StarCommunityMembers often get requests to explain what “StarCommunity is about.” We’ve worked, for the last four years, on an elevator speech that could give a meaningful and concise description…without success. Now we are trying a new approach. The Star Community LayerCakeMap (SCLCM), born in the SpiritualQuest group in the summer of 2020, is an attempt to provide an answer to that question.
In the Star Community a “Map” is an idea borrowed from PossibilityManagement?. It is an infographic, usually combining graphics with text, providing a concise description or analysis of an important concept or idea. We use dozens of maps in our thinking, and they are both useful and wide ranging in their application. For example, we have maps dealing with concepts as diverse as ConflictNavigation, the origins of the Star Community, and the important distinction between FeelingsAndEmotions?.
The purpose of the SCLCM is to summarize the big picture of the Star Community: all of what are we doing and why are we doing it. It goes beyond a single concept or idea typical of most maps and attempts to conceptually tie together all of the major elements of the community.
Organizationally, the SCLCM builds on the idea that most of what is happening within Star Community can be usefully categorized into five “activity levels.” Within each activity level we describe a variety of practices embedded within that level. Each of those practices often link to activities at another level.
The five levels and embedded practices are:
- Economic Level: Practices in this level support our physical and economic needs, maximizing growth, evolution, and exploration. Star Community believes that individual economic circumstances should not stop anyone from participating fully in the community.
- Example Practice: We’ve worked to secure permanent and affordable housing.
- Example Connection with Another Level: Experiments in cultural change (e.g., the BarracksExperiments?) can be easily implemented because we own our own housing.
- Individual Level: Practices in this level focus on the individual personal development. Individual growth and change have important implications for group and cultural processes. Also, psychological problems can prevent full participation in all of life's spheres.
- Example Practice: Possibility Management focuses on individual-level understanding and growth.
- Example Connection with Another Level: PM also plays an important role in understanding and changing group-level processes.
- Group Level: Practices in this level support and create powerful interpersonal relationships between individuals, in pairs and in larger groups.
- Example Practice: StarCommunityForum? is designed to reveal personal and interpersonal issues within the community.
- Example Connection with Another Level: At the cultural level, Star Community Forum provides an opportunity to become more aware of the connections between individual, social, and cultural processes.
- Cultural Level: Practices in this level help visualize a new cultural model, implement it within our own community, and share this model with the outside world.
- Example Practice: Group living experiments such as Barracks and Winter Weekend.
- Example Connection with Another Level: Group living experiments push the envelope in what is comfortable or easy in group processes and in living together. We also find our personal edges and learn more about where we need to improve.
- Spiritual/Philosophical Level: Practices in this level develop the basic philosophical foundations for our community and our movement. This level of the SCLCM is well developed, but not written up at this time.
- Example Practice: The Spiritual Quest group is where we investigate and conceptualize the philosophical and spiritual foundations of Star Community.
- Example Connection with Another Level: The ideas that are developed in SQ can spawn ideas for new experiments in group living.
Recognize that there are three important points of context for understanding the SCLCM:
- The levels aren’t ranked in importance. In a five-story building, each story has its own unique importance and function; the same here. The Economic Level isn’t more or less important than the Spiritual/Philosophical Level, or any of the other levels.
- As mentioned above, most (all?) of the practices and ideas (the “What We Do” column) within each activity level are practically and logically related to the practices and ideas of the other four levels.
- Sometimes a specific practice is really just a label for a collection of related practices that occur within that level. For example, ConflictNavigation, included in the Group Level, is a label for a number of different practices that may happen within StarCommunity to deal with conflict.
The SCLCM is incomplete. The philosophical/spiritual level has not been finalized. But, here’s hoping that the SCLCM is actually never finalized. We hope that we we are always breaking new ground!