How to establish and grow local and regional meta-hubs

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I have some partial agreements with you all here.

One shortcut I often use for the four quadrants, are the following set of terms:

Being (upper left)
Doing (upper right)
Being Together (lower left)
Doing Together (lower right)

When it comes to integral work, we do our best to bring all four of these into our conscious awareness — sometimes one or two at a time, sometimes all simultaneously. And I think if we look at the history of the movement, we might notice that things seem a tad lopsided — there is lots of “talk” and sharing in the lower left “being together” quadrant, but we don’t see as much coordinated task cohesion in the lower right “doing together” quadrant (after all, what else is a “system” except things doing something together in a coordinated way). Or to put it another way, we are very good at finding new and better ways to frame problems, but we are still building the muscle necessary to generate solutions.

And that’s okay, at least for the most part. The idea of “be the change you want to make” is itself a sequential and four-quadrant practice, and the different elements of that practice find support in these various different quadrants.

So when it comes to the first part of that idea, individuals who are trying to find and cultivate new ways of being, much of their work is likely focused in the upper left quadrant, and they then naturally seek lower-left communities who can help support, encourage, and resonate with these new upper-left ways of being, which allows us to recognize these new versions of self within the space of “Being Together”.

I think we are also all waiting to see more emphasis moving over to the upper and lower right quadrants — Doing, and Doing Together. But it makes a fair bit of sense to me why our options are a bit limited when it comes to those quadrants:

  • First, because not enough people have done the interior work necessary to “be the change”, which can therefore limit the ways we can show up together in order to enact that change.

  • Second, because integral still represents a deep but narrow developmental minority, so there is only so much influence and impact it can currently exert in the world. Which is frustrating, especially as life conditions continue to aggregate that appear to lead directly to the emergence of something like an integral stage of development.

  • Third, because when it comes to this newly emerging stage, resources are far more scarce in the right-hand quadrants than they are in the left-hand quadrants, and therefore more difficult to execute the sorts of projects that likely require our full-time attention (and therefore full-time compensation and livelihood). They say the Renaissance was participated in by only about 1000 people, but of course those people were some of the most wealthy and influential of their time.

So I do also get frustrated when things seem to stall out at the “being together” phase, so much talk for so little walk. But I also understand it. Integral “abundance” is currently pooled in our interiors, while resources remain scarce when it comes to our exterior realities, all of which influences the ways we self-organize as a community.

And I also have to remember that every new stage of development emerged from, and was sustained by, a series of conversations — individuals who were feeling out these new ways of being together, so that they could eventually discover new ways of doing together. And in each case, it seems like the capacity for new stages to begin “doing together” in new ways really only becomes possible once some critical threshold of the population begins having those conversations. A “tipping point”, as Ken likes to call it, where new perspectives, systems, and solutions can actually exert meaningful influence and be selected for by a large enough portion of the population, and where generative feedback loops begin to emerge between our being and our doing.

Until then, yeah, it’s pretty much all talk. So let’s navigate all that talk with confident humility, and make our talk as compelling as possible to others at the periphery of integral consciousness, so that our “being together” can eventually ripen into new ways of “doing together”.

Also, I’m okay with the prefix “meta”, thought I’d agree it’s getting a bit played out :slight_smile:

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I really find the interchange between Ray and Brandon invigorating. As one who has tried to bring groups together to create change with a lot of failures, I have to agree that the possible negative outcomes have to be addressed. On the other hand, we also need to have the positive energy to initiate new and better ideas.

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Hello to everyone!

I appreciate the ideas that everyone is bringing to the table. I have to admit that I’ve never been much of a Group person even though throughout my life I’ve been involved in a variety of group dynamics and continue feeling that I’ve yet to find my “Tribe on planet earth” while I honor my solo journey. The idea of getting together “in person” with people that are expressing Integral ideas simultaneously intrigues me yet gives me pause. The handful of close friends that have been in my life for decades are people that I love and yet do not fully agree with at the end of the day. One of the core values we share is “Civil Discourse” and we’ve all been learning from one another over the years.

A part of me is very curious as to what an “in-person” Integral group discussion would look, feel, and sound like? My approach has been a little more spontaneous in that I’ve been out and about diving into opportunities for discourse and intuitively bringing ideas to the conversation that were relative as well as challenging to the discussions taking place. Despite my lack of structured approach it sometimes has had an influence that was brought to my attention in other conversations months or years later.

While I find myself feeling resistant to social gatherings that are too structured I realize that there are opportunities for quality interactions in any type of social dynamic and continue to learn, be challenged, and grow from every experience that happens be it intentionally or not. I don’t have a plan when I engage others yet things emerge that I ride the waves of and it often sounds a little more Integral than not.

Best,
Brian

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My experience with in-person integral groups is that they usually involve people who are at least somewhat familiar with the integral frameworks are are likely interested in exploring how to team up with people to do something tangible with this integral knowledge. This can include anything under the sun, and some common applications and projects include organizational development, software and technology development, therapy and coaching practices, entrepreneurship, the formulation of new economics models, activism for political and legal reform, and developing social containers for spiritual explorations. Most of the real work is done in the context of a more specific working group, which might need to spin off into its own organization that would not need to be explicitly integral in orientation.

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Can we try this in Colorado (being the birthplace of Integral and having a high concentration of Integral leaders and high consciousness folks) or Wyoming/Vermont (lowest US populations)?

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Yes we can. I met some people a couple weeks ago in Denver and Boulder who are interested in doing something like this. Also Vermont is an excellent place for something like this to happen, and I understand that some of it is underway already.

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Awesome! I mean sure whatevs (there, the post now has more than 20 characters) :innocent::joy:

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Robert,
I just found this discussion and see you are in Seattle, as am I. Do you have interest in meeting up to further this discussion? I thoroughly enjoyed being among Integralists in the Denver conference, but don’t have anything like that here. My interest is especially in making sure Integral is not elitist and works to listen to and respect people at all levels.
Gary Shumway

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Hi Gary,

Thanks for reaching out! So let me summarize how my world works at the moment.

  • started forming a regional meta/integral hub (@EnlightenedWorldview model)
  • realized the Seattle area (and neighboring regions) are more interested in practice than theory.
  • creating a practice model around environmental regeneration with the key organizing vehicle being Regenerate Cascadia (RC).
  • so I’m situating the meta/integral hub in a practical framework around environmental action.

For example, I just got off a long call with a RC partner and we were discussing the problem of essentially “green” environmentalists who have trouble forming practical strategies because they are always reaching for some new perspective. We are not hating the search for new perspectives … but we are also not loving the lack of action. Solution? Second-tier. Love the environment + get stuff done.

So our approach is absolutely integral-informed. But the practice carries different names for different situations. For a more detailed deep dive, feel free to DM me!

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Robert,

It sounds like you have a focused project that fits you well. I’m more at the stage of making sense of Integral and looking for a hub, or maybe a node, for educational purposes for me and people in the community wanting to know about Integral. Regenerate Cascadia looks like a good choice to engage with Integral tools!

Along the lines of all talk and no action (in the adjacent comments), I understand the desire to do things. I have a different perspective. In the absence of a coherent model, I watched colleagues lurch from one faddish solution to the next—there was no absence of doing!—not knowing about the bigger picture of a continuum of growth and maturity and the need to build capability when there are gaps. So, I see a hub/node as being like the education and consulting group for the consultants, project managers, etc. And a truly Integral hub would not exclude the left hand quadrants, so community, personal, and spiritual growth would also be present.

Those of us in the Integral community need to keep in mind how few people know about—let alone understand—Integral Theory. I hang out in educated circles, but the awareness of Integral is minimal. I’m all for action and I cheer you on. Concurrently, a big chunk of talking and teaching remains to be done!

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Hi Gary, Shari Herdon is on Vashon Is. She is connected to both Integral nd Regenerate Cascadia. You might want to check out her channel.

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Anyone here is welcome to join us at Integral Sedona (formed in 2008 and on line since 2020) on Thursday mornings at 11 AZ time (same as PT in the summer). Send me an email - lynn@transformationteaching.com - and we’ll send you the announcement of the weekly topic. We usually play an integrally related video and discuss. We also invite live speakers and sometimes we do a little integral teaching if it seems relevant though most of our members are pretty integrally informed.

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