What's Needed in These Times?

ELI Meeting in California

2009-11-07T07:31:00.006-05:00

This weekend I'm participating virtually (due to family illness) in a meeting of authors which is taking place in Sonoma Valley, California. It's an amazing conversation focused on getting to know each other and creating a shared understanding for the book A Field for Evolutionary Leaders.

This is how Alexander & Kathia Laszlo, initiators of the project, describes our endeavor:

"The Evolutionary Leadership Initiative (ELI) is a collaborative effort that brings together thinkers and practitioners at the cutting edge of evolutionary leadership and conscious evolution."

You can check out more of the photos here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Syntony-Quest/114130064829 . Future group updates will be posted here as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Survey is now closed... writing has begun

2009-10-25T08:09:00.002-04:00

My profound thanks to everyone who has participated in this project by taking the survey or by agreeing to be interviewed.

What you have shared has deeply moved me and I look forward to sharing what I have gathered.

I am now in the process of assimilating what you have told me and writing it up. If you would like to have a copy of the results, please send me an email at marilyn@visionlegacy.com

Project Update: September

2009-09-11T10:12:00.002-04:00

Currently, A Field Guide to Evolutionary Leadership book project consists of 19 co-authors, each with a wealth of experience, perspective and passion for evolutionary leadership and each with a specific contribution to make to the book.

Riane Eisler (author of The Chalise and the Blade) will be one of the co-authors and the evolutionary theorist Irvin Laszlo has agreed to write the preface. Further contributors may be announced in the coming weeks as Barbara Marx Hubbard recently issued an invitation to the following evolutionary leaders to join the project:

Michael Beckwith, Joan Borysenko, Gregg Braden, Rinaldo Brutoco, Thomas Callanan, Deepak Chopra, Mallika Chopra, Dale Colton, Gordon Dveirin, Duane Elgin, Leslie Elkus, Barbara Fields, Debbie Ford, Ashok Gangadean, Kathleen Gardarian, Tom Gegax, Charles Gibbs, Kathy Hearn, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bruce Lipton, Judy Martin, Rod McGrew, Steve McIntosh, Lynne McTaggart, Deborah Moldow, James O'Dea, Carter Phipps, Wendy Craig-Purcell, Carolyn Rangel, Rustum Roy, Peter Russell, Gerard Senehi, Emily Squires, Brian Swimme, Diane Williams, Marianne Williamson, Tom Zender.

My interviews with local transformative leaders has been both an exciting and profound experience for me and I am deeply grateful for the time and insight they have shared. The interviews and survey will continue until September 22nd, at which time I will begin the integration and writing phase of my chapter.

Stay tuned for further information!

How do leaders see the next 5-10 years? (Part 1)

2009-08-21T12:25:00.009-04:00

Survey Question: If you had a crystal ball and were able to look 5-10 years into the future, how do you see the world changing? Here are some of the responses...

"I see local sustainability growing, and global networking assisting this. I see increasing focus on fulfillment and joy-in-life, and a concomitant lessening of financial priorities. I see teamwork skills gaining in popularity and extent, and a growing respect for those who spend most of their time in introspection, who speak rarely but with great value."

"I see increasing disruption of current governance, security and resource systems, increasing extremes of climate change, calling out of more and more traumatised parts of peoples and cultures. I see more severe problems with children and youth trying to become fully themselves in a restrictive, non child centred, dis relational time. I also see more religious fundamentalism, even amongst so called progressives. I see also more interconnection and communication amongst the networks of organisations and individuals working for profound transformation, more creativity especially amongst the "Third Chapter", those entering the last part of their lives from 50 to 75, more movement of peoples and ideas, more synchronicity/sparking of new technologies, spiritual understandings and nature-based education/ecoliteracy."

"We are in a process of filtering and it is going to intensify, what you say and what you do will determine your outcome. Choice matters, string theory will align each of us with the resonances we choose. Earth will heal herself with all her intelligence, grace and kindness."

