The new Natural Change Project report is due for publication 29/9/10 and will be available to download from this website.

The report The Natural Change Project: Catalysing Leadership for Sustainability prepared by David Key and Margaret Kerr for WWF Scotland, offers fresh insights into leadership, education, communications and policy for sustainability from the unique Natural Change perspective.

I take time out of my holiday to walk alone by the river in the woods.  I listen to the sound of running water and smell the damp peaty moss and I am reminded of our time in GlenProsen.  I think about the intensity of the NC experience throughout the past year: our meetings, the residentials, the tipi, wood smoke, the solos, my readings, the writing and the people I met.

I remember the ‘network’ I wove from reeds knotted with grasses during one of our creative activities in an attempt to capture some of the complexity of the pathways of the participants in and out of the NC2 project throughout the year.  I held it together with knotted grasses to indicate the interactions between the group, the to-ing and fro-ing of people and their thoughts and experiences.  I photographed it on the river to portray the flow of ideas.   I realise now that structure was too simplistic…

So I decide to start again.  I select a diverse range of vegetation to represent the participants still actively involved in NC2: I collect twigs, some fresh and flexible, some more brittle, some encrusted with lichen; a selection of plants – some more woody, some in flower.  These items seem to exemplify the diversity of the participants and their experiences …

I create a new network, but the dearth of dried grasses as this time of year means that tying knots is more difficult as the fresh grass is much springier, consequently the knots are looser.  I attempt to lift the ‘network’ to the river to take some photographs and lose some of the pieces… The network is smaller now; people withdraw from groups for many different reasons…

I place the network on the plank which serves as a bridge over the stream.  It is only on viewing the photograph later that I am acutely aware of an overlay grid of wire fencing on the wooden bridge –it seems to represent the rigidity of some of the background structures we work within…

I attempt to photograph the structure on the water as before but the water is fast flowing – an indication of the temporal quality of our busy personal and professional lives…  The network is more fragile now and the knots begin to unravel – some of the pieces are carried off quickly, some stay loosely linked together and travel more slowly along the side of the river bank…  just as participants will take different routes and move at different speeds as they move on from NC2…

I watch the structure disappear from view.  I think about some of the changes which have crept into my life, personal and professional, as a result of my participation in Natural Change 2.  I believe that each of us has moved on with different but more dynamic understanding.  I wonder how this will impact on our wider personal and professional networks…

On the 25 May we had our last Natural Change day at the Scottish Book Trust.  So, I have been thinking about orientation and endings.

A definition: orientation

Pronunciation:/ˌɔːrɪənˈteɪʃ(ə)n, ˌɒr-/

Noun [mass noun]

• 1 the action of orienting someone or something relative to the points of a compass or other specified positions
• [count noun] the relative position or direction of something
• Zoology the faculty by which birds and other animals find their way back to a place after going or being taken to a place distant from it
• 2 a person’s basic attitude, beliefs, or feelings in relation to a particular subject or issue
• 3 familiarization with something
• (also orientation course) chiefly North American a course giving information to newcomers to a university or other institution

I am struck again by this definition.  I am struck by the circularity of our journey.  What of my ‘basic attitudes, beliefs or feelings in relation to this particular subject or issue’, in relation to Natural Change?   This process has been a deep one.  It has been an affective journey for me.  Feeling my way into knowing, feeling my way into understanding is what I am doing and will continue to do over the weeks, months, years to come. I feel the effects every day in small ways and where this may lead is becoming clearer every day.  For me, the process has been akin to the idea of ‘consciousness raising’ pioneered by early feminists.  Once the scales have been removed from the eyes, it is difficult to imagine seeing the world any other way.  Ecological consciousness is no longer a lens through which to view the world, but the eyes you see with.  I feel as though I see the world with new eyes.

We do a focussing exercise in pairs.  Dave has asked us to think of our ‘big’ intention, our ‘life’ intention.  It feels an onerous task to me!  Surprisingly, my intention emerges with startling clarity and the focussing time gifts me with another powerful image to carry: “I need to keep finding holes in the ice.”

A definition: end

Noun

Pronunciation: /ɛnd/

• 1 a final part of something, especially a period of time , an activity, or a story:
• 2 the furthest or most extreme part of something
• 3 a part or person’s share of an activity
• 4 a goal or desired result

The circle is a little smaller than when we began last September. We stand shoulder to shoulder and take a moment to think of the others. We take a step back.  We take another step back.   We are separate. We smile at one another, conscious of what we have shared. We hug each other. We have found our way back after being taken to a place distant from here and on our return have found ourselves changed.

River Mandala

Sensing meanings

…An April Solo at The Lint Mill

‘…if we wish to renew our solidarity with the sensuous earth, then we shall have to learn to speak in some new ways.  We will have to learn how to speak more in accordance with our animal senses.’ David Abram

In the half-light of dawn, I watch you feed the sheep, clear the horse field of dung and fill the water trough.  Later, two cars pass, the drivers perhaps on their way to work.  Later still, the neighbouring farmer circumnavigates the next field on a quad checking his stock.  I am reminded that this is a working landscape and it feels gentle and domestic.

I think about our Moorit Shetland ewe who delivered twin lambs yesterday in the warm April evening sun.  I cannot see her from where I am sitting.  I can see the horses and the donkey.  The sheep come in and out of view.  I count them, each time adding one for the Moorit who is out of view.  I think about being a horse.  They graze, they stand, they groom each other, occasionally they drink and even more occasionally they play but mainly they graze.  I wonder what it would be like to wake up as my horse, Otto.  In my day there never seem to be enough hours to accomplish my endless ‘to-do’ lists.  I don’t expect Otto wakes and wonders, ‘How am I going to fill my long horse day?’ or ‘How will I fit all my grazing in today?’  I wonder how it must feel to live fully in the present, like an animal.

I see our ducks marching purposefully towards the river in a little line, Monty, the drake, in the lead.  They will spend their day dabbling by the river.  I wonder about their duck day.

It is windy and April lives up to its name by providing plentiful showers.  I am worried about the twin lambs.  Distracted by my anxiety, I walk to find the Moorit ewe.  She is tucked into a hollow by the fence with her lambs.  They are warm and dry, she has kept them well sheltered and I marvel at her skillful mothering.

All our animals, the domesticated creatures that we have chosen to spend our lives with, feel very instructive today.  They reconnect me with a sense of presence.  They remind me of their hierarchy of needs; shelter, warmth, food, play.  I reflect on the needlessness of my many ‘needs’.

I recall a recent student performance work and how I had been asked to imagine what it would be like to be a plant; to stay in one place, to have my food come directly to me; and to photosynthesize.  I sit on a chair in the basement of The Arches in Glasgow, imagining what it is like to be a plant while Leo feeds me basil leaves.

Today, I sit in one place imagining what it is like to be my horse, to be Monty the drake, to be the mother of twin lambs.  I wonder what this tells me about being me.  I let myself think about this for a very long time.

The sheep bleat loudly as daylight recedes.  There is a brooding raincloud on the horizon.  The setting sun illuminates sheets of distant rain.

Basso said ‘wisdom sits in places’.  Today I asked what wisdom sits in this place, my home, my landscape?  I listened for a very long time.  The answer will creep into my consciousness like warmth into my bones…I can wait…there is time.

Red sandstone ground against hard flat rock

River water

Red triangle on pale stone

Vivid green fronds pressed into a spiral

Pigment dries in the spring sun.

RIVER MEDWYN, LANARKSHIRE

11 APRIL 2011

]]> http://www.naturalchange.org.uk/deborah-richardson-webb/groundedness/feed/ 1 http://www.naturalchange.org.uk/project-team/natural-change-video-presentation/ http://www.naturalchange.org.uk/project-team/natural-change-video-presentation/#comments Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:20:12 +0000 David http://www.naturalchange.org.uk/?p=3537
This video of Dave Key talking about the Natural Change Project was made at an open evening at Schumacher College in March 2011. Click here to watch the video.]]>

This video of Dave Key talking about the Natural Change Project was made at an open evening at Schumacher College in March 2011.

Click here to watch the video.

• Main GTC Scotland Podcast page – http://www.gtcs.org.uk/news-events/podcasts.aspx
• Glenprosen Podcast - http://www.gtcs.org.uk/Upload/natural-change-0411.mp3
• Knoydart Podcast – http://www.gtcs.org.uk/Upload/natural-change-1010.mp3

The experience of working in Glen Prosen is still strongly here. Often, it comes back unexpectedly in fragments – the sound of the river, the smell of wood smoke, the feeling of a conversation, the curve of the hill above the Glen… sometimes it’s hard to remember the sequence of what happened. It can feel linear, like a journey – or timeless, like a wide open field of experience. Perhaps these two ways of remembering work together. Tracing a path through the week seems to bring more understanding of how our work progressed, and to open out wider to the whole experience.

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We arrive in the Glen on Sunday. That evening, we gather together in the tipi to share stories of the ‘city-solo’ – stories of ninety minutes spent alone, sitting still in a city centre location, with no phone, no money, iPod or book. There are experiences of insight, sadness, joy, frustration, love, surprise.

On Monday morning, we start exploring the best and worst case scenarios for our community in the face of ecological challenge. Visualising utopia and dystopia – first as a waking dream, then making images on paper. From this, we listen deeply to each other’s responses… to what we hope for and what we fear – focusing and clarifying an intent before heading out for an afternoon solo. In the evening, everyone returns and tells each other the stories of their time out alone in the land.

Tuesday morning, we set off up the hill together. The wind is wild and cold. We find places along the way to stop and tell what we have learned from researching stories of social change. Nestled among grey rocks, high above the Glen – the French Resistance, the American Civil Rights movement… Gathered around a wind blasted tree – the Suffragettes… Sheltering above the bealach – Stonewall, The French Revolution… Back in the tipi, sitting around the fire – the priests who gave their lives standing against oppression in Central America… and the misappropriation of psychology to fuel post-war consumerism.

As night falls, we prepare for an early start the next day – a dawn till noon solo.

Wednesday morning – starting out in silence, ice blue sky, sunrise sparking on fresh snow. Returning to share stories again, a familiar practice – weaving together, subtle, beautiful, strong – narratives of transformation.

The next morning, along the banks of the river, we set out to explore how change happens. Making shapes in the land from moss, earth, rushes, wood, words. Then, quietly, and with a sense of wonder, visit each other’s places along the river, to see what we have created… what we have found.

We head back to the lodge to write up the morning’s experience. Grateful for the river, and what has been made there.

Late in the afternoon, we work to create a collective model of social change – drawing together impressions from the river bank, feelings, images, research, theory and intuition. The result is a huge wall chart, full of colour, movement and dynamism.

The evening is spent discussing the next steps for the project.

Without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle.

PAULO FREIRE, Pedagogy of Hope