This week has been a week of rich studies and learning, sharing and discovery with Brian and Aneta Darlington in Canberra. From the day they landed we have immersed ourselves in culture, semiotics, poetics, myth and embodied leadership. Aneta and Brian amongst wearing many hats are the Directors of Embodied Leadership: https://www.embodied-leadership.eu/  They are about to release their second book called Real Meeting. More news on that soon.

On Sunday we had the most amazing cultural experience that we documented here: https://safetyrisk.net/a-different-world-of-risk/

Last evening, we spent an amazing few hours in an Indian Hindu Mandir experiencing the worldview of a community that live their culture in Canberra. We were lucky to visit the Mandir at the time of celebration and were welcomed like great friends. Here we are about to enter the temple:

You can see the mandala that greeted us at the entry way:

Mandala are such an excellent way of understanding the dialectic, culture and semiotics of tension in the Hindu culture and other (all) faiths. You can learn much more about mandala through C. G. Jung (https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/I-J-K/Jung%20-%20Mandala%20Symbolism.pdf, https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/man-and-his-symbols.pdf).

It is a privilege to be welcomed into the symbols, myths, rituals and beliefs of another culture. From the moment we walked into the Mandir we were welcomed yet, we looked like no-one else in the place. This is the same as our experience on Sunday (https://safetyrisk.net/a-different-world-of-risk/).

It is amazing that when you approach people in humility and genuine learning (enquiry) that they sense your disposition and welcome you. Any approach of arrogance and telling (the safety way), never connects with anyone, regardless of the culture.

Inside, a group were undertaking a session of chants, worship, prayer and symbolic ritual and, we were able to look, chat, observe and ask questions. This is the best way to understand culture, to be in it, respect it and be immersed in it. The worst way to understand culture is to stand back and scientifically observe something, in the myth of objectivity.

Culture cannot be defined in a western propositional way, it must be experienced and lived. Culture is about being, not concepts or behaviourist ‘performance’. Culture is much like a cloud than an object of study (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-cloud-tour-part-2-habits-and-heuristics/).

Whilst we were there and walked about the many symbols and gods, we observed a young couple going through a fertility ritual with a Linga. We discussed this the next day in the study where I have a Linga that you can see below held by Aneta:

What is all this about?  Why did we undertake this excursion? What has any of this to do with embodied leadership and risk? Everything.

When we let go of our Western rationalist and Cartesian view of the world, we can learn to understand the culture of others. When we get rid of all this propositional stuff that seeks to control culture by definition, we can learn just how much myth, ritual, symbol and belief are embodied in all culture. Yes, that includes safety culture, managerial culture and organisational culture.

With new eyes we can strip away the façade of spin in these cultures, deconstruct their dominant faith and see the way each creates myths, rituals and beliefs that are empowered through semiotics, poetics and Discourse. All cultures embody belief in semiotics.

With all this in mind we can better understand culture, leadership and embodied being in order to demythologise beliefs and strip away delusional and unhelpful stuff that inhibits effective relationships, social connection and ethical practice.

We discuss all these issues in the podcast here: