The Now-to-New practitioner uses mind, body and spirit to transcend the mundane, imagine what could be, bring it into being and enrich the world with value, meaning and joy.
Human beings are built for converting Now into New using mind, spirit, and a third aspect that John Steinbeck doesn’t mention here: body.
I consulted multiple sources, engaged in much deliberation and produced many iterations before settling on the embodied mind‑body-spirit model pictured below.
Mind is represented by the horizontal plane and Body by the vertical plane.
Spirit is channelled via the Openness–Faith–Groundedness assembly.
Dual torus image sourced from Michael C Grasso and decoloured | View source and read about Grasso’s Menorah Matrix
it’s important to recognise that mind-body-spirit is nothing more than a convenient fiction. Each one of us is an undivided whole, and the abstracted parts work together in ways we will never fully understand.Jump ahead
The Now-to-New practitioner’s
Mind
Body
Spirit
Transcending the mundane
The Now-to-New practitioner’s mind
Mind is represented by the horizontal plane.
The comparison chart below is based in part on the work of Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher and writer best known for his theory of how the brain’s hemispheres differ in the way they attend to the world.
His theory supersedes the debunked yet still prevalent split-brain theory developed in the 1960s by Roger Sperry and others.
Iain McGilchrist talks about two worlds without naming them. My names are mundane world (everyday world, default reality) and primal world (view rationale).
| MUNDANE WORLD Brought forth by brain’s left hemisphere | PRIMAL WORLD Brought forth by right hemisphere |
|---|---|
| In this world: Power and control prevail. We seek certainties. Everything can be named, described and situated on the arrow of time. Abstraction, reductionism and reification go unquestioned. Our lives are experienced at one stage removed, like watching a video rather than the live performance. We know the map, not the territory Generative thought and action are constrained by a barrage of rules, norms, mores, codes, beliefs, dogmas, narratives and ideologies. We are domesticated. We are separate from nature. Our imagination is synthetic. | In this world: We imagine possibilities. There are no names and no descriptions, and there is no arrow of time, only the present moment. As soon as we name something it becomes a thing and therefore part of mundane world. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” Tao Te Ching We experience life in the raw: visceral, untamed, unfiltered, uncodified and unconceptualised. We see things whole and in their context. Our thinking is comprehensive. We are part of nature. Our imagination is organic. |
Two forms of imagination
Read more
Iain McGilchrist and his theory of brain hemisphere differences
Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who experienced her brain’s left hemisphere shutting down
The two forms of imagination: synthetic and organic
The Now-to-New practitioner’s body
Body is represented by the vertical plane.
Now-to-New practitioners have at their disposal seven powers, each of which is associated with a particular part of the body.
The three activating powers combine to form a superpower named Transcend the Mundane.
The four creative powers combine in pairs to form two further superpowers: Create the New and Enrich the World.
When Transcend the Mundane is activated, the other superpowers also become active with their constituent creative powers ready to be deployed.
| POWER | TYPE OF POWER | SUPERPOWER | PURPOSE | ASSOCIATION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OPENNESS | Activating | Transcend the Mundane | Connecting to the nonmaterial realm | Crown |
| IMAGINATION | Creative | Enrich the World | Imagining a world enrichment possibility and conceiving a high potential idea | Third eye ¹ |
| CONCEPTUALISATION | Creative | Create the New | Devising something² that will generate the imagined value, meaning and joy | Throat |
| FAITH | Activating | Transcend the Mundane | Connecting to the wellspring of love, experienced as a heartfelt desire to enrich the world with value, meaning and joy | Heart |
| MATERIALISATION | Creative | Create the New | Giving the creation² tangible form and introducing it to the world at large | Navel |
| REALISATION | Creative | Enrich the World | Bringing the creation² to fullness and realising its value generation potential | PC muscles ¹ |
| GROUNDEDNESS | Activating | Transcend the Mundane | Connecting to the material realm | Tailbone |
1. The mythical ‘third eye’ is located between the eyebrows. The PC (pubococcygeus) muscles — we all have two — are those we use to control urine flow.
2. The new creation might be a product, a service, a facility or another type of value generator — or, when undertaking change or problem transfomation work, an intervention or other course of action that will bring the desired state of affairs into being. The new state of affairs is the creation and the course of action is the means by which the new state of affairs comes into existence.
The Now-to-New practitioner’s spirit
Spirit is represented by the heart, where the horizontal and vertical planes intersect.
To be spirited is to have a force that brings you up, that animates you out of inertia.
Shabaka Hutchings, jazz musician and composer, in The Guardian | View
The heart is where we experience our intent as an unwavering desire to enrich the world with value, meaning and joy.Spirit is the animating force throughout creation. An unseen force that is life, the divine, the nagual, the light. To live a spiritual life is to identify oneself as the animator of creation, rather than as creation.
Allan Hardman | Visit website
Intent is an aspect of primal world and so it cannot be defined, described, explained or proved to exist.
Words associated with intent include spirit, life purpose, love, and faith.
Faith is not being used here in the religious sense, but rather with the meaning conveyed in the passages below.
Faith is a critical but curious mind’s readiness to adopt a reality model (even if provisionally) for which there is less than absolute, empirical proof.
Jay B. Gaskill, The Dialogic Imperative
Faith is an existential commitment of the heart, a way of life, a set of behaviors and emotional responses woven into every hour of everyday life — expressed through constant choices both when alone and in social situations.
Peter A. Georgescu, Faith isn’t irrational, but beliefs may be, on Huffington Post | Peter A. Georgescu is Chairman Emeritus of advertising agency network Young & Rubicam, Inc.
Transcending the mundane
Transcend means to rise above or go beyond the limits of.
It also means to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of.
It does not mean to shun.
The Now-to-New practitioner transcends the mundane by:
Feeling connected to the nonmaterial realm (power of Openness)
Feeling connected to the wellspring of love (power of Faith)
Feeling connected to the material realm (power of Groundedness)
When we transcend the mundane and enter primal world, the creative faculties of Imagination, Conceptualisation, Materialisation and Realisation (of potential) become fully activated and ready to be deployed.
Mundane world.
Primal world.
Synthetic imagination.
Organic imagination.
Each has an equal part to play.
Primal world is not the place to be when completing your tax return or shopping for groceries.
Continue reading
Now-to-New
Related topics
Iain McGilchrist and his theory of brain hemisphere differences
Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who experienced her brain’s left hemisphere shutting down
The two forms of imagination: synthetic and organic
General
Search the site
Not case sensitive. Do not to hit return.