Cannon Beach impressions (3 and last)

[koos de heer]

This is the last part (3) of my Cannon Beach OT17
impressions.

Friday started with the light bodywork that I had
announced the day before. It was fun to do and so
I decided to do it again on saturday morning.

After morning announcements I first attended a
session on "Maintaining the momentum after OS".
It drifted toward the use of computers and
internet as a way of facilitating OS-like
structures, which was very interesting. The rest
of the day I devoted to a way of conducting a
meeting called "council". First there was an
Ehama council meeting. More info on this can be
found on http://www.ehama.org. The other meeting
was to be held in council format, which was the
main reason I attended, but there appeared to be
different implementations of this method, so it
was different from the other one. Nevertheless
interesting and also very useful. One conclusion:
one of the great things of Open Space is that
so many different things can exist within it.

The weather showed great differences. At times
it poured and at times it was bright and sunny.
Fortunately, we had the possibility to sit out-
side, on a porch as well as in the garden.

In the evening, we had a ritual with a few local
people. This was a special experience; in a
community south of Cannon Beach, there is a small
group of people who have found places with a
powerful energy and who have built two shrines:
one on the bay and one on the mountain nearby.
Virginia helped us build a labyrinth on the beach
and we all walked it with an intention. My
intention was to find out what I could do to let
spirit into my heart more. The answer came
quickly. Spirit said: "Hey - I am there, where
are you?" It was good to feel the energy of the
place, to drum and to be together. We visited
the shrine of the bay; the one on the mountain
was too far and a little difficult to reach. I
would have liked to go up, but that has to wait
untill some other time.

One of the people in the group is Tom Bender.
Read more about and from him at:
http://www.knsi.com/~tbender/
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC44/TOC44.htm
I have the impression that the group is mainly
carried by the energy and the initiative of the
women. But the only person who I have this kind
of information about is one of the men.  Can't
be a coincidence...

After the ritual on the beach, we went to see
what was left of the party in Ecola State Park.
A whole lot: we found a group of Open Spacers
who were also in high spirits (different spirit?
the same spirit in a different form? who knows...)
and as dusk came, we joined in the dancing and
singing until the stars came out.

Saturday morning I had to hurry to get everything
packed before the body work. It rained heavily
and more people were busy packing, so only a few
people showed up for bodywork. At the closing
circle, I felt a little uncomfortable at times
when people wanted to do things that, in my
opinion, would have been more appropriate in a
break out session. But there were also profound
moments of sharing and I deeply appreciated the
way in which Harrison conducted the final moment
of goodbye.

Next year it seems OT will be in Vermont, and the
year after that in Colorado. The US OT that is,
because I seem to have lost track of the Eurasian
OT conferences. As soon as I catch up with those,
I'll let you know.

I drove to Seattle, had a very nice evening with
Peg Holman (thanks again Peg!) and went on my way
to Massachusetts. Very grateful for all the new
friends that I had made and the rich new insights.

Koos

------------
koos de heer
auryn management advies
utrecht, netherlands
mailto:koosdhr at auryn.nl
http://www.auryn.nl/