Capacity Vs Expectations: the challenge of faithfulness going forth

How much capacity can I have to meet the expectations and demands that are set for me and by me?

Slipping below the equilibrium line , I’m letting people down, not attending to the things that lie in waiting. This feeling of being overwhelmed encroaches into my sleep, my joy for life and reduces the quiet time for replenishment. It promotes guilt, disappointment in self, and ultimately diminishes my capacity. The lists grow longer, the emails proliferate, the reminders filter in.

So what is it that the universe is asking of me right now? I can’t hide away and live in denial yet I must hold true ot my values to spread joy, radiate kindness as I walk through life. To walk, not head down with sighs weighing me down, but with head up with a soft smiling gaze at the gifts and wonder of the world and the people in it.

How do I show up whilst in this moment of high demand? To be in that right place at the right time , to be self-disciplined and intentional, to tap into my masculine can-do power, to recognise priorities and persevere and be steadfast but be sufficiently flexible to respond to the emerging needs around me. At the same time, going easy on the self-judgement and accepting when expectations become unrealistic. I can’t please everyone all the time, and the wisdom to know when to say no, or at least wait as now is not possible. There is always time for listening. ‘

Life is short to waste on ill-fitting expectations. Michael Fox and Russell Wolf have left us (and too soon) but have demonstrated their capacity to radiate goodness as a model. So to focus less on effectiveness and to maintain the faithfulness to sustain my engagement walking humbly, loving tenderly and acting justly.

Parker J. Palmer says it best:

We must judge ourselves by a higher standard than effectiveness, the standard called faithfulness.

 Are we faithful to the community on which we depend, to doing what we can in response to its pressing needs?

 Are we faithful to the better angels of our nature and to what they call forth from us?

 Are we faithful to the eternal conversation of the human race, to speaking and listening in a way that takes us closer to truth?

Are we faithful to the call of courage that summons us to witness to the common good, even against great odds?

When faithfulness is our standard, we are more likely to sustain our engagement with tasks that will never end: doing justice, loving mercy, and calling the beloved community into being.

From Healing the Heart of Democracy.

Emerging from the labyrinth-  going forth with faithful intent, St John of God, Shoalwater 31 October 2021. 

New ways of seeing: Pattern thinking

I’ve just read ‘Sand talk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta, an indigenous fella with a complex and troubled background who has found his voice. He articulately relates the pattern thinking – a difficult task. How do we understand the overall shape of the connections between things? How do we look beyond the things and focus on the connections between the? Then go further to see the patterns they make? There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus. 

And … People today focus on the points of connection the nodes of interest like stars in the sky but the real understanding comes in the spaces in between, in the relational forces that connect and move the points.

It all starts with being attentive, listening, waiting, noticing what is happening and doing this over and over again. Connectedness balances the excesses of individualism. 

Whilst talking he makes things as he goes and that is something I’ve been fascinated with of late. The power of creative actions AND dialog. He also relates conversations with many elders from across the land, for example he spent time with Noongar elder Noel Nannup and describes his influence on young men to see beyond.

In between this talk he talks about artificial intelligence, greek philosophy, and a broad array of social topics demonstrating his deep thinking. 

A word he uses to explain to assert boundaries and connections is ‘lookout’ – all the reasonable obligations and activities within networks. What is my ‘lookout’? This ties in with the totemic system and holistic reasoning grown from a lived cultural framework embedded in the landscape. I liked how he broadened the totem framework from having an association with just one or two animals/plants but also to elements like lightning, whirlwinds, waterlilies etc. I’ve been reflecting on my connection to the wind and what that might actually mean for my life. 

In his own language there is no word for culture but the closed phrase translates to something like ‘Be like your place’ which embeds the notion within the landscape. 

A framework he discusses in depth are the different ways of thinking: story-mind, kinship -mind, dreaming-mind, ancestor- mind and pattern-mind. He uses fingers to elaborate further: imagine your little finger as a child, the centre of family and the ones who make relationships happen hence representing kinship mind. The ring finger is a mother, so the two, mother and child, are the pivotal relationship of any stable society, the mother telling stories to her child – hence story-mind, the narrative is the device to transmit knowledge and memory. The middle finger is a man, belonging to the woman beside him, representing dreaming-mind, the use of metaphors = images, songs, dances, words and objects. The pointer finger is the man’s brother’s child, the man teaching the child using the dreaming-mind by drawing images in the sand, all the while the woman is telling stories. The nephew/niece is working with ancestor mind, tapping into the intuitive knowledge achieved through cultural activities, carving, weaving, painting, dancing. 

Now the thumb can wiggle across the landscape of the hand connecting spirituality to the man, woman and children. This represents pattern-mind which is the skill of seeing the whole system and not just the parts. If you can see the whole system, you can see the relationships. The thumb can teach  each finger, or combinations of fingers and forming a fist the thumb and connect to all fingers. 

Some other great lines: 

Making yourself an expert in another culture is not always appreciated by the members of that culture. 

 If you don’t move with the land the land will move you 

I can extend this approach into my professional life as meteorology is all about patterns in the atmosphere and the challenge to observe the whole system to understand how a tropical cyclone evolves to be able to forecast what it will do next. 

I also find photography and painting are great methods to be able to observe the natural world and below are two examples of this. 

So in Active Hope terms, I’m using this in the seeing with new eyes framework. To sit within the natural landscape and observe and to see the patterns of connectedness in all things. Not such an easy thing to do. 

Links to Tyson talking about Sand Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsMMisFiABM

RN ABC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8dmqDd756w

Photo: after the rain in Robertson Park.

My most recent painting of a banksia in Bold Park. 

Oceans: Out of sight but should not be out of mind

SDG Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources  https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/oceans/

I was reminded of our destruction in the oceans last week when watching seaspiracy on Netflix that chronicled the many adverse impacts from overfishing:

• ·         Bycatch: long-line trawling    is indiscriminate and also takes many seabirds
• ·         Plastics from nets: hard to know true stats as differing figures but 20-46% of plastics in the oceans come from ships and there is no regulation of this rather all the anti-plastic actions are land focussed.          
• ·         Bottom trawling: destruction of seagrasses, kelp, reefs and surface species,
• ·         Endangered species: many species are now at endangered levels
• ·         Unregulated fishing (illegal): who is patrolling our open oceans; Sea Shepherd does this as an NGO but are branded eco-terrorists as a result;
• ·         Human slavery and lawlessness: fisherman on large fishing vessels are low paid or even indentured labourers and anyone who tries to escape can be killed without recourse (no one investigates someone dying at sea!).

Over the years I’ve watched ocean docos and subscribe to Parley for the Oceans https://www.parley.tv/ but I must admit the state of the oceans has been relegated down the list of my concerns. Despite living on the coast and loving swimming the dire state of the ocean has been in the out of sight out of mind category and moreso in our media and conversations.

People including myself have been increasingly saying that we will take advantage of technology to preserve our world. Sure electric cars, renewables, bioplastics will undoubtedly help our path ahead but I know that is not the real issue. We have enough technology now but we don’t have the conscience and vision. We live in a small village and everyone can contribute but the window is very short. It is not tomorrow but it is now that we must act.

So am motivated to review the latest info and take some action. Interesting to challenge friends who think eating fish is a positive and what that might mean and to investigate the source of our seafood. Australian industry is certainly much more regulated than elsewhere and certainly recreational fishing isn’t really the big issue but the state of the international fishing industry seems outrageous on so many levels. It is also interesting to see the role of seaweed and kelp in being a source of protein and how we can sustainably grow and harvest this as an alternate crop to feed the world and reduce ocean acidification.

Branding such as MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) used by Coles (https://www.coles.com.au/about-coles/supporting-aussie-producers/farm-to-store/seafood) and others is an interesting one – Seaspiracy is critical as they draw their funding from the companies who pay a fee to use their brand so there is an obvious conflict of interest and how much regulation goes on seems difficult to get an accurate picture on.

The Federal Govt announced $100M investment in oceans though the focus is upon our coastal waters and not on international fishing issues:  https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-announces-100-million-initiative-protect-our-oceans#:~:text=Minister%20for%20the%20Environment%2C%20Sussan,as%20deliver%20significant%20environmental%20outcomes

Interesting docos on Netflix: A Plastic Ocean; Seaspiracy (Netflix); Racing extinction and the Academy Award winner that amazed me on realising how fascinating octopus can be My Octopus Teacher

Some other good resources include:

WWF https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/oceans/overfishing#gs.z4gi7o

Plastics in the ocean: https://sloactive.com/plastic-pollution/

Ocean generation (UK): https://www.oceangeneration.org/

 

So in Active Hope terms,

I’m grateful for the life within the oceans – the beauty, the way it sustains life outside oceans and to keep our atmosphere clean and functional and for the people who work towards ocean regeneration. 

Honour the pain – I acknowledge the destruction we have wreaked in the ocean – the mass extinctions, the overfishing, the acidification process, the warming, the pollution and humanity’s general disregard for ocean life.

A new way of seeing: Paul Watson (Sea Shepherd legend) says ‘If the oceans die, we die’. I need to avoid the out of sight out of mind view and elevate the importance of the oceans in our thinking.

Going forth I’m motivated to have conversations and investigate ways of taking action. To be informed and spending time by the ocean.