Author: Nancy White

Psychological Safety?

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, as you can see from the time stamp on this Twitter screen grab. The issue of safety in group interactions comes up so often and I feel this little devil on one shoulder, angel on the other. I can’t claim to make a space fully safe. And we can ask ourselves to co-create “brave space.” But there is never certainty.

I would love a different take, a different language around how we convene without doing damage to each other. In these post-election days here in the US, and two days after a child was shot at a local high school here in Seattle, I wonder a lot with a bruised heart.

Beck Tench and Zen of Zooming

I was so, so, so sure I had blogged about this wonderful online practice shared in 2020 by the amazing Beck Tench. But when I went to find it to reshare, I could not find it in my archives. So today I am getting this on the blog!

On Zoom we have all these little windows into others’ faces (if their camera is on). It is oddly a great place to do portrait sketching as a way to see, to pay attention, to shift out of monkey-mind. Beck pulled this practice from her reading of Frederick Franck’s The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as meditation.

Go to Beck’s post and read how to do it. https://www.becktench.com/blog/2020/7/26/the-zen-of-zooming

Then if you get to try it with others, I’d love to hear your impressions.

I found it really helpful to get out of my “solve the problem now” habits. To really look at another which I’m not sure we do as well online as we might F2F. When we HAVE shared our sketches with each other in all their glorious imperfections (you sketch WITHOUT looking at the sketch) we laugh, we wonder, even blush. It is a very human moment for me.

I’ll put some of my sketches below.

Remembering Tim Jaasko-Fisher

I’ve been a part of the wide-ranging and many-noded Liberating Structures network for many years. It has connected me to many remarkable people. One of them was the amazing Tim Jaasko-Fisher. LS founder Keith McCandless introduced me to Tim (I can’t remember where) and later recommended me for some support Tim was looking for.

Tim (left) and Keith in a Liberating Structures immersion “Fish Bowl”

Right away I was taken by Tim. A lawyer by training and a dedicated advocate for child welfare by practice and passion, Tim showed me a whole new side of the legal profession. To watch him deftly weave networks, facilitate groups who were not necessarily all on the same side, nor interested in group process Tim was offering, was quite something. Tim embraced the wicked questions inside of all of us and inside himself. Sure of his way and open to other ways. Fierce advocate for kids and collaborator within a challenged child welfare system. Open to simple solutions like protein before family court hearings to keep everyone on an even keel, an approach he and his amazing wife, Dr. Kristin Allott. Even from a distance it was clear this was a remarkable partnership and Tim glowed when he introduced me to Kris.

I had the joy and pleasure to work a few times for and with Tim. They were always learning moments. To see how he viewed something and approached it opened new perspectives for my own practice. I am ever grateful.

I will miss Tim. We all will miss Tim. The world has a hole it in left by Tim.

Memorial Tribute to Tim Jaasko-Fisher

CogDog Does it Again –> Openverse

https://cogdogblog.com/2022/10/open-to-openverse/ is a great post for all of you searching for free to use images. You used to be able to easily find them via an advanced search on Google, but Alan discovered that this was, shall we say, borked? So click in, read and then see all this fantastic visual material you can use from Openverse!

Screenshot from Openverse

An Overview & Example of Ecocycyle From 2019

I was cleaning up my Zoom recordings and came across this session from 2019 we set up as a follow up from a F2F Liberating Structures (LS) immersion in Atlanta. We didn’t have enough time to immerse ourselves in one of my favorite LS, Ecocycle. The wonderful kemmy Raji volunteered to use her own use of Ecocycle as a living case study. Please note we were still using the term “poverty trap” which is problemmatic language. We now say “scarcity trap.” We have a lot of work to do to make our language more anti-racist.

So here ya go. (Slides here.)