I love the paradoxical vision that is in sculptor Henry Moore’s answer to the question, “What’s the secret of life?”:
“The secret of life is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is–it must be something you cannot possibly do!”
So, what does this mean for our collective work? I think it invites us to remember this perspective in our planning and design work together. That we each of a deeper passion and inspiration that we are bringing to the project, and often we aren’t even entirely clear about what this is. I’ve spent the bulk of three decades exploring this ‘task’ of mine and only recently has it become more clear to me that my deep motivation is to help create more of the sublime and extraordinary and transformative in life. And that my particular focus for this work of mine is in the arena of Sustainable Development and Ecologically Oriented Restoration.
Becoming more clear about my own ‘task’ or calling allows me to feel much more congruent about how I can help others and the kind of help I can offer. It also makes it easier for people I may work with to have a sense of whether my approach to what they think they need may be a good fit. And in working on project planning, we can have an eye out for the particular gifts and visions that each project team member brings. Then coming up with ways to invite more of these ‘gift’s to come to life is part of the art of really good facilitation.