I Ching, shape-shifting and the art of clean weaving

This blog is dedicated to Ross Hall and his excellent work with the Weaving Lab and John Albrecht who introduced me to Clean Language and gave me a session.

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In this article I am going to use the I Ching as a metaphor for the foundational building blocks of our lived realities and their complex interactions, then explore how we are able to move around in this reality giving access to transformational opportunities. I then explore weaving, some potential pitfalls and posit clean weaving as a way forward for the community.

I Ching

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination test that relies on combinations of opposites, namely Yin designated as a broken line (?) and Yang designated as a solid line (?). In classical I Ching, yarrow sticks are thrown and interpreted to form combinations of yin and yang into trigrams each with a specific symbolic meaning: mountain, heaven, lake, fire etc. Four trigrams and an important related symbol, the Taiji are used in the flag of South Korea:

The four trigrams in the flag represent among other things the four classical elements:

Next in the divination cycle, the two trigrams are combined into hexagrams and an interpretive reading is provided, as this snippet from Ted Williams' site shows:

In the classical King Wen sequence, the hexagrams are arranged in pairs each one a mirror image of the other, except in the case of symmetrical hexagrams which are paired with their symbolic opposite. How cool is that!

Click below if you want to try it out and have your fortune told I Ching style:

The I Ching has fascinated people for millenia and was even the inspiration for Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the creator of binary and thoughts such as this:

Law of Continuity.?Natura non facit saltus[68]?(literally, "Nature does not make jumps"). Also: "Whatever succeeds for the finite, also succeeds for the infinite."

In this sense, the I Ching is foundational to the modern computer. I love the way it carves the universe up into discrete blocks each building on simpler fundamentals below, leading all the way back to the contradictory order and chaos forces of creation. It's about recognising and understanding patterns, their nature, sphere of influence and interactions. It is also about complexity.

Shape-shifting

Navigating life is certainly like this and my work is no exception. While my job title at any one time might indicate otherwise I have a wide range of interests and skills, too many to fit into a simple category. And thanks to friend J.Brian Hennessy I have a nice new way to describe myself. I am a multipotentate:

Now there are other terms that go along with this ability to shift around and play different roles to embody different forms. It draws to mind a blog I wrote about the importance of Stanislavsky-style method acting in my work (alongside lots of other crazy shit):

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”- Albert Einstein.

In short, I am good at living a role, pretending, fitting-in, imagining, embodying --I'm adaptable (at least in a work setting). I strive to be empathic and can normally find a way to conform to whatever mental shape I have to contort myself into to the get the job done--sometimes tying myself up in knots in the process, especially when this goes against my fundamental nature (YouNiqueness in J. Brian Hennessy-speak).

Just recently I have thought about this ability in more folkloric terms and would like to recognise the influence of Tim Williams, Krystina Dry?a, Dave Snowden and his former collaborator Cynthia Kurtz in awakening my interest.

In folkloric terms then, like the werewolf, I am a shape-shifter:

How does this relate to the I Ching, to weaving? This method-acting, shape-shifting flexibility of mind I conjecture is due to an embodied, intuitive, a priori, understanding of fundamental building blocks: hexagrams, trigrams, yin, yang, Taiji and the I Ching. Nope I haven't really studied it in depth, but I sense them, these contradictory forces that shape our universe and our lives, and I am prepared to guess you do too.

Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, based his management philosophy of Chaordic Leadership on ancient Chinese thought like the I Ching. Some summary statements deriving from Dee's book "The Chaordic Organization" from the Rabbit Hole blog:

1. Our current forms of organization are almost universally based on compelled behavior – on tyranny, for that is what compelled behavior is, no matter how benign it may appear or how carefully disguised and exercised. 
2, The organization of the future will be the embodiment of?community?based on?shared purpose?calling to the?higher aspirations of people.
3. There is no ultimate being. There is only becoming
4. Paradox and conflict are inherent characteristics of chaordic organizations?
5. Forming a chaordic organization begins with an intensive search for Purpose, then proceeds to Principles, People, and Concept, and only then to Structure and Practice. It can’t be done well as a linear process. Each of the six elements can be thought of as a perspective, a sort of “lens” through which participants examine the circumstances giving rise to the need for a new concept of organization and what it might become.?        

So whereas someone who loves embodies love and someone who hates embodies hate, those that are able to delve deeper either through natural gifts and dispensations and/or hard graft and practice can begin to observe, listen, model, understand, embody, invoke--imagine--anything and in personal form: any other. And this in turn leads to empathy. And empathy leads to trust. And trust is transformational.

But there's more: because the shape-shifter is choosing to embody rather than having no choice in the matter they are in the powerful position to: mediate, infiltrate and deviate. In other words they can play the role of the diplomat, the influencer, the spy and the trickster:

And depending on their intent they can be a counsellor, a coach and even a healer. Now that's truly game-changing.

The Art of Clean Weaving

Towards a definition of weaving and some ontological challenges

I'll rely on Ross Hall or June Holley for a formal definition of weaving. I'm sure it is a rather moveable feast and perhaps a zeitgest thing.

Here is my attempt:

"Weavers exist to knowingly make connections and promote flow in themselves, others and the observed networked universe they embody and orient towards."

Note: Ben Ford, ?, there is an OODA loop here for you.

In other words they are networkers and network agents grounded by something inside that projects out. Gandhi was one, Hildegarde von Bingen, but so was Hitler. And so am I and perhaps so are you.

In the modern era, weavers I have come across on LinkedIn are often into complexity science and systems thinking--these two essentially intertwingled, in Antlerboy, Benjamin P. Taylor's wonderful description we explored in a Growing the Edge show in 2020:

And they are often driven by moral purpose linked to climate emergency, regenerative agriculture, civil rights, helping indigenous and/or disadvantaged communities etc.

