Creative Tension

No Comments

With colleagues, I’ve been building out five self-paced programs, based on the previous 10 years of in person and online Zoom delivery of workshops. The Creative Tension framework is one that we have used across all programs. It was suggested to me to make ONE reference to it, to minimize link complexities. So here it is…. One of my favorites. The full, short chapter from Generative Scribing that includes it is called Choice.

Creative Tension is a foundational framework to consider when developing the ability to exist within—and manage—change. Robert Fritz first introduced the model in the context of creativity and organizational learning. In Visual Practice programs, the team has adapted its use to support a scribe’s development.

Essentially, “current reality” is represented at the base, “vision” at the top, and—as if the two were connected by a rubber band—the “creative tension” between them can expand or contract depending on how far apart the top is from the bottom. To relieve tension, we can relax the vision or positively shift reality. To increase tension, we might grow the vision while staying fixed in the existing reality. Either way, the hope for the development of a practice is that reality improves and vision can also slowly rise.

The video below further explains the model. It’s useful for all stages of learning. (I have to say to Robert Hanig, Peter Senge, and Bill Isaacs: forgive me if I am butchering and simplifying the breadth of this model, that I learned from each of you in it’s fullness.)

Practice

  1. In a journal, identify the vision for your visual practice on the top of the page.
    Where would you like to be?
  2. Then at the bottom of the page, add your current reality.
    Where are you with your capability today?
  3. And then in between, describe the creative tension that you are holding, and identify a few steps you might make to work with it in an intentional way.

References

Robert Fritz, Creating: A practical guide to the creative process, Random House Publishing Group (March 31, 1993)

Levels of Scribing: Methods

No Comments

There exist depths, or phases, of scribing that directly correlate with attention. Different “levels” of listening can help us participate in a shift of awareness and possibility. Otto Scharmer has described four levels of listening: (1) downloading; (2) factual; (3) empathic; and (4) generative. I apply each level of listening to the visual practice of scribing, as depicted below, and you can read more on each level here.

Methods of Scribing

Furthermore, there are various methods of scribing that fit within, and support, each level. Among these are:

Scribing

Scribing (also known as graphic recording/facilitation) is a visual practice that has increased in contemporary use since the 1970’s. An artist maps out ideas while people talk, and they can see a picture unfold right in front of their eyes. The drawing establishes connections within content, aids with insight, and supports decision-making. It’s essentially a language that weaves words and pictures to facilitate group learning and cultural memory, and is now embraced around the world as a popular social art and meeting tool.

Systems Scribing

Systems Scribing is an experimental visual practice that combines graphic facilitation with the science of systems thinking. Systems scribing can be done in the moment or it can be iterative, providing cycles of feedback while it uncovers dynamics and interdependencies. The method strives to produce visual artifacts that make implicit structures and behaviors explicit, supporting ongoing reflection and thinking over time. (Co-created with Jessica Riehl.)

Generative Scribing

Generative Scribing advances these practices by extending the range of the practitioner to an entire ecosystem, while drawing with an attunement to energy. A generative scribe calls particular attention to an emerging reality that is brought to life by, and for, the social field in which it’s created. Because of its interactive and co-creative nature, it serves as a device for social seeing, while offering a route to a sacred way of being, where the spirit of our humanity prevails over any individual agenda.

Visual Presencing

Visual Presencing is the act of two-dimensionally representing an experience of presencing. “Presencing, the blending of sensing and presence, means to connect from the Source of the highest future possibility and to bring it into the now”. (Otto Scharmer) Presencing also means “being with”, in order to access the potential of a moment, to open to a channel of spirit. Visual presencing aids with this attunement, both for the artist during the creative process, and for those engaging with life force through a picture. It can be practiced in private, or embedded as a method within the more social art of scribing.

Visual Sensemaking

Visual Sensemaking (as we now apply the term) is a method that uses two-dimensional language to “unpack” a current condition, inquire into its complexity, connect with source through presencing, and reveal an emergent, more coherent, possible future.

In Application

All methods are valuable in the right context, and can be combined in application at the same time, in conjunction, to enhance one another. Part of a visual practitioner’s skill is to quickly discern which approach is most useful when, and to be able to shift modalities in an instant.

For example, I might start scribing a session with a mindset that a systems method is most useful. I define parts, relationships, and feedback loops. But after drawing for just 20-minutes, I might realize that the group and system have a container strong enough to allow for deeper meaning to come through the experience, and I will slow down to pay finer attention to the tone and field, while starting to bypass more of the factual data.

It can go in the other direction, too, where I begin with a more generative approach, but realize the content calls for greater definition and clarity. The shift then would be to increase the inclusion of words and details, while suspending my inclination to attend to the energy.

