Under all distraction and perceived fragmentation lies a coherent whole.
In any moment, under pressure–at a wall ready to draw, or in the midst of an argument with a loved one–when we want desperately to understand of things, we can inquire into an underlying order. “How does this make sense?”
We only need to look into the woods to understand this principle. Once on a mini “solo” retreat, I remember the feeling of awe when looking closely into a patch of richly entwined roots that lay with mushrooms and moss and twigs and insects and lichen and leaves and bark and earth. They represented pieces of the forest, all jumbled into one spot. And, at the same time, there was absolutely no separation between the parts. There was a perfectly natural co-existence of life forms in simultaneous decay and growth.
Another way to explain coherence was presented by physicist and dialogue pioneer David Bohm: “Ordinary light is called “incoherent,” which means that it is going in all sorts of directions, and the light waves are not in phase with each other so they don’t build up. But the laser produces a very intense beam which is coherent. The light waves build up strength because they are all going in the same direction. This beam can do all sorts of things that ordinary light cannot.”
This is probably where my practice starts to lean towards the mystical, because I correlate coherence with a belief in universal oneness.
Aikido master Richard Moon, writes: “The universe is one system, a unified field of energy of which we are a part. When we feel ourselves a part of the universe, we feel where we are in the flow of Creation, we naturally experience a connectedness with the earth. Feeling this connection effortlessly heals the isolation that characterizes modern life. Life becomes connectedness and we find ourselves in empowered alignment with the universe as it unfolds.”
In applying this principle at the wall, sometimes I will draw a large curve or shape, seemingly out of nowhere. No one in the room has said “And it all starts with a large circle…” But in the moment, I am likely feeling ungrounded and am seeking assurance, and this is where coherence comes in.
I quiet the rambling mind, look at and into the wall, and have a quick conversation with that surface: “What is your story today? What wants to be seen on your gleaming white surface?” Obviously the wall does not talk back. But… in a way it does. I receive some sort of impulse towards a certain gesture, a direction, even a color. And I go from there.
I trust that the mark will fit with all marks to come, that the mark is originating from some deep unseen place of aligned intent – like Bohm’s laser – and, through my hand, will manifest into something that makes cognitive and aesthetic sense.
There is a similar alignment to be found in conversation.
If I find myself ramped up and ranting about how someone has “done me wrong!”, latching onto the face value of the exchange will likely limit my growth. Instead, seeking the coherence in the situation can increase compassion and development. “How and why are these things playing out in this way, at this time?”
Putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes is a first step to shifting awareness about where that person might be coming from. Trying to see the entire exchange from above can enhance perspective. And seeking sense in the underlying root causes can further increase understanding.
We have to see a larger, more entwined, interconnected picture to be able to discern any one fragment.
If I draw isolated elements, it’s as if I display an arrangement of rocks collected at the beach. They’re beautiful, and dismembered from their original context. (And I do this all over my home!) When scribing, we do re-contextualize elements all the time, and that is where coherence can aid us; we can re-order with our will and impose structure on content and/or we can inquire into a natural, whole emerging state that is seeking birth.
Seeking coherence demands a lot of trust.
Whether it be a picture on a wall or an awkward conversation with a coworker–trust encourages us that this picture or conversation is exactly what is meant to unfold in this window of time. It’s a piece of a greater context, not yet known.
Influences to this thinking: Bill Isaacs, Barbara Cecil, Glennifer Gillespie, Beth Jandernoa – and this post is for the mighty, always coherent Alicia Bramlett
By acknowledging the limits we face, and tapping into our natural talents, we overcome deficit to find true strength.
When first learning to scribe, I was incredibly intimidated by colleagues who could quickly produce realistic pictures of people, animals, buildings, and objects from memory. Some people have this innate ability, where they pick up a pen, start working at a wall, and everything they make is recognizable. They listen. They draw. Go!
But that definitely was not me…
It took 1-2 years of very dedicated journaling, where I wrote words alongside sketches, to realize that my style – my true voice – was going to have to be something new, to me and to others. It would be some mix of what I knew my hand could shape, and a processing skill unique to my brain.
What resulted was an organic, nature-based approach* that more accurately represented how I saw and made sense in the world. I failed quite a lot in private and public while figuring this out. And my strength – surfacing coherence – only became clear after many, many years of this too often awkward and aching process of experimentation.
And this leads me to the point of authenticity. When learning to scribe, I emulated others. Our teams would literally “wall copy” to document the work, which really is an excellent introductory way of learning.
