As you may have noticed by now, I am very interested in what we – Hom. Sap. – do next. This is a slightly big question; Hom. Sap. is not a coherent whole, divided along many lines of geography, culture, history. However I believe what unifies us (compassion and care for one another, beyond any of those boundaries and an off-the-charts outlier in the natural order) is stronger than that which divides. (Darwin has been massively misrepresented. As has Adam Smith.)

This last weekend I attended a rally in Victoria, BC to focus attention on the urgency of saving the last remaining Old Growth forest in BC from rampant logging. I am not against logging (I live in a wooden house, I have a woodstove, I build things from wood, I use paper…). What I am against is practices that wreck irreplaceable biodiversity, threaten our children’s future and allow those who do not have a stake in this beautiful place to extract its wealth as mere resources and money. There is a both/and to be had.

The first powerful indigenous speaker at the pre-march, and once again when we were at the BC Legislature, bought a useful concept. He drew a clear distinction between hope and prayer. The former a passive wish, the latter coupled with action for a desired outcome (It reminded me of a Nevil Shute novel; ‘Round the Bend’. Highly recommended. Will not go into it further here.) The point being that our future is to be created through action; and a desired future of respect, inclusion and equality through inspired action.

I have been wrestling with where to put my focus and effort as part of this inspired action. I have protested, signed all the petitions. I have been arrested for getting in the way. It is all part of my prayer for a better world. And I have been searching for the larger prayer – one that will serve bringing all of the individual prayers and those stuck in hope and despair into one unstoppable voice and action for change. Words are important. Concepts are important. Something stronger than divide-and-conquer politics as usual is supremely important.

On Saturday morning before the rally I was talking with some dear friends with whom I have been wrestling with these ideas for some time. A spark arose. ‘Is Transformationism a word?‘

‘Incrementalism’ certainly is. Most of the discourse on our response to the damage being wrought to the biosphere and the obvious unsustainability of ‘our way of living’ (shorthand for ‘our god-given right to keep extracting like there is no tomorrow, and thereby fulfilling the embedded prophesy’) is to propose tweaks. Slight changes to the tax system. Some minor investment here and there whilst continuing to funnel billions into supporting the industries that are doing the most damage. The last 50 years have proved that this approach is not adequate to the change that we must create. We are facing a breakdown.

‘Breakdown’ is a concept that conjures up many images. I have a simple definition; ‘the end of a story’. What I identify as a story is the (largely) invisible rules by which we operate in life; a map of the world – who we are – who others are – how things are. Beyond lies tera incognita. Stories can be deep, layered and cloaked in the gowns of profound lived emotional experience. They are resilient and insist on their own veracity. They are, to quote Tsoknyi Rinpoche “Real, but not true”. They are not the pure experience of the moment – they are the meaning that we create on top of it.

On a personal level, in my own experience and in working with clients, working directly with these stories is incredibly powerful. And when such a story story clashes with reality? A typical reaction is to double-down on the story in an attempt to make it ‘work’ in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. Einstein amongst many others have told us how nuts this is.¹

Sometimes people seek out support. Often people back down and settle for what the story can give them. When the story clearly no longer works and someone is willing (and supported) to go right up to the edge, there is a gap of pure possibility before we create the next story. That ‘gap’ is where the magic happens. With intention – there is all the possibility in the world. An opportunity to breathe into life a new story which serves the future we intend to create. It is exhilarating work.

However, breakdown can be messy. At the end of a story, all of the emotional baggage that has been contained by that story comes crashing in. On a personal level, the kleenex budget can go through the roof. Most people come up to the edge of breakthrough, taste the edge of that emotional chaos and back away to re-arrange their lives so the old stories can keep running a little while longer. That is where skilled coaching and/or facilitation comes in; compassion in spades and a skilled guide to the unformed world as you wade through to the other side, where your desired future – beyond your old stories of who you are and what is possible – lives.

The master-class level is to create the breakdown on purpose to more rapidly get to the other side; the desired breakthrough. It is possible. I have seen it. I have done it. I have supported others in the process. Can we, as a culture, do it?

What does that look like at the level of a cultural story? Well I think in the next decade or so we are going to find out. Either we pursue the extractivist, colonialist, capitalist story until the financial, food systems and climate fully collapses into an uncontrolled (and beyond-biblically messy breakdown)², or we work at the ‘breakdown on purpose‘ route with everything we have got; every prayer counts…

‘Transformationism’, or ‘Transformationalism’ does not have the same ring as ‘Capitalism’, ‘Socialism’, ‘Anarchism’, ‘Communism’, ‘Facism’. It is a bit cumbersome. My word-nerd friend also informs me it is a little over-burdened as everything these days seems to be ‘transformational’ even when it clearly is not in the sense that I mean it. So version 2 – and the experiment-in-process is ‘Transmorphism’.

Transmorphism – trans-mor′fizm, n. the evolution of one thing from another. [L. trans, over, Gr. morphē, form.]

Am I a transmorphist? I think I probably am. I believe that we are an evolutionary leap away from a world in which we want our children to live. The key is how to pray/act so as to create the required breakdown/breakthrough. Many old stories of ‘who we are’ are waiting in the wings to seize the moment of possibility. How many revolutions have just been a changing of the guards in the prison? We have many examples of how, in the moment of possibility, those who know how to wield fear as a weapon have grabbed power. The history of the 20th century is a masterclass in broken dreams of possibility.

What can make it different this time? Bringing the intention for a better world so clearly, coherently, fiercely and fearlessly that the moment of possibility gives way to a greater vision of who we are. Reconnection with each other, with all of nature. The birth of partnership, power and possibility for all out of separation and powerlessness. A prayer. A demand for that greater future.

Transmorphism. Try it on. See if it fits. Then fashion your prayers accordingly. And act...

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1 – ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.‘ (A. Einstein)

2 – If you have not read, or heard of ‘The Limits to Growth’ I highly recommend that you go take a look (and take several deep breaths). A good starting point is https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-08-16/revisiting-the-limits-to-growth/