Discovering New Frameworks and becoming the Source of them.
A few years ago I was at the bifurcation of deciding to stay or leave University. I was between two walls of fear. One wall was the fear of leaving University and not having a ‘profession’ which meant being no one, which meant not having money, or working in a miserable job that I hate, which meant having an unfulfilling life, which meant waiting to die, or killing myself.
The other wall of fear was staying at the University, spending the next 4 years of my life in a way that I hate, reading books, memorizing information and grabbing pieces of articles and essays of different people, putting them together with a little bit of my own words or changing a little bit of their words and getting a grade to pass to the next phase of the game. A fear that was bigger than this one, was that University was just the ticket to entering a path of a linear life, where the goal is to sacrifice today for a ‘better’ tomorrow. After a degree, a job, then a vacation here and there to re-balance the hell of working in something I have, having children and a dog, having a family, retiring and waiting to die. Isn't it crazy how we are able to create story worlds that are completely disconnected from Reality?
When the pain of staying where you are is bigger than the risk of leaving, then you have enough fuel Creation. When the pain of moving out of where you are is bigger than the pain of staying the same, then there is no necessity to change. At this time, my fear of staying at University and sacrificing the potential I could sense in my life got much bigger than the fear of risking an unknown path out of ‘having a profession’. My decision was clear, I’m leaving and taking the risk. I was at the edge of what I knew was possible, I was at the edge of my Box.
I freaked out. What else is possible? What else is out there? I was desperately looking for new frameworks. I was looking for different possibilities of pathways I could take on my journey than the ones that were offered on the Menu.
Back then I did not know that every human being has the potential to invent and source new frameworks. Every human being has in itself the potential to craft its own path on Earth and choose beyond what is offered on the menu. And for most of us this potential remains locked throughout our whole life. An interesting question here is, what experiences, skills, processes and tools have the potential to unlock and unleash the potential of sourcing new frameworks?
One of the purposes of the Cavitation Bridge House is to train edgeworkes to become the source of new frameworks, new possibilities for how to source Intimacy, celebration, traditions, love, collaboration, food, healing, skills, invention, discovery. It’s a training space for becoming context holders for sourcing Archiarchy invention centers around the world.
During the process of deciding to stay or leave University, the pandemic was hitting everywhere. At this time I started reading and watching documentaries about ecocide and what human beings have created among each other and in the place. I had a question peeking through my comfort zone: If the system is killing animals, plants, all kinds of life, and most people are unhappy, why are human beings still doing the same? Why am I going to school? Why are you going to the work you hate? Why are we not creating what we long for? Why are we not trying something else?
While watching What a way to go: life at the end of empire (I highly recommend that you watch this documentary with your circle of friends and feel the intensity of whatever feelings emerge to you, don’t hold back), I got a glimpse of answers for these questions.
Human Beings, as a species, organize themselves in a way that makes us completely dependent on our life in the very system that is killing the future possibility of life for human and nonhuman beings. We’ve made a secret deal to keep ourselves sleeping and sacrificing everything—the time with the ones we love most, the trees that give us oxygen, the soil that provides us food. The deal is, we sacrifice all in exchange for receiving luxuries and comfort stuff that would not have been dreamed of by any Roman king or even anyone 150 years ago: instantaneous transportation and communication, entertainment via more than eight billion channels, refrigeration, food at the supermarket. We sacrifice our Life and the possibility of life on planet earth for the condor of staying in survival, playing safe in our Box.
In parallel to this documentary, I was reading and studying about systems transition theory and regeneration on the internet and Spaceport. I found out a man call Peter Merry, and in one of the videos "Make a living, making a difference" I was confronted with this Map:
The solution that emerges to solve an original set of problems, contains within itself the seeds of the next set of problems.
The red line is Patriarchy and all systems that emerge from it that are not working and it is collapsing. The green line it's the emergent and regenerative cultures that are growing around the globe. On the encounter of these two contexts happening, there is the chaos point, where the old system is radically failing and the new system has not emerged yet to take over the helm. Within the chaos point you can think of 3 main roles that humans have to play in order to become spaceholders for this transition.
1. Death Doula of Patriarchy: As the old system dies, it needs people to hold space for individuals, groups and systems to grieve, to let go gracefully, and accompany the process of letting go. This role is important because if you don’t help the old system let go they will sabotage all the attempts to create the new.
2. Archiarchy Invention Centers and Cavitation of new Cultures: Invention of new frameworks and conditions for the new to emerge. Putting in place the experiments and the massive research in place. Maturation of these solutions so they can go to a larger scale.
3. Bridging: Telling the stories about the new that give the people in the old system the choice to be able to choose to let go and step over.
When you try to stop focusing on something, you often paradoxically draw more attention to it. Don’t think about a pink elephant! Your attention is already on the pink elephant, even that for 1 second. If you try to stop or change Patriarchy, within or outside you, you are paradoxically drawing more of your attention and energy to Patriarchy. If you are trying to stop your stories and thoughts, you may experience even more thoughts and stories.
It takes less energy to shift focus to a new set of possibilities than to reverse or inhibit an existing possibility. As it is often easier to redirect a moving object than to bring it to a complete stop, it can be more efficient to redirect our attention to something else rather than trying to forcefully halt our current external systems and our internal thought patterns.
I want to share with you two legends from the Cavitation BridgeHouse that illustrates what is possible when there is a new framework to navigate a facet of life.
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What else is possible in creating traditions and celebrations? How to cause adventure?
During Christmas time at the BridgeHouse a new Framework was invented: Presents that create more presence.
During the Arhcamas Christmas, Anne Chloé held a space for a space where there were 11 boxes, with a chocolate inside and a message that was a doorway for presence. One person starts by taking a random box that is her gift to be gifted to someone in the circle, but is not her who chooses. The person with the last age in the group goes pointing to each person in the group. The person with more age in the group closes her eyes and says stop. Whoever the finger is pointing at when the younger person stops with their hand is the one the gift giver opens the gift for.
This framework “presents that creates presence” goes beyond our Celebration day Archamas (our Christmas). It ripples in our daily interactions.
The presence of each person in the space creates presents.
Meredith’s presence, for example, brings the gift of curiosity and asking questions that open whole new territories and new facets to relate. Thursday was her birthday. We were driving back home, after a nourishing day on the snow mountains in Crete. At the car she asked me “what secrets are you keeping away from us?” My answer was “I think I’m socially weird and awkward when I’m with you in this group”. Tears started dropping down my eyes. This question was a present to me because it opened a gap for me to be more present and to decide that from there on my general, over all, background purpose in Life is to enjoy my Life. I let go the loyalty to my family’s values that life has to be sacrificed and measured.
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This week Adventure day we went to Paleochora where an emergent Discovery space was held by Clinton and Anne Chloé.
What are the most rewarding/ interesting/ valuable things you want to discover about the other person? What else is possible in relating with other Human beings? What other offers of intimacy are possible?
Here are some of what we discovered:
It is rewarding for me to discover who this person is, as anew, at each moment. It’s valuable to experience Discovering. Discover, as opening the fridge and finding an iceberg. Leekumar brought this image to me a few months ago when I was in Brazil, I could not stop laughing because it described with such simplicity my experience of Discovery. Discovery as surprise, the uncovering of something that was before not there. No one opens the fridge waiting to find an iceberg. The same in relating and sourcing intimacy. If you open the fridge with any expectation that you may find a piece of chocolate pie then discovering it is not a possibility any longer. Your gremlin gets the chance to hate them forever.
What are the blocks, assumptions that I have that blocks me entering a space of discovery with the other person? What stories do I have about their blocks that they can’t enter in a space of discovery with me?
I value discovering the other person's biography, getting in contact with the diverse set of skills this person developed and the pathways she did go through along her life.
It is rewarding for me when someone’s being is glowing, when he or she is speaking about something that is really turning them on, something that is real for them.
It is rewarding discovering what becomes possible in a space when this person is present there
It is rewarding discovering what wants to be created and moves through them next. What are their values and commitment?
How big of a vacuum can someone make for me to discover? How can I become this vacuum? Anne Chloé described how it is possible to shift your attention to who is paying attention to you. Your circle, people who want and need what you have to provide, ecco, the bright principals, the archetypal forces are paying attention to you.
Archetypal generosity lies in collaborative communication. Someone is talking in the car and another person asks “do you know about this book”, and you answer. Or when I don't get a word in English and I stop and ask what it means, I’m taking a stand to do whatever it takes to be present here with you. I’m being generous. The purpose is not understanding, the purpose is asking whatever the next question is. The next word or sound to be said so the person has the wind to keep rolling the space and the ball does not stop. In an adult and archetypal intimacy space all people involved are working to not let the ball drop. Like in the pinball game. When the ball drops down through the hole, then the game is over. When each person in a circle is able and willing to be the source of discovery, then there is no Impossibility. Because whenever something that is wanted and needed the person will discover and create new possibilities. How to develop the skill to discover and source what is wanted and needed from my lineage.
Oozing the message that comes through you. Consider that whatever is going on in you and what you are receiving is not for you.
New framework opens the pathway for completely new results.
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