Tag: Writing

Nest City’s third part

 

As I begin blogging parts of Nest City’s third part, I realize that I am at a point in writing where I feel the least comfortable with the terrain I am about to cover.

The ‘front end’ of my work, Part One – City Patterns was the most clear. It builds a broad foundation for my argument, that cities build evolutionary capacity. I introduce foundational impulse patterns that explain why cities exist, how they are created and the underlying values that evolve within and with us as our cities grow and develop. The content I was going to explore was clear and it was a matter of making it clear – a most useful blogging exercise.

As I embarked on Part Two – Organizing for Emergence, which explores the organizing patterns of humans as we create and live in cities, I had a frame that needed to be fleshed out. We organize to reach a destination, we experience uncertainty along the way, and the future that comes to pass is something unexpected at every turn. This is how the nest works: destination, journey and emergence. Compared to Part One, I content ‘ready’ to write and explore in blog posts; it was messy and disorganized. I didn’t know exactly how it would turn out.

Part Three – Nest City embodies the ’emergence’ piece of the dynamic explored in Part Two. I have a destination in mind (the frame for Part Three), I am on a journey publicly learning here with you while I write, and I have no idea exactly how this will turn out.

The direction I am moving in, however, is integration of destination, journey and emergence. I see a “nestwork”, a cog-like relationship of these three organizing patterns, and a sweet spot, that will shed light on how to co-create cities that serve us well. That is what I will be sharing as I explore, publicly, Part Three – Nest City.

My next post will recap the chapters of Part Two – Organizing for Emergence.

The following post will lay out the shape of Part Three’s four chapters.  

 

_____ _____ _____

This post marks the beginning of Part Three – Nest City. Here are some plot helpers of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:

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150th Nest City post!

 

Nest City Graphic

 

On April 24, 2012 I started to blog pieces of the book I am working on, Nest City. I declared it a slow release, bit by bit, however long it took.

150 posts in, I am exploring Chapter 7 of 11, essentially two thirds of my way through. With each post, I tighten my writing and I see more clearly the plot, the direction the writing is taking. With each post, I also see more clearly the direction I am heading on this personal journey.

As I head into the last third of Nest City, I realize that this part of the book is the least defined. All the writing I have shared about discerning direction and destination, being on a learning journey and exploring emerging thresholds is alive and well for me personally. I do have a sense of direction for this last third, but I have no idea what I will have to say. That will emerge, and that process will be a learning journey along the way. I will continue to share that as I go.

I have grappled with the decision to publicly work on my book as a blog. Other writers have asked why I would dare to ‘publish’ my work in such a non-traditional manner, why I would give it away. Or why I would give away my chances for traditional publishing. 150 posts in, I do not regret this decision. I am giving a lot to readers, but I am gaining so much myself – and my writing is too.

With each blog post, I learn something about me as my writing is taking its shape. I could have done all of this privately, but then I lose the support I receive from readers. More importantly, for me personally, I know much more about what the writing will say when it does appear in ‘book’ form, as one comprehensive piece of writing, than if I did this privately. I know much more about the layers of meaning that I am exploring.

So writing and exploring with an audience matters.

To mark this milestone, I have launched a separate publication, Nest City News, an email newsletter series that explores the the human drive to thrive in cities. The purpose of this publication is to deepen the relationship between myself and readers, where we support each other in our work to improve cities. I make this commitment to subscribers – I will share my latest thoughts with you before I post them here on my website. I will share your stories as you share them with me. And, of course, as my writing appears in other formats, subscribers will be the first to know and have first access. You can subscribe in the form to the right. Next edition – March 15, 2013

Thanks, everyone, for your support as I blog along.

Nest City News Overall Small

 

 

40,000

 

My friend Ann Linnea, during the months after her 43rd birthday, paddled around Lake Superior. She calls this her Deep Water Passage, a spiritual journey at midlife. I have just turned 43 and I feel that I am at the beginning of a trek of some sort myself, though I am not entirely sure what it is.

Or do I just tell myself that I don’t know?

