Raffi Aftendelian has released the final version of Living Peace: the open space of our lives. It features contributions from all over the world, including a piece from my life and business partner Caitlin Frost about parenting in Open Space.
Another free book from the Open Space community. Thanks Raffi and everyne who contributed!
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Raffi Aftendelian unearthed a beautiful gem today. Writing on the OSLIST, he quoted something Harrison Owen had written 40 years ago when he was unknowingly being inspired to create Open Space Technology. As a text to a photo essay on life in a Liberian village, Harrison wrote:
A very special part
of any village celebration
is the appearance of the various “devils.”
The word devil is very misleading,
and was undoubtedly
the unwanted gift
of an early missionary
The devils are not evil,
but rather represent
a respected (albeit feared)
part of the village.
Nothing of importance happens
unless they appear and dance.
In their appearance,
all aspects of the village
are brought together-dance,
music, government, and religion.
When the “Devil” dances, life goes on.***
In the village,
all things go in a circle,
and everything fits.
To speak of the drums
is to speak of the dance,
is to speak of the Devils…Weaving and Forging
Fire and Steel- the Bush
Life, Death and Life again.
Ain’t that something? Another little tidbit to add to the nascent beginning of Open Space.
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Yesterday Ashley Cooper posted a question on the OSLIST about the enigmatic principle of “whatever happens is only thing that could have:
Feeling those gathered in San Francisco, swimming in the hearty open space soup, I find a myself pondering a topic I would host if I were there… a topic I’d love to have a conversation around.
I’m curious about the wording of the principle, “what ever happens is the only thing that could have”. I know John Engle brought this question up in the past http://www.openspaceworld.org/news/2007/05/11/whatever-happens/ and I’m still curious about it.
I find that people sometimes use it as a block to reflection, a reason to not look back and learn from what didn’t happen because “whatever happens is the only thing that could have.” Yes, and…
I love the principle for the acceptance that it invites. And I struggle with it because there is a sense of finality that it also invites (if you want to let yourself go there). We did what we did and that’s, that. Which is true… And…
I appreciate how in Haiti they are playing with What Happens is what happens – learn and move forward. I like the learn and keep moving part.
Are there other ways that people phrase this principle? How do you invite the spirit of acceptance and invitations to be with what is alive and happening in the moment, while also inviting reflection and learning from what has and has not emerged?
If anyone at WOSonOS is reading this and you find this conversation springing up in your face to face time, please do share your harvest with us. I’m contemplating posting a skype session tomorrow morning on this topic… and I’ve not yet been able to commit myself to being inside at the computer tomorrow morning!!
I put the question to a few folks here and recorded about a half hour of their answers. Wisdom follows from Larry Peterson, Michael Cook, Viv McWaters, Peggy Holman, Susan Kerr, Michael Pannwitz, David Barnes, Jeff Aitken, Lisa Heft, Aine Corrigan-Frost, Alan Stewart, Phelim McDermott, Elwin Guild, John Engle and Brian Bainbridge, You can listen to the interviews here:
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I mentioned some of the blogs that are here in San Franciso…here are a few more:
- Stephan List and also this Toolblog
- Winkipod
- Tales of a toy
- Diana Larsen
- Mythic Cartography
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Yesterday I convened a session on our greatest “ahas” about the Open Space world over the last year…here is a selection from my report:
We discussed several things we have noticed over the past year or so that have been major “ahas” for us both as seasoned and new Open Space Technology facilitators. These insights fell into three broad categories.
First, it is clear that there is an increasing familiarity with OST and an increasing demand for the process. Furthermore it seems that groups that are using the process are going very deep and using it in very sophisticated ways. As facilitators we are finding less and less need to “sell” people on the idea of the process. This was attributed to a number of factors including the fact that society in general is learning and practicing a lot more of relationship working. Information technology has transformed to relationship technology and collaboration and interactivity has woven its way into many aspects of daily life. Mobility, interactivity, collaboration and tolerance for chaos have become more mainstream. As a result, we are learning more and more about the need to be more tolerant with chaos, as we have been perfected real time course corrections. Wikipedia is a mainstream example now of the power of collaborative technology and this has raised the bar for face to face meeting and collaborative work.
As facilitators we are learning more and more to be collaborative in all stages of the Open Space process, from invitation, to hosting, to harvesting and sustaining results. We are becoming more and more comfortable with the role of creating difficulty and chaos in order to help groups and organizations find new levels of innovation and collaboration. More of us are finding ourselves playing the archetypal role of The Fool in our work.
A third and very interesting development is noting the mental health benefits of participants experiencing greater integration as a result of being in active community experiences. Open Space seems to not only produce high quality results but also high quality relationships that results in deeper and deeper ways of being and deeper experiences of individual and collective wholeness.
Viv has also posted some thoughts on this.