Episode 16: Mapping the Moment
How can we make sense of and respond as leaders to an event like the global spread of COVID-19?
Marti and Todd explore addressing our rising emotions, the power of awareness, and the power of the heart in helping bring new creativity to a world that is being reshaped.
From the Edge: Being a Cartographer (Todd)
Conscious Rant: Staying Connected While We’re Apart (Marti)
This episode was recorded on May 26, 2020.
Timeline
1:02 Marti’s introduction
2:01 When our awareness wanders
5:38 Acknowledging the suffering from COVID-19
6:35 COVID-19 as earthquake
8:10 Zones of convergence
10:43 How organizations are responding
13:15 How communities are responding
16:31 The effects of fear
17:21 Certainty and uncertainty
21:08 Energy on the move
22:46 What’s visible at low tide
25:08 Creating the new in cooperation
29:45 Power in feeling
31:52 Power as abundant, not scarce
33:44 Principle of complementarities
34:47 Power from an indigenous perspective
38:20 Shared power
42:49 From the Edge: Being a Cartographer (Todd)
46:15 Staying Connected While We’re Apart (Marti)
Quotes
“One of our biggest challenges is knowing where our awareness is focused moment to moment, and it's all too common for our awareness to wander off someplace.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We are living in an age and in a system that is not sustainable, and not working for many people. Something needed to change, and I never guessed it would have been a pandemic." — Todd Hoskins
“The blade is so sharp—
It cuts things together
—not apart.” — David Whyte
“In order to be in an open state of awareness and in full presence, you cannot be arrested by fear. Fear has to be befriended. ” — Todd Hoskins
“If we see enough examples of the positive responses of people suddenly doing things in a new way, coming together in a new way, and we pay attention to the new meaning and value that that generates, then these new ways can become our way.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Mapping the moment means a new kind of steady presence, knowing that really the only thing that's constant in life is change.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Part of being fully conscious is getting our awareness off the self. ‘Did I do it right? Did I do it wrong?’ But instead listening to the world around us, because every idea that we have, every insight, every creation has been given into us from the world around us. So mapping the moment means being present and receiving—energy and ideas from the world.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We feel powerless in a crisis like the pandemic, right? It has not taken away our power. It has reminded us that we're not in control, but it has not taken away our power. Power is moving with what is happening and creating on the fly.” — Marti Spiegelman
"Safety is not the absence of threat. It's the presence of connection. " — Gabor Mate
“We're not just being optimistic nor opportunistic. This is real. The possibilities right now are real and they are tangible to teams and organizations and individuals. Yes, it's a difficult time to deal with so much change and transition. And it's a wonderful time to be alive.” — Todd Hoskins
“Being fully conscious means being in the full experience.” — Marti Spiegelman
“The real power of humanity is the full bandwidth of who we are from our frailty to our total strength.” — Marti Spiegelman
“If you can find a little bit of land and get down on the ground, maybe with your back against a big tree, let it out to the earth, and let it out to the forest and let it out to all of Nature because that's consciousness. You will be received and you will be held. Part of our strength is the ability to express whatever it is.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We have countless examples throughout history of when power is concentrated in a few, it topples.” — Todd Hoskins
“Power in indigenous cultures is understood in a couple of ways: Being a person of power, it means you are a person who can make a perceptual shift. And another thing they say, is power is the ability to create new meaning.” — Marti Spiegelman
“We've taken power in modern culture as something external, something that can be grabbed and controlled, and that's really not power at all. That might be psychological manipulation, but it's not really power.” — Marti Spiegelman
“An ecosystem map is a commitment to listening and understanding. It's a commitment to process. It's not a finished product. The mapping itself changes us and changes the map.” — Todd Hoskins
“So rather than using a map, perhaps we need to learn to be cartographers. To make sense of and navigate what is continually changing and shifting. The great news is we all have these skills already. We don't need a map—one map. We need a series of maps. We need to learn to read maps, to make maps, to receive maps. These skills of cartography involve opening our awareness, seeing new possibilities, and in doing so, forging new paths ahead.” — Todd Hoskins
“The heart’s energy always reaches out into the world around us to seek out places it can connect and amplify itself. It can do this through an email, through a webcam, through your smartphone, through your silent prayers.” — Marti Spiegelman