Hi Friend,
One of the (many) cool questions that have arisen in the last few months in Sequoia Samanvaya's world is: "How do we create a liturgical calendar that can support sustainable/regenerative economies?" And more specifically, "What's a temporal technology for a new emerging organization focused on wise innovation?"
This question was first asked to me by Andrew Murray Dunn, who has since launched the School of Wise Innovation. It contributed to us co-hosting a two-part series on both Circular Time and Creating New Calendars, for which I pulled together a thought piece on, "What do we know about how we create new calendar-systems?"
Here's something I was able to pull through: we know that they seem to almost always include at least three dimensions:
And that they can take several decades for a community to create them. They are also 'alive', and can shape-shift over time (for example, the recent addition of Juneteenth as an official federal holiday in 2021).
We are in the early stages of going deeper into these questions, and if you are interested in the bigger questions, do let me know, especially if you are working in tech x sustainability spaces!
One of the key things that came out of those sessions - really this always comes out of the circular time work - is the need to create and collectively enact calendar systems that entail a lot more rest and various forms of rejuvenation. This isn't just 'rest is essential to creative work'. Which is true. Or that, as Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry so perfectly says, Rest is Resistance. (I love her ministry so much!)
It's also that it's hard to hear the movement of the Spirit when one is overly focused on productivity.
I've known for a few months now that I need to go to my next level of deepening my own spiritual listening in ways that I often seem to not have quite enough time to do.
Not too long after I realized this, I became the recipient of a Regenerative Fellowship: Part I - the Inner Landscape, sponsored by the Rē School. The Rē School has been a partner and occasional client of ours, and it's a real honor to be the first person to receive (and thus to help shape) this particular Fellowship. We've decided the Fellowship needs two parts: one month that is inward-facing (The Inner Landscape) and one month that is more outward-facing (the Collective Landscape). The Fellowship, in this case, does not cover travel or costs to stay someplace else or anything particularly fancy: I will be mostly staying at home, focusing on deepening spiritual practices and some creative/writing endeavors - but mostly not being output-orientated.
For various reasons, I decided that totally not working for a month was not very conducive. Not least, the Fall is always a very busy time for us, and completely preparing for it before taking time away from my normal work sounded very stressful! So for the next four weeks, I am working one day (Monday) per week. Which still feels like a significantly different rhythm for me.
While I have often put most of my work on the back burner because of *life* things happening - such as when I needed about a month to recover from my wrist being broken/surgery; or for when I needed a month to almost-completely focus on my mother's Big Fall (she was in the hospital for several months), this is the first time I've been able to take time to focus on deepening and listening - including but not only various forms of resting.
I'm noticing a few things about what is, for me, a new experience -
1. These kinds of Fellowships are too rare and are really needed. I have a few friends who have had similar opportunities, and it has always been fabulous for them. Yet most of the time, employers and funding sources don't provide opportunities for ministers, artists, creatives, quasi-scholars, creative bureaucrats, innovators, social justice leaders, and the many, many people who are giving to the rest of society to take a month to deepen/strengthen the inner work that enables them to do the outer work.
2. Taking this much time away (especially when it is not an emergency) is not easy. I delayed my initial start date by a week because I realized how much prep work I had to do to take time away from my 'normal' work schedule. Plus: its hard to say no. I totally love what I do - all of it - from the 1-1 healing/spiritual direction work to writing to speaking to offering online courses and in-person retreats.
3. I'm not burned out. I don't want to get burned out. We need to create systems and expectations so that people can take 'deepening' time before they get burned out. I've worked with many people who are burned out, and it is an actual "burn" that they experience on the inside, a wound that needs tending and care. Recovering from burnout is not the same as going deeper.
When I think of collective calendar systems that might actually work for a lot more people and places, I think that rest/rejuvenation - such as the long biblical/Old Testament cycles of Shabbat, including that of Jubilee - needs to be re-centered.
And that our current world, and the cosmovisions that highlight productivity and success, doesn't make that easy.
Which is not the same as impossible.
We can change our experience of time.
May time itself be a greater source of Divine, Mysterious Encounters, including rejuvenation for all people.
So many blessings,
Sara Jolena
