Please respond to the questions here.
This means: Click on the "add child-page" below, fill in a title and put your text in the "body"; then - underneath the page - 'submit': done!
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
2) What could be improved, and how?
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this
movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
Evolutionary Salon suggestions by Connie Barlow:
CREATE CELL GROUPS: Instead of meeting at the end of the day in a big
circle, have everybody meet with their "cell group." Each cell group would
contain 6 to 8 people, chosen for in-group diversity. The purpose would be
for all conference related problems and emotional upsets to be processed
there by the small "family" group, and to give everybody a chance to really
get to know a small number of people very different from themselves. Each
cell group would have a facilitator whose responsibility would be to take
any major problems or suggestions of the cell group as a whole to the
planning team each day. Overall, I am suggesting that we use the
"nestedness" of the universe as a template for our own salons. There must
be a steadfast intermediate in size between the solo individual and the
whole group. I experienced the cell group process for a week-long science
and religion conference and it worked fabulously!
MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THE LAW OF TWO FEET APPLIES TO ANY LARGE CIRCLE gathering
too. After feeling "trapped" on the floor chairs in the inside of the big
circle early on, I never did set foot inside a large circle again.
Basically, I feel that anyone who chooses to use the large group circle to
do an emotional download (that could far more effectively be dealt with in a
cell group) is violating a personal boundary of mine. It becomes more of a
performance; whereas in a cell group, the small number of real people
sitting there keeps the emotional download to being real and not shouting at
the individuals. And it is an enormous waste of time. Whatever goes on in a
large circle (if, indeed, a full circle is EVER usefully engaged) ought to
be weighed against whether it is worth the time of one person times the
number of people in the circle. Frankly, I can't remember anything that
happened in the full circle that was even close to that. It will
unfortunately tend to sink to a low, as it did in Ev Salon 2.
USE THE WORLD CAFÉ AS A FOLLOW-UP TO SOME SORT OF INITIAL SUBSTANTIVE
PLENARY, that would give participants a common experience to talk about and
thus to shape ideas for the days to come. When I experienced the World Café
at the first Evolutionary Salon it was very unsatisfying for me; seemed to
be a waste of time. None of the questions engaged me. I'd rather begin to
meet new people on the level where we are sharing our responses to a
plenary. Or, use it at the end of a salon instead of a full circle.
I was thrilled with the generative possibilities of 'evolutionary salons'
and I hope to be a part of co-creating future salons! I offer my deep
gratitude to Michael for making possible my experience of the salon. JOY!
Dana
#1 I was especially impressed with the quality of people, the high
standard of awareness in using language that was opening and empowering, and
the quality of the conversations that resulted from a more conscious use of
language. In our discussions I felt that we were pursuing truth rather
than staking positions, and that questions posed were brought forth in order
to refine the questions. In this spacious context, ideas could be expressed
in order to be clarified and refined, rather than as 'final positions'.
The simple, but profound, intention to call forth the emergent wisdom from
our collective field placed us all in a position of service to the whole.
Huge territories of hitherto undreamt possibilities opened when we could
step aside from attachment to our own ideas in order to follow the thread of
'what's trying to happen', or as Finn describes 'the magic in the middle'.
The expression of ideas took place in service of greater clarity rather than
in a mode of grasping and positioning. Moreover,
#2 When I am involved with creating future salons I hope to bring
into our work more dimensions of knowing in order to have a fuller spectrum
at our disposal. I would bring more dreams, music, poetry, art-making,
movement, theater, improvisation, etc., in order to better access our
intuitive, mythic, kinesthetic, aesthetic and imaginative intelligence along
with our verbal, cognitive, logical and rational modalities.
#3 I hope to be involved in co-creating 'full spectrum' salons. I
would like to bring even a smidgeon of these modalities to the June Salon
(since I'll be in my homestate of Colorado at that time) though I do
understand it's special focus may prevent that. I wish I could be there for
the May salon , but as I cannot, I will offer myself to the emerging team of
those generating the next evolution of the salon. I am staying active on
the evolutionary nexus site as my way of staying with this movement.
Dear Friends,
First, I would like to thank the organizing team for having the guts, courage, energy and love to build such an event. It is easier to criticize (even in the most constructive and positive way) than to build, so thanks for taking these risks and placing yourselves in a position of vulnerability and openness. Tim Murphy's feedback is pretty much mine too. Here's what I would like to add as my own piece.
The things I valued the most:
Definitely the people. Gathering such incredible beautiful persons was a challenge in itself. What a present, how beautiful an experience to see all these links, roots, symbiosis operate to form the rhizome of these emerging social forests in these new noosystems. It is about those connections that operate at the deepest level of the Self, for a life time, no matter how much time we spend in live interaction.
Possible improvement:
I did not experience collective intelligence in the deepest sense I usually give it. We certainly talked about it, shared views, questions, emotions...
The reason why I insisted on the idea of vulnerability was not to make group therapy, but to initiate the process of trust and oneness. By being bold and vulnerable, by sharing my incompleteness with others, I offer them the gift of social existence because they can help me. I invite them to join this transpersonal and integral space of humanness. Then I can be offered in return the gift of my own humanness when others offer me the opportunity to support them, to complete them. And so on. That's for the expression of needs.
Note: the ontological work in groups offers powerful contexts for this mutual empowerment and radical trust building.
There is also the expression of offers. By inviting people to put on the table what they have to offer (knowledge, practice, time, money, art, energy, relationships, ideas, etc), just like in a pot luck, then we let everyone visualize what is the wealth at the community level. And what is missing too. This very process of the 'banquet' is a key step in creating group consciousness. Group consciousness comes with a sense of shared wealth.
Offers and needs come together and create the shared 'market place', in the deepest sense of it. IMHO this is an important starting point for catalyzing collective intelligence. Then other dynamics can be worked and reviewed one by one in order to build the social architecture: emergence, holopticism, object links, polymorphism, learning dynamics, social contract, gift economy, etc... See the 12 tenets of a global collective intelligence.
I would stress with Tim Murphy that there are many tools, exercises, practices, technologies, that participants may want to work on in order to develop such or such group capacity. It takes time, efforts and practice to become a good sports team or jazz band. It is very fun too. Why wouldn't it take time, efforts and practice to be a collectively intelligence social stem cell, building the most efficient social DNA? This is precisely what we are going to work on by organizing training retreats this year. We will be glad to share our own learning process with the Evolutionary Salons, and why not, coordinate more deeply as our contribution.
I also experienced an ontological trap in the early phase of the salon, when we self-proclaimed to be at the cutting edge evolutionary consciousness (please pardon me if the words are not exactly those that were used). I am not against this idea as long as we are aware of the existential position it puts us. This placed us into the paradigm of being the subjects (we) operating on an object (the world, the evolution...). This 'objectivization' (or socialization) creates a world that is outside of me, it can easily prevent me from operating this transformation at the deepest levels of myself. In other words, we talked about it, we looked at it, we asked 'burning questions' about it, but did the context brought me into my own inner cutting edge? Did the burning questions really burn me? Not for me, probably not for many people if you consider the low emotional and high mental levels in the room. Burning questions often generate sadness and tears because... they burn what we have to let go, they bring us to a new world view, to the next level. We mourn our old world by giving up the latest ties to it, and then we can jump into a more integral level, with more capacity to collective intelligence, wisdom and consciousness.
The other challenge for me was to realize that those who come with a high expertise on CIW, such as Tom, George, Peggy, and others, didn't have the opportunity to teach some of what they know. Sometimes I experienced the dictatorship of the 'I don't know' and 'I don't know what I don't know' as the politically correct to say. Claiming 'hey guys, I know, I can teach you' might have looked very selfish and an absolute lack of humbleness. Open space, dialogs, conversations can fall into another extreme if they are not balanced with spaces where we can teach or be taught. Sometimes I would love to teach what I know that the others don't know, and I would love to seat and listen to what others can teach me. Conversations and live interactions don't offer that much of this possibility. Should teaching/learning spaces be part of the offerings in the open space sessions? Probably. But the 'pressure' of the open space architecture doesn't facilitate such a context. Maybe a special care and attention should be given to improving our practices in teaching/learning spaces.
There are 2 links that you may want to check out:
* CI for large events: a collection of ideas for improving CI during large events like the Evolutionary Salon
How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
* By continuing my research work and offer it as a contribution
* By creating CIW retreats and R&D centers to train people and expand the practice.
* By creating the next monetary systems.
I will not be able to come to every event because such trips are very expensive from Europe. But I will do my best.
Thanks again for offering this possibility of a feedback and for setting up this space for it.
Jean-François
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
* Meeting all the amazing people.
* The variety of people and backgrounds/fields/interestsrepresented. I
thought the diversity of gifts that we all brought was a sacred thing.
* Open, unstructured schedule and no pressure to participate ineverything. I
got in some wonderful runs through the forest as a result, and really enjoyed
just being there on the island.
* Breakfast together at the Farmhouse, and wonderful conversations and
intimate, easy time together around the kitchen table to begin the day.
* The authentic intention and spirit of the group to lean into how to create
a new way for human beings to live together on the planet.
* The integration of music, movement, dialogue, art, laughter, song, good
food. Mind, body, soul.
2) What could be improved, and how?
* A little more structure. Not too much, but there was not quite enough this
time. Or maybe there was for this time, but I think we need more for next
time. This time the Salon felt like a marketplace or a bazaar of ideas,
methods, experiences. Although the group as a whole was tighter and more
coherent for sure towards the end, I didn't get the sense that we went
anywhere collectively, INTENTIONALLY. I think more structure could help
create a space where we actually move forward, together, at a deep level, in a
way that is apparent to us by the end. Setting the intention for this will
also help, even if that intention is set and held only tacitly by a small
group.
* Creation of small group "holons" of 6-8 people who stay together for the
entire time and who meet together once per day to talk about what is
happening for them, to do deep dialogue, et cetera. There are some practices
and guidelines that could be used to guide these sessions.
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this
movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
* I'm interested in bringing my spiritual practice of dialogue into the
space--maybe by inviting a skilled leader of that practice to the next Salon
and helping to convene a session
* I'm finishing a master's degree right now and I'm going to be starting a
PhD degree this fall, so I don't have a lot of time on my hands right now,
but I'd love to keep coming to the Salons to share my work and heartfelt
passion for evolution and find synergies with others
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
- the opportunity to connect with kindred spirits doing great work. This was
valuable personally as well as professionally. I made a lot of great new
connections, and deepened existing connections, several of which are already
spawning new collaborations. This kind of opportunity is invaluable, and may
in fact be the most productive element of a gathering of this kind. Kudos to
all of you for creating an environment that honored the value of butterfly
conversations.
- the open-space marketplace. This allowed for those with shared questions or
visions to find and learn from one another, and to do some real work to
advance both practical and theoretical areas.
- I enjoyed sitting together in the large circle, but didn't find that much of
the actual content that came out of those large circles seemed particularly
cutting-edge or relevant to the work at hand. The attempt to sense into the
middle seemed to generally veer toward personal sharing or abstraction. That
said, the large group did seem useful as an opportunity for people to briefly
report on their experiences in the smaller sessions, so that the whole could become aware of what was happening in its parts. I'm not sure how I'd do it differently. I might be inclined to try some longer periods of just sitting quietly in the large circle, possibly having some musical interludes, singing or chanting, etc., but not trying to make magic happen in such a large, diverse circle.
2) What advice do you have for those organizing the next salon?
- I might try to allow some pre-organization around topics of interest, so that
people who want to have, say, three one-hour sessions over three days on a
given topic can sort of find themselves beforehand and do a bit of
pre-thinking and collaborating on a rough agenda.
- If we want to keep the Great Story of Evolution as a unifying framework, we
might want to actually require some pre-reading on the subject as a sort of
filter to make sure that everyone is on the same page, and then be a bit more
explicit in how we tie that to the work at the salon.
- I wouldn't be against a keynote speech or two to help focus the discussion
and unify the field.
- see my comments on large circle work above
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of
this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
- articles and books on the subject
- giving talks and workshops on evolutionary spirituality and collective intelligence
- developing broadcast and web-based media programming to spotlight the ideas and work of the great innovators in the field
Thanks for everything you did to make it happen. In my eyes, it was a huge success!
Craig
Terri wrote this in a personal email to Michal, in response to the questions.
Hi Michael... great idea!!! I like the way your have framed this.
And, I'll share my personal thoughts, which you may take or leave as you so choose.
I like what I assume to be your intention with the first 2 questions...
and have experienced lots of confusion about what I should do with the responses when I have used them. Typically I have gotten a split between what people liked and what they didn't like, of course with some folks liking what others did not like, so when I was done with the survey I wasn't sure what I had learned and what I should do next. I presume you are wanting to learn what was the most sacred and should be continued not matter what, in which case maybe you just ask that and ignore the second question.
I, personally wonder, too, how well the convening theme endured and focused the conversations for other participants. That showed up as a great big missing for me - I talked to bunches of folks who didn't even know the great story, so I became a little bit confused about our collective purpose and intention.
Anyway - bravo for a great gathering. I want to contribute to what I would label real evolutionary salons, where we explore how to further this story, embed it in our daily lives, our spiritual traditions, how we interact with our children, etc. So I'll be thinking more about that in the months to come. Jack Semura and I met just Saturday to talk a bit about that, too. he's a gem!!!
hugs - terri
Michael's reply:
I wholeheartedly agree with your last two paragraphs, Terri. Thank you!!!
Michael
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
The confluence of a large group of people with a high level of consciousness and commitment, beyond being intelligent knowledgeable and experienced; and the creation of a space to share our hopes, fears and dreams of a better world.
2) What advice do you have for those organizing the next salon?
To foster simultaneous common exploration in different relevant themes of evolution and then attempting to converge and come up with at least a common set of fundamental agreements. The list of these agreements does not have to be large. I think that this would help to create a stronger sense of what unites us.
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
My focus is on creating the necessary conditions for "Transcendent Evolution" of individuals, communities and organizations. Therefore evolution is at the heart of my passion. I could contribute by sharing and learning from our experiences in the development of the new paradigm methodologies and tools to facilitate and elicit the full use of our human potentialities to modify our course as humanity while still there is time.
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
As I see it, this question was the active convening question – regardless of the wordings of the invitation and other expressed intentions: How do we harness the collective intelligence and social creativity of our species, to facilitate a positive impact on the evolution of humanity and the natural world?
I am aware, that some participants might see it differently, that is that they came with other intentions – but if there exist such a thing as a post-gathering understood pre-intention, then I would say that from having been there, I now think that question was really what convened that specific group of people.
And now to what I value most: I think the salon offered all we could want in terms of answers to the question! Look carefully and deeply in to both the whole of the salon and all of the parts, and all of their relationships, and I have a sense, that it all modelled, initiated and opened up very fruitful answers to the convening question.
I think there is still a lot to be called into being and be named regarding that. I hope this will happen; it will take the decision from enough of us to actually do it; it won't happen by it self.
2) What advice do you have for those organizing the next salon?
The question of “sustaining community in action” has importance to me, so I call on whatever can be done in order that the meetings in the salon doesn’t become just an event, but is understood, designed, supported, undertaken etc. in a way that in it self is an unfolding of the great story.
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
My focus is on how to – on the very practical level - engage collective intelligence in service of the world. I am only a call away, when that can be of service to the movement.
With appreciation and gratitude
Finn
First of all, i want to express my deep gratitude for the considerable life energy and commitment that went into creating this event. I feel moved and appreciative of the key organizing team, "Mom" and the logistical crew, the behind-the-scenes supporters, and all who made it possible. Thank you so much!
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
The people were fabulous. Almost every person i talked with was doing significant and inspiring work in the world, work that i think matters to our future, weaving a web of . . . rebirthing? . . . i don't know, i'm not sure yet how to name what needs to emerge. I think that each of these people had insights and lessons for me, both explicit and implicit, both in their work and in their way of being in the world.
Almost every one-on-one or small group interaction i had was fulfilling. Wow!
Having a lot of time in open sessions where i mostly wandered among them and connected with people in between was wonderfully fulfilling.
The food was plentiful and tasty, and seemed to meet the variety of needs present (e.g. i'm vegetarian). I think the warmth and positive attitude of the staff of the center/kitchen were a subtle yet important background influence.
Playtime, frisbee, Jean-Francois's piano playing, again these things are subtle but i believe they truly influence the outcomes of the more formal efforts.
OK, now for the thing that is really central for me. While at the salon, a process began to stir in me, one which is very much still in progress. It has to do with the question of how to take what i care about and am already actively doing now (facilitation across differences, teaching group skills, etc.) and do it at scale. This is a query that has been with me for some years, but mostly resting. At the salon, possibilities emerged for how to make that real. While i don't yet know the form it needs to take, and i don't know what the answers are (i am spending a lot of time in that uncertainty and not knowing that Tom's been talking about so much lately), just sensing those doorways beginning to open fills me with awe. While the process is resulting in a lot of internal tension in the moment, i strongly believe that it is a growthful one, and i choose to radically trust in the outcome.
2) What advice do you have for those organizing the next salon?
