Not Open Space

Tue Feb 19 22:02:33 PST 2008

Dear Yoav,

Your spiritual pain resonates in my inner space.

Having started my OS journey just one and a half years ago, I've been
telling me "emptier and emptier" these days. How hard it has been! And there
learning came from our OS colleagues on this listserve.

Although it's been a rewarding journey, I find myself agitated on my OS
journey to become internally upset about the way things are against
openness. But I tell myself that this might be an opportunity where the
greatest learning can take place along the way- I, myself, might be the
first one to open. And to open is to empty myself of will of my own: desire,
(even benign) hope, wishes, desire, etc. to practice OS.

It might be precisely the role of OS practitioner in the spaces of the world
yet to be opened. Yesterday, I appreciated Michael Pannwitz, who reminded me
of the mantra for self organizing force to emerge- "Totally Present and
Entirely Invisible."

And I believe that the answer will come to you in its own time as I've been
experiencing these days.

Greetings from Seoul

park

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:08:55 +0200, Yoav Peck <yoavpeck at netvision.net.il> wrote:

>Not Open Space
>
>"No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better"
>
>                                                                   Samuel
>Beckett
>
>
>
>I am co-chair of the central parents' committee at my daughter's elementary
>school here in Jerusalem. We are a relatively young school that began with a
>handful of kids and now numbers 400. Since losing the intimacy of the
>school's early years, a plethora of questions and issues has appeared: about
>the running of the school, the nature of the parents' community, educational
>emphases, student violence, etc.
>
>Having participated in several OS experiences and then reading Harrison and
>obtaining coaching from experienced folks, I led three successful OS events.
>I am in love with Open Space, the "technology" and the world-view that
>underlies it. So I quite naturally saw a school-wide Open Space event as
>something that could respond beautifully to the widely-perceived need to
>give the parents a chance to express their concerns and to gather them
>together on the way to voluntary, passion/responsibility - motivated
>activism in the school.
>
>
>
>Along with the curiosity and openness of some folks, I encountered stiff
>resistance from others, including the two co-principals. It was expressed in
>people's difficulty envisioning what would follow the chaos of the
>marketplace, and the opposition to "wasting time at an event with no
>agenda." I explained, I described, I brought in an outside OS facilitator to
>explain, I gave out written material. The two principals were particularly
>nervous about it, and I called other principals who were willing to share
>their successful OS experience with our principals.. all to no avail.
>Perhaps I wanted OS too much. Perhaps I was sounding righteous about it. I
>was even accused of belonging to some kind of OS cult!! Picture me holding
>out Harrison's book to my accuser and him refusing to touch it, as though
>there were worms crawling around the pages.
>
>
>
>What was wrong? Avner Haramati urged me to accept that people could not be
>"persuaded" to do Open Space. That I had things upside down. that the proper
>order of things would be reached when people would own the idea to the point
>that they would be persuading me that OS was right for us.
>
>
>
>The Parents' Committee decided to devote an entire evening to deciding what
>to do. As I listened to the various points of opposition, and along with
>them the deeply-felt need for some kind of event to take place, I yielded.
>People wanted structure, they wanted the class representatives to go out to
>the class parents and cull the central issues people wanted discussed, and
>then to build an agenda around these issues. They were clearly not prepared
>to be surprised.
>
>
>
>So that's where we are now. In early April, we will hold an event that will
>not be Open Space. I somehow do not feel "defeated." An organizational
>consultant, I know that we have to "start where the client is." I wrote to
>Harrison and now I am curious about how to build on his advice:
>
>Open as much space as you can, and when the walls close in, take a pause
>until the next opportunity. It will come. The other thing is that Open Space
>(for me) is less about "doing a program" - than a way of being. It is a
>style of approach that just opens space for people to share and grow. You
>don't even have to sit in a circle! I think that is what you have been
>doing, and I say keep opening.
>
>So this now seems to be the challenge: opening space without Open Space.
>
>It is exciting to me in a special way, since this feels like living in the
>real world, a world where suspicion, fear of losing control, skepticism and
>cynicism reign. this is where we live, and learning to uncover the keys to
>opening a closed space feels like an important journey. As we build our
>non-OS event, there will be countless opportunities for opening space, for
>making use of the OS distinctions, for softening our fear of the unexpected.
>
>
>
>
>As Rabbi Yitz Greenberg says, I prefer Succoth to Passover. On Passover, we
>herald liberation from slavery. Trumpets and glory! But on Succoth we
>celebrate the dreary tasks entailed in wearily plodding our way through the
>desert, as we daily build and take apart our little huts on the 40 year
>schlep to the promised land. At Succoth we celebrate the secrets of living
>our way through the desert with the promised land in our hearts, sometimes
>slipping to longing for the fleshpots of slavery, but steadfastly
>confronting what arises along the way from an inner place that resonates
>with our vision of what can be.
>
>
>
>I'd be grateful to any of you who have thoughts about any of this.
>
>Thanks much,
>
>Yoav Peck, Jerusalem
>
>
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