Thank you for another beautiful article that, as is your norm, zooms in and out from the deeply personal to the deeply profound, between think and feel, hope and waking up. I will always appreciate the natural power of the tree metaphor, but another visual came to my mind, triggered by the graphics you shared, of following the lines of the figure 8. I drew it out but I don't see how to add an image here so I attempt to will describe it. Look at an 8, and no matter where you start or what direction you take, travel along the line of it up and then down (or vice versa), from clockwise into anti-clockwise (or vice versa) and around again. If we position ourselves so that we keep the poles in the centre of each circle of the 8, we can keep ourselves a healthy distance from becoming sucked into the pole, always circling it, always moving.
This article was helpful in setting my attitude for writing an email to a "potentially" divided family with siblings living both in the USA and Canada. We are in a difficult and potentially divisive situation where our Canadian values and USA values are potentially at odds. Your writing and past experience reminds me that all viewpoints are helpful when they are "managed" in balance and when people are not left behind, disrespected, abused, mistreated, etc. There is a notion of "common sense" that depends on underlying values, but there is also a notion of the necessity for "common respect" , "common decency", "common goodness, truth, and beauty", that must always be considered as the foundation of "common sense" that is biased to one set of values over another. Respect, Love, Truth, is never to be compromised, if a TRUSTING relationship is to inhere.
I think you’d enjoy Integral Polarity practice, which goes beyond simply tolerating/ embracing the both-and /ness yo harnessing the tension as a creative tool for growth and waking up.
Thanks for this insight; it has given me so much food for thought. It seems to me that for the last few years a preference for binary, simplistic answers which can be easily linked to a particular identity or interest group has been at the root of many serious problems. But this is based on an illusion. I worry greatly about the rundown of arts and humanities in education because these are precisely the disciplines that teach us how to navigate ambiguities. I also appreciate you taking the time to read this piece out yourself. It makes it so much more compelling than listening to an AI.
I love the metaphor of the tree, Elizabeth. I am reminded of a saying from Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Mystic/Poet/Writer. "Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree".
This was excellent and so informative. So much truth revealed! I started crying reading the quote from Jeremiah and loved your insightful descriptions of what a tree does.
People's beliefs so easily prevent them from "failing to discern what is most important in a situation". Breathing is such a good analogy for how humans must operate individually and socially. I wonder if you feel that you are not breathing when you appear to be fence sitting during an interview. Or is that when you are breathing the most deeply!
Thanks for this lovely post. I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Deeply provocative and beautiful, Elizabeth! And, with my passion for friendship, by the time I was nearing the end of this, I was struck by four words near the end: "Roots down deep friends." I immediately loved seeing the nearness of those words. Like, a little movement here and there and suddenly we see something like "friends with deep down roots." Imagine in light of your post, friends with deep roots with differences!
I love that this blobby abstract idea that has been floating around my head unseen like a ghostly presence has now been made manifest into something tangible by your piece. Thanks Elizabeth.
Thank you Elizabeth for that radic rooting, the only thing I’d add to that is that Christ is the source and nutrition of our roots. Without him all biblical verses doesn’t make sense. And that is also my ‚problem ‚ when I talk and share about roots. As long as I leave my Christian faith out of rooting, everything is great. People assume that just roots alone is great, but they don’t do anything with connection to the source
EVERYONE needs to read this. It's such a profound and accurate analysis of our time - without being hard to follow. We swing violently and often unconsciously from pole to pole - opposing each other - and getting sicker and sicker.
But to be deeply rooted in ground, soil, love, faithfulness, our deepest identity, drawing from the streams of Life - THAT is what will bear the fruit we most need, the nourishment for our sad and hungry souls, the shelter from the scorching heat and, by the way - this article title from BBC news last year - Mature trees offer hope in world of rising emissions.
Outside the city of right and wrong - there is a tree. I'll meet you there!
"In congregational settings or political groups the tension is often around those who want to emphasise particularity and belonging, building a thick and distinctive culture, and those who are concerned with being welcoming and accessible to those outside the existing group." Love this expression - and it feels alive for me in current group-community forming processes I'm in!
