A Noble Organization
Organization as Sacred Organism
The Invitation
Welcome to this living document — a research-based, evidence-informed article series guided by exploratory personal narrative — a multimodal dialogue across a distributed network ecology, a singing collective intelligence of divinely inspired souls in service to human flourishing.
Join me in the cross-pollination, in the co-arising. Accompany me in this atemporal… aperspectival… jargon-permissive discussion on the harmony of living things, the beauty of dying worlds, and the majesty of the great mystery.
This elegantly emergent elephant of an effort was birthed out of the deep cycles of 2023. In the chapters below I trace a bouqueting sensorium of sense-making — I sketch the many winding paths, the many wayfinding steps through the enchanted fractal-forest of becoming
.We are living cartography — a map mapping itself — a territory exploring its embedded-belonging with other territories, an ocean of perception immersed in the unspeakable language of experience.
The Great Mystery
There’s no way to describe the manifold of miseries and joys— the multitude of tender moments, the many monotonous meandering miles, the solitude and silence, the magical myths that have broken and rebroken my spirit, the metamorphoses that have shattered and refashioned my heart a hundred million throbbing beats — beats that skip and repeat, cacophonies of reverberation that echo out into infinity.
There’s no way to chronicle the death of all things in me.
And no way to tell of the miraculously mundane melodies that sung me back to life… back together… back into being— a re-peace-ing into wholeness— those sacred lullabies that re-membered me all the way home— the ones that knew my labyrinthian puzzle so well, the saving graces that understood the celestial blueprint to regenerate and reorganize and revitalize and renew my soul.
And so, my breath, my life-force energy prays…
A long-held primordial prayer for those sacred guides, those songs who called and led me here —the unborn ancient essences that cradled my light and now deliver it unto you.
Bless them.
For it’s mighty a wonder that I’m even here to tell the tale.
So, while sentences will be spoken and tales will be told, RE-MEMBER — there’s no incantation, no spell I’ve learned to psychically transmit any depth of inner knowing — no secret cheat code to accurately share a familiarity with such unbelievable mercy and such phenomenal grace. There’s no magical phrase to communicate the level of steadfast resilience one need cultivate to traverse such perilous, once-walked terrain.
And, as many a once-walker will tell you, “You know it if you know it. And if you know it, there’s not much to say.”
And as such, I’ve yet to find adequate means to truly value and honor the unimaginable risks and sacrifices involved in bringing forth such humbly human offerings.
Be that as it may, I invite you to please consider financially supporting my work with a paid annual Substack subscription (button below), or on Patreon, or via my tip jar. Larger donations are accepted directly, please privately. Or hire me for fancy projects and speaking events here.
The Word
The Noble Organization: Organization as Sacred Organism
In the beginning was the word and the word was love.
There’s an unanswerable question dancing on the tip of the cosmic tongue, a great riddle known only in the recognition of its veil, a secret hidden in the heart of an unresolvable paradox — a way spoken in the whispers of the stars amidst the chaos of space — an unknowable eternal truth locked inside each tiny fluttering infinity.
And, as love incarnate on Earth…
Some will tell you Life is a Game.
They will say that Life is an Art.
Still others will insist that Life is What You Make it.
Fortunately and unfortunately, no one knows what anything is or isn’t. It all seems to be a lot of nice stories — a lot of infinitely entertaining multidimensional movies on the TV screen of divinity.
Consensus Reality [kən-ˈsen(t)-səs rē-ˈa-lə-tē]
Noun
: a maximally-convincing, self-perpetuating ruse.
: the infinite narrative; the chatter of god; internal monologues of the multiverse.
: the extremely useful meaning-making non-sense of a cosmic inside joke.
I’ve found that if there’s one truth deserving of concession, one reality worthy of consensus— it is most certainly love — a redemptive goodwill for all beings; a love that seeks nothing in return.
“It is an overflowing love; it's what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
The Arrival
Birthing New Worlds
There is a future now here, a yearning yet to be, a baby yet to come, becoming more real with every passing moment— a life to be chosen and affirmed — a way to be acknowledged and expressed. And in the subtle vibrations of this ubiquitous shared dream, this collective vision unrealized — a delivery is afoot — the midwife of new life, partnered in tandem with the doula of death.
The civilizational composting is rapidly underway.
Can you feel it?
The institutional microbes and earthworms multiply. The societal monera and fungi beckon us with an invite into a chosen destiny of intergenerational service, a regenerative turning, a gran cycle of succession — a celebration to honor and hospice our elderly planetary structures.
An angel of death is still an angel.
Is it not?
So in this moment, I make way for trumpets, parade and fanfare to welcome all angels — those who beckon us to join them, they who usher us into our higher nature as a planetary consciousness, as a more mature species — as honorable stewards of the sacred garden.
And, as the debt comes due, as the tragic clause in our karmic contract is adjudicated, a gift and opportunity lies dormant, folded in the fine print.
