve?"

Room 1

• More on individual and not on collective skills. What do we mean by collective skills? (What does a 'collective' aim to do?)
  • individual and collective capacities not entirely different
  • Music analogy: like a band, everyone being on the same wavelength; coherence
    • the individual capacity is the ability to listen and blend
    • but also collective capacity: can this choir hold it together? Maybe also a bit of inspirational leadership or spirit
    • improvisation (collaborative vocal improv!)- responding creatively and spontaneously
• importance of 'play'
• ability to move in and out of structure
  • 'commoning capacities' (Aftab Omer)
• if a space is going to be a DDS it requires some collective capacity
• capacity to hold and manage tension
• ways of being that are more fluid and can hold complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty
  • open to multi-perspectival; how am I blending in?

Room 3

• Some level of embodiment would be important. In the sense of gounding into our bodies more and asking questions about feelings and stored traumas. they tend to cloud how we make sense of the world. doing better at those things would be part of the second rennasance.
• Having technical understandings and capacities at different levels would be important for individual and collective evolution. The creation of cultural tech with same holding power as big tech companies may be needed to ensure that future generations still get a taste of surpressed cultures by the over-governance of big tech companies a/b testings.
• Capacities to handle uncertainties. And what paddings are needed to handle uncertainties writ large?

Whole group discussion

• sense of being-ness; grounded embodiment; a certain way of knowing in our bellies
  • tangible skill and ability to hold awareness in the belly and staying grounded and centered
  • how can this be developed?
    • tai chi, Qigong, various mindfulness tools/practices, IFS
    • relating to thoughts with a little more space
• holding different ways of making sense
• uncertainty etc are things that we feel in the body; feeling into what is happening on the collective level (importance of embodiment)
  • ability to stay grounded in uncertainty and in dissonance (what do I do when there is dissonance/tension? in improv we're trying to move away from avoiding discomfort and 'right vs wrong' framing, towards how can we build on it, into something exciting)
  • the collective as a superorganism, and individuals as the organs; capacity to sense into what is happening in the collective field (and finding an alignment within that? where is this going, how can I contribute?)
• having the confidence to relay information in a way that is not clouded with judgement
• future thinking, technological gap that will keep increasing
  • technological embodiment
• being grounded in my body: what does truth feel like to me? Using this as a compass to counteract risks of self-development
• membership in a group: why are you where you are? Motivation needs to be aligned in order to have development
• conflict resolution - taking it away from having a conflict mediator / facilitator. Does the group have the capacity to notice conflict, and interpret it as a potential for growth and exprimentation, rather than something that is labeled as bad
  • one of the danger in in-groups if conflict is labeled as bad is that then we all have to agree with the leader --> groupthink, subtly oppressive
  • there is a sense of 'should', what is acceptable and what isn't; you can't have conflict with the leader!
  • is this an emergent capacity of the group? (getting closer to what we mean by 'collective' capacity vs individual?)

[elisapaka]

2024-01-26

Present: Elisa, Rufus, Matthew, Catherine, Lauren, Simon, Gavin, Danielle, Isabel, Matt, Jonas, Boaz

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
  • Welcome new joiners
• 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Recap from previous meeting and vote on question (3m)
• Breakout rooms: somatic inquiry (10m)
• Whole group discussion (25m)
• Updates (2m)
  • Updates on discussion forum (Matthew)
  • Posting questions for future meetings on the MoC
• Check-out (3m)

Notes

Question 1: What are 'collective' capacities? How can we distinguish between collective and individual capacities? 🦕🐳🐙🦋🍎🪲

Question 2: What knowledge commons content would provide a good start to supporting both 2nd renaissance and DDS? And how can we structure that content in a way that is most conducive to learning? 🍎🪲🐙

Emojis: 🔮🦋🐙🍎🍉🦕

Updates

• Boaz residency at Life Itself

Whole group discussion

• Is it the collective which has these capacities? Or individuals have 'collective' capacities?
• Some 'capacities' can be both individual and collective- like humility
• We enable these capacities in others
• An individual might show up in a certain way that 'enables' certain capacities/qualities to show up in others around them
• Emergent intelligence and collective intelligence of things like sports teams. And the opposite where the collective level constrains/defines the individual level of intelligence (or other capacity). A focus on flexibility
• Experiences in collective presencing and Quaker meetings -- there is a difference between oppressive silence and welcoming silence which doesn't sound different but feels very different
• The point in the self where there is the meeting point between individual and collective. Where is that line? Inside is psychology and embodiment and spiritual aspectes.
• Emergence of community togetherness without a sense of individual leader. Emergence of intertwining between individual and collective
• Peckham definition of health: mutual synthesis of organism and environment
• When I trust that others have certain capacities (certain kind of intellectual and emotional intelligence, certain kind of shared background) -- I feel a strong sense of trust and sometimes I say things spontaneously, it feels like a strengthening/I feel strengthened by being part of the collective
• How does structure facilitate the development of certain capacities of being together?

Breakout rooms

Breakout 1

• a 'right brain' question!
• emergent property of a group
• curiosity about whether collective capacity will emerge or not?
• It is enough for indivuduals to have certain required capacities?
• is it more in the process / structure / practice?
• i.e. what is necessary, what is sufficient
• real life examples of where it goes wrong
  • dominance, competitive power struggles, group think
• not the sum of the parts of individual capacities
• no set of sufficient individual capacities - but don't know why?
  • a sense of needing to take your individual capacities and unite with the collective
  • collective presencing & quaker meetings: you've got to let go of the ego, the individual thought stream, you have to put your individual capacities in the service of the whole
• the ability to do that is in a way an individual capacity (is it?) - but one you can only practice or exercise in a group?
• a sense that it's an interaction between an individual capacity and the group
• repressive vs accepting silence - there's a feel to it. May be subconscious or nonverbal. You have a sense of 'I can't really say what I'm thinking', vs feeling like you're really welcome, and it bring out your ability to bring yourself more
• maybe a positive feedback loop in the energetic field
  • interaction between mother and infant: quality of feeling loved and accepted for who you are; sense of bonding
  • I'm drawn into the loving field because of the sense of reciprocity
• How can you foster this? What makes the soil fertile?
  • the experience of being loved enables you to enter into that field; much more difficult if you've been neglected or abused as a child
• I (Simon) felt this capacity in this dialogue itself.

Breakout 4

• Q: how can we build our collective capacities? What kinds of structures facilitate this?
• Collective capacities - consisting of individual of individual capacities that emerge into something greater when put together? (and through that, how is the interplay of emergence vs emanation)
• Vervaeke - following the logos -> can we foster dialogos together and how does it build our collective/individual capacities respectively?
• Jonas is doing Beiner's "New Ways of Knowing" course, where they discuss in 5ppl pods - over the session, a companionship has built where it feels like he can trust the group and "lean in" to them, that they have capacity to support him, and that he is also strenghtened in his own capacity through them

Breakout room 5

• Bion, Experience in Groups (early book on group dynamics and psychoanalysis) "A classic study which, by synthesizing the approaches of psychoanalysis and group dynamics, has added a new dimension to the understanding of group phenomena."
  • Bion! I'd love to bring him in more! (Simon)
• What is group/collective vs individual
  • "Non-duality point": there is no way to distinguish individual from collective exactly. They are interdependent

Isabel

• Thinking about collective first rather than individual first then group as emergent property
• Group and relation to broader environment
  • Extent to which a research group is sensitive to the broader environment
• We are used to thinking about individuals and how they work, the roles etc etc
• But i like the idea of the system constraining or holding what individual members intend or move into

Breakout room 6

• Initial intrigue, but quite a broad question
• An 'individual' who has 'collective' capacities?
• Who has the capacity?
• 'Individual collective' capacity, and 'collective collective capacity'?
• Humility: both an individual and collective capacity
• Someone who doesn't makes it harder for others
• We bring out these capacities in others- in that sense it's collective

[elisapaka]

2024-02-02

Present: Elisa, Rufus, Simon, Lauren, Isabela, Matt, Ola, Danielle

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
  • Welcome new joiners
• 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Vote on question
• Breakout rooms (10m)
• Group discussion
• Updates (7m)
  • Open invitation for brown bag talk (30m inc Q&A)
  • Updates from 2R study group
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)
• Check-out (3m)

Notes

Question 1: What/who are the key inspirations/influences on the "Second Renaissance" in terms of thinkers, teachers, movements, etc.? 🍉🍎🪲

• so that ... we can produce a nice "moodboard" of people and ideas 😉
• so that ... we can understand where different threads of the tapestry are coming from
• so that ... we understand different approaches
• so that ... we learn about different inspirations ...

Question 2: What do you see as the biggest challenge(s) that the Second Renaissance ecosystem is currently facing (in growing in scale and influence)? 🦕🐳🪲

• I like the positive slant on this question, though I wouldn't focus necessarily on "growth"
• Also I see it as better adapted to seeding research topics for people to actually collaborate on

Question 3: What are some of our 'collective blindspots'? In what ways might the Second Renaissance ecosystem be reproducing the systems of domination and modes of thinking that it is trying to move away from? 🔮🍉🐳🍎🦕

• What are the systems of domination (we are moving away from)
• What are modes of thinking (we are moving away from)

Emojis: 🔮🦋🐙🍎🍉🦕🪲

Updates

• Rufus to do a brown bag talk in Feb

Group Discussion

• Rufus: meta-point: how do "progress" in these meetings. 3 dimension
  • Cultivating the sensemaking field of the group. This happens as have more a shared grounding and approach.
  • Progress in terms of outputs which means things like ...
    • A tapestry for these inquiries ... so that what we do contributes to a greater whole. e.g. if we inquire into collective blindspots how does that connect with our larger research program?
    • Distilling e.g. out of today's inquiry about blindspots producing a proper list (that can be added)
    • Persisting/cumulation in an inquiry: e.g. we may only get so far today. Perhaps we want to return to this topic
• what are some concrete blindspots? What do they look like in real life?
• Simon: Question 3 more liable to get drawn into polarisation
  • risk of name-calling ("you've got a blindspot!")
  • tends to unite around opposition, which is ineffective
  • one of the biggest challenges for the ecosystem is to maintain a positive image/growth potential

Post-breakout

• Simon: what are we focusing on in terms of intention? Way Q3 is phrased isn't linked to a positive growth dimension - what do we need to be doing differently, rather than thinking differently? Then we can come to the blindspots that prevent us from doing things differently?
  • language limits what we're doing, and our conception of what we're doing
• Matt: maybe it's more the other way round in many cases: blindspots shed light on ways of doing things differently
  • things that we can do differently can come out of blindspots
  • example: this community talks a lot about intuition, collective sensemaking, lots of right brain kinds of activities, but very left brain in the approach of talking about it and approaching it/problem-solving. Lots of talk about the benefits of doing things differently, but not put into practice
• Matt: this ecosystem can be a bit exclusionary at times
  • based on someone's background or credentials and whetehr they make someone worth listening to
  • people might not have time outside of work/family commitments to be able to join discussions like this in meaningful ways
• Ola: what could left brain practices look like?
• Simon: where is the actual meat? What do we actually do here and now?
• Elisa: Activating agency in people
  • how can we collectively consciously co-create the kinds of spaces that we want to be part of?
  • playing with emergence (as in style of facilitation)
  • inviting intuition and other ways of knowing (not just logical solutions)
• Ola: more emergence
• Simon: getting a sense of a desire for a collective awareness of what we are doing - a reflective collective self-awareness - what's really going on?
  • What's going on includes what's going on in each individual's psyche, but also a collective awareness that is emergent (and/or about the emergent)

Breakout Rooms

Room 2

• idea of blindspots creates an interesting enquiry
• entry points for talking with others
• can we uncover the hidden?
• juxtaposing Western & African/multi-tribal-cultural perspectives
• what are the words and classifications that are causing more problems?
• nobody is entitled to dictate the topic/mode of conversation
• can be a bias to favour one group or another
• when making suggestions: come back to the intention of surfacing perspectives that have been overlooked or not considered
• "collective" — starting point can be giving space to hear the blindspots that people individually are actually aware of
• language / vocabulary can also serve to hide things

Room 3

• People get very argumentative
• example: disconnect between values in principle, and action/behaviour
• lots of good things about academia as a container - but clearly not the way forward entirely
  • need space to keep searching
  • this transition period is this multiplicity of voices/frameworks coming to the fore
  • job is not how to do this without bias, but how to include that mutliplicity, without getting stuck in any of them; not so much about agreeing on a particular framework
• Different ways of knowing; What is a valid data-point for sensemaking?
• any position has its blindspots
• "What are the blindspots of the 2R" is such a logically structured question; what will happen is another list of ways of knowing/seeing -- the act of thinking this way (what's included/excluded) feels like another blindspot
  • as if we're going to arrive at a final destination that is the 'right' way of seeing/being, etc

[elisapaka]

2024-02-09

Present: Rufus, Catherine, Elisa, Matthew, Simon, Isabella, Danielle, Gavin

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Brown bag talk: Gap Analysis by Elisa & Catherine
• Q&A and discussion
• Updates
  • Update from study groups
  • Update on key projects
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)
• AOB
  • Intentions of research collective calls
  • Timing
• Check-out (3m)

Next Actions

• Catherine/Elisa Sync with Danielle re ecosystem work and Limicon
• Isabela to share notes on collective intelligence for group work
• Arrange call with Isabella in next couple of weeks

Notes for purposes of the call

We have two:

• "Ship stuff" e.g. white papers, thought pieces, summaries of existing work etc. This is the priority
• Cultivating the sensemaking field of the group. Secondary goal. Supportive contributor

Small steps to shipping stuff ...

• We don't have to write a white paper or literature summary straight off
• Can start with a short talk or a post in the forum
• These can then cumulate ...

What would support shipping stuff

• An overall tapestry/program that informs so that what we do week to week contributes to a greater whole. Both informing what we work on and seeing how a given effort integrates into that whole e.g. how does an inquiry into collective blindspots connect with a larger research program?
• Distillation: e.g. when we have a meeting on inquiry doing some effort to distill and summarize.
• Persisting/cumulation in an inquiry: e.g. we may only get so far in one call. Perhaps, we want to return to a topic several times, each time building on what we did before.

Pattern: have a presentation every time

• You have to write something to present
• We have to present every session
• Present at the first opportunity, can be very raw
• People then volunteer to support. Accountability partner - someone who volunteers after a presentaion.

Simon:

• what does the collective writing process feel like? Not sure about that... different ways of writing together, and that's something that's very close to the core questions here, and it should not be ignored.
• What forms of co-creation would work? We should really be thinking about this
• People giving ideas and someone putting it together... to be collective there's something more than that

Prompt questions

What capacities do change agents in the emerging ecosystem need to develop so that the ecosystem becomes more coherent and impactful?

Related sub-question:

What challenges do change agents face in cohering and being impactful?

