The Bones of the Future
“Leave the well-worn road you have traveled so long. Have the courage to speak the intangible.”
I was lying on my back on a massage table, holding a two-foot-long piece of dowling with both hands, elbows bent at ninety degrees, like a supine trapeze artist about to do a pull up. My thinking mind understood the Rolfer’s instructions but my proprioception was scrambled as I attempted to straighten my arms while keeping my spine and shoulder blades relaxed and in contact with the table. She stopped me after three tries. Practice at home, she said. Do two or three repetitions only, then stop. Lead with your bones.
That phrase, lead with your bones, got me thinking about leadership, the resonance between the physical body and the ‘body politic’, and the ways these bodies move in response to who or what is leading. Bodies tend to move by habit: we rush, we slouch, we make decisions and take actions based on emotions, or sometimes by intuition. Changes in behavior reflect changes of heart, or the imprint of an unfamiliar experience. We are rarely persuaded by facts. But bones know things. Bones sing.
A Liberian friend once explained how, in traditional villages, leadership is inherited. Male children identified at or before birth as future leaders spend years in training, apprenticed to their fathers or uncles. A colleague who was identified in this way accompanied his father to communities in conflict when they requested his help. The father would listen carefully, then render a decision, knowing that, if the community was not satisfied, they could remove him, and leadership would pass to another family. Our friend spent his childhood sitting at his father’s feet, listening and observing. He didn’t learn to read and write until he entered first grade at the age of eighteen.
Women told us that they make decisions communally, in private meetings held at remote locations where they cannot be overheard, often when they go to a stream to collect water. Out of earshot, they sit together and discuss the community’s dilemma until they agree on a solution. They report this privately to their husbands, who sometimes claim the women’s ideas as their own. The women don’t mind: they laugh to think of it. Recognition is not what matters.
Among the Yuman people of the Colorado River desert, a leader was someone who personified the will of the people. Leadership and the desire to lead were powers conferred through dreaming. Aspiring leaders volunteered for difficult tasks and assumed responsibilities that, over time, proved they were worthy and capable of leading. It was said that, If a leader acted stupidly, it meant that his power had deserted him and it was time to have another decide things.
Here in the U.S., leaders are elected by votes that are won by money that buys ads and publicity. Wealthy candidates spend their own fortunes to get elected. Others must focus on fundraising in order to compete. Special interests make contributions to elected officials that shape our courts and our laws. In America, money is the tail that wags the dog of government.
As usual, this election cycle I have been deluged with texts and emails from candidates begging for cash. Every dollar counts. Please give whatever you can. Their calls and advertisements plead for donations. There is little mention of what they stand for or how they enact their principles. They do not articulate a vision of a viable future for all life. How can anyone who is disconnected from Earth possibly govern well? At a time when Earth faces extinction, there are zero leaders anywhere on the globe who are calling us forward to a world restored. There is no discussion of what it might mean and what it would take for humans and Earth to thrive. Perhaps the recent elections in Brazil give us a glimpse of possibility: a handful of senate seats and municipal posts were contested by pairs, trios and small groups. Cast one vote, elect a team!
The leadership style of geese is a popular trope in corporate training. The attributes of avian leadership are taught to enhance teamwork: geese offer support to their leaders by means of their honking cries; leadership is fluid and constantly changing, sometimes several times per minute as the goose in front falls back and another glides forward, then another and another after that in continuous rotation. The lift created by the leading birds provides greatest benefit to those at the rear of the V; all the birds in the flock save maximum energy thanks to the exchange of leaders. When one goose struggles, two others accompany their flock-mate to the ground to protect them, and wait until s/he has recovered before rejoining the flock. Geese mate for life. They share construction of the nest as well as the feeding and protection of their young. Adult geese communicate with their unborn offspring while still in the egg. The flock mourns each goose that dies, including lost eggs, as well as partners and goslings that perish. There are physical adaptations as well, and, though these are key, they cannot be imitated or taught: feathers along a wing’s leading edge provide sensory indicators of air currents and direction; the trailing edge modulates flight. The joke, of course, is that nothing resembles a flock of geese less than a large corporation. The emulation of goose leadership is, like everything else, intended to boost profits. Extractive western industrial culture whose holy grail is endless growth will not and cannot protect the living world.
Peacebuilding pioneer John Paul Lederach tells a beautiful story of leadership. He was on a flight to Northern Ireland during the years of violence there, unsure of how to work with the citizen peacebuilders who awaited him. The night was stormy and dark. Lightning flashed as the plane bounced and shook in the turbulence. Suddenly he knew what to do. When he arrived, he invited the group to cast themselves into the future and look back on the present in order to tell the story of how they ended the violence and created peace. The story had to be so real they could feel it: on a cold winter’s night with a storm bearing down, a small child clambers up on her grandfather’s knee and begs not to be sent off to bed. Tell us again! Tell us again! she cries. How did the Troubles end?
Our current leaders and those who wish to lead do not offer a vision of renewal and peace. It seems that task is ours: it is for us to imagine a resplendent future and articulate every detail until it is robust enough to pull us forward. We’ll tell them - and each other, the story of how we made it through these times of extinction; how we relinquished despair and flew towards beauty; how we protected the eggs of possibility as we listened to Earth and repaired our alliance; how the bones of the future called us forward and we wisely let them lead us.
