A Cycle Inquiry

< Closing < the space within & between > Openings >

Harvesting, Weaving and Bundling at The Deep Adaptation Research Centre in Kent, England

The spiritual quest of coming home is a soul journey of (re) remembering wholeness

Origins

While somewhat trite, inquiring into what home feels and looks like for me — from my childhood to now as I write — has always been a central thread through my life. Perhaps it is an emergent pattern that’s been woven together through dynamics of being born in America to South African parents, living in four different countries for extended periods, my astrological Cancerian nature, or a human need to feel belonging, safe, empowered, connected, and resourced in context.

This yearning has manifested in many ways from my dedication to routine, ongoing questions of where I might live to, how I might participate in the world to an annual “Letting Go <> Letting Come” process that provides a compass for the days, weeks, months and year ahead. I see being able to attend to these questions as a blessing and circumstantial based on the body and context I was born into which has provided me with the resources and nurturing upbringing that has enabled me to engage with myself and life in this way. And at the same time, choice create the conditions for longing and seeking, which has partially resulted in seekerism that has both provided kindling and embers for opportunity and unrest. I share this from a place of humble acknowledgment of the historical and positional privilege imbued in this reflection.

An invitation

It was July 2022 when I crossed the threshold of my 35th that I was invited by two colleagues, Louise Armstrong and Anna Birney into a personalized year-long action inquiry “Dove Institute: Coming Home Master program”. The invitation was to close one cycle of my life while releasing energy for the next by surfacing and processing what questions I was holding about how I think, relate, act and ultimately am in the world. The duration of the past cycle and the next was not defined, however, using Rudolf Steiner’s 7-year cycle map this 35th year felt like a good moment to take a step back to reflect.

For the next year I crossed a threshold into a liminal transitional period between two larger cycles in my life. I saw it as a process of attunement to enable metamorphosis as I opened the next cycle. At the same time, I had started putting in motion (this time for real after teetering on the edges and operating optimistically in the past) a return “home” to my birth country of America after having left in 2010 to experience life there and to be closer to my mother, father, and sister. Therefore, preparation felt monumental as both a homecoming and a closing and opening of life cycles.

What was invited was different from my previous process of reflecting and planning as while over the years I have annually looked back (what), made sense (so what), and looked ahead (now what), I was invited to both look deeper at the undercurrents of my life and give light to the emerging narrative that I wished to harvest, weave and bundle together. Aligning my attention with my intentions while also expressing another practice of wayfinding. For me, this was a way that felt coherent to the structure and principles I’d architected but also in coherence with the dynamic flow and beautiful unknown complexities of life. So not only letting go to let come, but also to pause, let me and notice what was alive now.

Coherence: the quality of being logical, consistent and integrating diverse elements, relationships or values through the act of forming whole

Uncertainty is the only certainty — Glenda Eoyang

The following is my bundle from this 1-year Coming Home action inquiry process. It includes some of the deeper questions at the core, learnings, inquiries and the starting conditions for where I attend to put my attention as 2024 opens and the next cycle takes shape with my move to America. The writing is primarily for me to take stock in a consolidated form of where I’ve been, where I am and where I might head, however, it is also for those who wish to turn with the cycles and rhythms of life.

The deeper question

While questions of feeling home have long been a theme, between 2022 and 2023 I surfaced some of the undercurrents that this stemmed from. The first memory is while sitting in a circle during the start of a Microsoidarity gathering in Belgium. I cannot remember the prompt, however, I was struck with acknowledging a fear I had not previously been conscious of an ongoing angst and fear of not fully knowing myself. What if I don’t ever fully know and realise who I am, what I am here to be, and what lesser-known parts of myself are playing out unconsciously without befriending and tending (some might call this shadow)? That said, I do hope to be in a life long journey of becoming as part of knowing myself is always knowing there are parts of myself that I will never know as I am merely a collection of past and present life experiences and an amalgamation of many other being. However, this also tapped into a deeper wound of how I was born into this world of not feeling enough and fully being held in the participation of life. In retrospect, I do not feel this is so revolutionary but in that momentary angle shift, it hit me with tender longing that this was and had for long been with me. I also recognized that modernity, patriarchy, capitalism and all the supremacies do not encourage this knowing.

I was clear that this was not about “knowing my purpose” or “achieving my potential” but rather a more subtle inner shift of feeling in my innate essence. If I embody this sense it is a beautiful delicate balance of feeling content but not stagnant amidst all the suffering, and injustice of the world and my aspiration to evolve as all healthy living systems do. I also knew it was not about having a legacy or creating impact but rather as Bill Plotkin talks about, participating in my ecological niche (Bill Plotkin), and as Margaret Whealey write about dancing between hope and fear and feeling “the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself” (Margaret Wheatley writing on the late Christian mystic Thomas Merton).

Do not depend on the hope of results . . .you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. . . .you gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people . . . .In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.

Thomas Merton

The strong calls of the “shouldas, wouldas, couldas” are still with me and it is my work to sit and walk with these scripts of not enoughness that modernity does so well to pull me into and away from my essence. This is what this piece is beginning to respond and call to.

You were born to occupy a particular place within the community that ecophilosopher David Abram calls the more-than-human world. You have a unique ecological role, the way you are meant to serve and nurture the web of life, directly or through your role in society. At the level of soul, you have a specific way of belonging to the biosphere, as unique as any maple, moose.

Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche

The Boundary

There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.

Donella Meadows

The boundary for my cycle inquiry proved to be nested, entangled, emergent and often discombobulating in its unfolding. From the personal to the professional, the micro to the macro, and my inner landscape to the world I am in relationship with.

There were three interconnected scales of questions that set the basis for me:

I: How do I experience who I am and who am I being called to be?

We: Who and how do I relate with, in the human, and the beyond-human world?

World: Where and how do I contribute to create the more beautiful world that I yearn for?

It’s not possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and challenge. The offering of that gift — your true self — is the most you can do to love and serve the world. And it is all the world needs.

Bill Plotkin in Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche

As I set out on this inquiry, I gave thanks to my long-time friend the “ Sea Navigator” who’s provided the fodder for me during a long journey of seeking home, and the more recent “Redwood Reservoir” that’s kept me rooted, inspired and connected amidst the fog (the nourishing unknowns) and half submerged in the water (my lesser known parts)

A new mythopoetic identity, or identities (or Jung’s “personal myth”), is emerging and I’m here to participate in and support this next birthing process that I am intentionally and attentively engaging in.

The approach

Anna and Louise invited me into experimenting with them a systemic action inquiry process. This felt ideologically aligned from the start within my living systems paradigm. Learning is change and reminders from Lauren Olamina in Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower that

‘Everything you touch you change

Everything you change changes you

The only everlasting truth is change

God is change’

So starting with question/s, moving to action/s, observing and catching the experience, and reflecting on what this means for the next cycle beginning with a question resonates with the infinite game I would like to continue to participate in until the end.

While I feel living change through inquiry is innate to humans, dominant modern forms of reductionist instrumental ways of thinking, doing and being have limited my ability to express in this way. For me, walking the Chaordic Path has been one way to bring some form and order to unpredictability while letting the emergent properties of complex living systems, in this case me, emerge. What has and did support me is taking a principles and relational-based approach to change and turning these cycles. Where principles are banks to the river and relationships are the mirrors all around me. This is my core approach to living change.

As noted, the approach I took was an attempt to transcend the granular compartmentalizatiuon of my annual Letting Go <> Letting Come process into holding both the phenomenological and zooming out to harvest, weave and bundle a narrative web that could be fire starters for my next cycle.

With support from Anna and Louise, there were three inner shifts and outer move questions I used as principles and practices to guide my inquiry:

Harvesting (What): As I wander through the garden of my experience, what are the veggies, blossoms, seeds and fruits I wish to pick and tend to as nourishment for the next cycle?

Weaving (So What?): From this harvest, what am I weaving and mixing into a hearty, delicious, and nutritious stew that feels uniquely me?

Bundling (Now What?): What learnings, insights and actions am I bundling up as a resourceful offering for myself and the world in the next cycle?

This practice of harvesting, weaving and bundling served me to feel closer to the experience of my ecological niche at this time on the clock of the world and in my life. The unique strands to pay attention to in the web of life by which I live in context with and relationship to.

The cycle inquiries

There are four inquiry streams I’ve been harvesting, weaving and bundling through this process. They were not clear at the beginning and gradually took form while connecting to I/We/World. While they may never feel comprehensive or complete, they feel illustrative and alive.

1. What am I learning about myself as an inquirer?
2. What am I learning about my inner landscape?
3. What am I learning about my contributive work expression?
4. What inquiries am I presencing into as I open this next cycle of my life?

As these questions are nested and entangled I see them as alive interlaced hyphae with some threads thick and strong and some as the beginnings of a yarn of string that are still asking for some attention.

Hyphae (plural form; singular form is hypha) is the name of the long, individual pieces that comprise a mycelium. Hyphae are often described as strings and threadlike filaments. The hypha is the basic body plan of a fungus. It is comprised of one or more cells surrounded by a tubular cell wall.

What am I learning about myself as an inquirer?

I start with this question as it was the original invitation. I feel least connected to this inquiry as I feel it has only just begun, however, I’m committed to learning more about myself as an inquirer, that innate essential gesture while living change, in this cycle.

Through my inquiry, I encountered ebbs and flows during my process of harvesting, weaving, and bundling. Moments of feeling in flow and connected to what I was learning and crystalizing and then moments of feeling overwhelmed and lost. A big stretch for me was moving from granularity and sequence (which I love) into a more entangled emerging narrative.

Harvesting: Harvesting has been constant in my practice. I’m continuously filing, organizing, and revisiting resources (Evernote a huge friend here). My harvesting practice has served as a valuable ally, enabling me to share insights generously with discretion at opportune moments. When collaborating, I often draw upon past resources, seamlessly integrating them into the current context. Colleagues often joke “Sean has a framework for that”. My learning here has to do with how I might hold more discretion with what I share of my harvest in a way that does overload a given context.

Weaving: My weaving practice happens in spurts of addressing a need. While useful, it is optimistic and reactionary. I would like to find more ease and proactivity in my weaving practice by taking the time to do this in conditions that allow for spaciousness, attention and knowing that what I am bringing together is more than good enough to bring into the world. Much of this has to do with scratching my own itch and creating resources, templates etc. that I find useful to go back to and to share with others (e.g. “here’s a template for designing and facilitating a retrospective that looks at both what we’re doing and the how we’re experiencing our relationships”)

Bundling: Bundling for me is taking what I’ve woven together, throwing it into the sack, and carrying it forward as an offering. I’ve felt that I have multiple bundles scattered around the place and when I attempt to pull them together I quickly fall into over-order and perfection. This creates stagnation, takes time and often results in procrastination. I’m beginning to learn that my art of bundling can be more iterative. Testing and refining with myself and others. The map (the bundle) does not need to be perfect to still be a guide for the territory and sometimes there will be multiple maps that need to be laid out on the table together. That is fine so long as I can pull out the trails most suitable for a given context.

Stemming out of what I’ve learned about myself as an inquirer through my harvesting, weaving and bundling process I have the following bundles (inquiries) that I’m carrying forward:

Harvesting: How might I continue to improve the organization of my harvest and develop more discretion in what I share to meet the needs of the context?

Weaving: How might I weave with a “good enough for now, safe enough to try” stance with the intention of bringing it into practice to test and iterate?

Bundling: How might I bundle what I feels to be an expression of my unique tapestry of contribution and share more widely?

Furthermore, Anna introduced me to the 27 Flavours of Action Inquiry. There were three areas I explored using this frame:

• How am I engaging in first (inquiring into my own life), second (inquiring with others) and third person (inquiring into wider systemic questions) inquiry?
• How am I engaging in single (what I do) , double (what I think) and triple (how I am) loop learning?
• How do I inquire into the past, present and future?

Through these lenses I conducted a series of self-reflective mapping across these domains and coming out of this I have the following bundled questions for myself going forward:

Laddering up: How might I connect my often abstract 1st and 2nd personal inquiries to larger systemic questions so they are situated in broader contexts and questions I care deeply about?

Examples: How might I cultivate the use of stories and examples in my present tense inquiry to build bridges and relate to context?

Pulling together: How might I create more intentional moments in the course of my days, weeks, months, and year for weaving and bundling, not just harvesting?

What am I learning about my inner landscape?

While the invitation in July 2022 was originally oriented around learning about my process of inquiry and my professional contribution, I knew that delving into the depths to traverse my inner landscape would be a part of this journey.

Attending to my inner dimensions has always been important to me and over the year I re-committed to this via an ongoing practice of morning pages, participating in systemic internal family constellations, attending an Animas Valley Soul Craft programme and undergioing a Lewis Deep Democracy IKNOWME process exploring my scripts and patterns. While these have been supportive in traversing my inner landscape, I must say the most significant teachers have been my relationships with family, friends, lovers and partners.

Many themes surfaced for me during this period, however, three feel most significant at this moment that I wanted to harvest, weave and bundle.

Entangled release

Harvesting: As many of us do, I feel that there is so much I am holding onto (again the shoulda’s etc.). It was sometime around 2012 and I am in council after a 5-day solo fast and my guide with tears streaming down her face shares an image of me calm and cool on the surface but paddling like crazy just below the waterline. It’s then Spring 2023 and I’m laying on the ground at SoulCraft in Vermont and I am being guided to descend into the caverns of the Earth. I am being swallowed whole. As I descend into the Earth I find myself floating in this caven like a preborn in the womb. I start to feel the Earths rhizomes piercing through my skin. It’s painful at first but I feel hints of sweet pleasurable surrender as I am entangled, eaten alive, and start reconstituting into a new form. It feels like a sigh of relief of finally letting go.

I’ve carried this embodied experience with me as a sensation for me to return to when I feel I am holding too much and just need to be held by the entanglement of the Earth.

This small moment reminded me that big life “peak experiences” aren’t something I feel I have encountered often. Often, after a transformational process where others begin sharing the dramatic shifts they experienced I’m sitting there with a sense of “did I do it right?” not quite sure if I’ve delved as deep as others or had some kind of breakthrough experienced. While I’m sure there is still space for this in the future, I’ve learned that for me, these shifts are often small and subtle. I like to think about this as “radical incrementalism” (taking small, carefully selected steps that result in learning that in turn reveals revolutionary opportunities). I notice that I am processing my experiences and interactions in quite tight ongoing feedback loops and this actually something I try to cultivate and wish to honour this “small is beautifulness” that feels to be part me. How can I more often notice these cracks/moments of dissolution?

At the same time, I wonder what true letting go would be. Is this a passive act of letting be or is this perpetuating an habitual hanging onto the current patterns and scripts I’ve organised around? Still, what is it about me that seeks for this unravelling and what is holding me back here?

Weaving inquiries:

• What does it feel like to surrender to being held in the entanglement of the Earth as a pleasurable sigh of relief?
• What is holding me back and what do I feel is at stake that keeps me dancing on the edge of the threshold of dissolution?

Bundling practice:

• Apprenticing to the entanglement rhizomes and mycelia.
• Returning to the embodied somatic practice of my Nurturing Generative Adult of feeling I am fully held in my participation.

Spaciousness for synchronicity

Harvesting: As noted, I love and fill my life of routine, ritual, and planning. These provide guidance for me as I meander through the complexity of life. At the same time, I create very little timeless time or nothingness in my life. This roots back to “enoughness” and perceptions of what I “need” to do/be in the world, directly relating to the theme above of participating.

I believe enabling synchronicity is one of the most precious gifts I can give to myself and the world. For me this so often happens when I allow space for this noticing. Attention as a miracle act of noticing what is already there while letting mystery reveal themselves through the cracks that beckon for space to be seen. Room for metalbolization is essential here and digestion needs rest. Here the move feels to be less doing and more being. Through being, I allow for emergence and self-organization. This does not mean I do not plan and do, but it does mean that I allow for more pauses and then acting in an instant with decisiveness.

Weaving

• How might I allow mystery to both hold me and express themselves through the cracks of spaciousness to show and teach me something?
• How might I more intentionally transition between experiences by wandering in the liminal for a little longer than what feels comfortable?

Bundling practice:

• Simply, schedule less, do less with more love and commitment and hold grace for myself.
• Engage in present awareness, noticing the tingling air on my skin, the sound of the leaves in the wind and everything else. Mystery is here with me so how can I create the conditions for hearing the whispers?
• Not only deep prep but also deep presence, working with my innateness.
• Be present with opportunities that are here with me now as an enabling precondition for emergence.

Action confidence

Harvesting: I believe I’ve always had a knack for considering multiple perspectives, choices and implications of any decision. Again, I love planning. Setting “things” up so they are “right”. So often I am aspiring for clarity (not certainty), before I decide and act. I have been practising what it looks and feels like to make a decision and take action without a clear sense of clarity. This inherently connects to trusting myself and embracing an emergent adaptive approach to life that is guided by principles, relationships and changes. I wish to be more proactive in not just my doing but my being through like above allowing for spaciousness but then also taking action as a prefigurative representation of the future rather than waiting for the conditions to be perfect. I see working with my soma as an intuitive guide here to be a capacity I wish to continue to cultivate. Discernment is key here. This requires taking chances and crossing many a thresholds.

Action confidence is the courage and capacity to step into something new and bring it into being, or, in the words of the late cognitive scientist Francisco Varela, ‘to lay down a path in walking’, creating reality as we step into it.

Weaving inquiries:

• How do I decide and act from the source of my somatic intuition? How might
• How might I work with the imaginary and the power of power of pretending (“pre” “tending”) to invite in and live into the future in the present?
• How might I work more with omens by noticing experiential impact (e.g. astrology, tarot, noticings)?

Bundling practice:

• Keep cultivating my somatic intuition as a source of wisdom.
• Take decisions based on present realities and adapt accordingly.
• Trust my experience, and innate capability and capacity.

As I bundle up these inner landscape learnings I believe they all go back to my relationship with my soul ecological niche essence. Acknowledging this requires entangled release, spaciousness and action confidence as I trust that I am enough amidst all the external messages and internal scripts that may attempt to convince me otherwise.

Contributive inquiries

The following inquiries revolve around the contributive or professional sphere of my life and are the questions I am holding about my work.

Similar to above, I have separated these inquiries into what I have harvested (noticings), wove together (learnings and questions) and bundles (actions and practices).

How do I contribute to change?

#myrole #who/where/what

This first question is a set of meta-inquiries for me that I am holding about how and where I put my contributive energy and attention. They are less about outcomes or the process of how I see change happening in the world but more about how I am orientating around my contribution and work.

How can I be in a healthier relationship with my work?

Harvesting

I feel a huge about of fortune and privilege for being able to participate in work I love that feels meaningful to me. And at the same time, I too often feel waves of stress with the load I put on myself and the nature of how I engage with, not only my work, but my job. I fluctuate between this overwhelm (that seems all too common in change work) and feelings of none of this matters when I start reflecting on impact and the time of the universe. Again, back to Margaret Wheatley, I’m doing my best to hold this duality of hope and despair. That nothing matters and everything matters. The insignificance within the significant and the significant within the insignificant. There is a cosmic awareness here that I am still working to cultivate in a healthy way.

There is a dance here between reducing this to my own ways of being while also acknowledging the capitalist supremacy context so many of us are immersed in. I’m reminding myself of this precondition while also appreciating my privileged positionality of autonomy, agency and choice.

As I’ve reflected on my relationship with my work and job over the years, I’ve continued to notice some basic themes that keep popping up that I harvested during this inquiry.

