Author: Tenneson Woolf

I loved invoking this word, “murmurate” last week. With two groups. Making a noun a verb.

The above image is of Starlings. Flocking. Moving with fluidity. They are a murmuration.

In both settings, I invoked the words as a connection to some basic questions that many of us OD people ask, that many of us complex systems people ask.

How do we go well together
for and with the things and people that we most care about?

And then in my brain, this morphs to a few important sub questions:

How do we learn well?
How do we lift the relational?
How do we open ourselves to what is larger?

All of that takes me back to some early foundation learning with Meg Wheatley (thx again Meg). In the mid 90s after the release of her stellar book, Leadership And The New Science, Meg was bringing forth a game changing narrative.

Organizations are living systems (not machines).

Living systems have a way of organizing themselves (Starlings as an example — don’t seem to have a boss or a planning committee).

If we learned more about how living systems organize themselves,
what would that teach us about organizing human endeavor?

These videos of murmurations are easy to find. It’s a fun moment to get lost in them. And then wonder about such questions.

OK, off into another part of my day. Murmurating.

In 2020 I published this book above, A Cadence of Despair. It’s a collection of poems and essays from a year’s worth of recovery and learning and journalling. It offers voice to some rather difficult times. But then also, voice to the glimpses that begin to show up, that begin to shine up, and point to some integration. It’s a bit raw. A bit clunky. But also has a few really important learnings.

My friend Katharine Weinmann recently shared one of my poems from this book, on her blog. My poem is called “I Suppose”. It was / is some of my clarity on how the inner work must be done in conjunction with the outer work. It’s fun to see words picked up and shared. Thx Katharine.

For inspiration.

I Suppose

I suppose that my hope is that
this inner journey is refining me.

I suppose that my hope is that
I am daring to lean into the wound and anger
of leaving innocence and ignorance.

I suppose that my hope is that
I will find integration and wisdom.

I suppose that my hope is that
I am connected to divinity,
either approved by God, or in sync enough.

I suppose that my hope is that
I am loved and accepted.

I’m becoming aware that this only happens in the external
when it is happening in the internal.

I know this phrase, and, well, invitation, from a few contexts of life — “what we practice, we become.” It’s as sensible as anything I know.

There’s Toke, my Danish colleague / friend / brother, who has been invoking this principle connected to peace, practicing peace. In Toke’s words, “practice peace within, and, two meters around you.” Tangible. And inviting.

There’s the men’s retreat I just returned from. I’ll apply the principle to the value of “unplugged.” When we practice unplugged, we become unplugged. It’s a resonance change, the becoming part. It’s in and under our skin, just like a personality. Travels with us, a reliable friend.

What we practice, we become. It’s in Wander School too. When we practice wander, we become it. Said differently, when we practice belonging to and moving with life, we become belonging to and moving with life.

I both like, and need, the simple guidance. It’s a sweet invitation. With orientation. And with commitment. It’s a doing. It’s a doing that connects to a being. And vice versa.

Tomorrow I host a Circle for a leadership team in a very thoughtful community wellness center. There too, we will invoke “what we practice, we become.” We practice connection. And courage. And compassion. And simplicity. And life flowing in and around us.

Such learning. Within and with others. I’m grateful to be in such a big world. Yet in practice that guides the small steps.

It’s early morning. Thursday. In Utah’s San Rafael Swell. Which is to say, beautiful and rugged slot canyons. And desert. And dust. And wind that flapped our tents quite vigorously in the night. But is now calm. Ah, sunrise and morning calm.

Eleven of us men have started our Unplugged Adventure. Guided by Marshall and Lucas — they are good, rugged, kind, learning-filled men. We’ve had our opening circle around a fire the night before. Each of us has burned something, an offering. Something we each wish to release. Or claim. Mine was a paper bag with close to a hundred names in it, and circumstances, and memories — I’m trying to learn about slow & steady and these people and memories have connection to that.

I’m up early, wandering a bit outside of our camp. I love the early morning light and it’s quiet. I take to balancing a few stones (shout out to my buddy Chris). I love the art of it. I love the fine-tuning of it. Sometimes it doesn’t work — you move on to the next. I love the micro changes that can render these gravity-persuading moments.

We try to balance things, don’t we. Sometimes in our inners. Sometimes in our outers. We try to make beauty. We try to orient ourselves to both commitment and to letting go. There is medicine in this, isn’t there. None of these balanced stones are permanent. They too will be moved. By the wind. By the slight rumbles of earth. By the sandstone that evolves outside of time — two or three grains here and there.

There is much to learn. There is much to celebrate. There is much to rewire in us (or unwire). I can feel all of it happening. Stones are teaching me. Kind men are teaching me. The wind is teaching me.

I’m a lucky man in big learning, and big beauty.