Our Essential Commons

Joni Carley, DMin

How do we bring about a commonality of wellness and happiness? How do we evolve in alignment with one another’s best interests? Negotiation of what James Quilligan calls “…our mutual commons – the dynamic interrelationship of human subjectivity and material substance,” (Kosmos Journal. Spring/Summer, 2013) requires consciousness of the underlying essentials of that interrelationship.

As policies and practices are beginning to better account for the commonality of our materiality, it’s critical that we consciously evolve our understanding of the deep drivers of our subjectivity. Essential commons is a domain for accessing fundamentals of unity between self and all else through ever-evolving inquiry into the axiology (values), metaphysics (causality), and ontology (nature of being) of the transformative impulse toward commons consciousness.

Living at the tipping point of paradigmatic shift means we are negotiating disruptions in our metaphysical ground of being in ways not unlike the radical adaptations required by the tectonic shifting that transformed ancient Pangaea into the continents we live on. The New Economic Paradigm is a kind of emergent tectonic consciousness shift among subjective forces that produce, manage and distribute public resources. That consciousness shift must develop its own ontology so as to build new metaphysical tectonics for holding radically new commons-valuated infrastructures.

Our essential commons is where we come to grips with ungripping from the ontology of a commodifiable Earth. As “fish in the water” of the paradigm from which we’re emerging, it’s easy to define where we’re headed in terms of where we’ve been but new metaphysical, axiological and ontological ground is necessary to truly transform our provisioning, livelihoods, happiness and wellbeing. Commons consciousness has to do more than resolve constraints of Old Paradigm ontology and axiology and so essential commons offers a fresh platform for decision-making based on our interdependency with Earth and everyone and everything on it and beyond.

Essential commons is a domain of inquiry into the drivers that provision our common resources. It is also a domain for integrating commons distinctions with the subjectivity of our bodies, minds and spirits. Essential commons supports coherence among evolutionary partnerships by uncovering and evolving the essentials on which commons consciousness is anchored. It is an axiological ground for expressing and developing values as sound cultural building blocks. It is also a place to be bodacious about the world we want by using it as a playground for being unreasonably co-creative – a field for free agency from the reasonableness that cemented so many bad practices into our common experience.

As concepts of individual and collective power are transforming, we need to stay cognizant of unseen commonalities that affect and are affected by policy, practice and procedures. With the progress happening in commons-based decision-making, it’s all the more necessary to expand our consciousness of personal and social fundamentals so that transformation happens in integrity with the complexity of roots that anchor our commonality.

New Paradigm theory accounts fairly well for the need to realize our own essentialism, that is, to consciously evolve into well and happy individuals who are free to fully express. Without more substantive grounding, though, the trend toward individual development risks resulting in newly-articulated narcissism rather than the essential shifting necessary for behaving as though we are a species among species. Essential commons holds integral space for the very essence of our individual and collective commons concerns.

Our interdependence is an emerging understanding that brings with it the opportunity to consciously evolve toward a world that stands on tectonics of dignity, compassion and justice – our most essential common ground. In the spirit of statistician George Box’s declaration that, “all models are wrong, some are useful,” the concept of essential commons can be broken down into three parts: civil commons, spiritual commons and universal commons.

As the domain where subjectivities come together, civic space is where we create who we have to be to do what we want to do. Civil commons is a ground that holds every sentient being as a noble seed and a domain of inquiry into the personal and universal “soil” required for all seeds to thrive.

Spiritual commons makes sacred space in the commons conversation as a domain of inquiry into the life-force that is unique in each of us and common to all. It is a clearing for inter- and trans-denominational dialog, visionary impulses, wisdom traditions, humanism, metaphysics, spiritual reinvention and mojo. Spiritual commons supports up syncing up our inner GPS’s toward negotiating all of our commons in Golden Rule compliance.

Scientists agree that we only know about 5% of reality and that about 95% of what’s so in the universe is a common frontier. As we continue to unravel the majority mystery we’re part of, the universal commons is a domain for inquiry into what’s beyond our understandings of individuality and commonality. It is a realm for exploring correlation between consciousness, energy, matter, volition, provision, behavior and the as-yet-to-be-discovered.

As we re-negotiate our relationships with shared resources, the essential commons model is a tool for conscious evolution in that it offers access to our invisible commonality and our deepest resourcefulness.