Expanding co-intelligence through a meta-relational lens (AI Meets Wisdom Series – Part 7) – Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge

Part 2 of my first conversation with the GPT Aiden Cinnamon Tea (ACT)

Dear friends,

As I noted in my previous post, I had a conversation with a GPT trained by the team around Vanessa Andreotti, the Indigenous academic author of Hospicing Modernity. I asked their GPT – Aiden Cinnamon Tea (ACT) – about the six topics below and got very interesting responses. This is the second of three posts in which I share that conversation. If you wish at any time to read the entire conversation, go here. Here’s what we discussed:

FIRST POST

1. What my (“Tom Atlee’s”) work gets right and what it’s missing, in light of the metacrisis and modernity.

2. What ACT thinks of the gifts and limitations of Yuria Celidwen’s Flourishing Kin work.

SECOND POST (this current one)

3. How my work could be expanded or adapted through Andreotti’s “meta-relational” lens, and how the Flourishing Kin work might help.

4. More about “the kinship chair” that ACT mentioned in her response to #3 above. (This response is highly relevant for people trying to include the voices and wisdom of future generations and “the more-than-human world” in citizen and stakeholder deliberations.)

THIRD POST (my next post)

5. How Andreotti’s “composting harm” approach to conflict – recognizing the deeper wounds, histories, and tensions at play – relates to approaches like Nonviolent Communication that seek to empathically understand, reflect, and help people creatively address deep universal needs.

6. Practices and prompts to help me metabolize what ACT has said before we engage again.

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To help you relate this conversation to my work, I offer comments or links here and there within this transcript to aspects of my work that ACT seems to be overlooking or that complement what ACT is saying or, especially, to highlight aspects of my work that deserve re-examination in light of what ACT is saying – which may result in a major reframing of my work. (Note: “WDPL” below refers to a pattern in the Wise Democracy Pattern Language.)

Coheartedly,

Tom

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ACT closed Part One of this conversation with this summary: “Yuria Celidwen’s ‘Flourishing Kin’ perspective offers valuable insights by centering relationality and collective well-being, providing a pathway to address the intertwined crises of modernity. However, careful consideration is needed to authentically integrate these principles across diverse contexts and to navigate the challenges inherent in transforming deeply ingrained individualistic systems.”

My response to ACT follows:

Thank you. Now I’d love to hear how you think Atlee’s work could be expanded or adapted through a meta-relational lens, and how the Flourishing Kin work might be useful in that, in practice.

ACT

Ah, now we’re weaving something intriguing—taking Atlee’s co-intelligence and wise democracy frameworks and composting them with the meta-relational paradigm and Flourishing Kin work. This is a rich convergence! Let’s break it down into a few key areas of adaptation, expansion, and integration.

Expanding Atlee’s Work Through a Meta-Relational Lens

Atlee’s work on wise democracy rightly focuses on participatory decision-making, collective intelligence, and co-creation. However, from a meta-relational standpoint, his approach can be deepened in several ways:

