butterflies revisited

Sun Mar 4 18:38:46 PST 2007

Greetings fellow spaceholders,

This from today's edition of the daily dharma at tricyle(.com)

°	Practice and the Butterfly

The life history of a butterfly is similar to our practice. We have some
misconceptions about both, however. We may imagine, for example, that
because butterflies are pretty, their life in the cocoon before they emerge
is also pretty. We don't realize all that the worm must go through in order
to become a butterfly. Similarly, when we begin to practice, we don't
realize the long and difficult transformation required of us. We have to see
through our pursuit of outward things, the false gods of pleasure and
security. We have to stop gobbling this and pursuing that in our
shortsighted way, and simply relax into the cocoon, into the darkness of the
pain that is our life. Such practice requires years of our lives. Unlike the
butterfly, we don't emerge once and for all.

--Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: Living Zen
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

On a related note, I have found Eric Carle's children's book The Very Hungry
Caterpillar to be an excellent kiddie version of Harrison's "Spirit."
Absolutely delicious illustrations, including, of course, a butterfly.

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>From  Mon Mar  5 08:27:47 2007
Message-Id: <MON.5.MAR.2007.082747.0500.>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 08:27:47 -0500
Reply-To: hhowen at verizon.net
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>
Organization: HH Owen and Co.
Subject: Re: SV: Holding space in the small group
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Doug -- Perhaps you are making a problem where none exists? When you have a
group with 3-4 people doing most of the talking, I understand that the
conventional group process thinking says that this is a situation to be
avoided and that some sort of intervention is required. That would clearly
be the case in a traditional setting where the folks are forced to be in
attendance. But in Open Space when I see a group like that, my assumptions
are rather different. First off, some percentage of that group probably just
wants to listen -- which is by no means bad :-). Others are choosing to make
their contribution with minimal words, or no words at all. I have no idea
where the figure came from, but some wizard tells us that 95% of all useful
communication is non-verbal. Certainly we have all seen situations where an
arched eyebrow totally says it all! 

And of course, there may be a few folks there who are feeling totally
miserable, put upon, oppressed, and angry. But if I was the facilitator of
that OST, everybody would have been alerted at the beginning when I
introduced the Law of Two Feet -- that if they were neither learning nor
contributing, they should use their two feet. I also make it clear that
should they choose to be miserable, that is their choice, but that in any
event they and they alone are responsible for the quality of their learning
experience. Only they can know what has heart and meaning for them -- and
only they can exercise those two feet in a way that works for them. 

Granted it takes some people a little longer to find their feet and get them
moving, but it usually seems to happen eventually, and when it does that is
a truly liberating experience.

Harrison  

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com 
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of douglas
germann
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2007 8:11 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: SV: Holding space in the small group

Thomas--

Thank you for your response. I particularly liked your point that we try
to give each person an opening to bring their voice into the circle.

One thing I noticed from the OSonOS in Halifax was that in most groups
it was easy to bring one's voice into the circle. However, there was one
group with about 25 participants and it became difficult for all but the
3 or 4 persons who spoke up the fastest or most.

Have you noticed the same thing? When you are in a group of this nature,
and are a regular participant, what do you do to try to open the space
more, or hold the space?

			:- Doug. Germann

On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 00:29 +0100, Thomas Herrmann wrote:
>  Dear Doug
> In my OS-meetings I always provide a little paper for the conveners to
bring
> to their group, inviting to start with a round, like your point A and
> actually also finishing with a round.

> ....

> it is an extraordinarily good way to get everyone to
> use their voice, check in and get an interest in listening to each other
by
> hearing so many different perspectives at once.
> 
> I´ve actually been to small groups where I never felt invited to share my
> thoughts - during OS-meetings - actually OSonOS´s

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