27 February 2010

The Hopscotch Plan

I routinely enter a title to every blog entry when I start to write. And, routinely I end up changing the title because what I start writing about inevitably changes as the sentences add up.

So, today I am starting without a title, as it should be. However, I do have a topic in mind but I can't get my head around it yet. Which to me means it's worth exploring further.

I've been reading a lot about the environment and I've learned a lot from the various perspectives of many different authors such as David Orr, Paul Hawken, Thomas Berry, Lester Brown, David Suzuki, etc. And I learn something new every time. I've also attended seminars and courses on sustainability which have been equally valuable in a different-kind-of-learning way. What I have now, so it seems to me, is a lot of paint and brushes and a blank canvas. What am I to do now?

In the past I've been pretty quick to act. I think it's a personality style/choice since I am a very impatient person who prefers trial by error than to wait for a plan. And, I have to say, it is effective as opposed to the ineffectiveness of so many talkers who do nothing; we need doers taking up the slack.

However, I just finished a course with Natural Step (Sustainability for Leaders) which presented a backcasting method to sustainability planning. Yes, it is just another word for strategic planning but that in it self is the genius of it. Let me explain.

I think that, for the most part, people who are active in sustainability initiatives are doers by nature; you know, the ones who just can't sit back and let things deteriorate any further. Doers, by nature, aren't necessarily the best planners because of the time it takes to methodically plan actions, which feels a lot like a waste of time.

I would include myself into that group and can refer to a lot if activities I am pursing at the moment without any real plan or vision. So I attended this course not really knowing what to expect from the Natural Step. If they had advertised strategic planing for sustainability I would have run for the hills, but they did not. They advertised a backcasting-ABCD model. I was intrigued and signed up. They're clever.

Now, I can appreciate the importance of strategic planning and I've seen how it works but it is so not my cup of tea. I'm not saying that the Natural Step tricked me, quite the opposite. I'm saying that Natural Step engaged me in a process that was strategic planning without making it feel like strategic planning.

All in all, the course gave me a new perspective in which I now feel inclined to sit and think about my vision, goals and plans of action. You see, what I am doing now is making change but it's not leading towards anything specific. How can I truly bring about change when I haven't identified what it is exactly that I want to change?

Sure, I have lots of ideas swimming around my head, mostly about sustainable living, reasonable needs, indigenous wisdom, biodiversity, verbal botanies, ESD, ecofeminism, global citizenship, and so on. But, what does all this mean to me? How can I make these ideas come to life? How do they all connect? What is my role?



Natural Step put together a good framework in backcasting which I think is valuable. I liken it to playing hopscotch:



Step 1: Know where you're starting from...and what tools, allies and influencers you have on your team.
Step 2: Create your vision and make sure everyone agrees and can see it.
Step 3: Together, lay out your steps that will lead to your vision, with some flexibility built in as well as opportunities to assess along the way.
Step 4: Start playing the game, one step at a time, going forward and maintaining focus on the goal; enjoying and celebrating every step along the way.

















I also really appreciated the reminder of universal basic needs and to take them into consideration when goal setting. I hadn't thought about idleness as a basic human need but I can see how it is part of the quality of life.

So, where to from here? I don't have an answer yet. "For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever." Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

21 February 2010

Statistics

The parable of the streetlight. Do you know the one about the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight? That's what I think of statistics and scorecards. Is it better to look where it's easy to see lots of information with the slight chance of discovering answers, or is it better to search in unknown areas which are more mysterious and risky and more likely to deliver answers? Just because you calculated an answer based on easily-accessed data that's been interpreted and passed through an organizational filter, doesn't mean the answer is accurate.

Not everything can be analyzed with numbers. Yes, it is true that numbers don't lie but it is also true that numbers are used to justify or produce lies. Be careful.

20 February 2010

Why Do We Need Proof?

In the Western world, where science rules, we demand proof of everything, except the Divine. Or, is that really true? I think we do seek proof in religion through rewards and punishment. Is it not true that people of faith often look upon fortune, luck, destruction, and chaos as divine intervention? Are these not the proof we need to abide by the rules of the various good books?

