EVOLVING TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL
NETWORKS
Adapted from 1992 writing. Latest Update Oct. 2014
Healing
In this paper the
terms ‘heal’ and ‘healing’ mean ‘to
make whole’ as in connecting and
integrating all aspects of being-in-the-world-well-with-others.
Pioneering
Epochal Transforming Ways
Dr Neville Yeomans (1928-2000)
pioneered epochal transforming ways through community mutual-help action for
wellbeing.
Back in the 1960s and
1970s and onwards Neville used ‘Consciousness Raising’ Festivals, Celebratings,
and Gatherings to support the evolving and extending of relational networking.
(Neville spoke using verbs giving verbal form to living process in action
rather than nouns collapsing passion to thing – hence ‘celebratings‘ rather
than ‘celebration’)
An important aspect
of Neville’s Way is looking for people who are naturally good at nurturing
others. Neville called these folk, ‘natural
nurturers’ without ever ‘thingifying’ them (turning them into a thing).
The following
outlines ways of evolving networks of natural nurturers.
One glimpse into
Neville’s Way is the free E-Book Coming
to One’s Sense – By the Way
Examples of
Natural Nurturers
Example One
From a felt desire to have
play-friends for her young child, this natural nurturer finds another young
mother who is also a self-starter and together they evolve:
o
A parents’ mutual support group
o
A Steiner influenced child-play group
o
A craft circle of parents making soft toys from felt for aiding
storytelling
o
A cooperative that makes and sells felt-based soft toys for storytelling
and other whimsical play items with an associated workshop space and child play
area in a delightful tropical community market
The Tropical Market in Far North
Queensland
When travelling in the area and
wandering this Market the soft nurturing energy of this natural nurturer is
felt from thirty or more metres away and after engaging, her story unfolds and
the healer networking extends. In travels through East Asian Countries this
sensing of natural nurturers among the throng of a market was a common
experience and invariably these natural nurturers are open to engaging, sharing
their stories and linking with other natural nurturers.
Example Two
Being hardly noticed in the background
quietly nurturing and supporting others in everyday moments
Example Three
Acting as a nodal link person
receiving news of what’s working well from many rumour lines and networks, and
passing these on into other rumour lines to use and adapt if they want to – NN
acting as a ‘node’ or ‘nodal’ person
Example Four
Experiencing some healing ways
and stories and immediately gathering a group of her friends to share these
experiences and possibly linking them to the person who shared the experiences
Example Five
Upon linking with a stressed
couple who are experiencing challenges beyond this nurturer’s abilities,
supporting this couple and linking them to another natural nurturer who has the
abilities and desire to be a resource as well as linking them into a network of
support people
Example Six
A quiet and shy mother who has
found after many trials and errors a freshwater shrimps and sweet potato leaves
combination that has her child well nourished where all the other mothers in
the village have malnourished children
Example Seven
A person who regularly links with
and supports people at the local little farmers market
Fostering
Emergence of Natural Nurturer Networks in the Social Life World
Processes:
o
Finding natural nurturers (NNs); encouraging them to share some of their
stories, and some of the things they have initiated that worked and sharing
some of their ways, especially with other NNs.
o
Connecting them with their own life experience, capacity and way - some
NNs have a little sense of the value of themselves and what they do; confirming
their value, their contributing and their potential for good.
o
Evolving possibilities for NNs to meet and talk and form friendships
with other NNs.
o
Introducing NNs in everyday places, especially where people gather;
particularly where people gather regularly. Examples are local village markets,
coffee shops, and libraries.
o
Inviting NNs to small gatherings, parties, and celebrations (using
Mingles as a model)
o
Using Festivals as opportunity to link NNs, link NNs to networks, and
link NN Networks
In sharing the above set of
processes with a wise elder woman in Vietnam she said that what she had just
heard was what is sorely needed in the Vietnamese Countryside – where after
over a hundred years of war, the elderly no longer know how to be grandparents,
and adults do not know how to be parents, and the children do not know how to
be children. These role competencies had been lost. The above processes hold
forth potential for bringing all of this human experiential richness back into
the countryside.
EVOLVING NATURAL
NURTURER NETWORKS
The black disk symbol
(Sociogram 1) is used to depict a local wellbeing nurturer.
Sociogram 1
These nurturers are
living among other locals depicted as in Sociogram 2.
Sociogram 2
The crosshatched disk
symbol (Sociogram 3) is used to depict a non-local Laceweb enabler. Enablers,
as their name implies, enable others to help themselves to be more able -
towards wellbeing. Enablers may share micro-experiences of healing ways and
ways that heal towards peace (what Neville termed ‘peacehealing’).