To uncover our unique gifts and give them shape, though, requires an additional kind of diligence.
We grow when we follow our curiosity – whether it be working with leading thinkers, visiting museums, or gaining exposure to other disciplines and art forms. Our view of things shifts as we take on new vantage points, like walking a route normally driven, or flying above a field of grain we are used to seeing as cereal in a bowl.
Additionally, we settle into our authenticity as we start to listen to our internal voice, the one that says: “This is true. Yes.” To the impulse in the gut: “Okay, go with it.” To the heat rising through the veins: “This matters.”
As we hear these messages and listen to them – like we would take advice from a mentor or a coach – we inhabit our truest self, the one that has been waiting all these years for us to grow up, to show up.
We learn through copy. We advance through integration. We master by tapping into our own source.
* Thank you Bryan Coffman, showing me there was a place for abstraction
On the path to opening, softening, relating, clarifying, DOING.
Orient at core, knowing that all practice calls for root grounding and sky extension.
Being matters, because if we operate from a false self, from a self that turns first towards outer measure and pride, we risk taking on action in the direction of projection. We make decisions based on expected outcome.
Do we draw because we anticipate someone will applaud? And if they don’t, where does that leave us? Deflated, feeling unacknowledged, inconsequential?
If we draw from the mind and hand alone, disconnected from interior knowing, we might represent a perceived reality – yet miss a window to create OF reality, from the inside out.
“Everything has appearance and essence, shell and kernel, mask and truth. What does it say against the inward determination of things that we finger the shell without reaching the kernel, that we live with appearance instead of perceiving the essence, that the mask of things so blinds us that we cannot find the truth?” – Franz Marc, Aphorisms, 1914-15
Caring for our being, we care for the shell and kernel alike.
In form, body, it is a physical tending of overall wellness: skeletal, muscular, of the organs, nerves, blood flow, etc.
Tending to the metaphysical, it is the inner chambers of the spirit (even if you are not a “spiritual” person!) the part of us that holds hope, aspiration, promise, recognizes truth, forgives, accepts – that is spirit.
Cynicism and disbelief cloud this spirit. To shift disbelief, we can instead imagine the possible and act from that place, asking: What could this look like if…
We turn inward to a place of innocence – a place we perhaps guard to protect. And we release the armor, free up the kernel, and invite ourselves simply to be.
To frame is to convey boundaries, limits, and openings, options. Frames help divide and compartmentalize and also define areas to bridge through relation. The framing of the physical and the framing of our thinking parallel each other, and understanding one can enhance our understanding of the other. Both are needed in visual practice, as scribes organize information in the mind as we organize words and shapes on a page.
the physical
One understanding of a frame is a protective edge of a 2-dimensional form, such as around a window or glasses. Drawn frames can look like boxes or circles that offer visual parameter. The most outer edge of the paper also represents a frame, as do the four walls of a room or lobby that contain a display of completed work.
We frame content to give it contextual coherence. We cluster like-ideas and enclose the grouping with a closed line. But framing is not only about boxing things in, or fitting things together in a way that’s merely convenient.
Framing is ultimately about setting up conditions for choice.
With the proportions and proximity of what we include and exclude, we provide a limit that informs the participant-viewer what is in, what is out. With that information, people can make decisions about how to place themselves relative to the meaning the picture conveys.
If we look back at some examples from 20th century art, we can see a variety of framing devices that each set up the viewer for different interpretive outcome. This is useful as a guide for how we can consider physical framing with increased intentionality.
The photographer Diane Arbus placed her subjects completely central to the picture, almost forcing our focus to one object, regardless of background. The painter Mark Rothko layered large floating rectangles of deep color, somewhat frame-less, as a means for transcendence. And then Sol LeWitt plays with the frame to break it; rather than complete drawings by his own hand, the artist created “rules” that an installer could use as instruction to draw directly onto the interior surface of any physical environment. One example is “All architectural points connected by straight lines.”[i] The wall is the frame, but the frame changes with every installation.
the conceptual
Framing is also about the lenses we use to organize what we hear and intuit.
I might be listening to a conversation on strategy, for example, and notice data that indicates a conservative approach, a leaning to stay close to existing conditions. People could be saying things like: “Why fix something that isn’t broken?” “I don’t know… things seem to be fine from where I sit…” “We don’t have the capacity to produce 100 additional widgets this year…” What do I interpret from that? An inclination towards safety, preservation. In my mind, I call this frame “current reality.”
