a new blog to open our i's to

Hi all,

My buddy Raffi in Moscow has just joined the ranks of the blog-and-post. His bilingual blog (English/Russian) Maaskva Nashimi glazami, Moscow in our i's, is trip into the heart of Moscow and the heart of Raffi. A couple of wee samples...

Might it be then, that "creating time and space" is first of all about being at home with yourself? Might it be that being at home with oneself is essentially all that we are called to do in life?

I met Larisa today walking out of the metro. She wanted to hit me up for 10 rubles. As a rule, I don't like to give spare, er, banknotes. And, if have a chance, I do offer to buy a person food. Larisa wanted a belyash, a fried meat pastry. The belyashi stand was too far away, so she settled for a ham and cheese stand at a Kroshka Kartoshka fast food stand. Kroshka Kartoshka's main menu item are baked potatoes and toppings. They are a must-try for anyone wanting to experience local fast food.

Larisa refers to Moscow as full of proizvol (despotism, tyranny, arbitrariness) because of her plight. She is on the street because she can't get an internal passport. She can't get an internal passport because the local militsia (police) have designs on her apartment. She can't prove it's her apartment because she doesn't have a passport. Her story is a common one.

For those who enjoy an insiders look into a different world, i think this will be one to watch.

ecology of thought

I am just digging into William Isaacs, "Dialogue" and if possible i am growing even more excited about this path i am on. The potential for transformation inherent in bringing people together in meaningful dialogue about what matters is immense--and the reality of becoming an ever more skillful host of these conversations is compelling. With every page i turn my sense of delight and joy increases. Here is my favourite bit from today, talking about the underlying atmosphere that is critical to whether we can talk together well or not:

This atmosphere within our own consciousness is generated, very simply, by the ways we think and feel--the levels of internal freedom we allow oursleves, the inclusiveness we are able to sustain, the authenticity we are able to muster, the flexibility of perspective we are able to take, and the stability and spaciousness we have in our hearts.

Of course our atmosphere is not separate from others. Our feelings and habits of thinking are part of a complex web that links us all together; it is our "ecology of thought." This ecology is the living network of memory and awareness, one that is not limited to any single person but is in fact held collectively. It is the matrix that informs us the world is a certain way and that problems can be solved in only a certain way. Out of this ecology comes the collective atmosphere in which we all live and work.

I find the four practices reflected strongly here. The capacity for spaciousness in the heart and internal freedom--opening; inclusiveness and authenticity--invitation; flexibility of perspective--holding; stability of the heart--the still centre; and the fourth--grounding--is implied in the capacity these others create for learning new behaviours.

Gonna be a lot more of this one quoted here in the next few weeks, i'm thinking....

Couple of priceless family moments

A mother's delight...
Yesterday morning i came round to conciousness about 6:30 and the house was still all quiet, so i laid there enjoying the last few moments of rest and listening for the first stirring of the little ones. And what beautiful sounds come to my ears?

Beric: I love you Ro Ro.
Rowan: I love you Ber Ber.
Beric: I love you Ro Ro.
Rowan: I love you Ber Ber.

This continues for about five minutes and i can hear them hugging each other. It doesn't get any better.

And over dishes...
George: Leadership is dead...Sorry, but it is...We've gone beyond it. What we need are examples.

You just never know what's gonna be next around here...Anybody want some Ogre-urt?

symbolic violence

I was doing a little reading on narrative analysis and came across a new concept...symbolic violence. This term relates to behaviour whereby one party is asserting that what matters to the other party is inferior and therefore the other party is inferior. I guess this really comes into play when we are examining our stories and storytelling for their moral value. If we understand that a lot of learning occurs through storytelling and other dialogic means, then the respecting of the value of the inherent moral content, worldview, or cultural context of the story is essential to the respecting of the speaker and our capacity to learn or create meaning from what we hear. By devaluing the moral/cultural/symbolic content of the story, the perpetrator does violence to the speaker and the speaker's culture. Interesting.

This article is full of interesting goodies, like this...

