Eco April Alignment

hi,

in anticipation of tomorrow and the ongoing collaboration and work we are all interested in supporting in our bioregion and communities, i wanted to share this recent email from tom atlee. his website on co-intelligence is an amazing resource and he has an email list where he sends out his regular essays and thinking and synthesis. this one felt in strong alignment with our day tomorrow. what are the dynamics at work when we work with the diversity in our communities (and in ourselves) and bring together people across disciplines for strategic conversations. i believe there is wisdom in tom's offering here for much of the work we are engaged in.

see many of you tomorrow,

sheri

From Tom Atlee:

Dear friends,

On and off for the last year, Peggy Holman and I have been
researching evolutionary dynamics that can be used to transform
social systems. That research is now intensifying. I will from time
to time share with you some things we've come to understand. The
article below is one way to talk about a model we're working with to
guide evolutionary activism.

If you have thoughts or resources you think would contribute to this
research, please write to me.

Coheartedly,
Tom

=============

LEARNING FROM OUR EVOLUTIONARY PAST
FOR OUR EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE

by Tom Atlee


A hundred years ago, George Santayana suggested "Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Most people interpret
this to mean that we should remember history. But Santayana didn't
say history. He said "the past." That applies to everything from
yesterday's faux pax to the 13.7 billion year sweep of evolution.

I see evolution as the story and process of all developments in the
universe up until now. For us humans, evolution embraces the cosmic
story, the story of our solar system and our Earth, the story of
Life, and the story of Humankind and our many civilizations.

So what evolutionary events might Santayana want us to learn from,
were he alive today?

Perhaps the most important past experience we don't want to repeat is
that suffered by the vast majority of species that have ever walked,
swum, flown or crawled upon this earth -- Extinction. It would also
be wise to avoid that most typical fate of great civilizations --
Collapse.

So what do we need to do to avoid these? From one evolutionary
perspective, the answer is "to wake up!"

The universe, life, and human history have been unfolding in a rough-
and-tumble, more or less unconscious fashion for quite a while.
Today we have a chance to change that. If we can learn what
evolution has been doing and do it more consciously -- with more
wisdom, compassion, and choice -- we may be able to avoid fatal
disasters like collapse and extinction.

After all, one of the main reasons evolution developed consciousness
in the first place was to enable organisms like us (and bacteria,
fish, and foxes) to anticipate dangers and opportunities and take
timely and useful action on our own behalf.

To the extent we, as a species, learn to wisely do what evolution has
done by trial and error, we will be practicing conscious evolution,
itself a radically new evolutionary phenomenon. We will be
evolution, come awake.

So what can we say about what evolution has been doing that might be
useful to those of us who are trying to make a difference, here and now?

Well, the most general understanding is that evolution happens
through the INTERACTIONS of diverse ENTITIES in particular CONTEXTS
that are more or less nurturing and more or less challenging. These
interactions generate the two great phenomena of evolution --
continuity and novelty. One of the novelties that has emerged is our
human CONSCIOUSNESS, which is now a major factor in what happens next.

Evolution responds to challenges with creative leaps -- which usually
wipe out something that seemed pretty solid before -- and then
provides ways to sustain its novel creations until they get
challenged by some new circumstance. Consciousness, too, goes
through this same process. It is called "learning."

Our efforts to be conscious about all this will involve initiatives
and questions like these, all of which overlap each other in useful
ways:

1. REGARDING ENTITIES: Being more aware of the diverse entities we
are dealing with -- ourselves, first of all, and then other people,
animals, plants, places, organizations, cultures, countries, human
systems, and natural systems. What do we know -- or need to know --
about who they are, what their story is, what they need, what their
unique gifts are? How can we be more wise about who we welcome and
who we exclude, and how? What can we learn about diversity and its
power to make a difference? How can we deepen our understanding of
the larger living systems and entities we are part of, and our role
in them and in their own evolution?

2. REGARDING INTERACTIONS: Being more consciously creative about
the interactions we engage in and co-create with and for others. How
are we communicating? Do we really need a war here? Are our
economies set up so that people and nature are well served --
individually, locally, and globally -- by the production, exchange,
and disposal of goods and the provision of services? Are our cities,
conferences, and networks organized so participants can usefully and
creatively interact? Is what we are doing -- especially our activism
-- serving the emergence of greater understanding, relationship, and
positive possibility? What power dynamics are at work? How can we
interact creatively WITH whatever we find?

3. REGARDING CONTEXTS: Being more alert to the powerful settings we
are (and could be) living and working in. What is the culture and
history here? What dreams and inquiries do people have, or might
they have with the right engagement from us? What powerful intention
could guide us in this particular moment or event? What is the
impact of the spaces we occupy, such as the presence or absence of
walls and nature, rows and circles, food and smiles, guns and flags?
Can we all get the information we need and fairly participate? How
might we most creatively handle dissonance, disturbance, and crisis?
What can we learn about creating a fruitful balance between
nurturance and challenge?

4. REGARDING CONSCIOUSNESS: Being more aware of the role of
consciousness in shaping what's happening. To what extent are we
fully present to the Now -- and to its past and its future? What
else do we need to be aware of in this situation? What unexamined
assumptions and values underlie what we and others are doing and
saying? What stories are we telling ourselves, or others -- or are
we being told? What other stories might serve Life better? Are our
social systems set up to support our collective awareness,
intelligence, wisdom, and choice? Are we humble in the face of
uncertainty and wonder-full in the face of Mystery?

