[OSList] what we are teaching/learning/inviting in opening space

Michael Herman michael at michaelherman.com
Tue Sep 20 08:44:16 PDT 2011


i shared this with harrison recently and send it on here at his suggestion,
or should i say invitation?  i think it speaks to something we almost never
talk about when we talk about open space:  breathing, the fourth of
harrison's four mechanisms.

we talk a lot about circle, bulletin board and marketplace, though the
latter two are often lumped together.  more on that on another day.  for
now, i'm interested in breathing.  this is the word harrison uses to
describe the backing and forthing from large group to small groups and back
again, but i'd like to extend it to all the backing and forthing we invite
when we open space, and suggest another word, pulsation, to highlight the
backing and forthing movement as mechanism.  where breathing connotes the
presence of spirit, pulsation might suggest the energizing spark of polarity
and lightning that could have catalyzed life from the cosmic chemicals?

backing and forthing from to what poles?

start with the opening, if we follow along on the script/story harrison
suggests in the user's guide, we see that it invites a pulsation between
uncertainty and certainty, individuals and community, purpose and circle,
male and female.  look around the circle, some people known, others maybe
not known... even if all known, one thing we know is that nobody knows
exactly what will happen today... but we know our purpose... even if we
don't know our agenda... we have these principles that say we are not in
control... and this law that gives us a specific right and responsibility...
and then there is the pulsation between learning and contributing, taking in
and putting back.  this all sets up the overarching task of paying attention
to inside and outside, self and others, past and future, and over time
letting all of that condense and expand into now.  this does a good job of
describing my own experience in facilitating, pulsing between the sensations
of my own body/being and the sensations of the gathered body/community that
i am holding/witnessing.

so with that introduction...

this is what i shared with harrison, specifically triggered by his
reference, in our conversation about his irena reflections, to "euphoria"
that is sometimes the experience in open space:

...from a book of very simple, very natural, somatic practices or exercises
by my friend and teacher, julie henderson.  the book is called "embodying
well-being: how to feel as good as you can in spite of everything."  (which
seems a good title for open space as well, how to feel as good as you can in
organization, in spite of everything.)  the practices begin super simply:
yawning, rocking, saying "ah", sighing and such.  the book is super simple
in it's presentation, each practice simply has a HOW page and a WHY page
facing it.  the thing that last week's conversation reminded me of was a
more advanced one of these practices, #31, called mutuality.

the write-up is pasted below and i think that the essence of this practice
is what is at the heart of open space.  i think in our invitations and
openings, i think we invite over and over again, a pulsation between
individual and other, or others.  also what is current and what might or
could or should be.  the objective and the subjective, too, borrowing from
wilber's story.  all these differernt, apparently separate, opposing
realities are acknowledged and included.

i think that learning to pulse between "i can do anything i want here" and
"i must learn and contribute (from/to others)" and all the other pulsations
we invite folks to try and ultimately resolve into one(s) is the heart of
what we are learning and teaching and inviting when we open space.  my guess
is that it was the heart of the rituals you borrowed from.  it was the way
pointing to compassion, love, joy and peace.  these things are of course
naturally occuring.  what this write-up below and our experience in open
space tell us, is that there are specific things we can practice that
support their emergence becoming more and more easy and ordinary.

see what you think...  m

p.s. i think i might add that you (harrison) seem to take this view very
naturally, or perhaps just long practiced, as how many times i've seen you
(harrison) language things, noting both sides and not taking either one.
"where there is agreement we will move forward; where there is disagreement
we will seek understanding" (all part of the same one conversation, for
instance).  the magic, euphoria, joy, compassion, love arise naturally when
these two states/realities/poles are brought/held together, to be connected,
without loss of distinction, without loss of self.

--

HOW #31  MUTUALITY

Sit comfortably in alignment somewhere where you can see and sense any other
living being, human or otherwise.

Close your eyes and become aware of all the sensations that tell you that
you are--not so much HOW you are, but the sheer evidence of your BEING.

When you are familiar with these sensations of being, open your eyes and
look at the other person (or tree or goldfish or puppy or cockroach) and
notice that they also ARE.

If you lose awareness of your own being, close your eyes and begin again.

Move attention from awareness of your own being to awareness of the being of
the other--back and forth, until—as it may seem, by accident—you  are aware
of both of you at once.

Mutual awareness, mutual presence.       Notice what happens when both of
you are real in the same moment.


WHY #31  MUTUALITY

The capacity to know oneself and another simultaneously as real is
apparently quite rare.  Even to know oneself in two states of experience at
the same time--for example, simultaneously in the experiential states of
"child" and "adult"--is very difficult.  It's one of the benefits of good
therapy that we can learn to experience two realities at once.  I'm told
that in the U.S. no more than 15% of adults ever learn to do this.  It's
quite a bit harder than patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same
time.

To know directly this simultaneity of being--your own with others'--and to
return to it moment by moment, day by day, leads spontaneously to
compassion, an openness to love and joy, as well as a growing confidence
that the deep nature of things is good.



--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

http://MichaelHerman.com
http://ManorNeighbors.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
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