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

Tue Jul 29 14:20:23 PDT 2008

Hi Henri, Hi Thomas. . . . . I was quite sure that I caught glimpses of each
of you at WOSonOS. . . Henri, you were one of my fireflies. Thomas, you were
a wild daisy on the lawn.  I am quite sure.

Thomas, you are right, we can't say for certain that it will be Berlin in
10. . . that will be decided in Taiwan 09.  I did write, previously, that it
was decided but I didn't actually go to the circle where they decided where
the next WOSonOS would be.  I was outside, in the military cemetery, feeling
the wind and sun, watching the water and listening to the steady hum of
traffic below.

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 2:39 AM, Thomas Herrmann <
thomas at openspaceconsulting.com> wrote:

>  Thanks dear Tree for sharing your impressions and how you chose to follow
> your heart during WOSonOS.
>
> It gives juice to my imagination of how this years large international OS
> community gathering was – I'd be glad to hear other voices of how you
> experienced it and look forward to reading the proceedings from the
> OST-meeting.
>
>
>
> To all of you who invested in going to SF, thanks for contributing to
> strengthening our community. I'm glad to hear Taiwan comes next – I will put
> my intention to going there and hope it will work out this time. Seems to me
> there was no definite decision for 2010? Although Berlin still seems to be a
> good tip...
>
> Warm regards
>
> Thomas Herrmann
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
> *Från:* OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] *För *Tree
> Fitzpatrick
> *Skickat:* den 29 juli 2008 01:09
> *Till:* OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> *Ämne:* WOSonOS 08 : there were fireflies and wildflowers . . . and
> sprites
>
>
>
> 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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-- 
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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