accessing your many ways of knowing
When you are wrestling with a question or decision – or seeking to understand a situation better – take a break from “figuring it out” to access other ways of knowing. Inhale deeply, exhale deeply. Drop into your native ability to direct all your sensing to what is really going on. Listen in this way for a minute or more and just notice what thoughts, images, sensations show up. Trust that there may be value and efficiency in all these forms of information. What do you know now?
bringing past, present, and future together
Rather than wishing for a blank slate to begin your futuring work, imagine everything that currently exists on this earth as threads of a remarkable living fabric. Notice first where beauty and high functioning are present. Now turn your attention to where threads are fraying, broken or missing in life as we’ve known it. Master weavers skillfully and continuouly add threads of the imagined future where they are wanted and needed most.
allowing reality to show itself
Like a good host or hostess, invite reality – all of it. Hold at bay a rush to like or not like, agree or disagree, and to put things in small, knowable boxes. Consider that the aspects of reality that you resist may have something to show you. What we encounter as chaos today often gets revealed as the order of tomorrow. Befriend what is.
being “spoken through”
Embrace those moments when you find yourself speaking or thinking of something that feels more like it is arising through you than being made by you. Ideas, inventions, communications that come from this place often have a resonance that radiates beyond the personal to serve the collective. From a source greater than you – comes an inspiration through you – that serves those beyond you.
allowing awe to make us inspire-able
Look out from wherever you are in this moment or, better yet, take a walk in nature. Allow an innocent curiosity to grow in you and remind you that we humans only perceive a tiny part of the remarkable mystery of life. Notice details. You’ll know you have entered wonder when a spontaneous “wow” arises. Notice the particular feeling of the state of wonder. What might shift if you turned to your work in the world from this place?
sensing our way forward
Whether you have a north star to which you are heading—or not—look and listen to everything around you. Hold your plans lightly and tune into the navigational cues that can guide you through the intricate web of today’s world. Notice that the opportunities to animate the future you want may not look like what you anticipated. Be willing to say yes anyway. Is what just occurred a push from behind or a nudge to a new path? Is it providing you with the cookie crumbs you need to find your way?
imagining what could be
Look beyond all those things you don’t want and pause any impulse to fix. Begin instead to imagine what you do want. Do this yourself and with others. What wants and needs to be brought into existence? What is your collective picture of a new or different future? See it, hear it, feel it. Articulate this vision as a holistic expression of everyone’s highest intentions.
honoring the parts, and seeing and acting from the whole
Tune in to the experience of being a small and important part of a much larger whole. Spend a moment noticing how you are one person with many parts—head, heart, body, soul, and will. Begin to explore how your vision, sourcing, dream or idea is also a part of a larger whole. Build bridges within and beyond yourself. Amplify your own and others’ efforts by bringing them together.
In addition to being the plural form of the word genius — and pointing to the genius of human beings and of the great web of life in which we live — Genii also means a guiding spirit.
Genii (which we pronounce “jen’-ai”) emerged in our founding conversations as a guiding spirit for the work of our time, and the work each of us have been preparing to do our whole lives. We imagine her offering playful and urgent invitations to people everywhere to step forward to participate in creating the future.