[OSList] How much Silence at beginning?

Sun Jun 28 19:48:34 PDT 2015

I offer an example of opening space for one day of the Practice of Peace
conference on Whidbey in Nov 2003. I was one of the planning team and one
of the convenors of the event. We had lots of OS pracitioners on our
planning team and we had 'invited guests' from around the world. We decided
to pair off, one planning team member with one of our invited guests to
open space -- all our invited guests were OS practitioners. It was, after
all, an event held because Harrison had just published his book, Practice
of Peace.

So my big day came. I asked two Israelis, one a Jew, one a Palestinian
Christian, both of them colleagues in Jerusalem, to co-convene with me. I
asked two to co-open with me because of work these do had done at the
conference the day before, work that had galvanized most participants. We
agreed, we THREE people designated to open the space, that I would do
logistics, announcements, ask for some silence (I generally use Anne's
approach and give as much silence as feels right to me in the moment).

For some reason, perhaps because the day before this particular event had
been particularly intense for many participants, including my two, invited
co-convenors, I thought there should be a longish silence. I have never
timed the silence when I open space. It never occurred to me to measure
'how much time to be silent'. I prepare meditatively, as Anne described she
does, and when I step into the role of opening space, I am in open space,
trusting trusting trusting every moment.

So, picture a room packed with about 120 people from 26 countries, I make
my announcements but left out one detail and then asked for silence. I knew
that the fire department was scheduled to come around for a routine
inspection of the fire alarms. As the convenor that day, and the local
on-the-ground convenor, staff consulted me and told me a fire alarm might
go off. They said I could ignore it because it was just a test. So I did
ignore it but I neglected to tell the circle that a fire alarm test might
be heard.

So the fire alarm went off, of course, in the middle of my silence. I held
on, sensing we had not been silent long enough. Until finally, a wonderful
woman (Nancy White) softly asked me if I thought we should check into the
alarm. Silence over. I explained that I knew.

I had been so careful to prepare for that circle. It was full of prominent
os practitioners from around the globe, including, of course, Harrison. I
was very proud to have the honor of opening one day.

I felt some chagrin in the moments when my silence was cut short, regretful
that I had forgot to mention it. I had calculated that the fire department
would be late, for some reason.

Now, in hindsight, that alarm is one of my favorite moments of those four
intense days. Intense and wonderful days. Listen to the alarm, people. Be
on the alert. now is the time for all good persons to work for peace,
emapthy, compassion, love, nature, trust.

More and more, in the romantic glow of my memory, I have come to love that
loud, cursed alarm.

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Harold Shinsato via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

>  Dear Harrison,
>
> I love your response in many ways. It's very confrontational towards this
> need in me to have a formula of a specific amount of clock time, and
> laughing it off.
>
> In many ways, Anne's invocation of the trans-finite seems to invite this
> kind of meditation. Thank you Anne for such an invocation of going beyond
> the finite. How much time do you need for a deep silence? It reminds me of
> the opening stanza to the William Blake poem, Auguries of Innocence:
>
>
> To see a world in a grain of sand,
> And a heaven in a wild flower,
> Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
> And eternity in an hour.
>
>
> A deep satisfying silence of 10 seconds could be much more impactful in
> certain circles than forcing an 8 minute meditation on them. For myself, I
> have noticed many times my own butt beginning to wiggle considerably even
> just thinking about having to sit still from a command from the facilitator
> to sit in silence. During the retrospective meeting yesterday with most of
> the organizing team and some of the participants (everyone was invited), it
> was quite interesting to contemplate this question of silence. Some balked
> at the idea of an elongated silence. In fact one of the organizers
> hypothesized the opening was already too "woo woo" for some of her
> University friends, and they walked out after the opening circle.
>
> And then again - I suspect for many circles - perhaps 8 minutes of silence
> would have only whet their palette for what they needed for a deep
> comtemplative journey together. Maybe they might need 15 minutes before the
> session genereation. Or 30 minutes. Imagine an hour of sitting in a circle
> together for an hour?!? Speak about eternity. I wonder if such a circle
> might be empowered to solve the most difficult of planetary questions.
>
> Alas - I suspect there is no need for agreement here - or a final answer.
> Just a question and a wondering.
>
> How long a silence in the opening? How many breaths is a deep silence? How
> does one sense when there's been enough?
>
> Thanks to all who have engaged with this question!
>
>     Harold
>
>
> On 6/19/15 3:02 PM, Harrison wrote:
>
>  Harold said... “Would 8 minutes of grounding silence after the welcome
> and logistics opened enough space for participants so they didn't need
> silent reflection time with their papers and markers to gather their
> thoughts? Do you offer anything before letting the participants make their
> offerings to help invite in the "transfinite"?
>
>
>
> I love your intensity. But I do have to ask. “8 Minutes?” .... On which
> planet, what galaxy? And who cares? Deep silence makes its own time. My
> experience.
>
>
>
> ho
>
>
>
>
> --
> Harold Shinsato
> harold at shinsato.com
> http://shinsato.com
> twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
>
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-- 
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick

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