[OSList] Opening Space for Listening, after the US election
Rosa Zubizarreta via OSList
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Sat Dec 3 13:37:49 PST 2016
Hi Lucas,
I am only now seeing this thread… and I want to begin by thanking you for
your organizing efforts. I can relate to "having limited time to pursue
volunteer community-building efforts"… and also, to the distinction you are
making, between the work of opening space, and the work of invitation. For
me as well, the latter is much more challenging...
Since the elections, I've hosted two different small events here locally,
in our rural New England town… both gatherings were fairly cozy, and both
of them were organized by others, which was very helpful.
Yet though the numbers were small, we heard from participants that it had
been a very meaningful experience. Neither of them was an OST event, so I'm
a bit hesitant to offer too many deets. On the other hand, I know some of
you are interested in other processes as well, so here's a brief summary….
**
The Sunday gathering was part of a once-a-month gathering for social change
activists, that we've been hosting in a large studio that an artist friend
of ours has offered as a meeting ground. We began offering these "Supportive
Community Circles for Deepening Social Action"
<https://dk-media.s3.amazonaws.com/AA/AL/diapraxis/downloads/316993/Supportive_Community_Circles_for_Deepening_Social_Action.pdf>
in our local area this September, at no charge, mainly by e-mailing a few
friends and word-of-mouth. The focus is on personal growth and empowerment,
with regard to social action.
So this last meeting in November was our third session, and it was our
first post-election one. We had a turn-out of 17 people. After an initial
round of check-ins, we invited some possible topics for deep-dives. Six
main topics surfaced, and we facilitated a Constellation process on one of
the topics, which had to do with being shaken by the difficulty of
maintaining connection with a family member with very different political
views. After the Constellation, we closed with another round of circle,
where participants shared their insights. If anyone is interested in the
harvest, here's the link.
<https://dk-media.s3.amazonaws.com/AA/AL/diapraxis/downloads/316899/Harvest_from_Nov_27_v3.pdf>
**
Then on Wednesday, another friend had organized an evening get-together for
people interested in experiments in democracy – specifically in learning
more about the participatory public policy process used in Vorarlberg,
which includes Dynamic Facilitation. We had about 15 people, and for our DF
deep dive, the topic chosen was, "How do we organize effectively in these
times?" I don't have the harvest notes from that one yet, but can share
those later if anyone's interested.
Neither of these gatherings was specifically intended to bring people from
across the political divides together in one room. At the same time, what
I've been seeing is that a) people in the center-to-left range, *also *need
spaces in which to work through all this stuff; b) when there is space to
explore, part of what comes up in these gatherings is people's desire to
connect *across *larger divides, along with their fears & concerns & ideas
& insights for doing so...
I don't know what's going to happen next, nor where all this is going... I
totally relate to the 'wanting to contribute'. As a Leo, I'd love to
contribute in a larger way... :-) and, in the meantime, am appreciating
these various opportunities to practice.
*Rosa Zubizarreta*
*meet me at my DiaPraxis website <http://diapraxis.com> *
*read "Celebrating Our Diversity: Now More than Ever"
<https://thelisteningarts.org/2016/11/24/celebrating-our-diversity-even-more-so-now/>
on my Listening Arts blog <https://rosaz.wordpress.com/>*
* <https://rosaz.wordpress.com/>*
* <http://www.DiaPraxis.com>*
On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 11:01 PM, Lucas Cioffi via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
> Chuni Li, thank you for the kind words.
>
> Michael H, I took your suggestion last week and dropped by my
> Congressman's office. Their staff thought the idea of holding
> conversations with people to be very foreign, and I find that to be
> unfortunate. The sad truth is that they don't even know what they don't
> know.
>
> The reality is that we all have limited time to pursue these kinds of
> volunteer, community building efforts due to the requirements of work,
> family, and other responsibilities. When we (and we all do) face
> roadblocks, we have to get our second wind and try again if we want to
> achieve any meaningful results.
>
> Everyone on this list wants to change the world in some big way or a small
> way–or at least invite the world to change itself. I'm probably not alone
> in thinking that it's tough to know which projects to double-down on when
> the initial level of interest is moderate. I realize I'm only interested
> in doing the hard work of opening space and not the very hard work of
> invitation. It's easy for me to walk away and say "whomever few came were
> the right people" but I know that I didn't give the invitation process my
> best effort; I just wasn't willing to sacrifice a lot of time to a project
> that didn't start gaining traction on its own. Maybe that's me being wise
> and conserving energy for the next project, or maybe it's me being lazy, or
> a combination of both.
