Our present work is to cultivate a capacity for wholeness. To be a steward of the commons is to make visible this infinite world of wholeness. We are each called to be artful stewards of the common space now. We cannot engage complexity or create a sustainable future on our own.
—Michael Jones

A Third Way of Knowing

If we are to have a positive future, it will be an aesthetic future - there has never been a solution to a problem that did not have beauty at its core.

In the future we need to envision a new leadership story - one that involves a transformation in awareness from performance to presence, from uniformity to uniqueness, from abstraction to beauty, from efficiency to improvisation and from instrumentality to the expressive power of story and voice. Together they awaken a commons of the imagination - a collective field of possibility that transforms our mechanistic view of the world to a more sustainable and transcendent vision that is creative, organic and whole.

We are between stories now. The old world is dying and the new world is not yet here. As we progress from the industrial and knowledge era anchored in cognitive knowledge, objectivity, measurement and control to an age of transformation anchored in the imagination, beauty and our collective potential, there will also be shift from management to stewardship.

The unpredictability of the sweeping changes that are upon us suggest that beyond both the cognitive and social sciences we need a third way of knowing - a more subtle intelligence that seeks the wholeness behind all things and invites into awareness whatever seems vague, ambiguous or unclear. This 'aesthetic sense'which is more deeply intuitive, spatial and resonant in orientation, may be the most relevant path to this new way of being. It is an intelligence that asks not how much do I know but how present can I be? How much do I see? and how much space can I hold?

Just as the management sciences are based on cognitive intelligence and leadership sciences on emotional intelligence - we are called now to serve as stewards of a third intelligence that is aesthetic in nature and therefore invites a more imaginative response to our world.

And while only a few may find they're way to management and perhaps more to leadership - everyone can be a steward and act in the service of the whole.

To be effective stewards suggests a new set of disciplines such as;

finding harmony in the whole while also listening for our own voice and what is emerging in the moment, of perceiving and adapting to subtle shifts in tone and atmosphere, aligning our gifts with our work in the world, crossing perceived boundaries to build affiliations with strangers, attending to grace and beauty, being effective story-tellers and story listeners, bearing witness to the other, holding presence with the unknown, serving as keepers at the edge and fostering the generative power of the collective.

As we struggle with new discontinuities and fragmentation, it is clear that we cannot apply the same strategies we used to create our known world to change it. Instead we will need to cultivate new disciplines of the heart and the imagination. The future will belong to those who understand the need for these new disciplines as the foundation for finding a path forward and wisely navigating a larger unknown. They recognize that this emerging story cannot be seen or planned objectively, but may be deeply sensed and felt with an awakened and perceptive eye. And for this we need a commons - a place to which all belong - the emerging story is not one we can see clearly on our own.

Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

David Bolier identifies three types of commons; the definition of 'commons' related to physical resources and places is the ecological commons. We are also very familiar with the broad sharing seen in intellectual and the creative commons, all enabled by the worldwide web. Bolier identifies a third type of commons; drawing from the work of Lewis Hyde in his book The Gift which is the commons based on a commerce of the creative spirit or communities of gift exchange.

Nurturing such a commons of gift giving where for instance the virtues of beauty, truth and goodness are exchanged opens a new field of possibility for leaders. They may learn to reach beyond their trained skills to serve as stewards re-enchanting our world by creating a bridge between the ordinary and the extraordinary in human existence.

For many this absence of this 'gift' commons in modern life is a source of indefinable but palatable unrest. It is a hunger for which we can find no cause or cure. To find our way forward in a way that responds to this hunger we need to explore how to bring together ancient wisdom with modern thought. For example Hannah Arendt writes of the commons (or polis) in ancient Athens in the following way.

One of the chief reasons for the incredible development of gift and genius (in Athens) …was precisely that from the beginning to the end its foremost aim was to make the extraordinary an ordinary occurrence in everyday life. (Arendt The Human Conditon, 1958)

It was the function of the commons over the ages to make a home for magnifying the spirit of the other, of letting no deed or word be offered without witness. To act in this way was to ensure that those who participated were subject to everlasting remembrance by those whose lives they had touched.

In the oral tradition we may think of stories as gifts where the role of the story listener is as important as the storyteller. Together they create a container or field of receptivity, of stillness and silence so that the story can be fully heard and the gift received.

Bearing Witness to One Another

In this sense the steward does not act so much as they bear witness. We are much more practiced at making the visible actionable than bearing witness by making the invisible nature of wholeness visible. To bear witness is to be with the other free of judgment, direction or advice. So rather than fixing, problem solving or moving to action it is to trust that life already knows what it is doing. In this spirit, to steward is to hold presence, to wait, to listen, to hold, to receive, to inquire and to be still with all the fullness of our attention offered to the moment at hand. It is difficult to bear witness in a compartmentalized world. We go to specialists to meet one need or another - and the continuity of time's unfolding is broken. Yet in this act of 'co-presencing' of bearing witness to another in the service of the whole, the commons in born.

Rita Charon in her beautiful book Narrative Medicine Honoring the Stories of Illness- suggests that it our busy fragmented world it may be only on the presence of illness that we truly learn to bear witness to another.

'Sickness opens doors" she says. In the midst of our busyness it is only when faced with the uncertainty of illness that we truly bear witness to one another. Time stops and we meet one another with the depth of attention that compels us to tell the stories of healing that lead us towards discovering our gifts and self knowledge. In the context of illness, to bear presence is to stay the course. The greatest fear for those who are sick is that their lovers, family and co-workers will leave. If the diagnosis diminishes us then perhaps it is through listening subtly, perceptively and deeply that we are made whole again.

Illness offers a metaphor for stewardship. Our communities and organizations are also in need of healing- of being listened to deeply and made more whole.

To bear witness is to fully open ourselves to the other - to be vulnerable and through our vulnerability to be available - to hear their story and attend to the fullness of who they uniquely are. To listen for wholeness we take in the form, pacing, images, rhythm and cadence of speech. It is in this mutual search for words adequate to our feeling and thought that we serve as the 'keepers at the edge' deciphering the fire of our mutual existence and bringing the formless into form.

Keepers at the Edge

The idea of being keepers at the edge of different realities lies at the heart of stewardship. All change happens at the edge - whether it is the edge of our own innate potential and gifts, the intersection between disciplines or the meeting place between ecosystems. These places at the edge are the most vulnerable, highly charged and diverse. The rocky shore where the ocean meets land, the narrow strip where the meadow meets the forest represent 'ecotones' It is where the fish and animals feed because it is where the most nutrition is to be found.

Near where I live, there is a community called Minjikaming, the home of the Chippewa First Nations. Minjikaming means " keepers of the fish fence" They have been the keepers of the fence for many thousands of years.

The fish fence is located in the narrows between two large bodies of water; Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe. It was where the many tribes came to establish their winter home because the narrows were the only body of water that did not ice over. Here they could find fish to feed themselves in order to survive during the heavy snows and severe winter weather

They were keepers in another way as well. Their land was at the meeting place between two large biological ecosystems- the limestone plain to the south and the hard granite rock and deep pine forests to the north. Each represented a distinct and complex system with its own fish, fauna, vegetation, and animal life.

Now the community has a casino, which brings people together from around the world. - So the keepers of the fish fence continue to be stewards of this meeting place. It continues now as is has for thousands of years.

Cultivating a New Mind

So it is vital that we also be keepers at the edge by cultivating a mind that is more subtle, creative and free flowing. It enables us to make visible the infinite world of wholeness and bring into being the 'commons' space in our personal and public life. It offers a space of balance, simplicity, harmony and integration where we may connect with a more diverse, free flowing and coherent sense self and of the whole.

As a space that lies at the threshold between our known world and a world that is not yet formed or owned, the commons makes visible the intangible qualities of wholeness and therefore holds the timeless gift of emergent possibility and infinite creation.. Learning to experience the commons as our blank canvas is the primary work of leadership now.

By following what attracts us, what feels vital and alive, what holds beauty and speaks to us in a particular way, we find a new way forward. It also brings the commons into view. To develop this new awareness invites an immersion in a world of the imagination that opens the portal for awakening a whole new mind.

Copyright C July 2007 Michael Jones.Pianoscapes.com