Let me reveal something called crown shyness and ask, what is the space ‘inbetween’ living things, and what might this mean for Nature Based Coaching?
Crown shyness
Recently, on a walk at the wonderful Knepp Estate with my companion Karen Liebenguth, I was struck by the silence. In the space ‘inbetween’ our exchanges was a thick, almost tangible quiet.
Looking up, I noticed the autumn oaks were now quite bare. I could hear some of the remaining leaves dropping from the canopy, tapping branches as they fell to the ground. The clapping of stork bills in the distance. A gentle breeze. My own heartbeat.
I also noticed ‘crown shyness‘, the space inbetween the tree ‘crowns’. This is a clear gap where one part of the canopy ends, and another begins. The word shyness is apt, as it seems us humans shy away from slowing down or stopping long enough to hear silence.
The space between the notes
As Debussy once said, the space between the notes is as important as the notes themselves. In a landscape, the space between the hills tells us something about the underlying geology, or perhaps the passage of water over time. In a conversation, the space affords time to think, reflect, and notice. For the ability to hold Nancy Klein’s ‘thinking environment’ components including attention, equality and ease.
In John Cage’s famous piece in which piano is silent, the music emerges from the breathing, shuffling and coughing of the audience. The environment is the music. Something that was previously unseen is now seen, heard and felt
In these spaces something is free to happen, as Stephen Covey famously said in a quote often attributed to Viktor Frankl.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
Stephen R. Covey, 1999, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families: Creating a Nurturing Family in a Turbulent World
An empowering idea, highly relevant to forms of coaching which explore at the relationship between the parts, as well as the parts themselves, and which create space between the notes.
More than a mirror
In Nature Based Coaching we are used to thinking about relationships, systems, and the connections between things. We bring in what Peter Hawkins calls ‘the ecology’ – the more than human world that is in us and that we live with, by and through, as well as human relationships.
I was once challenged why a coach would bring the ecology into a conversation with a client. As if we are simply neutral containers; blank, valueless mirrors. This challenge misses the point about the nature of coaches, which is that we are humans too – as messy, contradictory and value-laden as their clients. But it also misses the point in terms of the point of bringing into our awareness things that are at first unseen. And especially inviting into the conversation the ‘unseen’ relationships we have with our families, our work colleagues, the places where we live, and the wider environmental systems we are part of.
Revealing a new space filled with light
So if we stop or pause, we may notice a space inbetween. The silence at Knepp was not an absence of noise – it was an invitation to notice what was there all along. Leaf rustle, bird song, wind, our own beating hearts. The tree crowns jostling and communicating. The audience – like John Cage’s – coughing and shuffling.
And in revealing crown shyness, we notice a new space inbetween. A space filled with light, which falls on the woodland floor and brings the possibility of life and growth to a myriad of small plants and wildlife.
How often do you stop to notice?
Experience a deeper relationship with Nature
This is the richness of engaging with Nature – by ourselves, or with others. If you would like to develop these skills in your coaching practice, you can join our next accredited training which starts in October.
Or you can do some coaching with us – we offer a range of coaching experiences, including longer ‘safaris’ in wild places.