{"id":1540,"date":"2008-08-22T16:48:38","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T00:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=1540"},"modified":"2008-08-22T20:40:49","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T04:40:49","slug":"harrison-owen-on-dancing-with-the-devil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/harrison-owen-on-dancing-with-the-devil\/","title":{"rendered":"Harrison Owen on dancing with the devil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Raffi Aftendelian unearthed a beautiful gem today.  Writing on the OSLIST, he quoted something Harrison Owen had written 40 years ago when he was unknowingly being inspired to create Open Space Technology.  As a text to a photo essay on life in a Liberian village, Harrison wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A very special part<br \/>\nof any village celebration<br \/>\nis the appearance of the various &#8220;devils.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe word devil is very misleading,<br \/>\nand was undoubtedly<br \/>\nthe unwanted gift<br \/>\nof an early missionary<br \/>\nThe devils are not evil,<br \/>\nbut rather represent<br \/>\na respected (albeit feared)<br \/>\npart of the village.<br \/>\nNothing of importance happens<br \/>\nunless they appear and dance.<br \/>\nIn their appearance,<br \/>\nall aspects of the village<br \/>\nare brought together-dance,<br \/>\nmusic, government, and religion.<br \/>\nWhen the &#8220;Devil&#8221; dances, life goes on.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>In the village,<br \/>\nall things go in a circle,<br \/>\nand everything fits.<br \/>\nTo speak of the drums<br \/>\nis to speak of the dance,<br \/>\nis to speak of the Devils&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Weaving and Forging<br \/>\nFire and Steel- the Bush<br \/>\nLife, Death and Life again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ain&#8217;t that something?  Another little tidbit to add to the nascent beginning of Open Space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raffi Aftendelian unearthed a beautiful gem today. Writing on the OSLIST, he quoted something Harrison Owen had written 40 years ago when he was unknowingly being inspired to create Open Space Technology. As a text to a photo essay on life in a Liberian village, Harrison wrote: A very special part of any village celebration is the appearance of the various &#8220;devils.&#8221; The word devil is very misleading, and was undoubtedly the unwanted gift of an early missionary The devils are not evil, but rather represent a respected (albeit feared) part of the village. Nothing of importance happens unless they &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-1540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-space","tag-harrison-owen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-oQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1544,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}