Empowerment In Enki: the Leadership
Beth Sutton
We hope we were clear in our last post that we fully believe that how you use Enki in your lives is 100% your business, and that – while you may come to us to hear our perspective and to explore issues together, and some of the time that perspective is really important to you – in the end it is none of our business what you do with the information and materials in your own life.
Continuing on from there, the issue raised about parent empowerment does, in turn, raise the issue as to how empowerment works on the other foot: from you to the Enki Leadership.
Basically, as you know, Enki is a process - a subtle one that, in our experience, really shifts our vantage point, or paradigm. That doesn’t happen quickly. Even with these 10 and 20+ years of indepth work with it, we are still surprised by the ways we fall back into the old paradigm – even as recently as coming to see that we were not working with the 3-fold process in our communication. As a subtle process, it takes time and leadership to penetrate it and let it take hold.
So, just as you know your family best and must make the decisions for it, for Enki to happen, the same attitude we offer you has to also be extended to our decision making for our “home” - i.e. the running of Enki (curriculum content, methodology, outreach, use of the name, faculty, programs, discussion groups, representation, etc). Each of you comes in for some period of time. During that time your perceptions and insights, your successes and struggles, and your questions and issues are a deeply valued part growing Enki and keeping it dynamic and responsive. You need only look at the list of parent suggestions in the folder called “The Enki Farm: an information packet," to see how much impact you all have had over the years.
But most of you are only here for a comparatively short time, so while all that you contribute greatly impacts Enki, if Enki is to maintain its core, your input cannot steer Enki, . Hopefully some of you will stay a long time and join in tending the “Enki home,” and in steering the ship for a time - as Amy, Angie, and Tosca have done, and as others are in the process of doing. We hope that that group grows, but growing into a position to join the leadership is a long process and one that involves study with Beth, and experience of working through issues from the vantage point of the Enki Web. That, by definition, happens with the leadership team.
That is the reality of Enki – as described, it is not a democracy; it is a responsive, leadership-directed organization. As we have said, we are aware that some see this as a “top down” approach and find it demeaning. But we see it as a “center out” approach like a mandala or medicine wheel. In both, people have different roles at different times depending on what they are ready and willing to carry. There is no issue of demeaning because, as we have described, core to Enki is that learning is valued as highly as teaching, and that learning and teaching are both, ideally, part of each and every interaction.
In that paradigm, all of us are appreciated in our different roles. As teachers ourselves, we know well that teaching and learning must go hand in hand.
However one may feel about that, it is what it takes to maintain the heart of the Enki work and keep it growing – and it is to that heart that we (Amy and Beth, and those who take leadership council shifts) want to contribute our time and heart and expertise. So if that is not respected, both in an emotional sense of respecting our process, and in the sense of acting in accord with our decisions for Enki – whether you agree with a given decision or not, and whether any particular decision turns out to be a mistake – then the ecosystem has a huge break in it and it cannot be self-sustaining. Basically, we would be throwing away our time and energy – like someone bailing out a boat while others drill holes in it.
So making Enki work is a two way street: we have to truly and deeply respect your right to make decisions for your lives, and we have to honor you in your process – even if we firmly disagree and even if your decisions turn out to be a mistake. Still we must and do respect you in your process; knowing that you are doing your best for your situation.
And if we are in your home and asking to participate in your world, we also have to act in accord with your decisions – even if we disagree with them. We hope you would ask no less of anyone in your home.
By the same token, in regards to Enki itself (curriculum content, methodology, outreach, use of the name, faculty, programs, discussion groups, representation, etc), for this to work you have to respect our right to make decisions for Enki, and honor us in our process – even if you firmly disagree, and even if our decisions turn out to be a mistake.
And, just as is true in your home, if you are to be in the “Enki home” (Enki Farm discussion), you need to act in accord with our decisions for Enki, even if you disagree. Without that, the ecosystem cannot survive.
Knowing in our bones that this mutual respect is what it takes for an ecosystem to thrive, we are not willing to commit our time, hearts, and expertise without it; it would no longer be Enki to which we are contributing.
While we very much hope that this discussion can bring us all to a place of understanding and acceptance, we do realize that there may be some for whom this outlook does not work. We are working to find discussion structures that will serve those people as well. However, what we can offer that is in alignment with our deep truths may still turn out to be critically out of alignment with their truths.
We did hear that some have felt this situation demands legal and publicity action against Enki. We take that very seriously, but in the end, it doesn’t change our truth, and that is all we can offer. Of course we are sad about that on a personal level – this has been a very sad, if educational, experience, and will be only the more so if we can’t find a peace that honors all. And of course we are concerned for Enki’s survival, very concerned as we know the power of internet negativity. But none od that changes the importance of each of us following our own truths, standing in our integrity. For our end, without that we have nothing to offer Enki or any of you. So should we, from our deepest sense of truth, be unable to find resolution with all, this will just have to run its course, wherever that takes us.
We accept that, BUT we have been listening hard and looking deeply, and it remains our hope that we will indeed find something that holds respect for all, and that proves to be workable for all, even in the face of disagreement.
Beth and Amy