Micheal Herman posted a cool cafe design to the OSLIST today. It marries the best of Cafe and Open Space:
i just facilitated an afternoon program with 120 “high potential” high school seniors as part of a final selection process for full-ride scholarships to two excellent universities. it was a cafe format, but the first session was used to write questions that these young leaders thought they and other young people should be addressing. then we did three rounds in which table hosts picked the questions and raised them with whoever rotated to their table for one session. after the first question-making session, the 20 tables went in 20 different directions, like an open space with so many small stakes in the ground. and i went around picking up cups and the last bits of box-lunch trash in cafe-style, with a small tray and quiet “can i take that out of your way?”
UPDATE: Michael has posted an excellent detailed write up of this design at his blog.
Today in our planning for the 2009 Food and Society gathering, one of our young core team members made a bold declaration. She agreed to step up to be a target for any blame that might be generated during our work. When I later asked her out of which practice her commitment came, she said it was from the Tibetan Buddhist Lojong mind training, in which one of the slogans is “Drive all blames into one.”
Trungpa Rinpoche comments on that slogan:
The text says “drive all blames into one”. the reason you have to do that is because you have been cherishing yourself so much… Although sometimes you might say that you don’t like yourself, even then in your heart of hearts you know that you like yourself so much that you’re willing to throw everybody else down the drain, down the gutter. You are really willing to do that. You are really willing to let somebody else sacrifice his life, give himself away for you. And who are you, anyway?
It was remarkable to hear my young friend utter that line with such clarity and conviction in a room of power and experience which was tasked with designing this incredibly important gathering. Remarkable, but not at all out of character for the six young (20 somethings) people that are working with us on the core team. We are lucky to have them.
Apropos of the fact that Tim Merry, Monica Nissen and I are hosting a module on the Art of Intergernational Hosting at this year’s Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership in Action, comes this quote from Jack Ricchiuto:
Every aging generation questions whether the generation coming of age has what it takes to learn into maturity as defined by the aging generation. Easy for each to think it knows better than the other. The fact is that they will always know more together than they could in isolation or competition. Hierarchy has the relevance of fossils. In an age of wisdom, life is a circle and we dare to be peers.
We dare to be peers indeed.
San Francisco
OSonOS 2008 has begun with Lisa Heft opening up space in a beautiful building at San Francisco’s Presidio this morning for 120 of us from more than 15 countries to get into what Open Space is all about. This is my third worldwide OSonOS and I love these gatherings because I get to hang around with people for three days that I don;t have to explain myself to! That, I think may be a good working definition of a community of practice.
THis one is different for me as I am here with my whole family, and my kids are actively participating. I sat with my seven year old Finn today in a session on facilitating Open Space as a kid. For him I think it was an experiment in what it is like to post a session and see who will come and find out how the whole thing goes. There was a small group of us talking about a number of issues having to do with working with children both in Open Space and facilitating Open Space, and a few insights came to light.
First, when working with kids, it’s important to know that the principles of Open Space will always be pushed to the max, and probably beyond what most adults are comfortable with. We had a story of a gathering that my kids were a part of that was hosted by adults, but in which the outcomes were predetermined and “the best face” was put on the event. Working with kids means whatever happens in the only thing that could have happened and that might also mean that nothing of significance happens. Being okay with this, especially if resources have been sunk into something, can be hard for adults tied to outcomes. Working with kids will always teach you something about your practice.
We heared some good points about the kinds of ways adults need to show up with kids in Open Space, notably around the issue of time rhythms and silence. Kids operate on a different time engine than adults, sometimes speeding ahead, other times slowing down. Often kids won’t speak until they know they are safe and they will silently canvas a circle of their peers to see who might talk first. This can seem interminable to adults who are expecting answers and yet this relationsl field is very important to kids.
We talked too about making sure that spaces are meaningful for kids. If we are doing work that involves kids voices, we need to make sure that these voices will have impact and that we may be prepared to be changed by the experience. Adults can be advocates to kids – even in child-based organizations – to make sure that children’s wisdom is heard.
Finally we talked a little about a real world issue going on in our home community of Bowen Island, where some trees are being taken out of a playground to build an all weather playing field, something Finn is pretty interested in. The need for children to have spaces in which unfettered social self-organization can occur is critical. While there are many forested areas on our island, there are very few in which all the island kids can meet and in which the co-create self-organized worlds. In this sense kids already know how to live and be in Open Space. Helping them to actually run meetings like this might benefit from drawing on these expereinces.
My son really co-convened this session with me and at times he was lost for words. I think for him, there was a little experiment going on: what is it like to call a session? Who will come? How does the power work in this process? He learned a few things about this, including the fact that if you call it, people will come. He also learned about checking in and checking out and knowing that that is okay, but it reminded me that for a wide open learner it may be true that working in Open Space is equally about learning about the content and playing with the process. Fascinating all round.
Photo by aikijuanma
Here is a lovely story of youth adding beauty to the world by setting up a poetry stand and giving away instantly crafted poems to anyone who asked for them.
A few months ago as I was walking in Government Street in Victoria I met a woman standing beneath a tree outside Munro’s Books. The tree had small pieces of paper attached to them and when I looked closer I saw that they were poems, hanging on a “poet tree.” The poet turned out to be Yvonne Blomer and she asked me if she could read me a poem. When I said, with delight, “of course!” she asked whether I preferred any particular subject. I replied that I wished her to read me a poem about the territory of the open heart. She looked at me for a second and then reached into a file folder and pulled out this one:
To watch over the vineyards
O carrion crow, pulpy skull of scarecrow
going soft in your black bill,
in this fetish-orange field lies worship:
the sweep of glossed plumage over glistening
membrane; lies the sweet blood of purple skinned grape
cut on your sharp edged tomia,
shimmering there; sun-light on wet earth.
You too sweet to ripe; you black in the shadows, calling when you’re calling – –
the herds fly in dust gone crow, gone scare,
gone trill in clicks and shouts of krrrkrrr.
I applauded and remarked at how appropriate the poem was in many ways, especially in the resonance of the last sound, which approximated the French word for heart: coeur. She signed the card upon which the poem was written, handed it to me, and wished me a good day.
There is nothing bad that can come from poetry offered freely in the street.