Who is Samara?

*Bongi: Edited for readability & plain english. Shift to 'Logbook of events' making much more sense now for flow from creative start to series of events. Two approaches tied together. Makes much more sense to reader. Lotus flower has a nice direct connection to membership badges later on.

'An unfolding Lotus with Roots deep below the water'

"In this photograph the sky looks like a world in itself. This is a bit like Samara's emerging identity. Emerging from the soil. Through the Roots. Needing some time to grow and open into the world with each petal included. Amongst all the leaves, if you look closely, it's there, half unfurled."

Samara, Emergent

Samara’s essence, emergent.
We yearn for the vast and endless sea
Of the world our hearts know is possible,
And so we build our Samara-ship,
The ship in which,
We will sail,
Into these uncharted waters,
Leaving a wake so that those who wish to follow, may.

Samara’s vision, emergent.
The vision of a destination that will keep us on course through the inevitable storms,
A vision of who we are, who we serve, and how we serve them,
A vision to unite and guide our motley crew,
Aligning us around our inspiration.

Samara’s being, emergent.
As within, so without, becoming and being the change we wish to see in the world,
Yang and yin in co-creative harmony,
Playing joyfully, exploring intrepidly,
In the fertile void of uncertainty,
Honouring our gifts, honouring our souls, honouring Gaia.

Identity: Define Purpose, Values, Principles and Domain(s). Define what Samara acting out its Purpose looks like in a balanced way.

Samara’s exploration of Purpose can help to create a replicable yet unique and pioneering process. A process that can be used by subsequent DHOs to arrive at their own clearly articulated Purpose. A purpose which evolves and assists effective implementation as they continue their Work.

Logbook of the journey so far:

Workshop facilitated by Sanjay Rajan, 22nd January 2021:

Guided participants through a thoughtfully-designed process. The group defined and then consolidating potential statements of Samara’s Purpose, and arrived at:

Grow the abundant, regenerative potential of SEEDS

Strengths:

Mural an effective way to capture thoughts in a collaborative and co-creative format
Clear roadmap so that participants could feel safe within the container of the process
Effective use of breakout rooms to enable discussion leading to results
Results fed back into the plenary room by breakout groups in such a way that participants could see the gradual build towards a single statement of Purpose
Inclusion on an equal footing of all Samarans who felt called to participate

Ideas for Future Experimentation:

A truly effective Purpose would be repeated frequently in Samara meetings. It would have a lively application through all activities. It would be a constant felt presence. It would act as a central organising principle within Samara.
All participants need to fully love the final definition in a way that would give it this vital energy.
It would be worth experimenting with taking the time for integration leading to consensus, or even consent.
This was attempted in the January workshop, but it still felt like there were some “winners” and “losers” among the potential definitions. Some participants may have felt disappointed as their proposed definitions were set aside.
The process began with people identifying as individuals, writing their names on sticky notes and taking time to journal on their individual ikigai:
- It would be worth experimenting with a process that, from the outset, encourages the participants to leave the egoic “I” at the door
- To enter into the shared field with the other participants in order to co-create deeply from this shared space
As defined in our KR, the Purpose needs to be enacted “in a balanced way”
- Interpreting this “balance” as relating to yin/yang, the Purpose Revelation Process also needs to harmonise yin and yang appropriately.
In order to keep the Purpose alive, evolving, and relevant, we need an ongoing process to periodically revisiting our Purpose e.g.:
- On the solstices and equinoxes,
- To reaffirm our commitment to the original Purpose
- To acknowledge that it has evolved and should be redefined
There needs to be an ongoing custodian (or custodians) of the Purpose:
- Who undertake to organise the quarterly Purpose Revelation Sessions
- To translate and integrate the Purpose into all aspects of Samara’s work
- To keep the Purpose alive as the central organising principle

Purpose: The Next Iteration

There is a proposal currently on the table with enthusiastic support (as of 8th April 2021) which is pending approval through a governance process which:

Records organisation wide commitment.
Reflects the contributions given to Samara so far.

This proposal would bring in a highly aligned and experienced external facilitator to run a series of sessions. This aims to build on the learnings from the January workshop, and to explore an alternative approach that emphasises the complementary dynamics of yin intuition and yang practicality.

The sessions specifically aim to support Samarans through a process that will:

Harmonise the “professional excellence” of the yang with the “essential brilliance” of the yin, with “essential” meaning co-sensing from Essence, and “brilliance” meaning the bright light of true co-creative inspiration
First birth Samara from the new paradigm of sensing into the future (enquiry, intuition, possibility), and then design and execute the supporting processes from the traditional paradigm (logic, process, deduction), recognising that the Universe holds more answers than we do, so we need to sense into the Field to reach for the highest insights before grounding them.
Take the yin-sensed Vision and ground it firmly into yang-sensed Practicality to create an executable plan with clearly defined roles
Embrace the new model of leadership, in which the Work is done “through me” rather than “by me” (“By letting go, it all gets done” -- Lao Tzu)

The proposed facilitator is Emily Lane, as she is already known and trusted by many members of the Samara community, who were either present for the call with her on 4th March this year, or have since watched the recording (https://vimeo.com/519513562). The proposal is here.

Timeline of Proposed process:

Preparation: Recording to Prepare

Week 1: The Yin Journey

Week 2: Yang Practicalities

Week 3: Integration Ceremony/Ritual

Questions for Enquiry are also being asked at the same time as this proposal is being sought.

Material for the purpose and the values and principles which will form around it have started to be recorded in this doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CM84VsB1z6WGyybTZe5u_eqPO_83MPUg9k-vfIbS6sQ/edit#

We anticipate a clear value proposition synthesizing through the combination of these approaches, with the facilitated process using the material added by all participants to collect around a unified and emergent purpose.

The collection and wholistic exploration process in the document above takes a comprehensive approach It covers the following questions:

Who is Samara here to serve?
How will she serve them?
What is Samara’s community of practice?
Who are Samara’s allies? (Mission Circle)
How does Samara fit with/interact with/co-create with the other organisations in the SEEDS ecosystem?
What does the success of Samara look like? What is the vision?
What are the metrics that relate to the vision? How will Samara know if she is succeeding? How does Samara receive feedback in real time to know if she is heading in the right direction? How do we share this feedback data transparently?

What are the values that support the vision? How will these values be embedded in Samara’s culture? How do the roles/archetypes reflect these values?
What is the mission statement? This will provide the container, to let us know what opportunities we take, and which we pass on.
Does Samara have her own essence or is she an emergent property of the many participants?
If she has her own essence, how do we get the buy in/authority/validation/approval from all Samarians?
How does Samara’s essence manifest as a value system in all the aspects of our activities?
If we assume that Samara has called us together for a reason, how does each of us reveal what that individual reason is? In other words, how do we each find a role in relation to Samara?

Share your vision of Samara’s purpose
How does Samara serve your personal purpose and vice versa?
What’s your sense of Samara’s values and principles?
What are your personal values and principles?
How Samara does help to embrace your values and which values/principles does it help to embrace?
What’s your individual vision of Samara and it’s mission statements?
What could be your part of bringing this vision into the world?
How does it make you feel to be part of Samara?
What Samara is? What Samara represents to you?
What resources do we have?
What really matters for each Samarian and Samara being itself?
What’s your personal gifts/skills/offerings you would like to bring to Samara to reach its goals?
Imagine Samara in 10 years from now. What’s going on? What Samara is creating? What interactions inside and outside of Samara feels like?
What, if anything, do you feel could hold Samara back from reaching its full potential?
How does Samara ensure well being of itself, Samarians and ecosystems and organisations that it’s connected to?