Learning to Expand our NOW

[Peter Wallman]

Hi

This is my first post on this list although i have been listening for
some time. I am based in Sydney and am an occasional open space
facilitator.

this wonderful idea reminds me of a Japan Australia dialogue i
attended about a decade ago in which i was playing the role of the
rapporteur. the topic was 'responsibilities to future generations'
and was sponsored by the Japanese Foundation for Future Generations
which ,by the way, was one of the major sponsors of the NGO part of
the Rio Earth Summit.


There were representatives from heritage, environment, business,
media etc - an incredibly rich dialogue ensued but after a while it
became obvious that we were talking about different ideas of past,
present and future. I remember vividly one of the Japanese describing
the 'present' in Japanese as meaning ' the dynamic domain in which
the past and the future interact' - so it seems to me that we have
something to learn from this.

Peter Wallman
+61 2 9882 3196
PO Box 7103 McMahons Pt NSW 2060 Australia
peter at passionmaps.com
www.passionmaps.com

"The figure whose attitude best expresses the passion
that moves it is most worthy of praise."
.....Leonardo da Vinci


Ah -- Funda. Let me reveal a mystery to you. You just can't get away from
NOW. It is all you have! Past is over, future hasn't happened yet. What you
got is NOW. And the only question (at least for me) is how big is your NOW?
If it is a tiny little "now" desperation quickly sets in. How are you going
to get everything (you want to do) squeezed into this anorexic (pathetically
thin) now? You can't! And the more you try the worse it gets.

But there is an alternative. Just make your NOW BIGGER! It may sound a
little weird, but with some effort (not to be confused with work), NOW
becomes big enough to include what we call the Past and also the Future. The
Past, with all of its richness of experience (including the pain) is always
available. And the Future is not some far off thing -- but dreams coming
into focus NOW. For me it is a matter of opening my (personal) space. You
can do this in all sorts of ways, but (I hate to say it) Visualization can
help! :-)

Harrison

--


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

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20050425/08379de6/attachment-0016.htm>