by Karen Ribeiro
I've lived in Western Massachusetts my entire life and, in the entrepreneurial community—particularly among those in “lifestyle” services--I have heard an ongoing complaint about how hard it is to earn a decent living here. It has long puzzled me, and I believe I understand a very deep, philosophical explanation for this. And before I get into the roots, the real roots of this understanding, I will reflect on the nature of communication.
I like to study the nature of communication. I have a degree in interpersonal communication from the University of Massachusetts, along with a degree in marketing and a Masters in Business Administration, and have also created a communication tool I use in life coaching called the Inner Fortune Journal, to reflect on emotional triggers and inspirational awakenings in all areas of life. Looking at communication from a meta perspective beyond one-on-one communication with another person—particularly in the business world—I reflect on the areas of social interaction, interaction with colleagues and family members, interaction with the dream world, one's own spirit, and other arenas in the Inner Fortune tool.
Over these past 8 years that I've brought this product to market (as a hobby), I have also delved more deeply into the issue of communication in business, and particularly in Western Massachusetts. When two people are connected in conversation around shared expertise, the conversation tends to be fast paced with both parties expressing what they've already refined in themselves quickly. Business interaction is a good example as one person “sells” their expertise to a “consumer” of that expertise. Both people might be talking “on top of” one another and it feels very exciting, very passionate. It can feel really good for one person to be heard from another who understands a lot of what they are saying, whatever the industry, whatever the topic or content of that exchange.
This kind of interaction is not where the magic happens in conversation. A contract may occur because two people are establishing expertise and the inferred mutual benefit of engagement, they drop down into a level of trust and respect which earns the seller the contract.
What really creates magic in a conversation is when two people drop down into a pace of conversation that allows the edges of that expertise to expand in both people. A typical example may be where two individuals are going back and forth in a really dynamic way establishing their collective wisdom. But then they slow down a little bit and each begins to listen very carefully to the other about what he or she does not know. If the pace does not shift or slow, there is a missed opportunity. If it does there is growth. Both parties are enhanced by the other. This is what is critical and why we might consider ourselves lucky to be amidst diversity and a variety of expertise in culture and in outlook, based on real life experience not necessarily professional development or achievements.
When we think about Western Massachusetts we think about how beautiful it is; we think about the natural resources, the rich soils, the mountainous areas, the clean reservoirs, the Connecticut river, the Quabbin. These rich resources that we stand on hold us, have sustained us for generations in this Happy Valley. Well before the 17th century settlers in this area, indigenous Americans lived here who understood the land in a way that we have forgotten and perhaps never knew. They honored, revered the land in a way that has been long lost.
I only know one person whose indigenous family suffered humiliation and displacement during the decades of colonization, but I know no one indigenous to this “Pioneer Valley” I call home. I have, however, been personally affected by the Quabbin story; I understand the pain of those 2500+ community members who watched their homes, their churches, their businesses and schools, and their culture be burned, leveled, or – if they were super wealthy – relocated, in order that their towns could be co-opted to provide fresh drinking water to residents in Boston, which I understand to be at a price of $100 million a year, alongside the $50 million dollars of timber sold to Boston each year. I also understand that the Western Massachusetts community has suffered an “identity crisis” roughly ever since the Quabbin Reservoir was developed; this was documented as the official terminology from a study done for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the agency that oversees all 43 cities and towns in our region.
This fascinated me to the point where I did a little investigating into the native communities that may have preceded these communities and I found that there was in fact a Nipmuc Chief Quabbin who once presided over this region. As an aside, it is interesting that commercial projects which reconfigure a landscape for profit often name it for the very thing that has been eradicated. Like housing complexes which begin with a name like “blue heron”. The name is all that remains because the “development” destroys the ecosystem that supported and sustained that species.
“In 1927, the Massachusetts State Legislature officially declared the valley would become the Quabbin Reservoir, the source for Boston’s unquenchable thirst. By 1933 and 1935 respectively, construction of Goodnough Dike and Winsor Dam began, which would create “The Quabbin” as it’s known locally. Before the reservoir’s construction, there was a hill in Enfield called Quabbin Hill and a lake in Greenwich called Quabbin Lake. Named for a Native American chief called Nani-Quaben, meaning place of many waters, these became the basis for naming the new reservoir.1”
And this I find to be the case with the Quabbin. I don't know how life was before the Quabbin was created. It was done in the 1930's. I can't possibly have a personal understanding of these indigenous or subsequent communities. But from the anthropological research I have done about indigenous Americans and their pace of life and the culture that they so passionately and honorably sustained, the nature of communication they would have had is now a glaring deficiency.
Slowing down, sitting and holding space with each other, is a way to honor the creative inspiration which can unfold organically, naturally in community through any one person in the community. Such gatherings share a reverence for peaceful engagement which serves the entire community and respects the gift from our creator. And if that process of inspiration coming through an individual happens to occur and repeat frequently for one person over the course of many years, that person rises to the level of esteem in that community and may come to be understood and referred to as a shaman in that community. We need shamans in all of our communities across the globe. We need to respect those who spend time reflecting on the interactions with those in their community, of their people. And instead of looking at people as commodities as we do in the business world, looking at people as channels of inspiration—from our creator—to one another.
1http://www.onenewengland.com/article.php?id=218 – Massachusetts History Underwater
I've lived in Western Massachusetts my entire life and, in the entrepreneurial community—particularly among those in “lifestyle” services--I have heard an ongoing complaint about how hard it is to earn a decent living here. It has long puzzled me, and I believe I understand a very deep, philosophical explanation for this. And before I get into the roots, the real roots of this understanding, I will reflect on the nature of communication.
I like to study the nature of communication. I have a degree in interpersonal communication from the University of Massachusetts, along with a degree in marketing and a Masters in Business Administration, and have also created a communication tool I use in life coaching called the Inner Fortune Journal, to reflect on emotional triggers and inspirational awakenings in all areas of life. Looking at communication from a meta perspective beyond one-on-one communication with another person—particularly in the business world—I reflect on the areas of social interaction, interaction with colleagues and family members, interaction with the dream world, one's own spirit, and other arenas in the Inner Fortune tool.
Over these past 8 years that I've brought this product to market (as a hobby), I have also delved more deeply into the issue of communication in business, and particularly in Western Massachusetts. When two people are connected in conversation around shared expertise, the conversation tends to be fast paced with both parties expressing what they've already refined in themselves quickly. Business interaction is a good example as one person “sells” their expertise to a “consumer” of that expertise. Both people might be talking “on top of” one another and it feels very exciting, very passionate. It can feel really good for one person to be heard from another who understands a lot of what they are saying, whatever the industry, whatever the topic or content of that exchange.
This kind of interaction is not where the magic happens in conversation. A contract may occur because two people are establishing expertise and the inferred mutual benefit of engagement, they drop down into a level of trust and respect which earns the seller the contract.
What really creates magic in a conversation is when two people drop down into a pace of conversation that allows the edges of that expertise to expand in both people. A typical example may be where two individuals are going back and forth in a really dynamic way establishing their collective wisdom. But then they slow down a little bit and each begins to listen very carefully to the other about what he or she does not know. If the pace does not shift or slow, there is a missed opportunity. If it does there is growth. Both parties are enhanced by the other. This is what is critical and why we might consider ourselves lucky to be amidst diversity and a variety of expertise in culture and in outlook, based on real life experience not necessarily professional development or achievements.
When we think about Western Massachusetts we think about how beautiful it is; we think about the natural resources, the rich soils, the mountainous areas, the clean reservoirs, the Connecticut river, the Quabbin. These rich resources that we stand on hold us, have sustained us for generations in this Happy Valley. Well before the 17th century settlers in this area, indigenous Americans lived here who understood the land in a way that we have forgotten and perhaps never knew. They honored, revered the land in a way that has been long lost.
I only know one person whose indigenous family suffered humiliation and displacement during the decades of colonization, but I know no one indigenous to this “Pioneer Valley” I call home. I have, however, been personally affected by the Quabbin story; I understand the pain of those 2500+ community members who watched their homes, their churches, their businesses and schools, and their culture be burned, leveled, or – if they were super wealthy – relocated, in order that their towns could be co-opted to provide fresh drinking water to residents in Boston, which I understand to be at a price of $100 million a year, alongside the $50 million dollars of timber sold to Boston each year. I also understand that the Western Massachusetts community has suffered an “identity crisis” roughly ever since the Quabbin Reservoir was developed; this was documented as the official terminology from a study done for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the agency that oversees all 43 cities and towns in our region.
This fascinated me to the point where I did a little investigating into the native communities that may have preceded these communities and I found that there was in fact a Nipmuc Chief Quabbin who once presided over this region. As an aside, it is interesting that commercial projects which reconfigure a landscape for profit often name it for the very thing that has been eradicated. Like housing complexes which begin with a name like “blue heron”. The name is all that remains because the “development” destroys the ecosystem that supported and sustained that species.
“In 1927, the Massachusetts State Legislature officially declared the valley would become the Quabbin Reservoir, the source for Boston’s unquenchable thirst. By 1933 and 1935 respectively, construction of Goodnough Dike and Winsor Dam began, which would create “The Quabbin” as it’s known locally. Before the reservoir’s construction, there was a hill in Enfield called Quabbin Hill and a lake in Greenwich called Quabbin Lake. Named for a Native American chief called Nani-Quaben, meaning place of many waters, these became the basis for naming the new reservoir.1”
And this I find to be the case with the Quabbin. I don't know how life was before the Quabbin was created. It was done in the 1930's. I can't possibly have a personal understanding of these indigenous or subsequent communities. But from the anthropological research I have done about indigenous Americans and their pace of life and the culture that they so passionately and honorably sustained, the nature of communication they would have had is now a glaring deficiency.
Slowing down, sitting and holding space with each other, is a way to honor the creative inspiration which can unfold organically, naturally in community through any one person in the community. Such gatherings share a reverence for peaceful engagement which serves the entire community and respects the gift from our creator. And if that process of inspiration coming through an individual happens to occur and repeat frequently for one person over the course of many years, that person rises to the level of esteem in that community and may come to be understood and referred to as a shaman in that community. We need shamans in all of our communities across the globe. We need to respect those who spend time reflecting on the interactions with those in their community, of their people. And instead of looking at people as commodities as we do in the business world, looking at people as channels of inspiration—from our creator—to one another.
1http://www.onenewengland.com/article.php?id=218 – Massachusetts History Underwater