Activating your Wisdom Ecosystem
Part 2 of a series dedicated to Grown Ups growing up
Hello Hedge Schoolers,
Sending you blessings as I write part two of our Cultivating Wisdom series. Last week we set the scene. Set the framework for the agents that are at play in a Wisdom ecosystem. We identified the role of organisms, the need for diversity to broaden our worldview, and the importance of place. This week we will dive into the interactions that take place. We will look at how we relate to each other and how we deepen those interactions. We look deeply at sovereignty and the impact of trust and agency on our growth and development.
The Right Relationship
To begin requires the development of the Right relationships.
The Right Relationships with the other organisms.
The Right Relationship with Place.
This begins the breaking down of barriers. To enable transformative learning, we must be willing to let our guard down. To enable the flow of learning between the relationship. Learned development is done with each other. Not to each other. To begin we must start with presence.
Presence is the greatest gift we can give a moment. It sets the foundations for trust. Sets the foundation for emergence to occur. It enables the magic that occurs between us to be brought to life. In each moment, we have what I call Presence Agency. We have choice to give our complete selves to the moment. We have the choice to speak others alive with our listening. Through the radical acceptance of all that is offered, we create more trust. And more trust leads to greater surrender to the group. Greater surrender to our own nature to allow what author Steven Pressfield calls "the adjacent possible" to show up. The possibility available in every transaction if we create the right conditions. You will have experienced this at some point in your life. The moment where the AHA moment kicks in. The moment where two minds come together and through trust and surrender, they create something that would never have been conceived of before. The magic of what Michael Meade calls the "the third way". Dialogue is how we as human beings do this. We trust in each other, create energy through a rich dialogue of listening and 'yes and' thinking, and viola, the third way appears.
There are many names for this.
Flow.
Wu Wei.
Causal Flow.
Emergence.
It is wedded in spontaneity. Rich in novelty. Effortless, but not without effort. Insight cascades into insight and we see pattern after pattern. This dynamic unity is a union of the highest degree. There is no you and I, there is just WE. This can only be known through experience. We need to be in action. We need to have surrendered to the moment.
To allow the dynamic dance between us to unfold.
Dialogue is how we commune with each other. Between us, we create the conditions for alchemy to take place. Indigenous Australians call this Yarning. I call this Conversational Alchemy. We are forever different after powerful dialogue.
A famous example you can check out is Bohm Dialogues. These are recordings of dialogues between Physicist David Bohm and Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. Dialogues where the right relationship, open conversation, and short feedback loops led to value coherence and conversational alchemy. There is no better example of the meeting of Science and Spirituality. Two spaces that come with extensive ideological positioning which without the container of trust can dissolve more than unite.
Dia-logos, Intuition, and Flow
We also dialogue with Place. The origin of the word dialogue is the Greek word 'Dia-logos', which translates to 'spoken through'. When we enter a space, our senses collect information and we are in dialogue with the place. The smells, sounds, sight, etc... provide constant sources of information to interact with. Through our senses, we learn about the environment explicitly. We are largely conscious of the feedback we receive. Beyond our senses, there is also information that we interact with that we are completely unaware of. This is called Implicit learning and is the basis of our Intuition. That gut feeling you get is due to your Implicit Learning about your environment and the organisms in that environment.
This is the unseen relationship.
And the reason it is extremely important to be aware of is that it can impact our cognition for the better or worse. Implicit learning picks up on patterns. These can be causal or correlational. Causal patterns confirm our gut instincts. Correlational patterns confirm our biases. The challenge is that we are unaware of this learning.
So how do we know that we are moving in the right implicit direction or the wrong implicit direction?
This is where flow helps. In his fantastic series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, Cognitive Scientist, John Veraeke explains that flow and implicit learning use similar conditions for pattern recognition.
Clear information
Tightly coupled feedback
Error matters.
Vervaeke defines flow as “an insight cascade”. When we are deeply present, we gain insight after insight, which leads to greater pattern recognition. The information channel is clear, constantly updated through feedback, and adjusted based on this information. Flow works in harmony with our implicit learning.
