Reed Burkhart

Transitions must connect past with future. Many transitions are first attempted by creating a future disconnected from the present. Please think about this for a moment or two before going to the next paragraph!!!

Freely sharing is an intuitive (and sometimes emotional) idea behind many attempts to transition to the future:
- open source
- non-profit activism & philanthropy
- Copyleft licensing (sometimes implicit in application of Wikis)

Power appears today to come in the form of managing exclusivity, and emotion promotes opposition by advancing openness — but a deeper understanding of transitions of power is needed. Creating power structures that are progressively more diffusive is probably the only viable path, because power must effect the transition, and if the transition is for all of humanity, that transition must BEGIN where humanity is today, moving towards the ideal from there.

I am looking forward to learning and sharing here at TheTransitioner, and I am specifically interested in the application of Aikido to transitioning — especially through engaging money power for progress (which means not giving everything away, which is the old, now-getting-outmoded, model of Robber Baron's doing philanthropy, a useful but transitional model, as all models must be). Please have a look at the essay, "Aikido Activism." (a welcome is here and a pdf version of aikido_activism_dga_woir.doc is here)

My background is systems and innovation. The Noosphere (or collective intelligence) must be advanced through the Aikidosphere (the application of transitioning regressive dimensions of extant power structures through power-capturing-and-transitioning engagement rather than power-weak opposition of power structures without engagement/without power). Good is moving from one power dominance to another — fortunately diffusive empowerment is most powerful, so concentration of power is not possible without some advancing of power's diffusion. This process must be understood and practiced cognizantly to truly transform — to advance progressive transitions.