Terrorized by terror -- Space closes

Wendy Farmer-O'Neil wendy at xe.net
Fri Mar 30 12:35:13 PDT 2007


Dear Harrison,

 

Thank you so much for starting this thread.  Chris, your analogy of the hole
in the bathtub is a very clear representation of what (little) we know about
creating change in complex systems.  Right now fear seems to be the primary
attractor guiding the energy in the US system—and has been for some time (as
you point out Pat).  Attempts to go head to head with that power vortex tend
to reinforce it (as you suggest Harrison, the BIG EVENT may not be the way
to influence the most change).  Watching for local patterns and opening
space around local issues where folks can reignite their passion and
rediscover their capacity to step into self-responsibility and exert local
agency, does create new vortices, new attractors that inevitably pull energy
away from the fear.  

 

I find that open space is not so much a place without fear, as an
exceptional place for folks to learn to feel the fear and act anyway—and
learn that they won’t die if they do.  That it’s okay to let go into the
fear, wander around a bit, keep breathing, until you find your feet and move
on to what’s next.  This is an essential skill for thriving in chaotic and
complex times—and open space is a good place to learn and practice it.
Acting to create change or social innovation in a system is going to feel
risky.  Most of us have been trained and educated to create and preserve
security—so we will need to get used to feeling fear and acting anyway—with
all of our wonderful flaws and imperfections.

 

Whenever we give up basic rights, freedoms, and responsibilities for the
illusion of security, we end up selling off a large part of our souls and
our deepest humanity along with them.  A new trajectory of joy is what I am
busy stumbling around to create.  Attempting to act, not out of fear, or
against fear, but from a completely new and open space of joy and infinite
possibility.  

 

And yes, Harrison, I feel it as a responsibility.  That’s why I risked a lot
and went to Moscow to be there and support the opening of space in anyway
that I could.  I was overcome standing in Red Square in front of Lenin’s
Mausoleum and the reviewing stand where so many years before I had watched
on TV Brezhnev reviewing the May Day parade of weaponry.  I could not stop
the tears from coming or from remembering how I felt in 1982 when I
addressed an audience (at a ‘peace conference’) filled with Reagan’s cold
war cronies—that as a 16-year-old, after three days of listening to them, I
was without hope.  So to find myself standing in that place of such cold war
symbolism, and to be there not as a tourist, but as a member of the open
space community—to have actually been a part of an open space event in that
place—felt like nothing short of miraculous—and at the same time so fragile.


 

So what am I doing these days to open space in spite of the fearosphere?  I
am working hard with Cheryl Honey to refine and spread the practice of
Community Weaving, which uses open space principles and takes it to the
grassroots, non-event, daily life stuff—to remediate poverty and isolation
and build resilient communities of care and belonging.  I’m hosting an OS on
my little island on finding abundance doing what you love.  I have started
the planning for an SOS (Sustainability Open Space) in the fall (I’ll be
calling you soon Chris W.).  I am talking to the local social planning
council about the possibility of opening space with the homeless.   I’ve
introduced the United Way to OS and we are looking at how they might use it
to grow their new community development focus. Last year, we opened space
here for a three day land use planning event—we did it by donation and
covered our costs—and created a tremendous legacy for our community by
establishing a community commons that actually passed all the zoning and
land use amendments the first time through!!

 

So just a couple of examples of little ways that I’m trying to drill a few
holes in my local bathtub.  What other ways are you all engaged in this?  It
would be so inspiring to hear more about the ways we are all opening little
spaces for something new to emerge.

 

Lots of love,

Wendy

 

 


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