Co-creating to me is a new level of collaboration that goes far beyond individuals just co-operatively working together. To me, it is actually dissolving our separate individualism to create and become an integral part of the new system at its next level of complexity – like individual cells coming together to form a new organism which is much more than the sum of its parts. The cells devote themselves to the new system, above their own individual wants/needs, as separate identities. The new whole thrives when this happens and they dance a new dance that they have co-created, choreographed together. When cells fall back into behaving as competitive individual cells, it gives way to producing cancerous and auto-immune disorders within the new whole.
Another aspect of co-creating thriving, new complex systems is when individuals give up their old stories/identities and each contribute to whatever the new system’s needs are, in spite of their old patterns, expectations or qualifications. This is most helpful when co-creating any new coherent community that can work as a new level of complexity. I experienced this over forty years ago in the early days of co-creating the Canadian Outward Bound Wilderness School in northern Ontario. It was an extraordinary privilege to be a part of such a progressive project with so many other dedicated, dynamic young people, in this self-organizing system. Here, community consensus was our main decision-making process, and experiential learning was our context. We all felt an integral part of the Whole, doing whatever we could do in whatever capacity was needed, to create a “Homeplace” in the wilderness as a base from which to run Outward Bound courses. Freely sharing skills, experience and energy propelled the process and gave an indication of individual egos being replaced by identifying ourselves instead, as being integral parts of the new Whole.
The need of the hour on our beautiful earth seems to be for individual humans (cells) developing into the next evolutionary phase of complexity – joining together to co-create humanity as one integrated system with an efficacy and complexity far superior to the sum of its parts. This follows the evolutionary progression from single cells to multi-celled organisms to functioning bodies of a higher complexity, such as plants, animals & homo sapiens. This time however it requires more an evolution of consciousness rather than strictly physical evolution. Our current world/earth’s situation necessitates us expanding our awareness and intelligence beyond our current reliance solely on the reason of the intellect. The intellect is a formidable tool that has catapulted humanity to its current possibilities, but it can only work with the finite, physically perceptible world. We have entered a time of energy, which is a subtler realm. This requires us to expand our intelligence to include information unperceivable to our physical senses, like radio waves, ultra-sound, Electric Magnetic Radiation, … that now play a key role in our technologies.
Many philosophers have foretold of this time, including Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindu.
The power and consequence of energetic frequencies emitted by our emotions and thoughts need to be understood so we can choose what kind of world we want to create together. Unconditional Love as a force may be the most important and powerful energy to understand. This Love is not the emotional, conditional, ultimately self-serving attraction that is commonly referred to, by most societies.
Questions arise like: How do we join together to co-create this new world?
What are the conditions needed to foster and nurture our fledgling new supra-ordinate system from individuals only focused on the well-being of their “us” group?
From each individual it calls for a vision for a beautiful world, willingness, Trust, compassion, patience, tolerance, loving kindness, humour – to keep things light, adaptability, following one’s heart and feeling heard and respected, a sense of belonging – like coming home, enjoyment and wanting to make the experience as good & healthy as possible for the whole and ultimately, a passion driven by unconditional Love for humanity and Life.
When each of us does whatever we can to make the world more joyful and compassionate, knowing we have the loving and wise support of our Whole, we are like different cells in a body all working towards the overall health and well-being of the whole.
This is experiential learning, together! It may start with trying this first within one’s own being – how do I feel joyful and compassionate to myself and everyone else? Then maybe within a family, group of friends/loved ones and expand out into greater groups of like-minded people. It can happen at whatever level feels appropriate for each of us. Everyone’s unique gift is needed, there is no competition, failure or lack of appreciation for each willing person. All are welcome and all information serves the whole. Eventually, there becomes no “them”, only more human family members who we’ve not yet known and recognized and appreciated as vital parts of Us, adding to our rich, diverse efficacy, beauty and robustness.
This will be an important step as humanity rises to the challenge of consciously evolving to our next possibility.