Trusting the Process and letting things Emerge in the Dog Days of Summer

Magpie and I have just returned from the vet in Cheltenham, Ontario, to see how his his foot is getting on after a run-in with a car in the drive way. There remains only a quarter-moon sliver of rawness now where before there was what seemed to be a Grand Canyon of spilt flesh and exposed bone. I was hoping the bandages would come off but the vet felt one more week was needed to be sure.

The journey to the vet is a 40 min drive and to make use of the time ‘Pie and I like to listen to the Human Current podcast. The show is available on Soundcloud and its providing an informal education for me in complexity and systems thinking, now well over its 100th episode but I started from the beginning which is perhaps a little too linear in my thinking and I will now randomise my listening. I’ve coupled this with Sante Fe Institute’s wonderful Complexity Explorer Website with its many great courses.

Its helped me think very differently about the present moment and avoid some of the anxiety of being ‘in-between’ formal employment. I left a great job as Living Landscapes Officer at Surrey Wildlife Trust to follow my head and take up a post as Visiting Scientist at the University of Waterloo on the Hedgelaying In The Ontario Landscape Project: and also to follow my heart to be with my (now) fiancee Sarah. To stay permanently I have applied for residency and an open work permit. My contract at UoW has now ended and a recent attempt to kick-start it failed when we were unsuccessful in an apploication for an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant for our Gifts of The Green Belt Rural Skills project. This apparent hiatus in my career and financial independence is anxiety-provoking and frustrating. Viewing it through a complexity lens, its become an opportunity.

Today Pie and I listened to two episodes. The first was about the idea of challenging the idea of formality in education. Entrepreneur Issac Morehouse in Episode 11 “How to be Your Own Resume’ talks about his company Praxis- conceived in a ‘flow’ state- which pairs young people with business leaders and allows them to set the focus of what they want to learn and achieve mastery in.

Praxis as a concept is a combination of theory and practice. Morehouse talks about a changing world where you can’t just sit on an educational ‘conveyer belt’. However we naturally seem to have an insecurity about bringing something new into the world, a fear of not being qualified enough, often called ‘Imposter Syndrome”. To overcome this he recommends ignoring the audience and working instead for the internal change. Praxis is learning to fly while you are building the plane. Figuring it out without direct knowledge. You don’t need to have mastery before practising. You are either a writer or not, there is no trying to be a writer (sounds much like something Yoda might say. Practising then opens you up to learning through feedback. I am of course thinking about how this can be related to crafts and skills, and its obvious in spoon carving that learning can ONLY take place with a hands-on approach.

Working towards personal mastery involves a network of skills, passions and ideas a journey driven by curiosity and exploration with creative problem solving at its core.

In Episode 12, Angie Cross and Stacey Hale talk about their own learning experiences and agree founding the Human Current is one of their most radical learning experiences. The podcast was started as a way of exploring connections and building systems through ‘casual conversations’, a wonderful example of learning while doing.

Complexity and Health Policy expert Michelle Battle-Fisher in Episode 13 relates how she became s systems thinker and outlines how she thinks a systems thinks:

1. See the whole picture
2. Willing to change perspective and see place to intervene in a system
3. Interdependency of variables
4. Concerned with the now but pay attention to long term
5. Go wide re causes of problems
6. Focus on structure & interaction
7. Don’t rush to solutions when controversy emerges
8. Visualisations

My life hasn’t been one straight forward educational track. I dropped out of formal education at 17 to work in a bookstore, then returned after 9 months to complete my A Levels and head off to University to study history. I dropped out again after 2 years to work as a motorcycle despatch rider for a year then I worked in care for 10 years with people with learning difficulties and challenging behaviours. In 2000 I went back to University to study ecology and my career in environmental conservation began. I have trained as a Druid, learned Tai-Chi and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy to cope with depression. I carve spoons and lay hedgerows.

I had this vision earlier of sitting with a globe in front of me spinning it on its axis, looking for a way in…an entry point…or a leverage point perhaps?

Now there is Ontario Rural Skills Network, Gifts of The Greenbelt, craft and sustainability research, participatory narrative inquiry, volunteering for Caledon Climate Change Task Force, Mount Wolfe Farm and so many other threads.

Its time to craft something new out of all this, something emergent. Trusting the process, making it safe to fail, quelling that fear of not being qualified enough.