Edgewalkers

By Judi Neal

Summer has officially arrived in 2025.

In my younger years, one of my favorite songs to sing around this time was “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess. The opening line still lingers in my memory:
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.”

As a child, summer meant freedom from school—long days of play and rest. Later, as a business school professor, summer offered a different kind of freedom: a chance to slow down, reflect, write, and breathe outside the demanding rhythm of the academic year. It was a sacred pause between cycles.

But lately, I’ve noticed how easy it is to fill up that spaciousness with all the projects I didn’t get to during the rest of the year. At our June Edgewalker Café, hosted by Ximena Vidal DeCol and joined by Bill Kirst and Prasad Kaipa, we explored Artificial Intelligence from an Edgewalker perspective. One theme that emerged: while AI can save us time, it often becomes a tool for doing more, not less. Conditioned by the Protestant Work Ethic, we tend to equate value with productivity. So instead of resting, we fill the new space with even more tasks—an endless cycle of doing.

They posed a powerful question:
Do we want to “wake up and smell the coffee”—and energize ourselves to do more? Or “wake up and smell the flowers”—and embrace a slower, more beautiful way of being?

At Edgewalkers, we distinguish between two essential dimensions of life:

Qualities of Being:

1. Self-awareness
2. Passion
3. Integrity
4. Vision
5. Playfulness

Skills of Doing:

1. Knowing the future
2. Risk-taking
3. Manifesting
4. Focusing
5. Connecting

These are described in detail in my book Edgewalkers, as well as in our Edgewalker Profile and on our Resource page. What’s vital is the integration of these two aspects. This is not “being versus doing.” Rather, it is about action that arises from presence—doing rooted in beingness. This balance is essential not just in our approach to AI, but in how we lead, collaborate, and create change in the world.

Edgewalkers are bridge-builders—living examples of Ken Wilber’s principle to “transcend and include.” We don’t have to choose between the driven productivity of the Protestant Work Ethic and the soulful restfulness of “livin’ easy.” We are invited to integrate them, to bring wholeness into our ways of working and living. This also means staying grounded even while dancing at the edge of chaos.

We don’t deny the risks—especially with emerging technologies—but we can choose where to put our energy. We can build a vision of the world we want rather than be swept up in the momentum of fear and overload.

And yet, the world around us grows increasingly unstable.

As I write, headlines announce that the United States has bombed nuclear facilities in Iran. Armed men in unmarked vans are abducting citizens in American cities. Wildfires rage in Canada, and weather services are being cut just as hurricane season approaches. The Middle East teeters on the brink. The world feels fragile, chaotic, and unpredictable.

We are crossing many thresholds right now. From spring into summer in the Northern Hemisphere, from autumn into winter in the Southern Hemisphere. But perhaps more significantly, we are crossing from one era of humanity into another. We may be moving toward collapse—or toward a radical breakthrough. The choice is still unfolding.

I know which future I want to invest in.

Edgewalkers are drawn to these liminal spaces and times—where the old is breaking down and the new is still taking shape. There is deep aliveness at the edge of chaos. Creativity. Vision. Possibility.

We are committed to a global community of change agents—people like you—who want to co-create a world of peace, justice, spiritual depth, diversity, and care for one another and the Earth.

You are welcome here. 🌎