We've relied upon the burden of proof for many decades, centuries even. In science, law, business and education we rate, analyze, score, record and survey the heck our of everything in the never ending elusive search of progress, the ultimate proof of success.

Where has our fixation on proof led us? Down a rabbit hole. Our mathematical, scientific thinking capacity is relatively immature in the long history of humankind, a mere infant to the evolution of our unconscious reasoning; yet we interpret our world through facts and figures. We manufacture our world.

Let's look at this through the analogy of math. As we developed into a 'modern' society (the industrial world) we learned how to add and subtract. We added (created, populated, grew, nurtured, developed, invented, produced) and subtracted (destroyed, warred, enslaved, imprisoned). Then, as we continued to develop, we learned how to multiply and divide. We multiplied (mono crop culture, assembly lines, economies of scale, mega-cities, nuclear proliferation) and divided (nuclear fission, quantum chemistry, astrophysics, cosmology). We've divided, sub-divided, categorized, classified, organized, drawn arbitrary boundaries, built walls and dividers and compartmentalized our world.

So, now that we've added, subtracted, multiplied and divided our world, what next? How long will we continue to endeavor to formulate and equate a world that is not designed to be equated?

We need to get out of this rabbit hole. We don't understand our world. Science and metrics can't explain everything. I don't know if we understand even 1/4 of our world. On the upside, we should be smart enough now to know what we ought not to do. (sigh, we don't have a good track record of learning from our mistakes).

Think about this for a moment. A Historian Lewis Mumford once wrote about the industrializing society, "In such grim conditions, the meaning of life becomes less important that the means of life." I think relying too heavily on science and metrics has led us to where we are now because we're blinded, we can't see our world any other way. When we think about who we are, we define ourselves by nationalities, cultures, religions, territories, clans, families, loyalties, languages, professions, classifications, job descriptions, salaries, property, schedules, etc. Given the demands we've placed on ourselves to multiply and divide at an ever increasing rate, how can we get off this course of self-destruction?

Try to imagine writing an accounting exam and an art history exam at the same time. It won't be easy. It will take conscious effort to shift back and forth from linear thinking to risky creative interpretation, but we have to make this change and we have the ability to do it. We just lack awareness and will. I think the first step is to recognize our compulsion to organize our world. The next step is to start to look at our environment and each other through a different lens; as a collective, interconnected web of life in which we are reliant on the success of all parts of nature, including those which can be proven and those which cannot.

05 February 2010

Harness the Power

From time to time this world provides us with some powerful experiences that make us feel good. These special experiences are the ones that make us feel relieved and at home with ourselves! Why is this? Well, we tend to withhold our ideas and thoughts in our heads if we feel uncomfortable. However, when we think we're in a safe environment and feel comfortable enough, we will express ourselves. But until we feel secure enough, it gives us great pleasure to hear the thoughts we've been protecting in the words of others; it's very comforting, liberating and empowering. For example, think about a time you may have tried speaking in a second language...in a classroom environment...what about on the street in public? Do you see the difference? What if someone was there to help you and to walk with you? Would you want to try harder or shy away? Would you learn more?

I had the pleasure of attending a learning seminar (a 300 person seminar) on Mi'kmaq Ecological Knowledge yesterday; a full day of interesting learning from Canadians: Mi'kmaq, Glooscap and Mi'kmaq Elders, Government reps, University Chairs and Industry. I was struck by the presentations of Mi'kmaq Elder Albert Marshall, Elder Lawrence Wells and Kerry Prosper. They were so passionate, sincere and spoke with such clarity and honesty...I was riveted.

Now, why did I feel at home? I felt that I could breathe out, that someone was speaking out loud what needs to be said...and not being shy or apologetic about it. A while back I posted a blog begging for voices of clarity to make themselves heard and at last I heard you. Thank you.

About 20 years ago someone once said to me "2% of the population doesn't tell the rest of the population what to do". That has been in my head for 2 decades and I've been struggling with it, wondering why I was so bothered by it. It didn't ring true to me. Sure, I got the message, majority rules. But, it never settled well with me. I'm beginning to understand why now. There is more than one truth. In Western eyes, we see or are taught to see the world in one way, a scientific way: Black is black, white is white, what goes up must come down. Nowhere are we taught to think otherwise. But, sometimes black is not black and white is not white; and often lessons are not learned. Why can't 2% of the population warn the others of their wrong doings? Why can we accept 2% of the population, the ruling elite, controlling everything? When is it OK to be listened to...when you represent over 10% of the population...25%?

I think it's amazing that the indigenous peoples of this country were able to maintain their culture at all against such narrow-minded societal and political forces. Wow, just amazing. Marginalized, ignored, debased, divided, isolated...treated as second-class. What hardship to endure. And yet, after all this the Elders still want to teach us; still think we can learn. Can we?

Here are some profound ideas from the seminar:
  • Mi'kmaq believe that they are related to everything: animals, plants, earth, rocks, etc... If you live on a piece of land long enough and you live and die on that land, you become a part of that environment. A part of your ancestors are caught up in the life cycles on earth, in rocks, water, trees, animals, etc. - a spiritual connection. We are a living part of creation because life in creation is a circle. (Kerry Prosper)
  • All cultures once had the same relationship with earth but we have developed at different speeds and rates. (Kerry Prosper)
  • In the West there is a lot of knowledge written down and transferred - and there is a lot of junk and junk in ownership (Kerry Prosper)
  • Sometimes we are asked to prove certain things, even spiritual, sometimes legends can be proven and some not - if proven it is acknowledged. Sometimes you just have to believe, not seek proof; have faith in everything that's here, in people, and have faith that we will begin learning to do the right thing (Kerry Prosper)
  • Indigenous teachings cannot always be explained in words - you have to experience it first-hand. (Kerry Prosper)
  • Without routine acts of respect for our resources we lose respect for them. By having ceremonies and showing respect for nature we never lose the respect, it is important to always reconnect. (Kerry Prosper)
  • We are all indigenous to a land somewhere and we all have a responsibility to our relations, the life forces. (Kerry Prosper)
  • How are science and traditional knowledge similar: both are based on observation of the natural world, both are pattern-based knowledge, both are an exchange of stories as the foundation of any kind of relationship; both acknowledge that science is dynamic - it changes and is not carved in stone (Dr. Cheryl Bartlett)
  • Etuaptmumk: two-eyed seeing. The first explorers relied heavily on the indigenous and today there is still a great need for spirituality to be nursed. There is a heavy onus on the Indigenous to make sure the language survives (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • Two-eyed seeing concept: I only have a small part of the knowledge and to survive in the environment I need other people to help remind me how I am interconnected and interdependent. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • It is not enough to go through life with one perspective - how can one learn, how can one be cognitive of a changing world? We must embrace all the tools we have. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • I am not only physical, I am spiritual and prepared to extend that feeling to all living things both physical and spiritual. Everything alive is both physical and spiritual. Modern science sees objects but our language teaches us to see subjects. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • Take the accomplishments of the white man's way further by blending it with the wisdom from ancestors. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • Netukulimk: sustaining ourselves. A rich concept - a reminder of where our responsibilities are; an understanding that needs to be integrated to speak for the species who cannot speak because they are not in human form. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • Two-eyed seeing does not belong in any particular discipline, it is about life... (Dr. Cheryl Bartlett)
  • Benefits of two-eyed seeing; community capacity, knowledge inclusivity (capacity growing not capacity building), empowerment. (Dr. Cheryl Bartlett)
  • Education systems are not well equipped to take the time to learn. (I love this one) (Dr. Cheryl Bartlett)
  • Once separated from the natural world, there is profound risk. (Dr. Cheryl Bartlett)
  • Indigenous validation is through the elders - the knowledge of elders must always be used. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • Western science wants to figure out nature to be more expedient in the manipulation of it. (Love this one too!) (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • Indigenous people abide by earths laws- if she is healthy than I and my family will always be healthy. See nature for what it is. (Elder Albert Marshall)
  • There is need to reverse the pattern of universities who produce students who are experts in exploitation. (Elder Albert Marshall)

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