Neville defined
‘micro-experiences’ as personally sensing some behaviour and noticing the
resultant transforming change in our body - such that we have embodied
understanding of new ways of behaving and responding and change towards
wellness.[1] Learning is
typically by personally experiencing using the healing way on self and others
and noticing difference that makes a difference.
Sociogram 3
The darker
crosshatched disk symbol (Sociogram.4) is used to depict a local Laceweb
enabler.
Sociogram 4
Typically, co-learning
takes place. That is, as a person shares healing ways for others to experience
and embody, the sharer also receives insights and understandings back
from these recipients; hence, lines in the sociograms represent a two-way
flow of healing sharings. Typically what flows between people are rumours –
rumours of micro-experiences and actions that work. Typically the ‘author’ of
the rumour is not disclosed. It does not matter. At times it does matter that
the ‘author’ is not disclosed – in contexts where healers are harassed or
worse.
Recall that Neville
associated increases in uncertainty and rumour as a feature of cultures in
decline, with innovation emerging at the edges of the old system.[2]
The next set of six sociograms
(5a to 5f) depicts the start-up of the network.
Sociogram 5a
The dark line between
two locals in Sociogram 5a represents a two-way flow of healing sharings and that these sharings have been
adapted to local healing ways. That is, non-local enablers may share with locals many of the
micro-experiences that they have received from other places and cultures. The
local(s) may adapt these micro-experiences
to the local healing ways. They may then pass these ‘localized’ healings on to
other locals.
Sociogram
5b depicts an enabler sharing healing ways with three locals. In this example,
let's assume different micro-experiences are passed on to each of the three
locals.
Sociogram
5b
Let us
say the three locals in Figure 5b each receive 3 healing ways from the enabler.
They then adapt them to local healing ways. Figure 5c depicts these three
locals then passing these micro-experiences on to each other.
Sociogram
5c
In
this example (5c), each local receives six healing ways via other locals - that
is, three from each of the other two locals. They each receive three healing
ways directly from the enabler. That is, they are receiving more from locals
than from the enabler. Of course, each of the ways in this example was
originally passed on by the enabler.
This
process means that locals are receiving twice as much from other locals and
these sharings are adapted to local way. Locals become the primary
source for shared ways. The enabler is in the background.
The
Sharing of Micro-Experiences Among Locals - A Summary
·
Locals adapt micro-experiences to local nurturing ways
·
Locals pass on their new skills to each other
·
In this way locals become a resource to each other
·
No local becomes a 'font of all wisdom'
·
Locals may begin to take on the enabler role
·
The enabler is not seen as the 'font of all wisdom' either
·
As the local healing network strengthens, the enabler becomes even more
invisible
Figure
5d depicts one of the three locals linking and sharing with two other locals.
Sociogram
5d
The
sharing of healing ways may have some or all of the following features:
·
Takes place as people go about their everyday life
·
No one is 'in charge', though everyone may have a say
·
Shared accountability for unfolding action
·
Global multidirectional communicating and co-learning
·
Sharing micro-experiences and the healing/nurturing role
·
Enacting of local wisdoms about 'what works'
·
What 'fits' may be repeated, shared and consensually validated
·
Healing actions resonant with traditional indigenous ways
·
The use of organic processes - the survival of the fitting
·
Knowing includes the ever tentative unfolding happenings from moment to
moment
·
Organic roles - orchestrating, enabling and the like
Sociograms
5e and 5f depict the progressive building up of a chain of linked people with
sharings going back and forward along the chain.
Sociogram
5e
.
Sociogram 5f
Sociogram 6 depicts a
further link. The enabler is now interacting with three locals and one of these
three has links to a chain of four, and one other link. Experiences passed from
the enabler may flow through this network system.
Sociogram 6
In Sociograms 7 and 8
the local who commenced the chain makes links firstly with the second, and then
the fourth person in the chain. This may have the effect of enriching the
speed, flow and feedback of healing ways micro-experiences. In Sociogram 8 a
link has also been made between one of the original three locals and the new
local not in the chain. The healing network is beginning to expand in mutual
support.
Sociogram 7
Sociogram 8
Further links have
been made in Sociogram 9 so that now, the local that started the chain is directly
linked to every member of the chain. The chain is also linked into the original
three via the other new member. Notice that the enabler’s links to the three
continue with the lighter links signifying that the micro-experiences the
enabler is sharing originate outside the local culture. The enabler is in a
two-way co-mentoring/co-learning flow and is receiving feedback from the three
locals about how the healing ways they are receiving from the enabler are being
adapted locally.
