Last night in the closing circle, my friend Pauline LeBel offered an observation that so much of our conversation, informed as it is by the great cosmological story, is very human- centric. She asked “What can we learn from the great love affair between the sun and earth?” It is a love affair in which the Sun asks for nothing in return. A group of us today took a walk on the land as a response to that observation. I posted a session in the Open Space today called “How does a forest change a mind?” We walked into the …
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I’m not a good conference blogger, preferring to show up at conferences and be as present as I can in conversation with the people who are in the room. But in this case I might get some time to use the blog to capture some learnings from the conference ‘m at this week. I’m on Whidbey Island, near Seattle at the Evolutionary Salon. The theme of our gathering here is “Catalyzing Collective Intelligence and Social Creativity” and the conveners are inviting us to engage in this inquiry: “How do we understand, interpret, apply, and communicate the evolutionary worldview offered by …
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I’ve been facilitating groups for as long as I can remember, going back probably 20 years to high school when I ran both informal and organized youth groups with my peers. It has probably been about twelve or thirteen years ago that I started to actually pay attention to what I was doing. But only in the last five or six years, as I have been facilitating full time, have I noticed a deepening in my practice. Work as practice. And by practice I mean something akin to a spiritual practice, whereby one undertakes a life of value and meaning …
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Today Dave Pollard reprints a recent speech by Bill Moyers in which he implores the world to use its heart to see what is unfolding around us. Moyers ends the speech thusly: On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: ‘How do you see the world?” And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: “I see it feelingly.’”I see it feelingly. The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist, I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free – not only to feel but …
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The other day Michael Herman and were talking about compassion and mutuality. The idea is that mutuality is making someone appear as real to you as you appear to yourself. Naturally this means understanding that the person sitting across the room from you at this moment is full of an inner life that is as rich as yours. Confidence, self-esteem, confusion, love, pain, grief, celebration – all of these things are known to them too. It sounds so trite on one hand, but it is incredibly powerful the more I dig into this thought. So often we see others as …