almost 4 months ago, i sat upon lion's head in cape town, glowing in the sunset, and unsure what the next year would have in store for me. tomorrow, (well, today, really), i'm hopping a plane from new york back to the so-called "rainbow nation," south africa, to embark on a 10 month adventure of living in cape town with my dear friend & partner, billy. i'll be taking some public health coursework and hopefully continuing to volunteer as a doula, which i've been blessed to do for the past year in seattle, while thinking about my present & future roles in as a healthCarer for individuals and society.
a significant influence on the evolution of my thinking has been the concept of cybernetics. cybernetics involves looking at the interactions and connectedness of the different components of a system. how do the dynamics of the components contribute to the overall system? how does a given system interact with other systems? i hope to be a keen, if not humble, observer of many different systems while in south africa - life in cape town and the surrounding area, south african maternity & health care, the international midwifery community, etc.
AND i also hope i'll use this space to engage in some "second order cybernetics" - that is, looking at myself as unable to be fully detached from the systems i'm observing; looking the particular dynamics of the systems which birthed me, a young white female 'american' observer, and acknowledging how my own context impacts the observations i make of my experiences in south africa.
so, i invite you to join me, as matches your interest and desire. i'll periodically post photos and stories as things unfold, hopefully not too pretentious or overly-cliche.
i'm pretty in love with life these days and excited about growing in lots of directions, especially the ones i'm not able to yet anticipate. may each of our daily journeys challenge and deepen our understandings of ourselves and each other...
with love,
libby
one of the most unique perspectives, literally, i've experienced...
