Technology and Transformation

Robb Smith, in a TEDx video entitled “The Transformational Life”, explains how throughout the ages the tools of the time have gone hand in the hand with the size of communities.

In the hunting and gathering era, the average size of a community was 40 people. When the digging stick was invented, plants could be cultivated and they provided food for a community of about 1500. The invention of the plow in the agrarian age supported a larger population of about 100 thousand people and the invention of machines such as the printing press and the steam engine in the industrial era of the 17th to 19th centuries, allowed societies to grow to about 10 million people.

This exponential growth continued with the invention of the transistor in 1947 and the computer revolution of the next decades. The early 1990s saw the coming into being of a world wide web of 100 million people. High speed data networks and the spread of smartphones mean that today almost 7 billion people have the possibility of becoming a single society.

We say the world has become smaller, but in actual fact communities have become larger.

As I walked from the metro one evening recently, white cords dangled from my ears and connected to my iphone which I carried in my right hand. The music which accompanied me paused briefly as I took an incoming call. A little while later I stopped to capture an image on my camera roll, and as I did so, I suddenly saw myself as if from afar. This was accompanied by an overwhelming thought - “I’m a cyborg now!”

The separation between being online and offline had suddenly disappeared. The boundary between these two worlds blurred and they suddenly collapsed into one.

No doubt the experience was greatly influenced by a fascinating TED talk, “We are all cyborgs now” by Amber Case, which I had recently watched, but nevertheless, I was filled with excitement and gratitude for the fact that I was living in an age where people can interconnect in real time by means of a little handheld device.

A 1960 paper on space travel defined a cyborg as an organism “to which exogenous components have been added for the purpose of adapting to new environments”.

It is interesting to note that whereas the invention of previous tools had enabled humans to extend their physical selves, current technology allows for the extension of the mental self.

“here2here” took on an added meaning as I realized that the “virtual” and the “real” world were no longer separate for me. They formed a wholeness which brought with it new dimensions I could not have imagined even five years ago.

"Avatars"

My iphoneography art is an attempt to express these dimensions. Created with apps, the outcome is not fixed at the start of the process. Patient flicking through numerous adaptations of an image I am working on allows me to intuitively choose the one I feel most appropriate. The end image is an expression of the experience of being in cyberspace, as well as an example of being a co-creator with the apps and technology at my disposal.

I look at this world as it looks back at me, and suddenly I am looking as the world.

This looking is accompanied by a deepening sense of responsibility and I am reminded of the question asked by Wisdom 2.0:

“How can we live with greater presence, meaning and mindfulness in the technology age?”

The objective of the conference, @Wisdom2conf, this year, was to address the challenge of our generation: “to not only live connected to one another through technology, but to do so in ways that are beneficial to our own well-being, effective in our work and useful to the world.” I can highly recommend the 2013 videos. (One of my favorites is Jon Kabat-Zinn being interviewed by Melissa Daimler of Twitter).

The technology of this age brings with it the temptation of distraction and addiction when we do not realize the need to be grounded. Checking in with our inner and outward experience regularly and mindfully helps us to maintain this groundedness.

“Without a connection to the earth and to the physical body, all signals become static”. Steven Vedro in “Twitter, Ambient Awareness and Spiritual Practice”.

I share Robb Smith’s opinion. We are no longer in the Information age. We have entered the Transformation age with all the opportunities it offers us to look not at the other through all the perspectives being offered us, but as the other.

Related blog posts:

Digital Archways

Corridorsofcyberspace

Cyberflanerie: Deep Listening in Cyberspace

Fog, Mindfulness and Unknowing

January has seen the UAE and many other parts of the world covered in blankets of fog at various intervals. It has affected travel, has had much written about it in the news and has been photographed by many from ground level and up high; all as if it has wanted to gain our attention.

As I was travelling on the metro and looking out at the fog, I recalled a work written by an anonymous mystic in the 14th century, entitled “The Cloud of Unknowing”. The fog certainly depicted an unknowingness and got me thinking about “unknowing”.

When moving within the confines of the fog, the knowledge of where something is has to be suspended for the experience of being acutely conscious of the surroundings one finds oneself in. What is behind one and in front of one is hardly visible. Experiencing the immediate is of paramount importance before one can move forward.

The mind too is so often filled with thoughts of the past and concerns for the future, that the present moment is missed. The fog is a reminder that the present moment is all there is, and as such should be welcomed with non-judgmental awareness. The fog is a reminder to be mindful.

The awareness of the present moment as experienced when being mindful I see as “unknowing”. Becoming aware of that which is incoming through all the senses, experiencing bodily sensations, noticing what one is feeling and thinking, is not a knowing with the mind but an experience of the heart.

In a blog post entitled “In the Fog, Mindfully”, Marguerite Manteau-Rao, @MindDeep, reports on the use of mindfulness meditation, as developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, with people suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. One gentleman reports on how it has helped him by saying that,

“Within the daily fog, I can once again find my way, comfortably myself...”

It is easy to confuse objects for something else when moving around in the fog. So too in life, we often mistake our thoughts and opinions for reality. Not taking the time to pause and notice what is actually happening leads to the repeating of old patterns of behaviour. Reacting becomes the order of the day instead of responding to the current situation at hand.

Mindfulness as an “unknowing” is not an attempt to get rid of thoughts. Instead it is a stepping back from them to watch them from an inward spaciousness. At times, with practice, the mind quiets down.

Adjusting one’s way of looking in the fog enable us to see exactly what we need to see at the right moment. Mindfulness or “unknowing” allows us to discover countless opportunities for compassion and kindness not visible to us before.

The fog has something more to share with us. Moving within the fog, (see more pics), it often suddenly parts and we are given glimpses of what is beyond it.

There is also something beyond the fog of the chattering mind.

Jan Birchfield in a recent excellent article in the Huffington post called “Innovation and the Quiet Mind” writes that

“when we quiet the mind through contemplative practices such as meditation, we eventually discover that awareness or consciousness exists beyond it.”

Mindfulness is gaining in popularity as more and more people are realizing that experiencing something fully is far more valuable than mere knowledge about it. We need more and more to “unknow” what before we were convinced was exactly so.

In a world filled with unique problems of the times, knowledge alone will be insufficient when attempting to solve these problems. Innovative ways of being are called for. Where will they be found?

“True innovation, along with any act of creativity, draws from this infinite field of intelligent awareness that exists beyond the mind. This is sometimes called pure awareness.” Jan Birchfield.

In this field of pure awarenes lies realization, innovation and creativity.

The fog is lifting.

Cyberflanerie: Deep Listening in Cyberspace.

This blog post has not been an easy one to write. For weeks now I have been thinking about and researching the concept of the cyberflaneur, a term which has been around since at least 1994. With logic and reasoning I have approached the topic, searching for a common thread or one particular aspect that could form the core of this post.

On Monday evening I awoke in the middle of the night, an unusual occurence for me. After lying awake for more than an hour with thoughts whizzing through my mind, I decided that if I was awake I should perhaps use the time well. As my blog was still uppermost in my mind, I made the decision to simply lie there and listen to all the information I had gathered. Instead of trying to manipulate it, I would listen to it instead. Perhaps it would offer me the clue I was looking for.

The second I made that decision, the title of this post was clear to me and all the pieces I had gathered began to fall into place. I listened and then after a while picked up my ipad to note what I had heard in case I forgot some of it by the morning.

Although the flaneur made his appearance in the 19th century, and was a term used to refer to the people who strolled through the city in order to fully observe and experience it, the flaneur truly thrived as a literary device.

Just as the artists of the time captured the essence of city life in sketches, the writers of the day began to use the flaneur to comment on the changes in modern day living which evoked both fear and curiosity. The flaneur was the narrator in literature, standing outside of and commenting upon, the events being described to the reader.

The life of those times was speeding up and the flaneur took the step back to observe and find meaning in what was being experienced. In current times, the speed of technological innovation is exponential, and there exists a deep need to make sense of it all.

Today as we move through the speedy spheres of cyberspace - the limitless mindspace we find ourselves in when using technology to communicate - I believe it is the perceptive attitude of the flaneur that we should seek to cultivate. Therefore I have chosen to focus on the practice of cyberflanerie rather than on the figure of the cyberflaneur, real or imaginary.

"Networked Awareness" from the gallery "Corridors of Cyberspace"

This practice will require a deep listening, whether it be to visual, aural or textual images.

