ABSTRACT
Distilling these practitioners’ learning journeys to self-awareness and ensemble awareness, I identify the deepening insights across the stories into the heart of community engagement practice. The findings are relevant to community change-makers who engage the public—whether urban planners, designers, community development specialists, NGO leaders, public policy makers, community activists, or elected officials. I distill these insights into 13 generative patterns for practice. Often hidden from view, these powerful patterns must be recognized and worked with consciously and skillfully. Finally, I share principles-in-action for facilitating community processes and staying connected to the larger unfolding process. These are the interpersonal, generative, integrative, and holistic sensing skills—the “inter-being” skills of ensemble awareness and the “inter-doing” skills of collaborative action—critical for the shift to a quantum view of interconnectedness amidst the unpredictability of dynamic complexity.
