Simon Nielsen 3/18/22 Simon Nielsen 3/18/22

An Uncommon Guide On How To Be A Flourishing Individual

Matilde Magro, regenerative and sustainability designer, asked her students to describe a flourishing individual in an idyllic society. The answers were surprising, so she decided to explore what a flourishing society would be like, and what that entails from individuals.

By Matilde Magro, regenerative and sustainability designer

There is a latent idea in all of us of absolute love, compassion and joy in community all over the world. This idea does not stem from nothing, it’s innate wisdom on how life should be - and the knowledge that it is up to humanity to face the obstacles to get there. In this light, I asked my students what it would be to be a flourishing individual in an idyllic society, and they brought me good answers. One of them was how disconnection to the Earth happens, in six spheres of influence, from societal pressures, to work imbalances, to the continuous inequality all over the world. Their solutions involved educating both young children and adults on how to overcome this disconnection. Another hypothesis would be to transform the individual into a spiritual being, with a set of intentions based on how high the individual could acheive both self-realization and enlightenment, and they specified how to do it. I liked both of these approaches and want to expand on it further.

An idyllic society would have no crime, no inequalities and absolutely no harm or evil, so a flourishing individual would need to have certain traits of absolute joy, absolute inner peace and absolute freedom to be the highest expressions of themself, in loving presence and awareness. So this individual would be someone who expresses their point of view to others who will respect their opinion and share their own in commradery, without the need for exhaltation - there are no perils to be scared about. An idyllic society would mean that community rises above all to bring us peace, love, tranquility and creativity. So a creative type of society would have at its center a hub of art and cultural intentions, and a heart of gold in terms of how people could satisfy both their need to create and to generate more creation in their societies. This idyllic society would have a creative-based, community-led economy. It would be a stepping stone to acheiving a world wide sense of accomplishment. So the flourishing individual would have a choice in participating in worldwide creation or community creation, or not. The flourishing individual would need to have a basis of emotional handling and pure joyful behaviour. A flourishing society would be ecocentered, not antropocentered, and there would be community gardens, trees and forests everywhere. A flourishing society made of flourishing individuals is possible.

This seems like too far-fetched, but that is the actual goal when we mean peace on Earth, the sustainable development goals and the idea of a flourishing society and flourishing individuals. Can we dream it now? Can we start working on it on an individual level? Can we start working on ourselves and in our communities towards this goal? How could we start? What are the first foundations? Important questions for this new age we are going through.

Simon Nielsen 2/9/22 Simon Nielsen 2/9/22

Co-Designing Black Neighborhood Heritage Conservation

BlackSpace shares inspirations, experiences, and lessons learned from an exploratory process of co-designing heritage conservation efforts alongside members of Brownsville, one of Brooklyn’s Black enclaves. In this introduction to the playbook exploring the process, BlacSpace points towards a collaborative and inclusive development based on local trust and respect.

BlackSpace shares inspirations, experiences, and lessons learned from an exploratory process of co-designing heritage conservation efforts alongside members of Brownsville, one of Brooklyn’s Black enclaves. In this introduction to the playbook exploring the process, BlackSpace points towards a collaborative and inclusive development based on local trust and respect.

By BlackSpace

THE PURPOSE OF THE PLAYBOOK

This playbook aims to provide guidance to practitioners both local and non-local, striving to collaborate with community members to document, conserve, and amplify Black neighborhood cultures.

The design of the playbook highlights our process, some of the “magic moments” that served as eye-opening experiences, lessons learned from our efforts, and actionable prompts that can help neighbors, practitioners, kids, and local cultural producers document, conserve, and amplify Black cultural assets in historically Black neighborhoods.

WHAT IS HERITAGE CONSERVATION?

BlackSpace defines heritage conservation as intentional actions that protect and elevate culturally significant markers, both non-physical and physical, in an effort to understand a place and the past, present, and future of its people. Amplifying culture and heritage alone cannot combat urban forces like gentrification or economic disinvestment. However, heritage conservation is necessary in strengthening Black community agency.

Heritage conservation can:

» Acknowledge cultural traditions, rituals, and sites as assets

» Advance self-determined narratives; inspire local advocates

» Affirm peoples’ rights to their places; prevent cultural erasure

» Fortify social networks; facilitate deeper community connectedness

Heritage conservation can be done by:

» Anyone rooted in or making the culture of a community - aka “cultural producers”

» Those who keep and share neighborhood history and culture, formally or informally, and those who might not necessarily recognize their work as “heritage conservation”

» You!

Read the full playbook

Simon Nielsen 12/9/21 Simon Nielsen 12/9/21

The End Is The Beginning

“Now he was here on an airplane feeling clumsy as he struggled to fill in the immigration card they had just given to him. What was the flight number again? He searched through the carry on bag to try and find the ticket. The entire trip had left him feeling nervous for several weeks beforehand. What was he thinking? Why was he doing this?” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe tells a story of finding home.

By Steven Moe

John walked slowly with his hands in his pockets, picking his way down the path from his Grandmother’s house towards the Arahura River. He could hear the sound of it in the distance, an angry rushing after the heavy rainfall last night, echoing how he felt inside. He still remembered the first time he had come here, seven years ago. What a horrible time that had been, with his parents deciding to go their separate ways. Somehow he had ended up here with his Grandmother for extended periods of time. Now he was almost 15 years old. Because of the storm that had come through the night before the rocks were all darker than normal, each one painted individually by the rain. A tree had uprooted on the other side of the bank and its branches now reached down to drape its fingers in the swirling muddy water.

He remembered coming down to this river those first times with his grandmother. Something had changed on the banks here for both of them and he still remembered how from that time on they began to talk and share. She seemed to accept him as he was but still always pushing him to become something more. It seemed strange now to think of the changes that were coming. He was so used to having her around. He sighed, and threw rocks over at the half fallen tree, missing most of the time.

Back in the house he knew his Mother was cleaning. Sorting as she went and putting things in piles, as if there was a deadline that had to be met. What did doctors really know, anyway? That is what he told himself, through tears, as they drove back each day from visiting her. But he knew it was true himself. He could see the changes. She had lost the strength that she had before and just seemed tired. The long walks they used to take beside the river dwindled and she became more accustomed to the kitchen with its view down towards the river.

John often went out on his own anyway on the weekends when he would come to stay. He found little treasures, like part of a birds egg, a tree branch in the shape of a letter, an unusual shaped stone. He always brought her a stone back because he knew that made her happy.

She would tell him stories about stones and show him books about others. He liked the square sort of ones that looked like miniature houses and she kept those over on the window ledge. The collection slowly grew.

“So, what have you found today?”, she would ask with a smile as he pushed open the screen door from outside. Always a laugh for something he had found, greeting each new discovery with joy as if that would make them feel welcome into her home. Sometimes his Mother would stay for the weekend with him and other times she would just drop him off. Other times his Grandmother would come in to town and pick him up instead. Either way he spent many of those weekends with her, getting used to not having a television to watch, over time absorbing information about her life and what she thought of things.

What seemed to keep his Grandmother busiest at the desk in the kitchen these last few years was paper. Letters came in from far off places - nearly all from America or Norway. He wasn’t sure exactly what they were because she didn’t talk about it much. When she was done for the day they would all be packed up into a yellow and green apple box and slid back under the coffee table in the lounge.

Today as they had driven up to the house after visiting her in the hospital his Mother had finally said it, glancing at him sideways as she finished slipping up the muddy road and turning into the driveway.

“She won’t be able to come back here, you know”. He knew.

“Maybe she will get better?” He said, without conviction.

“Yes, maybe she will”, his Mother said.

That was all. There was silence as they got out of the car and went into the house The conversation seemed to be enough permission to start the process of cleaning out the house. His Mother had started almost the moment she walked in the door. Now John was down by the river, throwing rocks at the fallen over tree that clung to the river bank. He trudged back up towards the house reluctantly when he had enough of that. This was not how the story was supposed to go. He wanted her to be there for a lot longer yet.

When he entered the kitchen he was unprepared for how quickly his Mother had worked. She seemed to have moved everything around already and he felt saddened that she was purposefully breaking the hold of his Grandmother on the house. His Grandmother had lived there for, what, 50 years? And now in one afternoon the entire place was being moved and jostled and pushed around like the new kid at school. It just wasn’t right and he fell heavily into the chair at the kitchen table.

He watched his mother move back and forth between the rooms and after a few minutes he slowly began to see an order in her movements. There was a small pile here in the kitchen on the table which had a few dishes, crockery, candlesticks. The kind of things which would easily find a place in another home. Then in the lounge there was a growing pile that was much larger and which had started on the couch and now spilled over onto the floor. It contained unique items which no doubt had a story and which most people would not have bought in the first place. John had a feeling he knew where that pile of items was destined to end up.

His Mother walked briskly and efficiently, picking up items from here and there and depositing them in one of the two piles. He got up and walked over to the large pile in the living room and began to pick through what remained. He soon started his own pile - a blue vase, a painting of a river and trees, some rocks that were heavy, an artist’s sketch book that was blank except for his Grandmother’s name on the inside cover, an old necklace with an almost white shaded piece of pounamu greenstone on it. All saved from that larger pile which just kept growing.

John started moving the items around to see what else there was underneath and that is when he saw the old yellow and green apple box. It was there buried below everything else like a foundation and explained why the pile had risen in height so quickly. He wondered if his Mother had even opened it. He reached down and pulled it open and saw stacked papers inside. Some of it seemed to have an order but a lot of it was just thrown in. He spent 5 minutes sifting through it and saw lots of names and date and people referred to. It didn’t mean much to him. He found a family tree and looked from his name at the bottom up. He only recognized his Mother, Father and Grandmother. His Grandfather was there too, but he had disappeared down in Milford Sound many years before John was born.

John placed the papers back in the box and shut it. He knew they had been important to his Grandmother but he wasn’t sure if he felt strongly enough about keeping them to move them from the pile they were now in. He decided to go for another walk outside as he had begun to feel like a traitor to his Grandmother, simply watching this packing up of her life. The tree that had fallen down became the target of his aggression again but simply stood there absorbing his anger with the stones he threw bouncing off it into the river where they sank quickly below the surface.

They spent the night there in that hollowed out shell of a house. John’s Mother had moved on from the sorting to cleaning and the little spider webs in the corner, the grime above the oven and the dust on the shelves had all been efficiently removed. The sparkling windows suddenly seemed to let in more light than before, as if they were new eyes. By the afternoon of the next day the back seat of their small car had also been occupied by the contents of the kitchen table.

John’s pile had been taken over and become part of the very large accumulation of objects that had grown on the sofa. They would be leaving soon. John went back in the house and pulled out the things he wanted to take. The large box was still there, buried once again. He cleared it off and lifted it up, then balanced the other things on top and walked out to the car. His Mother glanced up from the back of the car where she was fitting things in.

She paused, both hands still full. “What’s all that, then?”, she asked him.

“It is what I’d like to keep, to remember her by,” he said.

She looked over what he had, then nodded at him. “You can keep it all but why don’t you put it into that box.”

“The box is already full”, he said. He had made his choice and decided to keep the papers.

“I already looked through that box - there is nothing much in there.” His Mother said to him, as she got back to her work.

“I think I can find room around the front here”, John replied, moving to the passenger side of the car and evading the implication of her comment. In the end it all fit in quite easily.

His Mother did not agree with his choice. In her eyes it was more clutter for their small house. “I bet that you won’t open that box once in the next 40 years”, she said, as she glanced at it when they pulled away and drove back down the road. John ignored her and swivelled in his chair to look back towards the house as they bumped down the road and the trees began to get in the way of his view.

***

John hadn’t known how accurate his Mother’s word would be. It could almost have been a prophecy because in fact more than 40 years passed by quickly and John was nearly 60 years old when he finally came across the box again covered with dust in an attic. He had found he was often thinking about those days cleaning out his Grandmother’s house by the river when he began the process of cleaning out his own Mother’s place in Hokitika.

His daughter Sarah had called out to him, “what’s this old box, Dad?”. She had agreed to come over this Saturday and devote a few hours to help him out. A reluctant addition was his granddaughter Jane who walked in and immediately turned the old TV on before taking over the chair in the lounge. John walked up the stairs to the attic and stooped down to get through the door and enter the small room.

Sarah sat at the far end underneath the window. A small amount of light from outside came in just that end of the room through the dusty windows. Sarah had dragged the box out of the corner into the light and a dust trail had clearly been scraped across the floor.

They spent the next hour crouched there together. They looked at the names, the old family tree, the foreign language that was so incomprehensible. At age 15 John had not appreciated what these papers were. Now he felt like they were clues that needed to be explored further. His granddaughter Jane was just 17 but she put it best when they finally decided to carry the box downstairs and described what they had found to her.

“A boxful of jigsaw pieces,” she said, before turning back to stare at the TV. John had to agree with her. He wasn’t sure how it all fit together but it certainly felt like it was a challenging puzzle. He decided to take the box out and load it into his car to take home with him. As he walked out he saw his daughter Sarah was looking at the TV and then back at her daughter, clearly debating whether she should say something. Loading the box in the back only took a minute. When he walked back up to the door of the house he caught the tail end of their conversation.

“... well, it’s certainly ‘better’ than hanging out with those ‘bad influences’, as you call them, isn’t it?” said Jane, without even looking over at her Mother, who had sat down at the kitchen table with a frown on her face. Uncertain what to say. Letting silence settle uncomfortably and perhaps clinging to a false hope that it was a bridge between them. John felt awkward even though he probably shouldn’t have. He stepped in to the house softly and crept back between them to make his way up the stairs to search for anything else buried in the decades of dust that might be left up in the attic.

***

John vividly remembered one of the final trips to the hospital those decades before to see his Grandmother. She lay a little propped up on the bed, brown skinned still among the white pillows and sheets that covered her body. He sat on the left side of the bed and her eyes were looking away from him out the window into the trees outside where the birds hopped from branch to branch. They didn’t talk much at those times, he just sat with her silently. On this visit he had reached out for her right hand and slipped something into her fingers, folding them over gently. She smiled as she turned to him.

“So, what have you brought me today, John?” She asked. She bent forward and opened her fingers to reveal the stone. He thought there was something wrong as she drew in her breath suddenly and he almost turned to call out for the nurse. Then she was reaching forward quickly with her left hand to trace the shape on the stone.

“Is this...”, she seemed unable to finish the sentence, or look at him.

She held it up higher into the light that streamed in from the window. The stone was perfectly round and smooth with a distinctive shape crossing over it. She looked at him.

“But we. We threw this one in, I mean, you threw this one in that first day, I searched for it. Through the bag. It wasn’t there”. The words tumbled out of her quickly.

He shrugged, “I guess it was so perfectly round I kept that one. Put it in my jacket pocket and took it home. I thought you might like it.” he had said.

She looked from him to the stone, and back again. She smiled.

“You know, this stone taught me a lot about priorities. I always wished that I could give it to you and now I am glad that you are the one who will have it.”

Then softly she said, almost to herself rather than to him, “you were always more important, I just needed to lose it to find that out.” She looked deep into his eyes. Smiled again.

“Keep it, until you know it is time”, she said. She folded his fingers over it.

***

When the sale of his Mother’s house had finally completed John was very surprised at the amount of money someone had been willing to pay for it. According to the estate agent it had “real character”. That must have been code for a house that was falling apart and needed a lot of work. He gave some of the money to his daughter Sarah, who was very appreciative.

Now he was here on an airplane feeling clumsy as he struggled to fill in the immigration card they had just given to him. What was the flight number again? He searched through the carry on bag to try and find the ticket. The entire trip had left him feeling nervous for several weeks beforehand. What was he thinking? Why was he doing this? He was very comfortable at home. There was nothing to prove and what else could he really find out by making this trip? Those were the questions he had pondered many times, lying awake at night.

And yet there was more to it than that. One thing, maybe the most important thing, was that Jane sat beside him. Yes, his granddaughter had agreed to come on this journey with him. The timing had worked out well - the money came in from the house sale, the holidays were on before University would start, her getting pulled over and given a warning and of course the drugs (that, in theory, he did not know anything about). It had not been John’s idea at all in fact but instead was his daughter’s. They were having a talk one evening and she had raised it. Talking with him about the family history and the research he had done the last few months online and the connection he had made back in Sonora.

“Maybe you should actually go.” Sarah had said.

He just grunted, “hmm”, not convinced.

“And take Jane too?”. She asked, looking away.

“Hmm”, he said.

But in reality he could see the logic behind that idea. He could see that Jane desperately needed a change of scene more than anything else. A chance for a different perspective. And that is what had won him over, in the end. So they had driven to Christchurch airport and started the journey and now here he was somewhere sailing high over the Pacific filling in a form with small writing about bio security risks and confirming he was carrying less than $10,000 in cash. He felt out of place.

The drive up from San Francisco was extremely tiring after the long flight from Auckland. They pulled into a small motel in a place called Jamestown. The next morning they followed South Fork Road until they came to the log cabin that was described in the message. They got out of the car and stretched, both feeling nervous. They walked under the shade of the tall pine trees and across the driveway and knocked. No one answered for a while and then they heard some sounds from inside and the door silently swung open.

A curious face looked out at them. Curious both because of the expression it wore and the character it clearly contained. John could only think of Julie his grandmother when he saw her. There were only hints there, as if an artist had sketched Julie from memory and so got it a bit wrong. Short white hair circled the face with blue eyes like the ocean coloured in. She beckoned them both inside.

This meeting had been planned for months and had been sparked by the content of that old box of Julie’s. John had spent many days sifting through it all and getting a better sense of who was who. The old letters had been a revelation, sent back and forth by Julie when her different cousins and aunts and uncles were still living. One of the first things he had done was to prepare a letter describing himself and where he fit in the family along with a family tree that he created. He sent that off to each of the addresses that Julie had received a letter from. It was a bit like a lottery and he wondered if there would be any responses at all. Then one day the letter had come with the California postmark and he had been filled with anticipation as he opened it.

The correspondence that started then had led to John sitting here on a couch with his granddaughter, nodding and smiling at this second cousin of his. The sun flowed in through the open window and in the distance he could hear a stream falling over rocks. Rainbows scattered around the room from a small glass ball that had many edges and sat proudly in the middle of the window ledge. This living connection to his grandmother was named Marian Odegaard and she was telling them now about her family.

“My great grandfather was named Peter Odegaard and he emigrated from Norway with his sister Sigrid around 1910 and they both ended up here in California. Peter died long before I was born but I remember Sigrid - we called her Auntie. She loved this house and walking down by the stream. She often would take me down there during the daytime and sometimes even at night. I do not remember actually meeting your Grandmother Julie, but I probably did. I knew that she had moved to New Zealand and we exchanged letters many years ago when I was much younger.” She looked over her cup at them. It was hard to tell how old she actually was. Perhaps 85 but, then again, she could be even older.

She reached over to the shelf and picked up the little sun catcher and then she held it out to Jane.

“Perhaps you can find a use for this,” she said.

Jane took it into her hands and turned it over.

Marian said, “I think Sigrid would like to know that her great great granddaughter had this, even if it will leave my room a little less colourful”. She smiled at Jane, who seemed overwhelmed and had simply mouthed back, “thank you”, before looking down at the small glass ball and holding it up to the light.

She turned to John. “And for you, I have this.” She held out a small envelope. John opened it and flipped through some old photos and letters. He recognized some of the writing but not all of it - there would be time later to read them. He stopped at one photo of a little girl and an old woman standing beside a stream. He pulled it out and showed it to Marian.

She took it and said, “Ah yes, Sigrid and Julie. I can tell that the photo was taken right down there at the stream - would you like to see where?”

And so they found themselves following behind Marian under the canopy of large oak trees and alders until they came to a small bridge. Around them blackberries grew in patches and the sun filtered through the trees and formed patterns on the small stream before them. John found himself breathing deeply, feeling the wind, the warmth of the sun and the sound of the birds and the stream and imagining his grandmother standing in this same spot. So much time had passed between his visit here and Julie’s and yet it almost felt like the thinnest of veils that he might just be able to find a way through if he concentrated hard enough. He was glad they had made the effort to come and felt a peace he had not had for a very long time.

***

Jane looked up from the stream in front of them and saw that her Grandfather’s eyes were half closed. Marian, the ancient old lady who had led them here, stood blinking at the light reflecting off of the water. On the trip over Jane had read some of the papers her Grandfather had brought with him and so now she picked her way down the steep bank to the waters edge and bent halfway down, shuffling forward and brushing hair in behind her ears, scanning the bank as she moved slowly along. She picked out a few pretty coloured rocks and put them in her left pocket (her right one had the glass ball she had been given). Finally she found a stone that was the right shape and picked it up. She held it up to Marian and John so they could see, then she raised it twice in the air and turned towards the water. It skipped three times before it sank. She searched for another while listening to Marian and John who were chatting and laughing together about that old family tradition. It felt good to be here, with no pressure, just being alive in that moment. There was no sudden point which she would later look back on as being the critical time when this trip would be cited as a turning point. It was almost like she was a tree that had been planted in dry soil and this experience was soaking through and letting roots have the chance to grow.

When they returned to New Zealand Jane continued to spend a lot of time with her Grandfather John because she had begun studying at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. A few years before he had sold up his place on the West Coast and moved to Whitecliffs which was about 40 minutes away from Christchurch, heading into the mountains. The small cabin he had there was nestled in among the trees and you could hear the Selwyn River when you stood outside. It reminded her a lot of that place back in Sonora that they had visited and the stream that ran down through the valley by the cabin there.

On her visits she helped him scan in all the old documents about the family and order them into boxes that were all labelled and then stored under his bed. Out in the garden they planted apple trees, pear trees, lemons and feijoas and enjoyed the long summer evenings and the twilight that never seemed to fade. It was on one of those evenings that he had given her the stone. The perfectly round stone with the criss cross on it. She knew what it was of course, as he handed it to her. She almost did not want to take it because it felt like there was some prediction of the future and finality in it being passed on to her. In a way that is exactly what it was. John was gone a few years later while she was traveling in Europe. She was left feeling hollow, without anything else to say, as if the phone conversation she had started had the reception cut out and had left her talking into the air.

When she got home just a few weeks later she went out to the property at Whitecliffs. Her Mother was still over in Hokitika so it was her Aunt who had taken it on herself to tidy up. There wasn’t much left after that. She wondered if the boxes were lying in the dump being slowly saturated by rain. It made her ache inside to think of it. Now the fruit trees were producing for no one and the ripened spoils lay on the ground being eaten by the birds. She sat in the old couch looking out at them feasting and turned her gaze to the mountain range in the distance. She could hear the stream in the distance but all else was still and silent.

***

“Hello”, I say.

It has been at least 20 minutes on hold. Perhaps 30 minutes.

“Hello, can I help you” says the voice, finally, at the other end. An unusual accent.

I have prepared in my mind what to say and hope it will work out. I start to speak.

“Yes, yes, hello, my name is Jane and, look, this may be unusual, but I am trying to get access to something my Grandfather set up and it is not working. I know the username but not the password.” I say.

“Well, you can reset the password by hitting the ‘forgot login’ on the right hand side”, she says back, crisply and efficiently. There must be other calls to be answered.

“No, the problem is I cannot access the email that was used to set it up either - you see, my Grandfather died. Several years ago in fact. Is there any way you can help?”

And so it went on. The person on the other end of the line could not help, didn’t really want to. She was just answering another phone call, listening to another complaint. In the end she took my email address and said she would look into that. I was still talking to her when I was surprised to see a message appear online in my inbox which just said “sigridjuliejohn321” as its subject.

I say slowly, “Did you ...” to the lady on the line.

“Yes, these calls are recorded, so I am sure you understand ... “ her voice just trailed off.

And here I had thought she had no interest. I smile. “Yes, I do, thank you.” I say, and hung up.

With that final piece I log in and I saw them all there, the scans of the old documents, the letters, the photos. I felt a lightness and breathed a little easier.

I stood up from the computer and stretched, then walked out of the living room into the hallway. The sun was streaming in from the old stained glass window and it made the old wooden floor colourful at this time in the morning. Rainbows scattered this way and that from the small glass ball that Marian gave me those years before.

Over and over in my hands I folded the stone back and forth. It always feels smooth and cool to my touch. I glanced towards the half shut door at the end of the hallway and wondered how long my son will sleep for. The curtains were pulled tight in there to make it dark which might meant he would sleep for 2 hours. This was my quiet time, my rest in the day when I wasn’t on baby duty. I stood by his door and listened closely. Yes, little John would probably let me have some more time alone.

I walked back into the lounge room and put the rock onto the window sill, next to the small glass ball. Rainbows still filled the room as the shade from the trees outside had not interrupted the sun yet. In the kitchen I poured myself a cup of tea and then sat down in the most comfortable chair to sip it. I looked out the window at the birds that darted from branch to branch and listened to the sound of the stream in the distance.

“The End is the beginning” is the third in a series of three interconnected short stories. You can read the first story, “What Julie lost and what she found”, here. The second story, “A decision is made”, is here.

Simon Nielsen 12/9/21 Simon Nielsen 12/9/21

A Decision Is Made

“The letter itself sat there on the table. The envelope lay beside it, ripped apart and empty. A few pages with long cursive writing scratched on them was all that had emerged. Those pages just had words written there. Simple words really. Words about a new country, a new opportunity, a new century, a new chance. Words that were about to tear our family further apart.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe tells a story of new beginnings and lost lands.

By Steven Moe

I watched as my brother Peter cut up his meat. The candle flickering in the middle of the table cast long shadows on his face. He kept cutting and cutting and never taking a bite, as if that would prevent him having to answer our Father.

“You’ve read the letter, so what do you think?” My Father said again, impatiently looking at Peter. It wasn’t really phrased as a question. We knew exactly what my Father thought already because he had spent the last 20 minutes explaining that. Now he was asking his youngest son to agree. I concentrated on my own plate and stole glances at my brother who sat across the table from me. He was only a year older than me yet the weight of this decision rested on his shoulders rather than mine.

“Well?”, said my Father.

The letter itself sat there on the table. The envelope lay beside it, ripped apart and empty. A few pages with long cursive writing scratched on them was all that had emerged. Those pages just had words written there. Simple words really. Words about a new country, a new opportunity, a new century, a new chance. Words that were about to tear our family further apart. My Uncle had written them and probably had the best intentions in mind as he did. That would not change their impact.

“There are many jobs here. Many carpenters are needed as construction is booming. Even cars are abundant and many families have one. The buildings of New York are very tall and when you come in by ship you pass a large monument called the “Statue of Liberty”. I urge you to consider sending those who have no connections and I will find them work here in Seattle.”

There were some other pleasantries at the beginning and end about how they were doing and messages to others in the family here but that was the important part. The part that had caused my brother to forget how to speak. All of us around the table knew what our Uncle meant by his reference to those with “no connections”. This farm was small and there could be only one heir. That would be my eldest brother who was on a trip to Oslo at the moment. Of course, I was 17 and soon enough would be married to someone who could provide for me. Well, that was my hope. A particular face emerged in my mind but then evaporated away quickly when my brother finally spoke.

“I am not sure, Father” my brother said, “I love it here in Kragero. The town, the ocean, my friends. I do not want to leave this place.”

My Mother got up from the table and cleared some dishes. She was biting her lip and did not look towards my Father. So many had left already to go to the United States and now she might be losing her son as well. I watched her retreat into the dark kitchen where she lit a small lamp. I wanted to join her, to retreat from this scene, but I sat still instead.

And then I saw it. I had not expected this because of the speech that had come before but My Father’s eyes had wavered - I was sure of it. He had looked away, then back again - it was quick, but I was confident of it now. My brother probably had not seen this as he was still moving the meat around his plate. It was watching my Father’s deep blue eyes that showed me this and suddenly I realized that he probably felt the same as my Mother. Could it be? Then why extol the benefits of a country he had never set foot on, which is what he had been doing since the letter was opened? When he spoke next I began to understand.

“Son, I ... I have so little to give you here. I work hard, but ...”. There was silence. My brother had glanced up when the words stopped. Perhaps like me he had understood more than words could even convey. Outside the wind continued to blow and I was sure in the morning there would be snow covering the fields. It would be the first snow of the year and it felt ominous that it was arriving tonight.

My brother’s response had been brief and my Father’s reply seemed to defuse the need to explore the topic further that night. The plate with the meat still on it was taken through to the kitchen and I saw my Mother grab hold of the hands that held it and look into his face. I could understand that she did not want to lose a son, even if there were so few opportunities here. “We can make a way”, was her response to most difficulties. She still told us how her own Father had made due with bone porridge during the harsh winters many decades ago. “We can make a way”, that had been her reaction to whatever life had thrown at her. But to lose her son to a ship that would carry him for weeks to a land she would never have the time or money to travel to. What do you do with such a reality?

***

The next morning I went for a walk very early in the day. The night had not yet given up its hold and the sun seemed weighed down and unable to rise up over the horizon. As my brother had said, the town of Kragero was near to the ocean and walking beside the water was also one of my favorite places to wander. It was sometimes called Perlen blandt kystbyene, “The Pearl of the Coastal Towns”, and if you visit you can see why. The Telemark region has hundreds of islands in that area and the water is a beautiful color blue with tall evergreen trees lining the shore. The trees grow straight and true and are fed by the frequent rain. Some hang precariously on the edges of cliffs above the water below. It looks like they will never fall and crash into the sea they wave a greeting at each day when the breeze blows through their branches.

The snow had not been as heavy as the wind last night had shouted that it might be so I was able to walk easily enough as it was already melting in the sun. I had a destination in mind. My Grandfather’s cottage was at the end of the beach and up a small hill. I knew he would not serve me the bone meal porridge of my Mother’s story. Instead there would be tea and perhaps even a biscuit of some kind. Since my Grandmother Elise had passed away he had learned many new skills and seemed to particularly enjoy baking. I had enjoyed teaching him some of the things I had learned from my mother and now one of my specialties, krub, was his favorite too. I would laugh at him whenever I opened his door in the evening and smelled the sliced potatoes in cheese.

“Grandfather, I see you have stolen my recipe once again.” I would say.

“But of course, my dear” he would gaze at me over his small glasses and reply with a small laugh and smile that turned his whole face into a welcome.

Usually he would be sitting in the small lounge in his favorite upright chair by the window smoking his pipe and reading the newspaper, when he could afford to buy the tobacco and the paper. Sometimes it was just one of those activities instead. His next words were always, “won’t you stay? There just happens to be enough for two”. Of course I always did stay. I loved this game that we played and I knew that he loved it too. He said I reminded him of his daughter, my Mother, and since I was the only granddaughter he had I had grown up being more than a little spoiled by him.

Walking along the path by the shore that day I turned over the conversations at dinner in my mind as if they were smooth rocks I had picked up from this beach. There were so many angles, so many perspectives. What was the right thing to do? Many others from our village and even further afield had made the same decision as my Uncle. They were saying that even in the big cities people were making the decision to move. To leave the “old country”, as they called it once they arrived in America.

I heard a voice shouting. “Sigrid Odegaard”. I turned around and looked back where I had come. The voice yelled again, “Sigrid Odegaard. Sigrid Odegaard!” I had stopped and turned around at this point and was also the only one there so the formality of using my full name seemed rather unnecessary. Then I saw that it was Sarah. I will not lie at this point, I do not care for Sarah. We were in the same class at school and she is only a few weeks older than me. However, you wouldn’t know that from the way she treats me. Well, it is not just me, it was everyone in school younger than she was. She acted as if her birth date had destined her to lord over all who came after her. I think she used my full name because it made us seem less like friends and more as if she was my teacher.

“Sigrid Odegaard”, she said as a statement when she had finally caught up. She stopped a few feet away and put her hands on her hips. She was smiling widely as if she had just been told a secret, like what she was being given for Christmas. I smiled back at her. She was not tall and had what I would only call a solid, sturdy sort of beauty with a wide waist and strong arms. Looking at her mother you could see that she would end up as a very matronly sort of figure. But she had been blessed with striking blue eyes that were the same colour of the ocean we walked beside. They seemed to radiate out and were hard to resist, when she decided you were worthy of their attention.

“I saw you walking off and I thought that I just must speak to you”, Sarah said. I smiled back at her. Smiling seemed easier than talking and I knew she would not need much encouragement to tell me whatever she wanted to say.

“I wanted to make sure you were invited to my house tomorrow afternoon”. She said. I must have looked quite surprised. I had never been inside her house although I had passed by it enough times. Since her father was the Mayor it was hard to miss as it was right in the centre of town.

Sarah had seen the look on my face. “I’ve asked all the girls” she said, to explain. I could guess who they would be. I knew them all well, of course - a dozen or so of us were all around the same age. You couldn’t help but know everyone in a small town like ours. She must have seen some hesitation in my eyes because she opened hers even wider and gave me their full benefit while saying.

“Oh please, you must come. It just won’t be the same if you are not there.” She smiled again at me.

What could I say to that? All I could do was nod and assure her I would come. She turned away and bounced off down the path by the shore back where she had come from. I turned to walk the other way and it was then that I noticed a stone. You may rightly observe that to be a strange thing to notice but I did so. I bent down and picked it up and felt the cold of it lying there in my outstretched palm. It was almost round and the melting snow made it wet and dark, almost black. I brushed it off and slipped it into the left pocket of my skirt and then continued walking.

When I arrived at my Grandfather’s house I could tell he was in because of the smoke that rose from the chimney in imitation of the pipe that seemed to have been built onto his lips. I knocked gently and opened the door at the same time. I could see him around the corner as he was sitting in the kitchen eating some bread for his breakfast. As I came close I could see the butter melting on top and it made me hungry to see the jam he had spread on over that. I sat down and reached for a slice myself. He just nodded and smiled. It was comfortable just to sit together and we did not feel the need to pollute the silence with talking.

“So what have you brought me today?”, he finally asked. He knew there would be something. Whenever I walked along the beach there was something to be found - some dried seaweed, some driftwood, the shell of a crab. I put the stone on the table. He looked at it, then picked it up and lifted it up and down.

“A good size and weight and perfectly flat”, he said, and looked at me.

I nodded back. “It will go far”, he said. We sat again in our comfortable silence until he said, “Let’s go for a walk later”. He knew I would agree because one of the reasons I came so often to see him was the excuse of being outside and going for a walk. I put my hand in the other pocket and felt the letter there. Then I pulled my fingers back slowly and reached for more bread.

***

By the time we had finished breakfast the sun was much higher. We walked down to the shore, jumping over boulders, and threw rocks like the one I had found so that they would skim along the surface. It was fun to watch them although more often than not the waves would claim them on the first bounce. Eventually we tired of that game and I sat down on a large log that must have been tossed around for years because it was worn smooth. Despite its long journey from some unknown forest the strong wood remained, even if the bark had been completely stripped away. My Grandfather sat down too. He was the same height as me but much thinner. He was too thin, actually. The changes were gradual and it was only by remembering him with my Grandmother that I could picture what he had used to look like. He needed to eat more of that bread and butter and Krub.

“So, how is Peter?” he asked. I gave a little start and wondered how he knew that my mind was thinking of my brother at that moment.

“He is fine. He went with Father today to buy some seed and other supplies,” I replied. I turned my gaze out to the ocean.

My Grandfather looked at me with raised eyebrows. “No, not that Peter,” he said.

I blushed. I could feel it rising up. How did he know about me and Peter Anders? Small town life at work once again no doubt. But there wasn’t really much to say, except for the fact that Peter was the man for me. Of that much I was sure. The last time we had spoken was yesterday, before I had returned home to the drama of my Uncle’s letter. I had every impression that he was thinking about something big as we walked down the road. Something that he was struggling to express and I knew exactly what it was. That lack of communication was my signal because normally we spoke freely and, most importantly, we laughed about everything. I felt like when I was with him I improved somehow and became a better version of myself. A bit like how I felt about my Grandfather, he helped me aspire to become better even if the reward was just a kind word of encouragement from his lips.

Peter was the only son in his family and their family farm was just a few minutes down the road from ours so we had grown up knowing each other. Summers in the fields, winters skiing to school. Originally I had gone over as a child to spend time with his sister Ruth. She was just a few months younger than I was and so we had a lot in common. As the years passed I became a frequent a visitor to their kitchen and spent many mealtimes around the table with their family. That was why It was going to work out perfectly because this way I could still stay near to my parents.

I didn’t know how to express all this to my Grandfather though. It made me feel suddenly shy and uncertain. I diverted the topic away down another road by reaching into my pocket for the folded up letter.

“Father thinks that there may be a better life in America”, I said, as I passed it to him.

I waited some time as I watched him unfold it and begin to read. The Uncle who had written this was on my Father’s side but my Grandfather had known him as a boy as well so all the news and greetings in the letter needed no translation. I watched the birds rising and falling through the air like kites as they plunged into the sea in front of us. If they managed to catch a fish they stayed a while floating on the top, otherwise they took off again to dive down. Over and over they plunged down in search of their elusive prey. I wasn’t sure which I identified with more but I hoped that I was more like the bird, although the fish could always escape by swimming away further and seeking the safety of the dark and deep fjords.

When my Grandfather turned to me finally I saw there were tears in his eyes, but I didn’t understand why until he spoke.

“You should go”, he said.

The words were said in an almost casual way as if he thought I had been asking his permission and he did not want to offend me. I had not expected that response at all and I quickly realised I had not explained fully who my Father had been talking about. My going had certainly never even been hinted at by my Father.

“No, no”, I said quickly, “Not me - Peter. Father thinks that Peter should go to America because there is no farm here to pass on. He is the one with no connections that my Uncle is talking about.” I looked closely at him - at his eyes, his glasses, his white hair poking out from under the brown hat. He was a hard one to read right now, perhaps because of the emotion he had just gone through. He seemed relieved but I could not tell what he was thinking and as we sat in silence I could only guess. I suddenly felt that somehow this silence was covering over a rift between us that I had never expected would be there. I wished that I had the words to transport us back in time what was only really a minute or two but it was now too late.

