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 This page is the informal log of my transiency process, in reverse chronological order.
+==== 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/}}
+More //transient// images can be found [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/deziluzija/albums/72157672406688516|on flickr]]
+=== 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). How can we translate animist or mystical attitudes towards interconnectedness of all life into worldviews compatible with contemporary (or future) techno-materialist societies? How would such perspective transform our relationships with humans and non-humans? What parallel arts, science or technologies become possible? 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 ===