2023-02-01

OK, so I'm at Liminal Village just now, for “Lunation 38”.

I arrived here a week ago, which was a little late for the New Moon, having been delayed by participating in the gathering of Enspiral Europe, which I found highly worthwhile and valuable.

Today was a good day. We had a very heartwarming check-in, including naming some personal topics with strong emotional links, and also naming what we wanted to be working on today – or maybe, what we sensed was calling for us to do today. I do feel this goes better after a check-in where people have shared what is in their hearts and minds.

Then we had a tour of the grounds led by Roberto. They have done some pretty amazing things, with my interest particularly in the groundworks and water management — this latter being prompted by the fact that the property sits on a large bank of clay, which will continue to drift down into the valley unless prevented somehow, whether by concrete, roots, or diversion of water.

Then I carried on with a mini-project to put up shelves in a little wooden toolshed. One of the things that struck me a few days ago when I took on this was how it echoed my IFS interest. The idea of the shelves is to enable tools and equipment to be found more easily, and what is missing seen more quickly. I see that as similar to the process in IFS. IFS gives us a structure – the concepts and language around parts – by means of which we can think and talk about our parts (initially, maybe just to ourselves) so we can work with them, communicate with them, allow them to interact. And this pattern is common to what I am drawn to most often: to create a structure that allows things to be seen and communicated more easily between us; that allows us to be more aware of what is happening, whether inside ourselves, between us, or in the wider world; that allows us to express our wants, needs, offers, and all the things that are so vital to our participating fully in life, and joining with others in ways that benefit all.

The weather here at present is clear an sunny during the day, only warm actually in the sun, and cold at night. This evening, as last evening, there was the glorious sight just after sunset of Venus, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon arrayed across the evening sky. I tried looking for the comet in the early hours of this morning, but all I could see through binoculars was a faint fuzzy patch. Not sure if I was looking in the right direction. Underwhelming!

What do I want to do during the rest of the “Lunation” ? I want to continue reading “Self-Therapy”, about IFS, and bring the IFS model into the space with others to help us all see our internal systems more clearly, and how the internal and external mesh together. I want to do some little things (like that shelf-building) to contribute to the place. In the bigger picture, I want to participate in and contribute, maybe to some of what Roberto is doing, that have a wider significance. And I want to get some serious way into what came up in the Enspiral Europe gathering (thanks Dan Lewis!) around writing out the user requirements for my RegenCHOICE concept.

Naturally I am interested in ontology development done in a way that really enables communication and coordination between the large number of great groups, teams and networks, that are doing good work nowadays; and that enables interoperability and specialisation of the development of tools, techniques, practices, and systems. But still, the overall need that no one else seems to be addressing is around the RegenCHOICE concept — to enable, allow, facilitate, support people to find just those others who are looking for them and who can join up for whatever good purpose they may have in their hearts — maybe just living together more sustainably and regeneratively; or collaborating in building their part of the future ecosystem: hardware, software, community structure, regenerative practice, education, consultancy, or whatever it takes.

I am taking care not to mention other people here without their consent and participation, and this means that here I am leaving out some of the more emotion-related issues for myself. I would like to write something with several of them. But in what language? Though Liminal operates normally in English, this time actually Italian is sometimes the better choice, given that I can understand most of it if spoken slowly. And this is for me also a useful metaphor. There is often a challenge to find an effective common language. It's best when some people do not impose a language on others, but listen, see what they do understand, and try reflecting back in their own language what they heard. Each language has its own vocabulary and ontology, with some things evading simple direct translation.

I'd like to write more for many of the remaining days here.