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People make community together and they think this is beautiful, you know, we're making a community together and we're taking a stand and we're protecting the trees, we're protecting life that Experience of being together, cooking for each other, holding each other, integrate new people, getting meaningful work, being.
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able to serve, being able to find your place in something quickly and feel part of it.
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It was incredible.
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And then power dynamics happen, people are living together and of course, all the shit shows up, right?
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had that magic moment on the streets, you've done something, and then everybody wants to grab the reins of power, and it becomes an argy bargy, right?
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So I think you have to find ways to integrate that movement towards purpose with the regenerative practices that we do together,
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Hi, I'm Gully and today I have the real honor of interviewing Gail, who's the co founder of Extinction Rebellion and has a background in activism and in science and is a champion for systemic transformation, who's got a keen interest in exploring spirituality and social change and science.
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And I don't know, maybe it's a bit cliché to put, but is, is really.
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Committed in the shit show that is facing us in finding a path towards a more beautiful future.
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Um, welcome Gail.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Nice to be here.
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yeah.
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I, um, think I just told you just before I've been sort of immersing myself in 320 slides and, blog posts.
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But having this incredibly excited feeling as I see, um, overlaps.
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And one of the things I've most appreciated about what I've seen is your ability to hold many, many, many moving parts all sorts of scales with all sorts of theories and to, to really pull them together into a roadmap.
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And I found that very, very very exciting, um, to see, and I guess.
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If I was to sort of frame the three areas that I have some questions about, it's oversimplistic, but it seems that right at the center, you're placing the role of separation as sort of underpinning modernism, underpinning so many forms of oppression, um, and damage and pain.
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Yes.
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And yet there's very, very little focus, at least in what I've read, in the nuts and bolts of how we relate differently organizationally.
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So how do we move and decide together, organize together, deal with power together?
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Um, and that was curious because, you know, I met you in Extinction Rebellion and to be fair, Holacracy didn't exactly support, the aims of Extinction Rebellion.
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The second area that I was curious about, was the role of, violence and scarcity.
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So it seemed to be that you were sort of saying, well, as collapse comes to Europe, there is an opportunity to meet people's needs.
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material needs.
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and if we do that, we can build power.
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But when we look to where collapse has already happened in the global South, we see that actually surveillance and violence is very, very good.
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At preventing us from, organizing power.
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So in a time of scarcity, how is that approach going to work?
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How do we deal with violence and oppression?
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And the last curiosity that I, I had on reading it that I thought would be interesting to engage with today is you point to indigenous wisdom as offering perhaps a path to moving differently, to moving from a sense of interconnectedness.
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But again, what is your thinking about avoiding assimilation?
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Avoiding, again, extracting information from an already colonized and, decimated people.
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And I guess all of that I throw in with, you know, we're suggested some approaches at""Organizing from Elsewhere"" for dealing with that.
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So your critique of our approaches to that, as well as your own thoughts on how to deal with it.
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So that would be my very long winded dyslexic framing.
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And then I throw the ball.
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Gosh, there's a lot there.
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Thank you, for the questions and I mean, I think the first thing to really say is, you know, I feel at times, and this is not always by any stretch, that there is, I feel it rather than think it, that there's an in life's intelligence and that life's intelligence is having a go at some stuff, including through us, through this conversation, right?
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Through when we're curious and through when people try things together and certainly not just through humanity and human beings.
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Um, so when things happen and they don't go so well, it's kind of like, well, our intelligence tried that thing.
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What else might we try?
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Of course, life's intelligence might want to find ways to remember what it's tried or yeah, and that sort of thing.
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Thank you also for saying the thing about having that generalist's perspective and looking for patterns.
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I, just a couple of years ago as part of the perimenopause started to wonder about my own neurodivergence and um, without having a full diagnosis it seems pretty clear that I'm probably autistic and I think that's my version of autism and um, there's something to, reason to name that because.
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It's helping me to remember to unmask, so I might not look at you as much as I might have made myself in the past, even subconsciously, and yeah, like, autistic people show up in specific ways, specific to us as individuals, so yeah, it's just something there.
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It's um, not always easy being a working class young woman and being clever and
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Yeah.
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like it's not a thing that's necessarily welcomed in the world or seen or got.
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I can
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Um, and um, And it's okay, because I think, again, the things that are tricky and challenging in life are also what shape us and make us.
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You know, there's a beautiful podcast called the Emerald Podcast,
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Yes.
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he talks about trauma and the vegetative gods, is it?
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I think one of them where he says, well, is it, is it, you know, this tree is this incredible shape?
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Is it because of trauma?
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It's just like, is that what you want to say?
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Or is it just that, you know, it's had droughts, it's had lightning, and this is how it's grown off the back of that.
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It's beautiful still.
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Right.
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I kind of has been in those, therapeutic settings that make you sort of see yourself as a bit broken and
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Yeah.
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has its value, but it has its limitations.
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So when you mentioned, yeah, you know, again, being autistic, I'm probably, I'm about to spin my way through all these points you've made cause I made notes and that won't really be a conversation then, will it Gullyso?
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You feel free to, to sort of let me know you want to respond,
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Yeah, But I also feel really excited to listen.
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So spin away.
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Yeah.
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Spin away.
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I've learned it's called information dumping.
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I have to do quite a bit of managing in my brain to think, is this communicating, or is this just me?
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I feel like I've got box files in my head and it's like, Ooh, this one's open, boom, out you come, all the All the info, but So, I mean, as well to say I'm a real studier in uh, of things that people say.
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Miki Kashtan's work is amazing.
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I wish she was more well known in the world.
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A true visionary, and I had the honour of being.
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mentored and eldered by her.
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And, um, I have met Charles Eisenstein on a couple of occasions.
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Um, both of those have really centered separation in their work, as I'm sure you know.
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Yes.
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Miki talks about separation, scarcity, and powerlessness as a combination of impacts of patriarchy.
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I mean, in the ways in which we organize society these days, not meaning something particularly about men.
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Um, and my friend Skeena Rathore, Kashmiri adds soullessness to that list.
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You know, um,
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What does she mean by that?
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Do you
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well, would never dream of speaking on behalf of our Skeena, but what I think I would mean when I would use that would be.
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We de animate the world, we make the world stuff,
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Yes.
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our experience of it as being stuff, so I mean, it can be another way of talking about separation, I suppose, but it's that sense of that soul's feeling of the oneness, the connection, the interbeing.
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Alone.
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Alone.
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Looking out through these eyes.
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Into a dead world.
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yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've seen it, but it is worth a mention that most wonderful TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight.
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It's a brain scientist.
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She comes on stage talking about the brine with the accent she's got and showing you the two hemispheres in her hands, these two things squashed together in your head.
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And she had a stroke, took out her left hemispheres, which is what.
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modernity pushes us into being in this sort of separated self, in McGilchrist's work.
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And she had the experience of being in the right hemisphere whilst realizing she was having a stroke.
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It's quite a wonderful talk, My Stroke of Insight.
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So, um, yeah, there's the, the separation and the soullessness, you know, the de animating the world.
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It's, when you talk about"Organizing from Elsewhere", The meaning I most took from what you were saying was, and the place that I feel I have organized from elsewhere, if I'm understanding you right, which I may not be, but is by trying to ask, uh, humbly for something bigger than myself to give instruction and guidance and, um, yeah, like, help.
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Um,
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You have an experience of that, a story about that, that you'd want
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quite a lot, actually.
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Once that box file's open, golly, we're off, but, um.
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I mean, and possibly most people, many people, not most people, people may have heard the story of the Foundation of Extinction Rebellion from my point of view is they're going to make a huge prayer with lots of medicines and it was a bit intense when you think about it really.
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It was two workings with Iboga and three Ayahuasca and Cambo in a two week period with this prayer, um, wanting to start mass disobedience and the many different aspects of that prayer was answered.
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It takes a while to describe that, and there is a video with my name and breaking convention, the psychedelics thing, with that story in, but I've had that experience, so I feel like If you, open yourself up to guidance and, um, humbly and in service to life, you know, you're not asking for a Porsche because you fancy a, you know, a new car or something.
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You're asking for help in service to life, um, with willing, and sometimes you have to ask more than once because maybe what you're going to get.
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In response to that, you better be ready for it, you know, it might have been warned by my medicine woman to be careful what you pray for because, you know, it has consequences.
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It's a sense that things line up and, um, people arrive at the right time and when you look back, even though things were painful, they were lessons in them or whatever.
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Even very specifically, I mean with Extinction Rebellion, I made a specific request for the Codes for Social Change.
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And then I met Roger Hammam, and at the end of the meeting, having given me a lot of useful information, he told me, given me the codes for social change, which, why he would have used that phrase, I don't know.
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It was quite a moment I'm saying all this, and I want to really balance that, because another thing my medicine mum once said to me, which has been super, supremely helpful, is that there is a big part of ourselves, you know, that Is that sovereign person inside us that can be in connection with life and in that.
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Be life, you know, and you bring your gifts that you want to serve in the world And you want to bring to the world and you open yourself up.
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It's a beautiful thing and it's quite when it happens and um it can what in our culture we can put people on pedestals when that Happens, you know, and I really wish for everybody to know that about themselves.
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There's that Sovereign, beautiful part of yourself and like, what is your gift and gifts and how do you want to serve and open yourself up and I think that's where exceptional behaviours and results if you like to use that language, not quite the right language result but at the same time there's like broken me that's a dick and I still got little girls, still got hungry ghosts.
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And, you know, all the nonsense and all the, all the problems and the trauma, they, they both exist, um,
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if I sort of say a little bit back to you, I think you sort of conveyed this experience of Stealing both guided by and receiving insights from an intelligence beyond yourself and expanded in stepping aside.
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And yeah, I'm, I'm curious, like, have you had an experience where you've had that as a group, where sort of that's been the basic assumption of how you've moved as a team, as a group?
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yeah, yeah, I mean, well, limited, but what I would say is that I, we have, as part of my activism, I have been with people who are willing to be in connective prayer together, sometimes with more, you know, just openness to it and sometimes more, more, um, experience of doing that.
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So before we launched Money Rebellion, we went into the city of London and we Uh, smoked, uh, a tobacco together and that leads me to the cultural appropriation question actually, but, um, I made prayers there, but it has been more of an individual experience, um, that several times where we've, we've, um, a group of us have worked in that way and things have shifted, but we are not Sort of a quite tied together team, and I would like that to be part of my organizing more.
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I'm organizing at the minute with a group and we just made a collective dedication and, um, in that way for the work going forwards and, yeah, I, I, I feel quite Strongly that I want that to be part of how I organize with people, but you know, then again, you know, there could be somebody who comes along with super important, useful skills to has who have are also running the kind of that's woo woo or whatever, you know, stuff.
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So I don't want to be excluded either.
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Um.
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think, you know, it'd be interesting if she's willing to interview Skeena.
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That's what Skeena's work on co liberation, as I've understood it, has been aiming towards.
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When the hearts are really aligned, actually, um, and resonant, and that there will be flow that comes through, and that's what we're aiming for, is to feel very aligned at the, at a heart intelligence level, and co listening and co sensing.
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I think that would be, like, if it's the right word even, you asked for any critiques of the paper.
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Yes, that would be really lovely to hear.
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I think the main thing is just to be in that, and I'm sure you've said it, but the feeling of we don't know how to do that.
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You know, you said I talk quite a bit about separation in some ways, and yet it's not really clear the how.
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How do we go about this in groups?
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let's start from that point of view that we're trying things and we don't really know.
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So there's quite a lot, um, and I don't know if that's a fair critique of what your paper, by the way, but I just feel that, you know, let's just be clear that we don't, we can have a vision of what we would like to have happen.
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There's something about that combination of being in a system, part of a system of capitalist, colonialist modernity.
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You're in that and that system has got its You know, teeth in your neck, metaphorically speaking, and, um, it's trying to turn you into a zombie as well, and all the rest of it, right?
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Uh, it's up to stuff.
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And you know, we're not in a community that holds us, where our needs will be met and we can proceed from there.
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We're showing up with our own and, and intergenerational traumas and what some people call burdens, you know, the, um, legacy burdens, that's what they say in internal family systems.
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But.
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All, all the patternings and the habits and the problems and the oppressions that our lineage has been subject to, we're with that in this system.
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Right?
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And then we are wanting to work together probably with not enough resources,
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yes.
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and then we're trying to move towards a particular purpose.
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Um, just the very thing of tending, tending what the system's doing to us and tending, well, our own ways and collective ways of showing up together when trying to organize from elsewhere together.
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That could easily take us, you know, just into endless process because there's so much to tend.
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Like, how do we also move towards purpose?
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Because purpose is part of what keeps us together.
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So, and I have been in spaces where it feels like there's a sort of merry go nowhere of process, you know,
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Absolutely.
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uh, and, and people will leave, um, so one of the things that Miki how do you create a container that it's invitational, but people will choose not to join it because it's clear whether it is or isn't for them, and the capacity The capacity within that container is also clear, you know, so it's, it's never a question that a particular human being is not wanted because there's something in quotes wrong with them.
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But if, I'll give you a practical example, right?
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People set up, um, climate camps or anti fracking camps or whatever, um, you know, protest camps, HS2, it's happened many times in our activist movements.
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People make community together and they think this is beautiful, you know, we're making a community together and we're taking a stand and we're protecting the trees, we're protecting life and people are living together and of course, all the shit shows up, right?
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And people joined the camp who maybe got addiction issues, um, issues around violence and so on.
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And the whole camp ends up slightly imploding and focusing on trying to manage these internal issues.
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It's a sort of more obvious version of what I'm talking about, even if we're not on a camp or on Zoom calls.
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So, um, to some extent then the container has to say Something about capacities of people to be there, and I guess
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The container has to say.
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Can I push back just a little bit and sum up, just to give it maybe a little bit more shape.
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If I was to sum up with what you're saying, you're sort of saying, well, there's a bit of a dichotomy here.
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On the one hand, there is a need to do the work on our trauma, on our colonial mindsets, on our patriarchy, on all of this work in order to be able to come together from that felt sense of information coming from outside of interconnectedness.
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On the other hand, there is a need to get shit done.
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There is a need to take action and that these two things can sit in tension with each other.
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That was sort of the heart of what I was understanding.
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you to say, would that be right?
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I mean, Daryl Wolfgang, who you work with, once wrote a paper about the sort of, the split in XR, the split personality of the sort of regenerative cultures people, they get shit done people, and did feel like very right and left hemisphere, and they need to be together.
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So I, I, I don't think it's.
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Um, let's, let's refine this.
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Let's be, like, in this together.
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It's, you, you need both.
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And, um, it's more that I don't know if we know how to be in the both together.
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Rather than one's fighting for attention over the other.
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It's like, how do you bring that whole self?
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You know, and this is a very particular fractal of what McGilchrist talks about with brain science.
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You know, the right hemisphere is meant to lead and the left hemisphere then goes into, you know, the right hemisphere.
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If you're a, a composer, we'll feel and hear the music and then the left hemisphere will type the notes out and get it down.
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Right.
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And the instruments.
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So there's, those all has to work together, but it's, um, how does it work
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Yeah.
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How does it,
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Well, we need to know, don't we?
00:24:00.548 --> 00:24:23.138
We need to work that out, and I guess that's all I'm saying is, I've been in that curiosity for some time, including working on co liberation, um, with Skeena with Open Edge, including, The work that we did behind the scenes in Extinction Rebellion and the experiments, um, that we were trying to move forward with Mickey and others, it's tricky and I haven't got it figured.
00:24:23.138 --> 00:24:28.818
And also partly, you know, the reason why people are coming to be together is because there's a purpose.
00:24:30.104 --> 00:24:49.563
You know, it's, I mean, I have heard, for example, that before any business has been done, when indigenous peoples have come together for meetings, there's at least two days of ceremony and journey and, you know, so one could imagine that's this kind of thing that needs to happen.
00:24:50.452 --> 00:24:57.492
As I, I just hosted a meeting at my house, me and my partner did for the collapse preparing communities work that we're doing that was.
00:24:57.972 --> 00:25:02.482
you know, two and a half days of being together, which had some dedication, some eating together.
00:25:02.482 --> 00:25:03.762
They had a version of that.
00:25:03.803 --> 00:25:03.923
Yeah.
00:25:04.752 --> 00:25:05.462
how did that go?
00:25:05.462 --> 00:25:07.442
Do you think that made a difference?
00:25:07.442 --> 00:25:07.847
I'm
00:25:08.123 --> 00:25:10.182
Oh, people need to be together.
00:25:10.272 --> 00:25:13.573
I mean, I have this joke about myself that I'm like a Labrador.
00:25:13.653 --> 00:25:20.363
I need to smell people's pheromones and, you know, just, we need to be in the same room.
00:25:21.103 --> 00:25:24.663
Um, but I, I'm not trying to make out that that was the thing.
00:25:25.872 --> 00:25:36.832
this because I am curious, because I think you've probably got some very interesting thoughts about this, but if, if I'm hearing you right in several movements, one, we're saying things need to be a fractal, two,
00:25:37.221 --> 00:25:37.602
yeah,
00:25:37.741 --> 00:25:48.436
two, I think we're saying That this notion of separation is, um, a problem and the, the left and the right sort of needs to work together.
00:25:48.457 --> 00:25:53.567
And then the third thing is, well, sometimes things just need to emerge and you just need to practice.
00:25:53.567 --> 00:25:58.057
But if I was to posit to you that when there is a space.
00:25:58.942 --> 00:26:20.672
Often the fractals that fill it are the fractals that we come in with, that, um, you know, I think a lot of what you've just shared was understood by Extinction Rebellion, but it didn't stop us sort of, in terms of how we related to each other and organized together and the methods we used sort of much more closely recreating the culture we were trying to change.
00:26:22.342 --> 00:26:29.031
What wisdom have you come up with with all of this thinking about literally the nuts and bolts of organizing,
00:26:29.382 --> 00:26:29.662
yeah,
00:26:29.951 --> 00:26:31.509
where we don't do that?
00:26:31.926 --> 00:26:56.047
Well, and you maybe have some notes to share with this podcast, but I mean, for example, we did have some consultants, and I mean that in the best possible use of that word, um, Ken Zhee in particular, he spent quite a bit of time wrestling with where Extinction Rebellion was at in the UK and came up with a toolkit for collaborative practices, though has since said they feel like sort of dialogical approaches are missing.
00:26:56.146 --> 00:26:59.457
It needs a lot more people just being together and talking, as I understood it.
00:26:59.997 --> 00:27:01.547
So I'm happy to share that.
00:27:01.557 --> 00:27:02.886
It's like, what are your decisions?
00:27:02.926 --> 00:27:05.396
You know, you can talk about seven living systems.
00:27:05.396 --> 00:27:08.047
That's what Navigate talk about, who've, again, worked with Nikki.
00:27:08.047 --> 00:27:17.436
But, um, What are your decision making practices, what are your feedback practices, what are your conflict practices, how do you take care of each other, so on and so forth.
00:27:17.707 --> 00:27:25.636
So what we had in XR were these ten principles and values that I had the biggest, you know, it was my lead on writing those really.
00:27:26.196 --> 00:27:38.507
And I had a sense of the how for each of them to some extent, but not enough, that there was such a strong specific source around the, um, how of civil disobedience.
00:27:39.017 --> 00:28:01.267
And that was what was being really driven at the heart of XR and the regenerative cultures piece, I had a sense that we, you know, we would need to make sure that people were committing to doing inner work, whatever means for them, and that we would need people to have intergroup practices, but we didn't know all the how.
00:28:01.277 --> 00:28:19.436
Of course, there are books written about this, Daniel Weil and others, but, um, I did also find, if I'm really honest, and again, no disrespect, and I don't mean this to everybody who's ever done anything around regenerative cultures, but you would tend to get the regenerative cultures people being sort of therapist type people that came.
00:28:19.436 --> 00:28:27.497
And, um, regenerative cultures don't just need a therapeutic basis, they also need a how.
00:28:27.507 --> 00:28:29.797
How are you going to do this en masse, right?
00:28:30.432 --> 00:28:38.741
So the sort of action team would have all these kind of action orientated, sort of masculine energies.
00:28:38.741 --> 00:28:45.382
I don't necessarily just mean men, but they were like out there, right, come on, recce, let's get the action design, let's get the affinity groups up.
00:28:45.801 --> 00:28:53.231
and the regenerative cultures pieces, it felt like they went into a bit of a spin and, it led to this kind of thing of like, well what the fuck is regenerative cultures?
00:28:53.261 --> 00:28:56.652
Because it just seems to be this group of people with their heads up their arses, right?
00:28:56.882 --> 00:28:58.922
If I'm just paraphrasing.
00:28:59.842 --> 00:29:12.419
And um, so we, we had lots of intentions around regenerative cultures, and requests and even bits of money for it, but it, I wouldn't, I didn't think it ever really had its.
00:29:13.169 --> 00:29:14.368
time in the movement.
00:29:14.878 --> 00:29:27.358
The best, the best of it, the best of it possibly, at least from my perspective, was in the April 2019 rebellion, when we were doing, and this is the integration, right?
00:29:27.378 --> 00:29:38.999
We were doing, and again, this is Miki Kashcan's wording, but vision holding actions, you know, those actions that demonstrate the vision that where you want to be and feel regenerative to be part of them.
00:29:39.068 --> 00:29:48.669
So we blocked Um, Waterloo Bridge and we made it a garden and we made it a community and people just, there was an attraction field that happened.
00:29:48.669 --> 00:29:51.169
People were in FOMO, gotta be there.
00:29:51.169 --> 00:30:07.439
And like Woodstock, Excel was like Woodstock for a very short period of time, you know, but so people come and that experience of being together, cooking for each other, holding each other, integrate new people, getting meaningful work, being.
00:30:07.659 --> 00:30:11.848
able to serve, being able to find your place in something quickly and feel part of it.
00:30:12.298 --> 00:30:13.419
It was incredible.
00:30:13.919 --> 00:30:26.465
Um, so I think you have to find ways to integrate that movement towards purpose with the regenerative practices that we do together, if I'm going to use that language.
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:37.661
keep coming back to a certain degree to, we need to find ways and we don't have answers and there is sort of action being taken.
00:30:37.661 --> 00:30:51.000
So for example, right now, you know, you are thinking with a number of other people about, what actions need to be taken to create the container within which an effective metastrategy might.
00:30:51.570 --> 00:30:52.161
Emerge.
00:30:53.300 --> 00:31:03.641
And again, if we come back to separation is key, fractals are necessary, we live in a complex system, then the movements you're making now.
00:31:04.635 --> 00:31:26.665
You know, we'll, we'll have ripples and I don't know if you agree with sort of the analysis that we're saying we're sort of saying all horizontal and vertical forms of organizing, you know, relying on assumption of separate entities that are, um, have different needs and desires and organizational methods sort of tried to mitigate that.
00:31:26.665 --> 00:31:33.445
And because of that assumption, we tend to replicate the core idea in our, in our ways of organizing.
00:31:33.965 --> 00:31:42.766
Um, and that this plays at least a part in why there is a breakdown in culture or cultures, um, replicate the, the, the system we're trying to change.
00:31:42.806 --> 00:31:55.205
And I'm just curious, what organizational methods are you using at the moment, formally and informally, to create this meta strategy?
00:31:55.385 --> 00:32:01.086
And what do you, how do you think that will shape and limit the meta strategy that you're going to create?
00:32:01.086 --> 00:32:01.772
Absolutely.
00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:29.340
I, with the metastrategy work, and again, this has been on a bit of a journey, so, um, just over two years ago, I met a lady called Julian Siddiq, who does nature based systems thinking at a particular gathering that I was invited to speak at, um, and she was talking about the next social movement, and I was saying, I don't really feel like it's going to be a movement, it's more like a framework, and that there's, it's an ecology.
00:32:29.631 --> 00:32:31.550
And it's how that can live and be together.
00:32:32.421 --> 00:32:42.050
And, um, so we sort of started thinking about that together, and asking who might like to be part of a paradigm shift group, hubristically named.
00:32:42.131 --> 00:32:47.211
Um, so we went through a process of inviting people, and we had a gathering in Devon.
00:32:47.881 --> 00:33:04.605
Um, quite a powerhouse of people, but very busy people and at least to check, I think what that managed to do was to check that, our thinking was not wildly off track, you know, and there was some possible ways of, of change happening.
00:33:04.605 --> 00:33:11.226
Although, you know, again, some people would think more about hospicing modernity using the Nespicado de Oliveira's.
00:33:12.486 --> 00:33:21.736
phrase as part of, again, Alno Lada would say this, the Kali Yuga, you know, this time of sort of destruction and unraveling, as I understand it.
00:33:22.605 --> 00:33:36.925
Uh, as, uh, how we meet these times and that impulse to push for change can also come from a place where there's something that wants to die and be composted and let go of, you know, so it's finding that balance in each of us.
00:33:37.546 --> 00:34:14.675
I felt like it was, uh, An intelligent group of people that could hold that within them and we, uh, invited a person, um, I don't know if this is just too much detail really, but Jose Barco, who's experienced in Theory U, where's the facilitation and in, um, a variety of, you know, when I say we don't know how, like it's not like there aren't tools and techniques out there, like it's, there are things out there, but it's, It's that thing of how do you build something together with whom, with their willing, and move forward.
00:34:14.766 --> 00:34:17.786
And then you get somewhere with that and then the next thing happens.
00:34:17.795 --> 00:34:30.275
So we, we did this paradigm shift gathering and then after that next phase of work came and I've been reaching around with Julian and others to try and find specific people interested in movement ecology work.
00:34:30.791 --> 00:34:52.550
Um, it, it, what it reminds me of is, um, if you think about a landscape that's been laid waste by the destructive forces of, colonialist modernity and it's going to regenerate itself, there are pioneer species, the silver birch, the dandelion that will make the first, will do the first things.
00:34:53.110 --> 00:34:56.030
So, it's kind of who arrives first and what do they do?
00:34:56.221 --> 00:35:00.181
How do they prepare the ground for the next arrivals?
00:35:00.240 --> 00:35:08.420
Like, it's not just, it's not just that you sort of suddenly have, you know, a thousand people working together and you make something happen.
00:35:08.481 --> 00:35:11.820
It starts with two people, what do they do, and how does the third join?
00:35:12.545 --> 00:35:18.545
It starts with one person, how do additional people join and what's needed before the next species joins.
00:35:19.065 --> 00:35:41.701
And so when you were saying earlier about that sense of interbeing, my most beautiful experiences with Extinction Rebellion is when you just feel that, you feel that murmuration, you feel that murmuration and it's kind of like, whoa, you know, Claire Farrell made me laugh my head off one time, but she said, Somebody, somebody asked a question in a meeting.
00:35:41.721 --> 00:35:46.751
She said nobody knows what's going off in this movement because we've decentralized the fucking tits off it.
00:35:47.610 --> 00:36:13.106
But it, nobody had that sort of overall steer on it, which to some extent, um, created some problems because it was just doing its own thing, you know, and it, Could dissipate energy and whatever, but it, at its best, would have that murmuration feeling of like, and you felt that everybody was playing their part and it was making this thing happen and yeah, so quite incredible.
00:36:13.356 --> 00:36:17.326
The experience, by the way, of setting up the holocratic system.
