[OSList] Skye Open Space(ing) and Improvisation

[Skye Hirst via OSList]

Paul Levy's and others conversation about Self and self-organizing and
improvisation helped me recall something from an acting method I studied
years ago.


The method tried to teach us to work “off the moment” to be present to the
moment and not want to control it, predict it, name it, or repeat it . It
was the challenge of this acting method.  I feel this may have relevance to
SELF-organizing and self-organizing.


Oscillation, between poles of contrasting “felt senses” creates a
vibration, and if allowed, a hum.  To know solitude, is to know also know
connection.  To know light we need darkness.  To know ourselves, we learn
of others and to know ourselves we can know others.  And in that regard, to
know ourselves small “s,” we can know the larger more inclusive “S” and
whenever possible, to feel the larger “Self” we feel our “self” included.


The ole song comes to mine; “To know him/her is to love him/her/us.”


In this acting discipline, we practiced paying attention to the now, to the
“felt sense” within, to sense what wants attention, what impulses are
obvious as they arise within.  Sometimes the impulse came from the other,
something obvious that stood out, grabbed our attention as a beginning for
our interaction, for an action, or reaction.  To sustain such focus for any
length of time was exceptionally challenging.  It meant working off each
moment.  From such a process was the foundation of “improvisation.” But it
was more than creating novelty. It was the awakening process of authentic
behaviors within an actor or actors.  When these authentic moments
occurred, the audience was stirred, compelled to enter into the dynamic.  As
an audience, we recognized a moment that would never be again, a once in a
lifetime event was occurring.  And we were included; we belonged as humans
in that process. The audience/humans recognized the connection, the
belonging to a universal connection of being alive. Such moments lifted us
all, including the actors.


I believe Open Space(ing) offers this opportunity for authenticity, for
oscillation between contrasting poles, an inclusion, an allowing that often
opens us to what is always available, but doesn’t always occur and yet when
it does, we are drawn into it, we feel included beyond “your opinion and my
opinion. And yet our different opinions are included for consideration as a
source of improvisation/organization, for greater/deeper Self/self knowing.
In this dance of life, new possibilities arise that may never have occurred
without it, and may never occur again just so.


To work “off the moment” to be present to the moment and not want to
control it, predict it, name it, or repeat it was the challenge of this
acting method.  I feel this may have relevance to SELF-organizing and
self-organizing.  Maybe the word “(S) (s) elfing” applies and allows for
the oscillations of living process and the *hum.*   Thanks all.


-- 
*Skye Hirst, PhD*
President - The Autognomics Institute
*Conversations in Radical Self-Knowing*
www.autognomics.org
@autognomics

New Phone Number:
207-593-8074
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