Conversations that “Save the World”: Part 2
Most of you reading this would agree that the world “needs to be saved” in some way or another. A majority of you probably also agree on why or in what way the world needs saving.
This is good! We can work with this. Agreement on these initial premises is necessary to even start engaging in the conversations we collectively need to have to improve our world. Sometimes we call this agreement “speaking my language”.
But stepping backwards for a bit, do we all agree on what “the world” is? Do we agree on the basic requirements that need to be met for the idea of “saving” or significantly improving the world? These concepts are complicated; but we need to be able to communicate them to each other (and possibly ourselves as well). Do you know what you ideas are on the previous concepts — the world and what it might take to save it?
But conversations must go further than this, than identifying and communicating concepts. Once we have a clear enough idea of what we’re talking about in the first place, good conversations must enable the introduction of new ideas while reconciling old ones. Conversations must give way to hope for ideas to tangibly work and motivation to actually give it a good faith effort before trying something else. Conversations must do something that sounds rather magickal and alchemical — solve et coagula.
It’s a lot of responsibility for a simple conversation, but in many ways this conversation is already happening all the time in small, multitudinous ways. It happens when we decide to rewild our yards, allowing the natural world — the other than human world — to dialogue with us on what improvements they’d like to see. It happens when we vote in local elections after researching which candidates are most friendly towards our values. It happens when we attune ourselves with planetary energies and consider our minuscule — but connected — place in the wide universe. It happens when we whisper affirmations to our cats about how beautiful, precious, adorable, good, and loved they are. Well, maybe a little less so on that last one.
“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everyone in the world understands it.” — Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Conversations that significantly improve the world look a lot like what it will most likely take to do that. In other words, the talking resembles the doing. It looks like a plethora of what feels like small actions to reconnect with and move towards right relation with ourselves and the other or more-than-human world. In this way, we can feel empowered to effect positive change in our environments, our “worlds”.
Certainly not to say that larger dialogues and large-scale actions don’t or shouldn’t happen! Larger conversations to improve the world, such as those at the United Nations Climate Change Conferences, and actions taken by larger corporate or governmental entities are a big part of this “save the world” process. Some parts of these giant conversations actually seem to resemble ritual workings — people gathering with intent to solve various crises (determining to enact a new collective WILL or outcome), engaging in standard project management and meeting procedures in order to do so!
No, you don’t see the resemblance? Well, I suppose it has been a while since I’ve organized (or attended) a conference. And not all are equal or equally successful. But this is a tangent, so let’s return to the subject.
Conversations that matter are happening all the time beneath our awareness on some level. Actions in accordance with these dialogues happen simultaneously or they make up the conversation itself. Language can be very expansive in this way — not always composed of words or concise one-to-one meanings.
But what happens when we are aware that we are having A Very Important, hopefully good conversation with some very high stakes?
“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” — Donna Haraway
If our metaphor for the world is a web, we can think of a dialogue or conversation as a kind of weaving. The tools of weaving and the patterns we create are different, but they make a difference — in no small part because everything is all tied up in and with everything else. We make stories, take actions, uphold beliefs, manifest through consistent thought, and venture towards new ways of being and living in this world that have real impacts on the web around us.
When we make that weaving with awareness of what we are doing and that we are not doing it alone, we have the opportunity to make something more intentional. We may approach great challenges such as “saving the world” with confidence measured with humility, knowing that we are doing our part, that it will take effect, and that we are only a small part of the much greater whole.
Difficult, but really good, conversations take patience and intentionality. Some say that we’ve already lost the art of having good conversations with each other, but that just makes it all the more exciting — don’t you want to revive a lost art? Practice an obscure skill? Study the occult principles of speaking with persons, alive or dead, spirits or embodied?
To that end, my final contribution to this subject of “conversations that save the world” is a practical list on what it might take to actually have one.
Essential to having good conversations is:
The intention to have a good conversation and general agreement on what that looks like.
A basic agreement on key terms and initial premises (speaking the same or similar language).
Internal awareness of the principles underlying one’s beliefs and values (i.e. the starting place of the conversation).
Awareness of when our language/words, including but not limited to our statements, is attached to values, judgements, beliefs, or feelings that we don’t intend them to be.
Good luck!
