Open Space Sangha

2008-11-06T21:08:00.000-08:00

I believe we are at a system chnaging crossroads of globalsiation over the next year unlike any other - if there are other alumni of open space who agree with this unprecedented opportunity -love to know where we can collaborate in opening space

hwat once in a generation transformation opportunities can we ma

beyond wall street

beyond carbon

beyond a white house and washington led by big business

the need to create jobs, and celebrate community building

uniting world's people around a potential return to millennium goals

how can open space contribute to collaborations between people, an end of poverty ... http://futurecapitalism.ning.com/forum/topics/2243665:Topic:183

mythos and the larger sangha

2007-03-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

Hi all!
Might our Sangha have gone into an extended silent retreat and no one bothered to tell me? Or are people sitting in the circle...asleep?

In any case, I have some new questions to share inspired by a book circle discussion of Harrison's Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations."

Harrison writes that his definition of theory is "a likely story". He also writes that "myth is neither true nor false, but rather *behind* truth - as the body of material through which a culture's values, purpose, and direction come to expression. Myth is not just "any old story," it is *the* story, which gives shape and focus to Spirit, and makes everything make sense. Myth, in short is the "eyeglasses" through which a given people perceive and interpret their world. It is
the vantage point from which, or by which the *true" is judged to be true...

"But myth does more. On a deeper level, myth communicates the moving quality of the human Spirit as it seeks to become whatever it was supposed to be...

"It is common practice to speak of myth and ritual as if they were two separate things, but that is not so, for ritual is simply putting the words of myth into form, motion, and usic. Myth and ritual are two sides of the same thing, which I will call *mythos*.

"Finally, myth doesn't just commuicate *about* Spirit in its quest, but in some way manifests that Spirit in experiential terms; you can feel it." (pp.8-9, "Spirit...")

Harrison continues later in saying that his way of eliciting the story(-ies) in an organization is to ask the question:

"What are things like around here?"

This has me asking two questions--

1. What is the mythos of the international community/organization of Open Space Technology facilitators?

2. What is the mythos of the international annual Open Space on Open Space?

When I think of these answering these questions, I am reminded of what some say when holding a storytelling circle:

that the circle is an invitation to share any story, a mad, glad, sad, silly, irreverent, or even humorous story.

spaceholding

2006-10-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

It has been quiet here, an echo perhaps of the discussion on the OS list about the "silent presence" and its connection with spaceholding.

This brings me to a question I have been holding space for some time:

What life experience led to a breakthrough in your understanding of spaceholding?

As you sit pondering this question, I wonder who else is sitting in this question circle besides me?

Looking forward to your responses!
raffi

Center, of a Basket

2006-06-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

oooooooooo, this is so fun! Thank you Wendy & Raffi.

In correspondence with Raffi I've been talking a lot about containers.

Raffi suggested the opener-feeling space of an inviting meadow. Which I like.

I thought about the word container (which as a word sounds a little tupperwary). I realized that when I think container, I see:

a basket
floating in outer space
woven with many energy strands
that flow out from people's hearts
to weave into the basket, which contains
a sphere of empty dark space
at the center of which is
a fire

I am amazed at some teachings about original fire. I have learned that fire contains ~ knows ~ all the languages that have ever been spoken. Ceremonial firekeepers I know strike original fire from flint & steel. And among indigenous people I know of two fires, and imagine that there are many more, which have been kept from time immemorial, ceremonially re-lit once each year and tended for all the nights and days in between this annual ceremony.

Warm thoughts to you all on a dark, misty late night,
Chris

2006-06-09T04:35:00.000-07:00

Any views on which is the largest serial open space in the world? World Social Forum is one Nomination. Others welcome

Center

2006-06-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

Wendy,

Center is fundamentally about synkairosity, the term you proposed a few weeks back on the OSlist.

I will elaborate soon on this on the OSlist even though we have been calling and living synkairosically since before creation.

But the short version:

- synkairosity (term proposed by Dr. Wendy Farmer-O'Neil) is a fundamental "implicit intention" for all energy forms--

syn-- exchange, conversation, exchange, creation
k- Kosmos- (Ken Wilber, Brief History of Everything)- made up of physiosphere, biosphere, noosphere, theosphere

ai- appreciative inquiry

r- remembering (as the form of right doing in our current iteration called "deep emergence"

os-...

kairos- time + space (as opposed to linear time-- "chronos"; we need both)- all time, no time, timelessness co-existing, granularized potential of the expanding Now.

we are not just working with emergence (1985-2004) or even deep emergence (2004-...) but since all time and no time exist all the time we are working with all six betweens (Tibetan book of living and dying)-- and that's the invitation for all energy.

An essence map of the synkairosic perspective on how energy forms "be"--

a sphere-- outer shell the affimatively inquisitive lens
next shell- open space
core-- the Nothing' within the Nothing (it's a deeper open space that's not even about creation)-- "lenselessness"

My question--

What is the question that is synkairosically waiting to be remembered next?

Returning to love

2006-05-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ahhh. I have just been reading Thich Nhat Hahn's, Taming the Tiger. He has so many ideas for returning to love and compassion and letting go of anger. I'm not him--although i reserve the right to harbour aspirations.

So, what has helped me to return to Love when my heart is full of anger?

Breathing.

Getting some space.

Fully experiencing the pain of holding on to the anger. This can be a real incentive to let it go--when you can actually feel how it is killing you.

Reconnecting to love of the other. Sometimes i get the gift of the sensation of how much i love the person i am feeling anger towards. This gift helps me to completely change my perspective and then the anger seems so small and silly it's easy to let it go.

Invoking courage. I blogged about this one here. Courage opens the heart. Sometimes you just have to connect to your courage and pass through the eye of the storm.

Sitting still in nature. Again, this seems to be about re-centering and grounding--when i see the beauty, simplicity and elegance of nature, i can't hold on to the anger. My heart opens.

Enlisting the help of others. ( I am feeling angry. I am suffering. I need your help.)

And the biggie...the really tough one...the essential practice...self-forgiveness. When i find i have persistent anger, it is almost always rooted in self-anger, harshness, or self-hatred for something i have done, said, thought, or omitted. I can't let go of my feelings of anger towards others until i have dealt with the roots of the anger towards myself. I find it far more difficult to forgive myself than anyone else. And so i have begun practicing sending love to myself lately as a preventative measure.

Thanks for this question, Raffi. I have appreciated the opportunity to think about it some more. It occurs to me that simply asking this question is a profound step on the path to achieving it. The simple awareness that it is desirable and possible to reconnect the heart to love and not dwell in anger is a powerful tool in itself.

And so...the next question...

