Intentional Society: Sit with me in paradox
I'll write about our new developmental group practice next week but first, would you care to sit with me in paradox for a few moments?
Polarity is a noun, but I find the practice of "holding" polarities, similarly to koans, to be a useful stretching exercise. This is the "yes, and"-ing of tensions, the "transcend and include" of conflicting positive concepts, transmuting "versus" into "and," then seeing what emerges.
Imagine two smooth heavy rocks in your two hands. Feel the weight of both simultaneously, as you hold whichever one of these grabs your attention:
- complete acceptance, and the pull to change
- dogged persistence towards a vision of a future reality, and nimbly taking feedback from current reality
- doing-ness to enrich being-mode, and being-ness flowing out into doing-mode
- widening the pool of community, and deepening the depths of experience
- container-scaffolding leadership, and leader-full co-creation
Managing a polarity isn't about holding stasis of perfect balance between forces. See these animated polarity maps for their dancing quality. Sometimes moving in one direction is exactly what you need!
- moving towards full acceptance can unlock the freedom to change
- moving towards deepening experience can unlock widening and growth
- moving towards holding a firmer container can unlock space for more co-creation
Good things come with downsides, and leaning on overused strengths can be counterproductive. Less of a good thing can be greater - as in the famous quote, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
What is one tension or challenge you're feeling today, one with no clear right answer? If you have a fear, can you see the precious value that the fear is trying to protect? May you see the poles of dual opportunity, and dance with them both.
Cheers,
James
No orientation this week - next call for newcomers will be Saturday August 7th, 1:00-1:55pm Pacific Daylight Time (4pm Eastern, 8pm UTC)
P.S. Feel free to reply/share to this - capture that spark!