Becoming Aware of Metaphor

Much of the complexity of working with groups graphically and especially working with groups as a graphic facilitator where one is writing and drawing down what people say, is learning to understand analogy and metaphor and fly easily through them without getting stuck and confused. (Notice the “fly” metaphor?)

Here is one showing the Four Flows of facilitation as a Mandala of choices surrounding a musical conductor.

In this analogy attention is mapped onto the head, energy into the left hand, operations as the right (control) hand, and information being the platform one stands on as a graphic facilitator. This way of looking at it, if one appreciates it as an example of a classic “four-fold operator” in Process Theory, shows the substantial aspects we experience (our emotional life and our physical life) as the two opposing hands on a horizontal axis. Arthur M. Young insisted these two modalities cannot be appreciated consciously at the same time; that we choose to either tune into our feelings on the left hand or to make decisions and control and interact precisely with mechanisms on the right. Those same choices present themselves to a facilitator.

These “real life” aspects are complemented by two imaginary aspects, which are illustrated on a vertical axis. Our attention (the freest way we relate) is illustrated around our heads, and our objective thinking (which is constrained by the generalizations of language) is illustrated as the platform we stand on. Neither of these is substantial in the same way feelings and physical form is (i.e. they don’t have weight, force, or physical form).

Now I realize that in this short blog post I can’t fully defend this way of seeing things or even explain it fully. I want to simply give a flavor of the kinds of nuances that a skilled facilitator entertains when thinking about thinking. Working with multiple mental models is a core skill in more masterful levels of practice.