Formless form

[Douglas D. Germann, Sr.]

Hi friends--

I am discovering some additional things about open space today. Reading in
Centered on the Edge (see
http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org/CenteredOnTheEdge/ ), someone said
that groups left on their own without a leader will founder and fall apart,
reaching individual despair. What OST does is not leave people to their own
devices: it adds a cluster of small points of attraction. These are the
topics people post. These points serve as focal points, weakly magnetized
particles gravitating toward one another over large distances of space. These
shifting centers cause the group to coalesce, too. Or to shift the focus, the
nodes that are already there are raised up momentarily so people can see
where to gather, then they go back into the sea to draw folks together where
they already are. What is magnetic in the beginning is the passion of the
poster and of those who respond. In the end, what is magnetic is the
responsibility the convener assumes to open his or her space and welcome
others into it. So OST is a profound way to get many leaders in shifting
points of allurement, which themselves attract to one another. The result is
a group that moves quickly into and through despair into conflict into
concresence into action.

What keeps the group from falling into despair is a little leadership, a
smidgen of responsibility--someone who has the passion and takes the duty of
providing a focus and keeping the group on that focus. A group can have
multiple foci of this nature, will thrive on them, because they are going
somewhere, they have an arrow. In a vacuum, little points of attraction
organize large surrounding areas.

It is this subtle form that looks formless that gives some of its power to
OST. And in calling it into our attention, we are giving ourselves another
way to make evolution of the human species more conscious.

                              :-Doug.
      From my weblog today at
      http://www.footprintsinthewind.com/forum/postlist.php?Board=blog&

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