Stronger boundaries during times of whole group sharing. Perhaps even an exercise early on in the event that makes salient the dialogue between ego and awareness of the collective? After all, the ability to move from self-involvement to focus on the whole is part of the evolution that needs to happen in society (especially in the US), so it fits right in line with the goals of the event. Given the impressive previous accomplishments of many salon attendees, it's natural that these are folks with strong egos, so being ready to dance with that seems necessary and appropriate.
Limit the attendance as much as needed to keep it gender balanced.
I understand that the plan is to hold the next salon at the same location. That facility is lovely, but it's hard to host 80 people there, the acoustics in the main room were a challenge to open space sessions. Another location could allow a lot more people, gosh i'd love to see this event at, say, 250 people, and i think if it were well-designed we could still get a great sense of community with that number. If not salon #3, how about salon #4 elsewhere?
When i looked in on the nighttime meetings, the key organizers often didn't look very happy to be there. I want our community to take better care of those who are stepping forward to hold us. Of course there needs to be a way to have feedback loops present during the event, but i believe that we can come up with a better design to meet that need. I understand that another need being addressed was to build community, but again i think there are ways to do that that are more respectful of people's energy.
Have fun. How can we make the process of organizing, hosting, facilitating and managing joyous? If you're not having fun, pause to check in about it, either within yourself (ourselves) or with others on the team. People will join the revolution when it's the funnest game in town. Martyrdom, while sometimes necessary, is a limited evolutionary strategy. (I'm still working on this one myself too.)
Let the "Great Story" sound a clear note throughout the gathering, calling us to purpose.
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of
this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
I am still figuring that out. I want it to all come clear, and i am working on letting go of that need so that i can be gentle with myself as i muck about in the process, and compassionate toward others. I have gifts in supporting good conversations in difficult situations, teaching skills for collective decision-making and facilitation, holding space, organizing events, logistics, and more. But how it all fits into the larger dance, i don't know yet.
peace,
--Tree
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
<!---->seeing friends and having plenty of time to connect with people one to one. meeting new people. the large number of people present who have the capacity to hold a spiritual focus while participating actively. the young geeks.
2) What advice do you have for those organizing the next salon?it felt more like a gathering of the clan than an evolutionary salon. if you want to get traction on the great story as a unifying thread for the social transformation movements, you need to be more focused and informative and intentional. open space and even world cafe are too divergent without a stronger intention, a way that people understand that the task at hand is to understand the work they are doing in light of the great story. perhaps the ingathering in the morning should be presentations and the afternoon more
fluid processes. also, all value for me came in smaller groups and the larger group tended to lose energy and foster speechmaking that didn't contribute clearly to the theme.
all this said, i created great value for myself precisely because i could roam freely and pursue personal interests - but i suspect that didn't help you guys achieve your goals.
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
<!---->
i am not sure, as who i am in the world and how i express it is still very fluid. my outer work tends to be more pragmatic and visceral, less big picture theoretical - i think people (not just the cultural creative types
the great story attracts) are so swept up in the turbulence of the synergizing crises that they will be moved by things that address more immediate problems... and through that will begin to see the bigger picture.
the old 'does it hoe corn?' issue. so perhaps the evolsalon thread will be for folks like the ones who gathered, not a larger circle. this said, i am personally moved by my increasing intimacy with the miracles of existence,
and the great story strings these miracles together in a powerful way. as you know, the jury is out for me about 'conscious evolution' - my sense of how the universe works is ever more steeped in mystery and i am less sanguine that 'a small group of concerned citizens can change the course of evolution through conscious overarching intentions.' i do believe we need a more immediate capacity to govern ourselves globally in a more rational, peaceful, cooperative way and to the degree that the great story provides inspiration and impetus to do this very hard, essential work, i'll incorporate it.
1) What are the things you liked or valued most?