• Flow: Paying attention to noticing when I am in flow and losing track of time while immersed in a task. A rare phenomena but something I would like to keep observing and using this as learning for creating more flow states.
• Presence: The simple beautiful act of being fully present with the task at hand. Whether that be designating periods to deep focused work without jumping between tasks, closing all other windows when in dialogue online or checking my email and Slack at designated windows. Simple, but difficult in the attention economy and how my being works in contrast to packed schedules and delivery dates.
• Container: Creating a condusive container for stepping into deep work. I have a pre-work protocol that involves visualisation and some mental cues and would like to keep practicing this. In “post” covid world, this also means not working at home so much as I know this is not conducive for me as a mainstay.
• Good enough: I am detail oriented and have a tendency to go over things multiple times. There is a stretch here about knowing what I have completed is more than good enough and ready to bring out to the world. This taps directly into feeling good enough in my expression, self and tapping into less prep and more presence. It also allows for more folding and time for spaciousness and digestion.
• Discernment: The holy act of saying no and apply discretion to what I say yes to. This forms part of my principles-based approach to life (not having the steps all laid out but heuristics to guide my actions). From what I read or do not read to what projects I take on. Again, I feel fortunate that I can deploy discernment.
• Proximity: This one gets more into the what of my work but feels important to how I connect with my contribution. I am easily abstract and I know the moments I have felt the most agency and accountability in my work is when it feels proximate. This may take multiple forms but has to do with working more with body, being outside (thinking back to those years working closer with land via my permaculture and wilderness work and aspirations of pursuing a body work modality), connecting with people that have stake in a place and what happens there, and being more involved in my locality (something I keep saying I will make time for but rarely do). My shadow constraint of proximity is that I and my family (mum/dad/sister who I wish to live closely to in the future) live a relatively global life with many larger uncertainties on where I /we will live. This could change in an instant with a partner or family circumstances.

Weaving inquiries

• How might I keep cultivating my ability to step into flow through enabling containers for presence and deep work?
• What would it look like to prioritize more bioregional work in the future and what would I need to let go of here?
• How might I engage more actively in my locality by bringing my contribution and/or using my hands to participate and build?

Bundling: As I open this next cycle, take decisions to contribute in the place I live and engage in work that is connected with places where people have stake. Be willing and daring to make changes to my modus operandi here and create more space for this to blossom.

What is my work? Who am I working with? Where is my work?

This inquiry, like the above, involves a few dimensions that have to do with considering my positionality, living my gift, unleashing my capacity, cultivating my capabilities and a continued articulation of the what/who/where of my work through experimentive action.

Harvesting

I wish to keep inquiring into my positionality as a cis white middle-class man with a huge amount of historical power and privilege. I don’t want this to turn into reductive dispensability but rather an enabling constraint that supports me to think/act in a way that is in service of a larger arc of who is occupying what roles and when in the world right now. I do not want to forget about collective liberation here, mine included, so that I can do my best not to fall into a form trap of repeating similar oppressive/narrow tactics and imaginings. With this, I am sitting with questions and a continual articulation (for myself and others) of what work and where I want to be involved in and with who. As a host, facilitator and mediator, what is my role in the future here. When am I merely present and hosting myself. When am I leaning in and when am I leaning out?

How do I keep living into my ecological niche and let my contribution continue to flourish from this place? This has to do with appreciating the essence of what is present now (I am enough) and continuing to deepen into core capabilities I wish to nurture. This is about making the most of the present reality with integrity and also listening to the deeper calls of what my contribution is. It is a balancing dance of presencing with attention to the moment and creating the future in the present.

Connected to this there is the who and where of my work. What is the constellational shape of my work? E.g. as a freelancer? Embedded in an organization? Working part time across two orgs? I trust that this piece will figure itself out, but what I do know is that I want to be surrounded by mentors that are steeped in similar theories of transformation to me. I’m tired of being an “edge character” in my orgs and often having other networks I tap into for that peer mentorship (this might be a trap as perhaps this is my way but I know I feel stretched and working against the grain). I also know I have a tendency to stretch myself too thin so discretion will be key here. My love for being involved in the inner workings of the organizations I am involved in will be a large factor here as a level of presence and time in one place is required here.

Weaving inquiries

• How might I keep inquiring into my positionality in context to wayfind my role?
• How might I honour present realities as enabling conditions for the future I yearn for to emerge?
• What big changes in my career (e.g. moving into “peacebuilding” or more local work) might I need to make and what do I need to be ready to let go of in this?
• What choices do I need to make in regards to my organizational/network homes and what do I need to let go of here?

Bundling: As I open this next cycle I will put more attention to discerning my role in particular contexts given my positionality. I don’t expect this to be straightforward. I will continue to harvest, weave, and bundle my contributive praxis and personal theory of transformation by living through my ecological niche and bringing my practice to life with appreciation of all I’ve experienced and gathered to offer. I will be ready to lean into and honour what opportunities are with me now by “future failing” and “what success looks like” imagery while being ready to take some big decisions (and chances) around what, where and who I work with.

How can our patterns of relating, collaborating and organising support us in expressive change?

