Joe Lightfoot published an article, The Liminal Web: Mapping An Emergent Subculture Of Sensemakers, Meta-Theorists & Systems Poets on November 17, 2021 that inspired me. Ever since, I have been dreaming about The SPACE and the MOVEMENT. He has now published an update, A Little Liminal Update: 18 Months Later, that has really excited me, as I will explain.

But first I want to comment on Joe's work and graphic and add some of my own nuances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe identifies twelve dimensions which describe the SPACE. I would add five more - IRL Intentional Communities, Evolutionary Thinkers, Post Education, Metamodern Spirituality and Wisdom Commons. And I would break apart some of the items that Joe lumps together and use slightly different words for the labels.

I am excited to see UTOK on the Map. I knew they belonged 18 months ago when Joe published his first article. I witnessed the entry of Gregg Henriques and UTOK into the SPACE in August, 2019 and that led to my own discovery of the territory.

And I am very, very excited to see Emergent Commons on the Map. That feels very, very special because that is the community that I am a member of. This is validation from a credible source of my assertions that Emergent Commons is the best online community in the SPACE. One of my purposes for joining Emergent Commons was to be in such a community. That has now been "officially" achieved.

The entities that I would place on the Map would be significantly different than those on Joe's Map. This is not a criticism as mapping is a highly subjective exercise. Joe has his biasis and I have mine.

 ...in certain corners of The Liminal Web the ideas of John Vervaeke and Daniel Schmachtenberger still have a big influence while in other parts of the web these two thinkers are much less relevant.

Both of these men remain on my personal mental model of the SPACE as top tier players, but Joe has dropped them. He has also dropped Deizen, which is led by Jenny Stefanotti, which seems to me to be growing. And, of course, Joe has dropped Rebel Wisdom which shut down in 2022.

Joe has added several players to his Map who I would regard as minor, not yet having made major contributions. At the same time Joe is omitting some big players that would definitely be on my Map and I will identify two of them - Nate Hagens & The Great Simplification plus the Bildung movement in Europe.

In his article Joe identifies seven trends which I generally agree with. And Joe adds 23 links to explore, many which are new to me. Finally, it is my expectation that the SPACE will grow even more rapidly in the next eighteen months and give us some surprises that are impossible to predict. Nevertheless, I will stick my neck out. In the next eighteen months a world class celebrity will discover and embrace the SPACE, a significant step towards making the MOVEMENT more than a dream.

Still thinking about the map and the territory, I would like to see something that captures diversity in some kind of metamodern sense. Integral captures wholeness, oneness. My own thinking leans more in the direction of uniqueness and seperateness.