Eco-Poetics of PAUSE and Possibility
A tribute to PAUSE practice and REGEN Circles
Introduction: Monthly Pause Practice
On the first Friday of most months, the Regen Collective of education focused change-makers, convene to explore current topics, in participants’ education practice or issues that have recently emerged in the Regen Circles themselves. The overarching theme on Friday 6 November was ‘We Are The Stories We Tell’. The methodology used to convene Regen Circles is called PAUSE practice as outlined below.
The hosts have an admirable dedication to their own personal spiritual and professional development, they convene the circles with a rhythm and structure that intentionally and emotionally evokes safe space. Within this holding space, the possibility for rich generative dialogue ensues. Catalysed by shared values of humility and authenticity, participants activate transformative space through deep listening. Supported by carefully adding to and following on from, each person’s conversational contributions. This manifestation of wisdom, transparency, honesty and vulnerability, runs counter cultural to what occurs in most mainstream education or professional learning spaces for that matter.
My purpose in writing this article is explore express share and articulate the avalanche of possibility that occurs when engaging in generative dialogue, where every participant has a commitment to deep listening.
Overview of Regen Circles and Pause Practice
The Regen Collective is a Ulab MOOC inspired group, founded by educators and changemakers Lauren Elisabeth Clare, Quinn Simpson. Pause Practice sessions are also designed and facilitated by Cathy Geib and Mariam Robledo. Catalysed by the spirit of innovation, learning and emergence that results from participating in the online course, Quinn and Lauren in instigating the Regen Collective reformulated Theory U into their version, of the timeless truths embedded in the process terming their synthesis, PAUSE practice. Firstly this is how they describe their REGEN Collective
REGEN is an international organization that cultivates awareness practices for social regeneration. We are a community of practice, gathering together in Collectives to create meaningful connections and support the synergy of experiential learning. We believe that educators have the greatest capacity for cultivating regeneration, therefore we seek to expand and evolve concepts of education and learning to support the full potential of every human, thereby fostering individual and collective well being. Regen Circle events provide participants the time and space to connect to the source of learning and to gain insight from mindfulness, introspection and (re)integration
Additionally this is how the group outlines PAUSE practice, their synthesis and re-expression of Theory U:
The PAUSE practice is a technique for cultivating awareness with deep listening, generative conversations, and reflective practices. This provides participants the time and space to connect to the sources of creativity and learning and to gain insight from mindfulness, introspection, and (re)integration.
There are five stages within the PAUSE practice:
P (resence)
Be present, show up with your whole self, check in with your level of Presence and awareness
A (sk)
Ask introspective questions, share curiosity or challenges in the form of questions
U (nderstanding)
Become conscious of the rising Understanding in the form of sensations, feelings, gestures and metaphors
S (ynergy)
Build a new Synergy through deep listening and generative conversation
E (volve)
Feel the new energy, allowing it to emerge as it desires, and apply it to Evolve your practice.
The Experience of Pause Practice
What occurs in the Regen Collective PAUSE practice is a kind of ecosystemic learning, where individuals inhabit and co-create a space for discernment that transcends and includes, any individual’s contribution. I find this phenomena, a combination of intention and attention, which induces an atmosphere so conducive to unfettered exploration, that I am able to access and express, elusive sentiments and notions, that once may have passed through my brain but which I had failed yet to utter. These impressions might include fleeting thoughts, or long-held unexpressed sentiments, or half perceived visions and intuitions. Their collective opening of generative space, allows me to give voice, to something that may have arisen, before thought, a precognitive impulse, a nanosecond of sense data, an opportunity to speak into being, the almost inexpressible, maybe even a quantum byte of deep time information.
The emergent evolutionary learning in the PAUSE space gives wings to the possible and enables insight, resonance and revelation to occur at far deeper levels, with a heightened degree of co-created acceleration. In my experience it exceeds that which is normally possible, in transformative learning spaces and even what which might considered to be generative conversation.
I found myself during this PAUSE practice reaching forward into the nearly inaccessible, thrilled by the sense of the epic, invigorated by access to archetypal information, accessing our ultimately profound shared ontological ground, while sensing it to be inextricably interlinked with our collective untapped potential.
