Self-Organization is What Consciousness (Spirit) Does

[Peggy Holman]

>From Harrison:

>Specifically in terms of other large group interventions and the place that
Open Space may hold
> amongst them -- we might ask, how much space does each intervention offer?
I
> can't say that I have been through all 18 (if that is the magic number),
but I
> can say that some of those 18 which i have experienced make me feel
absolutely
> claustrophobic, and others less so.

And Ralph:

>It's not only the 18(?) so-called large group interventions I'm referring
>to.  How about therapy or other one-to-one interventions?  In my
experience,
>these can thwart as well as free folks.


Similar to Ralph and Harrison, I have run screaming (to myself) from the
room when observing/participating in several large group interventions that
made me feel closed in.  At the other end of the spectrum, I had a
conversation with someone, a deeply experienced practitioner of another
whole system method, who spent a week in Open Space.  She wasn't at home in
it, spending much of her time in her room.  A perfectly valid choice, of
course.  Did she get value from the experience?  No question.  Would another
"method" with more closely held boundaries allowed her to get even more
value?  I don't begin to know but believe that it might have.

I think Harrison hit the critical questions with:
"How Much Space? Can you stand. Can you create. Can the "client" tolerate?
And choose your weapons accordingly."

I recently was given a gift of an image around this that I've found quite
helpful.   A Buddhist priest attended Spirited Work (a learning community
that gathers quarterly in OS).  He used an image of hands for holding space.
Actually, here are Master Chang's words:

>Since I left Whidbey Island, I've constantly thought of OS and its
spiritual manifestation in earthly conditionings. It's dawn[ed] on me that
>we constantly create mental boundaries and then transfigure them into
organizational rules, etc., which we call containers. Thus, there are
>levels upon levels of containers, depending on levels of minds that we
have. What OP[OST] methodology attracts me is the way it can
>facilitate and accommodate multi-levels of containers by very few simple
rules of gathering and interaction. The challenge for me in >creating an
OP[OST] organization is to be able to make available (and to promote)
evolutionary & consequential levels of
>unfoldment ... so one can evolve from "container/2 hands cupped, facing
each other" to "supporter/2 hands open, facing upwards" to >"being/handless
gesture" ...


I LOVE this picture of hands reflecting the evolution of space, perhaps
because it mirrors my own growing comfort with space.  (While I aspire to
it, I'm not sure I'm ready to hang out in the space of "look ma, no hands!")
It reminds me that we are all at different places of comfort with openness.
I may go screaming from the room when the space feels too closed and someone
else go running to their room because the space is too open.

Ain't our diversity great?

Peggy

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