OS Critters

Wed Jul 30 16:36:37 PDT 2008

Hello all,

Following on the the "critter" discussion, and Matilda and Willem's  
journey around the circle at the close of WOSonOS in "walks" of  
different animals, including humans, I'd like to share another OS  
critter we've discovered.

Each year I attend two or three week-long professional gatherings held  
in Open Space. During these events, everyone stays in the same hotel/ 
retreat center together, and we have day and evening sessions from  
Monday noon until Friday noon. At these events, we've discovered the  
Open Space "groundhog" which we introduce and honor along with the  
butterflies and bumblebees in the opening circle.

OS Groundhogs may go underground and unseen for a session or during  
longer parts of the event.  They are doing their own work, tilling the  
soil, showing that we all need breathing room away sometimes. Present,  
just not with us at the moment. And, when they do pop back up into the  
sunlight, we're all so happy to see them!

One groundhog I know made progress on a goodly portion of a book draft  
during the week, with the circle of hosts, participants, butterflies  
and bumblebees ready to nourish and support him outside his hotel room  
door. (BTW, he did show up for most of the meals. LOL)

Best wishes,
Diana

**
Diana Larsen
co-author: "Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great!"
new website: http://www.futureworksconsulting.com
blogger: http://www.futureworksconsulting.com/blog

On Jul 29, 2008, at 9:35 PM, douglas germann wrote:

> Tree--
>
> Well, well, well...another critter shows up at WOSonOS! What all do we
> have in the menagerie of wonderful wise beings? Bumblebees and
> butterflies, giraffes and moose, and now...fireflies!
>
> Thank you Tree, for noticing!
>
> 			:- Doug.
>
>
> On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 16:08 -0700, Tree Fitzpatrick wrote:
>> 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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