Earth Day Birthday for United Planet
Happy Earth Day and Happy Birthday United Planet! 3 years ago, on Earth Day 2020, United Planet was launched with a virtual festival that reached an estimated 40,000 people. Covid had recently begun and I was looking to experiment with ways to create immersive community experiences that apply our collective intelligence and creativity to design a future worthy of us. I wanted to explore how we could gamify societal transformation.
Since then we have developed into a global community of Gaians through participating in the UP Games. I hosted many UP Game experiments until launching the 6 day long UP Game in 2021. The experience was a smashing success and saw four teams of 12 Gaians step outside of linear time into a thriving future where our visions had been realised. Since this time I’ve organized 9 further UP Games and start the 10th in Bali starting today. 48 Gaians are coming together here in Bali to step outside of time tomorrow with Time Day. I am over the moon to begin the Fractal Universe UP Game at capacity with a waitlist of people wanting to join us — a wonderful outcome for the first UP Game in Asia. My father wrote the first guide book for Bali 65 years ago in 1958 and contracted polio here. It was the last place he walked before spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. This was a particularly poignant Earth Day Today, we built a traditional Temascal which will form part of tomorrow’s opening ceremony where we will invite in our Ancestors to guide our journey.
The origin story goes back to the death of my mother and stepmother within 2 weeks of each other in 2017. I inherited some capital following the death of my father that was available to me following my stepmothers death in 2017 that I wanted to honor the life of my parents with. I decided to set up Civana Foundation on May 4th 2018, with a mission to explore solutions that could contribute towards a thriving civilisation in harmony with all life. This took the form of many experiments which began with a community operating system for coalitions and ecosystems working towards the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
In January 2019, I was attending my 10th World Economic Forum meeting in Davos as a member of the Young Global Leaders community. I wanted to create something unique so partnered with Blockbase and a number of leading organisations to create the ‘Remember 2030: A celebration of the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals’. I invited a curated list of impact driven world leaders to come and celebrate their part in the achievement of the Global Goals. The night was a huge success with the venue reaching capacity after 40 minutes of our doors opening. It turns out we love to celebrate the thriving future.
I knew storytelling the future we want to see would be a way to create a unifying narrative that could challenge the predominant dystopian narratives so prevalent in our world. I started hosting 2030 celebrations around the world from Civana House in San Francisco, the first prototype Planetary Embassy, to Envision Festival in Costa Rica, to Burning Man and other gatherings. I have always been a fan of the legendary futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller who in 1961 created the World Game. He predicted that there would come a ‘Design Science Decade’ where every aspect of our world would be gamified in order to work for all life. I believe this is that decade and this is our time.
There has been so many friendships, partnerships, culture, narratives and solutions developed out of the UP Games thus far. We’ve only just begun to tell the stories. We’ve made a feature length movie and edited over 100 UPGrades — short stories from a thriving future — check out the first 60 at www.UnitedPlan.et/UPGrade.
Given it is our third birthday I wanted to share this UPDate of where we are at and where we are aiming to take United Planet community as a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation).
What is United Planet?
United Planet is the better world our hearts know is possible. The collective dream that lives in our imagination. It is the world we hope for ourselves and our children. The United Planet community is committed to designing transformative solutions for our collective thriving. A community where Gaians unite with organisations, coalitions and investors for planetary change.
A community that unites geniuses, artists, musicians, elders, wisest, creative, visionary people from around the world to work together to transform it. A community of noble values creating the Age of We.
The United Planet is becoming a DAO where members are rewarded for their contributions in Stars — a currency designed to reward value creation from the future.
United Planet is inviting committed leaders, organisations and coalitions to become founding members of the community.
What is the UP Game?
The UP Game is an in person immersive reality game where we design the future as our future selves. The UP Game invites athletes of transformation to unite on a shared mission as Gaians. Together, we create from a thriving civilisation in harmony with all life.
We reverse engineer from a future we want to see manifest, to create a vision through our collective imagination and potential. The UP Game is a 6 day rite of passage beyond time. We gather to dream. To vision. To play. To heal. To create.
