This year has begun with a whirl. I blinked and opened my eyes to find myself well into January.
Here in Portland, we had snow, then rain, followed by cold winds and sun. Like the weather, the year so far has brought a flurry of contrasting qualities. More seems to be happening in a single day than it did years ago. Things are condensed and accelerated.
At the same time, while the weeks are zipping along, I’m experiencing a spaciousness. Walking down the street I see the moss growing on a tree I’ve walked by hundreds of times yet I never noticed it before. Seeing this shifts my perspective, I slow down and suddenly become aware of the smell of the wet leaves decomposing on the sidewalk, and the sound of a hummingbird chirping from the camelia bush several feet away. My perception widens, and more of me arrives or gets online in this moment, I drop in.
Even in the midst of a busy day, I’m still finding a moment to gaze out the window, to watch the clouds move, sometimes fast, and sometimes slow across the sky. I’ve been noticing these moments, in contrast to all the areas of life that feel accelerated and wondering, is my sense of time and life, changing?
Three days ago someone told me that time is in fact changing, “it’s becoming more elastic” they said. Thinking back over the past few weeks, time in many ways feels like taffy. It stretches out in slow motion revealing a pocket of timelessness that envelops me in the depth of a moment only to recoil into enough tension to spring back and move at rapid speed once more. It has more play than it used to, or maybe I’m just waking up to how time really can be.
In the stretchiness, I am finding more opportunities to engage with the nature of my experience as it unfolds through time, there’s more play and wiggle room. And in the back of my mind I hear my teacher Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s voice, “it's all made up” she’d say. It's as if she's reminding me that even the things I see as stuck and static are in fact more like elastic too.
The stretchiness allows me to play and iterate with whatever is happening. And when things feel stuck this is a great relief. I am reminded we can always find movement. Movement and change are in fact constant forces. Remembering this also brings me great relief.
So, as this year begins, and you find yourself wherever you are, I hope time and space are bringing you unexpected gifts. I hope these ‘times’ are expanding your sense of what is possible and reminding you of all of your inherent capacity - that network of potential within you in all its dimensions and colorations.
What I’m Reading
Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience - by Brené Brown
Reading Brene’s work is a breath of fresh air. In a friendly, say it how it is tone Brown lays out a map of human emotions. This book is like a hybrid of a beautiful book you’d leave out on a table in your living room, combined with a guidebook to the feeling realms of being human.
The thing I love most about this book so far is her use of personal examples and imagery, including a headshot of her in the ’80s.
What I’m Listening to:
find here: https://thecynefin.co/library/re-emergence-complexity-yarns-with-indigenous-thinkers/
My colleague Carri Munn recommended this series of conversations between indigenous thinkers and complexity scholars to me. Once I started listening it was hard to stop.
Tyson Yunkaporta, the author of Sandtalk, facilitates each session engaging each speaker and sharing his own perspective. The series bridges perspectives from Welsh culture, Indigenous Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Turtle Island.
Together the speakers shine a spectrum of perspectives on topics such as power, myth, networks, decolonization, and so much more. Each perspective builds off the others, in a way that allowed me to make connections between disciplines, cultures, and worldviews that were entirely new yet deeply resonant.
Zach Bush, M.D. on connecting with our infinite potential- on Optimize with Brian Johnson
In this 34min podcast Zach Bush, MD, speaks about the incredible potential of what it means to be human. Speaking from the grounded yet profound reality of our bodies, Dr. Bush covers the details of our physiology, how we generate more energy than the sun, and how we can work with fear to inhabit more of our nature.
What’s your focus or quest(ion) for the year?
For me, the shift into the ‘new year’ arrived around solstice time. My focus for this year is clarity, both inner clarity, for example in hearing myself think and learning to listen, and outer clarity, in seeing through the fogs and veils of this world and continually asking questions to cultivate further clarity.
This year there will be some changes in how I work and what I’m offering. My hope is to begin synthesizing and weaving together the different threads of the work I do to create offerings that respond to the questions that are arising in my work with clients.
Here are two upcoming offerings:
It’s just over a week till Randal and I begin teaching our series Cultivating a Regenerative Brand Practice.
In the first class, we’ll revisit the mythic approach and explore how the fractal within your brand’s myth can align around a sense of purpose.
In my work with networks, I’ve been discovering how purpose creates a center of gravity around which many perspectives can gather, learn and iterate together.
In our work together I’ve been discovering that your brand is its own network. In other words, your brand can be a dynamic ecosystem that reflects different aspects of you, if it’s a personal brand or different facets of the offering it is bringing to the world if it’s not as personal.
In the first class of our series, we’ll support you to tap into the animating spark within your brand fractal and write a manifesto to evoke your brand’s identity. After that, we’ll explore brand stewardship and support you to take the next steps in developing your offerings.
In April I’ll be co-facilitating the Network Leadership Series, NLS, alongside my Converge colleagues Carri Munn and Nick Viele. NLS is designed to build your practice of network leadership through active engagement with frameworks, practices, and the experience of fellow network leaders.
The series unfolds in weekly online gatherings over 2-months. Each session offers small group learning and builds depth across our core topics of network mindset, coordination, and engagement.
Learn more here: https://www.converge.net/trainings/network-leadership-series
As always please feel free to be in touch!
Warmly,
Elsa