What grows in the in-between time?
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Travel
A good friend just moved to Scotland. My monthly dancing ‘date’ in fact.
As I thought about her during the weekend of her trans-Atlantic move and pondered heading out to the dance floor on my own, I wondered about in-between time.
During a big move there’s a time when one has no electronic connections. Land line has been cut. Cell phone has been cut. Work phone line is no more.
No time yet for new lines.
What tethers us to the old hasn’t yet been replaced by the roots of the new. We’re free to wander in the in-between.
Kind of like the in-between time about now, when it’s almost the New Year but not quite.
What grows in the in-between time? I like to think that moments of magic grow there. How about you?
Related posts about time:
This thing called time part 2.
Is spontaneous time political?
Tags: in-between, scotland, time, wild time
Fall on my knees
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness
It’s late at night now. I’ve gone to bed once but got up as the words to this post were calling.
I was supposed to spend this weekend on my own. Blissfully alone. Quietly alone.
Then I got a call early this morning that one of my kids was sick and would I come and pick him up at his Scout camp. Reception was sketchy so details of when and where to get him were scarce.
A little while later found me driving up a local mountain in search of him. I found the camp. Sort of.
I hiked into a Scout camp but it was the wrong one. I waited at the trailhead. And waited. And then there he was, with his group, having hiked out through the snowy woods.
He was feeling a little better so we hiked back into the woods, up and down snowy, slippery hills, until we reached camp, bringing more firewood as we went.
I ended up staying for lunch while he, his little brother and the other Cubs and Scouts did their thing. I watched as he made lunch.
I didn’t have an agenda. I just hung out.
Later he decided that he wanted to go home, so off we set again through the woods. I watched as he helped the younger kids manoeuvre the slippery slopes.
That night, after dinner, found us cuddled up on the couch watching Sean Penn in Milk, the remarkable, gut wrenching story about gay rights activist Harvey Milk.
This young son of mine is straddling two very different worlds, the world of innocence and childhood and starry nights. And the world of testosterone where manhood can be measured by questionable things.
We’ve been arguing lately about his use of the word gay, as in ‘that’s so gay’.
He picked the video he wanted to watch tonight and so did I. Then we gave them both to the video clerk, who held them both behind his back and my kid pointed randomly to one hidden hand. The hand that held Milk.
We ended up watching the whole movie, deleted scenes, history, making of the movie and all. It was captivating.
Cut to bedtime number one. I’m listening to Stuart McLean’s podcast and Allison Russell is singing “O Holy Night” (click on the Dec 5th show, her song is at the 5 minute mark).
When she gets to the part about falling on one’s knees, my breath catches.
My knees are weak with gratitude, for this unplanned day. For simply being with my son. For watching a remarkable movie that explores difficult themes. Together. For bravery. For hope that things can and do change.
The podcast is still playing. Now she’s singing “God bless this beautiful moment ’til it’s gone”.
It’s finally starting to feel like Christmas.
Enough said.
Tags: allison russell, change management, gay rights, harvey milk, milk, o holy night, scouts, sean penn, stuart mclean, vinyl cafe
What does yellow taste like?
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Creativity & innovation
“This tastes yellow tastes mommy?” my then two year old told me as he ate something that was not the colour yellow.
Half of my brain marveled at his unusual and creative description, while half of my brain jumped to thinking about the seeds of an activity in his statement.
Since Jeremy’s description years ago now, I’ve developed and used a creative list of questions to engage my clients in thinking about creativity and innovation.
For example, how old is the letter P?
What does your self image sound like?
What colour is today?
Too often we go for the easy answer, the first answer, the ‘right’ answer.
Creativity asks us to go beyond the first answer. For example the letter P is ancient when compared to A but embryonic when compared to K.
Creativity asks us to answer with more than one answer. My today is framed by a deep indigo blue with streaks of ochre that spirals off into coils of copper, all back lit by the palest mauve.
In essence creativity asks us to take a risk.
What does yellow taste like to you?
Tags: creativity & innovation, innovation, risk, self image, training & development
A wild time in pictures
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication
I recently wrote a post about wild time.
Wild time and the wilderness have much in common, they’re both “everlasting, undefined, unenclosed, unnamed, a mystery”.
Here’s what everyday can feel like.
Here’s what wild time can feel like.
I drew this in my journal on my recent trip to Africa.
Which do you choose?
Wild time
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Travel
In recent posts I’ve been writing about time and some mighty interesting Utne Reader articles on time. Whether we’re more important than our appointment book, how to expand time, living on Tokyo time and the politics of spontaneity.
Now it’s time for some wild time.
Jay Griffiths in this excellent article of the same name maintains that we’re born chock full of time, and yet we tend to tame it as time passes (no pun intended).
Wild time and the wilderness have much in common, they’re both “everlasting, undefined, unenclosed, unnamed, a mystery”.
Unfortunately they both only exist in patches now.
In the West at least we tend to have tamed time.
“Wild time is not necessarily easier to be in, for its waters are uncontrolled, uncommanded and uncharted.”
However if you’re up for the adventure and if you feel the beckoning for more wild time, here are some hints for how to find it:
– look for “things that are most resistant to the clock”
– watch for ways to escape ordinary
– play (tickle your kid)
– play seriously (go to the theatre)
– laugh
– “resist the clock’s coercion”
– loose yourself in music
– loose yourself period; get lost and take your time finding your way back
– loose yourself (and your watch) in whatever you love to do
Tags: jay griffiths, Jay Walljasper, lynnika butler, stephan rechtschaffen, time, utne reader, wild time
In branding higher learning, it’s out with the old school
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Creativity & innovation
Caption: Einstein didn’t own a hairbrush either
Check out the Globe and Mail article by Simon Houpt ‘In branding higher learning, iti’s out with the old school’. He talks a bit about work I did with one of our clients, Simon Fraser University.
I did a workshop with the student recruiters (the folks who go around the country and speak to highschool students) about 10 principles for powerful learning.
While we may admire ivory tower learning, when I ask my clients to recall an example of powerful learning they experienced as an adult in a group I can count on one hand how many times someone has recalled a university setting.
Despite this though we fall into tried but not true means of getting our point across. In other words we talk. A lot.
The next time you need to create some powerful learning think about these principles;
- Nix the banking method
Banks are good for stashing cash but they don’t work when it comes to learning. What is traditionally known as the banking method is where the ‘expert’ pours their expertise into the empty vessel, known as the student. As Don Tapscott puts it a lecture is where “the notes of the lecturer go through the notes of of the student without going through the brain of either.”
2. Repeat after me…. amygdala
You’ve just said the Greek word for almond. The Greeks named the parts of our brain and not yet knowing what these parts did, they named our amygdala that because they look like almonds.
When sensory information comes into our brain that’s the first place the information goes. Our amygdala then decides if we’re safe, if we’re cool with what’s happening and if we’re okay.
If we’re good then the amygdala says great and shoves the information out the door into more sophisticated parts of our brain where higher processing happens (think critical thinking, reasoning, retention, creativity).
If it decides we’re not good then the gates clamp shut and the information goes no further. Instead our bodies get ready to do the proverbial flight or fight routine. Ain’t no higher processing happening. Nada. Niet.
Make friends with your amygdala and higher learning will result.
Stay tuned for future postings about more principles for powerful learning.
What does powerful learning mean to you?
Tags: branding, einstein, globe and mail, learning, simon houpt, training & development
When it comes to time is spontaneity political?
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Communication, Travel
Having recently returned from working in Africa I’ve been thinking about time. A lot.
In my last three posts I wrote about a great Utne Reader article called Our Schedules, Our Selves: Are you more important than your appointment book? by Jay Walljasper, Stephan Rechtschaffen’s article called How to expand time and Lynnika Butler’s article about Living on Tokyo Time.
Another article about time in the same Utne issue is Leda Dederich’s one called the Politics of Spontaneity.
Having an altered sense of time since coming back home the title of her article hit me like the -20 degree weather I recently experienced while skiing. With a sharp intake of breath I read on.
Leda writes about having to “fight the magnetic pull toward overcommitment and speed”.
Right on. My neurons, pleading for a slower pace of life are shaking their biological pompoms.
Writing about her experience coming home after an extended international trip, she continues by saying “I’m-not-going-to-schedule-every-minute-of-my-life experiment feels like an act of personal resistance to a social system that values efficiency and production over the body’s natural rhythms”.
Since when was it political to be spontaneous?
Since we’ve been cutting, calibrating, slicing, dicing, shaving and saving. All in the name of time.
I recently had a wonderful long distance video chat via Skype with moxy, maven colleague Dyana Valentine. When it was all over I wanted to do it again.
I resisted the urge to schedule another call. We agreed we’d talk. Some time.
Tags: africa, change management, dyana valentine, Jay Walljasper, leda dederich, lynnika butler, overcommitment, politics of spontaneity, rps, skype, stephan rechtschaffen, time, tokyo, utne reader
This thing called time: Tokyo time
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Communication, Travel
Having recently returned from working in Africa I’ve been thinking about time. A lot.
In my last two posts I wrote about a great Utne Reader article called Our Schedules, Our Selves: Are you more important than your appointment book? by Jay Walljasper and Stephan Rechtschaffen’s article called How to expand time.
In the same Utne issue Lynnika Butler writes about Living on Tokyo Time.
“In the West, we save time, spend time , invest time, event kill time- all of which implies that it belongs to us in the first place. The Japanese grow up with a sense of time as a communal resource.”
That’s a mind bender. Time as a communal resource?
Language shapes our thoughts. In Japanese you receive free time, as opposed to taking it.
Free time (hima) is something that only comes to you when all of your communal duties have been fulfilled.
Interesting notion.
What would you do with received time?
Tags: africa, japan, Jay Walljasper, lynnika butler, stephan rechtschaffen, time, utne reader
This thing called time part 2
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Travel
Having recently returned from working in Africa I’ve been thinking about time. A lot.
In my last post I wrote about a great Utne Reader article called Our Schedules, Our Selves: Are you more important than your appointment book? by Jay Walljasper.
Accompanying Jay’s article is a bold headline that reads “How to Expand Time”. Author Stephan Rechtschaffen begins by saying that when he asks his seminar attendees if they have enough time. When he asked prison inmates no one raised a hand!
“We are all imprisoned – by the perception that time is a scarce and limited resource.” Stephan goes on to say that “stress comes from resisting what is actually happening in the moment.”
Hmmm. Pause for reflection.
He offers 5 ways to expand time:
1. Break your current rhythm and enter a new one: “the simple act of pausing can help change how time feels”, he even suggests using the ring of the telephone as a signal to pause, and take a breath rather than mindlessly snatching it off the hook.
2. Create time boundaries: plan time to reflect, contemplate, mediate, whatever shakes your tail feathers. Just make sure it’s not interrupted by your or anyone else’s to-do list.
3. Honour the mundane: Stephan says we often treat our lives as highlights. We live for the big moments. The ta-da’s, watch ma no hands moments. He suggests the in-between moments are the bulk of our lives and can be the source of much that is honorable. Note to self: try this while doing next mountain of laundry
4. Create spontaneous time: create time for unexpected, unplanned events. Pick a time several weeks from now and on that date go where your fancy takes you. They key is no pre-planning. Radical I know.
5. Create time retreats: Stephan recommends doing something once a year that takes you out of your normal rhythm for a week or more. Make a conscious choice and let time open to you. Note to self: book flight to Kenya and Mozambique in January
I’m thankful for the opportunity my work in Africa gave me to shake up my rhythm.
For time to open up, expand, wash over and shake me up.
To curl my toes, make my heart beat faster and shake my hips.
To put a grin on my face, a tear in my heart.
To planted question marks that continue to grow in a fertile mind.
To open my eyes while at times I wanted to shield them.
Time.
Tags: africa, Jay Walljasper, stephan rechtschaffen, time, utne reader
This thing called time
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Travel
Coming back from working in Africa for a month I’ve been thinking about time a lot.
A lot.
Time flowed thicker there. I was swept up in its meandering current. I delighted in its unpredictability.
Slipping back into the stream at home in Canada I observe myself getting annoyed if someone takes a few extra seconds to start driving when the traffic light turns green. I go to bed with my to do list near my bed and it’s one of the first things I look at when I get up.
Sigh.
The juxtaposition of how I frame my time in Africa and in Canada was made more so when I pulled out an unread article I’d clipped during a collage and journaling course I took some time ago.
While I was clipping pictures to make a collage I’d across an Utne Reader magazine issue that had several article on time.
Ironically I hadn’t made time to read it.
When I curled up in front of the fire recently and finally read it, the articles spoke volumes.
“From the minute we rise in the morning, most of us have our day charted out. The only surprise is if we actually get everything done,” says author Jay Walljasper, in the article called Our Schedules, Our Selves: Are you more important than your appointment book?
It’s not like we don’t have a reasonable excuse. “Just like hungry diners gathering around a bountiful smorgasbord, it’s hard not to pile too many activities on our plates.” “Our free hours get just as programmed as our work days.”
“We’ve booked ourselves so full of prescheduled activities that there’s no time left for those magic, spontaneous moments that make us feel most alive. We seldom stop to think of all the experiences we are eliminating form our lives when we load up our appointment book.”
Jay goes on to say how we think about time can make a big difference in our lives. As with most everything else, perspective is everything.
By the way, the article was written in 2003. I’m trying to think more about how fortuitous that the article found me and not that we continue as a culture to have these time issues some 6 years down the road.
More about the other Utne time articles in the next blog post.
Until then how can you say no to the smorgasbord?
Tags: africa, canada, Jay Walljasper, time, utne reader