Menu

Be with the change you want to see in the world

August 6, 2008 By Uncategorized 5 Comments

On a conference call this morning with friends around the world talking about skillful being with change, I had this thought that because change happens anyway, any story we have about it is equally valid.   And so, in choosing to be with changing times and changing environments, we can choose the way in which we see change.

Being the change you want to be in the world is a beautiful thought, because it invites us into embodying shift and being in one’s integrity with one’s work.   Maybe too there is another level, which is to be WITH the change you want to see in the world.   In a world where whatever happens is the only thing that could have, choosing to be with the changes that make sense seems to be a key capacity to staying sane and being useful.

Understand your stories of change, understand your stories about the changes going on around you and be with the ones that you want to see.   The truth of it, I think, is that at any given time, there is something going on that we can choose to be with.

Like these people dancing.

Back from the hack

August 5, 2008 By Uncategorized 2 Comments

Finally recoversing the site from a massive hack attack.   Most of my site had previously been put together on PmWiki, which was a great wiki and a very easy to use content management tool.   However, it had some weak security and someone exploited it, ran a bunch of code through my wiki and sent out 45,000 emails phising for private info.   Yikes.

I’ve spent a lot of today on the phone with John over at dollarhost and we have figured out what’s going on.   The site was so corrupted that we had to delete and reset the whole thing.   So I have a new install of wordpress running (very sleak too, I might say) and I have all of the content from my wiki site, but I’m not going to be restoring it with PmWiki.   My plan is actually to use WordPress to generate the pages of my site, so that’s what comes next.   In the meantime, blogging is back up and I’m slowly recovering.

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have!

Thanks to all those who emailed to ask what was going on and thanks to John at dollarhost for a job well done.

Reading in the margins

August 3, 2008 By Notes One Comment

For those of you that read my blog in an RSS feed – thank you.   AND, you won’t have noticed that I have added a link roll on the sidebar of my blog, which captures some of the things that I am finding interesting at the moment.   These are articles, videos, music and other assorted miscellania that may or may not end up here as a blog post.

If you would like to subscribe to that link feed, here is the link.   Of course it’s all done through del.icio.us which has just gone through an impressive redesign.

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have

July 26, 2008 By Facilitation, Open Space 7 Comments

Yesterday Ashley Cooper posted a question on the OSLIST about the enigmatic principle of “whatever happens is only thing that could have:

Feeling those gathered in San Francisco, swimming in the hearty open space soup, I find a myself pondering a topic I would host if I were there… a topic I’d love to have a conversation around.

I’m curious about the wording of the principle, “what ever happens is the only thing that could have”. I know John Engle brought this question up in the past http://www.openspaceworld.org/news/2007/05/11/whatever-happens/ and I’m still curious about it.

I find that people sometimes use it as a block to reflection, a reason to not look back and learn from what didn’t happen because “whatever happens is the only thing that could have.” Yes, and…

I love the principle for the acceptance that it invites. And I struggle with it because there is a sense of finality that it also invites (if you want to let yourself go there). We did what we did and that’s, that. Which is true… And…

I appreciate how in Haiti they are playing with What Happens is what happens – learn and move forward. I like the learn and keep moving part.

Are there other ways that people phrase this principle? How do you invite the spirit of acceptance and invitations to be with what is alive and happening in the moment, while also inviting reflection and learning from what has and has not emerged?

If anyone at WOSonOS is reading this and you find this conversation springing up in your face to face time, please do share your harvest with us. I’m contemplating posting a skype session tomorrow morning on this topic… and I’ve not yet been able to commit myself to being inside at the computer tomorrow morning!!

I put the question to a few folks here and recorded about a half hour of their answers. Wisdom follows from Larry Peterson, Michael Cook, Viv McWaters, Peggy Holman, Susan Kerr, Michael Pannwitz, David Barnes, Jeff Aitken, Lisa Heft,   Aine Corrigan-Frost, Alan Stewart, Phelim McDermott, Elwin Guild, John Engle and Brian Bainbridge, You can listen to the interviews here:

Blogs at OSonOS

July 26, 2008 By Open Space

I mentioned some of the blogs that are here in San Franciso…here are a few more: