Changing the conversation is changing the culture
Our domain of action – as Nick described here very artistically – is first of all conversational, but we envisage its scope of impact to be universal; because deep inquiries and good conversations are the foundation of all change and innovation projects. It is through our language that we create our world. We might say that group conversation – the deep dialogue we see is needed – is the pinnacle of human evolutionary achievement, the Mount Everest of human consciousness developmental challenges, the cultural moon shot of the next decade… it is what the current peak of evolution is asking us to master next as a species… So we start with this basic capacity to support authentic self and generative flow (at the same time!) everywhere else… We are well aware that we still have to learn a lot. You can read in Part 5 about the hobbles that we stumbled over in our community, but through the shared practice there is a new foundation from which we can look into conflict, into change, into the unknown future.
The fascinating thing is that these kinds of dialogues, non-linear as they are, are inviting in an aspect of life that we mostly leave out of our daily conversations: the interconnectedness, the interweaving of patterns, the deep complexities… just as Cheryl describes here:
Mystery – Grace, by Cheryl Hsu
The other day, T. shared lyrics to the middle: “I want to be beautiful, so that I can serve eternity.”
And just like that, lightning strikes and everything holding my body together shatters into particles. Tears flood down my face. Everything that feels ugly in me is offered to the centre, and I am held in inextricable, luminous wholeness. My body shakes, and I cry softly. I am witnessed and held by the other two women in the field.
In the aftermath of these experiences that can only be described as numinous, I feel at peace and full of wonder, like I’ve been touched by grace. It is not unlike the experience of architect Christopher Alexander after he climbs up the stairs of the Buddhist temple and is visited by a dragonfly.
“As I sat there, a blue dragonfly came and landed on the step beside me. It stayed. And as it stayed I was filled with the most extraordinary sensation. I was suddenly certain that the people who had built that place had done all this deliberately. I felt certain – no matter how peculiar or unlikely it sounds today, as I am telling it again – that they had made that place, knowing that the blue dragonfly would come and sit by me. However it sounds now, at the time when it happened, while I sat down on that stair, there was no doubt in my mind at all that there was a level of skill in the people who had made this place that I had never experienced before. I remember shivering as I became aware of my own ignorance. I felt the existence of a level of skill and knowledge beyond anything I had ever come across before.”
How did this come to happen? What are the conditions, the design patterns, the architectural affordances that came together to form this timeless moment, as though it was by deliberate design?
What Collective Presencing invites are these moments of meeting your dragonfly, of making contact with the beloved. I’m always surprised in every session. These aren’t just ideas, they are living and embodied. My animal body yearns to connect more, to make more contact, to create more life. I don’t know what will happen. I tremble. My heart beats. I speak, and what comes through is more mysterious, more whole, than I can imagine.
I want to participate with the mystery that moves my trembling body.
I hope that you do not read this as the lovesick ramblings of a person drunk on the early infatuations of love. Because what is here is very sober, very steady, very fierce.
You see, describing Collective Presencing is challenging, like describing love. I can’t pick it up and show it to you, break it down into atoms and point it out under a microscope. I tell you that it matters deeply. You’ll know it when you feel it. At least, that’s what the poets and songwriters tell you anyway. Don’t look for it, because it will find you. And suddenly, you’ll feel it through the interdimensional passage of time, space and memory – the remembrance of your mother’s kiss on your forehead, fluttering like the shimmering wings of a dragonfly.
We will now dive deeper into what it takes, in personal and interpersonal capacities and even spiritual capacities to actually host dialogues well. On the surface it is really super simple, as you could read so far; but there is a lot going on that isn’t visible to the naked eye. Indeed, as Cheryl’s entry here speaks about Mystery and Grace – words that were not part of my daily vocabulary when I started this journey – that is more and more where we will end up. Not in any woo-woo or fluffy way, but in the sense of wholeness and interrelatedness. The stuff that living complexity is actually made of: everything-is-connected-to-everything.