Article written by Ingrid Schneider
In May 2016 more than 400 people came to Lake Balaton in Hungary to participate in the Integral Euroepan Conference. „Reinventing Europe“ was the theme that attracted people from 32 countries all over the world. One of the main questions that called us was “What might be the Soul of Europe and what impact can the integral movement make to reconcile Europe?” “Why such a conference in Hungary”, was my very personal question I had in advance. Being there I learned about a vivid and active integral scene that supported and held the space for this conference in a wonderful way. Thanks to all of them!
Some impressions:
Heart touching for all in the room was the small celebration „20 years National Values Center“. Don Beck gave a small glimpse of his work with SDi (Spiral Dynamics integral) during so many years of his engagement. But not only Don was there, also national representatives of the ‚Center for Human Emergence’ (CHE), from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain, South Africa, Middle East and the German speaking countries. As part of the small celebration the Dutch CHE presented an English website on Spiral Dynamics integral as a gift to the world. And a big THANK YOU to Don Beck and the recently deceased Chris Cowan for their 40 years of continuous engagement in this field of Spiral Dynamics and the impact he made was expressed.
Barely to describe was the several hours lasting constellation on Europe. It was led by Bence Ganti and Barbara von Meibom and a team of skilful constellation therapists. How painful to experience the amount of violence that is part of our European history. How much guilt and shame is still there and prevents us from getting together, separating people and nations almost like a wall. How moving to experience that some people were shaken in their foundations by just watching what was going on. How touching to feel the richness and beauty of the European culture in such a variety of expressions. And all of this held together in a transcendental realm, nurturing deeply the European identity. Personal and national healing could begin and will probably last for some time – just because people were willing to act as a representative for this very topic.
If you are interested in more insights – Bettina Geiken wrote a journal as representative of the “unknown energy”. Also more blogposts will follow, as the team completes the evaluation.
Appreciative: During this conference some awards were given to some people – the best scientific paper, the best poster, the best practical application of Integral Theory. This very award was given to Leida Schuringa form the Netherlands. She is working in a refugee center for women in the Netherlands and her paper shows the application of Spiral Dynamics integral in this work. It is a great example of a natural design that is needed, when people have their memetic focus in quite a different place than the surrounding environment. And it shows the many small steps that are needed to help refugees to satisfy the basic needs first before they are able to integrate into further developed societies. You can read Leida’s paper here.
Insights: In the track of ‘Integral Education’ I had the opportunity to present the design of our online webinar “social architect”. In the discussion around several integral education programs it was obvious that integral education needs a multi-perspective approach, integrating cognitive, emotional and spiritual aspects and even some form of body work. The combination of the different aspects of our individual being supports and enhances integral learning and offers a much quicker path to personal growth and late stage action logic. We need this integrated learning combined with chances to get practical experiences to be more and more able to act from an integral stage of being. Our world with its highly complex challenges needs people to act from that level of consciousness.
Ingrid Schneider is a member of the CHE (Center for Human Emergence) in Germany. Her specialty is to foster transformational change.
Contact:http://www.humanemergence.de
