The Group Organism -journal:ben-+entry

Here's my visual notepad from a couple of recent discussions and subsequent digestion around the idea of our underlying shared story as an emerging cooperative entity here at the Lab.

 

This is an interesting and ongoing (on-living!) discussion:  Is there a useful "map" of the territory at the center of what we're trying to do here together? Can you really hope to offer a kind of generic "how-to" manual for a group seeking coherence and clarity in its work for the greater transformative good? Are we, at our early stages of exploration and learning, in any kind of position to assess and speak out about what that map might look like?

 

I'm enthusiastic, ready for exercise and accomplishment. My mind has an architectural bias--Form enhances function?--and wants something solid to hang these new ideas and experiences on, for easier modeling and application.

 

Members of the team have expressed reluctance to accepting a broad semantic structure which has not yet been well and truly explored within our own "sproutling" group space. A fair caution. Let's throw up some sketches anyhow, and see how they feel? I'm going to offer this as a temporary reference point, a concept map for the stages and craft of an uncertain yet universal journey.

 

To me, this is about a structure for articulating experiential knowledge: the story content gleaned from our time together on the ground, in the Lab, making, doing, flailing, and reviewing. I see patterns here that are common to much prior experience, and give participants, especially newcomers, a starting point for the dance-movement towards communion and co-creation.

 

We're soaking up know-how as we learn to gel and jam as one unit. That kind of character-shaping direct experiences will live on in unique forms within our own personal DNA. Simultaneously, through various intermediary forms, there's going to be a lot to share. Let's make it available, intuitive, and inviting. A map to access the territory.