Both this week’s winter love hangout topic (a love ethic) and Monday’s living room picnic (embrace y/our complexity) in their own ways offer an opportunity to contemplate interconnectedness, in terms of the quality and nature of our connection (possibly love) and the active (vs reactive) experience of interconnection.
love…
- Is love an experience within you, something passed between us? — an exchange of energy, a kind of feedback loop?
- Is it a choice, an act of will, a practice? What guides it?
If you’re curious and available to hang out with these questions, on Friday, 28-Jan, 5:30pm-6:15pm EST, register here. I’ll share a brief text, and we’ll let it take us where it does. Introverts and doodlers are welcome, as are bubbly extroverts and code-switching ambiverts.
y/our complexity
On a similar note, on Monday, 31-Jan, 7:30-8:30pm EST, we’ll welcome complexity,
- internal (you are a universe, everyone is — I don’t expect sameness from you)
- external (as we humans are endlessly networked with all beings living and non-living, present, past and future in ever-changing ways).
Complexity does not mean difficulty. At least, it doesn’t have to. That’s why I’d like to picnic on it — and why I’m offering a series of four picnics on how to embrace y/our complexity.
backstory
What got me tuned into thinking about y/our complexity was a characterization of interdependence as iterative, that: “being interdependent is a series of small repetitive motions.”
What a surprise! (interdependence is a process?)
[heh]…so, for me, interdependence, while foundational and important to me, was a concept. It lived in the mind.
While it is observable fact: everything, everyone is connected and necessarily so — what functions without relationship or interaction with something other than itself? Interdependent was just how things are. Which is a huge thing if you think about it — basically, interdependence is the algorithm that generates reality. But the way I had it: it was just a recipe written on paper, the unactivated alchemy of life, disconnected from the experience of living.
I’m kind of stunned writing this, that I could have missed the is-ness of my own belief and engaged it only as a mental construct when it is inherently the most living, the most bodied of living truths. It is literally everywhere.
But I did. miss it.
which brings us to us —
What would it be like, my perception, interactions, energy level, decision-making (experiences and outcomes), peace of mind — if I nudged it forward, if I nudged myself toward living interdependently?
What is your relationship with interdependence? How do they relate to each other? What if we iterated on that?
How would that affect you? us? everyone?
That’s where I’d like to picnic. Right there in that snuggly space of what if….
embrace y/our complexity: be seen is the first in a series of four living room picnics, where we’ll consider iteration, specifically these repetitive motions that lead us toward, and embody, interdependence:
As always there’s nothing to prepare. I’ll provide our discussion prompts over the weekend and we’ll delve into aspects of being seen, our relationship with being seen, which is naturally complex, and a rich opportunity for connection.
credit & gratitude
The inspiration and source for the love ethic conversation is ALL ABOUT LOVE, by bell hooks (referring here to more than one page but jump to a section on love ethic, go to p.136) and the source of the [*] quote and the four repetitive motions leading toward interdependence is Emergent Strategy, by adrienne maree brown, pp.93-96).
What do you think? Is this sounding like your kind of conversation space?
Participating in a living room picnic is a way to join the UNDERMININGnormal community.
It costs $7.00 to attend, and comes with a month of membership.
Members can participate in all UNDERMININGnormal gatherings and programs.
To attend: Just sign up here .
If you’ve never attended a living room picnic and feel like more of an introduction to UNDERMININGnormal and what picnics are like, you can stop by the courtyard; I wrote this for you. To skip to what is a living room picnic…
Got questions? I’d love to hear them!
If this is your kind of thing, or you’d like it to be, sign up to receive invitations to UNDERMININGnormal living room picnics.
UNDERMININGnormal is where deep-thinking, change-seeking women can find community, care and unhurried space for conversations we don’t usually get to have.