00:36:17.445 --> 00:36:22.626
Yes, everything's my fault if it's gone wrong in XR, I do feel that as a source person for it.
00:36:22.925 --> 00:36:24.025
Why did you choose it?
00:36:24.873 --> 00:36:26.653
honestly, honestly.
00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:32.789
My friend Anna O'Brien said you might want to use Holacracy Gale.
00:36:32.938 --> 00:36:36.318
I know somebody who knows about it, but I wouldn't personally recommend it.
00:36:37.418 --> 00:36:38.599
So that was why.
00:36:38.938 --> 00:36:42.128
That was as strongly as it was recommended by somebody I trust.
00:36:42.469 --> 00:36:44.478
We didn't have a different thing on the table.
00:36:45.809 --> 00:36:52.498
Somebody called Nick came and helped us set it up, and we started drawing these circles and guessing.
00:36:52.798 --> 00:37:00.668
It's sort of mapped on with a lady called Amber Greeter, who's a Stroudie who runs Butterfield's Festival.
00:37:01.268 --> 00:37:04.159
And so they had a sort of version of that running.
00:37:04.498 --> 00:37:14.606
The sort of idea of, um, supporting different groups to get on with their job and feeling empowered to get on with it, you know, I don't think that's, like, wrong.
00:37:14.876 --> 00:37:19.666
Where it gets really rigid, um, is a problem.
00:37:19.726 --> 00:37:26.826
And where I think a real mistake is when you haven't got your purposes clear and the nested purposes clear.
00:37:27.326 --> 00:37:38.565
Like if you're If you're there to run the Twitter account, you're within the nest of the communications work and you're in the nest of the purpose of the movement, for example.
00:37:38.576 --> 00:37:47.726
So, um, there needs to be some really shared agreements around what we're trying to do together.
00:37:48.130 --> 00:37:55.137
how do you think it sort of shaped and limited what Extinction Rebellion UK were able to do then, the fact that you used holacracy?
00:37:55.425 --> 00:37:58.255
I mean, one of the things is that it's very self replicating.
00:37:58.436 --> 00:38:04.635
You know, people can come into roles and there's, cause there's a person, there's at least a role that advertises.
00:38:05.356 --> 00:38:18.766
We need new people and so new people, so energy comes into the system and then they integrate them into a place and then after a while there's people think, oh, I wouldn't mind doing that and they move around and then at some point they might leave pissed off, burnt out.
00:38:19.016 --> 00:38:20.385
But some more people have come in.
00:38:20.496 --> 00:38:28.865
So it's like, I have sort of gone, Oh my God, I set up a fucking system and it's never going to die because it's still self replicating.
00:38:29.195 --> 00:38:31.096
The systems are, you know, so that's.
00:38:31.835 --> 00:38:40.536
But it, I, I, I personally think at the heart of it, those principles and values need to be very much felt at, uh, at an individual level.
00:38:41.275 --> 00:38:50.085
Like I, do you mean this and what are you doing personally to live that, um, to live those things?
00:38:50.085 --> 00:38:56.936
Because it doesn't, it hasn't felt like that for some time with XR, it's felt like people are kind of coming.
00:38:57.365 --> 00:39:03.985
Because they're scared about climate change, they sort of sign up to these things and then they get on with the real deal, which is organizing some actions, you know.
00:39:04.791 --> 00:39:12.001
May I ask, so if I hear back, you're saying that it's less of a problem of holacracy itself and more about the way it was implemented?
00:39:12.061 --> 00:39:12.757
Would that be?
00:39:13.175 --> 00:39:20.835
Well, I, you know, I, like, maybe somewhere in between those two things, I wouldn't sort of make it quite to black and white.
00:39:20.876 --> 00:39:27.735
I, I, I, I would be interested in a different system other than holacracy, if somebody was showing me them.
00:39:28.740 --> 00:39:28.771
Can
00:39:28.985 --> 00:39:32.965
I, I, I would, I'm, I'm not, um, Signed up to Holacracy.
00:39:32.965 --> 00:39:34.846
I'm not a kind of process nerd.
00:39:34.996 --> 00:39:37.536
I mean, I was in touch with Frederic Laloux at the time, right?
00:39:37.536 --> 00:39:40.846
Who was working on reinventing organizations.
00:39:40.905 --> 00:39:45.315
And I was saying to him, look, we're trying to do this sort of decentralized organizing.
00:39:46.036 --> 00:39:48.646
Can you tell us, is there anybody can help us?
00:39:48.646 --> 00:39:50.186
You know, what should we be doing differently?
00:39:50.186 --> 00:39:51.786
And he said, you're at the cutting edge.
00:39:51.965 --> 00:39:55.246
So I was like, well, that's a bugger because who's going to help guide us?
00:39:56.780 --> 00:39:59.181
I lead this a little bit somewhere?
00:39:59.190 --> 00:40:04.670
And I might share something, but it's also maybe a little, it's a question and it's a bit of a challenge.
00:40:04.670 --> 00:40:06.963
So first I'd like to say why I think holacracy.
00:40:07.315 --> 00:40:09.826
And I'm like, please, tell me what we should do next.
00:40:09.911 --> 00:40:14.581
no, no, I'm not going to tell You what I did, but I'll give you my critique of holacracy within Extinction Rebellion UK.
00:40:14.630 --> 00:40:21.971
So I think that basically there was an assumption of mandates.
00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:25.130
So a mandate basically would say, you know, this is my mandate.
00:40:25.945 --> 00:40:26.315
Yay.
00:40:26.431 --> 00:40:27.550
the circle's mandate.
00:40:27.550 --> 00:40:45.831
So again, this notion of separation, um, meant that this idea of competition, you know, you know, I'm media circle, uh, action circle saying, well, I'm going to do this and media circle, but it's going to impact this, this sense of competition and rivalry really was underpinned by this notion of separation.
00:40:45.831 --> 00:40:49.684
And I saw that play out from my limited time within extinction, rebellion.
00:40:49.974 --> 00:40:55.324
And for me, that was, you know, that really got me thinking, um, on quite.
00:40:56.148 --> 00:40:58.838
a deep level about that.
00:40:59.759 --> 00:41:07.568
And then there was this, this other sort of linking back to what you were sort of saying, where you say, well, we don't know how to move from this sense of interconnectedness.
00:41:08.474 --> 00:41:11.094
And then you said, well, we didn't know what to do.
00:41:11.114 --> 00:41:12.813
So we took this thing off the shelf.
00:41:13.114 --> 00:41:17.764
So another reason I think that Holacracy doesn't work is because of the ways that we innovate organizationally.
00:41:17.793 --> 00:41:21.653
We see something working over there and we apply it over here.
00:41:21.893 --> 00:41:31.384
And because of the way complex systems work, that has lots and lots of unintended consequences because you, you know, it has a different effect and you are changing different constraints.
00:41:32.003 --> 00:42:08.909
So that would be my critique of it, and my concern about some of the ways that you're, you're speaking a little bit is that, you know, decisions are being made sort of collectively, you know, for instance, you described a team of people and who is in, who's going to be invited, and how decisions are emerged, and even if we don't name it in that vacuum, We tend to default to varying forms of hierarchy, the person with most power deciding whether it's formal or informal or various horizontal sort of forms, all based on this assumption of separation.
00:42:10.092 --> 00:42:12.405
And there is a danger, isn't there?
00:42:13.688 --> 00:42:24.028
Despite the best intentions, this sort of, at this crucial time, we could replicate some of those.
00:42:24.648 --> 00:42:27.559
patterns in, in, in unhelpful ways.
00:42:27.849 --> 00:42:29.958
And you said, well, you know, what do we do?
00:42:30.199 --> 00:42:35.318
And I'm not sure I can tell you what we, what you can do at all.
00:42:35.338 --> 00:42:37.489
Cause I think it's the hard question.
00:42:37.498 --> 00:42:52.409
I noticed that in some of your things, you talked a lot about citizens assemblies, filling that gap of organizing, um, in your blog post that was sort of, well, we can form a citizens assembly and somehow this can sort of face some of these challenges.
00:42:53.324 --> 00:42:57.043
I wonder if it would be interesting at this point in the conversation or, or not.
00:42:57.574 --> 00:43:13.197
If I shared maybe some of the things that we are thinking about possible way of filling that gap, and you could like criticize the hell out of it and tell us why it won't work so that there would be an attempt to sort of, sort of, grow from that, would that be an interesting thing to
00:43:13.389 --> 00:43:14.418
I'd love to hear.
00:43:14.418 --> 00:43:18.958
Yeah, I think I just wanted to clarify what I think where we are in agreement.
00:43:18.958 --> 00:43:21.958
Gully is like, it's this thing about nested purpose.
00:43:22.278 --> 00:43:25.228
It's sort of you really, really need to be clear on the purpose.
00:43:25.239 --> 00:43:30.333
So, um, If then, then it's not a separation thing.
00:43:30.333 --> 00:43:53.706
It's like, if life has this purpose of being more complex and beautiful and sustaining life, then everything is interacting within that purpose, even though it may feel there's a competition, you know, even though deer and the, and the rabbits might both want the, to eat the grass or whatever playing a role, the wolves playing a role in, in, in that ecosystem.
00:43:54.231 --> 00:43:56.920
There's a, there's a, there's a genuine shared purpose.
00:43:57.550 --> 00:44:02.271
If, if, if what happens, and it's a power, it's a question of power here.
00:44:02.271 --> 00:44:18.201
You, you get all these people with mandates, wearing them like sort of badges and going around saying, I've got this mandate and, and this mandate means this, and it's kind of like, it's, you're not in a sense of shared purpose because this is part of the issue, I think, with the holacracy and how we set it up.
00:44:18.610 --> 00:44:22.740
Is that, um, the purpose needs to evolve over time.
00:44:23.331 --> 00:44:29.760
So, XR was actually founded on the back of something called Compassionate Revolution that I'd started.
00:44:29.820 --> 00:44:32.371
Which was, um, rebranded Rising Up.
00:44:32.420 --> 00:44:35.851
And XR was just a campaign, rather than a movement.
00:44:35.851 --> 00:44:39.880
But it became a movement, with some of the scaffolding for a movement, but not most of it.
00:44:40.271 --> 00:44:52.231
And so it's sort of, how was it going to evolve to do the next thing when it was then locked into this sort of rigid system that was replicating, let's, it's all about getting everybody on the streets, get the three and a half percent and then it's all going to change.
00:44:52.231 --> 00:44:55.121
Well no, we're just trying that for a bit, we're rolling the dice.
00:44:55.590 --> 00:45:07.621
And then the power dynamics happen, and some of these people, you've had that magic moment on the streets, you've done something, and then everybody wants to grab the reins of power, um, and it becomes an argy bargy, right?
00:45:07.690 --> 00:45:10.221
Um, and because you haven't set up.
00:45:10.405 --> 00:45:22.896
a way of evolving the purpose, and that actually requires visionary leadership, and visionary leadership is, in my view, right, is, is something that's limited.
00:45:23.541 --> 00:45:46.231
Within capitalist modernity and it actually requires, it actually requires deep listening to people who've got at least, you know, part of their soul, psyche, history, somewhat outside of capitalist modernity, um, and that there are the people that precisely got marginalized in Extinction Rebellion and named it as racism, right?
00:45:46.231 --> 00:45:48.150
I've just been in a two year battle around that.
00:45:49.070 --> 00:45:53.621
Um, I mean, there's many ways to tell that story, but I, I think
00:45:53.856 --> 00:45:53.876
I'm
00:45:53.911 --> 00:45:54.851
part of the problem.
00:45:55.130 --> 00:46:01.521
Yeah, it, it, it, it, it, it comes back to what we were saying earlier, it's like, how do you stay open to life flowing through you?
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:09.510
I mean, I'm actually help, I find it helpful to name this because, because the group that I'm in at the minute, we're in this quandary around, sort of, in quotes, spirituality.
00:46:10.351 --> 00:46:18.391
I feel very, very intuitively strongly that that needs to be the heart of what we do, but I don't want to exclude people, and it's like, how do we How do we support that?
00:46:18.391 --> 00:46:24.621
And it's because as things, as you're trying to make decisions, I don't want them just to come from the mind, right?
00:46:25.072 --> 00:46:25.735
Absolutely.
00:46:26.061 --> 00:46:26.400
You know,
00:46:27.485 --> 00:46:28.275
Absolutely.
00:46:29.065 --> 00:46:36.925
And I would be very interested in your thoughts about how we do that without, I'd be very interested.
00:46:36.956 --> 00:46:39.335
I mean, I think you've got much more interesting things to say.
00:46:39.335 --> 00:46:41.224
I mean, for us, it's the body.
00:46:42.329 --> 00:46:45.478
So first of all, so it's the body and it's about ontology.
00:46:45.489 --> 00:46:52.978
So for instance, we've got, um, you know, Christian Plankhurst and Rachel Rickards in particular, but also Sylvia, I never pronounced her surname.
00:46:53.608 --> 00:47:00.099
And it's, it's really interesting because they're very, very good at emergent facilitation and they don't use spiritual language.
00:47:00.713 --> 00:47:20.393
So they go in and you'll, you'll come in and they will talk about, um, co regulation of nervous systems and how, you know, the, the language of physics in terms of distributed intelligence and distributed cognition, or, you know, Peter Russell, the basic assumption that you know, a lot of hard scientific problems.
00:47:20.829 --> 00:47:42.978
Could be solved if we say that the fundamental building block of the universe is self awareness is consciousness rather than matter that perceptual sciences is right now within that you start to create an ontology and a language that is scientific, you know, how did I support Wolfgang to arrive at a lot of the places he's at was not by talking about how the ideas of this project came in a vision in the jungle.
00:47:43.929 --> 00:47:53.418
Or spirits or entities because he completely switches off, but he was arriving at very, very similar conclusions through scientific language.
00:47:53.418 --> 00:47:59.114
So if we take the points that there isn't one language and there isn't one approach.
00:47:59.434 --> 00:48:10.545
So we think that we start with what language, where do you meet people where they're at, this particular group, what language enables them to start to believe that there is an intelligence.
00:48:10.802 --> 00:48:11.523
beyond the self.
00:48:11.793 --> 00:48:20.992
And then what embodied practices give them that experience, in a quite strong way, that they can then explain with this new ontology?
00:48:21.182 --> 00:48:36.592
And then how do you create these self reinforcing patterns that the more they feel it, Because of the breath work, because of the micro dosing mushrooms, because of, you know, the, the collective cathartic coming together over theater and stories, and then they have a language to explain it.
00:48:36.762 --> 00:48:45.632
The more you can support a group to genuinely believe that decisions and ideas are emerging from a collective intelligence rather than an individual intelligence.
00:48:46.128 --> 00:48:55.467
So that's how we're thinking about at least that part of it, and then, and then the symbology for discerning that when there's sort of digressions between psychedelic experiences.
00:48:55.697 --> 00:49:03.117
So with the Maztecs, they would, if there was different people, fundamentally different visions, would see that as further investigation.
00:49:03.577 --> 00:49:10.108
They wouldn't then go into your right and your wrong, and they'd go deeper until there was some symbolic sort of way of understanding it.
00:49:10.938 --> 00:49:14.887
So I guess that's how we're starting to, to think about that.
00:49:15.077 --> 00:49:25.657
But obviously key to that is at least dealing with enough of the trauma through somatic techniques and enough of making people aware of their current mindsets to even be aware.
00:49:25.668 --> 00:49:27.617
So those seem to be the kind of the first step.
00:49:27.617 --> 00:49:31.847
So that's some of how we're thinking about developing bespoke organizational methods.
00:49:32.407 --> 00:49:33.807
Um, What do you think, you
00:49:34.628 --> 00:49:38.958
think, I think, truthfully, I'm doing a version of that, actually, as you've described it.
00:49:39.077 --> 00:49:39.947
So thank you.
00:49:39.958 --> 00:49:47.853
But so, so, so part, although I, I, I, I do a bit of a number on the physics side of things.
00:49:47.853 --> 00:49:51.782
You know, there's this sort of concept of the cosmic hologram, which Jude Corrivan's written
00:49:52.057 --> 00:49:53.224
don't know that, but yeah.
00:49:53.583 --> 00:50:00.463
My first husband was, who's Britain's best young physicist, did a piece at the, um, Cheltenham Science Festival on it.
00:50:00.492 --> 00:50:04.333
It's the latest physics is that the world is informational.
00:50:04.402 --> 00:50:08.623
And so you can sort of at a stretch talk about morphic resonance from, through that lens.
00:50:09.083 --> 00:50:15.983
It's why I'm a deep, deep fan of McGilchrist's work, because he's, he does 5, 000 science papers behind the matter with things, right.
00:50:16.342 --> 00:50:24.762
So if anybody's, gonna go, Ehh, woo, you know, I, I will, you know, this is a problem though, Gully.
00:50:24.802 --> 00:50:29.963
I will slightly, if I'm not careful, sort of baffle them with a bit of science, you know, and I think it can be
00:50:30.509 --> 00:50:30.978
Why is that a
00:50:31.262 --> 00:50:36.393
I, I think, well, because I think I can use it as a bit of, I, you know, I have a scientific background.
00:50:36.663 --> 00:50:40.943
I think I can use it at times a bit like a bathroom ram if I'm not careful.
00:50:41.268 --> 00:50:42.137
Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:50:42.137 --> 00:50:49.047
You know, I'll sort of get the box file out on the, I can, I can do, like, I'm doing a witchcraft course at the minute and do a version of that.
00:50:49.077 --> 00:50:51.847
Or I can say, ah, but, you know, science.
00:50:51.849 --> 00:50:55.797
So I think I'm doing that ontology switching.
00:50:55.858 --> 00:51:01.927
In fact, the, the Pan African elders I work with, the key word that they use is pluriversality.
00:51:02.623 --> 00:51:07.393
that there are many ways of knowing and being in the world and that we need to be with the plural of us.
00:51:07.393 --> 00:51:14.182
So we're in a wrestle with this at the minute with the Collapse Preparing Communities Convening Group, just in terms of different languages.
00:51:15.130 --> 00:51:22.030
but what's good is there's a real degree of like group and, and personal intelligence and willing.
00:51:22.309 --> 00:51:29.695
So that bit where you said, where it feels like there's a difference and instead of feeling that's a problem, you'd be curious about it.
00:51:30.054 --> 00:51:45.594
And I, what I work with there is, you know, Miki Kashtan, I've mentioned her five times now, but because she should be, um, but you've probably seen her book, Convergent Facilitation, where you drop into, okay, there's a contested word, leadership, right?
00:51:45.735 --> 00:51:48.284
To me, there's something that people need to get their heads around.
00:51:48.304 --> 00:51:53.264
And I don't, I don't need it to be that word, but I, I mean, a specific thing with that word, right?
00:51:53.684 --> 00:51:53.965
For an
00:51:53.965 --> 00:51:54.784
want to define it?
00:51:54.815 --> 00:51:56.755
Do you want to define it so that for the audience, or?
00:51:57.664 --> 00:52:03.445
It's about care for the whole, so it's, you don't just show up to a group and think what am I doing?
00:52:03.445 --> 00:52:04.755
What am I getting out of this?
00:52:05.315 --> 00:52:06.855
Um, when, when shall I speak?
00:52:06.864 --> 00:52:07.934
What have I got to say?
00:52:08.244 --> 00:52:11.195
You're like, how is this, how is this going for everybody?
00:52:11.235 --> 00:52:13.574
Oh, does that, is that person feeling a bit on the edge?
00:52:13.755 --> 00:52:16.385
Have we remembered that person's got a hearing impairment?
00:52:16.784 --> 00:52:18.755
Um, has everybody spoken?
00:52:18.965 --> 00:52:26.344
You know, does, does everybody, um, uh, who's the sort of slower person who, who speaks up more?
00:52:26.355 --> 00:52:27.465
You know, all that stuff, right?
00:52:27.635 --> 00:52:28.804
You care for the whole.
00:52:29.255 --> 00:52:33.739
Um, You could say that at a dinner party though, make sure everybody has a nice time.
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:47.510
The other bit is that you're trying to support the group to move towards purpose, so you're sort of thinking, sensing, well maybe, I do work somatically, we'll do that thing of, okay, we've all just arrived on a Thursday at 5pm, should we just start by being quiet?
00:52:48.250 --> 00:52:56.920
You know, should we just start by doing some stroking ourselves, you know, to give a sense of safety or breath work or whatever.
00:52:56.940 --> 00:53:10.014
So that piece, um, and it's trying to, that care for the whole bit, you're trying to Support everybody to be somatically well, you know, to be, uh, as well together as possible.
00:53:10.014 --> 00:53:22.005
But you're also going, you're not just spending the whole time checking in then, you're, you're on then going, well, because it lifts people's spirits to know that there's been some progress happened.
00:53:22.014 --> 00:53:28.974
So, oh, tell us how that's gone, Bob, you know, and he reports in and how's, what's the process for feeding back.
00:53:28.974 --> 00:53:32.545
So there's a feeling of being part of something that's moving towards purpose.
00:53:32.585 --> 00:53:35.164
I find that an interesting definition of leadership.
00:53:35.164 --> 00:53:38.164
I guess I kind of subscribe to the kind of notions of full circle leadership.
00:53:38.164 --> 00:53:43.445
I don't know which sort of disentangles authority or power from leadership qualities.
00:53:43.855 --> 00:53:44.824
And, um, Yeah,
00:53:44.849 --> 00:53:45.389
word in it.
00:53:45.860 --> 00:53:47.929
Sorry, this is an autistic thing I do.
00:53:48.139 --> 00:53:49.530
Not saying every autistic person does it.
00:53:49.559 --> 00:53:51.570
I butt in because I'm interested in what
00:53:51.605 --> 00:53:52.175
yeah, yeah.
00:53:52.184 --> 00:53:52.704
I like it.
00:53:52.914 --> 00:53:53.355
I like it.
00:53:53.355 --> 00:53:54.114
I do it a bit too.
00:53:54.710 --> 00:53:56.679
I'm with you and also we're running out of time.
00:53:56.715 --> 00:53:57.125
Yeah.
00:53:57.284 --> 00:53:57.655
Okay.
00:53:57.655 --> 00:54:00.045
Then I'm going to try and direct this to where I want this
00:54:00.135 --> 00:54:06.715
Yeah, forest fault leadership, leaderfulness, but they still have that leader thing and still, still, still people will react.
00:54:06.724 --> 00:54:07.965
But I love what you said.
00:54:07.965 --> 00:54:08.864
I agree with you.
00:54:09.034 --> 00:54:22.478
The one thing I would say about it, though, is when you've got explosive growth, and maybe that's the thing to avoid, um, how you replicate the fractal, how you let that fractal repeat and grow, is, that's a, issue.
00:54:23.079 --> 00:54:23.259
okay.
00:54:23.259 --> 00:54:29.358
I'm going to, I'm going to ask you some questions, maybe some contained answers because there's two other areas I want to gather with you.
00:54:29.358 --> 00:54:36.559
But just to sum this up, I think if we at"Organizing from Elsewhere" would, would quite appreciate Okay.
00:54:37.259 --> 00:54:38.208
the feedback.
00:54:38.239 --> 00:54:50.909
We're sort of saying that that space, who decides and who decides, who decides and the nuts and bolts of sort of, um, making decisions the approach to that needs to be specific to any particular group.
00:54:51.949 --> 00:55:01.509
It needs to really start with a sort of decolonizing the mind, becoming aware of how you're seeing the world and it's sort of patriarchal neocolonial basis.
00:55:03.108 --> 00:55:05.619
These things don't happen linearly, but.
00:55:06.108 --> 00:55:08.869
Interwoven in this is some other important elements.
00:55:08.909 --> 00:55:12.809
Somatic approaches to trauma that maintain separation.
00:55:13.219 --> 00:55:17.358
The mapping of power so that it is kind of named and out of the shadows.
00:55:17.869 --> 00:55:54.438
And then the development of an ontology that the group can buy into that really supports them to believe that there is knowledge and intelligence arriving rather than originating from within individuals in the group and somatic practices that give them quite a strong embodied sense of that, that they're then explaining with this new story and then sort of structures, um, symbolic systems to sort of piece together collectively the information that's arriving through individual mouths from a collective intelligence that they can then piece decisions.
00:55:54.498 --> 00:56:06.605
Um, an increased belief in the body and intuition and images and shutting down the mind and we're trying to develop a facilitation process around that to, I
00:56:06.769 --> 00:56:12.750
See, so here's the thing though, like, so this is coming from scarcity in me, so I'm just naming that, right?
00:56:13.500 --> 00:56:21.960
I love what you're saying, like, how do I have all of you be involved in our, all of our meetings and have them all go well, right?
00:56:22.329 --> 00:56:22.820
Because,
00:56:24.264 --> 00:56:25.744
we, we wouldn't be doing that.
00:56:25.744 --> 00:56:28.764
We would be facilitating you as a team
00:56:29.210 --> 00:56:29.570
sure,
00:56:29.605 --> 00:56:31.947
come up with that way of doing it for yourselves.
00:56:32.369 --> 00:56:38.480
but what I'm, what I'm getting at is it still requires your resource to be part of what we're doing, doesn't it?
00:56:38.695 --> 00:56:40.204
No, no, not at all.
00:56:40.454 --> 00:56:43.284
It's a little bit, it's a facilitation process.
00:56:43.485 --> 00:56:53.594
We would support your team to basically believe that there is an intelligence greater than yourselves and to come up with your own specific ways of accessing that and making decisions from that.
00:56:53.983 --> 00:56:55.963
Yeah, I, I'm not, I understood that.
00:56:55.963 --> 00:57:03.492
I think what I'm trying to say though is that's a sort of, it's a thing that takes a certain amount of time and investment of time, right?
00:57:03.547 --> 00:57:08.978
And, and that's the scarcity feeling of, and I know, I know what the answer is, right?
00:57:08.978 --> 00:57:10.677
Because if you don't do this, it's not going to go well.
00:57:11.847 --> 00:57:26.677
you don't, if you don't do it, you could end up, you could end up with, um, hierarchies and power plays and all of these cultures undermining the very thing that you're trying to, to do because of the arguments that you are making that everything is a fractal
00:57:27.518 --> 00:57:27.838
yeah.
00:57:28.398 --> 00:57:29.313
and repeats out.
00:57:29.708 --> 00:57:35.797
honestly think we're on the same page and I, I'm, I'm sort of wrestling with what you're saying.
00:57:36.347 --> 00:57:56.456
With a group of people in, in, not in a, you know, in a, it's interesting because it, One of the people that I'm working with that's, um, yeah, we, like, it's really important that him and I have a lot of dialogue and we're both really, really up for that And yeah, there's differences emerging and it takes some time to sort of unpick those.
00:57:56.896 --> 00:58:08.186
So it's that kind of, I suppose the scarcity is it's sort of like if you don't get that much progress, the people that are potentially or currently funding things, it's like, well, what have you done?
00:58:08.215 --> 00:58:12.246
You know, I keep saying to some people, they're building the container and it takes time.
00:58:12.746 --> 00:58:18.565
Um, INE Institute used to say it takes at least nine months, you know, and this is, this is not with.
00:58:18.891 --> 00:58:21.460
this would be with people with time to hang out together.
