Only "so long" (Long)
Chris Corrigan
chris.corrigan at gmail.com
Mon May 30 12:50:04 PDT 2005
Ralph:
I was reflecting the other day that what is alive in me as a consultant is
the communities I work with, the First Nations and Aboriginal communities
around British Columbia here. And although I am from Ontario, and Ojibway is
my ancestry, I am a part of the larger Aboriginal community out here. As
such, I have always viewed my work as one part service and one part
learning, as I gather skills and thoughts and ideas from around the world,
through my own networks to enhance the capacity of the Aboriginal community
here in Canada. I'm a small piece of the work, and there are many others in
my circle who are doing the same. Together, we find that having this
community, in which we are rooted and for whom we are working, is the
greatest gift.
The urge towards community IS a human trait. I think as consultants we run
the danger of removing ourselves from community in order to practice at arms
length from the communities with whom we are working. But I guard against
that in my own practice. Once in a while, I work outside of my "community,"
in the corporate financial services sector, with oil companies or in the
sustainability world. But I'm always there with eyes that learn and bring
back gifts that feed the work being done by countless leaders, activists and
facilitators in the Aboriginal community. And in doing that I can bring the
gifts of the Aboriginal community into other parts of the world too.
We should be called weavers, I love that image that has cropped up here
lately. We do weave the connections between diverse groups of people in a
tapestry of openness, giving and work. We are far more similar than we would
all like to believe, and it's only through bringing our conditioned eyes to
new worlds that we learn and understand that.
Have a great journey, and bellow a brazen and fullsome hello to us when you
return!
Chris
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology
Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
*
*
==========================================================
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/20050530/5786b96d/attachment-0008.htm>
More information about the OSList
mailing list