Suffering in transition

The question of why there is so much suffering in major transitions is really quite simple. It is caused by a combination of people from the old order clinging on desperately to what is ready to be released and people from the new order passionately obsessed with forming the new without honoring the foundations of the past that the new has emerged from. When we hold on to what is ready to be released we are afraid of losing what we know. When we obsessively push ahead with the new we are afraid of bring pulled back into the old. Both responses are based on a lack of wholeness ourselves. Both are running away from something, one the inevitability of renewal and the other the embrace of the good in the old.

So all we need to do is be ready to release that which is longer fit for purpose while honoring the past for what it has given us, and integrating the foundation stones of the path we have walked so far. This is the difference between an ecstatic birth and a traumatic birth. Which we choose is up to us.

From Evolution to Volution

From Evolution to Volution - the implications of cosmic geometry (cosmometry) on our understanding of life and the human story.

This is based on a paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for my PhD in Wisdom Studies at Wisdom University, following the course Fundamentals of Cosmometry, lead by Marshall Lefferts with guests.

The images of torus, jitterbug and vector equilibrium used with thanks to Marshall Lefferts.

Introduction

The idea that we as humanity have evolved in a linear process over time is probably one of the most widely accepted ideas across the human species. There is debate between more religious fundamentalist perspectives and more scientific-rational perspectives about exactly when it all began (eg a few thousand years ago versus 14 billion years ago), but they all agree on the idea that since that beginning we have been evolving through historical time with a past, present and future. Indeed, even our most popular philosophers and spiritual teachers tend to promote an evolutionary perspective (Wilber (1996), Cohen (2011), Laszlo (1996)). In my own book (Merry 2009) I adopted and connected these various evolutionary theories.

However, over the last year or so, I have come to question this perspective, and the cosmometry retreat has strengthened my belief that there is a more adequate perspective on our human reality that better reflects the fundamental dynamics of life. This paper attempts to explore the broader perspective and apply it to our human story. Continue reading

Death and Life

I have just completed the original Quantum Light Breath process guided by Jeru Kabbal during which I sobbed with laughter at the realisation of who I am, who we are and what this is. I took life in and let what is dead go – and I allowed myself to accept that what is dead is actually dead, an old memory hanging around and in the way of what wants to be born.

And I realised that the old beliefs and structures of our civilisation are also already dead. They are dead. Dead. Let it in. They are dead. They are dead and they are deadening for us as long as we cling to them. They are still interfering because we are holding onto them, but I can assure you that they are dead. That is why we are in so much turmoil at the moment.

An economy based on monetary debt, competition, unlimited growth, the privatisation of wealth and socialisation of costs is dead. Energy use based on petrochemicals, consumer excess, unlimited consumption, conflict and pollution is dead. A relationship to nature that involves exploiting raw materials for solely our ends, industrial use as if resources were unlimited, waste and degradation is dead. They are all dead, but not yet buried – and that is the problem.

Anything that dies needs to be honoured for the life it had, blessed and released. For us to let go of our fascination with the dead beliefs and structures of the past, we need to see in them the beauty of the gift they gave, the contribution they made and give thanks. And grieve for their passing. Weep, sob, grieve for the end of something beautiful, honour it and let it go. For it is dead. We are then able to carry forward the essence of the gift that past form held.

We don’t have to fight against the old system, it is already dead. We will only create zombies if we fight it. Bless it, grieve for it and release it. That may be hard to accept, because pushing against something can help to define your identity and give you meaning. But you are pushing against a shadow – it is already dead. And it will deaden you as long as you allow yourself to be defined by it. Let it go – it is dead and wants to be released, not bound in the twilight zone, hanging around to haunt us. Ritually honour it and bury it. It’s dead.

Now turn your attention to life. Life is right here, under your nose, in this very moment, happening. It’s dancing in front of you, trying to playfully grab your attention and seduce you into dancing with it. It’s pushing its way through cracks in the dead concrete of the past, at every moment. It is pure joy, acceptance and love. Let it in. It’s right here, now. Raise your eyes, stop reading this and look around you. Yes, that’s it! you feel it in your heart. It’s so simple people, it really is. We make it so difficult for ourselves. I laugh tears when I see it – oh my word we make it so difficult. Yet it is so simple, so simple.

The past is dead. Life is the present. And the future is calling. Let’s let go, come present and bring this species of ours back to life.

Thank you Greece

I recently read a quote attributed to Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minster and head of the euro group, to the effect that “we know exactly what we should do; we just don’t know how to get re-elected if we do it” (quoted in Guardian Weekly 25.05.12). I then heard Yiannis Milios, top Economic Advisor of the Syriza Party, currently polling highest in the run up to new elections, on BBC World Service’s Hardtalk.

Think for a moment about what Juncker is saying – according to our economic policy framework and paradigm, we know what we should do, but we also know that it would be immensely unpopular with people. What does that tell us? One of two things: either the people are ignorant and don’t know what is good for them and their countries, or the socio-economic paradigm from which our politicians are trying to manage the crisis is fundamentally flawed. I tend to go with the latter. They are trying to impose more of the old when the old itself is the problem – because they don’t know any better.

Listening to the Hardtalk interview, I was struck by how, for the first time in a long time, views that fairly fundamentally challenge the current economic paradigm and assumptions were given a serious airing. Something is shifting. And Greece is leading the way.

This is not to say that I agree with everything Syriza stands for nor the energy with which they are going about it. But that is not the point. The point is that life is giving form to a new way of thinking about our societies, and Greece and Syriza happen to be the channels for the new birth. Passion, positioning and polarisation is part of the process. This may sound romantic but is actually a blessing very much in disguise. Greece is the innovator here, and for an innovator to carve out a new paradigm at this level is going to be extremely tough.

The transition will be painful, as people struggle to make ends meet playing by the rules of a game that is dying. It will take time for the new ways to emerge and crystallise in such a manner that they really serve the needs people are feeling and can be widely adopted (see this emergence of local solutions as an example of innovation due to need). There will be recriminations towards the old order, babies will be thrown out with bathwater, sides will be taken, society will be polarised. But eventually the new order will settle down, people will have space in their hearts to forgive, they will remember the good elements of the old and will re-integrate what has been rejected too hastily, and Greece will once more have been the cradle of a new civilisation.

Thank you Greece for being so bold. Thank you for cracking the old mold. And thank you for the suffering you undergo for us all. We hold you in our hearts.

The role of pain and tension in evolutionary leadership

 

[This piece is written for Dutch book Bloei! on leadership and organisation. I was asked to write on "lijderschap" which in Dutch is a play on words. Leadership is normally "leiderschap". "Lijden" means to suffer.]

 

Passion – pp. stem of patī suffer (Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology)

Practice

We are on retreat with the Center for Human Emergence Netherlands. It is the last morning and we have just completed a forty-five minute session of Quantum Light Breath. I am sitting in a circle of seventeen people who fill a role in the organisation I founded and lead. I have just announced that I have something to say. My voice trembling with the emotion of the realisation that I have just had, I open my mouth to speak. I share that it has just hit me really hard what an honour it is to be entrusted with the leadership of these amazing people I see sitting around me. I tell that I allowed myself to accept that I may be worthy of their trust, which is a huge thing. I say that I realise that I have not always been able to see them for the great souls they are and have not honoured them fully in my leadership. For that I apologise and commit to remembering. The room is still. Then our master of ritual tells me to stand in the middle of the room and has everyone put their hands on my shoulders. People call out qualities that they respect in me and my leadership. I am rooted to the spot and feel my self expand. The pain of the realisation has bonded us more closely and installed me more deeply in my leadership role. Natural order is honoured. Continue reading

A beautiful moment in time

I sit here my body shaking lightly, blurry eyed with tears that seem to contain both gratitude and sadness, both release and emergence, both pain and promise. The last week or so I have been feeling depressed, in the dark, not quite knowing what was happening but trusting that something was working its way through. Various events in my private and professional life showed up to reinforce the experience – thanks life!

We (Center for Human Emergence Netherlands Alignment Circle) just completed what should have been our holacratic operational call this morning. Of the nine souls in roles who should have showed up five cancelled last minute, one couldn’t get into the call, one had a poor connection and we decided to cancel it. I was left online with Leidje Witte, our Salons Co-ordinator. Just after we decided to end it, Lisette Schuitemaker, our Organisational Spaceholder, managed to get into the call. I ended up taking the opportunity of having these two wonderful women with me to unload my heart and tell them what I had been experiencing the last week. As I let it go, an insight began to emerge between us.

Leidje wanted to ask me about the salon coming Monday (16 April). I had forgotten about the theme, which was traumas and constellations (Hellinger-style), and had also forgotten that we would be marking the Center for Human Emergence Netherlands’ (CHE NL) seventh anniversary (formally on April 20). The very fact that it was our birthday had slipped to the back of my awareness in the depths of the last week. As all of this came back into my awareness, my whole body, heart and soul started to resonate. Funny how life organised our planned operational call to end up this way…

As the founder of the CHE NL, I have of course a certain energetic relationship to the system. In past transitions, I have also experienced the organisational transition in my own body. Now I realise that it is happening again. We and I are approaching our seventh birthday. Our physical body has completely renewed every cell after each seven years. The seven represents renewal as we enter the octave of the eighth that completes and heals the previous seven notes of existence to bring them into alignment and lay the foundations for the next step. So here we are.

No wonder that my experience this past week has been one of letting go of things that no longer fit with my vision of the next phase of my work, combined with energising glimpses of what it would be like for me to fully embody that work. Last Saturday, working with Dylan Newcomb, my new identity emerged: I am a writer, speaker and consultant who supports life-affirming leaders to understand and work with the energetic dimension of reality. Now I am being invited and challenged to fully step into that. Letting go, letting come, and the space in between – silly how one forgets that you actually have to go through it yourself… As I tweeted over Easter: you have to die to be re-born…  The universe tweeting to itself…

The CHE NL is also growing into a new purpose (what we are jointly becoming): “a sacred partnership in evolution”. Exactly how that shapes up is what we are currently leaning into and playing with. At the same time, we are solidifying our expertise from the past seven years into clear products and services that can act as stepping stones for others to find their way, through CHE Synnervate.

I now feel relaxed, a little tired and deeply grateful. My system feels calm. I guess it is happy to have been seen for what it is. I am very curious about what will happen at our salon on Monday, when we constellate what the CHE NL has to release from the last seven years to be able to move freely forward into the next phase. I guess there will be implications in that for me too…That’s the work.

Watch this space.

My latest take on life, the universe and everything – Volution

This is the pre-paper that I wrote for Wisdom University’s Fundamentals of Cosmometry virtual intensive. It carries a creative commons copyright. 

Volution

Introduction

This paper describes my current understanding of life, the fundamental patterns at work, and the implications of that for our work in the world – in a very compact nutshell! It draws on my collaboration with Dylan Newcomb, input from Marshall Lefferts at the Wisdom University Chartres intensive 2011, the work of Nassim Haramein, ECOtherapy concepts and practice of Hans Andeweg, and my own original ideas.

Three Architectures

I understand reality as composed of what I call three primary architectures: material, relational and energetic. The quality of the material is defined by the quality of the relational which is defined by the quality of the energetic.

Continue reading

Presence in Essence – letting go, letting come and the space in between

This is something I have been wanting to do for a while, and now it is going to happen! We are going to run a two-and-a-half day intensive to really dive into the essence of emergence, Theory U and presencing. Too often Theory U has been taken as a tool to apply to a system, whereas it is really a description of the natural cycle of emergence. At the core of the emergence process is the dropping away of the old, the stillness in the space which that leaves, and the birth of something new out of that womb. We will experience and reflect on the core of that process during this event, with real experiences from our work in the world. No knowledge of the model needed!

What is also very cool is that we have someone with real experience of hospicing (Ivo Callens) and of midwiving (Teresa Collins) on the team, to join myself and Gert van Santen holding the flow as a whole.

It is June 18-20 – nicely aligned with the summer solstice – and will be held at the beautiful and nourishing location of Samaya in Werkhoven, the Netherlands. It would be great to have you with us. Click here for more info.

Poetry 1992-1996

I have just added a number of my poems to the blog archive. I wrote them in a period in the mid-nineties, read them again the other day, decided they were actually pretty good and as part of who I am should be put out there. So here you go! I have estimated the date that I wrote them, but can’t be sure. Here is what I was up to over those years.

1992 was my final year of studying French and German at Exeter University in England, where I spent much time directing and acting in theater productions in French and German. I was particularly interested in the absurdists – eg Alfred Jarry, Albert Camus, Sartre, Ionesco – as well as one particularly striking character called Antonin Artaud. Artaud wrote dozens of tomes of poetry, theatre and treatises, many of them very hard to read, but what stuck with me was his very lucid writing on the nature of sanity and insanity, suggesting actually that the insane saw reality more clearly that the so-called sane. He himself was locked away in an asylum for a bit (this partly inspired me to direct a Peter Brook inspired production in German of Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade which won a national drama prize).

1992-3 took me to Paris where I taught English for c 12 hrs per week at Universite de Nanterre (Paris X), and worked c 30 hrs a week in the evenings with a theatre company called Le Théâtre D-Nué run by an Iranian director Sadreddin Zahed who had worked closely with Brook and integrated improv, physical work (Grotowski-esque) and Persian story-telling – an amazing experience!

In 1994 I went to northern Ghana with Voluntary Service Overseas, teaching English in the small rural town of Bole. At the same time I was studying development economics (eg Wolfgang Sachs) and spirituality (eg Gurdjieff). It was a year that shook the foundations of my being, including having to look death in the eye.

I returned to the UK in 1995 and threw myself into Green activism and politics, before starting on a cross-disciplinary MSc in Human Ecology at the University of Edinburgh.

These were key years in my development, full of passion, fun and creativity. Since then I have not written poetry – maybe this is part of reconnecting to that side of me?

The poems call all be found under the Poetry category of the blog. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!