innerprocessHow does one sense seismic change at a systemic level? There’s not much debate that one happened with the landslide election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. But it is not clear, really, what this will mean.

I entertain the idea that each of us is interconnected with the whole at a bio synergetic level, in that we, as humans, can sense energy fields and probably fields of consciousness. At some level I think all living entities can feel each other. But it is not easy to be conscious of these connections. However, these assumptions lead me to honor looking at my own reactions (spirit, heart, mind and body) for some sensing of the whole.

Relief

I’m surprised at how calm I feel with political messaging disappearing and the uncertainty of who will win settled. I was anticipating sustained political unrest whoever won, but this isn’t happening, right now. I don’t live on social media so I may not be aware of what is happening on the dark net. But I’m very relieved there is not blood in the streets. My nervous system seems to be quieting.

Rising Compassion

In my heart I keep thinking about young men and their bleak prospects, at least for the unentitled, the incel, the trans, the ones that want to work withscreenshot-2024-11-09-at-2-24-44%e2%80%afpm their hands. We’ve underfunded vocational programs, kept social foot on the gas of “higher education” as the respected goal, and cranked up the social algorithms that are, in the name of “free speech” mainlining ever crazier material to young people on their phones and computers. My own extended family reflects some of this challenge. But rather than judgment I find myself feeling compassion. It’s clear that people at the economic bottom of the most extreme wealth differential since the 1920s are struggling and fed up. High butter, egg, and milk prices matter when you live on the edge.

Anger

I can barely watch, as a former journalist in the four-newspaper city of Chicago, what is now passing as journalism. It seems like a swirl of opinion and pundits on all channels. Benjamin Franklin created newspapers because he knew the colonies needed a sense of identity. Now local news sources are shrinking as rapidly as the ice flows in Greenland. And we are left with a national media clearly complicit in the attention economy’s appreciation that more catastrophic, violent and bizarre their reports the more people will watch. Disasters like the recent hurricane and floods don’t happen once—they loop the most jarring pictures days after day. I know from 2016 that CNN, who brought Donald Trump and the Apprentice to audiences, covered Trump 30% more than the other networks, purposely provoking and criticizing in what now seems like a political version of prime-time wrestling. Their bottom line turned black as a result. Everywhere I look people seem to be making money off the blame game and the escalating back-and-forth charges.

Fear

I’m a system’s thinker, after 45 years of organization consulting and visualizing the widest range of meeting and planning processes you can imagine. There are some things about systems that are well understood.

  1. They don’t change through tinkering and single solutions.
  2. There are always unintended consequences.
  3. The system called the “Ecosystem” is undergoing massive destabilization due to global warming that will destabilize many of its subsystems.
  4. Growing trusted systems is much hard than disrupting them.
  5. A tightly interconnected system is easier to destabilize than a more loosely coupled one (this is why nature is more resilient than large corporations).
  6. Systems do not present themselves so you can see, touch, and feel them like an object. Understanding one requires pulling together many perspectives and representations and long study. This is why research takes so long.
  7. Feedback loops help regulate systems, but if the feedback is not received and decisions adjusted, feedback’s stabilizing influence can result in overshoot and collapse.

This causal loop diagram of climate change, food insecurity, and social collapse provides a dramatic, graphic reflection of how difficult it is to understand (and stabilize) systems. (It is from SpringerNature).

systemcollapse-copyI’m getting more fearful as I type this list, presented as a tightening in my chest.  The chances of severe dysfunction couldn’t be higher, even if Trump were not in office.

Politics is Perception

I learned this through eight years of running Coro’s Fellowships in Public Affairs in the SF Bay Area. I lived through the time when TV became a factor during the rise of Diane Feinstein and meetings transformed from discourse to sound bite generators. People can’t really understand the systemic implications of decisions and policies right away, so spin substitutes for fact and analysis. We are in a time of myth making amplified by technologies we’ve never experienced operating at such a massive, manipulative level. And AI is just getting started in this game. Just as finance has been taken over by the financial computer jockey’s in the financial hubs, perception will be owned by the ones with the most ubiquitous and advance technologies. No wonder Elon Musk and the tech billionaires want to be in on politics. Their systems ARE the politics now.

Community

I believe that with system destabilization real, geographic communities will become more important again. We’ve need to know food and water sources more directly. We’ll need to know who can do what. We’ll need each other for support. This may be true of organizations that think they can sustain themselves virtually without real relationships as the continuity and “glue.” In the last week I’ve thought more about my own town of Petaluma than ever before.

Realizing Visionary Futures

I’m emerging from the election time even more committed to The Groves purpose of helping people and organizations realize their visions. The skills of collaboration, facilitation, and leading social change could not be more important.

Inner Stability

A concluding thought: If I can’t find coherence in my outer world very easily, I believe I can work on staying grounded in my inner world and my relational world. I can choose to be inspired by the example of Buddha, Christ, and people like Thich Nhat Hanh, who remained lovingly oriented all through the Vietnam War. I can choose to see my urge to blame and “other” people as my own experiences in not being accepted playing out in my projections. I believe that most people respond to love and respect, and that my ability to be that way starts with loving and respecting my own self, and the flow of my own soul’s journey.

I also believe that I can call on the land and nature itself to support me, even as my body slowly declines with age. I grew up in the mountains, and they remain magnificent, despite everything!

It has felt good writing all this. We are in this together As we say in our circles, I have spoken.

blue-marble-earth

 

David Sibbet agreed to respond to the questions that were asked in the chat during the Strategic Visioning: Origins and Theory zoom call held August 8, 2024. Here is what he thought would be worth sharing.

sv-originstalktitleResponses to the Strategic Visioning Origins Chat Questions

David Sibbet agreed to respond to the questions that were asked in the chat during the Strategic Visioning: Origins and Theory call held August 8, 2024. Here is what he thought would be worth sharing.

 (Washington, DC): This is a big question, but I’m going to ask anyway: I work with lawyers, doctors, law enforcement, engineers, and similar groups— I’m curious how these sorts of frameworks/diagrams land with them, and how you manage any visceral reactions you might receive in response?

I answered this question in part during the session, advising that people hold the SV model lightly, and appreciate its value as a framework—more like a window of distinctions—and use it for common language as people customize their own pathway through the process. I also stress that the different Graphic Guides® function like rooms in a house of conversations and are intentionally making room for all points of view.

But the various professions you mentioned do have biases in terms of how they work with information. Lawyers are trained in text and argument. Discussion and debate are certainly possible within an SV approach, but the visuals might not be so appealing. Doctors are steeped in evidence-based medicine, but many do accept intuitive knowing as part of the work. You could relate to them by stressing the four flows and consciously respecting all levels of understanding. Law enforcement has a bias toward rules and laws, as do engineers. However, the latter are accustomed to visual presentation of ideas and the orderliness of the SV process generally appeals to them. I’ve never had a problem working in high-tech with engineers. They love the visual approach. Karen’s response is relevant here:

(Germany): I think with any group, there will be resistance, questions, skepticism to any models/diagrams. Encouraging curiosity, asking questions, openness, acknowledgment has been helpful for me in using the model🙂

 (Templeton, CA, USA): I am fascinated to learn that there is meaning behind the vertical access of the figure-8 diagram in addition to the horizontal time access

Models and frameworks that stress horizontal linearity easily fall into the trap of working only one or two of the four flows. Having both past and future dimensions and also distinguishing all four levels of constraint is like the different between 2D and 3D imagery.

 (Ashburn, VA, USA):   💯 “dialogue over docs (lots of hearts and thumbs up).

 (Washington, DC): How does this model differ from Weisbord’s approach that addresses the past, present and future in his “future search” approach.

I acknowledged Marv’s application of visualization as supported by his awareness of The Grove’s work. The frame is a bit different in emphasizing finding common ground in both analysis of current realities and future scenarios. But Future Search does come back to action planning after the visioning, like the SV process. Future Search also sees the talk about context as being in the present. While in common it seems that looking at external trends and “like abouts” and “sorrys” are present, anything a person can identify and describe in language is actually already “past.” This kind of distinction is not necessary to have a good sharing about the context and SPOT.

 (Colorado Springs, USA): Are there any lessons learned from the emergence of the internet that might apply to the emergence of AI?

I thought about this after the session and several things came up.

  1. Having a new territory of possibilities opening as it did with the Internet and now with AI results in a “land rush” of new entrants, a lot of over-promising, and speculators wanting to make as much of it as possible during the beginning surges. It is interesting to ask yourself, who is selling shovels and trousers to the new settlers?
  2. Both are hugely disrupting the communication practices in organizations. There are many who say that organizations are shaped by decisions about how to communicate. During this disruption many who were competent in the old ways will be devalued.
  3. Both provide opportunities for process consultants who can help people navigate the new territory.
  4. Both involve a period in which new patterns and standards are forming and unclear.

I think there is one rather large difference. The Internet initially spotlighted the potential of groups of people networking and sharing in more effective ways. Phenomena like The Well inspired a lot of hope. Large companies used computer conferencing to sharing solutions in new ways. Remote work was supported. Eventually the internet became a backbone for the Internet of Objects, but that wasn’t part of the dominant narrative.

AI’s dominant image, on the other hand, centers on the awesome capabilities of machine learning, LLMs, and the like. There isn’t an overt emphasis yet on its role in human networking, except questions about how the algorithmic biases might make it even harder for marginal ways of thinking and expressing things to be shared. There are of course people imagining networks of AI-augmented assistants working at advanced levels of capability, but by and large the conversation is not about an evolution in social capability. 

