I have never understood the idea that you can’t talk to terrorists. I don’t mean in the moment of vioence being committed. I mean the idea that negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan for example, are a non-starter for Canada. We have committed 6 years to the “war on terror” and the exit strategy seems to be “kill all the bad guys before going home.” This is an impossible condition for victory. At some point people have to sit down and talk about how they are going to leave each other alone, no? This interesting article …
We’d like to invite you to join us for an Art of Hosting workshop here on Bowen Island in September. Myself, Monica Nissen, Caitlin Frost, Tenneson Woolf and David Stevenson will host you here at Rivendell Retreat Centre for three and half days of learning, exploring and playing with the art of hosting and harvesting conversations that matter. Please grab the invitation, share with others and consider joining us. You can also register online through the Berkana Institute website. And if you are already registered, leave a note in the comments to let folks know who is coming. Confirmed …
Dave Pollard has published a comprehensive list of books which together might hold to the keys to How to Save the World. To those I would add these, from my library, as a modest addition to tools which help us make best use of our collective intelligence.
Doug posted a creed a little while back: We are nothing alone. We cannot exist without reference points. We cannot know ourselves until another knows us. This is why we seek love–not just something to hold, but someone to know us and hold us as just us. Neither can we be together if we do not exist as individuals. Both are needed. Dialogue is both our existence and what we do. We are beings in our doings. Our purpose is to stir things up. The stirrings are the living edge of us. Where we leak into others, there we create …
The blog posts dried up because my evenings were taken in celebration, but here’s day four. There is a deliberate pattern that unfolds over the week of the Shambhala Institute. Monday is a day of arrival and orientation to one’s personal intention and the building of a collective field of learning. Tuesday and Wednesday, we enter the learning journey that brings us all to challenge and to the very edges of the internal questions we are living with. Thursday and Friday are about celebration and re-entry into the world. Thursday saw a plenary session that was startling for its content …