#collaborativegovernance #relationalpractice #waysoforganizing

There are a few nested scales/levels to this inquiry. Starting from the inside out:

• I: Relationship with myself and parts. Befriending and working with multiplicity in all its ebbs and flows.
• We: My interpersonal relationships with others and how these can be clean and clear (while knowing that there will be messy troubled times). Particularly with my family, close friends, lovers and partners.
• We/World: How I am supporting groups of people to develop healthy cultures of relationality as I design, facilitate, and host transformative processes.
• World: How I can contribute to building a larger field and culture of relationality and prioritizing how we organize for change.

I am curious what this might open up in my knowing/learning about self, interpersonal relationships and how I bring this relational organizing thread into system change work.

Harvesting

Soul work (I): Going back to the start of this bundle, this is getting to know myself, and parts, more deeply. Being in right relationship with all of my parts and multiplicity so that I may be in healthy integration. This for me provides that sense of cohesion between embodied experience and expressive action and relation. The yearning and inquiry here is to feel I truly know myself and am content while in this process of continuous learning and reflexivity.

Relational practice (We): Since I can remember, I’ve always been amazed and pulled into the question of why people don’t connect, how they can and what happens in the space in-between. An ongoing desire to understand the granular nitty gritty dynamics of what happens within us and between us as we are in a relationship or in the trouble together. This of course has to do with how I show up but also how I can support folk and groups to connect, learn and make together. I’m yearning to become of more deliberate service here and have more practice grounds. I see this work very much being situated in the social field of dialogue.

Collaborative Governance and Ways of Organising (World): I first became interested in ways of organising and governance through Warren Nilsson and Tana Paddocks concept of Inscaping and expressive change. This is an extension of prefigurative politics where we’re exploring how our current structures and cultures are an embodiment of the future we want. I’m also coming at this from a place of multi-stakeholder collaboration as I love working as a collaborative intermediary between organisations that are trying to bridge differences to work together on their system change goals. I’m also seeing how this connects with the peace building work that has been a yearning vocation for me since I can remember. What does it look and feel like to more squarely situate myself in this space? Something tactile that involves people/place and is situated at the intersection of conflict/ecology and polarization. A question is can I keep weaving this into my current work as I am or is this a bigger shift and decision I need to make here? I’ve been so fortunate to work in an organization, the School of System Change, that is really trying to embody the change we wish create and know this is not always the case with many organizations participating in change work.

Weaving inquiries:

• How am I more aware of my multiplicity and parts so that I can integrate this noticing into my experience and expression of self?
• How might I attend to my relational practices of compassionate conversations while “being in the trouble together”?
• How might I build and communicate my praxis of supporting individuals, organisations and collaboratives to pay attention to their organising patterns as a pathway towards expressive (prefigurative) and contributive (change making) potential?
• What project, organization or network can I commit to that brings together conflict and ecology in the context of polarization?

Bundling: As I open this next cycle, my focuses are:

• Continue my soul inquiry via Animas Wild Mind map to get to know my protectors and wholeness.=
• Attend to my evolving family constellation, commit time and energy to core friends, decide on a solidarity companion to regularly learn and grow with, tend to my intimate relationships as focal point to feel my feelings and access my needs.
• Keep up my participation in the cultures of relationships communities I am a part of (e.g. Stoke and Communication Dojo).
• Explore work opportunities in the field of peacebuilding with a focus on conflict, ecology and polarization.
• Doubled-down on my collaborative governance and ways of organizing practice as an essential route for organizing for change by creating more opportunities in this field.

How might I articulate my facilitative and mediation stance and continue to deepen my practice?

Harvesting

This inquiry zooms into a core dimension of my work. My fascination with how we come together in dialogue was first ignited over 10 years ago when I attended an Art of Hosting programme at Kafunda Village in Zimbabwe. It felt like such a connecting of the dots between my interest in personal/relational/systems work all embedded in a complexity context.

This inquiry revolves around my commitment and belief that designing processes that support deep dialogue and deliberative decision making is at the source of our system change work (e.g. we shape systems through the multiplicity of everyday interactions and dialogue is pattern making).

I am at a stage where I am ready to start more deliberatively bundling together my process design, facilitation and mediation practice (relating to previous inquiry of articulating how I work). What are the unique strands of methodologies and methods I’ve picked up along the way that I feel articulates my stance, orientation and principles here?

While I have been collecting multiple processes, methods and tools over the years, my focus over the past few years has been increasing my confidence and capacity to work with social field dynamics as folks are in dialogue, deliberation and decision-making processes.

Weaving inquiries

• How might I acknowledge and appreciate my capacity to design and host difficult dialogic, deliberation and decision-making processes?
• How might I keep attending to my capacity to work with the social field of group dynamics?
• How might I bundle my unique facilitation stance and feel in this essence (e.g. what are my facilitation principles and what artifacts am I bundling that I use and share with others?).
• Who are my people and mentors of facilitators and mediators that I learn with and from?
• What is my role as a facilitator and mediator given my positionality in given contexts?
• How is dialogue used in our peacebuilding efforts (e.g. in post conflict zones/fractured polarised communities) in a more systemic/polarity aware way?

