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I’m so happy to know Bill Reed (from Regenesis Group) and to have him back on the show for the second time I’ve had someone on for the third time. If you listened to either of the prior chats you already know you’re in for a treat. Thanks again Bill and I’m already looking forward to interview number four.
Good podcast as usual Dan! I thought I’d share a couple of things that really clicked for me. I have recently read the Habit 1 chapter in Stephen Covey’s book, and so when Bill mentioned the sphere of influence (28:00), the two connected and provided me with further clarity.
There is the circle of concern (the lifeshed) and within this the circle of influence (those things that we have control over). “Proactive people focus their efforts in the circle of influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of influence to increase” P.83. We build up our ability to expand this sphere of influence over time, learning new techniques, skills, perspectives and increasing energy/excitement through previous successes.
Getting yourself in order is the first step before you can move on to expanding your sphere of influence to family, property, community, watershed, etc. Perhaps this is applicable to Bills comment of manifesting new energy to support expanding the sphere of influence (37:30). Working at an appropriate scale, focusing on what we can control, impact, and hold, allows for more rapid evolution.
If as a beginner you tried to hold the whole lifeshed in your mind and consider it all, this could be overwhelming and result in not taking any action. This is where working with an experienced permaculture practitioner could help, to ensure that the larger wholes are held, and to assist in evolving the clients capacity to hold this themselves in time.
Brilliant observations Alex many thanks!
Great podcast – finally just starting to see what they mean about people and relationships and wholes. I’ve heard people talk about their discoveries of public libraries as kids when they had little stimulation in the home. That had then completely set their lives on different courses. Is that an example of a nodal intervention?
Thanks Jon. My sense is that a library is definitely a node considering all the energies and information that comes together in them. Maybe a kid discovering a library is more like discovering a node than an intervention. An example of a nodal intervention might then be the librarian who takes the wide-eyed entering child under their wing and gets them started by finding out something about their uniqueness and suggests a certain book (as opposed to “doing good” which might be suggesting the same book that all the other kids that age like or something). Which opens doors to new possibilities and potential in the kids life. Something like that anyway. It is useful for me to reflect on the difference between a conscious nodal intervention and the fact that sometimes we just stumble across nodes, which looking back, made a huge difference…