The most valuable aspect of ES2, for me, was the conscious work of creating an increasingly conscious field amongst and between the eighty participants. The core of this aspect of the conference took place in the evening debriefs sessions when people gathered to reflect on the day and to discern what should be called forth the following day. In saying this, I do not suggest that everyone at the entire event was not also contributing to building this collective field. Of course, everyone contributed. But for me, I believe very few people on the planet have a direct experience of collective consciousness. Further, I believe that everyone at the January salon had, at least in some fleeting moments, a direct experience of collective consciousness. And, for me, this was more than enough for one four-day event. Yes, I have frustrations with some things that happened. Yes, I have thoughts that I would like to 'push' people to more vulnerable levels of interaction. But deep in my heart and soul, I believe people need to softly come to ever deeper vulnerabilities in their own pace and time. When I read suggestions of more rigorous exercises, such as Jean-Francoise's or Tim's, I feel a flutter of anxiety. . . not because I am afraid of anything they might ask me to do if they were designing a 'rigourous' approach at a future salon because I tend to be much more open about my real life vulnerabilities than the average bear. I can be so open, in fact, that it wearies many, I think. I resist a more directed, 'rigourous' approach because I believe that each human being has to come to the 'right' awareness of what it means to be collectively conscious in their exact right time. Yes, it might be nice to rush evolution but my instincts tell me it cannot be rushed.
Having said the above, I also have an impulse to respond to some statements that open space might not have been the optimal container for this event. During the event, I heard quite a lot of buzz with people saying "People MUST be told this" or "People MUST be told that" or "People have to GET this" or "People HAVE to get that." I read comments that seem to suggest that for some people, they perceive the open space format to be fuzzy and to have lacked focus. Again, I say, it might be nice to rush evolution but my instincts tell me that when people are free to follow what has heart and meaning for them, they are doing what they need to do. It does not seem very evolutionary, to me, to think that it might be best to tell people how to spend their time. If someone offers a session at a salon that they are absolutely certain everyone needs to attend because they are certain that what they offer is exactly what everyone needs to know, and no one shows up at that session, well, then people did not, in fact, need to know what that person offered. I am pretty sure that it is not evolutionary to think we can tell each other what they need to know, what they need to do, etc. Speaking only for myself, if future salons have lectures and presentations that everyone is expected to attend, then I probably won't come. I do think we can do a better job of setting the context for the May salon. I hope the May salon will begin with a presentation by Michael, for example. I hope the planners think deeply into what is needed in May and that 'they' set a theme for each day of the May salon, to continue to maintain at least a minimal sense of shared context from one day to the next. And I hope all of the people with great expertise will offer sessions, which could include lectures, of course, and that all the people that want to attend those sessions will go. But for me, the single most important aspect of a salon should be a deep freedom within each individual to follow, in each moment, what has heart and meaning for them. Truly, I believe the experience of this kind of freedom, in a collective of evolutionary thinkers and doers, is the essence of collective consciousness. We are past the time when one of us can dare to say we know what is right for the next person in any given moment. Yes, we can be full of passion and expertise and yes, the world needs our passion and expertise. . . . but I can tell you, that when I am free to choose to attend a lecture, I listen with my whole being when I show up to listen. I can also tell you that when I am 'forced' to listen to a lecture, I tend to skip the lecture. Or, in the case of the Whidbey Institute, I tend to go for a walk.
2) What could be improved, and how?
I agree that we can set a better context around thegreatstory for the May salon. But I also think we can do a better job of explaining that an evolutionary salon is a living laboratory of experimentaion in collective consciousness. I believe that spending four days with sixty five people all striving to gain an embodied experience of collective consciousness is actually at least as important as thegreatstory context. Well, for me personally, the experiment in collective consciousness is the most important thing.
But what does this mean when I say 'an experiment in collective consciousness'? I think we could do a better job of inviting people into 'an experiment in collective consciousness'. I think we could be more explicit about how the event is designed, how it will be held by the hosts from day to day.
I think we could, maybe, try to explain to people that coming together for four days and consciously committing to steadily listening to the middle is the experiment, is evolution in action. I am not sure. I need to think a lot more about how I would set the context for the 'collective consciousness experiment'.
One thing I want to 'tell' people (even though I am no longer sure there is much point in telling people what they need to know or think. . . .) is that they need to come to several salons. I think people need to have repeated experiences experimenting with collective consciousness in order to really begin to embody it. Keeping in mind that I believe the experiment in collective consciousness is as important as the context of thegreatstory, I do not believe this is something most people can really 'get' with a one off participation at an evolutionary salon.
If an evolutionary salon is simply a vehicle for getting information out about the greatstory, then, yes, I suppose a 'one-off' can get the job done. But if another central reason for holding the salons is to see what can happen when a group of people begin to grow a deep, rich, shared experience of ongoing collective consciousness, then I don't think this can happen for most people by coming to one event.
