In a newsletter I received this week from Giorgia Milne, a friend and teacher, I was struck by a quote at the beginning:

When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order:

Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1977

Possible implications of this assertion keep competing for attention in my mind.

For example, considering the behavior of SARS II 19, a.k.a. Covid, a range of behaviors among humans regarding testing, isolating, masking, vaccinating, distancing (a sea of chaos) has allowed pockets of the virus concentrations (islands of coherence) to evolve into strains that spread very efficiently (a higher order) that are likely at this point to remain among us perhaps forever.

An example of a different kind from my line of work involves considering that an informed, caring, touch (an island of coherence) to any location of a client’s body in pain of any kind (sea of chaos) can function as a fulcrum for the client’s own healing powers to organize around what wants attention and change (a higher order). And sometimes the fulcrum effect evolves from a way I touch the client by listening (!). Sometimes the « touch » is simply and powerfully what Giorgia calls a « Touch of Presence. » And sometimes it may seem structural and clinical, such as pressing directly into an agonizing trigger point for several seconds. In each case, the outcome is often exponentially more significant than the impetus it begins with.

In the arena of politics, I believe the principle may hold true as well. While there are strategies and efforts to mold people’s minds through media, strategies to control power with wealth, I believe the most powerful influences on my mind are personal. People talking in small groups, and especially one to one, touch me deepest. And these exchanges have been inhibited during our isolating, a condition I consider ominous. I believe the health of our present and future will be informed by our capacity to connect and reconnect from the heart as well as the head.

Each of us, potentially, is a « coherent island, » and our world is « a sea of chaos. » We have the capacity to shift the system to a higher order, despite the odds.