Welcome to the ICON field

Our planet system is giving birth to the Emerging New.

All the key variables are reaching never seen dimensions.

Population, wealth, technology, ecological devastation, fear.

Knowledge, intelligence, consciousness, wisdom…

We are all part of the process, knowing it or not, for better of for worse, our hands and minds are building the structures of the becoming.

The progression of these events is painful, complex, amazing.

It is Life’s next step.

Right here, right now.

Welcome to the ICON field.

For all of those co-creators of the ‘Integral Communities of the XXI century’

Deep personal intention beyond the individual

Deep, personal intention to go beyond ego for the sake of the whole -commitment to live one’s life for the greater good, regardless of the sacrificial implications for oneself -humility, which means a recognition of the limitations of one’s own knowing -willingness to embrace uncertainty -capacity to comfortably engage complexity for sustained periods of time -courage and autonomy to go against the grain and voice disagreement regardless of the personal implications -ability to be both fully autonomous and surrendered to the collective -ability to embrace multiple perspectives without losing one’s own

Supporting forces in shared living

A rich shared living and working environment allowing for a blend of collective spiritual practice, creative engagement, work and play, all within a larger shared context. -having many of the basic needs taken care of; for instance, having a shared dining area with core kitchen staff to provide for everyone’s food needs frees up a great deal of time and energy that would normally be spent shopping for and preparing their own food. -a highly structured daily and weekly schedule creates a container to manage collective movements with ease and alleviates the need for endless ongoing group decision-making around inconsequential issues, such as: “when should we meditate?” “when is dinner?” or even “what should we do tonight?”. The seeming loss of outer freedom such a rigid schedule predicates is far outweighed by the inner freedom of not having to be preoccupied with the endless meaningless choices of modern life. Included in such a schedule should also be predetermined periods of unstructured time to allow for individual expression and to counterbalance the structure. -creation of “group accounts” to cover all shared expenses again maximizes efficiency. Decisions regarding more discretionary costs can be vetted by a small “board” or committee with recommendations being circulated by email through the entire group, with an opportunity for anyone who objects to raise their voice. How dissenting voices are ultimately dealt with is a more complex issue, but if the spirit of the collective is truly aligned with a higher purpose and shared vision, the small things have a way of working themselves out, usually through a one-on-one conversation. -a combination of hierarchical and bottom-up elements seems essential. There needs to be a hierarchy of decision-making, where those with the most experience and expertise in a given area are allowed to hold the greatest influence over the conduct of that area of activity. At the same time, there needs to be a genuine invitation and forum for anyone at any level of the hierarchy in any area to provide input and make sure they are heard.

Thwarting forces in the ITS

 

Be aware of what various of the survey respondents comment on thwarting forces in the system:

• Structures that are either too rigid or too loose. What is most essential here is that structures continue to evolve to meet the evolving needs of the collective they are serving. -decision-making processes that are either too democratic (green) or too autocratic (blue/amber). Both polarities mire the emergence of true collective wisdom, which relies on a respect for both a natural hierarchy and a bottom-up self-organizing impulse.

• The routine (habits). Giving up the idea that things can be done. The expression ‘is impossible’.

• Building and maintaining true ecological systems to provide water, energy, food, shelter, and transport at an affordable cost is a great challenge to any community. Finding ways to keep the community financially sustainable, also in the face of potential economic crises is a problem that is very difficult to tackle.

• Living in a society hostile to community because it is structured around mutual distrust, competition, and legalities. Insufficient pre-solution of infrastructure systems. (Hell is living in your house while you’re remodeling.”) (Beginner’s idealism thwarts adequate planning.)

• What most thwarts us also presents us an opportunity to be creative, and it challenges us to be sure of the committments we make. Adversity can be a binding agent!

• Rigidity — the outer collective must serve both the need for shape, for fixed form that serves, but at the same time, maintain itself as an active, alive learning system.

• Fixed rules, that hand over responsibility to an institution and people awaiting initiative from there General, unreflected critics to suggestions and ideas Obligations and the feeling things HAVE to be done for the sake of doing it.

• Laws, policies and rigid structures can stifle the environment within which the community operates. If the community cannot impact the these external systems through activities, such as lobbying, then it could affect the life-span of the community. A lack of external resources, particularly those resources that the community depends on for sustaining itself affects success. Example: funding requirements of a sponsor could change, or funding could be re-directed to short-term emergencies.

Second tier enactment

Consistent capacity to function at a high level (teal enough to make key decisions from 2nd tier.) Commitment to the enterprise. You’ve really got to keep choosing to live in community with this group now. Profound enough awakeness (1P) and devotion (2P) to support service (3P) in a lived, felt, subtle and causal and gross body enactment. Commitment to self-transcendence in each individual must be adequate to sincere humility but even more important to forgiveness. From the heart of being forever, everyone needs forgiveness

Universal spirituality and shadow work

As stated in the inner collective, a personal vision of its preferred vision and its personal mission in life is determinant. That will create the right attitude to live in community and make an effort to be impeccable and congruent in its thoughts, words and actions. Another very important factor is the inner health, self esteem and general well-being. If this factors are not balanced in a person it will have a direct impact in its attitudes, values, beliefs and morals. That is why I consider that a general practice for all members of the community should be any form of shadow work following the ILP program that should be a must in the community. I could say that most of the problems in human interaction and ability to bring projects to a successful completion has to do with the level of self esteem that a person or group has. A sense of connectedness is a result of our spiritual practise. In the level we advance in our spiritual path, people will increase its sense of connexion, caring for others, the environment, its will to participate, contribute, share, love. I would say that here we are talking about one of the core elements of a community. Even if we don’t call ourselves an spiritual based organization. Universal Spirituality has to play a central role in our daily practices. This will open the possibility to get to higher levels of human expression, interaction and manifestation as a community.

Two perspectives on health of body/mind

Perspectives are valuable for us to bring higher levels of awareness:

• Physical health and well being will bring higher levels of energy to the community. The effect of this will be immediately felt in the community and will be observed in an increase of skills and abilities of its members, participation in programs and more creativity and will to cooperate. Obviously this is the result of all the inner work being taken place in the community. This will create an special aura for the community that will be felt by visitors and people will be called to join the new way of relating and being. People that is foreign to this practices, will understand by seeing it how it happens. This will be more effective than reading thousands of books. The community should have a set of activities and programs that preserve and enhance its culture, the achievement of its mission and the building of a bridge between paradigms and colours of the spiral.

• Health of mind and body is important, although not crucial. It seems to be the case that we tend to overestimate the misery caused by illness, quite often. Health is therefore important, of course, but not crucial. In any case, it is difficult to try to promote this balance among quadrants and at the same time respect freedom. Definitely health and promotion of health is important, and the environment, the social connections, the contents of our food, matter probably more than it is reckoned at the moment.

Forces that support the outer aspect of collectives

We gather here several views of our respondents

• It is necessary a solid organization since the beginning, rules and laws, but motivated from a spiritual goal. All the things mentioned above are important, but between these, the need to establish since the beginning a relationship with the natural and social environment of the area, to be able to have a connection with the surrounding world without being a useless abnormal cell in the social tissue.

• One of the supporting contributors of community success is having shared experiences. When a group of people experience something together with all their senses, the learning and connection becomes internal – part of the DNA. A collective reference point supports the channeling of realizing the community vision. Participation also cultivates shared ownership and polarizes accountability for success.

• A clear sense of identity, of belonging, and of co-creation. A commitment to simplicity. Structures that, though they are evolving, grow out of the subjective experience. The outer must be grounded in the inner, and with awareness that it is one form of outer collective, not the only form. Also, periodic, deliberate review — in what way does this form serve well now? In what way could it be improved?

• Principles to allow and encourage action based on individuals initiative Joint vision or motivation Willingness to work on this Easy and affordable infrastructure (e.g. meeting rooms, web access, etc.)

What is in the me that may thwart community?

Be aware of what resonates the must. May you be thwarting the community?

• Rigidity — hmmm. A pattern in my response. The freedom of mind, heart. The letting go — these are all so important to let the self-organzing energies of the universe work with and through us. To become partners with this force — oo, la, la!

• A restrictive vision. Deny things instead of adding new elements to life vision.

 

• Selfishness and lack of clarity will always be harmful to any organism. Our consumer behaviors as well as our lack of unity in our daily actions will put the community in awe. Sharing our best traits will help us evolve faster.

• Poor attention to physical health (not fitness); lack of rest and recreation leads to a lot of downtime due to illness.

• Physical ill-health seems to take a large tool on the energy supply that is available to be put into community. We have members who are dealing with forms of addiction which thwart them. But I’m not sure whether these are outer or inner.

• Consumer behaviour may be a thwart factor as members, residents and visitors of the community have a whole life living under a system that creates addiction to consumption and place our happiness in the outer world and not in the inner world. Have the capacity to let go this addiction will a tough task to many people participating in the community and the process may be painful. This is applied to many other areas, not only consumption, but we are talking about being raised in a culture of “having” and not in a culture of “Being”. Our relation to money and possessions will be also a thwarting factor and a process that we will have to deal with very carefully in order to find balance between Yin & Yang economies.

• This is an interesting question. We have some obese members of the communtiy who nonetheless participate in every aspect of community life, from taking long walks to the workdays. I do think we tend to do too much driving around — we choose to send our children to schools far from home — private schools, and the kids all go to different ones!) for example, that may undermine some of our sustainability goals as well as the community building for our children. The kids are often not around, for example, and when they are they may be tired after a long day away. But we all want what is best for our kids, right? I think this is an area where we need to have more community discussion

• Maybe that our own success forces us to try to do more and more, to feel more, to do more things, and this ends up damaging out health and lowering our capacities to some equlibrium point. Living slowly is porbably we still have to learn about, and our body would serve our mind and heart better.

• When individual members of the community consistently act in ways that are not aligned with the values of the community then it may create distrust unless. This individual may be isolated from the community if a minority and the broader community does not tolerate the action.

• Lack of time for participation

 

What the ITS should now that may thwart community

• Thinking that we know the way people should act or think and imposing solutions to neighbors. Not creating social agreements.
  

• Not using a methodology for conflict resolution, decision making.
  

• Leadership of only one individual Hierarchical pyramidal social structures Isolating the community from “the outer world”

• Lack of using system thinking to help in the organizational structure of the community.

• Having to go out of the project or community to bring money to the projects of the community.
  

• Not making or keeping time tables
  

• Governmental policies or projects that can bring ecological and social unbalance to the bioregion.
  

• Social problems like youth gangs, drug addictions, alcoholism that affects the neighboring communities.
  

• The use of recreational drugs by members of the community.