The Power of Both/And
Emma and I are similar and different. We are both white, middle-class women. We both grew up in a small town, in rural Dorset. We are each married, to men. But we have some significant differences, including but not limited to – age, sexuality, religious beliefs, career choices, education, voting choices, choosing to mother/ not mother, ethnic background and where we live.
When we meet and talk, these differences provide us with the richest moments of individual expansion. Through her lens, I see things differently. She carries with her, collected like pebbles on the long walk of her life, nuggets of wisdom and insight that I have not collected on my own journey. We have not walked the same path. We offer each other these pieces of illumination like gifts. If she offers me something that does not sit alongside my experience, I can choose not to take it on, but I am grateful for her showing it to me because now I understand her, and the World as it exists for her, a little better. We do not attempt to align our differences. Instead, we listen and respond to one another with mutual appreciation and curiosity in our hearts. It is this stance that we want to bring into our blog and Instagram posts.
We live in a World in crisis. There are awful, bitter and protracted conflicts around the globe, brought to us in a 24 hour new cycle that is overwhelming and unmanageable for most. There is a climate crisis, the magnitude of which is shudderingly serious and threatens our very survival, alongside that of countless other living things. When faced with uncertainty, we want to cling to something. We hate to wash about in the tide of things more powerful than us; we seek solid ground. Sadly, this has led to a tribalism in our politics, the Webosphere and our social circles that is causing separation and a fracturing in our ability to live peacefully together. We shout at one another across widening divides. The ‘solid ground’ we find for ourselves is often very narrow. Our backgrounds and experiences converge in us so that we each form a conception of reality that reflects what we know and, crucially, which omits that which we have not known. Through dialogue, active and compassionate listening and a stance of non-defensiveness, we can grow beyond our own worldview, to be able to incorporate the possibility of another perspective.
I have seen no better expression of this than in the artwork ‘Squaring the Circle’, by the collective artists, Troika. This extraordinary feat of engineering materialises the perspective of the viewer as being rooted to their position. Literally, from one side, the viewer sees a circle, and from the other, a square.
© Hester Ashby, 2023