 Welcome everyone, thank you so much for joining this Deep Adaptation Q&A. These events are live, they take place approximately once a month and hosted by myself, Kate Carr or Gem Bendall. And we're joined by different guests each month and I always say at the beginning of these events I'm particularly excited to be joined by. And this time, I am particularly excited to be joined by Barbara Cecil, who, yeah, we've had a connection for about two and a half, three years or so. I am, I hugely admire you and the work that you do, and I'm particularly appreciative of the kind of the confronting or challenging conversations we had in the lead up to this event. So rather than the usual, this is Barbara and this is who she is and this is what she does. Yeah, I'm going to, we're going to have this Q&A more like a conversation so we don't really know what topics we will explore. But I wonder if you might start Barbara by talking a little bit about what happened for you when I asked you about who are you and what do you do? Well, my first response was, I really don't want to trot out the letters behind my name or the qualifications that I think you or somebody else might want. Because I don't have a stick or an expertise that I want to present as a presenter here. It's more how I live my life and given everything. I'm thankful for my education and the work that I've done. But I think what I bring is a response to the times and a curiosity and ability to listen in the moment to what wants to come through. So, in the beginning I was nervous when you asked for me to do this because you have such luminaries on this series of things and I don't really feel like a luminary. I feel like a human being. Yeah, thank you. When we were chatting a few weeks ago, exploring what this might be and you spoke something similar, you know, the trotting out what I do as a kind of validation of why I deserve to be here or why some people might want to turn up. I remember that there was a big, there was a big yes, yes, I agree. And then my thinking mind got stuck. Well, okay, we agree, we agree that we would like to prioritize or do prioritize being human being over the stuff which is measurable. And then what there was this kind of blank space and some panic arose in me, what will we talk about then. Yeah. So I, I got to thinking this morning, I went out for a walk about what I what I do do. That substantial that matters. There, it came to me just this morning there's kind of a cross cutting theme that describes a way of being and I, I am always creating the conditions for some inherent potential to come through. And I, I do it as a gardener, where I, I mean, I'm a fanatical gardener and I love having my hands in the dirt and I, I love creating the conditions that, you know, life can come through these incredible things called seeds. I do the same thing for, for young people. And I think right now, there's very few formulas for them that describe viable pathways into the future a lot of tension and what they actually need is a protected space to actually sink their tap roots down into some deeper realm of guidance or instruction that's unique to them and unique to these times. So I, I'm good at, I mean this summer I just kind of spontaneously I have a number of them coming from different countries and they're, I've kind of herded them into coming at the same time and they're going to camp on the tree here and we're going to sit around fire and we will deliberately clear the space for that quality of conversation and exploration together. And yeah, and maybe I mean the other place that I, I do that. I started to work with something called the Jefferson Land Trust, which is a remarkable organization here in the north end of the Pacific, I mean the, the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, and they, their job is preserving land, and they do a remarkable job at it and I, I went to this, I went on a walk with one of their leaders the other day and we went to a place where they were, they were preserving the area around a stream and the beaver were coming back and they're in the vitality of the stream was the stream was rerouting according to a more natural path and, and the birds were going crazy and what I realized was that my work is restoration. And when I, when I am it involved in that in the feeling of it in the energy of it. I am okay. And if I don't have that context that I either join into or I create. I don't I'm not, I have a rough time I'm a deep feeling person and this is a rough time for me to be on Earth. What's most alive for me as I have heard you share was the, the first thing that you were talking about with the creating space for young people. And the fact you said, I don't think there are any formula formulas for working with young people for supporting them no formulas for them. And I had this and you talked about clearing the space so they can send the taproot really deep down. And, yeah, just have this really strong sense of the earth and, and your capacity to hold a very strong container, which then allows the not knowingness the chaos they unmapped the no formula to be to be opened up to be made visible. Well, that's the muscle I seek to exercise. And, yeah, I think you've named well what my, what my aspiration is and, and it just takes a lot of a lot of faith to trust that something will come through for them. But I know that what's happened over the last few years here. I see a pattern as the young people come here and there's a lot of confusion and they, you know, there's a couple for example that from LA and he's a musician and they, he and his partner. They read something that I wrote that was on the web. And so we wrote for a while. And