These documents represent the perspectives of some of the conveners of the gathering. They were all published as part of the invitation.
How to connect with people who are not there?
We can connect with participants who are not physically present, before during and after the event.
Before
During
Remote participants can read and comment on-site reports posted online. Send questions to on-site participants. Be brought in on-site conversations via free voice and video bridges (Skype, iSynch). Co-create dopcuments on wiki-pages with people present physically.
After
Same as before and during, plus: They can participate in follow up conversation and action. They can help spreading the word about the next event. They can bring in more connections to the larger field.
If MtE had its own community blog that can help with all of the above.
In the process of considering joining this gathering we offer you two guiding principles that may be helpful to create a shared understanding - at least to some extend - of what this is all about.
Radical Trust
Upon hearing of this event, some people experience some confusion regarding outcomes, their own contribution, and notice some general resistance to what seems to be challenging.
As the theme of this gathering is collective intelligence, and as the idea is to support the emergence of a field of collective intelligence - a field where the practices, insights, principles, collegial networks etc. of collective intelligence can be evolved in ways that have not happened so far - you probably will be in a situation that can be likened with standing outside a room, wanting to know what is inside the room, and there is no other way to find out then to actually enter the room.
You may feel some support in knowing, that many people considering to participate share a state of light confusion; it is to be expected given the nature of what we are dealing with.
The only way to know what it is to engage in a field of collective intelligence is - to do it.
This means that we can only trust in ourselves to make the choice and to show up; in deciding to come and in participating in all what will happen. (please read the Hazelwood-principles here)
In Service of the Whole
This also means that we can't really say how we as individuals will benefit from taking part in this gathering. We have to go by trust that it will be of benefit. The least we can say is that if we are really Moving the Edge we can only do it by 'moving' ourselves; so we will be moved, we will be transformed.
A question one can have is about having something to contribute with. Your presence will be your contribution, your speaking will be your contribution, your silence will be your contribution.
So we may decide to come from a deep knowing, that it doesn't really matter for what reasons we come - we just show up and lean in; in service of the whole.
Radical trust can show up as radical action: Make the decision to come. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
As individuals we can all be seen as entrypoints for consciousness to manifest in the world. (So can all other living beings for that matter – but plants, insects, birds, fish and other animals can’t make the choice of showing up in Aarhus in March, unless they hang around there anyway.)
I use the word consciousness, but I am comfortable with using words like life, love, mystery, spirit, beauty, will of God, evolutionary impulse too, knowing that there are many doorways (words, concepts, experiences of reality) to the nameless. I think that by now, you know what I mean, even if you normally use other concepts, come from a specific tradition of knowledge, or have a specific spiritual practice. We don’t have to agree on this – I only want to pave the way for sensing into what follows:
In an evolutionary perspective we have as individuals served as self aware entrypoints for consciousness for hundreds of thousands of years. And have discovered and evolved social structures like families, tribes, societies, worldwide organizations. In doing so we have learned about being together and acting together. As we have engaged with each other, networks of relationship have come into being, each time forming a field in between us, in the center of the circle, in ”the middle”.
Whenever a ”middle” has come into existence by our giving attention to it, that too has served as an entrypoint for consciousness to flow into the world.
What seems to be happening in our time is, that we have refined our individual skills of being present, and our social skills of being together to a degree, where ”the middles” that can emerge can be so rich entrypoints for consciousness to flow in between us, that we literally can experience a field of collective intelligence (emphasizing the intelligence-aspect of conscioussnes) being present. (By ”experience” I mean direct cognition, not just entertaining an intellectual idea.)
This opens many questions, for instance on the relationship between the individual, the group and the middle, or on choice; can collective intelligence make choices – does there exist such a thing as collective intellect? Can we engage collective intelligence in service of evolution, health of our planetary home, humanity? How can we do it? What could be supporting practices on the indidual and social level?
Moving The Edge is about creating an intentional gathering for learning into questions like these. ”Intentional” in the sense that this is what we gather for – not for our own individual learnings or outcomes or projects. We gather to make ourselves available for an inquiry that needs the establishing of a field of collective intelligence to happen. It can only happen if we (or somebody else) do it. It takes each of our individual decision to do what we each have to do, in order to be able to show up and take part.
On the ”cost-side” of that individual decision is the time, the travel, the acommodation cost, the opportunity-cost of other things that could have been done at the same time, etc.
On the ”benefit-side” is......? To be honest, I don’t think anyone can know that. If we succed as intended, we will bring something new into existence, a vertical rather than a horizontal movement, meaning that it transcends what we can see from this position before the gathering. And maybe it can really only be valued in terms of collective intelligence it self; how well will we as individuals be able to connect with that?
But, also in service of honesty, I have a strong belief that there are benefits on the individual level from being part of an inquiry where ”collective intelligence is engaged to understand collective intelligence” – benefits that will far outweigh the cost-side for those who make the choice to come. The words initiation and transformation on both individual and collective level comes to my mind, although I am aware that it may sound overly solemn.
