For those family and friends who just want the ‘what I seen, heard and experienced’ while in Africa this summer (winter!!!), this thread is where you’ll find memos about what I am doing and any photos I may take. Though, I have been strongly advised against carrying my camera, so we’ll see how picture taking evolves along the way.
Monday 6/2
I went to my first REOS meeting today. (REOS for REOS, not one that REOS was hosting for one of their projects.) I had met almost everyone individually (all but Dineo and Marianne [pronounced roughly ‘my-yanna’]), and it was good to see everyone in the same room together. The inquiry for me right now is that it is good in a lot of ways for me to just absorb and learn and figure out the key players, how these projects are working, where they are and where they are trying to go before being truly able to provide useful input. At the same time, my tendency is to stay shushed. I want to be vigilant about not creating an ‘Amy is quiet and doesn’t speak’ pattern here and instead create an ‘Amy is insightful, eloquent and makes invaluable contributions’ pattern. What’s the balance dance here? I know it is a fallback for me to say ‘Well, I don’t know enough to speak yet,’ when in fact I really do. It is often more about me speaking than about if what could say is of value. Even if my comments are not answers, and instead powerful questions….. I GET to speak and be heard!!!!
Friday 5/30
I went to my first two meetings with REOS today. They were both part of the same large community-strengthening project in the Midvaal community centered on orphaned and vulnerable children. The two meetings were very different. The first was after a site visit to a community named Peels Farm. The community was comprised of about 300 shacks (roughly 5-8 people per shack). The larger project team decided that Peels Farm would be the best place to start their work because it is so highly monitored – any new shack is taken down by authorities almost immediately. Everyone’s shack is made out of refuse siding. Some are painted. Some looked like they’d fall over with a strong wind, and others looked remarkably good with large windows that open. One nice one even had a BMW parked below a carport made out of siding!!!! (I didn’t ask what the story was there.) The primary goal of this whole project is to sustainably improve the lives of children – their health, nutrition, access to school and services, and improve the conditions of the whole community in the process. The main guy who was taking us around today lived there, and is a very active community organizer. He started a crèche (daycare) so that parents of small children in the community could work. Several elderly ladies all help watch the little ones. Only one of the children was a full orphan, but there were others in the community who did not attend this service. We went to speak with this household I was just referring to about their situation. The conversation quickly became centered around why the eldest boy wasn’t in school. The answer was roughly ‘he doesn’t like it/want to be there.’ I couldn’t understand the language being spoken, so can only rely on translation and body language, but the caregiver seemed rather defensive about the boy not being in school. I don’t know if she thought it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run, or if she just didn’t like a quartet of white ladies coming to her door and asking her questions about these children that she was helping to care for who were not hers. It also came out that none of the kids had IDs. Apparently, in South Africa all citizens are issued a national ID upon birth and that number is necessary for access to any services: school, health care, income assistance grants…. And the cycle of not having access to these services/IDs perpetuates itself because if one’s parents were undocumented, then it is difficult to prove you/your parents are nationals and not one of the many immigrants into South Africa from neighboring countries. (And illegal immigrants are not entitled to the same rights.) In addition, there is the chronic disempowerment that goes hand in hand with such poverty/powerlessness; even when officials do come around to help remedy legitimate undocumented issues, many people do not act to resolve the situation. They are just too disempowered (especially in the face of authority) to be able to act.
This softness was evidenced in the first meeting I attended this afternoon with the nutrition focus group. There were four REOS-related people, one white community organizer, and four community members at this first “what are our actions going to be?” meeting. (This is coming out of a long string of leadership, visioning, purpose generation, and “prince” (like a frog that can turn into a prince) goal(s) creation workshops, which were also geared to start giving these people the tools to dream, think about what could be possible, and how to give voice to these ideas.
No community members said anything. Well, the guy who showed us around responded to ideas that REOS folks put out, but the three women only responded to direct questions. Given, not everything was rapidly translated for them, but two of them spoke decent English so I think that they understood a lot. REOS’ role is that of facilitator, and they are not supposed to generate content. They are supposed to hold the space to enable all the other actors to do this work. The meeting would have been over in 5 minutes had REOS’ folks not spoken up. Vanessa later recounted to me that this is part of their current learning curve: when to add ideas, when to completely back off, when to hold firm to something they know/believe will serve in the long run, and when to let what is happening happen?
The second meeting was part of this same project but now with the group centered on access (to IDs and therefore to services). Vanessa and I were the only REOS people there, and the other four people were all active civil service workers. There were no community members at this meeting. There were challenges at this meeting too, but they were quite different. All the people were very vocal and willing to express their opinions, but they easily got off task and topic quickly and it was all Vanessa could do to get them to restate their purpose without them going into action. (In all, it took at least 45 minutes to complete the simple question.) Sure, action is great. We all want to create change and not just talk about it, but the game that they are playing here is ‘how do we know what action to do?’ and ‘what actions are the right action?’ and ‘what really, according to our goals ad principles, do we need to do first?’ It is very easy for people to continue to act – it’s like a hamster wheel. You can go around and around, doing and doing, but what are you doing and why? Is there a more effective way to do things? Is there a simple solution that you are not seeing just because you have been looking at the situation in the same way for so long? What would it take to make the solution simple?
Thursday 5/29
After a 14:40 hr flight from Washington DC to Johannesburg, South Africa I finally arrived. (I always bless my ability to sleep on planes, especially when the ride is long!) I had decided in the previous weeks to bring with me the foods that I normally eat [cacao, green powder, bee pollen…etc] (for those who don’t know, I am a raw food vegan) that I wouldn’t be able to find here even though no countries like you to bring food with you for contamination and infestation reasons. So, after a nerve-racking moment of passing by declaration officials with my illegal ‘plant materials’ (declaration’s vague wording meaning any food, specimines, house plants…whatever) I joyfully got to the other side and was picked up by a lady named Paula. She was also fetching two other people who had just arrived. We all thought that we were just other fares, until they asked me about my internship and I mentioned the name of the group. Both people are intimately involved with both REOS and Berkana! After some shock and a ‘what a small world!!!’ moment, it became apparent that the same woman arranged for all of us to picked up, so it made sense that we’d all be involved with the same group. It was a crazy few minutes though.
I spent the first night in a hostel/boarding house called Pension Udube in the Melville suburb. I met some undergrads staying there who were nearing the end of a 4th quarter internship through their journalism school at Northwestern. What an immediate way to intimately learn about a place - to go and have ones job be to cover the nation’s events as they unfold!!! They probably know more about what is happening in South Africa than I ever do in the US.
I was picked up the next morning (Wednesday) and taken to Vanessa’s flat in the Kilarney suburb. This area is all apartment buildings and malls. I was told there is a zoo up the street, but I haven’t gotten out to explore like I had imagined – I have gotten sucked into reading a book and prepping this blog. Yesterday, I also mainly read but also ventured out to get groceries and a prepay cell phone. Exciting days!! Tomorrow I am going to a stakeholder meeting with Sarah, with whom I will be working with all summer, so hopefully I will have begin to have interesting things to report starting tomorrow.
Love to you all,
Amy
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Book Notes
Solving Tough Problems: An open way of talking, listening and creating new realities
- Adam Kahane
- 3 types of complexity:
1. Dynamic – Low: If cause and effect are close together in space and time. High: If cause and effect are far apart in space and time i.e. ‘messes.’ The latter can only be understood systematically, taking account of the interrelationships amond the pieces and the functioning of the system as a whole. For the former, piecemeal (even authoritarian) approaches are fine.
2. Generative – Low: Familiar and predictable future. High: Unfamiliar and unpredictable future. For the latter, solutions cannot be calculated in advance. They have to be worked out as it unfolds. For the former, solutions and rules from the past will work fine.
3. Social – Low: People involved have common assumptions, values, rationales and objectives. High: People involved look at things very differently. Highly socially complex problems cannot be solved by authorities ‘from on high – the people must be involved in creating and implementing the solution.
- Kahane outlines a series of facilitation stories from most closed/least generative to most open/most generative dialogue and outlines their characteristics and lessons along the way.
1. “Being Stuck” – Sides less (or not) willing to talk to each other, and then possibly only through intermediaries or in private. Nobody listens to each other because the have already made up their minds. “[Talking] might be useful [in this situation], but ‘I don’t think it would be possible. I’m not sure that they would be willing to talk with us, and we’re not really ready to talk with them.’” Whether or not the actors are on speaking terms, they are not on listening terms. People only pretend to listen, but are meanwhile only rehearsing their rebuttals. There are two ways to unstick this problem: 1) one side to act unilaterally – to try imposing a solution by force or violence, 2) the actors start to talk and listen in order to find a way forward.
2. “Dictating” – In a dictatorship, the dictator does not listen and the people are afraid to talk. This results in pessimism, hesitation to speak up and stand up, lack of self-confidence and self-management, and painfully slow innovation. This is seen in many authoritarian organizations. The root of not listening is knowing: If you already know the truth, why would you need to listen to anyone else? Out of either politeness or guile, people pretend to listen. And then when they do not hear each other, they repeat themselves more forcefully. The authoritarian pattern of talking is that bosses and experts talk down – dictating and telling – and everyone else talks cautiously. This is the close way. To solve complex problems, we have to find a more open way.
3. “Talking Politely” – Being concerned about hurting another’s feelings (or about being embarrassed yourself), and therefore not speaking openly, is another kind of hesitancy. Some (simple issues) can be dealt with adequately through cautious, dispassionate, amiable talking and listening, but this kind of talking can also be completely inadequate, leaving a dangerous reality unaddressed and un altered. As long as the status quo is working, we can afford to remain polite. But when we see that the status quo is no loner working, we must speak up.
4. “Speaking Up” – The first step to an open dialogue is for the actors in the system to speak up. People hesitate for a variety of reasons: from the extraordinary fear of being jailed or killed to the mundane of being considered impolite or stupid. Creating a safe space for people to speak what is on their minds can be critical. Also, being aware of what you are thinking, feeling, sensing or wanting at that very moment is necessary i.e. not off in your story about what is going on ‘here and now.’ Victims are often the most able to speak up and make courageous statements because they have nothing more to loose.
5. “Only Talking” – Just talking about a problem is not enough. People can talk and talk and talk, and nothing can happen. Even if all main points of view are represented, if people do not listen to each other then (i.e. let themselves be changed), then nothing happens. Enormous potential can go unrealized.
6. “Openness” – If talking openly means being willing to expose to others what is inside of us, then listening openly means being willing to expose ourselves to something new from others. Opening up to other people and to what is goin on in the system of which we are part is not always a comfortable or comforting experience, but it can be very enlightening. To solve complex problems, we have to immerse ourselves in and open ups to its full complexity. Dynamic complexity requires us to talk not just with experts close to us, but also with people on the periphery. Generative complexity requires that we talk no only about options that worked in the past, but also about ones that are emerging now. We must stretch beyond our comfort zone. ‘If we listen in a normal closed way, for what is right and what is wrong, then we wont be able to hear what is possible: what might be but is not yet. We won’t be able to create anything new.’
7. “Reflectiveness” – Listening is more than reloading old tapes. It is being receptive to new ideas – being open to be influenced and changed. It requires being separate from your ideas; not attached. (Your ideas are not ‘you.’) You have to be able to notice and question your own thinking. When teams listen reflexively, they are not only open to new ideas about the problem “out there,’ but also to new ideas about themselves. It is not only necessary to hear the chorus of voices, but we must also hear the contribution of our own voice. We must recognize ourselves as actors who influence the outcome. To change the systems that we are a part of, we must also see and change ourselves.
8. “Empathy” – The traditional Zulu greeting of ‘Sawu bona’ translates to ‘I see you’: we cannot interact properly with other unless we see them as fellow humans. The ability to listen with total presence is key, so that the boundary between two people disappears. When a person feels fully heard, they often become clearer about their own thought and feelings, and more centered and purposeful. We cannot develop creative solutions to complex human problems unless we can see, hear, open up to and include the humanity of all the stake holders and of ourselves. We have to listen to people in a way that encourages them to realize their own potential and the potential in their situation.
Note on Otto Sharmers’ four kinds of listening:
1. Downloading – Listening from within our own story.
2. Debating – Listening to ourselves and others from the outside, objectively, like a judge.
3. Reflective Dialogue – Listening to ourselves reflectively and others empathetically, i.e. from the inside.
4. Generative Dialogue – Listening not only to ourselves and others, but also to the whole system.
Kahane then goes into some deeper levels of this type of work:
1. ‘Solving tough problems’ doesn’t really apply to this work because it implies a problem ‘out there’ that we cans react to and fix. There is a ‘problem situation’ of which each of us is part. This way of thinking has serious consequences because if we admit that we are co-creating the way things are, that also makes us co-responsible. How could we ever make scenarios about the possible futures with out talking into account out impact on how the future will unfold? Also, we can’t reason nor rationalize through everything – it is too complex. We have to sense it. This requires us to access a deeper, non-rational, more ancient way of knowing.
2. Open listening and open taking go hand in hand like the tai chi bow: a soft right fist cupped in an open left palm. The right had represents creativity and open talking. The fist is not clenched tightly; you should be able to pull a pencil through it. It represents talking with, not talking at. The left hand represents receptivity and open listening.
3. From a Mayan sacred text: “ We did not put our ideas together. We put our purposes together. And we agreed, and then we decided.”
4. This work has parallels to the natural healing capabilities of the body: a wound wants to heal and be whole again. The two sides of a wound will reach for each other until they have met and are mended. Dialogues are like that: the participants and the human systems that they are part of want to be whole. A faciltator’s job is simply to create a clean, safe space. The healing will occur on it’s own.
Kahane concludes with 10 suggestions to help people get started in unlocking even the most stuck problems:
1. Pay attention to your state of being and to how you are talking and listening. Notice you own assumptions, reactions, contradictions, anxieties, prejudices and projections.
2. Speak up. Notice and say what you are thinking, feeling and wanting.
3. Remember that you do not know the truth about anything. When you think that you are absolutely certain about the way things are, add “in my opinion” to your sentence. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
4. Engage with and listen to others who have a stake in the system. Seek out people who have different, even opposing, perspectives from yours. Stretch beyond your comfort zone.
5. Reflect on your own role in they system. Examine how what you are doing or not doing is contributing to thins being the way they are.
6. Listen with empathy. Look at the system through the eyes of the other. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the other.
7. Listem to what is being said not just by yourself and others but through all of you. Listen to what is emerging in the system as a whole. Listen with your heart. Speak from you hear.
8. Stop talking. Camp out beside the questions and let answers come to you.
9. Relax and be fully present. Open up your mind and heart and will. Open yourself up to being touched and transformed.
10. Try out these suggestions and notice what happens. Sense what shifts in your relationships with others, with yourself, and with the world. Keep on practicing.
- Adam Kahane
- 3 types of complexity:
1. Dynamic – Low: If cause and effect are close together in space and time. High: If cause and effect are far apart in space and time i.e. ‘messes.’ The latter can only be understood systematically, taking account of the interrelationships amond the pieces and the functioning of the system as a whole. For the former, piecemeal (even authoritarian) approaches are fine.
2. Generative – Low: Familiar and predictable future. High: Unfamiliar and unpredictable future. For the latter, solutions cannot be calculated in advance. They have to be worked out as it unfolds. For the former, solutions and rules from the past will work fine.
3. Social – Low: People involved have common assumptions, values, rationales and objectives. High: People involved look at things very differently. Highly socially complex problems cannot be solved by authorities ‘from on high – the people must be involved in creating and implementing the solution.
- Kahane outlines a series of facilitation stories from most closed/least generative to most open/most generative dialogue and outlines their characteristics and lessons along the way.
1. “Being Stuck” – Sides less (or not) willing to talk to each other, and then possibly only through intermediaries or in private. Nobody listens to each other because the have already made up their minds. “[Talking] might be useful [in this situation], but ‘I don’t think it would be possible. I’m not sure that they would be willing to talk with us, and we’re not really ready to talk with them.’” Whether or not the actors are on speaking terms, they are not on listening terms. People only pretend to listen, but are meanwhile only rehearsing their rebuttals. There are two ways to unstick this problem: 1) one side to act unilaterally – to try imposing a solution by force or violence, 2) the actors start to talk and listen in order to find a way forward.
2. “Dictating” – In a dictatorship, the dictator does not listen and the people are afraid to talk. This results in pessimism, hesitation to speak up and stand up, lack of self-confidence and self-management, and painfully slow innovation. This is seen in many authoritarian organizations. The root of not listening is knowing: If you already know the truth, why would you need to listen to anyone else? Out of either politeness or guile, people pretend to listen. And then when they do not hear each other, they repeat themselves more forcefully. The authoritarian pattern of talking is that bosses and experts talk down – dictating and telling – and everyone else talks cautiously. This is the close way. To solve complex problems, we have to find a more open way.
3. “Talking Politely” – Being concerned about hurting another’s feelings (or about being embarrassed yourself), and therefore not speaking openly, is another kind of hesitancy. Some (simple issues) can be dealt with adequately through cautious, dispassionate, amiable talking and listening, but this kind of talking can also be completely inadequate, leaving a dangerous reality unaddressed and un altered. As long as the status quo is working, we can afford to remain polite. But when we see that the status quo is no loner working, we must speak up.
4. “Speaking Up” – The first step to an open dialogue is for the actors in the system to speak up. People hesitate for a variety of reasons: from the extraordinary fear of being jailed or killed to the mundane of being considered impolite or stupid. Creating a safe space for people to speak what is on their minds can be critical. Also, being aware of what you are thinking, feeling, sensing or wanting at that very moment is necessary i.e. not off in your story about what is going on ‘here and now.’ Victims are often the most able to speak up and make courageous statements because they have nothing more to loose.
5. “Only Talking” – Just talking about a problem is not enough. People can talk and talk and talk, and nothing can happen. Even if all main points of view are represented, if people do not listen to each other then (i.e. let themselves be changed), then nothing happens. Enormous potential can go unrealized.
6. “Openness” – If talking openly means being willing to expose to others what is inside of us, then listening openly means being willing to expose ourselves to something new from others. Opening up to other people and to what is goin on in the system of which we are part is not always a comfortable or comforting experience, but it can be very enlightening. To solve complex problems, we have to immerse ourselves in and open ups to its full complexity. Dynamic complexity requires us to talk not just with experts close to us, but also with people on the periphery. Generative complexity requires that we talk no only about options that worked in the past, but also about ones that are emerging now. We must stretch beyond our comfort zone. ‘If we listen in a normal closed way, for what is right and what is wrong, then we wont be able to hear what is possible: what might be but is not yet. We won’t be able to create anything new.’
7. “Reflectiveness” – Listening is more than reloading old tapes. It is being receptive to new ideas – being open to be influenced and changed. It requires being separate from your ideas; not attached. (Your ideas are not ‘you.’) You have to be able to notice and question your own thinking. When teams listen reflexively, they are not only open to new ideas about the problem “out there,’ but also to new ideas about themselves. It is not only necessary to hear the chorus of voices, but we must also hear the contribution of our own voice. We must recognize ourselves as actors who influence the outcome. To change the systems that we are a part of, we must also see and change ourselves.
8. “Empathy” – The traditional Zulu greeting of ‘Sawu bona’ translates to ‘I see you’: we cannot interact properly with other unless we see them as fellow humans. The ability to listen with total presence is key, so that the boundary between two people disappears. When a person feels fully heard, they often become clearer about their own thought and feelings, and more centered and purposeful. We cannot develop creative solutions to complex human problems unless we can see, hear, open up to and include the humanity of all the stake holders and of ourselves. We have to listen to people in a way that encourages them to realize their own potential and the potential in their situation.
Note on Otto Sharmers’ four kinds of listening:
1. Downloading – Listening from within our own story.
2. Debating – Listening to ourselves and others from the outside, objectively, like a judge.
3. Reflective Dialogue – Listening to ourselves reflectively and others empathetically, i.e. from the inside.
4. Generative Dialogue – Listening not only to ourselves and others, but also to the whole system.
Kahane then goes into some deeper levels of this type of work:
1. ‘Solving tough problems’ doesn’t really apply to this work because it implies a problem ‘out there’ that we cans react to and fix. There is a ‘problem situation’ of which each of us is part. This way of thinking has serious consequences because if we admit that we are co-creating the way things are, that also makes us co-responsible. How could we ever make scenarios about the possible futures with out talking into account out impact on how the future will unfold? Also, we can’t reason nor rationalize through everything – it is too complex. We have to sense it. This requires us to access a deeper, non-rational, more ancient way of knowing.
2. Open listening and open taking go hand in hand like the tai chi bow: a soft right fist cupped in an open left palm. The right had represents creativity and open talking. The fist is not clenched tightly; you should be able to pull a pencil through it. It represents talking with, not talking at. The left hand represents receptivity and open listening.
3. From a Mayan sacred text: “ We did not put our ideas together. We put our purposes together. And we agreed, and then we decided.”
4. This work has parallels to the natural healing capabilities of the body: a wound wants to heal and be whole again. The two sides of a wound will reach for each other until they have met and are mended. Dialogues are like that: the participants and the human systems that they are part of want to be whole. A faciltator’s job is simply to create a clean, safe space. The healing will occur on it’s own.
Kahane concludes with 10 suggestions to help people get started in unlocking even the most stuck problems:
1. Pay attention to your state of being and to how you are talking and listening. Notice you own assumptions, reactions, contradictions, anxieties, prejudices and projections.
2. Speak up. Notice and say what you are thinking, feeling and wanting.
3. Remember that you do not know the truth about anything. When you think that you are absolutely certain about the way things are, add “in my opinion” to your sentence. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
4. Engage with and listen to others who have a stake in the system. Seek out people who have different, even opposing, perspectives from yours. Stretch beyond your comfort zone.
5. Reflect on your own role in they system. Examine how what you are doing or not doing is contributing to thins being the way they are.
6. Listen with empathy. Look at the system through the eyes of the other. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the other.
7. Listem to what is being said not just by yourself and others but through all of you. Listen to what is emerging in the system as a whole. Listen with your heart. Speak from you hear.
8. Stop talking. Camp out beside the questions and let answers come to you.
9. Relax and be fully present. Open up your mind and heart and will. Open yourself up to being touched and transformed.
10. Try out these suggestions and notice what happens. Sense what shifts in your relationships with others, with yourself, and with the world. Keep on practicing.
New Metaphors for Life
New Metaphors for New Life
If you haven’t read any Lakoff and Johnson, go do it. You’ll have a deeper appreciation of metaphors’ impact on meaning generation and how they act as a window to our deepest beliefs. Also, a bit from my notes on the book Action Research in Organizations:
Dominant western intellectual traditions love binary opposition – ‘either-or.’ This love of absolutes emphasizes confrontation, establishing zero-sum categories as facts. Western tradition loves fragmentation and binary opposition, and therefore they tend not to notice the metaphorical basis of scientific inquiry and social practices. What would happen if the metaphor of binary divide were to disappear? Perhaps, if we commit ourselves to generating new living theories of practice we will find metaphors that more adequately represent the transformative nature of living. Then we could move beyond metaphor, and generate theories and new forms of representation that show life as it is truly lived.
Please comment to add yours, or email me and I will add those that ring true to me.
Eels
Holly, one of the facilitators at the AHo gathering I went to, presented the group with a beautiful metaphor about birthing ideas.
Female eels live in the underground water below Florida where they swim and live until they are developed and ready to enter the world. These eels are like the unmanifest ideas, questions and projects swimming within our depths. There is nothing wrong with not saying something if it is not fully ready to emerge. There is a time and place for everything. When it is their time, they will arise of their own accord. There is no need to push or force anything.
Rails-to-Trail
I was recently riding bikes with my husband on the rails-to-trails paths where we live in Durham. This was different than any riding that I had done in a long time. I bike a lot and have even been on a one-month bike trip through four states, crossing the western continental divide about 6 times. (Lots of hills!!!!!) While riding on this completely flat rails-to-trails path, I saw a beautiful parallel between this ride and my life: it doesn’t have to be hard.
I see how so often I have implicitly made things be of higher value if I worked really hard and extended a lot of effort; I earned it. Life doesn’t have to be work. The hills and valleys of life can rise and fall to meet you. You don’t have to do everything. Some things in life can just ‘happen.’ My guess is that if you’re reading this blog you’re at least vaguely familiar the way that life can ‘just work’ sometimes, when it seems like a flow greater than yourself is guiding you. It is. Well, it is not different than that which you are. You (little, separate you) don’t have to effort and do everything. Put yourself in the flow of life and watch what emerges for and through you.
If you haven’t read any Lakoff and Johnson, go do it. You’ll have a deeper appreciation of metaphors’ impact on meaning generation and how they act as a window to our deepest beliefs. Also, a bit from my notes on the book Action Research in Organizations:
Dominant western intellectual traditions love binary opposition – ‘either-or.’ This love of absolutes emphasizes confrontation, establishing zero-sum categories as facts. Western tradition loves fragmentation and binary opposition, and therefore they tend not to notice the metaphorical basis of scientific inquiry and social practices. What would happen if the metaphor of binary divide were to disappear? Perhaps, if we commit ourselves to generating new living theories of practice we will find metaphors that more adequately represent the transformative nature of living. Then we could move beyond metaphor, and generate theories and new forms of representation that show life as it is truly lived.
Please comment to add yours, or email me and I will add those that ring true to me.
Eels
Holly, one of the facilitators at the AHo gathering I went to, presented the group with a beautiful metaphor about birthing ideas.
Female eels live in the underground water below Florida where they swim and live until they are developed and ready to enter the world. These eels are like the unmanifest ideas, questions and projects swimming within our depths. There is nothing wrong with not saying something if it is not fully ready to emerge. There is a time and place for everything. When it is their time, they will arise of their own accord. There is no need to push or force anything.
Rails-to-Trail
I was recently riding bikes with my husband on the rails-to-trails paths where we live in Durham. This was different than any riding that I had done in a long time. I bike a lot and have even been on a one-month bike trip through four states, crossing the western continental divide about 6 times. (Lots of hills!!!!!) While riding on this completely flat rails-to-trails path, I saw a beautiful parallel between this ride and my life: it doesn’t have to be hard.
I see how so often I have implicitly made things be of higher value if I worked really hard and extended a lot of effort; I earned it. Life doesn’t have to be work. The hills and valleys of life can rise and fall to meet you. You don’t have to do everything. Some things in life can just ‘happen.’ My guess is that if you’re reading this blog you’re at least vaguely familiar the way that life can ‘just work’ sometimes, when it seems like a flow greater than yourself is guiding you. It is. Well, it is not different than that which you are. You (little, separate you) don’t have to effort and do everything. Put yourself in the flow of life and watch what emerges for and through you.
Learning Curve
This is the space where I will dialogue and muse about what I am learning that is most relevant and challenging to me: where my mind might be currently numb, tickled or simply experiencing a new ‘Ah ha!’
Monday 6/2
What am I learning today?
1) Trust.
It has been a process to learn to trust in flow and that the universe can figure out my challenging situations and desires better than I can by ‘trying.’ I had placed out into the world that I wanted to connect with likeminded people, especially those of the same age. Well, I couldn’t have created a better start to this if I had tried and tried and tried. The details of the series of events don’t really matter, but the point is that I was introduced yesterday to a girl (Andrea, 23) and her family. She’s super awesome, her dad is really into the kind of work that I am drawn to (pattern recognition, lateral thinking, creativity, solving ‘intractable problems’…), and her sister used to be a raw food vegan, is studying botany and applied to attend Naropa in the recent past! (For those of you who don’t know me, that would one way to make an accurate description of me. [except of the ‘used to be’ part ] Thank you world. Now, I need to keep open and trust that the universe is also working out the best ever housing situation for me too….
2) In the perpetual thinking about ‘what do I want to do with myself???,’ numerous times I have come up with the answer ‘Earth Doctor.’ This combines my love of nature and wanting to revivify the plant with my drive toward health and healing (which is generally expressed in human health and human healing.) I have realized more and more over the years that ALL of the work that I am drawn to, in some capacity or another, could be called ‘healing’ – to make better or whole again (I really wish the verb was ‘wholeing’!). So, thinking along these lines today and that this social innovation / whole systems change work that I am learning about now is also ‘healing’ work, I was letting my brain play with what title would be appropriate. (Because ‘doctor’ isn’t right.)
Here’s the general flow of the though…. ‘Hmm, ‘doctor’ …working with emergence and evolution. Hmm, ‘evo-lution’….’evo-cator.’ Evocator!
It’s kind of like evoker (one who evokes…awakens, calls forth, summons, arouses…), which I like enough on it’s own, but it also has a healing twist to it.
Evocator – One who awakens and ‘wholes.’
3) I learned about Edward DeBono (spelling??). He sounds fabulous – the father of ‘lateral thinking’ and the concept of wearing different ‘hats’ (pure information, ‘what’s right here?,’ ‘what’s wrong here?,’ supporter…) It sounds like he has a lot of good ideas and tools/processes/procedures for working with groups to enable them to think differently. Just what I am looking for right now!
Friday 5/30
1) A place for me?
I saw myself tons in Vanessa today. The set of skills and abilities she exhibited today (the ability to see the whole picture of what was being discussed, to remember all the different threads, to hear larger underlying themes and what people ‘were really saying’…) I have seen these traits in myself for a long time, but hadn’t ever really found a ‘use for them.’ They had always seemed useful, but where they would be highly and directly applicable in a work situation hadn’t been seen yet.
Do I really want to ‘just facilitate’ as a career? Well, I never want to do anything that I put the word ‘just’ in front of I’ve already said that I am really drawn to this type of work – it’s why I’m in South Africa right now! I know that I am also drawn to content work: sustainability, restoration, success and leadership coaching, sustainable ag, changing mindsets…. These skills will obviously be valuable no matter where I go or what I end up doing, but one of the riddles right now is how much will it be a skill set utilized, versus the primary focus of my work.
2) How engaged is the facilitator?
How do you really empower people and enable them to speak? (For the background read the ‘storyline’ post for today.) REOS has done tons of preliminary work to help make it possible for some of the visionary and hopeful of the disadvantaged community to really be a part of this project by starting to giving them the tools for vocalization and visualization. I had thought about it before, but never really deeply: Did some people not learn (or have they unlearned) how to dream? Is it that some of these people really cannot envision better possibilities? Or, do they not know how/do not feel they can speak about it?
I just saw today that I have always implicitly imagined in my visions of what is possible with working with disadvantaged groups that they would have desires and ideas about what to do and what is possible. Is this ability to proactively vision really more of a skill that I [and many] have developed that is not innate? Or, is it innate and just knocked out of many people from destitute situations?
[Related to: “Self-reflection does not happen automatically. Do not expect people to become self-reflexive ‘all of the sudden.’ It needs to be learned and practiced” (McNiff p.18).]
What is the role of a facilitator in these situations? In order to help creative positive, generative dialogue, do they also have to bring their tools of innovative visioning before a group really gets the hang of it and can own the process? Should facilitators really spend a lot of time on developing skills such as appreciative inquiry (“Hey, what is really possible here? What could we create if there were no barriers?”) so groups could do this work on their own without needing seed thoughts? Or, are seed thoughts fine? I know I have been to over 20 indigenous, disadvantaged, and/or alternative communities across six countries in six continents. I have see more varied attempts at community self-sufficiency (or at least self-get-to-the-bare-minimum) than most people ever will, and I have good ideas. Is it a crime not to share them?
[Compared to: “When we know or think we know, it is harder to listen without rushing to judgment and jumping to conclusions. Being an expert is a sever impediment to listening and learning (Kahane p53).]
Monday 6/2
What am I learning today?
1) Trust.
It has been a process to learn to trust in flow and that the universe can figure out my challenging situations and desires better than I can by ‘trying.’ I had placed out into the world that I wanted to connect with likeminded people, especially those of the same age. Well, I couldn’t have created a better start to this if I had tried and tried and tried. The details of the series of events don’t really matter, but the point is that I was introduced yesterday to a girl (Andrea, 23) and her family. She’s super awesome, her dad is really into the kind of work that I am drawn to (pattern recognition, lateral thinking, creativity, solving ‘intractable problems’…), and her sister used to be a raw food vegan, is studying botany and applied to attend Naropa in the recent past! (For those of you who don’t know me, that would one way to make an accurate description of me. [except of the ‘used to be’ part ] Thank you world. Now, I need to keep open and trust that the universe is also working out the best ever housing situation for me too….
2) In the perpetual thinking about ‘what do I want to do with myself???,’ numerous times I have come up with the answer ‘Earth Doctor.’ This combines my love of nature and wanting to revivify the plant with my drive toward health and healing (which is generally expressed in human health and human healing.) I have realized more and more over the years that ALL of the work that I am drawn to, in some capacity or another, could be called ‘healing’ – to make better or whole again (I really wish the verb was ‘wholeing’!). So, thinking along these lines today and that this social innovation / whole systems change work that I am learning about now is also ‘healing’ work, I was letting my brain play with what title would be appropriate. (Because ‘doctor’ isn’t right.)
Here’s the general flow of the though…. ‘Hmm, ‘doctor’ …working with emergence and evolution. Hmm, ‘evo-lution’….’evo-cator.’ Evocator!
It’s kind of like evoker (one who evokes…awakens, calls forth, summons, arouses…), which I like enough on it’s own, but it also has a healing twist to it.
Evocator – One who awakens and ‘wholes.’
3) I learned about Edward DeBono (spelling??). He sounds fabulous – the father of ‘lateral thinking’ and the concept of wearing different ‘hats’ (pure information, ‘what’s right here?,’ ‘what’s wrong here?,’ supporter…) It sounds like he has a lot of good ideas and tools/processes/procedures for working with groups to enable them to think differently. Just what I am looking for right now!
Friday 5/30
1) A place for me?
I saw myself tons in Vanessa today. The set of skills and abilities she exhibited today (the ability to see the whole picture of what was being discussed, to remember all the different threads, to hear larger underlying themes and what people ‘were really saying’…) I have seen these traits in myself for a long time, but hadn’t ever really found a ‘use for them.’ They had always seemed useful, but where they would be highly and directly applicable in a work situation hadn’t been seen yet.
Do I really want to ‘just facilitate’ as a career? Well, I never want to do anything that I put the word ‘just’ in front of I’ve already said that I am really drawn to this type of work – it’s why I’m in South Africa right now! I know that I am also drawn to content work: sustainability, restoration, success and leadership coaching, sustainable ag, changing mindsets…. These skills will obviously be valuable no matter where I go or what I end up doing, but one of the riddles right now is how much will it be a skill set utilized, versus the primary focus of my work.
2) How engaged is the facilitator?
How do you really empower people and enable them to speak? (For the background read the ‘storyline’ post for today.) REOS has done tons of preliminary work to help make it possible for some of the visionary and hopeful of the disadvantaged community to really be a part of this project by starting to giving them the tools for vocalization and visualization. I had thought about it before, but never really deeply: Did some people not learn (or have they unlearned) how to dream? Is it that some of these people really cannot envision better possibilities? Or, do they not know how/do not feel they can speak about it?
I just saw today that I have always implicitly imagined in my visions of what is possible with working with disadvantaged groups that they would have desires and ideas about what to do and what is possible. Is this ability to proactively vision really more of a skill that I [and many] have developed that is not innate? Or, is it innate and just knocked out of many people from destitute situations?
[Related to: “Self-reflection does not happen automatically. Do not expect people to become self-reflexive ‘all of the sudden.’ It needs to be learned and practiced” (McNiff p.18).]
What is the role of a facilitator in these situations? In order to help creative positive, generative dialogue, do they also have to bring their tools of innovative visioning before a group really gets the hang of it and can own the process? Should facilitators really spend a lot of time on developing skills such as appreciative inquiry (“Hey, what is really possible here? What could we create if there were no barriers?”) so groups could do this work on their own without needing seed thoughts? Or, are seed thoughts fine? I know I have been to over 20 indigenous, disadvantaged, and/or alternative communities across six countries in six continents. I have see more varied attempts at community self-sufficiency (or at least self-get-to-the-bare-minimum) than most people ever will, and I have good ideas. Is it a crime not to share them?
[Compared to: “When we know or think we know, it is harder to listen without rushing to judgment and jumping to conclusions. Being an expert is a sever impediment to listening and learning (Kahane p53).]
Primary Focus
I am interested in change and evolution. It has both taken a lot of discovery to become this clear, and I also know that this is just a momentary manifestation of what it coming into being through me. My purpose is to enable and to create the space for profound change to emerge on all levels: individual, couples, families, organizations, communities, nations and the world. I like the analogy that one of the facilitators used at the recent AHo gathering, that of the warrior and the midwife. To bring these new futures into being we have to be both as cutting, clear, and forward acting the warrior, and also as soft, receptive and willing to catching the emerging future as the midwife. (Without a doubt, the warrior is also certainly a midwife, and the midwife a warrior.)
About me
Where to start and what to say?
I am a long time seeker and wanter who is finally finding my own power. I have always felt insignificant and small and it is only in the last year or two that I have really became aware of this pervasive part of my experience. Seeing and labeling it has give me tremendous power, but then the question became ‘what now?’
I have always been had a deep knowing that I am going to do profound work. I do not say this to be glib, but to be truthful. I am committed to stop discounting myself. I see now how powerful my process these past several years has been and, in retrospect, how useful my learnings could have been to others finding their power had I documented them. That is part of the impetus of this blog. I see now how what I am stepping into learning, and the inevitable process along the way, will be invaluable to others. I have stopped believing in the myth of the ‘there,’ so there is no longer the excuse that since ‘I am not there yet’ that I have nothing to share. We are all learners and journeyers. I trust you find a piece in my story that will aid you in your own emergence.
I am a long time seeker and wanter who is finally finding my own power. I have always felt insignificant and small and it is only in the last year or two that I have really became aware of this pervasive part of my experience. Seeing and labeling it has give me tremendous power, but then the question became ‘what now?’
I have always been had a deep knowing that I am going to do profound work. I do not say this to be glib, but to be truthful. I am committed to stop discounting myself. I see now how powerful my process these past several years has been and, in retrospect, how useful my learnings could have been to others finding their power had I documented them. That is part of the impetus of this blog. I see now how what I am stepping into learning, and the inevitable process along the way, will be invaluable to others. I have stopped believing in the myth of the ‘there,’ so there is no longer the excuse that since ‘I am not there yet’ that I have nothing to share. We are all learners and journeyers. I trust you find a piece in my story that will aid you in your own emergence.
Story of this blog
I went to an Art of Hosting (AHo) gathering in Tampa Bay in early May 2008 and found home. The ways and themes of my life have found a way to intertwine and support one another and not just compete for my attention and support. One of the facilitators, Chris Corrigan, made a comment about how to get involved with this kind of work. He said that all the people engaged with it were practitioners i.e. those engaged with practicing it. No one was a expert and everyone was still learning. The best way to learn is from others who are participating in a similar journey. This blog, as a log of my learning journey, is my contribution to all those both before and after me on this path to create a better world through this work.
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