Last week I tweeted a link to a group of monks singing Gregorian chant on national television. I copied George Davis, @virtualdavis, who incidentally is a fellow flaneur. Unbeknown to me George was in the process of preparing for a workshop on digital storytelling.

In our follow up twitter conversation I received the following:

@lindahollier True. A blog post is coming plus inclusion in a digital storytelling presentation on Friday. Your ears will be burning! :-)
— virtualDavis (@virtualDavis) October 24, 2012

The phrase “your ears will be burning” obviously made me realize that he was going to refer to my tweet in his blog post or workshops, but I have since realized that the expression takes on a new meaning when we apply it to cyberspace! In this sphere there is a great possibility that even when you are asleep someone else in some part of the world is looking at one of your posts, one of your pics, one of your tweets, one of your facebook updates, etc. These are often passed on as links to others - you are being mentioned and tracked in cyberspace probably more times than you can imagine!

If I was a cartoonist I would depict a cyberflaneur with huge burning ears, not only because s/he was being mentioned, but because s/he had developed the ability to listen intently from a place of silence!

This was the theme of George’s post: Storytelling: From Ira Glass to Gregorian Monks, but by writing it George had also demonstrated that he too had listened with the same quality he was promoting.

There is so much information coming at us in cyberspace that unless we nurture the intention of listening with “moment by moment, non-judgmental awareness” - the definition of mindfulness given by Jon Kabat-Zinn - we stand the risk of being overwhelmed and suffering from information overload. We will fail to capture the fleeting moment. It is only with an attitude of deep listening that we will be able to filter what really needs our attention.

"Ever-changing" from the gallery "Corridors of Cyberspace"

As we move through the fluidity of cyberspace, the moments of stopping and listening are maybe only a millisecond long, but they are the gaps in which we can mindfully step back and observe. I have written more about this in a previous post entitled “Mindfulness and the Flaneur”.

Practicing being in the here and the now also prevents a total immersion in the dreamscape which is wide open in the "corridors of cyberspace". What I mean by this terminology can be found here.

"The Meeting" from the gallery "Corridors of Cyberspace"

The crowd we encounter in cyberspace contains people from all over the world and with deep listening we will be better able to empathise with the other we encounter. The individual and the collective will benefit from these encounters.

"Deep Listening" from the gallery "Corridors of Cyberspace"

The above is my art piece which has come out of writing this post. Yellow is associated with clarity and awareness and also symbolizes wisdom.

I end with the following story. The morning after my sleepless night, I checked my twitter stream, only to find this tweet from another dear twitter friend, Terri Taylor, @t2van:

Develop a passion for listening....imagine what might happen.
— Terri Taylor (@t2van) October 30, 2012

3-2-1 HOMEwork

A discussion this week with a dear friend, reminded me of an article I once posted on my blog at Integral Life. It was about how our homes reflect and influence our inner lives.

I have made a few adjustments to the original article and am reposting it here on my website: 

Homes reflect and influence our inner lives.  Taken further, our homes also reflect and influence our behavior, our culture and the society we live in. 

Becoming mindful of the fact that one’s choice of home – its location, architecture and decor, is a reflection of one’s inner landscape, can be most useful when doing shadow work.

Clare Cooper Marcus points out that many of the preferences and dislikes in our homes are projections from the unconscious.  “As with dreams, we can live our lives ignoring them”, Cooper Marcus reflects. “But if we care about personal and spiritual growth, becoming who we truly are, the messages implicit in the dwelling – its form, location, decoration and state of order – and our feelings about those messages can be rich sources of insight.”

Cooper Marcus suggests jotting down images, words and feelings about your home (home in the 3rd person) and then speaking to your home and letting it speak back to you (home in the 2nd person). Ask it questions and listen to its answers. Tell it things and listen for its response. 

I would propose taking this one step further by lastly speaking as the home (home in the 1st person). Take what you heard the home saying and say it as if you are the home.  This way you will hear yourself saying things about yourself and this will complete the process I have called 3-2-1 HOMEwork. 

Doing this HOMEwork provides useful insight not only into one’s current state of being but also into those aspects of the shadow that need to be embraced. 

It is not uncommon for people doing this exercise to only focus on the aspects of their home they find bothersome. Remember too, to look for those things that you like about your home.  We often need to remind ourselves that the shadow is made up not only of those things about ourselves that we don’t necessarily like and haven’t accepted yet, but also many wonderful aspects of ourselves that we have yet to acknowledge.

3-2-1 HOMEwork  also makes us aware of how a change in surroundings can help us bring about the changes necessary for growth.

Architects over the centuries have been aware of the fact that our spiritual paths can be encouraged by the surroundings we find ourselves in.  The need to reconcile humans with nature, reflected in the architecture of Hundertwasser (who incidentally was fascinated by spirals) is but one example of this.

The home and its location can and does help to foster growth and change.  One need only think of those inner city areas where a general cleaning up, the planting of trees and the creating of gardens has taken place.  Statistics have shown that such areas have a significant drop in crime rate over a period of time.

The magnificent steel and glass construction of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof train station is an examplar of the need for transparency.  And yet even in such a mammoth construction, the fact that the glass roofs had to be shortened by approximately 100 metres because the construction process was taking too long, shows how time constraints can detract from the original plan.  How often is this not an excuse, and maybe a valid one, in our own homes and lives? But more than that, how often are we mindful of this fact?

Doing 3-2-1 HOMEwork has many benefits.  I believe that this process can also prove to be a useful tool for businesses wanting to redesign the working environment of their employees. 

So are you ready to move around your furniture? Or maybe its time for new furniture or even a new location!

Bibliography

Cooper Marcus, Clare. (1995). House as a Mirror of Self. Conari Press.

Fairall Morrell, Monica. “Home: A Mirror of Inner Being”. Natural Medicine Issue 44, December 2008/January 2009.   www.naturalmedicine.co.za 

Gympel, Jan. (1996). The Story of Architecture. From Antiquity to the Present. KönemannVerlagsgesellschaft mbH. 

The Question of Balance

The month of July was filled with traveling but empty of blog posts on my website. This perturbed me at first, but I have had to remind myself that as in all areas of life, even in the world of blogging, balance is important.

Too many posts can overwhelm the reader and too few can make them lose interest. The blogger has to find the right balance, and even then there are times when circumstances are such that no posts are in order too.

Two weeks of July were spent in South Africa and two in Canada. It was during my last weekend in Canada and whilst visiting Vancouver that the message of balance was clearly delivered to me yet again.

Walking through Stanley Park along the sea wall, we were suddenly confronted by a wonderful scene as we turned a corner. Stone sculptures set against a backdrop of water, formed a magnificent picture of beauty, stillness and balance.

The balanced stones appeared to defy gravity and filled me with awe. They seemed to whisper a tale of centredness and groundedness in the present moment, but at the same time the aura of stillness around them seemed to connect to other times and other places.

They were set in the nunc fluens, the Latin for “the flowing now”, the ongoing moments of time, but spoke of the nunc stans, the abiding now, a dimension beyond linear time where distinctions between past, present and future fall away.

Nearby a man was moving stones around and on the seawall was a guest book and prints of photos of the sculptures. Fascinated by the scene, that evening I googled “temporary balanced stones”, words I had seen written on something as we passed by.

The man is Kent Avery and he has been coming to this spot for 12 years to practice the art of stone balancing. Particulary amazing is that he comes back every week, as tides and wind ensure that the sculptures are not permanent. Kent Avery says of his art that it “really seems to bring something out in people. Many echo the yearning to be more balanced in their own lives.”

The sculptures take anything from five minutes to half an hour to complete and the whole process is done by feel.

Many of us are caught up in habits and rigid ways of doing things. The sculptures are a reminder that balance is found by being in tune with each moment as it arises. Balance requires openness to what is before us. What worked yesterday will not necessarily work today or in the future. What works for one child will not necessarily work for another. The way a task is completed at work is not a guarantee that the same principles can be applied to the next project at hand.

Balance holds the hand of mindfulness.

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Balance helps to establish a path of moderation, and therefore a path of wisdom.

Please take the time to watch this video of Kent Avery’s art:

Balance is not only a personal but also a collective struggle in a world crying out for love and compassion. If you wish you can also listen to “Balance” by The Moody Blues. The track is from their album “A Question of Balance”.

Related posts:

Mindfulness and Balance, posted exactly a year ago today. (Interesting!)

The Gathering.