How does the act of storytelling work dialogically, not so much to claim others’ recognition for the self’s authenticity, but rather to fashion that authenticity out of recognitions that the story provides for? How are dialogical relationships both the topic of the story, its content, and also the goal of telling the story, its process? Again, authenticity is interpersonal. Before Taylor’s emphasis on dialogue comes the classic statement of Mikhail Bakhtin (1929/1984), writing on Dostoevsky: "To portray the inner man…was possible only by portraying his communion with another. Only in communion, in the interactions of one person with another, can the ‘man in man’ be revealed, for others as well as for oneself" (p. 252). Stories, as dialogue, do not present a self formed before the story is told. Rather in stories the person "becomes for the first time that which [she or] he is–and we repeat, not only for others but for himself [or herself] as well" (p. 252). Narrative analysis can show how that process of becoming "for the first time" works, even as the analysis itself is another stage in this on-going process.

Nifty.

Opening Space, questions, trust, and the still centre

Roots the centre
Originally uploaded by the view from in here.

Back from more Open Space. This time as part of a team of five Gulf Island OSers lead by Chris Corrigan and including Val Embree, Beverly Neff, and Nancy McPhee. Much appreciation, love and gratitude to all of them for an amazing weekend of co-learning, conversation, and fun.

The Open Space brought together citizen representatives from all of the Island's in the Islands Trust. They spent two days in dialogue about the future of the Islands Trust and ways they could support its preserve and protect mandate.

There were many learning conversations that took place across the weekend, and one that is still unfolding and capturing my attention is about questions. As always, when the initial learning is significant, i tend to keep pushing at the edges to uncover more mysteries beneath...having had a taste of the juiciness of the topic. I have started to pay attention to how i respond when asked a question, to what i am about when i ask a question, and to what others seem to be about when they ask questions.

There's way too much here to post all at once, so i am going to focus on one bit. I would like you to ask yourself, "How often do i actually ask the question i mean to ask?" I am guessing that you are like me in this and that often, probably more often than either of us realize, the real question and the true need that underlay it, gets sensored-out, watered-down--basically left on the cutting room floor. And what comes out is something only distantly related to what we really desire or need to know. Why? Well, i've done a bit of feeling around and i have come up with several possibilities--the main one being fear, probably fear of rejection/exile. That's always the big one. And i also come up against a politeness thing--but i think that is probably just the same fear in different clothes.

And i wonder how often questions cover our inability or unwillingness to trust each other with the contents of our hearts. How often do we ask a polite and innocuous question, because we need to engage or because engagement is expected, when there is something else, wild and inappropriate inside. What does that mean? And what would it be like if we could unlock the fearlessness to say what is true for us in this moment right now--always? And what would it mean to hold space for that--as the receiver of such communication?

I was googling around and at Space to Think, came across a link to Trevor's Blog with this quote: “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.” Mister (Fred) Rogers

The key here, for me, is "the people we trust with that important talk". What a gift and a blessing it is to be trusted so. And what a responsibility.
This happens in facilitating. People trust you to hold the space strongly enough for them to do and say what they need to do and say. I think this is where the practice of the still centre meets the practice of holding. In order to be not only worthy of that trust, but also capable of fulfilling it, i must do my own work to grow an authentic sense of self (a healthy ego, if you will) that can remain centred and still under the pressures of witnessing other's truth. The centre is involved further here, as the process of holding and opening more space when the group hits rough waters is also one of faith. We must be able to maintain faith in ourselves and most importantly, we must maintain an unshakeable faith in the capacity of those who are with us to find their own way forward.

Another short absence-apologies

Hello all,

I am going to be away again for a few days. I will be back posting mid-next week.

See you then,
Wendy

Woohoo! The Moose is Loose!

From buddy Brian Lamb at Abject Learning...Northern Voice 2 raises its head from the misty waters and waggles its antlers for another appearance in Feb 2006! And check this out...

We've tried to grow the event gently, without losing the informal community-oriented feel that we had last year. NV2006 won't be in a bigger venue, but we've added an extra day slated for Moose Camp:

What is Moose Camp? A self-organizing series of events modelled on Bar Camp and Foo Camp. Moose Camp is, to use the cliché, for the people, by the people. We’ve booked some rooms at the UBC downtown campus, you register for Friday and anyone participating in Moose Camp can post to our wiki to collaborate with other attendees. You can give a presentation, lead a discussion, or just attend.

Sounds like an Open Space conference variant to me! Go Moose!

Open Space Practice Workshop

My buddy (and awesome facilitator) Chris Corrigan and I are offering a 3-day Open Space Practice Workshop on Vancouver Island from November 15-17.

If you are interested, you can find an invitation here.

This is a new 3-day design built on the original 2-day workshop pioneered by Chris and colleague Michael Herman. We will be focusing on the four practices that support the facilitation of Open Space (and many other dialogic group processes): opening, inviting, holding, and grounding. It should be an amazingly deep three days full of experiential and co-creative learning to engage the mind, heart and body.

We would love to see you there!

Nesting cat and gardening guilt

nesting cat
Originally uploaded by the view from in here.

There are few things more enviable than a sun-warmed nesting cat. This is our cat, enjoying the sunshine outside my office window. You can see how much trouble i have gone to with my landscaping. I would like to say it' s permaculture...and I suppose it is, in a purist sense. My gardener works 365 days a year, i never pay her, don't have to tell her what to do, she consumes no fossil fuels, uses no man-made chemicals, and unfolds a thousand little surprises every day for my delight. She and i don't always see eye to eye--she thinks the middle of the driveway is an excellent place for growing grass, the raised beds are good for dandelions and thistles, and the kid's sandpile should be ringed with nettles. But then, as she is doing all the work, i don't feel i can push my opinions too strenuously or too often.

Ah yes, humour, the balm of the guilty conscience. One has neighbours you know...and family...with expectations...Okay, and one has a few expectations herself...

But, i have this ten year plan, you see. In ten years there will then be three teenage boys hanging about the place just waiting to show off to their mother how many rocks they can haul, flower beds they can dig, gravel they can spread...right? Right? Do not deprive me of my little illusions....

Ah well, I grew up in the middle of a mown field, that was occasionally an unmown field and i loved the wild tangle of it all. And while I sometimes wish for a planned and planted garden, i know i would miss the ferns and nettles, the self-heal and sorrel, the daisies and foxgloves, the vanilla leaf and salmonberries. A wild tangle outside can be its own kind of sanctuary--for the wild tangle inside.

Burns Bog is burning

Burns Bog is on fire again. Story here. We had haze and could smell the fire in Nanaimo today. Maybe it's a statement about the general level of cynicism around these days, but the first person i mentioned it to said, "Do you think it was sabotage? Started by the people who want to develop it?"

No, i don't. Not this time anyway. But it seems to be another demonstration of how poor we are at sharing space with our fellow creatures. Our needs first and theirs...well...somewhere way down the list.

Accountability site

Interesting site on accountability for government.
http://accountabilitycircle.org/

Fun blog

Just discovered Susan Juby's blog. She's funny--the saga of her last year's vacation with sick dog rides the quirky edge where pathos meets hilarity (entries for July 30th). She's also an award-winning Young Adult's author. Check it out.

What I've learned from Celtic Folktales

1. You know that yogic contortion involving a bathtub, a goat, and a spear that the oracle told you would be bad for your health, and at the time you thought to yourself, “Well, that should be easy to avoid.”? Don’t demonstrate it for the new girlfriend; she does not have your best interests at heart.

2. Avoid beautiful women singing in trees; avoid beautiful men singing anywhere.

3. Avoid beautiful women in general—go for the plain one with lots of cows, no jealous sisters, and a visible lack of male relatives of any kind.

4. If you come across a very large fish in clear pond in the dell and it speaks to you, contrary to what you might otherwise think, it will be good advice or at least reliable information.

5. If you are an unusually large porcine animal, don’t carry a grooming set between your ears. It will attract unwanted attention.

6. Jumping over branches of mistletoe can cause spontaneous pregnancy (even if it’s your first time).

7. Size does matter.

8. The guy with the biggest bull wins. See above.

9. Unusually intelligent or talking animals are probably somebody’s relative and do not make good pets. Their families (and a large number of well-armed friends) are looking for them. You may want to ask yourself if you really want to be around when they find them.

