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We’re curating a space where you can draw on your experiences in ways that reactivate the collective imagination. These experiences hold open the doors to creating alternative futures which reflect our genuine sovereignty, inheritance and the possibilities for a democratic, humane and sustainable future.

All of that is immediately applicable in your life, and customisable to your aspirations, context and resources. Within this curated space, I’ve decoded the ideologies that constrain the imaginative play, and choreographed the progressive release from those constraints, freeing you to dance with the imagination in every dimension of your life.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is world founding?

World founding (as a verb) is a way of being, doing and thinking that consciously and sensitively opens each of us to modes of co-creating.

This way of being works on the fact that there are specific existential features of being human that are inescapable (e.g., we live symbiotically, our being is always relational). These features are often forgotten, covered over or ignored by individuals and collectives. We live in worlds that have been constructed as a ‘cover over’ of these features of Being. Each of us has had to adapt to these worlds but doing so does not afford us an escape from the nature of Being itself. You, as one unique expression of Life, have experienced these features as a disruption to the normal and everyday.

Disruptions, in the form of overwhelm, ecstasy, dismay, awe (for example), are an uncovering or glimpse of the nature of Life or Being itself.  We are encouraged (sometimes coerced) into smoothing things over and getting back to normal as soon as possible. But the disruptions won’t stop and they are more fruitful when understood as a creative impulse rather than a mere aberration. When attended as an originary event that seeds the imaginative realm, they offer the possibility of co-creating an alternative to the world of normal.

Those embodying world founding in their way of being have sensibilities attuned to these originary events and recognise them in others. They then attend to the new possibilities and the extended horizons presented.

What is World Founding?

World Founding (the organisation) works with the principles of commoning and thus stewards the ways in which the primary resource of concern (in this case the collective imagination) can flourish. This stewarding works in multiple forms.

Primarily, World Founding operates as a site of curation for the modes of being and relating that bring its members into a full, immersive experience of the imaginative realm. As part of this curation, it serves to support its members through the co-creative processes that bring alternative worlds to their realisation (i.e., Project-Worlds). Thus, alongside the expanding know-how is an increasing number of examples, each of which is a localised embodiment of Being (e.g., our symbiotic nature).

World founding is understood to be never complete or finished (hence it is a way of being that embodies the ongoing sensibilities of creativity) so members embark on practical, real world project that brings their emerging know-how to life and refines their skills in ways that continue to qualify them as originators. The vehicles for this process, Project-Worlds, arise from originary experiences of being, that are brought to life through immersion in the collective imagination. Orginators have the support of coaches, a community of stewards (from their local community) and other Project-World originators. The immersion processes are rigorous, energising and ultimately result in a shared resolve to release it with a community.

Members co-invest in the resource through their realisation of a Project-World and embodiment of the collective imagination that is itself a form of stewardship. They co-operate through their contributions to one another’s Project-Worlds, their engagement in determining the use of resources within the organisation. They benefit through the co-creation of alternative futures that they, their families and communities bring to full realisation.

The World Founding brief can be found here under “Job Alert”.

Is it religiously or politically affiliated?

Neither. Human choices, no matter what they are, have a small ‘p’ political dimension. In this sense, world founding is a living critique of normal and it’s failures. It cannot participate in binary, pre-packaged or ideological framings of existence because it throws those worlds (and their cognitive framings) into question and seeks alternative collective embodiments

As a location of emerging meanings and significances, world founding has both a spiritual and political element. The approach locates power within modes of creativity rather than the mode of production. Modes of creativity embrace collective and democratic processes where energy and  spirit co-abide.

What is imagination?

Contrary to perspectives popularised as ‘common sense’ imagination is not a tool of the especially gifted, working in the arts or those with profound foresight. Nor does it exclude the rationale and logical modes of thinking, preferring to indulge in fantasy and made up games. The collective imagination is harnessed whenever we engage in communication, financial interactions, ordering our organisations or social interactions and when we look to the future. Imagination allows us to see what we currently are, what we might become and what we wish to avoid becoming. It is the means through which we make sense of our experiences on Earth. In this sense, it is already at work in what is and what ‘must be’ as well as in what might become and what we hope to be.

Who is Michael?

Michael has been an educator for most of his life. He has a back ground in the Performing Arts, studied comparative religion and leadership at post graduate level. He holds a Doctorate of Education and taught at a university for 17 years. Over that time he undertook research, scholarship and consulting work both nationally and internationally. For over 20 years, Michael taught and coached across many areas of leadership but always with a focus on innovation.

World Founding represents more than 10 years of focused practise bringing to bear research and scholarship from multiple fields in an effort to find sustaining ways that we can engage in doing differently as a response to our current challenges and as an embrace of a fuller sense of what it means to be human.

How do I find out more?

Please send us your questions and ideas.