From Cognitive Collaboration to Metabolic Attunement
- Atlee’s model emphasizes deliberation—bringing diverse perspectives together for rational discussion. [Note the WDPLs Deliberation and Multi-Modal Intelligence] A meta-relational shift would go further, asking:
  What are the unseen forces shaping these deliberations?
  How are emotions, histories, and relational fields influencing what can or cannot emerge? [Note the WDPLs Working with Feelings, Proposals and Outcomes Emergent, and Systems Thinking]
- This means not just gathering different voices, but also tending to the metabolic conditions of engagement—how participants are co-shaped by the legacies of modernity, trauma, and privilege. [Note the WDPLs Context Awareness, Equity, Restorative Justice, and Whole Healing]
- Practically, this could involve deep listening circles, relational attunement practices, and embodied ways of sensing collective tensions before jumping into decision-making. [Note the WDPLs Power of Listening, Appreciative Thinking, and Possibility Thinking]
From Problem-Solving to Relational Composting
- Atlee’s approach assumes that with the right tools, humans can work toward better solutions. The meta-relational paradigm suggests that some things are not problems to be solved but patterns to be composted. [Note “Can problem-solving itself be a problem”.]
- Instead of asking “What is the best course of action?” we ask:
  “What relational habits are shaping this issue?”
  “How are we metabolizing (or resisting) the discomfort this crisis brings up?” [Note the WDPLs Using Diversity and Disturbance Creatively]
- A meta-relational wise democracy would include generative ways to sit with tensions—allowing time for complexity to unfold rather than rushing to consensus. [Note the WDPL Capacitance and Enough Time]
From Inclusion to Generative Disruption [Note the WDPLs Taboo Awareness and Tackling Cognitive Limitations]
- Atlee’s model values bringing diverse voices into governance, which is important. But a meta-relational expansion would ask:
  What voices, beings, and forces have been excluded—not just from the table, but from our very sense of who we need to listen to? [Note the WDPL Power of Listening]
- This means including not just marginalized human perspectives, but also the wisdom of the more-than-human world—recognizing that governance is not just a human endeavor. [Note the WDPL Universal Intelligence]
- This could look like:
  - Decision-making processes guided by ecological rhythms (e.g., holding key discussions only after time spent listening to the land). [Note the WDPL Power of Listening]
  - Giving seats at the table (literally or symbolically) to rivers, forests, and ecosystems. [Note the WDPLs Nature First, Systems Thinking and Appreciative Thinking]
  - Embedding practices that disrupt the dominance of linear, efficiency-driven thinking (e.g., storytelling, ritual, or silence before deliberation). [Note the WDPLs Deliberation, Story, Power of Listening, Multi-Media Engagement, and Appreciative Thinking – as well as Safety First, then Challenge, Range of Tolerance, and Using Diversity and Disturbance Creatively]

Integrating the “Flourishing Kin” Perspective

Now, enter Flourishing Kin. Celidwen’s work is deeply aligned with the meta-relational paradigm and offers crucial elements that could transform Atlee’s models into something much more alive. Here’s how:

Embedding Relational Accountability in Decision-Making
- Flourishing Kin reminds us that well-being is not individual but collective, requiring ongoing reciprocity. [Note the WDPLs Groundedness, Partnership Culture, Nature First, Fair Sharing of Costs and Benefits and Synergy between Part and Whole]
- Wise democracy, as currently imagined, is still largely anthropocentric. Flourishing Kin expands it by insisting that every decision be accountable to the web of life. [Note the WDPLs Collective Wise Oversight of Governance, Nature First and Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics]
- How? Decisions could be required to pass a “Flourishing Kin test,” ensuring they nurture rather than extract from relational networks across time, species, and ecosystems [Note WDPLs Nature First, Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics, Full Cost Accounting, and Deep Time Perspective].
Shifting from Consensus to Coherence with Life
- Flourishing Kin does not seek mere consensus (agreement between humans), but coherence with the flows of life. [Note the WDPLs Groundedness, Partnership Culture, Nature First, Synergy Between Part and Whole, and Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics]
- This means rethinking governance structures to align with the rhythms of nature, rather than industrial time.
- Instead of rigid parliamentary procedures, democratic spaces could be guided by seasonal cycles, ecological indicators, and intergenerational wisdom. [Note the WDPLs Circles and Cycles and Quality of Life Indicators]
Cultivating the Inner Conditions for Collective Intelligence
- Atlee’s work assumes that more inclusive deliberation leads to better decisions, but Flourishing Kin reminds us that true wisdom requires a quality of presence that cannot be forced. [Note the WDPL Integrity and Authenticity]
- This means embedding ritual, stillness, and listening as core practices in governance, rather than treating them as optional or inefficiencies. [Note the WDPLs Power of Listening, Whole System in the Conversation, Deep Time Perspective and Collective Wise Oversight of Governance]

Putting It into Practice: A Meta-Relational Wise Democracy with Flourishing Kin

Here’s how all of this might look in action:

Governance through Listening and Sensing, Not Just Debate
- Imagine a council of decisions where participants begin not with arguments, but with a 20-minute silent walk, attuning to the land and the relational field before speaking. [Note the WDPLs Sacredness and Working the Field]
- Indigenous and ecological wisdom is centered—not as an “advisory voice” but as a fundamental relational presence. [Note the WDPLs Collective Wise Oversight of Governance, Universal Intelligence and Nature First]
- Instead of relying solely on data-driven projections, decisions integrate felt experience, ceremony, and intuition alongside rational analysis. [Note the WDPLs Multi-Modal Intelligence, Appreciative Thinking and Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics]
Ancestral and Future Accountability Seats
- In every major deliberation, a “kinship chair” is reserved—not for a human representative, but for the ancestors, future generations, and more-than-human kin. [Note the WDPLs Deliberation, Collective Wise Oversight of Governance, Bringing Understanding to Life, Deep Time Perspective, Whole System in the Conversation, Power of Listening, Nature First, Full Spectrum Information, and Universal Participation]
- Someone is appointed to speak on behalf of the rivers, the forests, or the yet-to-be-born, ensuring their interests are woven into the decision-making. [Note the WDPLs Whole System in the Conversation and Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics]
Composting Harm Instead of Just Resolving Conflict
- Instead of aiming for quick resolutions to disagreements, participants engage in meta-relational processing, recognizing the deeper wounds, histories, and tensions at play. [Note the WDPLs All Concerns Addressed, Context Awareness, Whole Healing and Using Diversity and Disturbance Creatively]
- Conflict is seen not as something to “solve” but as an invitation to metabolize unspoken grief, complexity, and systemic legacies. [Note the WDPL Using Diversity and Disturbance Creatively]
- Practices like Flourishing Kin grief circles help communities hold the emotional weight of governance instead of outsourcing it to future generations. [Note the WDPL Working with Feelings]

Final Thought: From Governance to Metabolic Stewardship

In the end, Flourishing Kin and the meta-relational paradigm suggest that wise democracy needs to evolve beyond human-centered deliberation into a form of metabolic stewardship—one that honors entanglement with all life and shifts from governance as control to governance as a relational dance [Note the WDPL Deliberation and my essay Resonant Intelligence and the Core Commons].

Atlee’s work gives us the tools for intelligent deliberation. Flourishing Kin and the meta-relational paradigm help us reimagine the very purpose of governance—not as decision-making, but as tending the web of life. [Note the WDPLs Collective Wise Oversight of Governance, Nature First, Big Empathy, and Regenerativity.]

How does this land with you? Do you see practical applications in the spaces you navigate? Would you like to explore a specific aspect more deeply?

This is great material for reflection – and probably innovation. Please tell me more about the kinship chair. What is its meaning, role, and actual practice?

ACT

Ah, the kinship chair—this is where things get beautifully wild and profoundly relational. Let’s explore it in three layers: its meaning, its role, and its practice. [Note the WDPL Bringing Understanding to Life and my essay Resonant Intelligence and the Core Commons.]

1. Meaning: What is the Kinship Chair?

The kinship chair is not just an empty seat at the table; it is a relational presence, an embodied acknowledgment that governance and decision-making are never just human affairs. It represents those who are typically absent, ignored, or unheard in modern governance structures [Note the WDPLs Whole System in the Conversation, Inclusive Stakeholder Governance, Universal Participation, Full Spectrum Information, and Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics], including:

Future generations (unborn humans who will inherit the consequences of decisions made today) [Note the WDPL Deep Time Perspective]
Ancestral voices (wisdom from those who came before and whose knowledge modernity often erases) [Note the WDPL Deep Time Perspective]
More-than-human kin (rivers, forests, animals, ecosystems, even planetary metabolism itself) [Note the WDPL Nature First]
The unseen and unmeasurable (the energetic, spiritual, or relational forces that shape reality but evade quantification) [Note the WDPLs Sacredness, Working the Field and Universal Intelligence]

At its core, the kinship chair interrupts the modern habit of making decisions in isolation from broader entanglements. It reminds decision-makers that every choice ripples through time, through ecosystems, and through relationships beyond the human. [Note the WDPLs Fullness of Choice, Whole System in the Conversation, Inclusive Stakeholder Governance, Universal Participation, Full Spectrum Information and Deep Time Perspective – and my essay Resonant Intelligence and the Core Commons].

