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On the road again

May 7, 2007 By First Nations, Travel

Campbell River BC

Constantly on the road these days. Just did a weekend strategic planning session with the VIATT Board – a very interesting session. We are at the point in our planning where we are developing the structures that will govern this system once we begin to assume full authority next year. This is a tricky set of questions, involving money, leadership, turf and control as we try to find the best structure that will run the system in line with deep community values. And so as we confront this moment, the Board decided to have a strategic planning session to get some insight on which direction we need to go in. However, wise as they are, instead of just inviting themselves to crack the question, each Board member brought two or three guests with them: family members, friends, associates, all of whom are like eagles themselves to each Board member. As a result we had forty people here, all devoted to suported their friends and loved ones in doing this work. The circle of eagles has been called.

We began with some appreciative inquiry into organizational systems that work, following on from the story of VIATT’s emergence and development over the past five years. Then we went into a World Cafe on the subject of what VIATT should be doing, once the Authority becomes a full fledged thing, next year. Finally, we ended with a more or less full day of Open Space during which we talked about the relationships we need to build and strengthen.

It was a rich session, and there is much deep content emerging.

Today, I am back up in the north Island and heading out with mates to the wild west coast. We’re visiting three communities way off the grid tomorrow, one of which, Ka:’yu:’k’t’h, is boat access only. I’ll post photos and thoughts when I’m back near a web connection.

Whoa…

May 2, 2007 By Art of Harvesting, Art of Hosting, Collaboration, Facilitation, Leadership, Links, Organization 6 Comments

You know how it is when you are so busy that you don’t have time to even think about your blog much less compose an erudite post about everything you are learning?

That’s me right now. But here’s a bit of what I have been doing and some things I’m thinking about:

  • Deepening our work with the Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Team including a board strategic planning retreat this weekend where we have asked board members to bring one or two people that support them in their work to contribute to the wisdom in the room. How cool a design is that?
  • Working with 60 leaders from across the spectrum in Columbus Ohio where we witnessed the emergence of the “fifth organizational paradigm,” which is a fancy way of saying that we put hierarchy, circle, bureaucracy and network to work to begin a process of making Columbus a leader as a learning city. I have much more to write about that, with a paper in the works, actually.
  • Cracking open the question of the “art of governance” within this new model and creating some inquires with CEOs around how to do that.
  • Teaching, training and practising the art of hosting in many guises. My work this month is almost entirely in a teaching context.
  • Changing my practice of “consultation” with community based on what I am learning with VIATT and other work.
  • Working deeply with the art of harvesting, including collaborating with Monica Nissen and Silas Lusias on a new workbook with our thinking in it, soon to be available.

All of this is rich and fresh and finding the time to sit and reflect is hard. But if these inquiries interest you, drop a comment in the box and let’s get started on the conversations. What questions are alive for you with respect to the above?

links for 2007-04-24

April 24, 2007 By Uncategorized 3 Comments

The most beautiful harvest

April 23, 2007 By Art of Harvesting, CoHo

At the Council of Hosts gathering I helped co-convene last November, friends Thomas Arthur and Ashley Cooper gifted us with the most beautiful harvest I have ever seen.   Visit the new World Cafe blog to view this short film that says more about our work together with images and music than any written report could ever have done.

And this is a lovely tribute to our friend Finn Voldtofte, who was at this gathering, his last conference, and who held space for us to be better and deeper and more clear at ever turn.   Finn’s voice is the only one on the film.

Another Tao te Ching

April 22, 2007 By Being, Poetry, Practice

There is a lovely new translation of the Tao te Ching online, which I discovered thanks to the ever mercurial wood s lot.   From the introduction to the Book of the Forest Path:

I am trying to accomplish a couple of things in the translation that follows. First of all, I have a particular philosophical interpretation of Taoism, and I am trying to see how far it can be reflected in a translation. I think it is not compatible with the translations I’ve seen. Second, I’ve tried to make it plain and cool English. My objection to the existing translations is basically philosophical and it is fundamental. I think the going translations (even the ones I like the most (Mitchell’s and Red Pine’s, for example)) still reflect a dualistic metaphysics. They take Taoism to privilege emptiness over existence, inaction over action, yin over yang, and so on. That is understandable and does emerge from the text. But I think the reasons for that are, from a certain view, historical accidents: they reflect a Taoism that is dedicated to a critique of Confucianism. Nevertheless the considered position of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu (another great Taoist sage) is that, finally, both yin and yang, both the world and the emptiness at its heart, must be approached with a perfect affirmation, and that they are, in fact, the same thing. I have tried to apply that insight – surely fundamental to Taoism, throughout the text. So, for example, the first chapter in my view just can’t possibly say that namelessness is good and naming bad, that desirelessness is good and desire bad, and so on. Such views would be more proper to Buddhism, for example.

In addition, the Tao Te Ching is an anarchist political text, and its radical attack on political authority and wealth have often been obscured by translators: I have tried to restore a sense of its pointed political critique, its direct attack on inequalities of wealth and power in ancient China.

Finally, I regard the work as more playful and aware of its paradoxes than most other translations make it out to be. There is a touch of irony, emerging in part from the self-awareness with which it says what it says cannot be said.

I never get tired of reading this book, in its myriad interpretations and translations.   It is the best life guide I know of, and has the best sense of itself of any sacred text: what I am about to tell you is a teaching that cannot really be told.   It exhorts us to practice.

My own version of the classic, The Tao of Holding Space, is free for you to download, and this summer I will be releasing a printed version as well.

[tags]taoism, tao te ching[/tags]