Offerings, Gifts, & Invitations
Just before you leap
The past few days have been surprisingly warm. They say we're having a heatwave here in the UK. Looking up I see a vast blue sky outstretched above me - it is the kind you could fall into.
Walking down the streets here in Bristol, I hear the songs of blackbirds and the coo of mourning doves. Lilacs hang over the sidewalks, bluebells line the roads. Bristolians are out in sundresses and shorts.
The opening all around me mirrors the space I sense unfolding before me
I submitted my PhD this week. In its wake, a new sense of space opened up within me. It's wide open and tinged with a whisper of loss.
Yesterday, a friend told me that after submitting his PhD, he felt a kind of void within him.
Even though I can't let go of it yet, I can feel the end moving closer than ever before. 2.5 years of travel, between countries, of working at the edge of what I thought was possible, moving toward an end
I am beginning to imagine what it will feel like not to be in Bristol every 60 days—to not wake up with the awareness of some milestone I need to meet.
As I try to imagine what this new phase will be like, I notice a tendency for thoughts and ideas to rush in to try to fill this newly opened space.
Recently I listened to a podcast with Otto Scharmer. He spoke about the practice of "letting go to let come" a core idea in the theory u practice. Listening to him speak I understood this practice to mean letting go of what we know so new thoughts and fresh ways of being can emerge.
Days later, I am left thinking about how maintaining an open space invites us to continually let go and, in some moments, actively resist the persistent thoughts that tend to arise when a space opens.
As much as there is an opening within me, I have also noticed a part of me holding on to the edges of what I know. I feel like a young bird that is about to fly but still grasps onto the branch where it is perched. I noticed how parts of me would grasp without even realising that I was doing so.
Grasping is a fundamentally human act. We grasp something in an attempt to know it more fully. We can hold on out of fear or embrace something or someone out of love. Sometimes, we might grasp onto something that defines us because we are afraid of losing a sense of who we are by letting go.
Without that job, identity, physical feature, or relationship, who would we be?
As a gesture, grasping tends to focus on what is within reach—be that physically or conceptually. Physically, we can grasp onto the closest relationship or object to maintain a sense of stability. Conceptually, we might reach for the closest interoperation or frame of reference to try and understand something that falls outside our known frames.
When I try to grasp the future, it is often from a place of what I already know or infused with deeper layers of understanding and associations that I have been steeped in my whole life. Sometimes I don't even realise the deeper stories that are shaping my perception and orientation to the present and the future.
As I sense into the space before me, there are forces within that space. One that is shaping my sense of the future is AI. I have been trying to understand how I feel about AI. I notice something in me feels hesitant to embrace it wholeheartedly, but I haven't fully understood
This month, I am ready for a book by Coeckelberg called AI Ethics.
He points out that the conversation about AI is in essence one about what it means to be human. He gives examples of the ways in which we can relate to AI. One is through an apocalyptic lens which see's AI as a threat to humanity as we know it. Another is through a posthuman lens which looks at how AI can help us transcend the limits of being human. He goes on to discuss several other as lenses. Each has its own ethical implications.
Reading Coeckelberg got me thinking about the stories we carry within us that shape how we relate to others and to forces in the present and future, such as AI. Last year on the Alive and Learning Podcast with Ivana Gazibara, she said that changing narratives is systems change.
Change begins with how we relate to the world, including the future. How we relate is directly shaped by the stories we tell ourselves and others. These shifts are a form of systems change.
When something ends, be it a PhD, our time in a physical place, a relationship, or the end of an era, a space will open. In this space, before we commit to any single path of action, we have access to a multitude of possibilities. In this space, we can also choose what stories we want to tell ourselves about the world and our place within it.
How can we tend to the openings that arise after an ending long enough for something new to be revealed?
What I’m Reading
AI Ethics - By Mark Coeckelbergh
This book goes beneath the hype surrounding AI to explore multiple storylines surrounding this moment in history. The author points out that the opportunities and challenges of AI ultimately raise questions about what it means to be human. Instead of focusing on nightmare or utopian scenarios, Coeckelbergh raises concrete questions for anyone to consider.
What I’m Listening to:
I’ve been familiar with Sharmer’s work for years, but it wasn’t until last week that I felt it grab me. Hearing his story about how he got involved in the work he is doing now helped me connect the dots and understand his work in a whole new way. For example, he spoke about his experience growing up with parents who were biodynamic farmers and how tending to the soil informs the health of everything the garden will produce.
Building upon this notion, he shared the idea of the social soil as a means of tending to the ground from which all of our efforts will grow. He reflected on how the soil worldwide has eroded due to monoculture and pesticides. He compares this to our social systems, suggesting a similar tendency: there is often too much extraction without giving back to the sources that nourish us all.
This is a two hour session with up to five practitioners. During the session each participant will have the opportunity to bring a question or case they wish to explore from multiple angles. The session is called Pattern Literacy, because hearing multiple cases helps hone our pattern recognition, our ability to notice patterns across diverse cases and expression of human experience. I have been offering these sessions through my PhD studies because they are one of my favourite spaces for learning. Each session I am struck by the depth of participants work and the wisdom they share with others who are present.