At WorldChanging, news of a project intended to use web technology to work with indigensous oral cultures, tying traditional knowledge to biodiversity:
While there are those who argue that technology has led to the deterioration of traditional modes of communication and expression, the very same advancements are instrumental in allowing us to keep vanishing stories, cultural practices, and entire languages alive and thriving. By facilitating access to technology for people whose heritage is being challenged by the digital revolution, tech becomes a tool for nurturing traditional ways. Living Cultural Storybases is a new non-profit that works to do just that, using ICT to share knowledge amongst cultures and peoples with strong storytelling legacies.
More information at ths LCS website.
A colleague passed last week. Laurel Doersam was my co-host for the Open Space on Open Space in 2001 in Vancouver. We met originally when she sent me an email asking about Open Space and after connecting, she decided to go to Berlin in 2000 to OSonoS where she made the offer on behaf of the both of us to come to Vancouver in 2001.
Laurel ran the business end of the operation, which was not something either of us really had passion for, but she took it on and made sure we didn’t lose any money or any people that wanted to come. During the event itself I opened and closed space on the first and last days and she held space for the evening and morning news sessions, lending us a casual but intentional presence which supported the processing of the day’s work. After the conference was over, she hosted many friends including Lisa Heft, Nuran Yurgit and John Engle among others, showing them a little bit of BC and a lot of her heart and hospitality.
Shortly after OSonOS, Laurel was diagnosed with the cancer that took life last week. I heard from her a couple of times after OSonOS and tried to hook up with her and Rick the few times I was in Victoria, to no avail. I think the last time I saw her was actually at OSonOS, when I handed her a small gift of a medicine bundle to show my appreciation for her partnership in co-hosting the conference.
I have lost loved ones to cancer, and I know what Rick and Chelsea and the others are going through. I wish them peace and solace over the next weeks, months and years as Laurel’s spirit flies.
Here is a link to my opening comments at OSonOS IX in Vancouver. Laurel was there in the room with us all, as she is now.
[tags]Laurel Doersam[/tags]
“The secret of life is to have a question or task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day of your whole life and the most important thing is – it must be something you cannot possibly do!”
— Henry Moore
With thanks to my friend Patti DeSante, and also Michael Jones, who uses this quote in “Artful Leadership” (.pdf).
[tags]Henry Moore, Michael Jones, secret of life[/tags]
Photo of Henry Moore sculpture at Hakone Open Air Museum by Nemo’s Great Uncle
I have just finished posting a collection of 21 stories of Open Space events I have facilitated over the past 6 years. Most of these stories are about community-based events in Aboriginal communities here in Canada, but I believe they have lessons about the practice of Open Space that are more widely applicable in different settings and for unconferences too.
I hope you may find the collection useful.
[tags]unconference[/tags]
I was trolling through some old emails tonight and I discovered a note I had written to the OSLIST on the birth of my son five and a half years ago. I thought I’d share it here:
It’s funny thing. The smallest spaces need the most attention.
Sometimes, the smallest are the largest.On Tuesday (and for all of Monday and most of Sunday) I was opening
space for my second child, a boy named Finn Sinclair Corrigan-Frost, who
entered the world singing before he was fully born — the Elders call it
“bringing greetings from the spirt world” — on Novemer 7.He was born at home in the company of two midwives, a doula, my
partner’s mother and our 3 year old daughter, Aine, who cut the cord and
officially brought him into our world.It was a good birth and a long, but good labour. He is healthy and my
partner Caitlin is doing really well. As we were walking around down by
the ocean on Monday, with Caitlin in labour and a long day and night
ahead of us, she turned to me and said “it’s a funny thing being in
labour. The old world has passed away and the new one has yet to
begin. I feel like a spirit, invisible to everyone, dwelling in the
boundary between the two worlds, holding space for what is about to
come.”
Those words have had a profound impact on me, and I recently wrote a song in which I used Caitlin’s line without remembering it at all.
And the boy? Just a beautiful young man, with whom I am currently enjoying hours and hours of playing Pokemon and Dungeons and Dragons.