Nature as Teacher: Learning to See Systems
Back in the fall, I had the privilege of participating in part of the annual alumni gathering of the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program. You can read my report on this event here and see one of the visioning activities they used here.
On the first afternoon, Vermont artist Jay Mead led the group in an activity designed to "help participants experience systems in nature, observe patterns, and work from a creative influence to balance the intellectual."
Mead called the three-hour experience the "Leadership Earth Art Project," or LEAP! As a catalyst for the activity, he introduced the group to the work of British artist Andrew Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy uses natural material, including snow, ice, leaves, bark, rock, clay, stones, feathers, petals, and twigs, to create outdoor sculptures. Some of these are ephemeral, like a glittery star formed from icicles secured in the center by the artist's saliva, while others are designed to be more enduring, such as a continuous crack in the courtyard pavers at the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco.
Jay encouraged participants to follow Goldsworthy's lead and learn from the natural landscape by creating their own in situ pieces. Through this "playful meditation," the alumni discovered patterns in nature that revealed the larger systems they are a part of and suggested metaphors for their own life experience, current work, and vision.
Videographer Colleen Bozuwa captured this activity in a lovely video. Watch it and share your thoughts in the comments section. What other ways might the arts support the development of systems understanding? How else can nature serve as a teacher in this realm?
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference.