Welcome to We-Grow University (and many more Ways of Naming this Emergent Journey)

A School for Life's Flourishing during Turbulent Times

(I am posting this in its current draft form – these are musings in process!)

Sometimes you hear a voice through the door

Calling you, as fish out of water hear the waves, or a hunting falcon hears the drum’s:

Come back. Come back

This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.

Read the book of your life which has been given to you.

A voice comes to your soul saying, lift your foot. Cross over.

Move into emptiness of question and answer and question

(Rumi)

A Field of Possibility Sourced in Care

I recently returned from several weeks of nourishment in the mountains of Northern California. Feeling supported by Mother Nature, my vision for a learning community network sourced in Life has begun to emerge more clearly. I am excited to offer a glimpse of my vision here and look forward to your feedback!

I alluded to my vision at the end of my Expansion Accommodation Statement (my statement of religious exemption) I submitted to Peralta Community College District in January. In my communication to my employer, I gave expression to my deepest held values that have guided me in saying no to coercive vaccination mandates. I continue to mourn the state of academia where coercion has become part of the price to gain access to a higher degree in pursuit of dreams so many young precious beings have reached toward for so long. This just breaks my heart. Recently, I turned down a teaching offer at another college because their coercive policies were not aligned with my values. I cried, but there was no wobble in my resolve.

As a student and scholar of living systems and transformative learning, I am reminded that crises tend to give rise to conditions for new creativity. So it is with excitement that I share some ideas here for a learning journey that I consider more responsive to this turbulent time than what academia is currently offering. I look forward to what is bubbling up in you as you read this!

First, I invite you to drop into your heart with me for a moment and touch into that which you most deeply love, as Rumi suggests above.  

Now, I invite you to dwell in that emptiness of question and answer and question with me that Rumi is evoking for us. When I touch into that spaciousness, I can sense a field of possibility.

As living democracy and sustainability scholar Francis Moore Lappé stated, when we know the conditions that sustain life, we can access a possibilist (not pessimist or optimist) way of being in the world:

“If this is true that we're all connected in continuous change, co-creating, then it is simply impossible to know what's possible and that gives us a great deal of freedom. If we don't know, we can stay in this—not an optimism or pessimism— but a sense of possibility. And another thing that definitely helps me stay in a possibilist frame of mind is the realization that, if we are all part of a social and natural ecosystem, then we humans— like every other species—that we’re shaped by our context, by the conditions, and that means we can look at our history and we know what are the specific conditions that bring out the very best in the human species; we know what they are: the continuous dispersion of power, transparency in our relationships with each other and mutual accountability, not a blame- blame- blame- game; and so …. we have guideposts, we have a compass [emphasis added].”

- (Spring of Sustainability interview series, 2012. Unfortunately, the YouTube link of this video is now broken, but Lappé speaks about this idea in many contexts).

I welcome you to accompany me on a possibilist journey for a while!

Heart Lake, Mount Shasta Region

My vision for a shared learning journey invites authenticity, integrity, the courage to live fully and to co-creatively share our most precious gifts and ideas with each other and the world, guided by that which we most deeply love. It is a vision that is sourced from the conditions that bring out the very best in us, as Lappé stated.

Freedom University – Celebrating Authentic Expression and Choice

When this idea first emerged in me last Fall, I tentatively named it “Freedom University”— honoring the inalienable human right of freedom of expression and freedom of bodily integrity and autonomy.

I have been deeply concerned about the widespread implementation of censorship of professional voices over the last two and a half years, which I started writing about in Spring of 2020. Censorship and suppression of free speech are hallmarks of systems of oppression (recall the massive “book burning” events and suppression of intellectual and artist voices during Soviet and Nazi times, and the witch hunts during the Middle Ages). As a native of the country where Hitler was born, the awareness of this traumatic history is deep in my bones.

From a systems perspective, censorship stifles a mutual learning journey and interrupts healthy feedback and information flows. It’s a boundary violation, depriving me and you of an opportunity to open our minds and hearts in shared inquiry. I consider censorship an abuse of power where one or more entities are deciding for me what information I should have access to and what information should be kept from me.

The name “freedom university” was also born from my deeply held values of bodily integrity and “my body/my choice.” Mandates violating bodily sovereignty have been adopted by all three of the universities in the San Francisco Bay Area where I have recently taught (in addition to my Bay Area Alma Mater). I have appreciated the Bay Area as a region that has valued inclusivity and authentic expression, and so I have felt particularly heartbroken by what I consider to be a deep incongruency in core values. How can institutions espouse inclusivity and diversity on the one hand and implement coercive, segregating mandates on the other?  Concerned for my students and all people affected by these human rights violations in our midst (which disproportionally affect marginalized communities), my desire to birth “freedom” university has been taking shape.

It is my vision that Freedom University (or whatever we will call it) will honor authentic expression in a field of reverence free from censorship, coercion and segregation.

Welcome to We-Ro University

Yesterday, another working title came to me as my vision for a university in the service of Life has kept unfolding: “We-Ro University.” I am envisioning “We-Ro University” as a journey of growth, development, and unfolding, not unlike a hero’s journey.

Many cultures engage in initiation practices to support the journey of adulting. I have personally been inspired by initiation journeys that are deeply embedded in community ritual, such as the journeys described in “The Healing Wisdom of Africa” by Malidoma Somé.

Thus, I am calling this learning journey an exploration not of a he-ro, nor she-ro, nor they-ro, but a we-ro journey, honoring that life continuously unfolds in a dance of co-creation sheltered by protective, yet permeable membranes of belonging.

Welcome to We-Grow University - Nourishing Conditions Conducive to Life

Let me stretch the metaphor even further to illustrate my point. Let’s call this learning journey “We-Grow” for now.

My vision of “We-Grow” university is embedded in Life’s organizing language, in the patterns that connect all of us in so many intricate and beautiful ways. According to a view of the planet as a living system, life continuously self-organizes in countless patterns of relationship.

Here is a visual of life’s organizing language depicted as symbols (which I also refer to as meta-patterns of nature). In this link you can read the definitions for each of these meta-patterns. These have been the foundation of my educational design work for many years. I apply them to many different contexts.  

As part of We-Grow University, I look forward to offering a variety of processes for how these patterns could serve as companions for our inquiries.

Recall how Lappé named the conditions that bring out the best in us: “the continuous dispersion of power, transparency in our relationships with each other and mutual accountability, not a blame- blame- blame- game.” These conditions are derived from Life’s organizing language itself. They are an expression of the six meta-patterns I introduced above. As we explore these conditions together, I envision us becoming mini ecosystems bringing out the best in each other!

Distinguishing Collectivism from Emergent Collective Intelligence

My vision for We-Grow is based in Life’s principles of decentralized cooperation and co-evolution. This is different from the notion of collectivism that has been so prominent in the public health narrative over the last two- and a half years (“Doing my part to protect you”, “We can do this,” etc.”).

I am concerned that virtues of altruism, protection, and “in-this-together” have been hijacked and twisted in a broad-based “public health” (and thus also educational mandate) marketing campaign, utilizing behavioral psychology methods as manipulation tools similar to the strategies used to market the latest iPhone.

I have personally felt appalled by the use of behavioral psychology tools as part of the Covid public health narrative. I am offering some links in the footnotes[1,] and I highly recommend Laura Dodsworth’s book A State of Fear delineating the behavioral psychology tactics implemented by the UK government, as well as Panda’s “Breaking the Chain” resources on unpacking propaganda and Panda’s Open Society sessions on behavioral psychology strategies implemented in recent years.

I appreciate how propaganda researcher Dr. Colin Alexander distinguishes between a narrative based on collectivist virtues and a journey of discernment based on deeply held personal values. Virtues can be easily coopted for the purposes of marketing to sell us the latest gadget, or to market a solution to a public “threat.” Our intrinsic personal values, on the other hand, are truly our own.

From a systems perspective, creating a narrative based on super-imposed virtues facilitates a fixed, isolating boundary of “othering,” particularly if the narrative emphasizes that there is a shared threat and a group of people that is ok (virtuously joining in fighting the “threat”) and another group of people that is not ok (having different views on the nature of the “threat” or whether there is a need to fight a “threat,” at all). In the words of mass formation scholar Mattias Desmet, this creates a “narrowed field of attention.”

Boundaries play a very important role in living systems. Healthy systems boundaries are semi-permeable, flexible, and nourishing, while being protective—not too tight, and not too loose. Fixed or closed-off boundaries stifle vital information flow and create walls of separation.

Giving expression to our deeply held values permits you and me to hold what we truly care about in a mutual space of possibility. We can inspire each other across our semi-permeable boundaries while staying rooted in our own identities as sovereign living beings. From this field of reverence, new ideas may emerge that may greatly enhance the group’s wellbeing. This process is sometimes referred to as “collective intelligence.” I consider it important to make a distinction here between emergent collective intelligence naturally bubbling up from a healthy group process (which can be artfully facilitated using systems-based group practices), and “collectivism” as a super-imposed narrative in the name of an engineered notion of “the public good.” My vision for We-Grow university is that we nurture creative expression sourced from your and my dreams and deepest-held values. The creative flow of collective insight naturally unfolds in a space of reverence protected by a semi-permeable membrane and nourished by decentralized pattern-rich relational structures.

In the words of Martin Buber:

 “Our relationship lives in the space between us. It doesn’t live in me or in you or even in the dialogue between the two us – it lives in the space we live together and that space is sacred space.”

— Martin Buber

We-Root University

Here’s another name to try out: “We-Root” University— interconnecting all of us in an intricate mycelial root network while we grow our branches, leaves, blossoms, and fruits nurtured by our unique callings in Life. By tapping into the life force of Mother Nature, as well as the rich heritage of our ancestors, cultural, and place-based history, we source from the mutual support of the natural and social ecosystems we are part of. I am envisioning We-Root as a learning journey of small pods within a global web. Everyone’s unique expressions are encouraged, while sourcing from and contributing to a mycelial network interconnecting with pods in other regions. See further below on initial ideas of what that might look like.

We-Buzz and We-Hum University

Perhaps another way of framing this learning journey is to call it “We-Buzz” University as we attune to the micro-biome inside of us in communication with the biome all around us. We-Buzz invites us to immerse ourselves in the intelligence of Life that has been buzzing inside and all around us for millions of years.

As the last forty years of advances in genomics have helped us appreciate more and more, we are intricately interwoven with Life’s biome in its many manifestations. As Dr. Zach Bush has said so beautifully:

“In a profoundly eloquent method of checks and balances, mother nature has designed our gut barrier (the primary structure that defines your human self-identity at the biologic level) to be completely dependent on its continuous contact with the vast microbial population of the earth. Everything you breathe, eat, and touch is an extension of your microbiome, making you and the natural world inevitably intertwined towards health.”

I am convinced that the micro-biome/macro-biome Web of Life is exchanging vital information much faster, smarter, and much more deliberately than anything that could ever be imagined by the technocratic Internet of Things or the Internet of People. This awareness gives me a great deal of hope (which I explain further below).

At We-Buzz University, I invite you to attune deeply to the micro-biome within and the biome without. As above, so below, as within, so without. As Thoreau stated so beautifully: “The earth which is spread out like a map around me, is but a lining of my inmost soul exposed.”

It breaks my heart that we are currently seeing alarming social and mental health impacts exacerbated by pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical public health measures of the last two-and-a-half years. To support healing from this tragedy and empower more life-sustaining, decentralized structures, I propose that We-Buzz nourish conditions that deeply reconnect us with Life. This is where the process of soul journeys (as beautifully described by ecopsychologist Bill Plotkin), and the communal ritual work proposed by Malidoma Somé can contribute so much, as well as the transformative Biocentric Education system developed by Cezar Wagner de Lima Góis, Ruth Cavalcante, and collaborators. Biocentric Education sources from a rich heritage of popular education freedom schools and transformative education pioneers, including Paolo Freire, Edgar Morin, Rolando Toro, and others.  

In the midst of what I consider a last-ditch effort of the mechanistic worldview via the technocratic, transhumanist paradigm, I see a more systemic life-based worldview taking root now. During this time of massive shift, I believe humanity is called to embark on a profound hero’s journey (or we-ro’s journey) of adulting. Here we may really benefit from rituals of re-attuning with Life that support an environment of stillness and presence with nature within us and around us, and that nurture a curiosity to deeply listen to our inner and outer navigation signals for Life’s guidance.

At We-Row or We-Buzz university, I invite you to enter a field of resonance with Life. Perhaps we can call it We-Hum University, as well, as we attune to this symphonic resonance together.

We-Grow Welcomes Membrane Awareness

As I mentioned earlier, boundaries serve vital functions in any living system. As part of We-Grow, I am committed to facilitating conditions for healthy boundary discernment (which I also refer to as “membrane awareness”).

Boundaries play an important role in discerning what to let in and what to keep out, but this capacity gets compromised when there are too many toxic influences all at once. For example, the toxin glyphosate has been gradually dismantling nature’s gate-keeping functions—contributing to massive imbalances in ecosystem and human health. Similarly, I consider the many forms of propaganda utilized over the last two-and-a-half-years (including manipulative behavioral psychology messaging, censorship, manipulation of data representation, fallacious use of authorities, dogmatization of “the science,” etc.) a toxic onslaught on our individual and community gate-keeping functions. In my opinion, this incessant influx of manipulative information streams has weakened boundaries, making it more confusing to discern what to let in and what to keep out.

That’s why I consider Lappé’s conditions that support human flourishing so vital: “the continuous dispersion of power, transparency in our relationships with each other and mutual accountability.” Mutual accountability requires boundary discernment. Thus, at We-Grow, I invite you to participate in an ongoing process of tending to our boundaries, in feedback with each other. What do I let in, what do I keep out, and what practices help me in this inquiry? At We-Grow we get to explore this together in a reverent and caring environment.

We-Care University

Our hearts’ electromagnetic waves reach much further than our brains.’ How about “We-Care” university?

Again, what I mean by “We-Care” is very different from slogans of collectivism devised by behavioral psychology teams. Caring for myself doesn’t preclude me from caring about you and caring for the world. As Dutch scientist and activist Willem Engel put it:

“…Compassion and solidarity are not being responsible for the other person’s health. No, it’s being there for them if they need help. It is being supportive. It is about being compassionate, that is about solidarity. Solidarity is not about carrying somebody else’s responsibility.” (Corona.Film - Prologue: https://odysee.com/@Modern_Aspects:0/corona_prolog:5).

At We-Care, I invite you to cultivate com-passion—sharing our passions together, in reverence for ourselves, each other, and all of life.

As systems biologist Humberto Maturana so beautifully revealed to us, we are hardwired, as a human species, in the Biology of Love. It is written into our biology to genuinely care for each other, while caring for ourselves and caring for the Planet. Caring for ourselves and caring for each other are not mutually exclusive in the Biology of Love.

Thus, counter to certain researchers sponsored by the World Economic Forum, I don’t subscribe to the notion that our hearts are hackable. As a mom and teacher, let me assure you: Our hearts aren’t hackable! At “We-Care” university, I honor and welcome the full kaleidoscope of your heart’s wisdom and I will not tinker with it. Instead, I invite a field of resonance where our shared heartstrings vibrate to a higher tune in the symphony of Life.

And so, I invite you to practice affective intelligence within and beyond the membrane of We-Care, with kindness, vulnerability, and authenticity: listening, sharing, celebrating, mourning, dreaming and honoring each others’ dreams, practicing our yeses and no’s, and caring for life together.

So, what Do we Learn or Do at We-Grow, We-Root, We-Buzz, We-Hum, or We-Care University?

What might this learning journey look like in today’s upside-down world? I am glad you asked. Welcome to the Journey! I plan to elaborate on my visions more in future posts (and I invite yours, as well), but here is a start:

We may be gathering in living-room-style face-to-face pods while also nurturing an interactive online component, interconnecting our decentralized learning ecosystems across the world. Right now, I am envisioning an 8-week module to start with, but I could also envision shorter or longer modules.

We may also gather for one-day or multi-day intensives in nature or urban ecosystems.