We start with Time Day where we leave behind our conditioning of living within the confines of clock time or linear time. We create a collective death ceremony where we leave behind the era of being conquered by dystopia, separation and fear. We begin a journey of our own death and rebirth as a Gaian. We forget, to remember. We experience what we call time sovereignty — where we exist beyond our normal experience of time, where the past, present and future is all happening in the deep now. Many of us are familiar with practices of positive psychology, NLP, visioning our future and manifesting it based on our mindset and attitudes. What I noticed is this same practice could and should be used as a collaborative sport to design our collective future.
Einstein said: “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”
The Why?
Our planet is pregnant with possibility. We have a collective dream. A dream each one of us knows in our heart of hearts. A vision for a better planet. A fair planet. A free planet. A peaceful planet. The planet our hearts know is possible. We call this collective dream the United Planet.
Time is hiding in plain sight as one of the most powerful design tools to apply collective creativity to create pathways towards this vision of a planetary true north. We all know we are at a critical moment in history, where the future is resting on our shoulders. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 4 out of 5 people in the world believe the system is not working for them, and even more concerning, almost 2 out of 3 people believe the future will be worse than the present. We are being conquered by dystopia in a meta crisis of meaning.
We have a crisis of narrative right now. So many of the stories we tell about ourselves, our world and our capacity for transformation are not aligned with the thriving of future generations. Our world is in need of a new unifying narrative of the future. And when we see that the narrative is the front line of transformation we will understand that the world we create is closely correlated to our collective vision.
The results follow the narrative. Stories are like living entities with a resonance and a capacity to go beyond time. A well told story can break the illusion of time. For this reason we tell stories of the future in the present tense where our greatest visions have been realised.
How the UP Game works
The UP Game enables players co-create the narratives, culture and solutions for a thriving planetary civilisation. The Game revolves around what we call the United Planet GPS:
1. Make it a better Game
2. Make it a better Planet
3. Make it a better Story
The United Planet is a place where we time travel to unite our visions for a better future as our best self. Each UP Game invites four teams of leaders of the present and future to co-create an immersive experience where visions for ourselves, organisations, communities, society and the planet have been realised. We gather as four elemental teams — typically 12 people on each team.
The Water team creates Water Day on Monday which celebrates the rise of community and belonging. We focus on creating the immersive experiences where we connect with the element of water and the achievement of Community abundance, Wealthy commons, Regenerative cities and Infrastructure transformation. The Water team leads us into a collective harmonic flow where we connect to the intelligence of the element of water as we begin our remembrance of the systemic solutions that enabled the unleashing of our common-unity through our communities.
Birds of a feather flock together. When we ‘find the others’ and come together as a United Planet, we create the space for a planetary community that feels more like siblings on a shared mission. It is from this place of trust that we can play to each others strengths and develop a deeper culture of integrated cooperation.
The Fire team create Fire Day on Tuesday’s which represents conscious cultural, economic and societal transformation. The Fire Team creates an immersive day of experiences to celebrate Gender harmony, Peace & justice, Thriving for all and Circular economies. The fire team join the Fire League where activations have included a private ceremony in the Great Pyramid of Giza in order for 44 Gaians to harmonise our voices in the F note turning the King’s Chamber into a harmonic resonance chamber. The Fire team explores the role of sexuality, identity, culture, narrative and embodied movement have on our collective field of coherence.
The Air team creates Air Day on Wednesday which represents all life flourishing to our fullest potential. We explore the frontiers of our collective potential from the inside out. As Ram Daas said ‘We are all walking each other home’. We recognise the role of collective healing for us to reach wholeness, health and wellbeing. We play with a new level of planetary cooperation where our talents have been fully unleashed with the value we create. We connect with the element of air by celebrating Healing and well-being, Water security, Unleashing potential and Sustainable food. The Air team explores the realms of collective harmonic flow and how we can tap into an infinite well of creation when we unleash our capacity to act as a coherent field of Gaians. We design for planetary talent in teams of teams.
The Earth team creates Earth Day on Thursday which celebrates the thriving of the planet and our role as stewards. We connect to Pachamama and commune with our shared mother. The Earth Team designs Earth day around the planet thriving and all Gaian life living in harmony by celebrating Planetary health, Ocean stewardship, Ubiquitous energy and Land stewardship. The Earth team explores themes of nature’s intelligence, listening to the wisdom of our ancestors and our descendants, connecting with the intelligence of the plants. The Earth team connects Gaians to a feeling of belonging to a planetary age and planetary identity. A world beyond borders and separation.
The UP Game completes with the grand crescendo: Aether Day. On Friday we connect with the spaces in between. We connect with that which connects all of the elements. We connect with Ubuntu spirit — I AM because we are. All Gaians come together on one team for Aether Day. We come together to remember the Gaian Tradition. The stories of transformation that liberated us from the age of separation. The greatest story never told.
Each team creates an experience that connects us to the timeless wisdom of each element.
We finish with the Time Birth where we birth ourselves back into linear time but with our new sovereignty over time. We witness each other stepping into our legacy as great ancestors to the future. We learn to design from our timeless self. Thorough our hearts. Through our intuition. We reverse engineer from the field of collective imagination — with childlike wonder. We come together for our inheritance dinner where we come as our seventh generation grandson or granddaughter in 2180 to celebrate the life of you and your role on the transition team. The Regeration. The Gaian Generation.
We birth ourselves as stewards of the United Planet. We reverse engineer from the field of collective coherence that we tap into.
We learn to design from our timeless self. Thorough our hearts. Through our intuition. We reverse engineer from the field of collective consciousness — with childlike wonder.
Theory of change
The United Planet hypothesis is that a place of infinite potential exists outside of linear space-time. And each one of us can access that place by simply immersing ourselves into the experience of our world once our visions and dreams have been realised. It is from this space and time that we can reach our fullest individual and collective potential. Celebration is the highest vibration. Through play we amplify our creativity and create the breakthrough stories and culture that can guide us into the future we wish to see. With the future narrative to lead us, we are able to literally reverse engineer and even finance the systemic choices that enable us to thrive.
When we create the future we wish to see our bodies know no difference. We experience what it feels like to create from there. We open our neuro-plasticity, synchronise our left and right brain and enter a space of co-created emergence where we are at our best creatively.
Starting with Community
We recognise our common-unity through community. We have transitioned from the finite game of the me over the we. We play the infinite game where every we win when everyone wins. We win together.
We step into a collective identity as Gaians — the name for citizens of the United Planet. We pledge the Gaian Oath:
We are intending to develop a planetary identity, belonging and team of teams. I liken this Oath to the Hippocratic Oath for time travelers. If we are going to collectively step into the future lets not bring back more dystopian narratives so common in the age of separation and the present meta-crisis of meaning. The UP Game applies one of the most powerful social cultural technologies of transformation I have ever experienced. As I like to say, when we know we are creating a Lightsaber factory how do we design it to only make blue ones…
Our outlook begins with the progression of the 5 C’s:
- Consciousness
- Communities
- Cities
- Continents
- Civilisations
We collectively find our way home. We go where we aim our intentions. We expand the horizon to enable us to dream humbly audacious dreams.
2023 UP Games
NeverEnding Story — Davos — 15–20th January
Fractal Universe — Bali Today-28th April
Paradise Found — Formentera 28th May — 2nd June
House of Beautiful Business Dream Festival — Sintra, Portugal 5th June
Future Horizon — Sintra, Portugal 10th June
Golden Age — Ibiza 25–30th June
Tanit’s Theatre — Ibiza 30th July — 4th August
Borderless Futures — Puerto Rico 19–24th November
Arabian Dreams — Dubai 10–15th December (Following COP)
If you feel called to join us please apply to one of the UP Games at www.UP.Game/Apply
United Planet is part of the rise of the Regeneration and Planetism as an evolutionary identity that taps into the collective intent of putting the thriving of the planet first. As Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
I invite you to join me on this journey into time sovereignty and create the United Planet together. Let us play the UP Game, where we win when we all win…