Very much chiming with the roots and branches metaphor here, especially as I've been playing with the seed/fruit aspects with permutations of Holy Hand pomeGranates.
This is what I want to highlight and also probe further:
"The more relaxed we have become with our weirdness, our counter cultural beliefs and practices, the more at home in our skin, the easier hospitality has become..."
And so the community of practice, the messiness of the mass-ness, the entanglement, is where we live and weave.
The cultural ecology for me, in this tree metaphor -- is context and specificity -- what tree, where, what else is going on? Donna Haraway's 'sitting with the trouble' is in the acknowledging that the ants are in conflict with the bees, the chipmunks collaborate with the birds in the branches, the constant churn of death and live, conflict, discord and accord.
"...We go back and forth between the poles."
Maybe this is the double bind -- we have got to improve our geometric vocabularies -- perception training, rather than binary opposites. Yes polarity is real, and so is multi-dimensionality. Stretch it, thicker description, get to know the territory.
The riddles, the pickles.
We are spirits, yet we still obsess about the mental constraints.
Know thy/our self, and manage y/our energies thus, in this flow of space/time.
A lovely article Elizabeth and an analogy that resonates deeply with me and several of the collective wisdom groups I commingle with regularly. Here's a timely post that emerged this week that speaks to the deep and wide impact of authenticity/sincerity and the longevity of care.
One method I've personally used to transcend polarity is to frame problems through a "values sail" that holds 3 common values in tension. If one or two values are "let go", the values sail falls flat and is no longer able to propel you forward in a values-aligned direction. The sacred, or spirit of value, is visibly and existentially felt when using a value sail in this way.
The usefulness of 3s is reflected in Jonathan Rowson' latest essay was well:
Thank you for another beautiful article that, as is your norm, zooms in and out from the deeply personal to the deeply profound, between think and feel, hope and waking up. I will always appreciate the natural power of the tree metaphor, but another visual came to my mind, triggered by the graphics you shared, of following the lines of the figure 8. I drew it out but I don't see how to add an image here so I attempt to will describe it. Look at an 8, and no matter where you start or what direction you take, travel along the line of it up and then down (or vice versa), from clockwise into anti-clockwise (or vice versa) and around again. If we position ourselves so that we keep the poles in the centre of each circle of the 8, we can keep ourselves a healthy distance from becoming sucked into the pole, always circling it, always moving.
This article was helpful in setting my attitude for writing an email to a "potentially" divided family with siblings living both in the USA and Canada. We are in a difficult and potentially divisive situation where our Canadian values and USA values are potentially at odds. Your writing and past experience reminds me that all viewpoints are helpful when they are "managed" in balance and when people are not left behind, disrespected, abused, mistreated, etc. There is a notion of "common sense" that depends on underlying values, but there is also a notion of the necessity for "common respect" , "common decency", "common goodness, truth, and beauty", that must always be considered as the foundation of "common sense" that is biased to one set of values over another. Respect, Love, Truth, is never to be compromised, if a TRUSTING relationship is to inhere.
I think you’d enjoy Integral Polarity practice, which goes beyond simply tolerating/ embracing the both-and /ness yo harnessing the tension as a creative tool for growth and waking up.
https://theippinstitute.com/
Thanks for this insight; it has given me so much food for thought. It seems to me that for the last few years a preference for binary, simplistic answers which can be easily linked to a particular identity or interest group has been at the root of many serious problems. But this is based on an illusion. I worry greatly about the rundown of arts and humanities in education because these are precisely the disciplines that teach us how to navigate ambiguities. I also appreciate you taking the time to read this piece out yourself. It makes it so much more compelling than listening to an AI.
I love the metaphor of the tree, Elizabeth. I am reminded of a saying from Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Mystic/Poet/Writer. "Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree".
This was excellent and so informative. So much truth revealed! I started crying reading the quote from Jeremiah and loved your insightful descriptions of what a tree does.
People's beliefs so easily prevent them from "failing to discern what is most important in a situation". Breathing is such a good analogy for how humans must operate individually and socially. I wonder if you feel that you are not breathing when you appear to be fence sitting during an interview. Or is that when you are breathing the most deeply!
Thanks for this lovely post. I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Deeply provocative and beautiful, Elizabeth! And, with my passion for friendship, by the time I was nearing the end of this, I was struck by four words near the end: "Roots down deep friends." I immediately loved seeing the nearness of those words. Like, a little movement here and there and suddenly we see something like "friends with deep down roots." Imagine in light of your post, friends with deep roots with differences!
I love that this blobby abstract idea that has been floating around my head unseen like a ghostly presence has now been made manifest into something tangible by your piece. Thanks Elizabeth.
Thank you Elizabeth for that radic rooting, the only thing I’d add to that is that Christ is the source and nutrition of our roots. Without him all biblical verses doesn’t make sense. And that is also my ‚problem ‚ when I talk and share about roots. As long as I leave my Christian faith out of rooting, everything is great. People assume that just roots alone is great, but they don’t do anything with connection to the source
EVERYONE needs to read this. It's such a profound and accurate analysis of our time - without being hard to follow. We swing violently and often unconsciously from pole to pole - opposing each other - and getting sicker and sicker.
But to be deeply rooted in ground, soil, love, faithfulness, our deepest identity, drawing from the streams of Life - THAT is what will bear the fruit we most need, the nourishment for our sad and hungry souls, the shelter from the scorching heat and, by the way - this article title from BBC news last year - Mature trees offer hope in world of rising emissions.
Outside the city of right and wrong - there is a tree. I'll meet you there!
Thank you Elizabeth.
I also love the biblical tree image! It's so cool that you shared that verse from Jeremiah. My personal favorite passage on this is Psalm 1:
1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
The Bible Project also has a great theme video on this:
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/tree-of-life/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_video
"In congregational settings or political groups the tension is often around those who want to emphasise particularity and belonging, building a thick and distinctive culture, and those who are concerned with being welcoming and accessible to those outside the existing group." Love this expression - and it feels alive for me in current group-community forming processes I'm in!
Hi Liz, the mystic eclectic fairy here ;)
Very much chiming with the roots and branches metaphor here, especially as I've been playing with the seed/fruit aspects with permutations of Holy Hand pomeGranates.
This is what I want to highlight and also probe further:
"The more relaxed we have become with our weirdness, our counter cultural beliefs and practices, the more at home in our skin, the easier hospitality has become..."
And so the community of practice, the messiness of the mass-ness, the entanglement, is where we live and weave.
The cultural ecology for me, in this tree metaphor -- is context and specificity -- what tree, where, what else is going on? Donna Haraway's 'sitting with the trouble' is in the acknowledging that the ants are in conflict with the bees, the chipmunks collaborate with the birds in the branches, the constant churn of death and live, conflict, discord and accord.
"...We go back and forth between the poles."
Maybe this is the double bind -- we have got to improve our geometric vocabularies -- perception training, rather than binary opposites. Yes polarity is real, and so is multi-dimensionality. Stretch it, thicker description, get to know the territory.
The riddles, the pickles.
We are spirits, yet we still obsess about the mental constraints.
Know thy/our self, and manage y/our energies thus, in this flow of space/time.
This is such a helpful observation, and so memorably put. Thanks Elizabeth.
Wow, I just love this, Elizabeth. Thank you.
A lovely article Elizabeth and an analogy that resonates deeply with me and several of the collective wisdom groups I commingle with regularly. Here's a timely post that emerged this week that speaks to the deep and wide impact of authenticity/sincerity and the longevity of care.
https://read.fluxcollective.org/i/156638811/sincerely-yours
One method I've personally used to transcend polarity is to frame problems through a "values sail" that holds 3 common values in tension. If one or two values are "let go", the values sail falls flat and is no longer able to propel you forward in a values-aligned direction. The sacred, or spirit of value, is visibly and existentially felt when using a value sail in this way.
The usefulness of 3s is reflected in Jonathan Rowson' latest essay was well:
https://jonathanrowson.substack.com/p/the-threeness-of-the-world-1