Pauses, applauses and poetry
Friends, your responses to the launch of this project have been so generous! Thank you for sharing beautiful notes with your own observations and practices - these have brought me so much joy. Keep them coming, I'll be adding them here and on the blossoming Instagram account.
I particularly loved reading an email from Oliver Feldman ending with "I hope that in the same way your ideas caused mine to ricochet in unexpected directions, mine will have some impact on yours." This is my most favourite thing about building in the open - projects become one vast, free-flowing conversation.
In response to the idea of happenings in, Oliver told me how taking care of his garden has led him to discover the Japanese concept of ma - an interval in space and time full of possibilities and happenings. In his own work as a trainee psychotherapist, Oliver is also exploring the concept of mu - a void, a realm of pure potential. "It’s that emergence that marks a happening. Such an event is ripe with meaning, and my practice is to help individuals hold it delicately and see it unfold into understanding, transformation, and change".
I hope that you are holding the current spaces and intervals in your lives with delicacy, too. Perhaps they carry the secret potential of a happening. This week's edition is going to 278(!) of you, and we're talking about pauses, applauses and poetry.
Contemplations
This interview with writer Ocean Vuong is a beautiful exploration of the power of language as well as the violent heritage the American lexicon carries ("You're killing it", "Target audience"). It also has a very poignant comment on the notion of the pause in poetry:
When you think about how people tell stories, stories are carried in the body, and it’s edited each time the person tells it. And so what you have, by the time someone tells a story, is a masterclass of form, technique, concision, imagery — even how to pause, which you don’t really get on the page — arguably, you do, in poetry, with the line break.
Helen Stewart-Cox sent me this beautiful poem by Kate Tempest called Hold Your Own. Oh, and if you need a coach in your life, I hear you can slide into Helen's DMs.
Celebrations
Spoken word artist IN-Q's brand new book Inquire Within has sold over 10,000 copies, topping the new releases in poetry on Amazon! He's doing a virtual book signing on Instagram Live on May 20th (8:00 pm BST / 12:00 pm PT). You can get your signed copy on his website.
One of the most renowned sound therapist, Sara Auster, has been doing Live sound baths every week, giving us a moment of pause. Sara has also made her amazing work available to download. My favourite is the album NAMORA, designed to accompany meditation, relaxation and creative practices. For those in the US, Sara has also partnered with Audible Sleep Dream Team alongside Diddy, Nick Jonas and Arianna Huffington to create a free audio experience designed to invite relaxation and sleep.
French artist Saype (represented by Marine Tanguy & MTArt) revealed Beyond the Crisis - a 3000 m2 artwork made with biodegradable paint and sitting on the top of Leysin mountains in Switzerland.
Correlations
One of my favourite aspects of live events is the applause. That moment the audience becomes one body, one movement, one pair of eyes. It's a magical phenomenon. No one said when, how, for how long; it just happens. Thursday, I happened to be walking in the park around the time of the weekly clap for the NHS and frontline workers. Usually, when we clap at the end of a play or show we loved, we clap to extend the experience, to express gratitude for the artists, to create an indelible memory of a moment. The 8:00 pm clap is different: we express gratitude and hope. That clap becomes ceremonial, carrying almost as much meaning as a prayer.
I was sharing this thought with a friend who mentioned Jonathan Platkiewicz's thesis
on synchronized clapping. This lead me into a little rabbit hole on rhythmic processes. As humans, we've always been fascinated by rhythms: stars, tides, breath... and capping is one of these rhythmic phenomena. Who knew that statistical physics had so much to teach us about the magic of human behaviour!
The nerdy footnote: I've been diving into some complexity theories such as multi-agent coordination systems because I think there's a lot to learn about communities (especially self-organised ones). I'll report back, but I'd love to hear if anyone has thoughts on this!
Speaking of synchronised clapping, creative genius Lewis Kay-Thatcher just showed me a video he did inspired from minimalist composer Steve Reich's Clapping Music. It's written for two people and is performed entirely by clapping. The performers clap the same pattern, but one shifts by one note until they find perfect synchronisation at the end. It's amazing!
Conversations
Questions communities around me are exploring this week:
What is real connection? Does it necessarily imply a notion of vulnerability?
What's the most effective way of mapping a network? We are doing a jamming session on this, let me if you would like to join.
How can we replicate serendipity in virtual events or a social life that happens mainly online?
This is all for today, friends! Keep sharing your thoughts, observations, and any work you'd like me to include in next week's edition. Have magical weeks and keep your chin up.
Vx