I'm Lion, and I research, advocate for, and organize to develop "Open Source Society."

Process Arts are basic to Open Source Society.  Open Source is about people sharing code, learning from code, tinkering on code, and tinkering on code together.  The way we live is thankfully not rigid as code, but it does have structure, form, and even sometimes architecture.  There are ways, norms, paths, things that we can understand and relate about -- and there are even things that we can invent, such as Open Space Technology.  The Open Source Society metaphor suggests that we look at our own living systems as things that can be studied, experimented with, copied, and developed in evolution.  If we develop in the direction of the heart, than we have Process Arts.

I've been studying the founding of the Federation of Damanhur (in Italy,) Bucketworks (in Milwaukee,) and the Mars Hill Church (in Seattle.)  I hope to add Imago Dei (in Portland) to this list as well.

The imagination of an "Open Source Society" is roughly:

• A "society" is something of around at least 1,000 people, say -- something well beyond Dunbar's number.
• A "society" is cohesive, and holds articulated values and ideals -- a uniqueness.  The society helps people who see their faces in the society's values and ideals, to actually live those values and ideals.
• A "society" is, here, something that one lives in.  It is not a club;  It is not something that you just attend on Sundays, or even like work -- just during the day.  Rather, it is something that one spends one's life in.
• These societies are not countries, in that they float on the existing governance systems.  Compare "The Mormon Church," which floats above the United States and Utah governance systems.
• "Open Source," in that they are experimental, in that they are conscious creation efforts, and the people in the society are building it as they go along.
• "Open Source," in that they are plural.  Open Source projects do not imagine that they are "better" than one another.  Nobody pits (for example) Inkscape against Apache.  This said, there is a friendly rivalry, between KDE and GNOME, with underlying connection through Open Source ideals.
• Another reason why "Open Source" is a good analogy, is because Open Source is networked, connected.  An excellent example of this is the sharing and connection that the Federation of Damanhur holds with other communities, such as Zegg, FindHorn, and other communities.
• And another reason why "Open Source" is a good analogy, is because it is self-organizing, and further, doesn't go into convulsions over hierarchy, either for or against.  Many societies benefit from hierarchy, many societies benefit from not having hierarchy.  You will see the whole spectrum in Open Source, from Linux to Debian.  Open Source society is well aquainted with different approaches working, particular to the character and uniqueness of respective societies.

So, this is my expression of this vision, (which I find many others besides myself have arrived at independently, though perhaps not in the same words,) and this is what I am working to make and establish.

Most relevant to this wiki, I think, is the idea of "Creative Encounter," which I learned about from Bucketworks, and immediately recognized as the technique that the Damanhurians use as well.

This involves working with clay, paint, wood, paper, and other material mediums, as a means of learning about the self, sensitivity to the real, identifying ideals and values, and deepening connection with self, others, the universe, and the imaginaries.

This has a few particular benefits:

• It helps a person enter into a space of deep reflection, meditation, and also a degree of control.  Into a place of wisdom.
• It helps a person enter into a space of action.  Action is one of the most common "missing ingrediants" in groups, and "transitioning into action" is often just that -- "a transition."  If you operate in a frame of action from the very beginning, then there are far fewer obstacles to getting into action when the time comes.
• It can do all of this not only for individuals, but for groups of people as well.

Or so is my theory, based on observing it work at Bucketworks, and reading about how it works, as part of the process of people joining the Federation of Damanhur.

Given the premium placed on action at Damanhur (where it is "Quesiti #1,") and at Bucketworks (where it is the first stage -- "Commitment," [to a project]) this is what I observe.

We are now experimenting at Saturday House with how to cluster into projects from within a frame that has no explicit directives.

-- since first writing, I've contributed:  Talking Around Activity -- which is different, though related to, Creative Encounter.