Panorama
Panorama: iPhone6
“…what I like to call hyperobjects: things that are huge and, as they say, ‘distributed’ in time and space-that take place over many decades or centuries (or indeed millennia), and happen all over Earth - like global warming.”
I try to stay curious about what frames my view.
Yet like many of us, I can find myself gently drifting; accepting, taking things for granted. I have a habit of holding close focus, becoming lost the small details, observing carefully, looking for feint, emerging signals and patterns.
Until, like the moment depicted in the photograph, I’m suddenly jolted, joyfully, into a different reality.
Maybe it was the geometry of the road and perspective of the trees that pointed me to this vista of enlivening inspiration; along with the sudden intake of breath that precedes a slower, aesthetic felt understanding of my situation. And so I needed to borrow a smartphone, with the camera mode switched to panorama, to mark the moment.
But even this super-wide framing doesn’t provide for the full expansiveness of the experience. Cameras are hopeless in moments like this; the frame is always too tight, unable to represent the ‘whole’ that becomes available to us. And this image, with it’s compressed sense of sky, reminds me to think of what I’m not seeing here. That awesome blueness, the dizziness of spinning around on still icy tarmac, the penetrating blast and roar of a sub-zero wind, my ungloved hands struggling to work the phone…
And more… These moments of ‘awe’ connect us to our environment.
The art that I bring to my change, coaching and consulting conversations is in working close in, carefully looking at how the imagery and words that give meaning to our world, organisations and relationships present themselves ‘in a grain of sand.’ The humanist philosopher and therapist Carl Roger’s reminds us that “What is most personal is most general” and so, by meticulously working with our individual experience of the world, we bring ourselves to the vastness of hyperobjects like climate change, ecological collapse or social and economic patterns.
The boundless complexity of the hyperobject defies our attempts to rationalise and ‘understand’ it; we only ever experience parts of it and can never gain complete or even sufficient data.
But, in the angular geometry of a straight road across windswept, frozen heathland, I lifted my eyes to see differently through the ‘frames’ that limit my view and met with the incredible possibility of our planet.
Back in my change conversations, I’m aware that we are frequently asked to accept analytical measurement, economic indicators, material gain or profit, status or reputation as the frame for our lives.
As we comply, our experience narrows quickly and, as it does, we deny our full, awesome, sensual participation in the world.
Let’s stay curious about that.
Notes:
Timothy Morton’s work rattles much of how we we think our our relationship to the world. His writing is radical and challenging. I started with ‘Being Ecological’ and I’m slowly wandering through his considerable back catalogue. You might also enjoy this 3-part BBC podcast, “The End of the World Has Already Happened.” But be warned, as Morten says (ironically), it gets off to ‘a jolly start!’
Do spend a moment with William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ which begins with the familiar line ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand’ and argue for seeing grand patterns in small encounters and so bringing into clearer focus the massive concepts that are otherwise beyond our normal comprehension.
As an educator, I’m a keen fan of Carl Rogers’ teaching. He is know for encouraging ‘unconditional positive regard’ for clients in therapy. My research indicates that his stance is also foundational in relationships that spur creativity and change. This ‘person-centered approach’ begins to set the conditions for confident, creative practices that lead to insight. Have a look at ‘On Becoming a Person.’
