Bella Coola, BC I’m up in Bella Coola this week working with the Nuxalk Nation. I am running some facilitation training and then on Saturday, an Open Space meeting here in the community on the subject of reclaiming Nuxalk child and family services. This place is out in the middle of virtually nowhere. It’s 450 kms west of Williams Lake, but only an hour and a quarter by plane. However, the Bella Coola valley is surrounded by the tallest mountains in the Coastal Range and man are they huge. We flew PAST them this morning, over …
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Seattle, WA There is a creation story we tell in the art of hosting workshops called “The Chaordic Path” which describes the dance of chaos and order in the service of generative emergence. Today, in Seattle many of us good friends and mates sat in the audience as our friend Thomas Arthur told this story through his production of Luminous Edge. The show is about a wizard who is responsible for juggling into existence the orderly patterns of our human world and then fixing them in place with his spiral of integration. He is assisted by an …
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I learned a new word this week: teechma. It’s the Nuu-Chah-Nulth word for heart, but it conveys a deep meaning when you hear an Elder in her village talking about why she thinks something will work, why she is hopeful about changing the system solely because we spoke about it from our hearts, our words coming from teechma. I was with my mates Wally Samuel, Kris Archie and Kyra Mason this week in three isolated villages on the north west coast of Vancouver Island, Oclucje, Ehattesaht and Ka:’yu’k’t’h’. We were travelling there on behalf of VIATT to hear what these …
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Campbell River BC Constantly on the road these days. Just did a weekend strategic planning session with the VIATT Board – a very interesting session. We are at the point in our planning where we are developing the structures that will govern this system once we begin to assume full authority next year. This is a tricky set of questions, involving money, leadership, turf and control as we try to find the best structure that will run the system in line with deep community values. And so as we confront this moment, the Board decided to have a strategic planning …
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I’ve been out of touch all last week, ensconced in a fascinating five day retreat with an organization that is working hard to make Open Space Technology a part of their basic operating system. We were working at a fishing lodge in Campbell River BC all week overlooking the Discovery Passage, which was filled with sea lions, eagles and a small pod of killer whales. I had very limited internet access, and it was actually a great gift to be unplugged during that whole time. There is lots to harvest from the trip, and several bits and pieces that …