Notes

• The emerging ecosystem 'does not have a clear name or identity'
• What does this ecosystem need to be a system of influence and power?
• Specifically, what are the capacities change agents need to be more influential? More specifically, more of the inner capacities?
• Three ecosystem level challenges:
  • Developing healthy relational cultures
    • high in trust
  • Cultivating emerging ways of working together
  • Reckoning with the power of dominant cultural paradigms
• 6 individual capacities
  • Being with uncertainty & complexity
  • Deconstructing and unlearning existing mental structures
  • Addressing reactivity, tension & conflict
  • Agency & capacity to implement vision
  • Acting in service of the greater whole
  • Inner resourcing

Questions

• How does the overall ecosystem communicate and work together across organizations, another key 'ecosystem challenge?' (related to ecosystem challenge 2)
• Another challenge: how does this ecosystem 'fit' into the current power structures of our world, does the ecosystem have such a vision? (related to 3)

Breakout room 1

• Isabella: have we tried to talk with cultures and contexts that have gone through all these capacities - many indigenous cultures have worked though how to do this together, and the challenge of when there is a dominant superstructure of thinking, how do you find resources, capacities to keep going and persevere? There are ways of practicing and showing up for each other that we might be able to learn from these cultures?
  • Very specific fit here: these ways of knowing and novel ways of working together - there might be a cheat sheet for what are now regarded as 'new' capacities
• Simon: high-level questions
  • Six capacities - difficulty with any listing
    • why six?
    • is there six but there might be more? Or different ways of organising those six
  • Structure of interviews
    • You'll get different perspectives, but we are putting them together
    • Would be interesting to get people together and get them into dialogue: does this language / perspective make sense in the other person's perspective?
    • How do the things that people say relate?
  • How are we going to use this?
    • We found enough that we're going to build a course on this?
    • Where does this go? So what?
• Rufus: if we want to share this report more broadly, this is important feedback
  • The context for this is to support the creation of learning journeys (instrumentalist part)
  • important to frame / emphasise at the beginning is our distillation of what we've seen in the interviews (this is what we found - not the 'right' or 'final' ones)
• Simon: then the question would be, what's the next step? Where can we take this forward?
• Isabella: given the 12 interviews, are they a core set of people everyone would agree are the 'centre' of the field?
• Rufus: not very well-known, but actively involved, particularly in Europe
  • Quite a few people in the integral networks, but also people outside of that
• Isabella: so important to talk about mapping (who the interviewees are?), because it's so ephemeral
  • Where are these namings coming from? There are different mindsets of where the namings for the ecosystem are coming from?
• Rufus: we'd love to do a piece on the naming
• Simon: we need a nuanced view on standardisation of curricula (question is what to standardise)

Breakout room 2

• Catherine: an 'emergent method'. The importance of critical connections over critical mass. Even our forms of capacities, let's hold them loosely.
• Gavin: what is the value of mapping the emergent ecosystem? Does it make sense to 'safeguard' the ecosystem, is that a modern tendency, should we just trust 'what is emerging'? How can we make sure to not bring in the old system into the new system?
• Matthew: three level challenges: individual, ecosystem, overall
• Danielle: what was the method? what are next steps?

Whole group harvest

• Danielle: The process of designing LimiCon is an emergent process - could link up as a case study to link up with/examine what the report is talking about
  • Would love for the report to be presented at Limicon

[elisapaka]

2024-02-16

Present: Elisa, Matthew, Catherine, Danielle, Isabela, Simon, Ola, Rufus, Jonas

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Brown bag talk: Matthew on DDS report (15m)
• Q&A and discussion
• Updates
  • Update from study groups
  • Update on key projects
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)
• Check-out (3m)

Notes on Presentation

• Why DDSs are a good idea and a necessary ingredient for our current context
  • Not necessarily a new idea. Such spaces have been around for 100s or 1000s of years!
  • Kam Bellamy researching gap year programs in the US
• DDS = spaces that have a distinct focus on inner development, and are physically located; people working on inner development deliberately
• 2023: we researched what these spaces are, the practices, concepts and language that are already there and used but not coherent
• Initial inspiration and language:
  • Kegan, Jeffrey Martin, George Kelly, SEL, IFS, creative community model
  • Maps (theoretical frameworks) + rafts (practices, ways to embody the framework in practice, domains)
  • Youth development - places specifically geared to this in phase 1
    • In phase 2, broadening to include adult development, so development more broadly
• Fundamental questions
  • what is HD and how does it happen?
  • Can there be a scale?
  • ...
• Practical questions
  • ...
• Building the field
  • defined by centre, not by boundaries
  • what is the centre of the field so far?
    • Network / group of people on late October call
    • Database of 45 orgs
    • manifesto
    • report
    • ...
• Moving from phase 1 to phase 2: build the network
  • We think it will be composed of:
    • research: like this report
    • action: supporting initiatives to get off the ground
    • exchange: networking
• next steps:
  • launching network
  • research: solidify language and concepts
  • evidence of impact
  • development of ecosystem

Q&A

• Isabella: excited you guys have done this. Would love to understand two things:
  • Love concept of maps & rafts - I had a difficult time when luanching liminal learning, finding anything similar to it. Is this field still fuzzy and being defined like the 2R? How articulated is this ecosystem?
• Matthew: similar to 2R in that it's still being formed. What stood out from the research - did interviews with ~10 people working in this - and all of them expressed need for network. People who are involved now are eager to move it forward.
• Rufus: we didn't find a perfect examplar in the full version of how we defined it. But I've met quite a few people in the last months, and I can feel that there is something condensing in that centre; people find the term DDS useful. What are some of the features?
  • It has a map / some conception and model (consciously) of inner development
  • Having a raft: what are the practices that they are doing?
• Simon: Rufus said there aren't any perfect cases of DDS - interested in clarifying what a DDS is exactly. Bergerac hub has tried to be a DDS, but how do you appreciate/guage/sense (holding back from using word 'measure') stages/positions [of development]?
• Isabella: background is in measurement. Curious about how you all are approaching this. Scientific methodology and framework and outcome measurement that it gives us is one way. I've been arguing we're still at the stage of pulling together the theory and piloting the practices, which is way before it being appropriate to measure / do an RCT on it.
• Matt: can we share this report? Is it ready to be shared?
• Matthew: not yet, but soon. We'll put it on developmental spaces.org
• Jonas: agree we're at the beginning of this. Incredibly diverse space. Frustration at not bein able to define DDS, but we need at least a process of figuring it out. At the same time, I see the network's function as people connecting, talking, learning from each other; avoiding making the same mistakes.
• Matt: in response to point about studying these spaces - residency that was ran in Bergerac, Boaz published a paper, looking to expand it through the upcoming residency in June.
• Rufus: say you have a map. You navigate by landmarks, e.g. there's a river. On your map (model of ontological development/healing), you also want to know where you are no it, to see if you shifted location (measurement). In any model, does it have landmark features that you can notice? Asked this question to Theo Dawson from Lectica - have a good way of measuring hierarchical complexity. Their test costs 150 dollars, asked if we can get some for free to assess impact of residencies.
  • Models like Kegan: either they don't have a good thing they're assessing (e.g. evolving self model mashes together lots of things into ego development). ...
  • We're still in search of robust maps
• Simon: surprised that people seem to have neglected William G Perry. I was impressed by the mesurement technique. Unsrcutured interviews rated by different people. Inter-rating reliability was key variable. Perry didn't thik there was much that could be done to deliberately develop. Not an inclusive sample, but at least it's a model. Has a pragmatic assessment approach. Will have to have a look at Lectica
• Isabela: getting layman's terms PTSD. Have tried to take all stage theorists, throw away most of stage theory, but bring in different measurements that are complexity based. Lots of people have come to conclusion there are context-specific measurements, but whether we want to find a context-unspecific way
• maps and rafts - natural way to go. you're trying to wayfind, traversing tensions, rather than going into a, b and c. Would love to know if there are more people thinking abut it as way-finding, rather than as having goals in these spaces. There's damage in telling youg people that stage 5 is where you need to get to
  • Time: something like kairos, measuring timing rather than time; measure of relativity of where you were and where you might be going, but be a good way that is context dependent
• Jonas: Zak Stein wrote measurement is an expression of power. When you try to measure something, there will be simplification and judgements. Measurements in school systems icnreasingly for the benefit of administrators and researchers, rather than for students and teachers to use to navigate together. Wondering if it might be more useful to have the focus as relational, where people can look at it together. Vervaeke: you shouldn't be the one guaging whether you're developing. Others should be saying 'you seem more flexible, more calm, etc.'
  • Ancient greeks / ashrams: how does a guru know that their student is progressing? What are the signs, and is it reliable. Psychologists are pathetically bag at telling whether clients are improving. There should be follow-up, but is it a human problem that we don't know how to guage these things? Is it also the role of the community? And it that good enough? No proper transfer if you grow in a community and then step away from it.. is there proper transfer?
• Catherine: struck by mentor relationship, or spiritual/zen master relationship. One's practice will be very different from another's. Community reflecting whether someone is able to take on a position, importance of people who can see you honstly and clearly

Check-outs

• Jonas: grateful for communty, you get me and at my developmental edge
• Simon: I want to write things with people!
• Matthew: stimulated, good to reignite these conversations
• Catherine: appreciating rich and dense and juicy conversation
• Danielle: a little distratced, but curious about the conversation and looking at design of studies together
• Ola: interesting conversation. What stood out: developmental stages is just a map; what could be at the edge of development / of being human, that we don't have a name for yet
• Isabela: extremely excited; learning from everyone here. Weird when you're 25 years older than some people and still on your developmental edge
• Matt: sleepy, but was great and have been having conversations about DDS again recently. excited to read report
• Elisa: very exciting conversation, lots I resonated with and would like to think further about; noticing overlap with work I've been doing with the Future Present Collective on collective repatterning and relationship to time and measurement

[elisapaka]

2024-02-23

Present: Elisa, Rufus, Matthew, Simon, Ola, Gavin, Jonas, Catherine, Danielle, Andrea (new!)

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Brown bag talk: Rufus on Auroville (15m)
• Q&A and discussion
• Updates
  • Update from study groups
  • Update on key projects
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)
• Check-out (3m)

Gavin share

• Felt / feeling experience in the body (Vedanā in Buddhism)
  • lots of research on this as well
• Started writing an article which will be positing some ideas
• Wondering if more people were given permission to follow their bliss, what might the collective effect be?
  • Permissiveness to find value, purpose --> manifests in our experience (feels good)
• Get in touch if anyone is interested

Notes on Presentation

Auroville: Lessons from Civil War in a Utopian Dream

• Auroville: intentional, spiritual community in south east India. Still around 50 years on, about 3k people there. Interesting for 2 reasons:
  • leading examplar of utopian intentional community
  • Experienced something like a civil war after its founding, which has left some permanent scars
• Kapur's book. Personal story is the story of his parents
• Called Auroville because of Sri Aurobindo - term integral derives probably from Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga. Born in India, joined English civil service, became freedom fighter, got imprisoned, had powerful spiritual experiences, relocated to south east India which was French-occupied. Key ideas/practices:
  • integral yoga: integration of daily life and the sacred --> Auroville was to achieve sacred life and also work and do things
  • evolution of consciousness (also in Gebser and Wilber): we can evolve our consciousness to the more sacred levels. Auroville cradle to engage in experiment to evolve humanity
  • dies in 1950. Disciple called 'The Mother', she came from France. By 1926, she was in charge of the ashram. Carried forward Sri's vision.
  • 1960s: influx of people from the West. Auroville founded in 1968.
• Ironies of founding of Auroville inauguration event: after this happened, everyone left and there was nothing there (piece of desert, arid).
  • People were trying to get money.
  • Western followers started building things.
  • Auroville was located some distance from the Ashram
  • Mother dies in 1973
• Civil war: when the Mother passes away, all the rivalries, tensions, etc within the community surface. Who will run things, control money, etc.
  • CFY: trust set up by Mother to run Auroville
  • Westerners who were residents
  • People in Auroville wanted to be independent, not run by CFY
  • 1975: created Auroville trust, new entity that would control Auroville. CFY opposed this. Symbolic instance: Dec 1975, CFY say to Amrit (Japanese American, early 30s) that they will not sponsor his visa if they don't dissolve the trust they've created. Amrit tell everyone in Auroville about this, and there is an uproar.
  • 1975-1988: things get pretty intense between factions. Not just between CFY and Aurovillians, but also within Aurovillians. Some anecdotes:
    • Aurovillians decide books and education are the 'old system'. A bunch of them go to the school and burn all the books.
    • Amrit, by mid-1980s, is called a 'neutrals' by the radicals Aurovillians. Amrit one day is meditating, and 100 others come to his house shouting abuse and breaking things. Now, when he talked to people who were there, they deny it
• Another thing to emphasise: in Aurobindo's writing, there is a lot about how to evolve your consciousness - new age overtones.
  • John (from Kapur's book) refused treatment, because he believes he will evolve a new kind of consciousness, where his body would get better. People shocked when the Mother died. "I was part of the Taliban because that what was in the atmosphere at the time."
• Legal case started in late 1970s. Tata funding both sides.
  • Goes to Indian supreme court. Mother's founding statment is that Auroville belongs to all of humanity. 1987: Indian state becomes owner of Auroville, with agreement people can live and build there.
  • By late 1980s civil war has died out, people getting on with things. As with most civil wars, most people weren't involved.
  • Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
• Lessons
  • Need for clear ownership and governance: "Auroville belongs to humanity" no succession plan when Mother died.
  • lack of funding, so didn't have money to build
  • people who went out, and who were running CFY, were very dedicated and doing lots of yoga. But no structured ontological development, not doing too well with conflict resolution. No good ethical guidelines, and were not following practices when things went wrong.
    • Aurobindo himself is this transcendent sage, but doesn't mean most of his followers were. Not like in a monastic context, where there is a clear progression
• No authority structure on a spiritual level
• Many people who founded it were not Indians, but westerners who were running on the waves of the 1960s - all the "sloppiness, energy and good vibes".
  • Westerners not part of a deep context, long term spiritual community. Excited but immature.
• Long term consequences
  • 2022: Indian state appointed civil servant to run things. She came in and decided to build things. Not having true self-governance is coming back to bite them.
• How to protect against radicalism? Safeguards against extremism. Lots of lessons for anyone trying to build transformative communities.

Q&A

• Simon: how do you protect something from radicalism? What are the actual issues here? On the surface, sounds fairly straightforward: people weren't careful enough, the master was too trusting of the emmissary; is it something simple like that, or are there deeper layers as to what they were really fighting about? Can you just label radical idealists as not very well developed, and point is to develop them to higher level?
• Rufus: radicalisation is not necessarily a bad thing; but why was it not obvious to people that that wasn't okay? People who actually went out at the beginning, they weren't that mature, they were young. It's a place of great ideals, time of great innocence. People in those circumstances forget parts of themselves, othering of others that's not healthy. They didn't select for level-headedness.
• Jonas: thinking of dissonance there must have been between theories and actions. They would speak all the right things, but be disconnected from it. Can we even get smart about how to solve that gap?
• Rufus: great point. We have Schmactenberger etc., we have all these ideas - but if he or Iain try to run communities, what would happen? I've been humbled when living in communities, and the confronting of that on a day to day basis. Plum Village has conflicts, sometimes disagree about profound things. I have a hope. In French revolution, they guillotine people; in Auroville they shouted at people. Pragmatic utopianism. Having all the dieas is great, but then you have to keep doing it. You have to keep dancing between those two. I really think we have to develop and improve. See Auroville as inspiration. They did a bunch of things wrong (not having facilitators, structures, selection of people, etc.) Why do we go on about DDS? We really think ontological development works, and what does that look in a collective?
• Simon: so it's either: conflict avoidance (which is toxic) OR appeal to authority (the guru said X) OR some sort of (more effective) practice

Check-outs

• Elisa: stimulated, curious to dig in more
• Catherine: a bit scattered, wish for more spaciousness
• Andrea: really enjoyed delivery; my idea of simplicity, how can I apply it?
• Matthew: ongoing conversation a lot to think about
• Ola: conversations still wondering why the drama
• Jonas: Inspired excited emboldened
• Simon: "let's follow through!"

[elisapaka]

2024-03-01

Present: Elisa, Isabela, Catherine, Simon, Matthew, Martin, Lauren, Ola, Rufus (briefly)

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Isabela: reflections on ecology of practices "Against Fixed Narratives"
• Discussion
• Updates
  • Update on key projects
  • Threads from the forum (Matthew)
• Check-out (3m)

Notes

Isabela mini-presentation

• "Against Fixed Narratives" diagram (to be inserted)

Simon

• Healing narratives. Is there overlap between intologies of these different practices? Is a reduction of suffering really what everybody work?

Catherine

• Have experience with IFS and The Work. Can see similarities with AA as well. Love the elements drawn out to compare them
• Not fully fleshed out thought: on the point of deconstructing/reconstructing narratives, that feels like the aim. Practices may also be used to reinforce existing narratives - how can we tell if that's happening?
• Have been in groups using combination of IFS and NVC. I've been thinking about whether a combination of empathic reflection (NVC) to parts see parts as fixed things and reinforces the idea that "this need is important, I have to do something to meet this need". The Work is interesting in comparison - think of IFS parts as patterns of thoughts, which makes them seem a bit more dynamic. An IFS part is a recurrent pattern of thinking, rather than something fixed. Seems possible to be attached to parts.
• Interesting experience a few months ago - realised I can have attachment to feeling bad, to suffering, because I believed this part has something important to tell me, and it's going to prove I'm good if I listen to it. I should pay more attention to it

Isabela

• So much there I've been thinking about and have not shared yet. Narrative identity, and importance of narrative coherence. If you lose coherence of identity arc you're more at risk of suicide - very fundamental. Are we all in agreement that narrative is a good think - actually necessary. OR is it a source of our suffering?
• NVC not on the board - can talk about why not there. I get into nondual places in meditation - it feels good, there is less suffering, so that seems good. I don't cling to it, yet it seems antithetical to sitting with a part. So reification and strengthening of parts. Very close boundary to that and dissociation, and whether we want to do that dissociation is an interesting question.
• One of the elements is how these practices think of love as a process/mechanism

Lauren

• Love allows for us to hold our suffering, which (can) transforms the suffering into something useful
• Realising the depths of my suffering came from a lack of connection to love - within myself, and externally. And through love being an action as well as a state. Working as an EFT practitioner, do energy healing, and have noticed a block towards love in people. When I'm in the deepest sense of grief, I am in love. There can be horrible pain and grief, but no suffering, if you allow it to come through, to experience it, by allowing yourself to access love.
• So hard to offer a way in to that for individuals. So many people do not allow themselves to feel fully.

Isabela

• Lauren's example: you go into the feelings, and whatever you bring them in, there is no longer the narrative, just the feeling.
• Martin's question of whether narrative is the same as perspective. Perspective could be a narative in a colloquial sense. But narrative is not experience, it's how we make sense of that experience. Maybe we need it for sensemaking.

Martin

• Is perspective not a framing of the experience?

Simon

• Perspective lives in the same house as ontology. The story itself is how these things fit together in a sequence, past-present-future.

Martin

• When you do fragmentation, do you come out with new perspectives? Or just fragmented parts of original perspective?

Isabela

• To Lauren: when you do energy healing work, is there a dropping into feelings and states? Reconstruction by you as the healer, or allowing to rest just in experince?

Lauren

• I don't do a reconstruction. Much more about allowing someone to be with the experience. Understanding not everything needs to make sense. At same time, being mindful if there are people who are more new to this, there might be need to anchor itno something they can hold a bit more easily - so having a dialog to understand what they need to close in to move away in peace. Anchoring into the body. Blockages often come from trying to mentally process a feeling. It really doesn't have to make sense. Love as highest place of pain. People might not want to feel it. If you want to heal, you have to feel it. There might not be a sense of moving forward without this. Place of the pain is the cure of the pain, and you're avoiding that.

Isabela

• I took Bayo Akomolafe's course. He talked about incredible experience going into caves where his ancestors were tortured. When he was telling this story, he was back to living it, and experience took over his body. Meta-narrative still held the experience. Feeling terrible grief, and he started to sing a spiritual song. Watching a person go through the cycle of experience, then narrative, back to experience etc., with a community holding that. Letting go of narrative is the only way to go into the experience. Then after that experience, you have to make sense of it so it becomes durable - that's the reconstruction. Not sure this is necessary, but these systems all have that in common.

Lauren

• Think reconstruction has a place. The is sometimes this sense of needing to sit in the unknown space of "fuck this is confusing" but there is an answer. Balance and dance

Elisa

• a quick thought: reconstruction could be the result; also maybe the point to develop the capacity to go back to the place of experiencing, go back when needed, and fluidly dance back and forth between narrative and experience (balance of L and RH!)

Catherine

• Reconstruction may jump too quickly. Still resonating with horrible pain but no suffering. Presence sometimes seems like the most fundamental thing. Some days in silence. Learned: a lot of what I/we say or do is just saying "I am here!" Maybe presence seems really essential, harder when there is pain. Interested in the gap between deconstruction and reconstruction.

Simon

• One function of narrative is to accompany us through dark night. Story which helps us cope with total disorientation and confusion.

Matthew

• See a lot of similarities with George Kelly Can put link in chat
• When talking about narratives, it's maybe more the language we decide to use. A lot of these things point to the same things.
• Question of can narratives be good? Depends on the context. Can think of it as narratives, perspectives on self, models - but they influence the way we feel and are constructive.

Lauren

• Sometimes there is a narrative that becomes what people associate as the deconstruction. I've understood my narrative, so I've understood myself. Keeps suffering in place, because you're just moving parts of the narrative around, rather than shattering something

Isabela

• If you only stay in the abstract and can't go into experience and try out the implications of a new narrative, it won't have an impact on suffering. This was the Buddha's hypothesis, not mine. That oscillation feels very important. Back to Iain McGhilchrist, many of us stay in logic.

Simon

• Rationalising so we don't have to feel the pain. Rationalisation keeps you out of the pain zone, you don't feel it. In IFS it would be a manager protector part

Catherine

• Doesn't have to make sense. There's something about engagement with the unknown, and illusions of control. Less about whether narratives are good/bad, but more about relationship to narratives, is there attachment?
• AA surrendering to higher power. Interested in spiritual. In IFS, some people see spiritual aspect. For me more blurry, with IFS have illusion I can manage/understand parts. Illusion of control.

Elias:

• asking for round of check-out, what are we taking away?

Check-outs

Isabela:

• gratitude: almost getting teary because unexpected so many people kindly contributing

Catherine

• Very grateful for these questions, very meaningful to me

Lauren

• lots of gratitude, really enjoyed this conversation, on a deeper level. Has pulled together some enquiries I was having that I didn't know I was having; weaving things together

Simon

• leaving with sense of 'hey, we were experiencing something on Monday, and can feel is carrying over here' Really lovely

Martin

• Experienced same thing; collaboratively probed into areas on MOnday, it just flew

Rufus

• did not participate fuly, but loved vibe and listening to it

Elisa

• things are coming together, the heart, inner, vulnerable component is so important, and happy that we have talked about it

Matthew

• Happy to listen in, very good conversation

[elisapaka]

2024-03-08

Present: Elisa, Catherine, Rufus, Matt, Simon, Matthew, Martin, Danielle, Ola

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners No new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Second Renaissance Mapping & Sensemaking: presentation by Catherine, Elisa & Matt
  • Context & plan of work - what are we mapping, and for whom?
  • Ecosystem names & maps
    • Menti poll (code: 1235 7536)
    • Which term do you resonate with / use most, and why?
• Discussion
• Updates (Simon)
• Check-out (3m)

Links

Second Renaissance Mapping & Sensemaking: What we are working on at Life Itself Research: https://lifeitself.org/blog/second-renaissance-mapping-and-sensemaking

An Overview of Ecosystem Names & Mapping Efforts: https://ecosystem.lifeitself.org/overview

Questions for discussion

• What questions do you have about the ecosystem? What feels unknown / unclear?
• What would you like a map of the ecosystem to be able to show you? How would you want to use it?

"Meta-tribe" map - crude sketch

Notes

Simon

• Google maps etc all have different options for what you can show
• Wondering if you're mapping individuals, they vary hugely in terms of how much they'd like to be mapped on a public web - if we are, be prepared for a very patchy map

Danielle

• We are mapping individuals at Limicon - who wants what info, a lot of privacy concerns about how the info will be used, who has access to the map, and who can see what etc.
• Happy to share all our info, recordings etc on this
• Also seeing a lot of benefits from mapping

Rufus

• To the extent there would be individuals, it would be people with a public presence

Rufus

• Had a lot of discussion about why map
• Map is a very vague term - we mean ways of making sense of what's going on
  • Who are the others, what are they like? e.g. how does this group differ from ecological movement, or from EA? Or how are they similar?
• Challenge: defining or saying what an ecosystem is is potentially a controversial act. But also works better to be assertive about it (as long as you're clear about what you're doing)
• Third level: different groups / cultures; ecosystem of ecosystems
• Rationalist map - not many people here have seen it before

Matt

• We've been trying to figure out what style of mapping/visualisation would work best
• Getting into discussion of what is a tribe. If you make a list of them, often unclear what to include and what to exclude. May be including things that are not that relevant, e.g. ideologies

Martin

• What's the purpose of that particular map (Rationalist)?

Matt

• A map like that is more interesting to look at than it is genuinely useful to people

Rufus

• I found that map fascinating. Effort to define rationalist community
• Amazing how much info it's condensing
• Some things more by where people hang out, others more thematic
• People don't usually put much engaged spirituality on maps of 2R, but I would
• What is the integral ecosystem? Takes time to understand and put things together

Simon

• relationships: how things are related is not a given

Elisa presenting 2nd aspect

• putting together a resource
• corresponding to "Rosetta stone" aspect
• intended to be a resource where people learn about the different terms, the communities associated, etc.
• Terms tend to fall into 3 categories
  • paradigms that are dying / being born e.g. metamodern
  • the transition itself, e.g. great turning
  • points of breakdown and crisis e.g. metacrisis, polycrisis
• 2nd part, overview of attempts to map ecosystem
• tried a little poll using mentimeter

Menti poll

• Ola: picked Liminal Web.
• Matthew: have heard of all except Game B. Each terms has a different connotation, most obvious being Metacrisis - alludes to situation of wicked problems coming together; 2R more of a civilisational turn. Prefer the latter
• Danielle: heard of all of them. Resonate most with Liminal Web, but that's where I entered the world. Feels like we either need to drop that term, or it needs to be re-enlivened. Liminal web to me was community that formed during covid time. People who got together in that space, since then has expanded a lot. People who I'd now put in that space don't even know what the liminal web is. It's the seed from which this came out of but maybe not the entirety of the ecosystem now
• Simon: heard of all except great turning. Using regenerative movement more than the others.
• Matt: that touches on what I was going to say. Terms I use most depends on who I'm talking to, e.g. regenerative more familiar to people in Web3. Metacrisis/polycrisis more familiar to people outside of this space. What I resonate with most - metamodern I resonate with meaning, but term itself I find a little pretentious. Not sure which one I'm most

Martin

• Heard of most of these, but not great turning or GameB. Identify most with Liminal Web, seems most openly interpreted; some mysticality about it. Anything to do with crisis I don't like, sounds pessimistic. Integral tied to particular philosophy. Metamodern sounds made up. A lot of them are rather specific and don't strike cord with me.

Matthew

• Question: all ways of understanding our current moment. Question to consider: how does the average person conceive of this time period? What terms would the average person resonate with?

Elisa

• metacrisis is the one most used and resonance with. Gets to the core of things, like Jonathan Rowson's definition. 2R has grown on me as a term, like the fact that it doesn't predefine a destination, more about the period of rebirth, something fundamental happening. A bit more movement, optimism, potentiality, than metacrisis.

Rufus

• We thought about this a lot. Language is a network good. Something will likely win out over time - maybe over decades.
• trying to name a destination is trickier than naming a period. Personally, for destination I prefer awakening society - trickier to align on that.
• 2R: both period, and people doing something in it
• Average person knows what the (first) Renessaince is - Liminal is more of a rare term
• Positivity - metacrisis etc are useful additives, but if you're trying to build a movement, "metacrisis community" sounds a bit weird. "climate movement" - people know what this means. It's something you could be part of.
• Metamodern - fundamental feeling is everyone I try to use this term with, people have a visceral reaction to. A lot of resistance, and has a lot of baggage.
• We do confirm in a small sample, that we don't yet have convergence. And not just we don't have a term - there are useful / valuable differences between the tribes.
• What would be questions that would generate constructive differences?
  • E.g. do you believe looking at ontological development and stage theories useful?

Danielle

• Tribes are important in their differences. We;re looking at meta-tribe landscape. E.g. integral and game B. Tribes need to remain in their own ways what they're doing, then meta look at how they all fit it

Check-outs

Ola: curiosity about ecosystem yet to be mapped, also about evolving terminology
Matthew: curious
Catherine: well, grateful for reflections
Martin: enjoyed deeper dive and probing core of motivation. Suggest small meetings between 2-3 people in order to crystallise these things
Matt: warmer towards 2R term
Simon: really interested in this, feel like I'm at cutting edge, feels like a liminal space
Rufus: we love feedback, and if people want to get involved.

[elisapaka]

2024-03-15

Present: Elisa, Catherine, Matthew, Rufus, Sylvie, Matt, Simon, Isabela, Martin, Ola, Nicholas

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners No new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Brown bag talk (Elisa & Catherine): Introduction to Second Renaissance
• Whole group discussion
• Updates
• Check-out (3m)

Notes

Isabela:

• asking about the "2nd Renaissance" label

Elisa: answering that.

Elisa: going through the presentation.

Catherine: adding a summary of a little more

• interbeing: inter-relatedness and interdependence of all life
• recognising and taking that seriously, allowing that to inform our relationship to other life
• wholeness and integration: many both-and aspects, including conflicting parts of us, and within groups, e.g. holding different perspectives and connecting across them
• wisdom and inner growth: healing-centred ecosystems; support; practicing communal ways of being; etc.

Rufus

• we're trying to distil this — how do we present it concisely and more accessibly (to those who are less familiar)
• joking: the 4 noble beliefs

Isabela

• Framing is really helpful, so I know how to provide feedback
• All of it resonates, nothing jumps out as missing
• I really like the goal of getting it to a broader audience who is not completely enmeshed in this
• Event: Jonathan Rowson did closing speech; many people thought it was successful, but other half didn't like it - buzzing resistance
• Something important about it being legible for more people than just the insiders -- and important to get feedback on it now, especially from people e.g. at Limicon, or further outside the core. I'd be happy to take this presentation and invite you into two groups:
  • My group (Bloom) of 7 other people
  • Inter-intellect (?) - very smart people, genuinely interested - would be good to see if they have different entry points

Catherine

• That kind of feedback would help us see our blidnspots and would be very helpful

Rufus

• Speaking to the longer term - it's not clear to me, when you examine people's views, esp the theory of change, how aligned they are.
• You have two risks as a social change movement:
  • be unsuccessful (no adoption, no interest, no impact)
  • too successful - e.g. anyone who didn't like capitalism glommed on to Marxism (dogmatic, narrow approach of it)
• There are a lot of ways of taking the ideas of the Second Renaissance, and going into unhealthy directions with it
• Tension: you want to be very welcoming, but there are also these deep moments where you ask where do we draw the line, or what do we stand for? That moment may come more quickly than we think...
• I was talking to a zen master: you can't turn a community into a sangha - shared practices and beliefs are not enough to make a sangha. Though you can go the other way.
• being interested in the same things doesn't mean you can be part of the same movement - no strong commitments of what the movement is for, lowest common denominator
• e.g. McGilchrist - people from all denominations can project onto his work, can take his work and use it
• You need some principles soon, and some people really won't like it, because you'll start excluding people. Lowest common denominator doesn't work for what we're trying to do

Simon

• To me, there is a big question of methodology - are we clear about what we're trying to do? And if so, methodology needs to follow on
• Not clear what the healing narrative is; and also what is the meta-narrative about how to promulgate or disseminate that
• Point that you can't turn community into a sangha - but you can self-select from a community into different sanghas
  • That's the function of a larger community - enable coming together of people who fit well enough to form their own sangha based on their specification of what their healing narrative is
  • Let's stop arguing which healing narrative is better; let's accept the reasonable ones as different paths up the same mountain

Martin

• Presentation: viscerally affected by claim we need transition to new cultural paradigm
• trying to transition to new consciouness level
• changing culture will always be somebody's culture more than someone else's --> will inevitably lead to polarisation
• feasibility

Matthew

• 'cure' or 'path forward' -- emphasising the uncertainty about what that looks like
• there are some things you can say about what works and what doesn't; but exact way it happens is uncertain
• getting a sense for how large of a challenge it is - enormity and uncertainty

Isabela

• A few things strike me about next steps
• What Simon also said - what feels important about this mapping is having sense of agreement of what the problem is. Unless we have some shared model of what's going on, and poetential healing narrative / ToC, then trying something and having a sense of what works and what doesn't is important
• Even if incomplete or innacurate, important to put something out there
• Important to say what Life Itself is ...
• Is there a healing narrative we support, then Life Itself can stake out this is what they're trying to do
• What is LIfe Itself trying to do? Is there an iteration of that which relates to this iteration of the mapping
• And critical ideas we can share with allies

Rufus

• In mapping for emergence, we wrote if you know what's going on, there is less duplication and easier to know what's yours to do
• Want to second first point of Isabela - importance of staking something out
  • If Lenin and Trotsky had lost, the 20th century might have looked very different
  • Tragedy: progressive movement of 20th century was divided
  • At the core of what we believe, there are ideas about how human beings can develop
  • We were fascinated by questions that tease apart different groups (in a helpful way). E.g. metamodernists like stage theories and evolution
  • microsolidarity is not really a political idea, not much of a theory of change
• Sharing screen: we were playing around with different dimensions that would tease apart different groups
  • e.g. spirituality
  • political program vs be the change you want to see
  • stage theories
  • theory vs practice
  • planning vs emergence
  • more viby (fun, joyful) vs more serious
  • timescales on collapse

Nicholas

• Coming to this from position of being in a group talking on and on and losing a species as a result - we need focus, can't invite people to talk about things forever; things happen faster than your gut expects
• Also, I feel like I've just come into this group, and I worry about having to worry having to leave it for having different beliefs
• That said, do you want to be excluding who's in or out on the basis of belief, like it's a creed
• Do I have to accept xyz beliefs, if not I'm out? e.g. I believe root is deeper than roots of civilisation

[elisapaka]

2024-03-22

Present: Jonas, Catherine, Elisa, Rufus, Isabela, Matthew, Boaz

Agenda

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners
  • 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Review of the new second renaissance material (in breakouts?)
  • Front page https://secondrenaissance.net
  • Introductory essay https://docs.google.com/document/d/14I_9XtMJZqvvFJy1lyQsR3F63O8-CAmNO-d_rx2AyMU/edit#heading=h.fqys5t1jxymv - take 5m to read if you haven't then 5m in breakouts
• Meta-meeting
  • Prepping Q2
  • 📣 Roles: Welcomer + Secretary
  • Reviewing Q1
• AOB
  • Next week: DDS theme (last one of every month)
• Check-out (3m)

Meta stuff

• 📣 Roles (3m appointment)
  • Secretary: notifications of meeting, posting notes etc
  • Welcomer: manage join requests by messaging people ...
• Prepping Q2
  • Calendar of talks - brainstorm of topics we'd like to have a brown bag talk on (could also be people we invite)
    • ?? form teams of 2 to do short presentations
    • Simon brown bag talk re Study Group
  • Aspirations for the next quarter
• Reviewing Q1: what happened, what have we shipped, what do we want to acknowledge - 📣 Call for someone to help write up a post about it!
• Changing time of this call - 1h later ...

Ideas for sessions over the next quarter ...

Jonas

• what's the case for how things will actually change (what makes us believe it's community and what's the evidence etc)
• how do we change (in our own lives/local environment/community) beyond practices & the "nice ideas"
• callout for small tasks that need doing (like a single thing sub 5hrs) for ppl to volunteer
• discuss our practices/EoP - troubleshooting individual practices + the stack
• What's the value of EoP & when is it too much (& can it be simple, like gardening) (for some people the practices don't actually make them better people - and I+others can find things overly elitist/ivory tower)
• (following above) Casual practices - going for walks, gardening, etc. Can they be enough, & how to stack in EoP

Isabela

• ⭐ Rituals across ages and cultures and the psychological, sociological, anthropological lenses 🔥[Isabela]
• ⭐ using principles of self-organization to suggest avenues for research directions on DDS and 2nd Ren (e.g., phase transitions, attractors, repellors)[Isabela] (Boaz interested!)
• ⭐ DDS: are there any advantages to the stages/progression models and what do we keep and throw away for Life Itself models of "progression"/growth//development, etc? [Rufus] 🔥
• models and empirical approaches to investigating real-time insights and developmental implications

Elisa

• ⭐ Reflections from the study group w/ Simon
• What is 'warm data'? Nora Bateson's approach to systems learning...
• ⭐ Why are the key reasons that communities tend to fail?
• Summary / review of "Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living"

Catherine

• Decolonising Change: an inquiry into how in our work we might be reproducing/perpetuating the dynamics we seek to change (could look like doing an exercise from e.g. Hospicing Modernity together) 🔥
• Diving deeper into the evidence basis for cultural paradigm shifts? What can we learn from previous historical paradigm transformations? What contributes to success? What are sacrifices/costs/pitfalls? 🔥
• What can we learn from social movement theory about what it takes to build a successful movement? 🔥
• Evidence basis for different developmental practices. What practices work in what kinds of contexts, and why? What does "it working" mean? What are the risks?? Esp. empirical evidence, not just anecdotal.
• A mapping of different developmental practices, à la Isabela's table that she shared the other day, comparing different practices across several dimensions
• A survey of narratives of change/theories of change within the ecosystem

Rufus

• ⭐ brief intro to neo-piagetian developmental models - stage skill theory (hierarchical complexity) - summary of FOLA course [Rufus]
• ⭐ primacy of being: one (or more) examples from history in terms of social change [Rufus]
• ecology of practice case studies e.g. plum village, landmark, xxx 🔥
• examples of previous paradigm shifts and what it looked like
• speakers
  • Author of Auroville book
  • Tom Morgan

Matthew

• Macro history, civilizational transition, and the commons w/ Michel Bauwens

Notes

Isabela and Catherine

Isabela:

• First response upon seeing 2R in first panel - is oh, here is yet another word, yet another place making up yet another term/word
• What about making it clear that this is one node among multiple nodes - "we (know that we) are part of a broader ecosystem/web of sensemaking" as first message (rather than just we are representing 2R) -- show immediately that we are aware of this other stuff out there and how we're related to it
• Could have Second Renaissance standing out, but other recognisable terms e.g. metacrisis etc. are named there
• Colours are calming, promise, dreamy, doesn't feel crisis-y and breakdown-y and chaotic. Feels more hopeful (colours etc.)
• Like images that evoke past as well as present
• Roots image evokes scientific angle as well as historical angle - Like yellow colours, positive outlook
• Think it's beautiful
• Find the top part the least strong. Worry about the first banner is that it can look at the yoga centres and woo centres which have similar vibes but are doing something very different. The rest of it seems to capture better
• Metaphor of illness helps to set the scene for something could be healed, could be weller -- but maybe doesn't capture the complexity that the whole system may contain areas that are thriving too
• Want to see an image of coherence at first glance. So it doesn't give the impression that here's another group that thinks they've come up with this thing themselves and there's a whole other lineage I'm going to have to go into to understand this group. Really want to see how it all ties together.

Jonas and Elisa

Jonas:

• likes sleek design, especially slide format
• two loops diagram - first concrete thing you see - very confusing (even to someone who's been in the space for a long time!)
• Arrow under 'diagnosis'
• 'More detail' --> understood would send to other page
• No confirmation when people sign up to the newsletter
• Keeps it bite-sized, rather than getting heavy; don't feel overwhelmed
• content
  • I like it
  • not gone through in detail
  • like stating: this is the problem, and we all know this
  • What comes next, so what do we do? Diagnosis is great, then going progressively deeper
  • like the graphics
• What would it look like section: humble, saying "we believe"
  • But left with feeling "yeah but why do you believe this?" sounds like just pulling opinions out of a hat; are we trying to convince new people, or just speak to people who already agree?
• Who is the target audience?

Matthew and Rufus

• contact page goes back to LI website
• tried navbar items
  • Some items in wiki are dead links ...
• wiki
  • could be refactored e.g. key influences, practices etc
• Font sizes in "A Diagnosis" - could even lose that entire section ...
  • [Rufus] this is a summation (along with diagram above) that could be moved down ...
• [Rufus] making it clearer when you are in the wiki in some way?

[elisapaka]

2024-03-29

Present: Elisa, Matthew, Jonas, Catherine, Rufus, Isabela, Simon, Ola, Chris, Eva (new!)

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• 🔭 What is the research collective (if new joiners) (5m)
• 🌀 DDS theme: first monthly DDS themed reserach call, presentation from Matthew and Jonas
• 💡 [Future?] Brainstorming a map "research" topics re DDS
• 📣 2nd Renaissance 🌄 presentation today - LINK to zoom
• Updates
  • 📣 Roles (Secretary, Welcomer, Editor)
  • 📣 Updates on relational wellbeing study group by Isabela

Notes

• https://lifeitself.org/blog/domains-maps-rafts

Map of topics in DDS space

• DDS' cover a lot of ground (conscious collectives, org development, coliving...) At the core of it are models / thoughts of what ontological development is for humans - what are the ways that we can develop and grow individually and collectively? We want to be grounding in this
• Domains, maps, rafts framework: allows us to talk how a given set-up (spaces, practices...) contributes to the unfolding of our potential

Presentation: DDS Theme Research Collective

• This is the first DDS themed meeting – every last Friday of the month will be DDS themed
• Where DDS fits into Second Renaissance: experimenting with different ways of being; tried and true methods for ontological development
• What is a DDS?
  • Space
  • Developmental
  • Deliberate
  • Examples for DDS' - core vs periphery examples
• Language and key concepts
  • Maps (conceptual frameworks) & rafts (practices)
  • Varieties of different maps & rafts that exist
• Moving forward
  • What is the organisational form of a DDS?
  • Developing a language for wider integration and support for DDS'
  • Growing the network, raising awareness

Kufunda Village

Presentation link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13TrgvU7y4O9V4ZEGdXMj0NZMB3n4ktRq/view

• Created 20+ years ago
• Maaianne one of the pioneers of the Art of Hosting
• Village: 80 people mostly families
  • Mind, body, spirit
  • circle practice
  • embodiment practices
• Waldorf school Kindergarten to year 7
• Farming — permaculture and biodynamic
• Communiversity
• Overarching practice: Art of Hosting
• Some of the spark seems to have waned
• Not that many elders
• Other places have started up based on Kufunda, either just from inspiration or with the help of Kufunda people.
• Effective Altruism: multiplier effect — a big focus to scale change
• New businesses, e.g. compost toilets
• Sometimes more talk than action: too many people don't "get the vision"
  • they haven't been shown it and taken it on
• Charismatic leader syndrome (Maaianne)
• How do we minimise the gap?
• How do we live DDS now?

Eva: distribution of roles?

• the elders lead and are in charge
• openness to new initiatives, but leaders determine how far it goes
• children participate a lot

Rufus: what happens when there's conflict?

• Some people (esp younger) don't even bother at times to bring things up, fear of being ridiculed
• Resentment clearning before Christmas - immediate openness, but it can slip with how it's practiced; not doing much to follow up
• When I gave criticisms, they were welcomed as gifts - there is a lot of openness

Simon:

• What are the processes which can get around the charismatic leader syndrome?
• Restorative circles, based on NVC
• Continually surprised - easy to have conflict resolution process theoretically, but it's not being used. Something is going on underneath there
  • IFS good way of figuring out what's going on underneath
  • How can we train (young) people to not get stuck into those stuck patterns

Catherine

• conflict resolution practices can become stuck patterns in themselves - people holding on to things even when they're not working

Matthew

• Agree - I sense that possibility too, model internalised too much
• Omni harmonisation (?) Whatever the context is, finding a way to figuring out harmonisation

Jonas

• Delicate activism: if you are too fiery, you've already lost, you make yourself into the tyrant you're trying to conquer. Sensing into what is the energy in a group
• Learning to sense into what the system needs

Roles for Q2

• Welcomer: Jonas (+ Eva?)
• Secretary: Simon
• Editor: Isabela (?)