I think work like this has taken place in many forms, by many people and many places in the last decades. I also think we - by The Caleidoscope Cafe in Hazelwood and the Evolution Salons (to mention those I have recent, direct experience of) - have come to a new level of awareness about this work, so that it makes sense to talk about a phase where collective intelligence becomes aware of it self.
I think we (together with uncounted other initiatives happening at this time) have a possibility of ”keeping the prayer wheels turning”, so that the entrypoints for consciousness in our middles can be sustained and substantiated. In this way more consciousness can flow into the world, more life, more love, more beauty, more mystery, more spirit....
I do think it is important. I don’t think it is important that I or you do it, but if we are the ones for whom this perspective makes sense, then we are the ones that can act upon it.
*”At least one”: There are other perspectives held on Moving The Edge – for instance valuing the get together of peers and pracitioners, sharing the best we know and learning from that. Moving The Edge can also be seen as a European cousin of the Evolutionary Salon community. I don’t think these perspectives conflict with each other. I share this as my perspective, in the spirit of inviting your pespective to be voiced too. Maybe the perspectives wants to play.
I hope to see you in Aarhus in March.
Finn Voldtofte
Beyond Words: Body, Movement, Art, Nature
* Hazelwood, Sept. 2005, Kaleidoscope Café Retreat
In the last World Café Conversation that we had in this retreat Toke said to me that it was my task to bring the gift of body and movement to the overall community.
* From the Open Space session in Salon 2: The future of Evolutionary Salons:
“There are different group modalities -- not only Open Space and World Café, but working with archetypes, the body, dreams, ancestral roots, revelations. We wondered if these might correspond to different developmental stages. If so, might it be possible to craft something that could move us as individuals and collectively through a 3-4 day time period where we open up and go somewhere increasingly powerful together?”
* From Anne Stadler: Reflections on the Evolution of Collective Wisdom from the experience of Spirited Work
“Many times we walked in the woods, listened to the animal world, noticed quantum flirts from the deer and other beings we shared the land with. Often, a question would arise such as “What does the natural world tell us about human self-organising systems?” and we would walk the land to observe, then sit together under the trees to receive and share the wisdom.”
* Jan. 2006. After the Salon I wrote some lines...
Open Space as/is a talking culture.
Bringing more senses into communicating:
using dance to become present in your body
using meditation to still your mind
doing rituals to relate with ancestors and other beings
walk the land to relate to the earth
use drawing as a deeper level of accessing wisdom.
Be more present: deeper listening in the here and now
Being present, as the core of being conscious, is ultimately an alignment of body, mind and spirit. Be aware of our body, expand our movements – very literally – refine our capacities for being present and to go beyond our normal limits. All spiritual practices have a connection with some physical practices, be it to become aware of your breathing. Becoming more conscious of your body brings you – no matter what – into the here and now.
Being present connects us with silence, the quiet spot inside of us. Do we dare to engage ourselves in color, in movement from this still point, with no attachment to outcome, without controlling it? To let inspiration being present ‘in the moment’ with no translation by the mind?
Dancing, singing, drawing, … are all, besides talking, expressions of our wholeness. In our Western culture so many of these expressions have been cut of. Our ‘new culture’ will need to find ways to integrate these ways of expressing and gathering information. We can integrate the masculine and feminine ways of knowing, because if we need to handle ever more complexity, more of the whole, this is the way to go.
Expand mental knowing
Finn wrote in his article that the individual and the group itself can be an entry point of consciousness. My dance, my walk at the beach, my drawing can also be entry points of consciousness, not only my talking. So much inner knowing in our bodies and in the subtle layers of reality is not directly accessible with our minds. Even if we ‘lean into the unknown’ in our conversation. Words needs a certain kind of being aware that we don’t need for expressing ourselves in sound, colour or movement. Exploring this direct knowing more often and intentional can show us a way to access it with words more easily.
Most of the time we don’t go into an inquiry and reflection of our inner knowing, if we notice at all! But the world is in need of this inner knowing. It can reveal deep, hidden wisdom. This kind of knowing has to come into the world, to balance the importance of the mental, analytical knowing. When we release the mental knowing that we are so used to, we create an opening, a space where we can be open for other kinds of knowing, sensible in the body. If we take time to inquire and reflect the hidden wisdom becomes accessible and then we can share it – also with words – with others.
We all know that an image, a poem, a performance can carry much more meaning than words in a conversation. Let’s use these intelligences more intentional, individually and collectively. Pernille, one of our convening team, recently had a performance where she was dancing the question “Who am I?” and she experienced that the dance was a strong impulse for creating a deep dialogue about the same question with the audience. What could happen if we all engaged in such a dance?
What if we could/would always listen and think with our bodies and our minds?
Create more community
In the experience of my women’s circle, over the years we have come to value all expressions as honoring and living the authenticity. Not only authenticity of the individual but also on the level of the community. Isn’t dancing, singing and eating together a core part of every community worldwide? I am longing for creating this kind of shared culture, as much as Check-in rounds and the bells ringing for silence have become a part of the culture that we all create together as we go.
Please add your piece of wisdom
I tried to weave some different threads into this article. It’s intention is to catalyse a conversation and the whole movement. Of course you have also a thread to add; please join in the conversation!
Something needs to be said about Beauty here…