Gathering #9 December 24, 2020 - "Money Visions"

Thank you all for taking your time and for the generous and generative retrospective.

It seems that we have all given consent to the notion that cycle2 has become, in retrospect, a whole thing and not just a long opening to something else.

Before closing the cycle, I'd like to invite an explicit forward-looking perspective (is there a word for that, the opposite of retrospective?) into what the next cycle may be. I offer this reflection on the heels of the retrospective work we have already done, as a seed for what may come.

In honor of the spirit of listening that @Alex Rodriguez has presenced for us, I am including an audio recording of the reflection. You are welcome to use it if you wish to close your eyes, seal-off visual distraction, and immerse yourself in the reflection. Please note that the recording has quiet spaces for breathing, with an intentional long pause to accommodate the instruction in step 4.

1. In the spirit of unfolding wholeness, close your eyes and give yourself a few breaths to reflect back at the two cycles we've shared.

2. Allow a feeling of what has emerged to arise in you. Take a few breaths into that feeling until you feel that you no longer need to hold it, that it has you.

3. Held by that feeling, ask what is most alive in me? Take a few breaths into whatever arises.

4. Scan through each other member of the crew, and for each one imagine holding up whatever arose in you and invite a sense of how your notion of the crew member resonates with what arose in you. Takew a few breaths with each crew member.

5. Come back to what is alive in you and see if it has changed after the "crew scan". Take a few breaths for integration.

6. Finally, ask yourself, holding yourself, your crew members and the wholeness of the shared experience of the rew ... what would I like to do next?

Thank you for this invitation, Ronen! I just listened through the audio.

My first, immediate response to the last question was very clear: "Move this energy upward and outward!!" As I was feeling this arise, a loud plane from the nearby US Air Force base flew over my head, and I sat with an addendum ... "and maybe interrupt a fighter jet or two in the process ..."

The energy I'm sitting with is very ground-upward energy, like I feel this sense coming out of my lower chakras sending energy upwards and outwards through my spinal cord and arms and into this keyboard right now to send these signals along to you. There's a chaotic buzz to the energy that also feels a bit like a "live wire". I've been conditioned to fear, police, and silence this energy when I feel it and yet in this space I had an opportunity to offer it to you all. Toni mirrored it; Josh smiled and coolly gave an affirming look; Ronen was patiently accommodating and seemed a bit skeptical. And yet I have no idea if that is actually how y'all are receiving the energy, haha!

I have a feeling that some others of you might have more pointed direction for next steps than "upward and outward" but that's what I've got for now. I'm also aware that my time capacity is going to be somewhat constrained in the weeks ahead so I'd benefit a lot from a clear vision about what we're doing so that we can continue in a "slow but steady" manner to prepare the ground for Ronen's thunderbolt. The main question I'm sitting with that I'd like to dig into together in cycle 3 would be, "what's the relationship between the shared desire for material activity and the intention to hold a space beyond that ('the generative process') that can also accommodate other kinds of material activity?" In other words, can we do both at the same time? If so, what would be a step or scope that would fit into the next cycle of inquiry?

I am not sure why I want to put this in the same post, I hope you do not mind. First I want to leave a brief record of some insights I got during the time we spend together testing and commenting on potential uses of audio tools (especially for Josh). Then, my answer to "what is next".

Alex and Ronen will correct or supplement me, but my takeaways are: 

• When we think in the right sequence, we have to pay close attention to the sequence of sync/async events, even when we can meet in real life. The intuition is that sync and async spaces are not usually chosen because of the right reasons (or the more generative, at least). We have to question what usually is taken from granted on async and sync work. It seems a promising path to me. 

• The same happens with the assumed primacy of async written words vs async spoken words. I think that we all are beginning to envision some artifacts to test a different approach in that sense.

• This leads to the critical importance of good mics in remote microsolidarity crews. Best investment one can do.

• One of the reasons for sticking in wrong sync/async sequences is that we try to OPTIMIZE our organizations of systemic change to the current system (hence the need for apparent abundance/redundancy?)  

