Today I went to a Mindful Urban Adventure with a group of perfect strangers.
My lab was the V&A in South Kensington, London, with several floors of fascinating curiosities and a few street corners in the vicinity, all holding potential for insight and discovery.
Inspired by a World Wide Wander Street Wisdom Walkshop I did with Ula Caroto last year and Daniele Fiandaca last month, I sent this group of 11 strangers on a Thinking and Wander quest.
Through the alleys and floors of the museum:
– we followed what attracted us
– we discovered new things by slowing down our pace (to the speed of hairgrowth)
– we sensed beauty in the most unexpected places
For each of these sections, people went off for 10 minutes, and converged back having collected new meaning. Then we went again…
Each participant crafted a personal question that needed attention, shared it with a peer with no interruption.
This time, the quest lasted longer and we surrendered to the magnificient surroundings as they offered us subtle clues and unexpected answers.
Some wanderers stayed in the museum, other disappeared on the streets, a church and a park nearby …
And as there is no enjoyable group experience without a bath of the freshest thoughts, and insights, we converged again to bring our findings together and explore possible commitments…
The beauty of this is that during such a walkshop, we can bring our most existential questions, or complex governance, strategic, serious business queries if we want to, it works too.
All of this is available to us if we only re-learn how to look around.
Which street or place would you like to get inspiration from with a group of kind thinking strangers?
Join one walkshop or lead your own! https://www.streetwisdom.org/
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