Further reflections on the Story Field Conference

[Peggy Holman]

Apologies if you are getting full up on this topic.  I was inspired by this message from Nancy Glock-Grueneich and thought it might interest folks on this list.  She sent it to the Story Field Conference site on Sept. 22, 2007.  It took me a while to pass it along....

Peggy



>From Nancy:

I've been reading the exceptionally well-written reflections on the conference and comparing, on the one hand, people's frustration around the lack of structure and/or impatience with "personal processing" carried on in the scarcity of public space, and on the other hand, people's delight with what happened anyhow, the testimonials, if you will, of what a life transforming experience many people found this conference to be. And its meaningfulness to even those most frustrated (at least among those who've written so far.)

 

Getting what we came for

We were invited to come together around four shared intentions. To come was costly to each in different ways. We took ourselves away from our work, from people who matter to us, from our homes-and spent money we may not have much of--to travel long distances, sleep in unfamiliar beds, and eat strange food.  We came because we care deeply about those intentions and because something was promised, by people we trust.  

So it matters that what motivated us to come, the "contract" inherent in the invitation, be honored as fully as possible, in the design and in the implementation. (A conference, like a course of study, is a kind of contract between those paying the costs of creating the space and those paying the costs of stepping into that space, with all sharing the risks.) 

We came with high hopes. Knowing we would be among admirable peers who shared our intentions, and that we would have more than the usual amount of time whose use we would largely control, we had good reason to expect that real work might be accomplished here, solid work that we could build on.  

The week was intense and people have reacted powerfully, many asking ourselves, with some urgency, did we make the best use of our time? And was the promise that brought us here fulfilled?  

And if it was, was that because of the process?  Or, in spite of it?  What made it fail, where it did? What made it succeed, where it did? Do we have mutually incompatible needs and expectations, or could they all be accommodated, maybe next time?

And what are the implications of our answers to these questions for our lives, for this work, and for StoryField, and for the larger "story field" we seek to serve?

 

Differences

We came, many of us, with stories, insights, creative works, and methods to share. And found there was not time to give our gifts or have them made use of. We came with questions that did not get answered. We came with expectations as to products or plans or agreements that did not come about in the ways we had hoped. And we were often in conflict as to whether or not we were in fact "making the best use of time"? 

We came, each and everyone of us, to serve the "story field" and yet so many "egos" were there, or so it seemed to many, that we lost sight of our service to the whole. But, it did not seem so to me. Indeed, I saw less "ego" there than maybe I've ever seen anywhere.

At the same time our very desire to serve, and our sense of urgency, made our differing views as to what actually would best serve, all the more difficult to handle, and all the more important. In this work, it is VERY important that we not dismiss each other, or ourselves, as mere "egos", but rather continue our effort to take seriously the concerns those on all sides felt. "Hearing all voices" is not just a matter of principle, or of courtesy. For us to get this right, and in time, we have no choice but to take each other's perspectives very seriously as potential sources of wisdom, as filling in essential pieces. We know that we are in the fix we are in partly because so many voices have been shut out for so long.

 

Getting Out the Story

For some who came, perhaps many, the story needing to be told is already clear enough, and what is truly urgent, desperately so, is that that story be gotten out in the world as rapidly as possible with as big an impact as possible in order to help save the world. Period.

As we grappled with this need, and the frustration of those who felt it most, its very intensity was seen by others as itself a symptom of what was wrong, of what any new story would have to combat, a symptom of a still unacknowledged, unrepentant tendency towards the hegemony of the privileged. And yet again, if we do to explain away the urgent need of many for efficient procedures and concrete results as but a matter of masculine, white, linear, dominant, and/or "Western" energy or privilege, we miss the point.  The urgency is real, painfully real.  And the need to get the story out all the more so. And the need for the practical, structured, problem-solving, design and planning so essential to successfully get the "new story" out with maximum impact could not be more compelling.  

That's what many came to achieve. And it would seem that to do that would take the conference they thought they were coming to, not the one that actually happened. To the extent that this is "masculine", well, so be it: It's always been the men who were expected to rush forward in an emergency, to take the risks and take the orders and lose their lives helping the rest to survive.

Yet I-and I am sure all of us, men and women alike-feel this urgency just as much, and the full weight of what it could mean if we fail.  

So why didn't we plan, organize ourselves to achieve, and/or demand, a conference structured to do just get that job done? To get the story out there as quickly, and as pivotally, and in the most compelling forms, possible? And to make use of all of the skills, stories, talents, and connections of those who had come together? Is that not what we came there to do?  

 

What Happened Instead

Yes, but then something else happened. Something that the "whole", the "story field", needed even more urgently showed up instead. And we adapted our expectations and our gifts and our process to it as it emerged. So, yes, we did what we came here to do, but in a way different from how we may have expected to do it.

 (This is not to say that we did everything right, by the way. Later and elsewhere, I'll add my own thoughts to those of others regarding design, and the framing that may serve us well in the future. But what I'm saying here now is the more fundamental truth, I think.)  

Here's what I saw happen and now see witnessed in the conference Reflections on this site and in the present exchange.

First, we discovered, that we actually hadn't agreed on "the" story.  And that "we" aren't the only ones needed to write that story.  Nor are "we" the only initiators nor the only carriers of this field. All over the world others are awakening to the same need and beginning to tell new stories and to do their part. Whatever aspirations, agendas, or strategic questions we had brought individually-and however useful these may yet prove to be in the future-they seem not to have been what "the Field", "the Whole", required of us--and gave to us--in this phase of the work and on Shambala Mountain.  Or, at least not in the form we anticipated.

To discover the new truths essential to the larger work we aspire to accomplish together, it seems we had to be broken open, had to be turned to "soup" in our cocoons, no longer caterpillars, not yet butterflies. We had to discover each other. We had to go much deeper for our stories, ancient and emerging.

And, as it turned out, we needed to bond more deeply and that through higher energy and volatility than orderly processes allow for. And then, oh joy of joys, oh reward for it all, we spontaneously connected, created, committed, and birthed what we had so much desired-and that could not, simply could not, be built. Pinocchio can be designed, and carved, and made to move by outside forces. But never can a living child.  

What is remarkable, and evidence of the truth of the experience, is how much energy and action have followed from it, because, I am absolutely convinced, the commitments made in the end were not the pro-forma kind (those more or less demanded at the end of any "working conference") but a spontaneous coming together of people suddenly finding ourselves with more courage, and our lives and deepest purposes, energized and entwined.

I learned years ago as a teacher, and say now in work such as this, that we succeed as much, if not more, when our goals are transformed as when they are met.  

Together we found ourselves releasing expectations we had brought and letting ourselves enter fully into something that was very high risk. We're not naïve. All of us have experienced all too often how it is that the well-intentioned can breakdown in chaos, conflict, wasted opportunity, loss of good will and betrayed hopes. Yet we took the risk.

Not because we didn't know any better, and not because we couldn't get hold of a runaway process, but because we sort of knew this: That nowhere but at the edge of chaos does true evolution occur. What hasn't yet been, what is unknown, exists only there. And we are its servants. There just isn't any other way to make a new story or a new world.  

As I said in the last circle the last day, such an undertaking is sacred. And it is only from within the sacred, seriously invoked, acting from reverence and humility, treating each other with compassion and openness, that such risks can succeed. That is, I am convinced, what enabled us to live a long week together at the edge of chaos and emerge with what was truly needed, and far, far more than we could have dared imagine.  

Either way, whether described in the language of emergence and chaos theory, as in the first description above-or in that of spiritual openness to the guidance and power of forces not seen but felt as in the second description-either way, the truth of the experience itself holds. Either way, as Michael Dowd would surely point out, we witness to the same phenomena. Long before electricity was "understood", or could be described, its properties were mapped and made use of-and only then, by taking risks with it!  