Again, all levels of scribing are useful and necessary! None are better or worse than any other. And to note, there are dozens of other practices that fit within these levels (terms like graphic recording, graphic facilitation, sketch noting, mind mapping, etc….) The main thing to keep in mind is RANGE.

“Sneak Peek” Presentation

From a 30-minute zoom session, hosted on Jan 21, 2022 with Marie-Pascale Gafinen. See more context and examples for each method. (Eight seconds per slide, if not otherwise animated.)

 

 

Being Ordinary

No Comments

Photo from April 4, 2020, in Walden Woods, MA USA

(Bringing this old blog post forward from April 12, 2008.)

In recent class on Theory U and the process of Presencing, Otto Scharmer said something to the tune of “be as ordinary and real as possible.” And then I heard a piece on NPR about the Dalai Lama in regards to Olympic protests… amongst other things how NORMAL he considers himself to be.

This links back to “growing down” from Hillman’s The Soul’s Code: “Until the culture recognizes the legitimacy of growing down, each person in the culture struggles blindly to make sense of the darkenings and despairings that the soul requires to deepen into life.”

There are 4 ways he suggests to do this:

  1. Body – going with the sag of gravity that accompanies aging.
  2. Be among your people and a member of the family tree, including its twisted and rotten branches.
  3. Live in a place that suits your soul that ties you down with duties and customs.
  4. Give back what circumstances gave you by means of gestures that declare your full attachment to this world.

In a way, it’s rooting in the real – the ORDINARY, acknowledging place, family, our bodies, and present moments in our daily lives – recognizing being. It’s to say, “I am this tree, with its falling arm, with its budding leaves.”

Additionally, have been reading Josef & Anni Albers’ Designs for Living where Josef’s purpose in life was “to open eyes.” Their guiding principle: “aesthetics are not confined to a single area of life, but count immeasurable in all choices in life and, moreover, affect the way we breathe, the way we feel at every waking moment, our sense that all is right in the world or that something is painfully wrong.”

Every day moments. Wet earth. Relaxing into the real and a sense of being. Letting go of grand gestures, sweeping aspirations, idealized life – trying to love what IS.

Finally, on a recent trip to Kripalu, took notice of this quote on the wall, from Mother Teresa: “Do small things with great love. It’s not how much we do—but how much love we put in the doing, and it is not how much we give – but how much love we put in the giving.”

Summer Research Institute

No Comments

It was a great honor and pleasure to participate in Mind and Life‘s recent Summer Research Institute – as contemplative faculty offering scribing of key faculty talks, and as a member of the community integrating mindfulness into current daily life. The theme of the program was “Cultivating Prosocial Development Across the Lifespan: Contexts, Relationships, and Contemplative Practices”. The sessions offered a particular nest for healing, in a week thick with reckoning after the police murder of George Floyd, and during continual Black Lives Matter protesting and awareness-raising around the world.

Some process and technical info: I worked on an iPad Pro with the Procreate application, to draw out eight pre-recorded 45-minute talks. Then for the final closing remarks, i scribed using an IPEVO document camera to share the live drawing into the Zoom meeting room. I carefully picked one palette of ~12 elemental colors at the onset; the images below show a range of various combinations. As in life, art.

A deep bow of appreciation to the entire Mind & Life team – Bobbi, Josh, Juan, and Ryan – to all the faculty, and especially to my dear friend Robert Roeser, for including me in this transformative experience and the support along the way.

Developmental Contemplative Science: Framework for the Study of Prosocial Development, with Phil Zelazo
The Role of Contemplative Practice in Cultivating Cultural Humility and Inclusivity in Research and Education, with Kamilah Majied
Trust and Fairness in Development, with Philippe Rochat
Compassion-centered Spiritual Healthcare, with Jennifer Mascaro
Our Stories Are Our Medicine: Centering Culture and Healing through Story Work with Indigenous Communities, with Ramona Beltrán
No Place Like Home: Decolonizing Our American Dreams and the Necropolitics They Bury, with Jasmine Syedullah
Contemplating 400 Years of Inequality: A Mindfulness & Compassion Community Practice, Angel Acosta
School-Based Promotion of Children’s Empathy, Kindness, and Altruism: Emerging Research, Lingering Questions, and Future Directions, with Kimberly Schonert-Reichl
Closing Remarks – A Summation of Takeaways

Wilma Rising

No Comments

There is a story to tell, but for now, i will let the images do the talking. Each builds into the previous, conceptually for ten years, and literally now for 13 weeks through the GAIA Journey. Continual unfolding, enfolding, unfolding. See a reflective video of the final evolution here.

Images from GAIA, last to first:

Images that informed the GAIA drawing, last to first: