Sensing the Third Horizon

Right now we are in the in-between. That moment when the lights go out and there is a pause of darkness while our eyes adjust. Before outlines appear, then shapes, then detail. In this uncertain moment of darkness, instead of turning away or reaching to switch the light back on, what if we trusted that there are other ways of seeing? To do so, how do we seek out, sense and recognise the outlines of these alternative futures? How do we feel our way into that space differently? And how might those with wealth, and those making decisions about where financial capital flows, find the courage, inspiration and compulsion to move resources to nurture a better next.

A summary of the qualities of propositional work that emerged in our interviews:

Rooted in relation: emerging through networks, spheres of influence, and attention to the me–we–us layers.

Grounded in critique and imagination: challenging what is, while expanding what we want more of.

Beyond novelty: sometimes old or overlooked ideas that remain vital, timely, or waiting for conditions to ripen.

Visible and invisible: both obvious and hidden, requiring different ways of sensing and seeing.

Concrete yet emergent: tangible enough to convince skeptics, but often without precedent or track record.

Practised by life-researchers: people who dance between theory, hope, and practice, often at the edges of systems.

Born of necessity: arising where existing economics and structures fail, building the new in the cracks of the now.

Led from the margins: carried by those with nuanced perspectives shaped by exclusion from the status quo or systemic friction.

In service of life: oriented toward vitality, being, and regeneration.

More than power shifts: building alternative relational patterns and dynamics not just shifting power for its own sake.

Operates from a fundamentally different set of values and ways of working: more about how and why than about any single form of intervention.

Responding to the times we are in: seeding and building alternatives that sit in in- tegrity and coherence with a systemic and complexity lens, and with an awareness and acknowledgement of the metacrisis and polyconsequences.

Depth: operating at more than one level of the system.