 (Charlottesville VA): I am interested in the relationship between these models and the Team Performance Model. As a Coach for 20 years and exec before that, getting leaders and people to DO this is key 😉

Frameworks do emphasize different things. The Team Performance Model emphasizes the “turn” to a committed direction, because the difference between teaming and working in groups is the level of interdependence and coming together at stage four. The emphasis in SV is on cycles of conversation, because the way north star and other kinds of visions work is through inspiration and engagement. Both, however, assume the need for the four flows of human process to work together, and alignment in both systems is assumed to be stronger when they do. It is possible to move through the Team Performance Model with the same cycling pattern as SV. In process theory, the first four stages are a trial-and-error process, until the pattern of combination is determined. Teams sometimes start with a problem, work back to clarifying about it, then examine the trust and purpose levels to understand where the difficultly lies. Jen’s response is relevant here:

 (Richmond, VA USA): Last month I did a combo TPM/Strategic Visioning workshop (4 days) and it was AMAZING!  Have never had the chance to do both together.  Having the TPM to harness the work to (and I use “the work” broadly b/c it wasn’t just the work product but the dialogue/their behaviors/etc.) was so compelling as “model as map”… using the TPM to map against the strategic visioning.  And I compiled their wall maps in a Playbook, because they were so anchored to those visuals (esp. the History Map and the Bold Steps map). And I’m happy to share my design if anyone is interested. Hit me up here or on LinkedIn.  I’m sure it could be improved!          

I have done Strategic Visioning with groups to great success. I’m curious about how to best tee up the process 12-18 months later, referencing activities from the past workshop but honoring what has changed (people and projects) in the time since?

Reviewing the original big charts is very effective. A good second best is 11”x17” printed versions, which on reading are almost the same size to the eye as the chart in the meeting room. A third is to drop chart photos into a slide deck with additional narrative. Celebrate the evolution of thinking at the same time.

 (Germany): I am interested in learning more about the Team performance model. I introduced recently in group brainstorm of where the team is, but leaders were wondering how they can apply more on day-to-day basis with their teams. The Graphic History guide was great in helping to align everyone on history of team and release emotions and energy🙂

The most comprehensive written treatment of working with Graphic Histories is in our Team Leader Guide 2.0, available at www.grovetools-inc.com. My book, Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation and High Performance, is also loaded with information. You can also go to The Grove’s website and see the video from the last TP Origins Call.

 (UK): We know all groups are different – what are the key factors that support a group with setting up for success?

  1. Trusted leaders supporting the process.
  2. Clarity about the purpose of the process—understanding which crossroad issues need to be addressed with alignment.
  3. Clarity about who will be involved and why. If success is understood to mean the whole system knows where it is heading, then having a robust stakeholder process will be necessary.
  4. Clarity about how the information generated will be shared and stored. Transparency really helps.
  5. Understanding about who the process decision makers are. Having a process design team that reflects key constituents turns out to be very helpful in being successful and sharing the process design in a visually accessible roadmap.
  6. Consistency of pacing to sustain momentum.

 (Charlotte, NC USA): What do you notice about changes in narratives and dialogues for both people and the organization as the strategic visioning process unfolds?  What are the key principles and approaches do you employ to help people evolve during the process?

I shared about a recent client that was facing a deeply polarized set of units within the organization. Our approach was to encourage people to respect that it takes time, to encourage a history-telling process that was non-judgmental and inclusive of all points of view, and trust that the system would begin to flow and soften as people listened to each other. The narrative will evolve by itself as more and more voices are considered. We also notice that engaging people around their metaphors of organization in the context of vision mapping is a very good way to get people to loosen up from an old narrative that is too narrow and that focuses on ways of working that don’t really match the situation.

 (Templeton, CA, USA): Have you had the opportunity to work in an augmented reality or virtual reality space? 🙂

I spent a good part of 2006–7 building out a replica of The Grove in Second Life (search for The Grove). It still exists, and a group of us have been meeting in a second island called Third Life since them. I’m not doing formal planning in this environment but do use it for show and tell. The panorama of a meeting room that I shared in the presentation was a screen shot taken from The Grove HG in Second Life. Another perspective is below—it is a 3D environment. Recently our associate Brian Tarallo introduced me to Meta’s AR system. He is quite convinced collaborative design is possible with these systems.

gardenroomchartssl

Erik’s response in chat is relevant: He said:  Among other things, I was the customer of The Grove’s during Covid, and we did an entire strategic visioning process to create a new college within a university.  Everything was done on Zoom.

In a way the highly developed graphic environments in Mural and Miro represent a kind of “virtual reality” although the term isn’t usually used to describe these virtual canvasses.

  (VA):   Are you saying that in this process and approach the “Visioning” is equivalent to, or results in, a strategy as is being differentiated from strategic planning ala Martin and Rumelt?

I’m not deeply familiar with these two, but a cursory review of Rumelt’s approach suggests it is very similar to Rob Eskridge’s Growth Management Process. A lay definition of strategy is that it is a story about how to realize your vision and goals. To this extent cause analysis and problem solving become very helpful in moving forward. Grove clients often translate their strategic visioning work into formal strategies with goals and plans.

(she, her): Related. What does a high-quality north star look like?

I don’t think there is one answer to this question. To be a North Star (which is a metaphor, of course), it needs to be seen and understood clearly enough by the people articulating it and be constant enough that it provides directional guidance. For some organizations it is a statement that has gained complete alignment. For others it is an image with key agreed-upon vision themes. The main thing is to work until everyone involved says “That’s it!” The Grove’s north start statement is “Realizing Visionary Futures.” We both help people connect to their visions and follow through helping them realize them on the ground. Our bias is toward those clients who are working to create a thriving, sustainable future.

 (Hamburg, Germany): Organizations and consultancies tend to make many “mistakes” compared to this model, and then I in my work end up with requests for Vision Maps, where I sense that many things are not done or clear. But at that point they had already spent 50 to 250k on their process. How can we turn it around with the use of SV?

It is tempting to have illustrators create pictures of visions that don’t really have system-wide alignment and understanding behind them. One would hope that leadership would be receptive to a conversation about what it will really take to implement the vision, and about the value of engaging stakeholders in the kinds of conversations SV supports.

 (Baltimore Maryland):So, to clarify, (regarding your story about a graphic history) that the groups post in groups of cohorts based on when they joined the organization?

People post on the history individually. The “cohorts” I mentioned was simply a term I was using for a group of people that joined at the same time.” They don’t report as a group. I ask individuals from the group to describe what it was like at that time, and maybe invite a second person to add, then jump to a group that came later.

 (Baltimore Maryland): (Re the SPOT Matrix) I have always had challenges getting the participants from problems to opportunities—need suggestions to motivate the thinking.

I do what I did in the presentation which is ask people to do a thought experiment and think of a problem or weakness in their organization. I then ask if they can do this without having an idea that things could be different or better. I then wonder aloud if those ideas about how things could be better might be opportunities? I also explain that a good opportunity is a real choice you could make that builds on a strength or solves a problem. Someone always comes up with one.

 (Charlottesville VA): Curious if you have leveraged Appreciative Enquiry and their SOAR approach – it is more positive/future focused which seems like it would fit nicely… … but threats and problems are replaced with Aspiration and Results…

The SOAR model seems to be reflect SPOT analysis with its focus on Visioning and Goal setting (i.e. “Results”). I am persuaded that positive reinforcement of what’s working is the direct route to effective change. I’ve also been influence by the “Positive Deviance” approach of Jerry Sternum, who found that in any system there is always a subsystem that does things differently. If you can find those elements that support your vision and reinforce them, the system will begin to change. There is less resistance because the “deviance” is already in the system. I also think that my spin on Problems being “Disguised Opportunities” is an appreciate-inquiry stance. So in this sense I “soar”

 (Ashburn, VA, USA): “Systems change based on creative tension and creative tension is the difference between the top-line and bottom-line situation.” Who said this again?? Missed it.

The source of this idea is Robert Fritz, who was included in Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline.

 (Templeton, CA, USA): I imagine an opportunity for the leader to share his/her positionality prior to playing the role of choosing what makes it to the board. By positionality I mean, who they are, what prominent stories are, and therefore what biases, may or may not inform their choices. This provides more transparency, and I would imagine would encourage a democratic relationship in this context. I wonder if others have experience with doing this as part of the SVP?

By the time a group is doing the Five Bold Steps and converging on a shared vision and bold steps, everyone has heard the leader (or leaders) express their points of view in many ways. Part of the skill of facilitating is making sure this happens—during the Context Mapping, SPOT Matrix and Cover Story work. As you will find if you download the SV Process Overview (on The Grove website under Resources), there are several additional activities that can be included to make sure everyone’s thinking is out on the table. When I suggested the leaders were critical to convergence and what gets added to the Five Bold Steps template, I didn’t mean to suggest that the leader “decides.” However, voicing their positions can be influential. Most of the time the process is consensual, and I would keep a close eye on how much true resonance with everyone any suggestion has. If I don’t see that resonance, then I will invite more suggestions and work.

 (Charlotte, NC, USA) Some may say this is a matter of semantics, yet I do see it trips people up. How do you differentiate the concepts of Vision and Mission?  and add to that Purpose?

Organizations will use these words differently, so there is no standard that is assuredly workable except to find out what the local meanings are. As a rule of thumb, I think of “Purpose” and
“Mission” as the organization’s reason for being. Some would say the “Mission” is the North Star. Other would say the “Vision” is the North Star and the mission is the nearer term “objective.” Yes, it is semantics. It is very important that whoever will be communicating the vision has clear understanding of how these terms are defined.

Erik adds: One way to look at this is to look at the vision as an aspirational statement as to how to fulfill the mission. Missions are concrete, and not aspirational.

Deb also had a post about this: Some clients like the simplicity of vision being WHERE we are headed, mission being WHAT we do to get there and values being HOW, or the behaviors we use to do the mission to head toward the vision.

: It seems that this process supports the positive aspects of evolving in a VUCA world—i.e. Vision Understanding Certainty and Adaptability.