Ann’s words, as she starts to tell her story, ring out:

When we deliberately leave the safety of the shore of our lives, we surrender to the mystery beyond our intent.  

With a poet’s eye, I look at these words again:

When we deliberately leave  
the safety of the shore 
of our lives,   
we surrender   
to the mystery beyond    

our intent.   

And again:

When we deliberately leave the safety 
of the shore of our lives, 
we surrender to the mystery  
beyond our intent.    

Her journey has a clear destination: to circumnavigate the world’s largest lake by kayak. She knows this is a learning journey; she was prepared for it to change everything in her life. With her paddling partner, she declared intent and commitment to embark on a journey for which she had no idea what would emerge. She surrendered to the mystery beyond the immediate destination. The destination was beyond paddling around the lake; Ann herself would change.

My question to myself – what am I circumnavigating?

I have embarked on a journey to write a book about our evolutionary relationship with cities, a journey to figure out what I see and to share it with others. Inside this journey is a desire within me to be in relationship with others about work. That is why I have chosen to share it on my blog while I write. You get to see parts of it here before it miraculously appears on bookshelves all spiffed up. I started sharing it long ago.

My paddling trek, if you will, is to enter into a more explicit relationship with readers. I wish to reach out to folks interested in this work in a more active manner. And this makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable because it feels, at first glance to me, as my ego pushing myself out into the world for ego reasons. Upon deeper examination of my motivations, however, I see that it is really about being in a more explicit relationship with my readers. When we choose to hang out with each other, what we will do together will emerge. I desire to know what you find valuable in what I offer. I desire to know what I can do to offer more value. I need to reach out to do this.

My ‘safe shore’ is here, where I quietly do my thing and passively share it with you. I rely on you to find me. Over the course of 2013 I will be leaving the safety of this shore and reaching out explicitly to you. I will actively   seek connections with you (and many others) through this blog, newsletters and social media. Ann’s destination was to circumnavigate the planet’s largest freshwater lake; my destination is to be in relationship with 40,000 ‘followers’.

I am way beyond my comfort zone to say that I want to have 40,000 followers, let alone write it here. It churns up negative feelings of hubris in me. I choose, however, for this destination to mean this: I trust that when I reach out, those that want to be in relationship with me will subscribe to do so. We have work to do together and we need to find each other. I am taking the initiative to describe this work and put it out into the world. I want to be in relationship with others of similar ‘vibrational frequency.’

This will require me to step way out beyond my comfort zone and zealously promote my work in the coming months. As I do so, the commitment I make is to continually reach inside me as I reach out to you, and share what I find.

As I reach out to you, I have to reach further in to me.

 

_____ _____ _____

Further reading

Ann Linnea, Deep Water Passage: A Spiritual Journey at Midlife

Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence).

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Destination and emergence

 

Over the course of the last nine months, I have been sharing bits of the book I am working on – Nest City: The Human Drive the Thrive in Cities. I made a decision to share the book on my blog while I was working on it. Five chapters and 126 posts later, the decision to share this work before it is officially in book form is one I revisit over and over in my mind.

For each post to appear on my blog, I have to hit this button:

'publish' button

The word ‘publish’ is rather official. A recent author acquaintance of mine cringed when she heard I was sharing what I was working on: “Why are you giving this away?” Another author friend says, “Good for you. I blogged most of my book before it turned into a book too.”  Others have warned me that publishers will not look at the book now that it has been ‘published’. I am of the opinion, still, that writing here is serving me and my readers well in several ways:

  1. I learn in bite-size pieces. I get to dive into small passages and sort and sift around in my being to seek out what I am learning.
  2.  I write in bite-size pieces. These are small pieces that serve to help me wrap myself around a thought. Blogging helps me discern the pieces I have to work with, that will later shape up into book form. This is essential time to practice the craft of writing.
  3. We find each other. By sharing the pieces of my exploration, fellow explorers and I are able to find each other. As I share, I reveal myself to my audience, and my audience reveals itself to me.
  4. We build supportive relationships. I am receiving feedback from readers: the odd comment here on my blog, an email, a ‘like’ or comment in facebook or Linked In, or new followers on Twitter. I am hearing about how my writing supports others and the work they do. In return, readers are supporting me too by using my blog posts on their webs sites, as they teach, and simply by giving me feedback on what resonates for them.
  5. We grow our understanding – of selves and cities. The more we explore individually and collectively, the more we learn and improve. We are expanding our consciousness.

