Feeling a few parts of meta-clarity coming. I’ll give myself permission to start with pieces. And then add some more in further posts.
I’m the kind of human that loves this kind of image below. I draw this specific one often in my notebook that I carry in my back pocket. The first time I drew it was at an in-person gathering where 20 of us had been together for a few days in retreat and learning. I was trying to understand the feeling in the room. The coherence of things going well. And, as is so often true for me, I wanted to understand what was underneath.
I like maps. Simplified images that give overview. And, embolden values. And, create practice. And that are easy to come back to. Important in all the complexities of the day, right. We humans, we need the big story and we need the small story too, right.
- This image is as powerful as any that I know. It’s a picture of reality. The spiral is represents something more timeless. A mystery. And unknown. And yet, perhaps, an inherent order.
- The stars sometimes represent people. Sometimes moments in time, concretized.
- I use this map to remember the way that we spiral together. Teams. Committees. Families. Friends.
- When held well enough in the spiral, we echolocate together. Deliberately. And unintentionally too. The stars connect. We both send out a signal — with our questions, our stories, our wonderings — and we receive signals that remind us of our place in the spiral.
It’s a map that I love to feel. I like it that it blurs my vision just a bit. It’s not a telescope to a specific location on a specific star — I suppose it could be. I think of it as a napkin view of what’s really going on. And sometimes, this image is my alternative org chart that I offer to people wishing the deep work.
There you go. To be continued.