Very nice, although as much as people hope for certainty, I’m not sure that element is attainable. One of the reasons for creating a process roadmap for an SV process is to provide certainty about when different meetings will be held and on what platforms. Getting certainty where you can helps for sure.

 (Portland, OR): Do you find you need to go into the theory with the visionary leader in the planning process to get them on board? I imagine some are more interested in the theory than others, but that it is important in getting their deep understanding and support of the process.

We usually explain the Four Flows perspective as common language for designing any process. If they are interested in the underlying theory, we might get into it, but it rarely goes to that level. Consultants learning the process, on the other hand, are often interested.

 (Louisville, KY): How permanent is the North Star Vision for an organization?  As you repeat an SV process with a client (say, 5 years later) does the North Star Vision and Vision themes stay the same? Or do you “start all over”?

Clients often have a central theme that persists and may be incorporated in a motto or central headline in a vision. But the shared vision themes that often surround such a central focus do change along with the changing environment and its attendant challenges. Five years is a long time.

Now that we all are plunged into levels of uncertainty that seem unprecedented, the bedrock assumptions of western culture and leadership are being challenged. I want to share some reflections on visionary leadership through a personal lens.

i-see-you-banner

I am old enough to remember the cold war and hiding under a desk in case of a nuclear war (does this make any sense?) The fear in my generation was real, and our disillusionment during the Vietnam war was pervasive. I remember being amazed at the number of CEOs who claimed they had no idea their companies were polluting as Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring provoked a period of considerable media attention on leadership and their responsibilities. But today feels more serious.

In addition to rising uncertainty, we also face some very disturbing certainties. The world is steadily warming. Co2 is at its highest level in the last 400,000 years. We are not making progress in stopping this and the impacts are locked in for my and my children’s generation. And this isn’t the only disturbing certainty. As troublesome and less understood is the role that social media and AI is playing in fragmenting our awareness on the one hand, opening the world to everyone on the other, and fundamentally challenging assumptions about democratic process and collaboration. It feels like the attention economy is just another extractive mining operation not unlike the carbon economy, with profit considered legitimate so long as one ignores the impacts on children, local cultures (and now the globe itself)? This technology is on a runaway course just like global warming.

oldagebanner

What are we to do? And what have I, as a leader of several organizations, been doing all this time?

I’ve consulted to high tech, jetted around the world leading visual planning sessions, believed that collaboration and design thinking can make a difference, been a part of creating a new field of visual facilitation. But it doesn’t feel like enough. I realize I have not made deep enough friends with real uncertainty. Managing symbols on the wall is not enough. My ideas about visionary leadership are shifting well beyond appealing vision maps, as useful as they are.

Last year I attended a summer solstice gathering with colleagues in the change business. We were gathering at Sequoia Retreat Center near Ben Lomond, CA, amidst redwood forests that had been scorched by wildfire. It nearly destroying the retreat center but for the vigilance of many locals who risked lives to shield it. Many trees were blackened. In spite of that, much new growth was already coming through the ashes. Out of one of those groves I found a burnt shoot and married it with a hawk feather that had been on the path to breakfast. The feather is symbolic of the East and new visions. The burnt root of the fires of change we are  experiencing. 

Here is an image of the wand, sitting on my studio singing bowl. 

BurntSeerWand

The commitment I made this last year was to focus on supporting the new growth I see emerging in these times, to support new people learning to do change work, and to reach out and support people who have the courage to lead into our new challenges. I also committed to “see” this new growth—not in the future—but right now. What does it mean to be a “seer” of the new? What does it mean to experience potential when there are no clear rational ways to realize it? What does it mean to let the light into the present, and to stand in the ashes and look at the emergent new?

I don’t have a list of ready answers, even while taking a stab at some in a recent Grove article on Visionary leadership that appeared in our journal. What I have is a new hope, and a belief that there are others who dare to have these kinds of visions—visions filled with light and potential but not the clarity of plans—and held by people who know that inviting others into the co-inventing required to move forward is possible, and exciting, and the true hope. I want to find and support these people.

This is my vision for our Global Learning & Exchange Network (the GLEN). This is my vision for a new Grove that focuses on supporting visionary leadership. This is my vision for letting our do-it-yourself tools for visioning and change be available to the world through Grove Tools so people can connect with their own seeing. This eco-system of a consulting firm, a non-profit educational wing, and a tools business is something I’m experiencing growing under my feet, with the involvement of many others, and can now be a platform for this new commitment.

 My vision is to serve the light that comes into the darkness when we still ourselves and open to guidance and the new growth that is always emerging. I’m moving toward another Summer Solstice this June, a July vision quest on Mt. Shasta, and a silent retreat in Germany in September. My intention is to look more deeply into this calling and ask what it intends for me to do now.

Stay tuned. I plan to share about what comes through on a regular basis.

My heart teaukrainewomanrs open every night watching the news about Ukraine. I’m working at feeling it—listening to the people, to their leader, to their mothers, to the reporters. We send support, but the feelings seem critical. War severs connections. I don’t want to disconnect.

My doorway to feeling Ukraine links to the time when I was lost my beloved Susan to cancer after 46 years. The world I knew fell apart. So, no surprise the other night that I took some time to read journals from that time and began peeling the scab of understanding off my memories. So much more was felt than I wanted to feel. There was an incredible vastness and pain during that time, but I also found that within that cracking open came a vision. That vision is back calling me.

What emerged was a long piece of writing. This feeling business is not easy. But I share it anyway, and hope you can hold it as a story crucible for your own grieving, and a mirror of what we all may be going through. (The  story is condensed from my journal in July of 2011.)
—————————————————————————————————————–
CANCER RECURS
“Susan and I are in the slip stream of cancer.” I wrote on July 4, 2011. “We went to the Kaiser ER the evening after she nearly fainted coming down the stairs from the CPITS (California Poets in the Schools) offices where she worked and coughed up a dime-sized clot of blood. The x-rays and CT scans that evening showed 7-8 ‘lesions’ in her lungs, two in the left, and six or in the right. The ER doctor’s face said volumes when she brought back the images. She brought us a poem. IMG_0135.JPG

In a few days we were able to see Dr. Morton Stein, a pulmonary doctor at Kaiser. He ordered a biopsy. Afterward, I had a complete meltdown. I drummed the circle in our backyard and was racked with sobs and grief. All my experience with Joan Browning, our Grove designer who died of ovarian cancer at age 50 and with Connie Eskridge, my best friends Rob’s wife who died of liver cancer at a young age all came up. I knew this would be a long, hard road no matter what result, and that the chances of Susan’s surviving such a large recurrence were probably slim.

The biopsy took a couple of hours and presented us with a moment of panic in recovery when pains and lightness of breath sent us scrambling. The nurses responded with morphine. The crisis passed. The x-rays showed no catastrophic side effects (like a collapsed lung). Now the wait.

I had work in Portland and asked friend Carolyn to come over and stay with Susan, which she did. Susan texted on Thursday saying it was indeed a recurrence of the endometrial cancer from two years ago. That Friday we got all the pathology reports from Kaiser and found out the name was metastatic uterine / endometrial adenocarcinoma.

The following week I was scheduled to go on a vision quest at Mount Shasta with Chayim Barton, a Jungian therapist I’d been vision questing and counselling with for many years. These quests were sacred times for me. But I called Chayim that Friday and told him I wouldn’t be going.

Instead, I worked steadily on developing a network of resources and information surrounding this condition. Susan’s gynecologist was not available, nor was Kaiser’s cancer specialist who had worked with us before. But Rob knew of a very experienced oncologist, Dr. Laurence Heifetz, who now worked at the Tahoe Forest Cancer Center near Rob’s home in Truckee. Dr. Heifetz had retired from Cedar-Sinai in Los Angeles but Rob, serving on the local hospital board, helped bring him up to Truckee. Dr. Heifetz agreed to meet with us, so we arranged a trip to Truckee with all our data. Susan and I spent the weekend getting rocks and working on the back yard, our favorite place to commune together.

POSTPONED VISION QUEST
We drove up to the Tahoe Forest Cancer Center on Tuesday July 19th. “Larry” was terrific with us. I brought the x-rays and CT scans on a disc, and all the biopsy slides plus the pathology reports. Since they showed a 90% receptivity to estrogen and progesterone, Larry said that suggested hormone therapy initially, with that much receptivity. “I don’t believe in home runs,” he said, “but steady singles.” He was also clear that there are no cures for this kind of cancer, and that the best we can hope for is to slow it down and learn to live a chronic disease.

That evening we got a call from a Kaiser medical oncologist we’d been trying to reach, Dr. Alfredo Lopez. He took a different tact. He said this condition will surely require chemotherapy initially, to reduce the “tumor burden,” and that hormone therapy wouldn’t do that. So now we had two different opinions and the intensity of this ambiguous journey increased.

I was surprised that Susan was as good spirited as she was in all this. We took the call from Dr. Lopez at the Ritz Highland Court above North Star in the mountains north of Lake Tahoe, a treat we gave ourselves at Rob’s recommendation. It turned into a most tender and amazing time of cracking open. It seems my psyche knew I was headed for a vision quest and provided.

After swimming and steaming in the spa, Susan and I met up with Rob. He had taken the time to come over and have dinner with us and of course share stories. He’d lived the cancer journey with Connie. After eating Rob told us a story of asking Connie toward the end of her life when she had decided to stop chemo what she most wanted to do. She said “I want to go to Taos.” So Rob took her, and at a special church there gathered some healing dirt and brought it back to a special altar, where it has been since.

“I want you to have it,” Rob said, and gave the small vial to Susan. This gesture went right into our hearts. Something deep in our field shifted.

We went on to share stories about Rob’s being the adventure grandfather with Dacian, his grandson, out at the Buttes, an expanse of land north of Truckee around the core of old volcano—flat on top, rugged and scalable on the sides. At the heart of his story was his sadness at not being able to share this with Connie. Susan shared about leading our grandson Reid on an adventure walk along a small creek across from their home in Portland, and then working with him to map it out. I remember, for some reason, recounted an experience at a Summer Solstice gathering where I talked to Archangel Michael on an imaginary journey to the stars. It was a very special evening and got even more special as Susan and I fell into each other’s arms later.

THE NORTH STAR DREAM 
A powerful dream woke me at 4:30. It was dark, warm, a summer night. The dream was a transmission of twelve principles of leadership that if lived, could help people hold the challenges of our times. I dreamed of a gathering of leaders who were holding these principles and opening to having purpose pour forth through their integrity and discipline, creating a renewing well of insight and hopefulness. The principles, I realized as I woke, were reflective of the main directions of Arthur M. Young’s Rosetta stone, a system I’d been studying and using for years. In the dream, they merged with the medicine wheel, which I had also been studying with Firehawk Hulin, reflecting the Origin Teachings of the Delicate Lodge. Clear as a bell they were being held by these leaders. Clear as a bell these archetypes pointed to a deeper unity under separateness.

I could not go back to sleep. I rose and recorded the dream in detail, using my color pencils in the dark. Here is the journal page from that night.

NorthStarVision7-20-11a

Four actions gave rise to four qualities which, upon reflection, fostered four perspectives. Held fully, they could transform awareness, as they shifted it. It was immediately clear that these roles could be learned, and practiced, and that ensembles of citizens and leaders and “holders” could create circles like the one in my dream, and that the holding power of them could be strong enough to endure the full butterfly effect—when struggling imaginal cells finally gain enough strength to grow wings in the middle of the molecular soup that was once a caterpillar.

I stayed awake, just letting the dream energy stay with me. as I wrote. I then had a vision of Connie, Rob’s deceased wife, carrying a fetus heavenward. (She was a former nun, hospice worker, and intuitive). I became that fetus and traveled to the Pleiades with it. It spoke to me and said it represented the spiritual child in both Susan and I that needed nurturance right now. That my job is to tend that birthing, that this crises was truly a new beginning.

FEEDING THE DEMON
I came back to my bed and in the early morning felt led to do a “feeding the demons” meditation regarding the tumors. I learned this process from Lama Tsultrim Allione, a Buddhist bringing forward the work of the 15th century Tibetan abbess Machig Labdrom. Demons, for Labdrom, were any physical, mental, or spiritual states that stand in the way of enlightenment. These represent locked energy that will move if they are accepted and loved, rather than met with fighting and fear. Labdrom trained women to work with plagues this way. I learned about Allione’s process on an earlier vision quest at Joshua Tree National Park from fellow quester Vivian Wright and practicing all the drive home. I subsequently got Allione’s book, Feeling Your Demons and practiced myself.

Lying in bed with Susan asleep beside me, I began by holding an image of the tumors in my mind and asked them to appear in form I could relate to. They appeared in my mind’s eye as the fetus I’d imagined earlier!
• I asked the fetus, “What do you want?”
• It said “LOVE.”
• I asked, “What do you need?”
• It said “PROTECTION.”
• I then asked, “What would you feel like if you got what you need?”
• It said “RELEASE.”
These answers felt very powerful.

I then, following Allione’s process, meditated on feeding this little white being the love and protection it needed along with honey nectar. To generate this feeling, I imagined the love I feel for my granddaughters and poured it out. Allione’s experience is that the image will, after some period, transform into something else. Simply feed it honey nectar and love and wait.

I stayed at this for many minutes. Slowly the image shifted. The fetus began to crack open on the top of its head like an egg. A baby condor emerged!

I remember my heart beating wildly at this point. I accepted the image and let it become full in my imagination.
• I asked tentatively, “What can you do for me?”
• “I can eat death and transform it into life,” it said.
• “What is gift do you have for me?” I then asked.
• “I can bridge between the worlds for you.”
• “How can I call your energy?” I asked finally.
• “Think of your studio and what you have symbolized there already!”

Condor and the SaintI remembered instantly that at the center of my desk altar I had placed a condor icon my brother brought back for me from Peru. Then at the very opposite of my doorway was another miniature condor sitting on the head of a rock Buddha that Lightening Dove painted. A final realization was seeing, in my inner eye, the huge phoenix kite with condor sized wings that flew over the meeting area in the studio!

It was now 6:00. I was in a reverie. Susan could sense this. We didn’t talk much but went out walking in the early dawn. We found and sat in a field of flowering mule ears—green velvet with yellow flowers reaching for the morning sun. I shared my vision with her. We simply sat and cried for a long time.”
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FOLLOWING THE BREAK CRUMBS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
I’m back in 2022 rocked by the feelings surging through me as I remember this time. Reflecting on Ukraine feels like seeing the x-rays on that visit to ER. I know there is worse to come. It will change everything.

In my new studio in Petaluma, I notice some things.

feeling-thinkingThe image of the North Star Vision I drew up in 2011 had found its way into Adobe Illustrator, then Photoshop, then several years of fine tuning the language, going back to references, and more hours redoing the subtle graphics, I noticed that this image has ended up on the center of my stand-up writing table, in the place of greatest intention.

I create sand tray altars as a practice of self-awareness. I am open to the idea that letting intentional placement of associated items can be a dollhouse size embodiment of a Feng Shui Bagua practice, in this case inspired by my North Star Vision.

Here I am, 11 years later, fully aware the world is flirting with nuclear war, and the people of Ukraine are being wantonly crushed. Why is this image at the center of my attention? It was placed there months ago.

I am also realized that I chose this picture to start my 198th journal on March 1, already rocked by what our European friends are communicating. I titled the journal FEELING AND THINKING, to support my practicing this in the coming. What might it look like if our current world leaders understood and held these principles, I wondered, and what it might look like if our Global Learning & Exchange Network took these principles seriously in practice? What will it look like if I live these principles?

Perhaps this time is that cracking open that will yield a REAL shift in consciousness. If only I have the courage to feel and hold those feelings in love. If only WE have the courage to feel and hold these demons in love.

So, I share the Leadership Circle image here in larger format in this spirit. While the Ukrainian crises is unconscionable, and more horrors are quite likely, my deepest hope is that our collective circumstantial liminality will create a social field so potent that within it visions of a sustainable future will arise.

Following is my writer’s “walk” around this circle, as a meditation on deep loss, insufferable pain, and the need for steady helmsmen in this uncertain time. I’m writing in a poetic way—compressing, layering metaphors, bringing in informal language. Read it knowing I was imagining speaking to current leaders and myself.

the-leadershp-circle3

WALKING THE LEADERSHIP CIRCLE

Face the Eastern rising sun and Awaken to Possibilities. What freedom and creativity will come if we drop “superiority,” the elevated visionary’s robe of distortion? Open to the magic of the spiritual child.

Awakening will lead to Opening to Present Conditions, to understanding that true presence is the doorway to the mystery. This isn’t an action, but a shift in my personal field, a shift in our larger social field. I step through the threshold.

This opening leads to making Deep Connections with what I already know and feel, and the emergence of unexpected insights and understandings. We are part of an alive organism that calls for relationship.

Knowing in this way leads me to face South and feel the challenge of standing in the heat of real experience and the power and danger of many people acting out of passion arising. The way forward is to have the courage to Transcend Differences, rising above interpretation, stories, biology, appearance, and forms in a bursting out of compassion, energy, and love.

The release helps me Re-member Intention and its importance in guiding action. Let intention find its expression in my physical body, where it moves, where it sits, where feels at harmony with purpose. Let intention resonate in the social body. This is about experiencing a coherent field.

In the process I become Aware of Assumptions. My intention pushes up under my clear headedness like roses in the spring and I feel my assumptions being challenged. Can deep purpose wake us up? What is most important now? Am I “othering” this crisis and only observing? Is my motivation material survival or gain? Am I willing to reach out and really touch the others?

As the sun sets in the West, Honoring Group & Personal Needs rises like a moon of collaboration across from the sun of individual expression. And so much of what this means hinges on what I mean by “needs.” Is it to tune into more subtle personal and social fields, keeping a window open for the divine? Is it for water, some blood, a gun, a grave?

Honoring lets me Experience Interrelationships. It’s the opposite of “othering.” It’s how whales work. It’s what trees do in the forest. It’s what people do with stories big enough to hold everyone. It is responding when I hear calls for help.

The force of my intention bumps into the rigidities, the chaos, the procrastinations, and I wait for the alignment and openings that I know will come. I hold Respect for Timing. “After learning the notes and chords, you must learn to play on time,” says my music teacher Randy Craig. “It is the key to playing with others.”

I now, the North, Walk the Talk. I have a body. I have organizations. I can contribute. I can witness and listen and respond. I know that universal truth will guide right action. I chant to myself “Connect the thinking and the acting. Connect the acting with the walking. Connect the talking to the walking.” This is what warriors understand. These are the leaders people follow.

While walking I keep Guarding Against Judgement. In action I will make mistakes, I’ll have an impact, I will disrupt. Can I watch the shadows as well as the light? Pride sneaks in. Elevation sneaks in. Blame creeps in. Can I remember that even the mightiest were born of women? Can I remember we call live with our inner child?

Seeing Both Whole & Parts is the circle’s gift to leadership. It is the way of the facilitator and the alchemist magician. “We need to take another trip around our circle and hear from all our directions again,” the magister says. It’s the Circle Way.

Face the East and waken to possibilities. “Walk” around the Leadership Circle yourself. Let me know what you find. You are invited to write your own way around by simply keeping the bold words and explaining what comes up for you otherwise in your very own way. I’ll post any I receive.

In the meantime, feel Ukraine, and be ready for visions to emerge.