For the past months, the universe has been whispering to me. Saying that out loud makes my researcher self cringe, but hey, the universe whispered to Einstein too, and he did ok.
Anyway, after multiple hints, this month my needs-to-be-hit-over-the-head-to-notice-things individual mind picked up on these hints, and I thought to myself:
“I’m no longer just studying self-organizing groups like I used to. Groups that I’m able, in my own mind, to see as separate groups. Many of my groups are now overlapping and recreating themselves. The boundaries change too often to keep track of. Most days, it seems, I’m now studying communities within which self-organizing groups form and reform at will. When did that happen? Is there such a thing as a self-organizing community? There appears to be. What the heck is a self-organizing community?”
Honestly, I also thought “Thank God I’m not working at a university at the moment, because I can’t imagine explaining that I just recognized what I’ve actually been studying (in addition to what I was conscious I was studying) most of this year in a formal setting. Fortunately, those of you reading this—my community—will likely encourage me, question and stretch me, and forgive me, as needed. How do I know this? Because you already do so every single day.
Practice evolution
How my practice is evolving right now:
I appear to be studying self-organizing communities. My own self-organizing groups now regularly overlap, create, and then recreate themselves into new, different groups. This is making it too difficult to study them as independent groups, and keep track of their numbers, because their boundaries keep changing (as in “I’m studying 35 groups, no now 32, no now 34, no now 28…”). I have to think of them as communities to reflect what is happening in my own life and around the groups I study. Also, in part, to make my work life still do-able (as in “Hey. Those 38 or so moving, interweaving groups I’ve been killing myself to keep track of separately are actually all one community!”).
Smaller groups still matter. Although I’m now consciously focusing on the community as a whole instead of separate smaller groups, I still study self-organizing groups. It’s just that now I recognize that many of the groups that appear separate today are likely to reform, change, and reemerge as other groups. I know that many of these smaller groups may be recognized by me and others as part of larger communities eventually.
The importance of individuals is coming clearer. The importance of the individual is coming back onto my radar. Think this is related to living and thinking at the community level much of the time, not sure. But I’ll be writing more about the importance of individuals—and the relationship between self-organizing individuals, groups, and communities—in the coming year. My friend Doug and I are already doing this in an ebook we’re co-creating right now. This is just ridiculously fun work for me. Creative energy pours out of this collaboration and hidden ideas emerge daily! Wow. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be doing this!
I’m working on defining “self-organizing community” for myself. At the moment this is in my mind: “The larger collective that becomes visible to self-organizing groups and floods them with even more gratitude.” This definition is fluid and evolving daily for me at the moment. I’ll create full posts on this later after I get more input from my community.
My work is getting easier, giving me time to become and do more. For example, I don’t have to go looking for new groups to study anymore because my community finds (and becomes) them for me. And now, most days, my community puts better examples and ideas directly into my hands than I’d ever have time or energy to search for and find on my own. I also don’t have to plan what I’m going to write about anymore. The groups I’m part of and studying are consistently amazing, so whatever is happening in the moment, thanks to my community, works for me. I need only dip my cup into the river that is the community that moment. I feel more like a highlighter pen for human amazingness than a researcher or writer anymore, because most days my individual perspective cannot improve upon what these amazing communities are already doing. Most days, my community improves me as an individual and us as self-organizing groups, not the other way around. I help simply by doing what I love to do: documenting the heck out of what’s happening within and around them.
I’d appreciate your help
I’d like your help defining what self-organizing community means. What does this mean to you, based on your own experience and imagination? Drop me an email (lori@collectiveself.com), or a comment here, or an idea on twitter or facebook, or if you’re close by, let’s go to coffee to talk about it. My deepest thanks in advance.
In my next post, I’ll talk more about how my own self-organizing community helped me hear the hints the universe was sending my way.
In the meantime, here are some shots of my own self-organizing community…
Best goofy grin photo of myself from the past months...
Three flash mobs in the rain--I'm a wreck but Lady Gaga's still looking perfect!
I had a dream yesterday that I was late to a meeting with my boss at work–not my current work at Collective Self where I’m my own boss but my old work as learning solutions consultant at Microsoft (3 years ago). In the dream I awoke and had just 15 minutes to get to my 1:1 meeting at my office more than 30 minutes away. I quickly rescheduled the meeting to a later time and raced to work. When I got there, I realized that somehow I hadn’t been to work in 4 months. I couldn’t find my building at first. My group and another group in the division were fighting–groups that were getting along when I was last in. I was pretty sure that I shouldn’t be responsible for my project, because I couldn’t remember what it was, why I hadn’t been to work in 4 months, and why I had believed that I had quit months ago but nobody else knew it. It felt strange to be there, completely disorienting, and I felt I’d let everyone there down. Oddly, nobody else felt that way. They were glad I was back and kept popping in to say hello, fill me in on what I’d missed, and ask what I’d been up to. But I was upset with myself, confused about what I should be doing, and frustrated to be in the dark. I sat down in my office, shut my eyes, and wracked my brains thinking “What should I be doing?!!!” At this point, I woke up from the dream.
I’ve occasionally dreamed about being back at Microsoft since I left in 2007. In the past I didn’t think much of it, figuring it meant that I missed the work and was working through the last lingering regret about leaving. But that’s not what this dream was. Although it was set in Microsoft–a safe, comfortable, and happy place for me–I think it was about my current fears about my work today. Starting a new business, becoming an external consultant, becoming an author, becoming a blogger–what I’m doing right now–is scary. I don’t often notice that consciously or say that out loud. This dream was calling out my current fears.
I find it interesting that part of me still considers Microsoft a safer place to be than what I’m doing now, even though I know what I’m doing today is what I’m meant to be doing. Part of that could be related to giving up a guaranteed, very nice paycheck. But I know that for me safety doesn’t equal big paycheck. I don’t need a ton of money to be comfortable and happy, and I have plenty. I think what made Microsoft safe for me was my work colleagues. I love having people to brainstorm with, people to point out when I’m about to do something stupid, people who pop in and say hello and remind me to stop working and eat lunch, and people to commiserate with when things get tough. I don’t think I’m going to feel completely safe in my new roles until I have some work colleagues to brainstorm and commiserate with, until I have a community of practice in which I can talk to others about self-organizing groups and work groups. For me, it’s not just that I miss having these people to talk to. I need them to function to my full potential.
So if you’re interested in the subjects of self-organizing groups or work groups or systems, or a topic you feel is closely related, and you feel as I do, e-mail me or call me. I’d like to begin to build a community of practice together. My new organization of one is just not enough for me!
We all have foggy days. Days where who we are feels murky, what we’re doing is muddled, and what we truly want is hidden from us. Emotional mud puddles.
Catching the bus in the fog
And sometimes the fog lasts months, or years, not days.
I’m just emerging from a 5-month Collective Self fog myself. As a writer, I’m learning, there’s no hiding my fog from others. It seeps down into and around my life, which is my work, and seems to dampen and dim everything.
For months I’ve been trying to get myself out of the fog I’ve been in. Almost everything I tried failed.
The last two things I did, though, worked amazingly well. They are: step 1) announcing out loud “I’m stuck! I’m a total mess! I need help!” to a handful of friends and family I trust and asking out loud for their ideas and help and then actually listening to them, and step 2) reading my own blog, reflecting, and then writing, writing, writing until the fog cleared.
Step 2 is what my writer and blogger friends suggested that I do. So bloody obvious I wanted to kick myself. Four months trying to figure things out on my own, and it never occurred to me to read my own work.
So actually these two steps were more like steps 67 and 68 in my flail-alone-and-continue-to-fail for months process. If you’re a writer, I strongly recommend them as steps 1 and 2. Flailing alone for 66 steps is overrated.
So I spent the past week skimming all three years of the Collective Self blog posts. Good God I’m long winded. Still, among the posts, I found old friends: a few so dear that I gave them a proper read from beginning to end. And as I did so, to my surprise, a story emerged from the fog…
Bloom: The Search for Those Living the Larger Story
There is a story in which humans are scurrying, self-centered villains, some arrogant and unconquerable, others passive and helpless, and all on an inevitable slide down toward societal and planetary destruction. The Doom story. You’ve heard it. It lives inside us in our own fear. And for good measure, it’s also on most TV channels, and broadcasted 24×7 from most major news outlets, and preached by “leaders” selling doomsday insurance and cheap plastic personal flotation devices and umbrellas for when the real $#&! hits the fan. It is a story of scarcity, experienced and told from a distance.
Then there’s the story I personally experience walking around my own neighborhood most days: one of community, playfulness, helpfulness, reimagining our lives together, growing food, hugging a friend, painting walls and sidewalks and rocks and faces for the sheer magic of it, making do with what we have, sleeping on trampolines to watch shooting stars, creating our own personal Sabbath days, sharing meals, working together with friends around the kitchen table and across oceans. The Bloom story. It is a story of abundance, shared by friends. It doesn’t get as much TV air play, but it’s transmitted through smiles and belly laughs and hugs and goose bumps and tears of wonder and empathy.
The question many ask these days is which of these stories is the larger story? Which the larger truth and which the smaller one? Which story is more long-lasting and which will come and go, or eventually pass, a chapter in a larger tale?
These aren’t my questions.
I am a story wrangler. I find and gather community stories that will last.
And because I happen to do so with dear friends on the other side of the world, I also happen to be gathering cross-community/culture/planetary stories that will last.
Here’s a secret that I hold. If The Doom Story was truly the larger story, I wouldn’t exist at all. I wouldn’t be needed. Yet here I am, living proof that Bloom is the larger story. I don’t need to find proof of this. I AM proof of this. This is why politicians and pundits doling out candy fear-sicles don’t faze me. They aren’t the big story. We are. And I know it.
So my questions are “Where are those living the Bloom story?” and “Who are they?” and “What are they doing?” and “What are they like?” and “What stories are they telling?”
My quest: find them.
My task: ask the questions, document the stories, be inspired, live, play, and share the stories with people who need them most, which includes the people who tell them themselves. And always—always—includes me. In case you hadn’t heard, we do this here now: www.differentoffice.com and www.differentworkbook.com.
To find Bloom stories, I follow my own energy, pay attention to what I myself most love to be and do, live my own story, and then I listen closely and watch carefully for that same energy and love elsewhere. By doing so, I become my own divining rod. Which is good, because the last thing I want to do is to try explaining to some IRS agent why a Bloom Story Divining Rod is a legitimate business expense.
Different Office, Different Work, and other sites and books and things we come up with are my task.
Collective Self, however, is about my quest itself. It is my own story.
And so far, in all its long-winded, geeky glory, it goes like this…
Chapter 1 – What is our nature as self-organizing work groups?
Our hero visits happy, successful work groups to learn how to work well with others. All blog posts July 2009 – November 2010, and periodically thereafter. Lighthouse post: July 29, 2009: Definition of self-organizing work group
Chapter 2 – What is our nature as self-organizing groups?
On her journey, our hero is surprised to learn that some amazing groups never end—those centered on love, friendship, fellowship, humor, passion, and/or joy. From them, she learns how to become part of and help sustain amazing groups that don’t end. All blog posts November 2010 – July 2011, and periodically thereafter. Lighthouse post: January 7, 2011: What is a self-organizing group?
Chapter 3: What is our nature as community?
A rag-tag collection of free-range chickens shows up and helps our hero begin to figure out what community is, how community sustains people, and how to sustain herself as community. All blog posts August 2011 – May 2012, and periodically thereafter. Lighthouse posts: January 9, 2012: What is community? and May 15, 2012: What is community?
Chapter 4: What is our nature as collaborative space?
New community members show up and ponder the nature of space, collaborative space, and our own nature as space and space holders. Our hero becomes collaborative space by unlocking her front door. Periodic blog posts since February 2012 through today. Lighthouse posts: February 24, 2012: 10 steps to offering free coworking in your home and July 19, 2012: What is a friendship incubator?
Chapter 6: What is our nature at play and as storytellers?
New wonky, quirky, funkasillilicious characters emerge and begin to play and create together: play gurus, fun mavens, gameshifters, story gatherers, story home builders, and story tellers. Our hero begins to remember what it means to play and who she really is. Holy crap, I’m a writer. Good Lord, people, why didn’t one of you tell me?! Periodic blog posts since March 2012. Lighthouse post: March 6, 2012: The beginning of certainty: a chicken’s tale
Chapter 7: What is our nature as culture?
A rag-tag crew hops onto a little raft together and begins an adventure to find humans who deeply love their work and the space they’ve created around themselves to work in. They find themselves joyously and geekily gathering signs, flags, stories, images, and words to describe the as-of-yet unnamed culture they are finding themselves part of. “What exactly is this culture we’re part of?” we wonder. P.S. The jury is still out, but my latest thought is that it might be called Bloom culture. Periodic blog posts since September 2012. Lighthouse posts: September 15, 2012: 15+ signs that we’re part of slow web culture and September 18, 2012: Blessed are the quirky, they have already inherited the earth.
And I can see possible future chapters now too. For example, what is our nature as writers/bloggers? Story wranglers? Friends?
If you’re experiencing yourselfas a lonely individual right nowdon’t read this whole thing yet. Firstgo outside, touch a treetalk with an old person and a child and a birdeat something made for you by anothermove, rest, repeatuntil you feel community in your hands and...
D & I were walking Cora and Eva in a grassy field at the edge of the woods this morning. We like to make Cora run back and forth between us as we walk, because she is very young and we are very not, and this way she runs 10 times the distance we walk with Eva. But today as she was running Cora saw a bunny, and she chased it into the woods. Not really something to be concerned about for us, in hindsight, because she doesn’t kill bunnies, she just herds them, and she never runs far, because she also herds us. But…
As I watched her fluffy butt disappear into the dark forest, and yelled out for her to stop chasing the rabbit, at that same moment I stepped into a hole that was hidden by tall grass. My right ankle started to slip and twist, I overcompensated, and ended up somehow twisting my left foot far worse than the right one as I fell to the fortunately soft ground and landed on my fortunately well-padded butt. I had to sit there for 20 minutes to assess the damage and pain and see if I could walk back out of the woods to the car. I could. My right ankle was a little sore but ok. My left ankle was a lot sore but ok enough to get me to the car.
So, back when I was full-time writer, over the years I learned to not freak out too badly when bad things happening to me, because I came to understand that they’d be great stories later. This is how we connect–not just in our joy but in our pain. In our falling down. But I’ve got to say, today, it’s even more fun being an herbalist than a writer, because before we even made it home–as my left ankle was swelling up in the car ride home–I was thinking about all the plants at home, and which ones would help, and what form they might best help in. I was actually having fun plotting my own path to healing–while still in pain.
So one point, maybe, is that writers are weird, and herbalists are weirder. Or maybe this has nothing to do with what I do for a living and everything to do with what we all learn as we get older and become old hats at falling down. Another point, though, for me, is that I’ve learned that we give up something valuable beyond words when we put every health choice into the hands of pharmacists, prescription drug makers, and doctors. I love my doctor (nurse practitioner, actually). Will call her in a second if I can’t heal myself. Trust the scientists in my life too–good, deeply nerdy, introverts, all. And. I love trusting the plants here, and myself, and my herbalist community, too. I love how willing and able to help us the plants and trees and most humans–in all directions around us–truly are.
Eight hours have passed, and both my ankles feel so much better now. I started pampering the left one so much that it told me to switch and pamper the right one. I elevated them in turn, and iced them. Rubbed a created-in-the-moment blend of my comfrey, lavender, calendula, and rosemary infused oils into them. Drank comfrey tea with local honey. Ate vegetable soup with extra nourishing herbs. Later, I rubbed a little willow oil into them too as an experiment–I’m new to willow and just started making willow-infused oil last week when the county decided to cut our neighbor’s willow tree away from some power lines. Go willow! Then, I elevated and iced my ankles again. Wearing socks that are a bit compressiony now and that smell amazing because of the infused oils. Decided against using the cottonwood bud oil because I’m mostly better now, and I need that precious, powerful oil for my products this winter! This was all done out of intuition and instinct. Not my own. (My own instinct was to try to single-handedly save every small bakery on Whidbey during the pandemic by trying to eat all the pastries myself.) No, this is the intuition and instinct of the field, the forest, the herbs, the plants, and all the earthlings we’ve welcomed into our world here. All those who welcome us too.
I’m not 100% yet. Will keep the ankles elevated tonight and likely tomorrow too. Grateful for laptops that allow me to work on the couch with my feet up. And, wow, folks. Plants and trees, and fields and forests, are so very, very cool. Why did our ancestors ever let these powerful and healing relationships go? It occurs to me that many of them didn’t. Many held on even as they were killed and tortured and mocked and litigated for hearing tree wisdom and honoring plant friends and sharing that wisdom with others. The relationships are still there. The wisdom remains, although it can feel hidden. But I did let go at some point. And now that I’ve returned to the forests and fields, I can’t imagine ever going back.
Herbalists sing songs honoring the wisdom of grandmothers. One of my favorites has a line that says “Stand in your power, woman. Stand in your power. Listen, listen. Listen, listen.” My own power is in the fields and in the forest and in wild and untidy gardens, with honest, kind, and untidy people. And in the relationships among every being that lives and moves within the forests and fields here. These are good questions to revisit, because some answers change with time and some don’t. And it’s too easy these days to feel like we have no power. Where is my power now? And where, my friend, is yours? Great question, field and forest, bunny and fluffy dog butt. Thank you for asking.
38Cassie Firnstahl, Amy Jo McMullin Kasten and 36 others22 Comments2 Shares
This was all done out of intuition and instinct. Not my own. (My own instinct was to try to single-handedly save every small bakery on Whidbey during the pandemic by trying to eat all the pastries myself.) No, this is the intuition and instinct of the field, the forest, the herbs, the plants, and all the earthlings we’ve welcomed into our world here. All those who welcome us too.
