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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This came to me – and I presume Deidre intended it for everyone. So I pass it on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Harrison<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> deidre@combsandcompany.com [mailto:deidre@combsandcompany.com] <br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, May 24, 2011 2:11 PM<br><b>To:</b> Harrison Owen<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [OSList] The 5th Principle / Sardinia<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Harrison and all,<br><br>I am returning from Madrid and had to share what I saw as I dropped by Puerta del Sol to see Spain's youth at work calling for governmental reform...Open Space in action!!! <br><br>I was tickled to see bulletin boards, dialogue circles forming and breaking apart in a delicious organic dance. The principles were at work and I am suspicious that there was some OST expertise in the mix. What captured my attention as I walked that there was just enough structure. After a week of manifestations, there was a nurse's tent, a kitchen, a place for press and other constructed desks where questions could be asked and themes could be entered. Meanwhile, new ideas and creativity had added a meditation circle that evening. <br><br>I thought of you all, this work and the perfection of self organization when it is allowed. <br><br>I look forward to seeing what this experiment yields. <br>With gratitude<br>Deidre Combs<br><br><br>Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone<br><br>----- Reply message -----<br>From: "Harrison Owen" <hhowen@verizon.net><br>Date: Mon, May 23, 2011 5:31 pm<br>Subject: [OSList] The 5th Principle / Sardinia<br>To: "OSLIST" <oslist@lists.openspacetech.org><br><br>The recent gathering in Sardinia was a treasure. But then again, every such<br>gathering is unique and rich. A special gift for me was a series of extended<br>conversations with Claudia, whose last name has disappeared in my senile<br>brain. She had been in Egypt with the Facebook crowd in the square - and how<br>she came to Sardinia is a story in itself. Seems like the young Egyptians<br>were opening space right and left as they negotiated their way through their<br>version of The Arab Spring. Somewhere along the line they went online in<br>search of more information - connected with my youngest son (of the same<br>name) who passed them along to me. We exchanged several emails, and I<br>suggested that were it possible to come to Sardinia they would have the<br>opportunity to connect with many marvelous new colleagues whose collective<br>wisdom vastly exceed my own. Only Claudia could come but she carried the<br>tale. Marvelous! <br><br><br><br>So we talked. And as she described the happenings of those interesting days<br>it gradually dawned on me that the Open Space of major significance was not<br>so much the several gatherings convened under that title - but rather the<br>ebb and flow of Tahrir Square. That indeed was a convening of those who<br>cared. In palpable ways they brought their passion and responsibility into<br>that present moment. And while it is true that they never sat in a circle or<br>created a bulletin board, they surely opened a market place of ideas, hopes,<br>and dreams - which in turn created new circles of caring. Claudia said it<br>was a dance, a massive, multiple circle dance as those who cared shared<br>their passion(s) with responsibility. The circles formed and broke, only to<br>form again in new, richer and more complex patterns. Who can say what the<br>precise results are or will be. (The Proceedings have yet to be printed J) -<br>but the typical behaviors of every good Open Space were manifest in<br>abundance. "High Learning" - in which previously impossible ideas and<br>aspirations came alive. "High Play" - in which strangers and sometime<br>enemies ate and laughed together. Serious moments for sure but leavened with<br>a lightness that comes when the flood gates of renewal are wide open.<br>"Appropriate Structure and Control" - God knows how many people were there,<br>and for sure nobody was in charge. But that did not mean that violent and<br>bloody chaos was the order of the day - although doubtless nobody would have<br>been surprised had they appeared. But there was structure as the dance<br>circled on. And the control was emergent from the people, born of their<br>passion and responsibility. "Genuine Community?" - Total strangers coming<br>home, wrapped in the care and concern of their fellows. And "Authentic<br>Leadership?" You bet! - Not the sort of Leadership that supposedly resides<br>in the appointed leaders - by way of the divine right of kings. Indeed, the<br>King had been sent out of town! But Leadership was there in abundance,<br>blossoming (what else in the Arab Spring?) where and as needed. It appeared<br>at the nexus points of passion and responsibility and passed from person to<br>person as the dance rolled on. <br><br><br><br>And that is the story, at least as I heard it told. <br><br><br><br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>