This is a wise response Wendy, about Open Space not being safe space but rather a space in which we can train with our fear. Many of us who are martial artists will know the experience of bringing your fear to the dojang (in Korean, the training gym, like the Japanese dojo) and practice it with partners there so that you can encounter it and know it and then have it as a friend when you face the fearful things of the world. Being hosted in Open Space is for me very much like training in a dojang.
<br><br>I'm drilling holes in the bathtub at the moment in a number of places, the most significant of which for me right now is in a year long project which is moving the decision making authority over child welfare from government to Aboriginal communities on Vancouver Island,. We've been opening space on this one for years and now we have an intense engagement strategy set up and underway which involves convening and hosting meetings of all kinds around the Island which has, as the premise, "children at the centre." This premise, this purpose, is the hole in the bathtub that is drawing people into what my friend Phill Cass calls the "private voice of possibility" which emerges into the public consciousness. Suddenly we're not talking about the fearful aspects of a state run system of colonization, but rather a community owned and support enterprise to put the needs of children in the centre as seen by indigenous folks.
<br><br>Hold fear with consciousness and practice.<br><br>Chris<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/30/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Wendy Farmer-O'Neil</b> <<a href="mailto:wendy@xe.net">wendy@xe.net</a>> wrote:
</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">Dear Harrison,</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">Thank you so much for starting this thread. Chris,
your analogy of the hole in the bathtub is a very clear representation of what (little)
we know about creating change in complex systems. Right now fear seems to
be the primary attractor guiding the energy in the US system—and has been for
some time (as you point out Pat). Attempts to go head to head with that
power vortex tend to reinforce it (as you suggest Harrison,
the BIG EVENT may not be the way to influence the most change). Watching
for local patterns and opening space around local issues where folks can
reignite their passion and rediscover their capacity to step into
self-responsibility and exert local agency, does create new vortices, new
attractors that inevitably pull energy away from the fear. </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">I find that open space is not so much a place without
fear, as an exceptional place for folks to learn to feel the fear and act
anyway—and learn that they won't die if they do. That it's
okay to let go into the fear, wander around a bit, keep breathing, until you
find your feet and move on to what's next. This is an essential
skill for thriving in chaotic and complex times—and open space is a good
place to learn and practice it. Acting to create change or social
innovation in a system is going to feel risky. Most of us have been
trained and educated to create and preserve security—so we will need to
get used to feeling fear and acting anyway—with all of our wonderful
flaws and imperfections.</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">Whenever we give up basic rights, freedoms, and
responsibilities for the illusion of security, we end up selling off a large
part of our souls and our deepest humanity along with them. A new
trajectory of joy is what I am busy stumbling around to create. Attempting
to act, not out of fear, or against fear, but from a completely new and open
space of joy and infinite possibility. </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">And yes, Harrison, I feel
it as a responsibility. That's why I risked a lot and went to Moscow to be there and
support the opening of space in anyway that I could. I was overcome
standing in Red Square in front of Lenin's
Mausoleum and the reviewing stand where so many years before I had watched on
TV Brezhnev reviewing the May Day parade of weaponry. I could not stop
the tears from coming or from remembering how I felt in 1982 when I addressed an
audience (at a 'peace conference') filled with Reagan's cold
war cronies—that as a 16-year-old, after three days of listening to them,
I was without hope. So to find myself standing in that place of such cold
war symbolism, and to be there not as a tourist, but as a member of the open
space community—to have actually been a part of an open space event in
that place—felt like nothing short of miraculous—and at the same
time so fragile. </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">So what am I doing these days to open space in spite of
the fearosphere? I am working hard with Cheryl
Honey to refine and spread the practice of Community Weaving,
which uses open space principles and takes it to the grassroots, non-event,
daily life stuff—to remediate poverty and isolation and build resilient
communities of care and belonging. I'm hosting an OS on my little
island on finding abundance doing what you love. I have started the
planning for an SOS (Sustainability Open Space) in the fall (I'll be
calling you soon Chris W.). I am talking to the local social planning
council about the possibility of opening space with the homeless. I've
introduced the United Way
to OS and we are looking at how they might use it to grow their new community
development focus. Last year, we opened space here for a three day land use
planning event—we did it by donation and covered our costs—and created
a tremendous legacy for our community by establishing a community commons that
actually passed all the zoning and land use amendments the first time through!!</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">So just a couple of examples of little ways that I'm
trying to drill a few holes in my local bathtub. What other ways are you
all engaged in this? It would be so inspiring to hear more about the ways
we are all opening little spaces for something new to emerge.</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">Lots of love,</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;">Wendy</span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia;"> </span></font></p>
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<br>
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No virus found in this outgoing message.<br>
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Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.22/739 - Release Date: 3/29/2007 1:36 PM<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>CHRIS CORRIGAN<br>Facilitation - Training<br>Open Space Technology<br><br>Weblog: <a href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot">http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
</a><br>Site: <a href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com">http://www.chriscorrigan.com</a><br><br>Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.<br><a href="http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com">http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com
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