Uxbridge, Massachusetts, USA
(508) 278-3247 fax
Sheryl (bottom left) with daughters, Hannah
and Sophie and husband, Martin Fuchs (three at right of
photo) on an Alaskan glacier
What is an underlying question that gives form to your work or interest in this field?
What can we aspire together to create?
What is your personal experience of collective
wisdom in groups?
Because I am visually oriented, spatial and kinesthetic,
my sensitivities in groups often show up by means of image, intuitions,
patterns, metaphors or provocations that appear in the moment. This
is my experience of what can happen in 1:1 conversations, just as it
also happens “when three or more are gathered together”.
I am alert to tone of voice, energy of intent and glimmerings of ideas
that arise spontaneously between two people or within a group. Over
the years, with more opportunities to practice, I am noticing greater
awareness and readiness for these more subtle dimensions that present
themselves in groups. Many are maturing in skills of dialogue, group
listening and the creative process.
Aesthetics and a natural inclination
for design, play strong roles in my own personal inclination to seek
coherence and make things manifest when working in groups. I love to
create tangible artifacts -- in ensemble -- from substantive material
that demonstrates a clear message and ability to engage. For me, there
is immense power and vitality generated when a group creates something
tangible together, when they spontaneously and organically tap into
complementary talents and skills, give form or clear shape to ideas
and experience what it is to crystallize collective intent.
I became most conscious of my call to convene groups
and explore the creative capacities of groups about 15 years ago with
a first large gathering of 375 people in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
This gathering came into form from a strong personal intuition, inspiration
and the power of collective creative process that was spirit-filled.
This was the first of two Bretton Woods Gatherings that I felt called
to create (with Terri Seever and a large circle of fellow stewards)
on behalf of a community of colleagues beginning to form a field of
study and practice identified as organizational learning. Based on these
early illuminating experiences, I have continued to convene gatherings
large and small, to experiment with group creative process and now turn
my attention to deeper understanding of the capacities of collective
wisdom. I am asking, “What is this emerging field of study and
practice? How can I (with others) support its emergence and well-being?”
What is it about the work in
this field that excites you and connects you to your own deepest self?
What excites me about this work is
that helping to evolve the emerging field of collective wisdom represents
a convergence of spiritual awareness and insight, ease and growing finesse
with a collective creative process, and maturing of a more refined intellectual
capacity, all in service of action in the world. I know that I have
a part to play in this emerging field of collective wisdom. I also know
in my bones that -- in my quiet, persistent and behind-the-scenes manner
-- I am called to this work to find a larger dynamic and enabling structure
to further the work. I am here as a midwife, guardian of the perimeter
and one-who-fans-the-flames of the Collective Wisdom Initiative.
Please provide a brief storyline
or snapshot of
what brought you to this work.
My early life experience was nested
in a rural environment, living in a small Oregon community, surrounded
by the fertile Willamette Valley and lush forests. Trees, rain, ferns,
fog, moss. More rain. Forests teaming with life. Appreciation and reverence
for Nature were pillars of everyday life. Most of my early years were
spent out of doors. Mountains, streams, wild animals and the weather
were constant companions.
I mention these, because I believe strong connections
with the vibrancy of nature during my youth has brought me to the work
that is my calling today. It has to do with cultivating our capacities
of collective wisdom, with our ability to tap into the fullness of life
and to partner with and be guided by it.
My Scandinavian and Swiss ancestry and family lines
imbued in me values of caring for one another in community, generosity,
integrity, humility and a high regard for ingenuity and resourcefulness.
That which today I consider “spiritual” was woven into everyday
life, embodied and made manifest through relationships. These too have
brought me to my part in the Collective Wisdom Initiative.
In the course of moving into larger worlds from
that rural beginning, I have been drawn to find my resonant place and
to contribute to endeavors that have been inherently generative: design
and evaluation of early childhood education programs, curriculum instruction
and design, community organizing, applied social science research, human
services systems design, leadership development, graphic design and
group explorations of the creative process. Based on these experiences,
I have found myself regularly convening groups and gathering together
colleagues, compelled by a desire to practice the creative process and
by the possibility of turning imaginings and ideas into manifest form.
I love to make things and to design spaces and experiences where people
engage and co-create with one another. Guided by a natural aesthetic
and spatial orientation, I find my sensitivities expanding, seeking
greater understanding of nuance and what has been described as subtle
realms. How do I/ we become more facile with skills of accessing, discerning
and expressing insight and multiple ways of knowing? How do we become
more skillful in this practice as ensembles?
A number of authors and books have been instrumental
in shaping my thinking that moved me toward my collective wisdom work
today: Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Krishnamurti (all of
his writings); Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building and
The Nature of Order; A Course in Miracles; Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala:
The Sacred Path of the Warrior; Faith and Practice: New England Yearly
Meeting of Friends and Lynn Hoffman, Exchanging Voices. I am also grateful
for the teachings and opportunities for practice with Robert Fritz,
Charlie Kiefer and Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, for their intricate
interweaving of ideas and practices of the creative process, collective
alignment, power of enrollment, systems thinking and the call to create
together the future to which we most aspire.
I have been called over the past 15-20 years to
learn more of what can come through groups who join one another with
caring and a common intent, in service of something larger than self-interest.
My underlying question has continued to deepen: What can we aspire together
to create? How can we consciously cultivate capacities of collective
wisdom? How do we cultivate and trust in the power of relationships
and in the integral presence of that which is spiritual, i.e., profound
meaning, coherence, wholeness and our collective potential for serving
How would you like to be available to others in
I am available through the Collective Wisdom Initiative
website and directly by email. If you would like
to contact me, let’s begin in this way. It is most valuable for
me to connect initially at least by telephone and to allow insight or
ideas to come through a relaxed and exploratory conversation. My commitment
is to serve the emergence of the collective wisdom field by co-creating
with people in this field.
The aperture of possibilities for me is wide. Day by
day, I am listening, watching, sensing, acting on image and inspiration
as I experience the collective wisdom field present itself through the
CWI website. Please join me in doing the same. I welcome your reflections
and observations on behalf of this emerging field. We can listen together
for insight and guidance and then find, invent and enable what is natural
and a next right action.
Links to this site or others: