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The Sphere of Infrastructure

Creating these systems, prescribing holistic and integrated solutions to social and ecological challenges, and envisioning an ideal future need not be and should not be overly complex, and will ideally be simplistic. Identification of key leverage points will have the greatest positive influence, allowing the practitioner responsible for intervention or implementation to merely push on a few key levers and then observe the ripples as they spread through the whole system.

Obviously, the more conscious the designers and the practitioners are, the better the chance of creating sustainable systems. These individuals and organizations have a capacity for considering the most critical aspects as they are part of systems of systems, or even systems of systems of systems. With each leap in their cognitive awareness, they will find increasingly sophisticated and nuanced dynamics within and between these aspects.

More than ever before, we are called not to have a prejudiced focus on the world but rather to see the forces, dynamics, and truths revealed through all of the dimensions of the world as they arise concurrently. The world is as it is (one event), and yet, following the quotation from the Talmud, “We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.”

The infrastructure, along with the systems and designs supporting it, that make our daily lives possible and keep things running smoothly, are often taken for granted. The roads we drive on, the water we drink, and how we get it, the electricity we use and how it is generated, whether our waste is recycled, exported, or left to rot, are all determined by infrastructure.

At this point in our human history, most countries (and some whole continents) have poor and failing infrastructure that severely impacts daily life and threatens our safety and even our survival. We have an opportunity and an obligation to create innovative, eco-friendly, and sustainable systems, technologies and structures to better support our lives and our communities.

Following the premise that we are part of the Greater Cosmos, when designing infrastructure systems, we are mindful of the fact that the Earth is a sacred space, village, and community, and as we get in touch with our essence, the place from which we contribute to the world in real, meaningful ways – new ways of dancing and being with one-another, and of building sacred space, villages, and communities are revealed.

We know Who We Are and are conscious of the systems we create that will sustain the inner body of society through our connection with the Whole of the Cosmos and through our conscious awareness of this connection.

We realize that the internal framework, systems, organizations and facilities that serve a given locale for example – transportation, energy, communication systems, schools, military, food systems, etc. – must be seen as wheels within wheels and as representing the whole living, dynamic, and evolving body and system of human society, with all of its parts in relationship with one another, inevitably interrelated, interconnected, and interdependent, through diverse values, cultures, and levels of development and consciousness.