Please speak to me of breath....

Chris Corrigan chris at chriscorrigan.com
Thu Oct 10 14:34:40 PDT 2002


Breath, inspire, conspire, spirit.

That's usually the way I make the link.  There is an intimate
etymological (and cultural and theological) link between breathing and
spirit.  It's not just a metaphor either.

Chris

---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com
-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Harrison Owen
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 4:50 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Please speak to me of breath....

At 08:26 PM 10/9/2002 -0400,  :-Doug. Germann wrote:



Harrison speaks in the _User's Guide_ of how the village seemed to
breathe
in and out as the "meeting" proceeded. Many of you in the last few weeks
have mentioned breath and breathing as one of the cornerstones of OST.

Please speak to me of breath.

What does it mean to you in OST? How does it inform your work?

I am not so sure about breath being the cornerstone of OST -- but it
sure comes in handy for lots of other things. I suppose at the simplest
level, breath is simply one of the most fundamental organic functions.
And if it isn't working, not much else does. Practically speaking, if a
group arrives for an OS, all out of breath (literally or figuratively),
the space seems pretty closed. So one of the things that many of us do
is to allow time in the opening for folks to catch that breath. When we
walk the circle, lots of things happen,. but one is that folks get a
chance to breath. Breathing is also something we can do together. Poets
and lovers have noticed that folks who breath together seem to stay
together. One Breath -- so to speak. This is really about alignment at a
very fundamental level. So we sometimes say to everybody assembled --
"You look a little harried -- how about a deep breath -- and another. If
nothing else this gets everybody breathing from the same page, as it
were. If the cadence of our words and our steps then match the rhythmic
breathing of the group (or lead it) you get something like synchronized
breathing. If you want to take this a little further -- breath
historically has been a symbol and bearer of Spirit. Indeed, Spirit and
breath are the same words. We inspire and expire... If you think of the
opening moments of an OS more in terms of an invocation than and
introduction -- attention to breath makes a lot of sense.

Harrison



Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
<http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
<http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
Personal website www.mindspring.com\~owenhh
<http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh>

OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20021010/89575da1/attachment-0017.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list