Urban Hub 28-Stepping In to Step Out

integralUrbanHub
Urban
Hub
28 Paul van Schaik
integralMENTORS
a meta-pragmatic approach
Thriveable Worlds
to step out
Stepping In

Urban Hub
Stepping In
Paul van Schaik
Founder Creator
Integral UrbanHub
28
Thriveable Worlds
to Step Out

Copyright ©©integralMENTORS– November 2022
‘In fullness and Freedom
A graphic series of integralMENTORS integral UrbanHub co-lab on Thriveable Cities-Worlds.
Founder & Managing Editor Paul van Schaik
a shape shifter that shapes shifts
“playinginthebambooshootsof consciousness”

co Lab
Urban Hub series is a Co Lab between
integralMENTORS, & IntegralUrbanHub, with
vS Publishing

In order to find your way
you must become lost
generously lost -
it’s only when you are lost
that you can be found
by something greater than you
BayoAkomolafe

The times are urgent;
let us slow down
Africanproverb

Slowingdownisthusaboutlingeringintheplaceswearenotusedto.
Seekingoutnewquestions.Becomingaccountabletomorethanwhatrests
onthesurface.Seekingroots.
Slowingdownistakingcareof ghosts,huggingmonsters,sharingsilence,
embracingtheweird.If ahumanistresponseto,say,thekillingof whalesor
policeviolenceurgesustodomoreandmoretostopthesephenomena,the
calltoslowdownremindsusthatwedonotsimplyactupontheworld(asif
theworldwereexternaltoouractions,orasif wewereexternaltoit),weare
theworldinitsongoingaction-ing.
Asaresult,wemightcometoexamineourcomplicityinclassissuesandhow
thelossof immediateconnectionswiththe‘wilds’rendersusmodernspoor
spokespeopleforthewellbeingof thenonhuman.
BayoAkomolafe

The way we ‘see’ the world,
the world ‘is’

Content
Context
Stepping In:
Integral Mutation
Jean Gebser; Jeremy Johnson; Cynthia Bourgeauly; P.J. Saher
Bayo Akomolafe; Tyson Yunkporta
Stepping out:
Integrating view
Towards an ecological epoch
Outer views:
Critical Zone
Terra Forma
Nature X Humanity; Material ecology
Ancestors consciousness:
Magic Mythic: Searching meaning
African & Yoruba
Australian Aboriginal
Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) American
Annex 1: Others Kosmologies
Annex 2: ECIAPSE not a 4 letter world
Bibliography:
Biographies:
Books: Urban Hub series

People do not perceive worlds but enact them. Different mindsets bring forth different worlds.
What is this series?
A collection of visions, ideas, theories, actions, dreams, etc. that give rise to a taste of
the many possibilities in our world.(s)
How we use all the best elements of the many worldviews, future, present and
ancient, visible and those still hidden, together and in collaboration, will define how
successful we are.
It is the morphogenetic pull of love and caring that will determine how we succeed
as a human race. It is the ability and need to generate an equitable, fair, resilient and
regenerative ‘society’ that must drive us forward.
The means will be a combination of many of the ideas showcased here but many
more still to be discovered on our exciting journey into the future. Held together
through an Integral and transparent approach.
Sharing and listening to stories, philosophies, cosmologies and metaphysical
understanding of each other and through experimentation, research and archology
developing theories, praxis, and activities/interventions to move towards a more
caring world of people, cultures, caring for the planet and systems of which they are
all part. For the past, present and future are here with us.
Too little courage and we will fail – too much certainty and we will fail. But with care
and collaboration we have a chance of success. Bringing forth emergent impact
through innovation, enfoldment & collaborative efforts.
A deeper understanding of the integral mutation will be required – this would be
more than an ‘mental’ integral vision and beyond all meta-frameworks.
Explore and enjoy – use as many of the ideas as possible (from the whole series)
unfolding & enfolding each into an emergent whole that grows generatively.
At each step testing – reformulating – regrouping – recreating.
Moving beyond, participating, through share-holding, through stake-holding, to
becoming thrive-holders.
In the desire to be
collaborative, don’t forget
leadership. Don’t be
embarrassed to lead. There
are too many efforts where it’s
all about ‘getting everyone to
the table.’ Everyone goes
away feeling good, but no
one’s doing anything.
Frank Beal

“The creative act is seeing the future, it is
seeing, sensing and feeling something that
has not yet taken form. It is to be attuned with
the creative energy of the cosmos. It is to
become the creator.
The creative act is one of solace, it is finding
one’s self. A truly creative act is life changing,
world building.
The creative act does not need an audience,
it sings alone to the stars, but it’s impact is felt
everywhere.
The creative act is truly courageous because
it goes beyond the known. The creator is a
world bridger, who penetrates the invisible
and bring it into form.
The creative act is one of deep mystery, for its
methodology can never be planned, its
appearance does not come by force, only
receptivity, and its outcome can never be
predetermined.
The purely creative act is a sacred act, whose
purpose is to lift up the soul of all beings.”
Rachel Garrard
©Rachel Garrard

Ever Present
Walking in the world not talking of the world
No one vision is sufficient in and of itself – visions can guide
but only by collaborative action in a creative generative
process can visions grow and become part of an ongoing
positive sociocultural reality.
Without taking into account the many worldviews that
currently co-exist and crafting ways of including them in a
positive and healthy form we will continue to alienate vast
sections of all communities and humankind.
It is through the cultivation of healthy versions of all the
different worldviews that we can attempt to move towards
an equitable, regenerative and caring world living within
the planetary boundaries.
Through action we will move forward – through only
ongoing talk we will stagnate and fail.
These curation are to be dipped into – explored and used
to generate ideas and discussion.
A catalyst for collaboration and action.
And most importantly grown, modified in a generative
form.
For more detail of integral theory and Framework see
earlier books in this series.
shape shifters who shape shifts
This is a living series - any suggestions for inclusion in the next
volume send to: Paul.vanschaik@integralmentors.org

Diversity of Philosophies and Worldviews
It is important to re-surface many of the essences of forgotten and side-lined
philosophies, cosmologies & metaphysics as well as their systems for keeping the ‘world’
in balance. How can these add to our understanding as we expand into an aperspectival
Integral consciousness from the current Mental (i.e. modern, post-modern and AQAL integral)
worldview
This will give us the much needed diversity, to help breakdown the over-dominating
worldviews currently bringing such social, cultural, personal and physical chaos, and
damage we now suffering.
It’s time to expand the narrow western and eastern worldviews and truly include the best
‘essences’ from ALL the past consciousness mutations - that is the ‘deep-structure’ - and
exclude the ‘surface structure’ of how these manifested through the current worldviews.
The ongoing transcending and desecrating of ancestral pasts needs to end. (This
desecration can be seen especially in SDI & AQAL stage classifications in the Lower Left
Quadrant (culture) and to a degree in the Lower Right Quadrant (Social-fit/Society)
UH28 explores a few of these and some current communities - highlighting very briefly
some of these philosophies etc.. Much more research of each of these cosmology/
worldview is needed own perspectives and NOT from the Eurocentric perspective.
“the future cannot be known without having first been self-consciously made out of the
materials bequeathed to the present by its past. In the meantime, the superficial
integuments of present-day reality ought not to be frozen and rationalized as some sort of
timeless order ”

Stepping In
examples - Various

“This is how they survive. You must know this. You’re
too smart not to know this. They paint the world full of
shadows and then tell their children to stay close to
the light. Their light, their reason, their judgements,
because in the darkness there be dragons. But it isn’t
true. We can prove that it isn’t true. In the dark there is
discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the
dark when someone has illuminated it. And who has
been so close as we are right now?”
black sails

Integral
Jean Gebser
Bayo Akomolafe
Cynthia Bourgeault
P. J. Saher
Jeremy Johnson
Tyson Yunkaporta
Mutation

aperspectival asystematic
Rhizomes irruptions. When separated, each piece of a rhizome is capable of
producing a new growth, ……
Rhizomic irruption
cutting edge of irruptions
present thinking
entangled kosmos
a planetary culture is not a culture of the modern but
a culture of yesterday, today, and tomorrow too
increasing in
conscious intensity
integralmentors.org

www.integralmentors.org
2Mental
Modern
Post-Modern
Meta-Modern/
Meta Frameworks
Mental-integral
AQAL SD etc
Perspectival.
Structures of consciousness: expanding MUTATIONS of consciousness NOT STAGES of development
3Intergal
Aperspectival
1Archaic
Rigpa, Emptiness
Fullness & Freedom
4The ever-present origin is the source and the whole at the same time beyond time and all dimensions.
It is the absolute, all structures arise within this absolute and are the relative mutations
also know as: Rigpa, Dzogchen in Buddhism (the great perfection or completeness) Emptiness in
Buddhism; In fullness and freedom; Tao in Taoism; etc.
Archaic1
Magical2
Mythical2
Mental3
Integral4
to emote
to imagine
to see/space
origin
4 dimensional
3 dimensional
2 dimensional
1 dimensional
dimensionless
all & time
1stmutation
2ndmutation
3rdmutation
4thmutation
The ever-present origin: the origin before all time is the
entirety of the very beginning, so too is the present the
entirety of everything temporal and time-bound, including
the effectual reality of all time phases: yesterday, today,
tomorrow, and even the pre-temporal and timeless.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
The Ever-Present Origin : Gebser
"Gebser's five structural mutations of consciousness (archaic, magic, mythic, mental, integral) should
not be read as static stages or levels in a linear progression; they are processual transformations."
2
Magic & Mythical
Unperspectival

