Lighting the fire

Lately I have been wintering. I was wrung out by the time June rolled around. Perhaps before that if I'm honest. This winter I have needed - perhaps even more than other recent years - time to pause, to think, and sit in the fire a little with my reflections.

Warin season on Wurundjeri Country has been wet and misty and cold, and whilst the wombats have wandered, I have tried to slow my impulse to deliver (not sure I've been all that successful).

The undercurrents of change and world-tilting events are strong at the moment, and I'm reflecting on what the world needs of me now. Of what I can create and give in my work at Monash. Of the ways we spend our days now, preparing for the futures ahead.

Slowly, across conversations with colleagues, collaborators, friends and loved ones, I've noticed a pattern forming. The pattern seems to be speaking to what I am seeing is missing, what we need more of - a different story about the qualities I need to embody, but also those I seek to awaken in others. Qualities to address the times we face, but also to adapt and seek the opportunities to bring about the kinds of futures we whisper to one another when we feel brave.

The pattern is just a simple triangle.

Once it had formed, the pattern has become a kind of compass for me - helping to guide me and make sense of how I want to spend my time and energy.

Really it's simple, and probably not ground breaking for many of you. Maybe I'm remembering an old pattern from days gone by, but I've found it helpful lately and I wanted to write it down so I could come back to it if I forget it again.

What we need more of...

Simply put this pattern is a set of qualities that I want to design experiences to enable, in the near future. I want people to walk away from research projects, education units, collaborative sessions, events or whatever else I touch over the coming months, and to feel these things.

Purpose & Intent

My colleague Caro recently opened a session of our Climate Careers Bootcamp unit with an invitation for our students to pause, and consider their intent for being there. It was in reference to the Wurundjeri greeting 'Wominjeka' which invites people to share their intent - what purpose they come with.

Without clarity about this, it is hard to orient and to participate. Helping people find their direction or intention - for however long it lasts - feels like a critical piece of this triad. Sometimes this might be about prompting well, supporting people to think and sensemake, but it's not always a head-activity - it can also be a heart-activity - quietening our clever minds and questioning the stories we tell ourselves or take on from others.

Grounded Hope

In conversation with Yasmina & Charity, the question of Hope (and comparison with Optimism) and its role in our work, identity, and personal lives came up and was hotly debated around the fire. It also came up with Lisa as she delivered a wonderful session on imaginative agency. My understanding of 'grounded hope' actually goes back to discussions with Lucy and Lauren at CVA several years back, and probably was influenced by the likes of Rebecca Solnit's 'active hope' when I come to think of it.

Everyone will have their own take on this, but for me - grounded hope is not the belief that things will get better (optimism) but the ability and choice to look at the world without rose tinted glasses, and still choose to believe that things can get better. For me, with my work in understanding complexity and complex challenges, I have long ago given up any sense of control. But I do have a sense that I still have influence - at a range of direct and indirect scales.

So working with people to find their own sense of Grounded Hope feels like the next important element in this puzzle.

Agency

Stemming from and deeply coupled with the others, is the vital sense of Agency - that sense that something is within your influence, directly or indirectly.

This has come up a lot in relation to Futures work for me over the last 4 years or so since I've been at Monash, but also for 15+ years working with people and groups through social innovation labs and the likes. Pivoting people from apathy to agency feels like one of the most important aspects - breaking down the enormity of the challenges, and having a bias to action, experimentation, and reflection - which helps people get unstuck.

I find people often have to do something to feel this one deeply - so looking for the smallest action people can take, whether it's telling a different story, building a prototype, or getting out on the streets to talk to people or run an experiment.

Connection and Belonging

I've talked all along about the triad, but hiding in the middle of the triangle is a fourth quality - Connection and Belonging. Perhaps this is the relational foundations on which all of the others are more able to effectively function. For me, in a time of fragmentation, polarisation and people living in individualised information bubbles, we're seeing a hunger for reconnection. Reconnection with self, with others, and with Country.

This deep seated need for belonging is at the root of this work, and bringing people back into connection - rebuilding the muscles of human-ing together, or coming back into relationship with the six layers of country - this is the work.

Together, these four areas help to light a fire - to prepare and activate people for the futures they want to bring about 🔥

How will this show up?

I'm resisting turning this into a five steps to productivity type post, with clear outcomes and next steps. The truth is, I don't fully know yet. I'm writing this so I can let go of the triangle long enough to then pick it up and turn it around and look at it in a more 3D form, to see if it's useful.

Realistically, the rest of this year has various opportunities to experiment with seeing how it shows up. From teaching at Monash to supporting a gathering around infrastructure for a Melbourne-based network of change. From asking what is Possible Now in Australia, UK and Nepal, to working with Campus Electrification interns. From building the foundations of a transitions centre in the Upper Yarra, to seeking fellow living lab travellers in Antwerp.

Opportunities are not few and far between, but locating and acting from my own sense of intention, grounded hope and agency in the day-to-day - that's the challenge and opportunity to further explore my own sense of resonance with this triangle and with others.