I don’t know – yet – what my writing will add up to. I do know that my writing, when published as a book, will not read as it does here. While I have a destination in mind – a published book that we can lay our hands on physically and digitally – I do not know exactly what it will say and how it will say it. I have a frame that I am using here, with chapters and the like, but I an open to that changing if and when that makes sense. With each post, my sense of direction gets more clear. Even what the book will say gets more clear. But the real book to come is in the process of emerging.

The very process by which we create our cities, through the interplay of destination (chapter 4), a learning journey (chapter 5) and emergence (chapter 6), is in play for me as I craft the book. I have a destination/direction; I am on a learning journey; I am about to explore the thresholds that each of us, and our cities come across as we emerge.

The next series of posts will explore the role of emerging thresholds as we organize ourselves and our cities for continuous improvement.

_____ _____ _____

As I dive into sharing parts of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, here are some plot helpers for Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities, the book that I am sharing here while I search for a publisher:

 

 

A retreat from the retreat

 

My intention for last week’s writing retreat was to define, describe and discern.  I just didn’t define, describe and discern what I expected.  I had to retreat from the retreat.

I had a destination in mind:  chapter 1 of Nest City would be tight and clear; my book proposal reworked; and clear sense of what a ‘Nest City Manifesto’ would look like.  I stalled out on the first. Wednesday night I made my way to Strawberry Creek Lodge, settled in, and paused to think about what I wanted to accomplish.  Thursday morning I joined my writing colleagues for breakfast, left the table as soon as I was fed and headed outside into the icy, cloudy day for some fresh air and a visit to the creek, before dropping into the task at hand.  I worked feverishly.  I recorded exact time spent sitting and writing – 10.25 hours.  By bedtime I was exhausted, but still giving myself enough time to sleep so my body would be ready for more writing on Friday.

Friday was more of the same until, after an afternoon run, I sat down with my journal because things weren’t feeling right.  I see now that the land I explored that morning at the top of the valley’s bank, really was subsiding.  I did not register that the shaky ground I saw that morning was shaking within me.

To explore the tension I decided to try something new.  I drew three oracle cards: the first to articulate the situation at hand, the second to reveal what I am missing, and a third to point to my Soul’s most pressing assignment in the moment.  The three cards: accept what is, retreat, and nurture yourself first.  The message – accept the struggle, I am missing the retreat (at the retreat!) and a pressing need to nurture myself.

Stunned. I could not wrap my head around the “what is” that needed accepting.  I could not get my head around what it could possibly mean to be missing the retreat.  I could get my head around looking after myself, and I could get my heart engaged in looking after my Self, my inner Being that needs to be well for me to be well.

So I went rogue at the writing retreat and stopped writing.

I went to meditate with trees as the sun set.

I strolled through the forest, noticing the circle of life and decay, both vibrant and full of energy.  I noticed a trail I hadn’t seen before, despite having passed it innumerable times, leading down to the creek.  After a few steps I was spooked by a structure, on the surface of the land, caved in, screaming danger.  I walked back up the hill and abandoned my quest to explore a new part of the valley.

After a few paces along the familiar trail, I realized I was unsettled, that I needed to go back to the unexplored path and investigate, peek around the corner for a look.  I steeled myself and went back for a closer look, from a distance.  As I reflect on this, I see that this was Saturday’s reminder that I was on shaky ground.  That the ground could drop out from underneath me at any moment.

I went on an analog quest: a long walk to find my road, and time with my little red notebook.

