198
Subtle Agroecologies
At an appropriate time, take a journal and refect on the themes raised above. For example:
How is the balance in your life between change and predictability? Are you comfortable with that,
or would you like more of one or the other? How often are you out of your comfort zone? It is important to fnd out where comfort zone ends and unknown begins for you. Do you feel ‘thrown’ out of
your comfort zone, or do you actively seek to go there by trying new activities?
How is your relationship to the unknown, to not knowing? Do you experience excitement and
curiosity, a sense of moving towards it, perhaps a sense of empowerment? Or do you experience
antipathy, resistance, fear, a sense of closing down, moving away from? Both are absolutely fne,
and this is simply an inquiry into your fexibility to deal with not knowing. This is not intended in
any way as a judgement of infexibility but as a means to fnd out more about your levels of comfort
regarding not knowing, in order to understand more of how you learn and navigate life.
If your feelings regarding the unknown are uncomfortable, refect on what will help you fnd
courage to go out of your comfort zone in order to learn something new. Set a realistic goal for
yourself – for example, try something new once every day/week/month/year (a level that is just out
of your comfort zone but not too far that it would be daunting). Ask support from a trusted person
to help you accomplish this.
Similarly, refect on your relationship with the other ingredients of emotional literacy: ambiguity and paradoxes, failure and making mistakes, vulnerability and mortality. Inquire, without
judgement, on how it is now, and how you can create more fuidity around this in your own personal circumstances.
CULTIVATING RIGHT-BRAIN ABILITIES AND EXPANDING CONSCIOUSNESS
Artistic and spiritual techniques stimulate and strengthen our connection to our subliminal mind
and our ability to perceive extrasensory information. These include visualisation, creative arts, stories, symbols, archetypes, meditation, yoga and dreamwork (see, e.g., Roney-Dougal, 1991: 25–28). 13
Movement, as we discussed earlier (Bohm, 1985; Ingold, 2011), is primary to our relational understanding of what surrounds us. It also enhances our capacity to perceive and imagine, enables shifts
in consciousness and is accessible to everyone, anywhere. We do not need to be trained professionally or otherwise in order to move. Indeed, we are all made of movement. Movement is an act of
creating and becoming ‘patterns of sensing and responding to other movements’ that happen in,
around and through us (Lamothe, 2014: 59). It cultivates our ability to perceive things differently,
whether through thoughts, feelings or imagination. At the same time, it infuences and perhaps even
defnes our being, including, again, our sensing, feeling and thinking capacities, but also our ways
of meaning-making, our (inter)actions and growth. Perhaps especially because movement does not
depend on words or images, it allows us to tune into ‘the presence, power and reality of what may
be’ (Lamothe, 2014: 60), and is therefore such a strong route into the other ways of knowing that
we discussed in the previous section. How can we further develop movement as a way of knowing?
For this exploration, take 20 minutes when you can work undisturbed in a space of at least
2 × 2 m 2 to move freely. Start by searching for lines and angles both in your body and in the space
you are in. Gently move your hands, knees, elbows and arms into different positions, into linear
and angular shapes. Can you move through the space in lines and angles?
Now explore the shapes of circles and spirals. What circles, curves and spirals can you make
with your hands, knees, elbows, arms and whole body? What circles and curves do you observe in
the space? Can you move in circles and curves?
In your own timing, switch back and forth between the linear and the circular, between the angular
and the spiral. How does it feel to move in these different ways? What associations come up for you
while moving? Do you feel more comfortable with one set of movement patterns than with the other?
13 There are many online resources that offer practices, activities and techniques to cultivate right-brain abilities. Please feel
free to visit my website www.clover-trail.com for inspiration.
Subtle Agroecologies
At an appropriate time, take a journal and refect on the themes raised above. For example:
How is the balance in your life between change and predictability? Are you comfortable with that,
or would you like more of one or the other? How often are you out of your comfort zone? It is important to fnd out where comfort zone ends and unknown begins for you. Do you feel ‘thrown’ out of
your comfort zone, or do you actively seek to go there by trying new activities?
How is your relationship to the unknown, to not knowing? Do you experience excitement and
curiosity, a sense of moving towards it, perhaps a sense of empowerment? Or do you experience
antipathy, resistance, fear, a sense of closing down, moving away from? Both are absolutely fne,
and this is simply an inquiry into your fexibility to deal with not knowing. This is not intended in
any way as a judgement of infexibility but as a means to fnd out more about your levels of comfort
regarding not knowing, in order to understand more of how you learn and navigate life.
If your feelings regarding the unknown are uncomfortable, refect on what will help you fnd
courage to go out of your comfort zone in order to learn something new. Set a realistic goal for
yourself – for example, try something new once every day/week/month/year (a level that is just out
of your comfort zone but not too far that it would be daunting). Ask support from a trusted person
to help you accomplish this.
Similarly, refect on your relationship with the other ingredients of emotional literacy: ambiguity and paradoxes, failure and making mistakes, vulnerability and mortality. Inquire, without
judgement, on how it is now, and how you can create more fuidity around this in your own personal circumstances.
CULTIVATING RIGHT-BRAIN ABILITIES AND EXPANDING CONSCIOUSNESS
Artistic and spiritual techniques stimulate and strengthen our connection to our subliminal mind
and our ability to perceive extrasensory information. These include visualisation, creative arts, stories, symbols, archetypes, meditation, yoga and dreamwork (see, e.g., Roney-Dougal, 1991: 25–28). 13
Movement, as we discussed earlier (Bohm, 1985; Ingold, 2011), is primary to our relational understanding of what surrounds us. It also enhances our capacity to perceive and imagine, enables shifts
in consciousness and is accessible to everyone, anywhere. We do not need to be trained professionally or otherwise in order to move. Indeed, we are all made of movement. Movement is an act of
creating and becoming ‘patterns of sensing and responding to other movements’ that happen in,
around and through us (Lamothe, 2014: 59). It cultivates our ability to perceive things differently,
whether through thoughts, feelings or imagination. At the same time, it infuences and perhaps even
defnes our being, including, again, our sensing, feeling and thinking capacities, but also our ways
of meaning-making, our (inter)actions and growth. Perhaps especially because movement does not
depend on words or images, it allows us to tune into ‘the presence, power and reality of what may
be’ (Lamothe, 2014: 60), and is therefore such a strong route into the other ways of knowing that
we discussed in the previous section. How can we further develop movement as a way of knowing?
For this exploration, take 20 minutes when you can work undisturbed in a space of at least
2 × 2 m 2 to move freely. Start by searching for lines and angles both in your body and in the space
you are in. Gently move your hands, knees, elbows and arms into different positions, into linear
and angular shapes. Can you move through the space in lines and angles?
Now explore the shapes of circles and spirals. What circles, curves and spirals can you make
with your hands, knees, elbows, arms and whole body? What circles and curves do you observe in
the space? Can you move in circles and curves?
In your own timing, switch back and forth between the linear and the circular, between the angular
and the spiral. How does it feel to move in these different ways? What associations come up for you
while moving? Do you feel more comfortable with one set of movement patterns than with the other?
13 There are many online resources that offer practices, activities and techniques to cultivate right-brain abilities. Please feel
free to visit my website www.clover-trail.com for inspiration.