then finally he said, can we come up. And I said, sure. And they, they came up here. And we, we sat. For a long time. And, and things started to come to us and, and, and what happened as a result of they stayed at end up staying for a couple weeks. And they their lives changed because of it. It's the kind of conversations where some pivot moves, and they're able to admit what's ending they're able to feel the feelings that come with that they're able to sit in not knowing they're able to stay there long enough until something starts coming to them. And Evelyn. And it is just an example but she, she had a master's degree and HR stuff it's the human relations and this kind of this corporate training stuff and she needed the money because she had a big student loan from going to graduate school and he was a musician but he was frustrated because to actually make money he had to make music for ads that were selling you know really horrible products and it ended up that both of them shifted their work dramatically she's now in charge of California native plants, and he is doing something else and actually they just called me yesterday and they're, they're going to move up to this area. But what happens is there's a protected point of dissolution of what's and of what's ending and the ceremony and ritual and blessing of all that. And then there's the space to sense what what might be a next step. Yeah, I'm imagining that quite a few people here and people watching the recording afterwards will intuitively recognize what you're talking about that that space traditionally in ritual it's the space where the previous date has been left or has ended and the new thing hasn't started yet it's a space of potential and also for those of us who are who've learnt to be human in the white western modern world where productivity and certainty and measurability are all that matters it's a very distressing place as well. Yeah, one thing that I do note because I'm part of my work has been working with people who are in transition and this in between spaces that probably the most challenging space for people to dwell in and I think because things are confused right now and there's so much chaos around that that I feel like that in between space is longer than it used to be like it used to be you know okay well sort of tall roll I can hang out here until something starts coming coming clear to me but something's happening that I know where that there's the requirement now is elongated and and for sometimes a long time and requires a remarkable amount of waiting. Yeah, and there's a there's a kind of very specific stamina required for being in a state of waiting for a very long time. Yes, yeah. And that comes down to even very specific things. I've been thinking about waiting lately as an underrated quality. I got invited to a people around here we have fires outside because of the coven and not sure what the protocols are anymore. And so we often will sit outside in the evening and I had just read an article by Nafis Ahmed, some of some of you may have heard of him he's a very fine journalist of Brit, and kind of a systems thinker, and he was he was writing about imminent violence actually coming off of our current state. And I, you know my mind I thought it would just be a good place a good setting to have a conversation about this and and these were people that I respected and when I, I got there, the guy was hosting it he had he had sent the article around because I asked him to do that. But, you know, there was, there wasn't an opening for the real conversation and people wanted to go into fixing preparation, you know, you know, do you get guns do you know how do we prepare more than we have past what we've done. And it was a, you know, became a practical conversation but there were. I kept waiting for a space for us to just feel what was being said about a present pressing reality, and to feel it together and to drop through that to something that was waiting for us. And, and it never happened. And I didn't talk the whole night. I just sat there, and I wasn't judging anybody or anything I just was kind of curious but was going on but I didn't really, I wasn't very interested actually. I was a little, you know, the guy next to me who's quite sensitive and at one point he asked me how are you feeling as though maybe I was sick or something, but I was waiting. And that's all I just, I think, waiting. There are lots of different ways I could go. And I don't want to jump at any of them. I'm going to wait and see. I will remind people here that if you would like to send a question if you'd like to ask a question to Barbara to send it in a, in a, in the chat box directly to Stuart. Please. Okay, yes that waiting did there is something has risen to the surface which has been kind of floating about why you've been speaking. And there's some, I noticed there's some, there's some trepidation maybe some inner judgment about about naming it. But it's, it's been present for me and it's the, the relationship between the masculine and the feminine, as you've been speaking has been really, really present. And not the male and female. And maybe those archetypes don't don't even mean anything they're just, I say them because people know what I mean, but the relationship between the, the doing and the planning and the certainty. And, yeah, and it's other side, the, the unknown, the mystery, the messy and chaotic sometimes, and the waiting, the sitting and the waiting. Yeah, I just want to acknowledge that these days those are loaded words masculine and feminine depending on many orientations that you have and. And I, I don't really want to wade through all that. I was thinking about some, maybe some of you know who Richard Heimberg is. He's a nose, his expertise is around oil in the world, and he's, he's a very beautiful writer. And he lives a life that's consistent with what he knows is coming. Or is here. And I have some, I wrote down something that he said. And it sort of relates to the masculine feminine. He's advocating against railing against the perpetrators of the condition that we're in and more. Instead of building animosity between sides is is actually his words were instead of railing build personal and community resilience ahead of what's coming ease the suffering save what can be saved. And the, the feminine part of that to me is that there is something to be birthed. There is something that that yet still will come through if it has the spaces, and the tending, and the nurturing of that is to me a feminine quality. And if we spend our whole time trying to fix or get back to, or be activated to for new solutions. We won't drop into the, the work of, of restoration of, of, of actually birthing a quality of being and the quality of lives that that will be needed for some people to see this through and to flourish on the other side which I fully hope and believe will be. Yeah, I think we're, I think we are birthers, true birthers. And as you, yeah, as you're just talking about that. And your optimism, and also what sounded like inherent patients. And yeah, I thought it might be an opportunity for you to talk a little bit about your work with women and transitions. For me, it's, it's, I'm sitting here knowing about your work and knowing it and thinking about, you know how it connects with what I understand as deep adaptation journeys individual and collective. But yeah, it would be a good opportunity for you to say more about that. Yes, I've, I've worked with women in many countries in the world now who are who want to find meaning and purpose on their own terms, and who are navigating giant transitions, as is everyone right now because we're all living in a transitional era on planet. And I do. And part of my work has been creating the sanctuaries and the skills to be able to for women to be able to release the expectations and the voices and that that they feel about who they should be and how they should do this. And it's a program to listen for what's actually theirs to do, and it's a program called coming into your own. And so, I guess what I would say about it is that it has been a program where individuals are reorienting their lives towards something that is relevant for these times and is personally what they're built for personally at the age that they're in. But it's to me it's now evolving into a collective. It no longer I mean I'm just a little bit sick and tired of people trying to, you know, be satisfied and fulfill that personally in their lives. Given where we are right now, and there is the question about how we come into our own as groupings of people as collectives as communities. And so my, my, there is something that happens in these programs which is a remarkable sense of community is developed. I actually think that's more important than individuals sort of getting what they want, which feels like it's a little bit going out of style right now or something. So I'm what I'm really interested is coming into our own and, and the ability to operate as we instead of I like people used to do all over this world of thousands for thousands and thousands of years until we forgot. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's really beautiful. And I also heard you say, not in these words entitlement is so last year. I'm going to get a T shirt printed. I like it. That's a good one. Yeah. And there's a, in that shift. I don't know how hopeful I feel about the shift from from I to we at scale, big enough, etc, etc. I also think that the notion of that at scale is outdated. For me, the, the scale of the work that's required, certainly the, what I'm involved in is, is depth, not breath. And there's a woman just walked past and smelt the roses on the rose bush outside, walked on again. Yeah, I was talking about scale and breath. And I, I, and I have a sense as well that there is, there's something of a pain threshold in the moving between I to we. There is a, there is a relinquishment or even a dying off of the parts of us that feel so strongly I need that thing. I need to feel important. I need to. There's a, there's a threshold to pass somewhere on that journey. I totally agree about that threshold and I think life is engineering those thresholds for, for everybody, whether it be illnesses whether it be trauma whether it be not being able to get what you want, because things are collapsing. Challenges with kids. I just know a lot of people are very challenged right now. And our dear friend Sarah Jane Manado says that when we can't rise to the occasion we fall into place. And that the end of the struggle to rise to the occasion to get what you want to be who you want to be to live out an image is a very painful thing to let go of I totally agree. But I think we're, we're systematically getting mashed right now. And, and so it's a good thing. It's a good thing. And what's left is much more exciting and relevant. And I do I'm I'm with you Katie I'm into depth not Brett and I, and I think that whatever actual depth instead of theoretical depth or philosophical depth that we espouse our that it actually does season, beyond. I mean that woman that just smelled the roses. That, that may be a bigger act, then we know. I mean, our, there's a lot of stuff now that's coming out that saying we're all connected everything's connected and you know we're connected to the natural world, but the, the, the under the real understanding of that. In the real understanding of that, we would never ever discount depth as a very powerful agent of change. There's a sometimes the English language is so flat there's just no way to convey a concept without it, feeling and I have a native friend, an elder with a charity background and he taught me a word that I'm going to just say out loud here, which means all things are related. And the word is she I think it's a lot easier to feel it, the reality of it through a language that actually comes up out of the earth. And if all things are related, and that means time past future ancestors, generations, unborn earth humans, then any kind of real action that comes from a rooted real place has a permeating effect far beyond its immediate and obvious impact. Thank you. I really felt that I really felt the multi layered a multi dimensional richness that with English can only come from the space between the words. Yeah, thank you. I would like to, we have a few questions so at this point I'd like to open this conversation out. I'm going to go first to Linda, but Linda, you look as if you might not be able to speak would you like me to read your question for you or are you willing to let me to do it for you. Yes, please Katie, the tears of gratitude I'm just hearing so much what I needed to hear tonight. So I will read Linda's question. She says waiting sitting here on the edge of tears or just now past the edge remembering the plants that were practicing the sensing waiting the deciding to push through the soil to open the bud or not with no formula. No weather pattern to depend on in my garden not many plants are thriving or surviving in this chaos. And Barbara you mentioned that you are creating conditions. And can you say more about that please. And, first of all, Linda, thank you for your heart. And how that is actually a beautiful example of how your openness is seasoning this whole field that we're in and opening a space and you're very beautiful. So when you ask the question I just want to ask you Linda back to you. When you say creating the conditions or Katie if you put that on there I don't know is it the conditions in physical gardening or is it conditions in in general or with people or just so I can kind of make sure I hit it right. Yeah, yeah. I likewise I'm a gardener and see so many ways of finding the metaphors to link what's going on in the garden with what I see going on with the people around me. Yeah, and so it's that sense of you mentioned that you're creating. That's what you feel you are doing creating the conditions for these changes to take place. So that's, that's what I'm wondering, and maybe it's just enough to have heard those words, and it will come I just wondered if you could say more. Thank you. I think part of the conditions in all the circumstances are has to do with the quality, first of all quality of listening. And certainly in a garden. I'm the garden will tell you what it needs. And you know that I can tell you know that whether it needs a more water more different kinds of nutrients. You know, some of the plants need to be moved they don't want to be next to each other. I mean there's a whole conversation going on in there if we actually really listen, and then we're guided by that which is, you know, coming to fruition in this way and needs needs a human to help out. And I feel in some ways, as you've said it's the, it's the same people. There's a real listening to their feelings their pain, their fear, and listening to what. What's pressing in them to come out. Maybe not some grand scheme but some something that brings them alive, something where there's an interest, some inkling of life that would like to expand in some way. And one of the conditions is just a simple thing to say is, is kindness. I think I read a study the other day about the effects of fleeting rudeness. I'm not talking about racial slurs and you know dramatic horrible things I'm talking about just little things that discount people and the effect on their psyche and it was things like loss of memory inability to create inability to adapt to unfamiliar circumstance, new factors that are coming in. I mean, remarkable 30% contraction incognitive ability of people who live in an atmosphere of rudeness. The, the opposite of that is kindness. And the kind of a. It's like a deep lubrication where people begin to breathe out and think more clearly, and, and remember something, something maybe something deep, maybe something. And, and also a capacity of resilience that is only possible in the, in the lubrication of kindness. So that's what comes to mind right now. Simple but I think simple things are important now. I think I'm going to share something as well about the, the creating conditions and it's, it's a reflection part of it is what I experienced in you, and some other people that I really really enjoy being with in the deep adaptation forum and without. I feel safe when I can sense and it's not always on an intellectual cognitive or even conscious level, when I can sense that the people I am with are not pushing away their own pain. That they have a relationship with their own pain, or the pain of the world or the pain of what we're collectively experiencing, which, which welcomes it which just in not in a big dramatic. We're learning in the darkness not in a dramatic way but in an expansive being includes this too. I totally, I totally agree with that key and I am, I can tell, I don't know what the sense is that that knows when someone has traveled with pain, and that they have let the pain in that they know that there's a depth or a space that I trust, and that there's a immediately a sense of longing to somehow create with them. Yeah, it's a pain is pain opens something in the end and be friending that now. I mean I don't have much choice. But I guess we all do we can dance across it but I appreciate you bringing that up and how you value the, the opening with that. See this is when the English words are just not making it. She got you. Yeah, everything is, everything is related. Yeah, including the grief, including this conversation, even including the denial. Yeah, I'm a wise woman said to me. You're just being sandpapered by God. I would like to if Jessica is still here Jessica, you said something in the chat and it wasn't exactly a question. But I have a sense that it's, it's important I wonder if you would, if you would like to unmute yourself and share it with us. Sure. I debated about saying this or not but I am in other da and other places I've talked about how I'm also, I'm approaching 60 in a few months and I'm last couple of years I've been really grappling with my own personal trauma story from childhood that really only kind of reared its really its teeth in the last couple of years and, and I've been looking at climate change for over 20 years now and so the two are really colliding that's how it feels. And what you just talked about I mean, I, I question my sanity, I question my ability to go on sometimes. We just had a heat wave in New England this past weekend it wasn't as bad as they predicted but our frost free date for planting is still about nine days away and nobody else around me is concerned. And I find it terrifying and I don't always know. I'm smiling and I'm kind of jokie because I can, I'm gonna, because I need to sob it out for 10 minutes after this, you know. So it's just a lot and I really appreciate that you spoke to those deep feelings and that. And I do have a personal belief, I guess that I'm very firmly planted on the right road that I'm in the right place at the right time. I wish that I could go into denial, I think that I would choose it like an addict, if I could. Sometimes, you know, I mean, maybe I wouldn't really but so I really appreciate this conversation that it has spoken to some of that those things. I don't know the words. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jessica. And I think you've touched on some really, really important things and first of all I understand that that feeling of aloneness I just want to say that that that's that's quite a quite a thing to live in a reality that isn't there's not that many people that are there with you. And, and frankly speaking, you know, I would rather be alone and join in to the banter of another thing so I've spent a lot of time alone. I spent a lot of time alone in these last few years. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm okay with that now. Sometimes I do get lonely. One thing I want to say was just about the trauma that you said is that I, I have. There's a man, a beautiful man he's an elder in his name is. He's an Alarian Mercurioff. And it's, and he lives out on what we call the Aleutian Islands and I'm forgetting what the native name of those islands is. And they have their thing, their society is one of the most intact indigenous communities. And he talked about, he talked about trauma as the effect of groups of women to heal trauma. That there's a particular chemistry or inherent potential in, in women who come together from in this deeper place. And I'm not having to wrestle the trauma to the ground to relive it to feel it to, you know, go through some kind of a program to, you know, all the things, but to bring that into a community of women that we are built for collective healing. And that the energetic of it actually helps something to shift. And so I think what I, you know, maybe even you're bringing that in here has a little bit of that, you know, just let that in that it could be like some something soothing something touching that, you know, without having to know any details but that this is a feminine container in with men and women in it. But I do agree that the trauma to the earth, it does reverberate with personal trauma, and it does bring it up. And I, I, what I would wish for you are the places where there's this deep allowing of that and listening and not trying to fix you. And I think some natural healing process happen, which even in, even, even in this little conversation, your countenance is moving. I know. Thank you for bringing that. I, I'm wondering if part of that quality that you're referring to which is present or can be present in groups of women. And what I think is currently healing is, I want to say simply but it's not simply it's, it's, it's very nuanced witnessing full witnessing without the need to fix without the need to analyze and name and understand just this big open welcoming witnessing. Yeah. Absolutely. And I want, I want to say also just to, you know, on the other side of that, too, in my experience, Katie that as as deep as that power is to transform and to or transmuter. Again, I don't are to evolve something into a more healthy place. Any subtle real judgments from women are are also extremely damaging. And women can hurt one another. Even more than men can hurt women sometimes that's been my experience and what I've seen. So I, I think we, you know, we hold our capabilities with a lot of care around how we witness. And sort of our deep kindness towards women that doesn't flop into some levels of, I'll just say, say judgment. Or exclusion mean there's so many things. Yeah. Which I have heard a phrase to describe and it's just words, the shadow side of the feminine. So I'm going to ask. Yeah, our own Stuart has a question for you. Stuart, are you ready to. I am Barbara. Hi. Lovely session so far. So for those that don't know I'm one of the moderators of the deep adaptation Facebook group and dragging this conversation back to the early minutes and where it seemed like we were touching on the space this uncertainty. Yes. And it's a very prominent thread throughout the group. It comes up and will keep coming up ever. It's quite blinding the obvious that we're not used to sitting with uncertainty very long at all. And the space has been the only medicine for myself in my own personal journey for that having people on the same level of awareness and consciousness around the mess we're in to do that. And in real life, I don't have other than my long surfing life, I don't have anybody to talk to about that. And I wonder how much more helpful it is to have real flesh and bone people to talk to to have to sit around the fire and hold that space and talk openly honestly about uncertainty. But that's also atomic to the loneliness that this awareness can bring you to. Did you say a tonic. I like that word. There's a lot of tonics maybe needed has sort of a magical feeling to me. Yeah, yeah, I think it takes something to cultivate the curiosity about that kind of space and being conscious that you're sitting in it. And it sounds that that's, that's what you do store you are conscious of it, and therefore you protect it. And, you know, you don't try to fill it up or I mean there can be humor there can be a million things that happen in there and some of the humor is unbelievable, but the but there is a delicate quality of resisting of resisting trying to trying to fix it, or, or, or, or, or starting to rail against the perpetrators, you know the big powerful people, the corporations and the oligarchs and everybody else which is very easy to do and then you're sucked out. So there's a lot of sucking energy that doesn't want you to sit there. I love that you're that I mean it seems like a strange thing to do is just sitting in that together but it takes a different kind of muscle, and, and, and a deliberateness, which I hear in your words and it's actually, you know, with a word that does come to mind is sacred, that there's something a quality of sacredness that is so obliterated by all these efforts to fix and blame and, and discuss and analyze and what do you believe in, you know, when do you think this is going to happen and I mean, it can go on and on and on. And there's just no space for the sacred of, of, you know, okay, we don't know but there's a feeling of something present between you there's a, there's a longing, maybe just a longing together it doesn't that doesn't have form yet, and then there'll be times when form does begin to come maybe some ideas that were maybe some things that feel deeply congruent with some more in deeply buried potential that is only sensed when there is that that protection. Anyway, I'm just more. I'm just more saying thank you for developing the community that can do that it's a very rare thing. Thank you Barbara, it's nice to hear that space described as sacred actually some of not been able to describe various magical and special to me. So I've been able to avoid the major reaction of trying to get out of it. And it is very strong in the early days right. It does feel sacred. I appreciate that description. Thank you. Yeah, when, when we've in any space, when we've stopped the analyzing the blaming the railing. We've stopped all of those things and here we are being human together. Pretty special. Pretty special. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to finish with. Yeah, we have one question is looping nearly all the way back to the beginning and. Participant here has sent it but requested to me to read it for them. It's quite practical question and I'm guessing the answer might be a little bit unexpected although who knows I don't know. The question is it's about your work with young people. What would be a priority to include in, in work or workshop for youth leaders to help them support support those that they work with in preparation for the future. The first thing that comes to mind is comes out of experience in, in a retreat, a five day retreat with these young people and the shock at slowing down. The pace that they are in, according to the pressures at school, according to, you know, the, it's just the whole electronic world that they're in, and they. It's painful to slow down for them. But when they do. There's a level of connection that's hugely satisfying and a wisdom in these young people that's just unbelievable, but you can't do it outside of the earth's rhythm. That's like this invisible trick to keep us in a, an unreal world is the, is the pacing, how we talk, how we think, and the young people, they love a slow down space, they even love science. Thank you. And thank you to each of you who have sent in a question I have really enjoyed this time with you Barbara and with everybody else and leaving this space with very deep gratitude. Yeah, a sense of, of reverence and appreciation. To me you are an elder. And that's really, yeah, an honor to meet you in this space. And also a bit of greed. I don't quite want this conversation to be finished. I just want to thank everybody for showing up. Whatever happens in a space like this is a product of the collective, it is the we. So, this is not this is what came to be spoken in the atmosphere and in the, the particular chemistry, even though we're all over the world. So, I just, I think it's important to honor the, the, the collective, the community, even for a short period of time like this it determines what's more. Yeah. Bravo. Thank you all very much, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks. I enjoyed it too.