Prince Albert as a transition town

“A clean town that works for everyone”

On the 10th February, 22 people held a meeting in the small town of Prince Albert in the Great Karoo to discuss the possibility of the town becoming a “transition town”. As a result of the meeting, the group agreed that they would communicate the ideas to everyone else in Prince Albert and see who else is interested in getting involved.

The worldwide “transition town” movement is a response to two of the large challenges that humans face and that will significantly change the way we live in the future:

  • The first is climate change. We know that the earth’s climate is changing rapidly, although we do not know for sure how it will affect us.
  • Secondly, we know that the earth is going to run out of abundant fuel quite soon and that we need to change our reliance on oil and oil-based products.

The “transition town” movement was started by a man called Rob Hopkins and some of his students in the town of Kinsale in Ireland who were concerned about these challenges. They developed a plan which set out how Kinsale could make the transition from a high energy consumption town to a low energy one. In 2005, the town council adopted this plan unanimously. Hopkins himself later became a leader in a transition initiative in Totnes, a town in England, which became the world’s first Transition Town. Each individual transition initiative has its own objectives with a range of practical projects.

The objectives of a “transition town” are as follows:

  • Becoming more resilient to environmental and other changes, by building self-reliance in areas such as food, energy, health care, jobs and economics. For example, growing our own food, instead of waiting for it to be trucked in.
  • Reducing reliance on energy and food sources that are running out.
  • Developing a functional, healthy, local community that works together and cares for our people and our environment, so that we can all thrive.
  • Reducing our negative impact on the environment – reducing and recycling waste, reducing our carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels, protecting the remaining biodiversity, mainly using renewable resources and restoring damaged ecosystems where possible.

There are many current activities underway in Prince Albert that already work towards these objectives. As a result of further efforts after the meeting, the recycling project in the town has been resurrected. As a community, the town would develop many more creative activities.

In considering why Prince Albert would be suitable to become a transition town, the following factors are important:

  • We are a small community with a clear identity
  • We are far away from urban centres
  • We have fertile soil and enough water (if it is managed carefully) to grow our own food
  • We are more dependent on the outside world than we need to be
  • We have abundant renewable energy sources (sun and wind)
  • We have many passionate people doing positive work to improve the town

In considering how the Prince Albert community could benefit from becoming a transition town, the following ideas are important:

  • Our increased self-sufficiency would improve quality of life for everyone
  • We would gain new skills and knowledge by linking in to the worldwide Transition Network and all their information and resources
  • We would become less vulnerable to external changes, including climate change
  • It could provide another reason for tourists to visit us
  • It could build our pride as people of the town
  • It could unite us as a community if we share a vision for the town

This is just a beginning. Our next steps include building awareness and gathering together interested parties. In the first meeting, we agreed on a “work-in-progress” vision for the town based on a vision that had been developed through an extensive public participation process in 2002. This vision was “a town that works for everyone, excluding no-one”. We thought that this could be adapted to “a clean town that works for everyone” to include the environmental component. We will keep having conversations in order to ensure an inclusive process. And for those who are interested outside of our little town, we will keep you posted.

The problem with deep work

I have devoted my life (consciously and unconsciously) to working at a deep level with individuals and groups. Specifically, I have tried to bring the ideas of depth psychology to the general public, through teaching and writing. I have believed, fervently, that a little bit of psychological knowledge can go a long way. For example, I nurtured the naive belief that if only people knew that they were using a defense mechanism, then they would stop doing so and relating to them would become much easier. Now, this is true, in theory, and occasionally in practice.

However, there are some significant difficulties associated with such a firmly held set of convictions. If looking at our deep self was simple, everyone would be doing it. If it was so obviously rewarding, then more therapists trained in working with unconscious processes would be wealthy. Most of them are not. As Rod Anderson (therapist of note) recently pointed out to me, Jung apparently said something to the effect that 20% of one’s work on the self can be provided by the therapist in terms of insight, the rest is endurance and  action which can only be done by the individual him or herself. Also, deep work (again according to Rod), helps to unleash deep truths and can in fact call one’s entire life into question. Unleashing deep truths can be explosive, and so everything becomes disrupted when one does the deep archaeology on the self. For example, if I discovered that my career choice was based on managing a deep-seated wound, what happens to me when that wound starts healing? Becoming less neurotic can throw the cat amongst the emotional pigeons on a fairly ongoing basis.

Also, a therapeutic intervention will feel very enlightening at the start – there is a real honeymoon period. The first few insights are often quite groundbreaking. If one adds the fact that the first few conversations with a compassionate person with insight can be deeply reassuring and compelling, then the early phase of a journey inside the self can feel rather good. However, at some point, it will start feeling rather difficult, as all the old painful feelings have to be faced, and even the compassion of the therapist does not provide sufficient comfort. At that point, it is easy to become profoundly disappointed in the deep work itself, as well as in the person who may be the catalyst and / or supporter along the way.

