AW: long: Vignettes of an arts os

[Joelle Lyons Everett]

Doug--

I agree with you that working on something else, or reading, feels for me 
like it takes me away from the group in a way that a walk or a nap does not.   

Sometimes I will sit in a small group, holding space, if I sense that the 
conversation may be a difficult one.   More often, I will slip into a group for a 
few minutes and listen.   Like you, I do not enter into the conversation.   I 
sometimes mention in the opening that I might come into a session just to 
listen for a bit.

More often I walk around, sit in the main space, watching and listening.   
Much of the information I gather about an event is the same kind of things I 
learn by watching a group work in a language I do not speak--the body language, 
the cadence and volume of the talking, the engagement and energy of the 
participants.

Apart from those very minimal kinds of participation, I pick up coffee cups, 
tape posters back on the wall if they fall, rustle up a flip chart for a 
group, sometimes confer with a caterer or find out how to adjust the room 
temperature.   But this is more in a mode of finding ways to move in the space than it 
is taking responsibility for these logistics.

There can be a little sadness in standing outside the party, looking on.   
But I am pretty clear in my own mind and heart that I am present to serve the 
needs of the client and their work together, not to meet my own social needs.   
It is a different role from being a participant.   You might think about 
arranging an opportunity for deep conversation for yourself, maybe after the Open 
Space is over.   And of course, if you have contracted for follow-on work with 
the client, there will be more conversations that you are fully a part of.

Take care--

Joelle


 


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