00:58:21.460 --> 00:58:27.981
So it's what I was saying earlier on, Gully, we're saying you're in this system, it's got its teeth in your neck and all of that.
00:58:27.990 --> 00:58:32.981
So it's, it's sort of, but I, I, like, look, what you're saying, I agree with.
00:58:33.170 --> 00:58:34.550
Yes, it is that.
00:58:34.670 --> 00:58:52.163
And then there's sort of, the next bit then is because you can have that fractal layer, like, let's say there's like, I don't know, three to ten people coming together to make something happen, but what they're trying to do is mobilize millions of people.
00:58:52.632 --> 00:58:54.222
That scaling thing,
00:58:54.873 --> 00:58:55.373
yeah.
00:58:55.733 --> 00:59:03.413
question, you know, like how, how the, how the pioneer species that makes space for the next layers of the fraction.
00:59:03.913 --> 00:59:04.182
Yeah.
00:59:04.213 --> 00:59:05.472
Have you got an answer for that one?
00:59:05.623 --> 00:59:22.523
I mean, the interview is the wrong way around, but the answer would be because that small group now believes that they're receiving information from outside and they're accessing, if you want the scientific language, their full body intelligence or our spiritual language, that literally they're now able to listen to a vast intelligence.
00:59:22.813 --> 00:59:25.802
The answer for that would arrive.
00:59:26.228 --> 00:59:41.570
to them and it would be appropriate and harnessing a bigger intelligence rather than them breaking out and infighting about what the right way is or them copying a specific thing so it would fractal out the core thing is that that those people are really moving from a heartfelt belief.
00:59:42.115 --> 00:59:42.485
yeah.
00:59:42.721 --> 00:59:43.280
ideas aren't theirs.
00:59:43.865 --> 00:59:44.155
yeah.
00:59:44.155 --> 00:59:44.931
yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:59:45.226 --> 00:59:48.135
but they, they really are, you know, working through the body.
00:59:48.956 --> 00:59:57.416
Um, so, I mean, that's how we're thinking, um, about it and experimenting with it and exploring and we will fail.
00:59:57.635 --> 01:00:03.543
But I guess the point of this sort of interview and this podcast is to get people like you to sort of.
01:00:03.909 --> 01:00:08.579
Think about that a little bit and to say what's wrong with it, or what's the different way of approaching it?
01:00:08.579 --> 01:00:17.648
Because if we say that the key is that we don't move from separation, then one way perhaps is our way, but then the way that you're experimenting with your team.
01:00:18.213 --> 01:00:26.713
I guess if I was going to influence you in one area, it would be not to leave that black hole wide to sort of say, well, we need to get here.
01:00:26.764 --> 01:00:35.503
We need to get to meeting material resources and we need to sort of, um, you know, all of the kinds of things and how we organize getting that will just emerge.
01:00:35.773 --> 01:00:44.344
Because I think there is a real chance of taking other organizational methods that are based on separation off the shelf and undermining yourself before you get there or affecting it.
01:00:44.614 --> 01:00:58.528
But to ask that fundamental question about how you in your small groups are going to make those decisions from this fundamental assumption of interconnectors, and I'm sure you'll come up with better solutions than us, but that's like real curiosity.
01:00:58.873 --> 01:01:07.184
mean, that's why we jumped together for a weekend because it's sort of like, you, we need to be together and that, that, that life energy needs to come through.
01:01:07.184 --> 01:01:12.304
And that was the prayer, by the way, that was the prayer of dedication was to open the group up to the life energies.
01:01:12.304 --> 01:01:19.833
And I'm, um, I need to go very shortly, but I'm happy to do a second session with you, love.
01:01:19.903 --> 01:01:20.293
Um,
01:01:20.434 --> 01:01:20.864
be lovely.
01:01:20.864 --> 01:01:21.983
I'd love to carry the conversation
01:01:22.293 --> 01:01:28.574
I think so, yeah, we didn't get to the other things that you named about violence and scarcity and indigenous wisdom.
01:01:28.963 --> 01:01:38.994
But I just, I can share a story, um, that will, you know, maybe reassure in some ways that I get it.
01:01:41.909 --> 01:01:44.369
So, um, here's the story, right?
01:01:44.369 --> 01:01:46.039
You might, you might have even been there.
01:01:46.438 --> 01:01:49.998
So there, there was this pink boat in Oxford Circus, right?
01:01:51.128 --> 01:01:54.648
And the pink boat was a beautiful thing.
01:01:54.659 --> 01:01:58.449
If anybody got to be there, it was, um, I thought it was like a big vagina.
01:01:58.449 --> 01:02:02.429
I was like, fucking hell, we've put a big vagina in the middle of Oxford Circus, this big pink boat.
01:02:03.268 --> 01:02:05.489
And, um, it was led by the Southwest.
01:02:05.489 --> 01:02:10.039
There was lots of dancing and Southwest vibes and gray speakers.
01:02:10.159 --> 01:02:12.639
Um, yeah, it blew people's minds away.
01:02:12.639 --> 01:02:16.188
Many people came across the Pink Boat and they're like, we want to join this movement.
01:02:16.268 --> 01:02:18.938
So it's one of the beautiful vision holding actions.
01:02:18.969 --> 01:02:24.498
It was celebratory and meaningful, and it was held in place by these barnacles that were locked on.
01:02:24.608 --> 01:02:26.278
Do you know what about the Pink Boat, right?
01:02:26.829 --> 01:02:40.978
So, um, and to say, when I went to Costa Rica to pray for the rebellion, one of the things was I want to know who my guides and allies are and, you know, the bigger things that support the work.
01:02:41.068 --> 01:02:51.949
And it's very personal that to, to make those asks and to, to feel something about that and to have, I'm not going to say out loud exactly what came, but things came.
01:02:51.958 --> 01:03:21.155
Um, and, Anyway, we're all in this office and we're getting these phone calls, the police have finally taken the pink boat, it's been dragged away, and the people are going a bit, it's getting very lairy, it's getting, it's on the edge of violence, right, it's been a non violent movement, it's in its peak of its power, it's going big across the world, and it's potentially about to drop into violence, right, there were sort of two to three hundred rebels getting agitated.
01:03:21.155 --> 01:03:21.195
Right.
01:03:21.195 --> 01:03:21.215
Right.
01:03:21.726 --> 01:03:24.976
Somebody needs to come from the office and help sort this out, right?
01:03:26.085 --> 01:03:29.306
And we were all like, well, you know, it's all decentralized organizing.
01:03:29.346 --> 01:03:32.315
We've got, people on the ground need to make decisions, it's not up to us.
01:03:32.346 --> 01:03:34.865
And they were like, no, this is lessons.
01:03:34.885 --> 01:03:36.945
It was this dear old Rachel Lennon, actually.
01:03:36.945 --> 01:03:41.356
She was saying, no, somebody known to the movement, Gail or Roger needs to come and sort this out.
01:03:42.445 --> 01:03:46.536
Um, and so after like two, two or three back and forth, we're like, okay, we're going to come.
01:03:46.936 --> 01:03:49.266
So I thought, Christ, what are we going to do when we get there?
01:03:49.335 --> 01:03:51.286
And I'm looking around for.
01:03:51.951 --> 01:03:55.231
A, a, a megaphone to, you know, how are you going to even speak over this roar?
01:03:55.280 --> 01:04:02.440
And all the batteries were broke, nothing was working, there was this green horn, like a plastic green horn, and I stuck it in my belt.
01:04:03.731 --> 01:04:07.251
And we jumped on our bikes, Roger and I, and we raced down there.
01:04:08.681 --> 01:04:20.731
And it's actually in the film Conscientious Protectors this, and I have to say it's a bit male gaze this, the way the male camera guy, blessings on his life, chose to sort of show that story.
01:04:20.971 --> 01:04:23.791
It makes it look like Roger was very much in charge somehow.
01:04:23.811 --> 01:04:29.275
But I felt a little bit abandoned by him at the time, because he sort of said to me, Look, Gail, I'll go and talk to the police.
01:04:30.005 --> 01:04:31.425
You deal with the public.
01:04:31.786 --> 01:04:33.715
It's not the public, it's our people, right?
01:04:34.106 --> 01:04:42.655
And as we approached it, um, this guy threw himself at the boat and a police officer grabbed him and shoved his head down on the ground and put his knee on his head.
01:04:42.715 --> 01:04:44.496
Like, it was that level of aggression.
01:04:44.916 --> 01:04:48.565
There were about 300 rebels and about four times as many police.
01:04:48.596 --> 01:04:49.731
It was Heavy.
01:04:50.550 --> 01:05:03.800
So anyway, I went and stood in front of this group of people with this tension, right, with this plastic horn in my bell somehow, and with just Rogers going off to talk to the police.
01:05:03.800 --> 01:05:16.050
And I stood in front of this group of people and I thought, you know, I, I, I was, I thought to myself, um, this, this moment really, really matters.
01:05:16.791 --> 01:05:19.606
It's all down to me and I don't know what to do.
01:05:22.036 --> 01:05:29.965
And I, and I touched this green bat horn and like, it just dropped in, it just dropped in the download of what to do.
01:05:30.695 --> 01:05:36.536
And I sort of blew this daft horn and asked everybody to sort of sit down and we ran a people's assembly.
01:05:37.235 --> 01:05:41.206
Um, and, and what came to me was it's grief.
01:05:41.545 --> 01:05:46.456
People don't to let go of something that they're grieving and they need to go through a process.
01:05:46.467 --> 01:05:52.836
So I just blew the horn, everybody sit down, talk to the person next to you about what you're feeling right now.
01:05:53.387 --> 01:05:54.617
And it ran for about an hour.
01:05:54.617 --> 01:05:57.847
The police came up to me afterwards, even months later and thanked me for it.
01:05:58.436 --> 01:06:01.186
We had, um, a beautiful process.
01:06:01.206 --> 01:06:07.547
Everybody apart from one person, we honored that person, we applauded them, had made agreement about how to handle the situation.
01:06:07.972 --> 01:06:14.811
Which was to gracefully let go of the boat, with singing a morning song from Scotland, April Grief song, I did, gorgeous.
01:06:15.751 --> 01:06:20.498
And um, it was a beautiful moment of togetherness, and it came from beyond me.
01:06:21.429 --> 01:06:30.672
Uh, and the thing was, during the process, this guy came up to me, whispered in my ear, got more boats.
01:06:31.351 --> 01:06:34.442
Of course we've got more boats, the boats is just a symbol, right?
01:06:34.831 --> 01:06:36.001
We've got more boats.
01:06:36.411 --> 01:06:44.771
And before the hour was up and we were off and the boat was let go, a sign had gone up in, um, Oxford Circus, we are the boat.
01:06:46.056 --> 01:06:52.737
You know, that collective intelligence and it, from my point of view, it just came through life, right?
01:06:52.806 --> 01:06:58.507
And that's what I understand to be organizing from elsewhere, you know, to mean.
01:06:59.297 --> 01:07:00.757
It's not the great Gail.
01:07:00.806 --> 01:07:08.376
It's because of opening ourselves up to life's intelligence and finding the intelligence together as a group then.
01:07:08.947 --> 01:07:11.476
from that somatic sense of connection.
01:07:11.496 --> 01:07:12.817
So I get it, you brother.
01:07:12.817 --> 01:07:14.387
I really hear you, brother, what you're on to.
01:07:14.927 --> 01:07:15.547
You're on to something.
01:07:15.697 --> 01:07:17.027
Marimoo, your blessings.
01:07:17.027 --> 01:07:18.637
And let's carry on the conversation.
01:07:31.681 --> 01:07:33.541
So Wolfgang, what did you make of that?
01:07:34.105 --> 01:07:35.695
I greatly enjoyed listening to it.
01:07:35.695 --> 01:07:36.445
I have to say.
01:07:37.014 --> 01:07:48.344
I mean, I know both you and Gail and it was really interesting to hear you both talk and feel into the dynamic between you two and see where you went exploring.
01:07:48.795 --> 01:07:51.914
So it was really an an enjoyable listen for me.
01:07:52.751 --> 01:07:55.331
Yeah, it was, it was an interesting experience for me.
01:07:55.601 --> 01:07:57.041
'cause you know, I've maybe seen her.
01:07:57.552 --> 01:08:01.751
Once or twice during the time I was in Extinction Rebellion.
01:08:01.751 --> 01:08:20.439
So it was like, you know, this, this woman that had ignited a worldwide movement and I was interviewing her and I, you know, I, I care passionately about the way that we currently are failing to bring about change, failing to find ways of organizing that don't replicate the cultures.
01:08:20.439 --> 01:08:23.048
And this felt like this opportunity to, um.
01:08:23.048 --> 01:08:34.643
Think with her, influence her, understand her and I, I was really, I was really, really nervous, you know, I was hiding it by being combative.
01:08:34.853 --> 01:08:35.212
I think.
01:08:35.302 --> 01:08:41.262
Um, I'm really curious as like, if you had to say like, these were my takeaways.
01:08:41.356 --> 01:08:44.747
this is what I found most interesting about that conversation.
01:08:45.271 --> 01:08:45.841
What would they be?
01:08:45.841 --> 01:08:46.231
Wolfgang?
01:08:46.882 --> 01:08:48.953
I think mainly two things.
01:08:49.132 --> 01:08:57.023
One is an area where I felt a lot of alignment between our, and particularly my thinking and hers, which is I.
01:08:57.336 --> 01:09:02.645
This idea that it's, it's mainly our right brain hemisphere, our soma.
01:09:02.975 --> 01:09:17.166
So not the part where we put the world into boxes and into neat little models, but the other half of us, um, where all the information is streaming through us that is flowing through the systems that we're part of constantly.
01:09:17.166 --> 01:09:23.136
That it's this half of us that is connecting us and that is.
01:09:23.461 --> 01:09:28.650
the instrument of creating something like collective intelligence, collective consciousness.
01:09:29.261 --> 01:09:35.110
she referenced in McGilchrist, for example, as a source, as someone who has been thinking about this a lot.
01:09:35.921 --> 01:09:41.155
And I think that that kind of framing resonated very strongly with me.
01:09:41.940 --> 01:09:43.890
probably because it's also connected to.
01:09:44.520 --> 01:09:52.051
The way that I think about who we are as humans, how we function as systems, how we show up as agents in the world.
01:09:52.547 --> 01:09:58.887
And I think the other main point where I feel I have a lot of questions Scale.
01:09:58.887 --> 01:10:12.507
Talked a lot about experiences of interconnectedness, embodied experiences of interconnectedness, but most of the examples I heard were basically personal, individual experiences of interconnectedness.
01:10:12.957 --> 01:10:23.787
being a prayer with a small group of people, but doing that as if you will, a separate thing when compared to all the other things, the organizing, the decision making, the day-to-day stuff.
01:10:24.177 --> 01:10:27.257
That you're doing, in an organization, in a social movement.
01:10:28.068 --> 01:10:45.768
And so for me, I think the big question was how can we bring this sense of interconnectedness out of these isolated experiences, these one off basically, and into our day-to-day acting and doing together.
01:10:45.768 --> 01:10:47.313
Yeah, I mean, that makes.
01:10:47.972 --> 01:10:51.573
Of sense and I, I kind of agree with you.
01:10:51.922 --> 01:11:10.483
I guess the, the thing that made me most anxious was, was here with somebody who clearly, clearly had had these very, very, very powerful, experiences of interconnectedness, you know, through her journey with plant medicine, through her, experiences of sort of channeling and really feeling that she was being guided.
01:11:10.792 --> 01:11:15.351
And yet I saw that sit alongside power.
01:11:16.192 --> 01:11:26.572
Being in this sort of exceptionalist understanding, you know, the pioneer species, a small group of people that will sort of establish the frame for the ecosystem.
01:11:26.572 --> 01:11:33.436
I saw, you know, this powerful embodied sense of interconnectedness stiffing alongside an organization that was, you know.
01:11:34.237 --> 01:11:37.806
Despite holacracy sort of, you know, hierarchical Yeah.
01:11:38.407 --> 01:11:53.167
And realizing that actually un embodied an experience, a powerful experience of interconnectedness in and of itself wasn't a of Um, for that, I was really interested in this kind of contradiction of how.
01:11:53.886 --> 01:12:07.087
We can have this complete sense of being part of an nested system, of receiving all of this information, this, this very profound sense, and it can be boxed in an individual experience, but I have had this experience.
01:12:07.506 --> 01:12:08.856
I am being guided.
01:12:09.157 --> 01:12:20.198
Um, so in a sense in and of itself, I suddenly realized at the end of this conversation an embodied sense of interconnectedness, doesn't solve, Anything.
01:12:20.677 --> 01:12:42.828
And the other, striking thing from the conversation was here was somebody, and, and maybe it wasn't included completely in the conversation, but I felt that there was somebody who, from a very sort of robust theoretical analysis, sort of understood the role of separation in sort of the extractive system that we're in.
01:12:43.225 --> 01:12:50.635
And really understood how that sort of fractal of separation had undermined, had shaped and limited what Extinction Rebellion was able to achieve.
01:12:50.635 --> 01:12:55.164
And I, I heard that fundamental realization everywhere.
01:12:55.885 --> 01:12:59.215
And then I kept hearing, but I don't know what to do about it.
01:12:59.904 --> 01:13:01.404
I don't know what to do about it.
01:13:02.244 --> 01:13:07.555
And I felt that because she didn't know what to do about it preceding anyone.
01:13:07.975 --> 01:13:22.125
So establishing this new movement using hierarchical and horizontal forms of organizing, boxing interconnectedness within the framework of a language of spirituality that I think in my view, is bound to turn a lot of people off.
01:13:22.305 --> 01:13:22.604
Yeah.
01:13:22.814 --> 01:13:34.125
And keeping it compartmentalized on one side, just'cause it wasn't baked in, in the way that you were sort of saying and how, you know, the whole organization was, was moving and operating.
01:13:34.125 --> 01:13:35.085
So I think those were the.
01:13:37.305 --> 01:13:37.425
I.
01:13:39.300 --> 01:13:45.395
I think I share a lot of this, but I think I also have a slightly different perspective on a few of these aspects.
01:13:46.335 --> 01:13:50.595
Maybe it's interesting to, to look into them a little and to try to unpack that a little more.
01:13:51.225 --> 01:13:58.121
Um, so for example, on this aspect of different languages and accessibility, I.
01:13:58.121 --> 01:14:09.746
Gail made the point explicitly and repeatedly that there's like spiritual Gail, um, who is in prayer and talks about plant medicine and share these personal experiences, and they're there.
01:14:09.746 --> 01:14:16.140
Scientist, Gail, who um, talks about the holographic principle and how universe is made of information.
01:14:16.975 --> 01:14:20.685
And tries to, frame things in a very scientific language.
01:14:20.985 --> 01:14:34.126
So I think there is a lot of consciousness for needing these different ontologies depending on who you're with and what their background, experience and their, their language for describing the world is.
01:14:34.432 --> 01:14:44.712
And From personal experience when talking with you, it's easier to find a common language with you that uses spiritual terms than one that uses scientific terms.
01:14:45.255 --> 01:14:47.625
So I think that's, that's in there as well.
01:14:48.265 --> 01:14:54.475
Then I think what's really interesting is this very like complex tangled up.
01:14:55.420 --> 01:15:07.300
Mess of aspects around how do we do this and how do we do it in a way that doesn't detract us or distract us from, from acting in the world?
01:15:07.569 --> 01:15:18.979
And how can we avoid naval gazing about these topics and how does that sit with, questions of power and hierarchy and implicit power and implicit hierarchy.
01:15:19.310 --> 01:15:21.170
And I think there are a lot of things.
01:15:21.994 --> 01:15:23.284
Tangled up in there.
01:15:23.404 --> 01:15:40.744
The, the question of implicit power was a big question for a really long time in exile, particularly around this small group of founders who were very well connected within the organization and had a lot of informal influence that wasn't fully reflected in the Holocratic system.
01:15:41.314 --> 01:15:46.895
And that was a source of, for a lot of conflict and, um.
01:15:47.314 --> 01:15:50.885
I know that I have a slightly different perspective on these things than Gail has.
01:15:50.885 --> 01:16:11.194
For example, she likes to talk about the concept of source, that there is a special role that people have that bring a certain idea to life or that, that imagine a certain path purpose for an organization, and the importance of of these sources being.
01:16:12.289 --> 01:16:14.750
Present and being influential.
01:16:14.750 --> 01:16:28.500
And I'm always slightly skeptical if that's not just another way of kind of cementing implicit power and, if that's really something we should further and not only acknowledge, but further and amplify.
01:16:29.234 --> 01:16:32.564
My guess would be that she would probably say, yes, we need that.
01:16:33.314 --> 01:16:42.345
And for me, I think, I'm way more skeptical about that, and I think that's one of the ways that separation and hierarchy and patriarchy kind of creep back in.
01:16:42.395 --> 01:16:55.515
But then there's also this question of how do we make sure we are not becoming naval gazers and, spend all our days, trying to get more interconnected and then don't get things done.
01:16:55.515 --> 01:16:55.574
I.
01:16:55.920 --> 01:17:06.960
She referenced this paper that I once wrote while I was in xr, where I said, in XR we have these two cultures where you have the getting shit done people and you have the leave, no one behind people.
01:17:07.350 --> 01:17:13.359
And this divide was really stark in xr and I think I share her, conviction.
01:17:13.359 --> 01:17:17.109
I would say that these can go together and that they should go together.
01:17:17.109 --> 01:17:24.399
This sense of care and this focus on interconnectedness with a sense of productivity and going forward and, and.
01:17:24.399 --> 01:17:25.569
Getting into action.
01:17:26.020 --> 01:17:29.949
But I also know from experience how difficult it is to, to achieve that.
01:17:30.399 --> 01:17:42.090
And for me it was a reminder of something that we talked about in the last few weeks, a lot, which is how do we find methods and what do these methods look like that bring.
01:17:42.479 --> 01:17:56.010
An experience of interconnectedness to the actual doing where it's not just the meditation, not just the prayer, not just the ceremony, but actually the decision making, the planning, the action itself.
01:17:56.350 --> 01:17:57.819
the debrief afterwards.
01:17:58.090 --> 01:18:06.779
Where are the methods that, that help us do things that we need to do and that we should do in a different way.
01:18:07.560 --> 01:18:24.569
My hope would be, and it's not a conviction yet, but I think we are working towards that, is that there are methods which can help us to be actually more productive and to be more in a flow together and to make things.
01:18:24.920 --> 01:18:40.260
Easier to do and yeah, to become more action oriented instead of less because there is a greater sense of we are in this together, we are doing this together, we are aligned, uh, a more natural sense of things flowing.
01:18:40.770 --> 01:18:54.119
Um, so I think in, in all of this tangled mess, that's for me the kind of the silver lining or the perspective that I think there is a way of bringing these things together and we are kind of seeing the first traces of it.
01:18:54.565 --> 01:18:56.095
I like where you've got to.
01:18:56.095 --> 01:19:10.315
'cause if I was an audience member of this podcast and I just sort of listened to this very interesting interview with Gail, sort of, but if there had to be like a, a one line subject, it's, we understand the problem, but we don't know what to do.
01:19:10.315 --> 01:19:10.345
I.
01:19:11.155 --> 01:19:21.668
Maybe we don't want, um, a discussion about that, interview where we go, yeah, I hope, but there's a big problem and we don't know, what to do.
01:19:21.719 --> 01:19:30.588
I'm remembering, the interview and, there was this very striking moment where she was sort of saying, well, you know, to get there, we've got all of these, this, all this trauma.
01:19:31.338 --> 01:19:37.748
We've got all of this stuff, we could spend years working through that to get to a sense of interconnectedness and this sense of hopelessness.
01:19:37.748 --> 01:19:40.569
So, so sort of to move us away from that.
01:19:40.569 --> 01:19:40.899
Okay.
01:19:41.439 --> 01:19:43.298
Uh, maybe I'll comment on, on a little bit.
01:19:43.298 --> 01:19:57.126
So one of the things I just wanna come back to with what you said,'cause I think it's very important, and I think one of the reasons it's useful for us to speak to that is I think there is a critique, which would sound something like.
01:19:58.416 --> 01:19:59.166
Okay.
01:20:00.065 --> 01:20:04.546
Capitalism, is underpinned by a sense of separation, okay?
01:20:04.765 --> 01:20:08.666
the mental health epidemic is underpinned by this diet of separation, okay?
01:20:08.666 --> 01:20:09.746
Dominion over nature.
01:20:09.775 --> 01:20:10.136
Okay.
01:20:10.136 --> 01:20:10.916
Individualism.
01:20:10.945 --> 01:20:11.365
Okay.
01:20:11.365 --> 01:20:12.086
Competition.
01:20:12.475 --> 01:20:13.615
Okay.
01:20:13.615 --> 01:20:13.735
Okay.
01:20:13.735 --> 01:20:13.737
Okay.
01:20:13.765 --> 01:20:14.996
We agree with you.
01:20:15.025 --> 01:20:16.256
We agree with you, right?
01:20:17.426 --> 01:20:18.868
But the planet is burning.
01:20:19.582 --> 01:20:26.782
Fascism is on the rise, and I don't wanna sit around and fucking meditate and chant some, you know, fucking mantra.
01:20:26.902 --> 01:20:28.481
And this is a load of bollocks.
01:20:29.181 --> 01:20:34.612
Listening to some of the stuff we're saying, like there's a version that interconnectedness is.
01:20:35.016 --> 01:20:39.667
Dangerous and that narratives of interconnectedness and dangerous, and what I mean by that was something that you pointed to.
01:20:40.417 --> 01:20:50.856
So if you combine sort of one of the narratives, I'm not saying that Gail meant this, but there's a version of this that could be true, which is, I have heard the word of God.
01:20:51.362 --> 01:21:03.997
I channeled this source, God the divine, whatever you want to call it in an altered state, gave me a vision and I therefore know the truth.
01:21:05.002 --> 01:21:15.198
Therefore do, as I say, there is a version of that that we've of seen in religion, that we've seen in cults, that we've seen, you know, really play out in very destructive ways.
01:21:15.768 --> 01:21:21.137
Moreover, I think another critique could go and look how culturally appropriative this is.
01:21:21.137 --> 01:21:25.787
You're adopting techniques and words and language that you know that don't arise.
01:21:26.118 --> 01:21:26.297
Yeah.
01:21:26.898 --> 01:21:41.497
From, if want to culturally appropriate to our lineage, our culture, our world, you know, okay, your analysis is good, man, but I'm not gonna get into bed with you because it is so full of danger that you are not offering a solution.
01:21:41.618 --> 01:21:44.467
You are just offering another version of the problems.
01:21:44.467 --> 01:21:52.148
And if I was to throw that ball at you, which I think is a legitimate criticism, um, or challenge to what we're saying, what would you say Wolfgang?
01:21:53.184 --> 01:22:00.538
I would first of all acknowledge that this is a legitimate criticism or, or it points out a very, very real risk.
01:22:01.134 --> 01:22:10.094
And I think my reply would be this way of, of interpreting, our vision or this idea of focusing on interconnectedness.
01:22:10.094 --> 01:22:23.564
Again, has separation baked in, um, into its heart because it operates from this perspective of the individual where I am connected, I am the source, I have this experience.
01:22:23.684 --> 01:22:26.444
And then as you say, this is why you need to follow me.
01:22:26.766 --> 01:22:28.537
so I think what, what I'm.
01:22:28.896 --> 01:22:47.476
Really interested in, and I love that the work that we are doing, like behind the scenes is actually going exactly in this direction, is how does interconnectedness show up on a much smaller scale where it's not the inside, where it's not the experience.
01:22:47.867 --> 01:22:51.886
But it's, um, a range of insights, a range of experiences.
01:22:52.216 --> 01:22:53.957
How does it show up in our relationships?
01:22:53.957 --> 01:22:54.676
How does it show up?
01:22:54.676 --> 01:23:05.283
In the beginning of our meeting, in the middle of our meeting, at the end of our meeting, for example, one, one experience I had very recently where I realized, oh, this is one of the.
01:23:05.613 --> 01:23:16.314
Places where I need to look into, if I want to learn how to do this differently, was the recording of one of the conversations we had, um, like two or three weeks ago.
01:23:16.974 --> 01:23:36.163
And I felt like, wow, I'm really, trying to dominate the discussion and I'm talking over you and I'm, I'm going on as many theoretical tangents as I felt like, and you kept saying things like, um, I know that you see it this way and I understand this point.
01:23:36.304 --> 01:23:42.484
but there's still this question that I had like three sections of the discussion ago and I still haven't responded to it.
01:23:43.094 --> 01:23:51.104
Where I felt like, okay, it's, it's so easy for me to, to go down this, this road of, because that's the way I think.
01:23:51.104 --> 01:23:52.873
That's the way I experience things.
01:23:52.873 --> 01:23:55.604
That's what I think is a good argument.
01:23:55.694 --> 01:23:58.814
This what I think is the right language to talk about things.
01:23:58.814 --> 01:24:02.953
I keep pressing for it and for me, I think.
01:24:03.838 --> 01:24:18.279
Getting to a place of being more connected and creating, less separation, for example, means to think about how do I show up in these conversations and how important do I think my ego should be in these conversations?
01:24:18.939 --> 01:24:21.698
And then, yeah, that's work that I need to do.
01:24:21.698 --> 01:24:27.238
So in a way that's like also an an individual task, but it's something that shows up in.
01:24:27.809 --> 01:24:39.298
In a conversation, in, in a personal relationship in lots of small things that I do and then looking at these points and thinking about what can I do differently here?
01:24:39.298 --> 01:24:40.679
What can we do differently here?
01:24:40.679 --> 01:24:48.779
What can we try, what can we experiment with, I think is way more promising than focusing on these big life changing moments.
01:24:49.373 --> 01:24:55.913
Where I might feel interconnected, but then that's my personal experience and nothing more.
01:24:56.751 --> 01:25:03.354
I find that interesting and I agree with you and maybe I want, I think it might be helpful to let the audience, this is the first.
01:25:04.073 --> 01:25:10.163
Interview in the first episode to sort of maybe understand a little bit about the framework that we are thinking, about this in.
01:25:10.913 --> 01:25:18.270
So, I mean, the first thing to say is, everything that I have sort of said isn't necessarily just my perspective, it's the team perspective.
01:25:18.270 --> 01:25:25.501
I mean, there are so many people within the decolonization movement in, in so many perspectives that would, would highlight these dangers.
01:25:25.501 --> 01:25:28.470
And we come into this, um, with an awareness.
01:25:29.341 --> 01:25:30.240
Of these dangers.
01:25:31.020 --> 01:25:47.747
And on the other side, a sort of theoretical framework where we're sort of saying the organizational methods that we use hierarchically or horizontally, all are underpinned by this, this notion of separation where, you know, decision making.
01:25:48.091 --> 01:25:55.862
Organizing is seen as, you know, d individual entities each with sort of differing needs and desires and somehow having to sort of negotiate between them.
01:25:55.862 --> 01:26:02.131
And if you use an organizational method based on a certain assumption, you you replicate that assumption.
01:26:02.131 --> 01:26:06.271
And if we keep replicating this assumption of separation, we end up where we are.
01:26:06.962 --> 01:26:13.618
If we picture a painting as only possible, if we limit the size of the canvas and the the numbers of colors.
01:26:14.384 --> 01:26:16.453
We can understand where we are now.
01:26:16.756 --> 01:26:20.201
Being paintings continually done on the canvas of separation.
01:26:20.591 --> 01:26:38.190
The fractal of separation again and again and again within this complex system, results where we are and an understanding, and I don't necessarily think it's either my place or the right time to go into it, that we live within a complex rather than a complicated system.
01:26:38.671 --> 01:26:41.280
And that fundamental change can only be brought about.
01:26:41.956 --> 01:26:45.225
Through a fractal of interconnectedness.
01:26:45.692 --> 01:26:54.958
So if we are looking at this in any way, we are thinking, how can we create feedback loops of more interconnectedness?
01:26:55.168 --> 01:26:59.639
So these are a small questions, these are a small notions.
01:26:59.668 --> 01:27:07.706
It's how can me and Ni Wolf going right now in this moment, feel more interconnected.
01:27:09.657 --> 01:27:11.966
Use scientific language for interconnected.
01:27:13.046 --> 01:27:20.966
There is a wealth of information being communicated from my cells, to my organs, to my body, from the environment that I'm in, from.
01:27:21.266 --> 01:27:35.396
There's so much information being picked, picked up between nested systems, but'cause of the language and worldview that I have, my higher order systems, my sentient.
01:27:36.296 --> 01:27:39.716
Believing that it's all alone in the back of my brain doesn't pick up on it.
01:27:39.747 --> 01:27:48.207
So we need to bring our attention to our body where this somatic information is giving us all of this information.
01:27:49.256 --> 01:27:57.537
And as a very rough framework, we are asking that question organization, you know, how can we have a conversation?
01:27:57.537 --> 01:27:58.886
How can we have a team meeting?
01:27:59.216 --> 01:28:03.270
How can we develop a strategy with more of a sense of interconnected?
01:28:03.921 --> 01:28:11.360
What is the role of The in particular and what is the role of our sort of colonial mindset in maintaining separation?
01:28:11.360 --> 01:28:31.430
What soon the role of our worldview, and I know I've waffled on enough, but if we look at perhaps the interview with Gail and what happened in Extinction Rebellion as what we're doing through the lens of how we're thinking about things, maybe I again, pass the, the ball over to you.
01:28:31.931 --> 01:28:32.591
I think that.
01:28:32.862 --> 01:28:44.202
the first insight or key point that stood out for me in your interview that I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation revolved exactly around this idea of it's this.
01:28:45.795 --> 01:28:52.364
Information that we pick up with our senses, that we process with, um, our soma.
01:28:52.814 --> 01:28:54.435
This is what we need to focus on.
01:28:54.435 --> 01:28:56.145
This is what we need to tune into.
01:28:56.145 --> 01:29:02.234
And I think there's a lot of alignment between our thinking, between Gail's thinking and her experiences.
01:29:02.234 --> 01:29:06.104
There was a lot of alignment in the conversation with you around this.
01:29:06.704 --> 01:29:19.244
And I think we are seeing glimpses of what that could look like by looking at methods that focus on this, that, that ask in this specific moment, how can I get access to this information in this specific interaction?
01:29:19.425 --> 01:29:21.045
How can I be more attuned to, I.
01:29:21.930 --> 01:29:32.699
My bodily sensations, my intuitions, the things that, um, I usually shut out when I box my thinking into this left hemisphere.
01:29:32.970 --> 01:29:39.659
Neat little models and packages of the world that we are getting indoctrinated into in, in our western societies.
01:29:40.260 --> 01:29:43.289
And as you say, I think there's a lot of unlearning to do.
01:29:43.920 --> 01:29:45.239
but that can start.
01:29:45.600 --> 01:29:54.460
Very small, that can start with the, the actual things we do, the conversation that we have, the relationships that we form and nurture.
01:29:55.270 --> 01:30:07.123
And yeah, my hope would be that that's also something that people are interested in, maybe even intrigued by, um, and want to experiment with and want to share.
01:30:07.458 --> 01:30:10.309
Their experiences in with us.
01:30:10.792 --> 01:30:18.122
so that could become a larger scale learning process where lots of little experiments and lots of little experiences can kind of.
01:30:18.122 --> 01:30:25.832
Become interconnected, if you will, and, and create an exchange that goes beyond just the two of us or the three of us.
01:30:26.112 --> 01:30:40.032
If you bring Gail back into this web of relationships or the organizing from elsewhere team, because I'm sure that there are many, many, many, many ideas out there, what that could look like, how an experiment could look like.
01:30:40.332 --> 01:30:43.692
What we could try that we don't even think about at the moment.
01:30:43.913 --> 01:30:53.601
I agree and As you were sort of talking about that I had a bit of a, a flashback to the, the conversation with Gail where she was talking about the, the pink boat.
01:30:53.868 --> 01:30:54.104
Mm-hmm.
01:30:54.439 --> 01:30:57.548
And she was using the words MURMURATIONS as this sort of,
01:30:57.731 --> 01:30:58.152
Mm-hmm.
01:30:58.694 --> 01:31:00.878
the sense of, interconnectedness.
01:31:00.878 --> 01:31:06.942
And I, I certainly, you know, when I've been clubbing and dancing, or actually when.
01:31:06.942 --> 01:31:09.492
Something really bad has happened to me.
01:31:09.542 --> 01:31:13.801
You've been kettled or suddenly the group is moving.
01:31:14.072 --> 01:31:15.002
Yeah, with a.
01:31:15.827 --> 01:31:29.957
Wisdom and, um, and intelligence or, you know, in an occupation where, you know, until you're applying some sort of circle or mandate, the whole group for this moment just seems to know what the fuck to do.
01:31:30.106 --> 01:31:34.606
I mean, I mean, yeah, like you are the, uh, you are the scientist between us.
01:31:34.606 --> 01:31:36.663
What, what do you think's happening there?
01:31:36.663 --> 01:31:39.694
How do we have more of that, if you know what I mean?
01:31:40.239 --> 01:31:53.470
I think through exactly what we were talking about, listening to the signals that our body is picking up all the time that go through all of our cells, our nervous system, our right brain systems, all the time.
01:31:53.829 --> 01:31:54.699
Murmuration.
01:31:55.000 --> 01:32:05.439
There's a very simple way of modeling murmurations in digital simulation where you only have, I think two or three simple rules, which is.
01:32:06.050 --> 01:32:11.038
Keep this far away from your neighboring bird, not closer than this.
01:32:11.038 --> 01:32:12.418
Not further away than that.
01:32:12.770 --> 01:32:14.270
And follow the bird before you.
01:32:14.431 --> 01:32:15.782
That's everything you need.
01:32:16.261 --> 01:32:18.421
And then these murmurations just emerge.
01:32:19.082 --> 01:32:25.471
So this, this collective intelligence that the group knows how to move and that it creates these beautiful shapes.
01:32:26.042 --> 01:32:37.051
That's just happening because the birds pick up on these very simple pieces of information and just do these very simple things, follow these very simple rules.
01:32:37.051 --> 01:32:38.822
There's not a lot of thinking involved.
01:32:38.822 --> 01:32:41.792
There's not a lot of individual decision making.
01:32:42.181 --> 01:32:47.761
It's really the, the, the intelligence happens at the level of the bigger system, not the individual one.
01:32:48.391 --> 01:32:52.862
And so I think what we need to overcome as humans is this idea of, I need.
01:32:53.497 --> 01:32:56.527
To know, I need to decide I know best.
01:32:56.527 --> 01:33:11.796
I am so smart, and get to a point where we realize maybe the best thing we could do is unblock the information that is flowing through the larger system, or that wants to flow through the larger system, and then the larger system will know what to do.
01:33:12.595 --> 01:33:14.975
So do you think, for example, that we could.
01:33:16.020 --> 01:33:24.076
Organize from elsewhere or organized from this sense of interconnectedness just by creating two or three rules, a little bit like a simulation?
01:33:24.076 --> 01:33:27.405
Do you think that's the sort of direction of travel, that it's as simple as that?
01:33:28.064 --> 01:33:38.145
It's probably not The same kind of rule that that creates murmuration, and it's probably not the first rule that we can think about, but I think it's gonna be simple things.
01:33:38.145 --> 01:33:40.484
It's gonna be a central constraint.
01:33:40.484 --> 01:33:43.005
It's gonna be a simple set of rules.
01:33:43.274 --> 01:33:48.345
It's something that enables us to shift our attention.
01:33:49.064 --> 01:33:55.725
From the thinking brain, from the modeling the world to unblocking the information that wants to flow.
01:33:56.354 --> 01:34:01.904
Um, which for me, as you know, is, is unusually poetic and metaphorical language.
01:34:01.904 --> 01:34:06.854
But I think it's the best way that I have at my disposal at the moment to express these ideas.
01:34:07.442 --> 01:34:09.752
And I think that needs to be something simple.
01:34:09.811 --> 01:34:16.021
That's not a, a complicated theory that people need to learn or a practice that takes years to perfect.
01:34:16.346 --> 01:34:19.407
if there's something that's working, then it's gonna be something simple.
01:34:19.407 --> 01:34:19.436
I.
01:34:19.930 --> 01:34:29.997
I agree with you and maybe if these beautiful shapes of collective wisdom emerge from simple rules, simple constraints, what could that look like?
01:34:30.193 --> 01:34:34.518
And We journeyed a little bit with children of the stars, and for those cynical.
01:34:34.908 --> 01:34:36.768
People subside of you.
01:34:36.768 --> 01:34:37.908
That's magic.
01:34:38.087 --> 01:34:44.988
Mushrooms based on the idea that mushrooms are absolutely alien and were key to sort of intelligent life.
01:34:45.797 --> 01:34:58.547
We also worked with um, ma Plateau, which is while tobacco from the Amazon, and we wrestled around and perhaps we thought the constraint that an organization, a group.
01:34:58.802 --> 01:35:06.262
Gave a heartfelt commitment to whatever we do together, gives us more of a felt sense of interconnectedness.
01:35:06.493 --> 01:35:30.752
That's a commitment that whatever we do, whether it's having a phone call or organizing a meeting or developing a strategy, should give us more of a sense of interconnectedness and then some very subtle prompts, like how in this moment can I pay more attention to my senses, my sensations, my intuitions, the memories that pop up, the knowings, the images?
01:35:30.782 --> 01:35:39.122
'cause I think we believe that that is how all of this data is being communicated from the unconscious systems to the conscious awareness.
01:35:40.082 --> 01:35:43.681
How can I make sense of this non-linear.
01:35:44.155 --> 01:35:51.055
Seemingly irrelevant information to the linear mind in a way that is helpful for the task I need to do.
01:35:51.055 --> 01:35:56.036
Because, you know, if right now I suddenly felt like screaming, I might think that makes absolutely no sense at all.
01:35:56.395 --> 01:36:00.595
But there will be information in my body coming through that's wanting me to do that.
01:36:01.059 --> 01:36:05.078
so we thought some gentle prompts to ask those questions might question useful.
01:36:05.588 --> 01:36:10.208
And then what might be even more helpful is a review process.
01:36:10.823 --> 01:36:26.094
So if we think of those as enabling factors, how we make sense of it, how we can pay more attention to somatic information, there are disabling factors like my colonial mindset, my trauma, and maybe we could ask how did trauma get in the way?
01:36:27.354 --> 01:36:30.234
How did, um, my colonial mindset get in the way?
01:36:31.014 --> 01:36:36.083
Did the practices I use support me to have more interconnectedness?
01:36:36.672 --> 01:36:56.889
Did the way I made sense of it, help me get this task done, and then we can create these great big visual maps of deficits where we need to get more support and advice from the incredible wealth of expertise in dealing with trauma, the incredible wealth of expertise in terms of helping us decolonial our mindsets.
01:36:57.372 --> 01:37:09.853
and yeah, we're kind of thinking about these simple fractals and processes that I hope is very western language, means that we're very easily able to drop into flow state.
01:37:10.453 --> 01:37:13.363
And as we all know, writing that essay.
01:37:13.783 --> 01:37:33.559
Making up that song, coming on with that brilliant idea, running faster than we've ever run before, always happens so much easier when we are in a trance state so maybe to answer Gail's question, I understand the problem, but what do we do about it?
01:37:33.859 --> 01:37:38.498
Maybe we can say that that's the ways that we're starting, to think about it.
01:37:38.814 --> 01:37:39.328
Yeah, exactly.
01:37:39.832 --> 01:37:51.297
And I think A crucial point for me in all of this is if we think about it this way, then we can start experimenting and learning right now.
01:37:51.837 --> 01:37:58.648
Then it's not something that we have to theorize that we have to think about where we need to spend months on designing processes.
01:37:59.007 --> 01:38:08.667
It's, we can ask these questions every time we do something, and then the only thing we need to do, and that's something we should do anyway, is take a little bit of time to reflect.
01:38:08.667 --> 01:38:09.448
How did that go?
01:38:09.875 --> 01:38:25.801
And that's something that I've been recommending to organizations for probably decades now and, and I've been trying to practice when, whenever I'm within an organization for at least as long, is how can we create opportunities to learn?
01:38:26.311 --> 01:38:27.061
How can we.
01:38:27.737 --> 01:38:32.327
Create space on a regular basis to look at how did this go?
01:38:32.686 --> 01:38:33.886
How did it feel?
01:38:34.216 --> 01:38:37.457
What do we want to change for the next time we try?
01:38:38.027 --> 01:38:48.617
Um, this is how you get actually working strategies, not by sitting down and designing a blueprint for two and a half years and then rolling it out, and then everything goes smoothly.
01:38:48.856 --> 01:38:54.046
It's by trying something, see if it works, and then go back and adapt it.
01:38:54.886 --> 01:38:55.367
And.
01:38:56.072 --> 01:39:11.739
For me, this approach of thinking in these learning cycles, if we can build that into, or, or bake it into what, what we are doing in in this quest for more interconnectedness, then I think can.
01:39:12.489 --> 01:39:13.600
Start now.
01:39:14.039 --> 01:39:22.733
We have a way better chance of something that really works than by, trying to to find the solution in the lab, in the ivory tower.
01:39:23.212 --> 01:39:29.470
and that's something that we all should do anyway, thinking, experiments, thinking and learning cycles.
01:39:29.992 --> 01:39:33.561
That's something that connects to so many different languages.
01:39:33.712 --> 01:39:43.311
You can talk to a software developer and, and ask him if he, if he or she or they have ever worked with Agile development and then say, this is what we're talking about.
01:39:43.731 --> 01:39:49.252
And you can talk to designer and ask them how do you come up with ideas?
01:39:49.252 --> 01:39:59.481
And then you'll get very quickly to the point where they'll tell you about the flow step they state they need to be in, and the kind of learning cycles they go through in order to find something.
01:39:59.646 --> 01:40:02.444
So, yeah, I think that's the way forward.
01:40:03.016 --> 01:40:03.707
I agree with you.
01:40:03.707 --> 01:40:13.591
And I guess that if maybe we understand this conversation with Gail as an interview with somebody who had a powerful, powerful experience of interconnectedness.
01:40:14.341 --> 01:40:22.787
And from that and her relationships with others spawned a worldwide movement that made a significant difference.
01:40:23.176 --> 01:40:38.344
But was very much shaped and limited by organizational methods that were underpinned by a notion of separate an interview where the problems, you know, yes we understand separation is the issue, but what the hell do we do about it is named.
01:40:39.110 --> 01:40:44.841
if maybe our conversation has focused a little bit on, well maybe this is an approach that we can take.
01:40:46.176 --> 01:40:52.445
I think in the next interviews I'd be really interested to explore some of these critiques.
01:40:52.996 --> 01:41:00.076
Would an approach that we are just describing actually affect our relationships?
01:41:00.945 --> 01:41:07.192
What does the approach that we're talking about, you know, how does that relate to this sort of.
01:41:07.323 --> 01:41:08.432
Interconnected washing.
01:41:08.779 --> 01:41:11.538
You are doing something, but it's not really making a difference.
01:41:11.918 --> 01:41:17.534
We're inevitably going to be using practices from, you know, non-Western cultures.
01:41:17.862 --> 01:41:21.256
How can we even understand those practices without assimilating them?
01:41:21.648 --> 01:41:23.748
How can we learn from.
01:41:23.938 --> 01:41:29.878
Peoples that we have decimated for hundreds of years without just continuing this extractive, process.
01:41:30.275 --> 01:41:37.930
And how can this you know how when we're so traumatized, so traumatized and so steeped in our own culture, how can we.
01:41:38.635 --> 01:41:47.545
Meaningfully have a sense of interconnectedness that could possibly create the kind of feedback loop of interconnectedness that can bring about saying over these systems.
01:41:47.545 --> 01:41:55.261
And I, I'm really looking forward to exploring, I think these very valued critiques, of what we're doing over the next episodes.
01:41:56.251 --> 01:41:58.466
I totally agree and.
01:41:58.592 --> 01:42:15.243
I would very explicitly invite anyone who's listening to us right now, and who has an idea either about, this is where I had an experience in a small way maybe of flow, of interconnectedness of.
01:42:15.243 --> 01:42:21.573
Opening myself up to this kind of information or who has an idea of, this is something we could try.
01:42:22.113 --> 01:42:23.943
Is this something you have thought about?
01:42:24.453 --> 01:42:30.092
Or where they have a critique that says, yeah, but you didn't think about that aspect.
01:42:30.332 --> 01:42:34.472
Or How are you planning to deal with this kind of risk to share that?
01:42:34.932 --> 01:42:42.752
And to become part of this conversation and, yeah, help educate us in, in all of these things.
01:42:43.182 --> 01:42:51.787
Absolutely, and in the end, this has to help us to organize more effectively, and if we do that, then hopefully this.
01:42:51.903 --> 01:43:08.972
More of a sense of interconnectedness can create the kind of feedback loops to create the very different kind of cultures and systems in the same way as this notion of separation has had this feedback loop mainly through violence to really create the situation that we're in now.
01:43:09.332 --> 01:43:12.903
And there is, you know, we're letting go of control.
01:43:13.143 --> 01:43:16.113
So if you are happy to interview the next person.
01:43:16.667 --> 01:43:26.448
Come and be interviewed by us and then go off and interview someone on these sorts of topics that, um, you are excited and interested to learn from.
01:43:27.018 --> 01:43:35.118
I am really curious, uh, to find out who is the next person that, uh, I think you will interview.
01:43:35.358 --> 01:43:44.177
So, um, and then come back and see where the conversation takes us and if in some ways it builds on where we've got to today.
01:43:47.676 --> 01:43:55.417
We hope this conversation has been as fascinating for you as it was for us if this episode moved you in some way.
01:43:55.896 --> 01:44:10.987
We would be curious to hear your insights and intuitions, and if you'd like to contribute to the conversation, be interviewed or suggest a guest do reach out to us on socials at organizing from elsewhere, or at org underscore elsewhere.
01:44:12.157 --> 01:44:19.747
Follow us and connect with a community of practice, a growing network of social movements and regenerative initiatives.
01:44:20.391 --> 01:44:26.692
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01:44:27.561 --> 01:44:34.612
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01:44:36.412 --> 01:44:37.282
See you next time.
01:44:38.242 --> 01:44:38.692
Thank you.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.810
People make community together and they think this is beautiful, you know, we're making a community together and we're taking a stand and we're protecting the trees, we're protecting life that Experience of being together, cooking for each other, holding each other, integrate new people, getting meaningful work, being.
00:00:15.810 --> 00:00:20.000
able to serve, being able to find your place in something quickly and feel part of it.
00:00:20.449 --> 00:00:21.570
It was incredible.
00:00:21.629 --> 00:00:27.405
And then power dynamics happen, people are living together and of course, all the shit shows up, right?
00:00:27.783 --> 00:00:34.103
had that magic moment on the streets, you've done something, and then everybody wants to grab the reins of power, and it becomes an argy bargy, right?
00:00:34.173 --> 00:00:42.506
So I think you have to find ways to integrate that movement towards purpose with the regenerative practices that we do together,
00:02:36.873 --> 00:03:01.020
Hi, I'm Gully and today I have the real honor of interviewing Gail, who's the co founder of Extinction Rebellion and has a background in activism and in science and is a champion for systemic transformation, who's got a keen interest in exploring spirituality and social change and science.
00:03:01.020 --> 00:03:04.640
And I don't know, maybe it's a bit cliché to put, but is, is really.
00:03:05.320 --> 00:03:12.270
Committed in the shit show that is facing us in finding a path towards a more beautiful future.
00:03:12.631 --> 00:03:14.040
Um, welcome Gail.
00:03:14.681 --> 00:03:15.411
Thank you.
00:03:15.510 --> 00:03:16.191
Thank you.
00:03:16.501 --> 00:03:17.371
Nice to be here.
00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:18.310
yeah.
00:03:19.259 --> 00:03:27.406
I, um, think I just told you just before I've been sort of immersing myself in 320 slides and, blog posts.
00:03:27.626 --> 00:03:34.765
But having this incredibly excited feeling as I see, um, overlaps.
00:03:34.765 --> 00:03:51.582
And one of the things I've most appreciated about what I've seen is your ability to hold many, many, many moving parts all sorts of scales with all sorts of theories and to, to really pull them together into a roadmap.
00:03:51.932 --> 00:03:56.789
And I found that very, very very exciting, um, to see, and I guess.
00:03:57.539 --> 00:04:20.642
If I was to sort of frame the three areas that I have some questions about, it's oversimplistic, but it seems that right at the center, you're placing the role of separation as sort of underpinning modernism, underpinning so many forms of oppression, um, and damage and pain.
00:04:20.862 --> 00:04:21.353
Yes.
00:04:21.642 --> 00:04:35.327
And yet there's very, very little focus, at least in what I've read, in the nuts and bolts of how we relate differently organizationally.
00:04:35.338 --> 00:04:43.295
So how do we move and decide together, organize together, deal with power together?
00:04:44.134 --> 00:04:55.971
Um, and that was curious because, you know, I met you in Extinction Rebellion and to be fair, Holacracy didn't exactly support, the aims of Extinction Rebellion.
00:04:56.591 --> 00:05:04.360
The second area that I was curious about, was the role of, violence and scarcity.
00:05:05.221 --> 00:05:13.120
So it seemed to be that you were sort of saying, well, as collapse comes to Europe, there is an opportunity to meet people's needs.
00:05:13.716 --> 00:05:15.386
material needs.
00:05:15.995 --> 00:05:18.266
and if we do that, we can build power.
00:05:18.326 --> 00:05:28.565
But when we look to where collapse has already happened in the global South, we see that actually surveillance and violence is very, very good.
00:05:29.031 --> 00:05:32.170
At preventing us from, organizing power.
00:05:32.180 --> 00:05:35.651
So in a time of scarcity, how is that approach going to work?
00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:38.201
How do we deal with violence and oppression?
00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:53.540
And the last curiosity that I, I had on reading it that I thought would be interesting to engage with today is you point to indigenous wisdom as offering perhaps a path to moving differently, to moving from a sense of interconnectedness.
00:05:54.401 --> 00:05:58.194
But again, what is your thinking about avoiding assimilation?
