Head on a Stick

[douglas germann]

Hi friends--

                            Head on a Stick



The International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers held their annual
convention near Detroit, Michigan, for 3 days in mid-May, 2008. Gathered
were about 2 dozen lawyers with interests in collaborative law, a coach
approach to law practice, healthy practices, and so forth.

The convention started with a six directions circle ceremony and then a
viewing of the film, “One,” on Thursday evening. Friday through Saturday
morning were a half-dozen presentations to the circle of lawyers.
Saturday afternoon was given over to Open Space.

The time allotted was from 1:00 to 5:30 pm. Two break out sessions of 90
minutes were invited. In the first half hour, 12 topics were posted by
the 18 or so people who were in attendance. Three of these sessions were
combined to one. The topics were: 

     1. Holistic Lawyers doing their own inner work.
        
     2. Balance teaching.
        
     3. What's next—back rubs.
        
     4. I secretly wanted to be L-- and K-- in law school. How do they
        and others get to joy?
        
     5. Planning 2009 conference.
        
     6. Teaching other lawyers how to do what we do.
        
     7. Evolution of consciousness new physics and the coming legal
        profession.
        
     8. Languaging the movement.
        
     9. Grounding technique.
        
    10. Who sees clients' auras?
        
    11. How to market holistic law so the customer buys!
        
    12. Getting paid for doing good.
        

About 30 minutes into the second session time, one of the organizers
observed to me that the conversations seemed to be falling apart, that
several people had left, and asked me what should we do? Indeed, her
observation seemed accurate—people were milling about, speaking in
groups of twos and threes, some were working on their computers, a
couple were sleeping on large pillows in the middle of the floor. What
seemed to generate this state of affairs was that near the end of the
first session time, many of the hosts for the second time slot gathered
around another conversation not yet complete and were ardently engaged
in that conversation for another 20 minutes or more. I suggested we just
trust the people to work it out for themselves.

At the appointed time for the closing circle, 16 people showed up! One
said that he had gone to his room for a nap and felt quite refreshed.

The comments in the closing circle on “What has this afternoon meant to
you?” were rich and deep, more than many open spaces I have observed.
There were tears and laughter, a sense of coming together. The listening
stick was from a presenter the day before, an object she called “a head
on a stick.” This captured the sense of the group that they wanted to
move beyond being a head on a stick to full human beings. Their
conversations seemed to have done that work.

Photos of the event are here: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8850949@N06/sets/72157605178783304/ 

Of course, this is now my classic getting down to work in OS picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8850949@N06/2512207700/in/set-72157605178783304/ 

:- Doug.

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