Gilles' Gardening story

Dear Fellow Gardeners, dear Traveling Companions,

It is a few days after Christmas on this side of the world and I feel the need to write and tell you a little bit of my story. To write in order to weave a little bit more of community amongst us human beings.

Homo sapiens are ‘animals of belonging’, aren’t we?

Together with my extended family, I’ve enjoyed last night one of my spiciest dishes in a long, long time: prawn curry.

Has my life been that spicy lately? Maybe yes, maybe no—as it’s essentially a question of how you look at the coin which is spinning, and which side you look at. There’s always a more meaningful side, after all, and it helps me, here in this down-vacation-time, to reflect on where I have been, and where I might go on this intriguing path I call ‘life’s mystery.’

The most meaningful and most spiritual event of the fall was by far our Art of Hosting gathering at the Kirkridge retreat center near Bangor, Pennsylvania. It was a delightful time, full of sharing and laughing, and more sharing and communing. Things happened in the circle of life that we formed amongst the thirty-two of us, and it was no exception for me, this time again. My life was changed by the circle in ways that are difficult to capture with words.

I entered the circle that Friday morning by sharing my ‘mourning of my religious identity.’ Why did I coin my introduction that way? I am not so sure, but the only thing I know is that it came from a place deep within. A place that the circle invites you to.

For more than a year, I have questioned the religious organization that had been sustaining my faith for twenty years. I no longer recognized myself in this organization, and particularly in the heavy and rigid top-down structure that allows guidelines to get spread and reach the general membership. I felt somewhat stuck and constricted in the middle of this lifeless hierarchy, having to gobble up things from above, and conveying directives and instructions in which I had absolutely no say. I was longing for buy-in, for a sense of empowerment, but the ideas I brought forward and the challenging questions I asked, up to the very top of the organization, were at best acknowledged but not heard. The hierarchy was counting on me to spread the “message of our faith” and increase membership in our area. I felt like a little foot soldier, devoid of power, when all that I wanted was to be a “general of life,” for the purpose of creating more life—not numbers.

It is with this frame of questioning that I entered the circle in Kirkridge, not realizing that I was openly sharing the situation that would set me free a few hours later.

The response came crystal clear, and did I say, with lightening speed? Possibly out that walk I took on Saturday afternoon down to the megalith park where I walked the labyrinth, or out of the supportive wisdom of the group itself; or again out of the surrounding peer leadership which is my way of addressing the world and its burning questions.

Words are not in order when you listen to the wisdom of your heart. The response was there, having surfaced from the pores of my heart into consciousness. I was going to resign my leadership position – this was not a way out, it was going to be a way into – a way into freedom, with a door wide open to the remaining questions of my life’s mission. I was going to set me free. There was no way back.

On Sunday morning, while attending Tenneson’s workshop, I even surprised myself. I was already into ‘wise action,’ having happily moved past ‘wise decision.’ It’s amazing how fast your life moves once you make the right decision—the decision that empowers your very life.

This warm winter break, in the humidity of south-east Asia, is the perfect place to read and reflect on the wide open space that lies before me now, six months into the Gardeners of Peace initiative that I willingly and heartily offered.

A quote I found in Christina Baldwin’s book (Storycatcher) prompted me to open my life to you tonight, as the world is in dire need of ‘connecting and reconnecting’ the social tissues that have been damaged by decades of neglect and abuse—abuse of the human heart, and betrayal of human trust—, leaving us with nothing solid institutionally-speaking to believe in, except, humanly-speaking, ourselves and the collective power of our hearts to make things happen.

“Story is a search for community. As we tell each other who we really are, we find the people with whom we really belong. Story brings us home.”

This sharing of mine is indeed an attempt to answer the questions that drive me, as I see it, from the future into the present:

“Who am I am, and what is my mission in this world?”

These are the questions that several forms of organized religions have tried to answer for me, and these are the questions that arise a little louder amidst this newly found freedom.

This is my story, simply told, and this is my version of being a Gardener of Peace.

So, what is your story?

Would you be willing to share it with me?

Would you be willing to share it with others, so that together we can build a community—“a community,” as Thich Nhat Hanh envisions, “practicing understanding and loving kindness; a community practicing mindful living.”


And a few final words of inspiration....

“We are all meant to shine, as children do. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Nelson Mandela

Wintering and Sensing in the Garden

Hello Gardeners,

Checking back in since our first call as a virtual group, in September. There have been a few smaller, in person gatherings for "Gardeners" and for those in exploration. We continued to consider and share what "gardening" means to us- metaphorically and literally. Out of these and other conversations amongst Gilles, Tenneson and Lenore, the following question emerged:

What else is possible if we come together as Gardeners of inner peace and earth peace?

For those of you who were on our first call, or have contacted Gilles (Gilles Asselin : gilles@sococo.com), with interest, you have recently received an invitation for the second virtual gardening call on Sunday, January 13th, at 1pm, EST. If you have not received this invitation, please contact either Gilles or myself (lenore@lenoremewton.com) and we will send you the conference call information.

As we move into the winter, (especially in the snowbound, hibernating areas) with all her varied weather environments depending on your location, this is often a deeper time of reflection. For myself, in North Amercian Northeast, the snow and cold invite me to 'huddle' within and listen for any different quality to my sensing of inner wisdom. The journey of paying attention to and making room internally for wisdom to emerge has been new for me over the past year and a half. Although often thinking and seeing myself as a reflective, inituitive person, I have found new levels of learning and greater trust in the non-analytical. I have found myself 'following' where I go, what entices and calls to me, be this conversations, opportunities, or activities. It's been quite amazing to me to really practice the phrase "let your wisdom be your guide". I have just begun to tap into my own potential, without judgement, and enjoy the playfulness of not 'needing to know' . I have come to love the questions in life more than the answers- which I so readily peeled off in the past. I am consciously aware of allowing this winter period of time as a resting place, but one where growth deepens (as the seedlings do over the winter, getting ready for Spring).

Our upcoming call, this blog, and other potential face to face gatherings, are opportunities to think and sense aloud with others or within. We invite you to use them freely for spaces of reflection during your winter of questions.

I look forward to being together on Jan. 13th.

Gardening with 12 Year Olds

My daughter Zoe is 12. She is my oldest, a delightful, spirited 7th Grader. Whenever I introduce Zoe in work settings, I also reference her as an old soul. She is an incredible being and daughter (yes, some dad bias included).

Today I was at home when she arrived from school. I was just finishing a wonderful, generative call with Gilles and Lenore about a January phone council and a pending spring Art of Hosting event / Art of Gardening. I sat on the couch with Zoe to share a bit. I told her this was a group of people that want to help each other and many more by creating inner peace through such things as meditation, prayer, silence, writing, walks, etc. At least this was one version of gardening inner peace that I felt she would relate to. And then I shared that we are people who believe the world can be more peaceful when we come together, earth peace, even with our simple acts.

When I can share what I'm doing with my daughter, with such joy, and invitation -- I'm simply happy. I imagine a time when she might awaken more to such notions and say, "ah, that's what Dad was talking about / rambling on about." :)

I'm excited, and listening for, and welcoming of this beautiful creation, Gardeners of Peace.

Humanity in action

Children International, an organization that assists poor children all over the world, has recently opened a new center in Zambia. They invited the Vice President of Zambia, Rupiah Banda, to say a few words during the inauguration ceremony.

To me, this is true humanity in action – sharing what we have with other human beings we may never see, not expecting anything in return – and this action is well aligned with the idea and mission of being a Gardener of Peace, connecting at the most basic level: human beingness - heart to heart. We need more “humanity in action” to make this world the place it ought to be for all of us.

Here are Rupiah’s words:

“The burden of poverty has put an enormous strain on the government’s limited resources to assist the vulnerable children. These, coupled with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other reasons, have resulted in very sad scenarios where some children are wasting their lives away at street corners begging for alms and abusing drugs in an effort to alleviate the pain of living in the streets.

Government therefore feels reassured that in spite of this, there are cooperating partners like Children International willing to supplement the government’s efforts to ease the burden and help improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable people in our society, the children.

I’m informed that this center will cater at least 5,000 children within Chibolya, providing them with free health and educational assistance. I’m also informed that the center has an outpatient clinic with one full-time doctor and one full-time nurse, a dental clinic and a pharmacy.

I wish to place on record the government’s gratitude to Children International for making a real difference in the lives of children who would otherwise not have had the opportunity to go to school or have at least one decent meal a day. The people of Zambia shall forever remain grateful for this very rare demonstration of love and care for humanity.

Ladies and gentlemen, the funds Children International uses come from ordinary people.

Let us ask ourselves, have we ever thought of doing what these people have come to do here from a long way…who have no relationship other than that they are human beings like ourselves? How many of us have so many clothes in our houses, have so many things that we don’t need, that we’ve spent and we don’t even have space for them, but we’re just piling them up in the houses or in the garages or in the kitchens? Have we ever thought that we also can make a difference to our children?

I would like myself to see a situation where we emulate these brothers and sisters. I believe if Zambians could make generous donations to organizations such as Children International-Zambia to further their work, we would be able to achieve a lot more. Let me promise in front of you all here that Children International, as an organization, has the doors of my office and my home open for them at all times.

Happiness

Thank you Brian for pointing me there....

In his book, “Authentic Happiness,” Martin Seligman condenses what it takes to be happy to a very simple statement.

Discover your strengths and use them often.

(If you want to discover your strengths, you can do so with the strengths assessment test)

Want a truly meaningful life?

Discover your strengths, use them often, and give them to something bigger than yourself.

And, if you are curious about my "signature strenghts", they are:

1. Appreciation of beauty and excellence
I notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and skilled performance in all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.

2. Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
It's important to me to think of new ways to do things. I'm never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible

3. Love of learning
I love learning new things. I have always loved reading, and take every opportunity to learn

4. Curiosity and interest in the world
I'm curious about everything, always asking questions, and you find most subjects and topics fascinating. I like exploration and discovery.

5. Leadership
I excel at the tasks of leadership: encouraging a group to get things done and preserving harmony within the group by making everyone feel included. I do a good job organizing activities and seeing that they happen.

Blogged with Flock

Family gardening in a local playground

I was out with my family this afternoon. We all went to the local playground, in our district in Paris.

Alexia, my older daughter, is going to be 9 next month and Flora is 6. I could not believe how much they have grown and how much "cultivation" that has yet to come.

I remember when they were both babies and we would go to the same playground. From crawling to toddling, walking to running, they are blossoming into two beautiful young ladies. I must admit that now my only concern is that my wife and I guide them as best as we could in such an uncertain world. It scares the hell out of me.

I am still working on my own path in life. So many questions come to my mind as I look inward and then outward. Will I be capable of guiding them, even though I am unsure if I can guide myself?

Any comments would be appreciated. (For those of you who are new to Blogger, click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this entry.)

Terry

Collaboration Ecology - The Challenge of the 21st Century

What is collaboration?

Collaboration, as we understand it, is a process whereby two or more parties work together closely to achieve mutual beneficial outcomes.
Collaboration is easily confused with but greatly differs from cooperation. When people, organizations or companies cooperate there is really no need to jointly develop shared understandings and trust; in cooperation it is enough that participants, for instance, simply execute instructions willingly or do what they agreed upon previously. Also in cooperation the desired outcome is relatively clear, whereas in collaboration it is mostly unpredictable although all partners in the collaborative effort are certain that what will be realized far outweighs what could be produced individually or in mere cooperation.
Clearly collaboration is a much more complex and demanding process than cooperation, and this also because it relies heavily on trust and a joint commitment to shared understandings or values.

It is equally important to differentiate what in this article is understood as collaboration from what is seen as such in the Internet. If you google collaboration you will get around 167 million documents to choose from. Skimming the first 100 or so it seems obvious that collaboration is generally regarded as “the sum of all logical and target group oriented workflows in and between companies” to cite one document. The ‘net is full of so called collaboration-software and tools. But it is very clear that what is regarded as collaboration is what we covered above as being cooperation, “working together on something”, where it could simply be enough to execute instructions willingly.

