I’m preparing to teach at an Art of Hosting gathering in Nova Scotia in a few weeks and as part of the conversations on design, we have been talking a little about what is required in order to confidently step into chaotic and unknown spaces.
This morning, my friend and other co-host Toke Paludan Moeller sent a short poem from an Aikido master that sums it up nicely:
When you step up,
claim the mat as your own.
Everybody you encounter
and everything that happens
is there by your invitation
and your invitation alone,
even the unexpected ones.Your job is to respond with
grace and compassion.
You can’t hide and you can’t fake it;
we will all see.Let the skills you have learned
and the wisdom of this art
flow through you
and all will be well.
[tags] aikido, art of hosting[/tags]
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I am a very mindful driver. For me driving is an exercise in flow and self-organization and I even see it as a bit of a giving practice.
So I was intensely interested when my friend Kathryn Thompson told me of an article entitled “Why don’t we do it in the road? recently published in Salon, which talks about how to make streets safer by removing controls.
“One of the characteristics of a shared environment is that it appears chaotic, it appears very complex, and it demands a strong level of having your wits about you,” says U.K. traffic and urban design consultant Ben Hamilton-Baillie, speaking from his home in Bristol. “The history of traffic engineering is the effort to rationalize what appeared to be chaos,” he says. “Today, we have a better understanding that chaos can be productive.”
In the past, in this space, I posted a video of traffic in India which demonstrates this point.
Chaos does make us more mindful. We make better choices in more chaotic environments because we pay much closer attention to the subtleties of what is happening around us. You cannot be on your cellphone, or talking to others or letting your mind wander when you are driving in unregulated traffic. You have to use all of the capacities that every driving instructor tries to teach you when you are sixteen. Pay attention, anticipate, leave space and be careful. Good advice for a chaotic world.
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From whiskey river today:
The Artist’s Duty
So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all
To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experienceTo set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to openTo admire only the absurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceitTo flash his vengeful badge at every abyss
To HAPPEN
It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupationsTo blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous impulse
To commit his company to all enchantments.
— Kenneth Patchen
The best facilitators, the best consultants and the best and truest helpers are like that too.
[tags]kenneth patchen[/tags]
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Finn Voldtofte and friends are convening an interesting looking gathering in Denmark at the end of October called “Moving the Edge.”
This gathering is intended to support the emergence of a field of collective intelligence, where the practices, insights, principles, etc., of collective intelligence can be evolved.
In addition we intend to create space for engaging the field of collective intelligence for deepening inquiries into core questions within specific areas. We envision that the following areas will attract the interest of many participants:
– The possible roles of business as seen from an evolutionary perspective
– Our planetary home
– Practices for integrated lifeWhat themes will actually be engaged depends on the experiences and insights brought present by the participants.
If you feel called by this invitation, then you are invited.
The gathering will start Sunday, Oct. 22 with an informal reception at 20.00 and ends Thursday, Oct. 26 after lunch. The venue is Fuglsøcentret near Aarhus, Denmark.
In support of this intriguing gathering, Finn has posted some articles about process that are lovely, including one on “inquiring from the middle,” a practice he is especially passionate about.
[tags]moving the edge, finn voldtofte[/tags]
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The bottom-up hive mind will always take us much further that seems possible. It keeps surprising us. In this regard, the Wikipedia truly is exhibit A, impure as it is, because it is something that is impossible in theory, and only possible in practice. It proves the dumb thing is smarter than we think. At that same time, the bottom-up hive mind will never take us to our end goal. We are too impatient. So we add design and top down control to get where we want to go.
That is such a lovely and concise description of the benefits of bottom up organization combined with the benefits of top down. In some ways you could see this polarity as inside versus outside as well. For example, in chaordic organizational design, you see this manifest with the principles that are developed for action which are the collective expression that comes “top down” in a sense to guide the bottom up action of the individuals. There may be a group of people that cares for these principles and, by agreement of the rest of the group, maintains them in order to creatively constrain action. In that sense the organization is top down that allows for and opens space for bottom up agency.
To see this as inner and outer, it seems clear that from the outside, the rules for action come, but they exist to support and encourage the expression of individual volition, so that individuals, acting on their own drives and passions can connect with others to take responsibility for bringing things to life.
We have a real life example of this in the community that has collected around our learning centre here on Bowen Island. Just finishing its third year, the learning centre is a place for homeschooling families to connect with others, use the expertise of hired teachers and for the kids to supplement their homelearning with up to 2.5 days a week of work with others in a class room and resource rich setting. Each family is responsible for the learning of their own children and so we have a number of approaches being used in the community. Our family unschools, and other families use curriculum to various degrees. We are involved in a variety of activities outside of the learning centre but we also come together to work with and support each other.
The learning centre program is supported by a group of parents called the planning council who make top-down decisions about how things run at the centre. They hire the teachers, and look after the finances and also set and maintain the principles of the program. One of the principles is family participation, and so the organization runs as a bit of an Open Space. If you want something to happen, make it happen. If you need help, ask for help. Connect passion and responsibility within the principled parameters of the program and we can do stuff. If what you want doesn’t fit the program, find some other parents and offer it on your own. In this way we support 20 homelearning families, all with different styles, in a common set of activities. It works really well, and is actually surprisingly little work for the planning council. I think their biggest stress is not time per se but wrestling with the edges of the principles to maintain the integrity of the intention of the program. And that, it seems to me, is what top-down should do, while bottom up is taking care of the quality of the offerings and the details. It is, in the words of our Open Space practices, holding and supporting connection, to keep the space open for creative learning and offerings to occur.
[tags]Kevin Kelly, chaordic[/tags]