Soul Pattern
Expressing the force of life and the activity of consciousness as a dimension of Living Systems Practice.
The identification of mind, or cognition, in the process of life is a radically new idea in science, but it is also one of the deepest and archaic institutions of humanity. In ancient times, the rational human mind was seen as merely one aspect of the immaterial soul, or spirit. The basic distinction was not between body and mind, but body and soul, or body and spirit. While the differentiation between soul and spirit was fluid and fluctuated over time, both originally unified in themselves two concepts - that of the force of life and that of the activity of consciousness.
Fritjof Capra1
Challenge: How can you bring your whole self and awareness of the force of life to the task of transformation?
Cluster: Capability Practice Patterns
Type: Essential Practice Pattern
Purpose
To express mindful, transpersonal and spiritual qualities in holistic sustainability practice.
Pattern Description
This Pattern positions Living Systems Practice as profoundly soulful, yet connected to a practical, grounded sensibility. The soul dimension is activated by the inherent motivation of committed sustainability practitioners to work for the benefit of their fellow humans as well as for the health of our natural systems, as an expression of our higher selves and of our connection to nature. In seeking soulful expression in sustainability practice, practitioners elevate their capability for transpersonal interaction and wisdom-in-action.
Spirituality means different things to different people and can be confronting and disruptive if a particular view is imposed: the Soul Pattern, then, is not about proselytising any codified doctrine, religion or rigid principles. It promotes a spirituality where practitioners can draw from it in the act of practice and manifest it through convivial behaviours, yet keep the nature of their individual form of motivating spirituality to themselves.
Elemental Patterns
Centred: Centredness as a state of being is often described in contemplative spiritual traditions as well as in the field of positive psychology. Centredness can, of course, be experienced through sitting still and remaining quiet. When it comes to the practice of working with people for change, however, centredness-in-action is needed and thus is an important capability for self-aware practitioners. Primarily, people in a change process will open to a process if they sense practitioners are centred in how they approach the work and their relationships. So, practitioners observing their own state of being and cultivating a centred and mindful approach enable better observation of emerging patterns, with less bias and reactivity, and fewer preconceptions: this is especially important when disruptive patterns emerge.
Loving: Working for a more sustainable world is, quite simply, an act of love. Love for for people and nature is a fundamental universal force that, when expressed in practice, can open up space for change by enabling greater connection between people, and between people and nature. Expressing love through action is a powerful way of being in the world.
Empathetic: Working with soul means means having empathy for every participant in a change process and being alive to the potential in their current state of being and their embodied and situational cognition - their values, attititudes, thoughts, hopes, fears, loyalties, behaviours, emotions and more. Empathy enables practitioners to deepen their understanding of the practice context and be better able to bring to the surface hidden personal and system patterns. Empathy from the leaders of a change process contributes to creating an appropriate atmosphere for change amongst all participants.
Selfless: Across many spiritual traditions, selflessness and non-attachment to the outcomes of your actions are key dimensions of service to others. Sustainability transformation reqiures holistic practitioners to step out of transactional ways of thinking yet dedicate themselves to a transformation vision that may not eventuate. Cultivating qualities of selflessness, then, elevates practitioners and their practice in a way that will generate a multiplicity of cascading benefits from the transformation process.
Consilient: In this Pattern, consilience is a support for holistic practice. The concept of consilience derives from science, describing where new knowledge is supported by multiple, different sources of evidence. In a sustainability transformation, “consilient” is a soulful practitioner quality for working with people to generate and surface multiple pathways to a shared understanding, shared values and shared impact. Consilience becomes evident in new patterns that enable people to continue on the transformation pathway, through the next actions or phases.
Accepting: Advanced practitioners avoid mechanistic approaches and controlling behaviours and thus must be comfortable with the ebb and flow of change, as well as manage conflict, distrust and displays of emotion amongst participants. While Living Systems Practice has scope to dissolve such emergences through system effect, there are times where acceptance of the state of things and the letting go of preconceived outcomes is the most appropriate position to take.
Grateful: When working in change, practitioners are privileged to be invited into a network, community, organisation, group or team, who then open themselves up to others in order to progress their visions; and that alone is enough to justify a sense of gratitude as an acknowledgement of that privilege. And further, seeing practice as an opportunity for professional, personal and spiritual development is a form of gratitude. Any way that gratitude can be maintained will be of immense value to the transformation process.
Grounded: Bringing spirituality into transformation while remaining grounded is a critical state of balance for practitioners to cultivate. It means that practitioners’ spirituality is continually being tested in real terms under the challenge held by the social entity, which is of immense value in itself. The act of working consciously with any social entity for sustainability transformation as an expression is enough: the rest is about grounding it for real impact at the service of the social entity.
Flowing: Flowing is a state where practitioners enter deeper state of practice through engaging the whole self. A state of flow can then develop where actions flow naturally through shared visions towards shared outcomes. Perceptions, responsiveness and pattern awareness emerge in continuous flow, enabling understanding and co-creation towards synthesis of ideas and knowledge without the need for mechanistic, analytic, transactional dominance. When practitioners and participants generate a state of flow together, great things can be created and the conditions for emergence are in place..
Transcendent: This path of service towards a better, more sustainable world can contribute to the spiritual development of practitioners and participants alike, if they are open to it. This state of experiencing something bigger than oneself is transcendence, and of value in itself as a spiritual experience. And yet, having just a small experience of transcendence can be enough to open people to new ways of being and acting in the world. This state of transcendence is hard to define or describe, yet people will know it when they experience it. It can’t be forced, but when it does happen it will make a difference. Sustainability practitioners should remain alive to the possibility, especially when the practice context is challenging.
Atlas Navigation
Go to the Elemental Patterns within the Soul Pattern:
Centred Loving Empathetic Selfless Consilient Accepting Grateful Grounded Flowing Transcendent
Go to the Knowledge Pattern within the Capability Patterns Cluster
Go to the Practitioner Pattern within the Capability Patterns Cluster
Version
Version 1.0 - 2 Jun 2024
Version 1.1 - 15 July 2025
Capra, F. (1997). The Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter. Flamingo p257.