So we have:

1. Craft-weaving as technology - and tech is amoral
2. Purpose-weaving for some end; moral or otherwise

And these two I conjecture are, to use Benjamin's neoligism, intertwingled.

Can this lead to problems? Youbetcha! Study the image below (and apologies to Rishi Sunak who drew the short-straw on the way I laid it out (or perhaps you disagree):

Note: yum and yuck come from the Cynefin Anthrocomplexity and Aesthetics retreat I attended in 2020

Does the text line up with the photos, how about the shapes and would we all agree? Which invokes yum, yuck response in us, resonates or fails to move us? The answer is of course that we cannot generally agree. Though perhaps we can all sign up to the statement that all at one time squeezed stuff through an orifice but at least one does this no longer?

So to Craft and Purpose we must add a third and a fourth:

1. Craft-weaving as technology - and tech is amoral
2. Purpose-weaving for some end; moral or otherwise
3. Resonance-what we as weavers resonate with
4. Preference-what we as weavers prefer

Note: this hints at a priori, a postiori modalities of thought I have been learning about listening to Emmanuel Kant's Crtique of Pure Reason on Audible.

Which universal laws apply to each of the subjects in the picture. Physics, the I Ching and if you like it folklore and myth? I would say all of them. As Leibniz said, nature does not make jumps.

Hmm. This throws up some curve-balls I hope you agree. I'm starting to get confused because:

1. While I have sometimes read Aleister Crowley and like wolves and nature I am not a fan of the Conservative party or stripy toothpaste
2. And if I am honest I probably relate more to Richi than Aleister as a person as he seems like a nice guy and is at least alive. Crowley by all accounts was an asshole. And I spend a lot more of my time with toothpaste than I do wolves and nature. Perhaps I resonate more with them in terms of lived day-to-day experience
3. But these have nothing to do at all with the technology of weaving and all to do with me the weaver: my resonances and preferences
4. Which will undoubtedly limit my scope, range and efficacy in the weaving theatre of conflict

With this in mind, I will add a fifth factor and a meta-factor:

1. Craft-weaving as technology - and tech is amoral
2. Purpose-weaving for some end; moral or otherwise
3. Resonance-what we as weavers resonate with
4. Preference-what we as weavers prefer
5. Circumstances-our circumstances as weavers (e.g. I am a wolf but in a cage in a city zoo)

Meta-factor:

Alignment (inner) - of the five weaving elements, indeed we can explore these intertwingled relationships:

• My craft is ahead of my circumstances, and I am coming into my purpose
• My resonances and preferences and circumstances are a bit at odds
• So my alignment has some challenges

Have a go yourself :-)

and

Alignment (outer) - to whatever founding philosophy, belief you may hold: Scientific rationalism, Gaia Theory, a religion, cult or the occult, free marketism, take your pick.

Meta-meta factor: (cf. Gregory Bateson's: Towards an Ecology of Mind)

Meta Alignment of Inner Alignment and Outer Alignment- understanding that these (and many other aspects of my model) are symbiotic (more intertwingling).

This is beginning to sound like a model for self-growth and growth in consciousness and perhaps it is.

But wait, there's more. Except for the solipsist we do not weave in a vacuum. We do not weave alone. So we also need to consider:

1. the five parts two meta parts and single meta-meta parts of this model for each and every participant
2. all the meta-meta-meta-meta to the power meta alignments and intertwingling that occurs due to 1. played out in a group context.

Holy crap! I think I am going to sum up thus:

1. Weaving involves complexity, systems thinking, and non-linear dynamics and a whole lot else: in both an individual and group context
2. It's truly a Gordian knot --a network chaord of influence intertwingled with weather patterns and flow dynamics
3. And the more we understand and embody it in this way the better

Clean language and how it might help

Clean language is a technique developed by David Grove in the 1980's for use in coaching, counselling, psychotherapy etc. as a way of focussing on the client discovering and developing their own symbols and metaphors while avoiding the transfer of framing narratives from the couch, counsellor, psychotherapist etc. It is a less-is-more, "physician, heal thyself" philosophy. With clean language I might, for example, ask questions like this:

(Source: Clean Learning)

And I avoid questions like this:

• "Why do you eat too much, it's bad for your health?"
• "Before we start delving into your psyche with my Adlerian wand, which scented candle would you like me to light?"

There are twenty or so questions asked in a particular order. To get a sense of the truely transformational magic that can occur with Clean Language I recommend this TedX Merseyside talk by Caitlin Walker:

Clean your weaving

Ask yourself:

1. What is my purpose, craft level, resonances, preferences and circumstances?
2. How do these interact?
3. How aligned is my weaving?
4. How clean is my weaving?
5. When do these forces interact in favourable, unfavourable ways?
6. How aligned and clean is the weaving of others I interact with?
7. That's weaving like what?
8. Does weaving have a size or shape?
9. Where is weaving?
10. What kind of weaving?
11. Where does weaving come from?
12. What happens before weaving?
13. Is there anything else about weaving?
14. What happens next?

:-)

References:

The Rabbit Hole Blog: https://blas.com/the-chaordic-organization/

Article on OODA and time-based knowledge: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/216662499_Time_value_of_knowledge_-_Time-based_frameworks_for_valuing_knowledge

Leadership and virtue ethics mentioning the I Ching: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270245574_Leadership_and_Virtue_Ethics

P.S. Brian, the tee shirt we spoke about is:

"You can't peer-review the I Ching."

And we had a dialogue about BAtoms and Bolecules of belief and transformation as blasting these apart like the asteroids video game.

These concepts also relate to Goldratt's Evaporating Clouds model.