Synch session for forming a Nexus facilitation team

I am investing a lot of time in logistics for es3 and I have not been staying abreast of evonexus.  What a marvelous thread this one is.

 Lion, I am the registrar for ES3.  I am very glad I read this thread because I think your suggestion that in addition to bios we ask people to list some of the networks they bring to the salons is fantastic.  This suggestion will definitely be a part of the es3 invitation, if I keep track of this new detail:  forgive me if I miss something, Lion -- or feel free to remind me.

 You seem so full of ideas for es3, Lion.  I find myself wishing you joined the weekly planning calls.

Marc your reflections are so beautiful- and there is much beauty in dwelling. I've lived in my community for 10 years now and I love both the people and the land here in a way that only long term intimacy makes possible. In an interesting contrast, my community is based on the teachings of Yoga- an approach which is intent upon overcoming the constraints of time and space in order to return to/arrive at (alpha-omega) the realms of Eternity

 

Allow me to paint a picture in order to have something to look at for a moment—the place your words take me- the place of dynamic tension between gleefully overcoming the constrains of time and space and the need to become present within time and space in the first place (bringing presence to time and space?)

In Yoga there is a cosmology that understands evolution as a spiraling dynamic- and within that spiral there are vast cycles (circlings on an ascending spiral) called "Yugas" (essentially ages). According to this cosmology we in "Dwapara Yuga" the age of in which we come to understand the underlying principles of energy and we overcome the obstacles of space. In the next Yuga, happening several thousand years from now, humanity is predicted to (re)discover and employ the underlying principles of magnetisim (field) and are slated to overcome the constrains of time. (There are presumed to be recurring cycles within the spiral (circle + line / cycle + emergent trajectory) so we are assumed to have all been through these basic archetypal progressions more than once).

This collective process mirrors the individual soul clothed in 'koshas' or layers of 'constraints' upon the infinite, eternal, timeless, spaceless BEing that we each are presumed to be.

So in this moment I am thinking about this contrast- the upwardly evolving progress of overcoming time and space in order to realize our timeless, infinite nature and the need to become embodied in the first place. I feel that so much of our time – or perhaps the human condition- is this tension between the urge toward transcendence and the need for wholeness.

It is certainly a recurring tension in my own psyche. I see the tension of this dynamic in myriad guises. I fill the slow, opening moment with the blue electric mental energy that races to the future. The snappy, zippy, ‘go everywhere’, ‘be everything’ energy tap-dances on the portals of possibility to avoid the unbearably slow and gaping abyss of the present moment. I see it too in the tension between my ideal self (who rises at dawn, chants, does yoga and meditation, makes & drinks fresh raw juice, and exercises all before breakfast) and the actual self (who rises, makes coffee and doesn’t eat breakfast). At times my ideal presses forth my growth and at times it is a fascist tyrant.

Maybe this is way off from what you were saying, but maybe this kind of internal tension is what keeps us all moving around so much and not being able to dwell.... -

 
excuse the dots and dashes, I can't seem to make paragraphs returns work)_______

Halim writes: “Not all mutations prove viable, and nature or an attentive gardener doesn't develop all the myriad seeds into adult plants.” .......... Marc Writes: "Yes, but are we the gardener or the myriad seeds? Does our group have a gardener over it? Do we need to create one over us, to divide the viable from the unviable?  I think this is part of what I am questioning." ....... Who is the Gardner- Us, God, the future emergent, evolution? I wonder if instead of a Gardener we thought of "gardenING" as a process we do at certain points in our work together- and a process that also is greater than us. How, and at what points in the process, do we do 'gardening'?

Lion wrote:  One of the things I wished we did at Evo Salon 2, and hope we'll do for Evo Salon 3, is a group registry to complement our attendence registry. That is, in addition to the list of personal bios like we had last time, we would also have a list of groups that we belong to, briefly telling what they do, what they want to do, what they're looking for, and who belongs to them that is in attendence.

YES! Talk about social systems waking up to themselves!
Just being aware of all the groups and efforts with representatives/members/connections in attendence would make a huge difference. Don't you think?

Beautiful Lion.  Accelerating our connections, recognizing how vast our gift economy is and how many resources we have to rely on...  Another layer that arose for me when I read this is coming from a conversation I was having this morning with Toke Moeller (Interchange.dk) and the host team for Imagine Cascadia.  It was about bringing to a gathering our personal practices, as well as what groups we are members of.  This would increase our awareness of what offerings we have to bring to the whole.  By personal practices, it would of course be self-selecting, I mean those practices we bring from our own lives that help us connect with the deeper whole, to ourselves in our highest selves, that help us see and discern wisely, anything… Listening to your patients’ pulses, riding horses, yoga, meditation, chanting, capturing the essence in as few strokes, biking with the morning’s rhythm, singing in an improv jazz group, finding your voice in a drum circle, dancing to the ecstasy you embody, tending your garden, talking to animals, listening to the wind in the trees, watching fire, keeping the songs alive, sweat lodges, writing, playing music, deeply listening to what is essence, listening to the silence between what is said, looking into each other through the windows into our souls, breathing with others, holding someone else’s joy or pain, the list goes blissfully on.  I would love to know what it is that keep us all alive and thriving and where we get juice.  What keeps us grounded into the deepest ground of the myceleum layers…we all are learning from each other more and more ways to be present.  I’d love to see something like this added to what you’ve suggested Lion.

Ashley shared this that I feel is beautifully relevant here: http://easilyamazed.com/blog/2006/02/forms-of-personal-and-collective.html.

Lion wrote:  Another thing we can do, is something like what the Free Software world does: Maintain a registry of "fresh meat." That is, in the software world, when you make a major update to a piece of Free Software or something, you go and post it to a site called FreshMeat. (Go ahead, give it a quick glance.)

We should have something like it for the (whatever we call the Global Brain awakening) groups, whenever they have some relevant advance to communicate to the others.

Ooooooh…..this brings me great delight to hear this.  it reminds me of a project I was working on within this global network I was deeply engaged in – it was about sharing our “best practices”.  What is working in your organization, your local collective, your business, your family, your community, your life?  Share it with all of us so we can learn from you.  Yes yes yes.  Lion, you are bringing me great joy!!  The rest of what you have all been writing I am still reflecting on and digesting.  I love how the open source world is opening up to our open social sources.

And yes, this is becoming one of the best schools on the planet!  Imagining this...and checking out this: http://www.nomaduniversity.com/)

With joy, Sheri

At the same time, I think it remains meaningful to ask the question, how can the benefits of these many small efforts be multiplied? Does the field hold 500,000 little things and automatically add them up to one big thing? Or might all these independent waveforms tend to cancel each other out, so all we end up with is 500,000 beautiful but evanescent little ripples?

Oh, I don't know; In the Free Software world, it tends to work out. They definitely don't all cancel one another!

Some projects are small, beautiful, and completely evanescent little ripples. But you never know beforehand what will take off, and what won't.

That said: There are a ton of things that can be done to catalyze things.

One of the things I wished we did at Evo Salon 2, and hope we'll do for Evo Salon 3, is a group registry to complement our attendence registry. That is, in addition to the list of personal bios like we had last time, we would also have a list of groups that we belong to, briefly telling what they do, what they want to do, what they're looking for, and who belongs to them that is in attendence.

YES! Talk about social systems waking up to themselves!

Just being aware of all the groups and efforts with representatives/members/connections in attendence would make a huge difference. Don't you think?

Another thing we can do, is something like what the Free Software world does: Maintain a registry of "fresh meat." That is, in the software world, when you make a major update to a piece of Free Software or something, you go and post it to a site called FreshMeat. (Go ahead, give it a quick glance.)

We should have something like it for the (whatever we call the Global Brain awakening) groups, whenever they have some relevant advance to communicate to the others.

It is important that there is some sort of moderation filter, like FreshMeat has, to approve of groups that want to register, and to weed out spammers, and to be sure that something is more or less newsworthy, so that the system is not abused. But, anyways-- FreshMeat is essential to the Open Source/Free Software programming world, and I suspect that we could do something like it with these evolutionary groups.

