Endings - Edition 13 of Exploring, Inviting, Pondering

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of my monthly letter. Here I'll share a topic I've been exploring, invite you into your own examination of the topic and provide a prompt to carry with you and ponder if you are called to do so.

I've had cause to explore endings more deeply this year than I have before, and being somewhat customary at the closing of a calendar year, I felt now was a suitable time to share this continuing exploration.

Exploring ending was prompted by the announcement last year from one of my great guides, Carol Sanford, that she is dying of a longterm illness. One of the invitations which she proposed to her developmental communities was to explore the dying process she is preparing for by reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. In doing so, I have learnt much about the process of dying in community, how different this is from the many experiences of bereavement I've had, and how in and beyond death one can be an enabler of development.

This year I've also continued my exploration of Panarchy, a living systems process theory I first encountered through the work of Giles Hutchins and Daniel Christian Wahl . As I've examined the Panarchic cycle with fellows and colleauges, the aspect of ending - Reorganising in Panarchic terminology - always seems to stand out as the place of most nuturing dialogue. Panarchy is the cycle of life in ecological systems. Reorganising is the ending part of the cycle where elements are offered back into the greater system so that emerging new life (or jobs, products, companies, communities or people) can be nourished and enabled to flourish into growth. In discussions on reorganising, especially in corporate settings this year, I've participated in some fascinating, enlivening and change-activating dialogues on which elements (jobs, products, companies, communities or people - especially self nominees) are in or entering into the reorganising phase, and how they could be supported to distribute themselves to support those already in the newest point of the cycle (when life is naturally extractive before being ready and able to contribute back to the greater system) and how to support transition from reorganisation into extraction and on into growth. Many revelations have shown up, especially for me.

My invitation here for you is twofold, firstly that if any of what I've shared above activates curiousity or will to explore yourself, I invite you to engage with some of the texts which have sourced my explorations - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Panarchy (Gunderson & Holling), Designing Regenerative Cultures (Wahl) and Leading by Nature (Hutchins). I also invite you to consider whether giving attention to reorganising - letting go and releasing the richness - in elements of your life and work could activate, nurture and enable new life to emerge through your life and work.

My offer to ponder is the prompt below...

What calls to be let go, and how can this reorganising process nurture the newness that wants to be born?

As always, thankyou for your time and attention with my words here today.

I wish you well for whichever ending you are examining, and all the best for the new endeavours you are giving life to.

Until my next letter, farewell.

Tim