• When describing the organizational model of X-Net and Las Indias I tried to keep some of their slang to kind of "force" the underneath logics. When talking about how to frame "low-intensity conflict" (in traditional words) as "tapas" (generative heat coming from friction), we need to articulate a coherent language to support the logics of our remote microsolidarity way and avoid the problem of taking these words as euphemisms (or old wine in new jars).  

And... what to do in the next cycle? I do not know but I will tell you what came out of Ronen's exercise (thank you Ronen, It was generative). I felt that a good move would be to connect generatively our activities out of the crew to the ones of the crew. How? Not sure about that. One option could be to share the current challenges we face in our other crews/communities/congregations and then to identify/pick one of each member -that we can relate to our remote microsolidarity work- and working collaboratively on them as crew. In the case of Ronen could be one he experiences in our crew.

I felt a desire to signal that I am holding off on submitting my own response because I prefer to do so after @Josh Fairhead has an opportunity to share his reflection. I do not mean to pressure you Josh, please continue, as you signaled, to take your time. I just wanted to clarify where I am on this thread.

Oh sorry, please continue - I was signalling an intent to respond but lack space to do so immediately; nothing major that requires a pause, just an intent to return asynchronously. I must have misinterpreted our symbol language so thanks for holding up but please don't let me block you in this instance! I'll refine my glyph use and come back to the thread shortly, please carry on unencumbered :)

So ... it felt a bit strange being guided by my own voice :) But I did it. It was also a bit strange since I came at this already primed. Despite all this strangeness, I was surprised by the clarity at the end. It was not a "new" outcome but a clear and resonant confirmation for what I was already carrying.

Over the past few weeks I've been putting together a generative description of the digital space we've discussed. It is still just a beginning ... but I think it has enough body to be animating. However, instead of sharing it with you as a text, my wish is to share it with you as audio ... in the spirit of the Japanese Teahouse. We can do this either synchronously in a gathering or we can do it asynchronously by sharing with you a recording.

I find it interesting that all this still belongs in Cycle 2 ... I feel like this "foreword looking perspective" conclusion of cycle 2 is needed in order to have better framing and clarity around what cycle3 can be.

I am hoping that the contents of this generative description can become the seed for cycle3 ... but, for now, I am curious about what meta-responses (not directly related to its content) it will evoke in you.

This suggestion really "clicks" for me! I am eager to hear it and give it a go and agree that this would be an excellent way to seed/open cycle 3.

I think that working in terms of "space" under the inspiration of Christopher Alexander makes a lot of sense. This path could work nicely if the initial description generates "instantly" concrete hypotheses of how to develop it. Or more precisely, how each of us finds the way to contribute from day one in its development.

Responding to the things that stand out to me, I've separated sections with dividers so its not a bunch of non-linear rabble - hopefully it makes things easier to parse:

I like the spiral dynamics thinking as a loose guideline and am also very skeptical of Wilberite claims to universality

Big time agree with this @Alex Rodriguez, all models being models and truth being anything but universal, axioms also being prone to getting overturned. Some are useful none the less but held too tightly they're no good. Requisite variety and computational irreducibility come to mind as terms that essentially say the maps not the territory or the menu is not the meal.

I enjoyed a lot reading your contributions and they helped a lot to make sense of cycle 2. So here is my take to complement them.

This resonates with me as well @Toni Blanco, I think its somewhat a vector towards building a shared language and understanding. What kind of social poetry do you see in the world? "catastrophe". I joke but it's very similar to "contingency" as they term it in Hyperstition or what Bennet would have called "hazard". The terms are different but the meaning is probably pretty close across lexicons.

What if the ending of the cycle is to make available a rich menu of offers and learn which ones of them are perceived as valuable for us at this moment? Our selection of activities and the reflection on them could be the next cycle

@Toni Blanco This seems like a really good suggestion. I defiantly feel in a more individualistic place at the moment and just want to get on with things, many of which I'm sure will fail but maturing some optionality for later pruning seems like a wise way of doing things.

In honor of the spirit of listening that @Alex Rodriguez has presenced for us, I am including an audio recording of the reflection. You are welcome to use it if you wish to close your eyes, seal-off visual distraction, and immerse yourself in the reflection

Thanks @ronen. I've just gone through the process:

Looking forward

1) The lack of required screen had an organic taste and the personal touch was appreciated.

2) The initial feelings that arose were of connection and uncertainty. The former feels like an answer to the big "why?" while the latter feels like a response to the "what?"... which I can sense emerging slowly even if it is still opaque - tis the point of the exercise after all! The uncertainty/connection polarity also highlights a feeling of finding our feet; we talked about "squirming on the ground together" previously and this cycle kind of feels like we got a leg up on a slippery surface and started wobbling like a new born calf. We're by no means galloping but we do have a sense of finding our footing, even if it is still wobbly, a sense of "yes, in time" we'll do that comes to heart.

3) Alive in me at the moment... I actually posted that over here last week. The dark arts of symbol manipulation; word craft, code, art and music. However during the exercise only the latter two surfaced.

4) In my mental image I showed Alex some image work to which he responded positively, and Tony I jammed a little ukulele for (an instrument I've recently picked up but am by no means developed in). Alex's response was a big caring smile that had a warm sense of "I'm happy to see you developing", while Tony's was more a sense of mischievous fun with an energy of "that's good enough, lets play!". It's funny that the mental scene played out this way, but its perhaps because I don't practice music as a qualitative endevour as it's more a simple pleasure for me.... The final scan was Ronen who seemed somewhat indifferent to either, largely for lack of any real qualitative capacity in either; it may sound kinda harsh, but I know myself that I'm a few years off from any real ability with a pencil and that my playing despite some amount of technique and theory lacks any real life (often finding myself boxed in) - especially with a ukulele - so to me, the imaginary reaction just signifies a sense of honesty and developed standards that I like and respect.
5) While I was initially more excited about the drawing, after coming back the sense of play in music stands out a bit more. Neither are endeavors I really intend to be great at, but the learning experience is where I find enjoyment; hence installing a blog to document whatever processes I start to pick up. I'm kind of just at a place where I want to capture and package expressional artifacts.

6) I get the feeling that whatever I'm doing can probably be aligned in some way but capturing artifacts, prose and code are more practical skills to (learn and) apply towards our collective pursuits.

7) When the guided meditation ended it opened up into a recently downloaded album that I haven't listened to yet... I thought nice track Ronen... until I recognised the vocalists and figured out that iTunes had just played through. The bells and sitar(?) tricked me. However it felt like an appropriate and energising ending to the experience. If you guys fancy a toke, this track may get you Higher than the Light.

When talking about how to frame "low-intensity conflict" (in traditional words) as "tapas" (generative heat coming from friction), we need to articulate a coherent language to support the logics of our remote microsolidarity way and avoid the problem of taking these words as euphemisms (or old wine in new jars).  

The poetics here are great @Toni Blanco. Crafting a collective language, social poetry or institutional memory is something I feel is super worthwhile. In tech they have this problem with the church of (fr)Agile... by which I mean its often "old wine in new jars". Same for the much touted "commons" - a word that's now been debased beyond all meaning for me.

Don't get me wrong the original conceptions are great but the appropriation of language for signalling some form of in-crowd ideology is where things often go off course... the topology is thin but metaphors are often quite deep. A language of the subconscious.

Over the past few weeks I've been putting together a generative description of the digital space we've discussed. It is still just a beginning ... but I think it has enough body to be animating. However, instead of sharing it with you as a text, my wish is to share it with you as audio ... in the spirit of the Japanese Teahouse. We can do this either synchronously in a gathering or we can do it asynchronously by sharing with you a recording.

@Ronen Hirsch This sounds great to me, I'm excited about this path and look forward to interpreting your mind magic. Such a project is also something I feel confident that I could conjure some community creatures help out should we wish for such. Looking forward to hearing what you've been visioning!