In this article by collaboration we mean a process where two or more people and/or organisations work together by jointly developing shared understandings and building enough trust to share knowledge, processes and activities in alignment with common values, intentions and/or goals or a vision which is typically creative/innovative in nature.

Collaboration and competition

The dominant collective culture in most parts of the world today, and particularly in the United States, is a star culture in which “the winner takes it all; the loser has to fall” (Abba). In today’s economic world business leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, brokers, financiers etc, are typically portrayed as a star, even though the accomplishment and profit of any organisation or business is obviously created by everybody engaged in it. Promoting a business leader as a star may produce a momentary marketing advantage, but – as will become obvious in this article – collaboration creates a much greater and most of all sustainable business value, and more than that produces social coherence and community: collaboration produces wealth in every respect. The star culture and its incessant competition might create individual fortunes but it does so by creating many losers in its wake, our planetary environment obviously being one of them. The star culture is driven by and drives the sense of isolation and disconnectedness from a larger whole by mythologizing the individual and his or her achievements – which are seen as the result of competing well. This is most likely a major obstacle to be surmounted if we want a sustainable future for a flourishing planet and an open society. Contrary to the myths our star culture perpetuate, people working in collaboration achieve far greater and sustainable successes than individuals, even if we narrow down the meaning of success to be solely economic.

But even so, a collaborative culture doesn’t oppose competition and the star culture, it just surpasses it in every respect except ego-gratification. Collaboration is a major step beyond egotism, nepotism, feudalism and any vertical leadership structure – not to mention bureaucracy and adolescent’s games. All of these are rooted in pyramidal systems where the many carry and enrich those on the next, narrower level and compete to become one of them. People and organisations having chosen a collaborative culture do recognize, and even honour the fact that competition has its historical mission to play in society and the development of individuals and organisations.
Star culture and competition belongs to an era or developmental stage where humanity is convinced that there is not enough for everybody, where resources, due to a lack of knowledge and know-how, are thought to be limited. In the epoch we are embarking upon – often and appropriately called the knowledge-society[1] – it is obvious that we will be doing more and more with less and less, exponentially so.
In this new century knowledge has become the main resource helping us to achieve the very exponential growth we face today, which could, for instance, very easily lead to a situation where in 10-20 years with the intelligent use of one drop of oil we are doing what we need a whole barrel full for today. We have entered the epoch in which collaborative systems and structures evolve other, far better ways to create excellence and incentives to foster better ideas, policies, workflows and practises then are possible through competition and star cultures.
So there is really no need to oppose competition at all; we are surpassing it in every respect.

Collaboration, being based on this and similar insights and more than this: on deep humane qualities and behaviours, will inevitably replace competitive capitalism and its unhealthy – for the planet and social fabric – culture.
It is obvious for instance, that there is much more know-how about important matters outside any business or organisation than there can possibly be inside of it. Since in competitive culture knowledge is regarded and treated as power it is made scarce, and is, whatever the market may be, heavily protected against the competition. Therefore it is very difficult to ‘harvest’ this knowledge from other individuals or organisations on the market. One has to spend considerable resources to obtain it. In a collaborative system knowledge is shared freely and whatever the benefits are further down the line all participants trust that these are shared equitably between all contributors. The value of knowledge that is common to collaborators – know-how about processes, resources, practises, for instance – is exponentially higher than the value of the very same knowledge available to competing individuals or organisations. This is the main reason why collaborative enterprises, businesses and organisations have the evolutionary edge in a heavily competitive global system, and this is also a major cause for optimism in spite of the grave dangers humanity is presently facing. The day is not far when the collaborative culture that is emerging presently has gained enough momentum to replace the competitive and authoritarian structures where these are not as effective as the collaborative ones – most probably in relatively open and liberal societies first[2].

Learning collaboration

Collaboration that creates and applies knowledge for the purpose of social and commercial enterprise is very sophisticated behaviour. Apart from subject matter expertise, skills, competence and experience – which are basic to competitive endeavours as well – collaboration requires shared understandings and values, trust among individuals and organizations, and the efficient, full sharing of ideas, information, practises and processes. It rests upon the participants’ alignment with common intentions and works towards realizing a common goal or vision which is typically creative or innovative in nature.