What does center mean to you?

dropping ripe into open space

2006-05-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

“We are all ripening in our own way, at our own pace. Ripening is going on all around us, naturally, ineluctably. Eventually we let go and drop -- pure, beautiful, ripe, juicy -- into open space. Existence is fully awake already, just waiting for us to drop into emptiness.”

from Meredith of Graceful Presence

2006-03-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

Breaking Views from ClubofLondon current #1 in collaboration knowledge city bookmarks (votes over 40 million)

This week saw world water day come and go with less than a ripple. Did Londoners know how they could have contributed more news on this around the world? no matter

Next week is arguably the biggest in the calendar for gifts to the world Londoners as number 1 collaboration knowledge city can start up, and make the next 6 years marathon of make poverty history connect all around the world

With Al Gore visiting the twin cities of London and Oxford, we cannot imagine a better time to Launch the Social Entrepreneur Olympics. The game is to have got 30 gravity pursuits of social entrepreneur world champions into the public consciousness by 2012 as much as the top 30 sports.

All we need is love and courage to cheerlead cross-cultural creativity's waves:

The Livingstone has got us off to a great start; he has declared there will be no sporting Olympics in London in 2012 unless they are carbon free - turn up the heat on every politician since only photosynthesis innovations can produce clean energy of that sustainability magnitude. Make sure all those who host Al Gore events debrief him as the clock to 2012 counts down

The lessons to be learnt from Make Poverty History from pop stars down can be an epiphany if University of Stars and the BBC turn their minds to the greater transparencies (eg end all country corruptions) needed if Make Poverty History is to be a reality network not just an image-making one

So that's 28 more gravity pursuits we need to celebrate around social entrepreneurs with as much gusto as the 20th Century hailed sporting stars

We are reminded of one Harrison Owen story I should tell because open spacing education is a social entrepreneur pursuit every family can stand up for whereas we cannot all help on the ground with projects in Africa or in the roofs that algae use to convert the sunshine into cleansing energy banks.

He was studying to be a priest around the Washington Dc area. It was a time when Martin Luther King was having a dream. Harrison can't recall quite how it happened but he was standing in a civil rights field in a crowd of African Americans - one tall lanky white man. The police were beginning to charge on the crowd and Harrison was feeling quite scared. That is until a 7 year old black girl came up to him - and said Mister will you hold my hand

Since that day, Harrison gave up the priesthood to the chagrin of most of his family. And is one of the handfuls of people who most interconnects conflict resolution facilitators around the world. Their networks criss-cross all religions that believe in golden rules of reciprocity such as so unto another what you want done unto you. They also connect mathematically - if Einstein is correct here at http://clubofdc.blogspot.com - to Gandhi as the greatest inventor of peaceful social entrepreneurial revolution that 144 years of The Economist's coverage of this most productive of all professions.

If some of this post makes sense to you, why not re-edit the parts you like and send it to the board of Governors of the BBC, and should you wish Tony Blair or another politician well with their legacy why not copy them in to. We the British people, not any of our political representatives own the BBC. We have invested way over 50 billion pounds in this corporation. On a personal note to all scots- may I ask whether you feel the inventor of television would feel proud of a television where every big debate is framed one dimensionally around short-term left and right rivals or whomever is looking fore a job with big business if the party does not turn out Trumps for their apprenticeship to network power.

It is high noon for the BBC with its 10 year licence determined by and for the people in the year of 2o06. Please could our world service be one of British Character we can feel both pride and humility in searching for. Please free your journalists for humanity to take a fearless lead in realising this open source script from 1984 , so that trust across peoples everywhere begins to flow through every documentary inquiry that has anything to do with world peace or nightly newscast on poverty's challenges through 2012 - and through these communications help the British to get to know 30 gravity pursuits of Social Entrepreneurs with as much joy and attention as the 30 sports it spend most public licence fees on. Hey when Brits helped to invent most of these sports we surely never intended they would take over from greater British realities of world service, through believing in CommonWealth principles and our Queen's higher order right to ask us as she did in her end of 2005 broadcast to unite in preventing globalisation from turning humanity on itself.

For the same of deeper democracy blossoming and connecting every coordinate on earth, you can also play a jigsaw mapping game aimed at sustaining 2 million global villages. Here's part of my family's tree which may open up some useful connections- what connections could your family tree or that of your peer networks open source. If you can make a "peer or family tree" picture why don't we play the mixed networking games of swap and snap. If we are going to turn around globalisation’s exponentials sustainably in time, we are all going to have to work with whatever grassroots community contexts up we can help each other navigate. No lead is too small as long as it is one you intend to gravitate transparently around as part of you lifelong learning mission. We need to help change children's education now so that the core human rights of freedom and happiness have a chance to breathe nature's clean waters, airs and energies everyone human beings sing her praises. Let's all turn up the courage through every family in the land and into wherever co-mentoring networks in internet space may take A B C D E F you

When is the time to let go?

2006-03-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

My goodness it has been quiet here!

The time to let go is:

- when I recognize that continuing to hold on is funny and an excellent opportunity for loving self-deprecation.

- when I can see at least glimpse what may lie in the beyond if I let go

- when I see by continuing to hold on I am sloshing about in a muddy puddle in the street

- when I can see my own smallness and delightful insignificance and hold my personal potential at the same time

- now!

And my question to our circle of X number people-

What has helped you return to Love when your heart has been full of anger?

being called to be a host

2006-01-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

Namaste!

I just joined the open space sangha, thanks Wendy for the invitation you posted to OS list...I was part of the question circle at OSonOS this year and I enjoyed it very much. And thanks to it now I explore this wonderful blog that speaks to my heart...

wow, your question is quite a powerful one for me dear Wendy because I was actually “initiated” as a host at a magical place called Castle Borl where the art of hosting was also born! Story goes like that: a visionary by the name of Miha Pogacnik who founded Idriart starts being a guardian for this extraordinary space and offers it as a learning space to those who hears Castle Borl's (ww.borl.org) calling...in summers of 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 one of the events hosted at this magical place was called “Open Space Learning Village” which turned out to be a catalyst, a cooking pot, a transformative space for many individuals and groups that gave birth to many ideas and initiatives such as art of hosting, such as learning centers...
I too found myself at this castle, first time in 2002, where I met open space for the first time...well that encounter obviously changed my life profoundly. It was the start of a longer, deeper, transforming process of opening up, self-exploration, facing fears, understanding freedom and community...I remember how terrified and lost I was in the first few days of open space, my body and my mind reacted so strongly, I contracted with fear that came with this immense freedom and space and not knowing what to do with myself...a lot of insecurity came up that I had to face...can you imagine I didn't even know how to ask questions at that point, I was coming out of such limited space with defined corners.
Then I slowly relaxed and enjoyed the magic rhythm of open space and the humor and interconnectedness that came along with it...
one crucial process that wonderfully complemented open space was the circle...it just occurred to me actually that the circle and open space are like the feminine and masculine energies that complement, balance, feed each other...
so running around Castle Borl in open space was the first time I deeply connected with myself and the world around me which is one after all...
It was a beautiful experience of a personal and collective transformation into higher consciousness and that is exactly what it means for me to host...
this experience of opening that helped me to find the power, strength, capability, love and care within me was the moment when I knew I was called to be a host...

here is the question that just appeared before me out of nowhere...
when is the time to let go?

Thank you for this beautiful space...
filiz

Motivation and doing what you love

2006-01-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

Dear Raffi,

Can't stand it anymore that your question has sat here since my birthday and not had an answer. So here i go...we are a circle of two at this point with lots of empty chairs for anyone to join who wants to.

So, motivation and doing what i love...well, my breakthroughs have all come from putting myself deliberately into situations that i was afraid of and that i was unsure i could succeed at. In other words, purposely confronting fear.

I think of lack of motivation as resistance. And resistance is most often about fear. Every time i confront mine, i learn a bit more about it and me, and i am less in its grasp. I am starting to make fear and pain my friends because of all the things they can teach me. And if i want to live in open space (as i understand it) this is necessary, because it is so tempting and so much easier to shut down to difficult feelings (even the good ones, like the inexplicable and unreasonable way i love all of you) than it is to push through the terrifying, but oh-so-thin veil of fear/pain that stands in the way of opening to the next possibility.

And what were some of those lessons?

Let's see..there was spelunking at River Bend Cave on Vancouver Island (5-hour trip including a 20ft belly crawl through wet gravel and a three-storey free climb over a 7-storey drop--btw never climbed or caved before) where i learned that in order to discover the delights over the next horizon you have to let go and trust the rope.

Model Mugging intensive course--full contact self-defense--where i learned that there was an inviolable place inside and that in the end i could commit 100% to myself and never give up.

10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat -- There were so many deep learnings at this one...a highlight? how to observe and not react--a special kind of discipline that is very helpful for overcoming old patterns, inertia, and resistance.

Toronto Airport last August where i got on my scheduled plane to OSonOS Halifax despite the turmoil of the morning after the crash--i learned the value of calm yet direct persistence and just how much energy achieving even a small goal can take!

Art of Hosting - Bowen Island - sitting with my fears of inadequacy around doing what i love -- discovering that the veil *is* thin and that the shortest way out of suffering is through the centre of it all.

At the Art of Hosting, we were asked a question; this question was also a breakthrough for me, as it connected my calling with my doing, as i realized that for me Open Space is, at its deepest level, about the liberation of the human spirit.

And so, i want to pass the question from that circle on to you:

What was the moment you knew you were called to Host?

Short reflection on Insight and Transformation

2006-01-25T22:48:00.000-08:00

When i am not-busy holding space, i often find myself wondering about why/how this wonderful thing called Open Space is working. Some of the pieces that have surfaced for me include the invitation/intention of calling forth attention, the deepening concentration during the day, and sustained collective effort. A passage in Thich Nhat Hahn's, "Taming the Tiger Within", caught my eye yesterday and seems to me to be related to what is happening in an Open Space event:

The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concentration as well as the energy of insight. Concentration helps you to focus on just one thing. With concentration, the energy of looking becomes more powerful. Because of that, it can make a breakthrough that is insight. Insight always has the power of liberating you. If mindfulness is there, and you know how to keep mindfulness alive, concentration will be there, too. If you know how to keep concentration alive, insight will come also. So mindfulness recognizes, embraces, and relieves. Mindfulness helps us look deeply in order to gain insight. Insight is the liberating factor. It is what frees us and allows transformation to happen.

open space lunch-hour

2006-01-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

Why not! A cafe is a 60-minute format you could convene in your lunch break inside or outside a corporation!

I know we have to give up some of the goals of open space and gain other connections- which do you see as trading in or out?

SUMMARY
A cafe invites people to join in round one specific but organsiation-wide challenge that you feel passionately about

By choosing to lead te issue you become the centre of its social network

As long as it is systemically connected to building higher trust relationships of everyone around the company and its vision, why wouldn't you be premitted to unse intranet, internal weblogs or other online modes to host a co-creation idea aligned with the company and in people's lunchtime?

An answer

2006-01-15T04:13:00.000-08:00

Wendy,
Thanks for your invitation.
I think the latest post to my OS blog contains the answer to your question.

San Diego, California
Jan. 2006

To continue the relay, my question:

What have been the breakthroughs in your life in motivating yourself, especially around doing things you love?

(Wendy, if that isn't a wicked question, I'll eat my hat)

raffi

Invitation to Play--An Inquiry Circle in the Sangha

2006-01-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

I thought for the New Year, we might try a bit of an experiment. I wondered if we could try to host an inquiry circle (a la Lisa Heft) here at the Sangha. It was very powerful in person in Halifax, and i hoped we might be able to capture some of that here--or at least see what happens.

The basic guidelines are as follows: The first person poses a question. The next person in the circle answers it and then asks the next question. This continues until it reaches round the circle to the person who posed the original question.

Here in the Sangha, it will look like this: If you want to answer the question and ask the next question (taking your place in the circle) you write a response and post it (you have to be quick here or someone may beat you to it--that's part of the fun). If you missed out on being the first to tackle the question, post your response as a comment and keep a look out for your next turn. I'd like to request that each of us leave space for others to take their seats in the circle after we have responded once.

If you are not already registered as a member of the Sangha and you want to answer a question and pose the next one, you have two choices: You can email me at the link on the right and ask to join, or you can email me your contribution and I will post it on your behalf.

So, let's get the ball rolling with a wicked one...

What is your experience of Spirit and Open Space?

250 open space projects for 9 to 13 year olds

2006-01-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

We've started 250 parallel ones at http://ninenow.blogspot.com

This is how- do come and hold one of the 250 spaces if it sounds worth trying to you
Mail me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk that you want an invite. Its not a lot of work nominating one topic, as the example below illustrates

OVERALL IDEA OF NINENOW
Imagine a 5 year diary started for a 9 year old today but to be completed as if it was 250 topics - one a week; each one they can add their own learnings to through the 5 years

what sorts of topics should we by inviting them to discover

SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF ONE OF 250 OPEN SPACES
one example is sport- my nine year old's happens to be swimming but it could be almost anything; if I were a journalist asking her some questions to start her diary off, I feel I should ask:
work did you have to do to become as good as anyone of my age and in my town at this sport?

Did I enjoy being confident that I could be as good as anyone at something?

What else might I want to try next to be as good at?

What other questions would be more fun to write some answers while I am 9 to 13 and about swimming?

Hope this is clear. I am looking for another 249 subjects that open space so every 9 to 13 year child could enjoy write up their own learning curve on many of them; and I rather assume that if and when all schools permit kids to convene their open space cafes in their lunch breaks, some of the 250 topics we choose will match what the kids would choose for other kids with the chnace to reflect back on 9 to 13

Finally, I dont want to reinvent the wheel. If someone is already doing ninenow, please tell me. However I do think this needs to be generated by families and kids so we can free up teachers from the examination modes bossy governments adccidentally chain our kids learning in until there is no open space left. I also strongly believe that as well as failing our kids by not introducing them to open space they are failing to train them in how to use the net to find their own mentors through life and help others do likewise - this open practice is outlined here

2005-12-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

Various journalists, researchers and I are surveying at this valuation blog which market sectors we see as compounding increasing conflicts with humanity's needs . Before the sample below, two questions, what the biggest sector conflict in your areas of interest which we haven't listed yet, and are any of these sectors that you open space regularly around? (In the latter case sould we form clubs to share knowledge of who is trying what reconciliation experiments where)

chris wcbn007@easynet.co.uk

Healthcare – increasing costs
Children – increased family strain, lost safety of community
Professionals- loss of Hippocratic oath, ever more bureaucratic
Water – Clean water is getting scarcer
Transport – getting slower
National Government – Increasingly powering over instead of facilitating what people need next Mass media – dumbing down, loss of social space and transparent debates
Food chain – cost of good for you food going up
Nations Cultures- love of each other’s diversity going down
Pensions (investment in sustainable growth) – going down
Adult confidence in making a difference with lifelong learning potentials – seems to be going down
Insurance – cost going up, learnings across biggest tragedies seem increasingly blocked
Underclass – compounding underclass- their loss of hope in life and mutual risks to all of us in a hi-connected world
NGOs/Charity – Global*Local infrastructure further removed from depth of grassroots needs in crisis or sustainability turnround challenges

ho day

2005-12-02T00:25:00.000-08:00

the birthplace of open space technology
(photo by Wickenden, under the Creative Commons license)

Dear Harrison! Happy 70th Birthday to you,
celebrating at the Practice of Peace in Berlin

Here's a little handful of passages
in lieu of a birthday card:

One Heart

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born
out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, friend, open
at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

Li-Young Lee

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.

Rumi

Having Come This Far

I've been through what my through was to be
I did what I could and couldn't
I was never sure how I would get there

I nourished an ardor for thresholds
for stepping stones and for ladders
I discovered detour and ditch

I swam in the high tides of greed
I built sandcastles to house my dreams
I survived the sunburns of love

No longer do I hunt for targets
I've climbed all the summits I need to
and I've eaten my share of lotus

Now I give praise and thanks
for what could not be avoided
and for every foolhardy choice

I cherish my wounds and their cures
and the sweet enervations of bliss
My book is an open life

I wave goodbye to the absolutes
and send my regards to infinity
I'd rather be blithe than correct

Until something transcendent turns up
I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused.

James Broughton (also known as Big Joy)

Earth Verse

Wide enough to keep you looking

Open enough to keep you moving

Dry enough to keep you honest

Prickly enough to make you tough

Green enough to go on living

Old enough to give you dreams

Gary Snyder

walking in the open space between
(photo by Quas, under the Creative Commons license)

bursting open

2005-11-30T10:04:00.000-08:00

"If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders."

—Andrew Harvey, The Return of the Mother

The facilitator as Artist

2005-11-19T22:09:00.000-08:00

There has been a long thread running on the OSList lately about whether those who Open Space call ourselves facilitators or what. Many fessed up and declared that we feel uncomfortable with the term, but that we often continue to use it, because clients/sponsors understand it.

“If the group is an art form of the future, then convening groups is an artistry we must cultivate to fully harvest the promise of the future.”
Jacob Needleman, Centered on the Edge

This quote arrived in my Art of Hosting package and on the heels of re-reading, for the first time in ages, Eric Maisel's, Fearless Creating. Which had got me thinking about myself as an artist again. So much of his description of the artistic process reflects the practices of open space.

So i am offering this up to you all for consideration. The facilitator as Artist. Artist in the creative sense and Artist in the alchemical sense as well--taking the common stuff of the Now, that which Is, and with Artful intent mixing it in the crucible of chaos. Then dancing on the edge of the feather of uncertainty, with only the lodestone of faith in those present as a guide, and gently holding the energetic flame beneath until something new emerges.

During a recent three-day OS, i had the opportunity to observe myself in this light and wonder about the metaphor. Here are the results of this initial wondering: artistic medium: the quantum stuff of chaos, the emergent field; artist's tools: OST and other dialogic methods, personal preparation/spiritual practice, creativity and design, energy awareness/work; the work of art: the liberation of the human spirit. (Which i believe, like all works of Art, is not of the Artist, but comes through the Artist. The Artist as conduit for the expression of Spirit in the material world.)

So i'm going to play with being a facilitator-Artist for a while and wait for the next bold thing to emerge--i can already feel the field of potentiality swirling...[grin]

cross-posted to wordgravity

Beyond News and 11/11

2005-11-14T06:17:00.000-08:00

Whilst I wrote the post below today to open up a blog Beyond News, I feel it's relevant here too. As is the other great question on my mind over the weeknd, how do we forever search Peter Drucker's advice and implement its practice. If there are open space alumni who believe his life work's connects with ours, why not form a flash email discussion with me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk and we can report back to this blog any considerations we form.

THE NEWS BEYOND THE NEWS
When you come to reflect on it, news is a very slippery information flow

It seems most valuable when instanataneous but that means no time for analytical reflection. Worse knowledge mapmakers believe news has no transparent meaning without being connected to other contexts from history and of the future's human possibilities

News is therefore very risky to make a leadership decision with, unless you have the great fortitude to revisit decisions made at time of news to question if the news and so your decision wasn't wholly correct. This is more importnat the bigger the global system a leader's judgement influnce. A system that is hugely purposeful and may have involved decades of investment of money and knowledge opwrk, may be turned viciously into self-destruction mode by one wrong decision. Yet sometimes the news media asks you to make decisions in such time frames.

My father wrote for The Economist for nearly 40 years. He counted himself lucky that there was only one deadline for judging what to print per week. He didnt know how serious daily papers could judge news events carefully, let alone tv anchormen. From 1984's research of Death of Distance he foresaw how the internet would challenge every 20th C mass media's notion of its worth. Ten yeras earlier he had started telling stories on how entrepreneurial revolutionaries must protyect themselves from image-making excesses by knowing the deepest reality-making of their innovative purposes and ensuring that they discovered investors who susstianed their innovation -the very opposite of some global accounting's built to flip concultancy

As someone whose life's research of local societies in every hemisphere has come to heroise transparent conflict resolution facilitators, I believe Beyond News has many implications - that are at least worth open space question rehearsals before any to be great leader gets rushes of certainty about any value multiplying context, the more so it is one with globally diverse views that need deep democractising or simpol mediation around the people's globe, or organising democracy. If you have a context that impacts all of the world's people that seems not to be getting the news consideration it merits, do tell me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk . I commit to narrowcasting through 2000 people in my inbox from over 50 countries and across 100 Club of Cities to try and find a few people who want to snap with your concern

One other starting proposition, and a very contrarian one for this media. I am interested in co-editing blogs that are timeless, questioning a context through the future history of time not providing instatantaneous posts. If there's a topic of human interest that you feel merits a timeless blog approach, please do propose it - chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk subject- my timeless nomination is...

cross-posting. . .

2005-11-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

This is just my humble opinion but I would prefer that folks in this group blog do not post their comments BOTH on the OSListserve and here. The duplication is enervating. Twice now I've come over here to blog and lost my energy when I saw that something I had just read on the listserv was duplicated here.

I believe the long-term community-building potential of this blog would be enhanced if we aspired to avoid cross-posting.

But hey, that's just me.