So, I still believe that deep work provides the greatest freedom for the individual in the long run, but it takes an extraordinary capacity to delay gratification in order to walk that torturous road. And, it takes a great deal of faith in a mysterious and intangible process to keep going. I hold the faith, but it is sometimes a thankless task when trying to convert the world at large. But I have to keep holding the faith of the benefits of depth work, because how else do I justify a life time of decisions and actions?

Vision for 2012: Depth Leadership

About 7 years ago I had a dream that felt significant, although I did not understand its significance at the time. I dreamt that scientists in South America had discovered a flower that had never been seen before, a flower that had a self-organising principle that was entirely new. I could see the flower in the dream, but not clearly.

A year or two later, I travelled to South America for the first time on my way to Antarctica. I was travelling alone and when I landed in Buenos Aires, the taxi driver suggested that he drives me around the city to see some of the attractions. He asked me whether I had seen “the flower”. Of course I had not. He drove me to a huge metal flower standing in a pool of water.  Architect Eduardo Catalano had made it as a gift to the city. Catalano named it the Floralis Genérica, which means a flower that represents all the flowers in the world. The sculpture has petals that open and close depending on the time of day and the wind conditions. Apparently Catalano said something to the effect that the flower is a synthesis of all flowers and is a hope that is reborn every day (the quote in Wikipedia is not completely clear).

I did not know what to make of all of this at the time. I went on to Antarctica and had a wonderful time. I eventually wrote my book Beneath – Exploring the Unconscious in Individuals and it was published in 2011. Last year I also completed a rewrite of my first published book The Depth Facilitator’s Handbook from the perspective of leadership, and so named (a little obviously) Depth Leadership. I have not taken Depth Leadership to publication because it has not felt ready. In the last quarter of 2011, I started formulating a vision which I called Beneath, Between and Beyond.

This morning some pieces in my mind finally connected with one another. The new self-organising principle that I have been looking for has been right under my nose. In summary, I realised that I believe that I, and anyone that has an impact on the world, have a moral duty to pursue an approach that I call “depth leadership”. Broadly speaking this means that we actively work “beneath” (with our unconscious selves), “between” (with our communities) and “beyond” (with the natural environment), always considering our impact on the delicate balances in these complex systems, and thereby taking care to ensure that they thrive. We have to keep our attention on all three simultaneously and do whatever it takes to resolve the tensions and dilemmas between them. Anything less will be shortsighted. That is what I will be working towards in all my endeavours in 2012.

Home

It has been awhile since my last post. I have been busy orchestrating a very important transition which I finally completed tonight. Three and a half years ago I left Prince Albert, the little Karoo town which I had made my home, in order to move back to Cape Town for practical reasons. Tonight, I returned to this small village to live. I am delighted to be HOME.

Reverence

A Sandwich Tern at Miller’s Point, Cape Town

The state of the world worries me. I spent many therapy sessions understanding that my view of the world is deeply coloured by my early experiences and so, I also try to do a reality check when I become unusually worried about the external environment. However, this time, the reality check does not really help enough. In fact, it makes me more worried. This is exacerbated by the fact that no-one really seems to know how bad things are. We know that our natural environment is buckling under the inordinate human assault on it, but we do not know exactly how our life support systems will respond to the current level of human interference.

One of the challenges seems to be the human perception of our power as a species. It seems that we have vacillated between feeling omnipotent and feeling desperately powerless. Perhaps our illusions of omnipotence are a reaction against the utter agony of our ultimate helplessness in the scheme of  things. I feel myself torn between the two states myself. I try to ease my  anxiety by imagining that we as humans will make a plan to ensure our survival.  We have so much technology at our disposal. And then I think about how, once we  have destroyed an ecosystem, how even attempts at rehabilitation tend to lead to one or more monocultures dominating. We increasingly live in a world of pigeons,  starlings, wheat, cattle, alien vegetation, battery chickens and billions of people. And then I feel completely terrified. However, something lovely occurred to me during one of these mental boxing matches. I became aware that the life process remains miraculous despite stem cell research and genetically modified foods.  For the moment, I can remain a witness to the buds in spring, and make sure I observe all the elements of the mysterious life-death-life cycle. All it requires is attention, and reverence. And somehow, that idea has helped to quiet my anxious
soul and provided guidance for action

Upcoming facilitation workshops

Helene Smit and The South African College of Applied Psychology

present

Facilitation Skills 1: 22nd – 25th November 2011 

Facilitation Skills 2: 24th-27th January 2012

These two four day courses follow on from one another and are designed to teach participants how to ensure effective group functioning, and if needed, effective group transformation. Facilitation 1 teaches the core skills of group facilitation and how to manage yourself as a facilitator. Facilitation 2 teaches how to manage under the surface group processes.

More details are given in the links to the brochures below. (If you have any difficulty opening these, please let me know and I will email them to you: helene@feather.co.za).

Facilitation 1 brochure

Facilitation 2 brochure