Open Space for small groups

[Chris Corrigan]

Hi all:

It was me who opened space for zero.  Probably others have as well, but in
my case the open space event was for a community that was experiencing some
strife.  Turns out that everyone was busy that day, which was a good thing,
and I held space for everyone.

I wrote about back in 2002.  Here's what I wrote then, a story about opening
space for no one and everyone, and a story also about a small group:

Last weekend I was invited back to a First Nation near Vancouver to do
two Open Space meetings, one for the community and one specifically for
youth.  I have done two previous engagements with this community, one in
Open Space and one that was supposed to be in Open Space with Elders,
but ended up not happening, because no one told the Elders that this was
what was planned.  Strange things happen when I go there, as this story
points out.

The community is in a beautiful spot, on the Fraser River at the head of
the Fraser Valley which is a lush green flood plain on the coast.  There
are 7000 foot mountain peaks all around and the river winds slowly
through the territory.  They call the river Sto:lo which is also the
name of the Nation of people that have derived their livelihood from it
for the past 9000 years.

This particular community has suffered mightily at the hands of poor
federal government meddling.  Most of the community is a landfill site,
filling in a huge gravel pit where the federal government once though it
would be a good idea to harvest alluvial gravel for road building.  The
result is that the community is almost literally a dump, and that has
severely affected the recent history.  Suicide, murder and drug
addiction are not unknown and are heightened in a place that only has
350 inhabitants.  Every little toxic event sends out shock waves.

But if it is one thing that these folks have it is Spirit.  And it is
Spirit that shows up in all kinds of ways.  in the past they have
blockaded roads, fished "illegally" and engaged in other disruptive
activities in order to assert their Aboriginal rights.  As a result they
have become an attractive place for action oriented youth from across
Canada, and many First Nations young people who have been alienated from
their home communities have found a new home in this community.

As I said I have opened space there before, and several people in the
community "got it."  The like the process a lot and see it as a way to
deal with a whole range of issues that need to be dealt with in the
community.  They called me to do two OST meetings last weekend.

I got there Friday morning bright and early, and set up my stuff in the
longhouse, which is perfectly square and thus ideal for an Open Space
meeting.  I put my things on the wall, arranged 30 chairs in a circle
and was done by 9:00am.  So I waited until 10:00 am when we were to
start.

Then an almost mystical silence descended on the place.  I sat with it
for a while and then pulled out a copy of the Tao Te Ching and started
to read.  I read the whole thing and checked my watch.  10:30, and not a
soul in the room yet.  Soon the women came to prepare lunch for a crowd
that wasn't there.  They looked into the room and said hi, asked where
everyone was.  I said I didn't know.  I said that I had opened space for
Spirit, and Spirit was all that showed up.  Amy, the head cook laughed
and proceeded to make lunch for 30 people.

So I sat for a while longer as the smells of salmon and potato salad
filled the air.

I looked around the room and realized that what I had done was to
produce a frame for something to happen.  It was perfectly okay that
that something was "nothing" and I had a delightful sense that I might
sit there all day with no one else and finally take everything down at
4:00 and go to my motel room.  I had a real sense that I was holding
space for the community.  I had a very strong sense that the ritual of
preparing the room was just the right thing to do to invite a certain
thing to happen.  i had no clue what was going to happen, but I had a
strong sense that whatever it was, it would be the right thing.

 A woman wandered in at 11:00 and sat down next to me and began pouring
out her heart about a set of recent tragedies in the community.  Two
murders (one unsolved) a rash of break and enters, crack addiction and a
few other really horrible things.  To add to that her sister had just
died and she was trapped in an ever tightening circle of grief.

We talked for a while, after which she felt better and then someone went
and got the Elders, who had been meeting in another building.  They came
over just in time for lunch and we were joined by a few youth.  Together
we ate what Amy had cooked for us, smoked salmon done three different
ways, moose stew and potato salad with wild berry tarts for desert.
After lunch I talked with the Elders awhile about OST and they all
nodded approvingly as we discussed how Spirit works and why we have to
facilitate in ways that honour and work with Spirit.  Then *I* left the
room, and went with a few other people to another meeting where they
were discussing policies for their First Nation.  The woman who took me
with her was adamant that the space was open everywhere I was, and
everywhere I had been, meaning that the Elders we had left behind in the
longhouse were in Open Space and so were we.  I did and said nothing in
the meeting, but just sat there with the group as they did their work.
When they were finished I phoned a local motel, gathered my things and
retired for the night.

The next day I came back to open space for the youth.  When I arrived,
there were two starlings trapped in the room and trying to escape
through the skylight.  No one knew how they had gotten into the locked
room overnight.  We threw open all the doors and they eventually found
their own way out.  Birds almost always show up in strange ways when I
open space, so I'm used to seeing eagles in the middle of the city or
robins in the dead of winter.  But this was a little weird.  It was
undeniably allegorical too.

As people trickled in, we started with stories, handing around a
polished rock I found in the river the day before.  This session
unlocked many sources of grief and many possible places of hope and
future potential.  As people spoke and cried and supported each other, I
mind mapped the conversation.

Finally we had maybe a dozen or so people and there were no more stories
to tell, so I suggested we eat lunch and then open space.  After lunch,
I did my thing, which included a little pep talk about how this process
was about leadership and although there were no elected leaders in the
room it was my contention that everyone in the room was a leader.  The
first person out of his chair proposed a group to plan a skateboard
park. All the youth went to that group and talked for about 30 minutes
after which they had produced a strategy for doing it.  It was,
naturally, going to happen whether the formal community leadership
wanted it to or not.  They had contingencies built in for either
situation.

The remaining groups met within the din of noise caused by a couple of
youth skateboarding around the longhouse.  I was not asked to stop them
from doing this, nor did I take the initiative to do so.  It was, I
think, a tangible reminder to everyone about the unfettered spirit of
the youth who were there, and no one seemed to mind.  After a while
someone asked them to skateboard a little more quietly and they did.  I
did not think it was possible to skateboard at a pre-determined volume,
but I know better now.

We wrapped up, passing the rock around which mostly elicited comments
like "thanks for coming."  And I gathered up my things and came home.

It was an amazing learning experience for me.  Learning about what it
means to really open and hold space, when no one is there, and learning
about how to move when movement is required and how to stay still when
stillness is essential.

I keep getting asked to come and work with this community and I am
beginning to wonder if they do this to teach me something.  I am not
sure what I have to offer them, but every encounter with them results in
strange things happening and tremendous learning for me.


Chris

-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Join us for the Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations training, September
24-27, Bowen Island, BC:
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.ArtOfHosting

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
Open Space Resources:  http://tinyurl.com/r94tj

*
*
==========================================================
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/20060827/0d03efc0/attachment-0016.htm>