Mapping for Me vs for the Collective

I recently attended an exceptional workshop through the Institute of Noetic Sciences. I was first introduced to IONS when I mapped their 2008 conference in Tucson. It is a great community of people that blends the science minded and the spiritually minded. They have their fingers in everything that is fascinating to me. They are on the edges of the gap between science and spirituality. That gap is the same one we often leap across when we bring "art" (visual facilitation and other creative engagement methods) into business environments.

The workshop last week was called "Engaging Fielding of Consciousness in a Living Universe | For Group Leaders." I could not resist. As a Visual Facilitator and having spoken to many people who do this kind of work, the visual reflections we create for groups are often the result of tapping into some content other than just what is being said. I won't go into more of that now, but save that for a future post. This workshop was lead by Duane Elgin and Christopher Bache. They were a perfect combination. Christopher provided specific practices to support and engage fields within group and Duane provided the visionary context and importance for this way of working at this time in our universe.

I was inspired by the leaders and the possibilities for working in this way with groups. I am attaching my notes from the weekend. I don't imagine they will do more than spark interest and curiosity for you. For me, they trigger memories of not only the content but the experience and field that was created by the fourteen people who were in that room at the Earth Rise Retreat Center last weekend. The notes are also a window into how I take notes for myself, rather than when I am being paid to produce a visual record for a broader audience. I enjoy being solely responsible for what I want to capture and how. I shared these notes with other workshop participants and they resonated to some extent for them, because the content is familiar. If I had been "working" this event, I am sure my notes would be very different. In part because I would have been working on a wall. I would have been listening to the collective and for the collective, rather than for me and my interests. I would have been sensing and hearing in a different way just by standing to the side, rather than sitting in the circle. I would have been more diligent to capture details that were not as pertinent for me alone.

I am curious to see other visual practitioner's personal sketchbook notes and the differences between what they capture for themselves and what they capture for everyone else...