“Perspectival vision and thought confine us within spatial
limitations. The positive result is a concretion of man and space;
the negative result is the restriction of man to a limited segment,
where he perceives only one sector of reality.
Like Petrarch, who separated landscape from land, man separates
from the whole only that part which his view or thinking can
encompass, and forgets those sectors that lie adjacent, beyond, or
even behind.
Man, himself a part of the world, endows his sector of awareness
with primacy; but he is, of course, only able to see the partial view.
The sector is given prominence over the circle; the part outweighs
the whole. As the whole cannot be approached from a
perspectival attitude to the world, we merely superimpose the
character of wholeness onto the sector, the result being the
familiar ‘totality.’” Gebser

With the unfolding of each consciousness mutation, consciousness
increases in intensity; but the concept of evolution, with its continuous
development, excludes this discontinuous character of mutation. The
unfolding, then, is an enrichment tied, as we shall observe, to a gain
in dimensionality; yet it is also an impoverishment because of the
increasing remoteness from origin.
(Jean Gebser)
The manifestation of this mutational process should not be construed
as a mere succession of events, a progress or historicized course. It is,
rather, a manifestation of inherent predispositions of consciousness,
now incremental, now reductive, that determine man’s specific grasp
of reality throughout and beyond the epochs and civilizations.
“A mere conscious illumination of these states, which are for the most
part only dimly conscious, does not achieve anything,” Gebser writes,
“in fact, to illuminate these states is to destroy them.” We should be
mindful of this when we consider magical and mythical realities.

Gebser will repeatedly attempt to get out from under the natural
machinations of the categorical mind. Much of contemporary
integral studies has, like the larger human potential movement and
fields such as transpersonal psychology, relied predominantly on
the stage-centered maps of meta-theoretical and psycho-social
development to make their case for a new consciousness (with
meta-thinking placed at the higher levels of these same models).
While I respect these contemporary approaches and intuit they are
vastly helpful in personal, therapeutic, and sometimes
organizational settings, I sense they are still other modes of
expressing the complexities of cultural evolution without becoming
laden with what Gebser would describe as the problems of the late
phase of the mental structure (the mental-rational): a spatially
fixated consciousness, quantifying its flows, ultimately pinning
down living reality into singular, totalizing maps. Something more
like a phenomenological approach is needed, an approach likened
to what William Irwin Thompson and mathematician Ralph
Abraham describe as a “complex-dynamical mentality,” or Gebser’s
own aperspectival. That is, a form of thinking that is process-
oriented, descriptive, inhabiting unbroken flows of becomings
rather than segmented and linear (or even multi-linear) striations.
Gebser’s methodology lies somewhere adjacent to—or between—
rather than against meta-theoretical approaches such as Integral
Theory, moving us from critique and response to alterity, seeking
new expressions, new statements in the field of contemporary
integral scholarship. As Octavia Butler said, “there are new suns.”

The integral aperspectival approach—of which
there is no one, totalizing, or orienting approach,
because it opens—responds to fixation by irruption,
undoes rigidification by release (rather than mere
fracturing or ratio), liberates constricted self-sense
into the abyss. Yet the terror of the abyss is also a
sky—the luminous void—for the integral human
being.
The aperspectival is immanent, and therefore finds
itself at home with the philosophy of the future: the
networks of the distributed planetization to come.
The integral is friendly to the concept of the
rhizome in Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand
Plateaus: immanental, the aperspectival rhizome is
inexhaustible, and so it springs forth, abolishing
the limits of near and far, yesterday and tomorrow,
yet creatively fulfilling them, actualizing the needs
of the present without becoming frozen in clock-
time’s segmentation. This is what might be called
an integral futurism (this is not Gebser’s
terminology but my own).
An integral futurism is liberated from a deficient
mental-rational futurism, which can only be time-
bound, captured by perspectival linearity, and must
achieve great speed and complexity in an attempt
to escape, to master, the time factor.

The integral leap implies an integration of all
structures, a waring. This integration does not
belong to the mental structure’s capacity for
wakeful synthesis, generalization, or categorization.
“A mere conscious illumination of these states,
which are for the most part only dimly conscious,
does not achieve anything,” Gebser writes, “in fact,
to illuminate these states is to destroy them.” We
should be mindful of this when we consider
magical and mythical realities.
When we prioritize perspectival wakefulness over
unperspectival consciousness in a linear fashion of
superior consciousness, there, again, is the
colonization of the starry twilight worlds (and the
folly of the mental is that these twilight worlds
ultimately hijack the waking ego in novel ways); like
lifting a rock to peer at the underworld in the light
of the sun.
Furthermore, to merely portray the unfoldment of
the structures with the now default mentality of
perspectival consciousness—in terms of gains,
advancement, and progress—would be to fixate
them into spatial reality (where the structures
become refashioned as stages and placed higher,
or lower, in a developmental ladder).
process.
BEFORE WE CAN DISCERN the new, we must
come to know the old. By knowing the old I
actually mean something like re-constituting it.
As Deleuze says, it is not enough to have the
unconscious, you must produce it yourself in the
present. Bringing up the structures from the
depths of time, from latency, is a matter of
animating them, presently, and as such must be a
participatory process.

Revivification of the so-called old can be
overwhelming, like how the new reality on
Mount Ventoux was so disturbing for Petrarch. It
is easy for us moderns to dismiss the world-as-
cave and write off the unperspectivity as mere
superstition. Gebser, for instance, notes how
Renaissance artists regarded their medieval
predecessors—in a tellingly perspectival way—as
having “false vision.” We hardly need to discuss
the blatant scientism of our own day which
seeks to explain away subjectivity itself (a form
of final self-annihilation in the late mental
structure). To truly integrate the structures
requires more than a mere distanced
appreciation of their remote accomplishments.
We must come into glimmerings of contact with
the so-called past and chance, as it were, a
meeting with the dead. To know the night you
must risk stumbling in the dark. The archaic,
magic, and mythic always retain their potency in
us; they are spiritually and ontologically present,
challenging (and sometimes overtaking) the
contemporary mental consciousness with the
allurement of their alterity. The daylight mind
looks with both superstition when we become
present

we cultivate the capacity for openness; what “shines” forth in this openness is all that we have been and
all that we will become, not merely as individuals but also in the “longer” view: the structures of
consciousness, genetic and evolutionary ancestry, and cosmic being. It is through only openness and
spaciousness that we can become present to these things latent in presence, and capable of co-
enacting the infinite and creative powers of origin. It is through this diaphaneity that we become co-
conscious “mutants” for the future; mutations as leaps of consciousness are done when we have moved
with that which moves us into new realizations of being. In this vastness everything becomes
transparent. Here everything dynamically speaks to and informs itself as it manifests both as an ego in
time and a cosmic whole that wares through time. Indeed, Gebser concluded Ever Present Origin with,
“in truth we ware the whole and the whole wares us.”

This immanental presence is no longer a point or a triad but the sphere. In a sphere, whether something
is near or far is not a matter of distance but of attention. This is what “seeing through the world” really
means for us. As we begin to face the prospect of our own extinction through the sixth mass extinction
event in Earth’s deep evolutionary time, it is as if the whole of who we are, have been, and could be all
have come to the forefront of our consciousness and let us truly see ourselves for the first time. This
mutational crisis can, we hope, be a gift and a catalyst. After all, what is the kind of self-consciousness
apprehended from this long evolutionary view? Suffice to say that this intensified waring is the
beginning of Teilhard’s planetization.

There is not much that can be said, or documented, about the archaic,
but the nature of this structure, as Feuerstein noted, is “maximum
latency,” meaning that all future mutations (magic, mythic, mental) are co-
present and latent; the archaic is the latent integral, and the integral is the
fully realized archaic.
……
This new style of non-linear thinking places us upon a challenging
precipice of thought: how might we express emergence without
adhering to developmental thinking (this is not to completely denigrate
the mental’s spatial emphasis, but to dislodge our own perspectival
fixity)? One approach would be, as Gebser suggests, to merely loosen it a
bit, displaying some degree of aperspectival freedom; simply becoming
aware of our tendency to spatialize reality as we study the structures of
consciousness can help this process of “mental dislodgment,” for lack of a
better phrase. The unfolding of consciousness and its increasing
dimensionality are, “accompanied by an increasing reification or
materialization of the world,” but this is less a matter of gain or loss than a
“remarkable kind of rearrangement.” It is in these turns of phrase that we
really begin to see that Gebser’s approach emphasizes discontinuity and
non-linear emergence, while deemphasizing linearity and a
developmental view (the unfoldment of dimensionality is acknowledged
but not overextended into greater significance). At the very least—in
Gebser’s concept of systasis—we are pointed to something more than
perspectival linearity: in this new definition of emergence, a “seeing from
all sides,” the past, present, and future dynamically inform a coherent
whole and its manifold realizations. This “seeing from all sides …..

The aperspectival subject is an
assemblage: a self realized not
as hypertrophied ego—in the
Western image of the solitary
genius—but as an ecology, the
network of their relations and
imprints. This view of knowledge
and art making releases us from
perspectival fixation (knowledge
as created solely by the
individual) to aperspectival
relation (knowledge as flow,
assemblage, comprised not only
of its visible factors but also
sustained by the invisible,
spiritual whole). It is fitting, then
to conclude this text with a
gathering of integral
florilegium—curated by myself
and so by no means exhaustive—
for the reader to delve in further
for their own study of Gebser
and possibly even to support
varied aperspectival initiatives
and projects.

Consciousness “moves” towards its intrinsic wholeness. We have been roused to wakefulness in the
mental, but in the integral we are being initiated into the lucidity of origin. This is an immense, or rather
we should say, immeasurable spiritual task: to not only fathom but concretize the spiritual whole. It is to
allow origin to become realized in and through us. In this move from pyramidal and spatial thought to
aspatial, and spherical relation, the world—time and space—become transparent to us. Objects no longer
remain categorically flattened but become mysteriously open and diaphanous, shifting from points of
dialectical opposition on a spatial plane to weird and wondrous expanses—singularities—arising in
networked relation; in interbeing. The perspectival event horizon no longer remains the “vanishing point”
for the ego but an aperspectival bridge between the invisible and visible and the domains that extend
beyond the scope of the waking mind.

By granting to magic timelessness, mythical temporicity, and mental-conceptual temporality their integral
efficacy, and by living them in accord with the strength of their degree of consciousness, we are able to
bring about this realization. The concretion of the previous three exfoliations of original pre-temporality
instantaneously opens for us pre-conscious timelessness. As such, time-freedom is not only the
quintessence of time… but also the conscious quintessence of all previous time forms. Their becoming
conscious—in itself a process of concretion—is also a liberation from all these time forms; everything
becomes present, concrete, and thus integrable present. But this implies that preconscious origins
becomes conscious present; that each and every time-form basic to one-, two-, and three-dimensional
world is integrated and thereby superseded.

New worlds open up while others close down, and so this process of
cultural evolution is more like the punctuated equilibrium of Stephen Jay
Gould and Niles Eldridge than the developmental logic of Ken Wilber’s
“transcend and include.” It is true that some qualities are retained in the
new mutation and even depend on their predecessor’s achievements (the
emerging of mental ego is preceded by the self-consciousness of the
mythical soul), but they depend on those achievements in only latency.
The world-as-cave survives the mutational process as a ghost; the starry
cave is shattered as the perspectival consciousness opens up its new
reality with great conquering fervor and conviction, only to be recovered
as a hauntology of the mythic and magic in the form of the unconscious
through Freud or Jung, or even in the electric magnetism of Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus. In the wave of so-called
postmodern thought, it was Deleuze who traced the process of thinking
back to its “plane of immanence,” its realm of magical interweaving and
vitalist potency, and thereby traced the structures in reverse. “To think is
always to follow the witch’s flight,” he writes. Because this process is not
linear but one of discontinuous leaps into new plateaus of reality,
integration does not necessarily follow new mutations until we reach the
integral structure. It is in the aperspectival that systasis comes to the
forefront as an asystematic ordering of the whole (‘a’ bears the mark of
freedom, always, in Gebser’s writing). Time realization (not clock time,
mind you, but the achronon, time freedom) allows us to live in a new
reality—a world from all sides—that does not rely on synthesis or
categorical scaffolding to hold the structures together. Rather it is a
reliance upon the non-human arranging of systasis, the integratingPress.

To truly integrate the structures requires more than a mere distanced appreciation of their remote
accomplishments. We must come into glimmerings of contact with the so-called past and chance, as it
were, a meeting with the dead. To know the night you must risk stumbling in the dark. The archaic, magic,
and mythic always retain their potency in us; they are spiritually and ontologically present, challenging
(and sometimes overtaking) the contemporary mental consciousness with the allurement of their alterity.

The double task of the integral age is both the re-integration of the twilight worlds and the
concretization not of space, but time. To ware the whole and allow that waring to shine through the
archaic, magic, mythic, and mental realities respectively. Transparency is the quality of the integral
structure that allows such an integration to take place. As Rilke famously writes in his poem Archaic
Torso of Apollo, “there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.” To do anything
else, at this phase of human history, would be to deny tomorrow its right to be; a planetary culture is
not a culture of the modern but a culture of yesterday, today, and tomorrow too. A careful reading of
the structures of consciousness is one method we can use to assist us as we work to concretize the past
and listen to the future
All above excerpts from:
Jeremy Johnson: Seeing Through the World - Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness,
2019
Jean Gebser: The Ever Present Origin English Translation 1985
PART ONE: Foundations of the Aperspectival World - A Contribution to the History of the
Awakening of Consciousness 1949
PART TWO: Manifestations of the Aperspectival World - An Attempt at the Concretion of the
Spiritual 1953

CynthiaBourgeault
If you’ve cut your teeth on the Ken Wilber
roadmaps, the Gebser terrain will at first look
reassuringly familiar. The familiar levels of
consciousness are all right there, even
designated by their familiar names: the
archaic, magic, mythic, mental, and integral.
Nor is this surprising, since Wilber explicitly
acknowledges Gebser as the primary source
of his model.
There is one crucial difference, however. In
Wilber, these are stages of consciousness. In
Gebser, they are STRUCTURES of
consciousness.
Perhaps the significance of this nuance
escapes you (it certainly escaped me
initially). But on this nuance, actually, all else
turns.
Stages EVOLVE. They are like steps on a
ladder, building sequentially one upon the
other in a journey that leads onward and
upward.
Structures UNFOLD. They are like sections of
a jigsaw puzzle or rooms in an art museum,
gradually filling in to reveal the big picture
(which already implicitly exists).
“With the unfolding of each consciousness mutation,consciousness increases in intensity;
buttheconceptofevolution,withitscontinuousdevelopment,excludesthisdiscontinuous
characterofmutation.Theunfolding,then,isanenrichmenttied,asweshallobserve,toagain
in dimensionality; yet it is also an impoverishment because of the increasing remoteness
fromorigin.“(JeanGebser,TheEver-PresentOrigin.Athens,OH:OhioUniversityPress,1985,41)

CynthiaBourgeault
That’s why I admit to cringing and
shying away whenever I hear the term
“Integral” being bandied about. I know
I am about to encounter a terrain
replete with pretentious-sounding
neologisms and hyped scenarios of a
glorious future.
Gebser himself succumbs a bit to this
temptation, allowing us to tarry too
long in the illusion that a new
vocabulary alone (“synareisis,”,
“diaphaneity,” “waring,” etc.) is going to
reveal the truth of the experience. I can
almost hear E.E. Cummings clucking his
tongue at these “great words, writing
overmuch [that] stand helpless before
the spirit at bay.”
The poets get it. They always get it.
Nothing is fully realized (“concretized”
in Gebser’s term) until it can be
expressed simply, in words already in
everyday cultural use.
Fortunately poets are well represented
in The Ever Present Origin, and it is
through Rilke and T.S. Eliot that one
really begins to taste the extraordinary
possibility Gebser is laying before us.

CynthiaBourgeault
This means that stages are essentially developmental. The
earlier stage is folded into the next, in the process losing
much of its distinctive character. The earlier stage lays the
groundwork for what emerges next.
The inverse way of stating this is that the earlier stage
represents a more immature expression of what is to
follow.
It is not so in the world of unfolding. As you wander
through an art museum, each room retains its essential
character and wholeness; it weaves its own magic and
adds its own distinctive fragrance to the mix.
There are the medieval iconographers, the ornate baroque
sculptures, surrealists, impressionists, cubists, each one of
them retaining their own identity—“unconfused,
immutable, undivided” (in the words of the Council of
Chalcedon, describing the two natures of Christ).
While these artistic eras did emerge at specific points in
historical time, they do not replace one another or cancel
out each other’s unique identity.
Rather, they complement and deepen one another, like
interwoven threads in an unfolding tapestry. And at certain
times a certain room will speak to you more than the
others. The cubists may be further along on the
evolutionary timeline, but today it is the medieval icons
that are calling to you

Even at best it’s not easy to grasp the difference between
developing and unfolding. The difficulty is further
compounded, however, by the pronounced psychological bent
of the models we’re more used to (Wilber’s, and following in
his footsteps, Thomas Keating), which draw an explicit
correlation between structures of consciousness and stages of
childhood development. Thus, the “magic” structure
corresponds to the consciousness of a toddler, “mythic” to a
child, and “mental” to an emerging young adult. Viewed
through this lens, the implication becomes well-nigh
inescapable that these earlier stages are also “lower”—i.e.,
immature, more primitive—expressions of full adult
consciousness. They are developmental phases to be passed
through— “transcended and included,” perhaps— but certainly
not lingered in
To enter the world of Gebser, the first and most important shift
required is to recognize that we are indeed talking about
structures of consciousness, not stages. Forget “onward and
upward.” Each of these five structures is indeed an authentic
mode of participation in the world,” and if they are not,
perhaps, fully equal partners, they are at least fully entitled
partners. Each is as qualitatively real as the other, and each
adds its particular strengths and giftednesses to the whole.
They are not so much steps on a ladder as planets in orbit
around the sun, which is their central point of reference, the
seat of their original and continuously in-breaking arising.
Gebser calls this sun “The Ever-Present Origin.” I will have
much more to say about it in subsequent posts
CynthiaBourgeault

The muting or repression of any of these structures leads
to an impoverishment of the whole; this is true both
individually and across the broad sweep of cultural history.
While these structures may emerge into manifestation at
certain points along a historical timeline, they are not
created by that timeline nor determined by events
preceding them in the sequence. Their point of reference
is the Origin, which is outside of linear time altogether and
intersects with the linear timeline by a completely different
set of ordering principles. They are, one might say,
timeless fractals of the whole, each bearing the living water
of that original fontal outpouring in their own unique pail.
They are ever-present and ever-available “at the depths,”
even those that have not yet emerged into full conscious
articulation on the linear timeline.
The “final” structure, then— the true Integral in Gebser’s
worldmap—may in fact be not so much a new structure
itself as a capacity to hold all the other structures
simultaneously, in what Teilhard de Chardin once famously
called “a paroxysm of harmonized complexity.” It is not so
much a new window on the world as the capacity to see
from a deeper dimension which transcends both linear
and dialectical thinking and can deeply, feelingfully
encompass both jagged particularity and the unitive
oneness flowing through it, holding all things in
relationship to their source.
CynthiaBourgeault