10. If your generations-old, bred-in-the-bone, orders-to-kill-on-sight enemies invite you over to their place for dinner, think twice. They have probably not had a sudden and unexpected change of heart or converted to Buddhism.

The bonus one: If you are a giant/king/supernatural being and you have a really beautiful daughter and some git with a claymore wants to marry her…just say, “YES!”. Throw a big party, embrace the guy, make him one of the family. It may not help, but it’s your best chance. Good luck.

Thanks to Jim Macdonald of Making Light for the inspiration and to Chris for the linkage.

short musing on invitation

I had one of those aha moments this morning. i've been concentrating on the practice of opening for the last little while and this morning got a glimpse into the place where opening and inviting meet. There have been plenty of opportunities to practice opening into discomfort and pain, to notice contraction and closing, and to exercise opening and breathing into them. i finally got it this morning that i don't have to wait for these experiences to arrive. i can go out and invite them. (har har har) Yep. That invitation isn't just about following attention or stretching to embrace a new possibility. It's about the everyday stuff too--you know, the icky stuff. The things that make your guts churn--that normally you'd avoid like the plague. Yes, THAT CONVERSATION...you know the one...

While invitation is about the good and the true, we sometimes forget that the true often doesn't look so good--that it can be scary and ugly. I saw this morning that there is a beauty in inviting the ugly truth--a real power and joy in inviting the willingness to open into our suffering. A next depth of practice, if you will--that opening to suffering and pain as they arise is one thing and actively inviting the possibility of opening to them is another.

Chris Corrigan writes at Michael Herman's great wiki collection of OST resources, "Invitation...follows on the openess of vulnerable intention, intention that wants to reach into the world." I am glimpsing an interesting flow between opening and invitation--where the vulnerability and letting go of opening meets the probe?, the gentle current, of invitation.

Not a big aha, just a quiet expansion into what's next.

Very short absence

I may be unable to post over the next couple of days. I am on the road and also have an elderly family member very ill.

The Open Space of the Body

I have been blessed today with a wonderful experience. After working into the wee hours of the night and then again this morning, I finished up the funding proposal i have been working on just in time to go and have a visit with my friend K. Louise and to experience the amazing therapeutic massage she has been learning. In our conversation over tea beforehand, i was amazed to hear K. Louise speak of her practice in terms that sounded just like Open Space--but for the body! She spoke of opening and holding space in the body for me to rest in, to simply be with what is. And if i chose, i could experience what was there for me, what was held in the body--or simply rest and experience ease and bodily presence.

It was wonderful to hear her speak of her integrative practice--of truly embracing and caring for the body, mind, soul, and spirit--for the self and the social--of being present and fine with whatever arose, with whatever needed expression--in whatever way it needed to be expressed.

The experience was very deep. As i said to her, it was like going through a three day Open Space in an hour-and-a-half--in terms of the depth and openness achieved.

She finished by massaging my head which resulted in the most amazing state: total bodily relaxation, complete waking awareness, and dreaming--alpha and theta waves present at the same time--an experience i have only had before during meditation retreats--and this was definitely a result of what she was doing...really remarkable. (okay, okay...i was open to it and yah, have an awareness trained to recognize it...but still...so cool)

And afterwards I was left with a sensation of complete permeability of the body. It's hard to put words to it really...not a sense of larger at all, but like all the atoms of me had been made more discrete and the space between more visible/sensable--and air and breath and sunshine and birdsong were passing through this light and open structure that was almost not there, but still very present and grounded...a truly unique experience.

So now i know...spirit is open space, soul is open space, heart can expand to be open space, mind can expand and relax to be open space...and the BODY can be open space too. What a gift. Thank you K.

(This should really help me to achieve perfection in Open Space facilitation--the totally present and completely invisible facilitator...[big grin, tongue in cheek]...)

One of the other things that we talked about was the real dearth of cherishing practices in our culture. Our bodies end up isolated and exiled and we are left with few ways to express how we feel for each other. There is this exhausting, malnourishing dualistic tension between the casual and the sexual, the acquaintance and the lover. Where is the place for the sensual and the dear?

