fresh from spaceholding (long)

[Raffi Aftandelian]

Dear fellow spaceholders,

I'm fresh from two days of spaceholding for a conference of about 30 for developing a regional Russian NGO coalition.

Never had such a ball before. Maybe among the many highlights in addition to the beauty of evening and morning news were doing the following while spaceholding:

-mountain-biking
-doing aerobics
-going to the sauna
-swimming
-sleeping (an obvious one)
- and a personal favorite: eating!

First time in five years of semi-professional and professional spaceholding that it all happened with such clarity. And the topping on the cake was that it was held at a delightful hotel complex with absolutely incredible service and all the other goodies that help make a conference very successful.

The two day conference had a grant-making component: NGO's wrote collbarative cross-functional, inter-city mini-grants during the conference. Awards were made on the spot. I found that while it was great to have that opportunity available to organizations, only having had one day of full OS beforehand was too little time to really get mental juices running for ideas.

Some of the things I did for the first time:
-used the term "os" and "ost" as little as possible, referred more to a "useful routine"

-used Chris Corrigan's real time coaching approach (as shared at the Halifax OSonOS) with the sponsor and some selected participants. (an aside- again, Kenny's Kwadrants are great. And i think it's kewl to explore and write or own stories of the Kawzmowz (Kosmos). Sometimes, i wonder if by trying to fit in everything into kwadrants, we're boxing ourselves in. Boxing, packaging, wrapping is kewl, but it has limits, otherwise it can become unkewl...

-In the closing after everyone had spoken and then reflected on the four organizational archetypes, I invited at the very end anyone who cared to to go to the middle of the circle and take a natural object and to take a question for reflection post-conference:

"What does the natural object you are holding tell you about what you 
want to do to make your coalition a force serving your region?"

Two follow-up meetings are planned, one tentatively for 2 weeks from now. I intend for that meeting to happen in OST. I also intend to coach one (or more) of the conference participants in OST, so that/those participant(s) lead that first follow-up meeting in OST themselves, thereby building coalition capacity. I will be there as a participant. I am thinking through the particulars of my role in such a follow-up meeting, since this will mean a different kind of space-holding, perhaps a dual or triple role...

Maybe others have had this experience of doing follow-up meetings this way...

One participant, an immigrant to Russia from Central Asia, shared how Swedish workers from Ikea seek out his organization's consultation. He is also officially a representative of his country's migration service. His story for me was so about how the  notion that society can be broken down into three neat sectors- government, business, and NGO's- doesn't quite work. The boundaries are becoming increasing fuzzy. At the yummies you can nosh on are at the edges, where the so-called sectors meet. I like what this man said at the end to me: 

"In the world there are no boundaries, there is only open space." 

The word for world in Russian is also peace, so this sentence has at least two first-level meanings.

There is so much to his pearl, I'm going to chew on it. It is a confirmation of something, though, that I came to a few weeks ago: that my current understanding of givens is new and different. Hope to have a "givens revisited" thread in the weeks to come.

Another man, an instructor from a police academy, and probably one of the most openly spacious people (and policemen) I have ever met (he and I had a great conversation about archetypes, emergence and about seeking words to describe that which lies beyond and beneath space-holding) got me thinking how how the whirled is so not what we think. His optimism and groundedness is such a walking, talking example of all the good news that people think they are not quite ready to pay or left-click or right click for...

It's so refreshing when I see someone's eyes who just seem to be saying, "Let's GO places. Let's see where your TARDIS will take us. And then, I'll invite you to ride mine." Kewl. Way kewl.


Another thought i wanted to share now, even though it might be best to share with a future synkairosity thread is about a new understanding of the "Whoever comes..." principle.

If there is no time and there is all time, and there is no space and all space, maybe everyone who ever has been and will be is present in the room already. Processwork accesses this potential when we work with ghostspirits. So, when we synkairosically access the potential of all six betweens, we can choose to surface the presence of all who we care to see in the room, provided we have their permission. It's an invitation to a different kind of participation.

What it also answers for me is an initial answer of how processwork fits in with OST: processwork can be a useful resource for letting this dreaming unfold in the group, for bringing in everyone who cares to, whether dead, alive, or unborn...

Let's amp up the granularity!
raffi

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