Building Complex Systems= Creating Voltron
This weekend at Arc 38 in Wassaic, NY, many came out to celebrate Arc I, the Rise of Avalon. This party was fun, full of many different people from around the NY area with ideas about community living. Arc I resonated as something deeper than just a party, it was an example of a complex network in action.
In a previous post I touched upon the Arc vision, as seen from my prism. This vision is one of openness, of decreasing consumption, of commitment to resilience and sustainability. What comes next is being created by those who are attracted to the core vision.
Out of the original seed of Arc 38 came the vision of Arc 44; a sustainable business incubator as a community, filmed as a docudrama. Apollo Mejia and TruthNow came up with the idea for the Arc I, Rise of Avalon Party, and the Arc Life video series. Such examples of creativity help to round out a deeper answer to the question, what defines an Arc? The Arc vision can be molded, can be enhanced, can be enlivened by others. The Arc as a complex organism steps into yellow consciousness when it can hold such diversity, and allow for the original seed to remain in tact. This yellow consciousness merging resembles the cartoon character Voltron's assemblage.
Arc 38 as a community, functions like a command and control phallunx structure, with a direct flow of communication and hierarchy stemming from the landowner, Bill Henry. Many of the founding members speak of the "New Way," yet are slightly uncomfortable moving away from the old paradigm control-like organizational structure. Resources are scarce in this current model, and the definition of procedures, protocols, and flow of power are hard to 'nail down' or solidify. This is a perfect case model to decide, is this our version of the new way? Can we learn from best practices in other communities (or businesses) to create more transparent, more dynamic systems?
That said, the greater Arc model is that of a holocracy, and each decentralized node can decide for itself what system works best. This allows for experimentation, and the ability to question/ post data about our operating environment for other communities to learn from, replicate, expand on.
Yellow consciousness comes with the ingrained pillar of systems analysis. According to a Spiral Dynamics minicourse- yellow consciousness comes with:
'Landmark Life condition of:
-A chaotic organism where change is the norm and uncertainty an acceptable state of being.
The landmark coping (mechanism to struggle is):
-Systemic: functional; integrative; interdependent. existential; flexible; questioning; accepting.'
Such a system mimics an open source, agile built, software system. This is why we have been so busy courting technology investors.
Using the framework of Spiral Dynamics, Let's Build Voltron; Let's Build the Future
(Spiral Dynamics® is a registered trademark of National Values Center, Inc.)