Beginning Conversations

  The beginnings of a reflection that I am posting and yet hoping no one actually reads. It is a sandbox of all sandboxes. In my head, I can feel connections that I cannot see: contours are a blur. I need time. I need time to deliberate.  This post is written from a place of a presuming state; that there is an assumption on the part of the writer of the reader to have confidence that the writer's understanding of what is shared is stronger than what is written. It is equally assumed by the writer that this is not so. This paradox, of sorts, makes for great grounding if one is willing to step and to equally misstep.  Graduate School: 1993-1995 I entered the world of education at a time of 'pure' constructivism. Or, as a professor once shared, a belief that learning is nothing more than throwing a pig in mud and asking it to learn by rolling. At the time I was less challenged by the idea of constructivism and more challenged by its interpretation of theory to practice....

  Logos and Leadership Logos develops a connotative sense of a recognition of real it y for what reality truly is ; deepened understanding of the rational principle underlying reality.  LINK Over the years, over the past 20 years, I have often thought of an overheard simple exchange that changed how I think about the world. This exchange came at the end of a communal sitting with the Dali Lama in Chennai, India.  After an hour of engaging with the audience, the Dali Lama opened the floor for questions. I recall none but one. A participant asked, “What frightens you the most about the potential for the next Dali Lama not to be identified prior to your death?” In the milliseconds between the question and his response, I anticipated his response. This, however, was not his response.  His response was immediate. He spoke with sincerity as he described what would be his greatest concern, the loss of the language of his faith. He went on to describe that it was a language ...

What does it mean? vs What does it do?  The construct of a holarchy is new to me. A hierarchy without an absolute floor and ceiling, top or bottom. This idea invites visualization. In each quadrant a developmental progression with relationships of value assigned by need and contextualized among four territories. The spaces defined by source, internal or external and sense of self, individual or collective. Each important but relatively so. Each understood: interior by interpretation and exterior by observation. These juxtapositions are distanced by relative degree and call attention to the intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social-ized complexity this model represents. This seems awesome and without clear conclusion, yet when one removes its two dimensional nature and imposes on it three dimensional contours-- significance-as-experienced and -defined by the phenomena-- one can see how it offers value in making sense with judgment. It is interesting to me that the progression o...

  “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one). Barzun, Matthew. The Power of Giving Away Power (p. 4). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  I share the following synopsis to illustrate the power and reality of what a country held and likely continues to hold to be implicitly beholden, E Pluribus Unum, and to offer commentary that the awakening of our nation was followed by a period of growing up: an awakening that was presented as a holarchy and a growing up reflected in hierarchy.  --------------------------- I am reading, The Power of Giving Power Away , by Matthew Barzun (2021). The opening speaks to the formation of the United States by speaking not to the challenge of winning the war but to what came afterwards. The Founding Fathers realized that the Declaration of Independence (1777) was necessary but the words had more influence on what was experienced within and less on with-out: a nation needed to project its value internally and externally to be believed. A tas...

Center of Gravity https://www.typepunchmatrix.com/pictures/39423_6.jpg?v=1592661697 Spiral Dynamics It is an interesting exercise, identifying self in a real way- an honest way. So often, the self we present is a self or selves, not the Self. I suppose it is the Self that directs the selves, recognizing immediate need of others within context and pushing forward an identity that is truly just part of an unknown whole.   I think in systems: systems driven by need. Values, however, drive. It is at the value level that clarity comes.    The values of orange with sights on green appear to be and have been at my center of gravity. Orange is where I have lived for years, really decades. While I can see how and when I’ve progressed through each level, I can’t help but think that orange was a silent partner in progress. They say that animals that engage in great migrations pass on routes in their mitochondrial DNA to their young. Orange, for me, feels like such a vestigial relic....

  Developmental Line When walking the stage to receive my masters, my Myers Briggs profile was taped to my cap, just as it was taped to my cohort’s caps. For me, the tape read: INFP, with TJ just on the cusp (literally and figuratively). On the DISC assessment, I am an SC, relatively high and towards center. Strength’s Finder has me as leading towards Learning and Analysis. Each personality profile describes me. Over the years, I have used these strengths to my advantage. At the outset, however, I wished for different strengths. The worth of my traits not necessarily valued at an institutional and social level and my deep, needed call for change and to enact change characterized by traits I did not publicly express. It has only been recently that such a premise in leadership and in social change have called these assumptions into question. Who really gets to decide such things. https://miro.medium.com/max/5100/1*gTti7FuA5ncdwXnoqb5Xmg.jpeg I learned long ago that I alone could find...

To open this series of posts that speak to ideas of Integral Theory and Practice, I share what was one of my last posts that was in DRAFT until I resurrected this blog for this course. I can help but see the thinking of was is the thinking that now and that this thinking did not stifle but expanded. I can't help but think metaphorically. All brains are wired to see connections and make sense of the world by fitting round things in any shaped hole. It's a scary thing if ignored. My brain does this but does so as if always on steroids; I just hope that round is with round...most of the time. We learn through our mistakes. This is an overwhelming task that requires commitment and respect. I won't go into this, as this is what I speak to in other posts. I want to talk about the what-we-SHOULD hold-on-to, in spite of  dis-confirming 'evidence' or really, because of it. The world we live in is a crazy place- let's think about the core values that are non...