Reflections on the Vistar Method and Birth 2012

By Victoria and Ron Friedman
 
Ron… I’m sitting in front of my iMac with a beautiful photo of Terra on my screen, a shy blue vulnerable sphere suspended in the incalculable, unimaginable, mysterious and magical vastness of Space. Its roundness is startling and makes me wonder about circles and spheres, spirals and tori and their insistent presence in creation. What of circles in our history, their unfailing appearance in our social and political structures for millennia? Are we imprinted with some archetypal template of evolution, some cosmic geometry, that we must reproduce an eternal “ring around the rosy”? It was a deep inner vision about the potential of a more conscious and creative human gathering in the round that launched the Vistar Foundation in 1994.
 
Victoria… And in 2011 Barbara Marx Hubbard found us involved in a deep, vertical and intensive collective awakening and co-creative circle process.  She was looking for a method for her evolutionary circles and immediately recognized the value of The Vistar Method.  It was a marriage made in heaven.  Barbara asked us to condense our method into a streamlined, quickly learned and replicable process.  We were challenged because, after all, Vistar Leaders had at least two years of training before leading a Circle.  But, you don’t question a visionary and a futurist.  Rumi says “Say, “Yes” quickly if you know it, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the Universe.” We said YES! And the Vistar Method was in a new orbit!
 
Ron… Yes! What a lesson in letting go of requirements of how we think something should happen.  People began to use the Method in its shortened version.  On the ACE calls and on the web we heard people all over the world who were experiencing positive results and having experiences which took us years. The Vistar Method was in the Birth 2012 womb and it was developing. Through Barbara’s coaching the GuideRules began to take a more inviting tonality and The Vistar method entered the heart resonance world of Birth 2012. Students were using the GuideRules and being more respectful of individual expression while at the same time more conscious and responsible to the progress of the entire Hub Meeting.
 
Victoria… As we approached December 22nd, co-creation became an essential aspect of Hubs and Circles and Birth 2012 was the ultimate event for a co-creative model.  We are now seeing in the Field different levels of Co-Creation. There is Co-Creation 1.0 (top down leader directed - very structured), Co-Creation 2.0 (group directed – little or no structure), and the emergence of Co-Creation 3.0, which by definition needs to “transcend and include” the effective parts of 1.0 and 2.0.  We cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. This integrative higher resolution has been and is an ongoing exploration with The Vistar Method. The Circle/Hub evolutionary drama includes a profound new understanding and application of hierarchy and leadership.  We will be emphasizing these points in the upcoming “Vistar Method Training” for all sectors of the Wheel of Co-Creation.
 
Ron… The journey from  ‘me to we’ consciousness is also an ongoing adventure. It is something truly new and Hubs are the perfect laboratories for its emergence. A higher sense of responsibility is involved, a radical change in relationships and surely an enlightened social structure which will ultimately emerge to reflect this new sense of Identity. This ‘we’ experience is subtly different from the Eastern experience of Oneness, while certainly having elements of it. It emerges from the development and differentiation of individuality in the West and arises from that basis. It is an identity that embraces a sacred activism, a proactive focus on this life, this planet and its highest destiny in alignment with the sacred purpose of Evolution Itself. We see Collective spiritual activism now emerging as a spontaneous outcome of coming together in Hubs and Circles for a Shift in Consciousness on the planet.
 
Victoria… Bringing up the baby…it takes a Movement! Starting, leading, growing and sustaining a Hub or Circle is not for those who want to live in a circle of comfort. Ron and I are dedicated to helping those who have chosen to move from “procreation to co-creation” of a Circle Being. This calling takes everything we have to give and more! It returns to us the greatest treasure of all…it gives us back to Ourselves.
 
Ron… And to turn to the world stage, we see many signs of The Shift happening, and we strongly suspect that they are powered by the invisible strength of deed and intention of the many unknown and unnumbered who gather and will good for the destiny of our species and planet. Admittedly, these events are early signs, incomplete, but they are nevertheless extraordinary. The world’s recognition of Nelson Mandela and what he stood for, the almost involuntary suggestion of John Kerry that Syria destroy its arsenal of chemical weapons, the early talks between world powers and Iran vis-à-vis limiting their nuclear program, the attention that Pope Francis and President Obama are focusing on the inequality of opportunity for a large portion of the world’s population, the sometimes violent outcry against tyrannical governments in so many locations on the globe, the shared shock and compassion experienced by people all over the world to events like Newtown and the typhoon in the Philippines made possible by the technology of connectedness, all these signs are pointing to the Shift. Against this background are the growing numbers of Hubs and Circles of evolutionaries who are forming the prototypes for a future of infinite possibilities.
 
          We at Vistar are committed to That.
 
Ron Friedman, MD, and Victoria Friedman are visionaries, pioneers and teachers in the field of Collective Evolutionary Consciousness. They are Co-Founders of Vistar Foundation, dedicated to exploring the Power and Potential of Collective Intelligence. They offer the Vistar Method for Circles™ (VMC), a structured meeting format for collective awakening, co-creativity and conscious communication. www.vistarfoundation.org