Intentions vs. Commitments

A wise guide, a software designer some of you may know named Alan Saxon, said to me, "I no longer make commitments. I set intentions." "What", I asked him, though halfway sensing the answer already, "is the difference?" The gist of what I understood him to say, that has stayed with me and informed me since, is something like: "A commitment I try to make happen to the best of my ability, no matter what, honoring the contract I've made, the appointment, the product". "With an intention, I try only to keep it pure, clean, keep checking that my ego, my desires to perform, to please, to produce, are not getting in the way. I stay alert to opportunities as they arise and allow myself even to be "God's fool", to look foolish, and allow my own plans to change in response to whatever emerges that is in alignment with my intention".

We all did that quite well at Shambala Mountain. And I have no doubt whatsoever that we are more than competent in doing the former, honoring commitments, wherever following through on them does in fact best fulfill the intentions. And in fact, as our actions have already shown since then, we can and will do the "hard stuff, the practical stuff", but with far greater energy and reliability when it comes out of our will, our joy, and as an extension of our own work-and IF and as long as we see its alignment with our evolving intentions. At the same time we are learning the necessity for adjusting obligations, or letting go of them altogether, whenever demanded by intention.   And we may contrast this with past experience of acting out of obligation, feeling further burdened and pulled away from our true work, an experience that signals lack of alignment with our higher intentions.  

 

If the Storyfield Conference did work after all, then, was that "because of", or "in spite of", the conference design? And were departures from that design, part of the problem or part of what made "the magic" happen? We'll be grappling with these questions all year, of course, as we plan next year's conference, and as we pull in other people, and do many local/regional gatherings and events, all in service of "the Field".  (And I have me own ideas, of course, as for example, the need to better convey the differences between  "energy-driven", "agenda-driven", "task driven", and "activity driven" processes--but all thats for a later discussion elsewhere, that I'll link to from here when its ready.)

Meanwhile, though, as I came to understand the intentions of the Conference through its actions, I can see now, looking back, how those intentions were held to with remarkable clarity and courage in the face of continuous struggle and uncertainty-not only on the part of the leaders, but of us all. What seemed to be the original contract was often not well renegotiated (and we are still seeking a way to do that better)-yet I do believe that the departures took us way, way beyond what fulfilling that contract might, even at its best, have accomplished. It made possible the personal transformations, the emergence of new potential in service of our shared intention, the increase in our efforts after the conference, and the deepening of our connections--to each other, to the earth, to the ancestors and to the coming generations.

Living as "agents of conscious evolution"

Tom Atlee has posed the question, "What does it mean to be an agent of conscious evolution?" What does it feel like? How do our lives change, and our work and the way we work together, and make decisions, and find our rewards, and cope?  

Sometimes it feels like a thrill, hope, adventure, humility, love, a sense of meaning, an experience of being "met". Often it feels confusing, scary, complex, out of control, high risk, like we've taken on too many things, and/or that the things we thought we were taking on, or what they turn out actually to require of us, are way different than we expected, sometimes more than we can handle. It means struggling to discern when a departure from plans is a distraction or a discovery. It means many mistakes, more questions than answers, frustration with each other and with ourselves. Yet, can there be any other way to learn what has not been known before, or create what has not existed before? I don't think so.



Holding these things in tension

And yet, again, the frustrations are real, difficult, sometimes painful. We need to keep working to hold ourselves and each other in appreciation as we go on with this work. Inside of ourselves the tension between order and chaos can be very great indeed, making it all the harder to handle when it flares up between us. Even so, as we do keep learning how to hold ourselves and each other in love and respect, we also nurture the very gifts that make for success. We become ever more able to keep in vibrant interaction the demands of order, structure, predictability, planning, systematic analysis, etc--and the gifts that blast us out of what we thought we knew and came to do, into mystery, new learning, and results we couldn't have dreamed possible. We'll keep getting better, I believe, at creating spaces that hold these different elements in fruitful tension, and at nurturing these gifts in each other, as our new story, one that honors them all, grows from us.



________________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA  98006
(425) 746-6274 

www.opencirclecompany.com


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"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become 
the fire".
  -- Drew Dellinger

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