My goal is to introduce practices and tools that can be facilitated and enhanced by anyone so that these pods may ripple out into the world and cross-fertilize in self-organizing ways.

The primary teachers will be each of us. Our classroom and textbooks will be Life itself. The tools and processes I will offer are there as your companions.

At We-Grow university our inquiry becomes the journey. I invite you to an open-ended exploration sourced from heartfelt questions that you bring or that arise in you along the path. Consider these questions your companions. Together, we will honor them and allow them to whisper in our ears from time to time as more co-creative insights reveal themselves along the way.

In the words of poet Rainer Maria Rilke

“…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 in Letters to a Young Poet

I will offer guidance on specific processes and practical tools that I have found to be helpful in engaging complex questions (see examples below). I offer these resources as your companions on this shared learning exploration, and I look forward to the processes you bring, as well.

As a mom, a scholar-practitioner of living systems theory and transformative learning, and as a student in the School of Life, my commitment to you is to hold reverent space together, to honor your innate wisdom, to cherish your dreams, to help you feel the air under your wings, to celebrate the divine spark in you, and to thank you for your fierce and tender heart.

We-Grow’s Companions: A Selection of Processes and Tools

Here are some of the processes, tools, and schools of thought that I may offer as companions on our shared learning journey (to be continued):

Life’s Organizing Language

I alluded to life’s organizing principles earlier in this post and mentioned Francis Moore Lappé’s conditions that bring out the best in us.

How does life organize itself? What can we learn from the universal organizing patterns and language of nature?  How can we attune to nature’s pattern language as a way experiencing life with our intellect, hearts, cellular knowing, and instincts? How can nature’s wisdom help us see and sense possibilities, frame questions, analyze complex issues, and design life-nourishing solutions?

This is a very rich inquiry I have worked with for many years, and I look forward to offering these processes as companions of our learning journey together!

Supportive of this inquiry are a variety of ecological, community, and organizational development design processes I am excited to bring in, including Permaculture principles and other schools of regenerative design, the Art of Hosting, and Liberating Structures.

Here is what gives me a great deal of hope during this turbulent time: Life knows how to navigate transformative change! What can we learn from life’s capacity to create conditions conducive to life, to hold space for new life to unfold, to welcome new evolutionary adaptations and leaps that express emergent properties ingeniously more adaptive to Life’s changing circumstances? The systems sciences offer rich insight into Life’s capacity to evolve during times of massive shift. I look forward to sharing my insights on complex-adaptive systems, including Life’s lessons on emergence and autopoiesis with you, and to learning from your insights on how Life’s lessons are supporting you during this time!

And here is a secret I’d love to share with you: I believe that immersing ourselves in Life’s emergent intelligence provides a competitive advantage to the transhumanist worldview, which is ultimately rooted in an outdated mechanistic paradigm that has wreaked havoc on earth for centuries. We are not machines! We are alive!

Habits of the Systems Thinker, Leverage Points, and Systems Processes to Prioritize our Energy and Attention

The interdisciplinary systems sciences offer resources for many different contexts. I am excited to share a variety of systems awareness tools and processes that I have found helpful for my own and my students’ inquiries over the years. A very user-friendly starting point is the Habits of the Systems Thinker tool. I invite you to check it out! The Habits offer a spectrum of strategies that foster “thinking-outside-the-box” problem-solving.

Systems awareness tools (such as the Habits) can help us discern relational patterns, trends, and causalities across space and time as we inquire into our own role in a complex situation. They can help us spot strategies used to manipulate and control others, and to recognize structures of systemic oppression. They can guide us in influencing a challenging dynamic more intentionally or effectively, and they can also help us decide to let go and not beat our heads against a wall any longer.

These tools can be very useful in identifying areas of leverage, and in prioritizing where to focus our energy and attention during these times of massive shift. Depending on our preferences and ways of learning, systems tools can be used to help visualize, map, model, design, draw, journal, story-tell, enact, and yes, even dance life’s web of interrelationships…

There are systems tools and processes that are particularly helpful in examining our own and others’ belief systems and underlying assumptions. I know that when I am attached to a belief system I hold, I am less open to playing and learning in a shared space of curiosity. This is an ongoing practice for me, as well. As a teacher of mine has stated: “Systems thinking can help us take the blame out of the game.” Please note that I don’t equate “taking the blame out of the game” with relinquishing accountability. As mentioned earlier, I consider accountability structures critical during this time of calling out massive power abuse and co-creating more transparent, decentralized, self-organizing structures together.

And so, at We-Grow, I invite us to cultivate a practice of entering into a field between question and answer and question, as Rumi stated, or a field of possibility, as Lappé mentioned. Systemic possibilities abound!

Transformative Learning, Biocentric Education, and Dancing Life

Academia has traditionally undervalued embodied and affective ways of knowing, and I have a hunch this is part of the reason why so many higher education institutions have, in my opinion, sold their souls to commercial interests during this time, and why they are (perhaps unintentionally so) gambling with their students’ very future by imposing harmful, coercive mandates.

At We-Grow University, embodied and affective ways of knowing are integral to how I facilitate co-creative learning spaces, informed by my research and long-standing commitment to transformative learning.  

And yes, in our small pods we may very well dance, as appropriate and desired. In my own practice as a student and teacher of living systems, I derive so much insight and joy from dancing systems in supportive community. Biodanza (“The Dance of Life”) is rooted in a deeply felt awareness of Life’s self-organizing, emergent properties. This beautiful system of integration continues to empower me as a co-creator of my own life. Feel free to check out my Biodanza website for more information. As a certified Biodanza facilitator, I look forward to sharing this practice with you!

Biodanza, along with a rich heritage of the popular education movement, freedom schools, and transformative education, has inspired the globally practiced biocentric education system that I mentioned above. Having participated in the biocentric education training, I look forward to drawing from this wonderful community of scholar-practitioners, as well. I consider biocentric education very congruent with my own doctoral research in transformative learning.

Co-Conspiring with Life

The word “conspiracy theorist” has gotten a bad rap for a while now. From a living systems awareness perspective, life co-conspires all the time. We are all co-creators of our journey, nourished by the Breath of Life. Again, what is it that you deeply love? What would you like to co-conspire toward?

Thank you for co-conspiring with me on this Journey of Life! Thank you for nourishing your dream while lifting my wings so I can soar, as well! My dreams do not come at the expense of your dreams, and yours don’t come at the expense of mine. I don’t need you to sacrifice your deepest held values, nor your bodily autonomy, on my behalf.

As I spread my wings, may the tip of my wings touch yours and may we reverberate into even greater heights, harmonizing with the symphony of Life under the resonance of the stars.

I look forward to co-conspiring with you!

Let me end a song that has touched me deeply: Nunca Pare de Sonhar: Never Stop Dreaming!

(14) Nunca Pare de Sonhar -Gonzaguinha - YouTube

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Never Stop Dreaming

Yesterday a boy

Who was playing, told me:

Today is the seed of tomorrow

Don't be afraid

This time will pass

Don't despair, neither stop dreaming

Never give up

Always be born with the morning

Let the sunlight shine in the sky of your gaze

Faith in life, faith in humankind, faith in what is to come

We can do anything, we can do more

Let's go and do what will unfold

I would love to hear from you!

·        If you find value in my living-systems-inspired shares here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, or making a donation. Thank you!

·        If you’d like to see We-Grow University take seed, I welcome your feedback and ideas! If you feel moved to, I welcome your donation via paypal or venmo (@emergingtogether) here, as well, which could count toward your participation in a future module of “We-Grow,” if you wish.

·        If you are interested in being part of this journey, as a participant, contributor, sponsor, facilitator, or any other role, I look forward to hearing from you!

·        If you’d like me to offer an experiential introduction of We-Grow-University to a group you are part of, including any of the tools mentioned above, feel free to reach out!

·        I welcome any comments in the comment section below, as well!

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[1] This links to a British National Health Service (NHS) table specifying how to convince various target groups to participate in the vaccination program, using behavioral psychology tools. This links to a Yale study researching vaccine uptake strategies (such as “guilt” messages). This links to the CDC’s own vaccine uptake “playbook.” This links to a memo by the American Psychological Association (APA) on vaccine uptake strategies.