Field Awareness, Part I
Knowing, Leading, and Co-Creating
Written by: Lily Jones
Alan Briskin; Ph.D., co-founder of the Collective Wisdom Initiative is a consultant, artist, researcher and author. His book “Collective Wisdom” is what brought us to gather today. Briskin is embedded in many fields but he is in a social field where he is connected with Patricia and Craig Neal. Briskin has apart of Center for Purposeful Leadership and participated in Thought Leader Gatherings. He brings wisdom, question and the inquiry into Collective Wisdom. Today’s conversation wasn’t quite like anything any of us had anticipated or expected. But sometimes the most surprising and unpredicted conversations are the ones where we learn and get the most from.
So…what is a field? The most obvious answer is an area of open land, typically bounded by hedges, trees, or a fence. The term is also used to connote a particular branch of professional study such as physics or chemistry. But beyond the obvious uses, field is a term that represents a sphere of activity involving related events. We are using the term social field in this general sense, a bounded area in which a variety of forces, often invisible, act upon the participants. The idea of a Social Field began when Briskin was working on the Collective Wisdom book. His curiosity and noticing led him to pursue further development of his particular way of understanding groups; he believed that was the missing chapter of the Collective Wisdom book. We all exist in fields, but how do we remain aware of them? How do we deepen our curiosity behind things?
A field is a dynamic, living series of perceptible forces emanating from multiple sources inside and around us that influence how we feel, think, and behave. Everywhere: within a person, among people, ideas, social institutions, and physical forces. A network of interacting relationships, some more evident than others. —Alan Briskin and Mary Gelinas
Briskin breaks fields down into three categories.
Information and Energy Within a Fuzzy Boundary:
Personal Field: Physical, Energetic, Psychic, and Spiritual nature of the individual. Awareness opens us to new ways of perceiving and knowing: body sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, images, imagination, metaphor, dreams, etc.
Social Field: The information and energy of human gathering informed by larger contexts – relational, institutional, cultural, historical etc. “Where two or more gather”
Noetic Field: A self-regulating intelligence found in nature and cosmos, including and transcending human intelligence. BEYOND the human. the human intelligence is embedded wthin the larger cosmic intelligence,
Noetic is associated with the Greek words Noesis and Nous:
Noesis – Inner wisdom, direct knowing, intuition, implicit understanding.
Nous – A self-regulating cosmic intelligence operating for good ends (harmony and coherence).
Briskin explains: the aspect of fields is that distinguishes it from more traditional organization development. It takes into account the forth dimension. Time and space is far less causal than we typically operate from. The Noetic Field reminds us that things are not operating in strict causal fashion. The three fields together support the ability to remain curious, have moments of wonder and awe at the complexity and beauty of the planet and the relationship we have with each-other.
Why filed awareness matters?
Supports Curiosity, Wonder, and Awe
Invites Discernment and De-Centering from Thoughts and Emotions. Being Identified with the Self Alone
We are Embodied and Embedded in Fields
To help our members practice field awareness methodology and what does it mean to be embodied and embedded in a social field; Briskin showed us a clip from the film “Basis of Sex” about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Reflections from our community after viewing:
“Black people floating in the background but not being prioritized”
“There was this construction in my throat in the beginning and then she said what she said at the end and i stopped breathing”
“oh, my God! This guy is putting the women down before they can even speak and interrupting and it was like my heart was tight.”
“I could feel my heart constrict, I could feel my brain enlarge with frustration and irritation and then i was ecstatic and started laughing at the end. You Go Girl.”
I definitely felt an adrenaline rush and part of that was the excitement that knowing that his women was going to have an exciting answer.
“Deja vu. Much of my life and entire career faced the same type of push back minimizing”
We had a variety of powerful observations and comments from our community. It shows that the embedded and embodied nature of social fields is not just a social concept. You’re feeling the emotions right now in the here and now. Briskin comments; humor and sarcasm has always been one of the ways to disrupt a system that has become too habituated. For example in the film, RBG finds the weak link in the legal structure itself and she figures out where the chink in the armor of that social field. The power of marginal groups is that you’re able to see what is not happening for the totality of people. RBG wasn’t just advocating for one group. She showed the limitations of a system that had become so dominant that it couldn’t see its own effects on people and the natural ways the dominant group operates. She gave women and people outside the social field a voice.
Part of the issues of a social field is am I included or not? There are both visual indications and actual indicators of do you see yourself in this group. This is when assimilation comes along. We discussed a few weeks ago, that in order to assimilate you have to sacrifice something and that is often your soul. The consequences of fields are toxic is that we are all traumatized and that we have to come out of this together. Thats why it is so important to be with others to support us. Awareness of fields is a language to help us recognize and join together because we’re are not opposed to each other, we’re all being affected in often suffering on our own different spheres. Together we’re finding a way to join anger and self compassion and Anger is a powerful part of understanding and healing. Being comfortable with discomfort and the discomfort of uncertainty are the the moments when new insights can break through.
If you were not able to attend this Essential Conversation feel free to watch the recording at CPL Communities!
Join us next Monday, May 2nd with Alan Briksin to continue our conversation about fields.