>
> Either way, that's me thinking out loud. I hope y'all have a great
> weekend.
>
>
>
> Lucas Cioffi
> Founder, QiqoChat.com
> Charlottesville, VA
> Mobile: 917-528-1831 <(917)%20528-1831>
>
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 7:19 PM, <chunili2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Sorry to learn that you pulled the plug Lucas.
>>
>> I forwarded your email to my won who is a military veteran. He replied it
>> looked really interesting and he would sign up for a slot.
>>
>> Chuni Li
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Michael Herman via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
>> *To:* Lucas Cioffi <lucas at athenabridge.org>; World wide Open Space
>> Technology email list <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 17, 2016 10:21 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [OSList] Opening Space for Listening, after the US
>> election
>>
>> lucas, i wonder if this is something that any of your local congress
>> people would be interested in sponsoring. if even one or two decided it
>> was a good idea, it might spread. or you might find they're not interested
>> now but some issue or set of issues comes up and they come back to you
>> about the idea then.
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Michael Herman
>> Michael Herman Associates
>> 312-280-7838 <(312)%20280-7838> (mobile)
>>
>> http://MichaelHerman.com <http://michaelherman.com/>
>> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org <http://openspaceworld.org/>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 8:01 PM, Lucas Cioffi via OSList <
>> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I pulled the plug on the American Townhall series
>> <http://townhalls.qiqochat.com/>, rather than letting the experimental
>> project run for a month.
>>
>> I want to sincerely thank those who signed up for it and for everyone who
>> helped to spread the word.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I must cancel the project, because with a moderate level
>> of effort over the past week, I was not able to find more than 12 people
>> who were interested in participating (outreach was over the past week on
>> Facebook and email discussion lists).
>>
>> Of course, we could let this experiment continue and try to build
>> momentum day after day for the next 30 days, but in my estimation, there
>> just isn't enough interest to make this worth your time or my time.
>>
>> So let's save our energy and make space for more promising efforts. I'm
>> happy to chat if you have any questions or suggestions.
>>
>> Thanks again, and I look forward to crossing paths online.
>>
>> Lucas Cioffi
>> Charlottesville, VA
>> 917-528-1831
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Jeff Aitken via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.
>> org <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
>>
>> 430 pacific is tough but I'm glad to see this now.
>> Jeff
>> SF
>>
>> On Nov 17, 2016 4:39 PM, "Skye Hirst via OSList" <oslist at lists.openspacetech.or
>> g <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
>>
>> I am so sorry no one showed up. I was there. I think perhaps folks are
>> just tired of talking. Thanks this time I got on and I'm getting how it
>> works. Let's try again soon. Thank you so much for your efforts to keep
>> this in front of us as a option.
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 8:04 AM, Lucas Cioffi via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.or
>> g <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> Whether their side won or lost, I see that many of my friends across the
>> political spectrum are hurting for reasons that may surprise the other
>> side. People have stories they want heard.
>> One powerful way to change minds is to tell your story to someone who has
>> a different perspective, so I'm setting up a month of nightly video chat
>> breakout tables that are open & free: http://americantownhalls.org/
>> *These 30-minute interactive video chats start tonight and happen each
>> evening at 7:30pm Eastern through December 17th.* Please drop in
>> anytime. This is opening space but not OST; the format is breakout tables
>> with no specific topics selected.
>>
>> If you know an American military veteran who may want to host the space
>> one evening, there's a volunteer sign-up form at the bottom of the page
>> (see link above). This is also an experiment in seeing how people who have
>> little formal training in dialogue can open space.
>>
>> Lucas Cioffi
>> Charlottesville, VA
>> Mobile: 917-528-1831
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> *Skye Hirst, PhD*
>> President - The Autognomics Institute
>> *Conversations in Radical Self-Knowing*
>> www.autognomics.org
>> @autognomics
>> 207-593-8074
>>
>> *"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of
>> existence."*
>> *- Ralph Waldo Emerson*
>>
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