A Kindred spirit

[Harrison Owen]

Lately I have been corresponding with Alan Rayner and his Inclusionist
cohorts. I am not totally clear what they are up to, and their language is
perhaps a little private. But I do think we are paddling about in the same
pond. I did post a letter from ted Lumley who is part of this crew. Anyhow,
Alan sent me the following poem. I quite enjoyed it, and thought you might
too.

Harrison

RECREATIONS OF A PLAYFUL UNIVERSE
By Alan Rayner

Oh, how we laugh!
When Some Thing
Touches Our Spirit
Tickles Our Imagination
Recalling Our Place
In a Playful Space

A common enjoyment
Of a Common Enjoinment
Recreations
Of an Ever Present
Folding

Dynamic Boundaries
Pivotal Places
Incomplete Surfaces
That make distinct
But Never Discrete

Unique and Special Identities
Possibilities Realized
That Can Never Be Bettered
And can never be Severed
>>From a Context Within and Beyond
That Makes Us Content
Belonging Together
Adoring Our Differences
Inseparable in Our Incompleteness

Our Self-Insufficiency
That Unites Us in Love
A Receptive Space
A No Thing Place
That Keeps Us Coherent
Within and Without
Enveloped and Enveloping

No Need For Rules
No Need For Rulers
With Space in Our Hearts
To Include Other as Us
A Diverse Assembly
A Joyous Relief
Reciprocating Each Other's Movements
Dancing in High Spirits


Oh, how we cry!
When Made To Deny
Our Union With Other
No Mother, No Brother
No Sister
To Assist
Our Passage
Through Pain

But a Father Severe
A Tyrant Authority
To Cut Us Off
Within Fixed Boundaries
In Isolation

Pretending Independence
Making Comparisons
Striving To Remove
What's Not Good Enough
In Pursuit of Perfection, Control, Prediction

A rationalistic Ideal
A Uniform Whole
A Self-Sufficiency
Tolerating No Hole
No Breathing Space
No Place for Grace

Demanding Reproduction
More of the Same
A Perpetual Cloning
With No Room to Err
No Room to Wander or Wonder

A Solid Object
With Space Outcast
An Infinite Outsider
Offering No Possibility
Of Excitement or Joy

A Purified Presence
A Divine Right
Freed From Wrong
An Unreal Abstraction
Motionless
Emotionless
Random Disunity
Divine DisContent

A Need For Rules
A Need For Rulers
No Space in Our Hearts
To Include Other as Us
A Monoculture
A Dull, Flat Field
Where Conflict Abounds

So, For Heaven's Sake, Father!
Take a Look at Your Wife!
Isn't She Sexy?
Get a Life!
Be Your Self!
Give Us Guidelines, By All Means
But, Please
Don't Hold Us Against Them

Stop Repeating Yourself!
Put Away Your Knife!
Or, at the very least
Make a Hole that Heals
And Recreates -
Lets Us Play!


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20845
Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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