Back in England... Future Uncertain

It's been a while since I last put a post up and this lull has coincided with my transition back to England. Amazingly, after two years at a stretch in India, I have not had any adjustment issues (at least, nothing serious). I have been gorging on my mum's fantastic food, propounding my theories about the world to anyone who cares to listen (and those who don't), reading Complexity Economics, immersing myself in blogs and the internet and trying to get a sense of what's going on and how it all fits together. This is my hobby and I think I'm onto something!

The implications of the financial mess that is slowly gripping the economy of the world is taking its time to really loom into the consciousness of the general public. I have read so many blogs and articles on the matter in the last few weeks that I would hardly know where to start pointing anyone who wants to see where things might be headed... All the same, here are some pointers:

• Michel Bauwens from Peer2Peer Foundation on the bailout and the hollow state...
• Robert Patterson on the reality of inflation, who its hitting and what might happen...
• Dave Pollard on the overall mess, what's going on...
  
• Earle Mardle on how we have let ourselves get screwed
  

And here's a quote from another:

Alan Greenspan has finally decided to admit, you know, this may be one of those once-a-century biggies. [...] There are seven sharks in the tank with the economy.

• And the first is financialization because we’re so dependent on this industry that’s sort of half lost its marbles.
• The second is that you have this huge buildup of debt, absolutely unprecedented anywhere in the world.
• The third is you’ve now got home prices collapsing.
• The fourth is you’ve got global commodity inflation building up.
• The fifth is you’ve got flawed and deceptive government economics statistics.
• The sixth is that you’ve got what they call peak oil where the world is, to some extent, running out of oil. So it’s not just commodity inflation, it’s a shortage of oil.
• And then the last thing is the collapsing dollar.

Now, whenever you get this sort of package in one decade, you got a big one. And when Greenspan says it’s a once a century, I think it’s another variation but on a par with the Thirties.

– Kevin Phillips, in a conversation with Bill Moyers

Back to the grounded stuff. None of this bodes well for those who are looking for much comfort in the times ahead. I can see food is going to be a major issues - as is heating, transportation and the general absence of electricity. Would there be a free-for-all or would there be a re-discovery of real community as David Pollard proposes in this fable. Hard to say. I for one have already pledged to grow vegetables for my parents should the need arise!

But since returning from some fascinating community development work in India - which has given me some profound insights into the very essence of 'community' - I have found myself wondering... Do we have community over here in the UK? We're all so disconnected from all the things we depend on - food, fuel, shelter... A few farmers own most of the land - would they share it with us if we needed it? In exchange for work on the fields? As bonded labourers? Or would it be run as a community farm? Silly speculation or serious questions? Who knows?

While I continue to ponder these questions, I am also getting ready to go and do my Masters degree, long a source of confusion as I wonder whether it can be worth the cost. At least the subject rocks: power, participation and social change. What i learn may well be directly applicable to the kinds of challenges that we are going to come up against in the years ahead. For example, I will be learning in depth how to work with groups of people to bring about change in a way that is empowering for everyone.

But then again, if the unthinkable scenario really does unfold, where will that leave me? Will I be able to grow food, make clothes, heal myself and my family if we get ill, etc.? Will I have the relationships that I need with the people around me in my community? Will the skills that I possess or learn be valued by those around me?

At the moment, the work that I have been doing in India is backed by money and I facilitate a process through which that money gets spent in ways that support positive, citizen-led social change. This makes it easy for me to give the community the feeling that I have something that they need and so the process of community building becomes easier... I also have a position and a title that makes clear my role as a facilitator of change. But here in my village, I have none of that? For what am I known? Perhaps almost nothing? What skills can I report to offer? Facilitation? Community Development? Leadership building? Understanding how people interact and relate and how change happens? How to use participatory methods for decision-making? Who's going to elect me as a facilitator? Will people trade food for these things?

This all makes me feel that I would really need a different set of skills altogether! If I should want to put any of my present skills in practice I would still need something more than this that would help to bring people together and leave me in a position where I would be able to do facilitation, to host the process. Maybe just inviting people would be enough?! Is this wishful thinking? One idea that cropped up was trying to set up a community farm. Taking it up as a project in community building... More than anything, this all points at the urgent need to set about reweaving community and making the foundations of that community sustainable and self-reliant insofar as possible...

Whatever, happens, I am quite sure that we live in fascinating times and to be honest I am more excited than scared.

On that note, I would like to share these words from Doug at Footprints in the wind as I get ready for bed:

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 891

We have always expanded our
Confidence
Intellect
Vision
Courage &
Reach
By gathering
With each other
How much we need to
Now

---

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

What we're about

All we propose, in return, is that you care for each other, help each other, treat each other with respect and dignity, work and play together and take your future and your children's future into your own hands and do your best to make existence into the most wholesome, meaningful experience possible for everyone.

Get it?

conversations, presencing, change and more

A while back I had been talking about social objects - the things that give us a reason to be in a relationship with others - and how they are critical elements in the process of social transformation. Now there's a kind of magic that takes place in that fuzzy area where we interact around that thing. What goes on there? And how does it lead to transformation?

Well, recently, there have been some interesting posts on the subject. First by Chris Corrigan and later by Dave Pollard that present a distillation of how this change takes place. Here's what they look like:

Chris Corrigan's Map:
And this, Dave Pollard's:
And it would seem that all this is based on something called the U-Process, developed by Otto Scharmer and friends. The U-process is a kind of framework for bringing about systemic change in all kinds of organisations and groups through a collective change process and is being applied here and there to try and tackle seemingly intractable problems. It looks something like this:

All of this makes good sense in the context of the process that we have been following in order to help Seva Mandir prepare its 6th Comprehensive plan, the meetings that we hold on a regular basis in Seva Mandir and the workshops that we have been organising with the citizen's of Delwara. For example, during the recent meeting with the women or with the 'harijans' (members of the lowest caste group, victims of great discrimination and exclusion) we have to get from a group of disparate individuals, potentially in conflict with each other, to a collective with a shared identity and a commitment to each other. In order to do this, we must travel from 'I' to 'we'. We need to open up our hearts to each other and contemplate what being together means. This is the bottom of the U. At this stage there is a sense of vibration within the group - of being connected to each other - both through minds and hearts ... and it is elevating. Once we reach this stage, translating the shared energy into concrete plans of action becomes much easier. But the process is not always either easy or smooth... and sometimes we are only partly there...

Two stages jump out as being the real critical points that need to be examined in greater depth. One is the shift into presencing. How does it happen? How long should it be sustained? The other is the taking of personal responsibility after presencing - the co-creating... How deep was the presencing? Did it hit the nail on the head? Did it cause the shift deeply enough to take the members to a whole new level? What would this take? Once we get back in our old system, out of the U-experience, we are back in those old positions, old routines, interacting with the same old people reinacting the same old patterns? Sure, if we can maintain our separateness through our newly formed group we may be able to maintain the energy... But high fall-out can be expected...

And, well, it struck me that this process is a kind of fractal - in the sense that it applies to large groups, small groups and well, why not, I suppose... Individuals? Now what would this look like at the individual level? One thing is clear: whether we are engaging in this kind of a U-process at the organisation or group level, we are dealing first and foremost with individuals.

What goes on in the individual during this process? And is there a way that an individual can experience this same transition from one state to another on their own? Is it necessarily a collective process? Is it only through my being and doing with others that I can bring about transformation in myself? If not, is meditation or reflection what this looks like at the personal level? Do I have to disconnect myself from my daily life in order to get there? Am I already there? Can I do this willingly? Can I presence perpetually? Is it more about a state of being?

And can this be done at the level of a community as a whole? What would be the method? How would we get a multitude of fragmented individuals and groups to gradually 'vibrate in harmony' as it were? What is the deepest collective presencing possible for a whole community and how do we get there?

I don't know what the answers are to any of these questions... but they do look like they matter!

And, I suppose, this is where the work that Seva Mandir really fits in. It can provide not just the U experience but it can also do the groundwork to prepare for entry and do the follow-up work to support what comes after. It not only gets people ready to dive in, it not only helps them to access the source, but it also provides support in enacting whatever comes next. Still though, ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the people themselves. We give no instructions.

But the real question is how deep we get in the U process. This seems key to everything. If we get to the source, where would it take us? What would it take for us to get there? I think we cannot know the answer until we walk the path... And convincing anyone to embark on something that has no clear destination is not easy - although it seems more and more people are talking about this - facilitators, knowledge management experts, and more. But, wedged in all the entanglements of organisational reality - accountability, reports, targets, and the like - how do we do this (by Tom Atlee, hat tip to Dave Pollard)? The unknown or everything that we know (however bad it may be)? How do we prepare people for this kind of trade-off?

My mission in life, forgive me for this, is to facilitate a conscious evolutionary process. Yes, I read these words today on Tom Atlee's site, but I have known this (in these very words) as long back as 6 years ago. In order to do this I need to understand exactly how we connect to the source in the most effective manner to bring about the individual and collective shifts that are required, to harmonise humanity with the flow of nature and liberate the full potential of human spirit. For this I need to know how to get people, systems and everyone else on-board. How to connect people in this quest in the most effective manner. This is what I need to learn. And this is what I need to get from my studies.

Let's see where this road takes me ;)

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