\Holding space

[Chris Corrigan]

WB-TrainConsult wrote:

>
>
> What you wrote about holding the space there, speaks to me to be an
> altered modus of mind (independently of people being present in
> physical space), relates two aspects I did not interconnect so
> directly, i.e. 'meditation' and  'Open and hold Space'
>
> LET GO & PERCEIVE WHAT IS

I think that's a lot of it.  ANd what others have written about
meditation is touching things for me too, especially Judi's comment about
discovering more onion peels.  It reminds me of a famous quote, which can
be paraphrased as "it's onion peels all the way down."

That's maybe why contemplation of the same makes me want to cry!

THis whole week of conversation on the list has put me more and more into
the mode of "less speaking" and "more doing."  Which is strange because
I've written here more in the last week than I have a lot lately about
things that I am trying not to write about...if you follow me.

I have to say, echoing Harrison, that the more I work with OST, the less
certain I am about how to do it well.  And I am increasingly unable to
describe how to improve one's practice of OST, even though I have a
decent handle on how to do that for myself.  Last August, the theme of
OSonOS here in Vancouver was "Improving our practice of OST" and even
though we had 80 people discuss around that issue for 2.5 days, I don't
know that it's any clearer for me.

When I was a high school student I enrolled in the first ever Third World
history course offered at a Toronto high school.  On the first day, the
teacher said, "the goal of this course is not to provide you with answers
but to provide you with questions."  It sounds almost trite now, but at
16 years old, I felt this incredible epiphany occur and I gained my first
true insight into what the practice of learning truly is.  Since then, I
feel that my life has been one great drafting of question after question,
not even waiting around for the answers.  It reminds me of the
Gamemaster's role in The Glass Bead Game.

It also reminds me of the story from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
where a group of people ask the question "What is the answer to life, the
universe and everything?"  They build a computer (called "Deep Thought")
to answer the question and leave it running for millions of years.
Finally one day it spits out the answer: "42"  Of course by this time, no
one has remembered the question, so the scientists set about trying to
formulate the question that would
give that answer and after a hugely concerted effort, they finally arrive
upon "What is six times seven?"

That's really what it is all about, eh?

Chris


--

CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com

go leafs go

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