“These two are reinforcing each other because the insight gets your cognition to explore for new patterns and then the implicit learning picks up those new patterns and then those new patterns enhance your ability to restructure. And then you keep exploring for new patterns acquiring the new patterns of implicit learning and you keep ratcheting your skills up. Getting into the flow state is deeply deeply enhancing of your cognition.”
Professor John Vervaeke
When we are in the right relationship with our environment, we can increase the quality of the information signal. We can learn and adjust based on that information and this can greatly assist the improvement of our learned judgment.
Agency
Agency in a relationship is incredibly important. When we defer our agency, through control or disengagement, we increase our foolishness. Foolishness is either self-sabotage or imbalanced power dynamics.
Self-sabotage is where we get in our own way. We are in our own stories. Disconnected from the moment. Being in our stories derails our presence.
Which derails trust.
Which derails unity.
To combat this, we must first become aware that we are the blocker. We must move from the mind to the body. Play, movement, mindfulness, or expression are powerful practices to become embodied and move more into the moment.
The second derailment is power. In a container being led by a teacher, control is a tightrope between power and emancipation. With greater freedom being on one side and oppression on the other. According to Zak Stein, author of "Education in a Time Between Worlds", a great teacher within an ecosystem can constrain freedom in the right way to yield greater freedom. This is done when learning is done WITH you, not to you. When we engage with the wise elders within our ecosystem, learning must be done in partnership.
Trust. Love. Agency.
Are all pivotal to this relationship.
Growth Seasons
Our growth in learned judgment is dynamic. In our own way, in accordance with our own nature. Progress is not linear. It is a constant course correction with steps backward, sideways, and forward. Growth constantly emerges. Our goal is to create the conditions for deep immersion to the moment. To give in to the ebb and flow and to appreciate the progress and regress. There will be death to the old ways. Which provides compost for the new. We must be prepared to shed the skin of our old ways to grow holistically.
To grow holistically, we need a rich palette of assessment tools overtime to give us a 360-degree view of how we are growing. Dialogue with critical friends, Johari Window, Voice Dialogues are but a few fantastic tools we can use to paint that picture.
The changing of our State is another pivotal piece of the puzzle of growth. Altered States of Consciousness allow us to catch a glimpse of a higher peak.
To experience oneness.
To decouple the narratives that knock out us out of the moment.
As we learned previously, flow allows us to spontaneously merge and emerge with place and other organisms. This enables us to see patterns we wouldn't normally see. To catch a glimpse of that which is just beyond sight.
And to return different. With a new awareness.
We do need to be mindful of our internal drive to get out of our own heads. Constantly chasing the high, the bliss, the state, can lead to an unwillingness to do the hard work. Growth is death and rebirth. And so we must be willing to experience the trough so that we can be provided the contrast needed to find the third way.
Our Wisdom ecosystem, like any ecosystem, is sensitive. Subtle changes can impact the balance tremendously. Life changes. Relationships. Cycles of our lives. Can all impact. Either positively or negatively. Take note of the adaptation. Take note of the seasonal changes. Viewing our wisdom cultivation like the weather allows us to enjoy the impermanence of each pattern. The highs. The lows. The in-betweens.
They all matter. They are all temporary.
Our goal is to be in Integrity with where we truly are. Integrity means to ‘hold shape’. When we hold our shape, we honour our sovereignty. This alignment with where we truly are allows us to flow as we need. To respond and adapt as we need.
As always, it is my honour to house space in your inbox. The weekly deep inquiry has continued to shed light on my own thinking and your feedback continues to gift me. If this has landed for you, please share. If there are elements you wish to push back on, please enter into dialogue. For I am always open to shedding my skin of thinking.
On a separate note, I am 90% through the first draft of my first book. A deeply personal poetic meandering of my own growth and transformation. I look forward to bringing this to your inbox soon.
Much love,
Steve