What is transformation and how does it happen?
Transformation is the movement from one stage to a more structurally complex and effective stage of development.
We don’t have a choice about whether we experience transformation. Early in our lives it is pretty much automatic. We are surrounded by people who are more mature than are we. We mimic them and we grow in our capacity to make valid meaning about whatever is arising.
But, once we rise to the level of most of those around us, we grind to a halt. From there on it gets much harder. Our continued growth along any line of development is going to arise only if we are forced into. We get dragged kicking and screaming into a more mature way of being.
This is because the growth to a higher, more complex, and effective way of being is something that arises out of an encounter with a situation that we can’t tolerate and can’t solve from the level at which we are currently functioning.
As we learn to stop resisting our own transformation and allow the challenges of our lives to be our teachers, as we actually look forward to the new perspectives that dawn upon us, the work is less painful and the transition is faster and easier. We can actually learn to “lean into the suck.”
We come to have the faith that there is a new way of being that will appear to us that we can live into in a way that solves the immediate problem and allows us to live into a fuller sense of purpose.
We offer here a map of the journey that will reliably lead us to resolution, to transformation.
Transformation of Human Consciousness
“How do you feel towards transformation?”
We are ambivalent. We are grateful for the ways transformation has worked in our lives to help us live with greater ease in the midst of the chaos of daily living. And we know that all transformation depends upon experiences of confusion and struggle… so we don’t want to go through that again.
The Octave of Transformation is a map to help us navigate the territory in which we find ourselves when we care confronted by opportunities for transformation. These opportunities are sometimes called “Afgoes.” A.F.G.O. Another F’n Growth Opportunity.
The Octave is a map that Mark discerned as a synthesis from many diverse sources. They include
- the teachings of George Gurdjieff which he gleaned from the wisdom schools of central Asia,
- the shared perceptions of the members of The Art of Hosting who collect disciplines for having creative conversations in groups large and small, and
- the organizational development masters from Harvard and MIT who are renewing an awareness that transformation has a deep spiritual character.
An aspect of Gurdjieff’s teaching is the Law of Seven. It is a generalization on the process by which anything comes to be. The most common and accessible example of the Law is a musical octave.
We sometimes miss the fact that there are only seven notes in the scale of an octave, the first and last notes being the same note, just an octave apart. There are steps or intervals between the notes in the scale but they are not all equal. Most of the intervals are whole steps but there are two half steps. These are between the third and fourth notes and the seventh and eighth notes. Depending on the scale, these will be different notes, but if we use the standard of DO, RE, MI, FA, SO, LA, TI, and DO, the half steps are between MI and FA and between TI and DO.
DO: This is the system at its point of greatest stability. All the flows are unblocked; all the rhythm is calm and uniform, the forces are in balance. Peace and tranquility prevail.
DO-RE: Am I willing to disturb the peace of the system to explore this thing that is troubling? Do I trust that by looking at it I can make it better or do I fear that “giving it attention” will only make it worse? Can I find the part of me that just wants to ignore this troubling circumstance? What is giving me the energy to get over the hump and actually decide to address it? Maybe paying attention to the pain will only make it worse? “I’ve got my mind made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”
RE: A ray enters our calm. There is a source of disruption which is clarified and seen objectively. We use tools for validating what is and are seeking to be as specific and particular as possible. We lean into the truth of what is real.
RE-MI: It is pretty easy to start to make sense of what is happening. Indeed, when we can make meaning that fits the issue and gives a sense of mastery, then we are in control. Can we resist moving too quickly to meaning-making and stay with simply being present with what is actually arising? This is the heart of contemplative practice. Can I not engage my “monkey-mind” and stay with the immediate experience?
MI: Meaning making. We bring to mind all of the perspectives we have that we can bring to bear upon this issue such we make sense of it. We seek to see the patterns and the ways these patterns connect with the past and predict the future.
MI-FA: This is one of the harder intervals. To move from the meanings we already know to ones that are new and fall outside our existing frameworks or paradigms is challenging. But it is just that more inclusive cognitive map which we are seeking. We need a way of understanding “what is” that does a better job of explaining the arising. To do that we need relevant data points that are outside our existing field of vision. This takes courage and faith.
FA: Far from where we normally rest. Curiosity about those perspectives that are not yet included in our ways of making meaning: What are the margins of the issue and what do we find there? What is at the edge of chaos. Energy is toward making the most inclusive boundary possible while holding the center defined by Re.
FA-SO: This may not even feel like an interval. We are so busy making meaning that, every time we get a new perspective, we try to fit it into the puzzle. Our “meaning-makers” have been working overtime all along. Nevertheless, it may help to just check to see if we have exhausted our quest for new perspectives. We can’t know what we don’t know and there will always be something new that shows up, but it helps us to know we have done our due diligence.
SO: So, why does this happen. What is the cognitive map that best includes all of the perspectives within the boundary around the center point of this issue. Energy goes to clarity to embrace the complexity and diversity in a coherent narrative.
SO-LA: Having put energy and attention into clarifying what is real, collecting a portfolio of perspectives, and having mapped the elements, relationships, and processes of the system; we feel as though we have created the new framework for understanding. And we have, but the reality we are mapping has always existed. We are only just now making space for it in our awareness. It is a new thing that has been there all the time. We created our understanding of it, not the reality itself. So it is time to let go of our ownership of it and step back and take a look at it.
LA: Listen. What is the emergent quality from this embracing narrative? What is it telling us? What is the future it is longing for? What guidance does it offer? What does a power, an intelligence, a consciousness greater than myself tell me and urge me to do?
LA-TI: The shift in this interval is from listening to the Fuller Perspective/Emergent Narrative to aligning ourselves with its direction and purpose. We are in a real sense submitting ourselves to its direction. We are allowing it inform what we are going to do because it is making available to us what the deeper need is. That this new point of view and map for meaning has arisen out of the complexity and diversity of this particular slice of reality is itself a revelation. Whether we are willing to act on this revelation is up to us.
TI: Try a new thing. What is the New Way of Being that this emergent narrative draws us into? This is not a finished product but a design-build exercise in exploring what is possible and helpful as we move toward the quality we have discovered that we need.
TI-DO: This is the other harder interval. Having done something once or a few times that seemed to work doesn’t mean that we will continue to do it. Our old habit is really strong. Furthermore, even though the system will actually work better if we are adopting this New Way of Being, change is resisted by others and they will push back against our showing up in a way that isn’t the way we have always done it.
DO: The system at its point of greatest stability. All the flows are unblocked; all the rhythm is calm and uniform, the forces are in balance. Peace and tranquility prevail.
While each of these notes is distinct and they come in a set sequence, in life we hear multiple notes at the same time. Sometimes these are chords, but often they are discordant sounds that jar us. When we can hear the music of our lives, we can join the dance.
If we know the Octave of Transformation, we can read the music and know how to respond to life’s events in a manner that facilitates transformation instead of fighting against it.
© 2019 Center for Creative Conflict Resolution
Rev. Dr. Mark Lee Robinson