***

I knew something deeper had happened when the next morning I found my feet did not turn and take me on my usual path down to my Grandfather’s house. Instead they turned down the long walk towards town and I found myself eventually strolling down the small streets there instead. Houses crowded together hunched over in the rain like beggars. It was a gentle rain today which fell lightly and did not interfere with much. My Father and brothers would be pleased because it had been so dry recently. Over dinner the previous night no one had mentioned the letter or America and instead we had talked only about the animals and the need for rain. I had learned long ago that the weather was both a farmer’s best friend and his worst enemy. In fact, we talked about the weather so much that it almost took on a physical presence in our conversations and sat there in the darkest corner by turns laughing with us in our merriment or shouting at us in our tears.

Despite the soft drizzle of rain this morning there were a number of people out walking through the narrow streets of Kragero. You could hear the sound of the seagulls in the distance. That sound help reinforce to summer time visitors that no where was very far from the sea here. The sound of the water and the birds was the music that accompanied us all through our daily life. At this time of year there were very few who came down from the North to visit. The winter sleep would soon be overtaking everyone throughout Norway as the days grew ever shorter.

Eventually I found myself wandering past the childhood house of Theodor Kittelsen, the painter, until I came to the shore and looked out at the island of Øya a short stones throw away. I sat down and watched the small wooden boats coming and going, looking as if they controlled their own destinies when in fact men with oars and sails directed them here and there. I heard some laughter echoing down the street behind me and then the same voice, “Sigrid Odegaard” it called. “Sigrid Odegaard”. I reluctantly turned from the boats and looked back towards Sarah. She was with two others, Ingrid and Marit, and they were all laughing at some private joke.

“Sigrid Odegaard. I hope you haven’t forgotten this afternoon”, she said, as she walked by where I was. In fact, I had completely forgotten and tried hard to hide my true emotions.

“I’ll be there”, I said to her.

That left me a lot of the rest of the day to fill in so I passed the time visiting different relatives who lived in town. My parents both come from large families so there is no shortage of cousins or Aunts and Uncles. By the time I got to Sarah’s house the wet weather had moved on and a weak sun shone through onto the street. I took it as a good omen as I knocked on the door resolutely.

Sarah’s father Eric opened the door. He smiled down at me from his enormous height. It was hard to understand how his daughter was so short when her father had to stoop to enter most houses. He was a well liked and kind man, as a mayor should be to secure the votes of the public. But he genuinely did seem to care in a way that was not in a hunt for favor in the next election. He spent time even out our way talking with the farmers when the rain stopped for long periods. His large beard covered his entire face and when he laughed he would throw back his head and roar up into the sky in delight.

“Ah, Sigrid, I am glad you could come. How is your Father coping with the weather this year?”. You couldn’t help but respond to the warmth of his personality which made you feel like what you had to say was both important and true.

“Very well, or, I should say, as well as is possible”, I replied as I came in and shook the coat off of my shoulders.

“Yes, yes, I understand, it is very true” he nodded at my words as if I had successfully summarised all that was wrong in Norway and how we might be able to fix every problem while we were at it as well. I smiled, imagining him later that night composing a letter to the King with my comment.

I walked through to a small room where Sarah sat on a small couch with Ingrid on one side with Marit on the other. She looked up at me and then glanced through to the kitchen at the other end of the room where I could hear the sound of glasses and her Mother working away.

“Over here, Sigrid Odegaard”, she called kindly. Sarah signaled to Marit who quickly moved aside so I could sit down beside Sarah.

Sarah’s father had passed through the room and gone into the kitchen. I looked around the room and was frankly very impressed. It made me realize how very modest our own home was to see the comparative luxury here. They had large lamps and paintings were hung from the wall. There were several photos including some of Eric dressed up in his mayoral clothes. The rug underneath our feet felt thick and warm. Through the window I could see the ocean and I thought about how nice it would be to sit on my own and watch the boats from here.

“Will they bring some Akevitt now, Sarah?” whispered Marit across my face, as if I wasn’t there. She sounded excited.

“Yes, yes,” Sarah said, clearly annoyed. She seemed to have been holding her breath so the words were exhaled fast, as if she was quickly batting away a fly. Akevitt was only drunk at special times and I had only ever been allowed to have a sip. It was an alcoholic drink made from potatoes and grain. In the kitchen I heard Sarah’s father laugh and I could picture him in my mind with his head held right back again. I glanced at the photo of him dressed up as the mayor and it made me smile to think of the formality of that picture with his frozen face that contrasted so much with the laughter I could hear now.

I heard another voice joining in the laughter and realised it must be Sarah’s mother. Then I heard a third laugh that had now joined in and I felt my entire body jump involuntarily. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw Eric walk out holding a tray that had 7 small glasses on it. Behind him was Sarah’s mother and behind that walked Peter.

They walked out, a merry trio, humming along to some tune that must have been the source of the joke. At any other time I would have been smiling now, just seeing Peter, but the context was all out of place for me. When he saw me he stopped in his tracks and his eyes widened while he still hummed the silly tune. Clearly he had not expected to see me here either.

Sarah’s father placed the tray on a small table and turned to us all with a grand motion, as if he were about to address the hundreds who had voted for him to be mayor. I looked to my side at Sarah and saw that her mouth was open. Not in a smile, more like the moment of anticipation before you begin to speak. Those beautiful blue eyes were narrowed and were watching my face with some kind of pleasure. I turned away from her and saw that Peter had sat down on another couch and was avoiding me, looking at Eric instead.

“I am so pleased that you girls, Sarah’s closest friends, could join us here today on such a happy day.” He turned to the tray and handed the glasses around to each of us. I somehow knew what he would say next and I wanted to close my eyes, as if that might stop it being true.

“An engagement is such a momentous time for a couple and I am so proud of Sarah and Peter and all that they will be to each other, for this community, and for our family.” He said, sounding again like he was talking to his voters.

I felt crushed, numb. I had no words to say, no action I could think of, until my feet took over the situation and I found that I was standing and walking out past Eric, past a petrified version of Peter, out the door, down the road, not even turning around once. I was breathing and walking, breathing and walking. One step and then another.

***

I thought about my Grandfather a few months later as I looked back through the clouds trying to pick out the last shore of Norway that we would see. My brother Peter stood beside me and we looked at each other with a pursed half smile, each sad in our own private ways. I knew that my brother was secretly thankful for my decision but the look on our Mother’s face would haunt us both for the rest of our lives in that far off land.

But back to my Grandfather. I had visited him even more of course. That final day I had gone to his house, feeling almost like it was a normal stroll, but knowing that this would be the last time I let me feet pick my way down familiar roads.

I knocked and opened the door and we played our little games with conversation. My trunk was packed back at home and tickets had been bought and paid for with a large portion of the cost of mine coming from my Grandfather.

“Grandfather, I don’t know”, I said. “Have I made the right choice?” There was no easy answer, no right answer.

He looked at me through teary eyes. “Sometimes it is the act of making the decision which legitimizes the choice”, he said. “Now that you have chosen, it is the right decision.”

He smiled and walked over to the small fireplace. He reached down inside on the left and pulled something out.

“Did you know that this was my Grandmother’s secret hiding place?” He asked, looking over at me to see my reaction. I was quite astonished because I thought I had explored every part of this house over the years. I had never noticed any such place before.

I was sitting in his favorite chair and he came over beside me. He reached down and placed something into my hands.

It was a rock, but not any ordinary rock. For a start it was perfectly round like the sun. One side was quite a dark colour and it felt cool to touch. The other side had thin white lines which stretched across it almost perfectly forming the shape of a cross.

“I found it here, after she had died. It holds a story, I am sure, but I do not know what it is.” He said.

He folded my fingers over it. “Please take it, to remember me”, he said. “I feel like it is time to pass it on. You were always going to have it. I always knew that. I remember when you were a little girl and came here I thought of giving it to you then but always felt I should wait and, perhaps, now we know why.”

I felt the stone resting there in my hand and nodded, looking up at him. I am nodding in memory of that moment now as I feel the stone in my pocket with my left hand. I turn it over and over and trace the shape with my finger. The strong wind is blowing spray up from the waves below and we are starting to get wet but we continue to stare back at that dark shore which is still an echo on the horizon. After many long minutes Peter takes my arm.

“Come, Sigrid”, he finally says, “it’s time we went inside”.

“A decision is made” is the second in a series of three interconnected short stories. You can read the first story, “What Julie lost and what she found”, here. The third and final story, “The end is the beginning”, waits here.

Simon Nielsen 12/8/21 Simon Nielsen 12/8/21

What Julie Lost And What She Found

“When the kettle was full she turned to the stove to boil it and it was in that moment that she had a feeling that something was not quite right. She had lived with a certain order for so long it was almost as if she didn’t need to look to know. She put the kettle down and turned around slowly. The window sill above the sink was almost bare, as if someone had swept up the stones that had sat there. Julie knew in that instant what it meant and she ran towards the door.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe tells a story of loss and belonging.

By Steven Moe

Julie turned her face away from the water flooding the gutters of the street and looked in the window of the café. She contemplated the large blueberry muffin that she had seen when she paid for the coffee. It was the last one there. She saw someone enter and wondered if her chance had passed by. As she continued to look in the café her eyes suddenly refocussed from the inside of the café to the fogged up glass of the window and she saw her reflection. Immediately she thought of her Grandmother. Could it be that so many years had passed now and she had become so similar? She turned away and looked out at the street.

The hard rain had turned to a softer drizzle that was now descending from the low lying clouds as if it were an advance guard that was setting the scene for the clouds themselves to arrive. The people here were used to this and most didn’t even carry umbrellas. They moved quickly along the streets of Hokitika and darted between the dripping buildings as if they were children searching for a place to hide. Julie sat outside the café under a covering and watched them scurrying past. The coffee was nearly done and she was still not here. Given how well she knew her daughter that shouldn’t have surprised her but it did.

She watched the rain soak into everything almost like a blanket being draped over the land until nothing dry remained. Julie glanced into the café and again and caught another glimpse of her Grandmother. She still remembered clearly her time one summer when she was seven living with her Grandmother in her cabin by the stream. That had been so many decades ago and on a different continent, far across oceans on the other side of the world.

She remembered arriving and feeling shy of this woman who she did not know. But who else was there to take her? And so she had spent those months learning the ways of her Grandmother, who was 77 then, almost the same age that Julie was now. At the time of course, she hadn’t known her age. What was an age to a child - she only knew that some people were adults and others were children, and that was the way things were.

But she had inherited the papers later, the most intriguing ones written in Norwegian and smelling old and drenched with mystery. A friend of a friend helped with translation and so Julie had learned her Grandmother’s birth date and some scraps about her early life and when she had left Norway to move to a new life in America.

On the first day she was there her Grandmother had taken her down to the stream. It was small and you could easily wade or even jump across it in places but they tiptoed over the wooden plank that was a bridge and which would gently rise and fall under their weight. They sat on the other side beneath a grove of Alder trees and watched the water rippling by, catching the sunlight and throwing it back for all to see. It seemed amazing that they were the only two spectators of such a show and Julie had stared long at the water. It was all so different to the city and all that she had ever known. She became aware that her Grandmother was watching her and turned to those deep green eyes that sat in her wrinkled face. They each just looked at each other for a long time, perhaps communicating more than mere words could offer.

Her Grandmother sighed, and then said quietly, “Lie on your back, Julie”, as she dropped her shoulders to the ground and flung her arms wide on the grass.

Julie didn’t understand but followed her lead and then looked up and saw that the world was alive with butterflies above their heads. Then she realised that they were green and were the leaves of the Alder tree being wooed by the wind into performing a dance.

“What do you see”, asked her Grandmother.

“I see butterflies”, Julie replied. She closed her eyes and opened them again. She heard her Grandmother make a sound of approval. She felt a sense of peace there beside the stream that she had not known for a long time.

Every day during that summer at about the same time they would come out and lie down beside the stream. And every time Julie was surprised at how her spirit seemed to rise up as if to join the leaves fluttering above.

Julie looked again at her reflection in the window and her Grandmother was gone and she remained. Dressed in a dark green rain jacket, white hair drawn back in a simple ponytail. She turned to look up Weld Street again and that is when she saw her daughter’s car heading towards her. Julie stood up and went to the side of the road where she was parking. She was surprised to see that in the front seat sat her grandson, John. She hadn’t seen him for years. He didn’t move or look up, instead staring down at a screen on his lap. Her daughter was there then beside her, and giving her a hug. It seemed odd to be so close to someone after so many years. Why had it been so long? She wasn’t even sure anymore. Her daughter was here now, and she was grateful for that.

“Mum”, her daughter was saying. It was her voice that brought her back to that moment, to reality, letting go of the hug and the illusion conveyed that everything was fine. Her eyes really took in her daughter then – saw the red eyes, the dishevelled hair, the panic in her expression.

“Mum, I wasn’t entirely clear when we spoke on the phone. I mean, what I really need is. I, what I wanted to ask is, can you...” Her words tumbled out like this for a long time, in a disorganised way that reflected her state of mind. “…I need you to take him, just for a few days, until I can work this out.”

Julie hadn’t been listening but somehow it all seeped in, “you want me to take John? To my house?” Her daughter nodding. Beckoning to John to get out. Pulling a bag of clothes from the back and dropping it by them. Waving as she spun the car around and sped away.

John looked as bewildered by developments as Julie felt. There wasn’t much to say. She picked up the bag and turned towards her car and he followed like someone would follow a nurse in a hospital leading them to the operating room.

He had been to her cabin when he was a baby, or maybe 1 year old. He wouldn’t remember it.

She found it hard to speak as she drove through the rain up the Arahura Valley, further and further away from the city and people. It was a miracle that she even had a phone line, when you thought about it. She slipped along the muddy road following the black line through the thick trees and bush until she reached her home. It was a small wooden house, painted an off-yellow colour that had faded in the sun and harsh winters. The dark red brick chimney that stuck from the top showed the fire had gone out long ago. Down the road a short walk was the Arahura River but she was safe from flooding this far away from it, nestled up in the curves of the hills that rippled through the entire valley. What must John think of this? She turned the key in the truck off and looked over at him. He was looking at the screen again.

***

That first night with her Grandmother Julie had cried. It was all so new. So far from the city and the sounds that she knew. The house was small, or maybe her Grandmother was listening outside the door. Either way, she came in and sat with her in the dark.

After about 10 minutes her Grandmother stood up. “Put on your clothes, we are going for a walk”, she said. This surprised Julie, but she was learning that her Grandmother would often surprise her. When they stepped out and began to walk up the path the night closed in around them and the darkness felt like it was something that could be reached out for and touched, like a curtain. Her Grandmother was humming a song, a Norwegian one, Julie could tell. She looked up at her and it was then that she saw the stars above. The city lights always dimmed them but out here they could be seen so clearly, as if there were a million little fires across the sky. She paused and her Grandmother looked down at her.

“Ah yes, the stars”, she said with her accent. She knelt down beside Julie. “Do you see them all, unchanging? They remind me that there is more to this life than living or dying, for we are each here for a reason.” Her Grandmother stopped abruptly, as if she had more to say but wanted to wait, or didn’t know the right words to convey the meaning. Julie could feel her eyes getting hot and the tears on her cheek. There was nothing more to be done. Nothing more that she could have done. They walked on through the night until they reached a spot in the stream which grew wider. The sound of the rapids died away completely and it looked almost like a small lake before them.

“The beavers are here this year”, said her Grandmother. They both looked intently into the night but could only see a low mound some distance away which was the dam that the beavers had created. In the dark it almost looked like a very small wave that didn’t get any closer.

Her Grandmother went down to the edge and picked up a small, flat stone. She turned and looked back at Julie and raised it twice in the air, as if they were part of a team and she was starting the play. Then she turned and faced the water and threw the stone, lightly, out into the darkness. Julie heard it hit the water, then heard it again. It had skimmed on the water twice before sinking.

“In Kragero, my grandfather taught me this one, long ago.” Her Grandmother said. Julie liked listening to her Grandmother speak, both for her accent and her unique choice of words. Anything she said sounded more like a song than a statement. She watched her pick up another stone, and saw her beckon Julie to her. It was strange to stand there in the dark, tossing stones into the water with her Grandmother. Julie found it very difficult to skim them on the top and had no success. They just plopped into the water with a small splash. To be honest, her Grandmother seemed to find it hard as well. Julie would only appreciate much later what skill this took to do at her Grandmother’s age. They came back the next day as well but during the day this time. The beavers were again discreet and made no appearance. But Julie gradually began to learn about the stones and how to get them to hit the water and bounce up again. The key was their shape. It was the roundest and flattest ones which were the best for they would sail like little Frisbees through the air.

When she later looked back on her life she realised that it was collecting rocks and stones to throw like that which marked her beginnings as a rock hunter. She found some that she didn’t want to throw into the water, and she brought them home instead. Soon she was noticing rocks everywhere that she went. There was an entire field of rock up behind the house. It stretched out in front of her and she learned that it was granite and no trees grew from it. She broke a piece off by jumping on an edge that poked out, and brought it home. She liked the different colours, the shapes, the patterns, the textures. The way that some would dissolve in water and let her finger off reds or yellows as if they were paint. Stones and rocks began to fill her dreams as well as her waking hours. Soon the front porch was littered with rocks that had been gathered – smooth pebbles from the stream, large round rocks that looked like melons, sharp obsidian that was black and yet translucent in places. That was hard to find but she enjoyed the challenge. Her Grandmother encouraged her in this and together they found a book at the small library in the town which described the rocks. She began to learn words like bedrock, outcrop, sandstone, shale and basalt. She had no idea that what had been started in those days would set a course she would follow the rest of her life.

***

Looking at it now, Julie realised that her house in the Arahura Valley was a distant echo of that home of her Grandmothers. She had boulders that lined the driveway and there were rocks around the house in uneven stacks, like small volcanos erupting. They had emigrated here so many years ago - could it really be 50 years? It must be as she had been 25 when they left California to come and explore for Pounamu – the greenstone of the South Island of New Zealand. She had read an article and seen some photos. They had finished their degrees – both studying geology at the same University. Getting married the week after they graduated. Life was there to be tasted and eaten. “Wouldn’t it be a great experience to visit New Zealand”? Which one of them had said it? She couldn’t recall but it didn’t matter – the other one had agreed right away.

It was an adventure and they had been young. They stayed a few weeks, which became months. Settling into a life here had been easy. They lived an entire decade together in that house, and had their daughter there too. He had been an expert at finding the some of the most difficult greenstone to source, which only could be found down south in Milford Sound. It was a skill which few possessed and the money he made from those finds paid their expenses, which were pretty minimal in that small house. They were happy.

She still recalled the moment of that kiss she gave him as he left for the trip down again to Milford Sound to look for more. When the news came back that he was lost she didn’t believe it and assumed he would just appear soon, so she cooked as if he would be there that night. In the end there was nothing to do but to pick up her baby daughter and continue on with this life. The Pounamu provided her some income. It was hard to find but like her husband she also seemed to have a sense of where it would be on the river bed or in the hills. These days she only took it from the beaches where she was allowed to collect. They looked just like normal rocks or boulders and it was often only by cutting them open that the beauty of the green stone inside was revealed.

The tourists who visited the West Coast bought sculpted pieces as a reminder of their trips but they didn’t really understand. What they purchased would mainly end up in drawers, stowed away and hidden from sight. She recalled the first time she had taken a large stone in and visited one of the Maori artists who sculpted them into different shapes. It was a hot day and she stepped into the cool shade of his studio, feeling conscious of her accent that immediately gave a first impression and flooded the room with unspoken assumptions. But fortunately he didn’t seem worried about her past or where she was from. In fact, he seemed very grateful for the stone she had brought in, for it would provide a good source for the necklaces, earrings and other crafts he created. That had been the start.

Of course, she had to learn a lot. She discovered that her favourite pounamu was not the nephrite jade that was so common but instead the bowenite that was called “Tangiwai”. It was clear, like glass and only found down near the place her husband had disappeared searching for it. One year, the year after he disappeared, she had gone there with her young daughter and spent a summer searching for Tangiwai – or was she really searching for him? It was the most ancient of pounamu and took its name from tangi (“to cry”), and wai (”water” or “tears”). The Maori she met in Milford Sound told her the full name was Koko-tangiwai, which referred to a deep sorrow that is never completely healed. “It is a tear water stone”, she was told. She could relate to that. She only found a few of them, despite deploying all her skills and neglecting her daughter for hours on end to hunt for more. One hung around her neck even now – it had never been sculpted but if you held it up to the light you could see the clear shade of green shining inside and through it, as if it were alive. It reminded her of her Grandmother’s eyes which had been almost the same colour.

***

One day towards the end of their summer together her Grandmother put something on the low wooden table where she sat eating porridge with raisins in it. The object was wrapped in paper.

“I will not be able to give you this, for your birthday, when you go back”, she said simply.

Julie looked at her, then unwrapped the paper. It was a napkin which was a light shade of blue. No tape, just folded over to conceal what was inside. She felt the stone before she saw it. It slipped coolly into her hand and she looked down at it. It looked like it was perfectly round and flat, like a small wheel. She turned it over and noticed the white line that criss-crossed it. One line was slightly longer than the other which made it form the shape of a cross.

She spoke gently and slowly, and Julie still remembered those words clearly, “This is from Kragero. From my grandfather – it is a memory. You can see, it is eternity breaking through and speaking through the very rocks themselves.” Julie took it up to her room and put it beside her bed. It felt different from the rocks she had been finding – this one had a story and had been a gift to her. She touched it again and ran her fingers over the lines.

The next day Julie’s eye started noticing how rocks sometimes had patterns or shapes in them. But she couldn’t find any by the side of the stream that had such a distinctive cross with two white lines going through them like a lower case ‘t’. This would be a challenge. Perhaps it was that combination or rarity and challenge that really started her on the rock collecting path. If it had been easier then what would have been the point? Over the years to come she was always looking out for rocks by the sea, rivers, streams, parks. And if she found one like that her Grandmother first gave her, then it would inevitably find a place at her home.

***

Julie got out of the car and grabbed John’s bag. They went into the house together and he sat down in the lounge. There wouldn’t have been a long tour of her house as it was so small but it would have been nice to show him around. Instead, the screen had his attention so she simply pointed to the toilet so he would know where that was. She went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The rain had died away and a few rays of sun lit up the window sill above the sink. She turned to fill the kettle and looked out at the trees and the drops which still clung to their leaves. The tree ferns in particular were weighed down by the water as if they were travellers carrying packs on a hike. As the water filled the kettle she looked at the window sill itself and saw the cross rock that her Grandmother had given her so long ago. It was now surrounded by many others from different rivers and streams, but none of them compared to the original. She reached out and picked it up and turned it over in her hand like she had done so many years ago, then she placed it back in position and turned to the boiling kettle.

When her husband had been alive drinking tea together had been a big part of the day. A chance to sit together and break out of the cleaning or reading or work they had been doing. These days it was a way to mark time, to have a break in the day and make sure all the hours were accounted for. She drank from the same cup with its chipped edges and stained insides which said “Sonora”. Just seeing the name reminded her of her Grandmother who had lived there so long. Drinking tea was familiar, a routine that she savoured and gave her comfort, like when she was a child and was asked to go and buy the bread fresh from the bakery. A smell of fresh bread still drew her back to that little shop and handing over the coins for a loaf of white bread which was still hot. The butter melting into a thick slice was the only addition it ever needed.

When her tea was done she thought about her next problem. She only had one bed. She hadn’t expected to have a small boy coming to stay with her when she set out that morning. Her daughter’s message had simply been that she wanted to drop by and see her. Not at her house, but in Hokitika. So when she drove into town there had been no planning on driving back with another person beside her. She decided that the couch would have to do and set about finding some sheets and a blanket. It wasn’t cold so it would be fine for him to sleep out there.

He was still buried in the screen while she cooked a simple meal for dinner. After they had eaten she said, “Let’s go for a walk”. He reluctantly put the screen down and they put on their rain jackets, just in case, and walked down towards the river.

“How are you feeling, John”, she asked, as they walked.

“I don’t know”.

“How are things at home?”

A pause. “Fine”.

“And school?”

“School is fine.”

She was struggling for topics. “How old are you now?”

“I’m 9.”

She wasn’t sure what else to say. So they walked on in silence until they reached the great Arahura River. It was much higher than normal because of the rain. Julie walked to the edge and subconsciously her eyes searched the rocks there on the bank. Julie couldn’t even stop herself anymore, it was just a natural reaction. This part of the river right in front was deep and slow moving. She saw a small cross rock and slipped it into her pocket. She glanced over at John. He seemed to be staring without looking at what was in front of them.

Julie had a thought then, and went to the edge. She spent some time searching and found a stone – a little too thick to work well but it was pretty flat. She turned to John. He had moved away, back up towards the road, and sat on a log.

“Your great, great Grandmother taught me this,” she called out loudly. She wasn’t sure he had heard her above the sound of the river. Suddenly she felt silly. She raised the rock twice in the air. There was nothing else to be done now – she was committed. She turned to the water and threw it as skilfully as she could. It hit the water once and then bounced high and splashed down before it sank out of sight. She turned back towards John and smiled at him.

His hands were in his pockets. “Can we go back inside?”, he called out.

She turned her back to the river and walked with him to the house.

***

The next morning they were having breakfast when his screen went black. He looked up from it, confused. They were eating toast and the steam wafted up from her cup of tea. They both looked through his bag of clothes but there were no cords there.

“Do you have a charger?” he asked. He moved close to her as he said this and spoke softly, as if it would help the answer to be yes. She didn’t like the screen, but she wished she could have helped him. That would have taken a true miracle. The most modern piece of equipment in her house was the old phone in the corner. You had to dial it using a circle which had numbers around the edge and it click clacked as it swung round back into position. She had no charger.

She shook her head. As she did this he turned his head into the sunlight, disappointed. She looked into his face then and saw much more than just a reaction to not having a charger. She reached out to him and tried to give him a hug but he pulled away.

“I didn’t want this. I just want …”, he slowed, as if to reveal himself in this way was a betrayal. There were tears and more there. It was thinking about that when Julie realised that his eyes were a deep green colour. She didn’t understand how it could have escaped her before now but she realised now that this boy right here stood as a living link to her own past, to her own childhood, to her own Grandmother. It had been too long to be away, to be apart from her daughter and from him. She knew that with a sudden clarity. But now he had taken the screen in his hands and sat curled in the sofa, as if his desire itself might will the screen to life again.

***

The morning passed quickly. They did not speak. After a lunch of soup and bread Julie went outside to the stack of wood lining the wall at the side of the house. John moved back to his place on the sofa. The fire had been used a lot recently because it cheered Julie up to have the flames at night when it was raining, even if it wasn’t very cold. She spent time stacking more wood into place, fitting them together like pieces of Lego.

When she came into the house she noticed that John wasn’t there. She looked around and saw his bag of clothes and the screen on the sofa but the jacket was not hanging on the door. She looked out the front window and saw him down beside the river. He would be safe enough there. She went to fill up her kettle and decided she would take her cup of tea down with her and see what he was doing. The trees and ferns had all dried out compared to the previous afternoon. Small birds now fluttered noisily among the branches in the sun.

When the kettle was full she turned to the stove to boil it and it was in that moment that she had a feeling that something was not quite right. She had lived with a certain order for so long it was almost as if she didn’t need to look to know. She put the kettle down and turned around slowly. The window sill above the sink was almost bare, as if someone had swept up the stones that had sat there. Julie knew in that instant what it meant and she ran towards the door.

She moved as quickly as she could down the road and she saw he was still there, standing at the edge. She called his name. She was running. Then she reached him and held his shoulders, while her eyes moved down to his feet. A grocery bag, one of the cheap plastic ones she kept under the sink. He looked up at her face and down at the bag. She was on her knees then, quickly clambering, clawing desperately through the stones and not finding what she was after. She sat back heavily and felt her eyes closing and a great weight pressing her down.

Then she heard his voice. It was as if it was calling her back across ages, into this moment, now. He was saying, “I can not make them skip like you, Grandmother. But, I am trying.”

She opened her eyes. She saw the river. She saw stones. She saw sky. She looked up at him.

Something had broken, snapped in her, like a flood breaking over the banks of a river. She looked back at the river and the rocks along the bank. She breathed in deeply and started to stand. She felt him try to help, a small little arm under hers, pulling up.

Julie was standing. She looked around her and took another long, deep breath. Then she looked down at the bag. She turned her face towards John. She smiled then, and said slowly, “Pass me the very flattest one you can find, and you take one as well”. He bent down and searched through the bag, then handed her one of the stones. He held another in his hand.

She raised her stone to him twice and then she turned to face the water.

“What Julie lost and what she found” is the second in a series of three interconnected short stories. You can read the second story, “A decision is made”, here. The third and final story, “The end is the beginning”, is here.

Simon Nielsen 12/7/21 Simon Nielsen 12/7/21

Why Storytelling Matters

"My mother had taught me something important. There is no person who is not interesting – if you think that someone is not interesting, then that is your fault not theirs – every single person has a story." Lawyer and podcaster Steven Mee shares a personal and moving reflection on the power of stories and storytelling.

By Steven Moe

Kia ora Koutou, Ko Steven Moe toku ingoa.

Stories can be like seeds planted that grow into new ideas.

Think about this – two hundred years ago how many of our ancestors could read and write? Instead, they told stories – Why? Because stories connect deeper with our souls.

If I say that SDG 6 is about clean water and sanitation that has far less impact than saying: “This is 6 year old Maria, she draws water from a well every day which is infected with diseases for her family to drink”. Stories matter.

This picture tells a story. It’s of a young boy named Steven Moe – I had just moved to New Zealand in 1984. My story is of someone with an accent that at times places him outside of the culture he has grown up in, but whose heart is filled with a Turangawaewe of Aotearoa.

We were living in rural Papakaio, just North of Oamaru. On the left of our house was a water race and then a graveyard, on the right was a paddock of frightened sheep scared of the Magpies swooping above them.

There are other stories in this photo – my Father Norman, my Mother Marion, my sister Natalie.

And can you see another story? It’s the more ancient one. A story of rocks strewn like a geological lolly scramble on the beach at Moeraki.

This picture shows us the strands of stories that wove together to form a tapestry of my family’s life.

We can only follow one of these stories on.

The boy we saw in the last photo is now 23 – I am with my Mother and had just graduated from Canterbury University.

My Mother had taught me something important. There is no person who is not interesting – if you think that someone is not interesting, then that is your fault not theirs – every single person has a story.

Stepping out on my own for me involved working as a lawyer for Russell McVeagh, a law firm in Wellington then moving to London, Tokyo and Sydney for more than a decade working for a firm with 4,000 lawyers in 55 offices.

But there was a theme. That theme was helping already wealthy people earn a bit more.

We all see the World through a lens which is shaped by our experiences.

I started to realise that maybe I had on the wrong set of glasses.

We used to talk about it, working late at night, heating up another microwave dinner, looking out at the lights strewn like stars below the heights of the high rise office. We called them golden handcuffs – sure, they are handcuffs… but look, they are gold. It’s hard to break free.

But my story shows that it is possible. I realised that maybe I could take all my experiences to date and reinterpret them, reimagine them for a new context, one which was about purpose and being a lawyer – yes the words “lawyer” and “purpose” don’t have to be mutually exclusive terms.

It was time to write my story.

It was time to come home.

When I got back to New Zealand in 2016 I started meeting amazing people here in Otautahi, Christchurch. People who had stories.

I shifted gears and became an impact driven lawyer as a catalyst for positive change. This involves supporting purpose driven organisations that range from NFPs to Social Enterprises to start-ups and for profit business. I like to call it the Impact Sector.

This is a photo of an Impact Lunch where up to 40 people gather to share food and tell each other stories about their journeys.

Why? Because our stories matter.

So let’s recap where we are up to.

Our stories matter.
There is no person who is uninteresting.
Each one of us can be a catalyst for change.

So I wondered if I could help get more good stories out there. I met amazing people no one knew about. The media is obsessed with short word limits and negative spin.

It was Robert Louis Stevenson who said: “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” So what would this mean for me – what could I do? I started a podcast.

Seeds podcast was birthed at the time of the Social Enterprise World Forum in September 2017 and since then I’ve put out one story a week, now with 267 episodes in total.

The idea is simple – seeds look like they are dead – if you give them the right conditions of soil, water and light then they will grow.

The stories on the podcast are like seeds because when you hear them, something new just might grow in your own thinking.

If you look up “seeds” in podcasting apps like Spotify or Apple Podcasts then this is the image you will find. It is intentional that the image is of a dandelion – how often do we think of it as a weed, but what is it that we make our wishes on when we blow and scatter their seeds. Maybe it is all about perception.

Where some see a weed – others see a wish. What do you see?

Having interviewed hundreds of people this slide would be full of too many faces to see them if I put them all on here. This is a selection as the range is enormous, from a child on what it is like to be 6, to a 92 year old nun who worked in palliative care for 70 years, to discussion on the SDGs. From tech entrepreneurs and investors, to a co-founder of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, the founder of Bead & Proceed, Erica Austin who is helping on this conference, Tongan and Samoan immigrants, someone who was shot in the terror attacks, Matt Morris who shared about organising this conference, people who care about the ocean, travelling to space, who love mathematics, spirituality, Te Ao Maori. Each of them have a story to share.

We also talk about the failures – or as Michael Mayell put it when he spoke about his two ‘failures’ before Cookie Time succeeded, they are the compost for the success that is to come.

By hearing stories we feel brave enough to try something on our own.

Let’s focus in on three of these stories to show the diversity of them.

On the top right you can see Garry Moore, the former mayor of Christchurch. He shared a personal story of how he felt unworthy of the generosity of a couple when he was younger. They took him aside and said they had enough now so they could share with him – but would he do the same one day for others.

On the bottom right you can see Robett Hollis an amazing entrepreneur who was a professional snowboarder grew up here in Aranui. We talked about the influence on his perspective of Te Ao Maori and ways of being and the wisdom of Kaitiakitanga or Stewardship in business.

On the left is an unreleased episode with Sophie-Claire Violette and we had an amazing discussion about being an anthropologist who comes from Mauritius and we talked about the power of words, language and community

I’ve stopped calling these episodes “interviews” as they are really conversations. Through them we dive deeply into the past and what has formed people. My opening question is not, “what do you do”. Instead it is “what was life like for you when you were 5 years old” and we go from there.

So each one is telling a life story.

Some current stats on the project are set out here – you can find the show in podcasting apps or at the website there at the top where there are a bunch of videos, articles and more.

If you email me and tell me the topic you are interested in I commit to writing back with my top curated recommendations for you.

These are not short 5 minute or 20 minute episodes as I am committed to long form podcasting.

Showing the power of technology, as an example there were 318 listens yesterday – amazing as I cannot talk to that many people in a day!

This is a project that is word of mouth as I have no marketing budget so if you like it, please help it by telling others or sharing this presentation when it is released.

I started with a slide of family and I come back to another – this is Sigrid Odegaard my great grandmother who died 15 years before I was born. I think about her life and her story and it reminds me of how quickly time goes by.

And the photo on the left is me and my daughter Shanna when she a new born.

These photos remind me of the generations that come and go. Each of you is alive here and in this moment. How will you make a difference? How will you catalyse change and impact? How will you amplify the stories of others that you know?

Stories matter. They matter because we like stories. We identify with stories. We learn from stories. We should tell as many as we can, as often as possible.

Let’s go out knowing that our stories of people matter. Let’s tell them authentically. Let’s listen. Let’s stay curious.

Thank you for hearing my Korero about this project of Seeds Podcast and Why Stories Matter.

Here’s a video of Steven Moe’s presentation

Simon Nielsen 11/30/21 Simon Nielsen 11/30/21

What Is Your Cathedral?

“In the day to day repetition of placing one brick on another it can be really hard to see what is being built and maintain the vision. Yet that is what will sustain you in the long run. If you can see a bigger picture then that will give purpose.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe asks us what we’re building.

By Steven Moe

You are walking along a deserted path in a place you’ve never visited before. The sun is beating down and it’s a hot day. In the distance you see three people about 50 metres apart from each other all doing the same task.

You get to the first one and ask what are you doing. He looks back at you unhappily and says, “I’m putting these bricks on top of each other”. You get to the second person and ask them the same question and they shrug their shoulders – “I’m building a wall.” You walk up to the third person and ask them what they are doing. She smiles and stretches out her arms and points upwards, and says, “I’m building a cathedral”.

This is Steven Moe. Welcome to Seeds Podcast.

The beauty of having your own podcast is that you can mix up the style of the show from time to time and I wanted to do that to share something I’ve been thinking about recently.

It comes from that podcast the other day with Israel Cooper on episode 112. You see, he spoke about buildings and the work that they do with ‘home’, and how important it was to get the foundation right.

It got me thinking about foundations, buildings and most importantly, why you build things. All of this thinking was reinforced by something my friend Antz Rohan said the other day at an Impact Dinner. Each of us are spending time in our life to create something, to build something. Particularly those of you who are listening to this now – I know you are all involved in creating or building something of value. But how often do we lose focus on that – lose sight of what it is we are contributing to.

I’m reminded of a visit I had to Barcelona many years ago. The Sagrada Familia is the most visited site in Spain and will be nearing completion in 2026 on the anniversary of the death of the main designer, Gaudi. That’s right, it is going to be completed 100 years after his death. You see, the key point is that building cathedrals can be an intergenerational activity that involves a true understanding of stewardship and working for the benefit of those who will follow us. Few of those who worked on Cathedrals, particularly in the Middle Ages, would have expected to see them actually completed. So being part of building something like that requires you to embrace a bigger picture that is far beyond yourself.

