"a digital garden is something inbetween a personal blog and a wiki. it's a collection of evolving notes, essays, and ideas that aren't strictly organised by their publication date. they're inherently exploratory – posts are linked through contextual associations (bi-directional links). they aren't refined or complete - posts can be published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time. they're less rigid, less performative, and less perfect than the personal "blogs" we're used to encountering on the web." - maggie appleton on digital gardening tools and resources.

the digital garden metaphor can go a really long way. understanding your knowledge as a web of relationships can make us question, manage and design our information ecologies in more conscious ways. you can read more about my perspectives on knowledge management/sharing on about - my approach to knowledge development post.

keep in mind, the notes i tend to and share here are part of a slow process of sensemaking and knowledge-building about myself and the world. many of them will be messy, unfinished, poorly formatted, but i still try to apply different knowledge design patterns to make them more easily navigatable, as they're relevant/interesting enough that i want to share. :)

this is a behind-the-curtain view, deep-dive into my world and second brain. if you want to see my more polished content, you can check my newsletter, instagram, twitter (now X), and youtube channel. 😉

if you want to know more, you can check out maggie's amazing content on a brief history & ethos of the digital garden.

the goal of my research was to map, understand and curate multiple cohesive approaches and possibilities to answer the question:

how can we address the profound spiritual/psychological, ecological, economic, sociopolitical, technological and educational challenges we're going through and create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?

i.e. the inner and outer dimensions of the metacrisis.

by sharing my findings, i aim to establish some foundational knowledge commons to support us in navigating this complexity and enabling new, more resilient, regenerative systems, lifestyles and ways of being.

a couple investigation trails we'll dive into here are:

1) how can we support individuals and groups to create art, technology and games in service of consciousness development and ecosystems regeneration?

a.k.a. how can we develop systems and structures to support life thriving on earth?

2) how can we make life more like a sacred game?

a sacred game is not any kind of game. it's one that's deeply fun, collaborative, challenging, meaningful and fulfilling.
a game that honors the beauty and mystery of life, that challenges and supports us to flourish - to discover ourselves, unfold our potentials and share our gifts with others.

some people have a resistance with the game frame because of its often seen competitive, game-theoretical win-lose dynamics. i share that hesitation, in the normal sense of the term. that's why the concept of game i'm using here is closer to the infinite game and omni-win dynamics observed by thinkers such as buckminster fuller in the world game and communities such as fourgames, metagame.wtf and startover.xyz.

why not just "play" then?

because games introduce the distinction of serious play. a game can be a container in which you feel like you truly "gave it your best" - it may be an epic journey in which you thrive and learn/gather feedback from that - or you can also fail miserably and learn a bunch of other lessons from that. it provides a context for a profound, immediate, experiential form of learning, since you have a very tight application of the OODA loop.

this is therefore an inquiry into how we can: