Someone could probably write a whole book on tree metaphors. Here is another, from William Isaacs’ amazing book on Dialogue. This is Peter Senge talking about David Bohm’s ideas of dialogue:
David Bohm used to say that the tree does not grow from the seed. It is ludicrous to say the tiny seed produces the immense oak tree. Rather, Bohm suggested, the seed is a kind of aperture through which the tree gradually emerges. IN a sense, it organizes the processes of growth which eventually create the tree. Just so, our conversations organize the processes and structures which shape our collective futures. The nature of the aperture rests in the spirit that shapes the undertaking.
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My friend (and one time guest blogger here) Alex Kjerulf is ploughing ahead with his Happy At Work Project and he now has a website up and an international conference in the offing for next month.
In his inaugural English newsletter, he quotes from this article about Southwest Airlines and reiterates the following story:
[One] time, a senior executive spent a day working at the ticket counter and with the ground crew to have a better understanding of their roles. While she was helping direct a plane to the gate using those long orange directional devises, one of the seasoned ground crew members told her to rotate her wrists in a circular manner. When she did this, the plane did a 360 degree turn! She began to scream thinking she had sent a confusing signal to the pilot. In reality, the ground crew had contacted the pilot and told them they had a “greeny” directing the plane and that they wanted to have some fun with her. The pilot enthusiastically agreed to play along. Very cool.
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This is from “Synchronicity” by Joseph Jaworski. It is from a conversation he had with Francisco Varela in which Varela tells him about the power of being open:
When we are in touch with our ‘open nature,’ our emptiness, we exert an enormous attraction to other human beings. There is great magnetism in that state of being which has been called by Trungpa ‘authentic presence.” Varela leaned back and smiled. ‘Isn’t that beautiful? And if others are in that same space or entering it, they resonate with us and immediately doors are open to us. It is not strange or mystical. It is part of the natural order.
‘Those that are in touch with that capacity are seen as great warriors in the American Indian tradition, or as Samurai in the Eastern tradition. For me, the Samurai is one who holds that posture in the world–someone who is so open he is ready to die for the cause. That capacity gives us a fundamental key and is a state of being known in all great traditions of humanity.’
Later in the conversation, Varela warned, ‘There is great danger if we consider these people to be exceptional. They are not. This capacity is a part of the natural order and is a manifestation of something we haven’t seen previously, not something we do not have. This state is available to us all, and yet it is the greatest of all human treasures.�”
For me this is a perfect summary of what it is like to live a life of invitation. It also nicely describes the Open Space facilitation practices of Opening and Inviting.
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I learned something at OSonOS which applies to unconferencing. Blogging DURING a conference is not good unconferencing behaviour. Unconferencing dialogue requires attention and you can’t do that while you are writing.
And so, my thoughts about OSonOS will trickle out here in the next little while. I start with this one, from Masud Sheik.
Masud said something in the closing circle that sent me thinking…he began his comments by saying “most of us are dead” by which I think he meant most of the people who have been alive in human history.
This immediately made a picture of a tree come to mind, with dead heart wood supporting the thin living layer of bark. Most of the bulk of a tree is dead, but the living skin is what ensures the future. Slice a thick circle of bark around the circumference of the tree and it will die, despite 1000 years of growth.
Humanity is like that and whether Masud meant this or not, it was a powerful image for me about how important it is to do good work in the world.
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Halifax, Nova Scotia
What a hairy day of travel that was.
I’m here in Halifax for the 13th annual Open Space on Open Space conference. In an hour or so, 100 of us from all over the world will gather in in a church hall on Barrington Street, for our annual gathering, wherein we take stock of practices and the state of things Open Space. And of course we do it in Open Space.
Yesterday it took me a long time to get here. My 7:00am flight was cancelled by the Air France crash in Toronto which backed up traffic all over the country. When I finally did get on a plane (after a few moments of grief when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to) we left seven hours later, and arrived in Halifax at 2:00am. I missed the reception, but I’m just now wolfing down some breakfast and about to head over to the hall. If there’s wireless about, I’ll post notes from session topics as they emerge.