Things I've learned from 2016, Part 2: This year in Review

PokemonGO is great, but
catching Mew in Graffiti Ally in
Central Square with my sister
is better! 

For me, 2016 started with an awful cold. I was sick and in bed for 3 solid days. When I was finally able to get up, I was groggy and sniffly for months afterwards. I'm still not sure if I've recovered from that.

When I first moved to the Boston area in August of last year, my commute was about an hour to an hour and a half in each direction. I knew that I was going to have to find something closer to work, so as soon as my winter semester was over, I started looking for something. Just as I started to worry that I couldn't find a new place in my price range, I met the ladies of the Goddess Tower, a five bedroom apartment on Tower Street, right on the edge of Forest Hills Cemetery. It is just over a mile from work and less then a five minuet walk from the Forest Hills T stop. I now have four amazing roommates, a beautiful sunny North facing room, and I get to live with two very wonderful lady cats.

The Anglo-Saxon rune book I'm working on

Some of my roommates are fire spinners, and so I am beginning to learn the art of spinning fire, and the importance of fire safety.

2016 marks the year that I found a good doctor and an osteopath. On my 16th birthday, I injured my neck by diving off a 30 foot cliff into lake Megunticook in Camden, Maine. Being 16, I decided that it was no big deal and that as long as I was alive and could move all my fingers and tows, I was fine. But now, 15 years later, I'm finally getting it taken care of. It is taking a lot of breaking bad habits and building new habits and it is a lot of hard work, but I'm going to keep on working on it!

Turkeys outside of work, just after Thanksgiving

This year, I made decisions that will effect the trajectory of my life and spent time watching my family change and fluctuate. As well as all the celebrity deaths this year, I will miss Dr. Bob, Pegasus, Bacchus, and my Uncle Phil.

I danced, but not as much as I want to. I sang, though mostly to myself. I started getting into art again. My newest project is a illumination style book of Anglo-Saxon Runes that I hope to have complete by the end of May. I questioned who and what I am, and I don't know that I found any answers. I found a great group of friends. I posted WAY too much on Facebook!

Our Holiday display at Goddess Tower

This is a year that will take a lot of processing. We got a lot of good movies: Zootopia, Deadpool, Dr. Strange, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ghostbusters, and others. We lost some amazing people. We were divided by the election. We continue to be divided by the results. The world is in pain and we have a lot of work to do. But the New Year is on its way.

Lets start the New Year with compassion. Lets bring it in with love. Lets try to understand the people around us. I sit here in Harvard Square, drinking my Starbucks coffee and watching the world outside. I know that I will have a warm bed tonight and have food to eat.  I know that I will have the

End of the year coffee in Harvard Square

love of my family, even if they do not agree with everything I do. I know that I have all the privileges that come with living in New England. I can only hope that I live up to the responsibilities that come with that.

I plan to listen with an educated ear, to speak with a compassionate voice, to experience beauty, to pursue justice without anger, to love without expectation, and to teach as I learn. May this year be better than the last.

Things I've learned from 2016. Part 1: Grad School

This year, three separate trees came down blocking the road
and causing property damage on the deadend street I am
living on in Jamaica Plain, MA

My last post was over a year ago, and I know I am not alone in saying that it has been the kind of year that beats you like an abusive lover telling you the whole time that you are their everything and all you can really do at the end is pick up the pieces and hope that you learn some valuable lessons so that you never experience something like that again. I think everyone I know has at least one story about 2016 being awful, but I like to find the learning experience in it and the bright side, so as I am in grad school, which is all about learning, I'll start by talking about that.

As those of you who regularly follow my blog know, I decided to go back to school partially to gain a better understanding of systems thinking and partially to improve the skills I would need to be able to do important work in environmentalism. As a part of this,I am focused on acquiring the tools that will help me to use systems thinking to help the communities I am a part of. So here are my top three tools for inspiring change in complex systems:

A system network map

1. Kumu  -  https://kumu.io/

I don't think I can begin to express my appreciation for data mapping and the tools that make it easier to show visual representations of data. Kumu is a great tool for mapping out organizations, people, or other data points and drawing out the connections between them. This network mapping tool is fantastic with a powerful free version that allows an unlimited number of public facing projects. The paid version lets you also have private projects.

As soon as I first started looking at what could be done with Kumu, I started thinking of projects that would benefit from its use. The big project that I've been working on is the New England Communities Network. I am using Kumu to create a network map of how the different intentional communities in New England are connected to each other. As the communities movement grows, it is becoming more and more important to learn from each other, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

Question Everything.

2. Incisive Questions and the Question Agenda

To sum up a whole lot of quotations on the topic, asking the right question is often more important then having the answer. Incisive questions are questions that have been formatted to remove limiting assumptions; questions like "what would this situation look like with a positive outcome?" or "how will you feel once this decision is made and you are able to move forward?" These questions are not yes or no, but instead they are questions that encourage thought and processing.

One of the ways that I have learned to use this tool is in creating agendas for meetings. Rather than simply a topic of discussion or a bullet point or who's weekly report is next, an agenda made of questions is a great way to encourage deep thought and creative solutions.

Art from the World Cafe

3. World Cafe and the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter
        http://www.theworldcafe.com/

So, these are two separate tools that work very well with each other.

The art of hosting is a complex tool that looks at meeting facilitation as a form of hosting. As with hosting a party or an overnight guest, hosting a meeting means taking everyone's needs into consideration and putting your own best foot forward. The Art talks abut creating spaces that encourage meaningful conversation and enhance the probability of coming out of the conversation with the outcomes you were looking for. This tool looks at what it means to be a host, both to yourself and to others, and what it means to be hosted.

Art from the Wold Cafe

World Cafe is a hosted series of conversations in which a large group is broken down into tables of four. Each table has space for doodling and participants are encouraged to be in a casual atmosphere, like being in a cafe. The host poses a question for the conversations and a time limitation. At the end of that time, three of the four people at each table move to another table. This method shares the ideas generated in the first round of discussion with other groups while keeping someone at each table to continue the thread of that conversation. It is a great tool for understanding complex systems problems and generating solutions.

These are just some of the explicit tools I have been able to put into my tool kit this year. Sometime around New Years, I'll post a year in review. As I move forward with the New England Communities Network, I'll look forward to posting in the coming year!

Happy December, it's almost another year!