As much as it is true that the process of collaborative innovation and creation – here regarded also as a novel form of entrepreneurship – can be learned only through experience, it is also true that there are environments that greatly enhance the learning of collaboration. As a complex[3], and because of the required trust, potentially fragile process it needs a safe surrounding to germinate. And as it is basically embarked upon by people who have matured sufficiently beyond competition and personal stardom (egotism), and who have understood that collaboration requires equal respect of all for all, it is a voluntary, self-managing process that can only be encouraged and facilitated – there will most likely never be standardized practices beyond the creation of an ecology that fosters collaboration.
An ecology of patience also, as collaboration only works when the process adopts a pace of development that is comfortable for all participants – it is important that there is enough space for the necessary behaviours and procedures to be internalized individually and across organizations.

Creating a collaboration ecology starts with rediscovering or creating common ground: shared experiences and/or values, intentions, visions. The environment in which it develops easily is one of being attentive and open-mindedly present to other collaborators, giving authentic feedback and ‘being yourself’ and expecting the others to likewise be; a willingness to accept differences in perspective, perception and opinion. This is relatively easy once a deep mutual understanding of ‘our commonality of intention, vision and value’ has taken root.
Moreover for an ecology of collaboration to support organizations it is prerequisite that these organisations practise collaboration internally; this being analogue to the aforementioned psychological outlooks and behaviours participants must be fluent in to participate in an effective collaboration.
Collaboration flourishes in an environment of shared core values that are – beknown to all – practiced on a day to day basis.

Further qualities that cultivate collaboration are the wish to learn from each other, a stance that could be called ‘mutual apprenticeship’; being respectful and appreciative of all, being responsive to non-verbal communication and emotions; being explicit and clear. There are many further helpful qualities but from this short list it is obvious that all behaviour that makes relationships flourish is advantageous when it comes to creating the right environment for effective collaboration.

From all of this it is evident that the ability to collaborate requires ongoing investments in intangible assets over extensive periods of time. The personal and organisational qualities mentioned are important for trust-building which is the major ingredient of effective and successful collaboration.
To develop collaborative capabilities one might also need to learn new values and behaviours and let go of old habits. Only organisations that already engage in a culture of collaboration internally are sufficiently prepared for the challenges this type of investment poses; an investment in people and their creativity and inventiveness involving unpredictable outcomes; an investment in building trust from the ground up.
Embarking upon a self-generating and self-managing process, there is no formal means of economically measuring these intangible assets, and that might be something that share- and stakeholders might have a hard time to stick with for the required time to come to fruition. However, the results of collaboration are definitely measurable as they demonstrate reduced risks, faster performance and greater or new sources of revenues. And all the while from the point of view of those who practice collaboration the practical value in the day to day process is very clear.

Barriers to collaboration

Optimum collaboration is co-created by caring participants who hold the contributions of their peers in high regard and are concerned with their equitable treatment. A main barrier therefore may be the difficulty between parties having diverse viewpoints in achieving agreement which is an impediment to effective but basically distributed decision-making. Even if collaboration participants manage to agree they might be caught up in a cultural boundary that is not recognized and are therefore agreeing from a different perspective. Apart from the already mentioned deep mutual understanding a consciously cultivated culture of mutual appreciation can very well steer around this boundary and regard different viewpoints as an enriching experience and helpful tool in embracing a situation as a whole.

Hierarchy as it is usually understood – rank or job title are crucial and power/decision-making flows from the top down – is another major barrier to collaboration. In organizational cultures that emphasize hierarchy, people feel compelled to go through channels. This prevents front-line people from contributing to decisions and makes it difficult or even impossible for leaders to get real-time, unfiltered information from the field. The different levels of the hierarchy are essentially desynchronised and the natural flow of information and social energy is greatly impeded. In these hierarchies knowledge is often privileged and not easily available to everybody; instead of serving a greater whole, or a common goal or vision people are serving their superiors. In these cultures qualifications are person-centred and not issue- and intention-centred thus making it hard for a lower ranked person who may be much more qualified for a task than her or his superior to take a lead where this would be necessary in real collaboration. A culture of mutual apprenticeship can help change this situation. But, as has been said before, real collaboration can only occur between organisations that already collaborate internally in which case the hierarchies will already be flat and decisions are basically made by consent.[4] Smart organizations encourage collaboration across levels, functions, business units and regions.

These are two major impediments to collaboration. There are minor ones which have to do with what could be called ‘bad habits‘ – leftovers from the competitive star culture; for instance the "stranger danger" where people are reluctant to share with others unknown to them, or "information hoarding” where they do not want to share knowledge for fear of losing power; the "needle in a haystack" syndrome where people, believing that the problem may have already been solved by others spend much time and energy looking for it, or the contrary “not invented by us” disorder which shuns previously performed research or knowledge that was not originally developed within the group. As the art of collaboration develops – for an art it truly is – and more collaboration ecologies are flourishing a more comprehensive map of barriers will become available that will help community gardeners and collaboration ecologists alike to steer free of these obstacles.

Collaborative Capitalism

Collaborative efforts can have many objectives. In the context of entrepreneurial and business collaborations it means collaboration for the co-creation of financially robust, ethically sound and even-handed market systems; systems that will most likely produce sustainable products and services of high innovative value and great quality. This objective is achieved through jointly generated ideas emerging from the sharing of information and knowledge in an atmosphere of trust and mutual support and apprenticeship, and by co-creating ways and means to turn these ideas into actions that are relevant to all participants.
The role of the new art and science of Collaboration Ecology and Community Gardening is the co-creation of on- and off-line environments that make it very likely and attractive for “the willing” to bravely embark on the journey of collaborative entrepreneurship. It is creating the space for and identifying the knowledge, possibilities, needs and resources that align themselves around values, intentions and understandings, constellating and being constellated by the communities of practise using these spaces; creating a place where dialogue, mutual apprenticeship and trustful enterprises are inevitably emerging to create the collaborative culture of what could be called Sustainable Commerce and Wholesome Economy.

Collaborative capitalism is one of the many forms the sharing culture takes that has taken root amidst the ruins of an overly greedy, individualized and competitive capitalism. Yet it would be a mistake to see this new culture as a hippie-like ‘feel-good’ culture without bite, without an eye for brilliance, performance, efficiency and the strong desire to create, innovate and struggle towards ever improving situations, products, services, procedures and the like.
Collaborative capitalism is all about creating wealth, real wealth for humanity and the planet – and it is not opposed to people becoming rich on the way there! Only is the wealth not solely or even primarily economic; the wealth is related much more to “the good life”, a life worth living in a sustainable surrounding that’s not regarded solely as resource that can be stripped of it’s assets to enrich individuals but as a ‘partner’ whose well-being is important, and who then is more than willing to share.
The game we play in collaborative capitalism is win-win-win-win: I win, you win, society wins and nature wins. It is a game worth playing.

© Mushin J. Schilling, Berlin, Sept. 2007

Contact: Mushin@thelivingfield.com

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[1] Transposing this onto a level of development of an individual or organisation this can also be regarded as the realisation that one is a global citizen in a pluralistic and open system of systems or society.

[2] In less developed parts of the world where liberal and democratic societies have not yet developed well there might be a healthy competitive phase necessary – where cooperation plays an important role – before the possibilities of real collaboration can be pursued.

[3] The process of collaboration is only complex when regarded through analytical and linear lenses. When regarded from within a collaborating entity it is a naturally unfolding emergent dynamic system which is often better regarded as a work of art – ‘practical beauty’ is a term that comes to mind; a beauty that is easily seen in a natural landscape or ecology.

[4] This doesn’t mean that there can’t be rank-hierarchical departments or teams in a collaborative organisation. We do acknowledge that people are centred on different developmental levels and might feel most comfortable in a position where they are “simply following instructions”. It is important to remember that these are not ideological or doctrinal statements about hierarchy but are oriented towards encouraging people and organisations towards greater collaboration across all possible demarcation lines.