Bundling: As I open this next cycle, I believe the core move has to do with my first inquiry of acknowledging and appreciating my experience, capacity and capability here. Keep putting myself into spaces to do this work and continue to learn about my unique facilitation stance as I bundle my praxis.

The bundled bundle I’m carrying forward into 2024

What I am learning about my contribution

I know that everything I do in my work is guided by a complex living systems paradigm in that aliveness, emergence, interconnectedness and nestedness are guiding ways of seeing/being in the world. This is with the understanding that we live change at the fractal scales of I We World. All scales matter and must be attended to simultaneously to shift and shape the patterns we want. I’ve had the opportunity at the School of System Change over the past years to build out our Learning and Practice Partnership approach, which is strongly rooted in accompaniment. It has become clear to me that this relational capability-building approach to all of my work is a baseline for how I wish to engage folk that I work with. It feels relational, power-with, joyful and effective. Core to this is continuing to tend to my capacity to design, facilitate and host within the social field of group dynamics, whether that is supporting folk to transform conflict or make decisions. This all relates to the potential I see for how we organise for change by paying attention to the mundane everyday experiences of when and how we meet, how we make decisions, how we figure out who is going to do what, how we give and receive feedback and how we are able to bring about healthy human cultures in our organising efforts.

The longest knowing I have had about my contribution is that it is in the realm of bringing folk together that are struggling to BE together while in the context of addressing ecological challenges. The intersection of conflict and ecology in the face of polarization which I see as the deepest challenge of our humanity right now as we face both heartbreak and invite in belonging. Weaving between all of this is my dedication to soul inquiry and nature-based regenerative connection practice. I will continue to embark on my own soul discovery journey here, live more with the seasons and integrate this more wholly into my contribution by exploring what guiding looks like here.

Two core learnings about what this looks like

Proximity: I am easily abstract and while I appreciate this I know that I need to feel proximity to my contribution. This means working in bio-regional places in which those I am supporting trutly stake in what is happening and what will result. This means using my body more regularly (at least 1 day a month) to build tangible things. This means actively engaging in the place I live. This also means keeping an eye on that lasting whisper of stepping into a body work modality that I can offer.

Expressive change: I have choices to make as my contribution continues to span between different organizations and networks. What I do know is that being involved in the interiority of the organizations I work in is essential for me to feel I have a stake. It is a part of my personal theory of change that the healthiest and fruitful organizations tend to how they organize and experience working together.

The contributive initial containers for 2024

Facilitation and mediation: After years of dancing at the edges of this and most recently almost resisting the decision due to scripts of “I already decided not to do this almost 10 years ago” I will spend the first half of the year wholeheartedly delving into a Processwork training programe. Here I will engage with my facilitation practice, including my own interiority in how I host dialogue, deliberation and decision-making processes. #facilitation #conflict #somatics #

Soul nature inquiry: Continuing my work with the School of Lost Borders after attending my second vision fast in 2012, I will sink more deeply into what it looks like to bring this expression more into my contribution. This will be complimented with my soul inquiry work with a mentor via Wild Mind and the Animas Valley Institute and building on what was started at Soul Craft in Vermont in June 2023. My continued practice of working with the 8 Shieds model will be an ongoing guide for me as I intentionally work with seasonal directions inquiries, practices and ritual. My work with mycelia and entangled release will feature here as well. #soul #naturesrhythms #guiding #release

Relationality: I will continue to participate in the relational cultures work via the Stoke Collective Cove space where we come together to practice what building relational cultures looks and feels like. I will also continue my bi-weekly T-Group practice with the Communication Dojo to practice what experience-based dialogue. I see these as two of my core learning and practice communities for the year beginning. #dialogue #community #communication #critical yeast

Soma: I am not sure what the avenue will be here yet but there are three themes here. The first is around continuing to connect with my body as a guide for sense making and decision-making. I am interested in participating in the Embodiment Institutes self guided program with some colleagues. The second theme is about engaging with Eros. This includes the imaginal realm of my existence and the focal point here is my sexuality. I am committed to feeling more into my healthy expression of my sexuality with myself, partners and lovers. I have not decided where or who this will be with yet, however, it is with me and I have my eyes out for finding the right teacher and community. The last theme here has to do with how I engage with my movement practice in a way that is dynamic. I have been healing from a bad shoulder injury and I plan to continue this healing process while continuing to incorporate mobility and strength training into my protocol. My morning mobility practice and my gymnastics strength training and finding the martial arts practice (previsouly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Capoeira) that works for me will be foundational components. #intuition #sexuality #dynamicexpression #foundations

Closing bundled learnings from 2023

As I engaged with my Letting Go <> Letting Come to Let Be process at the end of 2023/beginning of 2024 three core learnings came to the fore. These are quite similar to my inner landscape learnings, however, they feel renewed and ready for attention as I open the new year.

Spacious entanglement surrender: Attempting to bring more spaciousness into my life has long been a learning I have attempted to integrate into my life. I struggle with this. I so easily get into all the aspirations I have, over plan my yearly schedule, get into too much detail and perfection and spend an inordinate amount of time on certain activities, which takes away from complimentary expressions (e.g. my creative self) and periods of metabolization. I believe much of the work here is for me surrender to the entanglement of life and design for emergence, which in turn will let mystery express themselves through me. The work here is knowing that I am enough, letting go of trying to hold onto everything (related to a core wound of needing connection) and knowing that becoming needs just as much being as doing. I can feel a sigh of relief here as I surrender into this relaxed awareness state of being fully held in my participation in life. I have imaginative somatic gestures and a felt sense of what this looks and feels like that I will go back to regularly to ground me back here.

Presencing: A term borrowed from the Presencing Institute (blending presence and sensing) that has long been with me and feels evermore alive now as I transition from one cycle of my life into the next and begin a transition back to America. I feel the temptation of the voyager at sea always seeking and looking at what is next and I know deep within my soma and psyche that fully immersing in my present reality and opportunities is essential to give birth to what wants to be born within me, that which is calling to me. This is about finding that sense of feeling content while also imagining and enacting the future I long for. It connects with Action Confidence and taking initiative in the present moment to create the conditions for the future to emerge. It is about making decisions versus looking for clarity before so as clarity or it’s close ally certainty only keeps me stuck in the zone of speculation of shoulds and mights. Closely related to the bundle above.

Tending to my protectors: Through the beginning soul inquiry via Animas Valley Institute Soul Craft and via mentoring via the Bill Plotkins Wild Mind map, I am attending to that deepest fear of not truly knowing myself by getting to know my protectors, those parts of myself that are doing their very best to make me feels safe and Okay. They serve a valuable and beautiful role and they need to be integrated in healthy ways so they can express themselves in a way that brings me more into wholeness versus sabotaging.

Themes for the beginning of the new cycle into 2024

I have three words or themes for the beginning of 2024 and as I keep stepping into this next cycle that I am holding and carrying with me. They are active verbs of becoming. I do not see them as end state goals but rather guiding aspirations and principles for the year ahead.

Cohesion: This is about bringing together the foundations of everything I have been harvesting, weaving and bundling in my life and work. It has to do with working with my soul and integrating my protectors. It is about creating space for being and becoming. I have decisions to make and this is about making them. From where I work to who I partner with. It feels important as I transition to moving to America as I have so much “emergent practice” that I know I can use as foundations.

Actualizing: This is about feeling and realising my participation and contribution. It is attending to what beautiful opportunities I am in presently as conditions for the future. It is about listening to that whisper and call of my contribution and the life I wish to live. It is about making decisions and taking action.

Flowing: Again, allowing mystery to hold me while expressing themselves through me via spacious entanglement, intuition and imagination. This is about feeling my ecological essence niche and being in flow. Feeling content and noticing synchronicities through spaciousness.

Closing omens

Where do I find myself now?

This is an excerpt of what I wrote in July 2023 as I re-convened with Louise and Anna to close my 1-year systemic action inquiry cycle. I share it now as it is a good reminder of what with

With the Full Moon in Capricorn in early July on the 3rd I’ve noticed areas of my life where both more structure is needed and where I need to be own compassionate caregiver. More structure towards my inquiries is one example of this as I know I need to make space and time for this or time fades away. And at the same time how am I compassionate with myself knowing that I am doing what I can.

And with the New Moon in Cancer on 17 July myself, Anna and Louise gathered to close this transitionary cycle and I’m encouraged to plant seeds (as is this artefact). Working with my open mind, heart and will through tapping into the spidey sense intuition that is waiting for me to embrace. On 28 June I pulled the reverse moon card. The moon is the sign of Cancer, the birther of all signs. What is holding me back from allowing my life to live? What might I hospice and let die in the process?

A closing ceremony

Preparation: As I walk out onto the land I ask permission and wait. Without guarantee a voice might whisper yes and I wonder. I wonder until that spot calls me in to settle for a little while. The portal is contained and the 8 directions marked. I cross the threshold and give thanks and offering to each direction.

Dissolution: As I lie in the centre the earth swallows me in. I am entangled and eaten alive.

Soul Encounter: The cracks forms and mystery is expressed seeing and sensing self.

Metamorphosis: I am shifted and shaped, rising anew.

Enactment: I feel this new form. I give thanks, closing ceremony and portal. Crossing the threshold to the open the new cycle.

Gratitude and prayer

It is now January 2024 and I let be by letting come and letting go of the year past and signing off from this bundle as something I will carry with me in the next cycle as a guide and source of essence for my rooted, inspired and connected self.

I give thanks to the lineage that has shaped me, the knowns, unknowns and unknowables, the seen and unseen, what can be seen, heard, smelt, felt, sensed and what cannot. I pray for connection and belonging amidst the beauty and the tragic. I open myself and all up to radical tenderness as we take a stand with humility and tolerance for the complexity of life.