And, based on experience, I make the attribution that there might also be low aspiration represented in the room. But there is not yet data to confirm that, so in my mind I prepare an empty frame called “vision” to hold a place for that to come in. It’s like setting out a plate for a meal that is still cooking – because the plate is there, the incentive to fill the dish might increase.
I often bring in models as scaffolds for my thinking. And in this case, Robert Fritz’s Creative Tension model comes immediately to mind.[ii] Often drawn with Current Reality on the bottom, Vision on top, and the middle section representing the creative – or structural – tension between the other two. Fritz states that “tension seeks resolution” and that “one major skill of the creative process is forming structures that resolve in favor of the creation.”
With this in mind, I confirm against the initial client calls and planning that there is actually a stated desire somewhere in the system for a creative outcome from this meeting. If so, in my mind I will hold this kind of framing as a backbone for how I listen:
I will choose within my physical frame to allot a certain amount of the board towards Current Reality, a certain amount towards Vision, the space between for any tensions that surface, and probably space for the New Reality as well as the Next Steps required to get there.
I will have additionally, almost unconsciously, made a quick call to up the ante on the group and place the strategy conversation within a larger cultural context, and listen with that attunement as well.
MG Taylor charted a model called Vantage Points[iii], where Strategy exists close to Culture. Upon hearing the initial leaning into safety from the first few comments, I might have also started to assume some cultural stuckness around vision. I might be asking myself, “Does this group even want to entertain a new reality, a new approach or way of being?” Again, I keep this in mind knowing it’s an attribution, and listen closely for confirming or disconfirming data, before drawing too much in any one direction.
So basically would I overlay two models to help me approach the conceptual framing. In my brain it looks like this:
Granted this is a more facilitative approach to scribing, where internal organizing explicitly influences tangible, visible output. And to pull it off takes some genuine sensing into the tolerance / appetite for growth of a group, combined with careful application of a scribe’s tacit knowledge.
The more sessions we scribe, the more models and theories we are exposed to. It’s a huge advantage in our profession, often traveling as we do between a wide variety of programs, to have this learning luxury built into our work. Take advantage of it and increase your knowledge base! Seek out those whose ideas you admire and do whatever you can to be in the same room. Sketch on a napkin if you have to while they talk. Absorb what you can, whenever possible.
Likewise, study the masters of two-dimensional art to further educate yourself about layout and physical framing options. My dearest college professor, Eleanore Mikus, once gave me the following advice: “Travel alone and get lost. You learn so much. Head for the museums and churches in every country, just keep on going.”
Our path, including how we approach it and how we organize it, is ours to define.
(But that is just my framing on the whole thing!)
[i] LeWitt, Sol. Wall Drawing #51, 1970. “LeWitt’s instructions for Wall Drawing 51 dictate, “All architectural points connected by straight lines.” Using the simplest and most technically precise means available, Wall Drawing 51 comprises hundreds of blue lines of varying length stretching from one architectural detail to another, including door frames, columns, fire alarms, etc. Employing a chalk snap line, a contractor’s tool that is used to create straight lines on flat surfaces, this drawing focuses the viewer’s attention on the architecture of the space.” http://massmoca.org/event/walldrawing51/
[ii] Fritz, Robert. The Path of Least Resistance. Chapter: “Tension Seeks Resolution.” Fawcett Books. 1984.
We trip and climb our way through the weeds of societal transformation, facing intertwining threads of sorrow and possibility, to ascend.
At a recent u.school ecology gathering outside Berlin – immersed in a community of global stewards of change – i faced an inner struggle to access true “will.” This was not caused by fear, but by despair; making a few inky marks over a small two-day span seemed like a futile effort to positively touch what was going on in the world.
I had landed with a heaviness from the current state of affairs in my country (the US) – mind-boggling inequality, a political circus, the Orlando massacre… among much else – to the morning news of Brexit and again-tumbling markets. A foggy, heated, 94°F landing.
Knowing these u-drawings have their own ripple effect, though, i also felt real responsibility to get out of my own way to open up, to be OF. i KNEW that the only way to honor the moment was to dive in, to scale down, to connect with the most internal and universal place i could access (a place some call Source) and from Source, make sense and draw.
Here’s the tale of the unfolding then… another drawing, another unravel. This will be in part about the actual content of the session, but more so about the drawing process itself, addressing the thinking that is behind/below the visual forms people receive as end results.
Earlier this year, I had seen an exhibit of Aboriginal art at the Museum of Civilization in Quebec City, and was stunned into silence at the communally derived, cultural storytelling. Large expanse of sequential dots, lines, pure earth-pigment hues. Natural. Raw. Direct. Pure.
Wolpa Wanambi painting Marrakulu Miny’tji, 1996
The marks pulsed with the integrity of nature, spirit straight through the application of paint, carefully applied shapes and patterns.
This prompted me to wonder: How abstract can we go with scribing?How far can we push the comprehensive limits of systems, and our own limits, to shift the place of understanding? Can scribing also generate a powerful vibrational field that transcends the literality of the words?
To date, i’ve aimed in my visual practice to synthesize threads of content into one, or a series of, encapsulating pictures. It’s been an integrative approach, to surface and reveal unnamed coherence, wholeness. In a way, it’s been the opposite of storytelling, which i have interpreted as the sharing of known, existing data, in linear flow. But what if scribing could embody, in straightforward terms, the dimensionality of past, present, and future into a larger timelessness, at once?
Arriving in Berlin with such sadness, though, I lacked courage to attempt this kind of breadth. “Why bother?” Hot air sat on my skin like current events crushed at my heart. My gloom held back the spirit to create, reinforcing my bleakness. I genuinely wondered: How can I rise the self, to rise the tone of our times?
I sat in the empty space, the circle arranged and waiting, wall large – larger than I remembered – with black folded paper carried from Boston on the floor, unfolded, map like. And then something shifted…
MAPPING
I recalled a night sailing on the ocean with my dad and brother, with charts, but with no land in site – cold, rolling waters, impenetrable indigo through which the boat somehow cut. For a while we had no radio (or so i remember) and no clarity of a possible storm headed our way. But Dad could always navigate in fog (though that night skies were crisp) and he has always trusted his ability to accurately read conditions to guide the boat. Aside from a near-encounter with a fishing vessel, approached more out of curiosity than lost wandering, we were fine.
From my journal on that trip in August 2014:
Tack – alignment of a sailing vessel with respect to the currents below and wind above On structures and mental models and on trends
we determine the most helpful facilitation TACK…
The role of a scribe is to craft maps that aid with tacking. Google defines the verb “tack” as to “change course by turning a boat’s head into and through the wind.” And further tack, the noun: “a small, sharp, broad-headed nail,” and “a long stitch used to fasten fabrics together temporarily, prior to permanent sewing.” All these meanings make sense!
So with this in mind, by leaving the creases of the paper intact, i sought to evoke a map. This would offer a reference to action (what to DO with information in a drawing) as informed by structure (the mental ordering and representation of things) derived from Source (deeper, natural dimensions like wind and currents.)
DIVING
“We are growing together what belongs together,” said Otto (Scharmer) over our first dinner. He continued: “Matt Damon recently quoted Bill Clinton, ‘Turn towards the problem you see; you have to engage.’ This applies especially in moments of disruption. How do we engage with reality? We have to step in…” He proceeded through the arc of Absencing:
“Why is fear such a thriving business? Three unaddressed structural problems: 1) Inequity – drives desperation 2) Lack of democracy paired with dialogue / public debate, and 3) Inspiring purpose and vision in deeper levels of humanity.”
This, the fog we now face. The call for all visual practitioners working in the territory of Presencing? Create visual structures to aid in navigating disconnects. This thinking set in motion the theme of the main drawing, which was scaling down, quieting, going inside…. to scale up, to reorient.
After dinner i finally hung the paper (procrastinating, or waiting for what felt right, all day…) realizing it had to be fixed from above, trailing down, free at the bottom to crinkle in a breeze. The sober, looming verticality draped as an unintentional ode to Mikus, Martin, Rothko, and even the Holocaust Memorial, tombstones, and death. And, with this, genuine ending and beginning. It was not an arbitrary choice of material or hanging. It was the first gesture of the drawing itself.
Another initial gesture, choosing to extract and highlight the tree from the final December 2015 u.lab image. Each drawing ends with a lead into the next…
Headlines from the following Saturday morning’s session, linking back to that previous picture:
“What is our plow? Cultivating the quality of relationship in the social field. Without this, nothing significant can be accomplished… We turn the camera, the mirror, back on planet self, including our relationships, and back on planet earth… u.school is an aspiration, a “flip”, and activation of connection of seeds…” – OS
More time together, more insights from the group. A sampling of themes (in no order):
Compassion “Nurture the great potential.”
Structure “Bottom up…”
Legacy “To transcend, connect internal journey to external work.”
Place “How do i step in?”
Impact “The impact is in the black space between the stars – in the space we cannot see.”
Truth “Which are the hard truths that need to be said?”
Despair “As if the sky is falling down…”
Self “Who am i, truly, and what do i want to grow into that is unique?”
Intergenerations “We become bigger together.”
Ecology “What are supportive infrastructures to grow?”
Seeing “Current reality from a different perspective…”
As the session continued, in gaps and from my notes, I fleshed things out from the earlier starting point of the rough tree and iceberg. I drew very little – almost nothing – live, while people were talking. At this point it was clarifying that the “more known” was on the left panel, the “less known” was in the center, and the “unknown” on the right panel. “Social field” on the bottom. The “call” in the middle. “Facing reality” on top.
Sunday morning we were guided in an awareness practice by Arawana Hayashi, set up with a quote from Gaylon Ferguson’s book Natural Bravery: “Here sacredness is another word for the good quality of our experience.” Arawana continued, “Seeing the goodness…. Every person wants a good life. Every person aspires…”
And with that, ascension seeded.
Our work, in the midst of it all, the “activation of the intelligence of the heart, in service of social change” and awakening, strengthening the trunk, enlivening the increasingly vibrant eco-system. “The gold of knowing is already in the soil and takes listening… Practice the listening to mine the gold of what we have, to make it more accessible.” – OS
Additional gems that did not make it into the wall but seem too good not to note:
“Are we showing up for what we need to show up for, and how do we know?”
“How do we thicken our narrative? Start bringing in stories from the edges.”
“The minimal organizing structure is not yet clear.”
“The absence of structure is still a decision about structure.”
(As bells chimed in the distance) “So the fire can come in and it can come in with care.”
“We can trust the heart to set the priorities.”
“Look close in and expand outwards.”
“We are what we measure. We are what we attend to.”
“Help people bring about real change by making an interior journey towards a new understanding of who they are in this world.”
And below, notes of a shared physical sculpture representing taking in, communicating out, and receiving back – a sort of breathing through the lungs/circulatory system. (This made it’s way to the far upper right of the drawing, the very final gesture.)
Overarching themes: turning the mirror back, the readiness for a stronger trunk (enabling conditions), the activation of the intelligence of the human heart, the difficulty of inversion of identity as we come to find a more current, appropriate form for ourselves, organizations, larger institutions, and even governments.
Random scribble to self: To not draw – to reserve the hand and the visuals – encourages group listening. (Less reliance on the scribe capturing everything…)
LETTING GO
Once we had ended, i quickly pulled the paper off the walls, back to the floor, and folded them carefully, deciding each part needed to go home to a different region. The body, dispersed: left section to China, center to Brazil, and right section to Scotland. The blank? To Cambridge MA, for the next round. There is great relief in the removal of images and resetting of an environment – a staging for what’s to come – a cleansing of the palette.
Dream state: (Voice to text into phone in the dark) Monday morning 4:30 AM, in bed, thick, after the heated flow-through of past two days. I cannot sleep. I think this is a consequence of being plugged into the social field, the energy of this dynamic place and the people with whom I’ve shared the past three days. Tapping in to extract, I am swollen. There is a part of me that cannot deeply rest, which comes from a hesitancy of unplugging? Of course rest is required. I can no longer find order in my mind…
I woke. The team reflected. I made it home, wondering along the way (over three movies) about the non-necessity of this exhaustion. There has to be another way. But for now, this is as far as i have gotten on the “way”. Balance is faintly on the horizon, and elusive.
GENERATIVE SCRIBING
More than a mapping of the drawing itself, and more than the context that led up to the map, I am actually compelled to speak to generative scribing – scribing of and for the social body. My experience of this kind of work, where we operate from Source, is that it’s a process of heart-sensing into. Into.
It’s not circling, hovering over or about. It’s not counting the minutes until the person stops speaking and we can go home. It’s not staying comfortable with me-them. It’s not not caring.
It IS piercing through to something essential. Seeing clearly without fear of result or consequence of what comes forward. It requires trust in the complete blankness of things. It only can happen when the social body (a handful or thousands of people and energies) are committed to being together in place and time – and across place and time – to a joining.
It’s groping in the dark to find threads of hope, and coming back to the land of sense to get that out and up on a wall for others to witness.
It’s believing that any witness of the drawing is an active participant in the creation of the drawing. There is no “other”. There is a hand that holds a marker that arcs forward from an extended arm of an upright, physical body acting purely on behalf of the whole. I draw because we are.
It’s drawing to ease the challenge of societal inversion, in service of human awakening. As we fall, we rise. As we cascade, we ascend.
