---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tom Atlee <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 1:01 PM Subject: Exploring Wholeness in more detail - to support our highest aspirations To: Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> Tom Atlee's Co-Intelligence Journal . The Co-Intelligence Symbol . What this message is about: Wholeness is the foundation of the co-intelligence w Like<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-7c588a5261320c45a4959703c8de4d30-ce6c217?pa=19987789833&amx=4386670875> Tweet<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-34468f1b0a244aeefc7e70652282c7a6-ce6c217?pa=19987789833&amx=4386670875> Pin<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-4111fb276766e53771e89aa0e6f85b4f-ce6c217?pa=19987789833&amx=4386670875> +1<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-b20f321bc3a6f2f186ef0e1c336f5375-ce6c217?pa=19987789833&amx=4386670875> [image: Wholeness chart fragment] Tom Atlee's Co-Intelligence Journal [image: Cii-logo-smaller]<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-b44e47d0813eea186e51aeabab109dd9-ce6c217?pa=19987789833> . The Co-Intelligence Symbol . *What this message is about: Wholeness is the foundation of the co-intelligence worldview. It is a big subject - embracing many varieties, dimensions, and manifestations of wholeness, as well as many factors that contribute to or detract from it. Here you'll find materials that open up that rich and complex realm and attempt to provide some order and context for it. I believe that most of our personal and social aspirations - such as health, justice, sustainability, joy, wisdom, community, peace, a sense of the sacred - are all grounded one way or another in wholeness. The more we understand it, the better we'll be able to pursue and realize those goals.* ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT, PLEASE SUPPORT US IN THESE LAST FEW DAYS* ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dec 2013-Jan 2014 Co-Intelligence Institute fundraiser progress report: *Funds raised so far: $4681* Our target: $20,000 // Percentage of needed funds raised so far: 23.4% People on our list: 1684 // Days remaining in this fundraiser: 8 Thank you so much to the 46 people who have responded! *If you value our work*, please participate with a donation. See the end of this mailing for how to contribute *As you can see, we could really use your support.* ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Exploring Wholeness in more detail - to support our highest aspirations<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-a2e341c26dacb43c6e9ba97e6359aff9-ce6c217?pa=19987789833> [image: 220px-Yin and Yang.svg] . . . . Whole and Part . . . . Dear friends, Since the beginnings of the 1990s I've known that my inquiry into "co-intelligence" was fundamentally about how to apply wholeness to promote wholeness. So for more than two decades I've been exploring wholeness to understand it better. Many of my models and essays on this subject are available on the Co-Intelligence Institute's webpage on wholeness<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-50f9d7f21ac0f9f555c64fd64d2fbb52-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>. Other articles, models and notes are tucked away in files. I find that most people - if they think of wholeness at all - think of it as one thing. For example: Something is whole if it isn't broken. Or wholeness has to do with health, or wholesomeness, or integrity. Or wholeness describes Spirit or the non-dual nature of reality that includes and/or transcends all the diverse phenomenon of existence. My own fascination with wholeness comes from the fact that so much of what we want in our lives and in our visions of a "good society" - health, justice, sustainability, joy, wisdom, community, peace, a sense of the sacred - are grounded one way or another in wholeness. It seems to me that if we understood wholeness better we would more easily and wisely be able to co-create the good lives and good societies we dream of. But the topic as a whole (so to speak) is elusive: there are so many varieties, dimensions, and manifestations of wholeness - and so many factors that contribute to or detract from wholeness - that embracing them all in any explicit and coherent way seems nearly impossible. I've depended primarily on my evolving intuition to sense the presence and nature of wholeness in situations, dynamics, approaches, ideas, proposals, and more. However, it is hard to communicate that intuitive sense to others. Given how fundamental it is to the co-intelligence work and so much else, I decided two years ago to attempt a book or website devoted solely to exploring and articulating the full dimensions of wholeness. I don't know if that book or website will ever be realized, but I've decided at this point to share highlights of my explorations for those interested. As an introduction, you'll find below the preamble to the Co-Intelligence Institute's webpage on Wholeness<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-8e0bfb7f3e609c09c4821a586cbc7591-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>. (That page also links to a half dozen articles on wholeness that are not included in this message.) Following that intro, you'll find a list of wholeness-related factors that constituted an outline for the book I was planning to write. Finally, if you'd like to explore a framework within which most of those factors fit together more or less coherently, I invite you to visit my "Dimensions of Wholeness" model<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-58520d8aa6531530f6c53655de7a182d-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>. This features a graphic and an accompanying descriptive text. I am only including the link here, since the graphic is large for email and the model is complex enough that it may only interest a few readers. (A portion of the model graphic is shown at the top of this email.) I hope the material provided here will prove thought-provoking, inspiring, and useful in your own life and work. Blessings on our Journey through wholeness into greater wholeness. Coheartedly, Tom = = = = = = = *WHOLENESS <https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-2e4126a57ae22c97165e75ee0fae06b3-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>* In normal usage, the word "whole" means simply complete, entire, undivided, not ill or injured. Holistic science and philosophy and the study of systems have added new dimensions to our understandings of wholeness, understandings which are still developing. In co-intelligence work, *"wholeness" refers to the inclusive, ever-evolving coherence of life and its various parts and of the relationship dynamics between those parts.*This coherence underlies familiar concepts like health, integrity, wholesomeness, holiness, and other holistic concepts. Wholeness, itself, has many dimensions and dynamics which we are exploring in our co-intelligence work. That said, the fact is that wholeness is both central and not precisely defined. It is something to "get the feel of." When we talk about "wholeness" on this site, we are often embracing many overlapping phenonena, among them these: 1. Attending to the whole means attending to "the big picture" instead of engaging in narrow-minded glorification of limited information. 2. In a common definition of co-intelligence -- "Accessing the wisdom of the whole on behalf of the whole" -- the whole can include the whole group, community, or nation; all the parts of a system or all the adversaries in a conflict, in generative conversation with each other; and/or the larger wholeness or Spirit of Life as a source of wisdom. 3. Wholeness includes long term perspectives and realities. Although immediate problems, realities and outcomes may be important, they are not the whole story, 4. Taking wholeness seriously means looking beyond narrow self-interest to "the common good" -- and even pursuing self-interest through pursuit of the common good. 5. Concern for wholeness requires moving beyond shallow appearances and symptoms. It requires moving into fuller meanings, deeper causes, greater complexity, subtlety and ambiguity. 6. The wholeness of things of course includes their parts. But when we're considering living beings and living systems we must also address their overall health, responsiveness, development, special gifts, etc. -- their unique aliveness -- and also their context and history. We must especially transcend our focus on their utility to us. 7. Wholeness almost always involves the healthy mutuality (synergy) of relationships, a dimension of life that can be neglected by an exclusive focus on the entities involved in those relationships. Whole-system dynamics and structures are often the dynamics and structures of relationships that characterize the whole. 8. To attempt to understand the whole means to humbly recognize the fact that "there's always more to it; to appreciate the limits and evolution of knowledge and certainty. 9. Wholeness often refers to the unity of spirit -- and commonality of story -- that underlie the details of life. Unity and commonality are often overlooked when we focus too much on differences and separateness (although these, too, are part of wholeness!). "Wholeness" is the concept that best embraces "new paradigm" efforts to create a more just, sustainable and wise society. As the essays on this webpage make abundantly clear, wholeness is far more than unity. Co-intelligence is intelligence that arises out of wholeness and takes wholeness seriously. Co-intelligence can be considered the cognitive and responsive dimension of wholeness. = = = = = = *A CATALOGUE OF WHOLENESS-RELATED FACTORS AND PHENOMENA <https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-8975519850d7ab643be62f4d5d274d33-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>* *IDENTITY* Diversity Differentiation Discernment Individuality / Uniqueness Form Name Soverignty / Rights Self-realization *INCLUSION* Openness Both / And Stakeholders Welcoming / Embracing / Invitation / Tolerance / Acceptance Curiosity / Sensing-into Listening/ hearing Presence (1) (showing up; being included) Respect / Valuing Trust Belonging / membership Include and transcend *INTERCONNECTEDNESS* Relationship / Kinship Stardust (the common source of all material reality) Intercentricity Networks Pattern Bioregionalism Understanding Organization Value Ethics / Morallity Fairness / Equity / Peerness Interdisciplinary Communication *INTERACTIVITY* Mutuality / Reciprocity Interdependence Cycles Power Feedback / Cybernetics Dissonance Complexity / Chaos / Multiple causation Interbeing / Co-incarnation / Yin-yang Cooperation / Power-with / Teamwork / Collaborative intelligence Co-creativity Community Co-evolution / Dialectic Conversation / Dialogue Resonance Exchange Economics Ecology *PARTICIPATION* Engagement Fit / Harmony Intelligence Action / Agency / Leadership Role / Function Purpose / Intention Choice Democracy Creativity Power Surrender / Prayer / Letting Go Needs Responsibility *CONTEXT* Environment / Climate Habitat Field (Morphogenic, Story) Commons / Common ground Reality / Conditions Freedom History Relevance / Relevation (quantum term meaning to elevate from the implicate order into explicate "reality" because of relevance to what is already going on) Challenge Nurturance Generativity Culture Assumptions Governanance *INTEGRATION* System Coherence Consensus / Confluence / Voice of the Whole Grace Completion Whole-person Self-organization Meaning Healing / Reconciliation Subsidiarity (functions carried out by the most local competent authority) Character *STATES OF WHOLENESS* Beauty Holiness Health / Resilience Vitality / Aliveness / Exuberance Balance Elegance (right simplicity) Sustainability Implicit Wholeness (things are whole exactly as they are; everything fits) Explicit Wholeness (achieved through fixing, healing, engagement, transcendence, etc.) Actualization Integrity / Truth Flow Nature / the Tao *EVOLUTION* Emergence / Manifestation Process Iteration Co-intelligence (History) Deep time (from the Big Bang into the distant future) Possibility / Vision Change Birth Growth Development Death Transformation Transcendence (Include and transcend)(a dynamic of a healthy developmental process) *INTERIORITY* Spirit Emptiness Consciousness Intersubjectivity (the "reality"-generating dynamic of many interacting "separate" consciousnesses) Presence (2) (aura; strength of personality) / Centeredness Viewpoint Psychology Power-from-within Calling *ONENESS* Unity Non-locality / Synchronicity Eternal now Non-duallity Communion / Love Supreme Being Quantum reality Mysticism / "the Perennial Philosophy" (Aldous Huxley's name for the mystical traditions of all major religions) *WHOLE-IN-PART* Fractals (patterns reappear at different levels of observation, such as branches of branches) Holonics (every part is a whole; every whole is a part) Holographics (each part contains the whole, or a part that contains the qualities or patterns of the whole) Holergy (a part is greater than its role in any whole) Membergy (the power possessed by a part due to its membership in a particular whole) (Yin-Yang) Microcosm / Sample *HOLISTIC KNOWING* (Knowledge based on any of the preceding items) Uncertainty / Ambiguity / Mystery Paradox Humility / More-to-it-than-that Intuition Comprehension / Depth / Insight Myth / Symbol Story Vision Imagination Integral models Wisdom / Perspective / Big Picture Multiple Intelligences Collective Intelligence Universal Intelligence Map / Model / Chart Holistic Design / Permaculture / Pattern languages Biomimicry Spectra / Bell Curves Nuance Humor Compassion Silence / Spaciousness / Meditation = = = = = = *DIMENSIONS OF WHOLENESS MODEL <https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586068-86501528c711934d1703131dd436fe4c-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>* This model linked here - a portion of which is represented by the graphic at the top of this mailing - includes many of the factors in the catalogue above in a coherent whole. If this topic interests you, I would encourage you to explore it and comment on it on the blog page<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586069-98876523c5f2d3282b77c5cce9ee3b65-ce6c217?pa=19987789833> . [image: ***] *To support the Co-Intelligence Institute & Tom Atlee's work...* Please send a tax deductible donation of any amount -- $10, $25, $50, $100, $500 or more -- to The Co-Intelligence Institute, PO Box 493, Eugene, OR 97440 or use your Visa or MasterCard - or Paypal - to make an online donation<https://go.madmimi.com/redirects/1390586069-698dfd85a2499824cc69db6c1a209c4a-ce6c217?pa=19987789833>or tell some friends you know about our work, and invite them to support it. Do let me know when you've mailed a donation, so I can add it to our tally right away. Including your email address on your check will help me keep track of your gift. 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