Chris Corrigan

An email from a participant in a recent Art of Hosting-type workshop where I brought my juggling balls and taught juggling. One of the participants, a teacher, picked up the skill and left with my three balls in hand to evangelize play!

This may end up sounding like the silliest email ever but thanks for showing me how to juggle. I am really enjoying it. I have never found something that I am not hard on myself to perfect until now. I go outside, or inside and practice for a few minutes and if the balls drop, I just pick them up. Very cool. And I love feeling that I am improving. Yesterday I was showing my boss what I learned and I almost had to stop juggling because it was the longest I had gone. Then the balls fell and solved that problem! But one of the students as he got off the bus yesterday asked me what I learned at school and I told him I’d show him. I have never seen this child so enthusiastic about anything and when I was finally able to show the class, they all applauded! That was cool. But it was fun to be able to show the class something they could understand. Except there was another child who after my juggling display says, “what else did you learn”. So I go on to tell the class we learned a lot of what we are learning in preschool such as how to calm your body down. Then the same boy, “then what did you learn”, so I continue by saying I could host a world cafe. And again, “what did you learn”. I think this child has a future being a lawyer!

Far from the silliest email I have ever received. This is what makes teaching worth it, and why play matters so much.

I’ve recently been introduced to the work of Al Nygard, a Native consultant working out of South Dakota primarily in Tribal communities. Al’s approach and values are very similar to my own, and it’s cool to see familiar ideas in another person’s hands. Al works with traditionally based models of leadership and calls his community development work “community empowerment.”

My colleague Jerry Nagel sent me a link to a video of Al answering the question of why it is so hard to get things done in Tribal communities. Essentially he identifies seven factors that make community empowerment unique. These seven factors bear out my own experience too. He calls these The Art of the Native View. If you understand this view, the work you do will take. If not, and if your work is built on mental models that don’t take these into consideration, you’re in trouble. In my own success and failures working in communities I can relate to how important it is to build your work on appropriate mental models, appropriate views. Even though Al identifies these seven factors as basically universal, each community has unique circumstances, cultures and histories that also inform the work of community empowerment. This stuff is interesting to me as I am about to embark on a project to work on community engagement and empowerment with my mates in the Berkananetwork, tailoring some of our resources to work in Tribal communities in North America

Starting around 5 minutes into the video, Al gets to the nub of his approach in building empowerment in Native communities. It centres around seven things that all Native communities share which make the work of empowerment unique. I’m summarizing and editorializing a little on his words here.

Trust. This is about building relationships of mutual reliance. It’s about building trust between people, between families and between people and institutions.

Communication systems. The default communication system in Indian country is the moccasin telegraph. Works fast but not always reliable. So we need a variety of ways to communicate – audio, visual, kinesthetic. Reliable commonly shared information is important and doing it in a multi-modal way is important.

Leadership systems. Who are the leaders in the community? Elected leaders, heads of entities and institutions yes, but what about moms, students, Elders, veterans? Leadership is everywhere. The system that develops and directs leadership in all these ways is important. Elections are clear but how are we developing leaders in other areas and how do we get information to leaders so they can act? Leadership in Native communities comes from invitation: you are asked to be a leader. Also, there is an end time. When it’s over, it’s over. In Anglo cultures we seek out leadership and then we hang on to it as long as possible. To me this is one of the reasons why Open Space is such an interesting fit for traditional leadership forums, as these are the same dynamics that underlie that process.

Governance. What are the rules that tell us what we can depend on? Not the same as government. Do your rules help you or hold you back? That is the essence of governance

Lateral oppression. Sometimes called the Indian crab syndrome (in a bucket of crabs, when one tries to escape the others will pull it back down). Lateral oppression is the way that power shows up in shadow in a community. When you are working with empowerment, the shadow work of paying attention to lateral oppression is very important.

Racism and Inequality. A common experience of all Native people living in community is the disparity of experience on the rez vs. off the rez. Over time, experiences of oppression, racism and inequality eat away at self-esteem and colour how we relate to the outside world. Just this evening in a cafe I was running this dynamic showed up as a difference between how a First Nations forest company and non-First Nations forest companies dealt with the stress of uncertainty about the future.

Hurt and Balance. The lingering effects of trauma from issues like residential school abuse, language and culture decline, and the subsequent multi-generational issues create a myriad complex of dynamics that often confuse and confound outsiders.

Al’s framework is a useful lens to view work in Tribal communities. Mental models and world views matter.

Just announced the summer programs at the ALIA Leadership Institute in Columbus, Ohio this summer. I’m thrilled to be back on the faculty at the Institute teaching with Luana Busby-Neff from Hawaii, Pawa Haiyupis from Ahousaht and Tim Merry from Nova Scotia. We’ll be continuing our collective inquiry about applying indigenous world views to systemic challenges together. We;ll be drawing heavily on the work of the Berkana Institute, the Art of Hosting community of practice and traditional perspectives including Malama Ole from Hawaii and Tsawalk from Nuuchanulth.

Please consider joining us…richness will abound.

A beautiful sunny day for my son's 10th birthday. #
Deer everywhere http://post.ly/1AX99 #
Snow on the mountains last night buy clear dawn this morning. http://yfrog.com/gq9jlj #
Arrived by the shores of the Mississippi in central Minnesota. It's a surprisingly warm night. #
http://yfrog.com/c8xqwxj sunset on the Mississippi River at Monticello MN. A balmy early Nov evening with a river swollen by fall rain. #
First real snow on the mountains http://post.ly/1BOVm #
Crisp morning on the Minnesota plains. Frost last night but warm sun again today. #
No matter what happens, the sun arises every dawn. No matter how still you are thoughts arise in your mind. Just watch both. #
What I've been up to this week, as seen through my iPhone: http://youtu.be/iXKLIzwE_fA #
Visiting the graves of my ancestors in Feversham Ontario with my mom on a warm November afternoon. http://yfrog.com/0327328302j #

From our recent Art of Hosting on the banks of the Ottawa River, in Arnprior Ontario.

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