I miss the closing dialogue session with Doug Kahn. Goodbyes and a rushed departure from the house via taxi to the airport, a short wait for the hop to Auckland and on back to Oz for 20-some hours before heading boreal-spheric for a bit. Bags are mostly packed, but the trip to NZ made for some juggling and nervousness when booking two international flights within such at short time-span.
Ten solid and busy days leaves quite a positive first impression of New Zealand, although this is no surprise, given the richness of Kiwi encounters over the years. It was a bit distressing to see the extent of degradation of natural system that has and is still occurring, but this is a legacy everywhere there are humans. We, as life, have altered the planetary system (even as we begin to observe other planetary systems — can this act of observation alter those systems as well?). There are limits to the energy flux that a planet has access to, based on solar (Light) and gravitational sources. We, again, as life, have been increasing the entropy of the system at an incredible rate, mostly through the release of eons of stored solar (photosynthetic) carbon in two centuries.
Framing the entire week: workshop was only a minor surfacing within the context of many other dialogues, so, perhaps it had less organized force and power than it could have had. Discussion of the meta-structures that it was embedded within were limited to Julian and a few others. Otherwise, there were expectations of tradition and normalcy, and, thus, expectations not met. But the overall energy was significant.