PATTEN, Terry
(USA)
Title of contribution:
Yin Leadership: Fear, Courage and Cooperation
The Integral Work that Reconnects
Generous Facilitation for Co-Creative We-Space
Where & when:
Panorama.
Provance.
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
16:45 – 18:00
Provance.
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
11:30 – 13:30
Yin Leadership: Fear, Courage and Cooperation
We are entering a new phase in the history of the Integral movement. We have vital contributions to make — as practitioners now, rather than merely as professionals.
A new field is arising — that of intentional cultural evolution. It advances — not abstractly and academically, but through Action-Inquiry. Urgency dictates that we must learn by doing. This means prototyping social experiments attempting next-stage human capacities and culture, then “failing forward” and iterating toward greater adequacy.
Paradoxically, the key to the (dramatic, “yang”) rapid nonlinear social transformation we now need requires “yin” relational virtues like quantum humility, integrity, generosity, kindness and receptivity.
We are all products of and fitted to a completely unsustainable phase of human civilization. “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Disasters may lead to social breakdowns. The Integral movement’s pioneering work to create next-stage approaches to every aspect of life and culture will now need to express itself in our very ways of being.
What practices and capacities matter most now?
The Integral Work that Reconnects
Peter Merry and Terry Patten both have many years experience in all things Integral. They also share a passion (same root as “pain”) for the planetary transition we are in and what it is requiring of us humans. Join us in this experiential workshop where we bring the best of deep ecology practices, dialogue and an Integral perspective to bear on who we are at this time.
Generous Facilitation for Co-Creative We-Space
In this workshop, we will practice and explore the principles and practices of yin leadership and facilitation. We will aim to nurture deep “We-Space” and profound depth of contact, mutuality, generative cooperation and synergy. New dynamics of co-leadership are humbler than ancient and traditional heroism and yet nobler than the ironic antiheroes of post / modernity. What engenders new levels of cooperative synergy? Humble spiritual leadership is yin, or feminine in its character. It doesn’t merely balance the excesses of patriarchy but expresses an important positive developmental advance. This also recontextualizes “followership” and foregrounds “first-followership” (the leadership enacted by active responsiveness and the building of collective coherence.) We will attempt to enact this together briefly in this workshop while using our shared experience to highlight the very different principles involved.
About Terry Patten:
Terry Patten co-wrote the book Integral Life Practice and has taught ILP to over 1000 people. He recently authored A New Republic of the Heart. He founded and leads Bay Area Integral. He also created “Beyond Awakening”. Earlier he founded Tools For Exploration, an early consciousness technologies company. Currently, he’s involved in restorative redwood forestry and fossil-fuel alternatives, and leads a social experiment uniting Inner, Outer and Inter(personal) Work for social transformation.
