Thinking about Power – an ongoing inquiry
To become acquainted with power, our own power, the power of others over us, perceived or real, power as currency, power as energy, power in all of its nuance, and power that exists in and between community, is a life long practice.
From ‘poti’ meaning lord, the word power shares this root with despot, potent, impotent, potential, possible and possession.
The Source/Root of power comes from the Sanskrit patih “master, husband;” Greek posis, Lithuanian patis “husband;” Latin potis “powerful, able, capable; possible.”
There is dominance, entwined with potential and capability.
Power in its light manifestation is;
At the level of self – sovereignty, authorship.
At the level of community and culture, power is creating the field in which the people and culture can be collectively and individually able to access their authorship. This is the benevolent lord/master/leader, and can be expressed as ‘to empower.’
At the level of systems, power creates the potent field of the possible.
It is also the power that we use to animate our systems, tools and artefacts.
Power in its dark manifestation;
At the level of self, domination. But also absence of our own power, or our access to power.
At the level of community and culture, patriarchy expressed as master over. (Intrinsic to the root of the word.)
At the level of systems, power enables exploitation, win-lose, asymmetrical access, rights and privilege without responsibilities.
Power as energy is often used to deny whole countries the ability to rise from poverty. To put a meter around power so that it is not accessible to those who need it to rise from the neglect of the rest of the world.
Cultivating our own power is to gather all of the threads of our being together, to go deep into the fullest expression of our Pattern Integrity. To be able to discern infringements on our own boundaries, to set and maintain clear boundaries.
Maintaining the power of a Syntropic community or enterprise as a steward leader is to have clarity of purpose, to be fiercely protective of the Pattern Integrity of the Source Idea, and to design a robust threshold crossing boundary.
Photo taken March 26th 2021
