I’ve been going down a bit of a rabbit hole these past few mornings, looking at some commentary and writing about Kurt Lewin. Lewin, who died in 1947 was a psychologist whose theory and research had a tremendous influence on the modern movements or organizational development, action research, Gestalt theory, change management and group dynamics. To read his writings now is to read a person deeply interested in the complexity of human systems long before there was much language at all available to even discuss complexity. His ideas – or more precisely other people’s ideas about his ideas – have …
In this video, Harrison Owen discusses the chaos that is disrupting the order we take for granted and begins to create a new order and a different world. Harrison has been saying much the same thing for his entire career, starting with his dissertation on Aramaic and associated mythologies and cosmologies. He has been a long-time student of the dance of chaos and order, and his development of Open Space Technology came from this lifelong inquiry. i encountered Open Space first through an event that was hosted by Anne Stadler and Angeles Arien in 1995, and I met Harrison for …
Me and some friends “villaging” back in 1996 or so at a session at The Irish Heather in Vancouver. That’s me blissed out on the bottom right of this photo. We are playing traditional Irish tunes together. Barbara Holmes today in a post at the Centre for Action and Contemplation: It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to survive. For many of us, villages are a thing of the past. We no longer draw our water from the village well or share the chores of barn raising, sowing, and harvesting. We can get … almost …
It’s Advent right now. Although everyone talks about this being the “Christmas season,” liturgically speaking, the Christmas season begins on Christmas Day and lasts 12 days until Epiphany. In the Christian year, Christmas represents the incarnation of God into the world, and Epiphany represents the physical manifestation of Christ to humans. These are times of joy and release that correspond with the return of light to the northern hemisphere and which come after a period of deepening darkness, which is Advent. When you live on a small dark island in the North Pacific, this season, Advent, becomes meaningful. It is …
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learningmy flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, pleasecome to the gate immediately.” Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there. — From “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye This is the start of a beautiful prose poem worth two minutes of your time to read, and just the kind of thing that I am happy to read today. Read the full thing at Nye’s page at poets.org