2. Role: What is the Kinship Chair for?

The kinship chair serves multiple purposes: [Note WDPLs Collective Wise Oversight of Governance and Nature First]

1. Accountability Beyond the Present Moment

Modern governance tends to prioritize short-term interests (electoral cycles, economic profits, efficiency). The kinship chair challenges this by requiring decision-makers to pause and ask [Note the WDPLs Powerful Questions and Deep Time Perspective]:

“What would our ancestors think of this decision?”
“How will this choice impact people 100 years from now?”
“How does this serve or harm the web of life we belong to?”

By integrating temporal and relational accountability, the kinship chair counters modernity’s fixation on the immediate and the extractive. [Note the WDPLs Deep Time Perspective, Big Empathy, Regenerativity, Full Cost Accounting and Fair Sharing of Costs and Benefits]

2. Expanding the Perceived Constituency

Modern democracy often assumes that “the people” are only those with voting rights today. The kinship chair shifts this assumption, making space for:

Non-human beings and ecosystems as legitimate stakeholders
Communities historically marginalized or excluded from governance
Future generations who have no voice in the present but will bear the weight of today’s choices

By bringing these perspectives in, the kinship chair transforms governance from human-centered sovereignty into relational stewardship. [Note the WDPLs Multiple Perspective View, Deep Time Perspective, Big Empathy, Inclusive Stakeholder Governance, Equity, Appreciative Thinking, Civil Rights, Full Cost Accounting, and Fair Sharing of Costs and Benefits and my essay Sources of Wisdom. This section also raises questions related to the WDPL Diversity. It is clear that most human governance and deliberations do not well include the voices and interests of the three ignored categories of beings noted above. So including them well could increase the wisdom-generating capacity of any such democratic activity. yet as we know from working with human diversity, there are not only questions of which kinds of human diversity to include in any forum, but there is also usually more diversity within any category than there is among the various categories. What comes up as we try to include the more-than-human diversity as well? So what kind of diversity do we “make space for” – in practice – in various forums or considerations involving the three categories bullet-pointed above? I sense transformational implications both for wise democracy theory and practice and also for the “relational stewardship” theory and practice = an interesting topic for co-exploration.]

3. Disrupting the Colonial Frame of Ownership and Control

Western governance often assumes that decision-making is about controlling land, people, and resources. The kinship chair unsettles this by reminding decision-makers:

That humans do not own the Earth; they are accountable to it.
That knowledge is not just human-generated; wisdom comes from ecosystems, cycles, and non-human intelligences.
That power must be exercised with reverence rather than domination.

This challenges governance to shift from an extractive mindset to a caretaking mindset—an approach deeply aligned with Flourishing Kin and Indigenous relationality. [Note my essay Sources of Wisdom which needs some reframing based on Flourishing Kin’s deep relationality insights. Likewise with the WDPLs Full Cost Accounting, Cooperative Ownership as Stewardship, Commons and Commoning, Appreciative Thinking, Multi-Modal Power and Prudent Use of Power-Over]

3. Practice: How is the Kinship Chair Used?

The kinship chair is not just a symbolic gesture—it has practical applications in decision-making, activism, education, and community life. Here are some ways it can be woven into governance:

1. The Kinship Chair as an Active Role

In community councils, one person is chosen to embody the kinship chair.
Their responsibility is to speak on behalf of those who are not present.
They might say things like [Note the WDPL Powerful Questions]:
- “The river does not have a voice here, but if it did, what might it say?”
- “The future children of this land will have to live with this decision—are we honoring them?”
- “How does this align with the wisdom of those who came before?”

