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- Preface
- Introduction
- Three Zones and Nine Sectors
- Wings and Moves and other functions
- Biblical Journeys
- Prayer
- The Enneagram
- From the Enneagram to the Strategy Board
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The enneagram of the agricultural year
The agricultural year is a cyclical process – through the seasons of the year: ‘the seed time and the harvest,’ with winter – the fallow time – in between.
Immediately, the steady state phase and the two energy points have been identified: fallow time, sowing, and reaping – as NINE and THREE and SIX.
On the way toward that first definitive moment – the actual sowing of the seed at THREE – stage ONE might be the preparation of the seed for sowing, toward the end of the fallow time, and stage TWO might be the plowing of the field in preparation for the seed.
After the sowing at THREE, stage FOUR might be the initial nurture of the seedlings, and stage FIVE their later nurture to maturity. In between comes the point of no return, at which the decision is made, either seedling by seedling or field by field, that a plant is healthy enough to be worth the investment of nurturing to maturity. Once that decision is made, there is no going back.
In the fullness of time there is the harvest at SIX. Stage SEVEN might be the gleaning and the tidying of the field, and the securing of by-products like straw from wheat. Stage EIGHT could be the milling of wheat and the laying up of stores for the winter – and at point NINE there is rest and the cycle of the year is complete.
This is the cycle in its natural progression – but other factors can intervene, and these are represented by the internal arrows in the diagram.
If the ‘fallow time’ of NINE becomes a time of famine, you have to go backward from NINE to SIX to reap where you have not sown – by digging up roots or collecting wild resources to survive.
If birds or mildew destroy the newly sown seed, you have to go back from THREE to NINE to begin preparations all over again.
And if the harvest fails at SIX there is no fallow time – but an immediate return to work at THREE.
On the right hand side of the diagram, before the point of no return – a mature orchard needs some annual early season attention equivalent to the preparation of the seed at ONE, but no plowing or sowing: this could be represented by the arrow from ONE to FOUR, bypassing TWO and THREE.
A decision at early nurture stage FOUR that a plant or a field of plants is too weak to be worth further investment of energy is represented by the arrow from stage FOUR back to stage TWO – two steps back ‘to have another try’ before passing the point of no return.
On the left hand side of the diagram, after the point of no return, some crops – like the orchard again – may have a long season, with no specific moment of harvest – bypassing any single point SIX.
Different crops and different fields reaching maturity at different times in the harvest season may create a repeating harvest-season cycle of late nurture, harvesting, gleaning, processing, and more late nurture – all illustrated by the loop back from EIGHT to FIVE – although eventually this ‘local’ cycle ends and the year moves on to fallow time NINE.
And finally, various alternative connections are possible among the intermediate stages that border the fallow period. Across the fallow time, tasks concluding the current season may interact with preparations for the next: part of the harvest may be prepared now for use as next season’s seed, making the link forward from SEVEN to ONE; and even as preparations for the new season begin, it may be necessary to return to tasks relating to the end of the previous season, like milling grain and baking bread – the loop back from TWO to EIGHT.
The agricultural year is a regular cyclical process, which might be interrupted or adapted on occasions in a variety of ways, and for a variety of reasons: the nine internal lines of the enneagram illustrate all of the major options.