Saher is, as geniuses usually are, a philosopher who
seeks Integration. Integration here means the
inclusion of those factors which enable us to gain
awareness of a thing in its totality. As applied to
modern science it often means the inclusion of the
spiritual dimension.
For instance, people in general are still under the
impression that the West lays particular emphasis on
the rational function. During the last decades,
however, the way was prepared for a decisive change.
It stands in a reciprocal relation to the
commencement of the Eastern turning towards the
rational and technical. From this it becomes clear that
East and West are by no means opposites, but
correspondences.
This distinction is of importance because it constitutes
the basis for the encounter of East and West.
Opposites are mutually hostile elements, whereas
correspondences complement each other. Therefore
a genuine meeting can only take place where there is
a correspondence between the encountering
elements, where they are complementary poles. This
is true of East and West today, more than ever before.
From foreword by Jean Gebser :Eastern Wisdom and Western
Thought A comparative study in the modern philosophy of
religion P J Saher
P J Saher

P J Saher
An integral philosophy reconciles the existence and
development of myth, along with the quasi-philosophical truths
contained in it, with the knowledge that it is only myth and not
reality.
In the realm of philosophy doubt need not have the sterilizing
effect which it has in theology. The utility of an integral view
requires that we hold two convictions:
(i) we must know that symbols are necessary; and
(ii) we must realize that they are only symbols.
Thus such a philosophy satisfies the fundamental intuitions of
the human soul by, in Blake’s words:
‘displaying the Eternal Vision, the Divine similitude which if man
ceases to behold he ceases to exist.’
Finally, it offers a criticism of this from the only point of view
which, perhaps, is just, the intuitive one. The integral view passes
judgement on philosophical, metaphysical, and religious ideas,
accepting or rejecting them according to the richness of their
content and their potentialities for beauty and harmony.
We thus have a barometer for forecasting the coming
philosophical weather of ideas. This an integral view can alone
provide.
If the barrier of rational limitations can be broken only through
intuition, then the latter is the bond between philosophy and the
so-called primitive mind. For if intuition exists, it must have been
strongest in the primitive period of humanity.

As our knowledge of the primitive
increases, we shall understand better
the symbolism of philosophy.
As our analysis of symbolism becomes
more accurate, we shall understand
more the profound meaning of
primitive beliefs, the power of which
made it possible for them to subsist in
their crude forms in the midst of highly
developed cultures and among gifted
races, in ancient India and throughout
the whole history of Africa.
Once we accustom ourselves to think
in terms of ideas, and not of the
persons who had them, we realize at
once that. all ideas occur in the mind
(not the brain), and we no longer
restrict them according to
geographical accidents and historical
time-tables.
Unfortunately we still refer to the ideas
in relation to their thinkers instead of in
vacuo.
P J Saher

P J Saher
The Songs of Innocence and Experience are intended to
show, as Blake himself said, ‘two contrary states of the
human soul’.
The two Songs (or the series of songs) are therefore
themselves symbols representing the possibilities for
good and evil in human nature.
By this symbolism Blake not only meant that the one
cannot exist without the other but also that: ‘without
contraries [there] is no Progression’.
We are here reminded of Kant’s analogy of the bird flying
in thin air wrongly believing that it could fly even better in
a vacuum and therefore hating the resistance of the
atmosphere.
For Blake the meaning of Christ’s ‘Love your enemy’
seems to be ‘convert resistance (the enemy) into power’.
The human soul like Kant’s bird can rise only when it
meets with opposition which it turns into an uplifting
force. The two Songs are, therefore, contrasted elements
in a single pattern.
By innocence Blake does not mean the innocence which
comes through ignorance, but that which comes through
wisdom.
The human soul evolves from the innocence (born of
ignorance) to the innocence (born of wisdom) via
experience.

BayoAkomolafe
I am quite confident that even as the oceans
boil, and the hurricanes beat violently against
our once safe shores, and the air sweats with
the heat of impending doom, and our fists
protest the denial of climate justice, that
there is a path to take that has nothing to do
with victory or defeat: a place we do not yet
know the coordinates to; a question we do
not yet know how to ask. The point of the
departed arrow is not merely to pierce the
bullseye and carry the trophy: the point of
the arrow is to sing the wind and remake the
world in the brevity of flight. There are things
we must do, sayings we must say, thoughts
we must think, that look nothing like the
images of success that have so thoroughly
possessed our visions of justice. May this new
decade be remembered as the decade of
the strange path, of the third way, of the
broken binary, of the traversal disruption, the
kairotic moment, the posthuman movement
for emancipation, the gift of disorientation
that opened up new places of power, and of
slow limbs.

May this decade bring more
than just solutions, more than
just a future - may it bring
words we don't know yet, and
temporalities we have not yet
inhabited. May we be slower
than speed could calculate,
and swifter than the pull of the
gravity of words can
incarcerate. And may we be
visited so thoroughly, and met
in wild places so
overwhelmingly, that we are
left undone. Ready for
composting. Ready for the
impossible. Welcome to the
decade of the fugitive.
BayoAkomolafe

“Death needs a new cosmology. Death is not a
black hole where things cease to be. If you want to
live well, keep death close. Hope includes
hopelessness and grieving is showing gratitude for
that which has been lost. What would it be like to
treat grief as power? Even our hopelessness as a
form of decomposing and falling away that is
sacred”
“It isn’t that the bull’s-eye, the destination, heaven,
home, doesn’t exist. It is only that it doesn’t exist in
linear time. It is like a crystal hanging above our
entire timeline, refracting partial images of itself
onto our world that we recognize as home. That is
why the mystics tell us it is always there, closer than
close. Nonetheless, our journeys away from home
have their purpose. A will stronger than our own
sends us on these journeys. If we do not someday
leave home, then home will leave us.”
― Bayo Akomolafe, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences:
Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home
Falling might very well be flying –
without the tyranny of coordinates.
BayoAkomolafe

TysonYunkaporta
“Increase is different from growth, because you
don’t want the size of the system to grow, but you
want the relationships within the system, the
exchange within the system, that needs to
increase. And you can increase that quite
infinitely.”
“Many Aboriginal stories tell us how we must
travel in free-ranging patterns, warning us against
charging ahead in crazy [linear] ways.”
“All Law-breaking comes from that first evil
thought; that original sin of placing yourself above
the land or above other people.”
“Nothing is created or destroyed; it just moves
and changes, and this is the First Law.”
“Every unit requires velocity and exchange in a
stable system, or it will stagnate – this applies to
economic and social systems as well as natural
ones.”
“Sedentary lifestyles and cultures that do not
move with the land or mimic land-based networks
in their social systems do not transition well
through apocalyptic moments.”

“People today will mostly focus on the points of
connection, the nodes of interest like stars in the
sky. But the real understanding comes in the
spaces in-between, in the relational forces that
connect and move the points.”
“If you live a life without violence, you are living an
illusion: outsourcing your conflict to unseen
powers and detonating it in areas beyond your
living space. … The damage of violence is
minimized when it is distributed throughout the
system rather than centralized into the hands of a
few powerful people and their minions.”
“It is difficult to relinquish the illusions of power
and delusions of exceptionalism that come with
privilege. But it is strangely liberating to realize
your true status as a single node in a cooperative
network.”
“There is more to narrative than simply telling our
stories. We have to compare our stories with the
stories of others to seek greater understanding
about our reality.”
TysonYunkaporta

“There’s no valid way to separate the natural from
the synthetic, the digital from the ecological.”
“Most of us today are living in a state of
compliance with imposed roles and tasks rather
than a heightened state of engagement. We are
slaves to a work ethic that is unnatural and
unnecessary.”
“The assistance people need is not in learning
about Aboriginal knowledge but in remembering
their own.”
“The only sustainable way to store data long term
is within relationships.”
“[From an Aboriginal perspective] an observer
does not try to be objective, but is integrated
within a sentient system that is observing itself.”
“Understanding biological networks appropriately
means finding a way to belong personally to that
system.”
“Somewhere between action and reaction is an
interaction, and that’s where all the magic and fun
lies.”
TysonYunkaporta

TysonYunkaporta
“Your culture is not what your hands touch or
make – it’s what moves your hands.”
“Guilt is like any other energy: you can’t
accumulate it or keep it because it makes you sick
and disrupts the system you live in – you have to
let it go. Face the truth, make amends, and let it
go.”
“Stop asking the question: ‘Are we alone?’ Of
course we’re not! Everything in the universe is
alive and full of knowledge.”
“Somewhere between action and reaction is an
interaction, and that’s where all the magic and fun
lies.”

Dancing in our Dreams
“In finding the world as we do, we forget all we did to find it as such, and
when we are reminded of it in retracing our steps back to indicators, we
find little more than a mirror-to-mirror image of ourselves and the world.
In contrast with what is commonly assumed, a description, when carefully
inspected, reveals the properties of the observer. We observers,
distinguish ourselves precisely by distinguishing what we apparently are
not, the world."
Spencer Brown

Ecological design is a major part of our coming future and is necessary for the prosperity of our
species as caretakers for the world. Ecological Design, address five principles in design that will help
to move society in the right direction.
These principles are: solutions from your place, ecological accounting, designing with nature,
everyone is a designer, and making nature visible. It has been over the course of the last century that
building designers and engineers have neglected the entirety of environmental impacts that went into
their buildings. They have built, I believe, from a strictly human perspective with regard only to what
the majority wants.
It considers the impacts of any given design, ecological or not. It looks for low cost and low impact
relationships in the design of a building and all of its interactions with the outside world. One way I
interpret this idea is by asking myself if a building is “invisible.” This describes the impacts of a
building and whether or not those impacts are large enough to consider the building there at all.
Besides displacing a small amount of habitat, a building should not create any other externalities and
should be an equal balance of input to outputs without creating pollutants.
Two energy laws summarize this point well, “The energy stored in the inputs must equal the energy
stored in the outputs plus any waste”, and secondly “that energy degrades in quality or usefulness as it
is converted from one form to another”. The promotion of ecological accounting with ESCO was a
good way of taking those who know what they are doing and showing those who don’t know through
action. ESCO installs energy efficiency appliances and helps to reduce energy consumption. The
megawatt, or unit for decreased energy demand, is the backbone of their work in ecological
accounting. While accounting is a great theoretical and practical use, I find that the world is so
engrained into its current way of life that it is hard in some cases to make it positively accountable.
Towards an Ecological Epoch Sim van der Ryn

www.simvanderryn.com/philosophy/
QUALITIES & QUANTITIES
This simple diagram presents a client
or designer with the intrinsic qualities
and material quantities that are
integrated into a specific design
solution. At the center is a measure of
a final product in human,
environmental and economic
performance.

www.simvanderryn.com/philosophy/

For years as a Professor and
consultant to schools at levels from
pre-school through high school, I
imagined in my mind a picture of
how all the elements of learning at
different ages could be represented
in a diagram that integrated learning
levels with place, pattern, and
process and also spatial scales of
natural and humanly created
systems. The Ecological Learning
Curve is that diagram.
The learning age levels is
represented vertically from bottom
to top. The type of learning is
represented by the circles of Place,
Pattern, Process. Place at the bottom
recognizes that young children learn
best no through abstraction but by
direct experience of Place. As their
minds and brains grow, they begin
to learn patterns, and later, the
processes that shape our world.
The scale of systems – natural and
invented – is represented
horizontally from the largest on the
left to the smallest on the right. The
center line represents a “home base”
of scales closest to us in size, with
the left bar moving to large scales,
the right side to smaller scales.
ECOLOGICAL LEARNING CURVE

Outer
views
Critical Zone
Terra Forma &
Nature X Human

Critical Zones. The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth
Bruno Latour
You want me to land on Earth? Why?
— Because you’re hanging in mid-air, headed
for a crash.
— How is it down there?
— Pretty tense.
— A war zone?
— Close: a Critical Zone, a few kilometres
thick, where everything happens.
— Is it habitable?
— Depends on your chosen science.
— Will I survive down there?
— Depends on your politics.

As everybody learned at school, when the position of
the Earth in the cosmos is modified, a revolution in
social order might ensue. Remember Galileo: when
astronomers made the Earth move around the sun,
the whole fabric of society felt under attack. Today,
again, four centuries later, the role and the position of
the Earth is being revolutionized by new disciplines: it
appears that human behaviour has pushed the Earth
to react in unexpected ways. And once again, the
whole organization of society is being subverted.
Shake the cosmic order and the order of politics will
be shaken as well. Except that, this time, the question
is not to make the Earth move around the sun, but to
move it somewhere else altogether! As if we had to
learn anew how to land on it.
— “Landing on Earth? Why would anyone attempt to
land there? Are we not already on Earth?”
Well, not quite! And that’s the circumstance this book
tries to present to the inquiring reader: it seems that
there has been in the past some misinterpretation
over what it means to be earthly. If you believe it
means “practical”, “mundane”, “secular”, “material” or
even “materialist”, you’re in for a surprise.
Critical Zones. The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth
Bruno Latour

The critical zone (CZ) is the near-
surface environment where rock,
soil, water, air, and life interact.
The exploded view on the inset
top right represents both the
vertically deeper and longer
time scale foci of CZ science
relative to most hydrological or
ecological research. The four
transects from mountains to sea
illustrates the multiscale nature
of CZ processes [
The critical zone

humans have modified more than
half of Earth's land surface, that the
current rate of land transformation is
unsustainable, and that "changes that
human activities have wrought on
Earth's life support system have
worried many people".
To many scientists and citizens, these
threats to an essential component,
i.e. the Critical Zone, of our life
support system, have reached an
acute level, yet the science of
understanding and managing these
threats mostly remains embedded
within individual disciplines, and the
science has largely remained
qualitative - there has never been a
more important time for a truly
international and interdisciplinary
approach to accelerate our
understanding of Critical Zone
processes and how to intervene
positively to mitigate threats and
sustain and enhance Critical Zone
function.
All life on Earth relies on humanity
embracing balance and sustainability
on a global scale.
The critical zone

The critical zone
Since the field’s inception, critical zone
scientists have shown how altering
Earth’s surface and vegetation leads to
subsurface impacts—changing water
flow, minerals, and microbial life at
surprising depths. Subsurface imaging
and drilling have also shown
considerable belowground variation
and the ways in which that alteration
influences surface conditions. These
discoveries opened the door to more
applied research and better land
management practices.

The critical zone (CZ) is
the near-surface
environment where rock,
soil, water, air, and life
interact. The exploded
view on the inset top right
represents both the
vertically deeper and
longer time scale foci of CZ
science relative to most
hydrological or ecological
research. The four
transects from mountains
to sea illustrates the
multiscale nature of CZ
processes [Winter et
al., 1998].
The critical zone

Critical Zone
Critical Zone science would be
too dispersive and complicated
to understand if we outline
recent CZ results by each
discipline involved. Instead, we
advocate a framework of
“deep” science to help organize
and comprehend research
done in CZ science with a more
synergistic perspective.
Three foci are included in this
perceived “deep” science
framework: deep time, deep
depth, and deep coupling. This
“deep” science concept
highlights the essence of
integrating Earth surface
processes at multiple spatial
and temporal scales and
signifies the unique
contributions of CZ science to
environmental and ecological
research.

Terra Forma
A Book of Speculative Maps
By Frédérique Aït-Touati, Alexandra Arènes and Axelle
Grégoire
Foreword by Bruno Latour
… the exploration of an unknown world: our own. Just
as Renaissance travellers set out to map the terra
incognito of the New World, the mapmakers of Terra
Forma have set out to rediscover the world that we
think we know. They do this with a new kind of
cartography that maps living things rather than space
emptied of life and available to be conquered or
colonized. The maps in Terra Forma lead us inward,
not off into the distance, moving from the horizon line
of conventional cartography to the thickness of the
ground, from the global to the local.
Each map in Terra Forma is based on a specific
territory or territories, and each tool, or model, creates
a new focal point through which the territory is
redrawn. The maps are “living maps,” always under
construction, spaces where stories and situations
unfold. They may map the Earth's underside rather
than its surface, suggest turning the layers of the Earth
inside out, link the biological physiology of living
inhabitants and the physiology of the land, or trace a
journey oriented not by the Euclidean space of GPS
but by points of life. These speculative visualizations
can constitute the foundation for a new kind of atlas.

Terra Forma
Cartogenesis offers a frame of reference
and a language of signs or notations in
order to present not an administrative
territory where the borders and edges of
the landscape prevail, but conversely the
shifting and sometimes unpredictable
territory of the living.
A six-month ‘etho-ethnographic’ survey of
the territory enabled the recording of
interactions between humans and non-
humans occupying this portion of the
Ardennes forest.
The analysis of the interviews and the
observation of the practices of several key
actors revealed life journeys that mingle
with those of other non-human living
beings, composing crossed trajectories
which are traced in the map: the forest
ranger, the wild boars, foxes, scientists
studying forest animals, martens, GPS, the
creator of the newspaper La Hulotte,
teasel seeds, owls, bees and beekeepers,
crows, hunters, the hydraulic network,
migratory birds, ornithologist, the brother
breeders, woodworms, badgers, bats,
woodpeckers, deer, hunting dogs, ….

Terra Forma
Terra Forma tells about the
exploration of an unknown
land: ours.
Five centuries after the
Renaissance travellers who
left to map the terra
incognita of the New World,
this work proposes to
rediscover differently this
Earth that we think we know
so well.
By redefining, or rather by
extending the traditional
cartographic vocabulary, it
offers a manifesto for the
foundation of a new
geographic and, in so doing,
political imagination. "

Material Ecology
Human
Nature
X

Nature X Humanity Material Ecology
In ‘Mental’ Integral terms this thinking Material ecology all in the
AQAL - Right Hand Quadrants of Objectivity and Interobjective
Material ecology is about the production of artifacts either via
technology or by using nature
It is Bucky lite

Nature X Human
If life on Earth is to survive, we must rethink our relationship with
Nature. The last four billion years on Earth have been governed by natural
selection and organic biochemistry, endowing us with five kingdoms of life
and six common elements with which to sustain it. In a fraction of this time,
over seven material ages, four industrial revolutions and 118 elements,
humankind’s impact on the planet has instigated a climate disaster, escalated
biodiversity loss, and intensified pandemic threats associated with commercial
wildlife trade.
We now find ourselves on the verge of replacing Earth-bound natural selection
with silicon-based life and indigenous wisdom with technological singularity.
For the first time in our planet’s record, human-designed constructs —
materials, products, and buildings — outweigh Earth’s entire biomass.
Although human beings are part of the natural world, human activity and the
“goods” we design and build — from our clothes to our cities — have
increasingly set us apart from nature, negatively impacting ourselves and our
planet.
Given a choice between protecting nature and advancing human endeavours,
which would you pick? Might the designed constructs that divide us instead
reunite us? Beyond repairing what we have already damaged, can we
positively contribute to the advancement of nature? In partnering with
humanity, can (and should) nature have a virtue beyond her own existence,
beyond a ‘primordial agency’ of self-propagation? How might we leverage
design to mediate between biology and technology, the lab and the garden,
nature and humanity? In other words, can we choose both, by design?

Material Ecology
Material Ecology is an emerging field in design denoting informed relations between
products, buildings, systems, and their environment (Oxman, 2010). Defined as the
study and design of products and processes integrating environmentally aware
computational form-generation and digital fabrication, the field operates at the
intersection of Biology, Materials Science & Engineering, and Computer Science with
emphasis on environmentally informed digital design and fabrication.
With the advent of digital fabrication techniques and technologies, digital material
representations such as voxels (3-D pixels) and maxels (a portmanteau of the words
'material' and 'voxel') have come to represent material ingredients, for instance in the
context of additive manufacturing processes. In other words, designers are now able
to compute material properties and behaviour built-in to form-generation
procedures.
Combined with the designer's capacity to analyze structural and environmental
forces, the enabled mediation between matter and the environment through
fabrication appears to be as powerful as the ethos of craft itself.
The ability to design, analyze and fabricate using a single material unit implies unity
between physical and digital matter, enabling nearly seamless mappings between
environmental constraints, fabrication methods and material expression
Such unity - like that found in natural bone, a bird's nest, a typical African hut and a
woven basket - might promote a truly ecological design paradigm, facilitating formal
expression constrained by, and supportive of its hosting environment. Ultimately, the
faculty to author new forms of expression will depend on the craft triptych (matter,
fabrication, environment) and its integration into the design practice as an
undifferentiated scheme.

The Krebs cycle
of creativity
The Quadrants of Understanding

Material Ecology
The Bauhaus wheel diagram, circa 1920 The Krebs cycle of creativity III, circa 2020

Material Ecology
manifesto-nature-humanity

Critical Zone
Critical Zone science

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you
love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who
ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of
confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,
every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and
peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child,
inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every
"superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our
species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties
visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely
distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their
misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their
hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so
that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction
of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some
privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our
planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all
this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from
ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at
least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not
yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this
distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal
more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the
only home we've ever known.” ― Carl Sagan,
Pale blue dot

“sidetripsandreversalsarepreciselywhatmindsstuckin
forwardgearmostneed...knowledgeispower,andwewant
toknowwhatcomesnext,wewantitallmappedout...Idon’t
thinkwe’reevergoingtogettoutopiaagainbygoing
forward,butonlyroundaboutorsideways.”
“Meditatingonthepossibleformsofafuturecultureaftermodernityinheressay,“ANon-EuclidianViewofCaliforniaasa
ColdPlacetoBe,”UrsulaK.LeGuin

Dancing with the Ancestors
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and
loses itself in the sunset
"Niitsitapi” (Blackfoot) proverb

Kosmology - Cosmology
Definition of cosmology
: branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe
: a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe
Definition of metaphysics
: `a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental
nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology,
and often epistemology metaphysics … analyses the generic traits
manifested by existences of any kind
: Ontology sense : abstract philosophical studies : a study of what
is outside objective experience
Definition of ontology
: a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations
of being Ontology deals with abstract entities.
: a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds of
things that have existence
Definition of epistemology
: the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge
especially with reference to its limits and validity
Definition of kosmology
Kosmos refers to the traditional and pre-scientific worldview which
acknowledges not only matter, but also life, mind, soul and spirit.

I am the watcher at the gate
I am the keeper of dreams

"Life can be like a dream;
if so,one wonders whether it is by
living that we dream or
by dreaming that we live."
WestAfricanproverb

"Life is fundamentally a process of perpetual and mutual
communication; and to communicate is to emit and to
receive waves and radiations (minika ye minienie). This
process of, receiving and releasing or passing them on
(tambula ye tambikisa) is the key to human beings game of
survival. A person is perpetually bathed by radiations'
weight, (zitu kia minienie).
The weight (zitu/demo) of radiations may have a negative
as well as positive impact on any tiny being, for example a
person who represents the most vibrating: "kolo" (knot) of
relationships." "The following expressions are very common
among the Bantu, in general, and among the Kongo in
particular, which prove to us the antiquity of these concepts
in the African continent; Our businesses are waved/shaken;
our health is waved/shaken; what we possess is
waved/shaken; the communities are waved/shaken: Where
are these (negative) waves coming from (Salu bieto bieti
nikunwa; mavimpi nikunwa; biltuvwidi nikunwa; makanda
nikunwa: Kwe kutukanga minika miami)?"
"For the Bantu, a person lives and moves within an ocean of
waves/radiations. One is sensitive or immune to them. To
be sensitive to waves is to be able to react negatively or
positively to those waves/forces. But to be immune to
surrounding waves/forces, is to be less reactive to them or
not at all. These differences account for varying degrees in
the process of knowing/learning among individuals"
Lifeisfundamentallyaprocessof perpetualandmutualcommunication

Motivating this … is an interest in employing phenomenological
analysis to explore several Yorùbá originary narratives not as
cultural artifacts to be cast aside as outmoded myth but as
dynamic sources of knowledge production anchoring a
compelling epistemological perspective.
The analysis yielded a range of insights appertaining to Yorùbá
epistemology. Some principal ones include the following:
• The universe is an environment wherein human meaning is at
every stage rooted in the generative entanglement of the
spiritual and material dimensions.
• Yorùbá epistemology indicates that a vital function of human
knowledge involves sharpening awareness of matter as a
fundamentally irreducible reality whose deepest meanings
frustrate the powers of human reason.
• In a Yorùbá perspective, matter emerges not as inert stuff but
as a reconfigurable vessel of spiritual power that, by way of
engagement, yields knowledge about the physical world as
an environment shaped by profound creative potential and
flux.
• The function of Ifá dídá (the Yorùbá divinatory process) is
instructive because it facilitates an awareness of the role of
Yorùbá cosmology in the construction of knowledge.
The multivalent linguistic construction of deities in Yorùbá
cosmology via a combination of intricate relational
conceptualization and oral theo-philosophical discourse is an
epistemological tradition.
Lifeisfundamentallyaprocessof perpetualandmutualcommunication

The richness of Africa, culturally, is vast. That's the
challenge that we have to face, because most of
the time, people in the western world, their
attention span is really narrow.
Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of
primary and fundamental values, and less a
barbaric land than an unfamiliar voice.
Beryl Markham
You are not a country, Africa. You are a concept.
You are not a concept, Africa. You are a glimpse of
the infinite.
Ali Mazrui
Africa

• The fool speaks, the wise man listens
• Every closed eye is not sleeping; and every
open eye is not seeing
• Once you carry your own water, you will
learn the value of every drop.
• We desire to bequeath two things to our
children: The first one is roots, the other one
is wings
• You can out distance that which is running
after you, but you cannot out distance that
which is running inside you
• In the moment of crises, the wise build
bridges and the foolish build dams.
Nigerian proverb
• Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one
individual can embrace it. Ewe proverb
(Togo)
• Do not set sail using someone else’s star
• When you educate a man you educate and
individual. when you educate a woman you
educate a generation
African Proverbs

• If we stand tall it is because we stand on the
shoulders of many ancestors
• The earth is a beehive, we enter by the, same
door
• Don’t look where you fell, but where you
slipped
• To get lost is to learn the way
• I am because you are
• The eye never forgets what the heart has seen
• A bird that flies of the earth and lands on an
anthill is still on the ground
• The opinion of the wise is better than the
certainly of the fool
• No problem is solved until it is settled right
• Education is not the accumulation of
knowledge but the awakening of
consciousness
• The earth is not given to you by your parents
but loaned to you by your children
African Proverbs

Aboriginal philosophy
(Aboriginal) traditions embody a unique and profound
view of reality that may even now be developed by
Aboriginal scholars to enrich the mainstream of human
thought. The skills are precisely what the nation needs to
appreciate and to conserve a unique environment in real
danger. - Charles Rowley 1970
Aboriginal philosophy comes from the time of creation
when the world was very "mixed up" and not at all like it is
in modern times.
Supreme beings, great ancestors who were human, animal
and bird all at the same time, anthropomorphs, were
powerful enough to create order in this chaos.
These ancestral heroes are responsible for life itself; life that
arose in a time when all the natural species, the land and
humans, were part of the same ongoing life force.
They had powers to turn themselves into geographic or
natural features, they descended into the ground and
reappeared as a species of bird or animal, or as a
waterhole, or they ascended into the sky and became
constellations.
As they moved around they created all the species, humans,
the landscape and all the features of it, then they tended to
settle down and remain as a feature of the landscape.

Dreamtime
Aboriginal philosophy is a wholistic template for
living in the Australian environment, for the
conservation of the species and the natural world,
for minimising conflict in human relations and for
ensuring the continuation of the conditions for
survival.
Aboriginal understandings of the process of
creation and of peoples' place in the natural world,
which does, after all, sustain all of humankind, is a
valuable source of knowledge and inspiration for all
peoples. Finally, Aboriginal "law" is fixed, immutable
and constant:
One cannot fix the Dreaming in time: it was, and is,
everywhere. We should be very wrong to try to read
into it the idea of a Golden Age or a Garden of
Eden, though it was an age of heroes, when the
ancestors did marvellous things that men can no
longer do…..
…...clearly the Dreaming is many things in
one…….among them a kind of narrative of things
that once happened; a kind of charter of things that
still happen; and a kind of logos or principle of
order transcending everything significant for
(Aboriginal) man. W E H Stanner 1979

Aboriginal Quotations
“We cultivated our land, but in a way different from the
white man. We endeavoured to live with the land; they
seemed to live off it. I was taught to preserve, never to
destroy.”
– Tom Dystra
Traveller, there are no paths. Paths are made by walking.”
– Australian Aboriginal Proverb
Our spirituality is oneness and an interconnectedness with
all that lives and breathes, even with all that does not live
or breathe.”
– Mudrooroo
“The land is my mother. Like a human mother, the land gives
us protection, enjoyment, and provides our needs –
economic, social, and religious. We have a human
relationship with the land: Mother, daughter, son. When
the land is taken from us or destroyed, we feel hurt
because we belong to the land, and we are part of it.”
– Djinyini Gondarra
“We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just
passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn,
to grow, to love… and then we return home.”
– Australian Aboriginal Proverb

Some other ancestorial no
Eurocentric philosophies and
metaphysical ideas to explore
to add to the diversity of the
area and density of interaction:
Australian
Aboriginals/First
Nations:
Dreamtime/Dreaming
Aboriginal Australians' oral tradition
and spiritual values build on
reverence for the land and on a
belief in the Dreamtime, or
Dreaming. The Dreaming is
considered to be both the ancient
time of creation and the present-day
reality of Dreaming.
It describes the
Aboriginal cosmology, and includes
the ancestral stories about the
supernatural creator-beings and how
they created places.
Each story can be called a
"Dreaming", with the whole
continent criss-crossed by
Dreamings or ancestral tracks, also
represented by song-lines.

Metaphysis
Niitsitapi
(Blackfoot)

Niitsitapi Blackfoot
The religious life of the Blackfoot centers
upon medicine bundles and their associated
rituals. These bundles are individually owned
and ultimately originated from an encounter
with a supernatural spirit.
These encounters take the form of dreams or
visions, which are sought in a typical Plains
type of vision quest.
A young man, usually under the tutelage of
an older medicine man, goes out to an
isolated place and prays and fasts until he has
a vision. Many of these men fail and never
have a vision.
Individual bundles acquire great respect.
Some of these are headdresses, shirts,
shields, knives, and “medicine objects”.
Painted lodges are considered to be
medicine bundles, and there are more than
50 of them among the three main Blackfoot
groups.
The most important bundles to the group as
a whole are the Beaver Bundles, the Medicine
Pipe Bundles, and the Sun Dance Bundle.

People dance to the sun, praying for a vision, and
historically the way someone does this is
by sacrifice—to go into that lodge to give of
yourself without food, without water, for four days. –
Sundance Chief Patterson
The religious life of the Blackfoot centers upon
medicine bundles and their associated rituals. These
bundles are individually owned and ultimately
originated from an encounter with a supernatural
spirit.
These encounters take the form of dreams or visions,
which are sought in a typical Plains type of vision
quest. A young man, usually under the tutelage of an
older medicine man, goes out to an isolated place
and prays and fasts until he has a vision. Many of
these men fail and never have a vision.
Individual bundles acquire great respect. Some of
these are headdresses, shirts, shields, knives, and
“medicine objects”. Painted lodges are considered to
be medicine bundles, and there are more than 50 of
them among the three main Blackfoot groups. The
most important bundles to the group as a whole are
the Beaver Bundles, the Medicine Pipe Bundles, and
the Sun Dance Bundle.

During the summer, the
Blackfoot lived in large tribal
camps. It was during this
season that they conducted
Buffalo Hunts in times gone
by, and the Sun Dance
ceremonies are held in
summer.
During the winter, they
separated into bands of from
approximately 10 to 20
lodges. Band membership is
quite fluid.
There might be several
headmen in each band, and
one of them is considered
the chief.
Headmanship is very
informal.
The qualifications for the
office were once “wealth”
and success in war, as well as
ceremonial experience.

• Regard heaven as your father, earth as your mother and all things as
your brothers and sisters.
• No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning.
• Do not judge your neighbour until you have walked two moons in his
moccasins.
• Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past. Wisdom is of t
he future.
• All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
• The one that tells the stories rules the world.
• The soul would have no rainbows if the eye had no tears.
• Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was
loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our
ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
• When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so
that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
• Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me,
and I’ll understand.
• If a man is as wise as a snake, he can afford to be as harmless as a dove.
• When we show our respect for other living things, they respond with for
us.
• If we wonder often, the gift of knowledge will come.

Maslow’s Western Perspective based on Blackfoot Pyramid
derived after spending a number of weeks with a Blackfoot community in Canada

The Eagle Folds His Wings
Fading now… this life force spent
I fall to earth on weary wings
Spiralling down from the wonderment
To rest among the earth-bound things
Once I knew dimensions of the heart
Unlimited by mind
Time and space were torn apart
Mortal fears were left behind
Wings of endowment… wings of might
Spread wide… they let me soar
Through the day and through the night
I ruled a boundless cosmic shore
But age has changed that sweet equation
My old wings no longer fly
‘Cept flights of mind on rare occasion
Still lift my eagle dreams that high
Now earthbound crickets sing to me
Of time and space… in which are bent
That dream of liberation that set me free
But a freedom barely half content
You see, I would trade the whole of space
For their bed of earth… so wild and free…
And a cricket song with its gentle grace
And a prairie moon for company
For my eagle wings are folded now
They went as far as wings could go
Now I must ‘bide an earthly nest somehow
And tell those crickets what I know
I’ll tell them that I never really touched a star
No eagle ever flew so high
For the wings of eagles only go so far
And then they fold… and then they die…
And when my wings have turned to dust
And my feathers into flowers spring
I’ll try to earn those crickets’ trust
And tame their dreams of wandering
I’ll tell them how I barely kissed the sky
And my imprint left no trace
How all I glimpsed with my eagle eye
Was the same mirage we all embrace
And… if an eagle feather should be set adrift
Upon the breath of dawn
Place it on your altar as my gift
That my memory be… not entirely gone
And shed a tear for a summer sky
With no eagle there to soar
No lonely eagle’s piercing cry
To claim his boundless cosmic shore
For my wings are folded in a dream divine
In a bed of earth… wild and free…
And that cricket singing… as the stars align
That cricket sings of me
~ Ŧoƞpa Ɉoƞ ©2018
especially for all those old eagles who aren’t
flying quite so high anymore.

Kosmology - Cosmology
Definition of cosmology
: branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe
: a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe
Definition of metaphysics
: a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental
nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology,
and often epistemology metaphysics … analyses the generic traits
manifested by existences of any kind
: Ontology sense : abstract philosophical studies : a study of what
is outside objective experience
Definition of ontology
: a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations
of being Ontology deals with abstract entities.
: a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds of
things that have existence
Definition of epistemology
: the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge
especially with reference to its limits and validity

Tibetan: Buddhism, Bon, ….
Being overwhelmingly Buddhist in nature, Tibetan
philosophy has a soteriological aim; one engages in
philosophical investigation not only to gain an
understanding of the world, but so that such an
understanding can aid in eliminating suffering.
For Buddhists, all human suffering arises from
misunderstanding the nature of the world; through
study and philosophical reflection one can come to
have a better grasp of the nature of reality —particularly
of suffering and its causes.
When one understands this, one can avoid much
suffering by beginning to act and cultivate dispositions
that are in accord with reality. Modern philosophical
theorizing in the West is commonly thought to aim at
discovering the nature of reality or of the best way to
live. However, such theorizing does not often include
the aim of integrating such a view of reality into
everyday actions or cultivating one’s own dispositions
so as to actually live in the best way possible.
For Tibetans and the Buddhist tradition more generally,
since the goal of philosophical investigation is to
produce a practical result, one deals not only with
questions like “What is the best way to act?” but also
“How can I come to act that way?”

Some other ancestorial not Eurocentric philosophies and metaphysical ideas
to explore and add to the diversity of the area and density of interaction:
Japanese: Zen, Shinto
The most distinguishing feature of this school of the Buddha-Way is its
contention that wisdom, accompanied by compassion, is expressed in the
everyday lifeworld when associating with one’s self, other people, and nature.
The everyday lifeworld for most people is an evanescent transforming stage in
which living is consumed, philosophically speaking, by an either-or, ego-
logical, dualistic paradigm of thinking with its attendant psychological states
such as stress and anxiety.
Zen demands an overcoming of this paradigm in practice by achieving a
holistic and nondualistic perspective in cognition, so that the Zen practitioner
can celebrate, with stillness of mind, a life directed toward the concrete thing-
events of everyday life and nature.
For this reason, the Zen practitioner is required to embody freedom expressive
of the original human nature, called “buddha-nature.”
Egyptian: which had a great influence of Greek
philosophy
Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Africa, concentrated along the lower
reaches of the Nile River, situated in the place that is now the country Egypt.
Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around
3100 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes.
The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms,
separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the
Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle
Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.

Indian: Vedanta, Hinduism,
Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism,
Zoroastrianism, . ….
Metaphysics Vedanta philosophies discuss
three fundamental metaphysical
categories and the relations between the
three.
1. Brahman or Ishvara: the ultimate reality;
2. Ātman or Jivātman: the individual soul,
self;
3. Prakriti/Jagat: the empirical world, ever-
changing physical universe, body and
matter
People do not perceive worlds but enact them. Different
mindsets bring forth different worlds.

Mayan: A very different
concept of time from the
‘west’
The Maya civilization was a
Mesoamerican civilization
developed by the Maya peoples,
and noted for its logo syllabic
script—the most sophisticated and
highly developed writing system in
pre-Columbian Americas—as well
as for its art, architecture,
mathematics, calendar, and
astronomical system.
The Maya civilization developed in
the area that today comprises
south-eastern Mexico, all of
Guatemala and Belize, and the
western portions of Honduras and
El Salvador.
It includes the northern lowlands of
the Yucatán Peninsula and the
highlands of the Sierra Madre, the
Mexican state of Chiapas, southern
Guatemala, El Salvador, and the
southern lowlands of the Pacific
littoral plain

Chinese: Taoism
Taoism (or Daoism) is a philosophy
that originated in ancient China and
continues to be practiced today,
mostly throughout Asia but in small
numbers around the world.
Tao means “the way,” and practitioners
follow “the way” that is described in
the central book of Taoism, the Tao Te
Ching. Reportedly written around 700
BCE by Lao Tzu, it describes the
experience of living life in accordance
with Tao.
A series of poems, aphorisms, and
meditations on various subjects, the
book describes how to live a
harmonious life and build a
harmonious community of individuals.
Taoism is often understood as valuing
balance and a necessary unity of all
extremes, symbolized in the black and
white Yin Yang symbol.

Middle East:
Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, …
The dominant philosophies in
the ‘Euro/American centric
world today and have to a
degree contributed to the
current worldview and current
state of the world today

EPIAPSE
BANI
VUCA
Can we ever see the world as just a four letter word
or in any simple code
Thewaywe‘see’theworld,
theworld‘is’

Ambiguous
You can easily find convincing but totally contradictory information for any assertion.
Because of complexity and unpredictability the ubiquitous availability of information
has created a mist in which it becomes increasingly difficult to find clarity.
A
V
Volatile
Things change continuously. What is true today isn’t true tomorrow. Even the nature
and dynamics of change change.
U
Uncertain
More than ever, we live with a lack of predictability and a prospect for surprise. It is
impossible to predict how projects will evolve.
C
Complex
Simple cause-and-effect chains have been replaced by complex interconnected
forces and events. Interconnectedness makes all things increasingly complex.
B
Brittle
the kind of illusive fortress that seemingly solid systems have but which can easily
crumble.
A
Anxious:
the anxiety caused by continuous changes. This anxiety can lead to passivity when
you feel that changes are an avalanche and that there is no way to influence them.
N
Nonlinear:
the disconnection and disproportion between cause and effect. We may now be
seeing the impact on the climate as a result of actions taken 40 years ago; could
these consequences have been predicted then?
Incomprehensible:
the consequence of excess information and its often counterintuitive nature (like
what occurs when AI or Big Data intervenes). Fortunately, what is incomprehensible
today does not have to be tomorrow.
I
Context &
Adaptivity
Transparency &
Intuition
Capacity &
Resilience
Empathy &
Mindfulness
BANI
VUCA
requires
Context &
Adaptivity
Transparency &
Intuition
Capacity &
Resilience
Empathy &
Mindfulness
CREMCATI
requires
CREMCATI

Creativity
E Entangled
Emergent
Presence
ECAIPE unintended consequences are surfed generatively
Transparency
Intuition
I Infolding, Unfolding,
Enfolding & Embracing Counter-intuitive
A Aperspectival
Asystematic
Robust & resilient
Regenerative
Symbiotic
Bundled
Weaving
Microbiome
The Web that has no Weaver
Patterns of patterns
Systems of systems
etc. …
C Context
Soul
Moving on from 4 letter words
www.integralmentors.org Urban Hub 28 Stepping in to step out
P Place
S Spirit
E Emergent

Jean Gebser (1905-1973) was a German poet, philosopher, and phenomenologist of consciousness. He is
best known for his magisterial opus, The Ever-Present Origin (Ursprung und Gegenwart, 1949-1953), in which
he articulates the structures and mutations of consciousness underpinning pivotal shifts in human civilization.
Gebser’s key insight was that as consciousness mutates toward its innate integrality, it drastically restructures
human ontology and with it civilisation as a whole.
Jeremy Johnson is an author (Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness),
publisher (Revelore Press), editor (Integral Leadership Review) and integral philosopher.
Cynthia Bourgeault is a modern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally acclaimed retreat
leader. She divides her time between solitude in her seaside hermitage in Maine and a demanding schedule
traveling globally to spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom paths.
P.J.Saher, is best known for his book Eastern Wisdom and Western thought, was born in Bombay and
studied in England and Germany. He gave up a career at the Bar to take up research in mysticism, mastered
yoga, and came under the influence first of Heidegger, then of Radhakrishnan and Huxley.
Bayo Akomolafe is the Chief Curator of The Emergence Network, a speaker, author, fugitive neo-materialist
com-post-activist public intellectual and Yoruba poet. He is a recipient of the 2021 New Thought Walden
Award, meant to honor those who use empowering spiritual ideas and philosophies to change lives and
make our planet a better place.
Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far
north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous
Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He lives in Melbourne.
Integral Mutations

Sim Van der Ryn Architect, author, and educator has been integrating ecological principles into the built
environment for more than 40 years. He spent 35 years as professor of architecture at UC Berkeley and was
California’s State Architect for Governor Jerry Brown in the late 1970s, designing and building the State’s first
energy efficient and climate-responsive building. Sim’s signature style, his collaborative approach and meta-
disciplinary accomplishments continue to show us the way to an evolving era that values both the integrity of
ecological systems and quality of life for all.
Bruno Latour (1947 – 2022) was emeritus professor associated with the médialab and the program in
political arts (SPEAP) of Sciences Po Paris. In addition to curating Critical Zones in ZKM (opening August
2020) he was, together with Martin Guinard, curator of the Taipeh Biennale of Art (opening October 2020).
A member of several academies, he was the recipient in 2013 of the Holberg Prize and of the Kyoto Prize in
2021. A philosopher and anthropologist, the author of We Have Never Been Modern, An Inquiry into Modes
of Existence, Facing Gaia, Down to Earth, and many other books.
Frédérique Aït-Touati is a science historian, theater director, and Research Fellow at the CNRS (French
National Centre for Scientific Research).
Alexandra Arènes is a landscape architect working on a project in Gaia-graphy at the University of
Manchester.
Axelle Grégoire is an architect who has worked in urban planning and on experimental transdisciplinary
research projects on the city.
Neri Oxman is an American–Israeli designer and professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she led the
Mediated Matter research group. She is known for art and architecture that combine design, biology,
computing, and materials engineering.
Integral Mutations
Critical Zone & Terra Forma
Nature X Human material ecology

Paul van Schaik, Architect, author, educator, publisher, and international development adviser. Founder of
integralMENTORS, integral Urban Hub ,and vS Publishing. Founder and curator of Urban Hub series on
Thriveable Cities and Worlds. . Co founder of Integral Without Borders and Co founder Living, Cities, Earth.
Founder, creator, curator

Key to an Integral approach to urban design is the
notion that although other aspects of urban life are
important, people (sentient beings), as individuals and
communities, are the primary ‘purpose’ for making
cities thriveable. All other aspects (technology,
transport & infra-structure, health, education, sustain-
ability, economic development, etc.) although playing
a major part, are secondary.
Urban Hub Series
These books are a series of presentations for the use
of Integral theory or an Integral Meta-framework in
understanding cities and urban Thriveability.
Although each can stand alone, taken together they
give a more rounded appreciation of how this
broader framework can help in the analysis and
design of thriveable urban environments.
Guides for Integrally Informed Practitioners
The Guides for Integrally Informed Practitioners
(adjacent) cover much of the theory behind the
Integral Meta-framework used in these volumes. For
topics covered in other volumes in this series see the
following page.
Urban
Hub
Series
Hardcopies can be
purchased from Amazon
Pdf versions are gratis to view
& download @:
https://www.slideshare.net/PauljvsSS
issuu.com/paulvanschaik

Pub. April 2022
SPANISH
Urban Hub manuals
prepared for C40
Cities Thriving Cities
Initiative and others
published by
vS Publishing

Pub. April 2022
Other books
published by
vS Publishing

People do not perceive worlds but enact them. Different mindsets bring forth different worlds.
Notes

Stepping in
Urban
Hub
Without taking into account the many worldviews that
currently co-exist and crafting ways of including them in
a positive and healthy form we will continue to alienate
vast sections of all communities of humankind.
Too little courage and we will fail – too much certainty
and we will fail. But with care and collaboration we have
a chance of bringing forth emergent impacts through
innovation, syngeneic enfoldment & collaborative effort.
A deeper understanding of a broader framework will be
required – this would be more that an Mental integral
vision and beyond the Eurocentric AQAL & SDI.
Integral
UrbanHub
Thriveable
Worlds
to Step out
A series of books from integralMENTORS Integral
UrbanHub work on Thriving people & Thriveable Cities
No one vision is sufficient in and of itself – visions can
guide but only by collaborative action in a creative
generative process can visions grow and become part of
an ongoing positive sociocultural reality.
28

Urban Hub 28-Stepping In to Step Out

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