WOSonOS 08 : there were fireflies and wildflowers . . . and sprites

Tree Fitzpatrick therese.fitzpatrick at gmail.com
Mon Jul 28 16:08:37 PDT 2008


Because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I could not resist attending
WOSonOS 08.  I am not doing much consulting work these days. I've just got
one client and mostly that's a love connection.  I am lost in life.  Don't
fret on my behalf.  Yes, I am lost but I am lost in Open Space, where only
the right things happen, at only the right moments. All I have to do is pay
attention to what has heart and meaning for me. Follow my bliss, as Joseph
Campbell once said!

So I followed my bliss to WOSonOS.

I almost didn't go. A few days before the event, I wrote and told Lisa Heft,
the registrar for WOSonOS 08 (and the famous Access Queen) and suggested
maybe I wouldn't come.

Throughout the event, I decided to leave. Then I would have a butterfly
conversation, which would lead to another butterfly conversation. . . and
then another. I was there from beginning to end. . .

The highlights of my experience:

Chris Corrigan's children, Aine and Finn, and John Engle's children, Daniel
and Leila (I may spell her name wrong).

Watching these children (holding Leila, a six-month old beauty) restored my
soul.  One evening, Aine and Finn danced while wearing some cheap neon
necklaces that I had brought to the party.  There were thirty of these
necklaces and the children had almost all of them wrapped around their
wrists, ankles, neck and waists.  I was reminded of fireflies glowing in the
dark of the cosmos that evening.  During the day time, watching the children
bowing and bending through the day, I was reminded of watching wildflowers
bending in a meadow under a light summer breeze.

Suddenly, all the participants at WOSonOS began to appear to me like
fireflies and wildflowers.

We met at a very beautiful location, at the Presidio, which used to be a
military base.  The venue was high on a hill overlooking the very beautiful
bay, with the Golden Gate bridge within view, as well as Alcatraz (an island
famous for once housing a prison!!) and the jewel of the city of San
Francisco.  Blustery winds, soft breezes, blue skies and white sailboats
dancing on the water.

I  didn't go to any sessions but one.  I attended the Open Space
Institute/USA session, which serves as our annual meeting, which we are
required to hold.

I had a wonderful, fantastic time.

But there were some rough moments.  It is these rough moments that I wish to
report.

I kept having a wonderful time, beautiful moments in which I glimpsed the
sparkle of love, much like I kept catching glimpses of sunlight dappled on
the bay. I would remonstrate myself, telling myself that I "should" go to
some sessions, I should act professional, I should do this and I should do
that. I would tell myself that since I wasn't going to sessions, I ought to
just go home. Each time I came to this turn in my thinking, one of the
people I already knew and already loved would appear and talk me 'down' by
reminding me that in OS I didn't have to go to any sessions.

It can be tough, scary work to follow what has heart and meaning.  It had
much heart and meaning for me, over these several days of WOSonOS 08 to be
like a firefly in the night and a wildflower in the daytime, bending in the
breeze.  When I succeeded, when I surrendered to just showing up and just
being alive in the space, I was just fine.  Bending, bending felt good.

What if, by finding my right place in each moment, what if I really am
contributing to the whole of humanity? And what if everyone was able to find
their right place in each moment and to then find the next and then the
next?  Would everything that 'needs' to be done get done? Would someone
harvest the fields and maintain the roadways?  I think so. I hope so.  I
don't know, not for sure, but I had these moments. . . these magical moments
when I completely knew that self-organization is the central power of the
universe and self-organization is love and if everyone extends themselves in
love, guided by the quickening that moves us from one room at an OS event to
the next, from one moment to another. . . . I have these fine moments when I
am sure that all is well. . . or, at least, all will be well soon.

I don't really know what happened at this WOSonOS.  I scarcely heard any of
the Evening News or the Morning Announcements. There were people making
merry, children bobbing in the sunlight and Ms. Lisa Heft making me feel
special just because, lucky me,  Ms. Lisa Heft glanced at me.

And I glanced back.

It might have been my imagination but each time anyone looked at me or
looked at someone else, it seemed to me like rays of light, like love rays.
What does draw people together to accomplish shared goals?  What drew the
first circle of humans around the first fire?  I submit that love draws us
together.

I think many of us would edit the 'principles' of OS, rewrite Harrison's
initial inspiration. It wouldn't really matter if we did such a rewrite. . .
and, of course, people present suggestions all the time, on this list.  Me,
when I hold space, when I open space for a group, I always want to talk
about love and trust, hope and faith.

It is a beautiful, warm-but-not-hot, sunny-and-not-humid perfect day in
Mountain View where I live, where I am writing this.  I am not sure if the
glow I feel is the glow of the sun or the glow of the magic of the space we
created at WOSonOS.

I love Open Space.

WOSonOS 09 will be in Taiwan!  WOSonOS 10 is planned for Berlin.  Mark you
calendars. Show up if you feel called to show up. Open Space. Then open some
more.

-- 
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick

http://thecultureoflove.blogspot.com/

. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with Augustine,
"I want you to be," without being able to give any particular reason for
such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation. -- Hannah Arendt

1335 Montecito Ave Apt. 35
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 967-9260

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