Portal to Unity

[Karing4U]

From: Bruce Schuman
Date: Friday, January 9, 2009
Subject: Network of Circles
lightpages.net



Over the past several days, just letting my fingers do some typing -- I wrote a review of this "Portal to Unity" project, generally intended for the Kalliopeia Foundation, a funding organization with strong instincts for "oneness", and the sponsors of "The Global Oneness Project".


This Portal project -- is a very big idea -- and still fairly loose and fuzzy. It's interesting that I saw a book being discussed on MSNBC the other morning -- "One Big Idea" -- a book on business, but still conveying this same general theme -- a big idea containing little ideas...


Somehow, we're looking for a container for everything we know -- one way to bring it all together, that is not overwhelming, that doesn't stun us with its complexity and detail, something that feels natural, organic, and do-able...


The essential idea of the Portal is "E Pluribus Unum" -- "Out of Many, One" -- or, in other terms, building oneness from the grass-roots up. How to do that? Well, there are a million ideas, and some might say they are all different ways to say the same thing.


For me, though this Portal idea still seems too broad and not really ready in its present format, the general idea feels on track. Yes, there are several missing pieces still, but one big piece -- feels like the emergence of a coalition or alliance or partnership.


How is that going to happen? Who or what would be included?


I'm just letting myself receive the next steps on this. They're not yet clear -- but things continue to unfold.


Shortly after sending off my message to Kalliopeia, I was reminded of the seminal and essential work of Tom Atlee and the Co-Intelligence Institute. I spent a couple of hours this morning looking at Tom's material, thinking I might be able to more or less get my arms around it -- until I saw the note that said there are more than 1,000 html pages on the site. I had to catch my breath...


While considering Tom's profound and detailed contributions to this subject, I got an email message from Nancy Roof, publisher of Kosmos Journal, inviting responses from the readers, invoking their response with these words:


Many of us have been living with the knowledge that our world and its institutions are nearing collapse. We long for that time – that rare opening – when evolution takes a momentous leap forward. The election of Barack Obama aroused an explosion of spirit in the world. It seemed to be an outer symbol of an inner knowing that the tipping point from collapse to creation may well have arrived.


The slogan heard around the world is “Yes we can.” What does this mean to you?


This invitation seemed to resonate. I stopped what I was doing and immediately wrote a short article and submitted it back to Kosmos. And just now, going to get the words of this quote, I've already heard back from Nancy Roof, so all of that feels very co-creative. Here is the article in its present draft, which need to be a little shorter for publication in Kosmos.


NETWORK OF CIRCLES - NEW ARCHETYPE FOR COLLECTIVE SELF-GOVERNANCE
Bruce Schuman – interspirit.net – [e-mail]
filegroup 101152 – January 9, 2009


All over the world, and bursting forth today from its underground co-creative crucible into clear public discussion, there is a dawning excitement everywhere regarding the creative power and wisdom of collective human genius.


The election of Obama seems to have sparked the vision or wild hope that something almost divine or magical may be in the air. We have prayed, we have read and studied, we have gathered together in small groups everywhere, we have been unfolding and discovering the collective wisdom and intelligence of community. In a world that is badly fractured and divided by the crunching intersection of old ideas and assumptions, a new and resonant integral model is being born in a million local conversations.


And Obama seems to understand this. Has he been trained in the research on dialogue and community? How is it that he seems so deeply in tune with the keys to building shared understanding and community in a context of great diversity? Millions of people in the USA could sense this great skill and instinct, and responded powerfully to this new call to shared understanding and trust that Obama seems to embody.


In his outreach to the world, as he speaks to us in person, he seems to balance this broad calling with great artistry and diplomatic skill, somehow knowing he is “speaking to the whole”. And through his internet outreach, he has convened millions of people all over America, into a single online context that could grow in ways that absolutely support these emerging highest ideals. Like a national “meetup.com” network, Obama’s web network is ready to organize ten-thousand local groups around the USA that could come together through this highest ideal of co-creative intelligence.


This is an astonishing possibility, amazing not only for its breadth of inclusion and its profound sensitivity to the call for community arising all over the world, but also because of its deep organic elegance of design, its primal simplicity, its natural attunement with the form of “being” itself.


We can combine network design with deep wisdom, with the most profound calls to holism and to all that is good in human nature. We can convene the collective genius of our society – here in the USA, and indeed, around the world – through an emerging network process that grows like a vine, that interconnects the good everywhere, that has no central organizing authority, and simply unfolds as an expression of an organic and deeply mystical ontology that resonates like the dream of every religion coming true.


Are we indeed at some “tipping point”? Are we ready to move past our collective confusion and sense of overwhelm and frustration, and into a new era of accelerating harmony and resonance and vibrant creativity? There is a gathering force out there that says yes. That gathering force is saying yes we can…


"Stay at the centre of the circle and let all things take their course." Lao-Tzu
Revelations: The Wisdom of the Ages - Paul Roland