Disturbances in the Field

I have found Peggy Holman's paper "The Dynamics of Emergence" on http://opencirclecompany.com/papers.htm very clarifying in this.  This is where I take it (and these insights are becoming clearer as I write them, so thanks to the group for the stimulation....):

Disturbance -- which is any departure from equinimity (acceptance of what is) -- can arise from anger, conflict, fear -- OR from hopes, dreams, desires. 

The question is, to what extent do we as individuals and as a group have the capacity to welcome not only an initial disturbance in our field (to accept it as an emerging facet of what is) but to welcome, as well, the subsequent disturbances that are stirred into life by the initial disturbance (for they, too, are facets of an emerging reality). 

The calling forth of this capacity in the moment is called opening and holding space.  It is a seeming non-action (wu-wei) which intervenes primarily through presence and through questions that help us notice, open, and hold emotional, mental, and spiritual spaces, and spaces of possibility, when we find ourselves wanting to tighten or close those spaces, or responding from some very contracted individual or collective place.

Resources for this capacity come from all four Wilberite quadrants: 

• from our individual centeredness, presence, self-awareness, and field sensitivity;
  
• from our individual space-holding behaviors (asking good questions, loving engagement);
• from our group capacity for caring, welcoming, and holding the center; and
• from the processes, norms, and other social structures we use to order our interactions.

If we are weak in one of these, we can get support from the others. (Sheri's great statement "The beauty of collective intelligence is that you can have an enlightened group expression even though the individuals in the group are not transcended at all" fits here.)  If one of us or our group is extremely strong in one of these -- such as a great facilitator of a powerful process, or a very wise and heartful person in our midst -- it can compensate for weaknesses in all the others.  But usually we can call on resources from all four quadrants to help us. 

Unfortunately, life being what it is, we sometimes lack all of them, and the dissonances we face are too great, and we find our "capacitance" (Charles Johnston's term) proves sadly insufficient -- and we are individually and/or collectively overwhelmed.

And then that overwhelm becomes a dissonance for us, individually and collectively -- and, to the extent we are a healthy learning community, we reflect on it after the fact, expanding our capacitance (as we are doing here) in preparation for the next inevitable challenge. 

But back to Peggy's model.  One thing that strikes me about it is the idea that we experience dissonance because of some kind of unknownness.  Either we're all together in some puzzle or uncertainty (e.g., a difficult choice), and/or we have stumbled upon our differences (at which point I don't know what you are talking about).  Peggy's advice to the individual is (a) listen and (b) follow your heart -- which are ways to connect with ourselves and each other.  Her advice to the group is (a) connect and (b) reflect together.  Nowhere here is there any advice to compromise, withhold, suppress, or establish agreement.  There is complete acknowledgement that this will lead to divergence -- to growing differences -- but with a twist:

There is a faith (borne out by experience) that if we can hold the space ("the container", which includes having enough willingness and time!), there will be a breakthrough.  Because the dissonances we encountered were a new form of aliveness, a new form of wholeness, trying to emerge through the solid field of What Has Been.

And the gift Peggy brings in this model that I'd never thought of before is that the breakthrough occurs when the personal and the universal -- the individual and the group -- become expressions of the same reality.  There are many ways this can happen, for example:

• the group realizes that a dissonant voice is speaking from and for a suppressed part of the group or its members,
• the group experiences a collective deepening from head to heart in empathic response to one person's story,
• a big-picture Truth emerges, made up of all the authentic individual perspectives, that newly clarifies the actual complexity of what the group is dealing with,
• the group stumbles upon a remarkable new possibility, voiced by an individual in their midst speaking authentically from and to the heart of the group field,
• etc.

One way or another, individual and collective awareness coalesces around a new, inclusive, vibrantly alive truth.  Wilber's two left-hand quadrants (individual interior, collective interior) cohere into a new whole.  At that point the group moves on to address the right-hand quadrants -- the objective individual and collective realities -- by converging into coherent action(s).

I see this as fractal.  It can happen in a momentary conflict, during the discussion of one agenda item, over the course of a whole meeting, or in the waves of dissonance and harmony that spiral through a group during the course of its life together as it encounters The Other from within and without.

I think we are learning to do this.  And our learning can be very messy, with many steps backward as well as forward -- and with many of us engaging, withdrawing, watching, stumbling.  We are doing something very difficult, very important, and very mysterious, even as we learn to talk about it, to think about it, to feel about it, as we are doing here, bumping into our differences even now, trying to build better containers even as we call on each other to rise to the occasion and share our struggles.

And in the end we'll evolve.  Because there's nothing else but evolution going on. Right now.

.....it makes me think like this:

Where body-work, mind-work, heart-work and soul-work is one,
where personal work and transpersonal work is one,
where individual work and collective work is one

that is where I long to be.

That work to me is "working at the edge", "inquiring from the middle", "walking in mystery", "being in the YES-place",.......(add more).

If any of what seems to be parts or branches of the work is attempted to be left out - could be because of "I am here for the collective intelligence, my time is not for personal therapy" kind of thinking, or could be because of "If I can't express my self fully as I need right now what is all this collective stuff worth then" kind of thinking - then there is a prize to pay for the leaving out - an imbalance, a struggle for leadership, a pain, a division in the group......(add more).

If all of what seems to be parts or branches of the work are welcomed, included, embrased, then it will at any given moment sort it self out what actual form the work will take, and then any specific form of the work can be experienced as at the same time body-, mind-, heart-, soul-, personal, transpersonal, individual and collective work. 

....I think, or I hope.....