Thriving part 2

One of the people I have had the pleasure to connect with in the Bay Area is Jeff Vander Clute.  I tend to find people who can play in different worlds (or perhaps unify them) intriguing.  Jeff gets and has done startup, tech, Silicon Valley and VC etc. And he gets raising consciousness, emergence, unified field and resonance. Cool stuff! I had stumbled across the Edible Schoolyard Project during one of my first days in San Francisco as they had a few outdoor stands.  Alice Waters founded this and is a big voice in the Bay Area around sustainability and local sourcing of food.  So when her award-winning restaurant Chez Panisse got recommened as a meeting place, it seemed synchronistic (apparently, for very devoted suppporters of 'go local' in Berkeley, it is the place to eat if you are serious about your intention).

Jeff is currently putting his attention into Thrive Napa Valley which is a happiness initiative for his local area. As they state on their homepage: Thrive Napa Valley is helping to build resiliency in the region by shining a light on our communities' success stories; by connecting social innovators to one another; and by promoting the most effective sustainable practices from around the world.  They are founding their efforts on appreciative inquiry and the notion that we grow in the directions of the (powerful) questions we ask. 

Just to mention two aspects that Jeff talked about. One, sharing, which coming from BM and its gift economy (and having people lend me most the kit I needed), I have had recent direct experience of.  Their vision, which I think Pareto would be proud of, is that where we currently share 20% of the time, we share 80% of the time (our tools, our resources).  Given most people only mow their lawn probably no more than once a fortnight, does everyone need to own a mower?  Two, working hours.  A long time ago when I was in my car in Norwich, UK, I remember hearing a radio discussion about the fact that the anticipated 'age of leisure' had not materialised: people were working longer hours than ever.  This was then picked up in a conversation with Johannes Moeller, who has been inquiring around jobsharing and full societal employment.  Simplistically, given many people in full-time employment make more than enough to subsist, by sharing their jobs out, could we significantly reduce the number of under- and unemployed.  I am no macro-economist, but it seemed a worthy line of questioning. Jeff's idea is that people offer their time, energy and skills to one another out of joy and generosity, with the knowledge, gained from overwhelming experience, that what goes around comes around and that all basic needs are met in the process.  Accordingly, people work a few hours a day on average and devote the rest of their time to relationships, and to personal and collective development (I hear all you PD junkies salivating!)  Is that really possible?  How far away would we be from creating something like that?

For more information on thriving commuinities and the wider compassionate city movement Jeff is linked into, see here.

Thriving part 1

Quick heads up for those interested, the Thrive Movement, a film about 'What On Earth Will It Take?' to create a new global system based upon fairer values.
Check out the Thrive Movement trailer. The film comes out on 11/11/11 and the tickets sold out the first 2 hours!

From 1 to 3, and 9 to 12

One of the things I have been looking to explore out here is the Enneagram.  For an overview of the Enneagram, a good place to start is the Enneagram Institute.  The more I look into it, the more I am taken by how much is in the system.  People who are interested in uniting Western and Eastern wisdom might be willing to see the Enneagram as part of our Western wisdom, originating in the work of the Christian Mystics.  Gurdjieff is generally associated with transmitting the Enneagram into more recent Western awareness.  And then a line is traced through a Bolivian Oscar Ichazo and a Chilean Claudio Naranjo to the latter's former students including Helen Palmer and Sandra Maitri.

During my meeting with Diana Chapman last week, whose work I was really impressed by, she mentioned the tri-type approach to Enneagram.  This made the penny drop why most people I have mentioned Enneagram to out here have given me three types, not just one. So while Riso and Hudson at the Enneagram Institute have focussed on your primary type, some are acknowledging this alongside two others types, one in each of the thinking (head), feeling (heart) and instinctual (gut) centres.  One introduction I have found to this idea is here with the work with Katherine and David Fauvre.  The thinking is that you in effect have two back up approaches that you will bring to a situation when your primary type strategy is not working.  So, by way of limited example, and 8-7-2 faced with a situation might first try to control it (8), then make light of it (7) then forget their needs (2). 

Apparently the enneagramists are having some fun trying to type Barack Obama!  Is he a 9 with a 1 wing, or a 3 with a 4 wing?  One of their difficulties is that Obama and I quote from Enneagram Institute site seems 'unusually healthy' (psychologically) for a politician.  See the discussion here. I totally know what they mean and it occured to me how Plato or Mill might mourn that we still have not worked out how to choose the most psychologically healthy and wise among us to govern.  Anyways, more on that I am sure once I engage some more with integral politics.  I feel like I am meeting some people whose visions of society are exactly where we need to go but are almost so ahead of their time, such that if they presented such a vision, they would not be electable.

So I have talked about 1 to 3, primary type to tri-type.  Let's look at 9 to 12.  On Friday night, I had a lovely evening and dinner with David and Chellsa Lesser.  David introduced me to his Shadow Work and the four-quarter model.  Imagine in each of the four quarters (warrior, lover, sovereign, magician), you can either be high or low.  Combining two highs and a low, you get 12 combinations.  For example, high warrior, high soverign, low lover.  Interestingly, these match across to the 9 enneagram types (the example I give would be an 3, who finds it hard to be vulnerable and has to be bigger than who they are to be worthy) and provide three more, which are accounted for by splitting out three of the existing enneagram types. 4 (high warrior, high lover, low sovereign) which is more about individuality, for example, splits out to a type 10 (high warrior, high lover, low magician) which is more about releasing and leading through emotions.  I naturally get excited when models synthesize; and following conversations initially a few months back with Alex Hands about how Myers Briggs and Enneagram overlap, I have been intrigued by the merit in understanding these models, including astrology, together.  Of course, in an integral framework, it would make sense that they each have a partial view or truth.

So, if you haven't looked into the enneagram and are serious about inner work, breaking patterns, releasing tension or allowing your soul to shine through more often, I recommend you check it out.

Everything passes

Burning Man was an amazing event!  The concepts of radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, community and gift economy come together in a really interesting way.  From start to end, I barely did any planning, it was just a go-with-the-flow experience. You talk to people, you exchange gifts, they invite you to join what they are doing, and you're off. 

Event highlights:  seeing 3 sunrises, fantastic conversations, so many open and interesting people (an Enneagram 7's dream!) [http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/typeseven.asp] the night-time (described as like being in a video game which, with all the lights and artwork, it really is), our RV group whom I camped with (lovely people who really looked after me (thanks Cherie, Karl and Nicole), the loss of ones' sense of time (I haven't been wearing a watch all trip;  at BM, nearly everyone was in same boat, people sleep at all different times, so days merge into nights into days in a curious way), the metaphor of impermance and letting go (the whole city is temporary and most the artwork burns at the end of the week;  people write messages in the temple about what they want to let go and the whole temple burned on Sunday night)

Some quick piccies for you to check out:

As an experience, I would definitely commend this to people.  It's such an experience of how I think human beings can relate:  spontaneously, in generosity, openness and authenticity.  I am curious to see what remains of that way of being as I and other burners get back to the day-to-day.