The weather, organizational development and me

I have an attraction to systems theory and whole systems perspectives. This morning at a meeting at work I talked about how any healthy organization (or any healthy system) must have a proper balance between order and chaos. Too much Chaos and the system breaks down, is dysfunctional and people suffer. Too little chaos and too much order and the system lacks life, is mechanistic, and the system doesn't unction well. In other words, people suffer. What's the right balance? Someone else noted that different parts of the organization need to have different balances of order and chaos (or perhaps you may prefer to call it creativity). A business office, for example, needs to have more predictability than those of us at my work who create new educational programs or have to respond to educational needs of the communities we serve quickly.

Tonight I'm reminded of how my house is both a true source and an illusion of security. The wind is howling outside with gusts up to 50 miles per hour and the walls sometimes seems pretty darn thin. Yet, they continue to keep me warm (well, mostly warm since I'm feeling chilled tonight) and keep the wind at bay. Even though it is dark I can imagine the trees flailing and leaves swirling every which way. Definitely a chaotic dance. SO why is nature so full of chaos? It's clearly the nature of nature to be chaotic. I'm reminded that chaos does not mean complete randomness but rather and unpredictable process within a predictable pattern. SO, while the details are unknowable the general progression may be quite knowable.

Okay, what about me? There sure are a lot of times when the chaos seems to dominate and I suffer. Chaos can have different sides to it as it appears in my life. One thing I notice is whether I have a sense of where I want to go. What are my plans? What are my aspirations? There are times when I can have no plans and it feels lovely. I am just present. Perhaps the notion of balancing chaos and order isn't very useful to being in the present moment. Order and Chaos can exist in and around the present moment but, depending on my current state, I may feel calm and spacious or agitated and anxious. What seems to determine which of those I am experiencing depends on my practice preceding the moment. Lately, I haven't done a stitch of sitting meditation for weeks. That is really unlike most of the past 15 years of my life when I would minimally sit for a couple hours once a week plus several weeklong retreats and periods of time when I sat for 20 minutes nearly every morning. That has all crumbled to nothing. I lack the order of a sangha-community to support my practice and the change brought on by a small child has turned it all into a chaotic windstorm. Still, like the wind and chaos itself, there is order n seeming disorder. For me, I "know" that I am on a journey that has clear direction and order even though a myopic look at my life right now doesn't show that order and direction. Creative order, I should say, with the proper mix of chaos and predictability. We would die, each and every one of us, if we strayed too far into chaos or mechanistic order. It reminds me of the requirement that a healthy heart must have irregularity in its rhythm. A completely ordered heartbeat is a sure sign of illness.

So where does that leave me? Right here. Nowhere else from where I started yet just in writing I reminded myself of my place in the world and I feel calmer and more at ease than when I started. That's enough.