Sociogram
9
Sociogram 10
In Sociogram 10, the
fourth person in the chain has linked with the first and second person in the
chain.
These further links
may have the potential to:
·
increase and strengthen the diversity in healing ways in use
as people share their differing experience
·
increase the intrinsic bonding within the network
·
increase the availability of potential support
·
increase the store of micro-experience in the network and
relational communicating about embodied experience
·
increase the potential for self-organizing in the network
·
increase the potential for emergence in the network
·
increase the embodied unconscious use of Cultural Keyline
In Sociogram 11 the local natural nurturer who has been evolving the network is depicted as evolving into a local enabler.
This enabler role may emerge over time in any one in the network. Further linking have been made. The expanding network has potential for both unifying experience and enrichment through diversity.
Sociogram 11
Now the ‘web’ like
structure of the linking is emerging.
When Neville got started
in each of Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Atherton Tablelands, and around Darwin,
Neville was the one initiating almost all of the linking. He said that this was
a very slow process. In sociograms 6 to 11, the enabler has only made links
with the original three locals. It may
be that further links are made between the enabler and others in the
network. It is not however necessary. In
some contexts the links between locals may increase ahead of the links between
locals and non-local enablers.
It will be noted that
by Sociogram 11, the outside enabler may have become a relatively invisible
figure. I am told by my overseas links that this is the experience in East Asia
and Oceania contexts. The non-local enabler may continue to share
micro-experiences with the original locals. By now most of the healing ways
adapted to local context may be received from locals.
In the contexts that
Neville energized in the Australian Far North, most of the natural nurturers had
a close connexion to Neville.
Healing
micro-experiences may be combined and adapted as appropriate to people, place
and context.
Over 30 years of
experience has demonstrated that:
·
these processes may be self-enriching
·
people may be intuitively innovative
·
micro-experiences may be readily and
easily passed between cultures and adjusted and be adapted to local context
To go back in time,
while the local network depicted in the preceding series of sociograms has been
emerging, the enabler may have been enabling, supporting,
mentoring/co-mentoring and linking with one or more other enablers who are in
turn linking with other locals not known to the local network mentioned above.
Sociogram 12 depicts
such a linking. While this second enabler is also linking with three locals, it
may be any small number. Typically, these linkings start out small.
Sociogram 12
Sociograms 12 to 17
depict the evolving of this second network. The sequence may differ, though
many of the characteristics of the first network emerge. Linked chains of
people may emerge. Further linking strengthens the number of people available
to each other for mutual sharing and support.
Sociogram 13
Sociogram 14
Sociogram 15
Sociogram 16
Sociogram 17
Sociogram 18
Sociogram 19 depicts
later links being made between the two local networks and the local enabler in
the first network links the two local networks. As these links are extended,
the two networks may merge to be one expanded network.
Sociogram 19
There is always the possibility
that local healers may position themselves such that they generate links to
other local healers without linking the locals to each other. In this way any
local doing this may become the one all the others rely on.
Sociogram 20 shows
the original network of eight locals and underneath, another eight locals where
seven locals only have one link and that link is with the local in the centre.
There are differences in the structure and dynamic between the original network
and this later form of linking - what has been described as integrated and
dispersed networks.[3]
Sociogram 20 - Integrated network
(above) Dispersed network (below)
This second pattern (the
dispersed network with a nodal person in the middle linking rumour lines is
prevalent throughout the Laceweb in South East Asia where the safety and
integrity of the natural nurturers is under threat. This is discussed later.
The August 2004 gathering in the Philippines countryside shifted the network
from dispersed to integrated. These integrated network members are themselves
typically nodal people in one or more different dispersed networks.
Experience has shown
that the integrated network with the multiple cross linkings has many
advantages such as:
·
Members have multiple people to call on for support
·
The flow of information tends to be fast and rich
·
The diversity enriches the micro-experiences being shared
·
It is possible to get cross-checks on others’ outcomes
·
Folk may receive rumours of how ways have been adjusted and
adapted in differing contexts
Inma Networks in the Atherton
Tablelands is a paper detailing the fifty year rollout of dispersed and
integrated networks, gatherings and festivals in the Atherton Tablelands
Region.
LINKING
THE NETWORK INTO THE WIDER LOCAL COMMUNITY
So far we have only
depicted the links between enablers (non-local and local) and local healers and
nurturers. Typically, these local natural nurturers are regularly being
approached by local family, friends, and others for nurturing. As well,
nurturers tend, as a matter of course, to reach out to support others as they
go about everyday life. Sociogram 21 depicts three other locals (shown as the
striated circles) that have links with one of the healers. Typically, each of
the healers has a number of locals that seek out their support from time to
time. As healers pass on healing ways to locals that enable them to help
themselves, often these other locals emerge as healers and start to merge with
the wider healing network.
Sociogram 21
THE
ENABLING NETWORK
Enablers are also
part of an enabling network. Sociogram 22 depicts the original enabler’s links
to the Laceweb enabler network.
Sociogram 22
After a time, the
network may start to link more widely into the wider local community and extend
through a number of surrounding villages (settlements/towns) with links to more
distant places. The healing network starts to enable self-healing among the
local communities. More and more people discover that they can change their
wellbeing as depicted in Sociogram 23.
Nurturers begin to identify other nurturers living in their area with
whom they have not yet established links.
Sociogram 23
After a time, whole
villages (settlements/towns) may enter cultural healing action as depicted in
Sociogram 24. The triangular symbol represents a dwelling and the three rings
of dwellings depict three villages located in reasonable close walking distance
from each other.
Sociogram 24
Note the differing patterns
of transfer depicted in Sociogram 24.
At the top right:
·
an integrated support network
·
an isolated link
·
a dispersed chain linking 5 people
At bottom right:
·
one nodal person is a source for five separate others in a
dispersed network
After a time, locals
may evolve as enablers and so further assist in the spreading of cultural
healing action.
At other times there
may be campout festivals, celebrations, and gatherings of enablers, nurturers
and other locals from a number of villages (settlements/towns). These may last
for days with diverse and spontaneous cultural healing action occurring.
An example of this
was the Small Island Coastal and Estuarine People Gathering Celebration on the
Atherton Tablelands in Queensland Australia in June 1994.[4]
THE POSSIBLE
EFFECTS OF HEALING FESTIVALS ON HEALER NETWORKS
Sociogram 25 below
depicts the network shown in Sociogram 24 after they have gathered together in
a healing festival - what Neville[5] called a HealFest.
ConFest is a classic example of what Neville was passionately interested in.
Neville played a major role in the five festivals that led up to the first
ConFest.
Typically such
gatherings create opportunities for a sudden large increase in linking. You may
note that the people in the lower right of Sociogram 25 who had relied on the
central person, have now met up with each other and formed into a mutually
supporting net. This network has linked with the enabler to their left and into
that little network. The network on the upper left has also made further
linkings and one salient person has made many
linkings throughout the other networks. All of this linking may hold forth
promise for further enriching. Just as the nature of the system covalent bonding
at the molecular level determines system properties such as transparency,
malleability, conductance, brittleness and strength, so the nature of bonding
links determine healing network characteristics (refer Neville’s poetic desert
web metaphor mentioned earlier). As well, this opportunity to personally relate
face to face tends to increase the flow of information through the networks of
networks.
Sociogram 25
All of the foregoing
depicts the forms of networks Neville was evolving in the Australia Top End.
Healing
Networking in Dangerous Times and Places
Through SE Asia,
sometimes an intercultural enabler may set up links with healers who do not
want information about themselves, their links, or their Laceweb involvement
known to anyone else. Where torture is used for social control, healing the
tortured is deemed by the torturers as a subversive activity. Consequently,
throughout parts of the Region, Laceweb linking operates on a ‘need-to-know’
basis.
Neville never
revealed his overseas links to me as I had no need to know. Many of the people
involved want to keep a very low profile. Some healers are wanted dead by
dominant elements in the areas they live in; as stated, healing may be deemed
by some the ultimate subversive act. Someone else revealing a Laceweb person’s
details to another person without that person’s permission would typically mean
that the link with the betrayer would be severed permanently. This limited
knowing of who is involved is not a weakness; it is a strength. It is
isomorphic with neural networks where only four adjacent connections are
typically activated as things fly along the neural pathways; like the brain,
information may travel very quickly.
In the Laceweb there
can be very long chains where healers know only between two and five people in
the chain. In these dangerous contexts, no one can find out the ‘member list’
in order to undermine the movement. The list does not exist. No one knows more
than a few of the others involved.
An enabler may set up
links with a number of these ‘anonymous’ healers. Each of these may have
‘trust’ links with between one or as many as four or five people along ‘rumour
lines’.
Sociogram 26 depicts
such a rumour line where each of the link-people has a small group of healers
they know in their local area.
Each of these sets of
other local healers is not known to any of the others in the rumour line. Each
segment (and the whole rumour line) is self organising.
Sociogram 26 - Rumours network
linking
small healing groups at different
locations
Considerable portions
of the Laceweb throughout the East Asia Oceania Region take this form. The
larger black circles depict the healing people who pass on the healing rumours
backwards and forwards to healers in other localities.
As shown in Sociogram
26 there are small groups of healers in the different locations.
Number 1 is a nodal
person with links to other parts of the Laceweb. Number 1 knows 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Numbers 4, 5 and 6
know each other.
Numbers 6, 7 and 8
know each other.
Typically, no one
knows more than 4 or 5 people in the chain.
Sociogram 27 - A dispersed
network with a nodal link person in the middle
The healer in the middle
in Sociogram 27 is a nodal person and a key energizer in passing rumours from
one segment of a network into many other rumour lines linking local small
networks. The other larger dots denote significant people in that they are the
one in a rumour line that links to the nodal person. Sustaining this link
enables each rumour line to pass on rumours into other rumour lines and receive
rumours from other rumour lines via the nodal person.
Often a nodal person
is experienced in intercultural interfacing and widely trusted within different
cultural contexts, and able to pass on the healing ways from one cultural
rumour line into the rumour line of another culture. I met such a person at a
gathering in Cairns, Australia who was a natural nurturer accepted by many
warring factions during the Bougainville conflict. Another Bougainville person
with a similar background came down to Melbourne and engaged in co-learning
with me and other Laceweb folk during 2012. Refer the paper Intercultural Interfacing between
Complementary Ways.
Any of the little
local networks may have potential to expand in the local area by locating other
natural nurturers, or by so enriching others in their self-healing that they also
become enablers and natural nurturers. The above sociograms are idealized in
the linear nature of some of the lines; this was only for ease of drawing.
Lines do not represent locality relationships; the links may jump between
different places in the Region.
While these linkings
are between caring enablers and natural nurturers, Neville spoke of there been
misunderstandings from time to time that cause people to sever links. Neville
would from time to time tell me not to contact certain ones till he lets me
know things have been ‘cleared up’.
The Sharing of Micro-experiences Among Locals - A Reviewing
The following lists
Cultural Keyline aspects of the above Laceweb action:
·
Nothing happens unless locals want it to happen
·
Enablers using all of their sensing of and attending to the
local social topography outlined in Chapter Eight page 466 in Cultural Keyline
·
Interacting with
the surrounding cultural locality as a living system
·
Enabling others
to tap into personal and interpersonal psychosocial and other wellness and
resilience resources using the following processes (refer By the Way):
o
Enablers sharing healing micro-experiences
o
Locals adapting micro-experiences to local nurturing ways
o
Locals passing on their new micro-experiences to each other
·
In engaging and relating in the above ways locals may become
resources to each other
·
No local becomes a ‘font of all wisdom’
·
Locals may be engaging in the enabler role or beginning to
take on this role
·
Enablers are not seen as the ‘font of all wisdom’
·
As the local healing network strengthens, the enabler may
become more in the background
·
Networking may respond to perturbing action by enablers
·
Networking may be emergent and self-organising
·
Folk tap into the local free energy – the self starters
·
Locals may take on or extend their local enabler roles
·
Locals may use naturalistic inquiry and iterative action
research
·
Nurturing may take place as people go about their everyday
life
·
Nurturers may use local knowings in responding to themes
conducive to coherence in the local social topography
·
The sharing may be self-organizing
·
No one is ‘in charge’, although everyone involved may have a
say
·
There may be shared accountability for unfolding action
·
Global multidirectional social, cultural and intercultural
communicating and co-learning may occur among those involved - following Terry
Widders’ remarks to Franklin[6]
·
There may be the sharing of embodied micro-experiences and
the healing/nurturing role
·
Nurturing may be an intrinsic aspect of cultural locality
·
There may be the enacting of local wisdoms about ‘what
works’
·
What ‘fits’ may be repeated, shared and consensually
validated
·
Healing actions may be resonant with traditional Indigenous
ways
·
The use of organic processes - the survival of the fitting
·
Knowing may include the ever tentative unfolding action
·
Organic roles - orchestrating, enabling and the like
·
Healing actions that work may be passed on as rumours that
may be validated by action
All of the above is
occurring in the East Asia Oceania Australasia Region. From commentators like Paul Hawken, author of
Blessed Unrest new forms of social and relational movements are a Global
phenomenon
ConFest and the Next
250 Years