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 ==== Transiency Maja Kuzmanovic ====
-The core team of FoAM bxl, including [[maja_kuzmanovic|me]], started our [[http://fo.am/macrotransiency-foam-bxl/|macrotransiency]] with the new moon in February 2016, carving out time to [[http://fo.am/laying-fallow/|lay fallow]] and pursue things that “there isn’t time for”, to explore the unknown and embrace the unexpected.
+The core team of FoAM bxl, including [[maja_kuzmanovic|me]], started our [[http://fo.am/macrotransiency-foam-bxl/|macrotransiency]] with the new moon in February 2016. We carved out a year to [[http://fo.am/laying-fallow/|lay fallow]] and pursue things that “there isn’t time for”, to explore the unknown and embrace the unexpected.
+Visual impressions of the year can be found in my [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/albums/72157672406688516|"transient" album]] and on [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/albums/72157666465040662|FoAM's flickr pages]], which also include photographs from my fellow transients [[transiency_rasa_alksnyte|Rasa Alksnyte]] and [[transiency_nik_gaffney|Nik Gaffney]] (from whom I borrowed some of the images on this page as well).
 This page is the informal log of my transiency process, in reverse chronological order.
+==== Echoes from my fallow year ====
+==== February 2017 ====
+=== Week 53 ===
+I wanted to end my fallow year up north, in the cold and dark of the long winter night. The Nordic penchant for darkness and intensity soothes my senses and sensibilities. So does the acceptance of the mysterious, otherworldly or magical. The "unknowable" is simply a part of everyday life. It’s suffused in the landscape, which gleams in the stark and unrelenting beauty of solitude.
+I wanted to be immersed in dim surroundings that would invoke one more deep dive of introspection. Once I submerged myself deep enough to find a place of raw honesty, I wanted to look over the insights I collected over the last year, to see what emerged as promising directions. Instead of darkness though, I encountered a continuously changing light. From the breathtakingly intense colours of dawn and twilight (each lasting about three hours), through the many hues of water, snow and ice, the wabi-sabi colours of the vegetation, to the luminous moonlight and the eerie northern lights. The darkness was fiercely luminous.
+{{::l1029578.jpg?500 |}}
+The crisp light in the north was not just awe inspiring but also completely 'absorbent'. I witnessed all of my carefully laid out plans dissolving into the landscape. Instead of deep contemplation, I experienced the most profound stillness. A state of absolute presence, an active passivity which is for me the epitome of being fallow. I spent hours gazing out of windows, viscerally experiencing timelessness of each moment. The thoughts and worries - which were still just as present - seemed to glide off me like water off a seal’s coat. After a few futile attempts at resistance (consisting of opening my computer and editing text), I surrendered and let go. I ended my fallow year by being utterly fallow.
+The last day the sky descended so low as to be indistinguishable from the sea, obliterating all colours into dark shades of grey. As the darkness grew, so I began turning inward. Many memories rose to the surface, with as many emotions in tow. I watched them play out, a syncopated movie in slow motion. The directionless flow punctuated by daily rituals, seasonal observances, intimate celebrations and subdued mournings. A melancholy sense of loss entwined with gratitude.
+I ended my pondering on the fallow year with the aftertaste of gratitude. To myself, to the core team of FoAM bxl and other foamies near and far, to our funders and clients, members and friends and to all of the mysterious forces of the universe for conspiring to make this year happen. It was far from perfect - and far from perfectly fallow - but it was necessary and it was valuable. I began the year rather depleted. I can’t say that I’m coming out of it completely refreshed and energised, but at least when I look forward I see more possibilities than obstacles.
+The fallow rhythm allowed me to crystallise insights that were dormant under the surface in the previous years of living with dis-ease on both medical and professional fronts. I’m going to leave them scattered as shimmering crystals. In lieu of a summary, I’d like to end this entry with some of the questions that arose  in the past year, to guide me in the next phase of inquiry:
+  * How to thrive in uncertainty?
+  * When faced with uncertain or difficult situations, how to "stay with the trouble", rather than fight, flight or freeze? From a place of openness and awareness, how to discern and cultivate promising alternatives to the status quo?
+  * How to move from the politics of surviving to a culture of thriving?
+  * How to tackle "wicked problems" in a complex, turbulent world?
+  * How to consciously live in perpetual states of transition (as individuals, organisations, societies)?
+  * How to "weaponise" prototyping futures (e.g. as a tactic of resistance to a fear-mongering litany, among other things)?
+  * How to hold space for embodied learning of complex, systemic phenomena (e.g. the effects of climate change)?
+  * How to design experiences for immersion and absorption in the thick present and the long now?
+  * What kinds of experiences stimulate contemplation and celebration?
+  * What experiences encourage wonder and wandering?
+  * What (new) myths and belief systems could foster alternatives to the current culture of fear (including fear of impermanence and the "other")?
+  * How to translate animist or mystical attitudes towards interconnectedness of all life into worldviews compatible with techno-materialist societies?
+  * What kinds of relationships between human and non-human worlds could be cultivated in an era of mass-extinction? What parallel arts, sciences or technologies become possible if we widen the sentience spectrum?
+-> //On a more "meta level": Which of these questions are most relevant to explore? What would I/we need to be able to answer these questions? What does the next action research cycle look like? In which contexts, cultures and environments to explore these questions? Etc.//
+Warmed by the curious glow of possible answers, I’m taking my leave of the fallow year…
+<blockquote>
+To see a world in a grain of sand,\\
+And a heaven in a wild flower,\\
+Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,\\
+And eternity in an hour.\\
+-//[[http://www.artofeurope.com/blake/bla3.htm|William Blake]]//
+</blockquote>
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/32895023645/}}\\
+=== Week 52 ===
+I’m enveloped in darkness. The darkness of the pre-dawn hour while I write this entry. The darkness of early February, the in-between time of Imbolc and the inception of spring. The darkness of the fallow land and the fallow year, teeming with vigorous yet bitter energy of life below its surface. The darkness of a crumbling cocoon, too tight for the creature craving to emerge from within. "//Not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb//" ([[http://valariekaur.com/2016/11/a-sikh-prayer-for-america-on-november-9th-2016/|Valerie Kaur]]).
+{{::schiphol_bladerunner.jpg?600 |}}
+On Thursday morning, when the flight from Singapore landed in Amsterdam, the first announcement I heard was "//Watch your step when you get off the aircraft, there is a technical problem with lighting in parts of the airport.//" Under the watchful eyes of the grim security personnel, we descended into a dark corridor, pulsing with emergency strobe-lights. A river of flight-dazed passengers walking slowly in a disordered line, up a rickety escalator, people’s faces glowing eerily green. I felt as if we stumbled onto the set of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner|Blade Runner]]. Cyberpunk incarnated. The colour faded into bleak shades of greys and browns when we stepped off the train in Brussels…
+A stark contrast to the cheerful pinks, reds and oranges of the Chinese New Year that illuminated our last walk along Marina Bay only half a day earlier. The first days of the Year of the Rooster heralded interesting opportunities for the nomadic FoAM studio in Asia Pacific. We spent several tropical evenings in the company of [[https://twitter.com/honorharger|Honor Harger]] (and Co.), discussing times of transition and complexity, technological and social innovation, consciousness and religion, and a myriad of possible futures in Singapore as a temporary outpost for FoAM’s nomads.
+<blockquote>//We are curious about the changing relationships between human and non-human worlds, in what Whitehead calls “mysterious reality in the background, intrinsically unknowable". We’re particularly interested in exploring ecological connections between worldviews, including kami (shinto), viriditas (christian mysticism) and panpsychism (philosophy). Our focus is on creating experiences to convey or encourage a sense of wonder. Our media include Romantic Machines, the vegetal mind, meditative environments, rites of passage, human scale systems and non-human technologies...// - Excerpt from a letter Nik and I wrote in Singapore
+</blockquote>
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/31907128593/}}\\
+This was a week of contrasts and crossroads. From 33 to 3 degrees Celsius. From a city that buzzes with seemingly effortless efficiency, to a city that seems to struggle with blockages of all kinds. From an optimistic sense of lightness and possibility to a sense of drowning in mud. From distilling insights for the future to unravelling the convoluted commitments of the past. From connectedness to separation, from offers to demands, from abundance to scarcity. From thriving to surviving.
+<blockquote>Brussels is a city for those who have patience, time and imagination. It is for those who question the increasingly frenetic pace of urban life and work. It is for those who appreciate understatement and refuse homogenising labels and manufactured “hip” concepts. Perhaps, however, what keeps Brussels attractive is its latent sense of expectancy, the promise of a perpetual becoming which is never fulfilled.
+- [[http://theartnewspaper.com/comment/comment/why-brussels-is-not-the-new-berlin/|Katerina Gregos]]
+</blockquote>
+I’m not going to dwell on my frustrations with circumstances in Brussels again. Suffice to say that I find the phase of re-integration quite difficult. The process of transition necessarily results in change - often manifest as finding a new role in an existing context, the transformation of the context itself, or a move to a completely new context. The only approach I haven’t yet tried with FoAM in Brussels is the latter. What I find difficult at the moment is that the direction and pace of my personal transition seems to be at odds with the place where I currently live and work. So much so that I don’t see any way back. It feels like I’ve outgrown the cocoon that has sustained me for years - if I don’t break out, I will suffocate and perish. I’ve seen this reaction with FoAM’s transients in the past. Our advice to them was almost always to stay close to where their renewed energies lie and to find ways to let go of the unsustainable ties to the past, no matter how painful the cutting of ties might be.
+During the past year I have glimpsed my preferred futures and experienced resonances with new places and people across the globe. Yet there are forces of friendship and commitment that keep pulling me back to Brussels and into old habits, behaviours and situations. It takes a lot of energy to resist, especially when paired with feelings of doubt, guilt and shame that I’m letting people down. It’s painful to cut ties to a place and a context, when there are people I care about who will remain. I don’t want burning bridges to light my way, I want to leap off the bridge into a bioluminescent sea…
+<blockquote>The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm (…). On the Offshore Lights you can live any story (…) and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind.
+- M L Stedman, The Light Between Oceans
+</blockquote>
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/32597315871/}}\\
+==== January 2017 ====
+=== Week 51 ===
+The week began in Melbourne and ended in Singapore, with a social stop-over in Adelaide for a few days in between. Farewell to Australia and its motley collection of people and places, which increased my belief in the value of "strong opinions weakly held". My experience in the last month was one of stark contrasts and a few incongruities (beyond just the weather and the landscape). Farewell to my fellow hermits, cancer patients and mer-witches, to close family and remote acquaintances. To those precious people with whom I renewed and deepened bonds that defy geographic distances, and to those with whom I felt a creeping distancing of mindsets and lifestyles. Those who grew up, those who are still growing, and those who - like me - will probably never grow up.
+After a smooth flight on one of my favourite airlines, we arrived in our temporary "jaunty" studio in Bukit Batok, with only a few days before the end of the lunar year. The studio is in a peculiar building, our neighbours ranging from car mechanics to mysterious import/export dealerships. Further afield we’re surrounded with national parks, residential blocks and highways. I write overlooking a water-tower, three giant lightning-rods, a Buddhist-Taoist temple with amputated swastikas and a stray piece of jungle destined for development in the near future. The monotonous sound of ceiling fans and cicadas is occasionally interrupted by screeching tires and echoing gongs. It’s good to be back in Asia, with its convoluted entanglement of the past and the future, where impermanence and tradition co-exist in surprisingly congruous juxtapositions. So familiar, yet so appealingly "other" to me.
+{{::img_5433.jpg?480 |}}
+We are in Singapore for only a week, so we immediately settled into a comfortable routine. Waking up before dawn and going for walks ahead of the heat or rain. We discuss our insights from the fallow year, write and rest during the day, then roam the city after dark. It takes a while to get used to the tropical food and climate, so I’m quite tired and lethargic, with occasional and unpredictable bursts of energy. One of the best aspects of the fallow year is being able to follow my natural biorhythm more often. Obviously I feel better, less stressed and more capable when I can wake up without an alarm-clock, when I can rest if I feel tired and allow the rest to last as long as it takes - minutes, hours or even days. It must be possible to organise my post-fallow work in accordance with my physical needs. I know it makes me more effective and more resilient, but it takes quite some discipline to resist falling into the maelstroms of constant "business" when working with others. I believe that having a clearer direction and a set of principles could help. I’m planning to take time in the coming weeks to distill the insights from the last twelve months. I’d like to articulate a direction, together with a set of questions for the next phase.
+On the 27th of January was the New Year’s Eve in the Chinese lunar calendar. We cheered to it with a delicious mandarine-scented cocktail in the Tippling Club. Let the year of the Fire Rooster begin!
