Wendy nails some nice inquiry into the nature of Open Space practice: What i have been working on links directly to Open Space practice. How to be Open Space rather than do Open Space. How to open more…and then more…and then more…How to be ever more present in the moment, more able to authentically issue and accept invitation…How to sit and hold this raw and tender heart without closing, without giving in to fear of judgement or blame, without attachment to any outcomes or reactions…How to be more absolutely direct in relating to the world, with actions springing from deep …
I’ve been giving some thought to the home of the Open Space Technology practitioner community, openspaceworld.org. A few years ago Michael Herman and I reconstituted this site as a wiki with the intention that it would then be open to be edited by the community, and cared for by the community as well. Alas, it seems that this did not take as well as we had hoped and constant spamming meant that we had to close the editing function. You can still have a password if you like, and edit to your heart’s content, but it’s one more step away …
My friend Kerry Napuk sent me the invitation to the OSonOS in the UK, slated for September 30th in London. It is being dedicated to the memory of Colin Morley who was an Open Space facilitator and who died in the July 7 bombings in London. Here is the invitation: We would be very pleased if you could join us for the second OsonOS UK on September 30, 2005 at the NATFHE Conference Centre, 27 Britannia Street, London. Conversation will begin promptly at 10.00 a.m. and will be over when it’s over. A good lunch and refreshments are provided in …
Dig it, from my comments: thank, chris, for this beautiful description of ‘a life of invitation’! maybe the space of ‘authentic presence’ exerts both great magnetism (drawing towards, inviting) and great radiance (pouring forth, offering) because it’s the space where ‘we’ are ‘not-two’– going through the doors that open we find our self in a place we’ve always known (you know this rumi verse?: “I have lived on the lip/of insanity, wanting to know reasons,/knocking on a door. It opens./I’ve been knocking from the inside!”) and even when we are not yet ‘in that same space or entering it,’ not …
Someone could probably write a whole book on tree metaphors. Here is another, from William Isaacs’ amazing book on Dialogue. This is Peter Senge talking about David Bohm’s ideas of dialogue: David Bohm used to say that the tree does not grow from the seed. It is ludicrous to say the tiny seed produces the immense oak tree. Rather, Bohm suggested, the seed is a kind of aperture through which the tree gradually emerges. IN a sense, it organizes the processes of growth which eventually create the tree. Just so, our conversations organize the processes and structures which shape our …