Lessons from sharing an entangled life
Hard learnings from taking on real risk with community & (resources to support a relational ecology)
Dear beloved reader,
It’s been eight months since the transition from Wordpress to Substack, and in so doing, I’ve dedicated myself to a kind of long form that has at times taken months of submersion in an idea before I share it on a page.
As I continue to figure out what it means to be paid as a writer and creator, which was never possible on Wordpress, I thank those who have supported this work through the practice groups, the attempts at workshops, and all the ideas where we’ve (me and Rishi) tried to create valuable material for a deeper dive into this framework of relationship ecology.
At the moment, I am choosing to pause on offering live facilitated work because, I am recognizing that to do so, I need much more time to really understand how to translate this work from the page and into the community. My intention is for the live work to create a community of practice where those who are creating ecological webs of relations in their own places can be supported in the challenges that arise.
This will take time to cultivate.
In the meantime, I feel inspired to offer gifts to those who financially support my work. You have no idea how it moves me to receive these gifts, and how deeply they aid in the continuation of this writing.
Here I have some of the deepest lessons I’ve learnt in my time committed to living deeply woven in community. I’m in experimentation with many forms of sharing home, land, and projects, trying our best to find structures and systems that re-form our bodies into remembering our wholeness and our value as stewards of this earth.
I also share here some of what I’m reading, and recommendations of books, packets, movies, and more that have inspired my past few seasons.
love and appreciation,
kylie
things I learnt and now… can’t forget
Offering people access and agency to what you have access to, really, can be a slow and gradual process that protects both the other and yourself. Although we have needs for collaboration, partnership, and support in our most important projects, recognizing that the “right fit” requires time for two people to acclimate to the same waters. It means moving at the pace of trust. Likely, the person who’s been holding the vision and has spent more time in the project will need an ego death, a release of vision, and a re-spinal surgery in what they see as the upright way to uphold this project in order to meaningfully share access with another. While the person stepping into the project because of the vision, and the potential for collaboration and expansion will need to examine their relationship to power, and trade in victimhood for the agency required to pick up the pieces that make a project collaborative. One of my favorite moments from an Aorta training Crash Course on Facilitating Disagreement was when the trainers expressed how sharing power is a skill and just because we’re calling for it and wanting it, it doesn’t make it magically happen.