"As we go faster and higher and further out and away, we also honour and integrate moments of still-point, depth and coming closer to "home"; more awareness that as observers,we all have an influence on the observed; greater awareness of paradox and Quantum Mechanics."

"I think it takes longer for radical change, so I think it actually looks fairly similar with some small increases in good (ex. growing our own organic food) and in the bad (climate change) but overall people are more aware though I don't think I see much more action being taken, just a building of potential energy."

What do you see? If you'd like to add your thoughts to the survey click here

How do leaders see this present moment? (Part 1)

2009-08-01T08:57:00.007-04:00

The responses to the Evolutionary Leaders survey has been a very profound experience for me. And impossible to 'chose' which responses are 'better' or 'more insightful'. So I've chosen some at random here. ~ Marilyn

"I think we are, if perhaps not on the edge of a precipice, at least on the top of a very steep hill. If we don't learn to change directions we are going to be tumbling a long way down... A lot needs to change and quickly or we will not be able to feed and water ourselves."

"I feel like there is so much of our life and culture that hangs in the balance of our collective decision making... The kinds of decisions we need to make in order to cope are very very different from the ones we've been making -- they need to be based on long-term gain rather than short-term (or, we need to re-work the landscape/incentives of decision making so that short-term gain leads to long-term benefit, but deciding to do that reworking also requires a very different type of mind set)."

"A time of great uncertainty and opportunity. A time to really make the shift to an interconnected worldview, to re-evaluate our priorities, what gives us meaning. An opportunity to experience a death and rebirth experience of heart-break and grief as part of the awakening process into the joyful possibilities of engaging with all earth community in compassion and love."

"A radical change, as Walter Benjamin put it, we are "shaking off the nightmare" that the old myth has placed upon our chests. I once depicted the change as a dragon who was wrapped round the earth, a dragon who has been sleeping until now."

If you'd like to add your thoughts to the survey click here

An open invitation to readers...

2009-07-20T12:25:00.001-04:00

I would love you to be a part of a book project I am working on called 'A Field-guide to Evolutionary Leadership.'

The book project was initiated by Alexander Laszlo (son of the systems theorist Ervin Laszlo) and will include, amongst myself and others, Riane Eisler (author of The Chalise and The Blade). It is scheduled to be published in spring of 2010.

As I considered how my chapter might best serve the entire earth community, I feel an urgency in engaging community leaders in conversations around one key question - “how are future generations asking us to live and lead?”

The chapter I am writing will specifically highlight the work and thoughts of transformative, wisdom-based leaders based in the Toronto area such as yourself... leaders who are finding creative ways to respond to what Joanna Macy has called the Great Unravelling of systems and way of life that no longer serve us. As such, it is my hope that it will help to both provide a compass for other communities, as well as serve as an aspect of the history of the Great Turning.

The content for my chapter will be derived from two sources – this survey and one-on-one recorded interviews with some of the people in our community who are 'transformative leaders'. My hope in doing this project is that I will be able to capture the collective wisdom insights, perspectives and wisdom about what our community sees emerging in these times.

Excerpts of both the survey and interviews will be made available to the community through this blog. I will also be providing links to the eight most powerful of these interviews in my chapter and website for readers around the world to access and listen to.

The survey and interviews consists of potent questions about the time we find ourselves in. As a coach and former interviewer, I believe that powerful questions can help us unlock our deepest wisdom. The belief in the power of critical questions was echoed in an article in Re:vision magazine written some years ago by Joanna Macy and Donald Rothberg called 'Asking to Awaken'.

Many of my interviewees find that, in sharing their views, they gain greater clarity about their own contribution to this time, and access insight regarding some of the challenges and opportunities our community is facing. However, I also believe that it is in the sharing of collective wisdom that we gain the means to better envision, plan and move towards more sustainable ways of living. This is the real underlying purpose of the project.

I deeply appreciate your contribution to the community and to the larger Great Turning and hope I hope that you will take the time to answer this survey.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY

With deep gratitude for your wisdom leadership and the contribution you are making for future generations,

Marilyn