00:05:59.175 --> 00:06:04.560
Avoiding, again, extracting information from an already colonized and, decimated people.
00:06:05.458 --> 00:06:12.137
And I guess all of that I throw in with, you know, we're suggested some approaches at""Organizing from Elsewhere"" for dealing with that.
00:06:12.148 --> 00:06:18.098
So your critique of our approaches to that, as well as your own thoughts on how to deal with it.
00:06:18.108 --> 00:06:21.137
So that would be my very long winded dyslexic framing.
00:06:21.137 --> 00:06:22.007
And then I throw the ball.
00:06:24.132 --> 00:06:26.869
Gosh, there's a lot there.
00:06:26.869 --> 00:06:50.872
Thank you, for the questions and I mean, I think the first thing to really say is, you know, I feel at times, and this is not always by any stretch, that there is, I feel it rather than think it, that there's an in life's intelligence and that life's intelligence is having a go at some stuff, including through us, through this conversation, right?
00:06:50.872 --> 00:06:58.273
Through when we're curious and through when people try things together and certainly not just through humanity and human beings.
00:06:58.718 --> 00:07:07.997
Um, so when things happen and they don't go so well, it's kind of like, well, our intelligence tried that thing.
00:07:08.528 --> 00:07:09.668
What else might we try?
00:07:09.668 --> 00:07:17.788
Of course, life's intelligence might want to find ways to remember what it's tried or yeah, and that sort of thing.
00:07:18.848 --> 00:07:26.577
Thank you also for saying the thing about having that generalist's perspective and looking for patterns.
00:07:26.577 --> 00:07:49.168
I, just a couple of years ago as part of the perimenopause started to wonder about my own neurodivergence and um, without having a full diagnosis it seems pretty clear that I'm probably autistic and I think that's my version of autism and um, there's something to, reason to name that because.
00:07:49.807 --> 00:08:06.228
It's helping me to remember to unmask, so I might not look at you as much as I might have made myself in the past, even subconsciously, and yeah, like, autistic people show up in specific ways, specific to us as individuals, so yeah, it's just something there.
00:08:06.497 --> 00:08:12.468
It's um, not always easy being a working class young woman and being clever and
00:08:12.622 --> 00:08:12.853
Yeah.
00:08:13.577 --> 00:08:17.218
like it's not a thing that's necessarily welcomed in the world or seen or got.
00:08:17.833 --> 00:08:18.122
I can
00:08:18.237 --> 00:08:26.807
Um, and um, And it's okay, because I think, again, the things that are tricky and challenging in life are also what shape us and make us.
00:08:26.807 --> 00:08:29.807
You know, there's a beautiful podcast called the Emerald Podcast,
00:08:29.882 --> 00:08:30.452
Yes.
00:08:30.718 --> 00:08:34.138
he talks about trauma and the vegetative gods, is it?
00:08:34.138 --> 00:08:38.638
I think one of them where he says, well, is it, is it, you know, this tree is this incredible shape?
00:08:38.638 --> 00:08:39.638
Is it because of trauma?
00:08:39.988 --> 00:08:42.197
It's just like, is that what you want to say?
00:08:42.197 --> 00:08:48.008
Or is it just that, you know, it's had droughts, it's had lightning, and this is how it's grown off the back of that.
00:08:48.018 --> 00:08:49.158
It's beautiful still.
00:08:49.168 --> 00:08:49.368
Right.
00:08:50.364 --> 00:08:57.638
I kind of has been in those, therapeutic settings that make you sort of see yourself as a bit broken and
00:08:58.128 --> 00:08:58.408
Yeah.
00:08:58.817 --> 00:09:01.607
has its value, but it has its limitations.
00:09:02.528 --> 00:09:13.857
So when you mentioned, yeah, you know, again, being autistic, I'm probably, I'm about to spin my way through all these points you've made cause I made notes and that won't really be a conversation then, will it Gullyso?
00:09:14.278 --> 00:09:17.937
You feel free to, to sort of let me know you want to respond,
00:09:18.087 --> 00:09:20.498
Yeah, But I also feel really excited to listen.
00:09:20.498 --> 00:09:21.837
So spin away.
00:09:21.947 --> 00:09:22.307
Yeah.
00:09:22.378 --> 00:09:22.977
Spin away.
00:09:23.717 --> 00:09:25.898
I've learned it's called information dumping.
00:09:25.898 --> 00:09:31.587
I have to do quite a bit of managing in my brain to think, is this communicating, or is this just me?
00:09:31.587 --> 00:09:48.273
I feel like I've got box files in my head and it's like, Ooh, this one's open, boom, out you come, all the All the info, but So, I mean, as well to say I'm a real studier in uh, of things that people say.
00:09:48.312 --> 00:09:50.873
Miki Kashtan's work is amazing.
00:09:50.873 --> 00:09:53.143
I wish she was more well known in the world.
00:09:53.232 --> 00:09:55.962
A true visionary, and I had the honour of being.
00:09:56.493 --> 00:09:58.253
mentored and eldered by her.
00:09:58.393 --> 00:10:03.523
And, um, I have met Charles Eisenstein on a couple of occasions.
00:10:03.673 --> 00:10:09.413
Um, both of those have really centered separation in their work, as I'm sure you know.
00:10:09.687 --> 00:10:10.057
Yes.
00:10:10.493 --> 00:10:18.682
Miki talks about separation, scarcity, and powerlessness as a combination of impacts of patriarchy.
00:10:19.378 --> 00:10:25.498
I mean, in the ways in which we organize society these days, not meaning something particularly about men.
00:10:26.427 --> 00:10:31.548
Um, and my friend Skeena Rathore, Kashmiri adds soullessness to that list.
00:10:31.687 --> 00:10:32.467
You know, um,
00:10:32.477 --> 00:10:33.597
What does she mean by that?
00:10:33.748 --> 00:10:33.868
Do you
00:10:34.087 --> 00:10:40.803
well, would never dream of speaking on behalf of our Skeena, but what I think I would mean when I would use that would be.
00:10:41.403 --> 00:10:45.744
We de animate the world, we make the world stuff,
00:10:46.105 --> 00:10:46.595
Yes.
00:10:46.844 --> 00:11:01.774
our experience of it as being stuff, so I mean, it can be another way of talking about separation, I suppose, but it's that sense of that soul's feeling of the oneness, the connection, the interbeing.
00:11:02.355 --> 00:11:02.884
Alone.
00:11:03.654 --> 00:11:04.024
Alone.
00:11:04.034 --> 00:11:05.404
Looking out through these eyes.
00:11:05.850 --> 00:11:06.990
Into a dead world.
00:11:07.303 --> 00:11:16.783
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've seen it, but it is worth a mention that most wonderful TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight.
00:11:17.433 --> 00:11:19.264
It's a brain scientist.
00:11:20.313 --> 00:11:29.264
She comes on stage talking about the brine with the accent she's got and showing you the two hemispheres in her hands, these two things squashed together in your head.
00:11:29.964 --> 00:11:33.464
And she had a stroke, took out her left hemispheres, which is what.
00:11:33.953 --> 00:11:40.124
modernity pushes us into being in this sort of separated self, in McGilchrist's work.
00:11:41.293 --> 00:11:45.254
And she had the experience of being in the right hemisphere whilst realizing she was having a stroke.
00:11:45.264 --> 00:11:48.203
It's quite a wonderful talk, My Stroke of Insight.
00:11:49.234 --> 00:11:56.977
So, um, yeah, there's the, the separation and the soullessness, you know, the de animating the world.
00:11:57.087 --> 00:12:23.582
It's, when you talk about"Organizing from Elsewhere", The meaning I most took from what you were saying was, and the place that I feel I have organized from elsewhere, if I'm understanding you right, which I may not be, but is by trying to ask, uh, humbly for something bigger than myself to give instruction and guidance and, um, yeah, like, help.
00:12:24.722 --> 00:12:25.432
Um,
00:12:25.863 --> 00:12:28.942
You have an experience of that, a story about that, that you'd want
00:12:28.962 --> 00:12:30.288
quite a lot, actually.
00:12:30.288 --> 00:12:34.373
Once that box file's open, golly, we're off, but, um.
00:12:35.253 --> 00:12:49.982
I mean, and possibly most people, many people, not most people, people may have heard the story of the Foundation of Extinction Rebellion from my point of view is they're going to make a huge prayer with lots of medicines and it was a bit intense when you think about it really.
00:12:49.982 --> 00:13:03.503
It was two workings with Iboga and three Ayahuasca and Cambo in a two week period with this prayer, um, wanting to start mass disobedience and the many different aspects of that prayer was answered.
00:13:04.018 --> 00:13:33.053
It takes a while to describe that, and there is a video with my name and breaking convention, the psychedelics thing, with that story in, but I've had that experience, so I feel like If you, open yourself up to guidance and, um, humbly and in service to life, you know, you're not asking for a Porsche because you fancy a, you know, a new car or something.
00:13:33.894 --> 00:13:42.234
You're asking for help in service to life, um, with willing, and sometimes you have to ask more than once because maybe what you're going to get.
00:13:42.913 --> 00:13:55.203
In response to that, you better be ready for it, you know, it might have been warned by my medicine woman to be careful what you pray for because, you know, it has consequences.
00:13:57.349 --> 00:14:09.188
It's a sense that things line up and, um, people arrive at the right time and when you look back, even though things were painful, they were lessons in them or whatever.
00:14:09.999 --> 00:14:15.999
Even very specifically, I mean with Extinction Rebellion, I made a specific request for the Codes for Social Change.
00:14:16.423 --> 00:14:26.813
And then I met Roger Hammam, and at the end of the meeting, having given me a lot of useful information, he told me, given me the codes for social change, which, why he would have used that phrase, I don't know.
00:14:26.823 --> 00:14:48.754
It was quite a moment I'm saying all this, and I want to really balance that, because another thing my medicine mum once said to me, which has been super, supremely helpful, is that there is a big part of ourselves, you know, that Is that sovereign person inside us that can be in connection with life and in that.
00:14:49.158 --> 00:14:57.509
Be life, you know, and you bring your gifts that you want to serve in the world And you want to bring to the world and you open yourself up.
00:14:57.548 --> 00:15:13.999
It's a beautiful thing and it's quite when it happens and um it can what in our culture we can put people on pedestals when that Happens, you know, and I really wish for everybody to know that about themselves.
00:15:14.318 --> 00:15:42.168
There's that Sovereign, beautiful part of yourself and like, what is your gift and gifts and how do you want to serve and open yourself up and I think that's where exceptional behaviours and results if you like to use that language, not quite the right language result but at the same time there's like broken me that's a dick and I still got little girls, still got hungry ghosts.
00:15:43.114 --> 00:15:51.594
And, you know, all the nonsense and all the, all the problems and the trauma, they, they both exist, um,
00:15:51.830 --> 00:16:10.235
if I sort of say a little bit back to you, I think you sort of conveyed this experience of Stealing both guided by and receiving insights from an intelligence beyond yourself and expanded in stepping aside.
00:16:11.125 --> 00:16:27.735
And yeah, I'm, I'm curious, like, have you had an experience where you've had that as a group, where sort of that's been the basic assumption of how you've moved as a team, as a group?
00:16:29.234 --> 00:16:49.714
yeah, yeah, I mean, well, limited, but what I would say is that I, we have, as part of my activism, I have been with people who are willing to be in connective prayer together, sometimes with more, you know, just openness to it and sometimes more, more, um, experience of doing that.
00:16:50.443 --> 00:17:26.105
So before we launched Money Rebellion, we went into the city of London and we Uh, smoked, uh, a tobacco together and that leads me to the cultural appropriation question actually, but, um, I made prayers there, but it has been more of an individual experience, um, that several times where we've, we've, um, a group of us have worked in that way and things have shifted, but we are not Sort of a quite tied together team, and I would like that to be part of my organizing more.
00:17:26.105 --> 00:17:54.566
I'm organizing at the minute with a group and we just made a collective dedication and, um, in that way for the work going forwards and, yeah, I, I, I feel quite Strongly that I want that to be part of how I organize with people, but you know, then again, you know, there could be somebody who comes along with super important, useful skills to has who have are also running the kind of that's woo woo or whatever, you know, stuff.
00:17:54.566 --> 00:17:57.125
So I don't want to be excluded either.
00:17:58.105 --> 00:17:58.596
Um.
00:17:59.174 --> 00:18:03.132
think, you know, it'd be interesting if she's willing to interview Skeena.
00:18:03.172 --> 00:18:08.301
That's what Skeena's work on co liberation, as I've understood it, has been aiming towards.
00:18:09.271 --> 00:18:24.751
When the hearts are really aligned, actually, um, and resonant, and that there will be flow that comes through, and that's what we're aiming for, is to feel very aligned at the, at a heart intelligence level, and co listening and co sensing.
00:18:25.541 --> 00:18:32.041
I think that would be, like, if it's the right word even, you asked for any critiques of the paper.
00:18:32.406 --> 00:18:34.807
Yes, that would be really lovely to hear.
00:18:34.852 --> 00:18:41.981
I think the main thing is just to be in that, and I'm sure you've said it, but the feeling of we don't know how to do that.
00:18:42.231 --> 00:18:47.991
You know, you said I talk quite a bit about separation in some ways, and yet it's not really clear the how.
00:18:48.051 --> 00:18:50.172
How do we go about this in groups?
00:18:50.842 --> 00:18:54.971
let's start from that point of view that we're trying things and we don't really know.
00:18:55.001 --> 00:19:08.352
So there's quite a lot, um, and I don't know if that's a fair critique of what your paper, by the way, but I just feel that, you know, let's just be clear that we don't, we can have a vision of what we would like to have happen.
00:19:09.162 --> 00:19:19.182
There's something about that combination of being in a system, part of a system of capitalist, colonialist modernity.
00:19:19.684 --> 00:19:29.630
You're in that and that system has got its You know, teeth in your neck, metaphorically speaking, and, um, it's trying to turn you into a zombie as well, and all the rest of it, right?
00:19:29.690 --> 00:19:31.359
Uh, it's up to stuff.
00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:41.404
And you know, we're not in a community that holds us, where our needs will be met and we can proceed from there.
00:19:41.414 --> 00:19:54.755
We're showing up with our own and, and intergenerational traumas and what some people call burdens, you know, the, um, legacy burdens, that's what they say in internal family systems.
00:19:54.755 --> 00:19:54.805
But.
00:19:55.599 --> 00:20:03.900
All, all the patternings and the habits and the problems and the oppressions that our lineage has been subject to, we're with that in this system.
00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:04.259
Right?
00:20:04.529 --> 00:20:08.069
And then we are wanting to work together probably with not enough resources,
00:20:08.651 --> 00:20:08.760
yes.
00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:11.900
and then we're trying to move towards a particular purpose.
00:20:13.174 --> 00:20:25.825
Um, just the very thing of tending, tending what the system's doing to us and tending, well, our own ways and collective ways of showing up together when trying to organize from elsewhere together.
00:20:26.555 --> 00:20:32.785
That could easily take us, you know, just into endless process because there's so much to tend.
00:20:33.295 --> 00:20:35.325
Like, how do we also move towards purpose?
00:20:35.325 --> 00:20:37.484
Because purpose is part of what keeps us together.
00:20:37.486 --> 00:20:43.015
So, and I have been in spaces where it feels like there's a sort of merry go nowhere of process, you know,
00:20:43.320 --> 00:20:43.990
Absolutely.
00:20:44.144 --> 00:21:17.089
uh, and, and people will leave, um, so one of the things that Miki how do you create a container that it's invitational, but people will choose not to join it because it's clear whether it is or isn't for them, and the capacity The capacity within that container is also clear, you know, so it's, it's never a question that a particular human being is not wanted because there's something in quotes wrong with them.
00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:21.049
But if, I'll give you a practical example, right?
00:21:21.089 --> 00:21:31.450
People set up, um, climate camps or anti fracking camps or whatever, um, you know, protest camps, HS2, it's happened many times in our activist movements.
00:21:32.190 --> 00:21:45.859
People make community together and they think this is beautiful, you know, we're making a community together and we're taking a stand and we're protecting the trees, we're protecting life and people are living together and of course, all the shit shows up, right?
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:53.619
And people joined the camp who maybe got addiction issues, um, issues around violence and so on.
00:21:53.710 --> 00:21:59.279
And the whole camp ends up slightly imploding and focusing on trying to manage these internal issues.
00:21:59.289 --> 00:22:05.069
It's a sort of more obvious version of what I'm talking about, even if we're not on a camp or on Zoom calls.
00:22:05.869 --> 00:22:15.646
So, um, to some extent then the container has to say Something about capacities of people to be there, and I guess
00:22:15.852 --> 00:22:17.402
The container has to say.
00:22:17.672 --> 00:22:22.082
Can I push back just a little bit and sum up, just to give it maybe a little bit more shape.
00:22:22.122 --> 00:22:26.932
If I was to sum up with what you're saying, you're sort of saying, well, there's a bit of a dichotomy here.
00:22:26.932 --> 00:22:40.656
On the one hand, there is a need to do the work on our trauma, on our colonial mindsets, on our patriarchy, on all of this work in order to be able to come together from that felt sense of information coming from outside of interconnectedness.
00:22:41.396 --> 00:22:43.757
On the other hand, there is a need to get shit done.
00:22:43.807 --> 00:22:49.896
There is a need to take action and that these two things can sit in tension with each other.
00:22:49.896 --> 00:22:52.517
That was sort of the heart of what I was understanding.
00:22:53.257 --> 00:22:55.076
you to say, would that be right?
00:22:56.336 --> 00:23:09.205
I mean, Daryl Wolfgang, who you work with, once wrote a paper about the sort of, the split in XR, the split personality of the sort of regenerative cultures people, they get shit done people, and did feel like very right and left hemisphere, and they need to be together.
00:23:09.586 --> 00:23:12.016
So I, I, I don't think it's.
00:23:13.016 --> 00:23:14.645
Um, let's, let's refine this.
00:23:14.645 --> 00:23:16.586
Let's be, like, in this together.
00:23:16.675 --> 00:23:18.385
It's, you, you need both.
00:23:19.165 --> 00:23:24.925
And, um, it's more that I don't know if we know how to be in the both together.
00:23:25.895 --> 00:23:29.465
Rather than one's fighting for attention over the other.
00:23:29.506 --> 00:23:31.625
It's like, how do you bring that whole self?
00:23:31.625 --> 00:23:37.955
You know, and this is a very particular fractal of what McGilchrist talks about with brain science.
00:23:37.955 --> 00:23:44.056
You know, the right hemisphere is meant to lead and the left hemisphere then goes into, you know, the right hemisphere.
00:23:44.056 --> 00:23:51.051
If you're a, a composer, we'll feel and hear the music and then the left hemisphere will type the notes out and get it down.
00:23:51.051 --> 00:23:51.311
Right.
00:23:51.311 --> 00:23:52.251
And the instruments.
00:23:52.261 --> 00:23:57.588
So there's, those all has to work together, but it's, um, how does it work
00:23:57.999 --> 00:23:58.409
Yeah.
00:23:58.588 --> 00:23:59.183
How does it,
00:23:59.419 --> 00:24:00.548
Well, we need to know, don't we?
00:24:00.548 --> 00:24:23.138
We need to work that out, and I guess that's all I'm saying is, I've been in that curiosity for some time, including working on co liberation, um, with Skeena with Open Edge, including, The work that we did behind the scenes in Extinction Rebellion and the experiments, um, that we were trying to move forward with Mickey and others, it's tricky and I haven't got it figured.
00:24:23.138 --> 00:24:28.818
And also partly, you know, the reason why people are coming to be together is because there's a purpose.
00:24:30.104 --> 00:24:49.563
You know, it's, I mean, I have heard, for example, that before any business has been done, when indigenous peoples have come together for meetings, there's at least two days of ceremony and journey and, you know, so one could imagine that's this kind of thing that needs to happen.
00:24:50.452 --> 00:24:57.492
As I, I just hosted a meeting at my house, me and my partner did for the collapse preparing communities work that we're doing that was.
00:24:57.972 --> 00:25:02.482
you know, two and a half days of being together, which had some dedication, some eating together.
00:25:02.482 --> 00:25:03.762
They had a version of that.
00:25:03.803 --> 00:25:03.923
Yeah.
00:25:04.752 --> 00:25:05.462
how did that go?
00:25:05.462 --> 00:25:07.442
Do you think that made a difference?
00:25:07.442 --> 00:25:07.847
I'm
00:25:08.123 --> 00:25:10.182
Oh, people need to be together.
00:25:10.272 --> 00:25:13.573
I mean, I have this joke about myself that I'm like a Labrador.
00:25:13.653 --> 00:25:20.363
I need to smell people's pheromones and, you know, just, we need to be in the same room.
00:25:21.103 --> 00:25:24.663
Um, but I, I'm not trying to make out that that was the thing.
00:25:25.872 --> 00:25:36.832
this because I am curious, because I think you've probably got some very interesting thoughts about this, but if, if I'm hearing you right in several movements, one, we're saying things need to be a fractal, two,
00:25:37.221 --> 00:25:37.602
yeah,
00:25:37.741 --> 00:25:48.436
two, I think we're saying That this notion of separation is, um, a problem and the, the left and the right sort of needs to work together.
00:25:48.457 --> 00:25:53.567
And then the third thing is, well, sometimes things just need to emerge and you just need to practice.
00:25:53.567 --> 00:25:58.057
But if I was to posit to you that when there is a space.
00:25:58.942 --> 00:26:20.672
Often the fractals that fill it are the fractals that we come in with, that, um, you know, I think a lot of what you've just shared was understood by Extinction Rebellion, but it didn't stop us sort of, in terms of how we related to each other and organized together and the methods we used sort of much more closely recreating the culture we were trying to change.
00:26:22.342 --> 00:26:29.031
What wisdom have you come up with with all of this thinking about literally the nuts and bolts of organizing,
00:26:29.382 --> 00:26:29.662
yeah,
00:26:29.951 --> 00:26:31.509
where we don't do that?
00:26:31.926 --> 00:26:56.047
Well, and you maybe have some notes to share with this podcast, but I mean, for example, we did have some consultants, and I mean that in the best possible use of that word, um, Ken Zhee in particular, he spent quite a bit of time wrestling with where Extinction Rebellion was at in the UK and came up with a toolkit for collaborative practices, though has since said they feel like sort of dialogical approaches are missing.
00:26:56.146 --> 00:26:59.457
It needs a lot more people just being together and talking, as I understood it.
00:26:59.997 --> 00:27:01.547
So I'm happy to share that.
00:27:01.557 --> 00:27:02.886
It's like, what are your decisions?
00:27:02.926 --> 00:27:05.396
You know, you can talk about seven living systems.
00:27:05.396 --> 00:27:08.047
That's what Navigate talk about, who've, again, worked with Nikki.
00:27:08.047 --> 00:27:17.436
But, um, What are your decision making practices, what are your feedback practices, what are your conflict practices, how do you take care of each other, so on and so forth.
00:27:17.707 --> 00:27:25.636
So what we had in XR were these ten principles and values that I had the biggest, you know, it was my lead on writing those really.
00:27:26.196 --> 00:27:38.507
And I had a sense of the how for each of them to some extent, but not enough, that there was such a strong specific source around the, um, how of civil disobedience.
00:27:39.017 --> 00:28:01.267
And that was what was being really driven at the heart of XR and the regenerative cultures piece, I had a sense that we, you know, we would need to make sure that people were committing to doing inner work, whatever means for them, and that we would need people to have intergroup practices, but we didn't know all the how.
00:28:01.277 --> 00:28:19.436
Of course, there are books written about this, Daniel Weil and others, but, um, I did also find, if I'm really honest, and again, no disrespect, and I don't mean this to everybody who's ever done anything around regenerative cultures, but you would tend to get the regenerative cultures people being sort of therapist type people that came.
00:28:19.436 --> 00:28:27.497
And, um, regenerative cultures don't just need a therapeutic basis, they also need a how.
00:28:27.507 --> 00:28:29.797
How are you going to do this en masse, right?
00:28:30.432 --> 00:28:38.741
So the sort of action team would have all these kind of action orientated, sort of masculine energies.
00:28:38.741 --> 00:28:45.382
I don't necessarily just mean men, but they were like out there, right, come on, recce, let's get the action design, let's get the affinity groups up.
00:28:45.801 --> 00:28:53.231
and the regenerative cultures pieces, it felt like they went into a bit of a spin and, it led to this kind of thing of like, well what the fuck is regenerative cultures?
00:28:53.261 --> 00:28:56.652
Because it just seems to be this group of people with their heads up their arses, right?
00:28:56.882 --> 00:28:58.922
If I'm just paraphrasing.
00:28:59.842 --> 00:29:12.419
And um, so we, we had lots of intentions around regenerative cultures, and requests and even bits of money for it, but it, I wouldn't, I didn't think it ever really had its.
00:29:13.169 --> 00:29:14.368
time in the movement.
00:29:14.878 --> 00:29:27.358
The best, the best of it, the best of it possibly, at least from my perspective, was in the April 2019 rebellion, when we were doing, and this is the integration, right?
00:29:27.378 --> 00:29:38.999
We were doing, and again, this is Miki Kashcan's wording, but vision holding actions, you know, those actions that demonstrate the vision that where you want to be and feel regenerative to be part of them.
00:29:39.068 --> 00:29:48.669
So we blocked Um, Waterloo Bridge and we made it a garden and we made it a community and people just, there was an attraction field that happened.
00:29:48.669 --> 00:29:51.169
People were in FOMO, gotta be there.
00:29:51.169 --> 00:30:07.439
And like Woodstock, Excel was like Woodstock for a very short period of time, you know, but so people come and that experience of being together, cooking for each other, holding each other, integrate new people, getting meaningful work, being.
00:30:07.659 --> 00:30:11.848
able to serve, being able to find your place in something quickly and feel part of it.
00:30:12.298 --> 00:30:13.419
It was incredible.
00:30:13.919 --> 00:30:26.465
Um, so I think you have to find ways to integrate that movement towards purpose with the regenerative practices that we do together, if I'm going to use that language.
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:37.661
keep coming back to a certain degree to, we need to find ways and we don't have answers and there is sort of action being taken.
00:30:37.661 --> 00:30:51.000
So for example, right now, you know, you are thinking with a number of other people about, what actions need to be taken to create the container within which an effective metastrategy might.
00:30:51.570 --> 00:30:52.161
Emerge.
00:30:53.300 --> 00:31:03.641
And again, if we come back to separation is key, fractals are necessary, we live in a complex system, then the movements you're making now.
00:31:04.635 --> 00:31:26.665
You know, we'll, we'll have ripples and I don't know if you agree with sort of the analysis that we're saying we're sort of saying all horizontal and vertical forms of organizing, you know, relying on assumption of separate entities that are, um, have different needs and desires and organizational methods sort of tried to mitigate that.
00:31:26.665 --> 00:31:33.445
And because of that assumption, we tend to replicate the core idea in our, in our ways of organizing.
00:31:33.965 --> 00:31:42.766
Um, and that this plays at least a part in why there is a breakdown in culture or cultures, um, replicate the, the, the system we're trying to change.
00:31:42.806 --> 00:31:55.205
And I'm just curious, what organizational methods are you using at the moment, formally and informally, to create this meta strategy?
00:31:55.385 --> 00:32:01.086
And what do you, how do you think that will shape and limit the meta strategy that you're going to create?
00:32:01.086 --> 00:32:01.772
Absolutely.
00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:29.340
I, with the metastrategy work, and again, this has been on a bit of a journey, so, um, just over two years ago, I met a lady called Julian Siddiq, who does nature based systems thinking at a particular gathering that I was invited to speak at, um, and she was talking about the next social movement, and I was saying, I don't really feel like it's going to be a movement, it's more like a framework, and that there's, it's an ecology.
00:32:29.631 --> 00:32:31.550
And it's how that can live and be together.
00:32:32.421 --> 00:32:42.050
And, um, so we sort of started thinking about that together, and asking who might like to be part of a paradigm shift group, hubristically named.
00:32:42.131 --> 00:32:47.211
Um, so we went through a process of inviting people, and we had a gathering in Devon.
00:32:47.881 --> 00:33:04.605
Um, quite a powerhouse of people, but very busy people and at least to check, I think what that managed to do was to check that, our thinking was not wildly off track, you know, and there was some possible ways of, of change happening.
00:33:04.605 --> 00:33:11.226
Although, you know, again, some people would think more about hospicing modernity using the Nespicado de Oliveira's.
00:33:12.486 --> 00:33:21.736
phrase as part of, again, Alno Lada would say this, the Kali Yuga, you know, this time of sort of destruction and unraveling, as I understand it.
00:33:22.605 --> 00:33:36.925
Uh, as, uh, how we meet these times and that impulse to push for change can also come from a place where there's something that wants to die and be composted and let go of, you know, so it's finding that balance in each of us.
00:33:37.546 --> 00:34:14.675
I felt like it was, uh, An intelligent group of people that could hold that within them and we, uh, invited a person, um, I don't know if this is just too much detail really, but Jose Barco, who's experienced in Theory U, where's the facilitation and in, um, a variety of, you know, when I say we don't know how, like it's not like there aren't tools and techniques out there, like it's, there are things out there, but it's, It's that thing of how do you build something together with whom, with their willing, and move forward.
00:34:14.766 --> 00:34:17.786
And then you get somewhere with that and then the next thing happens.
00:34:17.795 --> 00:34:30.275
So we, we did this paradigm shift gathering and then after that next phase of work came and I've been reaching around with Julian and others to try and find specific people interested in movement ecology work.
00:34:30.791 --> 00:34:52.550
Um, it, it, what it reminds me of is, um, if you think about a landscape that's been laid waste by the destructive forces of, colonialist modernity and it's going to regenerate itself, there are pioneer species, the silver birch, the dandelion that will make the first, will do the first things.
00:34:53.110 --> 00:34:56.030
So, it's kind of who arrives first and what do they do?
00:34:56.221 --> 00:35:00.181
How do they prepare the ground for the next arrivals?
00:35:00.240 --> 00:35:08.420
Like, it's not just, it's not just that you sort of suddenly have, you know, a thousand people working together and you make something happen.
00:35:08.481 --> 00:35:11.820
It starts with two people, what do they do, and how does the third join?
00:35:12.545 --> 00:35:18.545
It starts with one person, how do additional people join and what's needed before the next species joins.
00:35:19.065 --> 00:35:41.701
And so when you were saying earlier about that sense of interbeing, my most beautiful experiences with Extinction Rebellion is when you just feel that, you feel that murmuration, you feel that murmuration and it's kind of like, whoa, you know, Claire Farrell made me laugh my head off one time, but she said, Somebody, somebody asked a question in a meeting.
00:35:41.721 --> 00:35:46.751
She said nobody knows what's going off in this movement because we've decentralized the fucking tits off it.
00:35:47.610 --> 00:36:13.106
But it, nobody had that sort of overall steer on it, which to some extent, um, created some problems because it was just doing its own thing, you know, and it, Could dissipate energy and whatever, but it, at its best, would have that murmuration feeling of like, and you felt that everybody was playing their part and it was making this thing happen and yeah, so quite incredible.
00:36:13.356 --> 00:36:17.326
The experience, by the way, of setting up the holocratic system.
00:36:17.445 --> 00:36:22.626
Yes, everything's my fault if it's gone wrong in XR, I do feel that as a source person for it.
00:36:22.925 --> 00:36:24.025
Why did you choose it?
00:36:24.873 --> 00:36:26.653
honestly, honestly.
00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:32.789
My friend Anna O'Brien said you might want to use Holacracy Gale.
00:36:32.938 --> 00:36:36.318
I know somebody who knows about it, but I wouldn't personally recommend it.
00:36:37.418 --> 00:36:38.599
So that was why.
00:36:38.938 --> 00:36:42.128
That was as strongly as it was recommended by somebody I trust.
00:36:42.469 --> 00:36:44.478
We didn't have a different thing on the table.
00:36:45.809 --> 00:36:52.498
Somebody called Nick came and helped us set it up, and we started drawing these circles and guessing.
00:36:52.798 --> 00:37:00.668
It's sort of mapped on with a lady called Amber Greeter, who's a Stroudie who runs Butterfield's Festival.
00:37:01.268 --> 00:37:04.159
And so they had a sort of version of that running.
00:37:04.498 --> 00:37:14.606
The sort of idea of, um, supporting different groups to get on with their job and feeling empowered to get on with it, you know, I don't think that's, like, wrong.
00:37:14.876 --> 00:37:19.666
Where it gets really rigid, um, is a problem.
00:37:19.726 --> 00:37:26.826
And where I think a real mistake is when you haven't got your purposes clear and the nested purposes clear.
00:37:27.326 --> 00:37:38.565
Like if you're If you're there to run the Twitter account, you're within the nest of the communications work and you're in the nest of the purpose of the movement, for example.
00:37:38.576 --> 00:37:47.726
So, um, there needs to be some really shared agreements around what we're trying to do together.
00:37:48.130 --> 00:37:55.137
how do you think it sort of shaped and limited what Extinction Rebellion UK were able to do then, the fact that you used holacracy?
00:37:55.425 --> 00:37:58.255
I mean, one of the things is that it's very self replicating.
00:37:58.436 --> 00:38:04.635
You know, people can come into roles and there's, cause there's a person, there's at least a role that advertises.
00:38:05.356 --> 00:38:18.766
We need new people and so new people, so energy comes into the system and then they integrate them into a place and then after a while there's people think, oh, I wouldn't mind doing that and they move around and then at some point they might leave pissed off, burnt out.
00:38:19.016 --> 00:38:20.385
But some more people have come in.
00:38:20.496 --> 00:38:28.865
So it's like, I have sort of gone, Oh my God, I set up a fucking system and it's never going to die because it's still self replicating.
00:38:29.195 --> 00:38:31.096
The systems are, you know, so that's.
00:38:31.835 --> 00:38:40.536
But it, I, I, I personally think at the heart of it, those principles and values need to be very much felt at, uh, at an individual level.
00:38:41.275 --> 00:38:50.085
Like I, do you mean this and what are you doing personally to live that, um, to live those things?
00:38:50.085 --> 00:38:56.936
Because it doesn't, it hasn't felt like that for some time with XR, it's felt like people are kind of coming.
00:38:57.365 --> 00:39:03.985
Because they're scared about climate change, they sort of sign up to these things and then they get on with the real deal, which is organizing some actions, you know.
00:39:04.791 --> 00:39:12.001
May I ask, so if I hear back, you're saying that it's less of a problem of holacracy itself and more about the way it was implemented?
00:39:12.061 --> 00:39:12.757
Would that be?
00:39:13.175 --> 00:39:20.835
Well, I, you know, I, like, maybe somewhere in between those two things, I wouldn't sort of make it quite to black and white.
00:39:20.876 --> 00:39:27.735
I, I, I, I would be interested in a different system other than holacracy, if somebody was showing me them.
00:39:28.740 --> 00:39:28.771
Can
00:39:28.985 --> 00:39:32.965
I, I, I would, I'm, I'm not, um, Signed up to Holacracy.
00:39:32.965 --> 00:39:34.846
I'm not a kind of process nerd.
00:39:34.996 --> 00:39:37.536
I mean, I was in touch with Frederic Laloux at the time, right?
00:39:37.536 --> 00:39:40.846
Who was working on reinventing organizations.
00:39:40.905 --> 00:39:45.315
And I was saying to him, look, we're trying to do this sort of decentralized organizing.
00:39:46.036 --> 00:39:48.646
Can you tell us, is there anybody can help us?
00:39:48.646 --> 00:39:50.186
You know, what should we be doing differently?
00:39:50.186 --> 00:39:51.786
And he said, you're at the cutting edge.
00:39:51.965 --> 00:39:55.246
So I was like, well, that's a bugger because who's going to help guide us?
00:39:56.780 --> 00:39:59.181
I lead this a little bit somewhere?
00:39:59.190 --> 00:40:04.670
And I might share something, but it's also maybe a little, it's a question and it's a bit of a challenge.
00:40:04.670 --> 00:40:06.963
So first I'd like to say why I think holacracy.
00:40:07.315 --> 00:40:09.826
And I'm like, please, tell me what we should do next.
00:40:09.911 --> 00:40:14.581
no, no, I'm not going to tell You what I did, but I'll give you my critique of holacracy within Extinction Rebellion UK.
00:40:14.630 --> 00:40:21.971
So I think that basically there was an assumption of mandates.
00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:25.130
So a mandate basically would say, you know, this is my mandate.
00:40:25.945 --> 00:40:26.315
Yay.
00:40:26.431 --> 00:40:27.550
the circle's mandate.
00:40:27.550 --> 00:40:45.831
So again, this notion of separation, um, meant that this idea of competition, you know, you know, I'm media circle, uh, action circle saying, well, I'm going to do this and media circle, but it's going to impact this, this sense of competition and rivalry really was underpinned by this notion of separation.
00:40:45.831 --> 00:40:49.684
And I saw that play out from my limited time within extinction, rebellion.
00:40:49.974 --> 00:40:55.324
And for me, that was, you know, that really got me thinking, um, on quite.
00:40:56.148 --> 00:40:58.838
a deep level about that.
00:40:59.759 --> 00:41:07.568
And then there was this, this other sort of linking back to what you were sort of saying, where you say, well, we don't know how to move from this sense of interconnectedness.
00:41:08.474 --> 00:41:11.094
And then you said, well, we didn't know what to do.
00:41:11.114 --> 00:41:12.813
So we took this thing off the shelf.
00:41:13.114 --> 00:41:17.764
So another reason I think that Holacracy doesn't work is because of the ways that we innovate organizationally.
00:41:17.793 --> 00:41:21.653
We see something working over there and we apply it over here.
00:41:21.893 --> 00:41:31.384
And because of the way complex systems work, that has lots and lots of unintended consequences because you, you know, it has a different effect and you are changing different constraints.
00:41:32.003 --> 00:42:08.909
So that would be my critique of it, and my concern about some of the ways that you're, you're speaking a little bit is that, you know, decisions are being made sort of collectively, you know, for instance, you described a team of people and who is in, who's going to be invited, and how decisions are emerged, and even if we don't name it in that vacuum, We tend to default to varying forms of hierarchy, the person with most power deciding whether it's formal or informal or various horizontal sort of forms, all based on this assumption of separation.
00:42:10.092 --> 00:42:12.405
And there is a danger, isn't there?
00:42:13.688 --> 00:42:24.028
Despite the best intentions, this sort of, at this crucial time, we could replicate some of those.
00:42:24.648 --> 00:42:27.559
patterns in, in, in unhelpful ways.
00:42:27.849 --> 00:42:29.958
And you said, well, you know, what do we do?
00:42:30.199 --> 00:42:35.318
And I'm not sure I can tell you what we, what you can do at all.
00:42:35.338 --> 00:42:37.489
Cause I think it's the hard question.
00:42:37.498 --> 00:42:52.409
I noticed that in some of your things, you talked a lot about citizens assemblies, filling that gap of organizing, um, in your blog post that was sort of, well, we can form a citizens assembly and somehow this can sort of face some of these challenges.
00:42:53.324 --> 00:42:57.043
I wonder if it would be interesting at this point in the conversation or, or not.
00:42:57.574 --> 00:43:13.197
If I shared maybe some of the things that we are thinking about possible way of filling that gap, and you could like criticize the hell out of it and tell us why it won't work so that there would be an attempt to sort of, sort of, grow from that, would that be an interesting thing to
00:43:13.389 --> 00:43:14.418
I'd love to hear.
00:43:14.418 --> 00:43:18.958
Yeah, I think I just wanted to clarify what I think where we are in agreement.
00:43:18.958 --> 00:43:21.958
Gully is like, it's this thing about nested purpose.
00:43:22.278 --> 00:43:25.228
It's sort of you really, really need to be clear on the purpose.
00:43:25.239 --> 00:43:30.333
So, um, If then, then it's not a separation thing.
00:43:30.333 --> 00:43:53.706
It's like, if life has this purpose of being more complex and beautiful and sustaining life, then everything is interacting within that purpose, even though it may feel there's a competition, you know, even though deer and the, and the rabbits might both want the, to eat the grass or whatever playing a role, the wolves playing a role in, in, in that ecosystem.
00:43:54.231 --> 00:43:56.920
There's a, there's a, there's a genuine shared purpose.
00:43:57.550 --> 00:44:02.271
If, if, if what happens, and it's a power, it's a question of power here.
00:44:02.271 --> 00:44:18.201
You, you get all these people with mandates, wearing them like sort of badges and going around saying, I've got this mandate and, and this mandate means this, and it's kind of like, it's, you're not in a sense of shared purpose because this is part of the issue, I think, with the holacracy and how we set it up.
00:44:18.610 --> 00:44:22.740
Is that, um, the purpose needs to evolve over time.
00:44:23.331 --> 00:44:29.760
So, XR was actually founded on the back of something called Compassionate Revolution that I'd started.
00:44:29.820 --> 00:44:32.371
Which was, um, rebranded Rising Up.
00:44:32.420 --> 00:44:35.851
And XR was just a campaign, rather than a movement.
00:44:35.851 --> 00:44:39.880
But it became a movement, with some of the scaffolding for a movement, but not most of it.
00:44:40.271 --> 00:44:52.231
And so it's sort of, how was it going to evolve to do the next thing when it was then locked into this sort of rigid system that was replicating, let's, it's all about getting everybody on the streets, get the three and a half percent and then it's all going to change.
00:44:52.231 --> 00:44:55.121
Well no, we're just trying that for a bit, we're rolling the dice.
00:44:55.590 --> 00:45:07.621
And then the power dynamics happen, and some of these people, you've had that magic moment on the streets, you've done something, and then everybody wants to grab the reins of power, um, and it becomes an argy bargy, right?
00:45:07.690 --> 00:45:10.221
Um, and because you haven't set up.
00:45:10.405 --> 00:45:22.896
a way of evolving the purpose, and that actually requires visionary leadership, and visionary leadership is, in my view, right, is, is something that's limited.
00:45:23.541 --> 00:45:46.231
Within capitalist modernity and it actually requires, it actually requires deep listening to people who've got at least, you know, part of their soul, psyche, history, somewhat outside of capitalist modernity, um, and that there are the people that precisely got marginalized in Extinction Rebellion and named it as racism, right?
00:45:46.231 --> 00:45:48.150
I've just been in a two year battle around that.
00:45:49.070 --> 00:45:53.621
Um, I mean, there's many ways to tell that story, but I, I think
00:45:53.856 --> 00:45:53.876
I'm
00:45:53.911 --> 00:45:54.851
part of the problem.
00:45:55.130 --> 00:46:01.521
Yeah, it, it, it, it, it, it comes back to what we were saying earlier, it's like, how do you stay open to life flowing through you?
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:09.510
I mean, I'm actually help, I find it helpful to name this because, because the group that I'm in at the minute, we're in this quandary around, sort of, in quotes, spirituality.
00:46:10.351 --> 00:46:18.391
I feel very, very intuitively strongly that that needs to be the heart of what we do, but I don't want to exclude people, and it's like, how do we How do we support that?
00:46:18.391 --> 00:46:24.621
And it's because as things, as you're trying to make decisions, I don't want them just to come from the mind, right?
00:46:25.072 --> 00:46:25.735
Absolutely.
00:46:26.061 --> 00:46:26.400
You know,
00:46:27.485 --> 00:46:28.275
Absolutely.
00:46:29.065 --> 00:46:36.925
And I would be very interested in your thoughts about how we do that without, I'd be very interested.
00:46:36.956 --> 00:46:39.335
I mean, I think you've got much more interesting things to say.
00:46:39.335 --> 00:46:41.224
I mean, for us, it's the body.
00:46:42.329 --> 00:46:45.478
So first of all, so it's the body and it's about ontology.
00:46:45.489 --> 00:46:52.978
So for instance, we've got, um, you know, Christian Plankhurst and Rachel Rickards in particular, but also Sylvia, I never pronounced her surname.
00:46:53.608 --> 00:47:00.099
And it's, it's really interesting because they're very, very good at emergent facilitation and they don't use spiritual language.
00:47:00.713 --> 00:47:20.393
So they go in and you'll, you'll come in and they will talk about, um, co regulation of nervous systems and how, you know, the, the language of physics in terms of distributed intelligence and distributed cognition, or, you know, Peter Russell, the basic assumption that you know, a lot of hard scientific problems.
00:47:20.829 --> 00:47:42.978
Could be solved if we say that the fundamental building block of the universe is self awareness is consciousness rather than matter that perceptual sciences is right now within that you start to create an ontology and a language that is scientific, you know, how did I support Wolfgang to arrive at a lot of the places he's at was not by talking about how the ideas of this project came in a vision in the jungle.
00:47:43.929 --> 00:47:53.418
Or spirits or entities because he completely switches off, but he was arriving at very, very similar conclusions through scientific language.
00:47:53.418 --> 00:47:59.114
So if we take the points that there isn't one language and there isn't one approach.
00:47:59.434 --> 00:48:10.545
So we think that we start with what language, where do you meet people where they're at, this particular group, what language enables them to start to believe that there is an intelligence.
00:48:10.802 --> 00:48:11.523
beyond the self.
00:48:11.793 --> 00:48:20.992
And then what embodied practices give them that experience, in a quite strong way, that they can then explain with this new ontology?
00:48:21.182 --> 00:48:36.592
And then how do you create these self reinforcing patterns that the more they feel it, Because of the breath work, because of the micro dosing mushrooms, because of, you know, the, the collective cathartic coming together over theater and stories, and then they have a language to explain it.
00:48:36.762 --> 00:48:45.632
The more you can support a group to genuinely believe that decisions and ideas are emerging from a collective intelligence rather than an individual intelligence.
00:48:46.128 --> 00:48:55.467
So that's how we're thinking about at least that part of it, and then, and then the symbology for discerning that when there's sort of digressions between psychedelic experiences.
00:48:55.697 --> 00:49:03.117
So with the Maztecs, they would, if there was different people, fundamentally different visions, would see that as further investigation.
00:49:03.577 --> 00:49:10.108
They wouldn't then go into your right and your wrong, and they'd go deeper until there was some symbolic sort of way of understanding it.
00:49:10.938 --> 00:49:14.887
So I guess that's how we're starting to, to think about that.
00:49:15.077 --> 00:49:25.657
But obviously key to that is at least dealing with enough of the trauma through somatic techniques and enough of making people aware of their current mindsets to even be aware.
00:49:25.668 --> 00:49:27.617
So those seem to be the kind of the first step.
00:49:27.617 --> 00:49:31.847
So that's some of how we're thinking about developing bespoke organizational methods.
00:49:32.407 --> 00:49:33.807
Um, What do you think, you
00:49:34.628 --> 00:49:38.958
think, I think, truthfully, I'm doing a version of that, actually, as you've described it.
00:49:39.077 --> 00:49:39.947
So thank you.
00:49:39.958 --> 00:49:47.853
But so, so, so part, although I, I, I, I do a bit of a number on the physics side of things.
00:49:47.853 --> 00:49:51.782
You know, there's this sort of concept of the cosmic hologram, which Jude Corrivan's written
00:49:52.057 --> 00:49:53.224
don't know that, but yeah.
00:49:53.583 --> 00:50:00.463
My first husband was, who's Britain's best young physicist, did a piece at the, um, Cheltenham Science Festival on it.
00:50:00.492 --> 00:50:04.333
It's the latest physics is that the world is informational.
00:50:04.402 --> 00:50:08.623
And so you can sort of at a stretch talk about morphic resonance from, through that lens.
00:50:09.083 --> 00:50:15.983
It's why I'm a deep, deep fan of McGilchrist's work, because he's, he does 5, 000 science papers behind the matter with things, right.
00:50:16.342 --> 00:50:24.762
So if anybody's, gonna go, Ehh, woo, you know, I, I will, you know, this is a problem though, Gully.
00:50:24.802 --> 00:50:29.963
I will slightly, if I'm not careful, sort of baffle them with a bit of science, you know, and I think it can be
00:50:30.509 --> 00:50:30.978
Why is that a
00:50:31.262 --> 00:50:36.393
I, I think, well, because I think I can use it as a bit of, I, you know, I have a scientific background.
00:50:36.663 --> 00:50:40.943
I think I can use it at times a bit like a bathroom ram if I'm not careful.
00:50:41.268 --> 00:50:42.137
Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:50:42.137 --> 00:50:49.047
You know, I'll sort of get the box file out on the, I can, I can do, like, I'm doing a witchcraft course at the minute and do a version of that.
00:50:49.077 --> 00:50:51.847
Or I can say, ah, but, you know, science.
00:50:51.849 --> 00:50:55.797
So I think I'm doing that ontology switching.
00:50:55.858 --> 00:51:01.927
In fact, the, the Pan African elders I work with, the key word that they use is pluriversality.
00:51:02.623 --> 00:51:07.393
that there are many ways of knowing and being in the world and that we need to be with the plural of us.
00:51:07.393 --> 00:51:14.182
So we're in a wrestle with this at the minute with the Collapse Preparing Communities Convening Group, just in terms of different languages.
00:51:15.130 --> 00:51:22.030
but what's good is there's a real degree of like group and, and personal intelligence and willing.
00:51:22.309 --> 00:51:29.695
So that bit where you said, where it feels like there's a difference and instead of feeling that's a problem, you'd be curious about it.
00:51:30.054 --> 00:51:45.594
And I, what I work with there is, you know, Miki Kashtan, I've mentioned her five times now, but because she should be, um, but you've probably seen her book, Convergent Facilitation, where you drop into, okay, there's a contested word, leadership, right?
00:51:45.735 --> 00:51:48.284
To me, there's something that people need to get their heads around.
00:51:48.304 --> 00:51:53.264
And I don't, I don't need it to be that word, but I, I mean, a specific thing with that word, right?
00:51:53.684 --> 00:51:53.965
For an
00:51:53.965 --> 00:51:54.784
want to define it?
00:51:54.815 --> 00:51:56.755
Do you want to define it so that for the audience, or?
00:51:57.664 --> 00:52:03.445
It's about care for the whole, so it's, you don't just show up to a group and think what am I doing?
00:52:03.445 --> 00:52:04.755
What am I getting out of this?
00:52:05.315 --> 00:52:06.855
Um, when, when shall I speak?
00:52:06.864 --> 00:52:07.934
What have I got to say?
00:52:08.244 --> 00:52:11.195
You're like, how is this, how is this going for everybody?
00:52:11.235 --> 00:52:13.574
Oh, does that, is that person feeling a bit on the edge?
00:52:13.755 --> 00:52:16.385
Have we remembered that person's got a hearing impairment?
00:52:16.784 --> 00:52:18.755
Um, has everybody spoken?
00:52:18.965 --> 00:52:26.344
You know, does, does everybody, um, uh, who's the sort of slower person who, who speaks up more?
00:52:26.355 --> 00:52:27.465
You know, all that stuff, right?
00:52:27.635 --> 00:52:28.804
You care for the whole.
00:52:29.255 --> 00:52:33.739
Um, You could say that at a dinner party though, make sure everybody has a nice time.
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:47.510
The other bit is that you're trying to support the group to move towards purpose, so you're sort of thinking, sensing, well maybe, I do work somatically, we'll do that thing of, okay, we've all just arrived on a Thursday at 5pm, should we just start by being quiet?
00:52:48.250 --> 00:52:56.920
You know, should we just start by doing some stroking ourselves, you know, to give a sense of safety or breath work or whatever.
00:52:56.940 --> 00:53:10.014
So that piece, um, and it's trying to, that care for the whole bit, you're trying to Support everybody to be somatically well, you know, to be, uh, as well together as possible.
00:53:10.014 --> 00:53:22.005
But you're also going, you're not just spending the whole time checking in then, you're, you're on then going, well, because it lifts people's spirits to know that there's been some progress happened.
00:53:22.014 --> 00:53:28.974
So, oh, tell us how that's gone, Bob, you know, and he reports in and how's, what's the process for feeding back.
00:53:28.974 --> 00:53:32.545
So there's a feeling of being part of something that's moving towards purpose.
00:53:32.585 --> 00:53:35.164
I find that an interesting definition of leadership.
00:53:35.164 --> 00:53:38.164
I guess I kind of subscribe to the kind of notions of full circle leadership.
00:53:38.164 --> 00:53:43.445
I don't know which sort of disentangles authority or power from leadership qualities.
00:53:43.855 --> 00:53:44.824
And, um, Yeah,
00:53:44.849 --> 00:53:45.389
word in it.
00:53:45.860 --> 00:53:47.929
Sorry, this is an autistic thing I do.
00:53:48.139 --> 00:53:49.530
Not saying every autistic person does it.
00:53:49.559 --> 00:53:51.570
I butt in because I'm interested in what
00:53:51.605 --> 00:53:52.175
yeah, yeah.
00:53:52.184 --> 00:53:52.704
I like it.
00:53:52.914 --> 00:53:53.355
I like it.
00:53:53.355 --> 00:53:54.114
I do it a bit too.
00:53:54.710 --> 00:53:56.679
I'm with you and also we're running out of time.
00:53:56.715 --> 00:53:57.125
Yeah.
00:53:57.284 --> 00:53:57.655
Okay.
00:53:57.655 --> 00:54:00.045
Then I'm going to try and direct this to where I want this
00:54:00.135 --> 00:54:06.715
Yeah, forest fault leadership, leaderfulness, but they still have that leader thing and still, still, still people will react.
00:54:06.724 --> 00:54:07.965
But I love what you said.
00:54:07.965 --> 00:54:08.864
I agree with you.
00:54:09.034 --> 00:54:22.478
The one thing I would say about it, though, is when you've got explosive growth, and maybe that's the thing to avoid, um, how you replicate the fractal, how you let that fractal repeat and grow, is, that's a, issue.
00:54:23.079 --> 00:54:23.259
okay.
00:54:23.259 --> 00:54:29.358
I'm going to, I'm going to ask you some questions, maybe some contained answers because there's two other areas I want to gather with you.
00:54:29.358 --> 00:54:36.559
But just to sum this up, I think if we at"Organizing from Elsewhere" would, would quite appreciate Okay.
00:54:37.259 --> 00:54:38.208
the feedback.
00:54:38.239 --> 00:54:50.909
We're sort of saying that that space, who decides and who decides, who decides and the nuts and bolts of sort of, um, making decisions the approach to that needs to be specific to any particular group.
00:54:51.949 --> 00:55:01.509
It needs to really start with a sort of decolonizing the mind, becoming aware of how you're seeing the world and it's sort of patriarchal neocolonial basis.
00:55:03.108 --> 00:55:05.619
These things don't happen linearly, but.
00:55:06.108 --> 00:55:08.869
Interwoven in this is some other important elements.
00:55:08.909 --> 00:55:12.809
Somatic approaches to trauma that maintain separation.
00:55:13.219 --> 00:55:17.358
The mapping of power so that it is kind of named and out of the shadows.
00:55:17.869 --> 00:55:54.438
And then the development of an ontology that the group can buy into that really supports them to believe that there is knowledge and intelligence arriving rather than originating from within individuals in the group and somatic practices that give them quite a strong embodied sense of that, that they're then explaining with this new story and then sort of structures, um, symbolic systems to sort of piece together collectively the information that's arriving through individual mouths from a collective intelligence that they can then piece decisions.
00:55:54.498 --> 00:56:06.605
Um, an increased belief in the body and intuition and images and shutting down the mind and we're trying to develop a facilitation process around that to, I
00:56:06.769 --> 00:56:12.750
See, so here's the thing though, like, so this is coming from scarcity in me, so I'm just naming that, right?
00:56:13.500 --> 00:56:21.960
I love what you're saying, like, how do I have all of you be involved in our, all of our meetings and have them all go well, right?
00:56:22.329 --> 00:56:22.820
Because,
00:56:24.264 --> 00:56:25.744
we, we wouldn't be doing that.
00:56:25.744 --> 00:56:28.764
We would be facilitating you as a team
00:56:29.210 --> 00:56:29.570
sure,
00:56:29.605 --> 00:56:31.947
come up with that way of doing it for yourselves.
00:56:32.369 --> 00:56:38.480
but what I'm, what I'm getting at is it still requires your resource to be part of what we're doing, doesn't it?
00:56:38.695 --> 00:56:40.204
No, no, not at all.
00:56:40.454 --> 00:56:43.284
It's a little bit, it's a facilitation process.
00:56:43.485 --> 00:56:53.594
We would support your team to basically believe that there is an intelligence greater than yourselves and to come up with your own specific ways of accessing that and making decisions from that.
00:56:53.983 --> 00:56:55.963
Yeah, I, I'm not, I understood that.
00:56:55.963 --> 00:57:03.492
I think what I'm trying to say though is that's a sort of, it's a thing that takes a certain amount of time and investment of time, right?
00:57:03.547 --> 00:57:08.978
And, and that's the scarcity feeling of, and I know, I know what the answer is, right?
00:57:08.978 --> 00:57:10.677
Because if you don't do this, it's not going to go well.
00:57:11.847 --> 00:57:26.677
you don't, if you don't do it, you could end up, you could end up with, um, hierarchies and power plays and all of these cultures undermining the very thing that you're trying to, to do because of the arguments that you are making that everything is a fractal
00:57:27.518 --> 00:57:27.838
yeah.
00:57:28.398 --> 00:57:29.313
and repeats out.
00:57:29.708 --> 00:57:35.797
honestly think we're on the same page and I, I'm, I'm sort of wrestling with what you're saying.
00:57:36.347 --> 00:57:56.456
With a group of people in, in, not in a, you know, in a, it's interesting because it, One of the people that I'm working with that's, um, yeah, we, like, it's really important that him and I have a lot of dialogue and we're both really, really up for that And yeah, there's differences emerging and it takes some time to sort of unpick those.
00:57:56.896 --> 00:58:08.186
So it's that kind of, I suppose the scarcity is it's sort of like if you don't get that much progress, the people that are potentially or currently funding things, it's like, well, what have you done?
00:58:08.215 --> 00:58:12.246
You know, I keep saying to some people, they're building the container and it takes time.
00:58:12.746 --> 00:58:18.565
Um, INE Institute used to say it takes at least nine months, you know, and this is, this is not with.
00:58:18.891 --> 00:58:21.460
this would be with people with time to hang out together.
00:58:21.460 --> 00:58:27.981
So it's what I was saying earlier on, Gully, we're saying you're in this system, it's got its teeth in your neck and all of that.
00:58:27.990 --> 00:58:32.981
So it's, it's sort of, but I, I, like, look, what you're saying, I agree with.
00:58:33.170 --> 00:58:34.550
Yes, it is that.
00:58:34.670 --> 00:58:52.163
And then there's sort of, the next bit then is because you can have that fractal layer, like, let's say there's like, I don't know, three to ten people coming together to make something happen, but what they're trying to do is mobilize millions of people.
00:58:52.632 --> 00:58:54.222
That scaling thing,
00:58:54.873 --> 00:58:55.373
yeah.
00:58:55.733 --> 00:59:03.413
question, you know, like how, how the, how the pioneer species that makes space for the next layers of the fraction.
00:59:03.913 --> 00:59:04.182
Yeah.
00:59:04.213 --> 00:59:05.472
Have you got an answer for that one?
00:59:05.623 --> 00:59:22.523
I mean, the interview is the wrong way around, but the answer would be because that small group now believes that they're receiving information from outside and they're accessing, if you want the scientific language, their full body intelligence or our spiritual language, that literally they're now able to listen to a vast intelligence.
00:59:22.813 --> 00:59:25.802
The answer for that would arrive.
00:59:26.228 --> 00:59:41.570
to them and it would be appropriate and harnessing a bigger intelligence rather than them breaking out and infighting about what the right way is or them copying a specific thing so it would fractal out the core thing is that that those people are really moving from a heartfelt belief.
00:59:42.115 --> 00:59:42.485
yeah.
00:59:42.721 --> 00:59:43.280
ideas aren't theirs.
00:59:43.865 --> 00:59:44.155
yeah.
00:59:44.155 --> 00:59:44.931
yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:59:45.226 --> 00:59:48.135
but they, they really are, you know, working through the body.
00:59:48.956 --> 00:59:57.416
Um, so, I mean, that's how we're thinking, um, about it and experimenting with it and exploring and we will fail.
00:59:57.635 --> 01:00:03.543
But I guess the point of this sort of interview and this podcast is to get people like you to sort of.
01:00:03.909 --> 01:00:08.579
Think about that a little bit and to say what's wrong with it, or what's the different way of approaching it?
01:00:08.579 --> 01:00:17.648
Because if we say that the key is that we don't move from separation, then one way perhaps is our way, but then the way that you're experimenting with your team.
01:00:18.213 --> 01:00:26.713
I guess if I was going to influence you in one area, it would be not to leave that black hole wide to sort of say, well, we need to get here.
01:00:26.764 --> 01:00:35.503
We need to get to meeting material resources and we need to sort of, um, you know, all of the kinds of things and how we organize getting that will just emerge.
01:00:35.773 --> 01:00:44.344
Because I think there is a real chance of taking other organizational methods that are based on separation off the shelf and undermining yourself before you get there or affecting it.
01:00:44.614 --> 01:00:58.528
But to ask that fundamental question about how you in your small groups are going to make those decisions from this fundamental assumption of interconnectors, and I'm sure you'll come up with better solutions than us, but that's like real curiosity.
01:00:58.873 --> 01:01:07.184
mean, that's why we jumped together for a weekend because it's sort of like, you, we need to be together and that, that, that life energy needs to come through.
01:01:07.184 --> 01:01:12.304
And that was the prayer, by the way, that was the prayer of dedication was to open the group up to the life energies.
01:01:12.304 --> 01:01:19.833
And I'm, um, I need to go very shortly, but I'm happy to do a second session with you, love.
01:01:19.903 --> 01:01:20.293
Um,
01:01:20.434 --> 01:01:20.864
be lovely.
01:01:20.864 --> 01:01:21.983
I'd love to carry the conversation
01:01:22.293 --> 01:01:28.574
I think so, yeah, we didn't get to the other things that you named about violence and scarcity and indigenous wisdom.
01:01:28.963 --> 01:01:38.994
But I just, I can share a story, um, that will, you know, maybe reassure in some ways that I get it.
01:01:41.909 --> 01:01:44.369
So, um, here's the story, right?
01:01:44.369 --> 01:01:46.039
You might, you might have even been there.
01:01:46.438 --> 01:01:49.998
So there, there was this pink boat in Oxford Circus, right?
01:01:51.128 --> 01:01:54.648
And the pink boat was a beautiful thing.
01:01:54.659 --> 01:01:58.449
If anybody got to be there, it was, um, I thought it was like a big vagina.
01:01:58.449 --> 01:02:02.429
I was like, fucking hell, we've put a big vagina in the middle of Oxford Circus, this big pink boat.
01:02:03.268 --> 01:02:05.489
And, um, it was led by the Southwest.
01:02:05.489 --> 01:02:10.039
There was lots of dancing and Southwest vibes and gray speakers.
01:02:10.159 --> 01:02:12.639
Um, yeah, it blew people's minds away.
01:02:12.639 --> 01:02:16.188
Many people came across the Pink Boat and they're like, we want to join this movement.
01:02:16.268 --> 01:02:18.938
So it's one of the beautiful vision holding actions.
01:02:18.969 --> 01:02:24.498
It was celebratory and meaningful, and it was held in place by these barnacles that were locked on.
01:02:24.608 --> 01:02:26.278
Do you know what about the Pink Boat, right?
01:02:26.829 --> 01:02:40.978
So, um, and to say, when I went to Costa Rica to pray for the rebellion, one of the things was I want to know who my guides and allies are and, you know, the bigger things that support the work.
01:02:41.068 --> 01:02:51.949
And it's very personal that to, to make those asks and to, to feel something about that and to have, I'm not going to say out loud exactly what came, but things came.
01:02:51.958 --> 01:03:21.155
Um, and, Anyway, we're all in this office and we're getting these phone calls, the police have finally taken the pink boat, it's been dragged away, and the people are going a bit, it's getting very lairy, it's getting, it's on the edge of violence, right, it's been a non violent movement, it's in its peak of its power, it's going big across the world, and it's potentially about to drop into violence, right, there were sort of two to three hundred rebels getting agitated.
01:03:21.155 --> 01:03:21.195
Right.
01:03:21.195 --> 01:03:21.215
Right.
01:03:21.726 --> 01:03:24.976
Somebody needs to come from the office and help sort this out, right?
01:03:26.085 --> 01:03:29.306
And we were all like, well, you know, it's all decentralized organizing.
01:03:29.346 --> 01:03:32.315
We've got, people on the ground need to make decisions, it's not up to us.
01:03:32.346 --> 01:03:34.865
And they were like, no, this is lessons.
01:03:34.885 --> 01:03:36.945
It was this dear old Rachel Lennon, actually.
01:03:36.945 --> 01:03:41.356
She was saying, no, somebody known to the movement, Gail or Roger needs to come and sort this out.
01:03:42.445 --> 01:03:46.536
Um, and so after like two, two or three back and forth, we're like, okay, we're going to come.
01:03:46.936 --> 01:03:49.266
So I thought, Christ, what are we going to do when we get there?
01:03:49.335 --> 01:03:51.286
And I'm looking around for.
01:03:51.951 --> 01:03:55.231
A, a, a megaphone to, you know, how are you going to even speak over this roar?
01:03:55.280 --> 01:04:02.440
And all the batteries were broke, nothing was working, there was this green horn, like a plastic green horn, and I stuck it in my belt.
01:04:03.731 --> 01:04:07.251
And we jumped on our bikes, Roger and I, and we raced down there.
01:04:08.681 --> 01:04:20.731
And it's actually in the film Conscientious Protectors this, and I have to say it's a bit male gaze this, the way the male camera guy, blessings on his life, chose to sort of show that story.
01:04:20.971 --> 01:04:23.791
It makes it look like Roger was very much in charge somehow.
01:04:23.811 --> 01:04:29.275
But I felt a little bit abandoned by him at the time, because he sort of said to me, Look, Gail, I'll go and talk to the police.
01:04:30.005 --> 01:04:31.425
You deal with the public.
01:04:31.786 --> 01:04:33.715
It's not the public, it's our people, right?
01:04:34.106 --> 01:04:42.655
And as we approached it, um, this guy threw himself at the boat and a police officer grabbed him and shoved his head down on the ground and put his knee on his head.
01:04:42.715 --> 01:04:44.496
Like, it was that level of aggression.
01:04:44.916 --> 01:04:48.565
There were about 300 rebels and about four times as many police.
01:04:48.596 --> 01:04:49.731
It was Heavy.
01:04:50.550 --> 01:05:03.800
So anyway, I went and stood in front of this group of people with this tension, right, with this plastic horn in my bell somehow, and with just Rogers going off to talk to the police.
01:05:03.800 --> 01:05:16.050
And I stood in front of this group of people and I thought, you know, I, I, I was, I thought to myself, um, this, this moment really, really matters.
01:05:16.791 --> 01:05:19.606
It's all down to me and I don't know what to do.
01:05:22.036 --> 01:05:29.965
And I, and I touched this green bat horn and like, it just dropped in, it just dropped in the download of what to do.
01:05:30.695 --> 01:05:36.536
And I sort of blew this daft horn and asked everybody to sort of sit down and we ran a people's assembly.
01:05:37.235 --> 01:05:41.206
Um, and, and what came to me was it's grief.
01:05:41.545 --> 01:05:46.456
People don't to let go of something that they're grieving and they need to go through a process.
01:05:46.467 --> 01:05:52.836
So I just blew the horn, everybody sit down, talk to the person next to you about what you're feeling right now.
01:05:53.387 --> 01:05:54.617
And it ran for about an hour.
01:05:54.617 --> 01:05:57.847
The police came up to me afterwards, even months later and thanked me for it.
01:05:58.436 --> 01:06:01.186
We had, um, a beautiful process.
01:06:01.206 --> 01:06:07.547
Everybody apart from one person, we honored that person, we applauded them, had made agreement about how to handle the situation.
01:06:07.972 --> 01:06:14.811
Which was to gracefully let go of the boat, with singing a morning song from Scotland, April Grief song, I did, gorgeous.
01:06:15.751 --> 01:06:20.498
And um, it was a beautiful moment of togetherness, and it came from beyond me.
01:06:21.429 --> 01:06:30.672
Uh, and the thing was, during the process, this guy came up to me, whispered in my ear, got more boats.
01:06:31.351 --> 01:06:34.442
Of course we've got more boats, the boats is just a symbol, right?
01:06:34.831 --> 01:06:36.001
We've got more boats.
01:06:36.411 --> 01:06:44.771
And before the hour was up and we were off and the boat was let go, a sign had gone up in, um, Oxford Circus, we are the boat.
01:06:46.056 --> 01:06:52.737
You know, that collective intelligence and it, from my point of view, it just came through life, right?
01:06:52.806 --> 01:06:58.507
And that's what I understand to be organizing from elsewhere, you know, to mean.
01:06:59.297 --> 01:07:00.757
It's not the great Gail.
01:07:00.806 --> 01:07:08.376
It's because of opening ourselves up to life's intelligence and finding the intelligence together as a group then.
01:07:08.947 --> 01:07:11.476
from that somatic sense of connection.
01:07:11.496 --> 01:07:12.817
So I get it, you brother.
01:07:12.817 --> 01:07:14.387
I really hear you, brother, what you're on to.
01:07:14.927 --> 01:07:15.547
You're on to something.
01:07:15.697 --> 01:07:17.027
Marimoo, your blessings.
01:07:17.027 --> 01:07:18.637
And let's carry on the conversation.
01:07:31.681 --> 01:07:33.541
So Wolfgang, what did you make of that?
01:07:34.105 --> 01:07:35.695
I greatly enjoyed listening to it.
01:07:35.695 --> 01:07:36.445
I have to say.
01:07:37.014 --> 01:07:48.344
I mean, I know both you and Gail and it was really interesting to hear you both talk and feel into the dynamic between you two and see where you went exploring.
01:07:48.795 --> 01:07:51.914
So it was really an an enjoyable listen for me.
01:07:52.751 --> 01:07:55.331
Yeah, it was, it was an interesting experience for me.
01:07:55.601 --> 01:07:57.041
'cause you know, I've maybe seen her.
01:07:57.552 --> 01:08:01.751
Once or twice during the time I was in Extinction Rebellion.
01:08:01.751 --> 01:08:20.439
So it was like, you know, this, this woman that had ignited a worldwide movement and I was interviewing her and I, you know, I, I care passionately about the way that we currently are failing to bring about change, failing to find ways of organizing that don't replicate the cultures.
01:08:20.439 --> 01:08:23.048
And this felt like this opportunity to, um.
01:08:23.048 --> 01:08:34.643
Think with her, influence her, understand her and I, I was really, I was really, really nervous, you know, I was hiding it by being combative.
01:08:34.853 --> 01:08:35.212
I think.
01:08:35.302 --> 01:08:41.262
Um, I'm really curious as like, if you had to say like, these were my takeaways.
01:08:41.356 --> 01:08:44.747
this is what I found most interesting about that conversation.
01:08:45.271 --> 01:08:45.841
What would they be?
01:08:45.841 --> 01:08:46.231
Wolfgang?
01:08:46.882 --> 01:08:48.953
I think mainly two things.
01:08:49.132 --> 01:08:57.023
One is an area where I felt a lot of alignment between our, and particularly my thinking and hers, which is I.
01:08:57.336 --> 01:09:02.645
This idea that it's, it's mainly our right brain hemisphere, our soma.
01:09:02.975 --> 01:09:17.166
So not the part where we put the world into boxes and into neat little models, but the other half of us, um, where all the information is streaming through us that is flowing through the systems that we're part of constantly.
01:09:17.166 --> 01:09:23.136
That it's this half of us that is connecting us and that is.
01:09:23.461 --> 01:09:28.650
the instrument of creating something like collective intelligence, collective consciousness.
01:09:29.261 --> 01:09:35.110
she referenced in McGilchrist, for example, as a source, as someone who has been thinking about this a lot.
01:09:35.921 --> 01:09:41.155
And I think that that kind of framing resonated very strongly with me.
01:09:41.940 --> 01:09:43.890
probably because it's also connected to.
01:09:44.520 --> 01:09:52.051
The way that I think about who we are as humans, how we function as systems, how we show up as agents in the world.
01:09:52.547 --> 01:09:58.887
And I think the other main point where I feel I have a lot of questions Scale.
01:09:58.887 --> 01:10:12.507
Talked a lot about experiences of interconnectedness, embodied experiences of interconnectedness, but most of the examples I heard were basically personal, individual experiences of interconnectedness.
01:10:12.957 --> 01:10:23.787
being a prayer with a small group of people, but doing that as if you will, a separate thing when compared to all the other things, the organizing, the decision making, the day-to-day stuff.
01:10:24.177 --> 01:10:27.257
That you're doing, in an organization, in a social movement.
01:10:28.068 --> 01:10:45.768
And so for me, I think the big question was how can we bring this sense of interconnectedness out of these isolated experiences, these one off basically, and into our day-to-day acting and doing together.
01:10:45.768 --> 01:10:47.313
Yeah, I mean, that makes.
01:10:47.972 --> 01:10:51.573
Of sense and I, I kind of agree with you.
01:10:51.922 --> 01:11:10.483
I guess the, the thing that made me most anxious was, was here with somebody who clearly, clearly had had these very, very, very powerful, experiences of interconnectedness, you know, through her journey with plant medicine, through her, experiences of sort of channeling and really feeling that she was being guided.
01:11:10.792 --> 01:11:15.351
And yet I saw that sit alongside power.
01:11:16.192 --> 01:11:26.572
Being in this sort of exceptionalist understanding, you know, the pioneer species, a small group of people that will sort of establish the frame for the ecosystem.
01:11:26.572 --> 01:11:33.436
I saw, you know, this powerful embodied sense of interconnectedness stiffing alongside an organization that was, you know.
01:11:34.237 --> 01:11:37.806
Despite holacracy sort of, you know, hierarchical Yeah.
01:11:38.407 --> 01:11:53.167
And realizing that actually un embodied an experience, a powerful experience of interconnectedness in and of itself wasn't a of Um, for that, I was really interested in this kind of contradiction of how.
01:11:53.886 --> 01:12:07.087
We can have this complete sense of being part of an nested system, of receiving all of this information, this, this very profound sense, and it can be boxed in an individual experience, but I have had this experience.
01:12:07.506 --> 01:12:08.856
I am being guided.
01:12:09.157 --> 01:12:20.198
Um, so in a sense in and of itself, I suddenly realized at the end of this conversation an embodied sense of interconnectedness, doesn't solve, Anything.
01:12:20.677 --> 01:12:42.828
And the other, striking thing from the conversation was here was somebody, and, and maybe it wasn't included completely in the conversation, but I felt that there was somebody who, from a very sort of robust theoretical analysis, sort of understood the role of separation in sort of the extractive system that we're in.
01:12:43.225 --> 01:12:50.635
And really understood how that sort of fractal of separation had undermined, had shaped and limited what Extinction Rebellion was able to achieve.
01:12:50.635 --> 01:12:55.164
And I, I heard that fundamental realization everywhere.
01:12:55.885 --> 01:12:59.215
And then I kept hearing, but I don't know what to do about it.
01:12:59.904 --> 01:13:01.404
I don't know what to do about it.
01:13:02.244 --> 01:13:07.555
And I felt that because she didn't know what to do about it preceding anyone.
01:13:07.975 --> 01:13:22.125
So establishing this new movement using hierarchical and horizontal forms of organizing, boxing interconnectedness within the framework of a language of spirituality that I think in my view, is bound to turn a lot of people off.
01:13:22.305 --> 01:13:22.604
Yeah.
01:13:22.814 --> 01:13:34.125
And keeping it compartmentalized on one side, just'cause it wasn't baked in, in the way that you were sort of saying and how, you know, the whole organization was, was moving and operating.
01:13:34.125 --> 01:13:35.085
So I think those were the.
01:13:37.305 --> 01:13:37.425
I.
01:13:39.300 --> 01:13:45.395
I think I share a lot of this, but I think I also have a slightly different perspective on a few of these aspects.
01:13:46.335 --> 01:13:50.595
Maybe it's interesting to, to look into them a little and to try to unpack that a little more.
01:13:51.225 --> 01:13:58.121
Um, so for example, on this aspect of different languages and accessibility, I.
01:13:58.121 --> 01:14:09.746
Gail made the point explicitly and repeatedly that there's like spiritual Gail, um, who is in prayer and talks about plant medicine and share these personal experiences, and they're there.
01:14:09.746 --> 01:14:16.140
Scientist, Gail, who um, talks about the holographic principle and how universe is made of information.
01:14:16.975 --> 01:14:20.685
And tries to, frame things in a very scientific language.
01:14:20.985 --> 01:14:34.126
So I think there is a lot of consciousness for needing these different ontologies depending on who you're with and what their background, experience and their, their language for describing the world is.
01:14:34.432 --> 01:14:44.712
And From personal experience when talking with you, it's easier to find a common language with you that uses spiritual terms than one that uses scientific terms.
01:14:45.255 --> 01:14:47.625
So I think that's, that's in there as well.
01:14:48.265 --> 01:14:54.475
Then I think what's really interesting is this very like complex tangled up.
01:14:55.420 --> 01:15:07.300
Mess of aspects around how do we do this and how do we do it in a way that doesn't detract us or distract us from, from acting in the world?
01:15:07.569 --> 01:15:18.979
And how can we avoid naval gazing about these topics and how does that sit with, questions of power and hierarchy and implicit power and implicit hierarchy.
01:15:19.310 --> 01:15:21.170
And I think there are a lot of things.
01:15:21.994 --> 01:15:23.284
Tangled up in there.
01:15:23.404 --> 01:15:40.744
The, the question of implicit power was a big question for a really long time in exile, particularly around this small group of founders who were very well connected within the organization and had a lot of informal influence that wasn't fully reflected in the Holocratic system.
01:15:41.314 --> 01:15:46.895
And that was a source of, for a lot of conflict and, um.
01:15:47.314 --> 01:15:50.885
I know that I have a slightly different perspective on these things than Gail has.
01:15:50.885 --> 01:16:11.194
For example, she likes to talk about the concept of source, that there is a special role that people have that bring a certain idea to life or that, that imagine a certain path purpose for an organization, and the importance of of these sources being.
01:16:12.289 --> 01:16:14.750
Present and being influential.
01:16:14.750 --> 01:16:28.500
And I'm always slightly skeptical if that's not just another way of kind of cementing implicit power and, if that's really something we should further and not only acknowledge, but further and amplify.
01:16:29.234 --> 01:16:32.564
My guess would be that she would probably say, yes, we need that.
01:16:33.314 --> 01:16:42.345
And for me, I think, I'm way more skeptical about that, and I think that's one of the ways that separation and hierarchy and patriarchy kind of creep back in.
01:16:42.395 --> 01:16:55.515
But then there's also this question of how do we make sure we are not becoming naval gazers and, spend all our days, trying to get more interconnected and then don't get things done.
01:16:55.515 --> 01:16:55.574
I.
01:16:55.920 --> 01:17:06.960
She referenced this paper that I once wrote while I was in xr, where I said, in XR we have these two cultures where you have the getting shit done people and you have the leave, no one behind people.
01:17:07.350 --> 01:17:13.359
And this divide was really stark in xr and I think I share her, conviction.
01:17:13.359 --> 01:17:17.109
I would say that these can go together and that they should go together.
01:17:17.109 --> 01:17:24.399
This sense of care and this focus on interconnectedness with a sense of productivity and going forward and, and.
01:17:24.399 --> 01:17:25.569
Getting into action.
01:17:26.020 --> 01:17:29.949
But I also know from experience how difficult it is to, to achieve that.
01:17:30.399 --> 01:17:42.090
And for me it was a reminder of something that we talked about in the last few weeks, a lot, which is how do we find methods and what do these methods look like that bring.
01:17:42.479 --> 01:17:56.010
An experience of interconnectedness to the actual doing where it's not just the meditation, not just the prayer, not just the ceremony, but actually the decision making, the planning, the action itself.
01:17:56.350 --> 01:17:57.819
the debrief afterwards.
01:17:58.090 --> 01:18:06.779
Where are the methods that, that help us do things that we need to do and that we should do in a different way.
01:18:07.560 --> 01:18:24.569
My hope would be, and it's not a conviction yet, but I think we are working towards that, is that there are methods which can help us to be actually more productive and to be more in a flow together and to make things.
01:18:24.920 --> 01:18:40.260
Easier to do and yeah, to become more action oriented instead of less because there is a greater sense of we are in this together, we are doing this together, we are aligned, uh, a more natural sense of things flowing.
01:18:40.770 --> 01:18:54.119
Um, so I think in, in all of this tangled mess, that's for me the kind of the silver lining or the perspective that I think there is a way of bringing these things together and we are kind of seeing the first traces of it.
01:18:54.565 --> 01:18:56.095
I like where you've got to.
01:18:56.095 --> 01:19:10.315
'cause if I was an audience member of this podcast and I just sort of listened to this very interesting interview with Gail, sort of, but if there had to be like a, a one line subject, it's, we understand the problem, but we don't know what to do.
01:19:10.315 --> 01:19:10.345
I.
