The last month or so has been a busy time for me, with work with a couple of clients taking up much of my time. However, I’ve still found time to continue my explorations of the two things that I’m primarily focused on: first, the nature of complex social challenges; and second, the sorts of systemic practices and ways of being that can help people and organizations to participate effectively in addressing such challenges.
One focus of my explorations this month has been about what being an “ecosystem funder” might entail. I plan to share the initial fruits of those explorations soon, but for now - whilst I can still kid myself that it’s just turned March - I wanted to share links to and summaries of the various things that have been part of my February (ish) Explorations. As well as ecosystems (health, financing and dancing), they touch on issues relating to corruption, experimental portfolios, rigour, healing, community building, communication, relationships, power and love.
This month, I’ve actually managed to (re)read a couple of books. First off, Adam Kahane’s Power and Love, from 2010 with an implicit polarity management approach which I very much appreciate; also check out Adam’s conversation with Anna Birney about power and systems change from 2022. Second, Alexander Beiner’s The bigger picture: How psychedelics can help us make sense of our world; see my highlights and quotes here. And third, the 2nd edition of Gregory Bateson’s A Sacred Unity: Further steps to an ecology of mind, from 2023.
Introduced to their work by Marcus Jenal, the multi-generational work of Gregory and Nora Bateson has played an important role in inspiring my focus on nurturing living, learning and loving systems over recent years. For those keen to dip your toes in, my notes from A Sacred Unity can be found here. Or, to dive deeper, watch An Ecology of Mind: A Daughter’s portrait of Gregory Bateson, or take some time to explore the International Bateson Institute’s resources on transcontextual research on living systems, here.
If you’ve found my snippets and cuttings helpful, there’s plenty more in the knowledge garden I’m cultivating in Tana. I’m happy to share, to help you to find things - plants and herbs from my complexity garden - that you might find useful for your endeavours. Or, to collect some ingredients so that we can cook up something tasty and useful!
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Late edition bonus: My January 2024 explorations - links and summaries.
First published on LinkedIn, 11 March 2024.