Sporadic eating from the road:
I’m in the waiting area of the Dutch Harbor/Unalaska airport in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. I’ve been here for less than 24 hours accompanying some colleagues on some consultations with Alaskan fishing communities. This place is all about fish, and that is all: pollack, halibut, salmon, cod and of course the world famous crab fleet which plies its trade in the Bering Sea on the World’s Deadliest Catch. The motto on the wall here at the airport is “The highest degree of opportunity” and that is indeed what this town is all about. Opportunity abounds to make money for sure but also in many other less savoury ways. This town has been cobbled together from old Russian church missions, native communities, from army and navy bases, from decades of fishing the richest waters on the planet. Everything here is opportunity, roughshod and utilitarian, sometimes brutal and vicious, but set in a landscape that is stunning.
Everything here is lifted and dropped. The mountains have been lifted from the sea and the fish and crabs are lifted from there too and dropped on deck, offloaded at the plants. People are lifted and dropped too – rocketing to wealth and falling to ill health and misfortune. Everything on these islands has been lifted onto a boat or a plane and dropped off here: years of industrial materials, commercial material, food, building supplies. The beaches in some areas are littered with disused and discarded equipment, nets, machinery and gear.
The land is incredible. Not a tree stands on these islands, so they are covered in thickets of cover bushes and everything is in flower now in the late summer. The glaciers and snowpacks in the mountains are at their dirtiest, but the summer here is short, if not non-existent. The water is never more than 10 or 12 degrees Centigrade and fog, rain and wind besets the place at any time. Flying in here is an adventure, with the runway carved out of a cliff face and running a mere 3900 feet to the apron. You are never sure if you will get in or out or, as happened to me, you will arrive but your bag will not. In this landscape, on this ocean you can only be humble. There is no illusion of control. You roll with flow and get where you’re going whenever you get there.
It’s a shame that I’m only here for a short time. I would love to explore these mountains more, to see the seabirds and the humpback whales that are breaching gleefully just around the corner from the harbour. As it was I was able to watch pink salmon run in the Iluliuk River today swimming in a channel between a processing plant and a senior’s centre, and I managed to get to beach by the airport and stand up a rock or two. But it’s ahrd to believe that I would ever be back here, so I leave with a little regret that I couldn’t stay longer. A warm bed awaits in Anchorage, and from there a medium haul home tomorrow.
From my friend Jerry Nagel, a quote from guitar maker Phil Patrillo:
We send our kids to school. I call it the “brain laundry.” They teach them everything you don’t want them to know. It’s done in the name of education and fairness and righteousness, and the things of common sense and how things are done, are never explored. You get a piece of paper with your name on it, if you follow the instructions. I got a Doctorate not because I wanted the piece of paper; I got the Doctorate because my professor said to me, “You know more about this than I do and I’m the professor.” I wanted to know why things occurred. I always say that creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
That indeed is art in so many ways…it is the act of playing with space…the space between the notes that Miles Davisr talked about or the willingness to master and then let go of technique that Thelonius Monk talk about or the. In the moment, art is about knowing which mistakes to keep and how to surround them with silence and emptiness so that they can grow and come alive. Everything we do, if we call ourselves artists comes from that source.
Harrison Owen periodically restates his invitation to the world to not only join in Open Space but to go as far as you can in Open Space and see where it takes you. I feel like my work of late has been about this in many ways, and Harrison’s recent post to the OSLIST came at just the right time for me. Here is what he says:
A long time ago a good friend, Ralph Copleman, was to be found in the middle of a large circle of peers dressed in a flowing cape and repeating the words, “Everything is moving, Everything is moving.” Odd to say the least and some doubted Ralph’s sanity. Some still do, but that image has stuck in my febrile brain ever since – and as time has passed it occurs to me that Ralph had it precisely right: This is an energetic cosmos. The problem arises when we (and that includes all of us some of the time) desperately want everything to stop and stand still. So desperately in fact that we have created a mental image of our environment exclusively populated by static things which include everything from mountains to super nova along with the oddments of our life like professions, chairs, relationships, organizational structures, corporations, countries and empires. Unfortunately this mental image is a radical illusion, one might say delusion. Ralph is right. Everything is moving and what we perceive as stable structures are but the momentary, slice in time, freeze-frame constructs of our imagination.
Heresy? Psychobabble? Advanced esoteric insight? – None of the above, I think. As a matter of fact, Ralph’s observation is nothing but a short (poetic?) version of the (now) standard scientific understanding of the nature of the cosmos. Starting with the Big Bang it is all flowing energy, albeit now clumped in momentary configurations – but still flowing energy for all of that. Scratch any rock hard enough and its essential nature comes through – a whirring bunch of quarks and neutrons doing the cosmic dance. Doubtless my physicist friends would take issue with my phrasing – but not, I think, with the core message. Everything is moving.
So what does all this have to do with the price of eggs? Or for that matter – Open Space and our role as facilitators and consultants? A lot, I believe.
Starting with Open Space which is many things to different people. For some it is a Large Group Intervention. Others might see it as an aberrant phenomenon peculiar to a cultish few. For myself Open Space is a trial ride in the flow of life which has a lot of similarities to my boat.
My boat is smallish in size (32 feet) but definitely larger than the average punt. She is very seaworthy and shares a common heritage with the local Lobster Boats here in Maine. We have many visitors, most of whom have never been on a boat such as the Ethelyn Rose. When you walk on board, things look sort of familiar. Chairs for sitting, a comfortable nook for dining, and even an oriental rug on the floor – excuse me, sole. If you look further there are the standard amenities such as a shower and commode, all sequestered in their separate quarters. Even a complete landlubber will feel more or less at home.
But the moment we leave the dock the world changes – apparent stability yields to constant motion. Everything is moving even if it seems to be staying in the same place! In the harbor motion is minimal, but the moment we clear the breakwater marking the harbor entrance the experience can be radically different. Sea swells from the open Atlantic Ocean take us up and down in distances measured in yards, and should we have a good cross wind the surface chop adds an interesting side to side motion. The Ethelyn Rose is right at home, but some of our visitors have a different impression. And navigating in these conditions is a definite learning experience. Even a simple walk through the main cabin can be a challenge. Hand holds that you had carefully plotted at the start of your journey suddenly changed position relative to you as you made your way. What was up is now down and who knows what is happening in between. Interesting, and as they say, It ain’t Kansas.
Most people meet the challenge and after a few educational bumps to various parts of their anatomy they learn not to fight reality. No matter what you may have thought you were going to do, the only useful option is to go with the flow. And the next level of learning is that when you do that well (flow) you can actually arrive where you need to be. Wonderful! Sounds a lot like Open Space.
We start in the static stability of a circle. This may seem strange to some, but there is a place for everybody and everybody finds a place. A familiar and enduring structure for sure. Then it happens. The circle crumbles in bits and pieces as people come to center, announcing their passions – only to be briefly restored as they return to their seats. However the restoration is but momentary. Shortly everybody leaves their seats to join a chaotic gaggle at the wall. So much for static structure, and it goes downhill from there.
Ebbing and flowing, groups form and reform all without benefit of the standard constraints essential for orderly organizational life–or so we might have thought. Pre-arranged agenda (sometimes called Mission, Goals, Objectives) is nonexistent. The Schedule might be posted but never followed – things start when they start. Assigned participation is nowhere to be found, and yet the right people show up. And to make things even worse, the air is filled with buzzing and flutters as Bees and Butterflies do their thing. Madness! To be sure there may be a few people who are utterly flummoxed as the hand holds they may have expected (see above under “Ethelyn Rose at Sea”) disappear . . . or reappear in unexpected places. Their condition is not helped, for should they ask what to do the answer is likely to come back as a question – What would they care to do?
A trifling few will lose heart and head for the shore – perceived stability. But the vast majority, as we have seen over the years and around the globe, will be totally captivated by the moment, and a smaller group will experience that moment as total exhilaration. They are doing what their prior life experience taught them could not be done – seriously and intentionally going with the flow. And rather than being rank hedonism, the experience proves to be massively productive and fulfilling. Doing well and good – and feeling great. A hard to beat combination.
And then we come to Monday Morning. Back to reality, as they say. But is it? The truth, I believe is rather different. They have experienced reality and come to the edge of shedding illusion/delusion. In the words of friend Ralph, “Everything is moving” – and this is now a fact of life to be savored and enjoyed. No longer a terrifying unknown, it is to be affirmed and embraced. Not without a few “white knuckle” moments to be sure – but infinitely better than hanging onto the (illusory) rock of stability.
So what about us – those privileged folks who have accepted the honor of opening space in people’s lives? Short answer: Invite our guests over the edge. Please note I did not say, Push them over the edge.
Crafting this invitation is always a matter of personal style and must come from the heart. The invitation I have in mind never appears on a piece of paper (or the electronic equivalent). It arrives in our personhood – who we are and how we present ourselves, which is to say, from the heart. Not to be confused with a gushy valentine or formulaic presentation, the invitation manifests in our simple presence, revealing our own acceptance and joy in the moving flow of life. Without words we express the swimmer’s call: Come on in, the water is fine! Of course you have to be in the water for that call to have any credibility.
It is perhaps easier to say how NOT to create this invitation. First off, it is not a matter of rational argument and presentation of facts. Most people already know the facts at some level, and I think the case could be made that it was “rational argument” that has gotten us into the bind we experience. Given the “fact” of a moving, changing world which can be very uncomfortable, it is quite “rational” to define that world in terms of controllable static chunks that may be contained, or better, bent to our specifications. This has led us to such wonderful things as “Flood Control” which works until such time as Mother Nature and Old Man River decide to take a different course. It turns out that The River is not a static, definable thing but part of a vast ever changing system. Effective Flood Control would require close management of the Planet’s atmosphere to say nothing of the cosmos beyond. Good luck!
Also under the heading of “NOT to be included” are well intentioned efforts to sugar coat the pill, as it were. Which is to say that we might propose certain limitations that will restrict the possibility of change in Open Space. Some of us have called these “givens” but so far as I can tell the only given is change itself. And to suggest otherwise is not so much to violate the “Spirit of Open Space” but rather the essence of the cosmos itself. Ralph had it right: Everything is moving. In this context, Open Space Technology is a minimal consideration.
I am by no means suggesting that our invitation look like the back panel of some medication listing every possible adverce reaction, if in fact unexpected change is such an adverce reaction. And truth to tell I find the appearance of unexpected change in the midst of an Open Space to be one of its (OS’s) most delightful consequences. I also think that it is important to note the OS is not the engine of change. It simply provides the space for change to show up and the cosmos (or whatever) takes care of all the heavy lifting.
For me an invitation to Open Space is an opportunity to include friends and strangers in the deepest experience of (my) life. It has little to do with selling a product, doing a process, excersizing some sort of professional competence – although there are doubtless elements of all of that. Fundamentally it is my invitation to experience life at its fullest in which chanagability is not the enemy to be suppressed but rather the rich tapestry of an evolving future. I don’t make it, I can’t predict it – but I can participate both as a sojourner and a co-creator. Stuart Kauffman speaks of being “At Home in the Universe.” That is my elemental experience, and I am always looking for playmates.
