Thinking about the practice of holding, the most well known of the Practices of Open Space. Many writers have written about what it means to hold space in group work, but few have elucidated some of the traps inherent in this practice as Pema Chodron. In this excerpt from her recent teachings on shenpa she gets at some of the hooks that traps us in space closing: “Here is an everyday example of shenpa. Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens� that’s the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming …
I’ve been remiss in my postings of mp3s lately, so here is one for you all. From Indigenous Resistance records, comes a track about resistance in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu performed and composed by Micheal Franti and Carl Young (Spearhead). I lived for a year with a Ni-Vanuatu, John Damasing Salong, who was from Ambrym. John was at Trent University in the late 1980s with us and we had a great time together. I picked up some Bislama, the Vanuatu pidgin language and we spent many days and night singing, talking and cooking together. AT one point, encouraged …
Victoria, B.C. I’m doing some work in Victoria at the moment. I am co-leading the Aboriginal engagement process for the Victoria Urban Development Agreement, and today we held a focus group on physical and environmental factors for success. One of the key ideas that has come forward this week has been the idea of creating a First Nations cultural precinct in Victoria, like a Chinatown for example, or more like the Jewish neighbourhoods around The Main and St. Urbain Street in Montreal, except a centre for First Nations business, services, community and culture. In thinking about this stuff we were …
As many of you know, I have been focusing a great deal of attention lately on the Four Practices of Open Space, namely opening, inviting, holding and grounding. At the moment I am putting the final touches on a resource manual for an Open Space practice workshop (it’s never too late to register!) and I’ve been tracking all over the internet assembling bits and pieces. The manual can’t be too big, and of course a lot of the stuff I have found and read over the years can’t be included. However, thanks to del.icio.us, I have set up four tags, …
At the end of September I opened space for a group of citizens looking to support the Islands Trust here in British Columbia. The Islands Trust is a governance body that seeks to preserve and protect the character of the Gulf Islands, one of which is my home. Along with a team of four other island-based OST facilitators we convened a 1.5 day Open Space on the topic of citizens supporting the islands Trust mandate. During the meeting I was interviewed for The Island Tides newspaper out of salt Spring Island and the resulting article is a pretty good summary …