When the Government of British Columbia announced that it would look at election reform after the last election in 2001, I have to admit that I was skeptical. Lots of political parties promise this kind of thing, but once they get elected, they discover that the system as it is suits them fine and the promise is forgotten.
But not this time. To the credit of the government, they launched a comprehensive project to look at electoral options which became one of the most interesting processes in the world. They randomly selected a man and a woman from each riding in the province and put them to work on an electoral body called the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform. After a year of meetings and deliberation, the Assembly recommended that BC consider changing from the traditional “first past the post” Westminister Parliamentary system to a Single Transferable Vote (.pdf) system like the one used in Ireland and New Zealand. The next step in the process is for people to get educated about this and cast a vote for or against it during our provincial election on May 17th.
And so the process of educating and advocating for and against the proposal kicks in. Of course you might think that weblogs might play a role in all of this, but it turns out that that isn’t the case. Elections BC has ruled that as of March 1, blogs set up for the purposes of advancing one side or the other must register and become part of the official election advertising. Failure to do so could net you a $5000 fine. Now there is nothing on the Elections BC website yet about this, but I’ll keep looking for it.
In the meantime I can tell you that I’m voting for the STV option, both because it will change the ridiculously polarized nature of politics in this province and because I have deep respect for the process and the way the proposal was developed. It would be a shame if Elections BC were to see it differently. After nearly two years of open dialogue and conversation, I would hate to see it all grind to a halt now that an actual decision is in the offing.
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Some contemplative music for a cool and rainy spring day here on Canada’s west coast.
This is a “taqsim” which is an improvised solo piece, and it’s a common form for the oud, the Arabic lute. Taqsim are deliberately expressive, often being used to set the mood for a longer suite of music. They can go on for 20 minutes or more, as the musician weaves through an emotional territory and describes a varied and conversational musical landscape.
This sample is typical of the genre, moving between slow and contemplative moments and points of high frenetic energy. It’s from a live recording by the Egyptian-born Australian musician Joseph Tawadros. It’s nearly 12 minutes long, so sit back and enjoy.
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I’m reading a number of excellent books at the moment that have nothing to do with facilitation except that they are about seeing the natural in the world. TC McLuhan’s “The Way of the Earth” is fantastic and so is Thoreau’s classic Walden, from which comes this quote:
“It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. Often in a snow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village. Though he knows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he cannot recognize a feature in it, but it is as strange to him as if it were a road in Siberia. By night, of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater. In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round — for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost — do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as be awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
As a facilitator I try to use processes that are natural, that work with self-organization, chaos and order the way nature works with them. This passage nicely describes the sense of unease and disorientation one feels in the chaos of Open Space for example that leads to a realization of “the infinite extent of our relations.”
In the words of the Japanese art critic Soetsu Yangi, quoted by McLuhan:
Nature must be freely at work in the mind when anything is well made. Through painstaking efforts may have a contribution to make in carrying out a work, more astonishing is the effect that “nomindedness” has upon it. One gains greater insight into nature by open trust rather than by attempts at intellectual understanding.
I have some big processes to plan and facilitate over the next few weeks and so I’m going outside now to sit under an arbutus tree and sketch the swordfern fiddle heads that are coming up.
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All these world leaders gathered at the Pope’s funeral, and a bout of handshaking and politeness breaks out causing the spin doctors to go into overdrive.
Far from seeing this as a sad indictment on the state of international relations, I actually smiled broadly after reading this piece. It shows that when two humans meet, they tend toward the cordial. Even if they lead countries that are at war with one another or one denies the existence of the other, it’s impossible not to respond like a human to the presence of another.
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My friend Jeff and I were talking yesterday about flow states, what they feel like, why they are important.
As a musician I live for the flow state that we call “groove.” But it’s really heard to describe what that feels like. Saying that it’s a shared emotional space into which you let go and trust in the collective outcome doesn’t quite capture it.
I think this video, which was posted up at MetaFilter, captures flow states exactly. Here are a bunch a young guys making incredible basketball shots which they could only make if they simply relaxed and let go into them. I’m willing to bet that as this shoot went on they actually made more and more of these attempts on the first or second try. What a thing to watch, especially the one where the guy bats the ball into the basket with his skateboard.