We are a bunch of primates--for whom grooming activities (physical attention and closeness, non-sexual caress)are essential bonding, stress reduction and health improving behaviours. The narrow band of acceptable exchange creates needless pain and leaves many people literally starved for adequate physical contact. We know that babies thrive with physical touch, massage, and skin-to-skin contact of any kind. Why do we think that repressing this innate need for communion later in life is okay and has no significant consequence? Actually, i think a lot of us fully recognize the consequence, but, like me, have such deep conditioning, that it takes significant will and determination to break through the fear/shame/judgement to reach out across the abyss that divides us--for a simple touch of human kindness.

So, engage in an act of resistance on behalf of the revolution--next time you are out with someone dear to you--hold hands, link arms, give each other a shoulder massage, brush each others hair, pick nits...whatever...just do it...

Okay, i'm getting silly now...g'night dear hearts

Dreaming in The Green Room

Well, it's my 17th Wedding Anniversary today (and 20 years of being together) and George is working the afternoon shift on the boat. So...I am consoling myself by spending some time with the work of someone else I love dearly, my friend and colleague K. Louise Vincent. K. gifted me with a copy of her new chapbook of poetry very recently, The Green Room. I love that more and more often now poetry is being published in handmade chapbooks. The love, care and attention that has been put into the making of this book is palpable--it seeps into my fingers as i turn the pages--reflecting the love and care of the poet. As my friend Tim Landers writes into the copywrite statement of all of his chapbooks, "Do not reproduce without love."

With K's gracious permission, I will share a bit with you from the poem, A Fine Line:

The future is dark, which is on the whole,
the best thing a future can be, I think.

~ Virginia Woolf

As in inscrutable--

not terrible

As in transparent--

as in all the beauty

As in grief from left field--

knocking her flat

As in somewhere between

naked and protection

As in tree frog, as in child--

as in a fine line

...

This holding back from the sweet

receptive earth inside

is madness. This morning

she will be easy

with what is human. She will write

these words. She will remember

to dream. And dreaming is the one thing

we have that's really ours, vulnerably

and unalterably, ours.

...

We need dreamers. She will write this

simply and slowly. Our capacity to dream

is linked in marriage to the green world.

Dreaming is natural, is necessary.

Dreaming is non-strategic

space. Seeing the world as it is.

Dreaming is the deepest way

of thinking. Co-emergent wisdom.

Before language dreamed

endlessly in green.

Anything natural bends, trees

are complete circles.

~K.Louise Vincent

Ahhhh. Trees are complete circles. And our breath. And the space between us--all the beautiful open space.

Peace and love to you all, dear ones.

G'Night.

PS: If you are interested in K. Louise's work, please email me for contact info. The Green Room is published by Leaf Press, Lantzville, BC, Canada, 2005. www.leafpress.ca

non-profit tech and philanthropy

My dear friend Keira McPhee sent this wonderful excerpt along from Marnie Webb at ext337...

It’s really my fault. I try to make the hook fundraising because I think that’ll pull people into the conversation. But utilizing social tools on the web—wikis and blogs and RSS—participating in web-wide conversations, all of that, it’s not about the fundraising potential.

Sure, I’m convinced that translates into engaged users and those engaged users are more likely to support your organization in a variety of ways. But if we think of it as only about fundraising then it’s only about marketing. And if it’s only about marketing, it’s a trick. It’s a slick new version of a postcard dropped in the mail to 10,000 of your closest friends.

It’s about turning over part of yourself. In two essays (1, 2) Peter Merholz argues that it’s not about the technology. He writes: “Web 2.0 is primarily interesting from a philosophical standpoint. It’s about relinquishing control, it’s about openness, it’s about trust and authenticity. APIs, Tags, Ajax, mashups, and all that are symptoms, outputs, results of this philosophical bent.”

And that’s true for nonprofits. It’s about opening up your organization so that you can achieve greater impact and create the change you seek by allowing your constituency to take pieces of your organization and make something out of them. It’s making the ideas portable and actionable. In the language of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, it’s about giving your constituency the power to figure out their own next actions and the tools to do them.

Saddhu. Well said. Sounds like Open Space to me. The only thing I would add is that the same is true for good fundraising... it isn't about the money either--or marketing. It's about creating an open and inviting organization. It's about connecting to people at the level of what matters to them...what they have a passion for. And then inviting them to step forward and take responsibility for that--and creating the opportunities (holding the space) for them to do so. To paraphrase the above, the money is a symptom, an output, a result, of this practice.

Potty talk

Okay, happy little story for you today...

In my house, there is almost no potty privacy...something i am working at changing, but when you're four and two, it's just one more cool thing to share...

So...Beric (4) announces that he needs to go poo (warning...i will not be mincing words here) and that he needs my help...mostly he wants my company, so off we go down the hall to the potty. Gareth (2) announces that he is coming also, and that he is going to "sit down here" on the stool across from the potty. He has brought along two large rubber dinosaurs to entertain the bunch of us. The dinosaurs give each other big hugs and some kisses...and then at one point Beric says, "What did you say?" This phrase has obviously come to have a special and secret meaning between Beric and Gareth, because immediately Gareth grins one of THOSE grins and starts yelling.

Now, to really appreciate this next bit, you need to imagine Marlon Brando...with golden curls...at two...about 30" tall or so...doing an impression of himself screaming "STELLA". Only he is screaming "URSULA" (because we have been watching WAY too much George of the Jungle.) i mean really, just like Brando--top of lungs, red face, neck veins bulging--the whole bit...and when I remark that he sounds like Brando screaming STELLA, he immediately begins to oblige. "STELLA" "STELLA" Of course by now, all three of us are laughing our heads off.

You haven't forgotten that someone is on the potty have you?

At this point, Beric catches his breath, and says, "That was really funny. Even my poo was laughing."

Gotta love it...
Does this sort of thing happen at your house?

Getting esoteric on Open Space with Ken Wilber

Getting through the final...and i gotta say pretty dense pages...of Ken Wilber's One Taste...and this passage caught my brain as it seems to shed some light on the intuition i had in a previous post. Here's the pertinent part from my post:

Chaos draws the attention of the soul (rather than merely mind). Mattering is the quality of attention that drives the self-organising principle. So what is 'mattering'? The recognition/ mirroring of the soul's purpose?/passion? in another being/object/idea... from which connection, the chain of action/arising unfolds...thought, action, and so on...

And here is the passage from Wilber (pg. 275):

...the Self or Witness is the seat of attention, the root of the separate-self sense, and the home of the last and sublest duality, namely, that between the Seer and the seen. It is both the highest Self, and the final barrier, to nondual One Taste.

Nonetheless, the power of Witnessing is the power of liberation from all lower domains, and the Witness itself is present, even if latently, at all previous stages. Each developmental stage transcends and includes" its predecessor, and the "transcend" aspect, in every case, is the power of the higher to be aware of the lower (the soul is aware of the mind, the mind is aware of the body, the body is aware of matter). And in each case, the "is aware of" is simply the power of the Witness shining through at that stage.

Although the Witness is present as the power of transcendental growth at every stage, it comes to its own fruition in the causal realm. As the ego orients consciousness to the gross, and the soul orients consciousness to the subtle, the Self orients consciousness to the causal.

Now, i need to be upfront here and admit that this is the first of Wilber's books that i have read, so my grasp of his jargon is still unripe, and my capacity to translate from his jargon to mine, is even greener, so here, for those of you who enjoy the tartness of early produce...is my first go at it...

I will suggest that chaos is Spirit which dwells in what Wilber would term the nondual. So to translate the first line of my earlier post...Spirit (or the nondual; chaos) invites the presence of the Witness (the seat of attention). So, how does the presence of the Witness drive the self-organizing principle? The Witness roots in the causal, which is transpersonal and transformative by nature. So, perhaps, the presence of the Witness sets up a powerful harmonic that consists of the transpersonal and transformative vibration of the causal and the unique vibration of the separate-self sense. The causal vibration allows for the organization to occur as it synchronizes between the individuals present in the Open Space. The emergence and the transformative product we often see in Open Space are, if i may suggest, the visible evidence of the harmonic--a symphony created by the interweaving of the separate-self vibrations of the participants upon the underlying One Taste--the mystery and radiance of the nondual.

So, whaddya think? Am i totally in outer space here? Or can we build something on this?