Tag: Be the Best Citizen You Can Be

Argo – vessel – yourself

 

I have been quiet as I dig into the radical work of my find out what my soul has to tell me.

I have been quiet in blog land these days, pondering the effects of a second wilderness quest in June, and and stepping into an apprenticeship in this work. True to the quest pattern, trials have appeared, to test me. The first was the betrayal of a professional friend that invited me to discern the fiery gifts of the dragon. The second challenge was my husband’s fall and broken leg in the backcountry, where I noticed that ‘trail’ and ‘trial’ are almost the same word. In between these two events, I was starting to notice a deepening in the work that is calling me forth.

Though not writing here, I have been writing in my journal, looking for the things that are simply meaningful and heartfelt to me, but extremely meaningful and heartfelt. ‘My looking ripens things,” as Rilke puts it.

Here are a few clues I have about what’s ripening, of where I’m headed:

  1. Writing feels good. I write to find out what I feel and think. More importantly it allows me to reveal to myself what I already know. I get to know myself, my selves. It is a process of selving.
  2. The surrender of things. There is a transition underway in me that I see as a natural part of heading into the second half of my life. James Hollis names this as a transition away from acquisition to relinquishment.
  3. The surrender to things.  I have a better relationship with my ego-self who wants to fight and protect me. I don’t need to fight to be me, or fight anything that threatens my sense of me. I can surrender to whatever is happening and find my way within. (Note – exceptions are life- and morally-threatening events!)
  4. I am a traveler, a wanderer, in the underworld of the soul. It is a place I don’t like to go because what I find there is the truth that I don’t always want to work into my life – or what I think of my life. It is a dark, opening place that we rarely visit in my culture.
  5. What does it mean to find my place? Work that nourishes, social belonging, all in the context of physical place. ‘Place’ is something I can take with me everywhere. People are at home all over the planet. It is what I make of it.
  6. I hobble with confidence rather than fear. It may take a little creativity. When are the crutches needed? Not needed? How do I know when I am done with crutches? What crutches am I still using unnecessarily?
  7. I love the soft animal of my body. These words of Mary Oliver, ‘the soft animal of my body’, caused a wave of relief in my being and my relationship with my body. I am a soft animal. I am not a thin, lithe animal. I am soft and squishy.
  8. I am an activist for the soul. Or a soul activist. I have circles of people around me who purposefully embark on their lifelong journeys to find their truest, most authentic selves. We spend good time together, supporting each other on our respective journeys. We have Soul Circles. Our work is Soul Circling.
  9. I am a guide. A guide guided by soul, a soul guide, a wilderness guide, a civilization guide, a city guide…

As I was pondering all this last week, I was asking myself what it all means. I went out for a walk to my sage spot, and as I was walking I asked for a sign. It came on the side of a van:

ARGO

This word has meaning for me because my kids love it when I say the line from the movie, Argo: “Argo f$%# yourself!” I dug around to find the meaning of the word. The argo was the ship in Greek mythology in which Jason and the Argonauts sailed for the the Golden Fleece. It is the vessel that accompanied Jason and his companions to fulfill their quest. Argo is a vessel, a container. It holds and supports the travellers.  A receptacle.

This word has further meaning as I reflect on last year’s wilderness quest, and my relationship with a green bottle – a vessel that allowed me to see my soul hungers.

I am stepping into a relationship with the paired twins of Nature and Soul, who I now recognize as the two trees I spent my solo time on this year’s wilderness quest.

I am stepping into radical work that will support people as they find their way and step into the work that is calling to them from the depths of their soul – rather than from external sources, or the inner voices that are external sources in disguise. This work is at every scale, from self to the city and beyond, and it always starts at home, with self and soul.

How do you circle up with your soul?

Are you the vessel your soul needs you to be? 

 

 

 

Saul synchronicities

 

Noticing synchronicities, and responding to them, is one of the ways my deeper Soul-Self tells me who I am, and who I am longing to be. Today, the synchronicity is found in two Sauls: Richard Wagamese’s protagonist Saul Indian Horse, and writer John Ralston Saul.

Aboriginal books

Last year, I packed up and headed out on a wilderness quest. This year, I went again, as an apprentice guide, deepening into a pattern of being in better relationship with the land, and, more importantly, being in better relationship with myself. Following each experience, I found myself enjoying slow and relaxing time at the family cottage, beside a lake. I also found myself, upon both returns, reading the work of Richard Wagamese. This year, Indian Horse.

Saul Indian Horse is a young man reclaiming himself after the trials of losing family and a way of life, of residential school, and amazing hockey skill that brought him face-to-face with racism and hatred. His will to survive is tremendous, and in doing so he visits his land, and is able to tell his story.

I’d close my eyes and feel it. The land was a presence. It had eyes, and I was being scrutinized. But I never felt out of place.
 
I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t run the risk of someone knowing me, because I don’t take the risk of knowing myself. I understood then, as fully as I ever understood anything.

Saul tells the story of what it takes to be honest with oneself, to truly know oneself. Wagamese tells a story of the stories my country is telling and hearing, of the betrayals of Aboriginal peoples by non-Aboriginal people in residential schools through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the inherent racism that surrounds the schools and non-Aboriginal views of Aboriginal people. We are all starting to look the truth in the eye.

Saul’s exchange with his great-grandfather is as insightful for him as it is for my country:

‘The journey you make is good.’
‘What am I to learn here?’
He swept his arm to take in the lake, the shore, and the cliff behind us. ‘You’ve come to learn to carry this place within you. This place of beginnings and endings.’

My country is in transition, and the nature of that transition is articulated by another Saul, John Ralston Saul, in The Comeback. Saul charts the formation of our country, one where newcomers arrived and were treated as guests, with the expectation that hospitality would be returned in some way. Then oral agreements, treaties were signed, full of the notion of reciprocity brought by the First Nations way of being and agreed upon by the Crown and its representatives.

Balance and reciprocity. Much of what works in our society is based on balance and reciprocity. Transfer payments. Health care. The only group not to benefit is the group that actually installed this concept of governance. Again, for each of us as citizens it is a matter of being honest with ourselves. We must act to ensure that balance and reciprocity are applied in indigenous relations, as agreed to in the treaties. 

The notion of balance and reciprocity, a founding pillar of our country, originates not from European ‘founders’ of Canada, but from First Nations. In return, we ensure a lack of balance and reciprocity toward these same people, and even choose to destroy these people. This is a betrayal that has lasted for centuries now.

Saul wonders if the crisis we face in Canada is not in the Aboriginal world, as we think, but in ourselves.

But is the more profound crisis not in the non-Aboriginal world? If not, why would we find it so difficult to listen – to listen seriously – to the points of view coming from the founding pillar of our civilization? Are we so insecure? So frightened to absorb views that after all have been central to Canada’s establishment and survival? Or is it a lack of sensibility? An emotional wall constructed unconsciously to protect ourselves from the reality of this place? Or a simple lack of consciousness? Or all of the above? 

And the words of Grand Chief David Courchene in 1971, as cited by Saul:

We ask you for assistance for the good of all Canada and as a moral obligation resulting from injustice in the past, but such assistance must be based upon this understanding. If this can be done, we shall continue to commit ourselves to a spirit of cooperation. 
Only thus can hope be bright that there might come a tomorrow when you, the descendants of the settlers of our lands, can say to the world, Look, we came and were welcomed, and then we wrought much despair, but we are also men of honour and integrity and we set to work in cooperation, we listened and we learned, we gave our support, and today we live in harmony with the first people of this land who now call us, brothers. 
We hope that tomorrow will come. 

These Saul stories are the stories of my Soul, my desire to draw on the Indigenous nature of me, the land I call home, and the Indigenous people who were here before my descendants. These Saul stories point me to a new place for me and my work as a non-Aboriginal Canadian, to restore the principles of balance and reciprocity that are the foundational pillars of Canada.

I will say it, Grand Chief David Courchene, for myself:

We came and were welcomed, and then we wrought much despair. I am a person of honour and integrity and I set to work in cooperation. I have listened and I have learned and give my support. I desire to wish to live in harmony with the first people of this land, my brothers and sisters. 

Aho.

I have spoken.

_____

Sources:

John Ralston Saul, The Comeback (Toronto: Penguin, 2014)

Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse (Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2012)

 

 

 

Spectatorship vs citizen superpowers

The more I write, the more I aim to say what I mean in as few words as possible. And the more I look at what others say and dig in to see what they really mean.

For example, this headline:

Spectatorship

The words, “Citizens can’t be spectators in urban planning,” sparked two things in me.

First, the words do not tell us what citizens should be, a missed opportunity to reinforce the message of the article, that citizens must participate in the process of making cities that serve people well. This is as much about city governments involving citizens in decision making as it is about citizens simply getting involved. Citizens can get involved in the formal engagement process from city hall, and also take initiative to improve the city around them, in any way they see is needed. (Remember – work is the force that generates cities, so it is important!)

It’s easy, in our privileged corner of the world, to think that things are good, that we don’t need to engage ourselves in communal life around us. We have great disdain for corners of the world ruled by dictatorship, vaguely thankful that we live in a democracy. And even then, we often feel that our governments are distanced from us. At which point I ask this question: are you a spectator or are you engaged and participating in the city around you?

The second spark from this headline is the word spectatorship. If you are a spectator, you are contributing to the real dangers in our midst: apathy and indifference, even anger, usually served with a healthy dose of complaining. A spectator lets spectatorship rule. Remember, you have citizen superpowers at your disposal. The choice is yours.

Are you a participant in city life, or a spectator? 

Transition cycles

 

Death is taking people around people dear to me: the violent murder of a co-worker, the suicide of an old friend, the passing of a dad who’s lived a full life, and an uncle released from a long battle with mysterious illness. In contrast, spring is about to pop out in bright green glory.

As life comes to a close, whether peacefully or violently, new life comes.

Transition is life – and the relationship I have with the transitions within and around me is essential to how I make my way through the world.

I pause to notice transitions and the potential within them…

  • The end – today – of 5 years service to the Alberta Professional Planners Institute
  • A book substantially complete and the question of where now to put my energy?
  • A call to serve my city – as a living museum
  • A call to work with cities as habitats that need the care and attention of their citizens

I pause also to notice that these transitions are cyclical. While the content and questions may change, it is a natural and regular occurrence to feel wobbly and uncertain. It’s not possible to manage change. It is possible to live well with changing.

What transitions are alive and cycling in you?

 

 

 

 

A sage spot

 

Do you ever wonder how long something has been sitting there, right under your nose?

For just over two years, I have been walking over the the riverbank near my house most mornings for some quiet time before the day starts. It started when we had some contractors working on our house and there was no quiet time IN the house. It is time where I settle into the me I want to be for the day, and on days where I don’t get there until later in the day, it is time where I find my way back to being who I want to be.

A sage spot
The sage’s view of the valley today

Five months ago, I went on a wilderness quest, or vision quest, an ancient rite of passage in cultures all over the world. It was an experience that held great meaning for me and my whole being, and one of the things I came away with was the smell of sage in the smudging ceremony. The smell transports me back to a powerful moment just before I stepped into the wild alone.

Before I left for the quest, I knew that my morning walks to the river would be different after the quest. A few weeks after my return, I was stunned to see sage growing a few feet away from my ‘spot’. Had it been there all along?

I rubbed the plant’s leaves, feeling through my nose the sacred in this spot where I look out on the wild of the city.

A spot where I find the sage in me.

What else is right under my nose?

 

 

 

 

Others allow me to remember self

 

Today, I pause to notice what I choose to do with the peace in my life.

Canadians pause to remember today. To remember the 2.3 million men and women who have served, and more than 118,000 who died. To remember those who continue to serve. To remember Canadians who gave their lives and their future so that we may live in peace.

Today, I pause to notice the peace I experience in my life, in exchange for their sacrifice.

_____

re*mem*ber

: to have or keep an image or idea in your mind

: to cause (something) to come back into your mind

: to keep (information) in your mind : to not forget something

_____

How do we get stuck at simply remembering the past instead of re-membering the future, of bringing back into relationship what has been torn apart?

(John Phillip Newell) 

_____

The peace in my part of the world allowed me to go on a wilderness quest. A month ahead of the quest, I recognized that my intention was to find the bigger ME that sees abundance in the world, to find my abundant Self. At the time, I called this my effort to rewire the reptilian in me, to awaken my whole being to what scarcity looks and feels like (no food for two nights in the wild). I did this safely, without fear of loss of life.

The peace in my part of the world allowed me to go on the wilderness quest with people who travelled safely from Canada, the United States, Germany and Australia. In my case, I drove 1500 km with one uneventful border crossing, and hours of beautiful countryside.  Nestled in the northern part of the Cascade Mountains that stretch from northern California, to southern British Columbia, I enjoyed the passage of Chronos + Kairos time.

Here's where we were, courtesy google map
Skalitute Retreat – google maps
The valley
Skalitude – a beautiful meadow, and the Sacred Mountain to the north

The peace in my part of the world allowed me to Earth gaze from Earth. I contemplated my self, my Higher Self and the nature of me and the nature around me. I was contemplating my planet and my place in it. I found a place to camp up the valley to the right of the Sacred Mountain.

Camp Red Chair on topo

The peace in my part of the world allowed me to listen to the voices of longing in my soul, my soul hungers.

Today is tuesday
on the Sacred Mountain
which means I notice
what I’m really hungry for
i have shelter
i am warm enough
my thirst is quenched
 
my hunger is 
for my soul to be seen
by me
for my soul to be seen
by others
for my soul to be seen
by this place
 
to see Me
to see Others
to see my Place
 
I am hungry for Me
 
here I am.

The peace in my part of the world allowed me to take time to settle in to the experience for weeks afterwards. In this time, I recognized that synchronicity is the Universe tapping you on the shoulder, a wild synchronicity that invites me to be awake in every moment. Further, I noticed cascading synchronicity, a series of events and understanding that revealed the synchronicity in synchronicity. Words in books, on maps, in experiences. Everywhere I went.

The peace in my part of the world allows me to fully be Me.

The peace in my part of the world allows me to look after others.

The peace in my part of the world allows me to look after place.

Thank you.

 

 

Professional citizenship

 

I had clear instructions. Introduce the speaker and remind the audience about the hashtag #lifecycleofaplanner (for twitter), the conference theme. What came out of my mouth was #lifestyleofaplanner. As I listened to the speaker, I realized I wasn’t wrong. My mouth knew something my brain did not know.

Drawing on a lifetime of experience working as a city planner in Toronto, including as Chief City Planner, Paul Bedford described the life of a planner: connecting the dots, capturing the heart and mind, and the need to be bold or go home. He described a lifestyle. The planner as a person and the work s/he does are not separate.  As he put it, the ability to learn is the only constant in change. That is lifestyle.

To be the planner our cities need of us, you:

  1. Live, breathe and love your city. You choose to be a part of your city. You dive into your city to better serve your self, citizens and your city.
  2. Know what you believe. You have figured out your personal beliefs, and they align with your work.
  3. Live your work as a privilege. You approach your work with curiosity and passion. You choose this work, or maybe it has chosen you. You do not take it for granted and fully enjoy
  4. Live as a change agent. When you know what you believe, and you choose to live what you believe, you make change happen. Anywhere and everywhere. 
  5. Serve citizens in the present and future. You are positive and proactive.
  6. Search for, and make decisions based on purpose and principles. You are connected to the underlying purpose and intention of your work. You are flexible in how you get there, noticing which methods are the the best things in each given context.
  7. Experiment with creativity. As you learn and grow in your practice, you explore how to experiment and be creative in your work.
  8. Connect the big picture and the ground in simple ways. You find synthesize and integrate everywhere you go, enabling yourself to better understand your context, as well as others. You find language that has meaning for others.
  9. Welcome the constant renovation of life. You recognize that you are always under renovation, as your city is too. You shed what you no longer need, and allow the new to come forward.
  10. Choose to swim, not float. You choose the direction you move in.

This is the lifestyle of a planner who serves citizens well. This is professional citizenship, a lifestyle, a personal journey on the inside that shows up on the outside in the work we do. If these do not apply to you, you are in the wrong job, or the wrong line of work.

_____

Want to explore your own professional journey a bit further? Check out The Art of Hosting BIG Decisions (While Looking After Self Others, and Place).

 

The city’s right on schedule

Assume for a moment that the city is broken. Then consider this question, posed by Charles Montgomery in Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design:

Do you save a broken city by fixing its hardware, its public space and infrastructure, or do you save it by fixing its software – the attitudes and behavior [sic] of its citizens? 

Montgomery tells the story of two mayors of Bogata, Columbia – Antanas Mockus and Enrique Penalosa – who in recent years have radically improved life in their cities. Mockus built a new culture of citizenship and respect. Penalosa built the culture of respect into the city’s body, its infrastructure (p. 231-234) with these big philosophical and political questions:

Who should share in public wealth of the city?
Who should have access to parks and beautiful places?
Who should have the privilege of easy mobility?

In his stories about urban innovations to share the public wealth of the city, to allow vast access to parks and beautiful places, and to expand the privilege of easy mobility, Montgomery finds resistance.  Efforts to build infrastructure for public transportation and bicycles meets resistance. Efforts to provide access to beautiful areas of the city to the “riffraff” meet resistance. Choosing schools and sewers, over elevated highways meets resistance.

For Montgomery, citizens resist urban innovations for two reasons: “deeply held beliefs about the relationship between urban form and culture, and what it means to be free in cities (p. 240-241).” It shows up as an equity war where those that enjoy the benefits of urban systems are inconvenienced when the benefits are reapportioned (p. 241). The sprawling, dispersed city is embedded deep within us. It shapes how we think about our cities, and our streets and roads that allow us to move around our cities.

Take cars for example. For those of us that benefit from the car, any change to how we move about our city in our cars is a challenge to our deep beliefs in freedom of movement. The prospect of having to share our roads with bicycles and public transit, or lose car lanes to bicycles and public transit, sparks a war where car users decry that it is not fair. For Montgomery, this is an equity debate that the car can not win, because, “Today’s urban mobility systems are flat-out unfair, especially in North America… one in every three people [are] at the mercy of scarce public transit or dependent upon someone else to chauffeur him around (p. 241).”

We are not designing for everyone. We are designing for the privilege of the car.

So happiness is fairness.

Happiness is organizing ourselves in cities to share wealth, to share beauty. And the geography of the city matters. Stepping into Montgomery’s challenge to view the city as a share project means that the improvements we make are also shared. Physical improvements in only affluent districts, for example, is not equitable. Creating districts in our city that segregate incomes and cultures is not equitable. The shared city is a city where people are mixed. Mixing is the mark, the mark of civilized, democratic and ethical society (p. 248).”

Montgomery’s enduring lessons for cities (p. 250):

By spending resources and designing cities in a way that values everyone’s experience, life can get easier and more pleasant for everyone. We can make cities that are more generous and less cruel. We can make cities that help us all get stronger, more resilient, more connected, more active, and more free. We just have to decide who are cities are for. And we have to believe that they can change. 

We just have to decide who are cities are for.

And we have to believe that they can change.

_____

Assume for a moment that the city is exactly where we need it to be, asking of us exactly what we need to better serve our city habitat and ourselves.

Assume for a moment that we are right on schedule.

 

 

Wild synchronicity

 

Synchronicity is the Universe tapping you on the shoulder, inviting you to notice what resonates with you. It’s a portal into your deeper self.

Three things are tapping me on the shoulder:

  1. Three weeks ago I was in the middle of a wilderness quest; two days and two nights in the wild with no food. I am in the process of integrating this experience into my life – mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. 
  2. As I fell asleep, for several nights after the wilderness quest, I could see clear images on my eyelids. A friend named this phenomenon: hypnagaia. With a little research, I found the acronym WILD. Wake Induced Lucid Dreams.
  3. While listening to David Whyte’s What to Remember While Waking, he speaks of the revelations we have where we no longer recognize ourselves, and the wilderness skills we need because we don’t recognize “home”.

As I weave these threads together, I see that the wilderness quest was a way to wake myself up – to me. I knew heading in to this experience that I wanted to crack myself open. I thought the crack would let light in, and what I would see would shake me up. I wanted to see what would come of it.

The wilderness quest crack is not only about letting light in – it is as much about letting my light out. It is about seeing things I have never seen before, and welcoming and integrating them into my very being. It is about waking up, everyday, any time of day. Being awake in every moment.

 

 

Build the city to save the world

 

Happiness is slippery, it slithers away between your fingers, but problems are something you can hold on to, they’ve got handles, they’re rough and hard.
 
Isabel Allende

 

Partly because sprawl has forced Americans to drive farther and farther in the course of every day, per capita road death rates in the United States hover around forty-thousand per year. That’s a third more people than are killed by guns. It’s more than 10 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Here’s an image that sticks: imagine a loaded Boeing 747 crashing every three days, killing everyone on board. That’s how many people die on U. S. highways every year… A rational policy maker would wage war, not on other nations, but on traffic deaths. 
 
Charles Montgomery
 

Six significant ideas in Montgomery’s Happy City: Transforming our Lives Through Urban Design, about why things go wrong in our cities:

  1. Happiness never stands still. Happiness is inherently remote. “…the brain constantly adjusts its idea of what we need in order to be happy. It compares what we have now to what we had yesterday and what we might possibly get next. It compares what we have to what everyone else has. Then it recalibrates the distance to a revised finish line. But that finish line moves even when other conditions stay the same, simply because we get used to things.”
  2. We are hardwired for active dissatisfaction. “Hunter-gatherers… compulsively looked ahead in order to kill more game or collet more berries than they did yesterday, were more likely to make it through lean times and thus pass on their genes. In this model, happiness is not a condition at all. It is an urge genes employ to get an organism working harder and hoarding more stuff. The human brain has not changed much in the ten thousand years since we began to farm.”
  3. We make bad decisions all the time, and these decisions shape our cities. We are not equipped to make decisions that maximize utility because we are not equipped to make decisions with the longer term in mind. For example, we choose long commutes, even though the longer people choose to commute, the less happy people are with their entire lives. Extrinsic rewards trump the intrinsic rewards.
  4. We generate unreasonable expectations.  Our culture sends us messages about about what is important in our lives. “Our brains are pushed and pulled by the powerful synergy of memory, culture, and images. So our concept of the right house, car, or neighbourhood might be as much a result of happy moments from our past or images that flood us in popular media as of any rational analysis of how these elements will influence the moments of our lives.”  You know  the things that harm us in our cities – time spent in cars, lack of walkability and social cohesion, pollution – yet we are so attached the things that generate the negative that we ignore the information so we can live up to our unreasonable expectations.
  5. The habits of professionals make the same cognitive mistakes as the rest of us. Everything described above applies to citizens and professionals alike – but the professionals (the architects, landscape architects, engineers and planners) build the city and give us our choices. Limited choices. This is true, but Montgomery does not acknowledge the power of the consumer and how as citizens we also shape our city. Where we choose to spend our money is where the developers will go… We all make the cognitive mistakes.
  6. Presentism: “we let what we see and feel today bias our view of the past and future.” This is a cognitive error. Example: too much traffic on the road, so I want more lanes; lanes immediately fill up with cars; too  much traffic on the road, so I want more lanes; I forget that the last time this happened, the solution did not help; I want more lanes.

The real issue facing us are the cognitive blocks that “prevent us from recognizing the connection between the way we live in cities and the massive risks now facing our world and our species.” There are clear safety and environmental threats to how we move in our cities, yet we are held back, “…in part by the autopoieisis of urban systems that have their own momentum and staying power. But we are also held back by our own imperfect minds.”

So what?

The sustainable city has got to promise more happiness than the status quo. It has got to be healthier, higher in status, more fun, and more resilient than the dispersed city. It has got to lure us together rather than push us apart. It has got to reward people for making efficient choices when they move around. It has got to be a city of hedonic satisfaction, of distilled joys that do not cost the world. The city shapes our decisions. It always has.
 
Charles Montgomery

Now what?

Montgomery’s challenge is to build the city that will save the world. Pieces of that city are being born all over the planet right now. The innovative acts and activities where people are pouring themselves into their work that makes the world a better place; they are improving the physical and social habitats of our cities, and our economic lives.

Strategies you can use to create the city that will save the world:

What are you doing to create the city that will save the world?

 

*****

I’ve posted a few times about Charles Montgomery’s Happy City: Transforming our Lives Through Urban Design. Here they are for you to explore: