[OSList] Certification?

Harrison Owen hhowen at verizon.net
Sat Aug 10 05:29:58 PDT 2013


Carmela – Beautiful and thank you! Reminds me of my favorite Bette Miller...

 

It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give,
And the soul afraid of dyin'
That never learns to live.

 

Harrison

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

 

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

 

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

 

www.openspaceworld.com 

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Carmela Ariza
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2013 9:33 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Certification?

 

Dear HO and the rest of OS loving colleagues,

 

While reading again fully and partly the sharing/discussion on certification and now this - point of Harrison on "I will be the first to cheer the departure of OST...." 

 

Somehow my poem that I wrote this morning resonates with the ongoing discussion. Allow me to share this....

 

Holding Things Lightly
by: Carmela Ariza
5:55AM, 10 August 2013

Allow me 
To hold things lightly
For when I cling to them 
I loose sight 
Of the more beautiful
Of the more important
And the more fulfilling 
Things in life

When I have an idea
Give me the wisdom
To hold it lightly
That I may give room
For this idea to grow
Along with other ideas
Acknowledging 
Collective wisdom

When I have an opinion
Whether about an issue
Or about a person
Or even an event
Allow me to hold this opinion
Lightly
So that I could lend an ear
To other opinions I hear

When I have something
I call my favorite thing
Allow me to hold it lightly
So that I will not hold it 
Too tightly
Grasping for more
Never letting go
Hurting myself or others

When I hold someone dearly
Allow me to relax my grip
On the one I love
So that she may grow
Through and with others
Affirming my part
As well as the role of others
In forming and shaping my beloved

When I am so attached to my life
Allow me to see beyond this life
And when the end is near
I shall gracefully exit
Not fearing 
Nor doubting
That this road ahead
Is where I am meant to be

Help me to hold things lightly
Suspending my thoughts 
Making space for something new 
Stepping back 
Taking a different view
Confirming, disconfirming
Breathing in, breathing out

Simply letting go 

 

All the best to all! Have a good weekend!

 

Carms

 

 

If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having. -- Henry Miller

  _____  

From: Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list' <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Sent: Saturday, 10 August 2013, 8:14
Subject: Re: [OSList] Certification?

 

Paul – it ain’t Dogma – just experience. If the experience changes, change the story. And that is what we are – Story Tellers. And the Tale has yet to be fully told. One thing I am absolutely clear about. We didn’t invent it. And certainly I didn’t invent it. Been going on for 14.7 billion years, and we are just catching up – just barely. Wherever it happens is the right place. We just have to keep out eyes open. And Be prepared to be surprised. I will be the first to cheer the departure of Open Space Technology. It is, and always has been in my mind a “half-way technology.” Something we do until we can easily and openly do the real thing. Which paradoxically is nothing new and nothing strange. Just what we do, and what we are. So relax Paul... the story is just getting started....

 

Harrison

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

 

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 04843

 

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

 

www.openspaceworld.com 

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of paul levy
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2013 7:23 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Certification?

 

The problem, dear colleagues, is that if you fix this as dogma...

 

For me it all comes down to this:

·         5 Conditions of Use

·         A few logistics

·         Circle

·         5 Principles

·         Law of 2 feet

·         Be Prepared to be Surprised

·         Trust the People

... Then you have killed the space for change. What Harrison calls (also dogmatically) "the genuine article" sets up a tragic polarity between genuine or NOT genuine.

 

George W Bush did the same in the Iraq war: "Either you are with us or you are against us"

 

Harrison will take this "genuine article" dogma to his grave. Shame. 

 

Certification even arises at all because of this false dogma. It has drawn it in by becoming a blueprint. Oh dear.

 

There is no genuine article other than what we create in the moment of need and service. If we rediscover Open Space in the same format 25,000 times then it still isn't a rule or a dogma of genuineness. It simply the beauty if what it is. 

 

It's an act of beautiful magic, renewed and new in the emerging now.

 

Stop with the minimum lists already!

 

Burn the user guide. Just for the hell of it. Forget it all. Then go to work. Watch the circle form. Watch open space technology escape again, breathing better and fresher - possibly in the same form, possible it might surprise you.

 

Paul 

On Friday, 9 August 2013, Suzanne Daigle wrote:

Certification, it keeps coming up and most likely it will keep coming up as more and more people experience Open Space. 

My story is that perhaps if there had been certification in 2009, I might not have jumped in as I did, recklessly and blissfully. In that first 12 to 16 months, I committed to one Open Space a month.  And oh my, it was the best training ground ever. I know I botched it up many times, forgetting to say something, not being as clear in my instructions or worse, feeling so darn nervous with that dark shadow of control and desire for a predictable outcome still in my being.  Funny thing is; I can confidently assert that it didn’t make a darn bit of difference. The space opened and people found each other and soon forgot the facilitator was ever there, except at the close and then only for a brief minute or two.  It was again their turn to speak.

In the weeks and months preceding WOSonOS 2013, a big gang of Millennials got to experience Open Space.  It rocked their world as it had rocked mine and they are now running with it.  Early on, one USFSP student couldn’t wait to integrate it into one of his study groups.  What happened is probably nothing like Open Space. As he tells it, he arrived late, explained it in a rush and somehow students got it, whatever version of Open Space that might have been.  Today that same guy is eating and sleeping Open Space; he invented stuff for the newsroom at WOSonOS and keeps making plans on how he and others will be bringing Open Space to student government and community.  He is not alone; others are just as ignited.

