#11 - The Compass for Sustainable Growth
And how healing our ancestry inspires inner renewal (plus some news)
About a year and a half ago I started this Substack with an essay in praise of small. I didn’t know what this would be yet, but I knew I wanted more of a two-way dialogue with you, after years of running a big list with too many unknown readers. And I wanted a space where together we would explore themes from my Compass for Sustainable Growth, which underpinned the Where We Grow philosophy.
The compass was a product of twenty years of strategy and spiritual work, in response to the times in which we find ourselves. It was designed to help us better orientate ourselves and our organisations in wild times; by first anchoring in the land and healing our ancestral stories, and then reaching for our highest potential to create a new vision for the future. It was supposed to ensure we never do one without the other; to always live in both the horizontal and the vertical; to never impose new approaches on the world without grounding and anchoring first.
I think, on both counts, I kind of failed. The email list has grown, but the dialogue has been minimal. I’m not sure if that’s the nature of Substack, which is so busy, or simply the fact the posts ended up being more journal entries than the strategy approaches and tools I wanted to share with you all. And while the Compass was clear to me, I didn’t ever really talk about it, instead becoming somewhat absorbed by the part of the map I had dedicated the least of my energy over the years — in Ancestry and Story.
Ancestry and Story
That’s really what I’ve written about here. I’ve dived into Welsh mythology and the spirit of Awen, and explored intuition and river folklore. I’ve gotten lost in the cave of dreams with The Dream Makers and taken time out on an island without technology, to slow the hell down. Ancestry and story has captured my imagination, taking me on a journey into our oldest folklore, to a place of healing, power, and peace. For someone who has resolutely lived in the Vision and Action part of the compass, making projects, writing words and creating campaigns, this older part of the map was new to me. And it was needed.
I didn’t expect that exploration to take me where it did. Soon enough, I was travelling the country, learning oral storytelling, writing essays, and then a book. These past few weeks I’ve been meeting agents and publishers, and it might just be that in a year or two, there will be a hardback book with my name on it, sharing what was found, and what was lost. Healing our stories, and emerging stronger from the process. And right now, this work is beginning to move into a new phase, finally, which is more about Vision and Action.
Vision and Action
The weird thing about the book writing process though is that you can’t really write about it. You have to hold that content for the final show, not revealing your hand too soon. It’s a hard balance, particularly for someone like me who is used to sharing writing as soon as it comes. But I am moving into that new phase regardless. And maybe I’ll write about that here. Maybe I won’t. Writing seems to be a more organic process these days.
What I do seem to be doing more is distilling the thoughts from that experience, and sharing these ancestral stories in the real world. There have been talks, events, campfires. In June I’ll be running a storytelling circle with Lera at T-lovers in London and then in September I’ll be sharing Welsh myths at Love Her Wild festival on the Gower. Storytelling itself is a deep practice, with a period of apprenticeship. Where the only way to learn is by doing.
And as you are so generously reading this, I also wanted to join some of the dots. To explain why this space is called Where We Grow, and how the intention of this Substack has evolved into a different kind of action than I originally planned. More storytelling; less strategy…although the two overlap all the time. I think perhaps that’s the thing about Sustainable Growth — it doesn’t always look like how you imagine or take you where you think it will. It dislikes tight plans and hard measures. It’s more organic than that. And more alive.
And I guess this is a long way of sharing the news: I’m writing a book. Actually. And I can’t talk about that too much yet. But I can talk about stories, and I might share more of those.
I’m delighted to have you with me on this meandering, exploratory journey. I’ll try to ask more questions. And maybe see you sharing tales around a campfire sometime.