I hope you’ll allow me drift (and excuse me for drifting) slightly meta this afternoon. Tomorrow is the first of several important points on the calendar for Susan, for me, for Rosslyn. So today was a full court press, readying Rosslyn for tomorrow. For change. For many changes. Sallying forth into a new chapter following my 24 month milestone, I’d like to offer you the first of many invitations to join a new narrative still unwritten. An immersive adventure that we’ll braid together as sojourners, as fellow travelers, as a coalescing chorus drawn around a bonfire from sunset to sunrise.
I offer you an excerpt from the abstract for Nora Bateson’s essay, “An essay on ready-ing: Tending the prelude to change”.
Complexity of living systems is characterized by multicontextual, constant responsive change. This creates continuation of some patterns and discontinuation of others. While change is predictably constant, it is unpredictable in direction… So what makes a living system ready to change? […] Before the change there is a coalescence of factors and experiences that produce a undeterminable ready-ing instead of action. What if, instead thinking of a theory of change being produced from an identified preferred goal or outcome, the focus instead was placed on the way in which a system becomes ready for undetermined change? Can unforeseen ready-ness be nourished? — Nora Bateson, “An essay on ready-ing: Tending the prelude to change”, 21 September 2022 (Source: Medium)
If you’re alert and have a moment, dive into Nora Bateson’s essay.
If not, I offer you a third photograph to jumpstart your meditation on the nourish-ability of unforeseen readiness…
Thank you, Susan, Sarah, Glen, Pam, Tony, and so many others who spent today readying, feverishly readying for undetermined change. Hurrah!
What do you think?