Half-way to this?

[Wendy Farmer-O'Neil]

Hi Doug,

This is probably not very helpful, but I think, I hope, we are becoming wise
fools. And I like to think that we are always going to be "half-way to
what?" as I believe this is a journey of endless evolution, not one to any
particular destination. 

What is emerging?  What is this larger trend? I ask myself: If
self-organization is our heritage and our future, then what is different?
What has this millennia long journey been about?  My two-bits: engaging in
self-organization unconsciously is very different from engaging in
self-organization as a conscious choice made from a place of wisdom and
faith. Real power/freedom lies in the capacity to make conscious choices.
(We don't really have the choice to engage in self-organization or
not--that's just life--we really only have the choice to engage in it
consciously or not.) We go from being merely leaves caught up unknowingly in
the swirling chaos of life, to beings who jump with eyes wide open into the
flow and play with what we find there.

And so, for your enjoyment, but not alas enlightenment, here's a poem from
one of my favourite mystically insane English poets, Robert Graves. 

A Warning to Children

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness,
Fewness of this precious only 
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white 
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white 
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel--
Children, leave the string alone!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head, 
Finds himself enclosed by dappled 
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
With the same brown paper parcel 
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
He lives--he then unties the string.

Cheers all,
Wendy

A riddle or the crickets cry,
Is to Doubt a fit reply. (Blake, Auguries of Innocence)



-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Douglas D.
Germann, Sr.
Sent: April 2, 2006 2:13 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Half-way to this?

Good friends--

Open Space is a half-way technology. So says Harrison. Half-way to what?

Open Space Technology, The World Café, and the dozens of other meeting
formats that have been appearing among humans the last few decades are
harbingers of a growing shoot. The growing edge is to see what can be done
to improve humanity in a fundamental way. The direction is toward
collaboration, or more precisely toward growing us from the fact that there
is something larger afoot. That something larger suggests that we are an
intricate interwoven pulsating and throbbing one. Or can be.

So we are half-way, perhaps, to developing technologies and sciences that
bring us together, foster and grow from conflict, increase diversity and
passion, and ensure that each generation following ours is more human than
the one before it.

Are we making any progress on the question of Half-way to what?

                              :-Doug. Germann
                              Seeking people making community change.

*
*
==========================================================
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



-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.4/299 - Release Date: 31/03/2006

*
*
==========================================================
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