Metaphor, Hospicing, and the Work of Doing Otherwise

This editorial to the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change reflects on the tensions and possibilities shaping awareness‑based systems change in a moment marked by intensification—ecological destabilization, remilitarization, democratic backsliding, and widening ontological fractures. Writing from within this turbulence, we explore the demands of speaking and acting with integrity: the pull toward clarity and usefulness, and the countervailing pull toward dwelling, inquiry, and the hospicing of dominant habits of knowing. Drawing on parrhesia, Arendt’s amor mundi, and the relational labour of metaphor—including Indigenous and pluriversal traditions—we consider how metaphor functions as method, inviting forms of attentiveness capable of holding complexity without collapsing difference. We highlight contributions in this issue that work from thresholds and interstitial spaces, where dominant and emergent systems meet, and where reconciliation becomes the practice of staying in relation even when perspectives diverge. The editorial also honours the recent passing of several influential thinkers whose work has shaped this field—John O’Brien, Bill Torbert, Joanna Macy, Ha Vinh Tho, and Nicanor Perlas—and reflects on their shared commitment to bridging inner and outer transformation. We close by marking a milestone for the Journal of Awareness‑Based Systems Change: its acceptance into Scopus, signaling a widening of the conversation and a deepening commitment to rigorous, relational, and praxis‑rooted scholarship.