+//"Fire by its very nature is the element associated with brilliance, warmth, passion, spark. So a brilliant and enthusiastic rooster, combined with the salient characteristics of fire, heralds an enterprising and fruitful year, a year of results, achievements. This year we can fulfil all of our dreams."// ([[http://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-new-year-2017-animal-year-fire-rooster-zodiac-sign-meaning-explained-2481889|Zhao Li]]).
+Well, the Fire Rooster couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Time to mark the beginning of the end of the fallow year…
+=== Week 49-50 ===
+Nik and I operated as a transient FoAM studio in Melbourne for a couple of weeks. We began by developing a sense of the city as a place to live and work - sourcing food, walking, taking public transport, frequenting places suggested by locals, meeting friends and family. We arranged to meet specific people who could help us find our way into (working in) Melbourne. Through a range of planned and spontaneous conversations with young and old (including a chance encounter with [[https://twitter.com/futuryst|Stuart Candy]] on a tram), we uncovered some of the opportunities, challenges and practicalities we would be faced with if we decided to work more extensively in Australia. The most promising directions for our work in Melbourne include connections between health/wellbeing, futures, entrepreneurship, research and experience design. Food futures resonated with most people we spoke with. While this might be an easy entry point, our work with inhabiting uncertainty might be most useful in the long run (considering the city’s environmental, economic, (multi)cultural and infrastructural issues). There were several conversations that lead to possible offers in academia, but I would prefer to work as FoAM on the edges of academia and other sectors. We left with a sense of possibility, a list potential collaborations, and an intention to return in about a year.
+Aside from paying attention to the world around us, I was conducting an experiment of my own: observing if and how my body can find a new balance after surgery, long distance travel (and it’s associated side-effects) and a few weeks of physically disruptive lifestyle (managed through medication and meditation). The basic requirement to be able to become a "drifter" in the transient/nomadic FoAM studio is that I must feel well enough to work wherever I am. In other words, I should feel at "home" physically and mentally. Based on my experience in the last six months, this can take 1~2 weeks, depending on my activities and surroundings. The time is substantially reduced if I can organise my own time and cook most meals at home. After I find a physical and mental balance, I can focus better on working with others and contributing within the local context. My current working hypothesis is that we could have 3-4 nomadic bases per year, with occasional shorter travels in between (if needed). I’d like to keep one of the bases in Brussels, at least for 2017. I know I’d like to spend longer periods in Croatia, and that I’d like to give Melbourne a try. For the rest, I remain open to different possibilities, and observe where I feel a strong resonance (like Japan).
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/32092510410/}}\\
+<blockquote>We no longer have roots, we have aerials. We no longer have origins, we have terminals."
+—  McKenzie Wark </blockquote>
+Operating as a FoAM studio in Melbourne included not only the aforementioned experiments, but also collaborating with people on site and remotely. We wrote two articles, facilitated two personal scenario workshops (promising line of work, though economically unsustainable in its current form), co-ordinated upcoming events in Europe and maintained bits of remote admin and logistics for FoAM bxl.
+{{ ::fallowish.jpg?400|}} The first article we worked on (with Time’s Up) was a short piece about our work with [[://future_fabulators/making_things_physical|physical narratives]] for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Futures_Studies|Journal of Futures Studies]]. The reviewers had requested that the article should situate our work more explicitly within Futures (the academic discipline), while conforming to the format of the journal. The process reminded me of the rather insular and self-referential nature of contemporary academia, where transdisciplinary theory (or rhetoric) and practice rarely overlap. It also reminded me of one of the main reasons we started FoAM: to have an independent entity that can work WITH institutions (such as universities), rather than each of us being individually employed by them. Seventeen years later, I think this position is perhaps even more relevant than when we started.
+Working as an independent, but well connected transdisciplinary network we can function as a bridge across oft disparate worlds of theory and practice. We can only do that if we exist in the (often lonely and unrecognised) spaces in between. This is nothing new for us, but perhaps we should more clearly (and vocally) articulate this position. Not only is the way we work across various divides beneficial for the people in FoAM, but some aspects of it can be useful for others. Our work with [[:marine_colab/start|Marine CoLABoration]] for example, where we translated our collaborative processes into a programme of workshops for a range of organisations working on marine conservation. While our direct involvement in the programme ended about a year ago, the [[https://gulbenkian.pt/uk-branch/about-us/story/|CGF]] invited us to write a reflective article about it. We spent several days unravelling FoAM’s interpretation of the "lab approach", using Marine CoLAB as our case study. We wrote the first draft of the article, to be finalised in February.
+Every morning we had a discussion over breakfast to asses our progress, which usually lead to putting the fallow year on hold to meet external deadlines. Combining the transiency with several overlapping experiments, doing work for clients and worrying about various loose ends in Brussels caused tension at times. All of us in the core team felt frustrated and desperate at various points in this fallow-ish year. Even though our reasons and circumstances varied, all the difficulties seem to originate from not having set clear boundaries around our transiency and making inevitable compromises. As the year draws to its end, a paradoxical sense of urgency to hold the space for reflection is increasing. At the same time I feel as if I’m crouching on starting blocks, my (mental) muscles tensing for a sprint. I must be watchful and pace myself as I begin the re-integration phase. I have to keep reminding myself that the next phase is going to be more like a long hike on uneven terrain than a short run with clearly delineated start and finish lines…
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/32777600261/}}\\
+=== Week 48 ===
+In the first hours of 2017 I glimpsed [[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2017/jan/12/australia-day-lamb-ad-tackles-indigenous-land-rights-and-immigration-video|Australia]] as I had previously imagined it, before I ever set foot across its quarantined border. A group of people - likely a conglomeration of several beach parties - had invented or spontaneously organised a game loosely based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoits|quoits]] which involved covering a tree with looped glow-sticks. The tree was quite tall and the people in varying stages of drunkenness, so few of the glowing loops would reach their target. Successful throws received gaudy cheers, the ones that failed were jovially encouraged to try again. The tree was silently glowing in fading rainbow colours, surrounded by convivial echoes of laughter and multilingual conversations. The very air suffused with the ease of communal wellbeing and a relaxed, non-competitive playfulness. Diversity, social inclusion, non-judgmental collaboration, all qualities that the EU is explicitly aspiring to were playing out in front of me, on the other side of the globe. I knew it wouldn’t last, which only made this fleeting sensation of kinship with total strangers even more precious.
+{{::vv-fest.jpg?650 |}}
+Kinship, kinfolk, kindred spirits, kith and kin have been a leitmotif of my first week in 2017. The first couple of days I luxuriated in the verdant garden of the Blue House, in the company of [[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/an-oral-history-of-the-first-cyberfeminists-vns-matrix|Franscesca Da Rimini]] (GashGirl, doll yoko, liquid_nation, VNS Matrix...) and [[https://medium.com/@alkan|Alkan Chipperfield]], two of my favourite Aussies, both who I would consider kin. The remainder of the week I spent in Melbourne in the company of my extended family in-law, other kin, celebrating the "Vv Festival", which included several birthday parties, cocktails, pub-food, fine dining and backyard barbecues.
+In between the festivities I was happy to begin exploring Melbourne as a potential nomadic dwelling. A warm midnight walk along the Yarra river and the [[https://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/|botanic gardens]], together with the abundance of the [[http://southmelbournemarket.com.au/|South Melbourne market]] seem to hold a lot of promise… I’ve been skeptical of the infamous hipster foodie culture, but I’m beginning to experience some its virtues - I can get [[http://www.fodmapped.com/|fodmapped]] foods in corner stores, and no one rolls their eyes when I list my various food intolerances (side effects of chemotherapy). I laughed at myself while ordering a "decaf short mac" or an "iced matcha latte" and I can’t help but admit that - as someone who gets heart palpitations from coffee but likes fluffy drinks - I truly enjoyed the experience (of the drinks not the terminology). Beyond sophisticated food and drinks, I’m looking forward to delving deeper into the local geography and culture next week, when most of the family departs to other cities and continents.
+In the rare pauses between being with family, I’ve often caught myself pondering FoAM as a kinship network, a "clanarchy" of sorts. I’ve heard most foamies (and some of their blood-relatives) describe themselves as part of the "FoAM family". Even if we don’t work together for years, there often remains a sense of belonging, which doesn’t seem to fade. When we meet new people, there are some who 'feel' like long lost relatives, while others don’t. In some subtle ways we’re akin (pun intended) whether or not we work together. Sometimes collaboration can get in the way of kinship, sometimes it enhances it…
+I’m curious to explore how (and if) the FoAM network could function as a kinship network. In a way we already do. However, it’s not clear to me what would be required to maintain such a network when it isn’t bound by "work", but rather by likemindedness and care for each other. It might make sense to explore and experiment with diverse forms of kinship which could enrich and expand the FoAM network. I can’t yet clearly articulate what this would entail, but I think it’s something worth contemplating.
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/32070393112/}}\\
+==== December 2016 ====
+=== Week 47 ===
+{{::img_5072.jpg?300 |}}It’s been a while since I was involved in a full-blown family Christmas celebration. This year in Glenelg I was fully immersed, albeit occasionally distracted by jetlag, motion sickness, heart palpitations and painful lymphedema. My body felt like a marionette, wobbling on the strings of willpower, circling around breakfasts, lunches and dinners with extended family and family friends. Food and cooking (and cleaning) for days on end. Mountains of gifts, mountains of waste. Balancing on the fine line between generosity and (over)consumption. With my socialist understanding of the spirit of the holiday, I put myself in service and helped where I was needed, which sometimes included simply getting out of the way. It reminded me of birthdays in the Kuzmanovic clan, which often numbered over thirty or forty people. Navigating such occasions is strangely similar to the state of mind I associate with being in the flow on my own. The sense of self dissolves into a state of alert attention. I felt like a leaf carried along the strong currents of a turbulent river. If I resist it in any way, it could become unbearable, but if I just let things happen, boisterous storms passed over me and through me… A good practice in how to avoid feeling "peopled out". From sunrise to sunset, the house was echoing with running feet of the young and old, a crying baby, children’s high pitched, high decibel voices and rapid fire of simultaneous conversations in a myriad of Aussie accents. When I’d return from a sunset walk along the beach, the soundtrack changed to all-night doof-doof of bad music and drunken destruction inflicted by our neighbours.
+As the temperature cooled from 41.5C to 19C, facilitated by a storm of monsoon proportions, the family commitments thinned out and we could venture further afield, meet friends and collaborators in a pleasant mix of socialising and work-talk. Aside from  reminiscing on times gone by, resonating themes included trans-local communities, futures and transitions, various approaches to collapse, uncertainty and adaptation, life-writing and body-writing. Our [[Doing nothing]] is still intriguing to most, especially on organisational scale.
+New Year’s Eve began for me with writing in the garden, basking in the warm glow of the last hour of sunlight in 2016. After a solid roast, Nik and I walked into the sunset and into the new year (most of the time against the current of crowds). It’s an important transition point for the two of us. The end of FoAM’s decade as a structurally funded "kunstenwerkplaats" (arts-lab). We still have some funding and legal obligations to fulfil in 2017, but the bulk of the work and responsibility was carried off our shoulders by the wind blowing from the Southern Ocean.
+We walked along the edge of the water for hours, fuelled by whisky and smoked almonds. In the distance, the horizon a deep black expanse extending into infinity. Closer to the shore, the water lightened to a myriad of greys, continuously churned by the rolling waves and fast moving clouds. Above it all hung the southern sky, with its (for me) unfamiliar constellations… Around us the darkness was broken by fire twirlers, salt lamps, flash lights and the comical dances of disembodied glow-sticks, attached to limbs, necks and heads of humans, dogs and trees. The atmosphere was convivial and festive, yet hushed by the rumble of the ocean and the wind. We were surrounded by people, all moving but going nowhere in particular.
+I wanted to meet the new year walking. We passed solitary meditators, intimate couples and small beach parties. The fireworks shot up, people stopped and cheered. we kept walking. Invoking our new year’s resolution to leave the burdens of the past behind and move forward, together, into whatever the new year may bring...
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/31177510074/}}\\
+=== Week 46 ===
+A week of travel and transit, from from the northern to southern hemisphere, from winter to summer, from work life to family life, from the stillness of our Brussels apartment to the syncopated fluttering of the Blue House in Glenelg. In between Nik and I found ourselves celebrating 'winter' solstice in Singapore, one degree north of the equator, where duration of day and night remain nearly constant throughout the year. When the sun began returning to the northern hemisphere, at 6:44PM (local time) we were eating an Omakase (お任せ) dinner. Omakase, "I’ll leave it up to you". In one word, it intertwines trust, artistry, skill, spontaneity, grace, hospitality, lightness, deliciousness, flow and letting things be just as they are. Every sip and each bite was an invocation of these qualities. May they guide us as we begin to transition from inner journeys of the fallow year to the year of outward-oriented experimentation.
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/31208115763/}}\\
+=== Week 45 ===
+I was hoping that the weeks before winter solstice would be truly fallow so I could enjoy the mysterious chill and darkness of the season, unfortunately this was not the case. Timeless, careless absorption in the present - one of the key aspects of the fallow year - emerged occasionally while walking along misty streets illuminated by Yuletide fairy lights.
+Yet another pause in the fallow year (where pause means a flurry of fast-paced context-switching activity). A compromise. Meetings, conference calls, design sessions, accounting and administration. [[http://fo.am/tasting-fieldwork/|Promotion]] and [[http://lib.fo.am/hosting/december_2016|documentation]]. Scheduling. Work-related travel, with one Eurostar journey which lasted over eight hours (instead of two), due to suspected stowaways on the roof of the train and the convoluted incompatibilities between high-speed and regular train lines in Belgium. My final post-op checkup of 2016. A series of rushed farewells. Perseverance keeping emotional swings in check. From tension to hope, frustration to affection.
+The week began with Rasa, Nik and I finally deciding to let go of our beautiful, yet entropic studio space, likely sometime in the spring of 2017 (legalities and details TBC). The week ended with the bittersweet aftertaste of our last FoAM apero as a "kunstenwerkplaats". I spent most of my time wrapping up past commitments and consolidating plans for the near future.
+The post-fallow stage of my transiency - the re-integration - has begun gradually filling with a series of experiments. From March to July 2017 my calendar includes bursts of collaborative activities (workshops, events, design sessions) interspersed with longer periods of solitary work, in Belgium and abroad. It looks like a comfortable rhythm, but doesn’t have much space for adding anything unplanned, ad-hoc or serendipitous collaborations. Instead, the first half of the year is about re-affirmation of existing working relationships, which Nik and I would like to continue in our new guise of a transient FoAM studio. For the rest of the year, I’d like to keep enough (head)space and balance between vision and adaptation to respond in interesting ways to whatever might emerge.
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/31135597824/}}\\
+=== Week 43-44 ===
+My time in the last couple of weeks has been mostly future oriented, occasionally slipping into the troublesome past (with my convoluted invalidity status) and subsiding in the melancholic present (with unpredictable energy levels, and several endings to mourn and celebrate). The very near future - the last couple of months of the fallow year - required finalising travel plans to Australia, Singapore and Norway. After that, in the early spring of 2017 we will be entering a more outward-oriented phase of the transiency. I’ve decided that my transiency will continue in 2017, considering the many interruptions during 2016. From March onwards Nik and I would like to explore what it would be like for the two of us to function as a transient FoAM studio. Short collaborative experiments (in different places with a range of people) and periods of reflection, strategising and writing (in particular my cancer memoir and the [[http://lib.fo.am/f15/grow_your_own_worlds|GYOW]] kaiseki articles, which I will not manage to finish this year). Although the "real" work will begin from March 2017, our collaborators are starting to need our input now (Marine CoLAB, Time’s Up, Arizona State University, Istrian Anti-cancer league…). To ensure that our "new" commitments remain in line with promising directions, we conducted a futuring exercise looking at longer time horizons and possible alternatives.
+{{ ::img_4930.jpg?350|}}
+We asked ourselves "What things that we resonate with should we commit to?" Over the course of this year we touched on this question in informal conversations, but this time we attempted to find possible answers with a structured 2x2 scenario exercise. From a forest of signals and change drivers, we ended up with four critical uncertainties and distilled two scenario axes: capitalism <-> post-capitalism and materialist anthropocentrism <-> ecological panpsychism. The scenarios helped us clarify which aspects of our work might be most relevant in the world today and in the possible futures which we can see emerging. While there were no surprises, the exercise helped us connect and distill some of our intuitive resonances to larger societal trends. We came up with a few speculative directions:
+If we live in a world where climate chaos is tackled through materialist anthropocentrism in a capitalist society we might want to play the long game. We could spin-off Certainty Ltd. weaponising our work as tactical consultants for climate futures, crypto-currencies, uncertainty and antifragility. FoAM itself could exist as a refuge and an alternative without attempting to change, communicate or contribute, but simply to live and let live. An ark of sorts, where things can still be otherwise, on a small scale, ideologically isolated from most of the rest of the world.
+If the world we live in has embraced a philantrocapitalist deep ecology, FoAM (as a Thalient Design Consultancy) could research and design holistic entanglements with non-humans as aesthetic and experiential services. We could provide situations and technologies for inter-species interaction and panpsychic dialogue.
+In an anthropocentric post-capitalist society, FoAM (aka Facilitators of Aberrant Mysticism) would thrive in prototyping unholy alliances, mediating, facilitating and introducing weirdness to question dogmas and data alike. Our work with transiencies and transitions, as well as ritual observances could be fulfilling a dire need in this society. We could be recognised (with official status) as a distributed pagan post-theist cult/guild for education and growing worlds.
+In a world of post-capitalist ecological panpsychism, a FoAM commons could grow into a trans-local kinship network, including human and non-human entities, individuals and collectives. It would describe itself both in terms of doing and being (together). A fluid entity, with ever changing activities and members, governed by shared organisational principles. Years of experience with emergent governance structures would allow us to become mentors and advisers for other commons. Our work would be diverse, recognisable as "FoAM" in its widening of the sentience spectrum - whether as transdisciplinary research, immersive experiences/art-worlds, species-connecting technologies or sentience widening retreats.
+<blockquote>The task is to make kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present. Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events, as well as to settle troubled waters and rebuild quiet places. In urgent times, many of us are tempted to address trouble in terms of making an imagined future safe, of stopping something from happening that looms in the future, of clearing away the present and the past in order to make futures for coming generations. Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings." - Donna Haraway </blockquote>
 ==== November 2016 ====
+=== Week 41-42 ===
+I had my fourth reconstructive surgery on the 16th of November. The following weeks passed in convalescent limbo, coloured by a persistent sense of displacement and un-belonging. I exist in a parallel dimension, just a few oblique seconds away from consensus reality. The vertiginous dissolution began with a general anaesthetic seeping through my forearm, the distance to physical existence increasing, with giddiness and weightlessness as pleasant side-effects. My "self" gradually evaporated beyond the edges of my body out into the world which itself then vanished into thick darkness.
+I woke up a few hours later shivering in the ICU. I was wrapped in a "portable sauna", with nurses doing their best to raise my temperature above 34C. They asked me to grade my pain on a scale from 1-10. I know by now which numbers correspond to sufficient amounts of pain killers. It took me a while to answer, my sludgy brain having difficulty with languages. I watched my tongue move between "sedam" and "seven" until it finally settled on the Dutch "zeven". After a few minutes the comforting wave of ContraMal spread slowly through my veins. A sense of liquefying peace. The physical boundaries of my body began shifting, as the morphine commenced its merry dance. I was a spectator in an augmented reality performance. The physical sensations in my skin, organs, limbs, nerves and neurons were superimposed with a speculative map of my subtle body, flickering in and out of focus. Time and space stretching and compressing with a hint of nausea.
+{{:l1028458-2.jpg?400 |}}
+The surgery was successful and I was discharged in the evening. My convalescence proceeded without major complications. I remain wrapped in bandages and compression garments until mid December, but the pain and physical discomfort have been much more bearable this time around. The weakness and fatigue are still present, as usual. I’m expecting to be back to "normal" in a few weeks. We’re all hoping that I have entered the last stage of breast reconstruction, with no more major surgeries on my horizon.
+I spent my first week of recovery in a pleasant obligation-free abandon. My comfortable mental state was assisted by the appropriate medication, ferally traded in exchange for facilitating a "personal scenario building" session. I spent most of my time staring at the last autumn leaves fluttering to the ground, listening to audiobooks and watching period dramas. Visits from friends, skype conversations with remote family members and slow walks in the park provided occasional moments of congealing back into the here and now.
+When I was well enough to stop the medication I began to feel restless. A sense of dislocation from the world, its affairs and inhabitants which I had experienced as pleasant in the first week now felt like a nagging itch. I had a feeling that I was wasting precious time and becoming more irrelevant with each passing day. Forgotten. Out-of-touch. Out-of-place. Out of sight and out of heart. It didn’t help that one of the first impositions from the 'outside' was that of faceless bureaucracy. I spent days lost in Kafkaesque labyrinths between the Belgian tax system, social security and health insurance. It drove me to blubbering despair, episodes of escapism and agreeing with Virginia Woolf that "//The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.//"
+The best antidote to such mind-states has proven (again) to be meditation and simple daily rituals. With meditation (tonglen in particular) I could delve into my despair and observe that it isn’t specifically "mine", but an inevitable side-effect of being human. We all occasionally experience fear of failure, separation and disconnection, on a personal scale and as societies. Both meditation and daily rituals (such as morning practice or afternoon tea) help me find an anchor in the present - in the energising movements, scents, sights and sounds that make me so grateful for being alive.
+<blockquote>“… just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.” - Diana Gabaldon </blockquote>
+{{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/31197803985/}}\\
 === Week 40 ===
@@ Line 161: / Line 392: @@
 </blockquote>
-Staying in a ryokan marked the beginning of our exploration of Kaiseki (懐石), a Japanese multi-course meal that arose in response to overly decorated and formalised Honzen ryôri. Kaiseki literally means "pocket stone", describing warm stones the Zen monks wore inside their clothing to warm their bellies and require less food. Over several centuries, kaiseki developed into an art form in itself which includes the freshest seasonal ingredients, paired with carefully designed crockery, ikebana, delicate sake and tea. The tastes and scents are subtle, as if inviting the diners to practice the art of noticing. The food tends to be raw, lightly grilled, steamed or simmered, easily digestible and uplifting. Every dish is prepared and presented with utmost care and the whole meal - including the gestures involved in serving and eating - becomes part of a multisensory experience. As Ishige notes in the History of Japanese Food - “Japanese haute cuisine since the eighteenth century has sought to present the philosophy of the garden on the dining table.”
+Staying in a ryokan marked the beginning of our exploration of Kaiseki (懐石), a Japanese multi-course meal that arose in response to overly decorated and formalised Honzen ryôri. Kaiseki literally means "pocket stone", describing warm stones the Zen monks wore inside their clothing to warm their bellies and require less food. Over several centuries, kaiseki developed into an art form in itself which includes the freshest seasonal ingredients, paired with carefully designed crockery, ikebana, delicate sake and tea. The tastes and scents are subtle, as if inviting the diners to practice the art of noticing. The food tends to be raw, lightly grilled, steamed or simmered, easily digestible and uplifting. Every dish is prepared and presented with utmost care and the whole meal - including the gestures involved in serving and eating - becomes part of a multisensory experience. As Ishige notes in the [[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25565990-history-of-japanese-food|History and Culture of Japanese Food]] - “Japanese haute cuisine since the eighteenth century has sought to present the philosophy of the garden on the dining table.”
 {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzkt/30803090562/}}\\
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 After weeks of being in the flow of my transiency, I was drawn in the midst of other people’s problems. For the first half of September I was in Pula, surrounded by my various "clans". It was one week before the general election, with dark thoughts colouring every conversation. Unemployment, poverty, corruption, rampant greed, nationalism, broken relationships, life-threatening illnesses, to name but a few. A general sense of disillusionment and helplessness, tempered with a good dose of Balkan black humour, fuelled with copious amounts of coffee and alcohol. It was difficult to watch the people I care about feel so worn out by life’s circumstances. Especially when it came to the widespread resistance to - or impossibility of - change. I would listen, without giving advice, without attempting to help or intervene. That was all I could do, all they wanted me to do.
-Knowing when (not) to intervene is indeed an art. And a craft, in need of practice. FoAM’s motto "grow your own worlds" alludes to an ability to cultivate one’s own reality. Our work with futures is all about imagining how things could be otherwise, then experimenting and prototyping the alternatives. When sharing my experiences, people would tell me that I live in a sci-fi world. That such things were not possible in their lives. Whether I was talking about using meditation to live with post-op pain, or about having funding for an organisation-wide transiency. My life, work and worldview seem to exist in another dimension. Because of my (non-conformist) lifestyle, people think that my life is easy. "You’ll find a way, you always do."
+Knowing when (not) to intervene is indeed an art. And a craft, in need of practice. FoAM’s motto "grow your own worlds" alludes to an ability to cultivate one’s own reality. Our work with futures is all about imagining how things could be otherwise, then experimenting and prototyping the alternatives. When sharing my experiences, most people would tell me that I live in a sci-fi world. That such things were not possible in their lives. Whether I was talking about using meditation to live with post-op pain, or about having funding for an organisation-wide transiency. My life, work and worldview seem to exist in another dimension. Because of my (unfamiliar) lifestyle, people seem to think that my life is easy and my problems trivial. "You’ll find a way, you always do."
-There were exceptions to this pattern, of course. As well as the wonderful time I spent with my mother, I reconnected with a few high-school friends with whom I still have a lot in common. New opportunities for collaboration and sharing arose naturally. An exhibition on organic abstraction, a workshop for cancer patients, a surprising interest in experiential futures and occasional gatherings of "hermits anonymous". It’s encouraging that I can resume conversations with these people as if no time had passed, even though we only see each other infrequently. At times it makes me sad that the people I’d like to work with are so scattered around the globe. Other times it’s a delight to know that in almost any region of the world I travel to, there are people I could collaborate with. In dozens of cities across all continents there is at least one person with whom I can have a heartfelt connection.
+There were exceptions to this pattern, of course. As well as the wonderful time I spent with my mother, brother and grandmother, I reconnected with a few high-school friends with whom I still have a lot in common, including Elena Skoko, Paola Orlic and Branka Bencic. New opportunities for collaboration and sharing arose from several conversations. An exhibition on organic abstraction, a workshop for cancer patients, a surprising interest in experiential futures and occasional gatherings of "hermits anonymous". It’s encouraging that I can resume conversations with these people as if no time had passed, even though we only see each other infrequently. At times it makes me sad that the people I’d like to work with are so scattered around the globe. Other times it’s a delight to know that in almost any region of the world I travel to, there are people I could collaborate with. In dozens of cities across all continents there is at least one person with whom I can have a heartfelt connection.
 {{>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/29525041995}}\\
@@ Line 212: / Line 443: @@
 ==Back to Not Holding Back==
-During my transiency, I have uncovered parts of myself which lay dormant or have been held with tight reins for years, while I was running an organisation and supporting dozens of people through their personal, professional, financial and emotional issues. This year I promised myself that I wouldn’t hold back any more. I want to be able to enjoy the flow of my creativity in whatever I do. I should either fully commit to something or not do it at all. At the end of my transiency I want to have a clear sense of purpose, so that I can better prioritise and only work on things I can completely stand behind. I have only a limited number of years to live with dwindling energy, and I can’t allow myself to be so drained any more.
+During my transiency, I have uncovered parts of myself which lay dormant or have been held with tight reins for years, while I was running an organisation and supporting dozens of people through their personal, professional, financial and emotional issues. This year I promised myself that I wouldn’t hold back any more. I want to be able to enjoy the flow of my creativity in whatever I do. I should either fully commit to something or not do it at all. At the end of my transiency I want to have a clear(er) sense of purpose, so that I can better prioritise and only work on things I can completely stand behind. I have only a limited number of years to live with dwindling energy, and I can’t allow myself to be so drained any more.
 <blockquote>… it’s not about the joy, it’s about the work, and there has to be some kind of joy in the work, some kind from among the many kinds, including the joy of hard truths told honestly. Carpenters don’t say, I’m just not feeling it today, or I don’t give a damn about this staircase and whether people fall through it; how you feel is something that you cannot take too seriously on your way to doing something, and doing something is a means of not being stuck in how you feel. That is, there’s a kind of introspection that’s wallowing and being stuck, and there’s a kind that gets beyond that into something more interesting and then maybe takes you out into the world or into the place where deepest interior and cosmological phenomena are at last talking to each other.
@@ Line 311: / Line 542: @@
 === Week 27/28 ===
-Similar to the first two weeks of the transiency, I felt as if I was moving one step forward, two steps back. In February this rhythm felt frustrating, now it seemed just right. I spent quite some time looking over the materials from the last six months to distill insights. I'm hoping they will help me focus and prioritise the next six months. Some of these are summarised above, others are still in note form scattered across digital and physical notebooks. The "one step forward" was actually many half-steps in many directions.
+Similar to the first two weeks of the transiency, I felt as if I was moving one step forward, two steps back. In February this rhythm felt frustrating, now it seemed just right. I spent quite some time looking over the materials from the last six months to distill insights. I'm hoping they will help me focus the next six months. Some of these are summarised above, others are still in note form scattered across digital and physical notebooks. The "one step forward" was actually many half-steps in many directions.
 I went back to the one draft I wrote (in November last year) for the 'kaiseki' version of the Grow Your Own Worlds publication. I got the 'transient realities' text in a better shape, now awaiting Nik and/or Alkan to get their teeth into it. I rationalised the [[/f15/overview|chapters]] (there are seven now instead of ten), which makes it a bit more manageable. To help me get into the 'worlds' (aka chapters), I began the humongous process of cleaning up FoAM's digital archive, starting with (!) the [[http://lib.fo.am/index?do=index|Libarynth]] itself. I dared editing the [[http://lib.fo.am|front page]], which lead to days of wiki-gnoming. I enjoyed doing it, but it also reminded me just how much mess there is to clean up and just how ungrateful the task it really is.
@@ Line 838: / Line 1069: @@
   * Community of Contemporary Contemplation and Celebration
   * Inspire, rather then merely enable
-  * I feel good when I’m engaged in visionary endeavours with a wide purpose
+  * I feel good when I’m engaged in visionary endeavours with a wide purpose. I enjoy observing patterns of reality in and around myself, then translating them in words and multisensory experiences. While I love writing, I also need to see my work more "manifest", as experiences and other embodied experiments. However, to create experiences as we used to at FoAM, we need a different (and bigger) production team. I always end up exhausting and damaging myself in the process, even though I love the results… We should find ways to design experiences for maximum effect with minimum effort…
-  * I enjoy observing patterns of reality in and around myself, then translating them in words and multisensory experiences
-  * In difficult situations I shouldn’t depend on people I can’t trust; I tend to feel better as soon as I can do "something" to alleviate the difficulties, no matter how small the "something" is.
   * Nik and I work best together on long-term research, writing, creation and reflection, away from busy production schedules and hectic social situations. When we work with other people, it's best to do it in short, concentrated bursts.
-  * While I love writing, I also need to see my work more "manifest", as experiences and other embodied experiments. However, to create experiences as we used to at FoAM, we need a different (and bigger) production team. I always end up exhausting and damaging myself in the process, even though I love the results… We managed to do it "lightly" when we designed "resting" activities for the BSB in 2015: minimum production, maximum effect…
+  * We should research how to more with private foundations (like CGF)
-  * We should work more with private foundations like CGF
-  * Busy periods must be interspersed with quiet, contemplative ones. Ideally the same time spent in "action" should be spent in "reflection".
   * I’d like to work with Nik and Stevie to design a series of soundtracks for contemplation/meditation/stillness; contemporary sound/music/field recordings, guided meditations, etc. - This needs to be reclaimed from the horribly shallow new-age-ish music and meditations that have spread like disease online. this has lead to contemplation and meditation being regarded as 'fluffy' (cf. Nik’s publisher hating the title Stillness). I’d like to make an artistically qualitative meditation CD, with great sound and guidance that doesn’t shy away from darkness…
-  * Rasa, will we ever start the Open Sauces Cooking Club?
+  * I need to work with competent and committed people, otherwise I get frustrated. They should be people I respect and I should find the object of our collaboration worthwhile. We have to be more discerning in our selection of collaborators, based on the qualitative resonance with their work and life. There has to be a clearer difference between collaboration and mentoring/teaching/coaching (or other "nurturing" support), where competence isn’t of primary importance. In the latter, commitment is still key, but instead of competence, potential and motivation are more important.
-  * Nik, Alkan we ever finish the Patabotanical Tarot?
-  * I need to work with competent and committed people, otherwise I get frustrated. They should be people I respect and I should find the object of our collaboration worthwhile. We have to be more discerning in our selection of collaborators, based on the qualitative resonance with their work and life. There has to be a clearer difference between collaboration and mentoring/teaching/coaching (or other "nurturing" support), where competence isn’t of primary importance. In the latter, commitment is still key, but instead of competence, potential and motivation are more important. These two modes of working (creative/supporting) should not be mixed as much as they used to be at the "past" FoAM.
-  * It doesn’t help me when I share an insecurity or difficulty with people and they jump in to give me advice. That’s actually counterproductive. It makes me feel weak and ignorant, as if I don’t know what I’m doing and others know better. Usually people offer advice because they care, with very good intentions. I don’t always notice it while it’s happening, but when the conversation ends I feel worse than when it started. It’s a common pattern I need to address, by being more aware at the moment it’s happening. Without offending or hurting people, I should let them know that if I want advice, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise I just want them to hear me and allow me to be present as I am, with all my weaknesses and doubts… Which, for some people, can be difficult - we have to stay in the pain together, without an immediate reflex to "help" or provide answers.
   * I’d like to write up all the various solitary (seasonal) rituals that I designed/improvised over the years… and write it in a way that could be used as a "kit" for others who’d like to try it themselves, including intentions, colours, materials, food, meditations, actions, etc.
   * It might be valuable to write an article on FoAM’s approach to residencies and other ways to support creativity. I don’t think I want to host residents in the near future, so it might be good to record FoAM's successful residency formats "for posterity".
   * Similarly, an article on FoAM’s "Lab Approach" could be a good thing to write about. We have extensive experience with it, while it’s just becoming "fashionable" in a range of sectors.
   * I’d like to make an "immersive" lecture-performance (with participatory elements) based on my insights during the last seven years living with cancer (and other uncertainties), with readings from my diaries, photos of my changing body, examples of practices, sounds, sights, scents and foods that made me appreciate being alive (or got me through difficult situations)
-  * Insights from my green-and-purple equinox ritual (intentions: thawing, getting unstuck, cleansing, aligning with viriditas, new growth, turning outwards)
-    * Never completely turn your back to the past. It can become dangerous. Instead, keep the awareness of what lead to this moment present as background radiation. (the stump of the "winter" candle almost burnt the house down)
-    * The magic of the moment is only unveiled if one is completely absorbed in it. Then the minuscule changes appear delightful and miraculous. (meditating on the opening of the rose of Jericho)
-    * Unfolding and turning outwards is fast and exciting, but the process of greening and revival (which is the essence of unfolding) is much slower and imperceptible, much more difficult to keep focus, attention and wakefulness…
-    * Purple artichoke is a perfect Ostara ritual food…
   * Doing Nothing allows me to become more perceptive and notice what needs tending in and around me. It’s a process, an intimate courting of cultivation and letting grow…
-  * Perhaps the interest in Thriving in Uncertainty is the connection it makes between abstract ideas or societal megatrends and our own lives (as individuals and community (the sector)). This connection interests me to pursue more in a wide range of our activities. We have done this with other initiatives (prehearsals, ARNs), but we never described our work in these terms... something to explore...
+  * Perhaps the interest in Thriving in Uncertainty is the connection it makes between abstract ideas or societal megatrends and our own lives (as individuals and community (the sector)). This connection interests me to pursue more in a wide range of our activities.
-  * I should improve my own online presence...
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 <html><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2G8LAiHSCAs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></html>
-//... and let birdsong cancel out sirens... (sometimes one must be permitted a little bit of escapism...)//
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 <blockquote>Vorig jaar moest ik afscheid nemen van mijn borsten, een belangrijk symbool van mijn vrouwelijkheid. Een paar dagen vóór mijn bilaterale mastectomie heeft Barbara samen met een groep krachtige vrouwen een bijzonder afscheidsritueel gehouden. Het was een geladen en ontroerende beleving waar ik er helemaal mocht zijn, met mijn gebrekkig lichaam en al mijn zorgen en verdriet. Barbara omhelsde mij bij de ingang en leidde mij door de studio waar ik dagelijks werk. "Ik ben hier voor je" zei ze "ik zal je dragen." En inderdaad, voor een uur lang voelde ik mij door de vrouwelijke oerkrachten van mijn vriendinnen gedragen, onder Barbara’s zachte begeleiding. Onze bibliotheek was omgetoverd naar een groen rustoord; in het midden van de ruimte een nest van kussens en dekens waarop ik mocht liggen. Mijn vriendinnen waren getransformeerd tot de archetypische godinnen. Hun krachten en energie hebben zij als poëtische wensen aan mij geschonken. Ze namen mij mee door een stroom van zintuigelijke ervaringen, waar mijn maelstroom van emoties zonder remmingen mocht razen, tot dat ik de serene stilte van acceptatie had bereikt. De kleuren, geuren, geluiden en strelingen brachten mij tot een alternatief bewustzijn. Mijn lichaam vloeide buiten de oevers van mijn huid, en ik zweefde gewichtsloos, opgehouden door de fluisterende stemmen en warme handen. Het ritueel eindigde in een euforisch vuurspel, opgedragen aan de zonnewende en hernieuwing voor ons allemaal. Ik voelde mijn feminiene vitaliteit ontwaken, zo omringd door mijn glimlachende, stralende zusters. Het was ongelofelijk belangrijk om op zo’n bewuste manier afscheid te nemen van een lichaamsdeel die mij veel vreugde en veel pijn heeft gebracht. Barbara’s rol als ritueel begeleidster was een onschatbare ondersteuning van mijn rouwproces. Zij heeft mij geholpen om aan mijn verlies bestaansrecht te geven. En daarmee veel ruimte voor een nieuw begin. Ik ben haar mateloos dankbaar. </blockquote>