(What's the difference between this concept, and a news site? Well, here's two things: it's "from activists, to activists," rather than "from activists, to the general public," and it is an advertising of services that can be provided,  in what is basically a gift economy, rather than a classified exchange for barter.)

Um,... There's a ton of things that can be done. I mean, there's always more collaboration software to write. Within say, 5 years, we'll have the Project Space Network, and perhaps even a super-smart free integrated collaboration platform. And then there's those umbrella services that hand out credit cards , perform your banking for you, and fill out your IRS forms, as long as you stay beneath $10,000 in donations, and what not. And then there's publishing and organizing information online, which is just hugely underrated as a vehicle for adding strength to the world. And then there's those soft technologies, like you're talking about, adding feedback systems to our civilization, and new ways of holding meetings and organizing ourselves, and, ...

I mean, there are a ton of things that people can do to help catalyze collective intelligence. I don't mean to be mean or contrarian, but I don't see how these things could cancel one another out! There are two Free Desktop organizations, but they certainly don't cancel one another out! They tend to fill different niches, rather, and provide security to the movement as a whole, in the respect that they are redundant. If GNOME went Mono, and Microsoft shot a hole in Mono with patents, well- there's still KDE, which is on a totally different infrastructure.

1.  Halim writes: “I think we need to tune in -- as we have been learning to do -- to the field of emergence, not merely the field of our already-existent commonality. Maybe this is what you're saying, Marc.”

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. For instance, it would be silly for us to make some “list” of existing or objective things we already have in common. As you say, “we need to tune in … to the field of emergence.”

I like your statement that “all of our diverse manifestations are responsive, in some degree, to the emerging, which informs our creative process.” It reminds me of my experience, at the salon, of having a chance as a member of the circle to “respond” to what you call “the emerging,” which seemed to grow up out of a kind of mutual responding, and which brought with it a sense of respons-ibility in what and when we chose to say or not to say.
    
2. Halim writes: “an organization needs a boundary, just like a relationship or chemical reaction needs a container, doesn't it? We're doing a certain (or semi-certain) range of things here but not others.”

Who draws the jungle’s boundary? Who keeps the jungle from growing past it? Who’s to say what the jungle can or can’t produce?  How did animals emerge from the earth? I wonder if remaining responsive and responsible to the field and what emerges is not enough.

3. Halim writes: “Not all mutations prove viable, and nature or an attentive gardener doesn't develop all the myriad seeds into adult plants.”

Yes, but are we the gardener or the myriad seeds? Does our group have a gardener over it? Do we need to create one over us, to divide the viable from the unviable?  I think this is part of what I am questioning.

4. I am also very much interested in another question Halim frames  eloquently: “When we're physically together. We use cues like silence and body language and breath and rhythm and sound and the flight of birds to inform our skills of energy reading and intuition and discernment and help us open to receive. What is the analog of this online? How do we tune in to the field in a heavily mediated, mostly asynchronous environment like this one.”

Myself, I am not sure if there is an “analog.” My own feeling has been that online stuff – which works through a medium of “representation” - needs grounding in “presence,” i.e. direct face-to-face and face-to-place experience. I suspect that being together face to face where an entire group, in the right kind of co-creative dialogue, can simultaneously experience what “emerges in the middle” within one, shared sensually-rich place is simply irreproducible. I’d like to have a better understanding of the relationship of the “online” to the “in-person & in- place”, and of how they can interrelate.

Behind my interest in this question is another set of interests:

I have this sense, as I expressed it to Ria, that all the places of the world are calling out for us -- calling out for a people to dwell in them, as if every place wants an authentic “we” to do the work of Being and presencing in that particular there.  

It sometimes seems to me as if we are always flying over or driving across places, always getting to the next place, living in bedroom communities, treating places as mere utilities and conveniences, exchanging electrons across vast distances, using transport and communications technologies always to transcend place, always to bypass place … where do we ever truly dwell in place? Become a "we" together with and in a place?

I’m led to an odd sort of question, something along these lines:

What if discovering our highest human possibilities meant sharing with all other people across the planet the localized experience of dwelling in a unique locality with unique others whom we did not for the most part choose to be with, in a place that was not created by us?  What if a condition of true democracy was having the same mutually respectful and committed relationship with a particular place, its unique land and creatures, that we have with a particular people?

I really like Marc's statement about a commitment to "discover, cultivate and harvest the happy coincidences of agreement, collaboration and common ground shared by absolutely everyone even when they are being their most uncompromising, individual autonomous selves." It leads me to some further thoughts and questions:

• We have a lot of common ground simply by virtue of our common natures and circumstances. Discovering and nourishing this commonality in the middle of our rich diversity is a huge value to me.
• However, is this necessarily where the emerging field makes itself known to us? This is hard for me to articulate. I think we need to tune in -- as we have been learning to do -- to the field of emergence, not merely the field of our already-existent commonality. Maybe this is what you're saying, Marc.
• We have some experience tuning in to the field or listening to the middle when we're physically together. We use cues like silence and body language and breath and rhythm and sound and the flight of birds to inform our skills of energy reading and intuition and discernment and help us open to receive. What is the analog of this online? How do we tune in to the field in a heavily mediated, mostly asynchronous environment like this one?
• People's individual engagements and initiatives are all part of evolutionary emergence. I believe that all of our diverse manifestations are responsive, in some degree, to the emerging, which informs our creative process. We surf on the wave of emergence, you might say, or we are shaped and drawn to some attractor that is pulling us from the future. And our efforts to achieve greater coherence in support of transformation are also inspired by the field -- such efforts, too, are evolution speaking through us.
• Marc cautions us, wisely I believe, about organizational forms that may manifest "a desire to state a unifying group purpose and group action priorities that EXCLUDE other purposes and priorities that certain individuals or subgroups might hold." On the other hand, an organization needs a boundary, just like a relationship or chemical reaction needs a container, doesn't it? We're doing a certain (or semi-certain) range of things here but not others. Do open-source communities have a key to this?
• I won't say "we need this" or "we need that" but I will say that one of the themes I keep hearing is about a search for ways to channel or amplify the effects of our multiplicity of initiatives. Maybe the time is not right yet, but might this not mean at some point giving up some things so as to concentrate on others? Not all mutations prove viable, and nature or an attentive gardener doesn't develop all the myriad seeds into adult plants.
• This Nexus can serve to catalyze the strong development of many experiments at the edge of emergence.

Personally, I believe we should stick with our strengths, in our work. Sometimes we feel the need to extend ourselves in a new direction, and we grow a new arm and hand for that purpose, or whatever. Sometimes, something is needed from us, that we don't know how to become. A programmer becomes a coordinator, an artist becomes a programmer, a coordinater becomes an artist, whatever. :) But it is economic to remember our strengths, and find the need for our skills, and to contribute them, whatever they may be.

I am committed to facilitation of social interaction and generation of content on Enexus, in the ways I can, because I want to support and enable, that all of what could be seen as separate initiatives and events adressing conscious evolution of social systems can know about each other, support each other, learn from each other, and that we can understand all of the individual initiatives and events as really one overall evolutionary proces.

I have a vision of transparency on the insigths and learnings that emerges from all kinds of interactions and conversations, in gatherings, across gatherings, in email-exchanges, chatrooms, forums, phoneconversations – transparency in the sense that no matter what form and format the conversation takes, ENexus offers and supports seemless ways of making the richness of the conversations available to the larger community of evolutionary agents.

 

This idea is not an answer to "what does this organism need" but it does tell about where I have passion for pushing the edge of Enexus.

Q1) Support, feedback, love, life energy (sustenance) to all parts of the system…What I am feeling is a need for all parts to feed and be fed by the greater community whole. As the brain and lungs connect with fingers and toes (with feedback and sustenance and mutual support), the online community(s), the in-person salons, the communities of practice and place of which each of us are a part, and the activities and projects which each of us engage in need to be mutually supportive.

If the online community takes too much time away from our physical engagements, or if we are too busy to connect back in with eachother, the whole is not balanced/ fed.

What I have energy for is the process of feedback & design to better enable this organism to feed and be fed by its parts. I don’t know how this will play out & I’m looking forward to it.

Along those lines, one thing I’m doing off-line with Kate & Manuel (neither of whom I’ve seen on the nexus) is starting to develop a ‘Boston Evolutionary Learning Community’ which we see as a community of practice and support for each other and our work…  One thing I'm considering doing is calling people in the salon community who I haven’t seen online and asking the questions:

• What is it you most need to be better supported in your life and work?

• What are your feelings around the online community & what would it need to be, give, and require for you to enjoy, benefit from, and be able to engage with it.

Q2) Where I went in answer was ‘sustainable growth’ – how to grow organically w/o burnout of the engaged, and in a way that supports new engagement, seeds a vibrant diversity, (not a monoculture), while strengthening our vision.

Where I went next was to the discussions I’ve seen on the nexus about community boundaries & small-parts-loosely-joined. How to make this a community and network of cohesive communities which is growing, throbbing, loving, and developing an accumulated learning/knowing base that we and others can tap into to help us strengthen which ever parts of that network we are involved with… (and makes use of & improves on whatever tools/processes etc we have to work with).

Dana’s comment speaks to me:

I am convinced that we will do best not by arguing against this in a dialectic, (though there may be an action needed here as well?) but rather by strengthen our vision to bring forth a new culture which will render moot the fight for/against these insanitites. This is all to say that I think we must keep in mind how to move swiftly by going deep (perhaps the only way we can 'go fast enough' is to access the timeless), and to bear in our hearts the urgency of these times in our work together.

And I go back to ‘support’. How do we grow the support networks & vision to aid both the ‘being the world we wish to see’ and yes, the steering away from (or even fighting against) the world we don’t want - but in a better more generative way?

Question one: What I can contribute, that I think is essential for the health and vibrancy of our work, is the filling out of our modalities to include imaginative, intuitive, kinesthetic, aesthetic and creative intelligences. When we meet in person I would like to bring in more art, movement, theater, improvisation, poetry, dreamwork, etc. On the site? A dream forum (on the front page please!) and I want to learn how to add images ( I need tech. help) I am also especially interested in helping to create what Tom so beautifully described:

"Experimental Deepening Evolutionary Salons - Experiential workshops that deepen and develop people psychologically and spiritually; personally, interpersonally, and/or collectively; and strengthen their connection to the past, the present, and/or the future and to the whole, the center, the middle. Some give people experience in tried-and-true approaches, but many work on the growing edge, exploring new possibilities as experiments." I am interested in weaving together what we have discovererd in the past 40years about depth psychology, group dynamics, consciousness raising technologies, conversation technologies, etc., that we might co-craft an event which moves us all in deep ways to the emergent/convergent evolutionary edge. This would probably involve working with a core team.

Question #2- How can we strengthen the field? How often do we need to actually meet in person? How can we create ways to lean into the emergent, find the convergent, and strengthen the probability of the most postive future we can call into being? .... I believe that we may be just now arriving at a moment in the evolution of human intelligence in which we discover how to generate a knowing field. This emergent capacity may be able to affect the collective consciousness in a 'quantum' way, causing significant shifts in the zietgiest. I think its our greatest hope- to start 'a wildfire' of consciousness. I think it is important for us to gain some clarity @ how the field works- because the 'collective intelligence' can also be manifest in mobs and other pre and sub-conscious forms. What I hope to discover is a field that comes, not from the archaic, but from the 'strange attractor' of the future.

----- I am concerned to apply our efforts (such as a kind of 'conversation contagion' which spreads this kind of dialogue) to the immediacy of the stark threats in the world and in the US [such as the expansion of executive powers threatening democracy, the moral degradation that has US troops torturing children (documented by Jimmy Carter in "Our Endangered Moral Values") and the ravaging of the environment for the last few bucks that the dwindling oil supply will bring.] I am convinced that we will do best not by arguing against this in a dialectic, (though there may be an action needed here as well?) but rather by strengthen our vision to bring forth a new culture which will render moot the fight for/against these insanitites. This is all to say that I think we must keep in mind how to move swiftly by going deep (perhaps the only way we can 'go fast enough' is to access the timeless), and to bear in our hearts the urgency of these times in our work together.