Upcoming event across the web:

• Sunday, Aug 30: IS Community Call 23.8
• Saturday, Sept 5: Play Rx Imagination Break
• Friday, Sept 11: Open IS Connection Call
• Saturday, Sept 12: Being With It All resumes
• Sunday, Sept 13: IS Web Quarterly Convening

The previous newsletter was "Cutting (effectiveness)" and our Community Call last Sunday was titled "Listening to Truth".

About a year ago, I was writing Coordination is Hard about how "collective doing" relies on individual being, collective being, and individual doing, becoming the last square of a 2-by-2 matrix (very related to the Integral quadrants). I've seen nothing that changes that in the last year, and have seen confirming evidence in multiple collectives' struggles with coherence (between and within people) and resources (to enable doing). Inner game and outer game.

There are fractal layers of nesting these things, but the main helpful thing I can say here is: Capacity flows outward — inner to outer. This holds true for individuals and collectives, and even for the linkage between them (where individuals can be considered the "interior" of a collective even in pure doing-space).

You could boil this down with some pith into "Coordinate with yourself first." And why are we in conflict with ourselves, why do we lack full coherence and integrity inside of our one mind in one body? I'll say it like this: We create separation inside ourselves by turning away. That makes turning toward the primary primitive of almost everything we value.

This is the recognition at the center of the Being With It All practice I've been hosting for the past couple years. It is a "turning toward" practice — and I want to turn toward that even more as we begin the third hike of this year in September. Now I need to go update that web page to be more clear, crisp, detailed, and resonant to its essence.

Cheers,
James