The Wheel of Co-Creation: New Ways of Being in the World in a Vast Movement for Positive Change

 

The Wheel of Co-Creation, created by renowned thought leader Barbara Marx Hubbard, is a “whole system” worldview that identifies 12 sectors of endeavor in an active, healthy and functioning society, which includes the interaction of the arts, economics, education, environment, government, health, infrastructure, justice, media relations, science and spirituality. When we connect these sectors to form a more confident community and form a positive worldview, people are inspired with a renewed sense of hope for the planet and our collective future.

New paradigms are arising due to the breakdown of the current system. Unique forms of complementary currencies are emerging as sharing, caring, gift economies and self-sufficient community living, in which people join together to thrive, rather than simply compete to win and survive.

Instead of rigid beliefs in which a person is viewed as commodity that is marketable and strictly valued for their skill set, the new worldview values employees for their potential human creativity. They are given permission to create a new way of being in the world based on connection with everyone else and our unlimited potential for collaboration. As Hubbard states, “All people are born creative!”

The Economic Sector

An excellent example of co-creation in our metropolitan area is the Chicago Time Exchange, or CTX (ChicagoTimeExchange.com), an organization that explores an economic alternative. Its operating principle is that we have everything we need if we use what we have within a shared community. To that end, they offer an online time bank where individuals can exchange their service for other goods and services. Instead of a pure barter system, in which we are limited to the offers of one person, members have access to the skills and strengths of the whole group.

A shared economy comprises a skill pool using time as the currency. An hour of our time is worth an hour of anyone else’s time. By creating win-win exchanges, we create synergy that joins us together as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. There are five principles that guide this work:

       Assets: We all have assets. We all have something to give. Listening and caretaking, for example, are valuable skills that are not highly valued in the market economy, but are absolutely essential to the successful operation of a community.

       Redefining Work: Some work is beyond price. Work must be redefined to value all that it takes to raise healthy children, build strong families, revitalize neighborhoods, make democracy work and advance social justice to make the planet sustainable. That kind of work needs to be honored, recorded and rewarded.

       Reciprocity: Helping works better as a two-way street. The question, “How can I help you?” needs to change, so that we ask instead, “How can we help each other build the world we both will live in?”

       Social Networks: The act of people helping each other to reweave communities of support, strength and trust is limited today not by technology, but only by our imagination.

       Respect: Every human being matters. Respect underlies freedom of speech, freedom of religion and all that we value. Respect supplies the heart and soul of democracy.

       Co-production respects the work of all players without a traditional hierarchy that limits interaction between different levels.

This is what happens when we begin to unleash our creativity in new models of shared economies:

•  We feel a desire to reach out and help others; to give, rather than get.
•  We are often paid to play; in other words, our work is also our passion.
•  We know that our life is contributing to a greater whole in some way.
•  We wake up each day filled with excitement and joy, and can’t wait to get started.

Once we have identified the gifts that we would be inspired to contribute to a shared economy, we can take action with courage and persistence. Through that action, we will be connected to a vast movement for positive change. As Ghandi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

 

For more information about the Wheel of Co-Creation, visit Evolve.org or CEChicagoland.org.

 

Nina Patrick is on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Conscious Evolution and is Founding Steward of Conscious Evolutionaries Chicagoland. She is also co-founder of GOOD of the WHOLE and Sacred Travel Initiative, dedicated to the awakening of humanity’s potential. For more information, contact Nina at [email protected].