Kairos and OST

2005-11-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

I posted this on the OSlist and I bring it here as it is definitely about being in open space.

I often think of OST as a means of creating conditions that assist individuals in greater listening to self and to others... expanding awareness and deepening connection. A friend recently wrote to me, teaching me about the word Kairos:

"Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment". It is now used in theology to describe the qualitative form of time. In rhetoric kairos is "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved." (E. C. White, Kaironomia p. 13)"

Living my life in Open Space has really intensified my awareness and recognition of kairos. The principles and law are my little friends, whispering sweet encouragement into my ears, reminding me that what is of essence arises at the right time, it is only myself that must rest into patience and acceptance. OST has helped me recognize the "right or opportune moment" when it is present, whenever it starts is the right time, when it's over, it's over. Listening for the wisdom emerging in the group, listening for what needs to be spoken has helped tune me into that passing instant when an opening appears, and the law of two feet, taking responsibility for what I love, drives me in with guided forcefulness.

"In The Interpretation of History, Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher made prominent use of the term. For him, the kairoi are those crises in history which create an opportunity for, and indeed demand, an existential decision by the human subject."

It is my sense that this is what so many of us Open Space facilitators are sniffing out. Our attention is awake and attuned to the aromas of crises in history which create an opportunity for, and indeed demand, an existential decision by the human subject. From my perception so many of you not only acknowledge and honor these moments but at the same time, open and hold the space for as many individuals as possible to rise to this occasion. You open space, creating a container within which people are ready and listening, and at the right and opportune moment they gracefully embody and move forth with their existential decision.

I give thanks for each of you and for the living entity of Open Space, sharing its gifts with the world.

New to site and OS

2005-11-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

Hell0-
thanks, Wendy, for sending this invite- I met Wendy last week at the Art of Hosting workshop in Bowen Island, Vancouver. What a beautiful space to learn how to 'open space'- and more! I'm somewhat new to this technology- still getting feet wet, etc. I love to learn by reading, doing and observing. To that point, in addition to getting to know people here in the online community, I'd love to meet some people doing this work in the Boston or New England area- and wondering if and where you are out there? If someone knows of people in this area (I live 40 minutes outside of Boston), i'd love the contacts and any info.

Many thanks- looking forward to learning with you all - in what I see is a very generous community. ( my work is Organizational consulting and coaching- working mostly in corporate settings- wanting to move to less traditional, more places of personal value for me- . Also work with individuals and teams.)

Warmly,
Lenore Mewton

all roads lead to open being

2005-11-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

I'm just cogitating over something Chris Macrae (sp?) wrote about the need to increase people's opportunities to be introduced to open space. While acknowledging that the gold standard of a three day open space is a good ideal, Chris makes a good case for brief open spaces. I agree, generally speaking, that it is always better to have open space than to not have it and if short experiences are what is possible, then that is great. Any open space is better than none.

But, more and more, I believe that in order to really 'know' open space, to 'be' in open space most effectively, people need not just three day open space events but multiple exposure to three day open space events. As work teams exist in an environment that openly embraces the principles of OS, they become ever more deeply aligned, tapping into collective wisdom that is always greater than the individual. The more adept a group becomes at flying in inner alignment, the greater they become.

I believe the world really, really, really needs people to be discovering the power of collectively aligning ourselves inwardly.

I think OST needs to move way, way beyond being seen as a meeting methodology or a strategic planning tool or an action planning tool. I think OST is a brilliant team building tool. I believe that any organization that sincerely wishes to tap the highest and best wisdom of its members will aspire to do all of their collaborations in a conscious embrace of the principles of open space.

things really fly

2005-11-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

Harrison on "Afterfeelings"

...The key to effective facilitation in OS is authenticity -- that sort of focused presence that comes when an individual really knows and accepts themselves, warts and all. All the rest, I find to be interesting, but pretty inconsequential. Which I guess is why we can make all sorts of "mistakes" and everything turns out just fine. "Mistakes" as in skipping a principle, fumbling the Law, etc. However, getting to authenticity is no mean feat, and there are millions of ways to go. So I think it is true, anybody with a good head and good heart can "do it." But there is more, because it may well take you a lifetime (or more) to do it well. There is practice (or maybe A Practice) involved. And the reason is pretty straight forward.

When you intentionally place yourself in the midst of the intense crucible of human emotions, thoughts, hatreds, anxieties, hopes, fears, expectations that often (always?) show up in an Open Space -- going in without deep personal preparation is a one way ticket to suicide. At least that has been my experience. The folks will probably get along just fine (they usually do), but you will find that your soul is fried. And here, Paul, I think you have it just right in terms of the possibility of ego getting in the way. God help you if you ever think that YOU ARE IN CHARGE! Being totally present and absolutely invisible may be an impossible ideal, but the closer we come to that state, the better things work for us (as facilitators) and the group.

And when we get it right, or as close to "right" as we can on that particular day, the total experience can be euphoric, not to say ecstatic. Things really fly! At the conclusion we have the opportunity to experience ourselves at our fullest -- when everything we could be becomes actual, at least for that moment...

originally uploaded by CB Photography
under the Creative Commons license

How do we map the application subnetworks of open space

2005-10-31T12:41:00.000-08:00

I was at an extraordinary 4-day congress in Washington DC last week on organisational democracy. Almost every speaker raised conflict issues that could have called for an open space. I also met John Engle -circles of change - (for my first time) who many on the open space listserve will be inspired by for his relentless community openings in Haiti.

So that I can play snap between open space alumni and their contexts, and people from other networks occupied with big humanity issues; I feel the need to start cataloguing some of the open space application subnetworks. can you help me

If we start with John's example we could call this continuous community building in a country or across many communities that are chalenged by the same conflict, oppression, underdeveloped human rights.

While we are on other practice of space type applications, which other types are there:
-bringing together parties that are overtly at war; the first gifts of establishing space

-sustaining reconciliation by establishing as many layered open spaces as possible, as often as possible -almost an educational role in developing communal trust when a generation may have no experience of this

-supporting a group whose diversity is discriminated against in violent or extreme ways

Please tell me if you already use classifications in this PoP arena of open space before I post another arena's mail in a serial attempt to go into the subnetworks of another major application area

PS One reason why I would love to discuss this is that I beleive that as one piece of a ssyetmic intervention, open space needs to interfaces with other systemic interventions. But which? may vary by application area. Indeed this was clearly apparent for some maps I started to draw about different concerns of Organisational Democracy, so I can't see why Open Space's support for humanity will be different in this design

Nuts and bolts of holding space

2005-10-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'll post this at the OSLIST as well, but here's a question that has cropped up lately:

What do you say during an event when people ask "How do you think it's going?"

welcome to the present

2005-10-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

welcome to the present

Crime against personhood: to have lived and not to have been in an open space

2005-10-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

I sincerely belief this bold statement from my 2nd open space on

I also realise that the rolls royce open space of 3 days - much needed if the invitation connects people in deep conflict - is a handicap to getting widespread awareness of what open space is and how natural its practice is

This is another reason why I believe we should look for opportunities to do 60-90 minute open spaces qualifying that they are not the whole thing but letting people see how lively communications processes involve everyone's flow

Here are just 3 situations that I would love to see 60 minute experiments; the first can be done anywhere you are with friends, the second and third I'd love to hear if you find an inaugural stage

1 when you meet friends over coffee; why not bring a set of postits and play the game of gravity pursuit: instead of small talk, what's the biggest issue we could all enjoy talking about today; make the market of what people see that as involving with the postits stuck on the table in front of you; go round the table choosing one postits perspective of the issue; if the coffee hour ends without all topics discussed-ask those who post them whether something's been left out so people can pick up the conversation next time or 1:1

2 I feel it's particular crime that open space isnt used frequently if at all in schools; at least twice a year near the start and near the end would be a good time to get a students open briefing ; probably for every age group up from 9; again apart from the longer period needed to explain this for the very first time, a class could spend an hour getting out the topics of concern to the age group; and at least peers would see how many joint concerns they had; and thoughtful teachers might see that there are life issues that the schools curriculum has siloised, and needs to do better next time. How these issues trended across age groups or over time at a school would be fascinating. What these issues are should also be front page news wherever parents are concerned about their children's upbringing. Why do we do market research but not people development research? This theme is getting the more vital, the more teaching is taught by multichoice standard books. I really dislike this parroted facts format that my nine year old is going through at the moment compared with the way I was taught at 9

3 And what about a company. Why couldnt the start of each working week start with an agenda half hour. OK no time to converse there and then but at least the issues concerning people would be continuously flagged up and transparent management would use this as their input rather than play guessing games. I wrote a book in 1995 about how companies that were serious about leading with an unique purpose and culture and values that supported this would permit interdisciplinary Q&A - as well as custom questions, our research showed 10 that would always be useful to permit people to debate- eg what would the world uniquely miss if our organisation ceased to exist tomorrow-probe by stakeholder, segment, perspective and get all the view out there. This methodology had a surprising sting in the tail. The questions that a particular management group would let everyone converse round told us more about the organisation's purposeful health than I would ever have imagined. There is something similar about not letting employees start the week -or any week of their working life - with a half hour of agendas they want to see open posting.

There are probably zillions of other ways open space's molecular freedoms could be brought to the public without having to start with a 3-day event. Any suggestions anyone?

We have a London open space blog that looks at these extended methods - we often call these collaboration cafes; and over the 2 years that I have been talking this way hundreds of Londoners have experienced a cafe who might not have ever got to an open space; and through our clubofcity blog that co-syndicates ideas between citizens across all hemispheres collaboration cafes have become one of the ongoing discussion topics. So much so that London now googles as the number 1 knowledge collaboration city - not that intercity collaborators are competing as long as the awareness of the value of open collaboration is on an upward exponential everywhere.

Entering the circle

2005-10-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

A quote that a participant read in the closing circle of the OS i opened yesterday:

We clasp the hands of those who go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us;
We enter the little circle of each other's arms,
And the larger circle of lovers
Whose hands are joined in a dance,
And the larger circle of all creatures
Passing in and out of life,
Who move also in a dance,
To a music so subtle and vast
That no one hears it except in fragments.

--Wendell Berry

The closing circle was very moving. The group had grown smaller over the day and everyone pulled their chairs in really tight. I walked around slowly telling the story of the gift of the talking stick and then put the 'stick', a purple marker, in the centre. I moved back outside of the circle--it just seemed like the right thing to do. The first person got up and spoke right from her heart. Then person after person did the same. They all spoke. And as they spoke, Spirit flowed into the room so strongly. Such a beautiful close feeling of community and care was generated. It was an honour and privilege to be able to share in it.

The poem inspired in me the thought that not only are we linked in ever widening circles of care and love, but that these circles extend beyond the present moment and connect us to that vast and timeless open space wherein dwell the ancestors and the unborn--and even perhaps, our past and future selves.

heart space

2005-10-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

"When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space."

~Pema Chodron

(thank you to charityfocus.org's Quote of the Day)

Ice Heart

another photo by my friend & teacher, David Ford, LAc

Will those with global power ever meet the people in OS?

2005-10-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

One of the questions that I would always love to hear from other open spacers on: how to get top decision-makers involved particularly on globalisation issues that the vast majority of people can see are spinning destructively

I have been to many globalisation change open spaces but never seen people with biggest power there. One of the ideas in my mind is that if we can get people to develop a fantasy league of which business sectors concern them most for the future of the world, then maybe we can get enough news for leaders of those sectors to come and meet the people in open space.

A long-shot, probably. But has anyone got another idea to try? Meanwhile I have started assembling some content on sectors that are sustaining and de-sustaining the world, and views on why globalisation needs to involve every person’s participation at http://fantasywealth.blogspot.com

I would love to be emailed contributions, especially those that help people see why we must all grab hold of globalisation at the same time if the 21st C is one that our children will be proud of us for starting

dances of universal peace

2005-10-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

I have attended the dances of universal peace off and on for eight years.

OSS (Open Space Sangha) got me thinking about how these dances are connected with the daily practice of living in open space.

i have to thank you, again, Wendy for starting this blog because it invites me to really consider os as a practice, not just something one does for groups.

The dances today had a much deeper dimension for me as a consequence.

It brought me to think about how i/we choose to participate in the dance not only effects what i get out of it but also the collective as a whole. Ever breath, every step, ever muscle. i noticed that my typical desire to get the step right distracted from the larger experience and i let go. And what a world then opened up.

Today's dances were devoted to the two planets: mars and venus- male and female energy. We walked the martian march: the soldier who blindly does what one is told, led by the solar plexus, just follows orders. How scary it was to access this male energy! And then we were invited to access venetian energy-- the walk of the woman who knows she's beautiful.

these were elements of male and female energy that i had never worked with before and they didn't seem to complement each other, but i tried to just let myself be open to this work.

Later we danced the gods Shiva and Shakti. This dance focused on Shiva as the shatterer of illusion and as the lord of creation. We also danced Shakti as source of creative energy. Shatterer of illusion. i imagined as a mirror breaking into many pieces. Where is the creation there, I wondered? Might this shattering of illusion be that very letting go that precedes open space?

In this dance, Shiva helped Shakti to deliver Ganesh. We learned of an instance when men have given birth, not in a physical sense but in a psychological sense...so involved the man has become in the pregnancy.

What is the teaching here?

i was hungry for more. i realized there is so much more on an archetypical level to these gods and what they have to teach us.

Can we smell and taste the creation that is happening around us the whole time?

Today i went for a walk in Sokolniki Park and was dumbfounded. It had rained overnight and the forest floor had transformed. Where there ground had been covered in maple and birch leaves, there was now a new layer: of pine needles. The scent of the air was sweet.

And yet the courage is in letting go of this sweet experience. To say, "that's nice." hang the hat and walk on.

lost and found

2005-10-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

Though I first heard of Open Space Technology and experienced something that was called -but, in hindsight, didn't feel like- an Open Space Technology meeting in the mid-90's, I think I chose open space as a path (and practice?) maybe sometime last year or early this year.

