Fundamentally spatial: Meaning in relation
Earlier this month, I attended a 3-day Systemic Modelling training with Marian Way in Reston, Virginia. Toward the end of the third day, one group member tried facilitating “Exploring your timescape” for the first time. As he carefully guided us according to a script, I became more and more frustrated and irritated — not at him, but at what the script was telling me to do. “Thinking about . . . yesterday . . . the day before yesterday . . . last week . . . [and many other time increments] . . . “ I was supposed to draw something but my mind was too busy trying to figure out what I was doing the day before yesterday. I decided not to ignore my reaction, and used my paper to write this:
Systemic Modelling training in Reston, Virginia (Nov 2019) — reaction to guided “Time” exercise
We all had a laugh and a good discussion at the end, but I was still riled up when we moved on to the next exercise. As a way to pull everything together, another member asked us to map the relationships of the different concepts and models of Systemic Modelling. To do this completely and well would have taken more time than we had, and so we were encouraged to just get down what we could on a piece of paper or digital tablet. I immediately felt stuck, because everything seemed to relate to everything else and I wanted to be able to move things around. After some unproductive time trying to stick with mapping / drawing on paper, I realized that I could use the same materials to make pieces that I could move around. I ripped the paper that I had and plopped down on the floor to try different arrangements. This was as far as I got when time was called. I mostly noticed how right it felt to be able to move the pieces around.
Last task of 3-day Systemic Modelling training — in limited time, draw a map that shows how SysMod concepts / models relate
I already knew from previous training that “visual” is important to me. I was finding out that “spatial” matters as well. When I say it like this, nothing seems surprising, but there was definitely something deep happening. I noticed and so did everyone else at the training that my voice changed when I talked about my frustration with the time exercise. I really, really did not want to think in that incremental, number-driven way. It felt linear and uni-directional. My experience of time is closer to what is going to happen for the remainder of this post.
Spatial arrangement and moveable pieces — At the training, the ripped up paper happened in a spur-of-the-moment way. I hadn’t planned it. What if I did something like that intentionally? I thought of tarot cards and how they are visual and can be moved around. I do not own tarot cards or have any experience with them, but I anchored the thought by finding an image.
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
Another option, which I’ve used before, is post-it / sticky notes. They don’t slide around easily, though, and I associate them too strongly with design thinking. They are office-y. And after I use them, I don’t want to throw them away, but they have those sticky backs. They are of very regular size.
Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
I want zooming in and out. Relative size. Context. I remember a comic that I made for myself. I check the date: 2016.
I was still on this topic in 2018, when thinking about the guiding idea behind my company.
For a while, I even had “meaning in relation” on my business card. I thought that it was too abstract, and so I dropped it, but now I’m thinking of adding it back in . . . Or at least putting it somewhere so that I see it every day.
Returning to what I’d really like to have to find out more about my metaphor landscape and related timescape, I’d really like to be able to work visually (externally so that I can see it outside of myself) as symbols and relationships are coming into awareness.
I want access to color and to have the option of changing the quality of the marks made.
Photo by Sensory Art House on Unsplash
But I don’t have the advanced skills of a trained artist. Maybe collage would be easier.
Dru! “Good Intentions” https://flic.kr/p/CVqCx (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)
But collage using found images doesn't allow for as much control over relative size, color, etc. I’d have to try and stay attuned to moments of frustration to guide me toward the best choice for me.
torbakhopper https://flic.kr/p/eKFGpi (Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Maybe I could make my own cards. I do still want to be able to move them around. That’s harder with a collage, though I could always choose not to glue anything down. Oh! What about Artist Trading Cards? I used to make those and exchange them with my kids.
I was just fooling around with materials and trying to make an attractive fish, but what if I used the same materials and skills to represent my symbols? Then I could move them around in relation to one another.
Putting the cards made by multiple people in relation to appreciate them is something that I’ve already done. I could just change my purpose. And thinking of spatial arrangement of things, and drawing, that was a huge part of the Graphic Narrative Play classes that I used to offer. To jumpstart the drawing and the story making, I brought in things that they could hold and move around — some very plain like irregular wooden pieces so that they could symbolically stand in for anything. Hmmm… That could work, too. Don’t necessarily need to draw. Just need to lay out proximity, relative size, etc.
Graphic Narrative Play, 2017. Lisa Hosokawa. All rights reserved.
And when things felt like they were in a place that I wanted to remember or work with, I could map them there.
Graphic Narrative Play, 2016. Lisa Hosokawa. All rights reserved.
This is all feeling very connected to the Metaphorum session run by James and Penny.
““As symbols form and their relationships to each other become clear, the whole metaphor landscape becomes psychoactive: that is, the client has thoughts and feelings in response to the symbols and events, which in turn generate further activity in the landscape.””
Meaning in relation. If this weren’t a blog post, I’d be moving the visual anchors here around to make even more meaning for myself.
Returning to TIME. Time has passed as I’ve put together this post. That’s like what? “Visiting visual anchors.” Artifacts that I’ve made — or if I haven’t, ones that I look up online that feel right — help me to navigate. They are traces; places in the timescape that I can visit. The more that I can move them around and associate at will, the more that they have meaning for me now. If this is past and present, what is the future? More creating. And more intentional revisiting and learning from arranging and rearranging.
I’m not going to try to wrap this up tidily. I can’t. What’s different for me now? I’m more curious about Symbolic Modelling. I’d like to make cards for myself.
