practices

origins

overview of all

single practices

questions

origins - where did these practices come from?

These practices are structured as holons within a holarchy. They are a natural design where each action is part of a larger action that includes the former. While at different times we may focus on only a part, they are completed as whole - as whole parts (holon) within a hierarchy (holarchy).

Discovering this personal holarchy was a process of emrgnc. In November 2003 I invited together a group of peers, exceptional people with a diversity of perspectives, to help me find the answer to the question of how to describe what I do. It was a question the answer to which was just outside my consciousness and theirs. But often your friends and colleagues know you better than you know yourself. This is what happened ...

Wisdom Liberationist Consciousness Evolutionary Sustainability Navigator Capability Ecologist Insight Developer Solution Frameworker Thought Cartographer Thinking Facilitator

We each have this holarchical description of the essence of what we do. People see what you do at the level that is meaningful to them. They see the parts. You should know the whole. However, for each of us, what we do that is unique is unconscious to us. Others can only observe. How then to reveal our complete consciousness? How to describe in two words or less what it is that you uniquely do (in its entirety) so that everyone understands?

We began with a Dialogue circle using the principles of David Bohm and Michael Polanyi. Each of the 12 peers, excluding myself, contributed into the collective space a word that described in a Noun (tangible or intangible) the object of what I do. They were not asked to brainstorm, but to contribute the word, reflect on that word, and contribute another.

After each person had contributed one word into the cycle, I repeated all of the words, and the next cycle built on that cycle in the same way, one word at a time. I then again read the aggregated list and we continued with multiple cycles, building each time collectively, until there there was a natural conclusion.

I then repeated the process for a second word group, being a Verb that described the essence of what my peers felt I do in action (actively or passively), again each word building on the previous, in multiple cycles, each building on the previous. This generated two lists (or heaps) of fragments (or artifacts).

A process of Holistic Structuralism was then used to code all the parts into a whole.

Step 1 was to combine the two lists into combinations of word pairs. This generated 3696 combinations that represented possible parts of the whole.

Step 2 was to then code all the Nouns (First Word) using visual mapping software and there emerged 6 common categories (Function, Scope, Outcome, Tool, Object, Effect) reducing the alternatives down to 616 combinations.

Step 3 was then to code all the Verbs (Second Word) and interestingly there emerged from these 7 distinct facets of the second word (Clarify, Shape, Construct, Guide, Breakthrough, Movement, Capacity) - reducing the 616 into 42 'types' of descriptor behind the original 3696. Yes the answer is 42. (And still no parts excluded).

Step 4 was then to code these 42 categories further. Looking at these categories they were in two dimensions which re-ordered naturally around Object and Service. But there also emerged levels of service and spans of focus within these in a natural hierarchy.

Step 5 was to look behind the abstract 42 types and to find they indeed fell into 8 generic levels in two dimensions. So I mapped the components of the levels. This became a new generic model that, theoretically, applies to any functional holarchy of a particular service.

Step 6 was to create the generic model from the coded categories:

Any activity described by the word pair is the same at any level. What makes it different is the consciousness that informs that activity in the higher levels. For example, take Lawn Mowing as a service - we all know what that is, and if we needed it, we would know what to ask for. You want your lawn mown - and you'd look up the trade directory for Lawn Mowing Services. Simple. So the equivalent holarchy, from lower to higher, is:

1. Mower Pusher - description of one function
2. Lawn Mowing - description of main object and task
3. Garden Maintenance - description of inclusive service
4. Landscape Architect - description of wider framing discipline
5. Biosystem Atheticist - description of wider field of thought
6. Nature Harmonist - description of overall intent and effect
7. Global Ecologist - description of end state role
8. Worldscaper - description of all level job responsibility

Fewer people understand the role the further up you go. So rather than just two words, there needs to be two words for each level of consciousness, to make it both complete and accessible. I needed a name for what I do at each of these levels.

Step 7 was then simple, as I needed only to find one right element from the 3696 combinations and then using the generic model could build from that to find the appropriate word for each other type until they all fitted using the model created.

As there are different levels of consciousness - the role at each level fits into a complete holoarchy - parts and wholes. Name a part and you also identify the whole. Makes sense really. The essence of the result becomes:

Once conscious of these, previous actions confirmed them as being correct, and on being shown the holarchy, those that have followed my work, affirmed it.

Others have since benefitted from the model, developing their own personal holarchical job description.

Back to practices.