I like it when things are in harmony, and display balance, that two dance the Tango, and colours match. Because I like the notion of togetherness and even oneness. I like this notion so much that I find comfort in pairs and even pairs of pairs forming a collective. Common unity for community, that’s me.
Pairs of words fuel my sense of togetherness. Like Ham and Eggs, Bucket and Spade, Swings and Roundabouts, Love and Marriage, Dark and Light. I could pair on and on in this line up of positively positive pairings. But it’s the word Integrity that is under my spotlight today. And I don’t feel good. In fact I immediately feel right off balance.
It’s strange as I think I should like the word integrity because it suggests ‘talking in’ as in the ‘inte’ bit. Plus, it suggests we can be gritty, as in the ‘grity’ bit.
But the word integrity causes me to squirm.
I know why this is. It is because integrity is a tall order in a world where the next moment is unknown, let alone the knowing of next week, next month or next year. I fear that not knowing places a strain on integrity, and under such stress integrity can be tempted to defer to lip service, instead of its birth partners, honour and trust.
And here lies a golden opportunity.
In these last stages of DC (during corona), as we prepare for AC (after corona), life calls for a new set of sets, not the ‘same-old’ of BC (before corona). If we are awake to listen, we are invited to re-imagine, re-purpose and re-start. This includes re-visiting individual values that guide behaviour and ways of being. It’s been widely proven that values manifest as actions. And our actions result in what each bring to the world.
Now my attention is stoked.
I am excited about integrity and its guiding role in the new realm, especially when acts of integrity include letting go of things, traits, habits and stuff that just does not serve any more.
This curious moment in time offers the time to pack luggage not baggage for AC. The scared pause of DC is enabling a rest on the edge – the quiet time to talk in, before we are again called to talk out.
In the book Edgewalkers, Dr Judi Neal names Integrity as one of the five Edgewalker Qualities of Being. Here is how she defines it : A commitment to live in alignment with your core values, to align your words and your behavior, and to keep your word.
We each have the chance to re-pair, re-align and re-set.
So, let’s take it.
Let’s press re-set and dance a new dance with integrity in honour of our role in igniting a world that calls for common sense to nourish common purpose to ensure common good – of love, of prosperity and of peace.
Susan K. Furness
Senior Associate, Edgewalkers
No apostrophe in its 🙂 but a chance to dance alone or in a pair always welcome 🙂 I like your thoughts about Integrity, dear Susan. We may well re-imagine our future as a dance but for me integrity is a pole star, constant, shining, guiding through the darkest hours …always there, even when we forget to raise ourselves up to meet it.
Oh my. I am very late to the dance. Will you still have me….?
Thank you so much for commenting Suzi ….and for the nudge on the nauti apostrophe! I’ll leave it to Judi to decide if ‘he’ is marched off the floor! Chuckle.
And, I truly honour your comminttment to Integrity as the constact companion, Suzi. May I join you? However challenging the challenge Integrity will be on my dance card.
As I read this piece another word came to mind, context, and I wondered why. It was many years ago an aboriginal chief made me aware of the importance of context when he said that I had learned enough words of his language to speak to his people, but in order to make sense I had to know how they lived. In other words, to understand the context of when to use them. Its the same with pairs of words, it is the association/context that creates the meaning. Pairs also raise a sense of ‘coming together – Fred and Ginger -for dancers for example, and when they do there is no separation. There is a particular consistency when someone has integrity, and I also love the word impeccable that I associate with it, in the sense that with both words I sense someone who accepts the consequences of their actions. The word Integrity arises from integer, undivided state, completeness, so I wondered if the link for Susan between integrity and grit arose from the pearls the dancer might wear, they began as grit……
Rex, hello there.
I actually penned this reply on October 18 – my daddy’s birthday – but for whatever reason it didn’t post.
Here it is now……better late than never.
How precious that this Conscious Share* stirred a ‘dance or two’ in you, Rex.
I adore pearls. They are my go-to adornment. And the image you stoke – that the feminine partner in dance might choose pearls, dubbed precious, is nothing short of joyful, especially when we consider the integrity of a pearl.
In dance with a flower, both the flower and the pearl Become, whether they are appreciated or not.
At the core of their DNA they just know that all forms are forms of beauty, that their ‘World Work’ is to form, blossom and be, and that at its purest all Integrity asks of us is to Be. Afterall, like the pearl, the DNA in each of us is of ‘great individuality, rarity and worth’ to Humanity in our ‘flash dance’ of life
Wow, yes, placed in this context, Rex this is gritty. True Grit. I so appreciate you sparking this extension.
Indeed, I’d truly love to hear more of your ‘wisdom pairing’ with the aboriginal chief. As an Edgewalker, I am a Nomad both metaphorically and literally. On this path, I integrate with many diasporas every hour of every day.
In the 80s I ‘knew’ there is a language of all People. Indeed, I call it People Talk or Heart Talk. It requires my eyes to meet your eyes. At the meeting point, lies the home of integrity. When the words not spoken are heard and aligned, we know what to do to be together. In dance.
Rex, thank you so much for ‘pairing’ with me, igniting this generative conversation.
(*Conscious Share is how I like to think of Weblogs, Blogs and other digital places for sharing insights that may generate helpful, nourishing thoughts in others, and may even stir a generative conversation)