Our current political, economic and ecological systems are at an edge, in a process of deep transformation. There is uncertainty at a planetary level as to where we are heading. We are in the space of the unknown -- a space we have come to lovingly identify as liminality⁴¹. In this liminal stage, the human collective stands at the threshold. We seem torn between previous and emerging ways of structuring identity, time, and community, with only one thing we know for granted: systemic change is inevitable.⁴²

It is time we embrace the liminality in which we are living⁴³. We arrived at a point where it is less safe to resist change and continue clinging to the illusion of control than to risk our hard-earned status and assets in order to learn to deal with the unknown. That is scary! And uncomfortable.

to travel through this liminal phase into a new paradigm means we can no longer blindly reference the tools and approaches we have used so far to navigate the world. concrete plans are becoming obsolete as we do not know where exactly we are heading. management struggles when no single person or even team has the full overview any longer. hierarchy becomes superfluous when decisions reach levels of complexity that can only be solved if the collective intelligence of everyone involved gets unleashed. as a generation, we feel we must trust even more in our inner compass as we are challenged to bring forth a mindset, which is at first, invisible to the eye. from this hunch, a set of powerful design principles emerge.

we recognise the importance of both, ancestral wisdom traditions and modern science in exploring our uncertain futures. we intend to recuperate our identities and mythologies in ways that recognize othering and foster belonging across time and space. future generations, rivers and quarks have an equal say at our gatherings.

we want to go to the edges, to the underground, to the outliers and the forbidden, because that is where we are most likely to discover what we are too comfortable to see. we partner with the leading researchers on topics such as death, sexuality, power, faith, wealth and extraordinary states of consciousness, to explore the unexpected rabbit holes to system transformation.

how we run the UFI is in alignment with how we hold space for others: full of care, kindness and celebration of how complementary we are. it’s not balance that we seek, but the honoring of the process of balancing. in this process we are inspired by ‘suma qamaña’ a sacred concept in aymara that has many meanings, e.g. to live well, to know how to live, when inner equilibrium meets outer harmony.

see our homepage under ‘core elements’ for more details, as well as on ‘personal, collective and system transformation’ which underlies all principles. like all of the UFI, this is play in progress and we look forward to deepen our inquiry into the essence that guides our self-organized mycelium with our co-creation partners over the months and years to come. May the map emerge a bit more clearly with each step we take.

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