Another overlapping evolutionary dynamic lies at the heart of what
many scientists call "evolutionary directionality". It provides
perhaps the most fundamental guidance for our era, informing all of
the above inquiries. It has two dimensions:

A. Evolution proceeds largely by simple entities, interactions,
contexts, and modes of consciousness combining and differentiating in
novel ways to become more complex, nuanced and capable together than
they were separately.

B. In life, this coming-together-into-new-wholes succeeds when the
self-interested behavior of the previously independent entities ends
up furthering the well-being of the new whole they comprise. As
single cells found more ways to work together for mutual benefit,
multi-cellular organisms appeared. As humans found more ways to work
together for mutual benefit, society's formed.

As human civilizations have rapidly complexified, new entities,
interactions, contexts and modes of consciousness have emerged. For
better and worse, we now live in a world profoundly shaped by our own
co-created complexities, a human-made world embedded in, but
attempting to dominate and restrain, the evolved complexities of the
natural world.

As we have expanded, our needs and impacts have become globally
interwoven with all of humanity and the whole biosphere. Human and
non-human elements are becoming one vast integrated whole. As our
self-interested human technologies, populations, systems, and
activities increasingly impact the non-human parts of Earth -- air,
water, land, and life -- the well-being of the whole is increasingly
challenged.

Santayana might step in here to remind us of the past: Evolution
tells us clearly that such a situation will not continue. Collapse
and extinction loom.

Many parts of the Whole Earth -- species, ecosystems, cultures
(especially primary peoples) -- are being driven to extinction. The
more we -- especially the privileged among us -- ignore our impacts
and use technology to ensure our welfare and development at the
expense of the Earth and Others, the more out-of-equilibrium our
situation will become, and the more violently nature and Others will
ultimately respond to bring the overall system back into balance.

Extreme climate change, resource depletion, new and expanding
diseases, social disturbances -- even our own self-destructive
innovations -- all are evolutionary challenges arising from our
failure to consciously nurture the entities and contexts that have
been nurturing us.

The whole Earth giveth and the whole Earth taketh away. Environments
nurture and environments challenge. Evolution happens.

As a whole, humanity is now challenged to use our consciousness (as
in 1-4 above) to co-create new systems, interactions, contexts, and
modes of consciousness to meet the challenges we have created for
ourselves, in ways that nurture the well-being of the whole we are
part of.

Our most effective evolutionary creations will be initiatives that
serve this. Further research will be compiling and organizing
examples of this. But for now, here are some initial approaches,
which involve systemic awareness, systemic health, and systemic
learning:

increasingly aware of the social, technological, and natural systems
we are part of, so that we can experience first-hand those systems
operating through us, and alter our beliefs and behaviors as part of
evolving those systems into more benign forms. In my own case, I
have been influenced in this way by these remarkable resources, among
others:
-- The art of Chris Jordan
-- Joanna Macy's work
-- Annie Leonard's "The Story of Stuff" video www.storyofstuff.com>
-- Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein's "New World New Mind" www.amazon.com/New-World-Mind-Conscious-Evolution/dp/1883536243>
(online PDF at )
-- Lois Mark Stalvey's "The Education of a WASP" www.amazon.com/Education-Wasp-Lois-Mark-Stalvey/dp/0688015042>
-- Michael Dowd's "Thank God for Evolution!" thankgodforevolution.com>
-- David Gershon's "Low Carbon Diet" empowermentinstitute.net/lcd>
-- The many essays of Donella Meadows dhm_archive>
-- The simplicity movement

movements that create contexts within which our self-interested
everyday actions as individuals, groups, and organizations naturally
add up to a healthy world of healthy individuals and healthy
communities. Approaches I have found that may be useful for this --
especially for evolving economics -- include:
-- Full-cost accounting / internalized costs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_cost_accounting>
-- Redefining Progress
-- The movement reclaiming democracy from corporations, e.g.

-- Co-Op America as an exemplary base for socially responsible
investment, stockholder activism, and corporate responsibility

-- Total Corporate Responsibility press_releases/dixonspeachb092304.PDF>
-- Natural Capitalism
-- Business Alliance for Local Living Economies www.livingeconomies.org>
-- The Precautionary Principle Precautionary_principle>
-- A Pattern Language for Sustainability www.conservationeconomy.net>
-- "Open" participatory approaches -- open source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source>, open content en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_content>, open design en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Design>, etc.
-- Permaculture

collectives -- communities, movements, and societies -- to learn, to
grow in wisdom and vision, to act coherently, and to change
themselves in response to new insights and conditions. Some of the
approaches that most appeal to me include:
-- Empowered citizen deliberative councils and wisdom councils

-- Advanced forms of whole-system inquiry and dialogue, as
described on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation
website cid=105&hot_topic_id=1> and in Peggy Holman, et al, "The Change
Handbook"
-- Networked participatory movement databases like WISER Earth

-- Processes like the Earth Charter movement earthcharterinaction.org/about_charter.html>
-- Journalism that Matters newsecology>
-- Story Field work

There is much more to conscious evolution than this. But this can
introduce you to how the evolutionary perspective can influence how
we think about the work we do on behalf of the world and the future
generations of all species.


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