ABOUT THIS FACILITATED EXPLORATION

Hello! I’m Anna-Marie. I live in Devon, UK, on the edge of the wilds of Dartmoor and the Jurassic Coast. Now in my mid-forties, I find myself exploring the nature of myself, the nature of being human, in a new way: as being ecological, arranged and re-arranged by (and rearranging) place, other humans, the more-than-human, ancestral lines, social systems, ecosystems, and this planet, as well as histories, cultural stories, current events, and possible futures.

One of the aspects of ‘being’ I struggle with is moving through life as a so-called white person at a time when there’s such as thing as whiteness, a social construct that historically and presently worlds a world that has such horrifying impacts. When I examine this internal struggle, there is a desire to look at the role I play in the world with clear vision, not hiding from the systemic norms that I unintentionally or intentionally co-create nor the ways that I benefit from these systemic norms. And, at the same time, there is a lostness and grief that comes from being born into social constructs that my heart and mind cannot fathom even existing.

As someone with an English father and a Croatian mother, who grew up England and who has had very little contact with my mother or my Croatian relatives since a child, I often reflect on how my whiteness would likely have been a very different thing if the opposite had been true: I’d had very little contact with my English father or my English relatives, grown up in Croatia, and knew myself as Croatian.

There is so much being explored about whiteness, othering, belonging, decolonisation, neo-colonialism, racial justice, advocacy, and allyship. And, what comes after whiteness? What stories of self, identity, and kinship can we reimagine and bring into the now, to guide us into a different future? How can we hold the nuances of ancestral heritages and social constructions while not diminishing impact or responsibility?

This facilitated exploration is intended to be a space of deep self- and shared-enquiry. A space where we can personally and collectively voice the questions, griefs, challenges, and desires we hold about being born into social constructs. A space where we can practice clear vision - taking ownership, being accountable, looking at what needs to be looked at with a clear gaze - while honouring and celebrating and reimagining the worlds and stories our hearts and minds long for. A space to explore how we might world into post-whiteness.

All the time-bound, small-group faciliated groups that I host are born of decades of practice in self- and shared-enquiry. They’re always on themes that I have already been in deep relationship with, and I facilitate them by bringing my discoveries, questions, and needs into the room along with the participants.

This facilitated exploration is deeply inspired by the below:

What comes after whiteness? Reimaging identity beyond race … for a world where everyone belongs by Brian Stout. And,

Why I walked away from white people: theory of indivisibility by Sundiata Soon-Jahta.

Dear white people by Bayo Akomolafe

SELF- AND SHARED-ENQUIRY

Self- and shared-enquiry, as I hold it, is a state of becoming closer to ourselves. By bringing ourselves into a reflective, curious, courageous, and attentive state of being with ourselves, i.e. self-enquiry, we can be in a reflective, curious, courageous, attentive state of active reflection with others, i.e. shared-enquiry.

In the time-bound, small group facilited enquiries I host, we are invited to bring our experiences, beliefs, biases, questions, challenges, and curiosities about the specified theme into the group so that we can enquire into them together with care, thoughtfulness and openness. Through this shared-enquiry, we might find that the smallest of events or the clearest of beliefs actually holds a whole world of relationality, complexity, story, history, relationship, place (and so on) that can give us new insight into ourselves and each other.

Through self- and shared-enquiry, we can keep finding our relationship with external and internal information, keep living in the questions we are drawn to, and attentively world together. Individually and together, we wonder: Is this true for me? Is another’s pathway or worldview right for me? What might I not be seeing here? What other information could this experience, or belief, or bias, or challenge, or question hold? What else is playing out here? What are the framings or worldviews that make sense to me?

ABOUT MY WORK

I describe my work as being that of an organisational ecologist and embodied facilitator. I’m the author of the story of ecological organisations, and the accompanying EO Framework. I write about my work and other things in the substack Cellular Rearranging and host and produce the podcast Generative Worlding. I’m also the founder of the Patreon-hosted Ecological Organisations Constellation.

I initiated the first season of Facilitation Pods, now continuing as a commons under co-stewardship. In the pods, we are co-crafting an intimate space for self- and shared-enquiry about facilitation and how we change and are changed by the role, a space that's also become a peer supervision investigating our experiences. (Some reflections from the participants of the first season of the pods are at the bottom of the page.) I’m also in the midst of hosting the small group, time-bound facilitated exploration Chronic Health Issues and Inner Rewilding.