I have read comments that people wanted to see more action plans. I love the comments where people are talking about wanting to see us 'scale up', to come up with plans to bring the story of evolution to large scales of humanity. I want to see large scale efforts unfold in the world, too, especially efforts lead by people with a clear understanding of thegreatstory. But it is my personal hunch that we have to build our collective consciousness more effectively, that we have to learn how to build a colelctive consciousness before we can scale it up and spread it to the masses. Again, I don't think large scale action can come without building first a different consciousness between ourselves. I have a hunch that this will be slow work at first but that it will rapidly scale up. I would prefer that someone could come to one salon and then be able to change the world but I am not sure we are quite at that stage of development.
I keep thinking about a flock of geese and how hundreds or thousands of geese can fly in alignment to each other, becoming, it seems to me, one unit for at least the time of one flight. Then a flock might land and the geese revert to being individual geese, drinking water and eating, before arising into the scale again in unison. I think that for groups of brilliant thinkers all engaged in some kind of relationship to the evolutionary story to come together, soar into action in large scale ways to 'save' humanity, while simultaneously living their individual lives requires new collective skills. Until a flock of humans can soar in a consciously held, collective-alignment, there are no lecture/workshop formats that can impose this capacity onto people. It might be nice to be able to hurry it up and it is my hunch that once large chunks of humanity become more adept at 'flocking in alignment with one another', that things will shift very quickly. But I don't think the capacity-building can be done in four days.
So I have a question that i would love to hear everyone's feedback on: how do YOU think we can create a conscious, collective capacity to remain in steady alignment with large groups of people?
For me, this new collective capacity cannot come from someone telling me what I need to know. For me, it is all about sensing into the middle. How would YOU train sixty five people to better sense into the collective middle of sixty five people? For me, this is the design challenge for the May salon.
3) How do you imagine your gifts contributing to the future of this
movement (of which Evolutionary Salons are but a part)?
I am very good at holding the collective consciousness as it unfolds in groups. One of the many things that humans have to shift is we have to begin acknowledging that people often have gifts that have not always been valued. One of my gifts is that I am a high empath, deeply intuitive and more sensitive than the 'average' person. My main gifts for the salons would be the evening debrief work at an event. I am very good at sensing the energy, discerning what wants to emerge next. I remind anyone still reading of my money circle at the January salon: I was pretty much channeling the collective consciousness we had all co-created and I was only able to do it because I have been a tuning fork for the whole four days. I hardly went to any sessions and I have had some regrets about that, esp. when I have heard buzz about sessions, but my 'work' was to be a tuning fork. Do I sound flaky? Maybe. I very much regret missing so many sessions in january but I know the work I was doing was quite real and that I made an important contribution to the co-creationg of the field that just about everybody appreciated on the last day. I believe we had to collectively work for three days to get that fourth great day together. And I believe that the most people get together and practice this kind of collective work, the more quickly we will get to the kind of day we all appreciated on the last day of the January salon. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be in that kind of spce for four days? How can we co-create that kind of space if we don't keep getting together to practice? Anyway, this is something I am good at, my gift to the evolutionary salons.
I am also pretty good at administrative work but I have a rigid streak when it comes to details. I would like to be more flexible but I know myself pretty well. I am good at designing an administrative system and managing it but I am not a very good 'staff' person. I think someone 'good with details' has to have a bit of a 'rigid' streak because that's how the details get taken care of but I don't like the dragon lady inside me that sometimes pops out when details go awry. I'm good in the back office, hopeless at the front desk. Which is why I have arranged, for example, for a professional hospitality person to work the check-in desk for the May salon.
I also think I can help to design the way the spirit/energy of money is held as we build our collective work. I would like to help create a constellation of containers to hold this emerging 'movement'. I think there is a role for a nonprofit, for a for-profit and, maybe, a foundation to fundraise and feed the movement. I think we might create a 'new' for-profit corporation, one based on the principles of associative economics and one that might attract investors willing to limit the return on their investment because the right investors would be people who have a new expectation about the kind of return they need. I think we could find investors who would consider seeing an evolutionary salon movement grow and prosper as a meaningful 'return on their investment'. . . that, and a few percentage points of profit. I think we could create economic containers will new, associative, economic values. Such containers would explicltly ban unlimited profits and unlimited growth and would explicitly limit the kinds of profits 'shareholders' could achieve. Just thinking aloud. . . . but this is an area where I think I could gift the salon movement with a lot of good ideas.