I spent time with words, contemplating the meaning of key words in my writing: habitat, nest, conglomeration, conglomerate, conglomeration, hive, conglutinate.  I played with words that connect to the writing to come: manifest, manifesto, proclaim, declare, display, exhibit, voice, perspective, whole, holon, view, role, inhabit, inhabitants.  I sketched what I saw in the forest – the habitat and its inhabitants.  At last, some insight into questions I have been sitting with for a couple years, began to emerge.

I have been pondering how my writing and my corporate, work identity intermingle.  It seems simple now.  My work out in the world takes place through POPULUS; it is a forest habitat for many nests, one of which is the Nest City Blog.  Over time, I will have Nest Publications,  articulating ways to work in the world and how I see cities working in the world.  Each of these will have their own life, first in the immediate nest habitat in the POPULUS forest, then further afield when they leave the nest.

A second, big question has been looming about my relationship with readers/followers.  I have been explicitly sharing bits of the emerging book.  I have made commitments to share what I see here, with you, without contemplating fully what I expect in return.  While I believe I receive much in giving freely, without explicitly naming what I ask for in return leaves me, with a deep and significant energy imbalance.

So here is the transaction underway.  I give content, awareness, and understanding about the relationship between cities and citizens.  I give my time where asked.  In return, I am given opportunities to work with passion.  I receive feedback about the value of what I offer, and what specifically is of value so I can, where passion aligns, provide more value.  I receive what I need for this work, in money and otherwise.  This whole dynamic allows me to see where this work wants to go, where it wants to take me, what I need to do to best support it.  I am a nest within which this work is unfolding.  I am the work’s immediate habitat, and also a creator of the habitat further afield in the forest.  If I am not well, I can not look after the work well.

So the retreat was a retreat into me, not writing.  Yet all about writing in the end, since I am the writer.

Before I left, the sun came out and I could see what was happening under the riverbank.  It was giving way to Me.

 

 

Retreat to define, describe and discern

 

I spent the summer solstice of 2012 at a writing retreat at Strawberry Creek Lodge, hosted by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.  In a wee solstice manifesto, I made a commitment to readers to hold nothing back, to share what I find as I write.  One of the things I shared in that post was that I was submitting a proposal for the book to New Society Publishers.  My goal was to have it ready by the end of the retreat, but it was ready to send the first night.  Off it went.

For the fall equinox, I found myself again making my way to Strawberry Creek Lodge.  As my mind meandered on the drive, I realized that I had not yet heard from New Society Publishers about my proposal.  While I was driving, the email response came in: not interested.

I can’t help be curious about the timing of my submission – at summer solstice – and the response – at the fall equinox.  I can’t help be curious too about being at the same place for each of these events, and the exchange between me and New Society Publishers took place the first night of each of my stay’s here.  I haven’t a clue what it means, but I am curious about Earth’s calendar.

So here I am, on another first night at Strawberry Creek Lodge, sorting out what I will do with my time here.  As I retreat from the hustle and bustle of life, I also retreat back into my work to refine and revise it for another round of agent and publisher search.  Here is what I commit to for the next 4 days:

  1. Distill Chapter 1.  I haven’t looked at this for a few months.  Fresh eyes will see fresh things.  I aim for a tighter narrative for the city’s journey, and our journey in and with cities.
  2. Describe my book proposal as a compelling narrative.  I aim to re-examine my proposal to find the book’s narrative.  I need to find the book’s heart.
  3. Discern the Nest City Manifesto.  As I concluded June’s writing retreat, I made a commitment to share with readers a ‘report’ that documents the gist of Nest City’s first part.

I will keep you posted.

Lingering September practices

September was a busy month, full of life and excitement.  Now a week into October at a totally different speed, I notice some new practices in response to the life conditions of September that I choose to continue.

  1. I visit the river every day.  Every weekday in September we had contractors on hand to put a new roof on our home.  I work at home, and before I get to work I have a routine of some physical practice and journaling. The contractors’ noise was too much, so I walked over to the river valley for a beautiful view and a bench.  (See Writing from the red chair.)  The contractors are gone, but I still head out in the morning for some time alone with me, the river and the city.
  2. I write at night.  Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in September I was working as Interviewer and Harvester at the Integral City 2.0 Conference.  We hosted 36 sessions (three each day, twelve days) and interviewed over 60 visionaries. I played the role of interviewer, and when not interviewing, supported the host and interviewer by catching audience questions and crafting questions for break-out groups’ exploration.  At the end of each day, I wrote a ‘harvest’, my meaning of the day for immediate publication on our web site.  This schedule meant for some very late nights during the week.  I am finding now that I am inclined to write for a couple of hours each evening.  I am not totally exhausted in the morning because this somehow fuels me.
  3. I stop to breathe. In the middle of September’s craziness, I took some time to pause and deepen one of the ways I gather with people: circle.  I attended Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea’s Circle Practicum.  One of the most meaningful learnings for me from this experience is the importance of pausing for breath.  Ring the bell, take a breath, then ring the bell again.  This is useful when feeling frenetic, or when something profound has occurred, when there is a transition of some kind, etc.  We even came up with a way to articulate this by text in the digital world: *~*  I am no longer sitting in circle for several days in a row, but I circle up with myself and I choose to notice when I need to stop and breath.  Sometimes I even use a bell.
  4. I pay attention to my energy. There is a lot of synchronicity in my life right now around personal energy.  At the Circle Practicum, and several times throughout the Integral City 2.0 Conference the word ‘energy’ and practices around knowing and cultivating personal energy surfaced. I recognize that I have been intrigued by this for a while, but not yet able to explore this in my personal development.  I sense a whole new area of learning here for me.  One of the gifts of September is curiosity about where my energy is, where I choose to put it and how it moves throughout my body. I am also curious about how energy behaves between and among people.  I choose now to pay attention to the subtleties of my body and being.

Each of these new practices are in response to my life conditions of last month, yet I have chosen to stick with them even though the reasons for them are gone.  In some way, each of these are responding to today’s life conditions too.

There is a virtuous circle at work within me, allowing me to see myself well, and see when life conditions change and when I need to shift in response.  Regardless of what form my habits take, they serve what Marilyn Hamilton and I call the master rule:

  • look after self
  • look after others
  • look after this place

 

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

Laser beam precision

I received the gift of laser beam precision last week.  I needed a clone and had to make do with just me.  So I told myself I needed laser beam precision and I gave it to myself.

Here’s what I told myself as I headed into a fury of big tasks, all of which needed my full attention:

  1. Settle into the work.
  2. Pour self into the work.
  3. Love the work.
  4. Make meaning of the work.
  5. Share what I see in the work.

I delivered.  These little thoughts helped me create a habitat for myself and the work I needed to do. Stopping regularly to write in my little red notebook added focus as well. For Integral City 2.0 eLab participants, you will find my writing about integral intelligence, cultural/storytelling intelligence and building/structural intelligence for cities on the Harvest pages. It was a great week.

And two nights I was able to get up from my desk before midnight.  That is also success.

 

 

Tues/Wed/Thurs in September

A reminder that my posts are not appearing here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in September.  My writing attention for these days is going to the Integral City Expo and eLab, where I am providing a written harvest for each day of the conference.

I realized last week that this is a paying gig to write about what I am passionate about – our evolutionary relationship with cities.  It’s not lucrative, but there is a transaction.  I write and I will be paid.  I write and it will be read.  Even better – I get to have a front row seat on what’s happening, even be the interviewer for 7 sessions.

This is a marathon endeavour for the month of September and it is a thrill.  The Integral City Expo involves 50 visionary speakers in 36 sessions over 12 days. Each day focuses on one of the 12 evolutionary intelligences of cities.  I am tired at the end of day 2, and I have yet to write today’s harvest.

Go to this link to register and listen to the 30 remaining sessions live as part of the Expo.  For a small fee, you can get MP3 downloads and my take on each day’s intelligence.

Tomorrow’s focus is Living Systems Intelligence, with an opening session with Elisabet Sahtouris.