We can be sure that maintaining equilibrium rests within ourselves. –Francis J. Braceland
I cannot begin to count the number of times these past many years I have heard people saying that they are trying to achieve a ‘work-life’ balance. Bookstores are rife with works that promise the reader such achievement. There was a time when I, too, worked hard at trying to achieve a ‘work-life’ balance. THEN, one day, as the sun was rising it dawned on me that there was no ‘work’ and no ‘life’ to balance (Balance = a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of. .); there was only life. And my life contained a number of dimensions that needed to work in harmony. What then emerged for me was that my challenge was to seek ‘Integration’ not ‘Balance’ (Integration = an act of combining into an integral whole; the organization of the constituent elements into a coordinated, harmonious whole).
As I spent time seeking to understand this concept of ‘Integration’ I became aware of how divided my life was; I compartmentalized my life into discrete dimensions. I came to name these P.I.E.S. (the Physical, the Intellectual, the Emotional and the Spiritual dimensions that comprised this being named Richard). As odd as it sounds to me today, I did not see how deeply and powerfully interconnected these dimensions were; I lived as if they weren’t connected at all. I thought that I could focus on or ignore one or more of them and the others would not be impacted; or if they were the impact would be slight. How wrong I was.
In 1971 I was blessed with a mentor, Lowell, who introduced me to ‘systems thinking’ – that the WHOLE is more than the sum of its parts and that ALL is powerfully affected by the one – by each one, by each dimension. When I ignored one dimension the others would be affected in important, powerful and meaningful ways.
To keep our musical metaphor, when I experienced dissonance in one dimension the other three would be affected by the dissonance. Why, because I am a ‘whole being’ – a system. In 1974 Lowell then introduced me to Arthur Koestler’s book, The Ghost in the Machine, which Koestler had written in 1967. Koestler introduced me to the concept of holons. Simply put, a ‘holon’ is a ‘whole’ and a ‘part’ at the same time. Thus, each of the four dimensions of P.I.E.S. is complete within itself and is also a part of a greater whole called Richard. Richard is complete within himself and is also part of other ‘wholes’ – it is ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’ (holons) all the way up and all the way down.
My charge is to develop these holons as fully as I am able given the time I have on this planet and my charge is also to integrate them into the whole that is Richard; to integrate them so they work in harmony – at least more often than not. I also have learned that great music requires dissonance and ‘space’ between the notes; dissonance will occur and it needs to be embraced as part of who I am; it is also crucial that I make room for silence and then it is crucial that I hold the silence and don’t simply rush on to the next harmonious or dissonant note.
So I have spent these past 46+ years nurturing and depleting these four dimensions, these four holons, that make up the holon Richard; I have been striving to have them work in harmony; I have been striving to integrate them so that I might live a life more of wholeness than of fragmentation. I continue to strive to embrace the dissonance as well as the harmony and I strive to make sure that I have times of silence in between. Searching for ‘Integration’ not ‘Balance’ continues to be my quest.
What have you done with the garden entrusted to you? –Antonio Machado
Searcher-Seeker 