Notes on Dreaming, inspired by the Sunday Open Space at gassho… In the Ojibway teachings I have received, all the animals at creation were given a gift. For humans, our gift was to dream. According to Elder Basil Johnston, although we can all dream, dreaming – more properly, visioning – is said to be most important for men. Women are said to have been given the gift of self-fulfillment through creating life but for men, we need to find self-fulfillment through a vision quest. And so, as has been the case from time immemorial, young men under the tutelage of …
I’ve been an autodidact all my life. My learning programs have had little to do with what I was fed in school or in the approved training programs of the various places I’ve worked. In fact, when I was with the Department of Indian Affairs, I tried to initiate a new learning program to foster leadership. I advocated giving every employee their $800 a year training allotment and allowing them to spend it on whatever learning program they wanted. If employees chose to take the government sanctioned filing training, that’s fine. If people wanted to spend the money on a …
Whale to human transformation mask (Haida) From Civilization.ca Harrison Owen, the guy who invented Open Space Technology, in replying to my post about stories, put some words around it � gave me the story in fact � and so I realize now that the reason I love practicing OST is that it really does invite an organization or a community to embody a new story about itself – or to rediscover very old ones. Harrison wrote: There used to be a day when the power of these deep stories was appreciated, but in recent times they are dismissed with the …
There has been an interesting discussion about outcomes at the OSLIST, the listserv for the international community of Open Space practitioners. It began with a challenge from a cynic who asked “show me one instance where Open Space has resulted in a better world or a better product. ” That sort of line. My initial response to the question was, as it always is, to deconstruct the notion of “results” and “outcomes.” Process work of any kind is by definition, process work. The outcomes are not always immediately tangible because process work is not the same as manufacturing. That is …
My friend Toke Paludan Moller gave me a huge gift at the Practice of Peace conference. He issued a challenge and an invitation to work at a deep, deep level. Since I heard him speak these words, my work has changed measurably. After the conference was over I asked if he could remember what he said and asked him if he could write it down. He did his best to put the ideas in an email, which I have recast as the poem that it is. it is time!the training time is over for those of us who can hear …