“Nora Bateson writes like no other — her ‘ecology of communication’ is poetry, observation, wisdom and rage blended into a coherent narrative that sinks down deep and swirls. ... Nora takes risks to behave differently, in how she gives us pieces of herself; in how she speaks with clarity about the messiness of being on the edge of destruction, whilst embodying the prayers of our ancestors. In how she brings together that which systems of harm repetitively sever – logic and heart, ecology and psychology, trauma and oppression, science and art.
Prepare to go to the places we are not supposed to go, in order to be in the spaces we are truly meant to be.” Taiwo Afuape, Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Psychotherapist, Author of Power, Resisitance and Liberation in Therapy with Survivors of Trauma “Nora Bateson is doing with words what language has no capacity for. I fell in love with it right from the start.” Bayo Akomolafe, Author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home, Global Senior Fellow of The Othering & Belonging Institute “A masterwork. Please avail yourself of this heartfelt, brilliant, yet entirely accessible guide to the lived experience of complexity. Bateson shows how to engage with our personal and collective challenges less as problems to be solved than as systems calling for understanding, compassion, and harmonious engagement. Continuing the inquiries of Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, and a couple of Batesons before her, Nora has defined a new and vital landscape in a book that will take its place alongside their best remembered works. There is still a way for us to flourish; here’s how.” Douglas Rushkoff, Author of Team Human and Survival of the Richest “ ... The imagery in Nora’s writing is an exquisite depiction of Living Systems. We all can grow from this brilliant work of art, poetry, stories and more woven together, magically.” Carol Sanford, Author and Podcaster, Executive Producer of The Regenerative Business Summit “This compilation is full of delicious insights that call us to witness the awe-inspiring breadth of possibilities that emerge from our entanglement. When we loosen our grip, and dive into the web of relationships we will begin to understand the abundance of potential pathways we have before us...” Vicki Saunders, Founder, Coralus (formerly SheEO) “Nora Bateson reminds us in this book — and in how she thinks, speaks, and inhabits this world — that our hope lives not in our cleverness, but in our vulnerability, in our wildness, in our feral creativity, and most of all among our relationships, in our animate communications with each other and all living beings. This book is an exercise in living ecologically.” Rex Weyler, Co-Founder, Greenpeace International |
REVIEWS of Combining​​Nora BatesonReviewed in Psychology Today by Kenneth Silvestri Ed.D.
To start with, Nora believes that "The familiar is not the only way." She uses stories and artistic examples to explain how all the contexts in our world are simultaneously interdependent. This includes not being compelled to answer "about" this situation or another in isolation from the other contexts that make up our world. Instead of using labels and fragmented descriptions, she intertwines poetry, art, and wisdom which are interspersed throughout this fascinating, excitingly designed book. It was a mesmerizing experience to read and savor it. You could, if you like, start anywhere in this book. It is like visiting a meadow, where your senses will have the opportunity to understand the importance of the minutiae that inhabits it. ... ... She makes the case for the need to have a communication ecology. In pursuing this, Nora paints a description of imposing categories and compartmentalization has produced division and fragmentation among family, media, and education. Upon reading Nora’s explanation, you immediately grasp the injurious consequences of this paradigm. She convincingly traces where the origin lies regarding our contemporary social/cultural problems. "...comparing nature to a machine makes it possible to see in nature a fragmented collaboration toward an outcome. This, in turn, begins to justify competition, war, and individualism. Whereas if the side-by-side-ing places family, ecology, and economy next to each other, what starts to happen is that the deeper plans of story reframe into an understanding of what is non-trivial, profound, and vital." ... ... "The concept of ecology cannot be a parking space or static definition of interdependency. No, that is not enough. The organisms in my meadow and the shark in the ocean are both shaping and being shaped by the other organisms they live with, who are also shaping and being shaped." Each context that makes up our lives informs each other, constantly adding information, providing new skills, and ongoingly redefining e.g. how the family as well as each member will benefit and evolve from health providers, environmental pressures, economic changes, schooling, etc., and vice versa. As her father said, "Life keeps life-ing." She reminds us that nothing is hidden but much is unseen. It will emerge with patience and mutual learning. ... ... Nora Bateson offers hope and forewarning by asserting how important it is to look for where we place ourselves at the "edge" of an other. How do we try to solve the consequences of decontextualization? We cannot find it in linear or familiar ways. It is working through inevitable double binds with imagination to rise above the familiar. She encourages and believes it is okay to be “weird” because familiarity is dangerous and possibilities create differences that make a difference. This book is a long overdue release of the intrinsic energy of being human. It gives us territorial guidance beyond any map that offers a recipe for change. Read the full review at Psychology Today From a review by Sylwyn Guilbaud in International Journal of Play:
"...Later [Nora Bateson] points to the images and messages that cloak us with society’s values and asks: Can you still feel the texture of my math? Can you breathe the ink of my wool? Can you be a blade of grass with me? (p. 87) This last line sticks, like cleavers to my heart. It twines with my wondering at the waving grasses, and this sticky significance asks me to look again for [the section entitled] The Meadow-Verse that begins ‘I want to be the soil that is alive with a world of organisms. And I am’ (p. 188). The lush illustration spreads like a living meadow over eight double pages, the words initially appear as organised verses, but become ever more malleable in order and thereby meaning as they disperse between the painted plants and insects. The culminating words at the edge of the last green right-hand page are ‘Just oh yes love, life, play, go again.’ And then under a line reminiscent of a common denominator, represented as a stem being crawled along by a ladybird, ‘Things change. They just do.’ and ‘It’s not a digital thing. But here we are’ (pp. 200–201). And then I read again Where is the edge of me? (pp. 59–61) a disquieting disillusionment of the individuation of self-betterment, which includes: When I ask ‘How can I be a better person?’ – the question carries an illusion that is out of kilter with families, cultures, and histories that we are all responding to. I would rather ask, ‘Who can you be when you are with me?’ This is a more ecological question. (p. 60) ‘Who can you be when you are with me?’ If the whole rest of the book had been empty or meaningless, this question and what it requires has made Combining invaluable for me. Read the full review How Reality Learns with Nora Bateson: A podcast interview with Nora Bateson about her new book 'Combining'
ALEXANDER BEINER writes: "Everything in our lives, from our relationships down to the cells of our hearts, is a process of combining. Things connect to other things to form relationships that create more than the sum of their parts, and in this way the world emerges. As Nora Bateson puts it in her new book, Combining, nothing we see is ‘just that and nothing more.’ This piece is a combination of words and sound, as I recently recorded a conversation with Bateson, which you can find as an audio podcast above, or on Apple Podcasts and most other podcast platforms. Nora is one of the leading voices in the world of systems change, or what she prefers to call ‘systems learning,’ and Combining is a bracing blend of complexity theory, poetry, mythos and ecology which I’ve been enjoying it immensely. Bateson is also a faculty member on my upcoming course New Ways of Knowing, and as well as Combining and wider questions around how we can influence the systems we’re part of, we also talk about the experiential process of ‘trans-contextual knowing’ she’ll be guiding in her session." How Reality Learns with Nora Bateson: A podcast interview with Nora Bateson about her new book 'Combining' |
|
|