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Combining
In 'Combining', Nora Bateson invites us into an ecology of communication where nothing stands alone, and every action sets off a chain of incalculable consequences. She challenges conventional fixes for our problems, highlighting the need to tackle issues at multiple levels, understand interdependence, and embrace ambiguity. Insisting on our collective responsibility to confront the looming threats to humanity‘ s survival, she advocates change through interconnectedness and challenges us to rethink our perspectives on relationships, community, and the very essence of being human. A blend of intellectual inquiry, essays, emotional engagement, storytelling, poetry and graphic art, 'Combining' is an invitation to nurture genuine connections and navigate a world brimming with “ Warm Data” – the interrelationships that integrate elements of every complex system. The book calls on us to shed our linear thinking and embrace “ Aphanipoiesis” – the unseen ways in which life comes together to foster vitality and propel evolution. In 'Combining', love, humor, curiosity, and vulnerability entwine amidst the trials of a world in flux. As we face the Polycrisis, Nora Bateson urges us to swerve from the traditional paths and to dismantle the illusions of fitting in. She beckons us to step into a world where learning, uncutness, and readiness converge, promising both revelation and revolution.
- GenresNonfictionEnvironment
396 pages, Paperback
Published November 21, 2023
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293 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 27, 2023
If there is any book that is full of life, that contains aliveness in all its shapes on every page - it’s this one!
January 1, 2025
Fabulous, energising, curious, complex. Embracing the meadows, the submerged and the visible and everything in between and around it, needs revisiting often. That book is a practice.
January 7, 2024
If you have read Gregory Bateson and Karen Pryor's 1969 work with Porpoises--how these beautiful creatures went wild in their creative exploration during research, this book by Gregory's daughter Nora is another description of that freedom.
In her previous book, Small Arcs, Nora had lifted her head in this direction: "In fact, it is reasonable and responsible to ask whether life, love or culture can really be described with words. To discuss the patterns and processes of the living world we will need to open the form, open the genres of our communication." pp184
In this book, she arrives.
When I first opened the book, I was overwhelmed as if 8 billion people of earth had come to visit me. For we talk of diversity but don't have the body awareness of the aesthetics that goes with it.
Fonts of various kinds, each carefully chosen to combine with the text/art. Academic prose lying side-by-side with poetry and free art, text curving over leaves and strokes, soft come-hither pieces rolling next to rigorous theory. Multiple worlds entangling like life itself, bewildering, plucking off usual pattern pathways.
This book, to me, combined as Kali rolling on earth, laughing through words and colours. Accessible, utterly profound and has to be cuddle-tended to.
An extraordinary invitation to the dance of life.
In her previous book, Small Arcs, Nora had lifted her head in this direction: "In fact, it is reasonable and responsible to ask whether life, love or culture can really be described with words. To discuss the patterns and processes of the living world we will need to open the form, open the genres of our communication." pp184
In this book, she arrives.
When I first opened the book, I was overwhelmed as if 8 billion people of earth had come to visit me. For we talk of diversity but don't have the body awareness of the aesthetics that goes with it.
Fonts of various kinds, each carefully chosen to combine with the text/art. Academic prose lying side-by-side with poetry and free art, text curving over leaves and strokes, soft come-hither pieces rolling next to rigorous theory. Multiple worlds entangling like life itself, bewildering, plucking off usual pattern pathways.
This book, to me, combined as Kali rolling on earth, laughing through words and colours. Accessible, utterly profound and has to be cuddle-tended to.
An extraordinary invitation to the dance of life.
January 5, 2024
To read this book is the experience of a meal, a nourishing meal prepared with care and ingredients who come from the ecology of attention to life. My experience reading this book has been profoundly digested and still I sense there is more to it that will become part of my cells in an exploration of possibility.
The reading of this book has been a different experience of reading. When it came in the mail, I thought of playing with it, so each day, I open the book for what ever page wanted to be opened and invited myself to read the chapter in front of my eyes, some times it engaged me for hours, sometimes for minutes, each day I will be marking those chapters as 'read'. Sometimes the opening invitation will land on 'a marked as read chapter' and i will read it again, and then go for the one next to it, either before or after. I think I have marked all the chapters now, but I am far from have finished the book. I don't think I will never 'finish' the book. It is compelling, not addictive. Each reading brings forth different nuances and, as Nora calls it, different minutiae that feeds me, nourishes me differently. Sometimes it is a whole meal, and my learning being needs time to digest. Some are tapas, and some of them come as a glass of wine that alters the flavours of what was read side by side. They combine all sorts of taste: sweet is there, and also sour. Umami, salty, and also bitter. I wouldn't call it a companion book, that label will allocate the book in a box, and I don't think there is a box for it, because the book changes in relationship with me, and I am changing all the time. Are you asking me if I recommend this book to you? Wholeheartedly. But the question I would ask is different. Are you willing to embark yourself in a relationship? In a living relationship that will be born and then it will take you in different pathways that you may not expect, and then in the process of learning to make sense of the world differently? These questions are not to be answered but invitations to be held in both hands, like you would hold an open book.
The reading of this book has been a different experience of reading. When it came in the mail, I thought of playing with it, so each day, I open the book for what ever page wanted to be opened and invited myself to read the chapter in front of my eyes, some times it engaged me for hours, sometimes for minutes, each day I will be marking those chapters as 'read'. Sometimes the opening invitation will land on 'a marked as read chapter' and i will read it again, and then go for the one next to it, either before or after. I think I have marked all the chapters now, but I am far from have finished the book. I don't think I will never 'finish' the book. It is compelling, not addictive. Each reading brings forth different nuances and, as Nora calls it, different minutiae that feeds me, nourishes me differently. Sometimes it is a whole meal, and my learning being needs time to digest. Some are tapas, and some of them come as a glass of wine that alters the flavours of what was read side by side. They combine all sorts of taste: sweet is there, and also sour. Umami, salty, and also bitter. I wouldn't call it a companion book, that label will allocate the book in a box, and I don't think there is a box for it, because the book changes in relationship with me, and I am changing all the time. Are you asking me if I recommend this book to you? Wholeheartedly. But the question I would ask is different. Are you willing to embark yourself in a relationship? In a living relationship that will be born and then it will take you in different pathways that you may not expect, and then in the process of learning to make sense of the world differently? These questions are not to be answered but invitations to be held in both hands, like you would hold an open book.
June 17, 2024
I don’t know how to describe this book. It is more of an experience than simply a book to read. I took it slowly, experiencing chunks and then setting it aside giving myself time to digest it before going back for more. I found it thought-provoking, challenging in exactly the right ways, and an important work for the times we are in right now. I will be returning to it since this is not a book to just finish and then set aside. Much gratitude to Nora Bateson for all of the deep thought and creative energy that went into this beautiful creation.
May 1, 2024
This book broke my heart (and brain, a little bit) in the way that a new shoot breaks open a seed. It hurt at the time, but I feel like it was for a good cause.
March 27, 2025
Absolutely gorgeous. Really love the interweaving of art, poetry, and essays.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews