Subject: Can democracy be wise in 2024?

CII news and events and more

January 2024 Newsletter

A new model for Citizens’ Assemblies? January’s RWCI call with Rich Wilson


Our featured guest for the first Real World Co-Intelligence community learning call of the year is Rich Wilson CEO of Iswe, founder of Involve UK and co-founder of the Global Citizens' Assembly on the climate and ecological crisis. He will join us for an interactive call to share the story of the innovative Convention of the Future Armenian which brought together randomly selected citizens from Armenia and from the Armenian diaspora to discuss the future of their nation in Yerevan, in March ‘23.


To join us for the call coming up soon on Friday January 26th at 12 noon Eastern Time...



In their recent article Getting Real About Citizens’ Assemblies: A New Theory of Change for Citizens’ Assemblies  Claire and Rich of Iswe challenge the existing norm, advocating for a new model that empowers Citizens' Assemblies to drive tangible change. Their article envisions Assemblies not solely as "invited" spaces confined by the top-down constraints of government  but as more empowered "claimed" spaces, self-created by Civil Society.

Image from futurearmenian.com/convention/

The Convention of the Future Armenian in March 2023 involving 200 Armenians is an example of such a process. Its successful outcome was in a permanent Affiliation Network of influential stakeholders with significant resources to take its proposals forward. Our call will discuss the implications of this particular model of "claimed" Citizens Assembly for the future of wise and empowered participatory democracy.

In this year of elections,
help CII make democracy wiser


Whilst this year may be the biggest election year in history with 76 nations going to the polls, directly affecting over half of humanity, there is a growing fear for the future of democracy itself.


At CII, we share these concerns, and value initiatives to safeguard and strengthen the existing structures of democracy all over the world.  At the same time we hold strong to our purpose of supporting the evolution of wiser and more participatory forms of democracy. One relevant description of this creative tension, is "Thoughts on Strategic Thinking in the Current Crisis", a blog post that Tom Atlee wrote shortly after January 6, 2021 and which still feels very timely today. 

While CII's vision offers some unique contributions to the work of re-designing democracy, it's very heartening to see others pointing in a similar direction, as we will be exploring in February's newsletter. In the meantime, we have a portfolio of projects to carry forward our work for this new year and beyond. Our end-of-year fundraiser is continuing into early 2024 and we welcome any donations via this webpage where you can find out more about the details of our projects. Whatever you can contribute will be greatly appreciated.
 


Thank you in advance for your contributions!


Co-designing the Future -
Easthampton Futures Project

For the final RWCI call of 2023 we were delighted to host our featured guests Sita Magnuson (artist, entrepreneur, facilitator co-founder of Dpict and CII board member) and Pasqualina Azzarello (painter, educator, graphic facilitator, serving as Arts & Culture Program Director at Easthampton City Arts in Massachusetts, USA.)


In a heartwarming call they presented The Easthampton Futures Project, an incredibly innovative and beautiful participatory project that had lasting impact in designing the City Arts program.


Watch the presentation excerpt from the community learning call below.

What We're Appreciating This Month...

The New Ways of Knowing Course

Three CII colleagues Rosa, Natalia and Andy are currently taking an online course entitled New Ways of Knowing created and hosted by Alexander Beiner a writer and podcaster who co-founded the successful YouTube channel Rebel Wisdom. The course is a theoretical, dialogical and embodied inquiry into complexity and systems change. The content is rich and each week we get to learn from great thinkers such as Nora Bateson, John Vervaeke and Jonathan Rowson to name a few.

Last week we got to experience the work of Trish Blain who has developed a framework to help make sense of the world and our experiences called the Four Forces. Her model "works with the simple yet profound idea that our individual, cultural, and collective worldviews are created by our experience, understanding, and pursuit of four core desires: Connection, Expression, Purpose, and Growth." In our pod discussions we’ve been exploring a practice which may come in handy for 2024: “conscious ranting”, becoming aware of the core desires and suppressed life energy buried within our social, political or relational frustrations.

Rosa’s new year’s newsletter


Our colleague Rosa’s New Year’s update invites us to consider another aspect of bridging in this year of elections: bridging within divides, as well as bridging across divides. Read more here.


Claudia Chwalisz’s new Substack


Claudia Chwalisz, founder of DemocracyNext, is a force to be reckoned with in the field of citizen participation and deliberation. We’ve been appreciating her personal musings in her new Substack blog that coincide with some of our inquiries into how to expand and broaden what democracy might be. For an example of this check out More than Human Democracy.

January's Wise Democracy Pattern


Multimedia Engagement



Audio, video, text, graphics … virtual, real … broadcasting, watching, reading, interacting, sharing … imagery, music, story, poetry, dance, games, drama, performance, conversation … Different strokes for different folks and different gifts from each. So understand appropriate uses of each engagement medium and their complementary powers to reach and engage more and more diverse people more and more fully.

Featured Question


What forms of communication and engagement would best communicate what’s important about the challenge we’re addressing to the people who are involved in it and/or should be involved in addressing it?


Featured Resource


Community Bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht55NnOr7m4


January's Co-Intelligence Poem


The Whole Knows

Written By Tom Atlee


The Whole knows us

better than we know ourselves.

and It sees Itself in each of us

and invites us to See, as well,

Itself deep in ourselves and one another.


The Whole evolves, unfolds,

through all Its manifold selves and interactions

and longs for its next Beingness

through us,

through our longing.


And the Whole dreams Itself

through our dreams,

and visits Itself in our visions.


The Whole invites us

into what’s next,

invites us

into joining as partners

in the Whole unfolding Story.


The Whole loves our gifts and limitations,

our passions and our needs.

It calls us to Its service

through our gifts and passions—

guiding us through them

to our place

in the Whole unfolding Story.


And the Whole has a powerful purpose

for everything we lack:

It calls us to connection

to one another

and to Itself

through our limitations and our needs,

as the gifts of one

meet the needs and limitations of the other,

joining us all in a stream of evolving wholeness

flowing from lack to abundance,

carrying us through the gates of Hello.



The Whole is on the move

flowing through every detail of life.

Its current of life flows everywhere —

masquerading as us

giving, receiving, making, serving,

through me

through you

adventuring

through this day

as I write,

as you read,

inviting us

to wonder together

into a Whole new world


forever.



Powered by:
GetResponse