Henryvlle, Indiana I’m here at the Wooded Glen Retreat Centre in Henryville, which is in southern Indiana running an Art of Hosting with my mates Teresa Posakony, Tenneson Woolf, Tuesday Ryan and Howard Mason. It’s hot and humid here, punctuated by heavy downpours which feels as if the air is just wringing itself out. By contrats the rooms we are in are cold enough to hang meat, as Howard said, so it’s a little funny. Prior to being here I was in Camden, Maine joining Harrison Owen and 40 Open Space faiclitators at a little Open Space on …
In the OSLIST discussion on circles and presence, I added some thoughts, which I thought I’d republish here… My experience of the circle is first of all, that there has never been a group I have worked with – not business people, airplane engineers, entrepreneurs, government officials, community members – that hasn’t been just fine in a circle. No one has ever asked me not to set the room up a different way, although plenty of people have expressed their doubts that any of it would work. I’ve also done OST in other formats as well, like lecture halls, semi …
Here is a selection of interesting papers for your summer reading: Is it time to unplug our schools? – Almost everything published in Orion is interesting. This article looks at what schools are doing to teach a deep relationship to nature. Altar calls for true believers – on the challenge of practicing what we preach with respect to sustainability. This is a good piece on why systemic change in general doesn’t necessarily correlate with necessity. Horse Power – Old technology for a new world. No coffee – A great piece on Jurgen Habermas, coffeehouses and the power of conversation. Modern …
Harrison Owen muses on circles, presence and Open Space on the OSLIST: As I have listened to this conversation (a very rich one!) random thoughts came to mind – which may actually fit together? The first one went something like this. We speak, understandably, about “doing an Open Space” – but I suspect that may box us into a corner we need not be stuck in. “Doing and Open Space” implies that we are following a certain set of prescribed procedures, after all Open Space Technology is a method. This is true, but it may also hide a larger truth, …
From whiskey river: “Basically, there can only be two answers. One is to overcome separateness and find unity by regression to the state of unity that existed before awareness ever arose; this is, before man was born. The other answer is to be fully born, to develop one’s awareness, one’s reason, one’s capacity to love to such a point that one transcends one’s own egocentric involvement and arrives at a new harmony – at a new oneness with the world.” – Erich Fromm It’s amazing how the stories we tell ourselves perpetuate our own suffering and inability to fully participate …