Not a way out, but a way in. A way through. A way to be lived into with the promise of the moment.
So, let this be a reminder that as our concrete edifices call out to the anima of disintegration, an outstretched limb extends a merciful offer.
Embrace it.
The Initiation
Listen to what calls you.
So you say you want to be a wizard, ay? You want to learn what it is to adapt and mutate, to edge-ride and liminal-walk, to summit mountain peaks, to dive down deep into the trenches of the abyss?
I don’t believe you.
You’re really ready to oscillate in uncertainty? Ready to be thrust into transition and pressed hard to the brink— pushed up against every last threshold? Ready to cut your teeth on death and taste the tacky bitter sap of your own limits? You truly want to learn how to bend and fold… but never break?
I don’t believe you. Not for a second.
And you say you want to be Mother Teresa... You want to be Gandhi? You want to be Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King and The Dalai Lama all rolled into one?
Nonsense. Are you even fit for service?
What if I told you, you’d have to sacrifice everything? What if I told you, that you’d become the bride of the void and emerge faceless and nameless? What if I told you that doing good work, meant only doing so in secret — no validation, no status symbols, no credit, no awards, no celebrity, no legacy? Would you then abandon your childishly naive aspirations?
This journey is not for the faint of heart.
The Way
Becoming A Living Prayer
The intent is noble. The way is sacred. The word is love.
If this message rings true, let this now moment become a space to conspire — to share in a stoic breath that speaks an ancient logos, to learn the language of emergent complexity as a sacred holy practice.
Let these yarns become a place to craft — to twist tapestries of trust and sew the planetary fabric of cohesion, to braid those bundles of beauty that weave wiser worlds.
Let this here and now, guide us to guild — to learn the alchemy of transmuting trauma into triumph, fragility into resilience, to hold the high art of humility, to form kinship across kinfolk, to walk the co-evolutionary steps of superorganisms— to become one through many, an indivisible plurality of wholeness.
This path hungers not for heroes…
But welcomes battle-tested bones and bodies built of bravery.
This passage summons not saviors…
But welcomes servants of sacrifice with lion-hearted leadership.
This portal petitions not prophets…
But welcomes the spirit of gnosis and the discernment of Phronēsis and Sophia — those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
This is the way of discernment, a devotion to the living word.
Scriptures and Scrolls
Explore reflections on the mastery of complex love through the lens of cyborg anthropology. Delight in a delicacy of ancient futurology with themes on collective intelligence, workplace ritual, new economies, human permaculture, communities of belonging, deep trust, cultural entropy, and emergent practice. Jam along with riffs on conversational jazz and synchronistic enculturation sprinkled with invocations to the gods of organizational sciences, evolutionary theory, social psychology, knowledge management, cybernetics, wisdom sciences, and more.
What you’ll discover in this series :
PREFACE | Notes From the Field
Cobwebs in the Web of Being
The Unbearable Numinosity of Being
How Many Blind Men Does it Take to Describe a Fractal Elephant?
OVERVIEW | Organization as Co-Evolutionary Organisms
THEORETICAL SCAFFOLDING | Ground to Walk Upon
WAYFINDING | The Tao of Organizations
YIN | Well Being: Being Well Together
YANG | Well Doing: Doing Well Together
WU WEI | A Noble Organizational Organism
WUJI | The Container: Culture as a Practice
HYPERSTRUCTURES | The Technological Patterns of Culture
A MOVEMENT IN FOUR | Where to Start
RESOURCES | Homage to a Fractal Linage
I hope you find interest in engaging with, critiquing and augmenting the ideas in the comments below and in the patreon community. This series invites iterations and improvements overtime.
Subscription and Book Club
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and other like-hearted-minded souls, please join my patreon to message me directly, and post your interest in the comments below.Thank you!
I would like to thank the following humans for their time, attention, energy, support insight, links, resources, and comments on the article drafts. I am grateful for their guidance and wisdom, their help with funding, platforming, and distributing this work — as well as and shaping its contents through reflection, dialogue, insight, and heart-centered human connection.
I’m honored to be family, friends, colleagues, collaborators and kindred spirits with you all.
Adam Wright, Natasha Mantler PhD, Eric Reynolds PhD, Jeremy Johnson M.A. | The Transdisciplinary Leadership Review
Scott Nelson, Carissa Kazyss | The Human Data Commons
Aviva Argote M.A. | Hauser Center at Harvard Kennedy School, Institute for Non-Profit Practice, The Omega Institute
Tom Murray PhD | Wisdom Sciences, Adult Development & Complexity Research, Stage Lens
Gail Hochachka PhD |Making Meaning of Climate Change Research
Tyson Yunkaporta PhD | Sand Talk, Right Story Wrong Story, The Other Others
Carol Sanford | Regenerative Business Book Series & Carol Sanford Institute
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