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<TITLE>thanks lisa, & a long example of prework</TITLE>
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Thanks Lisa for your wisdom on morning/evening news with 500, and your good wishes. You're always on my shoulder.<BR>
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This particular gig is SO interesting and full of implications that I am going to share part of the story.<BR>
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I am working with a group planning a "Council of Elders" for next September. The three-day gathering is entitled "Earth Wisdom, Elder Wisdom: Reclaiming Passion, Purpose, and Voice." (http://www.EarthSpirit-Rising.org) The program planning committee is invitation-based, and they sought me out with OST in mind...but they wanted to do a "hybrid" type of event. I have deeply enjoyed working with this group...AND it has been a great challenge, because a number of people got VERY COLD FEET when I told them that a hybrid event (with fixed curriculum tracks concurrent with an OST) wouldn't work - something could come first, but OST needed to be OST without a net. (I benefited greatly from Birgitt, Harrison, and others on the list in preparing for these discussions).<BR>
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My first instinct was to step back: the "okay, they're not ready and I'll be invisible til they are" approach. Stepping back was made easier by the fact that walking the circle for 700 does not feel like my cup of tea (you know, I'm a very shy person...) But a week later, as I was reading some emails between the program planners, my own passion welled up like a great wave. A gathering of Elders on this scale at this time is just too important, and I must be finding myself in this mess for a reason. So I wrote the long email below. It may be of interest to people who have been in the position of inviting/enticing a group that is accustomed to a traditional conference into taking the leap.<BR>
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There is more to this story, which I will share at a later date. Michael Herman (who has so much spare time lately <grin>) and I have been talking about the power of OST Councils of Elders, which we imagine could spread like wildfire...Another thread for another day. Here's my letter.<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>Dear Program Committee Members,<BR>
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My two cents' worth, and some questions sprinkled in.<BR>
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First, amid the emerging consensus about a "hybrid" event and about the desire for "fixed tracks," I choose to again voice my viewpoint that Open Space Technology could be the ideal container for all that happens between Monday morning and the closing initiation on Wednesday.<BR>
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I trust that each of you seeks to discern the deep nature of the opportunity of this conference, and to design a process that best serves this opportunity. This is what I am doing. We may disagree about the deep nature of the opportunity, and/or we may disagree about the best design. This is life, and indeed this is the fruit of B and J's invitation for those who care and are so called to develop the program collaboratively. What kind of fruit is it? It's a grapefruit, big and heavy, sticky, with a tough peel, bitter inner skin, and a flower of inner sancta like the kingdom of God itself.<BR>
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So let me write as if the talking stick has come to me, about what I discern as the deep nature of this opportunity. As the director of a camp for children and youth, I put all my eggs in the basket of one philosophy: That each young person is already on a journey of becoming and creating who he/she is meant to be. For all their glorious complexity and diversity, their requirements for this journey are simple and few: Freedom to seek and create the experiences they need, a community of wise and caring mentors/guides, and deep access to nature.<BR>
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I have been told many things when I have described to other educators how Open Space Technology works as a practical process-container for this philosophy with young people. <I>It will be chaos, They may have the potential to do this but they need training, It is so different from what they're used to that they will be very stressed, They won't choose to challenge themselves, They'll only choose to be with their friends, They don't have any meaningful activities to lead themselves, </I>etc etc etc.<BR>
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But with more than 2,500 kids this summer, ages 6 to 16, the process worked beyond our wildest dreams. Yes, it required a carefully-developed infrastructure and a lot of trust. But far and wide, skeptical adults contacted us afterward with unsolicited words like these from 8th grade teacher S.H. from Asheville Middle School: <I>Today I brought you my students, possibly more jaded than even their teachers. I thought they would eat you alive. It actually turned out to be one of the most wonderful and touching experiences of my life. You and your staff worked miracles with these students. I can't thank you enough.<BR>
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</I>I am not writing to toot my own horn. (This teacher would agree with me that we did not work miracles; we held the space, and the students worked the miracles.) My purpose in telling this story is to describe my own understanding of the deep nature of the EarthSpirit Rising opportunity, so that you know where I'm coming from.<BR>
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Let me suggest that there are 700 Elders out there who are already on a journey of Eldering beyond what anyone could ever imagine. Let me suggest that some of them are you. <I>They are already in love with nature, </I>within and without. They don't need anyone to tell them how to be Elders. Their requirements are simple and few: Freedom to seek and create the experiences they need, a community of wise and caring mentors/guides, and deep access to nature.<BR>
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EarthSpirit Rising III can be the space where these 700 Elders enjoy all three of these in an abundance that will astonish everybody. To me, the deep nature of the opportunity is that the participants will leave not impressed with the program, but impressed with themselves; not saying, "Let's sign up again for next year," but passionate about what they will do <I>next week. </I>Not thinking, "I can imagine a council of Elders in our culture," but knowing, "WE ARE A COUNCIL OF ELDERS IN OUR CULTURE."<BR>
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</I>To me Open Space Technology does require a leap of faith, but it truly is faith in the passion, responsibility, and creative capacity of each and every participant. Faith in this is faith well-invested.<BR>
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R and P wrote,<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">> The B's suggested, and there was general concensus in our initial <BR>
> group, that in the Conference, we needed some sort of "focused" track that <BR>
> would allow individuals who have been to several of this sort of conferences, <BR>
> to focus on a specific topic, in a fairly fixed group, throughout the <BR>
> conference, to wrestle with many aspects of the topic and deepen their <BR>
> experience.<BR>
</FONT><BR>
I am interested in unpacking this a bit, in order to understand it. What is the source of the desire for a "fairly fixed track throughout"? Is it to build community with a small group of people? Is it a desire for specialization - As, for example, a student at Penland would prefer to do a week of metalworking with the same group instead of dabbling in a different media every day? Is it something else? Thank you for letting me know.<BR>
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B wrote,<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">> I feel very strongly that there need to be TRACKS. At the meeting, we boiled this<BR>
> down to (1) planned workshops and (2) spontaneous workshops. I think the<BR>
> planned workshops need to include both (a) didactic experiences and (b) art<BR>
> and activities experiences. Your suggestion means that they would also<BR>
> include (c) some "advanced"(?) and extended, but also pre-planned<BR>
> activities. I have no problem with that. <BR>
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</FONT>I am in agreement about the value and importance of all of these types of options - planned and spontaneous workshops, didactic and art/activities experiences, extended-focused offerings; and I would add encounters with the natural world. But none of my past history with organizing educational experiences suggests that this variety of choices requires TRACKS. All of these types of activities can be offered in an Open Space conference. Each person then is invited to create his/her unique "track," and to refine it as they go, as the moving spirit moves each of them. <BR>
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It would not be difficult to plan and establish an extended focus group within this process. For example, a person could say at the opening circle, "Some others and I have a great deal of passion right now around the topic of <I>thriving in the Ecozoic Era.</I> So we have decided to convene a workshop that will run for three sessions today and one tomorrow. We have prepared a learning circle format with some supporting materials. We request that people who come commit to staying with the group for all the sessions so that we can achieve more depth together." <BR>
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B continues,<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">I would have a problem if we had no<BR>
> "unfocused track," i.e., little or nothing for those who are recent<BR>
> initiates to these issues.<BR>
</FONT><BR>
I have a different view. First, I think you would agree B that Open Space would provide a "self-focused" or "individually-focused" rather than an "unfocused" track. But more important, I feel that your words express a particular danger inherent in creating a structure with tracks. I believe that if we hold an expectation that fixed and focused extended workshops are advanced, for the experienced, and that another type of experience is appropriate for the "recent initiates," we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Or maybe the heart. Such tracks make sense, in accordance with how higher education and most other education is tiered and gated. Such tracks make sense for a typical conference.<BR>
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Are we to have a conference, or are we to have a council of Elders?<BR>
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This may be only my conception of the deep nature of our opportunity; but I say: <I>A council of Elders must not do violence to inherent and emergent wisdom,</I> even in a society that does so in all its educational institutions.<BR>
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Inherent and emergent wisdom will save us.<BR>
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Respectfully Submitted,<BR>
Chris Weaver<BR>
Swannanoa, NC<BR>
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