For me it all comes down to this: 

·         5 Conditions of Use

·         A few logistics 

·         Circle

·         5 Principles

·         Law of 2 feet

·         Be Prepared to be Surprised

·         Trust the People

The simplicity of it all still astounds!

An invitation to see life and be in life, with all its beauty, awe and wonder! Infinite and indescribable!

Timeless in the awareness it has created in me, how it has enriched my life with others, in the doing and not doing. 

>From clarity to confusion, from knowing to not knowing, from joy to sadness, hope and despair…it’s all there like breathing in and breathing out. 

Oh the twist of fate, the serendipity that led me to Open Space or Open Space to me!  It was not even a real Open Space, just enough to spark something that made me long to know more.  

How grateful I am to have met OS. How appreciative to have stood on the shoulders of giants who came before me and who are here in this community.  And how much I want others and everyone to “experience” it too; however they experience it, wherever it leads them!

In the spirit of “one less thing to do” that is embodied in Open Space, it is where I believe we find that 1% sweet spot that ignites it all: the individual and collective “passion” and “responsibility” that leads to the life cycles of high performance that is in nature everywhere around us.  By opening space and doing less, we are clearing the space for what matters most.

How can we certify that? It does not even really exist.  It’s just life. 

This is what the “certification conversation” inspired in me as I felt the knots in my stomach, the old confusions surfacing, and the feeling of so much to do that I’m not doing, so much more to know that I don’t know.  The “not good enough story” that struggles to re-emerge poked its ugly head out. 

So I had to reground myself once again, to the sheer simplicity of Open Space.

Am I “being” this way yet? Heck no! But maybe by reminding myself a bit more every day and speaking it out loud,  I will do less and say less (on that I have a long way to go).  When there is pain in the world, it is awfully difficult to believe that doing less is for the best.  

I’ll take a glass of Pinot Noir now if there’s any left. 

Suzanne

 

 

On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com> wrote:

Hiya ,Chris!

 

I have no trouble with givens as a practice. I learned that from Birgitt too although these days i talk about it as working in context. For me it is all part of setting the container for the work. In the Art of Hosting workshops many of us do we spend a lot of time on design, reasoning that the methods are simple actually but understanding the pre and post meeting work, working with the context and setting and holding a container for cocreation are essential to good work getting done. 

 

I have no problem with people receiving certificates for attending workshops but one simply can't guarantee performance with certification in this field. 

 

Pass the wine. 

 

C

-- 

CHRIS CORRIGAN

Harvest Moon Consultants

www.chriscorrigan.com <http://www.chriscorrigan.com/> 

 

 <http://aohrivendell.withtank.com/> Art of Hosting - Participatory Leadership and Social Collaboration, Bowen Island, BC November 11-14,2013


On 2013-08-09, at 12:48 AM, "eiwor at gatewayc.com" <eiwor at gatewayc.com> wrote:

Dear Chris I agree about all you said, especially about the givens. I would even dare to say that the prework and the discussion there is what opens the space. What I do at the beginning of an OST meeting is ritual, also important but still ritual. 
Thanks for your story.
Eiwor

Skickat från min HTC

----- Reply message -----
Från: "Chris Weaver" <chrisgweaver13 at gmail.com>
Till: "World wide Open Space Technology email list" <oslist at lists.openspacetech. <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> org <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> >
Rubrik: [OSList] Certification?
Datum: fre, aug 9, 2013 06:45

 

Greetings All,

 

Ah, I can't resist jumping in to stir the pot.  It is an honor to join a thread peopled by so many folks whom I respect (and appreciate and love) so much.  I invite you to settle in for rather a long story, which may, at some point, have something to do with "certification."

 

After learning of Open Space in Anne Stadler's kitchen, I walked around as a newbie at the OSonOS in Monterrey (the one fifteen years ago, from which Harrison was unexpectedly absent, due to a nasty flu, I believe), with my jaw hanging open to meet so many bold and brilliant facilitators (I remember especially Michael P, Alan Stewart, Brian Bainbridge, Roxy, and Birgitt Bolton) sharing stories that I sweetly strove to wrap my head at least half-way around.

 

For a few years I engaged actively on the OSLIST as I began to facilitate some OST meetings (without even "finishing the book," as I recall) in the Seattle school where I worked as a teacher.  In 1999 I landed here in North Carolina, where I attended my first OST workshop as part of the Genuine Contact Program with Birgitt (Bolton) Williams who had recently landed a few hours away.

 

Now I will say that I have an assumption only that at around that time there was something of a "falling out" between Birgitt and her work and the work of some other OS facilitators.  I do not know, nor need to know, the details.  But I do know that there are some points of practice that have generated some heated passion in the community and that I think are worthy of putting on the storytelling table.  (I know that there is not supposed to be a table, but I suddenly imagine myself with Jeff, Chris, Peggy, Harrison, Michael in a pub somewhere with a rough wooden table, on which I am happily uncorking a bottle of pinot noir.)

 

When I completed the Genuine Contact "Working with OST" workshop, I received a certificate, but not a certification.  (The distinction is important because there was no intention on the workshop leader's part to evaluate my "competence" in any way.)  Based on my participation in the four-day experience, I could, if I cho

Suzanne Daigle
NuFocus Strategic Group
7159 Victoria Circle
University Park, FL 34201
FL 941-359-8877;  
CT 203-722-2009
www.nufocusgroup.com <http://www.nufocusgroup.com/> 
s.daigle at nufocusgroup.com
twitter @suzannedaigle


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