Did you know that the first meetings about the Barcelona cathedral were held in 1866? The first ground was broken in 1888? The first bell tower was completed in 1925. Over the time since then there have been many artisans, sculptors, builders, masons – all kinds of people have been involved. It simply could not be created alone. Since the start it has literally been generations of workers – several lifetimes – of people working to see a vision unfold.

When I looked into the story I told at the start – and there are a lot of permutations that exist out on the internet, I found that it was made famous by Peter Drucker in 1954 book called “The Practice of Management” (excerpt here). Drucker himself I think exhibits this idea of having a greater vision beyond stacking bricks. You see, he was born in 1909 and left Germany prior to WWII. He was 45 when that book was released and it advocated such far sighted things as allowing risk taking at lower levels in organisation, talked about the importance of making strategic decisions and developing teams that manage their own performance by reference to overall objectives. He has been described as the founder of modern management and even if you haven’t heard of him it is likely that he wrote articles or books that influenced people you have heard of. He came up with the phrase “knowledge worker” back in 1959. In the end he wrote 39 books that were published over a 70 year career as he died in 2005 at the age of 95. The point I’m making here is that it seems likely that he knew that his life was about building cathedrals.

So let’s finish by coming back to that story and I just want to ask two questions and leave you to reflect on them.

You see each of the people are building the same thing – but their attitude is completely different.

So the first question is which of the builders are you in how you approach your life?

In the day to day repetition of placing one brick on another it can be really hard to see what is being built and maintain the vision. Yet that is what will sustain you in the long run. If you can see a bigger picture then that will give purpose.

The second question is really simple.

What is your Cathedral?

Simon Nielsen 11/30/21 Simon Nielsen 11/30/21

Creativity & Vulnerability: Give It All … Give It Now

“We need to embrace vulnerability as the path to open up our creativity and through doing so truly put out new things into the world. Sure, there may be critics of what we produce. Sure, whatever it is may fail. But we need to be down in the arena. Be ready to show up before you are even ready to be on the stage. Grab the mic and fail wholeheartedly – always knowing you gave it your very best shot.” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe asks us to dare.

By Steven Moe

More than 100 years ago the following was said: “It is not the critic who counts; not someone who points out how the strong one stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

This is Steven Moe, welcome to Seeds Podcast.

That quote still resonates with a lot of people even though it is from 100 years ago. There are some great words – it’s a reminder to get down in the arena and strive valiantly, to “at least fail while daring greatly”. It’s a reminder to just get on with things, create, let things flow, show up before you are even ready to show up. Theodore Roosevelt had become the youngest President of the United States at age 42. The quote comes from a long speech delivered in 1910 by him in France after he had finished as President.

The thing I draw from the quote has to do with vulnerability. To actually be out in the world and creating something of value may mean that there is criticism of it. That hurts. From experience, you may spend a lot of time and effort to create something and then things don’t go the way you expect – either a negative reaction or, in some ways worse, silence. If you are coming up with something new, if you are being creative and making art, then that is inevitably going to happen.

But this is the key – true creativity will only be authentic and really resonate with people if it is birthed from a place of vulnerability. There are amazing technical painters who are able to literally recreate the paintings of the old masters so that you or I looking at them would not be able to tell the difference. But it is the infusion of vulnerability into creativity which results in the creation of something new which is what elevates the painter to become an artist. If we’ve seen it before then it’s not much better than a photocopier. There isn’t much vulnerability involved in saying “here’s something just like that over there”.

It’s only with the creativity that something is elevated into art. But that is where the vulnerability is needed because when you create something new it might be that no one will like it. You need to push boundaries to go beyond what others have done and create something as yet unknown.

Vincent Van Gogh in his lifetime was never commercially successful – he only sold one painting while he is alive. He objectively was a failure at the time. But he is also one of the most famous and influential painters in all of Western art. He started painting at age 27 and died at age 37 – in that short period he painted around 1,100 paintings and 900 sketches – that’s around 4 a week. His starry night is one of the most reproduced pieces of art ever. What he said about the work he did on his art was: “In spite of everything I shall rise again and take up my pencil and draw and draw.” Perseverance is key. Continue with creating art and don’t wait for the perfect moment.

Brene Brown has written extensively on this subject of vulnerability and I encourage you to look up her work – on a recent road trip I listened to her talking and she has said: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change”. In other places she asks the question – are we willing to show up and be seen, to be authentic and stand by what we have produced? It is difficult to create something new – but it is the struggle to do so that will result in something beautiful.

The pointy end of what I am saying here are really some simple questions: What are you holding back from doing while you wait for perfection? If you are working on something then is it being created from a place that is infused with vulnerability that comes from the fear of showing people what it is that you’ve made? That creative writing you’ve done. That art. That podcast. That song. That speech. That unconference. That memo at work. That spreadsheet.

We need to embrace vulnerability as the path to open up our creativity and through doing so truly put out new things into the world. Sure, there may be critics of what we produce. Sure, whatever it is may fail. But we need to be down in the arena. Be ready to show up before you are even ready to be on the stage. Grab the mic and fail wholeheartedly – always knowing you gave it your very best shot. Don’t hang onto the creativity and bottle it up or wait to use it at some unknown point in the future. One of my favourite writers is the Pulitzer prize winning Annie Dillard and her advice for authors resonates here:

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.”

So what are you holding back? I remember a very long time ago in 2003 I started writing something and a friend encouraged me to continue doing so – he reasoned, if I put the effort into writing it, someone else would likely enjoy it too. Even if it is a small audience that doesn’t result in monetary success. Seth Godin talks about the smallest viable audience for the creative things we make. It’s certainly my approach with this podcast – some of you are listening to it right now, and that is enough. Get away from the measure of success being likes and numbers. Judge it by the authenticity of creation and the willingness to be vulnerable. Let the creativity flow from who you are and give it the chance to see the light of day.

But here is the rub. I’ve never shown that piece of writing to anyone. I’ve sat on it – afraid of the vulnerability that would come with sharing it. That it is not good enough. So maybe this reflection is an encouragement to myself to be bold. To let go of the pride of having to be successful, or have written a perfect story. Perfection is a myth that we willingly let lock the door to the creative ideas that are waiting inside us.

With this podcast, with these reflections – they are about being vulnerable – about putting myself out there. At first I thought they were just interviews but now I realise this is art too because there is both vulnerability and creativity involved in their creation. Perfection – no. Creativity and something new – hopefully yes.

So the reflection here is an encouragement to you, and also to myself. How will you embrace your vulnerability and create something new – create something that sure, might be criticised? Allow creativity free reign to come out. Embrace the fear as a friend and – anyway, like the quote said, forget the critic who is not in the fight. It’s in being vulnerable that we will actually have achieved something creative and unique and worth sharing. If there is no vulnerability involved then it is probably not worth doing at all.

Later on in the speech that I read from at the start Theodore Roosevelt noted that those who try – and perhaps fail – stand apart for “they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength”. So don’t just sit back and be a critic. Whatever this means in your context, get out there. Find your way of being creative. Do it wholeheartedly. But do it from a place where you are vulnerable.

The reason this is important? Because you are the only one who can create something truly unique. And that creativity that only you can bring has value for our world. Create. Get involved and get down in the arena – together, let’s start daring greatly.

Simon Nielsen 11/23/21 Simon Nielsen 11/23/21

A Case For Bringing Creatives To The Governance Table

“We need to look again at the roads on which we had been travelling and ask if they are the right ones. One aspect of this might be looking at the role of boards to govern businesses. While we rightly talk about addressing imbalances when it comes to age, ethnicity and gender, what might happen if we also focused on divergent thinking that comes from having creatives involved?” Lawyer and podcaster Steven Moe explores the ways that creativity can play a new role in the stewardship of businesses.

By Steven Moe

The Covid-19 crisis has shown us that we need new paradigms of thinking. We have all been impacted by the pandemic which has challenged us to think and act more creatively than ever before. Businesses need blue skies thinkers and creatives might help find new solutions.

We need to look again at the roads on which we had been travelling and ask if they are the right ones. One aspect of this might be looking at the role of boards to govern businesses. While we rightly talk about addressing imbalances when it comes to age, ethnicity and gender, what might happen if we also focused on divergent thinking that comes from having creatives involved?

In our 30-page report, “Tomorrow’s Board Diversity: The role of creatives,” we consider the unique skills that creatives might bring to governance tables. Would boardroom discussions be enhanced and activated if they had the added perspective of film producers, designers, artists, poets and curators? We think so.

But what do we actually mean by the term “creative”? Well, as an adjective it refers to “having the ability or power to create… characterised by originality of thought or inventiveness; tending to stimulate the imagination or invention”. As a noun it is “having or showing an ability to make new things or think of new ideas”. Those sound like valuable attributes to include in any boardroom. We use the word to emphasise that these individuals are characterised by bringing an originality of thought and inventiveness. As social-entrepreneur Jacob Lennheden said: “Creativity can play a vital role in enhancing all aspects of business performance and is in many ways considered the raw material of innovation.”

And for the purpose of the paper, we acknowledge that “creatives” most often have their foundations in the arts. This could be from the visual, performing and literary arts – and are guided and driven by an originality of thought. As the writer Jeff Goins explains: “The truth is that we need more creatives in positions of influence – to colour the world with beauty and life. Creatives craft poetry in a world that is otherwise content with prose. They bring art to areas where there is only architecture. Creatives help us see life in a new light – to perceive a new dimension, a deeper way of encountering what we know. And we need more of those kinds of leaders.”

In preparing this paper we were surprised at how little has been written on this point. There was a lot on other forms of diversity, but not on creatives. We think Aotearoa has the chance to lead the way here. Certainly we know there is a need for greater diversity of thought at board level, and creative arts are both acknowledged and valued. Let’s join the dots and connect up these points.

Already our paper has been well-received, with Kirsten Patterson, chief executive of the New Zealand Institute of Directors saying it “brings to light a topic which is often neglected: the role that creatives can play on boards. In our experience, directors who have a range of diverse and creative talent, capabilities and knowledge bring different perspectives to decision-making, planning and board culture – that will likely enhance an organisation’s performance, as well as better represent the stakeholders.”

In the end we conclude that one of the key elements is not just having creatives at the table: it’s also about developing an environment that invites and welcomes diverse perspectives. So as well as board composition it is also all about board culture. Some of our conclusions argue that boards should begin to review and discuss their composition, rebalancing the accountants, lawyers and business minds with those who can bring a different type of thinking to the table.

We should all seek to raise awareness about diversity of thought and the role creatives can bring, identify pathways for creatives to join boards and provide training when they do. If this can be done it will help our businesses to be more ready to face the challenges that are coming up as the true impact of Covid-19 starts to play out.

Published in Spinoff on June 22, 2020.

Simon Nielsen 6/21/21 Simon Nielsen 6/21/21

Improvising Communities: An Interview With Niels Lan Doky

“The most perfect example of democracy in action” – what is that? One answer is: Jazz. Why? And if it is right, what can we transfer from jazz to the process of creating great places?

“The most perfect example of democracy in action” – what is that? One answer is: Jazz. Why? And if it is right, what can we transfer from jazz to the process of creating great places?

By The Empty Square

“The most perfect example of democracy in action” – what is that?’

One answer is: Jazz. Why?

Because you HAVE to listen to your fellow-players. All the time. Not only when you accompany them, but when you are the soloist. Everyone has to contribute, and everyone has to constantly listen and make use of the others’ contributions. Otherwise: No music.

*Niels Lan Doky. Photo: The Empty Square*

That, according to world-famous jazz pianist, Niels Lan Doky, is one of the essential learnings.

Another one lies in the potential of improvisation that is the foundation of jazz. Lan Doky estimates that 98 percent of what happens on the stage is unplanned.

Inspired by his TEDx Talk on improvisation, we met Lan Doky in his home to do a video conversation, examining whether we can transfer anything from jazz to the process of building cities and communities.

It was a fine conversation but coming back to the office, we found out we had made a mistake.

A technical error made the sound unfit for video production.

“Do not fear mistakes. There are none”, said Miles Davis. As Lan Doky had just explained, ‘wrong’ notes don’t exist in jazz. They are but steps towards the music. ‘Wrong’ notes are turned not only into ‘right’ ones but into essential notes. The transformation lies in the way the wrong note is caught by the other musicians. Instead of trying to hide it, they put spotlight on it, investigate it, repeat it, let it enter the story on its own premises.

Instead of asking Lan Doky for another interview, we invited the technical error to be a step towards another, maybe even more precise, format.

If jazz is the most perfect example of democracy in action, there must be something we can transfer to community building.

Is it the listening capacity? The ability to leave behind big egos, internal power struggles, and the need for individual recognition?

“If you take that with you on stage,” Lan Doky underlines, “the music will collapse immediately and everybody will lose the battle”.

Is that what we can learn?

Is it the combination of structure, discipline, precise techniques, tools, and principles on one side – and freedom, spontaneity, and letting go on the other side?

“Everybody has to master what they do and everybody has to contribute with something unique. A jazz band of drummers only won’t work.”

Are the right people invited to the process of planning great places – or do we only have the drummers? What tools and principles are we lacking when another standardized housing or shopping area arise? Is it time to change the structures (economic, ecological, cultural etc.) and widen the disciplines?

And what about freedom, spontaneity, and letting go, is that what we need the most?

“The best jazz improvisations happen when people let completely go of their self-control. It acquires that they trust themselves AND their fellow musicians. You must be sure they’ll catch you if you fall”.

How many of us (artists excluded) dare to truly let go when we are at work or at school? How many of us know for sure that we will be caught when falling?

“The constellation of musicians is also key to a good jazz improvisation. It’s really a question about chemistry. We always choose our fellow-musicians with great care.”

The rest of us would probably love to have that possibility, too. Reality is, however, that we are often put randomly together with people we don’t know. Uncertain chemical combinations and explosion risks occur.

“And then there is courage”, Lan Doky says. “Courage may be the most important factor of them all.”

Good point. We can transfer that. When dealing with cities, communities, and building, we certainly need courage – courage to listen incessantly, leave egos behind, turn ‘wrong’ notes into essential ones etc.

It all sounds inciting. Let’s jazz things up.

But when jazz is the most perfect example of democracy in action, could it be because jazz is really the ideal biotope for democracy? In society, it’s still the worst form of government, except from all the others (as Churchill supposedly said).

In any case, we could start practicing great improvisations more consciously.

Maybe our challenges originate from our undeveloped talents within improvisations. “Yeah, I just improvised…” Well, knowing what the good improvisation depends upon, nobody can ‘just’ improvise. But we can practice and be inspired.

And the result might be fewer buildings, urban spaces, and neighborhoods that talk too loudly. Or that don’t talk at all, standing muted, just as bad. More jazz in the process could lead to places that listen, converse, knowing when to be silent (not muted), when to sing, when to play.

You can listen to Lan Doky on your favourite platform here

Simon Nielsen 6/21/21 Simon Nielsen 6/21/21

Places That Are Truly Alive (1)

Which urban places would you consider to be truly alive?

Which urban places would you consider to be truly alive?

By The Empty Square

Which urban places would you consider to be truly alive?

Where do you feel welcome and at ease? Inspired and energized? Where do you know everything and still feel excited about what you will find today?

Where do you look forward to the smells from bakeries and open kitchens, the sunlight at the square’s corner at a particular hour, the abundance of produce and people at the market? Where do you feel excited about today’s menus, about who you will meet and greet, whether that perfect sitting spot will be vacant or not?

Places that are alive aren’t made up of a few separate, attractive elements. On the contrary, they are defined by a positive wholeness. They have integrity. They function as “containers of experiences” with many layers of meanings and stories. Though nothing really changes, not two days are alike. The variations are endless, every day is unique, and it reminds us, consciously or not, of the preciousness of every moment.

Living cities and towns make us feel alive. All actions strengthening this feeling should be encouraged.

Which developer – which mayor – will be the first to make a call for existential meaningfulness?

*The notion of “containers of experience” is taken from E. V. Walter: Placeways. A Theory of the Human Environment (University of North Carolina Press, 1988), p. 72

Simon Nielsen 6/21/21 Simon Nielsen 6/21/21

That Which Is Not Hell

“The hell of the living is not something that will be,” Italian author Italo Calvino wrote in his novel The Invisible Cities (1972).

“The hell of the living is not something that will be,” Italian author Italo Calvino wrote in his novel The Invisible Cities (1972).

By The Empty Square

“The hell of the living is not something that will be,” Italian author Italo Calvino wrote in his novel The Invisible Cities (1972).

“If there is one, it is what is already here, the hell we live in every day, that we make by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the hell, and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of hell, are not hell, then make them endure, give them space.”

Calvino wrote of Venice, but in essence he told us of the world and challenged our ability to imagine change. Not only in the way that we coexist as cities, countries, and societies but also in our micro-actions and gestures towards each other. Has Calvino’s challenge lost its edge? If not, how can we, in the midst of Hell, imagine change? How can we set out to create places that nourish the mind, build new bonds, and heal broken souls?

Simon Nielsen 6/21/21 Simon Nielsen 6/21/21

Touching Heaven: An Interview With Lubomyr Melnyk

“Art makes you bigger. It makes people grow. It shoots electricity into our intelligence. It’s like food for the soul and for the mind, so that we can grow and learn and think”, says world-famous Ukrainian pianist and composer, Lubomyr Melnyk, who discovered ‘continuous music’ during the 1970’s.

By The Empty Square

*Lubomyr Melnyk. Photo: The Empty Square*

We had the immense joy of meeting Melnyk in Copenhagen. We were as moved by his performance as his reflections on the potential of art.

Are we forgetting this potential in our everyday life? Can we somehow get it back into our communities and cities?

This is an invitation for a short trip to Heaven.

“Art makes you bigger. It makes people grow.”

— Lubomyr Melnyk

Simon Nielsen 6/15/21 Simon Nielsen 6/15/21

Places That Are Truly Alive (4)

Places that are truly alive stimulate our senses just right – not too much and not too little.

Places that are truly alive stimulate our senses just right – not too much and not too little.

By The Empty Square

Places that are truly alive stimulate our senses just right – not too much and not too little.

Too few or too many stimuli are equally bad, prompting negative behavioral consequences. Actually, our experiences are remarkably deteriorated, not only when we find ourselves in decidedly unattractive but also in neutral, boring, ‘normal’ surroundings.

According to several studies, there is a close connection between the sensory experiences that are received and the development of the mammalian brain.

Likewise, the degree of beauty in our surroundings is directly linked to our behavior and also our job performance.*

Did you know that the brain of a rat physically shrinks and grows in response to certain experiences? And that, when placed in a super-enriched environment, its intelligence increases?

The main factor is stimulation. Nerve cells are designed to receive stimulation. And everything – lighting, noise, odors etc. – appear to influence the behavior.

The right amount of stimuli to the human brain is estimated to be 1000 per hour. That is one every 4 second. With a walking speed of 4,5 km per hour, the perfect street presents something new every 4 or 5 meters. That is exactly what the streets in many medieval towns do. Four or five meters equal the width of a typical house in old towns, and the variations in appearance from building to building provide the stimuli we need.**

So forget about big-box-structures, supermarkets with blank walls, facades reproducing themselves until eternity. Forget about standardization. Our brains shrink from it, and it’s not what we need.

An essential task it to reinvent urban environments where we are being stimulated just right.

When was the last time you found yourself in such a place?

*Read Tony Hiss’ great book The Experience of Place (Vintage, 1991 (orig.1990))

** Numbers from Gehl Architects

Simon Nielsen 6/15/21 Simon Nielsen 6/15/21

Home - A Territory Full Of Purpose, Connection, And Meaning

For hunter-gatherers – our ancestors as well as those that still exist – home was and is more than a place to live. It is a territory whose every feature is “familiar and alive and full of purpose, connection and meaning.”

By The Empty Square

To the hunter-gatherers, the landscape, flora, and fauna are deeply intertwined with their past and with the stories and myths that define them. When children are taught how to live and survive, they are not only being informed. According to British social anthropologist, Tim Ingold, there is a ‘show-and-tell’ form of teaching that instils a particular kind of knowledge and attention that provides not only information but also awareness.

Can we introduce an education of awareness in our school system? One that combines learning, doing, living, and understanding? That gives our children a sense of ancestry and belonging and being literally in touch with the world?

Among hunter-gatherers, the children are placed in specific situations and instructed to feel and sense and watch out for this and that. Through the fine-tuning of perceptual skills, meanings immanent in the environment “are not so much constructed as discovered”.

Imagine an everyday life where we don’t have to look for and construct meaning all the time but are able to discover it right there in front of us. Imagine homes, schools, communities, and cities full of purpose, connection and meaning.

What do we have to change to get there?

* Quote from Carolyn Steel’s marvelous book Sitopia (Chattus & Windus, London, 2020), p.91

Simon Nielsen 6/11/21 Simon Nielsen 6/11/21

A City That Is Functional In The Spiritual Sense

Imagine a city or a town that, like the Japanese garden, is designed and cultivated in the belief that it may “achieve a beauty that is completely non-decorative but functional in the spiritual sense.”

By The Empty Square

What would that city look like?

Imagine a city that makes “the eye a transformer of thought’”. A city that aspires to a state beyond the ‘made’ or the ‘designed’. What value does design for the sake of design hold?

In the Japanese garden, the search for meaning, for truth, is active, engaged, fully fledged. The deeper beauty of the garden – or the city, think about it! – resides, according to horticulturalist and brilliant garden designer Sophie Walker, “not in its surface ornament but in its profound search of contact with the original state of nature”.

What if it was the goal of urban design and architecture to somehow connect and align with the deeper, complex structures of nature?

“The acceptance of assimilated layers of meaning naturally gives rise to changeable, shifting and simultaneous possibilities, all of which are acceptable and welcome – and it is perhaps this quality above all else that gives the Japanese garden its greatest potency.”

— Sophie Walker, The Japanese Garden

Does the same go for the living city?

*Sophie Walker: The Japanese Garden (Phaidon, 2017)

Simon Nielsen 6/11/21 Simon Nielsen 6/11/21

Learning From Los Kogis

What is the purpose of a human life? Do you have a clear-cut, convinced answer?

What is the purpose of a human life? Do you have a clear-cut, convinced answer?

By The Empty Square

What is the purpose of a human life?

Do you have a clear-cut, convinced answer?

We, in the West, do have some answers, but do we agree upon them? Do our three-year-old children know what to answer?

Far from.

If it was common knowledge, wouldn’t it be the cornerstone in the way we raised and educated our children? The way we created businesses and institutions? Not to mention the way we built our cities?

Among the Kogi people of the Sierra Mountains in Columbia, South America, it’s another matter. Ask what is the purpose of a human life – and everybody, including the three-year-old, will answer (a bit embarrassed, perhaps, because of the obvious answer):

“It is to take care of all living things.”

Imagine cities learning from the Kogis, implementing strategies for taking care of all living things. What would these cities look like? What would they feel like?

What if we gave it a try?

This note is a paraphrase of a TEDx talk about leadership by Tim Macartney (2016) that we recommend from our hearts. Tim (called Mac) started out as a gardener, went on to become a highly appreciated consultant and inspirator working with leaders of multinationals and finally started up Embercombe that seeks to inspire committed action for a truly sustainable world.

Simon Nielsen 6/11/21 Simon Nielsen 6/11/21

Places That Are Truly Alive (2)

Do you belong here? The feeling of belonging to a community is key when it comes to places that are truly alive.

Do you belong here? The feeling of belonging to a community is key when it comes to places that are truly alive.

By The Empty Square

Do you belong here?

The feeling of belonging to a community is key when it comes to places that are truly alive. Belonging is about feeling at home and feeling connected, being part of a place emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

To belong is also to act as an investor, owner, and creator of a place.

In times of epidemics of loneliness, isolation, depression, and all sorts of anxiety, recreating a structure of belonging is essential. Our isolation occurs, according to Peter Block, “because Western culture, our individualistic narrative, the inward attention of our institutions and professions, and the messages from our media all serve to fragment us. We are broken into pieces.”*

Recognize that feeling?

The task now is to reconnect the fragments, creating new relations and a new cohesion. The transformation won’t be boring, on the contrary it will rely on trust, courage, and joy, “leading us from conversations about safety and comfort to other conversations, such as those about our relatedness and willingness to provide hospitality and generosity” (Peter Block).

* If you want to read more about how to heal a broken community, take a look at Peter Block’s book, Community – the Structure of Belonging (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2018 (2008)).

Simon Nielsen 6/4/21 Simon Nielsen 6/4/21

The Highest Authority: An Interview With Andreas Christensen

How can we face and embrace that which is different, uncomfortable, hard, and difficult? How can we step out of our comfort zone and insist on not being afraid? A conversation with Danish priest and army chaplain, Andreas Christensen.

By The Empty Square

*Andreas Christensen. Photo: The Empty Square*

How can we face and embrace that which is different, uncomfortable, hard, and difficult?

How can we step out of our comfort zone and insist on not being afraid?

Listening to Danish priest and army chaplain, Andreas Christensen, the answer seems to lie in engaging with the highest authority. Openness, hospitality, and respect are founding values in his church in Nørrebro, Copenhagen where he functions as a social anchor.