2.0 Conceptual to perceptual

It's so much faster, it so speaks to our current conditions.

Over the last 23 days I've been blessed to be with 500 people who are fostering formats and new understanding for us all to step up, to step into curating the conditions for a world in which it is worth living, worth living for all sentient species.

We’ve all been part of our cultivating our conceptual to perceptual shift. What do I mean?

Conceptual. Think our current modern day world. We are really good at analysing a problem, creating an action plan and getting a solution. It works wonderfully well for some people and some solutions. It can be the creative masculine principle at it's best. 

We call it 'Sheer Skill'. And, it is now failing us miserably as we try and use this, the old game A model, for our complex meta-crisis, the tangle of climate, justice, equity, war and more defining this age.

Perceptual. What happens when we are using our body intelligence? Sourcing life-flow, the 'Warm Chaos' of creative feminine principles along with helping to clarify that, 'Silent Wisdom', the holding masculine, so that vision emerges.

We're now seeing this shift all around us. It is hard to do it justice in one go so this is a series of 3 posts about the power of this shift. It is one that many are actively assisting and by explicitly recognising it we can do to help cultivate it too.

And, for myself, this shift is marking 23 days of huge personal transformation too. 

Where is it happening?

#1 Integral European Conference, May 2023

Integral 1.0 was a lot about ordering the flow. In practice this often became blocking the flow. This May, the awareness of ourselves and everything so present and challenging in Europe was central to curating Integral 2.0. The conference sessions were substantially around producing experiential felt-sense understanding around ourselves and participants.

Over four days I facilitated two conference themes with presenters Katharina Pilhofer Mia Hetenyi, Psy.D., Paulo Duarte, Caroline Winning, Sergey Dvorkovich and Daniel Kirkpatrick. I co-presented with Abigail Lynam and hosted our big afternoon workshop with Teresa Zimmermann, Geoff Fitch and Abigail Lynam.

Right from the start we all flew. The very first set of three presentations (Katharina, Mia and Paulo) fully integrated into each other, individually then collectively exploring embodiment. Through the second hour, people were embodying what I'd describe as collective existential creation. The synergy and aliveness in the room was palpable. What could have been discordant became harmonious and rhythmic.

This continued through all of the glorious conference days. I witnessed and helped co-create, for myself and many, stepping into greater connection. We harvested our collective, not just individual, intelligence.

I can't overstate the importance of experiences such as this. We were getting to step into more connected awareness. We were getting to hold greater complexity. We were getting to experience this in our bodies and feel what that is like.

As my beautiful friend Tom Murray put it, a metaphor from neuroplasticity: we are, when we are doing this, experiencing peak states of performance, firing new neural pathways, and the wiring is then more likely to happen. That is, we are then more likely to be able to stabilise in these higher capability states.

Overall, I felt like the conference was “Integral 2.0: from conceptual to perceptual”.

More examples please!

Yes. Two more posts are on the way. 

#2

I want to explore with you how this move from conceptual to perceptual gives us "information as sensual" and is from a "more trustworthy source". 

#3

Plus take, for me, a leap across the Grand Canyon. What is it like to hold a room with perceptual awareness. Can I, can you, transmit our felt experiences and is this useful? Spoiler, yes.

And, what can we do about it? 

One example is Frame & Flow, reclaiming our feminine & masculine principles in leadership. Starting June 21, 2023

How do I feel now?

I'm massively buoyed by all of the extraordinary collaborative components from these 23 days. I've had a gentle return to my isles where I live on the far north-western edge of the Atlantic in a village of two people! You'll see how alive this set of connections is in me in the cover picture for this post too. It's a selfie as I cycle to the only food shop here, 40' away over the moor :-).

W love, Simon

P.S Abigail Lynam props and credits, thank you so much, for the quoted language here too

P.P.S "We" above is Teresa Zimmermann and myself. Sheer Skill, Warm Chaos and Silent Wisdom are three of the four foci (Teresa's inspiration leads the naming of these) for the upcoming Frame & Flow short masterclass on reclaiming our feminine & masculine principles in leadership.