Sitting here watching the beautiful grey/blue dawn of a cold winter morning (this is Canada in winter after all, not like you folks from Australia basking in your warmth) I was in contemplation about the power of Open Space. It is such a big gift to the world and we are fortunate enough to be involved.
And I am clearer now from my own ruminations as well as the discussion on the list (thank you all) that bringing Open Space into dark places is a gift, and even if holding space open in such conditions is hard and sometimes feels impossible, it is worth everything I would put into it even if only a little light stays lit. One never knows what can happen with a little light --kind of like at Church at Easter. One candle gets lit and then from it another is lit and pretty soon the whole Church is ablaze with light.And the light speaks of resurrection. A partner in Open Space is always truth. Because of that, some of us have formed the Dead Moose Society which is a humourous way of looking at truth that everyone knows is there and needs to be spoken. And so my thinking this morning took me to looking at the way of Spirit as used by Harrison in his training, from the work of Angeles Arrien: 1. Show up and be present 2. Tell the truth 3. Follow what has heart and meaning 4. Let it go In holding space for others, we provide the conditions for all of this to happen. It is the way of Spirit. In personal life and the lives of my friends as I watch them, as soon as they start truth telling in their organizations, big change happens. Nothing remains the same, Kind of like taking a cork out of the bottle. Sometimes great good surfaces immediately. More often, shit happens and chaos reigns. Most systems don't know how to handle truth (the Emporer's new clothes story) and they want to stomp it out or stomp the person out who was foolish enough to tell the truth or hold a mirror up for truth to be seen. My witnessing is that usually great destruction happens about this time, or it feels like destruction. Those of you who have heard of the great pumpkin story know that it is about this time that the pumpkin gets smashed, no one can stop it, and the seeds go flying all over during the destruction. Sometimes in this time, truthtellers end up losing their jobs, being ousted from their organizations. But nothing can go back to the way it was.And then there is usually stillness.Just before the birthing of the new. Truth is very powerful. And in my experience, truth always is a gift of Opening Space, truth is a way of Spirit. A quotation that caught my eye this morning: "Truth is a bright star dropped from eternity." May you have the courage to live the way of Spirit, and the courage to hold space open for truth to emerge and provide the new and the healing. It seems to me that we are called to do this when we are called to Open Space. Blessings for the day, Birgitt
