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Patterns and patterns

March 28, 2025 By Bowen, Complexity, Containers, Culture, Emergence, Featured, Flow, Open Space, Organization 2 Comments

Detail from a quilt designed and made by the St. Andrews Anglican Church Women Quilter’s Guild. The quilt was made in 1967 in honour of Canada’s centennial year. Keen eyed observers will notice patterns in here that relate to that celebration. The quilt was on display at the Bowen Island Public Library earlier this year, on loan from Joyce Ganong whose mother, Isabel Faulks, was one of the quilters. Another reflection from the Complexity Inside and Out course we taught yesterday… Caitlin led us in a check in process that was about slowing down out seeing. Here’s a variation. Try …

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Strange weather

March 27, 2025 By Bowen, Complexity, Democracy, Featured No Comments

If you were popping around here on Nexwlelexwm (Bowen Island) over the past couple of days, you might have remarked to folks that the weather seems a bit weird. We’ve had a volatile week of spring weather, with heavy rain, different kinds of winds, a front of thunderstorms and clear skies. It is interesting to listen to people talk about the weather. The patterns are different. The air is warmer, but has a bit of a chill on the breeze. The wind is coming from different angles and the trees are moving differently. In fact southerly and westerly winds on …

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Five years ago

March 13, 2025 By Being, Complexity, Featured One Comment

The door of our local pharmacy, a couple of days after the COVID-19 health emergency was declared in March 2020. Journal entries from March 12 and 13, 2020, remembering the first days of lock down and the day that the world changed. I started keeping a decisions journal to track the things I was doing and why. Here are the first two days of entries. March 12, 2020 Newxlelexwm Bowen Island. Cancellations. Of everything. First coaching call with a client about how to bring their events online. Systems awareness helps us to bring our capacities on line. Me. Feeling generally …

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A few little lessons about “changing culture”

March 8, 2025 By Complexity, Culture, Emergence, Evaluation, Facilitation, Featured, Learning, Organization, Power One Comment

I think it was 1986-87 academic year that I truly fell in love with the idea of culture. That was the year I began my BA in Indigenous Studies at Trent University and it was during a time when Indigenous cultures in Canada were going through a generational resurgence after recovering from 100 years of state-sponsored cultural, physical and intellectual extinction. I was able to be a witness to communities and organizations recovering by growing deep into traditional practices, and younger generations receiving the teaching of Elders and using them to create new political movements, organizations, economies, governments, and health …

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