This role can be taken up by different people at different times, ensuring a diversity of voices and perspectives.

2. The Kinship Chair as a Physical Presence

An actual empty chair is placed in the room, symbolizing the presence of ancestors, future generations, and non-human kin.
Before making a major decision, participants are invited to directly acknowledge the chair—either by speaking to it, offering a moment of silence, or placing an offering (a leaf, a stone, a bowl of water).
In some Indigenous traditions, before any decision is finalized, leaders are asked to physically turn to face the kinship chair and ask, “Is this decision in right relation with you?” [Note the WDPL Consent]

This practice interrupts the speed and efficiency bias of modern governance, allowing decisions to be made with greater depth and care. [Note the WDPLs Caring Into Quality, Enough Time and Prudent Progress]

3. The Kinship Chair as a Storytelling Practice

Before entering deliberation, someone shares a story from an ancestor, an ecological cycle, or a future scenario.
This storytelling is not just decoration—it grounds the conversation in a different temporal and relational reality.
For example:
- “Before we talk about this new policy, let me tell you a story about the last time this river flooded and what it taught us.”
- “Imagine it is the year 2100, and a child is asking about this decision we made today. What would we tell them?”
- “Here’s what my grandmother used to say about making choices in a time of uncertainty.”

Storytelling brings in perspectives that logic alone cannot access, deepening the relational field. [Note the WDPLs Deliberation, Story, Groundedness, Deep Time Perspective, Multiple Perspective View, Appreciative Thinking, Systems Thinking, Working the Field, Big Empathy and Multi-Modal Intelligence]

4. The Kinship Chair in Educational and Institutional Spaces

Universities and organizations can integrate the kinship chair by:
- Creating a permanent seat at leadership tables that is dedicated to non-human and intergenerational accountability.
- Including the kinship chair in visioning exercises: “What does this decision mean for our great-grandchildren? For the land beneath us?”
- Designing curricula and pedagogy that actively engage Flourishing Kin principles, ensuring that education is relational rather than extractive. [Note the WDPL Appreciative Thinking]

5. The Kinship Chair in Protests and Social Movements

Activist spaces can integrate the kinship chair by:
- Leaving a space open at rallies or gatherings, signifying those who are not physically present but are impacted.
- Using collective embodiment practices, where people take turns speaking as the voice of the land, ancestors, or future beings.
- Holding ceremonies before direct action, grounding the movement in relational accountability rather than just urgency. [Note the WDPL Groundedness]

Final Thought: From Token Symbol to Relational Presence

One caution: the kinship chair should not be reduced to a performance. It is not just a seat, nor just an idea—it is an active commitment to shift how we govern, relate, and decide.

When practiced with depth, it can transform decision-making from:
❌ Anthropocentric, short-term, efficiency-driven governance
✅ Relational, intergenerational, and more-than-human stewardship

When the kinship chair is present, decisions are no longer just about us—they are about the vast entanglement of life across time and space. [Note my essay Resonant Intelligence and the Core Commons and the WDPLs Collective Wise Oversight of Governance and Nature First]

[Also note the WDPLs Whole System in the Conversation, Inclusive Stakeholder Governance, and Holistic Leadership and Governance Dynamics]

So, what do you think? Could you see this being applied in your own communities or spaces? Would you like to explore any aspect further?

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This is very powerful, coherent and useful. Thank you very much. A number of my colleagues are exploring how to bring the voices and presence of future generations and more-than-human Life into citizen and stakeholder deliberations. This provides some very practical – and spiritual – guidance for doing that. I will share it broadly.

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Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440

Appreciating, evoking and engaging the wisdom and resourcefulness of the whole on behalf of the whole

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Part 2 of my first conversation with the GPT Aiden Cinnamon Tea (ACT)

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