In open space have I "found" myself? Home at last?

And one of the paradoxes I am trying to hold is that to feel more and more at home, to be more and more "found," I have to "lose" myself more and more. And that's scary. I walk into that wall all the time.

It's like the way up and out is by letting myself fall even further down the bottomless well.

I frame part of this process as becoming a man. I am not sure I am a man yet. Still a boy.

I first began thinking about this process of becoming when Open Space on Open Space 14 co-organizer and virtualist, Mikhail Pronin asked a young woman at a trainer and consultant conference when she knew she was no longer a girl and was now a woman. That question asked some three years ago over lunch stayed with me. While I know very little about virtualistics, I understand that much of it is about how we choose to become. Since then, I have thought about the different roles I play in life and wondered when I really took on those roles.

Sometime in April this year I took one small step towards becoming a man. It just happened, I just felt it. That process of transformation began sometime in February and continues.

And what I find is that an important part of becoming a man is to open wider space, both inner and outer. And part of the "how" there is to give more space to expression of the playful boy in me. Danish Spacenik, Alexander Kjerulf, wrote a little about play recently:

This article by Pat Kane on the play ethic is one of the most inspiring, electrifying and just wonderful manifestos for play, fun and happiness at work. My biggest problem in blogging it was to choose a quote from it because the whole damn thing is eminently quotable. Here's an appetizer:

Welcome to the play ethic. First of all, don't take 'play' to mean anything idle, wasteful or frivolous. The trivialisation of play was the work ethic's most lasting, and most regrettable achievement. This is 'play' as the great philosophers understood it: the experience of being an active, creative and fully autonomous person.

The play ethic is about having the confidence to be spontaneous, creative and empathetic across every area of you life - in relationships, in the community, in your cultural life, as well as paid employment. It's about placing yourself, your passions and enthusiasms at the centre of your world.
...
So to call yourself a 'player', rather than a 'worker', is to immediately widen your conception of who you are and what you might be capable of doing. It is to dedicate yourself to realising your full human potential; to be active, not passive.

Another part of this question is the matter of practices of open space. [Thank you, Ashley for pointing me (back) to Michael Herman's website for the resource on open space practices ].

And I struggle with my how to bring discipline and consistency in the practice of being open, in understanding what it means to be open. The little I read of Michael Herman's site led me to think that this is a very simple/complicated practice.

In the Four-fold Way Angeles Arrien cites Gabrielle Roth, author of Maps to Ecstasy. Gabrielle

teaches the five rhythms that are elemental when any human being explores dance:
1. The flowing rhythm is a teacher of fluidity and grace.
2. The rhythm of chaos is an announcement of creativity seeking a form.
3. The staccato rhythm is the teacher of definition and refinement.
4. The lyrical rhythm is the teacher of synthesis and integration.
5. The rhythm of stillness is the teacher of contentment and peace.

When we are comfortable with all five rhythms, the separation between inner and outer experience is closed. Folk wisdom from East Africa describes the essence of this unity by saying, "One leg cannot dance along" (Feldman, A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom).

I see a lot of the rhythm of chaos in me. And know that part of my work is to accept that. And to cultivate and listen to the other rhythms in me that are also seeking form.

Sometimes it just helps to stop and breathe "trust!" And I feel very blessed that Sokolniki Park is just a 5 minute walk away. A refuge of peace and healing!

response to Tree's Always in Open Space

2005-10-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

I can't get the comments to work so I'll just respond wtih a new post (crossposted on the Open Space Sangha blog and on my personal blog, Humanize the Earth). Tree wrote in
always in open space about only wanting to collaborate with people that constantly aspire to bring forth open space in their daily lives. I'm finding this as well, though didn't have a way to name what was going on until I read that post.

In my housing co-op, I want those most interested in gardening to do the gardening, and not worry about consulting with those that don't care so much. Same with creating an organizing scheme for the basement. Hopefully everyone will participate in keeping things organized, but not everyone needs to create the scheme.

I'm strugging in another area, helping a friend with her project. She seems to want to put a lot of structure in place and I'm having a hard time even understanding the purpose, let alone the structure. Maybe I can find more ways to open space in the process. Thanks!

awakening space

2005-10-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

photo by David Ford, LAc

Thomas offers these words from architect Christopher Alexander's Book One, The Nature of Order:

In this sense, what is going on is that life--an emergent thing in space itself--appears as the space wakes up. When something works, or is "functional," its space is awakened to a very high degree. It becomes alive. The space itself becomes alive.

and

We do not have function on the one hand, and space or geometry on the other hand. We have a single thing--living space--which has its life to varying degrees. It is the space which comes to life. All that we do. . . is then to arrange and rearrange this living space, in such a way as to intensify its life.

which resonates with the Taoist view that the land, and all space, is full of living energy. The specific forms and arrangement of a place--the way that the mountains cradle a valley, the shapes of the hills and exposure to wind, the patterns of streams and rivers--determine whether the energy there is harsh and rough or pooled and stagnant or harmoniously flowing. So, too, we can site ourselves, arrange ourselves within and in relationship to space, and in relationship to the living that's going on in that space, "in such a way as to intensify its life."

always in open space

2005-10-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

I s'pose some folks reading this blog have already heard a bit about Spirited Work, which is a seven year experiment as an open space community of practice. Spirited Work is in a kind of hiatus just now, no longer meeting four times a year for long weekends.

My three years of membership in Spirited Work has just about spoiled me. I find myself only wanting to collaborate, on any project, with people who steadily aspire to have the principles of open space alive in their lives, work or personal. There is nothing finer than to sit in a small work group and know that each member is collectively trusting that 'whatever happens is the only thing that could'. The more collectives (two or more people) consciously practice being aware of open space, the more powerful the collective energy/wisdom can become.

Open space is my practice.

What do other folks in this thread think are the common elements of an open space practice/approach to life&work? I think that if one spends even just a moment or two each day thinking the simple principles of open space, that individual's experience of open space expands. Aspiring to practice the principles of open space is a contemplative practice, I think.

What do others think?

Micro Open Space: The Cooperation Invitation to Every City

2005-10-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

Whilst I personally love atending 3-day open spaces, I hope its OK to describe a micro open space that is becoming popular with citizen networks concerned with urgent and big change agendas

Here's roughly what happens in these 90 minute formats

Between 10 to 20 people come together in a circle

Each person introduces self and a network or community that they can recommend has hi-trust to the other change agents assembled. We discuss how we could cooperate across these networks, and identify who is committed to what specific change agenda prioritisations. We open space by making market of topics people would like to host but agree that there isnt time to go off and do the conversation now. (This can be done by email later or in a separate group meeting convened by those who want to put this in their diary)

We now have time to network having seen who's who in terms of network introductions and suggested agendas. We use blogs in each city so that we can both arrange local follow up meetings etc and match with other cities who try out The Cooperation format. Here's London's attempt at The Cooperation. If I can help your city to try this format at any stage please mail me - chris wcbn007@easynet.co.uk

always open space

2005-10-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Christy has got me thinking...(Thanks, Christy, i love that!) with her question, "If it's entirely open, then how could it, why would it, ever end?"

I would like to propose that it never does. To take a line from one of my spiritual paths, whenever we 'close' a circle we say, "the circle is open, but unbroken..." I have a hard time thinking of the ending of an OS day as the closing. More and more often now i think of it as a grounding. We ground Spirit, and embody the space, what was unborn gets born...the space made manifest--embodied in the participants as they use their legs and disperse into the larger world. It seems to me that this partially explains why Spirit seems to re-enter organizations and groups after an Open Space. It literally gets carried back there in each person. If we really 'closed' the space at the end of the day, we would close off the channel to Spirit too, and what would be the point in that? We release the containment field...we don't close the space.

Hmmmm....more thinking....the space is always open and infinite...we create the container, cupping some of that space inside, so that self-organization can happen. Because uncontainerized (oooo, new word...) space is a vacuum, emptiness...self-organization requires a nutrient-rich environment, the cupping of space allows the nutrient field to operate and support self-organization. And a big part of that nutrient field is Spirit. As your teacher says, Christy, separation is the very act of creation. By separating out a container of space, we create the conditions that foster self-organization and in-spiriting. Just like the container of the cell wall allowed for the arising of the ten thousand things...

And isn't paradox wonderful? I not only embrace it, i may be addicted to it. Opening space is about containing...holding space is about being open, unattached, and unfolding...groovy

I notice your teacher is a Kabbalist, Christy. I have gone back to studying it quite often of late. It is full of the wonderful paradoxes that transmit mystery so beautifully. paradox--mystery--the gate to wisdom...As somebody said (and i wish i could remember who) When it's no longer mysterious, it's no longer true.

Three cheers for the mysteries of open space!

Holding Open Space

2005-10-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Wendy writes: "This is intended as a place to share your encounters with Spirit, mystery and Open Space." I love that!

Here I'd like to toss in my current, still fragmentary, encounter with the mystery of how it is that "open space" is something that is "held"...once you've got your hands/arms/heart around something, isn't it somehow separated from whatever's outside, not being held, and then how is that held space still Open? What are the Open qualities of that held, cared for, intentional space? Is it open to some things and not to others? Open to some people or kinds of people and not to others?

If it's entirely open, then how could it, why would it, ever end?

I have understood, and experienced, that "closed space" equals "controlled space"--subject to imposed structure rather than naturally responding to inherently arising structures.

Thought fragments that go along with this:

*Separation is the very act of Creation, my teacher always points out

*"The first rule of magic is containment" (Julia Cameron)

*The vessel, the container, is a crucial component of the alchemical process of transformation/distillation/concentration

What are the differences, or the relationships and intersections, between closed space, held space, infinitely open space?

(cross-posted to the new, live in open space, easily amazed forum)

a hello

2005-10-05T03:21:00.000-07:00

Wendy,
I think it is wonderful that you started this blog. And that you have the courage to let us co-create this space from the get-go.

It was encouraging to see how much energy even yesterday's short OST meeting on homelessness generated.

All OST meetings are alike yet different. This was the first OST meeting where I didn't actually witness people visiting the marketplace to decide which sessions they wanted to participate in. The sessions sort of happened. It made me a little nervous, which meant it was time to go for a walk.

Also, this was the first time I saw people carry tables to the session areas so that they wouldn't have to go anywhere for their tea, coffee, etc.

And even in this short meeting we had written reports!

And I am glad Larry Peterson responded to my post on this.

Other thoughts post-meeting:
I wish I had made it clearer that we are the ones to develop new ways of tackling homelessness. It's nice to expect that someone will develop those methods for us, but it is really our responsibility.

Two recent questions re-emerged from a conversation post-meeting:

1. Marketing OST- there is no better or more effective way of marketing OST than offering public OST meetings. That is what I have found to be true. And I have found that OST is hard to "sell" via a website.

If I could go back to Heavenfax, I'd pose the question of where in our community/organization are the resources/wisdom around "marketing" OST.

2. OST and other large group intervention toys- are there articles out there that attempt to come to some general principles from the application of blended approaches in using OST and other similar toys (AI, World Cafe, etc.)?

Warmly,
raffi

p.s.
Wendy, btw I just posted the announcement of your and Chris's workshop to the Intertraining listserv. Now, it is unlikely we will have anyone coming to BC from here. But one member, Dina Muxamedova, currently lives in Toronto (and is job-seeking, by the way). In that message, I asked what connection do Wendy and Chris have to us? Well, Chris introduced the talking stick. And you introduced the zen fart parable indirectly to a storytelling session this year at Intertraining's annual conference. That parable in a small way made its way to our strategic planning discussions when one IT member prefaced her comments by saying, "Now, you may want to say "fart fart but..." "Fart fart" in Russian is "pook, pook."

I wish you luck in your upcoming workshop. I will be with you in spirit and am intrigued by your design.

p.p.s. If you write something addressed to OST facilitators (or future OST facilitators) in Russia and other former Soviet states, I can post the workshop information to more places.

p.p.p.s. Wendy, the OSworld wiki pages have a location for listing OS blogs. Might you want to have this listed there, too?

p.p.p.p.s. It may have taken some friendly and intense interest in OS Sangha for you to get this started earlier than planned. But you getting her started was enough for me to cybersquat this.

A beginning

2005-10-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

Well some enthusiastic friends have already been peeking around in here, so i guess i had better launch this--ready or not...

This blog began as an idea and an intention flowing from my experience at OSonOS 13 in Halifax. While there, the conviction grew in me that the practices that support Open Space are also very strong practices for life in general. That they could form a part of a strong spiritual path--much like meditation enhances whatever spiritual path you are on and brings great gifts to your life. I have found that the practices of opening, inviting, holding, and grounding support me in much more than just opening space. And once i began to open space, i wanted to live that way in all areas of my life, not just in my work.

And also in Halifax it seemed to me that there were a lot of other people who were experiencing something similar. That just as we believe that Open Space helps to bring Spirit back to organizations, it seems to do the same for people. And that the people who are engaged in actively opening space are a community of Spirit and could use a place to share those aspects of what we do. So here it is. Make of it what you will.

This is intended as a place to share your encounters with Spirit, mystery and Open Space. It is a place to share practices that you find support you in opening space. It is a place to wonder about what this marvelous gift, called Open Space, might be. And mostly, it is a place to connect, commune, and support each other in our big questions, little discoveries, and daily encounters with practice.

This is a group blog. If you would like to join in the fun, just email me at the link up on the right and i will send you an invitation and instructions. At the moment we don't have comments enabled. If we find that we want to add them at a later date, we can do that.

Ah yes more testing...

2005-09-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

Any comments thingy showing up? Email link working?

Just testing

2005-08-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

I am in the process of building this blog template. So just testing stuff out until I get it running well enough for the official launch.
See ya soon,
Cheers,
Wendy