When I access this almost undreamt of phenomena, I feel I am reaching into the soul of the world and calling forth, new almost unimaginable realities. I am thrilled with and overcome by, the power of the creative force from within and it’s generative power to add, give and enliven. The impact of engaging in this way during the practice, was to blow to pieces many of my unconsciously held, self imposed limitations, to the possible. Whilst in doing so, I leant into and evolved my own transformative edge, simultaneously contributing to and helping the group expand, its own ecosystemic learning capacities and potential.
Whilst what I am trying to convey here is almost beyond the reach of words and defies logical possibility, I have suggested that Eco-Poetics as a possible avenue to communicate the almost intangible. Eco-Poetics have a recent history evolving out of ‘late 20th-century awareness of ecology and concerns over environmental disaster’. Nevertheless little of this poetic niche, in my view, has a focus on interbeing or the intersubjective, on the nurturing of human relationships and their social fields in the face of climate collapse. What follows is my Eco-Poetic attempt to weave harvest and synergise those elements of the PAUSE practice and generative discussion that resonated most strongly for me over the period of 90 minutes for which we met.
You can also find a very different poetic exploration and article about November’s Regen Circle and PAUSE practice here by Lauren Elizabeth Clare
Eco-Poetic of PAUSE and Possibility
Pause
Navigating the sources of story reshaping our imaginations
Weaving threads of response, reaction whilst pausing worldly momentum
Developing moral character through being fully present amidst this chaos and polarisation
Choice in the midst of collapse through dedication to regeneration and possibility
The noble practice of always choosing for emergence
Affording a meaning making opportunity to form new sense impressions
Thoughts, stories, familiar grooves of thought and identity, all momentarily frozen
Familiar stories under siege, burning , creaking and cracking under the pressure of meltdown
Illuminating and bringing the usual narratives towards transparency,
Experiencing the amplification of collective consciousness, shining light plus
The uplifting the power of agency, transmutation and reinvention
Exploring the edges, the corners, the liminal spaces of transformational literacy.
Asking and Understanding
Deconstructing the heroic archetype and whether that journey was ever really necessary, everything we ever needed was and is available here and now.
The stories, we tell, craft reality, our intentional design creates imaginal shapes and forms
Resonance as our new rationality, the power of profound reasoning to build action confidence in the fog ahead
Patterning the possible awakening to potential
Our human journey an oscillating dance between polarities
The recursive loop of both autonomy and communion
Calling forth the oft unheard voice of our interconnected becoming
Piercing the delusion that we were ever separate
Amplifying this presence to live into new archetypes, attuned to the presenting past
Those ancient echoes rippling through our psyches
Synergy and Evolution
Inhabiting the mythic present, making space for eternal information
The presence of the past and future in one unified vibrant entity.
Crumbling the inhibitions of the linear, of the sequential, evoking the unprecedented.
Refining the resolution and expanding the wholeness of the hologram
Evoking the source of our interdependent origination
This collective conversation and story is a lens, a creative holograph, imbued with information critical to respond to the emergency of planetary collapse
Nurturing new realities, reframing this narrative arc towards the regeneration of the whole
Speaking into possibilities of belonging and becoming launching into our shared destiny
Shredding the limitation on what this life can offer, outraging the constraints of our linear history.
The epic of evolution, the overarching, all inclusive ever expanding story, that encompasses all
Releasing the chrysalis compelling the butterfly to take wings.
Seizing the moment and living into the Epic Possibility, of everything that makes us fully human
You can join this group for creative exploration and generative conversation via Regen Circle events HERE. They gather on the first Friday of each month for a 90 minute session, connecting with members worldwide via Zoom video call. All you need is a quiet space, journaling or arts tools, a warm heart and an open mind.
You can also learn more about the PAUSE practice and Regen Circles HERE Regen Circles were created within the Societal Transformation Lab of The Presencing Institute in order to co-create awareness practices for social regeneration and cultivate the conditions needed for the evolution of education and learning towards holistic and humanitarian practices. We look forward to cultivating this with you!
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About the author Dave Pendle; I am synthesising almost 30 years experience in non profit enterprises with over 40 years of deep personal development experience. Passionate about enabling others’ sense of fulfillment, impact and trust, to engage wholeheartedly with inspiration and commitment to 21st century work and life.