01:19:11.155 --> 01:19:21.668
Maybe we don't want, um, a discussion about that, interview where we go, yeah, I hope, but there's a big problem and we don't know, what to do.
01:19:21.719 --> 01:19:30.588
I'm remembering, the interview and, there was this very striking moment where she was sort of saying, well, you know, to get there, we've got all of these, this, all this trauma.
01:19:31.338 --> 01:19:37.748
We've got all of this stuff, we could spend years working through that to get to a sense of interconnectedness and this sense of hopelessness.
01:19:37.748 --> 01:19:40.569
So, so sort of to move us away from that.
01:19:40.569 --> 01:19:40.899
Okay.
01:19:41.439 --> 01:19:43.298
Uh, maybe I'll comment on, on a little bit.
01:19:43.298 --> 01:19:57.126
So one of the things I just wanna come back to with what you said,'cause I think it's very important, and I think one of the reasons it's useful for us to speak to that is I think there is a critique, which would sound something like.
01:19:58.416 --> 01:19:59.166
Okay.
01:20:00.065 --> 01:20:04.546
Capitalism, is underpinned by a sense of separation, okay?
01:20:04.765 --> 01:20:08.666
the mental health epidemic is underpinned by this diet of separation, okay?
01:20:08.666 --> 01:20:09.746
Dominion over nature.
01:20:09.775 --> 01:20:10.136
Okay.
01:20:10.136 --> 01:20:10.916
Individualism.
01:20:10.945 --> 01:20:11.365
Okay.
01:20:11.365 --> 01:20:12.086
Competition.
01:20:12.475 --> 01:20:13.615
Okay.
01:20:13.615 --> 01:20:13.735
Okay.
01:20:13.735 --> 01:20:13.737
Okay.
01:20:13.765 --> 01:20:14.996
We agree with you.
01:20:15.025 --> 01:20:16.256
We agree with you, right?
01:20:17.426 --> 01:20:18.868
But the planet is burning.
01:20:19.582 --> 01:20:26.782
Fascism is on the rise, and I don't wanna sit around and fucking meditate and chant some, you know, fucking mantra.
01:20:26.902 --> 01:20:28.481
And this is a load of bollocks.
01:20:29.181 --> 01:20:34.612
Listening to some of the stuff we're saying, like there's a version that interconnectedness is.
01:20:35.016 --> 01:20:39.667
Dangerous and that narratives of interconnectedness and dangerous, and what I mean by that was something that you pointed to.
01:20:40.417 --> 01:20:50.856
So if you combine sort of one of the narratives, I'm not saying that Gail meant this, but there's a version of this that could be true, which is, I have heard the word of God.
01:20:51.362 --> 01:21:03.997
I channeled this source, God the divine, whatever you want to call it in an altered state, gave me a vision and I therefore know the truth.
01:21:05.002 --> 01:21:15.198
Therefore do, as I say, there is a version of that that we've of seen in religion, that we've seen in cults, that we've seen, you know, really play out in very destructive ways.
01:21:15.768 --> 01:21:21.137
Moreover, I think another critique could go and look how culturally appropriative this is.
01:21:21.137 --> 01:21:25.787
You're adopting techniques and words and language that you know that don't arise.
01:21:26.118 --> 01:21:26.297
Yeah.
01:21:26.898 --> 01:21:41.497
From, if want to culturally appropriate to our lineage, our culture, our world, you know, okay, your analysis is good, man, but I'm not gonna get into bed with you because it is so full of danger that you are not offering a solution.
01:21:41.618 --> 01:21:44.467
You are just offering another version of the problems.
01:21:44.467 --> 01:21:52.148
And if I was to throw that ball at you, which I think is a legitimate criticism, um, or challenge to what we're saying, what would you say Wolfgang?
01:21:53.184 --> 01:22:00.538
I would first of all acknowledge that this is a legitimate criticism or, or it points out a very, very real risk.
01:22:01.134 --> 01:22:10.094
And I think my reply would be this way of, of interpreting, our vision or this idea of focusing on interconnectedness.
01:22:10.094 --> 01:22:23.564
Again, has separation baked in, um, into its heart because it operates from this perspective of the individual where I am connected, I am the source, I have this experience.
01:22:23.684 --> 01:22:26.444
And then as you say, this is why you need to follow me.
01:22:26.766 --> 01:22:28.537
so I think what, what I'm.
01:22:28.896 --> 01:22:47.476
Really interested in, and I love that the work that we are doing, like behind the scenes is actually going exactly in this direction, is how does interconnectedness show up on a much smaller scale where it's not the inside, where it's not the experience.
01:22:47.867 --> 01:22:51.886
But it's, um, a range of insights, a range of experiences.
01:22:52.216 --> 01:22:53.957
How does it show up in our relationships?
01:22:53.957 --> 01:22:54.676
How does it show up?
01:22:54.676 --> 01:23:05.283
In the beginning of our meeting, in the middle of our meeting, at the end of our meeting, for example, one, one experience I had very recently where I realized, oh, this is one of the.
01:23:05.613 --> 01:23:16.314
Places where I need to look into, if I want to learn how to do this differently, was the recording of one of the conversations we had, um, like two or three weeks ago.
01:23:16.974 --> 01:23:36.163
And I felt like, wow, I'm really, trying to dominate the discussion and I'm talking over you and I'm, I'm going on as many theoretical tangents as I felt like, and you kept saying things like, um, I know that you see it this way and I understand this point.
01:23:36.304 --> 01:23:42.484
but there's still this question that I had like three sections of the discussion ago and I still haven't responded to it.
01:23:43.094 --> 01:23:51.104
Where I felt like, okay, it's, it's so easy for me to, to go down this, this road of, because that's the way I think.
01:23:51.104 --> 01:23:52.873
That's the way I experience things.
01:23:52.873 --> 01:23:55.604
That's what I think is a good argument.
01:23:55.694 --> 01:23:58.814
This what I think is the right language to talk about things.
01:23:58.814 --> 01:24:02.953
I keep pressing for it and for me, I think.
01:24:03.838 --> 01:24:18.279
Getting to a place of being more connected and creating, less separation, for example, means to think about how do I show up in these conversations and how important do I think my ego should be in these conversations?
01:24:18.939 --> 01:24:21.698
And then, yeah, that's work that I need to do.
01:24:21.698 --> 01:24:27.238
So in a way that's like also an an individual task, but it's something that shows up in.
01:24:27.809 --> 01:24:39.298
In a conversation, in, in a personal relationship in lots of small things that I do and then looking at these points and thinking about what can I do differently here?
01:24:39.298 --> 01:24:40.679
What can we do differently here?
01:24:40.679 --> 01:24:48.779
What can we try, what can we experiment with, I think is way more promising than focusing on these big life changing moments.
01:24:49.373 --> 01:24:55.913
Where I might feel interconnected, but then that's my personal experience and nothing more.
01:24:56.751 --> 01:25:03.354
I find that interesting and I agree with you and maybe I want, I think it might be helpful to let the audience, this is the first.
01:25:04.073 --> 01:25:10.163
Interview in the first episode to sort of maybe understand a little bit about the framework that we are thinking, about this in.
01:25:10.913 --> 01:25:18.270
So, I mean, the first thing to say is, everything that I have sort of said isn't necessarily just my perspective, it's the team perspective.
01:25:18.270 --> 01:25:25.501
I mean, there are so many people within the decolonization movement in, in so many perspectives that would, would highlight these dangers.
01:25:25.501 --> 01:25:28.470
And we come into this, um, with an awareness.
01:25:29.341 --> 01:25:30.240
Of these dangers.
01:25:31.020 --> 01:25:47.747
And on the other side, a sort of theoretical framework where we're sort of saying the organizational methods that we use hierarchically or horizontally, all are underpinned by this, this notion of separation where, you know, decision making.
01:25:48.091 --> 01:25:55.862
Organizing is seen as, you know, d individual entities each with sort of differing needs and desires and somehow having to sort of negotiate between them.
01:25:55.862 --> 01:26:02.131
And if you use an organizational method based on a certain assumption, you you replicate that assumption.
01:26:02.131 --> 01:26:06.271
And if we keep replicating this assumption of separation, we end up where we are.
01:26:06.962 --> 01:26:13.618
If we picture a painting as only possible, if we limit the size of the canvas and the the numbers of colors.
01:26:14.384 --> 01:26:16.453
We can understand where we are now.
01:26:16.756 --> 01:26:20.201
Being paintings continually done on the canvas of separation.
01:26:20.591 --> 01:26:38.190
The fractal of separation again and again and again within this complex system, results where we are and an understanding, and I don't necessarily think it's either my place or the right time to go into it, that we live within a complex rather than a complicated system.
01:26:38.671 --> 01:26:41.280
And that fundamental change can only be brought about.
01:26:41.956 --> 01:26:45.225
Through a fractal of interconnectedness.
01:26:45.692 --> 01:26:54.958
So if we are looking at this in any way, we are thinking, how can we create feedback loops of more interconnectedness?
01:26:55.168 --> 01:26:59.639
So these are a small questions, these are a small notions.
01:26:59.668 --> 01:27:07.706
It's how can me and Ni Wolf going right now in this moment, feel more interconnected.
01:27:09.657 --> 01:27:11.966
Use scientific language for interconnected.
01:27:13.046 --> 01:27:20.966
There is a wealth of information being communicated from my cells, to my organs, to my body, from the environment that I'm in, from.
01:27:21.266 --> 01:27:35.396
There's so much information being picked, picked up between nested systems, but'cause of the language and worldview that I have, my higher order systems, my sentient.
01:27:36.296 --> 01:27:39.716
Believing that it's all alone in the back of my brain doesn't pick up on it.
01:27:39.747 --> 01:27:48.207
So we need to bring our attention to our body where this somatic information is giving us all of this information.
01:27:49.256 --> 01:27:57.537
And as a very rough framework, we are asking that question organization, you know, how can we have a conversation?
01:27:57.537 --> 01:27:58.886
How can we have a team meeting?
01:27:59.216 --> 01:28:03.270
How can we develop a strategy with more of a sense of interconnected?
01:28:03.921 --> 01:28:11.360
What is the role of The in particular and what is the role of our sort of colonial mindset in maintaining separation?
01:28:11.360 --> 01:28:31.430
What soon the role of our worldview, and I know I've waffled on enough, but if we look at perhaps the interview with Gail and what happened in Extinction Rebellion as what we're doing through the lens of how we're thinking about things, maybe I again, pass the, the ball over to you.
01:28:31.931 --> 01:28:32.591
I think that.
01:28:32.862 --> 01:28:44.202
the first insight or key point that stood out for me in your interview that I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation revolved exactly around this idea of it's this.
01:28:45.795 --> 01:28:52.364
Information that we pick up with our senses, that we process with, um, our soma.
01:28:52.814 --> 01:28:54.435
This is what we need to focus on.
01:28:54.435 --> 01:28:56.145
This is what we need to tune into.
01:28:56.145 --> 01:29:02.234
And I think there's a lot of alignment between our thinking, between Gail's thinking and her experiences.
01:29:02.234 --> 01:29:06.104
There was a lot of alignment in the conversation with you around this.
01:29:06.704 --> 01:29:19.244
And I think we are seeing glimpses of what that could look like by looking at methods that focus on this, that, that ask in this specific moment, how can I get access to this information in this specific interaction?
01:29:19.425 --> 01:29:21.045
How can I be more attuned to, I.
01:29:21.930 --> 01:29:32.699
My bodily sensations, my intuitions, the things that, um, I usually shut out when I box my thinking into this left hemisphere.
01:29:32.970 --> 01:29:39.659
Neat little models and packages of the world that we are getting indoctrinated into in, in our western societies.
01:29:40.260 --> 01:29:43.289
And as you say, I think there's a lot of unlearning to do.
01:29:43.920 --> 01:29:45.239
but that can start.
01:29:45.600 --> 01:29:54.460
Very small, that can start with the, the actual things we do, the conversation that we have, the relationships that we form and nurture.
01:29:55.270 --> 01:30:07.123
And yeah, my hope would be that that's also something that people are interested in, maybe even intrigued by, um, and want to experiment with and want to share.
01:30:07.458 --> 01:30:10.309
Their experiences in with us.
01:30:10.792 --> 01:30:18.122
so that could become a larger scale learning process where lots of little experiments and lots of little experiences can kind of.
01:30:18.122 --> 01:30:25.832
Become interconnected, if you will, and, and create an exchange that goes beyond just the two of us or the three of us.
01:30:26.112 --> 01:30:40.032
If you bring Gail back into this web of relationships or the organizing from elsewhere team, because I'm sure that there are many, many, many, many ideas out there, what that could look like, how an experiment could look like.
01:30:40.332 --> 01:30:43.692
What we could try that we don't even think about at the moment.
01:30:43.913 --> 01:30:53.601
I agree and As you were sort of talking about that I had a bit of a, a flashback to the, the conversation with Gail where she was talking about the, the pink boat.
01:30:53.868 --> 01:30:54.104
Mm-hmm.
01:30:54.439 --> 01:30:57.548
And she was using the words MURMURATIONS as this sort of,
01:30:57.731 --> 01:30:58.152
Mm-hmm.
01:30:58.694 --> 01:31:00.878
the sense of, interconnectedness.
01:31:00.878 --> 01:31:06.942
And I, I certainly, you know, when I've been clubbing and dancing, or actually when.
01:31:06.942 --> 01:31:09.492
Something really bad has happened to me.
01:31:09.542 --> 01:31:13.801
You've been kettled or suddenly the group is moving.
01:31:14.072 --> 01:31:15.002
Yeah, with a.
01:31:15.827 --> 01:31:29.957
Wisdom and, um, and intelligence or, you know, in an occupation where, you know, until you're applying some sort of circle or mandate, the whole group for this moment just seems to know what the fuck to do.
01:31:30.106 --> 01:31:34.606
I mean, I mean, yeah, like you are the, uh, you are the scientist between us.
01:31:34.606 --> 01:31:36.663
What, what do you think's happening there?
01:31:36.663 --> 01:31:39.694
How do we have more of that, if you know what I mean?
01:31:40.239 --> 01:31:53.470
I think through exactly what we were talking about, listening to the signals that our body is picking up all the time that go through all of our cells, our nervous system, our right brain systems, all the time.
01:31:53.829 --> 01:31:54.699
Murmuration.
01:31:55.000 --> 01:32:05.439
There's a very simple way of modeling murmurations in digital simulation where you only have, I think two or three simple rules, which is.
01:32:06.050 --> 01:32:11.038
Keep this far away from your neighboring bird, not closer than this.
01:32:11.038 --> 01:32:12.418
Not further away than that.
01:32:12.770 --> 01:32:14.270
And follow the bird before you.
01:32:14.431 --> 01:32:15.782
That's everything you need.
01:32:16.261 --> 01:32:18.421
And then these murmurations just emerge.
01:32:19.082 --> 01:32:25.471
So this, this collective intelligence that the group knows how to move and that it creates these beautiful shapes.
01:32:26.042 --> 01:32:37.051
That's just happening because the birds pick up on these very simple pieces of information and just do these very simple things, follow these very simple rules.
01:32:37.051 --> 01:32:38.822
There's not a lot of thinking involved.
01:32:38.822 --> 01:32:41.792
There's not a lot of individual decision making.
01:32:42.181 --> 01:32:47.761
It's really the, the, the intelligence happens at the level of the bigger system, not the individual one.
01:32:48.391 --> 01:32:52.862
And so I think what we need to overcome as humans is this idea of, I need.
01:32:53.497 --> 01:32:56.527
To know, I need to decide I know best.
01:32:56.527 --> 01:33:11.796
I am so smart, and get to a point where we realize maybe the best thing we could do is unblock the information that is flowing through the larger system, or that wants to flow through the larger system, and then the larger system will know what to do.
01:33:12.595 --> 01:33:14.975
So do you think, for example, that we could.
01:33:16.020 --> 01:33:24.076
Organize from elsewhere or organized from this sense of interconnectedness just by creating two or three rules, a little bit like a simulation?
01:33:24.076 --> 01:33:27.405
Do you think that's the sort of direction of travel, that it's as simple as that?
01:33:28.064 --> 01:33:38.145
It's probably not The same kind of rule that that creates murmuration, and it's probably not the first rule that we can think about, but I think it's gonna be simple things.
01:33:38.145 --> 01:33:40.484
It's gonna be a central constraint.
01:33:40.484 --> 01:33:43.005
It's gonna be a simple set of rules.
01:33:43.274 --> 01:33:48.345
It's something that enables us to shift our attention.
01:33:49.064 --> 01:33:55.725
From the thinking brain, from the modeling the world to unblocking the information that wants to flow.
01:33:56.354 --> 01:34:01.904
Um, which for me, as you know, is, is unusually poetic and metaphorical language.
01:34:01.904 --> 01:34:06.854
But I think it's the best way that I have at my disposal at the moment to express these ideas.
01:34:07.442 --> 01:34:09.752
And I think that needs to be something simple.
01:34:09.811 --> 01:34:16.021
That's not a, a complicated theory that people need to learn or a practice that takes years to perfect.
01:34:16.346 --> 01:34:19.407
if there's something that's working, then it's gonna be something simple.
01:34:19.407 --> 01:34:19.436
I.
01:34:19.930 --> 01:34:29.997
I agree with you and maybe if these beautiful shapes of collective wisdom emerge from simple rules, simple constraints, what could that look like?
01:34:30.193 --> 01:34:34.518
And We journeyed a little bit with children of the stars, and for those cynical.
01:34:34.908 --> 01:34:36.768
People subside of you.
01:34:36.768 --> 01:34:37.908
That's magic.
01:34:38.087 --> 01:34:44.988
Mushrooms based on the idea that mushrooms are absolutely alien and were key to sort of intelligent life.
01:34:45.797 --> 01:34:58.547
We also worked with um, ma Plateau, which is while tobacco from the Amazon, and we wrestled around and perhaps we thought the constraint that an organization, a group.
01:34:58.802 --> 01:35:06.262
Gave a heartfelt commitment to whatever we do together, gives us more of a felt sense of interconnectedness.
01:35:06.493 --> 01:35:30.752
That's a commitment that whatever we do, whether it's having a phone call or organizing a meeting or developing a strategy, should give us more of a sense of interconnectedness and then some very subtle prompts, like how in this moment can I pay more attention to my senses, my sensations, my intuitions, the memories that pop up, the knowings, the images?
01:35:30.782 --> 01:35:39.122
'cause I think we believe that that is how all of this data is being communicated from the unconscious systems to the conscious awareness.
01:35:40.082 --> 01:35:43.681
How can I make sense of this non-linear.
01:35:44.155 --> 01:35:51.055
Seemingly irrelevant information to the linear mind in a way that is helpful for the task I need to do.
01:35:51.055 --> 01:35:56.036
Because, you know, if right now I suddenly felt like screaming, I might think that makes absolutely no sense at all.
01:35:56.395 --> 01:36:00.595
But there will be information in my body coming through that's wanting me to do that.
01:36:01.059 --> 01:36:05.078
so we thought some gentle prompts to ask those questions might question useful.
01:36:05.588 --> 01:36:10.208
And then what might be even more helpful is a review process.
01:36:10.823 --> 01:36:26.094
So if we think of those as enabling factors, how we make sense of it, how we can pay more attention to somatic information, there are disabling factors like my colonial mindset, my trauma, and maybe we could ask how did trauma get in the way?
01:36:27.354 --> 01:36:30.234
How did, um, my colonial mindset get in the way?
01:36:31.014 --> 01:36:36.083
Did the practices I use support me to have more interconnectedness?
01:36:36.672 --> 01:36:56.889
Did the way I made sense of it, help me get this task done, and then we can create these great big visual maps of deficits where we need to get more support and advice from the incredible wealth of expertise in dealing with trauma, the incredible wealth of expertise in terms of helping us decolonial our mindsets.
01:36:57.372 --> 01:37:09.853
and yeah, we're kind of thinking about these simple fractals and processes that I hope is very western language, means that we're very easily able to drop into flow state.
01:37:10.453 --> 01:37:13.363
And as we all know, writing that essay.
01:37:13.783 --> 01:37:33.559
Making up that song, coming on with that brilliant idea, running faster than we've ever run before, always happens so much easier when we are in a trance state so maybe to answer Gail's question, I understand the problem, but what do we do about it?
01:37:33.859 --> 01:37:38.498
Maybe we can say that that's the ways that we're starting, to think about it.
01:37:38.814 --> 01:37:39.328
Yeah, exactly.
01:37:39.832 --> 01:37:51.297
And I think A crucial point for me in all of this is if we think about it this way, then we can start experimenting and learning right now.
01:37:51.837 --> 01:37:58.648
Then it's not something that we have to theorize that we have to think about where we need to spend months on designing processes.
01:37:59.007 --> 01:38:08.667
It's, we can ask these questions every time we do something, and then the only thing we need to do, and that's something we should do anyway, is take a little bit of time to reflect.
01:38:08.667 --> 01:38:09.448
How did that go?
01:38:09.875 --> 01:38:25.801
And that's something that I've been recommending to organizations for probably decades now and, and I've been trying to practice when, whenever I'm within an organization for at least as long, is how can we create opportunities to learn?
01:38:26.311 --> 01:38:27.061
How can we.
01:38:27.737 --> 01:38:32.327
Create space on a regular basis to look at how did this go?
01:38:32.686 --> 01:38:33.886
How did it feel?
01:38:34.216 --> 01:38:37.457
What do we want to change for the next time we try?
01:38:38.027 --> 01:38:48.617
Um, this is how you get actually working strategies, not by sitting down and designing a blueprint for two and a half years and then rolling it out, and then everything goes smoothly.
01:38:48.856 --> 01:38:54.046
It's by trying something, see if it works, and then go back and adapt it.
01:38:54.886 --> 01:38:55.367
And.
01:38:56.072 --> 01:39:11.739
For me, this approach of thinking in these learning cycles, if we can build that into, or, or bake it into what, what we are doing in in this quest for more interconnectedness, then I think can.
01:39:12.489 --> 01:39:13.600
Start now.
01:39:14.039 --> 01:39:22.733
We have a way better chance of something that really works than by, trying to to find the solution in the lab, in the ivory tower.
01:39:23.212 --> 01:39:29.470
and that's something that we all should do anyway, thinking, experiments, thinking and learning cycles.
01:39:29.992 --> 01:39:33.561
That's something that connects to so many different languages.
01:39:33.712 --> 01:39:43.311
You can talk to a software developer and, and ask him if he, if he or she or they have ever worked with Agile development and then say, this is what we're talking about.
01:39:43.731 --> 01:39:49.252
And you can talk to designer and ask them how do you come up with ideas?
01:39:49.252 --> 01:39:59.481
And then you'll get very quickly to the point where they'll tell you about the flow step they state they need to be in, and the kind of learning cycles they go through in order to find something.
01:39:59.646 --> 01:40:02.444
So, yeah, I think that's the way forward.
01:40:03.016 --> 01:40:03.707
I agree with you.
01:40:03.707 --> 01:40:13.591
And I guess that if maybe we understand this conversation with Gail as an interview with somebody who had a powerful, powerful experience of interconnectedness.
01:40:14.341 --> 01:40:22.787
And from that and her relationships with others spawned a worldwide movement that made a significant difference.
01:40:23.176 --> 01:40:38.344
But was very much shaped and limited by organizational methods that were underpinned by a notion of separate an interview where the problems, you know, yes we understand separation is the issue, but what the hell do we do about it is named.
01:40:39.110 --> 01:40:44.841
if maybe our conversation has focused a little bit on, well maybe this is an approach that we can take.
01:40:46.176 --> 01:40:52.445
I think in the next interviews I'd be really interested to explore some of these critiques.
01:40:52.996 --> 01:41:00.076
Would an approach that we are just describing actually affect our relationships?
01:41:00.945 --> 01:41:07.192
What does the approach that we're talking about, you know, how does that relate to this sort of.
01:41:07.323 --> 01:41:08.432
Interconnected washing.
01:41:08.779 --> 01:41:11.538
You are doing something, but it's not really making a difference.
01:41:11.918 --> 01:41:17.534
We're inevitably going to be using practices from, you know, non-Western cultures.
01:41:17.862 --> 01:41:21.256
How can we even understand those practices without assimilating them?
01:41:21.648 --> 01:41:23.748
How can we learn from.
01:41:23.938 --> 01:41:29.878
Peoples that we have decimated for hundreds of years without just continuing this extractive, process.
01:41:30.275 --> 01:41:37.930
And how can this you know how when we're so traumatized, so traumatized and so steeped in our own culture, how can we.
01:41:38.635 --> 01:41:47.545
Meaningfully have a sense of interconnectedness that could possibly create the kind of feedback loop of interconnectedness that can bring about saying over these systems.
01:41:47.545 --> 01:41:55.261
And I, I'm really looking forward to exploring, I think these very valued critiques, of what we're doing over the next episodes.
01:41:56.251 --> 01:41:58.466
I totally agree and.
01:41:58.592 --> 01:42:15.243
I would very explicitly invite anyone who's listening to us right now, and who has an idea either about, this is where I had an experience in a small way maybe of flow, of interconnectedness of.
01:42:15.243 --> 01:42:21.573
Opening myself up to this kind of information or who has an idea of, this is something we could try.
01:42:22.113 --> 01:42:23.943
Is this something you have thought about?
01:42:24.453 --> 01:42:30.092
Or where they have a critique that says, yeah, but you didn't think about that aspect.
01:42:30.332 --> 01:42:34.472
Or How are you planning to deal with this kind of risk to share that?
01:42:34.932 --> 01:42:42.752
And to become part of this conversation and, yeah, help educate us in, in all of these things.
01:42:43.182 --> 01:42:51.787
Absolutely, and in the end, this has to help us to organize more effectively, and if we do that, then hopefully this.
01:42:51.903 --> 01:43:08.972
More of a sense of interconnectedness can create the kind of feedback loops to create the very different kind of cultures and systems in the same way as this notion of separation has had this feedback loop mainly through violence to really create the situation that we're in now.
01:43:09.332 --> 01:43:12.903
And there is, you know, we're letting go of control.
01:43:13.143 --> 01:43:16.113
So if you are happy to interview the next person.
01:43:16.667 --> 01:43:26.448
Come and be interviewed by us and then go off and interview someone on these sorts of topics that, um, you are excited and interested to learn from.
01:43:27.018 --> 01:43:35.118
I am really curious, uh, to find out who is the next person that, uh, I think you will interview.
01:43:35.358 --> 01:43:44.177
So, um, and then come back and see where the conversation takes us and if in some ways it builds on where we've got to today.
01:43:47.676 --> 01:43:55.417
We hope this conversation has been as fascinating for you as it was for us if this episode moved you in some way.
01:43:55.896 --> 01:44:10.987
We would be curious to hear your insights and intuitions, and if you'd like to contribute to the conversation, be interviewed or suggest a guest do reach out to us on socials at organizing from elsewhere, or at org underscore elsewhere.
01:44:12.157 --> 01:44:19.747
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01:44:20.391 --> 01:44:26.692
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01:44:27.561 --> 01:44:34.612
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01:44:36.412 --> 01:44:37.282
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01:44:38.242 --> 01:44:38.692
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